Battle of Jankau 1645 - Thirty Years' War DOCUMENTARY

[Music] the epic Battle of Freiburg in 1644 showed that the Holy Roman Empire still had enough strength to defend against the Franco's Swedish alliance but the Empire was getting low on resources their allies were leaving their cause and their enemies were on all sides a new Swedish offensive in 1645 proved able to push the Habsburgs to their limit as the brilliant commander Leonard Torstensson was eager to outshine even his late King Gustavus Adolphus the Battle of yon cow was a great chance to prove if Torstensson had what it takes to do just that although the Bavarian leader prevailed in the Battle of Freiburg using his defensive skills Mercy's indecisiveness gave the French commanders the opportunity to recall most of the nearby Garrison's and within 24 hours more than six thousand men were marching to join them the bavarian commander probably knew that the enemy would be shortly reinforced and decided to retreat his army still lacked horses so retreating into the open would have been dangerous simultaneously the French might have gone for Mannheim or stood cut and losing these cities wasn't an option as a result on the 7th Mersey moved to a more defensible sent Peter Valley the French received their reinforcements the next day and started chasing the Imperials on the 9th however due to lack of knowledge of the terrain the French advance was slow so Conde sent general Rosen and his cavalry to cut the Bavarian retreat on the 10th Rosen almost succeeded in doing that but the slowness of the extremely tired French infantry didn't allow Conde to build on Rosen's actions by the end of the day mercy broke through the French cavalry aunt was in Villa ghen Conde stayed in the area for a day taking the Imperial outbursts and as Fryeburg strategic importance was lower than that of the regions of Baden and Verdun burg the French began their march north mercy changed his trajectory and started moving parallel to them however he was still wary of the enemy cavalry and therefore moved with caution this meant that he was too far away to do anything when conde besieged Phillipsburg on the 25th of august and took it on september 12 this threatened stood guard and Mannheim which forced mercy to get closer to the French and starts building fortifications at Nickerson conde possibly thought about attacking but winter was coming so the campaign of 1644 was over to the north Torstensson was preparing for the campaign of 1645 he now had around 16,000 troops and an agreement with the French and Transylvanians to attack Vienna together while the Protestant minority in Upper Austria was asked to revolt it was expected that this four pronged attack would finally break Habsburg resistance the Empire situation was dire Denmark left the war and was negotiating with Sweden for a future treaty which meant Torsten son was free to attack Gallus his action basically destroyed the Imperial Army in the area so the new commander had spelled had to rebuild it from scratch reinforcements from Bohemia Hungary and Silesia brought his numbers to 12,000 but those were untrained and badly equipped troops so hats felt asked the Emperor for more troops Ferdinand the third pleaded with Bavarian elector Maximilian the first to help and the latter sent a letter to Mercy ordering him to send a portion of his force indeed general vert tent is 5000 soon joined has felt at Pilsen where the new Imperial commander was trying to weld his soldiers into a real army however torsion son wasn't going to give his foes the time they needed and began his campaign months earlier than expected On January 19th the Swedes moved into Bohemia via Preston it's five days later completely surprising hats felled and crushing a few of his outposts in the process unfortunately for Tosh tin son he fell ill which slowed down the advance that and the thawing allowed the Imperials to somewhat recover still when the Swedes passed them from the east on the 18th of February hats felt was in a difficult position as Torstensson could have attacked either Prague or Vienna it became clear that the Swedish commander was going for the capital of the Empire and has failed force marched his men south managing to reach the town of Haresh Davitt sir first on the 25th this allowed him to secure the crossings of the Vltava River for 4 days straight the Swedes attempted to cross by attacking head-on and by attempting a feigned retreat but nothing worked so on March 2nd Torsten son moved West which made the Imperials abandon their positions and pursue him once again the sweets were slower as hats felt doubled timed his soldiers to take positions at Taborn indeed on the 4th of March the tired Imperial Army was in the town with the Swedes to the northwest with no time to lose hats felt moved to the north again this time establishing a defensive position near the village of Yanko soon tortion son was in the area [Music] at this point in the war both armies likes to send cavalry detachments to raid and counter raid so when large concentrations happened the armies were unusually cavalry heavy the Imperials had eleven thousand horsemen across 50 squadrons and five thousand footmen in six brigades supported by 26 guns although the Swedish army was similar in terms of the numbers it was far superior in terms of training equipment units cohesion and most importantly unlike hats failed torsion son had the complete obedience of his subordinates the latter also had artillery advantage with 60 guns alongside 6,000 infantry in eight