"Favourite thirty years war battle" Topic

Either gaming wise or history wise.

Please give reasons for the choice.

Jankau (I'm a Torstensson groupie) or Wittstock (innovative if perhaps unnecessarily daring tactics.)

White Mountain. Kicked the whole thing off.

Any where Christian of Halberstadt escapes without losing something – dignity, baggage train, arm. So not much choice really.

Breitenfeld. It was the subject of my first issue of Strategy & Tactics magazine, before which I was only aware of the Thirty Years War and board wargaming in a vague and general way. Opened my eyes.

And, yes, I still have the magazine.

Ditto for Breitenfeld. GA II's masterpiece.

Yup. I'd have to say Breitenfeld too.

Breitenfeld

Breitenfeld and Wittstock.

I've always been more interested in the later battles of the "French phase" of the war; Honnecourt, Rocroi, and even Lens.

Why? Partly because with the exception of Rocroi, the battles of the period are tantalizingly challenging for me to find information about, and also because I can get away with using modified ECW figures at a pinch. That, and I've always had a regard for the Spanish (and allied) Tercios.

All of them?

#1: Jankow 1645
The battle which started it all for me. While I wasn't uninterested in the TYW other periods such as the Italian Wars and Napoleonics held my interest to a much larger degree at the time. Then one day I by chance found the Jankow study published by the Swedish General Staff at a decent price at a local antiquarian book shop. A day later or so I was hooked as the book showed TYW armies doint a lot of things they were not supposed to do with extensive manouvers across difficult terrain, mobile and highly effective artillery, rallying from defeat to have another go at the enemy and so on. Jankow is effectivly 3 battles in 1 though most refights will end up very diffrent from the historical battle as the battlefield and forces offer such a great variety of opportunities.

#2: Breitenfeld 1631
Given that I have spent more time and effort researching this battle than all the rest on the list it probably should have the #1 spot but nostalgia tips the balance in favour of Jankow. Breitenfeld is "the big one" and even though it is one of the most famous, arguably perhaps the most famous battle of the period digging in to the sources has showed that the entire story of this clash of titans has yet to be told. It has everything a wargamer could ask for except armies of a managable size :P
Famous and highly skilled commanders, loads of veterans troops with the poor and perhaps a bit unfairly maligned Saxons thrown in for good measure. All one has to do is paint the 76.000 troops and find a table large enough to give them the proper room to manouver on.

#3: Honigfelde/Trzciana 1629
It is usually not counted as a TYW battle as it pre-dates the Swedish invasion of Germany but it was the largest and most dramatic clash of the undecleared war fought between Sweden and the Habsburgs after Wallenstein and Emperor decided to intervene in the Polish-Swedish war in 1626.

Over 10.000 Swedish, Polish and Imperial horsemen fought a swirling cavalry battle of charge and counter-charge across a battlefield that was almost 7 km in lenght. In the middle of the fighting Gustavus got to show of both his considerable skill at close combat as well as a quick thinking wit that allowed him to escape from no less than 3 encounters that could have seen him either dead or a prisoner. At the end of the battle the Swedes had suffered a sharp tactical defeat and left the field having lost both standards and a battery of leather cannon. The Swedish cavalry had taken a beating but it was far from destroyed as has been claimed by some historians and the hard fought rear-guard action resulted in a Swedish operational victory as the heavy artillery, the baggage train and the commanded musketeers could march on home undisturbed.

#4: Nördlingen 1634
Previously this battle did not get a spot on my top-10 but Pavel Hrncirik's study of the defence of the Albuch and the book on the battle he wrote together with Peter Engerisser changed my mind particulary after I had the opportunity to walk extensivly over the battlefield last summer. Nördlingen showed the professional skill of the Spanish infantry at it's best the allied Catholic commanders had both the skill and resources to exploit the Swedish defeat and turn retreat into rout once the opportunity presented itself.

#5: 1st & 2nd Rheinfelden 1638
Bernhard von Weimar vs Imperial and Catholic Leauge troops in two small scale but interesting battles that make for good wargames thanks to the built in "balance". Bernhard lost the 1st battle but regroup his little army with furious speed and efficiency and 5 days later he was back in the field to inflict a stinging defeat on Savelli's army even though the later had the advantage in numbers.

#6: Thionville 1639
Aka Diedenhofen/Grancourt. Piccolomini's crowning glory where he used skillfull manouver to concentrate superior force against the French army besieging Thionville. Despite entrenchments the army of Marquis de Feuquieres was defeated and effectivly destroyed with close to 80% casulties.
Piccolomini value the victory so highly that he commisioned Pieter Snayers to make no less than 3 paintings showing diffrent stages in the battle. (By comparison Lutzen got a single painting in the series of 12 paintings that Snayers made for Piccolomini).

