- Aug 2012
- 189
- United States
I recently got around to finally studying the military aspects of the thirty years war. Specifically the three books "The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy"(Peter H. Wilson), "Battles of the Thirty Years War"(William P. Guthrie) and The Later Thirty Years War(William P. Guthrie) as well as other material that mention the certain aspects of the war.("Lives of the warriors of the thirty years' war. Warriors of the 17th century", "Wallenstein: the enigma of the thirty years war" "Battles in Germany 1631-1704: Decisive Conflicts of the Thirty Years War & War of Spanish Succession to Blenheim" etc)
One of the most surprising misconceptions that I found has to do with two of the most gifted generals of the war Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly and Gustav II Adolf. It is often said by historians such as Hans Delbruck and Theodore Ayrault Dodge just to name a few, that Gustav was the brilliant military mind that brought decisive battles back to warfare. It has been mentioned that warfare during the early part of the thirty years war was indecisive, somewhat devoid of strategy and marred by unruly mercenaries that hindered operations.
Although some of this is true, when I began a detailed study of the period I began to see how it was actually Tilly more than Gustav that brought a more decisive form of warfare(Although it was not quite to the level of a Napoleon). When I look at Tilly's early campaigns which include: White Mountain campaign (1620) Palatinate Campaign(1621-1622) Stadtholn Campaign(1623) Lutter Campaign(1625-1626), I see a decisive outcome to each campaign:
At White Mountain the Bohemian revolt was ended and Bohemia came under the control of Austria, the Palatinate Campaign ended the participation of the Palatinate in the war and scattered the armies of Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick, the Stadtholn campaign essentially put an end to the major fighting in germany until the Danish phase of the war, and Lutter played a large part along with Wallenstien's contributions to bringing an end to the Denmark phase of the war. So to me it flies in the face of reason to say that Gustav was the one to bring decision back to warfare, i would go even further and say that Tilly's campaigns were the most decisive of the entire war.
One of the interesting things I also discovered was Tilly's strategic methods. As I said before it has been mentioned that strategy during the early part of the war, was largely based on what is called "stomach strategy" and this hindered the use of brilliant strategy that would be common place is later periods of warfare. From what I learned about Tilly's campaings this is not completely true. Although logistics played a large part is the Thirty Years War, even more than it would in later wars due to the mercenary armies and decentralized governments, there were still displays of brilliant strategic movements.
Lets take the Palatinate campaign for example, where after Tilly was defeated at Mingolsheim he was outnumbered in the entire theatre. He had three armies threatening to coalesces while the spanish allies were less than enthusiastic about leaving there war with the dutch to assist in Germany. Tilly first sent urgent messages to the spanish army under Cordoba which finally began to move to unite with Tilly. Mansfeld decided to spilt his army either for logistic reasons or to try and force Tilly to do the same. Tilly instead of listening to Cordoba who wanted to send a detachment to stop Mansfeld, decided top keep his army concentrated and attack the individual army of Georg Friedrich who had a strong fortified position at Wimpfen which ended in the destruction of Friedrich' army. He then planned to prevent Christian of Brunswick from joining with Mansfeld. He first moved with speed to a central point between the two armies and first forced Mansefeld to retreat back south away from Christian, then he caught up with Christians' army at Hochst. Although the battle wasn't as decisive in casualties as Tilly wanted, Christians lost 2000 men and was able to combine with Mansfeld, the defeat had two significant outcomes. It helped to demoralize Christian's army and due to the loss of men to desertion his army was severly weakened when it reached Mansfeld and it forced Mansfeld and Christian to evacuate the Palatinate which allowed Tilly to capture Heidelberg and Mannheim which essentially knocked The Palatinate out of the war.
In that campaign you saw the principle's of concentration vs dispersal, the fruits of decisive action, the use of interior lines and the speed of operations. Which goes to show that the period was not wholly devoid of any brilliant strategic methods.
Another aspect that gets overlooked with Tilly is his strategic speed. One of the more difficult maneuvers in early modern warfare was to force battle on an unwilling enemy. Due to many factors an army could effectively refuse battle for entire campaigns both before this period and after. Tilly was unique in that he forced battle on multiple enemies. At Mingoslheim, Hochst, Statdtholn and Lutter, Tilly was able to catch a retreating foe and force him to give battle of circumstances favorable to Tilly.
The last thing I learned was in the category of tactics. Again my previous readings told me that Tilly was an old relic, a user of a tactical method that was very much outdated. The truth is Tilly used what was overwhelmingly successful. His tercio armies consistently defeated the protestant armies that were trained in what was considered the innovative Dutch method. It wasn't as if Tilly knew there was a better method but stubbornly stuck to outdated tactics. He basically used the same methods that brought him success against the dutch school of thought when he first encountered Gustav. Also it is hindsight when we look at the superiority of the swedish tactics but at the time it was not a forgone conclusion that Gustav's armies would prove successful against the catholic armies.
