The Emperor's concessions only encouraged the Elector of Bavaria to
bolder demands. So long as the Duke of Friedland retained the supreme
command, his triumph over the Emperor was incomplete. The princes of
the League were meditating a severe revenge on Wallenstein for that
haughtiness with which he had treated them all alike. His dismissal was
demanded by the whole college of electors, and even by Spain, with a
degree of unanimity and urgency which astonished the Emperor. The
anxiety with which Wallenstein's enemies pressed for his dismissal,
ought to have convinced the Emperor of the importance of his services.
Wallenstein, informed of the cabals which were forming against him in
Ratisbon, lost no time in opening the eyes of the Emperor to the real
views of the Elector of Bavaria. He himself appeared in Ratisbon, with
a pomp which threw his master into the shade, and increased the hatred
of his opponents.

Long was the Emperor undecided. The sacrifice demanded was a painful
one. To the Duke of Friedland alone he owed his preponderance; he felt
how much he would lose in yielding him to the indignation of the
princes. But at this moment, unfortunately, he was under the necessity
of conciliating the Electors. His son Ferdinand had already been chosen
King of Hungary, and he was endeavouring to procure his election as his
successor in the empire. For this purpose, the support of Maximilian
was indispensable. This consideration was the weightiest, and to oblige
the Elector of Bavaria he scrupled not to sacrifice his most valuable
servant.

At the Diet at Ratisbon, there were present ambassadors from France,
empowered to adjust the differences which seemed to menace a war in
Italy between the Emperor and their sovereign. Vincent, Duke of Mantua
and Montferrat, dying without issue, his next relation, Charles, Duke of
Nevers, had taken possession of this inheritance, without doing homage
to the Emperor as liege lord of the principality. Encouraged by the
support of France and Venice, he refused to surrender these territories
into the hands of the imperial commissioners, until his title to them
should be decided. On the other hand, Ferdinand had taken up arms at
the instigation of the Spaniards, to whom, as possessors of Milan, the
near neighbourhood of a vassal of France was peculiarly alarming, and
who welcomed this prospect of making, with the assistance of the
Emperor, additional conquests in Italy. In spite of all the exertions
of Pope Urban VIII. to avert a war in that country, Ferdinand marched a
German army across the Alps, and threw the Italian states into a general
consternation. His arms had been successful throughout Germany, and
exaggerated fears revived the olden apprehension of Austria's projects
of universal monarchy. All the horrors of the German war now spread
like a deluge over those favoured countries which the Po waters; Mantua
was taken by storm, and the surrounding districts given up to the
ravages of a lawless soldiery. The curse of Italy was thus added to the
maledictions upon the Emperor which resounded through Germany; and even
in the Roman Conclave, silent prayers were offered for the success of
the Protestant arms.

Alarmed by the universal hatred which this Italian campaign had drawn
upon him, and wearied out by the urgent remonstrances of the Electors,
who zealously supported the application of the French ambassador, the
Emperor promised the investiture to the new Duke of Mantua.

This important service on the part of Bavaria, of course, required an
equivalent from France. The adjustment of the treaty gave the envoys of
Richelieu, during their residence in Ratisbon, the desired opportunity
of entangling the Emperor in dangerous intrigues, of inflaming the
discontented princes of the League still more strongly against him, and
of turning to his disadvantage all the transactions of the Diet. For
this purpose Richelieu had chosen an admirable instrument in Father
Joseph, a Capuchin friar, who accompanied the ambassadors without
exciting the least suspicion. One of his principal instructions was
assiduously to bring about the dismissal of Wallenstein. With the
general who had led it to victory, the army of Austria would lose its
principal strength; many armies could not compensate for the loss of
this individual. It would therefore be a masterstroke of policy, at the
very moment when a victorious monarch, the absolute master of his
operations, was arming against the Emperor, to remove from the head of
the imperial armies the only general who, by ability and military
experience, was able to cope with the French king. Father Joseph, in
the interests of Bavaria, undertook to overcome the irresolution of the
Emperor, who was now in a manner besieged by the Spaniards and the
Electoral Council. "It would be expedient," he thought, "to gratify the
Electors on this occasion, and thereby facilitate his son's election to
the Roman Crown. This object once gained, Wallenstein could at any time
resume his former station." The artful Capuchin was too sure of his man
to touch upon this ground of consolation.

The voice of a monk was to Ferdinand II. the voice of God. "Nothing on
earth," writes his own confessor, "was more sacred in his eyes than a
priest. If it could happen, he used to say, that an angel and a Regular
were to meet him at the same time and place, the Regular should receive
his first, and the angel his second obeisance." Wallenstein's dismissal
was determined upon.

In return for this pious concession, the Capuchin dexterously
counteracted the Emperor's scheme to procure for the King of Hungary the
further dignity of King of the Romans. In an express clause of the
treaty just concluded, the French ministers engaged in the name of their
sovereign to observe a complete neutrality between the Emperor and his
enemies; while, at the same time, Richelieu was actually negociating
with the King of Sweden to declare war, and pressing upon him the
alliance of his master. The latter, indeed, disavowed the lie as soon
as it had served its purpose, and Father Joseph, confined to a convent,
must atone for the alleged offence of exceeding his instructions.
Ferdinand perceived, when too late, that he had been imposed upon. "A
wicked Capuchin," he was heard to say, "has disarmed me with his rosary,
and thrust nothing less than six electoral crowns into his cowl."

Artifice and trickery thus triumphed over the Emperor, at the moment
when he was believed to be omnipotent in Germany, and actually was so in
the field. With the loss of 18,000 men, and of a general who alone was
worth whole armies, he left Ratisbon without gaining the end for which
he had made such sacrifices. Before the Swedes had vanquished him in
the field, Maximilian of Bavaria and Father Joseph had given him a
mortal blow. At this memorable Diet at Ratisbon the war with Sweden was
resolved upon, and that of Mantua terminated. Vainly had the princes
present at it interceded for the Dukes of Mecklenburgh; and equally
fruitless had been an application by the English ambassadors for a
pension to the Palatine Frederick.

Wallenstein was at the head of an army of nearly a hundred thousand men
who adored him, when the sentence of his dismissal arrived. Most of the
officers were his creatures:--with the common soldiers his hint was
law. His ambition was boundless, his pride indomitable, his imperious
spirit could not brook an injury unavenged. One moment would now
precipitate him from the height of grandeur into the obscurity of a
private station. To execute such a sentence upon such a delinquent
seemed to require more address than it cost to obtain it from the judge.
Accordingly, two of Wallenstein's most intimate friends were selected as
heralds of these evil tidings, and instructed to soften them as much as
possible, by flattering assurances of the continuance of the Emperor's
favour.

Wallenstein had ascertained the purport of their message before the
imperial ambassadors arrived. He had time to collect himself, and his
countenance exhibited an external calmness, while grief and rage were
storming in his bosom. He had made up his mind to obey. The Emperor's
decision had taken him by surprise before circumstances were ripe, or
his preparations complete, for the bold measures he had contemplated.
His extensive estates were scattered over Bohemia and Moravia; and by
their confiscation, the Emperor might at once destroy the sinews of his
power. He looked, therefore, to the future for revenge; and in this
hope he was encouraged by the predictions of an Italian astrologer, who
led his imperious spirit like a child in leading strings. Seni had read
in the stars, that his master's brilliant career was not yet ended; and
that bright and glorious prospects still awaited him. It was, indeed,
unnecessary to consult the stars to foretell that an enemy, Gustavus
Adolphus, would ere long render indispensable the services of such a
general as Wallenstein.

"The Emperor is betrayed," said Wallenstein to the messengers; "I pity
but forgive him. It is plain that the grasping spirit of the Bavarian
dictates to him. I grieve that, with so much weakness, he has
sacrificed me, but I will obey." He dismissed the emissaries with
princely presents; and in a humble letter besought the continuance of
the Emperor's favour, and of the dignities he had bestowed upon him.

The murmurs of the army were universal, on hearing of the dismissal of
their general; and the greater part of his officers immediately quitted
the imperial service. Many followed him to his estates in Bohemia and
Moravia; others he attached to his interests by pensions, in order to
command their services when the opportunity should offer.

But repose was the last thing that Wallenstein contemplated when he
returned to private life. In his retreat, he surrounded himself with a
regal pomp, which seemed to mock the sentence of degradation. Six gates
led to the palace he inhabited in Prague, and a hundred houses were
pulled down to make way for his courtyard. Similar palaces were built
on his other numerous estates. Gentlemen of the noblest houses
contended for the honour of serving him, and even imperial chamberlains
resigned the golden key to the Emperor, to fill a similar office under
Wallenstein. He maintained sixty pages, who were instructed by the
ablest masters. His antichamber was protected by fifty life guards.
His table never consisted of less than 100 covers, and his seneschal was
a person of distinction. When he travelled, his baggage and suite
accompanied him in a hundred wagons, drawn by six or four horses; his
court followed in sixty carriages, attended by fifty led horses. The
pomp of his liveries, the splendour of his equipages, and the
decorations of his apartments, were in keeping with all the rest. Six
barons and as many knights, were in constant attendance about his
person, and ready to execute his slightest order. Twelve patrols went
their rounds about his palace, to prevent any disturbance. His busy
genius required silence. The noise of coaches was to be kept away from
his residence, and the streets leading to it were frequently blocked up
with chains. His own circle was as silent as the approaches to his
palace; dark, reserved, and impenetrable, he was more sparing of his
words than of his gifts; while the little that he spoke was harsh and
imperious. He never smiled, and the coldness of his temperament was
proof against sensual seductions. Ever occupied with grand schemes, he
despised all those idle amusements in which so many waste their lives.
The correspondence he kept up with the whole of Europe was chiefly
managed by himself, and, that as little as possible might be trusted to
the silence of others, most of the letters were written by his own hand.
He was a man of large stature, thin, of a sallow complexion, with short
red hair, and small sparkling eyes. A gloomy and forbidding seriousness
sat upon his brow; and his magnificent presents alone retained the
trembling crowd of his dependents.

In this stately obscurity did Wallenstein silently, but not inactively,
await the hour of revenge. The victorious career of Gustavus Adolphus
soon gave him a presentiment of its approach. Not one of his lofty
schemes had been abandoned; and the Emperor's ingratitude had loosened
the curb of his ambition. The dazzling splendour of his private life
bespoke high soaring projects; and, lavish as a king, he seemed already
to reckon among his certain possessions those which he contemplated with
hope.

After Wallenstein's dismissal, and the invasion of Gustavus Adolphus, a
new generalissimo was to be appointed; and it now appeared advisable to
unite both the imperial army and that of the League under one general.
Maximilian of Bavaria sought this appointment, which would have enabled
him to dictate to the Emperor, who, from a conviction of this, wished to
procure the command for his eldest son, the King of Hungary. At last,
in order to avoid offence to either of the competitors, the appointment
was given to Tilly, who now exchanged the Bavarian for the Austrian
service. The imperial army in Germany, after the retirement of
Wallenstein, amounted to about 40,000 men; that of the League to nearly
the same number, both commanded by excellent officers, trained by the
experience of several campaigns, and proud of a long series of
victories. With such a force, little apprehension was felt at the
invasion of the King of Sweden, and the less so as it commanded both
Pomerania and Mecklenburg, the only countries through which he could
enter Germany.

After the unsuccessful attempt of the King of Denmark to check the
Emperor's progress, Gustavus Adolphus was the only prince in Europe from
whom oppressed liberty could look for protection--the only one who,
while he was personally qualified to conduct such an enterprise, had
both political motives to recommend and wrongs to justify it. Before
the commencement of the war in Lower Saxony, important political
interests induced him, as well as the King of Denmark, to offer his
services and his army for the defence of Germany; but the offer of the
latter had, to his own misfortune, been preferred. Since that time,
Wallenstein and the Emperor had adopted measures which must have been
equally offensive to him as a man and as a king. Imperial troops had
been despatched to the aid of the Polish king, Sigismund, to defend
Prussia against the Swedes. When the king complained to Wallenstein of
this act of hostility, he received for answer, "The Emperor has more
soldiers than he wants for himself, he must help his friends." The
Swedish ambassadors had been insolently ordered by Wallenstein to
withdraw from the conference at Lubeck; and when, unawed by this
command, they were courageous enough to remain, contrary to the law of
nations, he had threatened them with violence. Ferdinand had also
insulted the Swedish flag, and intercepted the king's despatches to
Transylvania. He also threw every obstacle in the way of a peace
betwixt Poland and Sweden, supported the pretensions of Sigismund to the
Swedish throne, and denied the right of Gustavus to the title of king.
Deigning no regard to the repeated remonstrances of Gustavus, he rather
aggravated the offence by new grievances, than acceded the required
satisfaction.

So many personal motives, supported by important considerations, both of
policy and religion, and seconded by pressing invitations from Germany,
had their full weight with a prince, who was naturally the more jealous
of his royal prerogative the more it was questioned, who was flattered
by the glory he hoped to gain as Protector of the Oppressed, and
passionately loved war as the element of his genius. But, until a truce
or peace with Poland should set his hands free, a new and dangerous war
was not to be thought of.

Cardinal Richelieu had the merit of effecting this truce with Poland.
This great statesman, who guided the helm of Europe, while in France he
repressed the rage of faction and the insolence of the nobles, pursued
steadily, amidst the cares of a stormy administration, his plan of
lowering the ascendancy of the House of Austria. But circumstances
opposed considerable obstacles to the execution of his designs; and even
the greatest minds cannot, with impunity, defy the prejudices of the
age. The minister of a Roman Catholic king, and a Cardinal, he was
prevented by the purple he bore from joining the enemies of that church
in an open attack on a power which had the address to sanctify its
ambitious encroachments under the name of religion. The external
deference which Richelieu was obliged to pay to the narrow views of his
contemporaries limited his exertions to secret negociations, by which he
endeavoured to gain the hand of others to accomplish the enlightened
projects of his own mind. After a fruitless attempt to prevent the
peace between Denmark and the Emperor, he had recourse to Gustavus
Adolphus, the hero of his age. No exertion was spared to bring this
monarch to a favourable decision, and at the same time to facilitate the
execution of it. Charnasse, an unsuspected agent of the Cardinal,
proceeded to Polish Prussia, where Gustavus Adolphus was conducting the
war against Sigismund, and alternately visited these princes, in order
to persuade them to a truce or peace. Gustavus had been long inclined
to it, and the French minister succeeded at last in opening the eyes of
Sigismund to his true interests, and to the deceitful policy of the
Emperor. A truce for six years was agreed on, Gustavus being allowed to
retain all his conquests. This treaty gave him also what he had so long
desired, the liberty of directing his arms against the Emperor. For
this the French ambassador offered him the alliance of his sovereign and
considerable subsidies. But Gustavus Adolphus was justly apprehensive
lest the acceptance of the assistance should make him dependent upon
France, and fetter him in his career of conquest, while an alliance with
a Roman Catholic power might excite distrust among the Protestants.

