Interpreting early modern warfare

In the aftermath of Gustavus Adolphus’ victory at Breitenfeld in September 1631, Imperial and Bavarian forces were fragmented across the Empire and faced a large, confident army divided into powerful field forces which were rapidly consolidating a Swedish grip across central and western Germany. Elector Maximilian of Bavaria, whose main priority was preparing for the imminent Swedish assault on Bavaria, appointed Gottfried Heinrich von Pappenheim to command the remnants of Bavarian and Imperial forces spread in garrisons across the Westphalian Circle, with instructions to attempt a diversion which might take military pressure off the south. Pappenheim had no financial resources, and calculated that raising an army adequate to conduct this operation would cost 300,000 talers. Neither Maximilian nor the Emperor would spare troops and money from what they anticipated would be the main struggle to decide the fate of southern Germany and the Habsburg lands. Nevertheless, by stripping troops from the Westphalian garrisons and drawing upon his reputation to encourage enterpriser-colonels to advance some capital to raise or reconstruct units, Pappenheim put together a modest force of some 4,000–5,000 troops, though these were, in his own words ‘experienced men, hardened and eager to fight’. Pappenheim’s operational instinct was to take the campaign deep into enemy-held territory, and in early January he broke out of Westphalia towards Magdeburg in the Lower Saxon Circle, where an Imperial garrison was blockaded by Swedish forces of 10,000 men commanded by the relatively inexperienced Johan Banér. Successfully misleading Banér about the strength of his own troops, Pappenheim drew him off and entered Magdeburg on 14 January 1632. Notoriously, of course, Magdeburg had been sacked and virtually destroyed by the Imperial army eight months previously; but it remained a prestigious and strategically important centre, and the military assumption was that such strongpoints should be held.