An army of the First French Empire and several foreign auxiliaries (including Polish insurgents) of France besieged the fortified town of Kolberg, the only remaining Prussian-held fortress in the Province of Pomerania.

During these months, the military commander of Kolberg, Lucadou, and the representative of the local populace, Nettelbeck, prepared the fortress's defensive structures.

With the western surroundings of Kolberg flooded by the defenders, fighting concentrated on the eastern forefield of the fortress, where Wolfsberg sconce had been constructed on Lucadou's behalf.

On 2 July, fighting ceased when Prussia had agreed on an unfavourable peace after her ally Russia suffered a decisive defeat at Friedland.

[15] Pierre Thouvenout was appointed French governor of Pomerania and sent his envoy Mestram to accept Kolberg's expected capitulation and take control of it.

[16] Lucadou ordered the Persante (Parseta) river west of Kolberg to be dammed up to flood the area around the fortress, and arranged the construction of Wolfsberg sconce east of the town.

[16] Schill's victory in the skirmish of Gülzow (7 December 1806[17]), though insignificant from a military point of view, was widely noted as the first Prussian success against the French army - while Prussian king Frederick William III praised Schill as the "kind of man now valued by the fatherland", Napoleon referred to him as a "miserable kind of brigand".

"ce miserable, qui est une espèce de brigand"[18] As a consequence of these successes and Schill's increasing fame, Prussian king Frederick William III ordered him to establish a freikorps on 12 January 1807,[16] which in the following months defended the fortress against French attacks allowing its defenders to complete their preparations for the expected siege with Swedish and British support via the Baltic.

[20] By early December 1806, the Kolberg garrison numbered 1,576 men,[21] but increased steadily during the next months due to the arrival of Prussian troops and new recruits from nearby areas.

[19] With Victor-Perrin captured, the attack on Kolberg was to be led by Pietro (Pierre) Teulié's Italian division, who in February began the march on the fortress from Stettin.

[19] Schill's freikorps further delayed the French advance by provoking several skirmishes and battles, the largest of which took place near Naugard (Nowogard).

[29] The French siege army was reinforced by troops from Württemberg and Saxon states[19] (Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld,[2] Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg,[3] Saxe-Meiningen,[4] Saxe-Hildburghausen,[2] and Saxe-Weimar,[2]) as well as a Polish regiment.

[19][30] The Saxon and Württemberg regiments were part of the army of the Confederation of the Rhine, which - like the Kingdom of Italy, whose troops were already present at the siege – was a French client.

The Polish regiment, led by Antoni Paweł Sułkowski, with a strength of 1,200 had been transferred from the siege of Danzig (Gdańsk) on 11 April and arrived on 20 April; it was the 1st infantry regiment of the Poznań legion raised by Jan Henryk Dąbrowski on Napoleon's behalf,[31] after a Polish uprising against Prussian occupation[32][33][34] and French liberation of Prussian controlled Poland had resulted in the creation of Duchy of Warsaw in part of partitioned Poland.

[37] The artillery, under command of general Mossel, was concentrated near Zernin (now Czernin), and defended by a Saxon detachment stationed in Degow (now Dygowo).

[41] Schill returned to the town in early May, but left for Stralsund again after discord with Gneisenau, taking most of his freikorps with him[29] (primarily the cavalry units).

[42] After Schill's departure, the defenders numbered about 6,000 men[6][43] and consisted of On 7 May, in a French reconnaissance attack, troops from the 1st Italian line infantry as well as the Polish, Württemberg and Saxon regiments assaulted Wolfsberg sconce.

[50] Temporarily, the defenders were supported by the British corvette Phyleria and the Swedish frigate af Chapmann,[51] the latter had arrived on 29 April, was commanded by major Follin and armed with 46 guns (two 36-pounders, else 24-pounder cannons and carronades).

[52] On 3 June during the evening the supporting ships directed artillery fire on the Polish camp, which proved to be ineffective due to strong winds, three hours later an armed expedition of estimated 200 Prussians attempted to land on the beach, and was repulsed in intense fighting by the Polish regiment[32] On 14 June, British artillery replenishments arrived for the defenders, including 30 iron cannons, 10 iron howitzers and ammunition.

[52] In mid-June, the siege forces were reinforced by two Nassau bataillons with a strength of 1,500 to 1,600,[46] Napoleon ordered the narrowing of the encirclement to cut off Kolberg from its port.

[70] Paul Heyse's drama was exploited[71] in the Nazi propaganda movie Kolberg, which was begun in 1943 and released in 1945 near the end of World War II.