Battle of Breitenfeld (1631)

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Coordinates: 51°24′N 12°20′E / 51.4°N 12.333°E / 51.4; 12.333

First Battle of Breitenfeld
Part of the Thirty Years' War
Contemporary etching of troop disposition at the beginning of the Battle of Breitenfeld (1631).
Date September 7 (O.S.)[1] September 17, 1631 (N.S.)[1] Location Breitenfeld, Saxony, north of Leipzig, present-day Germany Result Decisive Swedish victory
Belligerents
Sweden  Saxony	Holy Roman Empire Catholic League Hungary Croatia[2]
Commanders
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden Gustav Horn, Count of Pori John George I, Elector of Saxony Robert Munro, 18th Baron of Foulis Hans Georg von Arnim-Boitzenburg General Sir Johan Banér	Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly Gottfried Heinrich Graf zu Pappenheim Count Friedrich von Fürstenburg Egon VII, count of Fürstenberg
Strength
Sweden 23,500 Saxony 18,000 (deserted during onset of battle)	31,300
Casualties and losses
3,500 Swedes dead or wounded, 2,000 Saxons dead	7,600 dead 6,000 captured 12,400 deserted 3,000 more captured on September 19 (by pursuit at Merseburg

The Battle of Breitenfeld (German: Schlacht bei Breitenfeld; Swedish: Slaget vid Breitenfeld) or First Battle of Breitenfeld (sometimes First Breitenfeld) , was fought at the crossroads villages of Breitenfeld 51°24′N 12°20′E / 51.4°N 12.333°E / 51.4; 12.333, Podelwitz 51°24′N 12°23′E / 51.4°N 12.383°E / 51.4; 12.383, and Seehausen 51°24′N 12°25′E / 51.4°N 12.417°E / 51.4; 12.417, approximately five miles northwest of the walled city of Leipzig 51°18′N 12°20′E / 51.3°N 12.333°E / 51.3; 12.333 on September 17, 1631^[1] September 7 (old style or pre-acceptance of the Gregorian calendar in the Protestant region) September 17 (new style, or Gregorian dating), 1631. Breitenfeld represented the Protestants’ first major victory of the Thirty Years War.

The Protestant victory ensured that the German states would not be forcibly reconverted to Roman Catholicism. The victory further confirmed Sweden’s Gustavus Adolphus of the House of Vasa as a great tactical leader and induced many Protestant German states to ally themselves with Sweden against the German Catholic League, led by Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria, and the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II of Austria.

[edit] Prelude to the Swedish phase of the Thirty Years War

If the first phase of the Thirty Years War, or Wars, as some historians call it,^[3] hinged on the Palatine inheritance, this phase hinged on the liberties of various bishoprics in Lorraine, and the autonomy of several Lutheran princes, including imperial Electors of Electoral Saxony and Electoral Brandenburg. The issue was not only about religion, although the issue manifested itself in the princely religious autonomy.^[4] At issue was the larger problem of imperial rule versus princely autonomy: at its most basic, the argument was over the nature of power and authority in the Holy Roman Empire.

[edit] Gustav's plan

When he had planned this invasion in 1629, after peace with Poland, with money in his pocket, and promises of French subsidy, Gustav ruled an orderly and loyal country; he possessed reserves of war material; and he had at his command an effective, well disciplined fighting force made up of recruits from Sweden and Finland and thus theoretically loyal to him. Gustav's efforts in Poland and Lithuania did not secure his Baltic possessions, nor did they solve his kingdom’s security issues; Polish, Lithuanian and English ships continued to prey upon Swedish trade, and Gustav considered his engagement in the Protestant causes in the German states to be part and parcel to securing his own interests in the Baltic. Initially, Sweden’s entrance into the war was considered a minor annoyance to the Catholic League and its allies; his only battles to this point had been inconclusive ones, or fought against generals of modest military ability, such as at Honigfeld, a minor affair in eastern Prussia against Imperial troops under Hans Georg von Arnim-Boitzenburg to aid Sigismund III of Poland-Lithuania, which ended in Fall 1629 with the Truce of Altmark.

