Battle of Breitenfeld (1642)

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For a related battle earlier in the same war, see Battle of Breitenfeld (1631). For the Battle of the Nations during the Napoleonic Wars, see Battle of Leipzig.
Battle of Breitenfeld
Part of the Thirty Years' War
Slaget vid Leipzig 1642 SP244.jpg
Contemporary engraving depicting the battle
Date23 October 1642
Location
Breitenfeld, Saxony (present-day Germany)
Result Swedish victory
Belligerents
Flag of Sweden.svg Sweden  Holy Roman Empire
Commanders and leaders
Flag of Sweden.svg Lennart Torstensson Holy Roman Empire Archduke Leopold Wilhelm
Holy Roman Empire Ottavio Piccolomini
Strength

20,000

  • 10,000 infantry
  • 10,000 cavalry
70 guns

26,000

  • 10,000 infantry
  • 16,000 cavalry
46 guns
Casualties and losses

4,000

  • 2,000 killed
  • 2,000 wounded

8,000–9,500

  • 3,000–5,000 dead or wounded
  • 4,500–5,000 captured
46 guns

The Second Battle of Breitenfeld, also known as the First Battle of Leipzig, took place on 23 October 1642 at Breitenfeld, some 7.5 kilometres (4.7 mi) north-east of Leipzig, Germany, during the Thirty Years' War. The battle was a decisive victory for the Swedish army under the command of Field Marshal Lennart Torstenson over an Imperial Army of the Holy Roman Empire under the command of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria and his deputy, Prince-General Ottavio Piccolomini, Duke of Amalfi.[1]

Battle[]

Map of the battle.

In this second clash between ideologies for the prized Saxon city of Leipzig, the Protestant allied forces, led by Torstensson, defeated an army of the Holy Roman Empire, led by Leopold and his deputy, Prince-General Piccolomini. The Imperials had 26,000 men and 46 guns, the Swedes 20,000 men and 70 guns.[2]

Like the first battle, the second was a decisive victory for Swedish-led forces who had intervened in the Thirty Years' War on behalf of various Protestant princes of the generally small German states against the German Catholic League formed to resist Protestant expansion in Central Europe.

The Imperial army lost between 3,000 and 5,000 killed and wounded as well as 4,500 or 5,000 taken prisoner.[3][4] The victors captured all 46 Imperial guns. Of the Swedes, 4,000 were killed or wounded;[4] among them, General Torsten Stålhandske, who led the Finnish Hakkapeliitta Cavalry, received a serious wound.

Aftermath[]

The battle, following a brief mop-up campaign ending with the Battle of Klingenthal, enabled Sweden to occupy Saxony. His defeat made Emperor Ferdinand III more willing to negotiate peace, and renounce the Preliminary[clarification needed] of Hamburg.

During the battle, Colonel Madlon's cavalry regiment was the first that fled without striking a blow. This was followed by the massive flight of other cavalry units, which was the final turning point in the battle. The battle was a decisive victory for the Swedish army under the command of Field Marshal Lennart Torstenson over an Imperial Army of the Holy Roman Empire under the command of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria and his deputy, Prince-General Ottavio Piccolomini, Duke of Amalfi. Archduke Leopold Wilhelm assembled a court-martial in Prague which sentenced the Madlon regiment to exemplary punishment.

Six regiments, which had distinguished themselves in the battle, were assembled fully armed and surrounded Madlon's regiment, which was severely rebuked for its cowardice and misconduct and ordered to lay down its arms at the feet of General Piccolomini. When they had obeyed that command, their ensigns (flags) were torn in pieces, and the general, having mentioned the causes of their degradation, and erased the regiment from the register of the imperial troops, pronounced the sentence that had been agreed upon in the council of war, condemning the colonel, captains and lieutenants to be beheaded, the ensigns (junior officers) to be hanged, the soldiers to be decimated and the survivors to be driven in disgrace out of the army.[5]

Ninety men (chosen by rolling dice) were executed at Rokycany, in western Bohemia, now in the Czech Republic, on December 14, 1642 by Jan Mydlář (junior), the son of Jan Mydlář, the famous executioner from Prague. On the first day of the execution, the regiment's cords[clarification needed] were broken by the executioner. On the second day, officers were beheaded and selected men hanged on the trees on the road from Rokycany to Litohlavy. Another version says that the soldiers were shot, and their bodies hanged on the trees. Their mass grave is said to be on the Black Mound in Rokycany, which commemorates the decimation to this day.

Notes[]

  1. ^ The second battle was 11 years after the first battle at the crossroads village had unbottled the Swedish forces under Gustavus II Adolphus wherein he[clarification needed] had handed Field Marshal Count Tilly his first major defeat in fifty years of soldiering on the same plain.
  2. ^ Wilson 2011, p. 636.
  3. ^ Clodfelter 2017, p. 41.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b Wilson 2011, p. 638.
  5. ^ Compiled from Original Writers. (1761). The Modern Part of an Universal History: From the Earliest Account of Time (VOL. XXX. ed.). London. p. 260.

References[]

  • Clodfelter, M. (2017). Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015 (4th ed.). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 978-0786474707.
  • Bernhard von Poten (1885), "Mortaigne de Potelles, Kaspar Kornelius", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB) (in German), 22, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 339–340
  • Wilson, P. (2011). The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy. Belknap Press. ISBN 978-0674062313.

External links[]

Coordinates: 51°20′25″N 12°22′29″E / 51.3403°N 12.3748°E / 51.3403; 12.3748

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