Nördlingen, Battles of

During the Thirty Years' War, two battles 1634 and 1635 between Imperial and Allied armies in the vicinity of Nördlingen, a German town in Bavaria, 80 km/50 mi southwest of Nuremberg.

5–6 September 1634 some 40,000 Imperial troops were besieging Nördlingen opposed by a somewhat smaller force of Swedish and German troops who attempted to raise the siege. After a bitter struggle, resulting in heavy losses to both sides, the Swedish–German attack was beaten off. The sole strategic result of this battle was to bring France into the war.

3 August 1635 a largely pointless battle which produced no tactical or strategic advantage for the French. An Imperial army under Baron Franz von Mercy was strongly entrenched round a nearby village and was attacked there by the French army under Prince Louis de Condé and Vicomte Henri de Turenne. After a hard struggle, the French succeeded in evicting the Imperial troops and capturing all their artillery; von Mercy was among the dead.