Masters of the Battlefield

by Davis, Paul K.

  The problem was that Gustavus was also only a day’s march away and a surprise attack would leave Wallenstein without assistance. What happened next is one of the “what-ifs” of this campaign, and perhaps the war; the whole history of the next two days, from the Swedish point of view, was a string of accidents and cruel strokes of fate.70 Wallenstein positioned a small force at Weissenfels, halfway between Lützen (his headquarters) and Naumburg. Early on 15 November he sent a few hundred Croat cavalry under Count Rodolfo di Colloredo to fetch them and bring them back to the main body. Just as they were joining up, however, Gustavus’s army approached in battle formation. The small imperial force retreated to a marshy stream called the Rippach and threw together a hasty defense on the eastern side. The Swedish advance guard could not estimate the enemy numbers in the trees on the far bank, and so awaited the remainder of the 18,000 men to arrive. Colloredo, usually considered a mediocrity, sized up the situation at a glance and acted correctly. He sent warning to Wallenstein while deploying his meager forces along the stream. For two hours, they held up the Swedish advance. By the time Gustavus was able to break through and reach Wallenstein’s headquarters at Lützen, it was already dark, and battle was impossible until the next day.71 If the small imperial force had indeed been withdrawing, an hour’s delay on Gustavus’s part would have made his approach unopposed. Likewise, a more aggressive Swedish advance guard could have broken the small force and Wallenstein would have been caught unawares, his army forced to flee or fight unprepared. As it was, the small force of cavalry under Colloredo managed to prevent the imperial army from suffering a potentially devastating assault.

  Gustavus’s men were marching in battle order, so they encamped on the eastern outskirts of Lützen. His deployment looked the same as it did at Breitenfeld, minus the Saxons. After sending a horseman to Pappenheim to get his force back from Halle on the double, Wallenstein spent the night deploying his men and digging defenses. He formed his infantry in the center in three lines with five regiments in front, two in the second line, and one in reserve. The 1,000-man infantry brigades deployed in the center were, in effect, battalions; Wallenstein had clearly realized the maneuverability of smaller formations and had abandoned the tercio.72 Cavalry units were on the flanks: Colloredo’s Croats on the imperial right, Field Marshal Heinrich Holk on the left.73 The artillery Wallesntein placed both in front of his infantry and on his right near some windmills on the edge of town. Between the two armies ran the road to Leipzig, in this stretch a causeway with ditches on either side. Wallenstein wisely placed musketeers on his side of the road in order to be protected as they lay down fire on the advancing Swedes.

  By dawn both sides were in position, and both were waiting on cavalry to arrive. Gustavus learned, however, that Duke George was not coming from Torgau, being ordered by Arnim to stay in place and protect Saxony. On the other side of the field Wallenstein waited anxiously for Pappenheim. In spite of the bad news that he would receive no more cavalry, Gustavus was in a good mood and ready to fight, having a slight edge, 19,000 men to Wallenstein’s 16,770, but he knew that every passing minute worked against them: the enemy had 10,000 reinforcements en route, while Gustavus had none.74

  Indeed, more than minutes were passing. The day broke on 16 September with fog and mist, sufficient to hide both armies. Gustavus’s plan was to hold the imperial center and right wing while swinging his personally led cavalry against the imperial left. He had a 1,000-man advantage in numbers on that side, but as it turned out he needed more. When the fog finally lifted at 11:00 he quickly sent his men forward as the imperial artillery opened up. The first problem for the Swedes came almost immediately. The hidden musketeers in the ditches surprised the attacking cavalry, which could not easily jump the ditches, and paths across them were at irregular spots. In seconds, the Swedish cavalry was milling about while imperial musketeers fired into the disordered masses.75 The infantry following up were able to clear the ditches, but the impetus was lost. The advance continued, however, and made slow but steady headway against the imperial left wing. At the same time, on the western flank, Wallenstein ordered the town of Lützen to be burned, and the smoke blew directly into the attacking Swedes, creating visibility just as limited as it had been under the morning fog.

  Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar commanded the Swedish left and was the most affected by the smoke. His moved his wing forward under musket fire from the walled garden around Lützen and from the artillery to his front at a windmill. Soon, however, the smoke hid his movements and he was able to cross the road, drive away the musketeers in the ditch, and break the cavalry screen. That was the end of his luck, however; when cavalry reserves attacked him and the gunfire from the walls resumed, he had to withdraw back across the road.

  Seeing Gustavus’s advance coming on his left, Wallenstein ordered reserves to help hold the line. Fortunately, Pappenheim arrived at noon with 2,300 horses and took command of the crumbling flank. His men were tired from the all-night march, but the young commander’s legendary energy would not be denied. He would lead the imperial left-center into the gap made by Gustavus’s cavalry attack, while cavalry units would hit Gustavus’s flank and move around his rear, rolling up the Swedish line. That was the plan, at least.

  Unfortunately for Pappenheim, by the time his assault was launched around 1:00, his enemy had advanced to the road. The Swedes had improvised a defensive line utilizing the musketeers and regimental guns, and Pappenheim’s advancing troops were immediately hit with a wave of firepower against which they stood little chance. Pappenheim himself was one of the first to fall, struck by two musket balls and a cannon shot.76

  Even without their leader, Pappenheim’s men continued the attack. Croat cavalry struck the far right squadrons and drove them back, then rushed past them to swing wide and strike the Swedish baggage park. Imperial general Ottavio Piccolomini, taking over from Pappenheim, slowly pushed the Swedes back across the road. Displaying his unparalleled battlefield presence once again, Gustavus rallied the remnants of his original attack, sent for reserves to reinforce his right flank, and fell on Piccolomini. The imperial commander quickly turned to face Gustavus’s charge, allowing the badly mauled Swedish infantry to dig in along the road.

  It was somewhere in this confusion, about 1:00, that the unthinkable happened: Gustavus was shot and killed. Word spread quickly on both sides. It did not have the effect one might suppose, however. Piccolomini, under Holk’s command, had withdrawn according to orders to rally around Wallenstein, who apparently did not know of Pappenheim’s fate. This left the imperial center-left virtually leaderless. On the Swedish side some, realizing that their leader had fallen, fled, but Gustavus’s chaplain began singing hymns and rallied the troops. He would not confirm the death and stopped the potential flight as Gustavus’s second in command, Bernard Saxe-Weimar, quickly reorganized the units along the road. The Swedish second line was under the command of Field Marshal Dodo von Knyphausen, a steady veteran. He kept the reserves under strict control, assuring them that the king was only wounded. He fed units to Bernhard on the left for a second assault on the windmills, which was also beaten back in hard fighting. Knyphausen sent units to the road to reinforce or replace those that had taken the brunt of the fighting.

  At about 3:00 the battle fell into a lull. Both sides had lost key commanders and thousands of men; both were in roughly the same positions they had started; and both were bringing up reserves. On the Swedish side, Bernhard Saxe-Weimer assumed command. He had received confirmation of the king’s death, but rather than allow chaos to erupt, he used the information to his advantage. He rallied his men to avenge their fallen monarch.

  Since the Swedish right and imperial left flank units were both trying to recover and hold their ground with minimal forces, Bernhard decided to launch one more assault against Lützen and the windmill batteries. At about 3:30 he began the attack; Wallenstein threw in all the reserves he could. The battle went back and forth for an hour and a half, until fina
lly Bernhard’s men stood around the windmills and Wallenstein could send no more men forward. The continual smoke coupled with the setting sun brought the battle to an end. It had been a long and costly fight; casualty numbers vary widely, but seem to average some 5,000 to 6,000 dead on each side.

