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1622 - The Battle of Höchst
A story from the 30 Year's War
Markus Pfenninger
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1622 - The Battle of Höchst
A story from the 30 Year's War
Markus Pfenninger
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About This Book
The 30 Years' War seems very far in the past nowadays. Yet it had a decisive impact on Germany, from language to collective psychology. The Battle of Höchst in 1622 was decisive for the further course of the war.Based on extensive research in original sources, the events surrounding the battle are reconstructed in detail. The richly illustrated book also describes the society and everyday life of the people in the 17th century. Above all, it is an exciting story of war, looting and megalomania, but also of great strategic skill, personal courage and civic heroism that is worth telling.
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The war parties get into position
Retreat across the Weser
After the pressure on Christian from Brunswick's troops in Westphalia from the imperial league forces increased, the Brunswick army command decided at the beginning of May 1622 that the time had come to march. Only, where should the army turn and what route should it take? Christian of Brunswick dreamed of marching directly to Bohemia, defeating the imperial troops there and thus restoring his adored Elisabeth Stuart to the throne as promised. Strategically, this would not have been a bad move in principle, because it would have forced the other side to withdraw troops from the Upper Rhine theatre, which would have reduced the pressure on Frederick and Mansfeld
Figure 8
Tercio. Battle formations of pikemen surrounded by a "hedge" of musketeers were the dominant infantry formation in the first years of the war. The pikemen were mainly there to protect the musketeers from cavalry with their lances. In the course of the war, the ratio shifted more and more towards more musketeers.
in the Lower Palatinate. Only this plan would have made it necessary to march through Electoral Saxony. The Elector of Saxony, Johann Georg I, was more inclined towards the imperial position, but had initially remained militarily neutral in the conflict. In the meantime, however, he supported the imperial troops with his army in crushing the remnants of the Bohemian uprising. His determined resistance to a march through by Christian's army was therefore to be expected. Since most of the Saxon troops were tied up on the Silesian-Moravian border and in Lusatia, Christian of Brunswick thought he had a good chance of a breakthrough in view of his numerically impressive army.
The reality, however, was different. Most of his troops, especially the infantry, were freshly recruited. The reports indicate that it consisted largely of new recruits, not "tried servants". The armament with the latest Dutch muskets was not bad, but there was a lack of pikes, so that some of the foot troops had to be armed with clubs. Above all, however, the army lacked the necessary drill.
The combat tactics of the infantry at the beginning of the 17th century were based on mixed formations of pikemen and musketeers that could manoeuvre quickly and in a coordinated manner in close formation. At the beginning of the war, the Spanish tercio was the measure of all things in battle formations. Originating from the force clusters of the Landsknecht era, this formation combined spearmen and musketeers. The basic idea behind it was that a square of men carrying 3-5 m long spears could not be attacked from any side by enemy cavalry. For horses can be made to do much, but not to gallop into a wall of iron spikes. With the development and spread of firearms, however, this was no longer necessary: the cavalry rode in formation in front of such a tercio, the front rank fired their mounted pistols at the enemy soldiers, swung off to the left, loaded their pistols while rejoining the formation at the rear. For obvious reasons, this manoeuvre was called Caracole, in translation “snail”. Only when the tercio was sufficiently weakened by this constant fire and threatened to break up as a formation, did the shock attack take place at a gallop with the sabre. And disbanded, possibly even fleeing foot troops had always been the easy victims of cavalry.
So in order to protect a rather static infantry formation like the tercio from a caracole, it had to be able to keep the attackers at bay. That's where the musketeers came in. With their much greater range than mounted pistols, their muskets were effective protection. Around the core of pikemen, 3-5 rows of musketeers were simply placed. In addition, smaller squares, also made of musketeers, were formed at the corners of the formation. The musketeers loaded and fired under the protection of the long lances and could retreat into the interior of the formation if necessary.
