Battle of Hulst
| date | 4th July 1640 |
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| place |
Hulst , Netherlands 
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| output | Spanish victory |
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The Battle of Hulst (Dutch: Slag bij Hulst ) was a field battle that took place on July 4, 1640 , in the last years of the Eighty Years' War . It ended with the defeat of the attacking party.
The troops of the Dutch Republic of the Seven United Provinces tried to take the Flemish city of Hulst . To this end, Heinrich Casimir I von Nassau-Dietz carried out an attack on Fort Moerschans . This fort was part of a series of fortifications within the so-called "Line van Communicatie ten Oosten van Hulst", which ran in a north-easterly direction to Zandberg . The Flemish troops, a standing , multinational army (consisting of 1567 to 1706) in the service of the Spanish crown, referred to by the Dutch as Spanjaarden , who were outnumbered here at this time, resorted to a ruse. They placed a number of trumpeters along the defensive line, each playing a different tune. Heinrich Casimir believed that these trumpeters belonged to different army units and that he was faced with a great superiority, so that he and his people fled.
The commander-in-chief of the Dutch armed forces, Friedrich Heinrich von Orange , was angry about this and ordered an attack on the Spanish fortifications. The offensive failed. In the storm on Fort Nassau, a fortification, one kilometer northwest of Hulst (on the Oude Vaart Canal), Heinrich Casimir also fell. He was shot in the lower back with a pistol, fell from his horse and lay in the field for some time between the dead and dying soldiers. He was rescued and operated on, but died of the injury a few days later. Friedrich Heinrich's troops broke up their camp a few days later and did not return to the siege of Hulst until five years later , during which it was finally possible to take Hulst.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Chronyke van Vlaenderen in the Google book search
- ↑ Exhibits of Heinrich Casimir's lifesaving (unsuccessful) operation