Consequently, when Gustav Adolph and his force of 13,000 landed at Peenemünde in 1630, the Imperial Commander of the German Catholic League, Tilly, did not immediately respond, being engaged in what seemed to be more pressing matters in northern Italy.^[5]. Gustav's sole ally was the city of Stralsund, and over the ensuing months, the situation did not improve. While he could claim the support from German princes, these were the “dispossessed” like Mecklenburg and Saxe-Weimar, the expectant like the claimants to Brunswick-Lüneburg, the occupied, like Magdeburg, and the threatened, like Hesse-Kassel. In terms of real support of money, men, supplies and arms, these alliances meant little. External alliances were little better: Russia offered duty free grain to be sold in Amsterdam, a scheme that raised only 78,000 thalers, and France hedged its bets.^[6] The difficulty in developing concrete alliances with German states was understandable. Unthreatened Lutheran princes saw the advantage in using the Swedish "menace" to wrest terms from Vienna, rather than commit what amounted to acts of treason.^[7] French reticence at entering an alliance was less understandable for, like Sweden, France had been engaged in several decades of fighting, so peace and demobilization offered significant advantages; like Sweden, though, there were significant and concrete gains to be achieved in territory, influence, and prestige, if they were to be on the winning side of the renewal of fighting in northern Europe. In early 1631, the Imperialists captured Mantua, effectively ending the Mantuan war, and the ensuing peace treaty of at Cherasco (February 1631) insured that the large imperial army tied up in northern Italy was now free to expend its energy in the German states.^[8]

[edit] Creating alliances

Artistic rendering of Gustavus Adolphus at the Battle at Breitenfeld.

At the same time, the Protestant princes showed little interest in attaching themselves to the Swedish cause; Gustavus opted for “rough wooing.”^[9] In the ensuing months, his troops moved south into Brandenburg, taking and sacking the towns of Küstin and Frankfurt an der Oder. It was too late and too far to save one of Gustav’s “occupied” allies, Magdeburg, from a horrific sack by imperial troops, which began on May 20, and in which a major portion of the population was murdered and the city burned. The sack of Magdeburg, though, could be turned to good use: the broadsides and pamphlets distributed throughout Europe assured that prince and pauper alike understood how the Emperor, or at least his troops, treated the Protestant subjects.^[10] Over the next few months, Gustav consolidated his bridgehead and expanded across northern Germany, attracting support from German princes but mostly building his army from mercenary forces along the way. By the time he reached the Saxon border, his force had expanded over 23,000.

[edit] Strategic importance of Electoral Saxony

In order for Swedes to attack the imperial troops in the south, they needed to pass through Saxony; in order for Tilly’s forces, now freed from northern Italy, to attack Gustav's army, they too needed to pass through Saxony. Electoral Saxony had not been touched by the war, at least not directly, and it hung like a ripe plum between the two combatants, full of hogs, cattle, horses, grain, fruit, all the stuff that the hungry Imperial and League troops craved. In midsummer, General Tilly asked John George I for permission to pass through the territory; the elector declined permission, noting that Saxon sweetmeats had not yet been touched. Tilly invaded Electoral Saxony because, first, it was the shortest distance between himself and Gustav’s flank; second, because he hoped to force its ruler to abandon any planned alliance with Gustav; and third, because the Saxon territories offered plenty of food and sustenance for his exhausted army.^[11] His plan was to avoid contact with the Swedes, and ultimately the Saxons, until the his troops could unite with the units near Jena (about 5000 seasoned professionals), and the larger force of Count Otto von Fugger, en route from Hesse.^[12] Gustav and John George united their forces, planning to meet Tilly somewhere near Leipzig.

[edit] Disposition of forces

Pappenheim

The Imperial and Catholic League forces arranged their army in regiments of infantry and cavalry, and formed around the villages of Breitenfeld and Seehausen, slightly to the south and east. Their artillery was concentrated on the Galgenhügel, or Gallows Hill. The infantry formed up in large blocks of about 1,500 men each, with a front of 150 men and a depth of 10 men. The center comprised pikemen with supporting units of musketeers on each flank.^[13] The Imperial army comprised fourteen such formations, twelve arranged in groups of three blocks, with the center block placed slightly ahead of the other two. The final two regiments were attached one each to the right and left wings. The cavalry was drawn up on each flank; Pappenheim commanding the left, and Fürstenburg, the right. The left flank was close to Breitenfeld; the right, by the village of Seehausen. Tilly had no reserves except for some cavalry placed behind his infantry.