If the war was just and necessary, the circumstances under which it was
undertaken were not less promising. The name of the Emperor, it is
true, was formidable, his resources inexhaustible, his power hitherto
invincible. So dangerous a contest would have dismayed any other than
Gustavus. He saw all the obstacles and dangers which opposed his
undertaking, but he knew also the means by which, as he hoped, they
might be conquered. His army, though not numerous, was well
disciplined, inured to hardship by a severe climate and campaigns, and
trained to victory in the war with Poland. Sweden, though poor in men
and money, and overtaxed by an eight years' war, was devoted to its
monarch with an enthusiasm which assured him of the ready support of his
subjects. In Germany, the name of the Emperor was at least as much
hated as feared. The Protestant princes only awaited the arrival of a
deliverer to throw off his intolerable yoke, and openly declare for the
Swedes. Even the Roman Catholic states would welcome an antagonist to
the Emperor, whose opposition might control his overwhelming influence.
The first victory gained on German ground would be decisive. It would
encourage those princes who still hesitated to declare themselves,
strengthen the cause of his adherents, augment his troops, and open
resources for the maintenance of the campaign. If the greater part of
the German states were impoverished by oppression, the flourishing Hanse
towns had escaped, and they could not hesitate, by a small voluntary
sacrifice, to avert the general ruin. As the imperialists should be
driven from the different provinces, their armies would diminish, since
they were subsisting on the countries in which they were encamped. The
strength, too, of the Emperor had been lessened by ill-timed detachments
to Italy and the Netherlands; while Spain, weakened by the loss of the
Manilla galleons, and engaged in a serious war in the Netherlands, could
afford him little support. Great Britain, on the other hand, gave the
King of Sweden hope of considerable subsidies; and France, now at peace
with itself, came forward with the most favourable offers.

But the strongest pledge for the success of his undertaking Gustavus
found--in himself. Prudence demanded that he should embrace all the
foreign assistance he could, in order to guard his enterprise from the
imputation of rashness; but all his confidence and courage were entirely
derived from himself. He was indisputably the greatest general of his
age, and the bravest soldier in the army which he had formed. Familiar
with the tactics of Greece and Rome, he had discovered a more effective
system of warfare, which was adopted as a model by the most eminent
commanders of subsequent times. He reduced the unwieldy squadrons of
cavalry, and rendered their movements more light and rapid; and, with
the same view, he widened the intervals between his battalions. Instead
of the usual array in a single line, he disposed his forces in two
lines, that the second might advance in the event of the first giving
way.

He made up for his want of cavalry, by placing infantry among the horse;
a practice which frequently decided the victory. Europe first learned
from him the importance of infantry. All Germany was astonished at the
strict discipline which, at the first, so creditably distinguished the
Swedish army within their territories; all disorders were punished with
the utmost severity, particularly impiety, theft, gambling, and
duelling. The Swedish articles of war enforced frugality. In the camp,
the King's tent not excepted, neither silver nor gold was to be seen.
The general's eye looked as vigilantly to the morals as to the martial
bravery of his soldiers; every regiment was ordered to form round its
chaplain for morning and evening prayers. In all these points the
lawgiver was also an example. A sincere and ardent piety exalted his
courage. Equally free from the coarse infidelity which leaves the
passions of the barbarian without a control,--and from the grovelling
superstition of Ferdinand, who humbled himself to the dust before the
Supreme Being, while he haughtily trampled on his fellow-creature--in
the height of his success he was ever a man and a Christian--in the
height of his devotion, a king and a hero. The hardships of war he
shared with the meanest soldier in his army; maintained a calm serenity
amidst the hottest fury of battle; his glance was omnipresent, and he
intrepidly forgot the danger while he exposed himself to the greatest
peril. His natural courage, indeed, too often made him forget the duty
of a general; and the life of a king ended in the death of a common
soldier. But such a leader was followed to victory alike by the coward
and the brave, and his eagle glance marked every heroic deed which his
example had inspired. The fame of their sovereign excited in the nation
an enthusiastic sense of their own importance; proud of their king, the
peasant in Finland and Gothland joyfully contributed his pittance; the
soldier willingly shed his blood; and the lofty energy which his single
mind had imparted to the nation long survived its creator.

The necessity of the war was acknowledged, but the best plan of
conducting it was a matter of much question. Even to the bold
Chancellor Oxenstiern, an offensive war appeared too daring a measure;
the resources of his poor and conscientious master, appeared to him too
slender to compete with those of a despotic sovereign, who held all
Germany at his command. But the minister's timid scruples were
overruled by the hero's penetrating prudence. "If we await the enemy in
Sweden," said Gustavus, "in the event of a defeat every thing would be
lost, by a fortunate commencement in Germany everything would be gained.
The sea is wide, and we have a long line of coast in Sweden to defend.
If the enemy's fleet should escape us, or our own be defeated, it would,
in either case, be impossible to prevent the enemy's landing. Every
thing depends on the retention of Stralsund. So long as this harbour is
open to us, we shall both command the Baltic, and secure a retreat from
Germany. But to protect this port, we must not remain in Sweden, but
advance at once into Pomerania. Let us talk no more, then, of a
defensive war, by which we should sacrifice our greatest advantages.
Sweden must not be doomed to behold a hostile banner; if we are
vanquished in Germany, it will be time enough to follow your plan."

Gustavus resolved to cross the Baltic and attack the Emperor. His
preparations were made with the utmost expedition, and his precautionary
measures were not less prudent than the resolution itself was bold and
magnanimous. Before engaging in so distant a war, it was necessary to
secure Sweden against its neighbours. At a personal interview with the
King of Denmark at Markaroed, Gustavus assured himself of the friendship
of that monarch; his frontier on the side of Moscow was well guarded;
Poland might be held in check from Germany, if it betrayed any design of
infringing the truce. Falkenberg, a Swedish ambassador, who visited the
courts of Holland and Germany, obtained the most flattering promises
from several Protestant princes, though none of them yet possessed
courage or self-devotion enough to enter into a formal alliance with
him. Lubeck and Hamburg engaged to advance him money, and to accept
Swedish copper in return. Emissaries were also despatched to the Prince
of Transylvania, to excite that implacable enemy of Austria to arms.

In the mean time, Swedish levies were made in Germany and the
Netherlands, the regiments increased to their full complement, new ones
raised, transports provided, a fleet fitted out, provisions, military
stores, and money collected. Thirty ships of war were in a short time
prepared, 15,000 men equipped, and 200 transports were ready to convey
them across the Baltic. A greater force Gustavus Adolphus was unwilling
to carry into Germany, and even the maintenance of this exceeded the
revenues of his kingdom. But however small his army, it was admirable
in all points of discipline, courage, and experience, and might serve as
the nucleus of a more powerful armament, if it once gained the German
frontier, and its first attempts were attended with success.
Oxenstiern, at once general and chancellor, was posted with 10,000 men
in Prussia, to protect that province against Poland. Some regular
troops, and a considerable body of militia, which served as a nursery
for the main body, remained in Sweden, as a defence against a sudden
invasion by any treacherous neighbour.

These were the measures taken for the external defence of the kingdom.
Its internal administration was provided for with equal care. The
government was intrusted to the Council of State, and the finances to
the Palatine John Casimir, the brother-in-law of the King, while his
wife, tenderly as he was attached to her, was excluded from all share in
the government, for which her limited talents incapacitated her. He set
his house in order like a dying man. On the 20th May, 1630, when all
his measures were arranged, and all was ready for his departure, the
King appeared in the Diet at Stockholm, to bid the States a solemn
farewell. Taking in his arms his daughter Christina, then only four
years old, who, in the cradle, had been acknowledged as his successor,
he presented her to the States as the future sovereign, exacted from
them a renewal of the oath of allegiance to her, in case he should never
more return; and then read the ordinances for the government of the
kingdom during his absence, or the minority of his daughter. The whole
assembly was dissolved in tears, and the King himself was some time
before he could attain sufficient composure to deliver his farewell
address to the States.

"Not lightly or wantonly," said he, "am I about to involve myself and
you in this new and dangerous war; God is my witness that _I_ do not
fight to gratify my own ambition. But the Emperor has wronged me most
shamefully in the person of my ambassadors. He has supported my
enemies, persecuted my friends and brethren, trampled my religion in the
dust, and even stretched his revengeful arm against my crown. The
oppressed states of Germany call loudly for aid, which, by God's help,
we will give them.

"I am fully sensible of the dangers to which my life will be exposed. I
have never yet shrunk from them, nor is it likely that I shall escape
them all. Hitherto, Providence has wonderfully protected me, but I
shall at last fall in defence of my country. I commend you to the
protection of Heaven. Be just, be conscientious, act uprightly, and we
shall meet again in eternity.

"To you, my Counsellors of State, I address myself first. May God
enlighten you, and fill you with wisdom, to promote the welfare of my
people. You, too, my brave nobles, I commend to the divine protection.
Continue to prove yourselves the worthy successors of those Gothic
heroes, whose bravery humbled to the dust the pride of ancient Rome. To
you, ministers of religion, I recommend moderation and unity; be
yourselves examples of the virtues which you preach, and abuse not your
influence over the minds of my people. On you, deputies of the
burgesses, and the peasantry, I entreat the blessing of heaven; may your
industry be rewarded by a prosperous harvest; your stores plenteously
filled, and may you be crowned abundantly with all the blessings of this
life. For the prosperity of all my subjects, absent and present, I
offer my warmest prayers to Heaven. I bid you all a sincere--it may be
--an eternal farewell."

The embarkation of the troops took place at Elfsknaben, where the fleet
lay at anchor. An immense concourse flocked thither to witness this
magnificent spectacle. The hearts of the spectators were agitated by
varied emotions, as they alternately considered the vastness of the
enterprise, and the greatness of the leader. Among the superior
officers who commanded in this army were Gustavus Horn, the Rhinegrave
Otto Lewis, Henry Matthias, Count Thurn, Ottenberg, Baudissen, Banner,
Teufel, Tott, Mutsenfahl, Falkenberg, Kniphausen, and other
distinguished names. Detained by contrary winds, the fleet did not sail
till June, and on the 24th of that month reached the Island of Rugen in
Pomerania.

Gustavus Adolphus was the first who landed. In the presence of his
suite, he knelt on the shore of Germany to return thanks to the Almighty
for the safe arrival of his fleet and his army. He landed his troops on
the Islands of Wollin and Usedom; upon his approach, the imperial
garrisons abandoned their entrenchments and fled. He advanced rapidly
on Stettin, to secure this important place before the appearance of the
Imperialists. Bogislaus XIV., Duke of Pomerania, a feeble and
superannuated prince, had been long tired out by the outrages committed
by the latter within his territories; but too weak to resist, he had
contented himself with murmurs. The appearance of his deliverer,
instead of animating his courage, increased his fear and anxiety.
Severely as his country had suffered from the Imperialists, the risk of
incurring the Emperor's vengeance prevented him from declaring openly
for the Swedes. Gustavus Adolphus, who was encamped under the walls of
the town, summoned the city to receive a Swedish garrison. Bogislaus
appeared in person in the camp of Gustavus, to deprecate this condition.
"I come to you," said Gustavus, "not as an enemy but a friend. I wage
no war against Pomerania, nor against the German empire, but against the
enemies of both. In my hands this duchy shall be sacred; and it shall
be restored to you at the conclusion of the campaign, by me, with more
certainty, than by any other. Look to the traces of the imperial force
within your territories, and to mine in Usedom; and decide whether you
will have the Emperor or me as your friend. What have you to expect, if
the Emperor should make himself master of your capital? Will he deal
with you more leniently than I? Or is it your intention to stop my
progress? The case is pressing: decide at once, and do not compel me
to have recourse to more violent measures."

The alternative was a painful one. On the one side, the King of Sweden
was before his gates with a formidable army; on the other, he saw the
inevitable vengeance of the Emperor, and the fearful example of so many
German princes, who were now wandering in misery, the victims of that
revenge. The more immediate danger decided his resolution. The gates
of Stettin were opened to the king; the Swedish troops entered; and the
Austrians, who were advancing by rapid marches, anticipated. The
capture of this place procured for the king a firm footing in Pomerania,
the command of the Oder, and a magazine for his troops. To prevent a
charge of treachery, Bogislaus was careful to excuse this step to the
Emperor on the plea of necessity; but aware of Ferdinand's implacable
disposition, he entered into a close alliance with his new protector.
By this league with Pomerania, Gustavus secured a powerful friend in
Germany, who covered his rear, and maintained his communication with
Sweden.

As Ferdinand was already the aggressor in Prussia, Gustavus Adolphus
thought himself absolved from the usual formalities, and commenced
hostilities without any declaration of war. To the other European
powers, he justified his conduct in a manifesto, in which he detailed
the grounds which had led him to take up arms. Meanwhile he continued
his progress in Pomerania, while he saw his army daily increasing. The
troops which had fought under Mansfeld, Duke Christian of Brunswick, the
King of Denmark, and Wallenstein, came in crowds, both officers and
soldiers, to join his victorious standard.

At the Imperial court, the invasion of the king of Sweden at first
excited far less attention than it merited. The pride of Austria,
extravagantly elated by its unheard-of successes, looked down with
contempt upon a prince, who, with a handful of men, came from an obscure
corner of Europe, and who owed his past successes, as they imagined,
entirely to the incapacity of a weak opponent. The depreciatory
representation which Wallenstein had artfully given of the Swedish
power, increased the Emperor's security; for what had he to fear from an
enemy, whom his general undertook to drive with such ease from Germany?
Even the rapid progress of Gustavus Adolphus in Pomerania, could not
entirely dispel this prejudice, which the mockeries of the courtiers
continued to feed. He was called in Vienna the Snow King, whom the cold
of the north kept together, but who would infallibly melt as he advanced
southward. Even the electors, assembled in Ratisbon, disregarded his
representations; and, influenced by an abject complaisance to Ferdinand,
refused him even the title of king. But while they mocked him in
Ratisbon and Vienna, in Mecklenburg and Pomerania, one strong town after
another fell into his hands.

Notwithstanding this contempt, the Emperor thought it proper to offer to
adjust his differences with Sweden by negociation, and for that purpose
sent plenipotentiaries to Denmark. But their instructions showed how
little he was in earnest in these proposals, for he still continued to
refuse to Gustavus the title of king. He hoped by this means to throw
on the king of Sweden the odium of being the aggressor, and thereby to
ensure the support of the States of the empire. The conference at
Dantzic proved, as might be expected, fruitless, and the animosity of
both parties was increased to its utmost by an intemperate
correspondence.

