Siege of Dunkirk (1658)

Siege of Dunkirk
Part of the Franco-Spanish War and Anglo-Spanish War
Map showing the Siege of Dunkirk and the Battle of the Dunes with the blockade of the English fleet in 1658
Date 25 May – 24 June 1658 Location Dunkirk, Spanish Netherlands 51°02′18″N 2°22′39″E / 51.0383°N 2.3775°E / 51.0383; 2.3775 Result Franco-Commonwealth victory
Belligerents
France  Commonwealth	Spain British Royalists
Commanders and leaders
Vicomte de Turenne Sir William Lockhart Edward Montagu	Marquis of Lede †
Strength
12,000 infantry 8,000 cavalry 18 warships	2,200 infantry 700-800 cavalry
Casualties and losses
	1,600-1,700[1]

The siege of Dunkirk in 1658 was a military operation by France and the Commonwealth of England intended to capture the fortified port city of Dunkirk, Spain's greatest privateering base, from a Spanish garrison strengthened with English Royalists and French Fronduers. Dunkirk (Dutch for 'Church in the dunes') was a strategic port on the southern coast of the English Channel in the Spanish Netherlands that had often been a point of contention previously and had changed hands a number of times. Privateers operating out of Dunkirk and other ports had cost England some 1,500 to 2,000 merchant ships in the past year.^[2] The French and their English Commonwealth allies were commanded by Marshal of France Turenne. The siege would last a month and featured numerous sorties by the garrison and a determined relief attempt by the Spanish army under the command of Don Juan of Austria and allied English Royalists led by Duke of York and rebels of the French Fronde under the Great Condé that resulted in the battle of the Dunes.