III Early Modern Period · Thirty Years’ War
Assault after assault, the Swedes crash against a hill defended by the tercios. By midday, the army that seemed invincible has fallen apart.
Result Decisive Spanish-Imperial victory
Background
In 1634 the Swedish army, which had humiliated the emperor, seemed invincible. In two days, outside the town of Nördlingen, a hill defended by the tercios put an end to that myth.
The Thirty Years’ War began in 1618 as a religious and political conflict within the Holy Roman Empire, between the Catholic emperor and the Protestant princes. In 1630 Sweden entered it, with its king Gustavus Adolphus. His army, modern and with great firepower, defeated the Imperialists at Breitenfeld (1631), but the king died at the Battle of Lützen (1632). From then on, in southern Germany, Field Marshal Gustav Horn and Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar commanded the Swedish army and that of its German Protestant allies.
In the summer of 1634, Ferdinand, King of Hungary and son of the emperor, laid siege to Nördlingen, a Protestant town in Swabia with a Swedish garrison. Meanwhile, his cousin the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand, brother of Philip IV, was crossing Europe from Milan with a Spanish army on its way to the Netherlands. In early September the two armies joined forces outside the town.
Horn and Bernard came to its relief. Horn wanted to wait for reinforcements; Bernard, to attack at once. The Protestants believed that the Spaniards were few. They were wrong.
Order of battle
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Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria · Marquis of Leganés · Serbelloni (Cerbellón) · Gerardo Gambacorta · Martín de Idiáquez
≈ 15,000 men
The army that the Cardinal-Infante was leading from Milan to the Netherlands: veteran Spanish and Italian tercios, with Spanish, Italian and Burgundian cavalry.
Ferdinand, King of Hungary · Matthias Gallas · Charles IV, Duke of Lorraine
≈ 18,000 men (Imperialists and Bavarians)
The troops of Emperor Ferdinand II and of Bavaria, who had been besieging Nördlingen for weeks. Together, the two Catholic armies numbered some 33,000 men and some 50 guns.
Field Marshal Gustav Horn · Bernard of Saxe-Weimar
≈ 25,700 men (16,000 foot soldiers and 9,700 horsemen) and 68 guns
The Swedish army and that of its German Protestant allies, heirs to the victories of Gustavus Adolphus. It included militiamen from Württemberg with little experience: between 6,000 and 8,000, according to the sources.
Infantry that combines pikemen and shot (arquebusiers and musketeers). The pikes protect the shot from cavalry; the shot wear down the enemy with their fire. It was the typical infantry of the 16th and 17th centuries. Its most famous form was the Spanish tercio: a central square of pikes with groups of shot, called mangas, at the corners.
Mounted troops. Their speed lets them outflank and pursue the enemy and strike at the enemy’s flanks and rear.
The general and his staff. Orders are given from here; losing it can throw the whole army into disorder.
Fast, lightly protected horsemen. They scout, harass, pursue a fleeing enemy and avoid head-on clashes.
Cannon or other engines that shoot. They batter the enemy from afar and prepare the ground for the infantry’s attack.
Generals carry their side’s flag, and the most representative units carry their own. Hover over a flag to see its name.
The thick line marks the front of each unit. Teeth in front of it show stakes, walls or other defences. A double border marks elite troops.
Phase by phase
Schematic map. The positions are approximate, and many regiments, brigades and tercios have been grouped into a single block.
Phase 1 of 6: The race for the hills
Phase I of VI · 5 September, afternoon
The Protestant army arrives from the west to relieve Nördlingen. South of the town lies a chain of hills: Himmelreich, Ländle, Lachberg, Heselberg and, the last and highest, the Albuch. Whoever holds them will be able to fall on the flank of the Catholic army.
Bernard of Saxe-Weimar’s vanguard takes the Himmelreich almost without a fight. On the Ländle, some Spanish dragoons hold out for three hours before withdrawing, and the Lachberg falls at once. But on the Heselberg a detachment of Spanish shot, with men from Fuenclara’s tercio, halts the advance. Horn, who is advancing more slowly, stops the attacks shortly before midnight.
On the Catholic side, Idiáquez’s tercio occupies the first line on the Albuch. Behind it, two German regiments form up.
Phase II of VI · Night of the 5th to the 6th
Around two in the morning the Spaniards abandon the Heselberg and the Swedes occupy it. From there, Horn prepares the assault on the Albuch. Bernard deploys his wing to the north, facing the centre of the Catholic line.
