In one of the great battles of the Thirty Years’ War, the Lion of the North, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, faced a resurrected Imperial army under Wallenstein at Lützen. The Swedish king was defeated, though his troops regrouped and won victory after hard fighting against opponents who had learned from their previous defeats.
Lützen data
- Who is it: King Gustav Adolf II of Sweden (1594-1632), in command of the Swedish army, against Prince Albrecht von Wallenstein, Prince of Friedland (1583-1634), in command of the imperial army.
- As: In a hotly contested battle, the Imperial forces showed that they had learned from their earlier defeat at the hands of the Swedes, and Gustavus was slain. However, the Swedes regrouped and were victorious.
- When: November 6, old Julian calendar, November 16, 1632 in our (Gregorian) calendar.
- Where: The fields around the village of Lützen, near Leipzig, in Saxony (eastern Germany).
- Because: Wallenstein threatened Saxony, an ally of Sweden.
- Result: The battle saved Saxony, although the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) raged on, despite this hard-won Protestant victory.
Background
Little did the Bohemian patriots, who threw imperial delegates out of the windows of Prague’s Hradcany Castle, imagine that their actions would spark the longest and bloodiest war in modern European history, lasting 30 years. Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II entrusted command of the Imperial army to Count Albrecht von Wallenstein, a ruthless and conniving Czech nobleman who swiftly defeated the Danes at the Battle of Latter in 1626. With an army of 125,000 men, Wallenstein had won a war and won all of Germany for Ferdinand II, who paid for his victories with a sudden dismissal. Ferdinand’s timing was disastrous, as the victorious imperialists were about to meet and be crushed by their most formidable enemy, the Swedes.
the battle of lutzen
swedish army
Gustavus Adolphus II had ascended the Swedish throne in 1611, aged just 17, but had gained valuable experience fighting the Russians and Poles between 1611 and 1630. Their artillery was inspired by that of the Dutch, although they used lighter and more mobile cannons, with standardized calibers and handled by trained professionals.. Gustavo Adolfo used artillery with a new offensive method, in close cooperation with the infantry: he fired eight volleys for every six fired by the musketeers.
Infantry pikemen had lighter armor and shorter pikes, while Swedish musketeers used lighter muskets. Both were grouped in flexible mixed brigades or rectangular columns to increase mobility and speed of deployment. His cavalry, unlike the Imperial cuirassiers, was only lightly armored and thus attacked the flanks of the enemy under the cover of artillery fire, charging at great speed with drawn swords.
Breitenfeld
Thus the army that was about to invade the European continent for the first time in 1630 was new, if inexperienced. The Swedes feared that Wallenstein’s army would take Stralsund and, with the help of privateers, dominate the Baltic and perhaps even threaten Sweden itself.
On July 6, 1630, Gustavus Adolphus landed in northern Germany with 13,000 men.. When the new imperial commander, General Count Tilly (1559-1632), sacked the city of Magdeburg, Gustaf simply marched on Berlin and forced the Elector George William to join him or see his capital, like Magdeburg, burnt down and razed to the ground. . When Tilly and the imperial army invaded Saxony, her constituent, George John, had no choice but to become an “ally” of the Swedes.. Consequently, the Swedish-Saxon army of 47,000 men marched on Leipzig on September 16 and clashed with the commander of the imperial cavalry, Count Pappenheim (1594-1632), near Breitenfeld.
Tilly, 73, was still practicing warfare the “Spanish” style. This consisted of fighting the enemy with huge squares of 1,500-2,000 men with muskets, called tercios in Spain, with heavy cavalry on both flanks.. He lined up his 40,000-strong army in 17 huge tercios, with 10,000 heavy cavalry units on either side. Gustaf placed his elite Swedish and Finnish troops in the center, supported by three brigades of Scottish mercenaries. On the left was General Earl Horne, with a mixed force of mainly German troops, with some Swedish, while the entire right wing consisted of the Elector’s Saxons. The Swedish artillery fired a huge salvo, their batteries firing three volleys for every Imperial volley.
Tilly’s right wing mistook Pappenheim’s unauthorized attack for a signal for a general advance against the Saxons, who, seeing the invincible tercios advancing, disbanded and fled, their elector in the lead.. In one blow, a third of the allied army had disappeared. However, Gustaf’s soldiers could move and maneuver twice as fast as Tilly’s, and the allies quickly took the place of the Saxons. The entire imperial line began to fold, and finally collapsed, leaving the field to the Swedes.