An imperial general, Torquato Conti, who commanded in Pomerania, had, in
the mean time, made a vain attempt to wrest Stettin from the Swedes.
The Imperialists were driven out from one place after another; Damm,
Stargard, Camin, and Wolgast, soon fell into the hands of Gustavus. To
revenge himself upon the Duke of Pomerania, the imperial general
permitted his troops, upon his retreat, to exercise every barbarity on
the unfortunate inhabitants of Pomerania, who had already suffered but
too severely from his avarice. On pretence of cutting off the resources
of the Swedes, the whole country was laid waste and plundered; and often
when the Imperialists were unable any longer to maintain a place, it was
laid in ashes, in order to leave the enemy nothing but ruins. But these
barbarities only served to place in a more favourable light the opposite
conduct of the Swedes, and to win all hearts to their humane monarch.
The Swedish soldier paid for all he required; no private property was
injured on his march. The Swedes consequently were received with open
arms both in town and country, whilst every Imperialist that fell into
the hands of the Pomeranian peasantry was ruthlessly murdered. Many
Pomeranians entered into the service of Sweden, and the estates of this
exhausted country willingly voted the king a contribution of 100,000
florins.

Torquato Conti, who, with all his severity of character, was a
consummate general, endeavoured to render Stettin useless to the king of
Sweden, as he could not deprive him of it. He entrenched himself upon
the Oder, at Gartz, above Stettin, in order, by commanding that river,
to cut off the water communication of the town with the rest of Germany.
Nothing could induce him to attack the King of Sweden, who was his
superior in numbers, while the latter was equally cautious not to storm
the strong entrenchments of the Imperialists. Torquato, too deficient
in troops and money to act upon the offensive against the king, hoped by
this plan of operations to give time for Tilly to hasten to the defence
of Pomerania, and then, in conjunction with that general, to attack the
Swedes. Seizing the opportunity of the temporary absence of Gustavus,
he made a sudden attempt upon Stettin, but the Swedes were not
unprepared for him. A vigorous attack of the Imperialists was firmly
repulsed, and Torquato was forced to retire with great loss. For this
auspicious commencement of the war, however, Gustavus was, it must be
owned, as much indebted to his good fortune as to his military talents.
The imperial troops in Pomerania had been greatly reduced since
Wallenstein's dismissal; moreover, the outrages they had committed were
now severely revenged upon them; wasted and exhausted, the country no
longer afforded them a subsistence. All discipline was at an end; the
orders of the officers were disregarded, while their numbers daily
decreased by desertion, and by a general mortality, which the piercing
cold of a strange climate had produced among them.

Under these circumstances, the imperial general was anxious to allow his
troops the repose of winter quarters, but he had to do with an enemy to
whom the climate of Germany had no winter. Gustavus had taken the
precaution of providing his soldiers with dresses of sheep-skin, to
enable them to keep the field even in the most inclement season. The
imperial plenipotentiaries, who came to treat with him for a cessation
of hostilities, received this discouraging answer: "The Swedes are
soldiers in winter as well as in summer, and not disposed to oppress the
unfortunate peasantry. The Imperialists may act as they think proper,
but they need not expect to remain undisturbed." Torquato Conti soon
after resigned a command, in which neither riches nor reputation were to
be gained.

In this inequality of the two armies, the advantage was necessarily on
the side of the Swedes. The Imperialists were incessantly harassed in
their winter quarters; Greifenhagan, an important place upon the Oder,
taken by storm, and the towns of Gartz and Piritz were at last abandoned
by the enemy. In the whole of Pomerania, Greifswald, Demmin, and
Colberg alone remained in their hands, and these the king made great
preparations to besiege. The enemy directed their retreat towards
Brandenburg, in which much of their artillery and baggage, and many
prisoners fell into the hands of the pursuers.

By seizing the passes of Riebnitz and Damgarden, Gustavus had opened a
passage into Mecklenburg, whose inhabitants were invited to return to
their allegiance under their legitimate sovereigns, and to expel the
adherents of Wallenstein. The Imperialists, however, gained the
important town of Rostock by stratagem, and thus prevented the farther
advance of the king, who was unwilling to divide his forces. The exiled
dukes of Mecklenburg had ineffectually employed the princes assembled at
Ratisbon to intercede with the Emperor: in vain they had endeavoured to
soften Ferdinand, by renouncing the alliance of the king, and every idea
of resistance. But, driven to despair by the Emperor's inflexibility,
they openly espoused the side of Sweden, and raising troops, gave the
command of them to Francis Charles Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg. That general
made himself master of several strong places on the Elbe, but lost them
afterwards to the Imperial General Pappenheim, who was despatched to
oppose him. Soon afterwards, besieged by the latter in the town of
Ratzeburg, he was compelled to surrender with all his troops. Thus
ended the attempt which these unfortunate princes made to recover their
territories; and it was reserved for the victorious arm of Gustavus
Adolphus to render them that brilliant service.

The Imperialists had thrown themselves into Brandenburg, which now
became the theatre of the most barbarous atrocities. These outrages
were inflicted upon the subjects of a prince who had never injured the
Emperor, and whom, moreover, he was at the very time inciting to take up
arms against the King of Sweden. The sight of the disorders of their
soldiers, which want of money compelled them to wink at, and of
authority over their troops, excited the disgust even of the imperial
generals; and, from very shame, their commander-in-chief, Count
Schaumburg, wished to resign.

Without a sufficient force to protect his territories, and left by the
Emperor, in spite of the most pressing remonstrances, without
assistance, the Elector of Brandenburg at last issued an edict, ordering
his subjects to repel force by force, and to put to death without mercy
every Imperial soldier who should henceforth be detected in plundering.
To such a height had the violence of outrage and the misery of the
government risen, that nothing was left to the sovereign, but the
desperate extremity of sanctioning private vengeance by a formal law.

The Swedes had pursued the Imperialists into Brandenburg; and only the
Elector's refusal to open to him the fortress of Custrin for his march,
obliged the king to lay aside his design of besieging Frankfort on the
Oder. He therefore returned to complete the conquest of Pomerania, by
the capture of Demmin and Colberg. In the mean time, Field-Marshal
Tilly was advancing to the defence of Brandenburg.

This general, who could boast as yet of never having suffered a defeat,
the conqueror of Mansfeld, of Duke Christian of Brunswick, of the
Margrave of Baden, and the King of Denmark, was now in the Swedish
monarch to meet an opponent worthy of his fame. Descended of a noble
family in Liege, Tilly had formed his military talents in the wars of
the Netherlands, which was then the great school for generals. He soon
found an opportunity of distinguishing himself under Rodolph II. in
Hungary, where he rapidly rose from one step to another. After the
peace, he entered into the service of Maximilian of Bavaria, who made
him commander-in-chief with absolute powers. Here, by his excellent
regulations, he was the founder of the Bavarian army; and to him,
chiefly, Maximilian was indebted for his superiority in the field. Upon
the termination of the Bohemian war, he was appointed commander of the
troops of the League; and, after Wallenstein's dismissal, generalissimo
of the imperial armies. Equally stern towards his soldiers and
implacable towards his enemies, and as gloomy and impenetrable as
Wallenstein, he was greatly his superior in probity and
disinterestedness. A bigoted zeal for religion, and a bloody spirit of
persecution, co-operated, with the natural ferocity of his character, to
make him the terror of the Protestants. A strange and terrific aspect
bespoke his character: of low stature, thin, with hollow cheeks, a long
nose, a broad and wrinkled forehead, large whiskers, and a pointed chin;
he was generally attired in a Spanish doublet of green satin, with
slashed sleeves, with a small high peaked hat upon his head, surmounted
by a red feather which hung down to his back. His whole aspect recalled
to recollection the Duke of Alva, the scourge of the Flemings, and his
actions were far from effacing the impression. Such was the general who
was now to be opposed to the hero of the north.

Tilly was far from undervaluing his antagonist, "The King of Sweden,"
said he in the Diet at Ratisbon, "is an enemy both prudent and brave,
inured to war, and in the flower of his age. His plans are excellent,
his resources considerable; his subjects enthusiastically attached to
him. His army, composed of Swedes, Germans, Livonians, Finlanders,
Scots and English, by its devoted obedience to their leader, is blended
into one nation: he is a gamester in playing with whom not to have lost
is to have won a great deal."

The progress of the King of Sweden in Brandenburg and Pomerania, left
the new generalissimo no time to lose; and his presence was now urgently
called for by those who commanded in that quarter. With all expedition,
he collected the imperial troops which were dispersed over the empire;
but it required time to obtain from the exhausted and impoverished
provinces the necessary supplies. At last, about the middle of winter,
he appeared at the head of 20,000 men, before Frankfort on the Oder,
where he was joined by Schaumburg. Leaving to this general the defence
of Frankfort, with a sufficient garrison, he hastened to Pomerania, with
a view of saving Demmin, and relieving Colberg, which was already hard
pressed by the Swedes. But even before he had left Brandenburg, Demmin,
which was but poorly defended by the Duke of Savelli, had surrendered to
the king, and Colberg, after a five months' siege, was starved into a
capitulation. As the passes in Upper Pomerania were well guarded, and
the king's camp near Schwedt defied attack, Tilly abandoned his
offensive plan of operations, and retreated towards the Elbe to besiege
Magdeburg.

The capture of Demmin opened to the king a free passage into
Mecklenburg; but a more important enterprise drew his arms into another
quarter. Scarcely had Tilly commenced his retrograde movement, when
suddenly breaking up his camp at Schwedt, the king marched his whole
force against Frankfort on the Oder. This town, badly fortified, was
defended by a garrison of 8,000 men, mostly composed of those ferocious
bands who had so cruelly ravaged Pomerania and Brandenburg. It was now
attacked with such impetuosity, that on the third day it was taken by
storm. The Swedes, assured of victory, rejected every offer of
capitulation, as they were resolved to exercise the dreadful right of
retaliation. For Tilly, soon after his arrival, had surrounded a
Swedish detachment, and, irritated by their obstinate resistance, had
cut them in pieces to a man. This cruelty was not forgotten by the
Swedes. "New Brandenburg Quarter", they replied to the Imperialists who
begged their lives, and slaughtered them without mercy. Several
thousands were either killed or taken, and many were drowned in the
Oder, the rest fled to Silesia. All their artillery fell into the hands
of the Swedes. To satisfy the rage of his troops, Gustavus Adolphus was
under the necessity of giving up the town for three hours to plunder.

While the king was thus advancing from one conquest to another, and, by
his success, encouraging the Protestants to active resistance, the
Emperor proceeded to enforce the Edict of Restitution, and, by his
exorbitant pretensions, to exhaust the patience of the states.
Compelled by necessity, he continued the violent course which he had
begun with such arrogant confidence; the difficulties into which his
arbitrary conduct had plunged him, he could only extricate himself from
by measures still more arbitrary. But in so complicated a body as the
German empire, despotism must always create the most dangerous
convulsions. With astonishment, the princes beheld the constitution of
the empire overthrown, and the state of nature to which matters were
again verging, suggested to them the idea of self-defence, the only
means of protection in such a state of things. The steps openly taken
by the Emperor against the Lutheran church, had at last removed the veil
from the eyes of John George, who had been so long the dupe of his
artful policy. Ferdinand, too, had personally offended him by the
exclusion of his son from the archbishopric of Magdeburg; and
field-marshal Arnheim, his new favourite and minister, spared no pains
to increase the resentment of his master. Arnheim had formerly been an
imperial general under Wallenstein, and being still zealously attached
to him, he was eager to avenge his old benefactor and himself on the
Emperor, by detaching Saxony from the Austrian interests. Gustavus
Adolphus, supported by the Protestant states, would be invincible; a
consideration which already filled the Emperor with alarm. The example
of Saxony would probably influence others, and the Emperor's fate seemed
now in a manner to depend upon the Elector's decision. The artful
favourite impressed upon his master this idea of his own importance, and
advised him to terrify the Emperor, by threatening an alliance with
Sweden, and thus to extort from his fears, what he had sought in vain
from his gratitude. The favourite, however, was far from wishing him
actually to enter into the Swedish alliance, but, by holding aloof from
both parties, to maintain his own importance and independence.
Accordingly, he laid before him a plan, which only wanted a more able
hand to carry it into execution, and recommended him, by heading the
Protestant party, to erect a third power in Germany, and thereby
maintain the balance between Sweden and Austria.

This project was peculiarly flattering to the Saxon Elector, to whom the
idea of being dependent upon Sweden, or of longer submitting to the
tyranny of the Emperor, was equally hateful. He could not, with
indifference, see the control of German affairs wrested from him by a
foreign prince; and incapable as he was of taking a principal part, his
vanity would not condescend to act a subordinate one. He resolved,
therefore, to draw every possible advantage from the progress of
Gustavus, but to pursue, independently, his own separate plans. With
this view, he consulted with the Elector of Brandenburg, who, from
similar causes, was ready to act against the Emperor, but, at the same
time, was jealous of Sweden. In a Diet at Torgau, having assured
himself of the support of his Estates, he invited the Protestant States
of the empire to a general convention, which took place at Leipzig, on
the 6th February 1631. Brandenburg, Hesse Cassel, with several princes,
counts, estates of the empire, and Protestant bishops were present,
either personally or by deputy, at this assembly, which the chaplain to
the Saxon Court, Dr. Hoe von Hohenegg, opened with a vehement discourse
from the pulpit. The Emperor had, in vain, endeavoured to prevent this
self-appointed convention, whose object was evidently to provide for its
own defence, and which the presence of the Swedes in the empire,
rendered more than usually alarming. Emboldened by the progress of
Gustavus Adolphus, the assembled princes asserted their rights, and
after a session of two months broke up, with adopting a resolution which
placed the Emperor in no slight embarrassment. Its import was to demand
of the Emperor, in a general address, the revocation of the Edict of
Restitution, the withdrawal of his troops from their capitals and
fortresses, the suspension of all existing proceedings, and the
abolition of abuses; and, in the mean time, to raise an army of 40,000
men, to enable them to redress their own grievances, if the Emperor
should still refuse satisfaction.