The pikemen usually wore a breastplate with short leg pockets, as well as an open helmet as protective equipment. This offered a certain degree of protection against cutting and stabbing weapons, but as a pressed mass-produced item made of sheet steel, it was not bullet-proof. For close combat, the pikemen were armed with sword or rapier, dagger and increasingly with pistols. The musketeers largely dispensed with protective equipment in favour of better mobility; only an iron hat cross was worn under the hat as a more or less poor substitute for a helmet. The muskets initially weighed up to 7.5 kg and therefore had to be supported on an iron fork to fire. The muzzle-loaders fired bullets up to 20 mm in diameter. The effective range was at most 100 m, after which the effect of the bullets diminished considerably. Since the barrels were smooth bored for faster loading and had a larger diameter than the bullets fired from them, the accuracy of muskets was not good. Beyond 75 metres, at best every second bullet found its target. Since the musketeers did not fire at individual soldiers in battle, but at larger, densely stacked formations and thus at large targets, accuracy did not play a major role. The armament for close combat corresponded to that of the pikemen. In the course of time, as firearms improved, their importance increased and the numerical
Figure 25
Cavalry attack two large tercios as a "caracole".The musketeers of the tercios engage in firefights with the cavalry units filing past them. After firing their rider's pistols, the musketeers of the tercios turn left and gather for the next attack.
ratio of musketeers to pikemen grew; at the beginning of the war it was about even.
Although such a tercio was rather defensive by basic design, the force of its many hundreds of men could also make it very effective when attacking another such formation, especially if the enemy formation was already weakened by musketeer fire or cavalry charges. In battle, tercios were placed in 2-3 rows on gap, like a chessboard. This allowed each formation to operate independently and come to the aid of other tercios when needed, or to fill gaps that had been created. Cavalry advancing into such a formation of tercios was exposed to fire from several sides at once.
Figure 9
Soldiers of the 30 Years’ War. This painting brings together the most important types of soldiers in the 30 Years’ War. From left to right. The rider on the pinto is an arquebus rider and thus belongs to the light cavalry. The other two riders belong to a cuirassier unit; one is armed with a lance, the other carries the typical rider's pistols in the holsters on either side of the saddle. On the right side of the picture, a musketeer in the typical equipment with 12-apostle bandolier, musket and rapier sword, as well as a pikeman with his 3-5m lance over his shoulder, protected by helmet and upper body armour, stroll along.
One can imagine that it was not easy to move such a complex formation of many hundreds to thousands of men in a coordinated manner without the formation getting attackable gaps or disintegrating altogether. If just one man stumbled, he could drag many others with his lance. The terrain therefore played a major role in the deployment; on steeper slopes, over obstacles or on difficult ground, this formation could de facto not be used for an attack or retreat.
In order to be able to fight in such a formation at all, it was therefore necessary for the individual to first perfectly master the use of his weapon. According to Johann Jacobi from Wallhausen's "Kriegskunst zu Fuß" (Art of War on Foot), published in 1615, the correct handling of the pike, which could be up to 5 m long, required 33 individual steps, that of a matchlock musket even 43. Even with daily practice, it took months of training to master the handling of it
Figure 10
Exercise manual for pikemen. The graphic shows a small part of the manoeuvres a pikeman had to master with his main weapon, a 3-5m lance. There were several textbooks for infantry training available at the time.
safely in battle. To be able to do this in the formation for defence and attack required further, permanent training. Setting up the tercios alone could take half an hour or more, even for trained units. In addition, the orders, trumpet, drum and flag signals of the officers, musicians and flag bearers placed in the middle of the tercios had to become second nature to the soldiers so that they could obey them without thinking, even in stressful combat situations. That is why the soldiers were drilled by their sergeants on the parade ground whenever the army was not marching.
The newly recruited men in Christian from Brunswick's army simply did not have time for this drill. Added to this was their lack of combat experience. A certain number of the men may have already been in battle, but for the most part not with their current regiments, and they had not yet fought together and did not know to what extent they could rely on each other.
