Editing Battle of Hemmingstedt (section)

==Use of terrain==
After seizing the village of Meldorf, the ducal army advanced, but was stopped at a barricade equipped with [[Artillery|guns]]. The defenders opened at least one [[dike (construction)|dike]] sluice in order to flood the land, which quickly turned into morass and shallow lakes. Crammed together on a narrow road with no solid ground on which to deploy, the ducal army was unable to make use of its numerical superiority. The lightly equipped peasants were familiar with the land and used poles to leap over the ditches. Most of the ducal soldiers were not killed by enemy arms, but drowned. The conquest attempt was thus repelled.<ref>Elke Freifrau von Boeselager, "Das Land Hadeln bis zum Beginn der frühen Neuzeit", in: ''Geschichte des Landes zwischen Elbe und Weser'': 3 vols., Hans-Eckhard Dannenberg and Heinz-Joachim Schulze (eds.), Stade: Landschaftsverband der ehem. Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden, 1995 and 2008, vol. I 'Vor- und Frühgeschichte' (1995; {{ISBN|978-3-9801919-7-5}}), vol. II 'Mittelalter (einschl. Kunstgeschichte)' (1995; {{ISBN|978-3-9801919-8-2}}), vol. III 'Neuzeit' (2008; {{ISBN|978-3-9801919-9-9}}), (=Schriftenreihe des Landschaftsverbandes der ehem. Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden; vols. 7–9), vol. II: pp. 321–388, here p. 333.</ref> The casualties among the Dithmarsians are not known, but the Danish and the Dutch lost together more than half of their army, making about 7,000 men killed and 1,500 men wounded.

Following the battle, the Dithmarsians buried the bodies of the enemy's common soldiers, but in their contempt for the nobility, the bodies of the nobles were left to rot in the fields.