Battle of Nördlingen (1634)
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Battle of Nördlingen | |||||||
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Part of the Thirty Years' War | |||||||
![]() The Battle of Nördlingen by Jacques Courtois. Oil on canvas. | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar Gustav Horn |
Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand Ferdinand of Hungary Matthias Gallas | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
16,300 infantry 9,300 cavalry 20 guns |
21,000 infantry 13,000 cavalry 60 guns | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
about 6,000 dead or wounded, 6,000 captured. [1] | 3,500 dead or wounded |
The Battle of Nördlingen (German: Schlacht bei Nördlingen; Spanish: Batalla de Nördlingen; Swedish: Slaget vid Nördlingen) was fought on August 27 (Julian calendar) or September 6 (Gregorian calendar), 1634 during the Thirty Years' War. The Catholic Imperial army, bolstered by 18,000 professional Spanish troops under Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand, won a decisive victory in the battle over the Protestant army of Sweden and Saxony.
After the failure of the tercio system in the first Battle of Breitenfeld in 1631, the professional Spanish and Italian troops used in the second battle proved the tercio system could still contend with the deployment improvements devised by Maurice of Orange and the late Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.
Prelude
After the Protestant victory in the Battle of Lützen two years before, the Swedes failed to follow up their victory due to the death of their king, Gustavus Adolphus. As a result, the Imperial forces regained the initiative. In 1634 they occupied the town of Regensburg. Threatening to advance further into Saxony, they started to besiege Nördlingen. The Protestants realized they had to make some attempt to relieve the town, and planned a night attack.
Battle
The future Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand of Hungary, and his cousin the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand raced to merge their armies, the Spaniards having traveled from their dominions in Northern Italy through the Stelvio Pass to open a new 'Spanish Way', and reinforce the Spanish Low Countries.
The Protestant forces of Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar and Gustav Horn desperately tried to prevent this merger, but were unable to catch up with Ferdinand of Hungary. The Cardinal-Infante crossed the Danube on August 30, 1634, at Donauwörth.
In September both armies were able to merge, and camped south of Nördlingen in Swabia. At that time Nördlingen was protected by a small Swedish garrison. Shortly thereafter, the armies of Bernhard and Horn also reached Nördlingen, preparing the events for the decisive Battle of Nördlingen.
The Imperials and Spanish then prepared for battle, ignoring the advice of the more experienced generals, such as the Imperial general Matthias Gallas, and following that of the Count of Leganés, the Spanish deputy commander.
Bernhard and Horn also prepared for battle, but they were by now rivals and in disagreement with each other. They underestimated the numerically superior enemy forces, due to incorrect reports that did not realize that another Spanish army of the late Duke of Feria and Governor Milan, had joined the Cardinal-Infante's troops and believed that the enemy forces numbered only 7,000, not 21,000 infantry, compared to 16,000 Swedish infantry.
During the battle, the Protestant forces met with recurring fiasco. This was due to the strong defensive efforts of the Spanish infantry, the feared "Tercios Viejos" (Old Tercios), especially those commanded by Fuenclara, Idiáquez, and Toralto. Fifteen Swedish assaults by the Blue, Black and Yellow Horn regiments on the hill of Albuch, were repulsed by the Spaniards with the decisive support of Ottavio Piccolomini's cavalry squadrons, under the immediate command of Gerardo di Gambacorta di Linata, another Italian in Imperial Service. Saxon and Austrian troops avoided a face to face engagement, until late in the battle when the Imperial troops, observing the weakened condition of the Saxons, who had been sending large numbers of reinforcements to assist the Swedish troops, advanced, resulting in the quick collapse and rout of the Saxons. Pursuit of the Saxons threatened to cut off any escape by the Swedish units, who also broke, turning into a panic stricken mob and leaving their side of the field to the Spanish and Imperials
Horn was captured, and his army shattered, the remainder fleeing to Heilbronn, leaving the field in the hands of the Imperials.
Aftermath
Swedish cavalry was routed and though no all-Swedish infantry regiments from Sweden proper were involved in the loss at Nördlingen, for those defeated at Albuch were mainly from other dominions in Europe, the Swedish army in Germany was severely crippled by the defeat and the battle marked the end of the Swedish attempt to dominate Germany. With Imperial forces threatening dominance in Germany, with Spain firmly settled on the western bank of the Rhine, and thus with Habsburg armies surrounding France, Richelieu decided to take a more active role in the conflict, entering the war mainly against Spain and thus opening a second front at the Catholic Low Countries. Meanwhile, the victory led most of the German Protestant princes to seek a separate peace with the Emperor, which was achieved by the Treaty of Prague in 1635.