What happened at the Battle of Wimpfen?
On 6 May 1622, in the early years of the Thirty Years' War, the Catholic League army of Count Tilly and Spanish troops under Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba attacked the Protestant army of Margrave George Frederick of Baden-Durlach near Wimpfen on the Neckar, north of Heilbronn. The margrave's army began the day well, until a shot blew up its powder wagons. The Catholic armies then stormed his position, his army broke and fled, and George Frederick was driven from the field.1
For a few hours on a spring day in 1622 it looked as if the Protestant princes might turn the war around. Then one shot, or one explosion, decided everything, and a battle that both sides had nearly won became the story of a legend: a woman in white above the guns, a young prince killed at the head of his horsemen, and four hundred citizens of Pforzheim who were said to have died for their margrave.2
Background: the war comes to the Rhine
The war that had begun in Bohemia had moved to the Rhine. After the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, the army of the Catholic League under Count Tilly had beaten the forces of Frederick V of the Palatinate, the deposed Winter King of Bohemia, and was fighting the princes who still took his side. In the spring of 1622 Frederick tried again, with three armies: those of the mercenary general Ernst von Mansfeld, of Margrave George Frederick of Baden-Durlach and of Christian of Brunswick.3 › Battle of White Mountain, 1620
The campaign opened well for them. Near Wiesloch, at Mingolsheim, Mansfeld checked Tilly at the end of April, and the old Walloon fell back to Wimpfen to hold the bridge over the Neckar, calling the Spanish general Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba to his aid. Córdoba came.4
Then the allies separated. Gardiner writes that Mansfeld and the margrave could not agree on a plan and that there was no way to feed so large an army if it stayed together, so Mansfeld marched away; Rickard, that they meant to cross the Neckar at different points and split the Catholic armies. The German biography of George Frederick calls the separation an unsolved riddle. Either way, the margrave found himself facing Tilly and Córdoba alone near Wimpfen.5
Armies and commanders
Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly, born in Brabant in 1559 and educated by the Jesuits, had learned war in Spanish and imperial service before Duke Maximilian of Bavaria hired him in 1610 to build the army that became the backbone of the Catholic League. He had won at White Mountain, and he was then over sixty.6
George Frederick of Baden-Durlach was one of the few princes of the Protestant Union who stayed in the field after White Mountain, while others made their peace. With him rode the young Duke Magnus of Württemberg, a son of Duke Frederick I, at the head of a regiment of cuirassiers.7
The numbers are uncertain. The Heilbronn historical society puts the League army at 13,000 men and the margrave's at 15,000; the German biography of George Frederick gives each side about 20,000. Rickard judges that the margrave, though outnumbered by the combined Catholic forces, was not outclassed: his army was loyal and eager, while the other side suffered from a divided command and poor supplies.8
The battle in phases
Morning: the margrave's chance. The battle was fought on the open fields near Wimpfen, north of Heilbronn, on 6 May by the Gregorian calendar, 26 April by the old Julian calendar. George Frederick placed his guns on a low hill that dominated the flat ground and opened with a heavy cannonade, supported by a cavalry attack that for a moment seemed close to breaking the Spanish line. Both German biographies agree that the opening went in his favor and that Tilly's men had to give way.9
Afternoon: the Spaniards. The German biography of Tilly describes the Spanish intervention as the moment the battle turned against the margrave, and Rickard has Tilly and Córdoba fighting together with most of their army. The fighting grew heavy on both sides.10
Turning point: the explosion
Then a single shot changed everything. A ball struck the Protestant powder wagons and they blew up. The Heilbronn historians call it an accident that decided the battle; the German biography of George Frederick describes the wild flight that followed.11
The Catholic soldiers told their own story. Rickard records that they believed they saw a woman in white appear above the Protestant guns, after which the cannonade stopped, and they took it as a miracle and renewed their attack; Aurnhammer's study of the battle's legends asks whether the apparition was meant as an angel or as the Mother of God. Tilly and Córdoba threw their troops at the hill, and after a stiff fight the margrave's army fled, abandoning its guns.12
One ball in a powder wagon, and the margrave's best chance of the war went up in smoke.
Duke Magnus of Württemberg was killed at the head of his horsemen, surrounded after a hard fight; his German biography and the Heilbronn historians both describe his body as terribly disfigured. The margrave himself escaped.13
Aftermath: the cost
The beaten army streamed south toward Heilbronn. The Heilbronn historians write that Tilly's horsemen caught up with the fugitives and cut most of them down; the German biography of Tilly, by contrast, says that his own heavy losses kept him from any serious pursuit. The local count is about 5,000 dead on each side, and Rickard notes that Córdoba lost as many men as the margrave.14
The villagers paid as well. The day after the battle, Spanish and Bavarian troops broke into Neckargartach, a village belonging to the neutral imperial city of Heilbronn, and burned it almost to the ground; both the local historical society and the church archive's history of the parish record that the inhabitants were treated with the utmost cruelty.15
The victory did not end the campaign. Rickard writes that two thirds of the margrave's army soon gathered again, and Gardiner that by the end of May George Frederick hoped to bring it back into the field. Rickard notes that Mansfeld was able to cross the Neckar unopposed; Gardiner, that Córdoba left the field to resist him and that Mansfeld, his men almost starving, soon had to retreat to Alsace.16
In June Tilly and Córdoba caught Christian of Brunswick at Höchst on the Main and routed his army. In August Córdoba beat Christian and Mansfeld again at Fleurus in the Spanish Netherlands. Over the next years, as Britannica puts it, Tilly conquered the Upper and Rhenish Palatinate and defeated the armies raised by Frederick's supporters.17 › Battle of Fleurus, 1622
Legacy and memory
Wimpfen became one of the most mythologized battles of the war. The best-known legend is that of the Four Hundred of Pforzheim, citizens of the margrave's town said to have died to the last man covering his escape. The German biography of George Frederick already called it a legend that could not be supported historically, and the Pforzheim city archive's recent volume speaks of the legendary Four Hundred. Aurnhammer traces how the story was invented, popularized as a founding myth of Baden patriotism and finally taken apart.18
Duke Magnus's death at the head of his men entered the same heroic tradition. For Tilly, Wimpfen was one of the string of victories that carried him from White Mountain to his defeat of the King of Denmark at Lutter in 1626.19 › Battle of Lutter, 1626
