Battle Of Hemmingstedt, 1500, peasant militia against odds 12:1 won killing 1,000's

[barnetmill]

Battle Of Hemmingstedt, 1500 AD, Danish king wanted to take them over and sent a large combined army of knights and mercenaries. The farmers choose the battlefield and used their disadvantages and advantages to their favor. They lacked proper armor which allowed them to maneuver over soggy and flooded ground. Good tactics and bravery won the day for them and they stayed free another 60 years before another Danish King finally conquered them.

Apparently they had a martial culture from fighting as mercenaries and knew how to fight.

Dannish battle.jpg

[barnetmill]

Comments made by some viewers

peter wurst 1 ❤




iam from dithmarschen and i have to say u did a great job. also in germany this incredible battle is mostly unknown, but we dithmarschens are proud of this battle, free farmers fought for there freedom against superior knights and won. After the battle they only burried the poor foodmen, not the knights. The sentence "Look out Guard! Here come the peasants!" in origin" Ward de Gard de Bur de kümmt!"
1 year ago

107






Kristján Rúnarsson 1 ❤





What is so ingenious avout Wulf Isebrand’s plan is that normally when you ambush somebody you pick a chokepoint, hide your forces there and trick the enemy into thinking it is safe to pass there. So the attack is the surprise, Wulf Isebrand turned that around. He used his meager forces as bait and hid the choakpoint using flooding which not only hid the drainage ditches but also quickly turned the land into what it originally was, a bog. On top of that he carefully engineered a crowd disaster. I’ve seen a partial casualty lists of Danish/German deaths from Hemmingsted (nobles only, of course). All the men from whole families were killed there, knights and nobles with all of their sons. To add insult to injury the Dittmarshians buried the common soldiers after the battle but left the bodies of nobles to be eaten by wild animals

[KarlinPhoenix]

Excellent.

[barnetmill]

A poem from the 1880's about that battle. First part is posted and the rest is at the link.

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/2891..._hemmingstedt/

battle of the dyke.jpg