Battle of Breitenfeld — Initial dispositions, 17 September 1631
Swedish–Saxon forces in Blue
Catholic army in Red

Unlike Tilly, Gustav arranged his forces in two long lines. Each line was five men deep for pikemen, and six men deep for musketeers. His use of linear tactics enabled Gustavus to create a front that matched Tilly's, while allowing him troops to keep in reserve. Gustavus’ 14,842 foot soldiers, and 8,000 cavalry were considered among the finest in Europe. The Elector of Saxony arranged his own forces in the traditional formation on the Swedish left, and all commanders placed most of their cavalry on their flanks; the Saxon forces included 13,000 infantry, either raw recruits or militia, and 5,200 cavalry. Since the Swedish and Saxon forces deployed separately, this placed cavalry in their center as well as on their flanks.

[edit] The Battle

The 6–7 hour battle can be divided into three parts: Opening Gambits, Thwarting the Imperial attack, and Annihilation of the Imperial army. The battle started as an engagement of artillery; in its next phases, repeated cavalry charges on foot formations dominated the action; in its third phase, it emerged as an infantry engagement. In the final phase, the combined elements of light cavalry, artillery and infantry of Gustav's combined forces dominated the field. During these hours, two thirds of the Imperial/Catholic league force vanished; 120 standards of the Imperial and Bavarian armies were taken (and are still on display in the Riddarholm church in Stockholm);^[14] and Gustav' innovations in military operations and tactics confirmed.

[edit] Opening gambits

The combined Swedish-Saxon forces were oriented to the north of Leipzig centered around hamlet of Podelwitz, facing southwest toward Breitenfeld and Leipzig. The battle began around mid-day, with a two hour exchange of artillery fire, during which the Swedes demonstrated fire power in a rate of fire of three-to-five volleys to one Imperial volley. Gustavus had lightened his artillery park, and each colonel had four highly mobile, rapid firing, copper-cast three pounders, the cream of Sweden’s metallurgical industry.^[15] When the artillery fire ceased, Pappenheim's Black Cuirassiers charged the Swedish line seven times, and were consistently beaten back by harquebus and pikemen. Gustavus had trained his men to aim for the cavalry mounts, and the falling animals made holes in the Catholic formations. The same tactics would worked an hour or so later when the imperial cavalry charged the Swedish left flank. Following the rebuff of the seventh assault, General Banér sallied forth with both his light (Finnish and West Gotlanders) and heavy cavalry (Smalanders and East Gotlanders). Banér’s cavalry had been taught to deliver its impact with the saber, not to caracole with the hard-to-aim pistols or carbines,^[16] forcing Pappenheim and his cavalry quit the field in disarray, retreating 15 miles northwest to Halle.

Battle of Breitenfeld - Opening moves, 17 September 1631
Swedish-Saxon forces in Blue
Catholic army in Red

During the charges of the Cuirassiers, Tilly's infantry had remained stationary, but then the cavalry on his right charged the Saxon cavalry and routed it towards Eilenburg. There may have been confusion in the imperial command at seeing Pappenheim’s charge; in their assessment of the battle, military historians have wondered if Pappenheim precipitated an attempted double envelopment, or if he followed Tilly’s preconceived plan.^[17] At any rate, recognizing an opportunity, Tilly sent the majority of his infantry against the remaining Saxon forces in an oblique march diagonally across his front.

[edit] Thwarting the Imperial attack

Battle of Breitenfeld - Stopping the attack, 17 September 1631
Swedish forces in Blue
Catholic army in Red

As Tilly was ordering his infantry to march ahead diagonally to the right, looking to roll up the Swedish line on its abandoned left flank, Gustavus reordered his second line, under the capable and steady General Gustav Horn, into an array at a right angle to the front, in a maneuver known as refusing the line. With this maneuver, the Swedish line developed a strong angle, anchored in the new center under General Lennart Torstenson, whose men were able to deliver an artillery barrage with an overwhelmingly high of rate of fire for the era.^{[citation needed]} Tilly's right flank cavalry preceded his infantry across the field. Except for his musketeers, the infantry had yet to engage. Tilly's seventeen Tercios could only angle across the field. Tercios cannot turn easily, owing to the length of pikes extending through the faces of the essentially square formations. As they advanced obliquely, it left the Swedish right uncovered and free.

