Battle of Nördlingen (1634)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| This article needs additional references or sources for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
| Battle of Nördlingen | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Thirty Years' War | |||||||
 The Battle of Nördlingen by Jacques Courtois. Oil on canvas. |
|||||||
|
|||||||
| Combatants | |||||||
 Sweden Saxony |
 Holy Roman Empire Spain |
||||||
| Commanders | |||||||
| 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 | |||||||
| 8000 dead 5000 wounded | 3,500 dead or wounded | ||||||
| Thirty Years' War |
|---|
| Plzeň – Záblati – Dolní Věstonice – White Mountain – Wiesloch – Wimpfen – Höchst – Fleurus – Stadtlohn – Dessau Bridge – Lutter am Barenberge – Stralsund – Wolgast – Frankfurt – Magdeburg – Werben – 1st Breitenfeld – Rain – Fürth – Alte Veste – Lützen – Oldendorf – Nördlingen – Wittstock – Rheinfelden – Breisach – Chemnitz – Honnecourt – 2nd Breitenfeld – Rocroi – Tuttlingen – Freiburg – Jüterbog – Jankov – Mergentheim – 2nd Nördlingen – Zusmarshausen – Lens – Prague |
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.
Contents |
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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 trying to open a new 'Spanish Way', and driving his Commander to the Gobernorship of 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 cousins Ferdinand and Ferdinand 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, that of the late Duke of Feria and Governor of Spanish 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, almost anything that could go wrong went wrong for the Protestant forces. This was due to the strong defensive efforts of the Spanish infantry, the feared "Tercios Viejos" (Old Tercios), mainly 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 direct orders of another Italian commander, the loyal servant to the Spanish Crown Gerardo di Gambacorta di Linata. Saxon and Austrian troops avoided a face to face engagement, until late in the battle when the Imperial troops observed the weakened condition of the Saxons, who had been sending large numbers of reinforcements to assist the Swedish troops. An advance by the Imperial troops resulted in the quick collapse and rout of the Saxons. Pursuit of the Saxons threatened to cut off any escape route of the Swedish units, who also promptly broke, turning into a panic stricken mob and leaving their side of the field to the Spanish and Italian troops of the King of Spain's brother,
Horn was captured, his army was destroyed, and the remainder that fled to Heilbronn was only a shadow of itself. The two Ferdinands had achieved a great military victory.
[edit] 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.
