Go, Captain, Greet the Danish King 87to respond. The first step was to move up enough reinforcements to
prevent Mansfeld gaining a quick success, and Colonel Heinrich Schlick
was swiftly despatched with the necessary troops. Schlick managed
to get his men over the bridge and into the northern defences either
unobserved or with their numbers sufficiently hidden by the screen-
ing, so that when Mansfeld attacked on 23 April he encountered much
stronger resistance than he had expected and he was obliged to with-
draw. Meanwhile Wallenstein moved up his own artillery and a large
force of both infantry and cavalry.
The key point in his plan was the wood on Mansfeld’s eastern flank,
where the latter had not placed troops either for lack of men or because
he did not think it important. On 24 April Wallenstein moved more
units over the bridge, including heavy cavalry. Then under covering
fire from an artillery battery south of the river, and assisted by a diver-
sionary sally from the west side of the bridgehead defences, his men
occupied the wood. Presumably Mansfeld again underestimated their
number and strength, as he pressed on regardless, launching a heavy
frontal attack on the fortifications early the following morning. Reports
indicate that he made several unsuccessful assaults over the next three
hours before Wallenstein ordered a counter-attack, which was followed
by heavy and evenly balanced fighting on the open ground. At the criti-
cal stage Wallenstein sent infantry reinforcements over the bridge, and
the issue was then decided by a flanking cavalry attack from the wood.
To add to the confusion of Mansfeld’s men some of their gunpowder
wagons exploded in the rear, so that retreat quickly turned to flight.
Mansfeld managed to escape back to Zerbst with many of his cavalry,
but most of his surviving infantry were captured.^8
Wallenstein’s battle plan was well conceived and well executed, fol-
lowing a central principle of military strategy by concentrating superior
forces before engaging the enemy. Nevertheless it was a bold undertak-
ing, as getting large numbers of men and horses over a narrow bridge
and into a small defended area in the face of the enemy had its own
risks, while fighting with their backs to the river left little scope for
an orderly retreat had Mansfeld proved the stronger. Wallenstein’s own
report was brief and to the point:
Mansfeld and his entire army moved up to the fortifications at the
Elbe bridge near Dessau, besieging and bombarding them, to coun-
ter which I led the majority of the Imperial army entrusted to me
out to meet him, advancing against him from the aforementioned