brigades and 10,000 cavalry in forty-seven squadrons on the afternoon of the 5th of March the Swedish army approached the Kurdish Schenker River their commander ascended to the top of Hill 554 to observe the enemy his counterpart occupied a great defensive position among the hills and woods which limited the Swedish artillery advantage and made any frontal cavalry charge impossible so torched him son had to think of a better plan around 5 a.m. the next morning part of his right-wing cavalry joined him on the hill and then turned left and started marching north had felt was informed of this and deduced that although his left flank was more vulnerable the Swedes would attack from his right meanwhile the rest of the Swedish army reformed in the dark into columns with infantry on the Left cavalry in the centre and guns and baguette on the right and started moving to the south Swedish cavalry to the north was making much more noise but had felt were still not sure about his left flank the highest elevation in the area was Chapel Hill to the southwest of his position and the Imperial leader probably wanted to use this high ground to get a better idea of what the Swedes were up to however it is not clear of the commander of the left-wing God's was ordered to move his entire force to occupy Chapel Hill or just create a forward outpost there that's felt himself went to his right flank to conduct a personal reconnaissance which basically left his army leaderless God's either misunderstood the directive or decided that it was a good moment to show his disobedience so he started moving the first echelon of the Imperial left towards Chapel Hill while most of the troops marched slowly the dragoons were double-timed with orders to occupied the elevation they established themselves on the hill but around 7:30 a.m. the swedish vanguard was in the area and the dragoons fled without offering any resistance soon in forming God's the latter concluded that his foes were trying to get their own forward outpost and continued towards Chapel Hill simultaneously hats felt finally started to understand that torsion son had tricked him and no attack was coming from the right he personally galloped towards gods to inform him that the Swedes would attack from the south or Southwest but when he reached the left flank he only found the second echelon under Pompey and these troops were also going for the elevation enraged the Imperial commander rode to find God's although God's moved fast he didn't Scout fiy terrain ahead and had no idea that the Swedes had already formed up on the hill and to the west of it at 8:15 he ended up around to the village of Nausicaans and almost immediately his disjointed units were attacked by the enemy that was the moment when hats felt at last found his unruly underling God's was ordered to retreat but began to argue and insisted that they needed to retake Chapel Hill it is not clear if had felt was persuaded or just decided that's the only way to save his way which left was to bring the whole army to the area but he started galloping towards his main forces [Music] God says troops were attacking but these attacks were disorganized and easily repelled by the Swedes as their artillery arrived at Chapel Hill they started sending deadly volleys against the Imperials ever stubborn God's refused to retreat and his charismatic personality held his roots together for some time despite all the losses however around 9:00 a.m. gots was killed by a musket fire and that broke his troops Swedish cavalry started pursuing them but by that time the Imperial footmen and azules were able to form a defensive line in the woods to the south of Nasik of the cavalry charge was repelled but as do as his infantry had to move fast they left their artillery behind and now were under withering artillery fire from the Swedes unlike God's Lewis wasn't too proud to retreat and quickly repositioned in the forests to the northeast torsion son smelled blood and was eager to destroy the enemy here and now so he sent part of the cavalry to take Hill 535 which threatened the south of the imperial infantry fortunately for the latter had spelled soon arrived and reformed what remained of God's is cavalry he then repositioned to the south of Zooey's just in time to repel the first attack by the Swedish squadrons [Music] now that's the entirety of torstensson's army was between Chapel Hill and Hill 535 he attacks through his head on and reinforced his right flank to push hands felt who was in turn reinforced by verts left flank cavalry the initial Swedish attack in the center was repelled as part of verts cavalry charge from the flank but the Swedes continued and slowly but surely the Imperials were pushed back by their superior arms and guns it was impossible for hat spells to continue his resistance so by noon he ordered the army to disengage and retreat to the north although the Swedes attempted to chase their foe birch managed to use his cavalry to expertly cover the escape the Swedes showed their excellent discipline and formed up in their initial alignment with cavalry on the wings and with the center consisting of infantry and cavalry they captured some of the artillery lost by the enemy and placed it on hill 537 alongside the road with the baggage train behind the main army despite the fact that his army was clearly the winner of the battle torsion son wasn't eager to chase the enemy across broken terrain so he decided to allow the Imperials to flee meanwhile has felt was worried that his battered army would not