A further incident contributed not a little to increase the firmness of
the Protestant princes. The King of Sweden had, at last, overcome the
scruples which had deterred him from a closer alliance with France, and,
on the 13th January 1631, concluded a formal treaty with this crown.
After a serious dispute respecting the treatment of the Roman Catholic
princes of the empire, whom France took under her protection, and
against whom Gustavus claimed the right of retaliation, and after some
less important differences with regard to the title of majesty, which
the pride of France was loth to concede to the King of Sweden, Richelieu
yielded the second, and Gustavus Adolphus the first point, and the
treaty was signed at Beerwald in Neumark. The contracting parties
mutually covenanted to defend each other with a military force, to
protect their common friends, to restore to their dominions the deposed
princes of the empire, and to replace every thing, both on the frontier
and in the interior of Germany, on the same footing on which it stood
before the commencement of the war. For this end, Sweden engaged to
maintain an army of 30,000 men in Germany, and France agreed to furnish
the Swedes with an annual subsidy of 400,000 dollars. If the arms of
Gustavus were successful, he was to respect the Roman Catholic religion
and the constitution of the empire in all the conquered places, and to
make no attempt against either. All Estates and princes whether
Protestant or Roman Catholic, either in Germany or in other countries,
were to be invited to become parties to the treaty; neither France nor
Sweden was to conclude a separate peace without the knowledge and
consent of the other; and the treaty itself was to continue in force for
five years.

Great as was the struggle to the King of Sweden to receive subsidies
from France, and sacrifice his independence in the conduct of the war,
this alliance with France decided his cause in Germany. Protected, as
he now was, by the greatest power in Europe, the German states began to
feel confidence in his undertaking, for the issue of which they had
hitherto good reason to tremble. He became truly formidable to the
Emperor. The Roman Catholic princes too, who, though they were anxious
to humble Austria, had witnessed his progress with distrust, were less
alarmed now that an alliance with a Roman Catholic power ensured his
respect for their religion. And thus, while Gustavus Adolphus protected
the Protestant religion and the liberties of Germany against the
aggression of Ferdinand, France secured those liberties, and the Roman
Catholic religion, against Gustavus himself, if the intoxication of
success should hurry him beyond the bounds of moderation.

The King of Sweden lost no time in apprizing the members of the
confederacy of Leipzig of the treaty concluded with France, and inviting
them to a closer union with himself. The application was seconded by
France, who spared no pains to win over the Elector of Saxony. Gustavus
was willing to be content with secret support, if the princes should
deem it too bold a step as yet to declare openly in his favour. Several
princes gave him hopes of his proposals being accepted on the first
favourable opportunity; but the Saxon Elector, full of jealousy and
distrust towards the King of Sweden, and true to the selfish policy he
had pursued, could not be prevailed upon to give a decisive answer.

The resolution of the confederacy of Leipzig, and the alliance betwixt
France and Sweden, were news equally disagreeable to the Emperor.
Against them he employed the thunder of imperial ordinances, and the
want of an army saved France from the full weight of his displeasure.
Remonstrances were addressed to all the members of the confederacy,
strongly prohibiting them from enlisting troops. They retorted with
explanations equally vehement, justified their conduct upon the
principles of natural right, and continued their preparations.

Meantime, the imperial generals, deficient both in troops and money,
found themselves reduced to the disagreeable alternative of losing sight
either of the King of Sweden, or of the Estates of the empire, since
with a divided force they were not a match for either. The movements of
the Protestants called their attention to the interior of the empire,
while the progress of the king in Brandenburg, by threatening the
hereditary possessions of Austria, required them to turn their arms to
that quarter. After the conquest of Frankfort, the king had advanced
upon Landsberg on the Warta, and Tilly, after a fruitless attempt to
relieve it, had again returned to Magdeburg, to prosecute with vigour
the siege of that town.

The rich archbishopric, of which Magdeburg was the capital, had long
been in the possession of princes of the house of Brandenburg, who
introduced the Protestant religion into the province. Christian
William, the last administrator, had, by his alliance with Denmark,
incurred the ban of the empire, on which account the chapter, to avoid
the Emperor's displeasure, had formally deposed him. In his place they
had elected Prince John Augustus, the second son of the Elector of
Saxony, whom the Emperor rejected, in order to confer the archbishopric
on his son Leopold. The Elector of Saxony complained ineffectually to
the imperial court; but Christian William of Brandenburg took more
active measures. Relying on the attachment of the magistracy and
inhabitants of Brandenburg, and excited by chimerical hopes, he thought
himself able to surmount all the obstacles which the vote of the
chapter, the competition of two powerful rivals, and the Edict of
Restitution opposed to his restoration. He went to Sweden, and, by the
promise of a diversion in Germany, sought to obtain assistance from
Gustavus. He was dismissed by that monarch not without hopes of
effectual protection, but with the advice to act with caution.

Scarcely had Christian William been informed of the landing of his
protector in Pomerania, than he entered Magdeburg in disguise.
Appearing suddenly in the town council, he reminded the magistrates of
the ravages which both town and country had suffered from the imperial
troops, of the pernicious designs of Ferdinand, and the danger of the
Protestant church. He then informed them that the moment of deliverance
was at hand, and that Gustavus Adolphus offered them his alliance and
assistance. Magdeburg, one of the most flourishing towns in Germany,
enjoyed under the government of its magistrates a republican freedom,
which inspired its citizens with a brave heroism. Of this they had
already given proofs, in the bold defence of their rights against
Wallenstein, who, tempted by their wealth, made on them the most
extravagant demands. Their territory had been given up to the fury of
his troops, though Magdeburg itself had escaped his vengeance. It was
not difficult, therefore, for the Administrator to gain the concurrence
of men in whose minds the rememberance of these outrages was still
recent. An alliance was formed between the city and the Swedish king,
by which Magdeburg granted to the king a free passage through its gates
and territories, with liberty of enlisting soldiers within its
boundaries, and on the other hand, obtained promises of effectual
protection for its religion and its privileges.

The Administrator immediately collected troops and commenced
hostilities, before Gustavus Adolphus was near enough to co-operate with
him. He defeated some imperial detachments in the neighbourhood, made a
few conquests, and even surprised Halle. But the approach of an
imperial army obliged him to retreat hastily, and not without loss, to
Magdeburg. Gustavus Adolphus, though displeased with his premature
measures, sent Dietrich Falkenberg, an experienced officer, to direct
the Administrator's military operations, and to assist him with his
counsel. Falkenberg was named by the magistrates governor of the town
during the war. The Prince's army was daily augmented by recruits from
the neighbouring towns; and he was able for some months to maintain a
petty warfare with success.

At length Count Pappenheim, having brought his expedition against the
Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg to a close, approached the town. Driving the
troops of the Administrator from their entrenchments, he cut off his
communication with Saxony, and closely invested the place. He was soon
followed by Tilly, who haughtily summoned the Elector forthwith to
comply with the Edict of Restitution, to submit to the Emperor's orders,
and surrender Magdeburg. The Prince's answer was spirited and resolute,
and obliged Tilly at once to have recourse to arms.

In the meanwhile, the siege was prolonged, by the progress of the King
of Sweden, which called the Austrian general from before the place; and
the jealousy of the officers, who conducted the operations in his
absence, delayed, for some months, the fall of Magdeburg. On the 30th
March 1631, Tilly returned, to push the siege with vigour.

The outworks were soon carried, and Falkenberg, after withdrawing the
garrisons from the points which he could no longer hold, destroyed the
bridge over the Elbe. As his troops were barely sufficient to defend
the extensive fortifications, the suburbs of Sudenburg and Neustadt were
abandoned to the enemy, who immediately laid them in ashes. Pappenheim,
now separated from Tilly, crossed the Elbe at Schonenbeck, and attacked
the town from the opposite side.

The garrison, reduced by the defence of the outworks, scarcely exceeded
2000 infantry and a few hundred horse; a small number for so extensive
and irregular a fortress. To supply this deficiency, the citizens were
armed--a desperate expedient, which produced more evils than those it
prevented. The citizens, at best but indifferent soldiers, by their
disunion threw the town into confusion. The poor complained that they
were exposed to every hardship and danger, while the rich, by hiring
substitutes, remained at home in safety. These rumours broke out at
last in an open mutiny; indifference succeeded to zeal; weariness and
negligence took the place of vigilance and foresight. Dissension,
combined with growing scarcity, gradually produced a feeling of
despondence, many began to tremble at the desperate nature of their
undertaking, and the magnitude of the power to which they were opposed.
But religious zeal, an ardent love of liberty, an invincible hatred to
the Austrian yoke, and the expectation of speedy relief, banished as yet
the idea of a surrender; and divided as they were in every thing else,
they were united in the resolve to defend themselves to the last
extremity.

Their hopes of succour were apparently well founded. They knew that the
confederacy of Leipzig was arming; they were aware of the near approach
of Gustavus Adolphus. Both were alike interested in the preservation of
Magdeburg; and a few days might bring the King of Sweden before its
walls. All this was also known to Tilly, who, therefore, was anxious to
make himself speedily master of the place. With this view, he had
despatched a trumpeter with letters to the Administrator, the
commandant, and the magistrates, offering terms of capitulation; but he
received for answer, that they would rather die than surrender. A
spirited sally of the citizens, also convinced him that their courage
was as earnest as their words, while the king's arrival at Potsdam, with
the incursions of the Swedes as far as Zerbst, filled him with
uneasiness, but raised the hopes of the garrison. A second trumpeter
was now despatched; but the more moderate tone of his demands increased
the confidence of the besieged, and unfortunately their negligence also.

The besiegers had now pushed their approaches as far as the ditch, and
vigorously cannonaded the fortifications from the abandoned batteries.
One tower was entirely overthrown, but this did not facilitate an
assault, as it fell sidewise upon the wall, and not into the ditch.
Notwithstanding the continual bombardment, the walls had not suffered
much; and the fire balls, which were intended to set the town in flames,
were deprived of their effect by the excellent precautions adopted
against them. But the ammunition of the besieged was nearly expended,
and the cannon of the town gradually ceased to answer the fire of the
Imperialists. Before a new supply could be obtained, Magdeburg would be
either relieved, or taken. The hopes of the besieged were on the
stretch, and all eyes anxiously directed towards the quarter in which
the Swedish banners were expected to appear. Gustavus Adolphus was near
enough to reach Magdeburg within three days; security grew with hope,
which all things contributed to augment. On the 9th of May, the fire of
the Imperialists was suddenly stopped, and the cannon withdrawn from
several of the batteries. A deathlike stillness reigned in the Imperial
camp. The besieged were convinced that deliverance was at hand. Both
citizens and soldiers left their posts upon the ramparts early in the
morning, to indulge themselves, after their long toils, with the
refreshment of sleep, but it was indeed a dear sleep, and a frightful
awakening.

Tilly had abandoned the hope of taking the town, before the arrival of
the Swedes, by the means which he had hitherto adopted; he therefore
determined to raise the siege, but first to hazard a general assault.
This plan, however, was attended with great difficulties, as no breach
had been effected, and the works were scarcely injured. But the council
of war assembled on this occasion, declared for an assault, citing the
example of Maestricht, which had been taken early in the morning, while
the citizens and soldiers were reposing themselves. The attack was to
be made simultaneously on four points; the night betwixt the 9th and
10th of May, was employed in the necessary preparations. Every thing
was ready and awaiting the signal, which was to be given by cannon at
five o'clock in the morning. The signal, however, was not given for two
hours later, during which Tilly, who was still doubtful of success,
again consulted the council of war. Pappenheim was ordered to attack
the works of the new town, where the attempt was favoured by a sloping
rampart, and a dry ditch of moderate depth. The citizens and soldiers
had mostly left the walls, and the few who remained were overcome with
sleep. This general, therefore, found little difficulty in mounting the
wall at the head of his troops.

Falkenberg, roused by the report of musketry, hastened from the
town-house, where he was employed in despatching Tilly's second
trumpeter, and hurried with all the force he could hastily assemble
towards the gate of the new town, which was already in the possession of
the enemy. Beaten back, this intrepid general flew to another quarter,
where a second party of the enemy were preparing to scale the walls.
After an ineffectual resistance he fell in the commencement of the
action. The roaring of musketry, the pealing of the alarm-bells, and
the growing tumult apprised the awakening citizens of their danger.
Hastily arming themselves, they rushed in blind confusion against the
enemy. Still some hope of repulsing the besiegers remained; but the
governor being killed, their efforts were without plan and co-operation,
and at last their ammunition began to fail them. In the meanwhile, two
other gates, hitherto unattacked, were stripped of their defenders, to
meet the urgent danger within the town. The enemy quickly availed
themselves of this confusion to attack these posts. The resistance was
nevertheless spirited and obstinate, until four imperial regiments, at
length, masters of the ramparts, fell upon the garrison in the rear, and
completed their rout. Amidst the general tumult, a brave captain, named
Schmidt, who still headed a few of the more resolute against the enemy,
succeeded in driving them to the gates; here he fell mortally wounded,
and with him expired the hopes of Magdeburg. Before noon, all the works
were carried, and the town was in the enemy's hands.

Two gates were now opened by the storming party for the main body, and
Tilly marched in with part of his infantry. Immediately occupying the
principal streets, he drove the citizens with pointed cannon into their
dwellings, there to await their destiny. They were not long held in
suspense; a word from Tilly decided the fate of Magdeburg.

Even a more humane general would in vain have recommended mercy to such
soldiers; but Tilly never made the attempt. Left by their general's
silence masters of the lives of all the citizens, the soldiery broke
into the houses to satiate their most brutal appetites. The prayers of
innocence excited some compassion in the hearts of the Germans, but none
in the rude breasts of Pappenheim's Walloons. Scarcely had the savage
cruelty commenced, when the other gates were thrown open, and the
cavalry, with the fearful hordes of the Croats, poured in upon the
devoted inhabitants.

Here commenced a scene of horrors for which history has no language--
poetry no pencil. Neither innocent childhood, nor helpless old age;
neither youth, sex, rank, nor beauty, could disarm the fury of the
conquerors. Wives were abused in the arms of their husbands, daughters
at the feet of their parents; and the defenceless sex exposed to the
double sacrifice of virtue and life. No situation, however obscure, or
however sacred, escaped the rapacity of the enemy. In a single church
fifty-three women were found beheaded. The Croats amused themselves
with throwing children into the flames; Pappenheim's Walloons with
stabbing infants at the mother's breast. Some officers of the League,
horror-struck at this dreadful scene, ventured to remind Tilly that he
had it in his power to stop the carnage. "Return in an hour," was his
answer; "I will see what I can do; the soldier must have some reward for
his danger and toils." These horrors lasted with unabated fury, till at
last the smoke and flames proved a check to the plunderers. To augment
the confusion and to divert the resistance of the inhabitants, the
Imperialists had, in the commencement of the assault, fired the town in
several places. The wind rising rapidly, spread the flames, till the
blaze became universal. Fearful, indeed, was the tumult amid clouds of
smoke, heaps of dead bodies, the clash of swords, the crash of falling
ruins, and streams of blood. The atmosphere glowed; and the intolerable
heat forced at last even the murderers to take refuge in their camp. In
less than twelve hours, this strong, populous, and flourishing city, one
of the finest in Germany, was reduced to ashes, with the exception of
two churches and a few houses. The Administrator, Christian William,
after receiving several wounds, was taken prisoner, with three of the
burgomasters; most of the officers and magistrates had already met an
enviable death. The avarice of the officers had saved 400 of the
richest citizens, in the hope of extorting from them an exorbitant
ransom. But this humanity was confined to the officers of the League,
whom the ruthless barbarity of the Imperialists caused to be regarded as
guardian angels.

