Battle of Lützen (1632)

Background

Gustavus Adolphus had landed in Pomerania in June 1630 with nearly 18,000 men. Victories at Breitenfeld in September 1631 and Rain in April 1632 carried him deep into southern Germany, where Wallenstein's new Imperial army came to meet him. In the summer of 1632 Wallenstein dug in at Fürth, near Nuremberg, threatening the Swedish lines of communication to the north. On 3 September Gustavus assaulted the Imperial camp at the Alte Veste and was bloodily repulsed, perhaps his worst mistake in Germany.

Wallenstein then turned north, joined Heinrich Holk and invaded Saxony, the Swedes' reluctant ally. Leipzig fell in early November, and on 14 November Wallenstein decided to take up winter quarters around it. Believing the campaigning season over, he sent Pappenheim with about 5,800 men to Halle.

Gustavus had followed with his army and was at Naumburg. On 15 November he learned that Wallenstein had divided his army, and with about 19,000 men he set out to catch the remainder, which numbered perhaps 13,000–15,000 before Pappenheim returned. Imperial outposts at Rippach and Weissenfels delayed him long enough to prevent a battle that evening, and the Swedes camped in battle order a couple of kilometres from Lützen. Wallenstein sent orders recalling Pappenheim, whose men had scattered to plunder and could not set out until after midnight. Overnight the Imperialists drew up behind the ditched highway from Lützen to Leipzig, the old Via Regia, and waited for the morning.

The armies

The Swedish army of about 19,000 was smaller and more mixed than the one that had won Breitenfeld. It included Germans, Scots and English in the regiments of the line, Finnish horse, about 850 Hessians and some 2,000 Saxons. Gustavus commanded the right, with cavalry and detachments of musketeers mixed together and Knyphausen behind in reserve; Nils Brahe the infantry brigades and guns in the centre; and Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar the left. The army had about 60 guns, and well-drilled Swedish crews using prepared cartridges were said to fire three rounds to the Imperialists' two.

Wallenstein's army of about 17,000 at the start was drawn from all over the Habsburg lands and beyond: Germans, Austrians, Czechs, Hungarians, Poles, Croats and Italians. Wallenstein commanded the right himself, Colloredo the centre and Holk the left, which was to pass to Pappenheim on his arrival. The infantry stood in three lines of large blocks behind the road ditches, which were lined with musketeers. Most of the guns were massed by three windmills on a low rise on the right, with a smaller battery on the other flank. The Imperial cuirassiers, heavier armoured than the Swedish horse, were the most dangerous troops on the field, and Croat light cavalry screened the front.

The battle

CDB90 records a single engagement, number 9 (LUETZEN), from 11:00 to 20:00, which fits the narrative sources well. Times below are approximate; they follow Roberts and Wikipedia, which rest largely on Wilson's reconstruction.

The field. Wallenstein's line ran about 2.5 km along the Leipzig road, from the burning town of Lützen and the windmill hill on his right towards the Flossgraben canal, which covered his left. The Swedes faced him from the south. The ground between was mostly flat.

Fog and delay (07:30–11:00). Gustavus had hoped to attack at dawn, but thick fog slowed his approach and the crossing of the Flossgraben. The fog lifted for an ineffectual artillery duel around 10:00. Wallenstein had set fire to Lützen, and the wind carried its smoke across the Swedish left. The advance went in at about 11:00.

The Swedish attack (11:00–12:00). On the right Gustavus drove the musketeers out of the road ditch and broke the first line of Imperial horse, while Finnish cavalry chased off the Croats. In the centre the Yellow and Blue Brigades crossed the road and closed with Wallenstein's best infantry. Bernhard made little headway against the windmill battery on the left.

Pappenheim (about 12:00–13:00). Pappenheim rode in from Halle with about 2,300 cavalry, ahead of his infantry, and fell on the Swedish right and centre. The Blue Brigade, held in front by infantry, was caught in the flank by cuirassiers and cut down; with the Yellow Brigade it was nearly destroyed. The Swedes were driven back across the road and the Imperialists retook their guns. Pappenheim was hit by a cannonball and musket balls and carried off mortally wounded; he died in a coach on the way to Leipzig.

