page_title: Siege of Kolberg (1807)
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Siege of Kolberg (1807) / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Ratusz na placu Ratuszowym w Kołobrzegu.
context_page_description: The Siege of Kolberg } took place from March to 2 July 1807 during the War of the Fourth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars. An army of the First French Empire and several foreign auxiliaries (including Polish insurgents) of France besieged the Prussian fortified town of Kolberg, the only remaining Prussian-held fortress in the Prussian province of Pomerania. The siege was not successful and was lifted upon the announcement of the peace of Tilsit.
  After Prussia lost the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt in late 1806, French troops marched north into Prussian Pomerania. Fortified Stettin (Szczecin) surrendered without battle, and the province became occupied by the French forces. Kolberg resisted, and the implementation of a French siege was delayed until March 1807 by the freikorps of Ferdinand von Schill operating around the fortress and capturing the assigned French commander of the siege, Victor-Perrin. During these months, the military commander of Kolberg, Lucadou, and the representative of the local populace, Nettelbeck, prepared the fortress's defensive structures.
context_section_description: After the announcement of the peace, Kolberg was not occupied by the French army. Already on 3/4 July, Napoleon ordered the bulk of the siege force to march west to Swedish Pomerania and reinforce, under command of Guillaume Brune, the French forces besieging Stralsund. The commander of the siege forces in Kolberg, Louis Henri Loison, likewise departed to the Stralsund pocket and was put in command of a division near Demmin. Ferdinand von Schill and Neidhardt von Gneisenau received the highest Prussian military decoration "Pour le Mérite" for their service.
  During the siege, Kolberg's suburbs had been levelled, more than half of the Old Town was damaged or destroyed by artillery fire, and Kolberg's economy with its two important branches sea trade and salt mining declined. A shortage of coins had led to the circulation of paper money, hand-written by students from the local lyceum on Gneisenau's behalf. The overall damage was at 155,000 reichstalers. Only in the mid-19th century began the reconstruction and modernization of the town and its port. The ruins of the destroyed medieval town hall were replaced by the current building, designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Kolberg ceased to be a fortress in 1872—by 1873, most of the defensive works were levelled.
caption: Schinkel's town hall
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