Scarcely had the fury of the flames abated, when the Imperialists
returned to renew the pillage amid the ruins and ashes of the town.
Many were suffocated by the smoke; many found rich booty in the cellars,
where the citizens had concealed their more valuable effects. On the
13th of May, Tilly himself appeared in the town, after the streets had
been cleared of ashes and dead bodies. Horrible and revolting to
humanity was the scene that presented itself. The living crawling from
under the dead, children wandering about with heart-rending cries,
calling for their parents; and infants still sucking the breasts of
their lifeless mothers. More than 6,000 bodies were thrown into the
Elbe to clear the streets; a much greater number had been consumed by
the flames. The whole number of the slain was reckoned at not less than
30,000.

The entrance of the general, which took place on the 14th, put a stop to
the plunder, and saved the few who had hitherto contrived to escape.
About a thousand people were taken out of the cathedral, where they had
remained three days and two nights, without food, and in momentary fear
of death. Tilly promised them quarter, and commanded bread to be
distributed among them. The next day, a solemn mass was performed in
the cathedral, and 'Te Deum' sung amidst the discharge of artillery.
The imperial general rode through the streets, that he might be able, as
an eyewitness, to inform his master that no such conquest had been made
since the destruction of Troy and Jerusalem. Nor was this an
exaggeration, whether we consider the greatness, importance, and
prosperity of the city razed, or the fury of its ravagers.

In Germany, the tidings of the dreadful fate of Magdeburg caused
triumphant joy to the Roman Catholics, while it spread terror and
consternation among the Protestants. Loudly and generally they
complained against the king of Sweden, who, with so strong a force, and
in the very neighbourhood, had left an allied city to its fate. Even
the most reasonable deemed his inaction inexplicable; and lest he should
lose irretrievably the good will of the people, for whose deliverance he
had engaged in this war, Gustavus was under the necessity of publishing
to the world a justification of his own conduct.

He had attacked, and on the 16th April, carried Landsberg, when he was
apprised of the danger of Magdeburg. He resolved immediately to march
to the relief of that town; and he moved with all his cavalry, and ten
regiments of infantry towards the Spree. But the position which he held
in Germany, made it necessary that he should not move forward without
securing his rear. In traversing a country where he was surrounded by
suspicious friends and dangerous enemies, and where a single premature
movement might cut off his communication with his own kingdom, the
utmost vigilance and caution were necessary. The Elector of Brandenburg
had already opened the fortress of Custrin to the flying Imperialists,
and closed the gates against their pursuers. If now Gustavus should
fail in his attack upon Tilly, the Elector might again open his
fortresses to the Imperialists, and the king, with an enemy both in
front and rear, would be irrecoverably lost. In order to prevent this
contingency, he demanded that the Elector should allow him to hold the
fortresses of Custrin and Spandau, till the siege of Magdeburg should be
raised.

Nothing could be more reasonable than this demand. The services which
Gustavus had lately rendered the Elector, by expelling the Imperialists
from Brandenburg, claimed his gratitude, while the past conduct of the
Swedes in Germany entitled them to confidence. But by the surrender of
his fortresses, the Elector would in some measure make the King of
Sweden master of his country; besides that, by such a step, he must at
once break with the Emperor, and expose his States to his future
vengeance. The Elector's struggle with himself was long and violent,
but pusillanimity and self-interest for awhile prevailed. Unmoved by
the fate of Magdeburg, cold in the cause of religion and the liberties
of Germany, he saw nothing but his own danger; and this anxiety was
greatly stimulated by his minister Von Schwartzenburgh, who was secretly
in the pay of Austria. In the mean time, the Swedish troops approached
Berlin, and the king took up his residence with the Elector. When he
witnessed the timorous hesitation of that prince, he could not restrain
his indignation: "My road is to Magdeburg," said he; "not for my own
advantage, but for that of the Protestant religion. If no one will
stand by me, I shall immediately retreat, conclude a peace with the
Emperor, and return to Stockholm. I am convinced that Ferdinand will
readily grant me whatever conditions I may require. But if Magdeburg is
once lost, and the Emperor relieved from all fear of me, then it is for
you to look to yourselves and the consequences." This timely threat, and
perhaps, too, the aspect of the Swedish army, which was strong enough to
obtain by force what was refused to entreaty, brought at last the
Elector to his senses, and Spandau was delivered into the hands of the
Swedes.

The king had now two routes to Magdeburg; one westward led through an
exhausted country, and filled with the enemy's troops, who might dispute
with him the passage of the Elbe; the other more to the southward, by
Dessau and Wittenberg, where bridges were to be found for crossing the
Elbe, and where supplies could easily be drawn from Saxony. But he
could not avail himself of the latter without the consent of the
Elector, whom Gustavus had good reason to distrust. Before setting out
on his march, therefore, he demanded from that prince a free passage and
liberty for purchasing provisions for his troops. His application was
refused, and no remonstrances could prevail on the Elector to abandon
his system of neutrality. While the point was still in dispute, the
news of the dreadful fate of Magdeburg arrived.

Tilly announced its fall to the Protestant princes in the tone of a
conqueror, and lost no time in making the most of the general
consternation. The influence of the Emperor, which had sensibly
declined during the rapid progress of Gustavus, after this decisive blow
rose higher than ever; and the change was speedily visible in the
imperious tone he adopted towards the Protestant states. The decrees of
the Confederation of Leipzig were annulled by a proclamation, the
Convention itself suppressed by an imperial decree, and all the
refractory states threatened with the fate of Magdeburg. As the
executor of this imperial mandate, Tilly immediately ordered troops to
march against the Bishop of Bremen, who was a member of the Confederacy,
and had himself enlisted soldiers. The terrified bishop immediately
gave up his forces to Tilly, and signed the revocation of the acts of
the Confederation. An imperial army, which had lately returned from
Italy, under the command of Count Furstenberg, acted in the same manner
towards the Administrator of Wirtemberg. The duke was compelled to
submit to the Edict of Restitution, and all the decrees of the Emperor,
and even to pay a monthly subsidy of 100,000 dollars, for the
maintenance of the imperial troops. Similar burdens were inflicted upon
Ulm and Nuremberg, and the entire circles of Franconia and Swabia. The
hand of the Emperor was stretched in terror over all Germany. The
sudden preponderance, more in appearance, perhaps, than in reality,
which he had obtained by this blow, carried him beyond the bounds even
of the moderation which he had hitherto observed, and misled him into
hasty and violent measures, which at last turned the wavering resolution
of the German princes in favour of Gustavus Adolphus. Injurious as the
immediate consequences of the fall of Magdeburg were to the Protestant
cause, its remoter effects were most advantageous. The past surprise
made way for active resentment, despair inspired courage, and the German
freedom rose, like a phoenix, from the ashes of Magdeburg.

Among the princes of the Leipzig Confederation, the Elector of Saxony
and the Landgrave of Hesse were the most powerful; and, until they were
disarmed, the universal authority of the Emperor was unconfirmed.
Against the Landgrave, therefore, Tilly first directed his attack, and
marched straight from Magdeburg into Thuringia. During this march, the
territories of Saxe Ernest and Schwartzburg were laid waste, and
Frankenhausen plundered before the very eyes of Tilly, and laid in ashes
with impunity. The unfortunate peasant paid dear for his master's
attachment to the interests of Sweden. Erfurt, the key of Saxony and
Franconia, was threatened with a siege, but redeemed itself by a
voluntary contribution of money and provisions. From thence, Tilly
despatched his emissaries to the Landgrave, demanding of him the
immediate disbanding of his army, a renunciation of the league of
Leipzig, the reception of imperial garrisons into his territories and
fortresses, with the necessary contributions, and the declaration of
friendship or hostility. Such was the treatment which a prince of the
Empire was compelled to submit to from a servant of the Emperor. But
these extravagant demands acquired a formidable weight from the power
which supported them; and the dreadful fate of Magdeburg, still fresh in
the memory of the Landgrave, tended still farther to enforce them.
Admirable, therefore, was the intrepidity of the Landgrave's answer:
"To admit foreign troops into his capital and fortresses, the Landgrave
is not disposed; his troops he requires for his own purposes; as for an
attack, he can defend himself. If General Tilly wants money or
provisions, let him go to Munich, where there is plenty of both." The
irruption of two bodies of imperial troops into Hesse Cassel was the
immediate result of this spirited reply, but the Landgrave gave them so
warm a reception that they could effect nothing; and just as Tilly was
preparing to follow with his whole army, to punish the unfortunate
country for the firmness of its sovereign, the movements of the King of
Sweden recalled him to another quarter.

Gustavus Adolphus had learned the fall of Magdeburg with deep regret;
and the demand now made by the Elector, George William, in terms of
their agreement, for the restoration of Spandau, greatly increased this
feeling. The loss of Magdeburg had rather augmented than lessened the
reasons which made the possession of this fortress so desirable; and the
nearer became the necessity of a decisive battle between himself and
Tilly, the more unwilling he felt to abandon the only place which, in
the event of a defeat, could ensure him a refuge. After a vain
endeavour, by entreaties and representations, to bring over the Elector
to his views, whose coldness and lukewarmness daily increased, he gave
orders to his general to evacuate Spandau, but at the same time declared
to the Elector that he would henceforth regard him as an enemy.

To give weight to this declaration, he appeared with his whole force
before Berlin. "I will not be worse treated than the imperial
generals," was his reply to the ambassadors whom the bewildered Elector
despatched to his camp. "Your master has received them into his
territories, furnished them with all necessary supplies, ceded to them
every place which they required, and yet, by all these concessions, he
could not prevail upon them to treat his subjects with common humanity.
All that I require of him is security, a moderate sum of money, and
provisions for my troops; in return, I promise to protect his country,
and to keep the war at a distance from him. On these points, however, I
must insist; and my brother, the Elector, must instantly determine to
have me as a friend, or to see his capital plundered." This decisive
tone produced a due impression; and the cannon pointed against the town
put an end to the doubts of George William. In a few days, a treaty was
signed, by which the Elector engaged to furnish a monthly subsidy of
30,000 dollars, to leave Spandau in the king's hands, and to open
Custrin at all times to the Swedish troops. This now open alliance of
the Elector of Brandenburg with the Swedes, excited no less displeasure
at Vienna, than did formerly the similar procedure of the Duke of
Pomerania; but the changed fortune which now attended his arms, obliged
the Emperor to confine his resentment to words.

The king's satisfaction, on this favourable event, was increased by the
agreeable intelligence that Griefswald, the only fortress which the
Imperialists still held in Pomerania, had surrendered, and that the
whole country was now free of the enemy. He appeared once more in this
duchy, and was gratified at the sight of the general joy which he had
caused to the people. A year had elapsed since Gustavus first entered
Germany, and this event was now celebrated by all Pomerania as a
national festival. Shortly before, the Czar of Moscow had sent
ambassadors to congratulate him, to renew his alliance, and even to
offer him troops. He had great reason to rejoice at the friendly
disposition of Russia, as it was indispensable to his interests that
Sweden itself should remain undisturbed by any dangerous neighbour
during the war in which he himself was engaged. Soon after, his queen,
Maria Eleonora, landed in Pomerania, with a reinforcement of 8000
Swedes; and the arrival of 6000 English, under the Marquis of Hamilton,
requires more particular notice because this is all that history
mentions of the English during the Thirty Years' War.

During Tilly's expedition into Thuringia, Pappenheim commanded in
Magdeburg; but was unable to prevent the Swedes from crossing the Elbe
at various points, routing some imperial detachments, and seizing
several posts. He himself, alarmed at the approach of the King of
Sweden, anxiously recalled Tilly, and prevailed upon him to return by
rapid marches to Magdeburg. Tilly encamped on this side of the river at
Wolmerstadt; Gustavus on the same side, near Werben, not far from the
confluence of the Havel and the Elbe. His very arrival portended no
good to Tilly. The Swedes routed three of his regiments, which were
posted in villages at some distance from the main body, carried off half
their baggage, and burned the remainder. Tilly in vain advanced within
cannon shot of the king's camp, and offered him battle. Gustavus,
weaker by one-half than his adversary, prudently declined it; and his
position was too strong for an attack. Nothing more ensued but a
distant cannonade, and a few skirmishes, in which the Swedes had
invariably the advantage. In his retreat to Wolmerstadt, Tilly's army
was weakened by numerous desertions. Fortune seemed to have forsaken
him since the carnage of Magdeburg.

The King of Sweden, on the contrary, was followed by uninterrupted
success. While he himself was encamped in Werben, the whole of
Mecklenburg, with the exception of a few towns, was conquered by his
General Tott and the Duke Adolphus Frederick; and he enjoyed the
satisfaction of reinstating both dukes in their dominions. He proceeded
in person to Gustrow, where the reinstatement was solemnly to take
place, to give additional dignity to the ceremony by his presence. The
two dukes, with their deliverer between them, and attended by a splendid
train of princes, made a public entry into the city, which the joy of
their subjects converted into an affecting solemnity. Soon after his
return to Werben, the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel appeared in his camp, to
conclude an offensive and defensive alliance; the first sovereign prince
in Germany, who voluntarily and openly declared against the Emperor,
though not wholly uninfluenced by strong motives. The Landgrave bound
himself to act against the king's enemies as his own, to open to him his
towns and territory, and to furnish his army with provisions and
necessaries. The king, on the other hand, declared himself his ally and
protector; and engaged to conclude no peace with the Emperor without
first obtaining for the Landgrave a full redress of grievances. Both
parties honourably performed their agreement. Hesse Cassel adhered to
the Swedish alliance during the whole of this tedious war; and at the
peace of Westphalia had no reason to regret the friendship of Sweden.

Tilly, from whom this bold step on the part of the Landgrave was not
long concealed, despatched Count Fugger with several regiments against
him; and at the same time endeavoured to excite his subjects to
rebellion by inflammatory letters. But these made as little impression
as his troops, which subsequently failed him so decidedly at the battle
of Breitenfield. The Estates of Hesse could not for a moment hesitate
between their oppressor and their protector.

