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In the very misery of the Thirty Years War in Germany, there was one general who contributed more to its end than any other. His name was Lennart Torstensson. He was a Swede, fighting on the side of the Protestants against the Archduke of Austria and his allies.
Generalissimo Field Marshall Governor-General of Pomerania, “The Lion-Strong Son of the Stone of the Thunder God,” (Feil, 1) Count Lennart Torstensson, sometimes spelled Lennard Torstensohn, was a very seasoned soldier by 1645. He was a favorite pupil of the past Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus, age forty-two, a general of talent involved already in many battles from three wars, and had already won a major battle against the Austro-Hungarians after his appointment to commander-in-chief of Swedish forces by the Chancellor-Regent Axel Oxenstierna. This major victory under his command is referred to as the Second Battle of Leipzig (Liepzic) or the Second Battle of Brittenfield, because in the same place eleven years beforehand Gustavus Adolphus had won a victory for Sweden there in the same war. (Schiller, 331)
Torstensson had bad health ever since he was captured earlier in the war; suffering mainly from Gravel and Gout. He was carried only in a litter or on horseback. (Feil, 2) “He lay often for weeks in his be, his hands knotted with gout, unable even to sign an order” (Parker, 200). He was not religiously superstitious (Feil, 9). He was, “a harsh, commanding man…he neither cared for nor sought popularity; his men hated him, and he ruled them by terror… the cursed his hangings and shooting and floggings, but they did not rise against him” (Wedgwood 447-8). But in fact during the Thirty Years’ War, the soldier was king. The horrors of that war were from their hands, and J. Watts de Peyster alleges that his discipline to his troops made him the most humane general towards civilians of the war. Torstensson was allegedly very handsome despite his illness, and though Joseph Feil describes many atrocities committed by his Swedes, he admits Torstensson was a perfect gentleman to those of his class. Peyster says that Feil is biased against Torstensson because he is an Austrian.
According to Wedgwood in late February 1645 Torstensson crossed the Elbe and was marching towards Prague, and gave battle at Jankau (sometimes spelled Jankov, Jancowitz) against a mixed force of Austrians and Bavarians who cut him off. He says that Torstensson had the advantage from the start of the battle because he was in uneven and thickly wooded ground that made the battle a series of skirmishes that allowed Torstensson to nullify the numerical superiority of his opponents. He said Torstensson first outmaneuvered Goetz’s cavalry, killing him, and then he managed to outnumber the Bavarian Mercy and Werth and Austria’s Hatzfeld, destroying their forces and capturing Hatzfeld. (483). Geoffrey Parker insists that this battle at Jankau on the 6th of March 1645 was decided because Torstensson had sixty field guns against an enemy of 26 guns, and that there was only preliminary skirmishing, followed by a prolonged pitched battle. (176) Schiller, who sounds like a German nationalist, says that the battle was on the 24th of February and that only the left cavalry wing of the “Imperialists” was stuck in thickets and marshes, enabling Torstensson to route Goetz, and that the eight hour battle was won because the Swedish took the heights and resisted a desperate attack by enemy cavalry, which started the battle outnumbering the Swedish cavalry by 3,000. (333-4) And yet Feil, the so-called biased Austrian, said that Torstensson’s army was more German than Swedish, and that in this battle each side launched three cavalry attacks, Torstensson himself in the saddle, and that the Swedes simply were victorious in the end. (34-8) “At [Jankau] , south-east of Prague, Torstensson beat the Imperial army decisively. It did not really recover from this blow until the end of the war.” (Asch, 134)
The way was now open for Torstensson, with the French attacking the Bavarians at his flank; he was free to march on Vienna. The Emperor fled there to prepare defenses. Torstensson set up the Swedish forces on the other side of the Danube and bombarded the city, as the Bohemians had done at the beginning of the war. Torstensson now hoped that the Transylvanian Magyar-Hungarian Prince Ragotzsky who may have had up to 40,000 men and had received money from France would come to Torstensson’s aid and assault Vienna. Torstensson tried to siege the city of Brunn (Breig), in order to reach him, for five months, but could not take it, and he withdrew most of his forces, leaving a garrison in the outskirts of Vienna. Schiller suggests that Prince Ragotzsky would not aid Torstensson because he was bribed by the Emperor to have the protestant nobility granted toleration and territory if they would not revolt. However, Parker says that Ragotzsky would have attacked had not the Sultan declared war on Venice that spring and subsequently stopped funding Ragotzsky. (176). Torstensson’s army was quite ravished with disease and famine and could not maintain itself in what was now poor Bohemia, and the French had been defeated in Bavaria, so he was vulnerable. Torstensson withdrew, doing all he could for the honor of the eighteen-year-old Queen Christina. “Early in 1646 the Swedish government had yielded at last to the plea of Torstensson for recall on the score of ill-health.” (Parker, 201)
Not long after this was the war brought to an end at the peace Westphalia on the twenty-fourth of October 1646. The ability of Torstensson to humble the Imperialists, and to bring the realization to the front that they could not win the war with great advantages most likely accelerated the peace process. Likewise, it might be fortunate that Vienna was never taken, as it might have made the Swedish proud and greedy enough to prolong the war until they could have a favorable peace settlement.
Bibiliography
1. Asch, Ronald G. The Thirty Years War: Holy Roman Empire and Europe. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
2. Feil, Joseph. :" A Hero of the Seventeenth Century": Torstenson before Vienna; or the Swedes in Austria in 1645-1646, with notes by J. Watts de Peyster. New York, 1885.
3. Parker, Geoffrey. The Thirty Years War. Boston, Mass., Routledge & Kegan Paul plc, 1984.
4. Schiller. Schiller’s Historical Works: Thirty Years War and Revolt of the Netherlands. London, George Bell & Sons, 1877.
5. Wedgwood, C. V. The Thirty Years War. London, Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1938.
