Lennart Torstensson (1603-1651) – Brief Profile & History

Lennart Torstensson Swedish Marshal a subordinate of Swedish leader GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS [6], became the greatest artillery exponent of his age. His advancements and innovations earned him the tide “Father of Field Artillery” and the rank of field marshal. Torstensson also proved himself an able leader of all batdefield assets and played an important role in the rise of Sweden to a military power and in its successes during the Thirty Years’ War.

Born the son of a Swedish army officer on August 17, 1603, in Torstena, Vastergodand, Torstensson became a page at fifteen to King Gustavus. He accompanied Gustavus during the 1621-23 campaigns in Livonia, which introduced him to the king’s appreciation for artillery. From 1624 to 1626, Torstensson attended the Holland Military School conducted by MAURICE OF NASSAU, where he learned more about artillery.

Upon his return to Sweden, Torstensson fought in the batde at Wallhof in 1626 and then accompanied the Swedish army as an artillery officer, for the next three years, during its campaign against Prussia. Gustavus was so impressed with the performance of his former page that he promoted Torstensson to colonel at age twenty-six and placed him in command of the world’s first pure ar¬tillery regiment. During the three years that followed, Torstensson gained the reputation as the Father of Field Artillery and promo¬tion to general at age twenty-seven.

Both Gustavus and Maurice had done much over the previous decades to modernize artillery by standardizing calibers and in¬creasing the number of guns committed to the batdefield. Torstensson refined these improvements and concentrated on in-creasing the mobility and rate of firepower to better support in-fantry and cavalry operations.

The major advancement prior to Torstensson was lightweight artillery pieces made of a copper core and leather outer sleeve. These leather cannons, weighing less that a hundred pounds each, were extremely mobile but were about as dangerous to their own crews as to the enemy. The copper inner” sleeves retained heat and after several firings tended to “cook off,” prematurely firing the projectile of exploding the entire piece.

Torstensson appreciated the guns’ mobility but saw that the dangers did not merit their retention. In 16^1 he helped develop a cast-iron cannon to replace the leather guns. The new four hundred-pound cannon could be moved by four men or two horses and detached to infantry and cavalry maneuver units while remaining permanendy assigned to a parent artillery regiment

Torstensson next turned to increasing the firepower of each gun by combining powder and shot within thin wood containers to form “shells” to speed loading. This improvement, along with in-dividual training and extensive crew drill, advanced to the point where the Swedish artillerymen could load and fire their cannons faster than infantrymen could reload and fire their muskets.

Torstensson’s first opportunity to employ his improved ar-tillery in combat came on September 17, 1831, at the Batde of Brei- tenfeld. One hundred Swedish cannons fired a volley to begin the batde, and in the ensuing fight Torstensson’s guns were able to fire three times as fast as those of the enemy.

The Swedish officer continued to contribute to Gustavus’ ad-vance and played an important role in the crossing of the Lech in April 1632. Artillery alone could not, of course, win every batde, and when the Swedes fought on ground poorly suited to the use of cannon support, they did not always win. In September 1632, Torstensson participated in the assault of heavily fortified defenses at Alte Veste, near Nutnberg. With the mobility of his artillery lim¬ited by terrain, Torstensson personally engaged in the fight near the side of Adolphus. While his king and most of the artillery es¬caped after the defeat, Torstensson became a prisoner.

After a year of captivity, Torstensson returned to Sweden in a prisoner exchange. During his absence, Gustavus had been killed in batde, and Johan Baner now led the Swedish army. Torstensson joined Baner as thief of staff and continued his oversight of the Swedish artillery during their victory at Wittstock in 1636.

However, as the Swedish campaign in Germany dragged on for five more years, the army became demoralized by its inability to achieve total victory. When Baner died in 1641, Torstensson, de¬spite ailing from gout, reluctandy accepted command of the field army and immediately began rebuilding morale and discipline. A year later, with his old artillery regiments playing an important role, Torstensson won a significant victory at Leipzig that allowed him to overrun all of Saxony by the end of 1642.

In 1643, Torstensson continued his offensive into Bohemia and Moravia, with litde interference, and in 1644 turned to attack the Danes. The Swedes pursued the Danish army into Bohemia and then defeated a force from Bavaria that came to their aid. At Jankau on March 5, 1645, Torstensson won his last great victory, defeating the Bavarians by rapidly shifting his artillery in batde. Shordy after Jankau, Torstensson resigned his command because of ill health. He served in several political positions in Sweden be¬fore dying in Stockholm on April 7, 1651, at age forty-seven.

Torstensson’s reputation is overshadowed by that of Gustavus, but the Father of Field Artillery proved himself a master of inno-vations in weapons and an outstanding tactician and strategist in the composition and employment of artillery units. His immediate influence lay in achieving victories in the Thirty Years’ War that el¬evated Sweden into ar major military power. His lasting influence arose from his advancements in the mobility and firepower of ar¬tillery that put it on a status equal to the infantry and cavalry.

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