But the imperial general was far more disturbed by the equivocal conduct
of the Elector of Saxony, who, in defiance of the imperial prohibition,
continued his preparations, and adhered to the confederation of Leipzig.
At this conjuncture, when the proximity of the King of Sweden made a
decisive battle ere long inevitable, it appeared extremely dangerous to
leave Saxony in arms, and ready in a moment to declare for the enemy.
Tilly had just received a reinforcement of 25,000 veteran troops under
Furstenberg, and, confident in his strength, he hoped either to disarm
the Elector by the mere terror of his arrival, or at least to conquer
him with little difficulty. Before quitting his camp at Wolmerstadt, he
commanded the Elector, by a special messenger, to open his territories
to the imperial troops; either to disband his own, or to join them to
the imperial army; and to assist, in conjunction with himself, in
driving the King of Sweden out of Germany. While he reminded him that,
of all the German states, Saxony had hitherto been most respected, he
threatened it, in case of refusal, with the most destructive ravages.

But Tilly had chosen an unfavourable moment for so imperious a
requisition. The ill-treatment of his religious and political
confederates, the destruction of Magdeburg, the excesses of the
Imperialists in Lusatia, all combined to incense the Elector against the
Emperor. The approach, too, of Gustavus Adolphus, (however slender his
claims were to the protection of that prince,) tended to fortify his
resolution. He accordingly forbade the quartering of the imperial
soldiers in his territories, and announced his firm determination to
persist in his warlike preparations. However surprised he should be, he
added, "to see an imperial army on its march against his territories,
when that army had enough to do in watching the operations of the King
of Sweden, nevertheless he did not expect, instead of the promised and
well merited rewards, to be repaid with ingratitude and the ruin of his
country." To Tilly's deputies, who were entertained in a princely
style, he gave a still plainer answer on the occasion. "Gentlemen,"
said he, "I perceive that the Saxon confectionery, which has been so
long kept back, is at length to be set upon the table. But as it is
usual to mix with it nuts and garnish of all kinds, take care of your
teeth."

Tilly instantly broke up his camp, and, with the most frightful
devastation, advanced upon Halle; from this place he renewed his demands
on the Elector, in a tone still more urgent and threatening. The
previous policy of this prince, both from his own inclination, and the
persuasions of his corrupt ministers had been to promote the interests
of the Emperor, even at the expense of his own sacred obligations, and
but very little tact had hitherto kept him inactive. All this but
renders more astonishing the infatuation of the Emperor or his ministers
in abandoning, at so critical a moment, the policy they had hitherto
adopted, and by extreme measures, incensing a prince so easily led. Was
this the very object which Tilly had in view? Was it his purpose to
convert an equivocal friend into an open enemy, and thus to relieve
himself from the necessity of that indulgence in the treatment of this
prince, which the secret instructions of the Emperor had hitherto
imposed upon him? Or was it the Emperor's wish, by driving the Elector
to open hostilities, to get quit of his obligations to him, and so
cleverly to break off at once the difficulty of a reckoning? In either
case, we must be equally surprised at the daring presumption of Tilly,
who hesitated not, in presence of one formidable enemy, to provoke
another; and at his negligence in permitting, without opposition, the
union of the two.

The Saxon Elector, rendered desperate by the entrance of Tilly into his
territories, threw himself, though not without a violent struggle, under
the protection of Sweden.

Immediately after dismissing Tilly's first embassy, he had despatched
his field-marshal Arnheim in all haste to the camp of Gustavus, to
solicit the prompt assistance of that monarch whom he had so long
neglected. The king concealed the inward satisfaction he felt at this
long wished for result. "I am sorry for the Elector," said he, with
dissembled coldness, to the ambassador; "had he heeded my repeated
remonstrances, his country would never have seen the face of an enemy,
and Magdeburg would not have fallen. Now, when necessity leaves him no
alternative, he has recourse to my assistance. But tell him, that I
cannot, for the sake of the Elector of Saxony, ruin my own cause, and
that of my confederates. What pledge have I for the sincerity of a
prince whose minister is in the pay of Austria, and who will abandon me
as soon as the Emperor flatters him, and withdraws his troops from his
frontiers? Tilly, it is true, has received a strong reinforcement; but
this shall not prevent me from meeting him with confidence, as soon as I
have covered my rear."

The Saxon minister could make no other reply to these reproaches, than
that it was best to bury the past in oblivion.

He pressed the king to name the conditions, on which he would afford
assistance to Saxony, and offered to guarantee their acceptance. "I
require," said Gustavus, "that the Elector shall cede to me the fortress
of Wittenberg, deliver to me his eldest sons as hostages, furnish my
troops with three months' pay, and deliver up to me the traitors among
his ministry."

"Not Wittenberg alone," said the Elector, when he received this answer,
and hurried back his minister to the Swedish camp, "not Wittenberg
alone, but Torgau, and all Saxony, shall be open to him; my whole family
shall be his hostages, and if that is insufficient, I will place myself
in his hands. Return and inform him I am ready to deliver to him any
traitors he shall name, to furnish his army with the money he requires,
and to venture my life and fortune in the good cause."

The king had only desired to test the sincerity of the Elector's new
sentiments. Convinced of it, he now retracted these harsh demands.
"The distrust," said he, "which was shown to myself when advancing to
the relief of Magdeburg, had naturally excited mine; the Elector's
present confidence demands a return. I am satisfied, provided he grants
my army one month's pay, and even for this advance I hope to indemnify
him."

Immediately upon the conclusion of the treaty, the king crossed the
Elbe, and next day joined the Saxons. Instead of preventing this
junction, Tilly had advanced against Leipzig, which he summoned to
receive an imperial garrison. In hopes of speedy relief, Hans Von der
Pforta, the commandant, made preparations for his defence, and laid the
suburb towards Halle in ashes. But the ill condition of the
fortifications made resistance vain, and on the second day the gates
were opened. Tilly had fixed his head quarters in the house of a
grave-digger, the only one still standing in the suburb of Halle: here
he signed the capitulation, and here, too, he arranged his attack on the
King of Sweden. Tilly grew pale at the representation of the death's
head and cross bones, with which the proprietor had decorated his house;
and, contrary to all expectation, Leipzig experienced moderate
treatment.

Meanwhile, a council of war was held at Torgau, between the King of
Sweden and the Elector of Saxony, at which the Elector of Brandenburg
was also present. The resolution which should now be adopted, was to
decide irrevocably the fate of Germany and the Protestant religion, the
happiness of nations and the destiny of their princes. The anxiety of
suspense which, before every decisive resolve, oppresses even the hearts
of heroes, appeared now for a moment to overshadow the great mind of
Gustavus Adolphus. "If we decide upon battle," said he, "the stake will
be nothing less than a crown and two electorates. Fortune is
changeable, and the inscrutable decrees of Heaven may, for our sins,
give the victory to our enemies. My kingdom, it is true, even after the
loss of my life and my army, would still have a hope left. Far removed
from the scene of action, defended by a powerful fleet, a well-guarded
frontier, and a warlike population, it would at least be safe from the
worst consequences of a defeat. But what chances of escape are there
for you, with an enemy so close at hand?" Gustavus Adolphus displayed
the modest diffidence of a hero, whom an overweening belief of his own
strength did not blind to the greatness of his danger; John George, the
confidence of a weak man, who knows that he has a hero by his side.
Impatient to rid his territories as soon as possible of the oppressive
presence of two armies, he burned for a battle, in which he had no
former laurels to lose. He was ready to march with his Saxons alone
against Leipzig, and attack Tilly. At last Gustavus acceded to his
opinion; and it was resolved that the attack should be made without
delay, before the arrival of the reinforcements, which were on their
way, under Altringer and Tiefenbach. The united Swedish and Saxon
armies now crossed the Mulda, while the Elector returned homeward.

Early on the morning of the 7th September, 1631, the hostile armies came
in sight of each other. Tilly, who, since he had neglected the
opportunity of overpowering the Saxons before their union with the
Swedes, was disposed to await the arrival of the reinforcements, had
taken up a strong and advantageous position not far from Leipzig, where
he expected he should be able to avoid the battle. But the impetuosity
of Pappenheim obliged him, as soon as the enemy were in motion, to alter
his plans, and to move to the left, in the direction of the hills which
run from the village of Wahren towards Lindenthal. At the foot of these
heights, his army was drawn up in a single line, and his artillery
placed upon the heights behind, from which it could sweep the whole
extensive plain of Breitenfeld. The Swedish and Saxon army advanced in
two columns, having to pass the Lober near Podelwitz, in Tilly's front.

To defend the passage of this rivulet, Pappenheim advanced at the head
of 2000 cuirassiers, though after great reluctance on the part of Tilly,
and with express orders not to commence a battle. But, in disobedience
to this command, Pappenheim attacked the vanguard of the Swedes, and
after a brief struggle was driven to retreat. To check the progress of
the enemy, he set fire to Podelwitz, which, however, did not prevent the
two columns from advancing and forming in order of battle.

On the right, the Swedes drew up in a double line, the infantry in the
centre, divided into such small battalions as could be easily and
rapidly manoeuvred without breaking their order; the cavalry upon their
wings, divided in the same manner into small squadrons, interspersed
with bodies of musqueteers, so as both to give an appearance of greater
numerical force, and to annoy the enemy's horse. Colonel Teufel
commanded the centre, Gustavus Horn the left, while the right was led by
the king in person, opposed to Count Pappenheim.

On the left, the Saxons formed at a considerable distance from the
Swedes,--by the advice of Gustavus, which was justified by the event.
The order of battle had been arranged between the Elector and his
field-marshal, and the king was content with merely signifying his
approval. He was anxious apparently to separate the Swedish prowess
from that of the Saxons, and fortune did not confound them.

The enemy was drawn up under the heights towards the west, in one
immense line, long enough to outflank the Swedish army,--the infantry
being divided in large battalions, the cavalry in equally unwieldy
squadrons. The artillery being on the heights behind, the range of its
fire was over the heads of his men. From this position of his
artillery, it was evident that Tilly's purpose was to await rather than
to attack the enemy; since this arrangement rendered it impossible for
him to do so without exposing his men to the fire of his own cannons.
Tilly himself commanded the centre, Count Furstenberg the right wing,
and Pappenheim the left. The united troops of the Emperor and the
League on this day did not amount to 34,000 or 35,000 men; the Swedes
and Saxons were about the same number. But had a million been
confronted with a million it could only have rendered the action more
bloody, certainly not more important and decisive. For this day
Gustavus had crossed the Baltic, to court danger in a distant country,
and expose his crown and life to the caprice of fortune. The two
greatest generals of the time, both hitherto invincible, were now to be
matched against each other in a contest which both had long avoided; and
on this field of battle the hitherto untarnished laurels of one leader
must droop for ever. The two parties in Germany had beheld the approach
of this day with fear and trembling; and the whole age awaited with deep
anxiety its issue, and posterity was either to bless or deplore it for
ever.

Tilly's usual intrepidity and resolution seemed to forsake him on this
eventful day. He had formed no regular plan for giving battle to the
King, and he displayed as little firmness in avoiding it. Contrary to
his own judgment, Pappenheim had forced him to action. Doubts which he
had never before felt, struggled in his bosom; gloomy forebodings
clouded his ever-open brow; the shade of Magdeburg seemed to hover over
him.

A cannonade of two hours commenced the battle; the wind, which was from
the west, blew thick clouds of smoke and dust from the newly-ploughed
and parched fields into the faces of the Swedes. This compelled the
king insensibly to wheel northwards, and the rapidity with which this
movement was executed left no time to the enemy to prevent it.

Tilly at last left his heights, and began the first attack upon the
Swedes; but to avoid their hot fire, he filed off towards the right, and
fell upon the Saxons with such impetuosity that their line was broken,
and the whole army thrown into confusion. The Elector himself retired
to Eilenburg, though a few regiments still maintained their ground upon
the field, and by a bold stand saved the honour of Saxony. Scarcely had
the confusion began ere the Croats commenced plundering, and messengers
were despatched to Munich and Vienna with the news of the victory.

Pappenheim had thrown himself with the whole force of his cavalry upon
the right wing of the Swedes, but without being able to make it waver.
The king commanded here in person, and under him General Banner. Seven
times did Pappenheim renew the attack, and seven times was he repulsed.
He fled at last with great loss, and abandoned the field to his
conqueror.

In the mean time, Tilly, having routed the remainder of the Saxons,
attacked with his victorious troops the left wing of the Swedes. To
this wing the king, as soon as he perceived that the Saxons were thrown
into disorder, had, with a ready foresight, detached a reinforcement of
three regiments to cover its flank, which the flight of the Saxons had
left exposed. Gustavus Horn, who commanded here, showed the enemy's
cuirassiers a spirited resistance, which the infantry, interspersed
among the squadrons of horse, materially assisted. The enemy were
already beginning to relax the vigour of their attack, when Gustavus
Adolphus appeared to terminate the contest. The left wing of the
Imperialists had been routed; and the king's division, having no longer
any enemy to oppose, could now turn their arms wherever it would be to
the most advantage. Wheeling, therefore, with his right wing and main
body to the left, he attacked the heights on which the enemy's artillery
was planted. Gaining possession of them in a short time, he turned upon
the enemy the full fire of their own cannon.

The play of artillery upon their flank, and the terrible onslaught of
the Swedes in front, threw this hitherto invincible army into confusion.
A sudden retreat was the only course left to Tilly, but even this was to
be made through the midst of the enemy. The whole army was in disorder,
with the exception of four regiments of veteran soldiers, who never as
yet had fled from the field, and were resolved not to do so now.
Closing their ranks, they broke through the thickest of the victorious
army, and gained a small thicket, where they opposed a new front to the
Swedes, and maintained their resistance till night, when their number
was reduced to six hundred men. With them fled the wreck of Tilly's
army, and the battle was decided.

Amid the dead and the wounded, Gustavus Adolphus threw himself on his
knees; and the first joy of his victory gushed forth in fervent prayer.
He ordered his cavalry to pursue the enemy as long as the darkness of
the night would permit. The pealing of the alarm-bells set the
inhabitants of all the neighbouring villages in motion, and utterly lost
was the unhappy fugitive who fell into their hands. The king encamped
with the rest of his army between the field of battle and Leipzig, as it
was impossible to attack the town the same night. Seven thousand of the
enemy were killed in the field, and more than 5,000 either wounded or
taken prisoners. Their whole artillery and camp fell into the hands of
the Swedes, and more than a hundred standards and colours were taken.
Of the Saxons about 2,000 had fallen, while the loss of the Swedes did
not exceed 700. The rout of the Imperialists was so complete, that
Tilly, on his retreat to Halle and Halberstadt, could not rally above
600 men, or Pappenheim more than 1,400--so rapidly was this formidable
army dispersed, which so lately was the terror of Italy and Germany.

