Located at the confluence of the Waal and Rhine rivers, Nijmegen was strategically important to the defense of the Dutch provinces and the Electorate of Cologne.

In the 1585–86 campaigns, Dutch, Flemish, and English mercenaries had augmented his force, but he never attracted significant support from the other German princes, principally because he was a Calvinist and they were Lutherans.

Conversely, Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma and commander of Philip II of Spain's army in Flanders also recognized the linkage between Ernst's cause and his own.

A series of Catholic bridgeheads on the Rhine would enable him to move his troops more easily around several of the strongholds opposing the re-establishment of Spanish control in the Netherlands.

In 1585 and 1587, Ernst won several important victories, principally through the efforts of the Duke of Parma's army, and several of the German-Catholic counts, such as Karl von Mansfeld.

[2] By 1588, only Rheinberg remained outside the Spanish grasp, and in an effort to salvage a strategic major garrison in the electorate of Cologne for Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, Martin Schenck intercepted and defeated seven companies of foot marching to Friesland, to reinforce Francisco Verdugo.

[3] Despite the defeat of Verdugo, however, the rebellious Dutch provinces remained in jeopardy from Spain's Army of Flanders, which could attack from the relatively open border on the east.

Holding Nijmegen, with its strategic access to the Waal and the Rhine rivers, would be a key point in securing the border between the Dutch provinces and Friesland.

His arrival to "reinforce" a local garrison was already a mixed blessing; although his military acumen had helped him accumulate multiple honors, his strategies were brutal and merciless, even in this age of warfare.

In Westphalia, Neuss, Bonn, and Godesburg, Schenck had made himself and his men feared, and had done great damage to the personal appeal of the Calvinist Elector of Cologne's reputation and cause.