#7: Allerheim 1645
That battle that the Bavarians deserved to win but the death of Mercy and Turenne's cool head in a crisis allowed the French to snatch a "victory" from the jaws of defeat. Another battle which I have come to appreciate much more in the last few years though bad weather prevented me from doing more than viewing the battlefield from inside the car. Evenly matched forces makes this an intersting battle to wargame, particularly if the players don't have too much knowledge of certain aspects of the terrain.

#8: Lutter am Barenberg 1626
"Der Alte Schlachtmeister" (The Old Battlemaster) Jean T'serclaes Tilly defeats yet another Protestant army. This time he faces of against Christian IV of Denmark and even though Christian was able to severly disrupt the initial Catholic advance with a sharp counter-attack Tilly and his veterans proceded to show just how out of his depth Christian was by recovering and inflicting a severe defeat in the Danes & Protestant Germans.

#9: Kempen 1642
Marshal Guebriant showed why his death was such a loss to the French by destroying Lamboy's Imperial army even though the later had taken up a strong defensive position. An interesting mix of troops (French, Weimarians, Imperials, Spanish and Cologners), armies of managable size (about 10.000 men in each army) and the battlefield makes this an interesting battle to wargame as most players don't have a lot of knowledge about it.

#10: Mergentheim 1645
Mercy and Werth surprise and maul the "Army of Germany" a 2nd time, this time with Turenne in command of the Franco-Weimarians. An effective demonstration of how dangerous it was to relax even a little with such skillfull generals in command of the veteran Bavarian troops.

Daniel S, You certainly seem to know your TYW. What rules do you use? My Swedes and Imperialists are just gathering dust.

Breitenfeld and Lutzen.
Both battles are the ones that got me interested in the 30 years war because there is a lot of info on both in English!

redbanner4145,
Regarding rules it's been a long time since I played large scale TYW battles on the tabletop, I've neither had the time nor space to do it not to mention that none of the rules I've used have felt "right". (And the more I research the period the harder it becomes to find rules that have the right period feel and reward historical tactics). So when I do play "big battles" I mostly use board games like the musket & pike series from GMT games.

What I do play from time to time are smaller scale games focusing on the "Small War" using either an modified version of the Perfact Captains "Spanish Fury, Actions!!" rules and the ECW supplement published for said rules or "By Fire and Sword" by Wargamer.pl which works well enough for the 1640's.

For bigger battles I'm planning one of these days to take a look at both Baroque from Dadi&Piombo link and the "Liber Militum: Tercio" rules available from North Star link But between researching the period and recreating the clothing and gear of a Swedish soldiers at a "Museum" level I have little time over for actual wargaming at the moment.

My personal favourite is 2nd Breitenfeld, although finding in- depth accounts of this major battle is surprisingly difficult. … there seems to be confusion over the number of troops involved, the imperial commanders of the various wings and even whether the victorious Swedish right wing came around the rear of the imperialists to deliver the coup de grace ! Surely merits a detailed Swedish or German study ?

Second …. Thionville

Third …. Jankau

The problem which 2nd Breitenfeld and to some extent also Jankow suffers from is the almost complete loss of the archives belonging to the Swedish Fieldmarshals. These archives not only held the letters & reports sent back to Stockholm during the campaigns but also probably included the so called "field archives" which held the day to day paper work of the army. All of which was lost in 1697 when fire destoryed the Royal Palace in Stockholm which was also the seat of goverment and the main goverment archive.

That said 2nd Breitenfeld has been covered by Tingsten in his campaign history of Baner and Torstensson while Otto Rudert covered the battle in "Die kämpfe um Leipzig in Grossen kriege 1631-1642" as did Roland Sennewald in his recently published history of the Saxon army in the TYW. Arndt Preil also covered 2nd Breitenfeld in his "Österreichts Schlachtfelder" but that is a work of popular history and at best of average quality. (The best part of the book is the black and white photographs of the battlefields of 1st & 2nd Breitenfeld which have been mostly lost to urban expansion after the fall of the DDR)

Thanks Daniel. Yes, I have copies of Rudert, Sennewald and Preil, Sennewald being the best. Preil's account of 2nd Breitenfeld is lifted almost completely from Rudert. Even Jankau has spawned books … The one you mention and also Gantzer's account ….

link

Hopefully, 2nd Breitenfeld will get the detailed coverage it merits at some stage.

Daniel, what is the title of the Seedish General Staff account of Jankau?

"Slaget vid Jankow 1645 – 24/2 – 1945 : minnesskrift / utarb. och utg. av Försvarsstabens krigshistoriska avdelning" (Stockholm 1945) I found 3 copies on abebooks.co.uk using "Slaget vid Jankow"

Thanks For the prompt response Daniel managed to pick one up. Now to find my Swedish dictionary!