Battle of Breitenfeld (1642)

Background

In 1641 Johan Banér's Swedes had escaped pursuit after failing to catch the Imperial Diet at Regensburg. He lost several thousand men at Neunburg and Preßnitz and died at Halberstadt in May. Lennart Torstensson arrived in November with recruits and back pay. In early 1642 the French beat Imperial troops at Kempen and Hatzfeld and Mercy were detached to hold them, which weakened the Imperial army facing Sweden.

The Swedes wintered in Brandenburg. In the spring and summer of 1642 Torstensson took Glogau, on 4 May, and Olmütz, on 14 June, and had the better of the Imperials in Silesia, where Franz Albrecht of Saxe-Lauenburg was mortally wounded at Schweidnitz on 31 May. Archduke Leopold Wilhelm besieged Glogau from 10 August to 12 September, then withdrew when Torstensson offered battle.

In October Torstensson moved into Saxony and besieged Leipzig, the stronghold of an Imperial ally. The Imperials came after him. On 1 November their rapid advance forced him to lift the siege. The Archduke's council of war decided to attack, over the advice of Piccolomini, who thought the Swedes too strong. The Imperial leaders believed the Swedes were retreating in disorder; instead Torstensson drew up his army in a better position outside Breitenfeld, north-east of Leipzig.

The armies

Torstensson commanded about 20,000 men, half foot and half horse, with 70 guns. Arvid Wittenberg commanded the right wing, Erik Slang the left, Johan Lilliehöök the artillery and Hans Christoff von Königsmarck the reserve; Torsten Stålhandske led the Finnish Hakkapeliitta cavalry on the right. Almost the whole of the Swedish horse was heavy cuirassier cavalry.

The Imperial army of about 26,000, with 46 guns, was led by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria with Ottavio Piccolomini as his deputy. Annibale Gonzaga and Count Bruay commanded the right wing and Hans Christoph von Puchheim the left, and Ernst Roland von Suys led the cavalry reserve. A good part of the Imperial cavalry was irregular Croatian and Hungarian horse, with some dragoons and old-fashioned arquebusier regiments, and there were Saxon regiments in the second line.

Wilson and Guthrie, as cited by English Wikipedia, rate the two armies as roughly equal in combat value, the Swedes' quality making up for their numerical inferiority. Both armies put cavalry on the wings and infantry in the centre, and the line of the Imperial infantry was divided by the small Linkelwald wood, which split it into a northern and a southern group.

The battle

CDB90 records one engagement, number 12 (BREITENFELD II), from 07:00 to 10:00 on 2 November. Neither Wikipedia article gives clock times; they say only that the battle began early in the morning, which matches CDB90's start. The sequence below follows English Wikipedia, with extra detail from German Wikipedia.

Before the battle. On 1 November the rapid Imperial advance forced Torstensson to lift the siege of Leipzig. The Archduke's war council chose to attack despite Piccolomini's advice, believing the Swedes were in disorderly retreat; the Swedes in fact took up better positions outside Breitenfeld. The date is 2 November in the Gregorian calendar and 23 October in the Julian calendar still used in Protestant Germany and Sweden (German Wikipedia).

Deployment. The Swedes stood outside Breitenfeld; the Imperials faced them with cavalry on the wings and the infantry split by the Linkelwald in the centre. Between them ran the Rietzschke, a small river.

The artillery duel. The battle opened with an artillery exchange in which Lilliehöök was mortally wounded. The Swedes then crossed the Rietzschke, and Wittenberg's right wing attacked the Imperial left.

The Imperial left collapses. Puchheim had not finished deploying. Some regiments fled, most notably the Madlo arquebusiers in the front line, and neighbouring units and most of the Saxon regiments in the second line followed. Colonel Nicola rallied the rest and repulsed two Swedish attacks with the reserve cavalry; German Wikipedia names its commander as Achilles von Soye, English Wikipedia as Suys. A third attack broke through, killing Nicola and several officers.

The Imperial right succeeds. On the other wing Gonzaga and Bruay routed most of the Swedish left under Slang, who was killed, and pushed it back onto Königsmarck's reserve, which held.

The Swedish counter-stroke. Torstensson split his victorious right wing. Stålhandske pursued the fleeing Imperial left, while Wittenberg took his group round behind the Imperial centre to attack the Imperial right from behind. Caught between two attacks, the Imperial right collapsed.

The retreat. Piccolomini and the Archduke covered the retreat with their bodyguards and several regiments, including the old and new Piccolomini regiments. The infantry north of the Linkelwald escaped; German Wikipedia says they got away with Camillo Gonzaga. The southern group was surrounded by Swedish cavalry and forced to surrender. All the Imperial guns were lost, and the generals Suys and Fernemont were among the prisoners. Swedish losses included Lilliehöök and Slang killed and Stålhandske seriously wounded. CDB90's engagement closes at 10:00; the pursuit and the surrender of the southern infantry group are not timed in either account.

Aftermath

Torstensson renewed the siege of Leipzig, which held out until 7 December. Axel Lillie became commandant and levied a contribution of 150,000 thalers. Most of the Imperial prisoners who had joined the Swedish army deserted during the siege (English Wikipedia). Wittenberg took Chemnitz on 29 December, but the Swedish siege of Freiberg in January 1643 failed when Piccolomini relieved it on 27 February.

The Imperial army meanwhile suffered a command crisis. The Archduke's court-martial in Prague sentenced Madlo's regiment to exemplary punishment at Rokycany: six regiments surrounded it, its colours were torn up and every tenth man and five officers were executed. Tensions between German and Italian officers grew. Hatzfeld, arriving in January 1643, refused to take command; the Archduke resigned, Piccolomini took over briefly in February and Matthias Gallas succeeded him, largely because both factions accepted him. Most of the Italian generals left.

In 1643 the Swedes went on the offensive, crossed the Elbe at Mělník and reached northern Moravia before Gallas, then withdrew into Silesia in October and turned on Denmark in the Torstenson War. The battle gave Sweden a secure base in Saxony; the Imperials, though weakened, prevented full exploitation of it and kept John George I from making peace with Sweden. Both articles call it less decisive than the first Breitenfeld. A 1927 Swedish medal marking the dissolution of the First Life Grenadier Regiment shows the battle as 'Leipzig 1642'.

Wargaming it

Breitenfeld II suits a game at about 1:100 or 1:150 figures, with each side's wings played as separate commands. The scenario is built on a reversal: the Swedish left is beaten, the Swedish right wins, and the right then wheels round the enemy centre. It rewards a player who can switch from pursuit to a second attack.

The key terrain is the Linkelwald, which divides the Imperial infantry, and the Rietzschke, which the Swedes must cross. The Imperial player has a numerical advantage but poor-quality horse; the Croatian and Hungarian cavalry can be rated as unreliable, and the Madlo arquebusiers' flight on the left can be built in as a morale test on an unfinished deployment. The Swedes have the heavier artillery and the heavy cuirassiers.

The decisions that matter are Torstensson's. Does he send the whole right wing after the fugitives or split it as he did? Does Königsmarck's reserve hold the left? The Imperial player's choices are whether to attack at all, as Piccolomini advised against, and whether to commit the right in pursuit.

The what-ifs are the Imperial right winning the battle before the Swedish right turned, and Puchheim being deployed in time. Victory conditions can be set by armies destroyed and by prisoners and guns taken, since the Imperials lost all their guns and thousands of prisoners.

Maps and pictures