Battle of Fleurus (1622)

Battle of Fleurus
Part of the Thirty Years' War
Battle of Fleurus.
Date 29 August 1622 Location Fleurus, Hainaut, Spanish Netherlands (present-day Belgium) Result Spanish victory
Belligerents
Baden-Durlach Brunswick-Lüneburg	Spain
Commanders and leaders
Ernst von Mansfeld Christian of Brunswick	Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba
Strength
8,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry (11 guns)	6,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry (4 guns)
Casualties and losses
5,000 dead, wounded or captured	300 dead and 900 wounded

The Battle of Fleurus of August 29, 1622 was fought between a Spanish army, and the Protestant forces of Ernst von Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick during the Thirty Years' War. The bloody struggle left the Protestants mangled and the Spanish masters of the field.

After failing to relieve Heidelberg, besieged by Tilly's army, Frederick V, Elector Palatine, decided to disband his army. On July 13, 1622 the contract was cancelled and the unemployed army of Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick was hired by the Dutch to help in the relief of the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom.

The Protestant army departed from Alsace and at a fast pace crossed Northern France, entering the Spanish Low Countries through Hainaut.

The Spanish Army of Flanders, under command of Ambrosio Spinola, engaged in the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, a town on the estuary of the Schelde River, was in a dangerous position; while a relieving Dutch army was being assembled to the East at Breda he faced an invasion from the South. He was in danger of being trapped between the two enemy armies, his line of retreat towards Antwerpen blocked by the invading German army. Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, commander of the Spanish army in the Palatinate, was recalled in a hurry to stop that army. Cordoba marched through the Duchy of Luxembourg and the difficult terrain of the Ardennes, and was able to intercept Mansfeld and Brunswick on the border of Brabant.

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