Date : September 17th 1631
Location
Fought at the crossroads villages of Breitenfeld, Podelwitz and Seehausen, approximately five miles northwest of the walled city of Leipzig
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| Gustavus Adolphus |
Why is it important?
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.
It is also referred to as the earliest 'modern' battle worth studying.
The Thirty Years War 1618-1648 was the most destructive conflict in Europe prior to WW1. It is a conflict between Protestant and Catholic, an all powerful emperor against individual princely power, and a centralised German state versus a fragmented Holy Roman Empire. All the combatants generally are fighting to uphold all or some of these ideas.
The Swedish Phase
The Swedish phase of the 30 Years War began with the Swedish landing at Peenemünde. The Swedish campaign in central Europe gained control of great deal of territory.There were 3 major battles: Breitenfeld, the Battle of Lech, and the Battle of Lützen.
France was Sweden’s ally and paid most of the Swedish campaign expenses. This marked a major shift away from a religious-based conflict, as the French were also Catholic. After the defeat at the Battle of Nördlingen. France actively joined the Thirty Years War. Therefore this phase is sometimes referred to as the "French phase" of the Thirty Years War. However, the Swedish army recovered to defeat the Imperial army e.g in the Battle of Wittstock and the Battle of Jankov. It is therefore more appropriate to label the subsequent phase a "Franco-Swedish phase".
Combatants
Sweden and Saxony vs. Holy Roman Empire, Catholic League, Hungary,
Army sizes
Sweden and Saxony - 23,500 and 18,000. The Catholics : 35,000
The strengths of forces deployed were about relatively equal. The Protestant coalition, including the Swedes and Germans, fielding about 42,000 troops (18,000 from German Allies) and the imperial forces at about 35,000.
The Protestants had a considerable edge in cavalry numbers, about 13,000 (5,000 from Allies) to 9,000.
The numbers for the siege artillery were relatively equivalent with the Swedes having a slight edge in quality and the imperials having a marginal advantage in quantity. The Swedes had additional small artillery pieces (3 and 6 pounders) integrated into their infantry brigades and regiments. This gave the Swedes an overall advantage in the number of guns.
The Catholics had a considerable advantage in the number of trained infantry deployed; about 25,000 to the Swedes 15,000. The Saxons (Swedish allies) fielded about 9,000 additional untrained infantry, which mostly consisted of conscripts or militia. The Swedish Allies fielded very few muskets. The Swedish Linear Formation had a higher ratios of matchlock and much fewer pikemen than the imperial forces tercio. Overall the Unionist fielded about the same number matchlocks as the imperial troops.
The overall balance was relatively even. The disparity in overall numbers resulted from large levies of untrained soldiers. The number of heavy cannon was relatively close with the Swedish having newer models and light cannon compensating for the disparity in heavy field pieces.
The Unionist had a considerable advantage in cavalry while the imperials had a considerable advantage in trained infantry. With the forces deployed, the key difference was the light/heavy infantry ratio of Swedes. The Swedes fielded considerably more muskets by ratio, had more advanced equipment, and better drills to increase their rate of fire. More important, the Linear Formation that allowed most musketeers to engage, while less than half in a tercio could engage.
Sweden and Saxony - 23,500 and 18,000. The Catholics : 35,000
The strengths of forces deployed were about relatively equal. The Protestant coalition, including the Swedes and Germans, fielding about 42,000 troops (18,000 from German Allies) and the imperial forces at about 35,000.
The Protestants had a considerable edge in cavalry numbers, about 13,000 (5,000 from Allies) to 9,000.
The numbers for the siege artillery were relatively equivalent with the Swedes having a slight edge in quality and the imperials having a marginal advantage in quantity. The Swedes had additional small artillery pieces (3 and 6 pounders) integrated into their infantry brigades and regiments. This gave the Swedes an overall advantage in the number of guns.
The Catholics had a considerable advantage in the number of trained infantry deployed; about 25,000 to the Swedes 15,000. The Saxons (Swedish allies) fielded about 9,000 additional untrained infantry, which mostly consisted of conscripts or militia. The Swedish Allies fielded very few muskets. The Swedish Linear Formation had a higher ratios of matchlock and much fewer pikemen than the imperial forces tercio. Overall the Unionist fielded about the same number matchlocks as the imperial troops.
The overall balance was relatively even. The disparity in overall numbers resulted from large levies of untrained soldiers. The number of heavy cannon was relatively close with the Swedish having newer models and light cannon compensating for the disparity in heavy field pieces.
The Unionist had a considerable advantage in cavalry while the imperials had a considerable advantage in trained infantry. With the forces deployed, the key difference was the light/heavy infantry ratio of Swedes. The Swedes fielded considerably more muskets by ratio, had more advanced equipment, and better drills to increase their rate of fire. More important, the Linear Formation that allowed most musketeers to engage, while less than half in a tercio could engage.
Commanders
Protestant
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden
Gustav Horn, Count of Pori
Hans Georg von Arnim-Boitzenburg
Robert Munro, 18th Baron of Foulis
John George I, Elector of Saxony
Johan Banér
Catholic
Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly
Gottfried Heinrich Graf zu Pappenheim
Friedrich, Count von Fürstenburg
Egon VII, Count of Fürstenberg
Additional Background provided by Ian Taylor
From 1618 until 1631 the Emperor was in the ascendant and the Protestant princes and their allies were continually drubbed by Generals Tilly and Pappenheim and the army of the Catholic League.
