Battle of Herbsthausen

Battle of Herbsthausen

Part of: Swedish-French War, Thirty Years War

Battle formation (French representation)

date	May 5, 1645
place	Herbsthausen , Franconia
output	imperial-Bavarian victory

Parties to the conflict
Franco-Weimaran troops	Imperial Bavarian troops
Commander
High Command: Viscount de Turenne Weimaran Cavalry: Reinhold von Rosen	High command: Franz von Mercy Cavalry: Johann von Werth
Troop strength
3500 infantry 5500 cavalry	4,300 infantry 5,300 cavalry 9 guns

Timeline for the Thirty Years War

Battle of Mergentheim, engraving from the Theatrum Europaeum

The Battle of Herbsthausen , also known as the Battle of Mergentheim ( French : Bataille de Marienthal ), took place during the Thirty Years War on May 5, 1645 between French and Bavarian troops.

Leading up to the battle

After the French-Weimaraner troops crossed the Rhine with 11,000 men near Speyer on March 26, 1645 , Marshal Viscount de Turenne traveled through southwest Germany and in April took up quarters in the Spitalmühle at the gates of the city of Hall . He quartered his troops in the area and demanded the surrender of the city, which was able to buy out. The Bavarian general Franz von Mercy , who thought that the French troops would move on towards the Danube , therefore stood at Ellwangen .

Turenne moved his headquarters on April 29th to the Teutonic Order Castle of Mergentheim . The French troops moved into quarters in the surrounding villages, apparently at the special request of Reinhold von Rosen : The soldiers were supposed to enjoy the abundance of the fertile Taubertal valley and take care of themselves from the country. In a contemporary report it is said that Turenne was "moving around with the Weimar French in Franconia on the bratwurst."

Turenne allegedly ordered that no regiment should move more than two hours from Herbsthausen , which was designated as the assembly point; Herbsthausen was located at a crossroads from where roads led both westwards towards the Neckar and north-southwards from Mergentheim to Crailsheim , which is why the village was probably chosen by Turenne.

This order was not followed. The 5500 strong Weimaraner cavalry, which found food for the horses with difficulty in the spring, dispersed within a radius of up to 40 km to Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Buchen in the Odenwald . The French troops also neglected the outposts.

Mercy knew of the French positions and planned to march at night from Dinkelsbühl and Feuchtwangen , where his army was, via Michelbach an der Lücke and Blaufelden to Mergentheim, in order to attack Turenne in a surprise attack. The extraordinarily "great mobility" of the armies of that time was made possible by the lighter food, due to the numerically small number of troops on both sides compared to the earlier war years.

Course of the battle

The imperial Bavarian troops set out for Brettenfeld on the morning of May 4, 1645 . There they took a short rest and then marched on the night of May 4th to 5th in the direction of Bartenstein . The Bavarians arrived at daybreak, left the entourage behind and took up order of battle . When Mercy approached Herbsthausen from the south, the French troops had not yet fully assembled. Their guns and several regiments of cavalry did not reach the battlefield in time.

Turenne positioned mostly infantry and little cavalry in a small grove on his right wing, commanded by Rosen . In the center was the village of Herbsthausen, where the infantry had also taken up positions; the left wing consisted of most of the cavalry of the Weimaraner under Turenne. In total, the French were able to muster around 10,000 men.

The Bavarian cavalry was spread across the two wings, while the infantry was in the center. Werth commanded the left wing, Mercy the right wing. Colonel Jakob Kolb led a small reserve.

The French positions were immediately fired by the Bavarian artillery before the Bavarian infantry under Feldzeugmeister Johann von Reuschenberg attacked Turenne's right wing, which was actually protected by the position in the small wood. The French commanded by Rosen fired only a single volley , then fled into the village, pursued by the Bavarians.

Turenne's cavalry, however, was more successful against Mercy's right wing and managed to put some enemy units to flight until the Bavarian reserve under Colonel Kolb intervened. Johann von Werth's superiority on the left wing finally brought the decision, as he succeeded in bypassing Herbsthausen and pinching Turenne's cavalry from behind.

The French infantry were almost completely wiped out or captured. The remaining cavalry regiments arriving now could only cover Turenne's retreat towards Mergentheim. The total duration of the battle was only an hour. The Bavarians had between 600 and 1,000 dead, while on the French side around 2,600 men had died and as many were taken prisoner. There were also at least 200 civilian victims. A mass grave was discovered in 1777 during road construction work between Mergentheim and Herbsthausen.

aftermath

The French crews in Mergentheimer Schloss and Feste Neuhaus surrendered on the same day. In Mergentheim the Bavarians fell into the hands of ammunition and Turenne's war chest. Schmidberg and Rosen, Turenne's generals, were taken prisoner and with them 2500 common soldiers and 185 officers. The Bavarians also captured four guns and the entire train of the enemy. Mercy supplemented his losses by hiring a majority of the opposing prisoners.