Gustaf had restarted the war and, during the winter of 1631-1632, he occupied a good part of western and southern Germany, even threatening Vienna.. On April 16, 1632, he overtook and defeated Tilly at Lech; his enemy died two weeks later. In utter despair, Ferdinand II was forced to call back Wallenstein, the only Imperial commander willing and able to stop the Swedes..
Map of the Battle of Lutzen
Lützen’s campaign
Prospects were good for the imperial side, for Wallenstein was a shrewd tactician, cold and calculating. He avoided combat at all costs, forcing Gustavo to take the initiative, and On September 4, the Allied army unsuccessfully attacked the Wallenstein fortified positions in Fürth, where it lost 3,000 soldiers.. Wallenstein broke out of these positions and invaded Saxony; however, on October 22nd he made the mistake of going to his winter quarters, sending his cavalry (5,000 strong) to Halle under the
Pappenheim command.
Gustavus immediately took advantage of Wallenstein’s mistake and marched as fast as he could to Pergau on November 5 to join the Saxons.. After 15 years of war the German countryside was devastated and could not feed the armies, and Gustav needed a battle of annihilation to put an end to this constant movement.
The Allied advance was blocked for hours that day by Croatian and Imperial cavalry at the Rippach stream, leaving Gustaf no choice but to move his army towards Lützen. Here the Allied troops spent the night of November 5-6 in the open field, with the Imperial army encamped only 5 km away.
On the other hand, Wallenstein was determined to fight a defensive battle here, since he had done everything possible to avoid the battle itself**. Lützen lay on a flat plain in northern Germany, crossed by the Leipzig main road from southwest to northwest, situated on a causeway which formed a natural line of defense for the imperial side. On both sides of that road was a ditch which Wallenstein’s men converted, on November 5 and the following night, into a formidable line of trenches that would be filled with musketeers.
Provisions
Wallenstein had 25,000 men (facing 18,000 allies) with Pappenheim’s 8,000 as reinforcements, and would form his order of battle in a single line somewhat north of the Leipzig road. His right flank rested on a ridge a little to the north of Lützen, Windmill Hill, while his left was left in the open indefinitely. However, Wallenstein had learned from the Breitenfeld disaster. The infantry was now more mobile and grouped in less dense, more maneuverable formations, with its own light artillery. The three Imperial batteries, totaling some 60 guns, were well placed and protected, while the cavalry had absorbed some of the tactics of the Swedish equipment.. Wallenstein stood with the infantry in the center, while he placed the cavalry
Colloredo’s on the left wing and Ottavio Piccolomini’s on the right. Later he set fire to Lützen to prevent the enemy from using their houses for cover.
At the first light of a gray dawn, the Swedes and their allied troops took up positions facing the Imperials. In the center were Brahe and Kniphausen, with four infantry brigades each; the right was under the personal command of Gustaf, while the left was under the command of Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar (1604-1639).
Battle of Lutzen
The battle begins
The fog thickened as the morning progressed, so the planned attack had to be postponed from 08:00 until 11:00, when the fog temporarily lifted and allowed Gustavus to start his advance. Thanks to skillful and coordinated Imperial artillery and musketry fire, the advance was stopped on the left and center. Only to the right was a penetration achieved, albeit at a high cost. The Swedish and Yellow brigades managed to clear the trench of musketeers, cross the road and capture the batteries to the north of it.
Then, as the mist descended once more over the battlefield, the combat entered a murderous stalemate. Just as the Imperial left wing was crumbling, Pappenheim arrived and rescued the Imperial army from being crushed by the Swedish-Finnish onslaught.. The Swedish Brigade lost 70% of its pikemen and 40% of its musketeers in the slaughter that followed. The other side was equally battered. The Swedish cavalry was reduced to small groups scattered on either side of the causeway, and began to falter; only the intervention of the army’s major chaplain, Jacob Fabricius, calmed his spirits and returned her to battle.
The death of Gustavus Adolphus
Meanwhile, things had gone very badly for the king. When Colonel Frederick Stenbock of the Smaland cavalry was shot in the foot, Gustavus personally took command of the unit. He rode north to help the downtrodden Swedish and Finnish troops north of the road. Just as they began to advance, a thick mist descended. At the same time, Imperial cuirassiers collided with the Smáland regiment and everything became confused.
Since the war in Poland, when a bullet had lodged in his body, Gustavo had been unable to put on metal armor and instead wore thick, hardened leather.. However, this hardly offered any protection against bullets. He was hit in the left arm, and was forced to drop the sword…