We fought one of these battles, hochst, at Christmas 2010. Generally Tilly's veteran tercios would
demolish the new fangled Dutch style Protestant units usually I think because of experience and
greater aggression.
When Gustavus arrives in 1630 the Protestant cause had almost collapsed after the Danish
failed in their intervention. No one risks supporting him as Tilly is seen as invincible. However the
sack of Magdeburg by Tilly shocks all of Europe and Gustavus looks ineffectual in his self proclaimed
defence of Protestants. Thus he marches out of his Baltic bridgehead and Breitenfeld is fought in
1631.
The Swedes use a version of the Dutch system with its emphasis on firepower and regimental
guns and destroy Tilly's veteran tercios. It is often seen as the more modern system destroying the
old rigid Spanish tactics.
I disagree and think Tilly could have won and the tercios are a viable formation. Swedish cavalry tactics are also seen as more advanced with thinner lines and more aggressive charges versus the imperial caracol.
However Pappenheims cavalry nearly won with their better armour and deeper formations. In reality the Swedes fought as they did because they had less armour and attached infantry units to give some fire support against the superior imperial caracol. Overall the Swedes were very disciplined and had honed their
tactics fighting the devastating and highly armoured Polish army (a future project)
As a result of his victory Gustavus liberated huge chunks of Protestant Germany and was feted
throughout Protestant Europe ( and Catholic France who under Richelieu were very worried by an all
powerful emporer). Gustavus beat and killed Tilly in a further battle and the Empeor was forced to
turn to Wallenstein to create and lead a fresh army
Wallenstein was a very rich and powerful noble who had accrued vast territories from dispossessed Protestant nobles but had fallen from grace as he was seen as a direct threat to the Emperor.
However desperate times saw his return to power and he created a new army from his own
resources. The imperial cavalry fought the same as at Breitenfeld but the infantry was reorganised
into units that offered more firepower than tercios but remained deeper than the Swedes to give them
an edge in close combat. At the first encounter Wallenstein was able to hold his own
against the Swedes
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. Gustav's sole ally was the city of Stralsund, and over the ensuing months, the situation did not improve.
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| Tilly |
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.
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. 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, imperial forces captured Mantua, effectively ending the Mantuan war, and the ensuing peace treaty 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.
Rough Wooing!
At the same time, the Protestant princes showed little interest in attaching themselves to the Swedish cause; Gustavus opted for “rough wooing.”
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.
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| Sack of Magdeburg |
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.
The 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. His plan was to avoid contact with the Swedes, and ultimately the Saxons, until 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.Gustav and John George united their forces, planning to meet Tilly somewhere near Leipzig.
Tactical Overview
The Battle of Breitenfeld was overall a meeting engagement with both combatants agreeing to battle on the field. The forces all had different structural organization. Mostly the technology was about the same level, with a slight advantage to the Swedish troops in newer and lighter cannon and matchlocks. Both armies were well supplied and the terrain was relatively equivalent between the dispositions. Key differences between the Swedish and imperial forces (and the Swedish allies) were in the training and structure of infantry troops, and the Swedish different philosophy in using their cavalry.
Force Disposition
The Swedes deployed their 15,000 infantry in 2 lines. The imperial army deployed 25,500 infantry in a single line of 17 tercios (1,500 infantrymen in each). The German allies extended the Protestant front to be overall slightly longer than the Catholic. The imperial line had its cavalry evenly distributed on its flanks. The Swedes had their cavalry weighted to their right. The German allies fielded their infantry in wedge formation with units in squares, and cavalry on their flanks. With their Saxon allies extending the Swede’s line, the Unionists had cavalry at the center and their flanks.
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Battle Summary
The battle started in the middle of the day and lasted over 6 hours. The first 2 hours consisted of an exchange of artillery fire. This was followed by an imperial attack with cavalry from both wings to both ends of the Unionist line. The cavalry attack routed the Saxon troops on the Unionist left flank. The imperial army then conducted a general attack to exploit the exposed left flank.
The Swedes repositioned their second line to cover the left flank and counter attacked with their cavalry to both imperial flanks. The attack on the imperial left was led personally by the Swedish King. It captured the imperial artillery and enveloped the imperial left flank. The Swedish now had much greater weight of fire from their artillery, infantry, and the captured imperial artillery. The imperial line was disorganized under the heavy fire and enveloped. The imperial line collapsed and over 80% of the imperial forces were killed or captured. 120 standards of the Imperial and Bavarian armies were taken (and are still on display in the Riddarholm church in Stockholm) and Gustav's innovations in military operations and tactics were confirmed.
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 firepower 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.
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 work 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,forcing Pappenheim and his cavalry quit the field in disarray, retreating 15 miles northwest to Halle.
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. 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.
Thwarting the Imperial attack
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 rate of fire for the era. 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.
Destruction of the Imperial Army
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.
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.
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.
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.
Gustav's military innovations
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.
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 I. 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 firepower.
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. 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.
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's 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.
Long term consequences
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.
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.
The 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.
In the eastern portion of the village of Breitenfeld stands a monument to Gustav Adolf and the victory his army accomplished there in 1631. It was erected in 1831 on the two hundredth anniversary of the battle and bears the following inscription:
„Glaubensfreiheit für die Welt, rettete bei Breitenfeld – Gustav Adolf, Christ und Held. Am 7. September 1631."
Freedom of Belief for the World, salvaged at Breitenfeld, Gustav Adolf, Christian and Hero. 7 September 1631.