Qualla: Battle of Fehrbellin

Battle of Fehrbellin: Introduction

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The Swedish officers holding Rathenow were drunk. A local official loyal to Brandenburg had thrown them a long, generous banquet on the evening of 14 June 1675, and the elector himself had paid for it — for exactly this purpose. Outside in the rain, Field Marshal Georg von Derfflinger rode toward the town gate with a lie ready on his tongue. He called up to the guards that he was a Swedish officer with a Brandenburg patrol on his heels. They opened the gate. Four days later, in a marsh near the village of Hakenberg, the reputation of the Swedish army — unbeaten within living memory — came apart.

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Image: Public domain

Battle of Fehrbellin: The March Nobody Expected

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Doris Antony, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0. Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, was encamped at Erstein in Alsace when the news reached him. He had joined Emperor Leopold I against Louis XIV, and the French had persuaded an isolated Sweden to attack Brandenburg from Pomerania while the electoral army was away. In De...

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Image: Doris Antony, Berlin | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Fehrbellin: Hemmed In at the Rhin

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The Swedish forces lay scattered across the swampy Havelland. Frederick William saw the weakness at once and sent Derfflinger to seize Rathenow in the middle, splitting the occupation in two. Count Waldemar von Wrangel pulled back toward Havelberg, but summer rain had turned the ...

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Image: Public domain

Battle of Fehrbellin: The Hills and the Bridge

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Büste: Albert Wolff; Foto: James Steakley, CC BY-SA 3.0. Wrangel had neglected the low hills on his left. Frederick William and Derfflinger put their thirteen guns up there and opened fire around noon on 18 June, tearing into a Swedish right flank that had nothing behind it but water. Wrangel threw men at the hills again and again thr...

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Image: Büste: Albert Wolff; Foto: James Steakley | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Fehrbellin: How an Inconclusive Day Became a Legend

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Steakley, CC BY-SA 3.0. Judged narrowly, Fehrbellin was not much of a victory. The Swedes wanted only to concentrate and withdraw, and they did; the Brandenburgers wanted to stop them, and failed. But by a convention as old as classical antiquity, the side left holding the field was the winner — and Bra...

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Image: James Steakley | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Fehrbellin: The Tower on the Hakenberg

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Büste: Albert Wolff; Foto: James Steakley, CC BY-SA 3.0. Heinrich von Kleist set his drama The Prince of Homburg here in 1809–10, built around the prince's supposed insubordination — a story later popularised by Frederick the Great and quite possibly invented. The battlefield itself is flat, wet and easy to miss. What marks it is a 36...

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Image: Büste: Albert Wolff; Foto: James Steakley | CC BY-SA 3.0