[edit] Annihilation of the Imperial force

Battle of Breitenfeld - Annihilation, 17 September 1631
Swedish forces in Blue
Catholic army in Red

While this was taking place, the Swedish cavalry re-formed, and, preceded by the Finnish light cavalry (Hakkapeliittas), which Gustavus led personally, attacked across the former front to capture the Imperial artillery, followed in short succession by Banér's heavy cavalry and three regiments of infantry. This not only freed the Swedish field guns from an ongoing artillery duel, but allowed Gustavus's cross-trained cavalry to turn the captured Imperial guns upon Tilly's seventeen own Tercios, now outflanked and badly out of position.^[18] Gustavus’ soldiers redeployed the captured artillery into a new line and angled so it could fire on the Catholic forces. Its position lay slightly to the rear of the Catholics on what had become the extreme right flank of a developing infantry battle. The unwieldy Catholic infantry was trapped in a crossfire of grazing artillery balls which were aimed to bounce and careen into the rank and files between knee and shoulder height—killing and wounding dozens with each ball. With these guns cutting into one end of Tilly's line, and the Swedish center showing no signs of breaking, the exchange of gunfire soon wore down the Imperial troops, and their lines ground to a halt against Horn's infantry.

After several hours of punishment, nearing sunset, the Catholic line finally broke. Tilly himself was injured twice by a so-called "piece of battle"—artillery propelled debris, such as a careening pikehead. Although the first time he remounted his horse, the second wound was more severe; unconscious, he was carted off to safety under the cover of night during the ensuing retreat, which quickly became a rout as the Catholic forces reached the nearby woods. The totally disorganized and demoralized Imperial and Catholic League force effectively lost all cohesion with the fall of night, and the desertion rate was consequently higher than the battle losses themselves. In effect, Gustav had entirely destroyed the only army the Catholics had in the field, placing the Imperial side on the defensive.

After the battle, Gustav moved on Halle, following the same track that Tilly had taken coming east to enforce the Edict of Restitution on the Electorate of Saxony. Two days later Gustav's forces captured another 3,000 men after a brief skirmish at Merseburg, and took Halle two days after that.

[edit] Aftermath

The outcome of the battle had a significant impact, in the short, intermediate, and long term. In the short term, the Catholic and imperial forces were significantly hampered by the loss of most of the force. The totality of the victory confirmed Gustav's military innovations, and guaranteed that the Swedes would remain engaged in the war for the foreseeable future. In the long term, the significant loss of force, the shift in command, the realignment of alliances creating a strong Protestant, or anti-imperial force, required the Emperor and the Protestant and Catholic princes, to rethink on the operational conduct of the warfare, and the diplomatic avenues they would pursue prior to using armed force.

[edit] Short term impact: command decisions and rebuilding the imperial army

After the battle, the Catholic League or Imperial army under Tilly could field an army of only 7,000 men. The army had to be rebuilt. Gustavus Adolphus, on the other hand, had a larger army after the battle than before. The battle's outcome had the political effect of convincing Protestant states to join his cause and convinced France to throw its whole-hearted support to the militarily strong but economically weak Sweden. Finally, with the seventy-two year old Tilly's recovery far from certain (and he did indeed die within six months while crossing the Lech river), and with no alternative commander at hand, Emperor Ferdinand II had no choice but to rehire Wallenstein.