survive a fighting retreat so he was going to wait until sunset in order to avoid the Swedes to that end his troops formed up between yang kau and Herson where he had previously erected one meter high fortifications on the left he had verts mostly intact bavarian cavalry with bry commanding whatever was left of gods his cavalry and the second echelon cavalry from the center on the right with an infantry brigade joining them in the center he positioned five infantry brigades and Kalyn Burks Saxon cavalry reserved alongside his artillery he now had just nine guns and had no chance to survive any artillery Joule so he hoped the uneven forest terrain would cover his army The Imperials also claimed Hill 548 as a forward outpost the Swedish commander learned about the new Imperial disposition and concluded that he couldn't leave a strong enemy in his rear and March for Prague or Vienna so around 1:00 p.m. he sent 400 Musketeers with 10 cannons to take Hill 548 the German infantry unit occupying it retreated without offering any resistance that's felt rebuked zua Sant Bry for allowing it to happen after ordering them to retake the hill he returns to hers in and once again his instructions were misunderstood and his captain sent almost their entire force to take the hill a disproportionate response that took them out of their great defensive position to say the least obviously this counter-attack succeeded and the Imperials drove back the Musketeers and captured all ten guns however this action showed tortion son that the enemy was still in the area in full force he immediately sent his left under Douglas and center under Matenga while fittin Berg's right was left as the reserve with guns on hill 537 providing artillery support indeed the facts that the Swedes had artillery on that hill was a great surprise for the Imperials artillery just wasn't as mobile during that period and the fact that it was moved into new positions so quickly proved the professionalism of the Swedish army tortion son was adding a new military tactic that would become key in the next centuries for the Imperial this professionalism meant death as Swedish artillery killed hundreds with each volley especially among the Imperial right indeed when Douglas his horse attacked here they easily dispersed the enemy breaking them and sending them into full flight while bride was killed the Swedes weren't as successful in the center as the high ground allowed the Imperial footmen to dig in and the guns they had captured were effective so more tenures charge here was stopped and the two sides were then locked in a bitter melon the Imperial left flank was relatively unscathed and was ordered to attack torsion sons right side Whittenburg didn't expect this attack and it took his troops by surprise most of the first echelon was routed while the second was now chased by vert who was probably eager to destroy it and then swing back north during the chase the Swedes retreated close to their baggage train and that was too tempting for the imperial troops they allowed the Swedes to slip away and started looting the wives of the Swedish officers were captured here including torsion son's wife eventually five squadrons attempted to continue the chase but by that time the Swedes had reformed their ranks their counter-attack began around 2:30 and was fast and furious the Bavarians didn't expect that and were completely routed in a matter of minutes this proved to be too much to the least disciplined part of the Imperial Army the Saxons just recently joined the Habsburg cause and just weren't as invested immediately after the left wing was crushed kallenberg ordered his horsemen to leave the field abandoning Zeus's infantry to their fate hats Feld's only remaining cavalry attempted to wheel around the center and attack the swedish center from behind but mattaniah had enough reserves to block them and soon douglas sent reinforcements who crushed this detachment ads felts infantry was surrounded on Hill 548 although they managed to defend for an hour soon it was all over the battle was very bloody and the winners lost 2,000 dead and as many wounded while the Imperial casualties were more than 10,000 half of them prisoners including hats felled and many other officers the inability of the Imperial commanders to strike an accord alongside the superiority of the Swedish troops and officers proved to be too much for the Habsburg army to overcome the road to the Habsburg capital was open with torsion sons seemingly closer to complete victory than his late King Gustavus Adolphus ever was but not everything was so simple and our next episode will prove it so make sure you are subscribed to our Channel and have pressed the bell button we would like to express our gratitude to our patreon supporters aunts channel members who make the 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Channel: Kings and Generals

Views: 315,074

Rating: 4.9603701 out of 5

Keywords: Thirty Years' War, 30 years war, ottoman wars, holy roman empire, thirty years war, gustavus adolphus, full documentary, full length documentaries, documentary film, kings and generals, military history, decisive battles, world history, Stralsund, breitenfeld, rocroi, conde, tercio, gustav ii adolf, battle of rocroi, pike and shot, king and generals, european wars of religion, history documentary, freiburg, mercy, turenne, history channel, nordlingen, brunn, mergentheim, lutzen, lens

Id: tPfrVjZ-X60

Length: 18min 55sec (1135 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 29 2020