The Battle of Wittstock. The Swedish army prepares for
its assault on the wood defenses of the Allied center and left flank before
Wittstock.
Initial Swedish attack and Imperial realignment.
Swedish breakthrough and Imperial retreat.
The Battle of Wittstock Scholars cannot agree on the size of
the two contesting armies that met at Scharfenberg outside Wittstock in October
1636. Some reports allow the Imperialists only 12,000 men while allocating the
Swedish force 22,000. More usually the Swedes are estimated at just over 15,000
and the Imperialists at 22,000, although various other statistics are also
postulated between these ranges. Peter Wil- son, following the lead of Hans Delbrück,
has opted simply to conclude that the two sides were `fairly even in numbers’.
The discrepancies arise, in part, due to an over-reliance on a rather limited
selection of the available battlefield reports wherein the voices of two of the
four most senior commanders on the Swedish side that day – Alexander Leslie and
James King – have largely been overlooked. Rather, there has been a preference
to seek authority in the scholarship of Hans Delbrück, who missed these reports
and instead repeated the assessment of pro-Imperialist contemporaries as
interpreted by another scholar, Rudolph Schmidt. The cumulative result of
continued repetition has been to produce only a partial and confused appraisal
which misses some crucial detail of the battle. Secondary literature concerning
Wittstock frequently fails to consider the role of anyone on the Swedish side
other than Torstensson and Banér, and they actually served together in the same
wing of the army. For example, Delbrück mistakenly placed Leslie in charge only
of the `reinforcements’ of 4,000 men rather than in command of the centre of
the army, and even this only appears in a note, not the main text. Classic
accounts of the war, such as that by C. V. Wedgewood, mention Leslie in a more
meaningful way, but often out of position: she locates him on the flank, as if
Banér’s troops formed the centre. Other errors have crept in: T. M. Barker
conflates Major General John Ruthven (second in command of the reserve) with
his uncle, Patrick Ruthven, who we know was in Scotland on a recruiting
mission. Scandinavian scholars have traditionally paid more attention to the
role of the Scottish commanders at Wittstock, albeit the lack of attention to
the Scottish accounts, or even close scrutiny of Banér’s, has led to errors. In
one account of the battle the left flank was correctly placed under the Finn
Torsten Stålhandske and the Scot James King but missed the important caveat
that King was the senior officer. Furthermore, Leslie’s role – or indeed that
of the entire centre of the Swedish army – is usually altogether absent. Analysis
of the reports of the Scottish generals is crucial to understanding this
battle, let alone the significant role the Scottish military commanders played
within it. Interestingly, the Scots were not simply distributed within the main
infantry battalions of the Army of the Weser, but across every single section
of the army, and with some astonishing results.
When the Banér-Leslie army formed up on the morning of
Saturday, 4 October 1636, it was divided into four distinct sections, each one
with a clearly assigned role. Banér (seconded by General of Artillery
Torstensson) and 3,500 men took up position on the right wing of the army,
directly facing Johan Georg of Saxony. His wing (the smallest of the four
sections) comprised seventeen squadrons of cavalry, some reputedly commanded by
Colonel David Leslie, backed by 700 musketeers led by the Scottish Catholic
Colonel William Gunn. 103 Field Marshal Alexander Leslie took command of the
centre (seconded by Major General Thomas Kerr), directly in front of Hatzfeldt’s
Imperial Army. He had five brigades of infantry and five cavalry squadrons
amounting to 4,342 men. Lieutenant General James King’s cavalry (seconded by
Major General Torsten Stålhandske) formed the left wing with some eighteen
cavalry squadrons, two of which were commanded by Colonel Robert Douglas.
