| Fall of Ghent | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part ofWar of the Austrian Succession | |||||||
 Surprise of the city of Ghent byLouis-Nicolas van Blarenberghe, 1787 | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 France |  Austria Great Britain Hanover Dutch Republic | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Comte de Lowendal | Unknown | ||||||
  Fall of Ghent Location within Belgium | |||||||
TheFall of Ghent occurred on 15 July 1745 during theWar of the Austrian Succession when a 5,000 strongFrench force underUlrich Frédéric Woldemar, Comte de Lowendal surprised and captured the town ofGhent in theAustrian Netherlands. The Allied garrison offered little resistance.[1]
Coming in the wake of theBattle of Fontenoy, the loss of Ghent proved a shock to the Allies. The town had been used as a major base for thePragmatic Army since it had assembled in 1742. It was extremely important as a supply base as its stores had been reserved and not used. A British regiment, includingJames Wolfe, had left shortly before the fall of the town and narrowly avoided becomingprisoners of war.[2] A column of 4,000 to 5,000 British, Hanoverian, Dutch and Austrian reinforcements sent by theDuke of Cumberland was defeated by the French at theBattle of Melle with only some 1,000 men getting through to Ghent.
The city was fully invested and the town was seized on July 11. Lowendal opened the trenches and sapped towards the citadel. Without hope of relief or reinforcement[3] and with Lowendal strengthened by 15,000 the garrison of the citadel was demoralised and fell to acoup de main on July 15.[4] Some 3,000 allied prisoners were taken[5] as well as a vast quantity of military stores.[6] The following year the town was used as a staging point for a French advance which culminated in theSiege of Brussels.[7]