The Thirty Years War

by C. V. Wedgwood

  On the following day, May 18th, the first part of the plan was successfully carried out, Melo allowing the whole of the French army, fifteen thousand foot and seven thousand horse, to emerge unmolested from the narrow defiles on to the open ground. He imagined he would do his cause the better service by surrounding and taking the whole French army than merely by putting it to flight. He had the superiority in numbers—although not so great a superiority as he thought—and in training, for he had under his command the flower of the Spanish infantry, the troops of the Cardinal-Infant, the inheritors of the tradition of Spinola. When, however, he saw Enghien’s men emerge, he was completely baffled, for the prince so arranged it that the movements of the infantry were partly concealed by those of the cavalry, advancing in front and on both sides. In vain Melo sent out parties to draw off the cavalry that they might estimate the number of the infantry in the centre; his scouts failed or brought in such varying reports that he did not know what to believe.

  By six in the evening Enghien had drawn his troops up on the plain within cannon shot of the Spaniards. His right wing, where he himself was in command, rested on slightly rising ground, but was partly divided by the opposing cavalry under the Duke of Albuquerque by a thin strip of wood, in which Melo had stationed musketeers to check Enghien’s advance. The left wing under Senneterre and l’Hôpital was in lower ground, defended from flank attack by a marsh. Melo commanded opposite Senneterre on the Spanish right wing, and the old Flemish general, Fontaine, was in command of the infantry, which occupied the smoothly rising ground in the centre of the Spanish lines. The ground is too little accidented to speak of hills and valleys, but there was a depression between the armies, so that the attackers would start downhill and end by charging uphill.

  Six o’clock in the evening was early enough in the fine May weather to open the engagement, and this Enghien would have done, had not Senneterre suddenly, without orders, detached half his cavalry to circumvent the Spaniards and relieve Rocroy. This movement was ill-considered, as Senneterre had to traverse the marsh on his left flank in full view of the Spanish army, and Melo, seeing his opportunity, was about to charge when Enghien hurried to the spot with reinforcements from the other wing, ordered Senneterre back and covered his retreat. Melo let the opportunity slip, and night fell on the two armies with nothing done.

  At daybreak Enghien advanced on the strip of wood between his forces and the opposing Spaniards, and rapidly cleared out the musketeers. This barrier was gone before Albuquerque realized it, and he was still depending on it to protect him when he was engaged simultaneously on the flank by Gassion and in front by Enghien. Albuquerque’s troops put up a stout defence but receded and finally broke altogether before the attack. Leaving Gassion to pursue the fugitives, Enghien turned his attention to the centre of the conflict. Far over on his left wing, l’Hôpital’s charge had been repulsed by Melo, and his cavalry falling back in disorder might have left the field before he could rally them, had not the reserves come up to support them. Nevertheless, the situation on the left was grave, and in the centre the infantry remained on the defensive, outmatched and outnumbered by the opposing Spanish and Flemish troops.

  Taking in the situation at a glance, Enghien rallied his own cavalry and proceeded with the recklessness of genius to cut himself a passage through the Spanish centre. The first line of the enemy infantry, the Spanish veterans, was engaged with the French infantry and pressing them hard; Enghien struck between it and the second and third lines of the Italian, German, and Walloon troops. Less well trained than the Spaniards, they soon gave way before the unexpected impact, and Enghien found himself after a sharp struggle on the farther side of the field, in a position to come up on Melo’s rear and relieve the attack on the exhausted troops of Senneterre and l’Hôpital. Melo’s horsemen, caught between two assailants, broke towards the marsh on their right flank, hotly pursued from both sides, and fled from the field.

  The Spanish infantry, about eight thousand strong, were now alone on their slight eminence. If they, by a stupendous feat of endurance, could hold the place until reinforcements were collected, Enghien might yet be defeated. At first it seemed almost that it could be done. The French infantry advanced to within fifty paces, to be met by a sudden hail of musketry fire which sent them back in broken order quicker than they came. Enghien reinforced the line with cavalry, but the mixed attack had as little effect, and three times the French were repulsed with heavy loss of life. Meanwhile, Gassion and Senneterre had pursued the fugitives far enough for safety and returned to the field with their cavalry. Enghien organized a fresh attack, and the Spanish infantry saw that they were now surrounded on all sides. Their leader, Fontaine, was killed by a chance shot, and, all hope of a successful resistance being gone, their officers signalled for a truce.