Command of the reserve fell to Lieutenant General Johan Vitzthum (seconded by
Major General John Ruthven), with the largest single contingent comprising
4,656 men divided into four brigades and twelve cavalry squadrons. The plan was
audacious: King’s cavalry were sent on a sweeping flanking manoeuvre to the
west with the purpose of circumnavigating enemy positions and surprising them
at the rear. As a distraction Banér hoped to keep the enemy busy with a head-on
assault on the Saxon positions supported by fire from Torstensson’s artillery
and Gunn’s musketeers. Leslie, with the infantry brigades, was to feign an
attack on the main Imperial centre and thus prevent them from supporting Johan
Georg’s forces. Cumulatively it was hoped that Banér’s men would break the
Saxons, who would then be forced straight into the path of King’s cavalry,
which would, all being well, be approaching the Imperial rear from the west.
However, all did not go to plan, and it is here that the reports start to
differ.
Banér’s phalanx found the Saxon troops to be steadfast, and
he reported there was not one of his squadrons that did not have to engage them
at least six times, and some as many as ten. The attacks were so ferocious that
Banér’s forces began to waver. The Swede blamed this on the slow movement of
King’s cavalry in traversing the difficult swamps and woodlands to the west of
the battlefield, while the reserve was similarly slow to enter the fray. What
happened next is crucial: not only was Leslie contending with Hatzfeldt’s
forces directly in front of him, but he was now forced, in addition, to
intervene in support of the wavering right flank, requiring him to traverse the
battlefield. As Banér informed Queen Christina, his own troops were in trouble:
auch weren wegen der grosen force des feindes in eine
gentzliche disorder gekommen, wan nicht der Feltmarschalch Lessle mit 5
brigaden zu fuss, die er in der battaglia bey sich gehabt, unss eben zu rechter
zeit secundiret undt 4 brigaden von des feindes infanteria, die sich allbereit
auch auf unss gewendet, undt unss in die flancke gehen wollen mit menlichen
angriff poussiret undt von unss abgekeret, das wir etzlicher- massen zu
respiration kommen können.
(due to the strength of the enemy they would have fallen
into total disorder, if Field Marshal Leslie with the five brigades of foot
which he had with him during the battle had not assisted us just in time and
had not manfully attacked and turned away from us four brigades of the enemy’s
infantry . so that we could finally gain our breath.)
That Leslie’s battalions served as the salvation of Banér’s
wing has been picked up in some histories, even if it is not more generally
understood by scholars of the war. 108 Given the availability of Banér’s
account, in print for over a century, it is perhaps surprising. Nonetheless,
Leslie’s actions were widely reported at the time. As William Boswell, an
English diplomat in The Hague, put it:
These p[ar]ticulars are grownded upon l[ett]res from
Banier’s Army unto ye French Resid[en]t who sent this Expresse; and the Report
of the Expresse himselfe who was in the Fight & an Eye-witnesse of what
passed: One circumstance is added w[hi]ch I can not omitte, That a part of
Banier’s owne forces, being overlay’d so farre, as they began to thinke how to
save themselves, by a retreate; (and had given back; but that) Lesley coming in
to their succour, put the Ennemy first to flight, w[hi]ch they could never
recover.
As stated above, Leslie’s role at Wittstock is not totally
unfamiliar to scholars approaching the subject from a Swedish perspective.
However, it is in trying to understand the full contribution of the Scottish
troops that serious discrepancies occur even in contemporary accounts. In
particular, the role of King’s left wing and the flanking manoeuvre it carried
out, which proved so influential in the battle, has often been misrepresented.
Not only was command erroneously assigned to the more junior Stålhandske by
historians, but even contemporary errors, such as Banér’s explicit statement
that the late arrival of King’s horse caused his forces distress, have been
blindly repeated. In addition, Banér’s claim that King’s forces actually had
little to do on the first day of the battle has cast doubt on King’s
contribution to the outcome of the battle. King’s own report, however,
unambiguously states that it was the appearance of his cavalry in combination
with Leslie’s infantry support for Banér that provoked the enemy’s initial
retreat and thus led to the eventual Swedish breakthrough. Rather than having
`little to do’ on the first day of battle, King’s report reveals that despite
Banér’s orders to cease action as night drew in, two of King’s regiments
(commanded by Stålhandske) advanced and destroyed three of the enemy’s
regiments. King further claimed that Banér’s reluctance to allow his cavalry to
pursue the enemy into the night permitted the Imperial troops to escape. It is
not only King’s report which casts doubt on some of Banér’s attempts to
downplay the role of other commanders at the battle, or which adds new
dimensions to the actions on the day.