[edit] Intermediate impact: Gustav's military innovations

Gustavus's victory at Breitenfeld

His success against the well-trained Imperial and League forces at Breitenfeld endorsed Gustav's linear tactics. In traditional battle tactics, the cavalry lined up on either side of the primary infantry force, theoretically protecting its flanks, but in actuality, cavalry would attempt to drive off the opposing force, leaving the infantry’s flank exposed. Gustav mixed infantry heavily weighted with musketeers among the cavalry in their "starting positions" on the flanks. As opposing cavalry attacked, the musketeers could pick them off, long before the cavalryman’s pistols could be useful. The thinner pike wall sufficiently prevented breakage of the line, but it could also be easily shifted, to allow Gustav’s cavalry to pass through. Normally detached infantry would be easily run down, but by being placed in the midst of the cavalry, if the opposing force did charge, they would do so right into the Swedish cavalry's own pistols. It was Gustavus' policy to have each arm support the other, so demonstrating an early appreciation of the benefits of combined arms tactics, though long before the term was coined.^{[citation needed]}

In the traditional square, muskets at the rear or sides of the formation could not fire effectively due to the ranks in front. The Dutch had thinned out their formations to place more men at the front, a concept Gustav adapted by converting his formations into rectangles only six ranks deep (as opposed to ten or more). This became known as a linear formation, and in historical terms, by one modification or another, it persisted in warfare to World War II.^{[citation needed]}Additionally, whereas the typical pike-and-shot formation placed the shot on the flanks of a full pike square, to overcome the friendly fire issue, Gustav placed most of the shot at the front, with the pike at the sides strictly in support, with a smattering of pike to keep charging cavalry at bay. In the common tercio of the day, the ratio of pikes to shot was generally about 2:1; Gustavus' armies were recast to ratios between 3:2 and sometimes approached 1:1—giving his forces a much greater amount of long range fire power.^[18]

Along the same line of rate of fire thinking, he also placed small cannons, or so called infantry guns among the units. These were mobile, lightweight three-pound brass cannon, by some called the first field artillery.^{[citation needed]} Loaded with canister or grapeshot, they were devastating, like huge shotguns capable of gutting an opponent's formations. At long ranges, they fired solid shot aimed to bounce through the enemy's ranks doing nearly as much damage. The integration of small cannons among infantry gave his battalions cannon support even if they became separated from the main force, or if they were away from the massed artillery at the center of the field.^{[citation needed]}

Map of Europe in 1648

These changes also made Gustav's formations easier to maneuver on the battlefield; the line formations he fielded could easily turn to face a new direction, compared to the squares Tilly and the Saxon Elector had been using— where the line of march was typically fixed (or else the unit would spear each other in turning the unwieldy pikes), once a unit took up positions in the field—his forces were able to change facings and march a different direction. Gustav' main formations could be re-aligned, even under fire, and even those where his mixed units used his concept of combined arms, although at the cost of some confusion while the pikemen reformed on the shot's flanks, the cavalry paraded back around and came up again.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Long term consequences: realignment of alliances and extension of Swedish influence into Germany

See also: Consequences of the Thirty Years War

Gustav's success encouraged several other princes to join the cause of the Swedish king and his few allies. By the month's end, Hannover, the Hessian dukes, Brandenburg and Saxony were officially aligned against the empire, and France had agreed to provide substantially greater funding for Gustav's armies. Although Gustav was killed a year later at the Battle of Lützen, the military strength of the alliance had been secured through the addition of new armies. Even when Swedish leadership faltered, it did not fail, and the influx of French gold insured that the hostilities could continue.^[19] The reconstituted imperial and Catholic league forces and the opposition forces were so evenly matched that neither side could force a concession from the other. Wallenstein's efforts to negotiate a conclusion to the conflict ended in his own conviction of treason, and his assassination. This realization, confirmed at Westphalia fundamentally changed the balance of power within the Holy Roman Empire.^[19]

[edit] Battlefield today

The battlefield today is bisected by an autobahn, the A14, which slices through the fields where the majority of the action occurred, between the original position of Tilly, at Breitenfeld, and the original positions of the Swedes and Saxons, around Podelwitz.

[edit] See also

• Breitenfeld (1631) order of battle
• Hakkapeliitta

[edit] References

[edit] Sources

• Jones, Archer. The Art of War in the Western World, New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
• Meade,J.E. Principles of Political Economy, SUNY, 1976. ISBN=0873952057.
• Parker, Geoffrey, ed., The Thirty Years War 2nd edition, SUNY 1987. 0-415-12883-8
• Preston, Richard A., et al., Men in Arms, 5th ed., Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1991.
• Wedgwood,C.V. The Thirty Years War (New York: Book of the Month Club, 1995)