Firstly, the main protagonists on both sides were members of the princely House of Welf family and secondly, the warring parties simultaneously supported different pretenders to the imperial elections of the Holy Roman Empire.

[1][5] Despite their convincing victory at the Battle of Soltau, the Lüneburg-Hildesheim alliance eventually lost the war against Brunswick and Calenberg, when Emperor Charles V banned both Henry, Duke of Lüneburg, and Prince-Bishop John.

[6] The forces of Brunswick numbered about 7,000 foot soldiers (of which 4,000 were feudal levies and 3,000 were professional Landsknechte) and 700 armoured cavalry (Reisige).

At the head was a vanguard (Vortrab) also known as the Verlorener Haufen or 'forlorn hope', which in the case of the Brunswick force numbered some 1,500 Landsknechte, accompanied by 300 cavalry and a section of artillery (probably the field guns).

However, for reasons that are not explained anywhere, the Lüneburgers had allowed their foot soldiers to fall behind, so that on 28 June only their cavalry initially stood in the way of the Brunswickians.

[1][8][9] After a long, at times parallel, pursuit both armies met around midday on the 28 June 1519 northwest of Soltau between the villages of Vahlzen and Langeloh.

The fourth Lüneburg Fähnlein out-flanked the opposing body of cavalry and put it to flight headlong into the nearby Vahlzen Moor, where many of the routed horsemen lost their lives.

Now only the Brunswick main body and its rearguard remained in the field, when Lüneburg's foot soldiers finally arrived on the scene.

This would hardly have been surprising in view of the fate of their comrades and the fact that the greater part of the main body consisted of unprofessional soldiers.

The main body of the Brunswick army was engaged frontally by the superior Lüneburg infantry whilst enemy horsemen swarmed around its flanks.

Occasional skirmishes went on into the night, the seizure of the richly laden Brunswick baggage train and its war chest being the main objective.

[1] The defeated Brunswick army probably lost around 3,000 to 3,500 killed,[11] most of them drowned in the marshes, as well as numerous prisoners (including Duke Eric I of Calenberg[12] and William, Count of Wunstorf and Regenstein).

Otherwise it remains puzzling how the forlorn hope lost contact with its own cavalry, a factor which in the end led to the downfall of both forces.

[13] Although Henry the Middle and Bishop John IV were able to take control of the regional situation for a time through their victory at Soltau, the wider political direction of the empire took a different turn.

After Charles from the House of Habsburg had been elected as the new emperor, the defeated party made various attempts to show that the victors of Soltau had been in the wrong.