  Enghien was willing enough to grant it on terms. It was already late in the evening and he had no desire to continue the fight à outrance. With a few companions he rode up the hill, but some of the enemy, mistaking this movement for a new attack, opened fire. With cries of indignation the French forces surged forward to protect their leader, the word that he was in danger spreading fast from line to line, until on all sides infantry and cavalry converged on the Spanish position. In vain Enghien shouted to his men to give quarter; furious at the attack on their leader, they cut down all whom they encountered, and the prince himself with difficulty saved some few of the enemy who clung to his stirrups in the mêlée and claimed his personal protection. Night fell on the disaster of the Spanish army; of eighteen thousand infantry, seven thousand were prisoners, eight thousand had been killed, and of those the greater number were Spaniards. Twenty-four cannon, innumerable arms and the military treasury fell into Enghien’s hands, and on the following day he entered Rocroy in triumph, a fact recorded to this day on the gates of the little town.[102]

  It was the end of the Spanish army. The cavalry survived, but they were so broken in discipline and morale as to be useless without that splendid infantry which had been the strength of the army. They had not lost their reputation at Rocroy, as the Swedes had done at Nördlingen, but they had died to keep it. The veterans were gone, the tradition broken, and no one was left to train a new generation. In the centre of their position on the fields before Rocroy there stands today a little modern monument, an unassuming grey monolith, the gravestone of the Spanish army; almost, one might say, the gravestone of Spanish greatness.

  1. Lonchay and Cuvelier, III, p. 298.

  2. Canovas del Castillo, Bosquejo Historico, pp. 225 ff., Decadencia de España. Madrid, 1910, pp. 232–3; E. J. Hamilton, pp. 84, 86.

  3. Canovas del Castillo, Estudios del Reinado de Felipe IV, I, pp. 414–15.

  4. Relazioni dagli Ambasciatori, Spagna, II, pp. 11, 107; Canovas del Castillo, Decadencia de España, pp. 234 ff.

  5. Abreu y Bertodano, V, p. 570.

  6. Avenel, Additional volume, p. 653.

  7. Sverges Traktater, V, ii, pp. 486–500.

  8. Vassal-Reig, Richelieu et la Catalogne, pp. 220–30.

  9. Abreu y Bertodano, V, p. 313.

  10. Lonchay and Cuvelier, III, p. 392.

  11. Ibid., pp. 392 ff.

  12. Ibid., pp. 451–3.

  13. Relazioni dagli Ambasciatori, Spagna, II, p. 114.

  14. Lundorp, IV, pp. 905–11.

  15. G. H. Bougeant, Histoire des guerres et des négociations qui précédèrent le Traité de Westphalie. Paris, 1767, pp. 31 f., 94–104, 116.