Tilly himself owed his escape merely to chance. Exhausted by his
wounds, he still refused to surrender to a Swedish captain of horse, who
summoned him to yield; but who, when he was on the point of putting him
to death, was himself stretched on the ground by a timely pistol-shot.
But more grievous than danger or wounds was the pain of surviving his
reputation, and of losing in a single day the fruits of a long life.
All former victories were as nothing, since he had failed in gaining the
one that should have crowned them all. Nothing remained of all his past
exploits, but the general execration which had followed them. From this
period, he never recovered his cheerfulness or his good fortune. Even
his last consolation, the hope of revenge, was denied to him, by the
express command of the Emperor not to risk a decisive battle.

The disgrace of this day is to be ascribed principally to three
mistakes; his planting the cannon on the hills behind him, his
afterwards abandoning these heights, and his allowing the enemy, without
opposition, to form in order of battle. But how easily might those
mistakes have been rectified, had it not been for the cool presence of
mind and superior genius of his adversary!

Tilly fled from Halle to Halberstadt, where he scarcely allowed time for
the cure of his wounds, before he hurried towards the Weser to recruit
his force by the imperial garrisons in Lower Saxony.

The Elector of Saxony had not failed, after the danger was over, to
appear in Gustavus's camp. The king thanked him for having advised a
battle; and the Elector, charmed at his friendly reception, promised
him, in the first transports of joy, the Roman crown. Gustavus set out
next day for Merseburg, leaving the Elector to recover Leipzig. Five
thousand Imperialists, who had collected together after the defeat, and
whom he met on his march, were either cut in pieces or taken prisoners,
of whom again the greater part entered into his service. Merseburg
quickly surrendered; Halle was soon after taken, whither the Elector of
Saxony, after making himself master of Leipzig, repaired to meet the
king, and to concert their future plan of operations.

The victory was gained, but only a prudent use of it could render it
decisive. The imperial armies were totally routed, Saxony free from the
enemy, and Tilly had retired into Brunswick. To have followed him
thither would have been to renew the war in Lower Saxony, which had
scarcely recovered from the ravages of the last. It was therefore
determined to carry the war into the enemy's country, which, open and
defenceless as far as Vienna, invited attack. On their right, they
might fall upon the territories of the Roman Catholic princes, or
penetrate, on the left, into the hereditary dominions of Austria, and
make the Emperor tremble in his palace. Both plans were resolved on;
and the question that now remained was to assign its respective parts.
Gustavus Adolphus, at the head of a victorious army, had little
resistance to apprehend in his progress from Leipzig to Prague, Vienna,
and Presburg. As to Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, and Hungary, they had
been stripped of their defenders, while the oppressed Protestants in
these countries were ripe for a revolt. Ferdinand was no longer secure
in his capital: Vienna, on the first terror of surprise, would at once
open its gates. The loss of his territories would deprive the enemy of
the resources by which alone the war could be maintained; and Ferdinand
would, in all probability, gladly accede, on the hardest conditions, to
a peace which would remove a formidable enemy from the heart of his
dominions. This bold plan of operations was flattering to a conqueror,
and success perhaps might have justified it. But Gustavus Adolphus, as
prudent as he was brave, and more a statesman than a conqueror, rejected
it, because he had a higher end in view, and would not trust the issue
either to bravery or good fortune alone.

By marching towards Bohemia, Franconia and the Upper Rhine would be left
to the Elector of Saxony. But Tilly had already begun to recruit his
shattered army from the garrisons in Lower Saxony, and was likely to be
at the head of a formidable force upon the Weser, and to lose no time in
marching against the enemy. To so experienced a general, it would not
do to oppose an Arnheim, of whose military skill the battle of Leipzig
had afforded but equivocal proof; and of what avail would be the rapid
and brilliant career of the king in Bohemia and Austria, if Tilly should
recover his superiority in the Empire, animating the courage of the
Roman Catholics, and disarming, by a new series of victories, the allies
and confederates of the king? What would he gain by expelling the
Emperor from his hereditary dominions, if Tilly succeeded in conquering
for that Emperor the rest of Germany? Could he hope to reduce the
Emperor more than had been done, twelve years before, by the
insurrection of Bohemia, which had failed to shake the firmness or
exhaust the resources of that prince, and from which he had risen more
formidable than ever?

Less brilliant, but more solid, were the advantages which he had to
expect from an incursion into the territories of the League. In this
quarter, his appearance in arms would be decisive. At this very
conjuncture, the princes were assembled in a Diet at Frankfort, to
deliberate upon the Edict of Restitution, where Ferdinand employed all
his artful policy to persuade the intimidated Protestants to accede to a
speedy and disadvantageous arrangement. The advance of their protector
could alone encourage them to a bold resistance, and disappoint the
Emperor's designs. Gustavus Adolphus hoped, by his presence, to unite
the discontented princes, or by the terror of his arms to detach them
from the Emperor's party. Here, in the centre of Germany, he could
paralyse the nerves of the imperial power, which, without the aid of the
League, must soon fall--here, in the neighbourhood of France, he could
watch the movements of a suspicious ally; and however important to his
secret views it was to cultivate the friendship of the Roman Catholic
electors, he saw the necessity of making himself first of all master of
their fate, in order to establish, by his magnanimous forbearance, a
claim to their gratitude.

He accordingly chose the route to Franconia and the Rhine; and left the
conquest of Bohemia to the Elector of Saxony.





 Book III.



 The glorious battle of Leipzig effected a great change in the conduct
of Gustavus Adolphus, as well as in the opinion which both friends and
foes entertained of him. Successfully had he confronted the greatest
general of the age, and had matched the strength of his tactics and the
courage of his Swedes against the elite of the imperial army, the most
experienced troops in Europe. From this moment he felt a firm
confidence in his own powers--self-confidence has always been the parent
of great actions. In all his subsequent operations more boldness and
decision are observable; greater determination, even amidst the most
unfavourable circumstances, a more lofty tone towards his adversaries, a
more dignified bearing towards his allies, and even in his clemency,
something of the forbearance of a conqueror. His natural courage was
farther heightened by the pious ardour of his imagination. He saw in
his own cause that of heaven, and in the defeat of Tilly beheld the
decisive interference of Providence against his enemies, and in himself
the instrument of divine vengeance. Leaving his crown and his country
far behind, he advanced on the wings of victory into the heart of
Germany, which for centuries had seen no foreign conqueror within its
bosom. The warlike spirit of its inhabitants, the vigilance of its
numerous princes, the artful confederation of its states, the number of
its strong castles, its many and broad rivers, had long restrained the
ambition of its neighbours; and frequently as its extensive frontier had
been attacked, its interior had been free from hostile invasion. The
Empire had hitherto enjoyed the equivocal privilege of being its own
enemy, though invincible from without. Even now, it was merely the
disunion of its members, and the intolerance of religious zeal, that
paved the way for the Swedish invader. The bond of union between the
states, which alone had rendered the Empire invincible, was now
dissolved; and Gustavus derived from Germany itself the power by which
he subdued it. With as much courage as prudence, he availed himself of
all that the favourable moment afforded; and equally at home in the
cabinet and the field, he tore asunder the web of the artful policy,
with as much ease, as he shattered walls with the thunder of his cannon.
Uninterruptedly he pursued his conquests from one end of Germany to the
other, without breaking the line of posts which commanded a secure
retreat at any moment; and whether on the banks of the Rhine, or at the
mouth of the Lech, alike maintaining his communication with his
hereditary dominions.

The consternation of the Emperor and the League at Tilly's defeat at
Leipzig, was scarcely greater than the surprise and embarrassment of the
allies of the King of Sweden at his unexpected success. It was beyond
both their expectations and their wishes. Annihilated in a moment was
that formidable army which, while it checked his progress and set bounds
to his ambition, rendered him in some measure dependent on themselves.
He now stood in the heart of Germany, alone, without a rival or without
an adversary who was a match for him. Nothing could stop his progress,
or check his pretensions, if the intoxication of success should tempt
him to abuse his victory. If formerly they had dreaded the Emperor's
irresistible power, there was no less cause now to fear every thing for
the Empire, from the violence of a foreign conqueror, and for the
Catholic Church, from the religious zeal of a Protestant king. The
distrust and jealousy of some of the combined powers, which a stronger
fear of the Emperor had for a time repressed, now revived; and scarcely
had Gustavus Adolphus merited, by his courage and success, their
confidence, when they began covertly to circumvent all his plans.
Through a continual struggle with the arts of enemies, and the distrust
of his own allies, must his victories henceforth be won; yet resolution,
penetration, and prudence made their way through all impediments. But
while his success excited the jealousy of his more powerful allies,
France and Saxony, it gave courage to the weaker, and emboldened them
openly to declare their sentiments and join his party. Those who could
neither vie with Gustavus Adolphus in importance, nor suffer from his
ambition, expected the more from the magnanimity of their powerful ally,
who enriched them with the spoils of their enemies, and protected them
against the oppression of their stronger neighbours. His strength
covered their weakness, and, inconsiderable in themselves, they acquired
weight and influence from their union with the Swedish hero. This was
the case with most of the free cities, and particularly with the weaker
Protestant states. It was these that introduced the king into the heart
of Germany; these covered his rear, supplied his troops with
necessaries, received them into their fortresses, while they exposed
their own lives in his battles. His prudent regard to their national
pride, his popular deportment, some brilliant acts of justice, and his
respect for the laws, were so many ties by which he bound the German
Protestants to his cause; while the crying atrocities of the
Imperialists, the Spaniards, and the troops of Lorraine, powerfully
contributed to set his own conduct and that of his army in a favourable
light.

If Gustavus Adolphus owed his success chiefly to his own genius, at the
same time, it must be owned, he was greatly favoured by fortune and by
circumstances. Two great advantages gave him a decided superiority over
the enemy. While he removed the scene of war into the lands of the
League, drew their youth as recruits, enriched himself with booty, and
used the revenues of their fugitive princes as his own, he at once took
from the enemy the means of effectual resistance, and maintained an
expensive war with little cost to himself. And, moreover, while his
opponents, the princes of the League, divided among themselves, and
governed by different and often conflicting interests, acted without
unanimity, and therefore without energy; while their generals were
deficient in authority, their troops in obedience, the operations of
their scattered armies without concert; while the general was separated
from the lawgiver and the statesman; these several functions were united
in Gustavus Adolphus, the only source from which authority flowed, the
sole object to which the eye of the warrior turned; the soul of his
party, the inventor as well as the executor of his plans. In him,
therefore, the Protestants had a centre of unity and harmony, which was
altogether wanting to their opponents. No wonder, then, if favoured by
such advantages, at the head of such an army, with such a genius to
direct it, and guided by such political prudence, Gustavus Adolphus was
irresistible.

With the sword in one hand, and mercy in the other, he traversed Germany
as a conqueror, a lawgiver, and a judge, in as short a time almost as
the tourist of pleasure. The keys of towns and fortresses were
delivered to him, as if to the native sovereign. No fortress was
inaccessible; no river checked his victorious career. He conquered by
the very terror of his name. The Swedish standards were planted along
the whole stream of the Maine: the Lower Palatinate was free, the
troops of Spain and Lorraine had fled across the Rhine and the Moselle.
The Swedes and Hessians poured like a torrent into the territories of
Mentz, of Wurtzburg, and Bamberg, and three fugitive bishops, at a
distance from their sees, suffered dearly for their unfortunate
attachment to the Emperor. It was now the turn for Maximilian, the
leader of the League, to feel in his own dominions the miseries he had
inflicted upon others. Neither the terrible fate of his allies, nor the
peaceful overtures of Gustavus, who, in the midst of conquest, ever held
out the hand of friendship, could conquer the obstinacy of this prince.
The torrent of war now poured into Bavaria. Like the banks of the
Rhine, those of the Lecke and the Donau were crowded with Swedish
troops. Creeping into his fortresses, the defeated Elector abandoned to
the ravages of the foe his dominions, hitherto unscathed by war, and on
which the bigoted violence of the Bavarians seemed to invite
retaliation. Munich itself opened its gates to the invincible monarch,
and the fugitive Palatine, Frederick V., in the forsaken residence of
his rival, consoled himself for a time for the loss of his dominions.

While Gustavus Adolphus was extending his conquests in the south, his
generals and allies were gaining similar triumphs in the other
provinces. Lower Saxony shook off the yoke of Austria, the enemy
abandoned Mecklenburg, and the imperial garrisons retired from the banks
of the Weser and the Elbe. In Westphalia and the Upper Rhine, William,
Landgrave of Hesse, rendered himself formidable; the Duke of Weimar in
Thuringia, and the French in the Electorate of Treves; while to the
eastward the whole kingdom of Bohemia was conquered by the Saxons. The
Turks were preparing to attack Hungary, and in the heart of Austria a
dangerous insurrection was threatened. In vain did the Emperor look
around to the courts of Europe for support; in vain did he summon the
Spaniards to his assistance, for the bravery of the Flemings afforded
them ample employment beyond the Rhine; in vain did he call upon the
Roman court and the whole church to come to his rescue. The offended
Pope sported, in pompous processions and idle anathemas, with the
embarrassments of Ferdinand, and instead of the desired subsidy he was
shown the devastation of Mantua.

On all sides of his extensive monarchy hostile arms surrounded him.
With the states of the League, now overrun by the enemy, those ramparts
were thrown down, behind which Austria had so long defended herself, and
the embers of war were now smouldering upon her unguarded frontiers.
His most zealous allies were disarmed; Maximilian of Bavaria, his
firmest support, was scarce able to defend himself. His armies,
weakened by desertion and repeated defeat, and dispirited by continued
misfortunes had unlearnt, under beaten generals, that warlike
impetuosity which, as it is the consequence, so it is the guarantee of
success. The danger was extreme, and extraordinary means alone could
raise the imperial power from the degradation into which it was fallen.

The most urgent want was that of a general; and the only one from whom
he could hope for the revival of his former splendour, had been removed
from his command by an envious cabal. So low had the Emperor now
fallen, that he was forced to make the most humiliating proposals to his
injured subject and servant, and meanly to press upon the imperious Duke
of Friedland the acceptance of the powers which no less meanly had been
taken from him. A new spirit began from this moment to animate the
expiring body of Austria; and a sudden change in the aspect of affairs
bespoke the firm hand which guided them. To the absolute King of
Sweden, a general equally absolute was now opposed; and one victorious
hero was confronted with another. Both armies were again to engage in
the doubtful struggle; and the prize of victory, already almost secured
in the hands of Gustavus Adolphus, was to be the object of another and a
severer trial. The storm of war gathered around Nuremberg; before its
walls the hostile armies encamped; gazing on each other with dread and
respect, longing for, and yet shrinking from, the moment that was to
close them together in the shock of battle. The eyes of Europe turned
to the scene in curiosity and alarm, while Nuremberg, in dismay,
expected soon to lend its name to a more decisive battle than that of
Leipzig. Suddenly the clouds broke, and the storm rolled away from
Franconia, to burst upon the plains of Saxony. Near Lutzen fell the
thunder that had menaced Nuremberg; the victory, half lost, was
purchased by the death of the king. Fortune, which had never forsaken
him in his lifetime, favoured the King of Sweden even in his death, with
the rare privilege of falling in the fulness of his glory and an
untarnished fame. By a timely death, his protecting genius rescued him
from the inevitable fate of man--that of forgetting moderation in the
intoxication of success, and justice in the plenitude of power. It may
be doubted whether, had he lived longer, he would still have deserved
the tears which Germany shed over his grave, or maintained his title to
the admiration with which posterity regards him, as the first and only
JUST conqueror that the world has produced. The untimely fall of their
great leader seemed to threaten the ruin of his party; but to the Power
which rules the world, no loss of a single man is irreparable. As the
helm of war dropped from the hand of the falling hero, it was seized by
two great statesmen, Oxenstiern and Richelieu. Destiny still pursued
its relentless course, and for full sixteen years longer the flames of
war blazed over the ashes of the long-forgotten king and soldier.