  GUSTAVUS BEGAN HIS MOVEMENT to contact at dawn on 15 November. The delay at the Rippach slowed his approach, and could well have cost him the battle. As it was, the battle at Lützen did not allow for him to engage in anything but a deliberate attack. Though his plan was sound, Gustavus was forced to execute his scheme in a blinding fog against an inadequately reconnoitered position, in addition to smoke from the fire ordered by Wallenstein. All of this limited the command and control he might have exercised.77 Tactically, the battle was a draw, but since Wallenstein withdrew his army to Leipzig and then to Bohemia, the Swedes could claim the strategic victory. There was no exploitation or pursuit. Had Wallenstein employed Pappenheim’s infantry, which arrived on the scene just after dark, he might have been able to eke out a victory for the empire. However, he was ill with gout and fearful of the arrival of John George’s force, whose numbers he exaggerated.78

  Gustavus’s Generalship

  IT MUST BE SAID that of all the generals covered in this work, Gustavus’s actual on-the-field leadership more often than not shows less talent than the others. His spirit matches any of them, however, and the developments he introduced were absolutely central to seventeenth-century European warfare. Without a doubt his real strength is in perfecting the organization and tactics begun by Maurice, as well as improving the weaponry of the time. As with Scipio’s adaptation of the Carthaginian sword and tactics, Gustavus introduced the flexible unit of combined arms and the light artillery. His cavalry tactics were not, of course, new, but a reintroduction of its traditional striking power. In his massive work on military history, Archer Jones observes, “Gustavus’s modification of cavalry doctrine, with its stress on shock in combat with other cavalry, became standard. … The most enduring legacy of Gustavus’s changes was moving the infantry one more step in its evolution as the major force on the battlefield.”79

  On a larger stage, Gustavus also reintroduced the long-service national army with its concomitant discipline and esprit de corps that had always characterized the Roman army on which he based it. While some have argued that Gustavus’s developments constituted a complete military revolution, his reign certainly at least marked a turning point from medieval and Renaissance warfare into the modern age. David Chandler writes, “The King of Sweden made the most significant contribution to the development of the art of war in the seventeenth century. … Gustavus created the first truly modern army; one that was destined to be widely copied in France, the United Provinces and England.”80

  When it comes to analyzing the military principles Gustavus employed, many commentators praise his adherence to the principle of security. Other than the crossing of the Lech, however, Gustavus’s attention to security seems woefully missing. This work will focus instead on his adherence to the principles of mass, economy of force, and morale.

  At all three of the battles discussed, Gustavus saw the enemy weakness and put his mass at that point: the exposed flank and rear of Tilly’s tercios once they had moved into their attack, the river crossing at the Lech, and Wallenstein’s left flank at Lützen. At Lützen, Gustavus strengthened his own cavalry flank in order to overwhelm the enemy. Had he been able to launch his attack at daybreak, as he intended, Pappenheim’s cavalry would not have arrived to stop him and the battle could well have been over quickly; even the imperial musketeers in the ditch caused only a relatively short delay. At Breitenfeld, he swung his army’s center and right flank across the field to hammer Tilly against Horn’s anvil. At the Lech, his placement of the bulk of his artillery on the crossing zone kept Tilly from launching a successful counterattack, although his inability to get a large number of men across the river in a hurry negated the surprise effect of the move. At Alte Vesta Gustavus’s forces were too small at first to be effective, but he did wait for the arrival of reinforcements before assaulting the position. However, a massed force here probably would not have availed him anyway, given the rough terrain and strength of the imperial defenses. Had the pressure of a lack of supplies not impelled his decision there, he probably would not have tried the battle.

  In all of the battles he fought, Gustavus was sure to maintain an adequate reserve; at Lützen it was almost half his army. Since his plan there was to hold the center while sweeping the flank, his deployment of forces was the correct decision. Only when the flank attack was driven back and his own center was threatened did the commitment to the front line prove too small. On the other hand, the ability to virtually replace the entire front line with fresh (though less veteran) units certainly saved the day for the Swedes. At Breitenfeld, his defense of his right flank against Pappenheim’s attack was masterful. By having Baner refuse the flank and sending in support from the reserve in increments, Gustavus kept the line from either breaking or being surrounded. Once Pappenheim was chased from the field and Horn was being pressed on the left by the victorious tercios, the remainder of his reserve (as well as those recalled from the right) could hold that line until the rest of the army made its move on Tilly’s flank and rear. At the Lech, he had sufficient forces deployed downstream, across from the imperial defenses, to convince Tilly a river crossing there was a real possibility. Thus, a smaller force was able to bridge the river and establish the foothold. Just enough cavalry sent to cross the river to the south and hit the imperial flank helped roll up the enemy line, while a secondary cavalry crossing, though it failed to engage, forced enemy attention to the north of the bridgehead.

