Battle of Fleurus (1622)

Battle of Fleurus (1622)

Part of: Eighty Years War / Thirty Years War

date	August 29, 1622
place	Fleurus , Belgium
output	Mansfeld's breakthrough to Holland
consequences	Relief from Bergen-op-Zoom

Parties to the conflict
Spanish army	Mercenary army in the service of the States General
Commander
Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba	Count Ernst von Mansfeld , Duke Christian of Braunschweig

In the Battle of Fleurus during the Thirty Years' War on August 29, 1622, the former mercenary army of the outlawed Count Palatine, under the command of the mercenary general Ernst von Mansfeld and his lieutenant general and cavalry leader, the young Duke Christian von Braunschweig , met a Spanish army under general Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba . The battle ended with a breakthrough, bought at a high price, by the Mansfeld troops, who were on their way to the northern Netherlands, where a few weeks later they were supposed to help Prince Moritz of Orange (Dutch: Prins Maurits ), who were led by the Spanish under General Spínola Liberate the besieged fortress Bergen op Zoom .

Mansfeld and Christian von Braunschweig had served as mercenary leaders under Friedrich V of the Palatinate (the so-called Winter King of Bohemia) since 1621 . After the end of this military service (July 1622) they entered the service of the United Netherlands , which was at war with Spain . The Spaniards besieged the city of Bergen-op-Zoom. Therefore, the mercenary army, which had meanwhile moved to the Meuse as far as Sedan, received the order from the States General to break through the southern (Habsburg) Netherlands to the north and bring relief to the besieged city. After Mansfeld and Halberstädter had invaded Hainaut and crossed the Sambre , the Spanish army under Córdoba opposed them on the evening of August 28 at the small town of Fleurus (County Namur), between Namur and Charleroi .

The battle began a few hours later, at dawn (August 29). On the side of the attackers, Mansfeld commanded the infantry in the center, Duke Christian the cavalry on the right wing. Cordoba, whose cavalry was weak, had lined up its infantry in four large squares for defense. In the bitter struggle, which lasted several hours, both sides suffered considerable losses (2,000–3,000 men each). Among the fallen were a number of Spanish nobles as well as two Mansfeld colonels, Duke Friedrich of Saxe-Weimar and Count Heinrich von Ortenburg . In the end, Mansfeld and the man from Halberstadt achieved their breakthrough. When they brought the remnants of their mercenary army to the Prince of Orange and the latter was preparing to liberate Bergen, Spínola had to break off the siege (October 4, 1622).

Duke Christian, from Halberstadt , suffered a gunshot wound four fingers' widths above his left elbow in battle, which soon became gangrenous so that his forearm had to be amputated in Breda . The operation was allegedly carried out in the army camp under loud fanfare. He later had a prosthesis made in Holland .

The Battle of Fleurus (contemporary also: Fleuru or Fleury ) was celebrated as a great victory by the Spanish, although Córdoba had not achieved its main strategic goal - the defense against the enemy passage of a foreign mercenary army through the southern (Spanish) Netherlands. Nevertheless, the very questionable conception of a Spanish victory in (Habsburg-friendly) literature has partly survived to this day.

literature

• Heinrich von Xylander : Duke Christian the Younger of Braunschweig and Lüneburg (1599–1626). The life of a Protestant leader from the beginning of the Thirty Years War. Complete edition. Edited by Thomas Thalmaier, Willebadessen 2014. ISBN 978-3-7386-0359-0 ; therein (pp. 121–128) description of the battle with subsequent assessment.
• Walter Krüssmann: Ernst von Mansfeld (1580–1626); Count's son, mercenary leader, war entrepreneur against Habsburg in the Thirty Years War . Berlin 2010 (Duncker & Humblot, Historical Research , Vol. 94); ISBN 978-3-428-13321-5 ; therein (pp. 444–454) a detailed description of the course of the battle, with a critical assessment of the outcome.
• Louis de Haynin, Seigneur du Cornet: Histoire générale des guerres de Savoie, de Bohême, du Palatinat et des Pays-Bas 1616–1627; avec une introduction et des notes by ALP de Robaulx de Soumoy; 2 volumes, Brussels 1868/69; here Vol. II, pp. 65-75.
• Johann Philipp Abelinus: Theatrum Europaeum , Vol. I (1635).
• Friedemann Needy : Taschenlexikon Thirty Years War , Piper-Verlag, Munich / Zurich 1998. ISBN 3-492-22668-X .
• Veronica Wedgwood: The 30 Years War ., From English by AG Girschick, 9th ed Munich 1996 (engl. Original ed .: The Thirty Years' War , London 1965).
• Liebhard Löffler: The replacement for the upper extremity; the development from the first certificates until today , Stuttgart 1984.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Xylander, p. 199.
2. ^ Wedgwood, p. 137

Web links

Commons : Battle of Fleurus (1622)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ernst von Mansfeld - modern biography (book reference)