Nordlingen

NORDLINGEN, German town in the Swabian province of Bavaria, on the Eger. Pop. (1933) 8,40o. From 898, when first mentioned, to 1215 Nordlingen was subject to the bishops of Regensburg, but about 1215 it became a free city of the Empire. It was annexed to Bavaria in 1803. It is still surrounded with walls and towers. The church of St. George is a Gothic structure erected in the 15th century and restored in 1880. The Late Gothic town hall has a collection of pictures and antiquities.

Military Operations.-Nordlingen

was the scene of two great battles in the Thirty Years' War (q.v.). In the first, which was fought on Sept. 5 and 6, 1634, the hitherto invincible Swedish army, commanded by Duke Bernhard of Saxe Weimar and Mar shal Horn, was defeated with great loss by a somewhat superior army of Imperialists and Spaniards under Gen. Gallas, Horn being taken prisoner. In the second battle, fought II years later (Aug. 3, 1645), Conde (then duke of Enghien) and Turenne were the leaders on the one side, and Mercy and Johann von Weert, the dashing cavalry commander whose onset had decided the battle of 1634, on the other. The Germans were posted some 5m. to the east of Nordlingen, about Allerheim. In rear of the village the plain was occupied by Mercy's army in the customary two lines, foot in the centre, horse in the wings. The French army, simi larly arrayed, was more heterogeneous than the German. After a cannonade in which it suffered more severely than its entrenched enemy, the French centre furiously attacked the village of Aller heim ; the fighting here was very heavy, and on the whole in favour of the Germans, although Mercy was killed. The right

wing of the French cavalry was swept off the field by Johann von Weert's charge, but the German troopers, intoxicated with success, dispersed to plunder. On the French left, meanwhile, Turenne saved the day. Fighting cautiously at first with his leading line to gain time for his second to come up, he then charged and broke up the hostile right wing of cavalry, while some battalions of infantry scaled the hill and captured the Bavarian guns. Unlike Weert the marshal kept his troops in hand, and swung round upon the Bavarian infantry behind Allerheim, who were at the same time cannonaded by their lost guns. A prolonged fight now en sued, in which the Bavarians had the worst of it, and Weert, returning at last to the field, dared not attempt to engage afresh. The armies faced one another all night with their sentries so paces apart, but in the morning the Bavarians were found to have retreated. Nothing was gained by the victors but the trophies and the field of battle, and the losses of both sides had been enormous. Ni5rdlingen, therefore, is a classical instance of the unprofitable and costly bataille rangee of the 17th century.

See Beyschlag, Geschichte der Stadt Nordlingen (Nordlingen, 1851), and Mayer, Die Stadt Nordlingen, ihr Leben and ihre Kunst im Lichte der Vorzeit (Nordlingen, 1856).