Field Marshal Leslie’s two extant reports of the battle were
both written three days after the event and include an official report for the
Swedish government, and a second relation to his long-time friend Axel
Oxenstierna. The Leslie and King accounts reinforce our understanding of the
extent of Scottish military command on the battlefield and perhaps bring the
`trust element’ brought out by the kith and kin relations of Scots more fully
into view. The Scottish commanders amounted to a field marshal (Leslie), a
lieutenant general (King) and two major generals (Thomas Kerr and John
Ruthven). We now also know of no less than eleven brigades or squadrons under
Scottish command at the battle and can identify over fifty officers spread
throughout the army. Strangely, or perhaps deliberately, elements of the Army
of the Weser and other Scottish colonels were found in each of the four
sections of the combined Swedish army rather than serving together in a single
unit. This is suggestive that Leslie wanted to ensure he had people he could
trust in each quarter. Thus, while Banér’s relation high- lights how much of
the audacious plan was his, and how much he suffered in gaining the victory,
one senses that Leslie and King had far more to do with the conception and
execution of tactics than Banér allows.
A really striking piece of information found in the King and
Leslie reports, but missing from Banér’s, is mention of Major General John
Ruthven. Both King and Leslie place Ruthven as co-commander of the main reserve
under Lieutenant General Johan Vitzthum. His deployment in this position is
interesting, not least as his very presence on the battlefield usually goes
unnoticed. Ruthven had served under Leslie as a company commander during the
1628 Stralsund operation and had been in the Army of the Weser for most of
1636. Furthermore, having married Leslie’s daughter Barbara sometime before May
1631, Ruthven was not just a trusted colleague but also the field marshal’s
close kinsman. Indeed, Leslie had several kinsmen on the field, including his
son, Colonel Alexander Leslie. One can only view Leslie’s deployment of his
kith and kin at Wittstock as evidence of his implicit trust in those
individuals. Vitzthum, in contrast, had already acquired something of a
reputation for being `slow’ to commit to actions and of unreliable
trustworthiness. When Banér found himself struggling on the right flank at
Wittstock, he sent orders that Vitzthum should commit the reserve to battle.
Vitzthum refused not only these but also similar instructions sent by Leslie,
allegedly fearing the day would turn into another defeat like Nördlingen. In
the Swedish Riksråd it was later reported that Vitzthum’s men had eventually
advanced against his orders, and we can reason- ably assume that they were
ordered forward by his second in command, Major General John Ruthven. Vitzthum
later faced allegations of treason for this, for his quip about Nördlingen (a
comment unbefitting of a general) and for a series of other dubious actions.
Despite this he managed to leave Swedish service in favour of serving the
emperor without being prosecuted. As the surviving ordre de bataille
highlights, Leslie not only had a major general from his Army of the Weser in
the reserve, but his son-in-law, Ruthven, was also in position with two chosen
units placed, rather skilfully, on either side of Vitzthum himself, and in one
diagram with another (Thomas Thomson’s) directly behind the German commander –
almost as if to cater for the eventuality that Vitzthum’s nerves would fail.
Thomson, it should be remembered, was an old veteran of Leslie’s Närke och
Varmland, the very same regiment he now commanded. Whether the placing of
Ruthven and Thomson was accidental or deliberate, Banér’s report merely states
that Vitzthum’s men reinforced `the anguish of the right’ by arriving too late
to fight. Given the reports that Vitzthum’s subordinates acted in spite of
their commander, the implications for Ruthven as surrogate commander of the
reserve, and Thomson as his second, are obvious. Furthermore, Vitzthum’s
dereliction of duty meant that during the battle itself, three of the four
sections of the Swedish army (centre, left wing and by default, the reserve)
were actually under Scottish command, and Banér himself ascribed the final
victory to their actions, particularly Leslie, and even (if grudgingly) to
King’s left wing and Ruthven’s reserve.
