Qualla: Battle of Werl https://qualla.com/battle-of-werl en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:34 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Battle of Werl https://qualla.com/battle-of-werl Battle of Werl: Introduction https://qualla.com/battle-of-werl/ The trick was older than the war. Hide your soldiers in something that looks innocent, get the gates opened, throw back the cover. The Greeks did it with a horse. In March 1586, a Dutch mercenary captain named Martin Schenck von Nydeggen did it with a train of salt wagons in the Westphalian town of Werl. The gates opened to admit a valuable shipment of an everyday commodity. The salted soldiers stood up and overpowered the guards. By the time anyone outside the walls understood what was happening, the town was Schenck's - though the citadel was not, and the army on its way to retake the town outnumbered him roughly ten to one. The fight that followed was a small, vicious episode in the Cologne War, but it broke the back of the Protestant cause in northwestern Germany.

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/j/t/battle-of-werl-wp/u1jt-battle-of-werl-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Battle of Werl: The Archbishop Who Married https://qualla.com/battle-of-werl/ The reason a Dutch mercenary captain was anywhere near Werl in 1586 began three years earlier with a wedding. In late 1582, the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, converted to Calvinism and declared religious parity for Protestants and Catholics in his...

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/j/t/battle-of-werl-wp/u1jt-battle-of-werl-the-archbishop-who-married.mp3 0:06 2 full Battle of Werl: The Sack of Westphalia https://qualla.com/battle-of-werl/ In March 1586, Schenck crossed the Rhine into the Duchy of Westphalia with five hundred infantry and five hundred cavalry, accompanied by Hermann Friedrich Cloedt, the commander of the fortress town of Neuss. Their stated mission was to secure two key fortifications, Recklinghaus...

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/j/t/battle-of-werl-wp/u1jt-battle-of-werl-the-sack-of-westphalia.mp3 0:06 3 full Battle of Werl: Salted Soldiers https://qualla.com/battle-of-werl/ Werl was rich for one main reason: salt. The town sat on the saline springs of the Hellweg, and salt was the medieval currency of preservation. On 1 March 1586, Schenck loaded a train of wagons with his soldiers and covered them with salt. The wagons rolled up to the town gates, ...

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/j/t/battle-of-werl-wp/u1jt-battle-of-werl-salted-soldiers.mp3 0:06 4 full Battle of Werl: Ten to One in the Streets https://qualla.com/battle-of-werl/ Word reached Count Claude de Berlaymont, also called Haultpenne, that a Protestant mercenary had seized a major Westphalian town. He brought four thousand men and heavy artillery to surround it. Schenck, with perhaps five hundred fighting men left inside the walls, was now besieg...

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/j/t/battle-of-werl-wp/u1jt-battle-of-werl-ten-to-one-in-the-streets.mp3 0:06 5 full Battle of Werl: The End of a Protestant Cologne https://qualla.com/battle-of-werl/ Schenck personally did well out of the Westphalian campaign. He deposited his fortune and his wife in Venlo and reported to William of Orange in Delft. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, acting as English Governor-General of the Dutch on Elizabeth I's authority, knighted him and g...

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/j/t/battle-of-werl-wp/u1jt-battle-of-werl-the-end-of-a-protestant-cologne.mp3 0:06 6 full