  Maintaining and harnessing his troops’ morale was Gustavus’s overwhelming strength. Everything he did, from building the army to leading it, was intended to keep his men focused. His conscripted regiments were formed from neighborhood drafts, giving a regional bond to each unit. The training and discipline, even the orders to dig (which was beneath the dignity of most mercenaries), all served to bond the soldiers into strong unit cohesion. During the siege of Riga, when Gustavus made his soldiers dig trenches and traverses to approach close to the walls, he got down in the dirt with his men. As a result, the morale of his army was superb. He took such pains with planning of transport and supply that he was the first commander in modern Europe successfully to fight winter campaigns.81 Regular pay and supply also kept the troops happy. It was the dedication to supply that convinced Gustavus to move slowly early in his campaign in order to establish supply bases and a secure line of communications. As the war progressed and the proportion of Swedish soldiers in the ranks diminished to as low as 10 percent, he motivated the army by maintaining, as best he could, the supply and pay.

  Most of all, the troops respected and followed Gustavus not only because of his victories (which always brought in recruits) but because of the fact that he was a soldier’s soldier. He partied with the aristocrats, but he also lived in the field, ate soldiers’ rations, and did not fear combat. Not for nothing was he called the “Lion of the North.” His reconnaissances were personal and exposed, and he was in the thick of the fighting in a way not seen since Belisarius; indeed, that was his ultimate downfall.

  IF GUSTAVUS DID NOT EQUAL some of the other generals studied here in battlefield brilliance, his ability to adapt his army to new weaponry and tactics, and adapt those weapons and methods into effective and long-lasting modes of warfare, puts him in these ranks. Dodge comments, “For many centuries war had been conducted without that art and purpose which Alexander, Hannibal, and Caesar so markedly exhibited. But in the operations of the Swedish king we again find the hand of the master. We recognize the same method which has excited our admiration in the annals of the noted campaigns of antiquity, and from now on we shall see generals who intelligently carry forward what Gustavus Adolphus rescued from the oblivion of the Middle Ages.”82 Or as a more modern observer notes, “His admi
nistrative, tactical, and operational practices were widely imitated and more than any other general of his age, he mastered the various elements that comprise leadership in combat. He was a great captain of men, imposing his will and determination on the army, which he infused with the sense that there was nothing it could not do.”83

  12

  John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough (1650–1722)

  English General

  Kirke has fire, Lanier thought, Mackay skill and Colchester bravery, but there is something inexpressible in the Earl of Marlborough. All their virtues seem to be united in his single person. I have lost my wonted skill in physiognomy if any subject of your Majesty can ever attain such a height of military glory as that to which this combination of sublime perfections must raise him.

  —Prince of Vaudemont to King William III

  JOHN CHURCHILL’S LIFE is a prime illustration of the phrase, “It’s not only what you know, but who you know.” He could not be included in this work if not for his military talent, but he would probably never have been able to demonstrate that talent but for the proper connections. John’s father, Sir Winston Churchill, backed the losing royalist cause in the English Civil War. This cost him his estate and obliged him to move in with his Parliament-supporting mother-in-law. He enjoyed some revival of fortune when the 1660 Restoration brought Charles II to the monarchy, and Winston was knighted and served in Parliament. Still without serious income, Winston’s connection with the king gained court positions for his first two children, Arabella and John. Arabella was named maid of honor to the first wife of James, Duke of York, heir to the throne. Not long thereafter she became James’s mistress. John was appointed a page at age sixteen and quickly learned the smooth manners necessary to advance in society. Prince James noticed his interest in things military and procured John a position in England’s small military establishment in the King’s Guards. John’s advancement on the social ladder depended entirely on connection rather than merit, but given the time and circumstances it was not uncommon for someone in John’s position to act thus.1