The Battle of Lützen

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 struck down, although his troops regrouped and achieved victory after hard fighting against opponents who had learned from their previous defeats.

Data from Lützen

• Who: King Gustaf Adolf II of Sweden (1594-1632), commanding the Swedish army, against Prince Albrecht von Wallenstein, Prince of Friedland (1583-1634), commanding the imperial army.
• How: In a disputed battle, the Imperial forces showed that they had learned from their earlier defeat at the hands of the Swedes, and Gustavus was cut down. 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 (East Germany).
• Why: Wallenstein threatened Saxony, an ally of Sweden.
• Result: The battle saved Saxony, although the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) continued painfully, despite this hard-won Protestant victory.

Background

Little did the Bohemian patriots, who threw the imperial delegates out of the windows of Hradcany Castle in Prague, imagine that their actions would trigger the longest and bloodiest war in modern European history, which lasted 30 years. Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II entrusted command of the imperial army to Count Albrecht von Wallenstein, a ruthless and scheming 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 opportunity was disastrous, as the triumphant imperialists were about to meet and be crushed by their most fearsome enemy, the Swedes.

The Swedish Army

Gustavus Adolphus II had ascended the throne of Sweden in 1611, at just 17 years of age, but he had gained valuable experience fighting the Russians and the Poles between 1611 and 1630. His artillery was inspired by that of the Dutch, although he used lighter and more mobile barrels, with standardized calibers and handled by trained professionals . Gustavo Adolfo used the 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 loose 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 enemy's flanks under the cover of artillery fire, charging at high speed with drawn swords.

Breitenfeld

Thus the army that was about to invade mainland Europe 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 corsairs, 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, Gustav simply marched on Berlin and forced Elector George William to join him or see his capital, like Magdeburg, burned down. and devastated. When Tilly and the imperial army invaded Saxony, his elector, Jorge Juan, 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, continued to practice war "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 the sides. Gustavo 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 Swedes, while the entire right wing was made up of the Elector's Saxons. The Swedish artillery fired a huge salvo, and their batteries fired three volleys for every Imperial volley.
Tilly's right wing mistook Pappenheim's unauthorized attack as a signal for a general advance against the Saxons, who, seeing the invincible Tercios advancing, disbanded and fled, with their Elector in the lead . In one fell swoop, a third of the allied army had disappeared. However, Gustavus'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.
Gustavo had restarted the war and, during the winter of 1631-1632, occupied much 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. Totally desperate, Ferdinand II was forced to call back Wallenstein, the only imperial commander willing and able to stop the Swedes .

Lützen's campaign

The prospects were good for the imperial side, because Wallenstein was a shrewd strategist, cold and calculating. He avoided combat at all costs, forcing Gustav to take the initiative, and on September 4 the allied army unsuccessfully attacked Wallenstein's fortified positions in Fürth, where he lost 3,000 soldiers . Wallenstein broke out of these positions and invaded Saxony; however, on October 22 he made the mistake of heading for 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 on 5 November to Pergau to join the Saxons . After 15 years of war the German countryside was devastated and unable to feed the armies, and Gustavo 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 Creek, leaving Gustavus no choice but to move his army towards Lützen. Here the allied troops spent the night of 5-6 November in open country, with the imperial army encamped just 5 km away.
On the other hand, Wallenstein was determined to fight a defensive battle here, since he had done his best to avoid the battle itself**. Lützen lay on a flat plain in northern Germany, traversed by the Leipzig main road from southwest to northwest, situated on a causeway that formed a natural line of defense for the imperial side. On both sides of that road was a ditch that Wallenstein's men converted, during November 5 and the following night, into a formidable line of trenches that would be filled with musketeers.

Layouts

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 knoll a little north of Lützen, Windmill Hill, while his left lay undefined in the open. However, Wallenstein had learned from the Breitenfeld disaster. The infantry were now more mobile and were grouped in less dense, more maneuverable formations, with their 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 he then set fire to Lützen to prevent the enemy from using their houses for cover.
With 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 Gustav, while the left was under the command of Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar (1604-1639).

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 lifted temporarily and allowed Gustavo to begin his advance. Thanks to skillful and coordinated Imperial artillery and musketry fire, the advance was halted to 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 mist descended on the battlefield once again, the fight 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 beaten. The Swedish cavalry was reduced to small scattered groups on both sides of the causeway, and began to falter; only the intervention of the senior army chaplain, Jacob Fabricius, calmed her spirits and returned her to battle.