heiks
Posts: 113
Joined: 2/23/2001 From: Athens of Finland Status: offline
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quote:
Originally posted by vils: The Europes most successful Generals during 1600-1700 was no doubt the Swedish monarks of GUSTAV II ADOLF (battle of lutzen1640th 30yr war) and CARL X GUSTAV (Conquered Poland and Denmark 1658) and the ultimate CARL XII GUSTAV, who Conquered Baltic states, parts of Poland.
Instead of Lützen I'd rather mention Breitenfeld a year or two before as the greatest moment for Gustaf II Adolf. This was the battle which showed the tactical superiority of his army against the best of the spanish tactical ability. This was also the battle which the catholic generals studied closely and used to learn the tactics used. Lützen was IMHO the fight that should not have been fought, and a culmination of a year of operational failures, in which Wallenstein outmaneuvred the Swedish army over and over again, which IMO was caused by Gustafs lack of a clear strategy to end the war quickly. His path was open into the heartlands of the Habsburg empire and possibly even to Vienna. But instead of going straight for the victory he decided to eliminate the threat caused by Wallenstein who had appeared to his rear area. My personal belief is that this choice was a failure, since if Gustaf had decided to attack Vienna, Wallenstein would have had to follow him, because the armies already lived off the land, so supply routes were not an immediate problem. This would have kept the initiative in the Swedish king's hands.
However what the king lacked in strategic vision, the men who took command after his death more than made up for it, both Baner and Oxenstierna (and I guess there were some other soo, but I can't remember names) fought hard and long to keep what had been gained in the first year of the war, and eventually got a favorable result even against highly usperior force, who by then had caught up in tactics.
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