  16. Dudik, Die Schweden in Böhmen und Mähren. Vienna, 1879, pp. 13 f.

  17. Koch, Geschichte Ferdinands III. Vienna, 1865, I, pp. 179–80.

  18. Poyntz, p. 127.

  19. Ibid., p. 128.

  20. Brockhaus, Der Kurfürstentag zu Nürnberg. Leipzig, 1883, pp. 99, 126–7.

  21. Lundorp, op. cit., IV, pp. 863–6.

  22. Ibid., p. 935.

  23. Ibid., p. 954.

  24. Ibid., pp. 1099–112.

  25. Ibid., pp. 1116–18.
<
br />   26. Lundorp, V, pp. 35–6.

  27. Fiedler, p. 273.

  28. Scott, Rupert, Prince Palatine, p. 45.

  29. Dispacci Ridolfi. Regensburg, 1871, p. 279.

  30. Koch, I, p. 256; Dispacci Ridolfi, p. 279.

  31. Urkunden und Aktenstücke zur Geschichte Friedrich Wilhelms. Berlin, 1864, I, pp. 728–32.

  32. Ibid., I, p. 744.

  33. See his own outline of his methods to the Prince of Orange in 1646. Groen van Prinsterer, II, iv, p. 172.

  34. Pufendorf, De Rebus Gestis Friderici Wilhelmi, Leipzig, 1733, XIX, p. 102.

  35. Urkunden und Aktenstücke, XV, pp. 259, 322–3; X, p. 61.

  36. Philippson, Der Grosse Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg. Berlin, 1897, I, p. 29.

  37. Ibid., p. 28; Streckfüss, p. 223.

  38. Meinardus, Protokolle und Relationen des Geheimenrates. Leipzig, 1889, I, p. 45.

  39. Urkunden und Aktenstücke, XXIII, pp. 1–8; I, pp. 382–3; XV, pp. 388–9, 398–434.

  40. Ibid., XV, pp. 713–24, 522 ff.; XXIII, I, p. 9.

  41. Sverges Traktater, V, ii, pp. 475–83.

  42. Urkunden und Aktenstücke, XXIII, i, p. 11.

  43. Urkunden und Aktenstücke, XXIII, pp. 535, 550.

  44. Ibid., I, p. 775.

  45. Ibid., pp. 775–6.

  46. Lundorp, V, pp. 734–5.

  47. Urkunden und Aktenstücke, I, p. 488. The text in Lünig, III, ii, pp. 129–33.

  48. Le Clerc, Négotiations Secrètes, The Hague, 1725, I, pp. 128 f.

  49. Bougeant, II, pp. 209–12; Lundorp, V, pp. 761, 768–9.

  50. Le Clerc, I, pp. 113–52.

  51. Lundorp, V, pp. 762–8.

  52. Ibid., V, p. 1067; Bougeant, II, pp. 304–5.

  53. Urkunden und Aktenstücke, XXIII, i, pp. 17 ff.

  54. Brefvexling, II, vi, p. 349.

  55. Ibid., p. 529.

  56. Ibid., p. 840.

  57. Ibid., II, p. 538.

  58. Ibid., p. 530.

  59. Ibid., pp. 400 ff.

  60. Aitzema, II, p. 830.

  61. Brefvexling, VI, p. 634.

  62. Ibid., p. 625.

  63. Bougeant, op. cit., pp. 66–7.

  64. Lundorp, op. cit., IV, pp. 237–9 f.

  65. Noailles, Épisodes de la Guerre de Trente Ans, III, p. 147.

  66. M. Schilling, Zur Geschichte der Stadt Zwickau, 1639–40. Neues Archiv für Sächsische Geschichte, IX, pp. 291, 298–9.

  67. Bougeant, II, pp. 132–3.

  68. Brefvexling, II, vi, p. 802.

  69. Calendar of State Papers. Domestic, 1640–1, p. 469.

  70. Noailles, III, pp. 180–2.

  71. Urkunden und Aktenstücke, I, pp. 537–41.

  72. Brefvexling, II, viii, p. 348.

  73. Ibid., pp. 570–2.

  74. Ibid., p. 352; Pufendorf, XIII, pp. 37, 52.

  75. Chemnitz, IV, pp. 92–104; Pufendorf, XIII, pp. 52–5.

  76. Lorentzen, p. 76; Meiern, Acta Pacis Executionis. Hanover, 1736, I, p. 19.

  77. Brefvexling, II, viii, pp. 369, 376.

  78. Chronik des Minoriten Guardians in Olmütz. Archiv für Oesterreichische Geschichte, LXII, p. 481.

  79. Ibid., pp. 472, 482; LXV, pp. 322, 348.

  80. Ibid., p. 334.

  81. Ibid., pp. 328–31, 337–8.

  82. Chemnitz, IV, ii, pp. 139, 142; Brefvexling, II, viii, pp. 376–8. The battle is critically described in Tingsten, Johan Baner och Lennart Torstensson, pp. 213–20. There is also an excellent plan.

  83. Chemnitz, IV, ii, p. 153.

  84. Heilmann, Die Feldzüge der Bayern. Leipzig, 1851, pp. 4–6.

  85. Lundorp, V, pp. 821–2.

  86. Meiern, Acta Pacis Westphalicae. Hanover, 1734, I, pp. 11–12.

  87. Lonchay and Cuvelier, III, p. 456.

  88. Lonchay and Cuvelier, III, p. 459.

  89. Relazioni dagli Ambasciatori, Spagna, II, pp. 112, 113.

  90. Lonchay and Cuvelier, III, p. 488.

  91. Hanotoux and le Duc de la Force, Revue des Deux Mondes, April 1935, p. 612.

  92. Hanotoux and le Duc de la Force, March 1935, pp. 73 f.

  93. Noailles, I, pp. 567–71.

  94. Ibid., loc. cit.; See Hanauer, pp. 190–1, 193, 263 f.

  95. Avenel, V, p. 277.

  96. Ibid., VII, pp. 866–7.

  97. Un recit inédit de la mort du Cardinal de Richelieu. Revue Historique, LV, pp. 304–8; Avenel, VI, pp. 507–8, 696, 704.

  98. M. L. Cimber, Archives curieuses de l’histoire de France. Paris, 1834, II, V, pp. 427–39.

  99. Ibid., p. 436.

  100. H. de Besse, Relation des campagnes de Rocroy et de Fribourg. Paris, 1673, p. 283.

  101. H. de Besse, pp. 284–6.

  102. The account of the battle is from H. de Besse, Relation des campagnes de Rocroy et de Fribourg, pp. 287–305; Canovas del Castillo, Estudios del Reinado de Felipe IV, II, pp. 449–83. See also Rodriguez Villa, El Duque de Albuquerque en la Batalla de Rocroy and M. le Duc d’Aumale, La Première campagne de Condé. Revue des Deux Mondes, April 1883, pp. 733 ff.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  TOWARDS PEACE

  1643–8

  We must die or be slaves for the knife is at our throat.