The war-experienced colonels of the Brunswick army were only too aware of all this and therefore tried to bring plans to the attention of their youthfully enthusiastic warlord that did not amount to an early confrontation with well-trained troops. In addition, Frederick and Mansfeld pressed for a quick unification because they wanted to bring about a decision in the Lower Palatinate. A direct route there would have led through the Protestant Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel. Its ruler, Moritz, had been behaving very ambivalently for some time. On the one hand, he admired Christian of Brunswick, calling him a "Teutonic hero", but on the other hand he did not want to take sides prematurely before it was clear who would have the upper hand. Landgrave Moritz had assembled and recruited quite a large army with which he marched through his county. A march through Hesse-Kassel would have kept the Brunswick column within reach of Anholt's troops. Anholt would certainly not have let this opportunity to attack pass. So the decision was made to cross the Weser at Höxter and move in the direction of the Eichsfeld exclave belonging to Kurmainz. This left all options open for the time being - directly into the Electoral Palatinate, into the bishoprics of Upper Main or into Bohemia.
The troops, with their armoury, which lay in various towns in Westphalia, were ordered to assemble at Höxter in mid-May 1622. This redeployment lasted several days and did not go unnoticed by the enemy. Up to that point, the Imperial League troops had tried to drive the units, which were spread far and wide across the country, out of their fortified places, which was a laborious business. The departure, however, offered Anholt the opportunity to decisively weaken or even crush the assembled army of the Brunswick. He was determined to seize this opportunity, especially since he estimated the combat value of the Brunswick army to be similarly low as Christian's own colonels. Anholt immediately sent cavalry units ahead to disrupt the withdrawal. Several smaller skirmishes ensued, but they did not decisively slow down the withdrawal. Anholt himself waited impatiently with about 8,000 men for the announced reinforcement by Spanish troops under Commissar General Ochoja to attack Christian from Brunswick's army before crossing the Weser. The meeting point was arranged halfway between Paderborn and Höxter for noon on 19 May.
In the meantime, the Brunswick army and train gathered in front of Höxter. Their troop strength at this time was probably about 18-20,000 men. If the leadership of the Brunswick army had had even a little confidence in the striking power of their army at this point, this would have been a good opportunity to confront Anholt's vastly outnumbered troops in order to decisively weaken the imperial forces, at least in Westphalia. Instead, the Brunswickers did everything they could to cross the Weser as quickly as possible to avoid a confrontation.
The town of Höxter belonged to the Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and was therefore subject to Duke Friedrich Ulrich, the brother of Christian from Brunswick. The latter continued to strongly disapprove of his brother's actions and did everything in his power to prevent Christian's army from entering his territory. There was indeed a bridge over the Weser in Höxter, but it was not suitable for crossing with an army. Therefore, a ship's bridge was to be built. The construction of ship or barrel bridges was a common means at that time to be able to cross larger flowing waters with troops. To do this, barges were lashed together sideways at regular intervals, fastened to the two banks and with anchors in the river, and beams were laid across them. A roadway was then laid on top of these with planks. In some cases, the barges, beams and planks necessary for this were even carried by the armies in their baggage train, in order to be independent of their availability on the ground.
This was not the case with Christian from Brunswick's still brand-new army, so the necessary material had to be procured locally. To prevent the construction of a ship’s bridge, the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel ordered all ships on the Weser to be destroyed. However, in view of Christian's army encamped directly in front of his city and the reputation that preceded it, the local commander decided not to listen to his duke for once in this case and immediately provided the necessary material. With regard to the further course of the campaign, the rapid construction of a solid ship's bridge for a large army near Höxter is interesting in that it shows that there was someone in the Brunswick army who was familiar with its construction and had an appropriate team of pioneers at his disposal. Colonel Knyphausen was commissioned to build the bridge, and he was also to play a leading role in the further course of the undertaking.
His full name was Dodo ...