Battle of Jüterbog (1644)

Torstensson War

Part of: Thirty Years War

Swedish and imperial camp near Bernburg

date	November 23, 1644
place	Jueterbog , November 23, 1644 Frohse near Magdeburg , December 23, 1644
output	Victory of the Swedish troops
consequences	The Imperial Army suffers heavy losses
Peace treaty	Peace of Brömsebro

Parties to the conflict
Sweden	Imperial troops
Commander
Lennart Torstensson	Adrian von Enkevort
Troop strength
16,000	4000 riders at Jüterbog

The Battle of Jüterbog took place on November 23, 1644 as part of the Thirty Years' War near Jüterbog in Brandenburg . The Swedes destroyed the imperial cavalry.

prehistory

A Swedish army under Lennart Torstensson moved from Moravia to Denmark in the winter of 1643 as part of the Torstensson War . On December 6th they reach Havelberg and on December 11th they crossed the Holstein border near Trittau . The attack took the Danish King Christian IV by surprise and resistance could no longer be organized. This enabled the Swedish army to move into winter quarters in Holstein and Jutland .

The unauthorized procedure of the Swedish Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna was not approved by France. The aid money for the Swedish army was stopped because this money was intended for the fight against the Habsburg emperor and not for the fight against the Danish king, who wanted to prevent a too powerful Sweden.

Emperor Ferdinand III. wanted to take the opportunity and give the Danes military support. He sent his general Matthias Gallas with an army that reached Kiel in the summer of 1644 , took quarters in Holstein and plundered the country. A country that has already been ravaged by the Torstensson army. A mocking coin was even minted in Hamburg. It had the slogan on one side: Whatever Gallas did in Holstein, you can find it on the other side , and the other side was empty.

Torstensson marched with his army through an unoccupied pass between Schleswig and Stapelholm and forced the imperialists up the Elbe back to Saxony. In Bernburg Gallas built a camp to Torstenssons rise reside and to respond to possible Swedish invasions in Franconia and Saxony.

Torstensson did not want to attack the imperial position directly and therefore tried to cut off supplies from Bohemia and Saxony to the army by crossing the Saale . Indeed, he managed to make Gallas' army gradually run out of provisions. Gallas was forced to break out with his army on the night of November 21st to 22nd to Magdeburg , a fortress of the Saxon ally. Since there was even less feed for the horses there than at Bernburg, Gallas sent the cavalry on towards Lausitz to get back to Bohemia. The cavalry commanded five different generals who vied for priority. The infantry of the imperial and the "dismantled" riders who had lost their horses stayed in Magdeburg, where they were hardly taken care of by the Saxons and suffered further shortages. Numerous other soldiers deserted or fell ill.

Course and consequences

Torstensson pursued the imperial cavalry, which stood for battle on the Birkheide near Jüterbog. It was able to repel a few attacks on the center at first, but when the Swedes took hold of the cavalry, they withdrew. Adrian von Enkevort and the rearguard got into a Swedish ambush near Niemegk on December 3rd and was taken prisoner. The rest of the cavalry escaped with heavy losses under Field Marshal Lieutenant Bruay in Upper Lusatia.

Torstensson is said to have defeated parts of the imperial infantry on December 23 at Frohse near Magdeburg. Gallas said only 1,500 healthy and 1,200 sick remained in Magdeburg at the end of the month. Since Gallas fell ill himself, his sub-commander Johann Wilhelm von Hunolstein led the remaining 1,400 foot soldiers who were fit for marching together with a maximum of 200 horsemen and 12 field guns on January 7, 1645 out of Magdeburg. He reached Wittenberg in four days without further incident and brought the sad remnants of the imperial army to Bohemia at the beginning of February. Gallas himself followed him a month later and arrived in Prague on February 16.

After the threat from the Imperialists no longer existed, Torstensson divided his army. He himself went to Bohemia with 16,000 men, General Axel Lilienstern occupied Electoral Saxony and General Hans Christoph von Königsmarck occupied the duchies of Bremen and Verden .

literature

• EO Schmidt: Germany's battlefields: reports on the battles that took place on German land from 1620 to 1813. P. 62 digitized

Individual evidence

1. ^ Johann Gustav Gallois : Chronicle of the city of Hamburg and its area , Hamburg 1862, p. 168, digitized
2. ↑ ^{a b} E. O. Schmidt: Germany's battlefields: reports on the battles that took place on German land from 1620 to 1813. P. 62
3. ^ Lothar Höbelt: From Nördlingen to Jankau. Imperial strategy and warfare 1634-1645 . In: Republic of Austria, Federal Minister for National Defense (Hrsg.): Writings of the Army History Museum Vienna . tape 22 . Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-902551-73-3 , p. 409-414 .
4. ^ Lothar Höbelt: From Nördlingen to Jankau. Imperial strategy and warfare 1634-1645 . In: Republic of Austria, Federal Minister for National Defense (Hrsg.): Writings of the Army History Museum Vienna . tape 22 . Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-902551-73-3 , p. 414 .
5. ^ Lothar Höbelt: From Nördlingen to Jankau. Imperial strategy and warfare 1634-1645 . In: Republic of Austria, Federal Minister for National Defense (Hrsg.): Writings of the Army History Museum Vienna . tape 22 . Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-902551-73-3 , p. 415-417 .