The Bavarians pursued Turenne, who fled to Hesse , as far as the Main . The Franconian farmers are said to have participated in the “hunt”.

While Napoléon Bonaparte saw the choice of the unprotected assembly point in the line of the outposts as a serious, even a decisive tactical mistake, Turenne put the blame for the defeat on his subordinate officers:

Dès que l'armée fut arrivée à Mariendal, comme c'etoit dans la fin du mois d'avil, & qu'il n'y avoit point encore d'herbes, on pressa fort M. de Turenne de permettre que la cavalerie se séparât dans les petites villes, où on laisseroit son bagage au premier ordre, & qu'on viendroit promptement au rendez-vous. Pour dire vrai, le trop de facilité à ne point faire pâtir la cavalerie, faute de fourrage; la grande envie qu'ils se missent promptement en bon état, plusieurs officiers assurent que chacun dans son lieu acheteroit des chevaux pour les démontés, & also l'éloignement de l'ennemi qui étoit à près de dix heures de-là, les partis rapportant qu'ils étoient séparés, firent résoudre M. de Turenne times a propos à les envoyer dans de petits lieux fermés.

“It was towards the end of April when the army arrived at Mergentheim; and because the grass was nowhere out, the Marshal was urged at the beginning to allow the cavalry to spread out into the small towns, where at the first alarm they would leave their baggage behind and appear at the rendezvous without delay wanted to. To tell the truth sincerely, it was the Marshal's indulgence in not letting his cavalry suffer, his great desire to see them swiftly standing again, and finally the removal of the enemy, who were nearly ten hours away; these were the reasons which led the marshal at the wrong time to decide to divide his cavalry into the small towns. "

- Turenne

The victory at Mergentheim initially led to an imperial Bavarian "overweight in all of southern Germany", but did not bring a decision of the war despite "devastating" losses for the Franco-Weimaran army. After his defeat Turenne led the remaining troops back across the Rhine and offered Mazarin his resignation as general, which he was refused. Mazarin instead ordered Turenne to unite with Condé's army . Turenne and Condé then led French and Hessian troops again across the Rhine. On August 3, 1645, the French-Hessian army defeated the imperial and Bavarian troops under Johann von Werth and Franz von Mercy in the battle of Alerheim , who also lost his life in this battle.

Trivia

The battle of Herbsthausen was mentioned by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen in Chapter 19 of his 1670 work “The Strange Springinsfeld”.

literature

• Julius Hartmann, Eduard Paulus the Elder J .: Description of the Mergentheim Oberamt . Published by the Royal Statistical-Topographical Bureau. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1880, pp. 293-300 ( digitized version ).
• Siegfried Niklaus: The spring campaign of 1645 in southern Germany (battle near Herbsthausen). In: Württembergisch Franken. (= Yearbook of the Historical Association for Württembergisch Franconia) Volume 60, Schwäbisch Hall 1976, pp. 121–180.
• Carlheinz Gräter: The battle of Herbsthausen. 400 years ago Turenne suffered his only defeat against Baiern. In: Franconia. No. 47, 1995, pp. 174-176 ( digitized version ).
• Friedemann Needy : Pocket Lexicon Thirty Years War. Piper, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-492-22668-X .
• C. V. Wedgwood: The Thirty Years War. 10th edition, List Verlag, Munich and Leipzig 1998, ISBN 3-471-79210-4 .

Web links

Commons : Schlacht von Herbsthausen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

1. ↑ Mergentheim was also called Mergental ( Märchedol in the Hohenloher dialect); see. also the entry Marge, Märge in the German dictionary .
2. ↑ see: Bernd Warlich: Hans Jakob Kolb von Kager. On: 30jaehrigerkrieg.de
3. ^ Often incorrectly Rauschenberg , see ADB , entry Johann von Reuschenberg .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Carlheinz Gräter: The battle of Herbsthausen.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o} Description of the Mergentheim Oberamt.
3. ↑ quoted from the description of the Mergentheim Oberamt, p. 295.
4. ^ Collection des mémoires du maréchal de Turenne . Transfer quoted from the description of the Mergentheim Oberamt , p. 297.
5. ↑ Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, "The Strange Springinsfeld", Chapter 19 ( online )

Coordinates: 49 ° 24 ′ 7 ″  N , 9 ° 49 ′ 44 ″  E