Battle of Wittstock

Battle of Wittstock

Infobox Military Conflict
partof=Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years' War
conflict=Battle of Wittstock
colour_scheme=background:#cccccc


caption=
date=October 4, 1636
place=Wittstock, about 95 km northwest of Berlin, Germany
result=Decisive Swedish victory
combatant1=flag|Sweden
combatant2=flag|Holy Roman Empire
flag|Saxony
commander1=Johan Banér

Lennart Torstenson,
James King,
Alexander Leslie
commander2=Melchior von Hatzfeldt
Rodolfo Giovanni Marazzino
John George I of Saxony
strength1= 18.000 (7.750 Foot & 10.250 Horse) plus 60 guns
strength2= 18.600 (8.500 Foot & 10.100 Horse) plus 32 guns
casualties1=3,100 dead or wounded
casualties2=5,000 dead,
2,000 captured and recruited into the Swedish army|

The Battle of Wittstock was fought on September 24 (Julian calendar) or October 4 (Gregorian calendar) 1636, between a Protestant army and an alliance of the Holy Roman Empire and Saxony.

The Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna, with his Saxon and Roman Catholic allies, was contesting Northern Germany with the Swedes. The German main army was screening the Swedish army behind the Elbe while a smaller army under General Klitzing was overrunning Brandenburg. Baner crossed the Elbe at a surprise march and the Swedish army, intercepted their opponents in the hilly landscape filled with forests slightly south of Wittstock.

The German army was equal in strength to the Swedish army, but at least 1/3 of it was composed of Saxon low quality units, and the Swedish artillery was also considerably stronger, so German commanders conducted a defensive strategy all the time.

The Germans decided to wait for the Swedes on a range of sandy hills, Scharfenberg; with a part of the front with six ditches swiftly dug to ensure victory and a wall of linked wagons. Their commanders waited for some time for the Swedish troops to appear on the open fields before their front. Instead, the Swedish army was turning the German left flank moving behind the cover of a link of hills. The Germans were forced to regroup their frontlines and set up a new front.

The battle was joined by small forces detached in detail to secure the hills, the Swedish had problems with the moving up of reinforcements through marshy ground, while the Germans had to reform its entire line.

However, Baner had detached 1/4 of its army under Stålhandske ("Steel glove" in Swedish) and King to a long detour around the German right flank, those forces arrived just in time, before Baner main force was overwhelmed by the German army. Stålhandske's cavalry overrun a screen of 1.000 German musketeers and attacked the German army by the rear. Attacked on two fronts and having lost all the artillery, the Germans retreated under the cover of dusk.

References

Further reading

*Crossland, David. [http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,497461,00.html Mass Grave Sheds Light on Europe's Bloody History] , "Der Spiegel", 31 July, 2007
*Hall, Allen. [http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2833901.ece Mass grave offers a glimpse of wartime life in 17th century] , The Independent, 4 August 2007. — originally published in the Independent under the byline of "Allen Hall in Berlin" on Page 29.
*Reuters agency report. [http://www.chinadaily.net/photo/2007-07/24/content_5442549.htm Pictures of the remains of soldiers killed during the Battle of Wittstock] , China Daily, 25 July 2007
* [http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/about-the-author.htm Trueman, Chris] . [http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/thirty_years_war.htm Thirty years War]


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