Battle of Catfish

Formation of the imperial troops when crossing the Saar near Wallerfangen on September 26, 1635

General Gallas before Wallerfangen on September 29, 1635

Catfish catching around 1630 (drawing by Karl Faber)

The Battle of Wallerfangen on September 29, 1635 in the Thirty Years' War was a battle of retreat between two retreating French armies and an imperial army pursuing the French armies. Since the main battlefield was in Lorraine , the battle was also known as the Battle of Tromborn ( Tromborn and Téterchen ) or the Battle of Boulay . The battle ended with a defensive victory of the two French armies, which were able to reach the military base in Metz with losses .

prehistory

Under the Lorraine dukes Charles III. and Heinrich II. Walderfingen, as Wallerfangen was called at that time, was the capital of German-speaking Lorraine . Walderfingen was a flourishing city with authorities, markets, brotherhoods and guilds, but after the beginning of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) , peace and prosperity were short-lived. In Lorraine, and thus also in Wallerfangen, preparations were made against raids and looting by marauding mercenaries . The fortress town received a strong garrison with Lorraine troops, had to pay high war taxes and was obliged to make deliveries in kind. Bad harvests and price increases weighed heavily on the citizens. Diseases and epidemics, especially Hungarian typhus , had spread in the Lorraine region.

In the course of the war, the Lorraine Duke Charles IV, who ruled from November 1625, found himself between two fronts. He was friendly and supportive to the Habsburg emperor and was therefore for years the first minister of the French king Louis XIII. , harassed and threatened Cardinal Richelieu with military billeting of French troops. In 1633 the duke gave up his official neutrality , resigned in January 1634 in favor of his brother Nicholas and allied himself militarily with the emperor against France . Then Lorraine was occupied by French troops and Walderfingen received a French governor and a French occupation. France itself only officially declared war on the emperor in September 1635, after France had only financially supported the war between the Swedes and their Protestant allies against the emperor.

Evolution of the battle

Title Ottendorfer Manuscript from 1841

Pastor Philipp Schmitt from Dillingen / Saar wrote the most detailed report on the development and course of the battle in the Ottendorfer manuscript from 1841.

In September 1635 an army of the imperial army under Matthias Gallas approached the Saar area near Dillingen . A French army led by General La Valette and the French-financed army of Duke Bernhard von Sachsen-Weimar had marched towards the imperial army on the right of the Saar , but were pushed back when they met. On September 25th and 26th, both French armies were retreating to Dillingen in order to be able to reach the fortified and French-occupied town of Wallerfangen after crossing the Saar. Both armies were pursued by the imperial army and burned all the villages on their retreat so that the imperial troops could not provide for themselves during the pursuit. On September 26th at 8 a.m. both French armies reached the range of hills in front of Wallerfangen, where the Saar runs and where the Prims flows into the Saar. The imperial army was not yet on site, so that Duke Bernard, with the help of the French commander of Wallerfangen de Retz , was able to build a barrel bridge in a hurry . The cavalry, baggage and part of the infantry crossed the Saar through a ford at the mouth of the Prims. The rest of the infantry crossed the bridge.

Course of the battle

When Gallas appeared with the bulk of his army, the rearguard of the allied French armies under the command of the Viscount de Turenne had already crossed the Saar and destroyed the bridge afterwards. But the imperial army managed to cross over to the other bank of the Saar north of Dillingen near Rehlingen . When the imperial cavalry attacked, the Viscount de Turenne put his troops in order. The Gensdarmes de cheveaulegers of the Guard and the Gensdarmes of Luxembourg each had only about 100 cuirassiers . Only Josias Rantzau's regiment had been reorganized and consisted of several squadrons . The battalion of the Swiss Guards was commanded by the Marquis de Coislin . It consisted of four companies, each with a company strength of 200 men. The two battalions of French guards consisted of six companies each. They were led by Savignac and Marshal Comte de Guebriant in the Weimar army. The French guards were initially 1200 strong. At the crossing over the Saar these troops had already melted together.

Both sides waged a continuous firefight , because neither the rearguard of the allied French, nor the vanguard of the imperial army had artillery. When the French ranks , which were supposed to cover the retreat, began to totter, they could be secured by reinforcements from Marshal Fabert . Both sides held their positions, but the imperial troops suffered higher losses than the allied French troops, whose main army was to withdraw from Wallerfangen in the direction of Metz. The imperial troops refrained from persecution. Worn out mercenaries of the allied French troops could camp at Catfish catches to recover. Food of the area was four acts and Dillingen had been looted. In the meantime the main imperial army under Count Gallas had marched day and night and, like the advance guard, had crossed the Saar at Rehlingen. While large parts of the French armies were still standing at Wallerfangen, the imperial army threatened to cut them off their way to Metz .

