Qualla: Battle of Wittstock

Battle of Wittstock: Introduction

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. In April 2007, work near Wittstock uncovered a pit with bodies in it. There were roughly 125 of them, laid in together, and 88 were lifted and studied in detail. They had been in the ground since 4 October 1636. What the anthropologists could read from the bones was not the battle but the lives that preceded it — where these men had come from, how healthy they had been, how they had been injured before and how they were injured at the end. Almost nothing else survives of them. No muster roll gives their names, and the reports written by the generals who commanded them are concerned with credit rather than with the dead. The pit is the closest thing to a record they have.

Read more: Battle of Wittstock on Qualla

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Battle of Wittstock: Down to One Army

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Assenmacher, CC BY-SA 4.0. Sweden had been losing for two years. The defeat at Nördlingen in 1634 broke the confidence of the Protestant princes of the Holy Roman Empire, and one by one they made their peace with the emperor — the Elector of Saxony signing the Peace of Prague with Ferdinand II in May 1635,...

Read more: Battle of Wittstock on Qualla

Image: Assenmacher | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Wittstock: The Scharfenberg

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The Imperial and Saxon commanders, Melchior von Hatzfeld and John George I of Saxony, chose their ground well: a range of sandy hills called the Scharfenberg, with part of the front strengthened by six ditches and a wall of wagons chained together. They were the larger force, rou...

Read more: Battle of Wittstock on Qualla

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Battle of Wittstock: The Long Way Round

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Banér and Leslie sent a quarter of their army — under Lieutenant-General James King and Major-General Torsten Stålhandske — on a wide detour around the Imperial right. The ground defeated them. The march was slow and difficult, and while it dragged on, the men holding the main li...

Read more: Battle of Wittstock on Qualla

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Battle of Wittstock: Who Won It

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The Swedes lost around 3,500 dead and wounded, the Imperial-Saxon army about 5,000 killed, wounded or captured. Three accounts of the day survive in the National Archives of Sweden and they do not agree comfortably. Banér credited the victory to Leslie. Leslie, writing privately ...

Read more: Battle of Wittstock on Qualla

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Battle of Wittstock: The Winner Who Gained Nothing

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Wittstock kept Sweden in the war. It saved the last field army, restored a reputation shredded at Nördlingen, and encouraged Hesse-Kassel and the Guelphs to go on resisting. Yet the emperor's position improved. George William, Elector of Brandenburg, had fled to East Prussia when...

Read more: Battle of Wittstock on Qualla

Image: Unknown author | Public domain