1632

So, when the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand insisted that the Edict of Restitution be enforced-at long last!-on Saxony, Tilly was obliging. He marshaled his forces, pulling them out of Thuringia and Hesse-Cassel, and marched on Saxony. Along the way, as always, his soldiery ravaged and plundered. By the time his army reached Halle, on September 4, two hundred villages lay burning behind them.

Tilly moved on. Near Merseburg, his army went into camp and began devastating the region. Tilly sent his demands to John George. The Saxon elector was required to quarter and feed the imperial army; disband his new levies; place his troops under Tilly's command; formally recognize the emperor as his sovereign; and sever all ties to the Swedes.

Even now, John George vacillated. Tilly moved again, capturing the rich Saxon city of Leipzig after threatening it with the fate of Magdeburg.

The loss of Leipzig finally convinced John George he had no choice. He offered to join his army to Sweden's, and Gustavus Adolphus immediately accepted. The Swedish army joined with the Saxon forces on September 15 near the town of Dьben. The next day, the combined Swedish-Saxon army marched from Dьben to the hamlet of Wolkau. There was nothing between them and Leipzig but a level plain; vast, open, and unwooded. Ideal terrain for a battle.

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On the morning of September 17, Tilly led his army into position before his opponents arrived. His left flank was anchored by the town of Breitenfeld; his right, by Seehausen. The old veteran's position was excellent. His army commanded what little high ground there was in the area, and he had the sun and the wind at his back.

His army's numbers are uncertain-somewhere between thirty-two and forty thousand, a quarter of them cavalry. The infantry was drawn up in the center into seventeen tercios-or "battles," as Tilly's men called them-massed side by side. Each tercio numbered between fifteen hundred and two thousand men. The cavalry was drawn up on the flanks. Pappenheim's famous Black Cuirassiers were on the left-the same men who had breached the defenses of Magdeburg, and initiated the city's massacre. On the right, under the command of Fьrstenburg, was the newly arrived cavalry from Italy.

Later in the morning, the Swedish and Saxon armies arrived and took their own positions. The Swedes held the right and the center; the Saxons, the left. The Saxons were on the east of the road to Dьben; the Swedes, to the west.

Like Tilly, Gustav Adolf concentrated his infantry in the center. His right wing, mostly cavalry, was under the command of Field Marshal Banйr. His left, also made up of cavalry, under Field Marshal Horn. The core of his artillery was massed on Gustav's left center, young Torstensson in command. But, unlike Tilly, Gustav Adolf interspersed cavalry units among his infantry. The phrase "combined arms" had not yet entered the military lexicon, but its logic had already been grasped by the young Swedish king.

Of the Saxon formations, there is no record. They were simply "on the left"-and not for very long.

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The Protestant allies enjoyed a slight advantage in numbers, it seems. And they held a definite superiority in artillery. But their Catholic opponents were not fazed. No, not in the least. And why should they be? Tilly's men had only to look across the field to see that victory was certain.

The Saxon troops-well over a third of their opponents-were a semirabble, untested in battle and obviously disorganized. The Elector John George himself, surrounded by young Saxon noblemen wearing flamboyant scarves and cloaks, commanded the Saxon cavalry on the far left. Resplendent figures, those newly equipped cavalrymen, with their polished arms and shiny uniforms. Tilly's veterans were not impressed. A sheep looks resplendent, too, before it is shorn.

The Swedes presented a different picture, but Tilly's soldiers were unequally unimpressed. True, the Swedes were arrayed in excellent order, but What a ragged lot of vagabonds!

On this, every eyewitness account of the battle is agreed. The Swedish troops, said one Scottish officer later, "were so dusty they looked like kitchen servants, with their unclean rags." A Swedish observer would say much the same, contrasting the appearance of Gustav's men to Tilly's:

Ragged, tattered and dirty were our men (from the continual labors of this last year) besides the glittering, gilded and plume-decked imperialists. Our Swedish and Finnish nags looked but puny, next to their great German chargers. Our peasant lads made no brave show upon the field when set against the hawk-nosed and mustachioed veterans of Tilly.