Ive come to the conclusion that Tilly is one of the most underrated generals in all of history and imo he was the second best commander of the thirty years war behind Gustav(mostly becuase of Gustav's impact on the art of war was more substantial than was Tilly)
One of the most surprising misconceptions that I found has to do with two of the most gifted generals of the war Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly and Gustav II Adolf. It is often said by historians such as Hans Delbruck and Theodore Ayrault Dodge just to name a few, that Gustav was the brilliant military mind that brought decisive battles back to warfare. It has been mentioned that warfare during the early part of the thirty years war was indecisive, somewhat devoid of strategy and marred by unruly mercenaries that hindered operations.
Although some of this is true, when I began a detailed study of the period I began to see how it was actually Tilly more than Gustav that brought a more decisive form of warfare(Although it was not quite to the level of a Napoleon). When I look at Tilly's early campaigns which include: White Mountain campaign (1620) Palatinate Campaign(1621-1622) Stadtholn Campaign(1623) Lutter Campaign(1625-1626), I see a decisive outcome to each campaign:
At White Mountain the Bohemian revolt was ended and Bohemia came under the control of Austria, the Palatinate Campaign ended the participation of the Palatinate in the war and scattered the armies of Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick, the Stadtholn campaign essentially put an end to the major fighting in germany until the Danish phase of the war, and Lutter played a large part along with Wallenstien's contributions to bringing an end to the Denmark phase of the war. So to me it flies in the face of reason to say that Gustav was the one to bring decision back to warfare, i would go even further and say that Tilly's campaigns were the most decisive of the entire war.
One of the interesting things I also discovered was Tilly's strategic methods. As I said before it has been mentioned that strategy during the early part of the war, was largely based on what is called "stomach strategy" and this hindered the use of brilliant strategy that would be common place is later periods of warfare. From what I learned about Tilly's campaings this is not completely true. Although logistics played a large part is the Thirty Years War, even more than it would in later wars due to the mercenary armies and decentralized governments, there were still displays of brilliant strategic movements.
Lets take the Palatinate campaign for example, where after Tilly was defeated at Mingolsheim he was outnumbered in the entire theatre. He had three armies threatening to coalesces while the spanish allies were less than enthusiastic about leaving there war with the dutch to assist in Germany. Tilly first sent urgent messages to the spanish army under Cordoba which finally began to move to unite with Tilly. Mansfeld decided to spilt his army either for logistic reasons or to try and force Tilly to do the same. Tilly instead of listening to Cordoba who wanted to send a detachment to stop Mansfeld, decided top keep his army concentrated and attack the individual army of Georg Friedrich who had a strong fortified position at Wimpfen which ended in the destruction of Friedrich' army. He then planned to prevent Christian of Brunswick from joining with Mansfeld. He first moved with speed to a central point between the two armies and first forced Mansefeld to retreat back south away from Christian, then he caught up with Christians' army at Hochst. Although the battle wasn't as decisive in casualties as Tilly wanted, Christians lost 2000 men and was able to combine with Mansfeld, the defeat had two significant outcomes. It helped to demoralize Christian's army and due to the loss of men to desertion his army was severly weakened when it reached Mansfeld and it forced Mansfeld and Christian to evacuate the Palatinate which allowed Tilly to capture Heidelberg and Mannheim which essentially knocked The Palatinate out of the war.
In that campaign you saw the principle's of concentration vs dispersal, the fruits of decisive action, the use of interior lines and the speed of operations. Which goes to show that the period was not wholly devoid of any brilliant strategic methods.
Another aspect that gets overlooked with Tilly is his strategic speed. One of the more difficult maneuvers in early modern warfare was to force battle on an unwilling enemy. Due to many factors an army could effectively refuse battle for entire campaigns both before this period and after. Tilly was unique in that he forced battle on multiple enemies. At Mingoslheim, Hochst, Statdtholn and Lutter, Tilly was able to catch a retreating foe and force him to give battle of circumstances favorable to Tilly.
The last thing I learned was in the category of tactics. Again my previous readings told me that Tilly was an old relic, a user of a tactical method that was very much outdated. The truth is Tilly used what was overwhelmingly successful. His tercio armies consistently defeated the protestant armies that were trained in what was considered the innovative Dutch method. It wasn't as if Tilly knew there was a better method but stubbornly stuck to outdated tactics. He basically used the same methods that brought him success against the dutch school of thought when he first encountered Gustav. Also it is hindsight when we look at the superiority of the swedish tactics but at the time it was not a forgone conclusion that Gustav's armies would prove successful against the catholic armies.
Ive come to the conclusion that Tilly is one of the most underrated generals in all of history and imo he was the second best commander of the thirty years war behind Gustav(mostly becuase of Gustav's impact on the art of war was more substantial than was Tilly)