On the Albuch nobody sleeps. Serbelloni goes up with Toraldo’s Neapolitan tercio, which digs trenches and small forts. After a protest by Colonel Würmser, the Germans occupy the first line; Idiáquez’s tercio stays in the second.
The Protestant commanders do not know how many Spaniards there are. According to some accounts, Bernard believed they numbered a few thousand. Horn preferred to wait for reinforcements, but Bernard persuaded him to attack.
Phase III of VI · 6 September, 5:00
At dawn the Swedish artillery opens fire from the Heselberg. Then the Scottish and Vitzthum brigades attack, with three squadrons of cavalry. The regiments of Salm and Würmser give ground and the Swedes enter the trenches.
To the south, the Yellow Brigade charges Toraldo’s tercio, which repulses it. Gambacorta’s Spanish cavalry and the Imperial cavalry counter-attack, and Gambacorta is wounded.
Then Idiáquez’s tercio advances. In less than an hour it drives out the Swedes and, by around six, the Albuch is Spanish again.
Phase IV of VI · 6:00 to 10:00
Horn launches a second assault with seven more squadrons. It fails, and Horn himself later blamed it on a gunpowder explosion that disorganised his men. The Germans rally behind Idiáquez.
Around 7:30 Horn asks Bernard for help, and Bernard sends him Thurn’s brigade. At 8:00 Thurn and Rosen attack Toraldo’s tercio, without success. Meanwhile, Leganés and Gallas keep sending mangas of shot to the Albuch to relieve the exhausted defenders.
According to the Spanish accounts, Idiáquez withstood as many as fifteen assaults. During the Swedish volleys his musketeers crouched down and then stood up to return fire.
Phase V of VI · Around 10:00
Around ten the Protestant commanders accept that the Albuch will not fall. Horn orders his men to hold out until nightfall and then withdraw. But pulling back an exhausted army in close contact with the enemy is the most dangerous manoeuvre of all.
The Cardinal-Infante sees the moment. He launches 400 arquebusiers and musketeers from Fuenclara’s tercio, and Idiáquez’s tercio, against the Heselberg. The Catholic cavalry advances along the north side of the hill and the Croats begin to surround the Protestant infantry.
Phase VI of VI · Until midday
The withdrawal turns into flight. Fuenclara’s shot surround the Swedish infantry on the Heselberg. Lorraine’s cavalry overruns Bernard’s, reaches his artillery and captures his standard. The Protestant army is split in two.
Horn is taken prisoner. Bernard narrowly escapes: according to the accounts, a dragoon gives him his fresh horse. The Croats pursue the fugitives through the woods. By midday, seven hours after the first cannon shot, it is all over.
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What came next
The Swedish army of southern Germany ceased to exist. It was one of the worst Swedish defeats of the war and it changed the balance of power in the Empire.
The Protestants lost between 12,000 and 14,000 men, dead or taken prisoner, and all their artillery: 68 guns. Horn spent eight years in captivity, until 1642. Bernard reached Heilbronn days later with the remnants of the army. Nördlingen surrendered on 7 September and the Swedes had to abandon southern Germany.
The defeat broke up the Protestant alliance. Saxony and other German princes negotiated with the emperor and signed the Peace of Prague on 30 May 1635.
But the victory came at a price. France, which until then had only financed the enemies of the Habsburgs, feared the power of the House of Austria and entered the war openly: in 1635 it allied itself with the United Provinces and with Sweden, and declared war on Spain. The conflict turned into a duel between France and Spain that lasted many more years.
The Cardinal-Infante went on his way and entered Brussels as governor of the Spanish Netherlands. He governed there until his death, in 1641.
Bar: strength. Colour: casualties, with the same figures as the text for each side (depending on the case, only the dead or also the wounded and prisoners). The hatched or lighter part shows the range between the sources.
The two victorious generals were both called Ferdinand and were cousins and brothers-in-law: Ferdinand, King of Hungary, was married to Maria Anna, the Cardinal-Infante’s sister.
The Cardinal-Infante had been a cardinal since childhood and was Archbishop of Toledo, but he was never ordained a priest. He made his career as a general.
According to the Spanish accounts, during the Swedish volleys Idiáquez’s musketeers crouched down and then stood up to return fire.
Horn blamed the failure of his second assault on a gunpowder explosion that disorganised his own men.
According to the accounts, Bernard of Saxe-Weimar escaped with his life because a dragoon gave him his fresh horse.