War of the Fourth Coalition: Convinced that he is facing a much larger force, Prussian General von Romberg, commanding 5,300 men, surrenders the city of Stettin to 800 French soldiers.
War of the Fourth Coalition
The War of the Fourth Coalition was a war spanning 1806–1807 that saw a multinational coalition fight against Napoleon's French Empire, subsequently being defeated. The main coalition partners were Prussia and Russia with Saxony, Sweden, and Great Britain also contributing. Excluding Prussia, some members of the coalition had previously been fighting France as part of the Third Coalition, and there was no intervening period of general peace. On 9 October 1806, Prussia declared war on France and joined a renewed coalition, fearing the rise in French power after the defeat of Austria and establishment of the French-sponsored Confederation of the Rhine in addition to having learned of French plans to cede Prussian-desired Hanover to Britain in exchange for peace. Prussia and Russia mobilized for a fresh campaign with France, massing troops in Saxony.
Friedrich Gisbert Wilhelm von Romberg
Friedrich Gisbert Wilhelm Freiherr von Romberg was a German officer who rose to lieutenant general (Generalleutnant) in the Prussian Army. As governor of Stettin in 1806, he surrendered without a fight, for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Prussian military tribunal.
Capitulation of Stettin
In the Capitulation of Stettin on 29–30 October 1806, Lieutenant General Friedrich Gisbert Wilhelm von Romberg surrendered the garrison and fortress to a much smaller French light cavalry brigade led by General of Brigade Antoine Lasalle. This event was one of a number of surrenders by demoralized Prussian soldiers to equal or inferior French forces after their disastrous defeat at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt on 14 October. Stettin, now Szczecin, Poland, is a port city on the Oder River near the Baltic Sea, about 120 kilometres (75 mi) northeast of Berlin.