Battle of Wittstock

Background

After the Swedish defeat at Nördlingen in 1634 many Protestant princes made their peace with the emperor. In May 1635 the Elector of Saxony agreed to the Peace of Prague with Ferdinand II, and France, wary of Habsburg dominance, entered the war openly. By 1636 Sweden's main strength lay in the Baltic provinces, Prussia and Pomerania, and the last significant Swedish forces in northern Germany faced a Habsburg corps and the Saxon army.

In the summer of 1636 the Imperial and Saxon armies took Magdeburg after a long siege, while Johan Banér's Swedish army stood nearby at Werben and felt too weak to relieve it. An Imperial force under General Klitzing overran Brandenburg, and the main Imperial army screened the Swedes behind the Dosse river. Neither side was clearly determined to seek a decisive battle; Banér thought of invading Saxony, and the allies aimed to contain him and take the remaining Swedish strongholds one by one.

Banér joined Alexander Leslie's Army of the Weser, which included German, Scottish and at least one English regiment, and the combined force crossed the Dosse in a surprise march. The Imperial-Saxon commanders, Melchior von Hatzfeldt for the emperor and John George I for Saxony, took up a defensive position on the Scharfenberg hills near Wittstock and waited for the Swedes to appear in the open ground in front of them.

The armies

Banér had about 16,000 to 17,000 men, with Leslie's force part of that total; the two shared command. Wilson, as cited by English Wikipedia, gives the Swedes 60 guns, and both Wikipedias agree that the Swedish artillery was considerably stronger than that of the allies. The army contained German, Scottish and English units.

The allied army was larger: 18,000 in Wilson, 22,000 to 23,000 in the German article, with at least a third of it Saxon units whose quality English Wikipedia calls questionable. The allied gun count is disputed (32 in Wilson, about 150 in German Wikipedia). Hatzfeldt and the elector held a position on sandy hills, defended by six ditches, with a wall of linked wagons on part of the front.

The Swedish plan was a risky double envelopment, according to German Wikipedia. Banér judged the allied front too strong to attack head-on, so he split his army. One quarter, under James King and Torsten Stålhandske, was sent on a flanking march; Lennart Torstensson commanded the right wing. The allied reserve was under Dam Vitzthum, who according to English Wikipedia refused to engage.

The battle

CDB90 records one engagement, number 11 (WITTSTOCK), on 4 October. The sources give the order of events but few clock times; English Wikipedia gives none and German Wikipedia says only that the centre was held for about three hours and that the flanking force arrived at dusk. The two accounts also differ on details of the flank march, and neither says exactly where the fighting began.

Deployment. The allies waited on the sandy Scharfenberg hills, expecting the Swedes to arrive across the open fields in front. Instead the Swedes moved behind a line of linked hills to turn the allied left, so that the allies had to redeploy to form a new front. German Wikipedia says Torstensson's right wing struck the allied left, held by the Saxons, and caught it by surprise; the Saxons held and formed a new front, and Hatzfeldt's Imperial troops came over from the other flank to help.

The centre. Small detachments fought for the hills. English Wikipedia says Banér's troops had trouble bringing up reinforcements over marshy ground, but that the battle spread along a wide front. Banér's and Leslie's regiments in the centre were outnumbered and under heavy pressure, and for about three hours the fight swung back and forth. The Swedes had expected King's and Stålhandske's columns to arrive early, but they were delayed, and Vitzthum's reserves were slow to arrive too.

The flanking force. English Wikipedia says Banér's detached group, struggling on its detour round the Imperial right, took heavy losses and began to retreat, and that Leslie sent five regiments to relieve it, taking heavy casualties, especially among the Scottish and English regiments. That relief let King's cavalry outflank the Imperials, which caused a rout. German Wikipedia has the delayed flanking column appear at dusk behind the allied army and attack its right flank.

The breakthrough and rout. Vitzthum refused to engage, and Major-General John Ruthven, Leslie's son-in-law, was put in his place. Attacked on two fronts, with reserve brigades engaged, the allies lost their artillery. After consultation they retreated in the dark, and the retreat quickly became a flight towards Wittstock, with the guns and baggage train abandoned. English Wikipedia puts the end at dusk, 'in full rout'.

The two accounts are not easy to reconcile: English credits the relief of the detached group by Leslie's regiments, German the arrival of the flanking column. Leslie's letter to Oxenstierna also hints at disagreement over Banér's tactics (English Wikipedia).

Aftermath

Banér's plan was daring and nearly failed. The victory could not match Breitenfeld, Lützen or Nördlingen in strategic effect, but it restored Swedish confidence and standing among Protestants, and, in Wilson's reading as cited by English Wikipedia, encouraged Hesse-Kassel and the Guelph princes to carry on resisting the emperor. In Stockholm, German Wikipedia says, Chancellor Oxenstierna strengthened his position as regent for the young Queen Christina. The Saxon army was badly weakened so soon after the Peace of Prague, and Swedish forces rapidly reoccupied Brandenburg territory, from which they could operate against Saxony, Silesia and Thuringia.

In a twist English Wikipedia notes, the defeat strengthened the emperor's political position: the Elector George William of Brandenburg, who had fled to East Prussia, agreed in November 1636 to negotiate an alliance, and Ferdinand III succeeded his father in early 1637.

The credit was argued over. Banér credited the victory to Leslie in the reports kept in the National Archives of Sweden; Leslie's letter shows he was horrified by his losses, and King's report agrees with Leslie's. Murdoch, Zickermann and Marks (2012) transcribed and translated the three reports. German Wikipedia also records archaeological work: a mass grave of about 125 soldiers near the battlefield, of which 88 skeletons were examined.

Wargaming it

Wittstock suits a game at about 1:100 to 1:200 figures, with an accent on manoeuvre. It is a battle about a plan: the Swedish player has to commit a quarter of the army to a long flank march and survive in the centre until it arrives, which gives the scenario its tension.

The key terrain is the Scharfenberg hills, with their six ditches and wagon wall; the marshy ground that slowed Swedish reinforcements; and the linked hills that hid the Swedish move. The marsh and the late arrival of the flanking column suit a timed arrival rule, with the player unsure on which turn the column will appear. The allied player has to decide whether to react to the Swedish deployment or to hold the wagon wall, and the Saxons' quality is lower than that of the Imperial troops. The command split between Banér and Leslie, and Vitzthum's refusal to engage, offer special events; Vitzthum's can be a one-off die roll.

The usual what-ifs are the flanking column arriving still later or not at all, which would probably have meant the loss of Banér's army, and the allied reserve being committed on time. A fair set of victory conditions would count the Swedish army's survival as well as ground held, as that was the real stake. Strength figures disagree enough that the scenario designer should choose one source and say which.

Maps and pictures