The death of the king (early afternoon). Gustavus rode to the centre to restore it and, in the fog and smoke, lost touch with most of his escort. Roberts has him shot in the arm while leading the Småland cavalry, then caught by Piccolomini's cuirassiers as he was led back: shot in the back, stabbed and finished with a shot to the head. His body was recovered only that evening, from a heap of dead on the Imperial side of the road.

Crisis and pause (13:00–15:00). Holk counter-attacked the Swedish centre, and both armies broke down into confused firefights. Bernhard's second attack on the Imperial right failed. Knyphausen's reserve held the line, and around 15:00 the fighting died down. Bernhard took command.

The second Swedish assault (about 15:30–17:00). Bernhard renewed the attack along the whole line. The Swedes crossed the road again, took the central battery and turned it on the Imperial left; around 16:00 Bernhard overran Lützen and the windmill battery. Piccolomini's cavalry helped steady the Imperial centre-right, but the Imperialists gave ground.

Nightfall (17:00–20:00). Mist and dark ended the fighting. Pappenheim's infantry, about 2,900 men, came up after dark and wanted to attack, but Wallenstein used them to cover a retreat. Leaving guns and baggage, the Imperial army began falling back on Leipzig at about 20:00. The Swedes, who had been preparing to withdraw themselves, found the field theirs and left it late the next morning.

Aftermath

Both armies were badly hurt. The Swedes lost about 6,000 men, a third of the army, and the Yellow and Blue Brigades were almost wiped out; the Imperialists about 5,000, with 24 guns. Wallenstein could not hold Leipzig and withdrew to Bohemia, leaving over 1,200 wounded behind, and Saxon peasants harried his retreat.

The Swedes kept the field and most historians count Lützen a Swedish victory, but it is an argued one. The Imperialists still had the larger army in Germany; Peter Wilson has called the day a marginal Imperial tactical victory, and W. P. Guthrie a defeat for both sides. Gustavus's death mattered more than the result. His six-year-old daughter Christina succeeded him, Axel Oxenstierna took charge of Swedish policy and the Heilbronn League of 1633, and the leaderless army mutinied twice. Wallenstein was murdered by Imperial agents in February 1634.

A boulder, the Schwedenstein, was placed where the king fell the day after the battle; a canopy followed in 1832 and a chapel in 1907. Since 2006 a metal-detector survey has recovered thousands of objects from the field, and André Schürger has tested the eyewitness accounts against the pattern of lead bullets. In 2011 a mass grave of 47 men was found beside the Via Regia. Studied at the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle, it held men aged 15 to 50, more than half killed by gunfire from cavalry pistols and carbines: most likely men of the Blue Brigade, ridden down by Pappenheim's cuirassiers.

Wargaming it

Lützen is a big, untidy pike-and-shot battle of roughly 19,000 a side, best fought at one unit per brigade, regiment or few squadrons with 20–30 minute turns, from 11:00 to dusk. The terrain is simple but decisive: the ditched road as a linear obstacle lined with musketeers, the windmill battery and the burning town on the Imperial right, and the Flossgraben on the left.

What makes it distinctive is friction. Fog and smoke should limit visibility and come and go, perhaps by a die roll each turn or two, so that neither commander quite knows what is in front of him. Pappenheim's cavalry needs a variable arrival time and entry point, his infantry a later one that may come too late to matter. Gustavus should be a brave but exposed commander with a real chance of being killed when he joins a fight, and his loss should cost the Swedes a morale test and a pause before Bernhard takes over.

Good 'what ifs': the fog lifts at dawn and the Swedes attack before Pappenheim can return; Pappenheim survives to lead the Imperial left; the king lives; Wallenstein fights on next day with Pappenheim's infantry. For a smaller game, the destruction of the Blue Brigade, infantry pinned in front and cuirassiers on the flank, works well at battalion and squadron level, and the mass-grave evidence gives it unusual detail.

Maps and pictures