On the morning of September 27th, the allied French troops set out from Wallerfangen with the aim of Metz, led by Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar. In the afternoon the troops passed a forest on the heights of Tromborn . The main army had already passed the bridge over a swamp there. Only the rear guard, under the command of the captain of the Guebriant Guard , stood on the other side. Suddenly the imperial vanguard , which was 9,000 strong and consisted of 14 regiments , under Captain von Götz, broke out of the forest where the troops had hidden and attacked the French rearguard . This withstood the attack and enabled the main army to line up in battle order . When the imperial general Gallas noticed that the French army now had the opportunity to fall into the flank over the bridge of Teterchen , he ordered a retreat . What remained was a regiment with 500 Croatians, nine standards and many horses. Several prisoners of war previously made were lost , among them Captain von Götz, all of whom were badly wounded. On the French side, 200 men were lost in the battle. This battle, which was successful for the French, marked the actual battle of Wallerfangen (or of Teterchen or of Boulay). The French units repelling the attack were two regiments of Grammont chevaulegers des Cardinales and the companies of Viscount de Mombas . These were on the left wing . Other units involved were the company of the Count of Saint Agnau , the company of the Count of Palaisau who died of his wounds, the company of the Viscount of Estrange . 400 musketeers brought up the rear.

The following war events in Lorraine

The French officers expected to meet the imperial army again at Boulay on the way to Metz. Although Cardinal Richelieu's corps marched there in formation , very weak, the imperial troops did not appear there, so that the troops could rest in Boulay for five to six hours. On the next morning of September 30th, the troops moved from Boulay in two detachments to Magny on the Seille and had completed the retreat in 14 days without being followed by the defeated imperial troops.

Richelieu's plans for 1635 had failed, and his offensives on all fronts were ruined. The combined armies of Bernhard and La Valette now remained in Lorraine. Fortunately for France, another advance of the Gallas army was thwarted by the successes of the Swedes in the north.

Later, small units of Croatian light troops advanced as far as Metz. In October these St. Barbara burned . Gallas decided to conquer the fortresses of Lorraine. Catfish catch was besieged again. The defenders under Commander De Retz held the fortress and fended off five assault attacks with great loss. The sixth attack resulted in ventilation. Gallas had the city plundered.

Walderfingen, which also suffered a lot in the period that followed, was never able to fully recover from this blow. 50 years later, it was built on the orders of the French King Louis XIV . razed to the ground (demolition). Most of its residents then settled in the new Saarlouis water fortress built by Vauban .

Gallas moved from Wallerfangen to Saarbrücken , and also handed it over to the looting. Then the imperial family moved to Saint-Avold . Then the imperial family moved into a camp near Saargemünd between the Saar and Blies . With him were 15,000 infantry, 8,000 horsemen and 6,000 Croatians. General Gallas wanted to unite there with Charles IV of Lorraine .

In October 1635 Gallas and his Croats and Poles set up camp at Mezieres and Dieuze . Duke Bernard had meanwhile received reinforcements, approached the Austrians, interrupted their supply lines and passed them on November 4th and 5th. Gallas was in dire straits and wanted to have a major battle, but Bernard refused to accept it, but there were constant little skirmishes . In November, Charles of Lorraine received reinforcements from imperial and Bavarian troops. He advanced into Lorraine and won several victories in smaller battles there. He conquered Epinal , Remiremont , Boulay, Charmes and other small towns and set over 400 villages on fire. He united with the Imperial Gallasian Army and set up camp at Remberville . From here he penetrated into the Metz area and built entrenchments between Metz and Sainte Barbe . After St. Martin's Day, his troops set up camp near Boulay. From there 14 regiments moved to the Moselle.

On the other side of the Moselle the troops of General La Force were at Saint Niklas , at Pont-à-Mousson the troops of Cardinal La Vallette and those of Duke Bernard were at Nancy . Count Gallas stayed with his troops in Alsace , in the area of Zabern and Colmar . So the Saar region and the vicinity of Metz were still exposed to constant raids by various armies in the last three months of 1635.

References

1. ^ Theodor Liebertz: Wallerfangen and his story . Ed .: own publisher Liebertz. Self-published by Liebertz, Saarbrücken 1953, p. 32 .
2. ^ Tony Jaques: Dictionary of Battles and Sieges: AE, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007, p. 157
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Pastor Philipp Schmitt: The Ottendorfer manuscript with notes and additions. A contribution to the history of the Thirty Years' War, especially the unlucky year 1635 in the lower Saar regions . Ed .: Trierisches Archiv für Vaterlandskunde. Hintz'sche Buchhandlung Trier, Trier 1841, p. 112-121 .
4. ^ The Palatinate on the Rhine, volumes 40–41, Pfalz Verkehrsverband, Pfälzerwald-Verein, 1967, p. 227
5. ^ The Palatinate on the Rhine, volumes 40–41, Pfalz Verkehrsverband, Pfälzerwald-Verein, 1967, p. 227
6. ^ Gerhard Adler, Association for Local Research eV
7. ^ Philipp Schmitt: The Ottendorfer manuscript with notes and additions. A contribution to the history of the Thirty Years' War, especially the unlucky year 1635 in the lower Saar areas, Trierisches Archiv für Vaterlandskunde, Hintz'sche Buchhandlung, Trier 1841, p. 119
8. ^ Philipp Schmitt: The Ottendorfer manuscript with notes and additions. A contribution to the history of the Thirty Years' War, especially the unlucky year 1635 in the lower Saar regions, Trierisches Archiv für Vaterlandskunde, Hintz'sche Buchhandlung, Trier 1841, p. 120