  ISAAC VOLMER, Imperial plenipotentiary at Münster

  1.

  Five weeks after Rocroy Ferdinand III gave his imperial sanction for negotiations with France and Sweden on June 23rd 1643. The congress of Münster did not open until December 4th 1644; this time the fault was not entirely his. There were three causes for delay: the first a quarrel between the Emperor and the German Estates, the second a weakening in the French position and a breach with the United Provinces, the third a rupture between Sweden and Denmark.

  The Emperor had agreed to the meeting of a Deputationstag at Frankfort-on-the-Main, hoping that this assembly would settle the internal difficulties of Germany, above all the religious peace, without foreign interference. Whatever allies the contending parties had found, it seemed reasonable to hope that a purely German assembly would be allowed to settle purely German questions. Ferdinand under-estimated the arrogance of the Swedes and French, and over-estimated his own prestige.

  Since the implicit accusation made against him by the Elector Frederick William at Regensburg, and more especially since the spreading of that damaging pamphlet, the Dissertatio de ratione status, Ferdinand’s every action was suspect; at Frankfort-on-the-Main the deputy from Brandenburg indeed accused him of wantonly hindering the peace.[1] Consequently, when first the Swedish[2] and then the French ambassadors,[3] and then again the Swedes,[4] appealed to the German Estates to lay all their grievances before the international congress, the suggestion met with a willing acceptance. Ferdinand issued a counter-appeal in vain:[5] his good faith did not command belief, the more so that he had previously asked the assembly at Frankfort for a subsidy of nearly thirteen million gulden, which he could only need if he intended to prosecute the war. Unable to prevent the German representatives from flocking to the peace congress, he denied them the right to vote at Münster or Osnabrück. This was in substance a threat that they should either discuss their grievances at Frankfort or not at all; strong in the support of their foreign allies, and under the leadership of Frederick William of Brandenburg, the Estates protested so vigorously that Ferdinand yielded at last to the inevitable and agreed that the deliberations in Westphalia should have the significance of a Diet; thus any treaty agreed on there and signed by him would become the law of the Empire.[6]

  External pressure contributed to his final surrender. The Landgravine of Hesse-Cassel had refused to submit her cause to the Frankfort assembly,[7] an indication that she considered it merely an extension of a prejudiced imperial Court; and Maximilian of Bavaria had threatened to make a separate peace unless Ferdinand would yield.[8] The recalcitrance of the Landgravine was the less important of the two, but it significantly demonstrated that the extremist part would not be satisfied by any set
tlement at Frankfort. Maximilian’s threat was more immediately effective, for his desertion would mean the collapse of imperial arms.

  Maximilian’s position had altered since the Peace of Prague, in 1635, when he had been deprived of his cherished League and forced to wage war as Ferdinand’s ally, almost as his dependant. At that time he had only a rag of an army left, not enough to give him any control over imperial policy, whereas his fellow-ally, John George, had a considerable army with well-distinguished independent rights under a good commander. But while John George had stumbled on in his fuddled way, losing first his commander Arnim and then, little by little, allowing his army to dwindle, Maximilian had so husbanded his resources and improved his army that he had again built up his dominant position. ‘He respects the Emperor’, said the Venetian ambassador in 1641, ‘but he does everything in his own way.’[9] By 1644 he seems to have set his disordered finances in order again,[10] and his troops had gradually become the backbone of the imperial forces.

  Meanwhile the Spanish government drained away Ferdinand’s strength: his army, battered and drilled into shape again by the indefatigable Piccolomini, after the second Battle of Breitenfeld,[11] decayed rapidly after Rocroy when Piccolomini’s services were demanded in the Netherlands. Robbed of his best commander, Ferdinand had no choice but to appoint Werth, Maximilian’s cavalry general, now returned from a French prison, to command the horse. Tactical skill and ingenuity meanwhile made the French professional, known to his employers as Franz von Mercy, the dominant figure on the imperial side, although in fact he was only the commander of the Bavarian troops. In the autumn of 1643, the French, led by Guébriant and relying on the veteran Bernardine army, advanced from Alsace across the Black Forest into Württemberg and took Rottweil. Here Mercy and Werth emphatically turned the tables on them; surprising the troops in their loosely spread quarters near Tuttlingen, they drove them out with heavy loss of baggage and men, and delivered Rottweil. More dismayed than his delegates at Münster would admit, Mazarin hastily collected reinforcements and appointed Turenne to redeem France’s reputation, while the imperialists proclaimed their victory to Europe as a sufficient answer to the defeat of Rocroy.[12]