It is rarely kings who die in battle. Notable exceptions to this rule include Harold II (Hastings), Richard III (Bosworth), and James IV (Flodden). And of all the many battles of the Thirty Years’ War, it’s perhaps Lützen that most deserves detailed analysis, as it added another name to this roll-call of reigning monarchs who got too near the action.
One of the war’s most significant tussles, the Battle of Lützen, on 16 November 1632, was arguably a narrow Swedish victory. However, it came at considerable cost as the Swedish king, Gustavus Adolphus, was killed. It was otherwise a relatively even contest, with around 19,000 troops on either side, and similar numbers of casualties: around 5,000-6,000 for both the Swedish-German Protestant allies and the Imperial forces of the Holy Roman Emperor. In this, Lützen stands as an exemplar of the wider war, illustrating how well-matched the sides were, and how hard it was to achieve an advantage.
Build-up: Swedish advance
As we have seen, the Thirty Years’ War entered a new phase in July 1630, when Sweden and its king, Gustavus II Adolphus, entered the conflict. Prominent among his war aims was an extension of Swedish hegemony at the expense of Ferdinand II, the Holy Roman Emperor – or, put more defensively, securing Sweden from Imperialist aggression. By the spring of 1631, the Swedes’ beachhead in Pomerania, on the Baltic’s southern shore, was secured – so Adolphus began his long march south, aiming for Catholic Bavaria. Adolphus achieved a thumping victory at Breitenfeld, north of Leipzig, on 17 September 1631. The wars had by then churned for more than a dozen years but this was the Protestants’ first major success. Adolphus crossed the Rhine on 17 November, establishing winter quarters as the campaigning season waned.
American advances