The reports from the Scottish commanders agree with the
existing orthodoxy concerning the battle in two regards. Firstly, they support
the notion that the Swedes were outnumbered, explicitly stated by both Leslie
and Banér, and secondly, they reiterate the human dimension to the victory.
Wittstock cost thousands of lives on all sides. Again statistics vary, but it
is generally agreed that somewhere between 7,000 and 10,000 men died that day
with many more injured and invalided, including numerous Scots in the ranks and
among the officers. Indeed, the most senior Swedish commander killed, and
mentioned in all the main reports, was Colonel Robert Cunningham, while one of
the two brigades reported as `virtually destroyed’ included the men under Major
General Thomas Kerr’s command – the Karrische brigade. Lieutenant Colonel John
Lichton was also among the slain while Colonel William Gunn was noted as among
the seriously wounded, his personal squadron being reduced by over half of its
officers and men. In the process both survivors and fallen had participated in
a stunning victory, which several scholars over the years have compared to
Hannibal’s victory over the Romans at Cannae in 216 bc. John Durie, writing
from Stockholm within days of the battle, commented that:
As for the publicke newes, It is certaine y: t the Saxon
& Imperiall forces are quite defeated in Pomenn by Bannier & Leslie,
this victory is counted as considerable as any w: ch hitherto they have gotten.
For it was a general battaile of all forces on all sides & ye defeate of ye
enemy is total of all ye Infantry, and of soe many of ye horse as did not
escape by flight. On Sunday next they will shoote all ye ordnance here about ye
towne in signe of ioy.
The victory at Wittstock put the Swedes back on the map as a
serious military force and removed Elector Georg Wilhelm of Brandenburg as a
significant player in the war. It had the additional effect of ensuring the
Imperialists had to recall troops from their campaigns against the French,
thereby relieving Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar. But all was not as well in the
Swedish camp as one might expect.
For all the positive reports of the battle, the very real
tensions simmering between Banér and Leslie soon became apparent. Leslie’s account
of Wittstock to Oxenstierna contains a striking additional clause missing from
the one sent to Queen Christina. In it, Leslie mounts something of an assault
on some of his fellow commanders within the Swedish hierarchy. As Leslie put
it:
Wiewohl ich nicht daran zweiffle, von meinen übell
affectionirten Ew. Excell. anderst hinderbracht sein möchtten, so ist doch Gott
bekant, dass (ich) dahin allewege meinen scopum dirigirt, damit Ew. Excell. in
meinen sachen ein satsames und wohlgefelliges genugen thun möchte. Versehe mich
auch disfals meine actiones remonstriren und meine missgönnern widersprechen
werden, und wünsche, dass mit Ew. Excell. in disser sachen mundliche
underredung pflegen könte, wie den verhof- fendlich die zeit geben wird.
(Although I do not doubt that those who are viciously
affected towards me will have told Your Excellency differently, God knows that
I have always directed my actions in order that Your Excellency may have had an
ample and complete satisfaction regarding those things which concern me. I
hope, that if this is the case, my actions will remonstrate and contradict
those who envy me, and I wish that I could talk with Your Excellency about this
matter. Time will hopefully grant this.)
From the various accounts already discussed, it is clear
that when Leslie dis- cussed `those viciously inclined’ towards him within the
Swedish forces he must have been including Johan Banér. He also indicated that
he wished now to be decommissioned from Swedish service, again in contradiction
to Banér’s understanding of Leslie’s position. Within months, James King also
told Oxenstierna it was time for him to leave Swedish service and inferred that
Oxenstierna knew why. It is perhaps of interest that Alexander Erskine, the
Scotsman who was serving as a secret Swedish war councillor and commissioner in
Banér’s army, also chose this moment to seek release from Swedish service –
largely due to his personal difficulties with Banér.