I may now be permitted to take a cursory retrospect of Gustavus Adolphus
in his victorious career; glance at the scene in which he alone was the
great actor; and then, when Austria becomes reduced to extremity by the
successes of the Swedes, and by a series of disasters is driven to the
most humiliating and desperate expedients, to return to the history of
the Emperor.

As soon as the plan of operations had been concerted at Halle, between
the King of Sweden and the Elector of Saxony; as soon as the alliance
had been concluded with the neighbouring princes of Weimar and Anhalt,
and preparations made for the recovery of the bishopric of Magdeburg,
the king began his march into the empire. He had here no despicable foe
to contend with. Within the empire, the Emperor was still powerful;
throughout Franconia, Swabia, and the Palatinate, imperial garrisons
were posted, with whom the possession of every place of importance must
be disputed sword in hand. On the Rhine he was opposed by the
Spaniards, who had overrun the territory of the banished Elector
Palatine, seized all its strong places, and would everywhere dispute
with him the passage over that river. On his rear was Tilly, who was
fast recruiting his force, and would soon be joined by the auxiliaries
from Lorraine. Every Papist presented an inveterate foe, while his
connexion with France did not leave him at liberty to act with freedom
against the Roman Catholics. Gustavus had foreseen all these obstacles,
but at the same time the means by which they were to be overcome. The
strength of the Imperialists was broken and divided among different
garrisons, while he would bring against them one by one his whole united
force. If he was to be opposed by the fanaticism of the Roman
Catholics, and the awe in which the lesser states regarded the Emperor's
power, he might depend on the active support of the Protestants, and
their hatred to Austrian oppression. The ravages of the Imperialist and
Spanish troops also powerfully aided him in these quarters; where the
ill-treated husbandman and citizen sighed alike for a deliverer, and
where the mere change of yoke seemed to promise a relief. Emissaries
were despatched to gain over to the Swedish side the principal free
cities, particularly Nuremberg and Frankfort. The first that lay in the
king's march, and which he could not leave unoccupied in his rear, was
Erfurt. Here the Protestant party among the citizens opened to him,
without a blow, the gates of the town and the citadel. From the
inhabitants of this, as of every important place which afterwards
submitted, he exacted an oath of allegiance, while he secured its
possession by a sufficient garrison. To his ally, Duke William of
Weimar, he intrusted the command of an army to be raised in Thuringia.
He also left his queen in Erfurt, and promised to increase its
privileges. The Swedish army now crossed the Thuringian forest in two
columns, by Gotha and Arnstadt, and having delivered, in its march, the
county of Henneberg from the Imperialists, formed a junction on the
third day near Koenigshofen, on the frontiers of Franconia.

Francis, Bishop of Wurtzburg, the bitter enemy of the Protestants, and
the most zealous member of the League, was the first to feel the
indignation of Gustavus Adolphus. A few threats gained for the Swedes
possession of his fortress of Koenigshofen, and with it the key of the
whole province. At the news of this rapid conquest, dismay seized all
the Roman Catholic towns of the circle. The Bishops of Wurtzburg and
Bamberg trembled in their castles; they already saw their sees
tottering, their churches profaned, and their religion degraded. The
malice of his enemies had circulated the most frightful representations
of the persecuting spirit and the mode of warfare pursued by the Swedish
king and his soldiers, which neither the repeated assurances of the
king, nor the most splendid examples of humanity and toleration, ever
entirely effaced. Many feared to suffer at the hands of another what in
similar circumstances they were conscious of inflicting themselves.
Many of the richest Roman Catholics hastened to secure by flight their
property, their religion, and their persons, from the sanguinary
fanaticism of the Swedes. The bishop himself set the example. In the
midst of the alarm, which his bigoted zeal had caused, he abandoned his
dominions, and fled to Paris, to excite, if possible, the French
ministry against the common enemy of religion.

The further progress of Gustavus Adolphus in the ecclesiastical
territories agreed with this brilliant commencement. Schweinfurt, and
soon afterwards Wurtzburg, abandoned by their Imperial garrisons,
surrendered; but Marienberg he was obliged to carry by storm. In this
place, which was believed to be impregnable, the enemy had collected a
large store of provisions and ammunition, all of which fell into the
hands of the Swedes. The king found a valuable prize in the library of
the Jesuits, which he sent to Upsal, while his soldiers found a still
more agreeable one in the prelate's well-filled cellars; his treasures
the bishop had in good time removed. The whole bishopric followed the
example of the capital, and submitted to the Swedes. The king compelled
all the bishop's subjects to swear allegiance to himself; and, in the
absence of the lawful sovereign, appointed a regency, one half of whose
members were Protestants. In every Roman Catholic town which Gustavus
took, he opened the churches to the Protestant people, but without
retaliating on the Papists the cruelties which they had practised on the
former. On such only as sword in hand refused to submit, were the
fearful rights of war enforced; and for the occasional acts of violence
committed by a few of the more lawless soldiers, in the blind rage of
the first attack, their humane leader is not justly responsible. Those
who were peaceably disposed, or defenceless, were treated with mildness.
It was a sacred principle of Gustavus to spare the blood of his enemies,
as well as that of his own troops.

On the first news of the Swedish irruption, the Bishop of Wurtzburg,
without regarding the treaty which he had entered into with the King of
Sweden, had earnestly pressed the general of the League to hasten to the
assistance of the bishopric. That defeated commander had, in the mean
time, collected on the Weser the shattered remnant of his army,
reinforced himself from the garrisons of Lower Saxony, and effected a
junction in Hesse with Altringer and Fugger, who commanded under him.
Again at the head of a considerable force, Tilly burned with impatience
to wipe out the stain of his first defeat by a splendid victory. From
his camp at Fulda, whither he had marched with his army, he earnestly
requested permission from the Duke of Bavaria to give battle to Gustavus
Adolphus. But, in the event of Tilly's defeat, the League had no second
army to fall back upon, and Maximilian was too cautious to risk again
the fate of his party on a single battle. With tears in his eyes, Tilly
read the commands of his superior, which compelled him to inactivity.
Thus his march to Franconia was delayed, and Gustavus Adolphus gained
time to overrun the whole bishopric. It was in vain that Tilly,
reinforced at Aschaffenburg by a body of 12,000 men from Lorraine,
marched with an overwhelming force to the relief of Wurtzburg. The town
and citadel were already in the hands of the Swedes, and Maximilian of
Bavaria was generally blamed (and not without cause, perhaps) for
having, by his scruples, occasioned the loss of the bishopric.
Commanded to avoid a battle, Tilly contented himself with checking the
farther advance of the enemy; but he could save only a few of the towns
from the impetuosity of the Swedes. Baffled in an attempt to reinforce
the weak garrison of Hanau, which it was highly important to the Swedes
to gain, he crossed the Maine, near Seligenstadt, and took the direction
of the Bergstrasse, to protect the Palatinate from the conqueror.

Tilly, however, was not the sole enemy whom Gustavus Adolphus met in
Franconia, and drove before him. Charles, Duke of Lorraine, celebrated
in the annals of the time for his unsteadiness of character, his vain
projects, and his misfortunes, ventured to raise a weak arm against the
Swedish hero, in the hope of obtaining from the Emperor the electoral
dignity. Deaf to the suggestions of a rational policy, he listened only
to the dictates of heated ambition; by supporting the Emperor, he
exasperated France, his formidable neighbour; and in the pursuit of a
visionary phantom in another country, left undefended his own dominions,
which were instantly overrun by a French army. Austria willingly
conceded to him, as well as to the other princes of the League, the
honour of being ruined in her cause. Intoxicated with vain hopes, this
prince collected a force of 17,000 men, which he proposed to lead in
person against the Swedes. If these troops were deficient in discipline
and courage, they were at least attractive by the splendour of their
accoutrements; and however sparing they were of their prowess against
the foe, they were liberal enough with it against the defenceless
citizens and peasantry, whom they were summoned to defend. Against the
bravery, and the formidable discipline of the Swedes this splendidly
attired army, however, made no long stand. On the first advance of the
Swedish cavalry a panic seized them, and they were driven without
difficulty from their cantonments in Wurtzburg; the defeat of a few
regiments occasioned a general rout, and the scattered remnant sought a
covert from the Swedish valour in the towns beyond the Rhine. Loaded
with shame and ridicule, the duke hurried home by Strasburg, too
fortunate in escaping, by a submissive written apology, the indignation
of his conqueror, who had first beaten him out of the field, and then
called upon him to account for his hostilities. It is related upon this
occasion that, in a village on the Rhine a peasant struck the horse of
the duke as he rode past, exclaiming, "Haste, Sir, you must go quicker
to escape the great King of Sweden!"

The example of his neighbours' misfortunes had taught the Bishop of
Bamberg prudence. To avert the plundering of his territories, he made
offers of peace, though these were intended only to delay the king's
course till the arrival of assistance. Gustavus Adolphus, too
honourable himself to suspect dishonesty in another, readily accepted
the bishop's proposals, and named the conditions on which he was willing
to save his territories from hostile treatment. He was the more
inclined to peace, as he had no time to lose in the conquest of Bamberg,
and his other designs called him to the Rhine. The rapidity with which
he followed up these plans, cost him the loss of those pecuniary
supplies which, by a longer residence in Franconia, he might easily have
extorted from the weak and terrified bishop. This artful prelate broke
off the negotiation the instant the storm of war passed away from his
own territories. No sooner had Gustavus marched onwards than he threw
himself under the protection of Tilly, and received the troops of the
Emperor into the very towns and fortresses, which shortly before he had
shown himself ready to open to the Swedes. By this stratagem, however,
he only delayed for a brief interval the ruin of his bishopric. A
Swedish general who had been left in Franconia, undertook to punish the
perfidy of the bishop; and the ecclesiastical territory became the seat
of war, and was ravaged alike by friends and foes.

The formidable presence of the Imperialists had hitherto been a check
upon the Franconian States; but their retreat, and the humane conduct of
the Swedish king, emboldened the nobility and other inhabitants of this
circle to declare in his favour. Nuremberg joyfully committed itself to
his protection; and the Franconian nobles were won to his cause by
flattering proclamations, in which he condescended to apologize for his
hostile appearance in the dominions. The fertility of Franconia, and
the rigorous honesty of the Swedish soldiers in their dealings with the
inhabitants, brought abundance to the camp of the king. The high esteem
which the nobility of the circle felt for Gustavus, the respect and
admiration with which they regarded his brilliant exploits, the promises
of rich booty which the service of this monarch held out, greatly
facilitated the recruiting of his troops; a step which was made
necessary by detaching so many garrisons from the main body. At the
sound of his drums, recruits flocked to his standard from all quarters.

The king had scarcely spent more time in conquering Franconia, than he
would have required to cross it. He now left behind him Gustavus Horn,
one of his best generals, with a force of 8,000 men, to complete and
retain his conquest. He himself with his main army, reinforced by the
late recruits, hastened towards the Rhine in order to secure this
frontier of the empire from the Spaniards; to disarm the ecclesiastical
electors, and to obtain from their fertile territories new resources for
the prosecution of the war. Following the course of the Maine, he
subjected, in the course of his march, Seligenstadt, Aschaffenburg,
Steinheim, the whole territory on both sides of the river. The imperial
garrisons seldom awaited his approach, and never attempted resistance.
In the meanwhile one of his colonels had been fortunate enough to take
by surprise the town and citadel of Hanau, for whose preservation Tilly
had shown such anxiety. Eager to be free of the oppressive burden of
the Imperialists, the Count of Hanau gladly placed himself under the
milder yoke of the King of Sweden.

Gustavus Adolphus now turned his whole attention to Frankfort, for it
was his constant maxim to cover his rear by the friendship and
possession of the more important towns. Frankfort was among the free
cities which, even from Saxony, he had endeavoured to prepare for his
reception; and he now called upon it, by a summons from Offenbach, to
allow him a free passage, and to admit a Swedish garrison. Willingly
would this city have dispensed with the necessity of choosing between
the King of Sweden and the Emperor; for, whatever party they might
embrace, the inhabitants had a like reason to fear for their privileges
and trade. The Emperor's vengeance would certainly fall heavily upon
them, if they were in a hurry to submit to the King of Sweden, and
afterwards he should prove unable to protect his adherents in Germany.
But still more ruinous for them would be the displeasure of an
irresistible conqueror, who, with a formidable army, was already before
their gates, and who might punish their opposition by the ruin of their
commerce and prosperity. In vain did their deputies plead the danger
which menaced their fairs, their privileges, perhaps their constitution
itself, if, by espousing the party of the Swedes, they were to incur the
Emperor's displeasure. Gustavus Adolphus expressed to them his
astonishment that, when the liberties of Germany and the Protestant
religion were at stake, the citizens of Frankfort should talk of their
annual fairs, and postpone for temporal interests the great cause of
their country and their conscience. He had, he continued, in a menacing
tone, found the keys of every town and fortress, from the Isle of Rugen
to the Maine, and knew also where to find a key to Frankfort; the safety
of Germany, and the freedom of the Protestant Church, were, he assured
them, the sole objects of his invasion; conscious of the justice of his
cause, he was determined not to allow any obstacle to impede his
progress. "The inhabitants of Frankfort, he was well aware, wished to
stretch out only a finger to him, but he must have the whole hand in
order to have something to grasp." At the head of the army, he closely
followed the deputies as they carried back his answer, and in order of
battle awaited, near Saxenhausen, the decision of the council.

If Frankfort hesitated to submit to the Swedes, it was solely from fear
of the Emperor; their own inclinations did not allow them a moment to
doubt between the oppressor of Germany and its protector. The menacing
preparations amidst which Gustavus Adolphus now compelled them to
decide, would lessen the guilt of their revolt in the eyes of the
Emperor, and by an appearance of compulsion justify the step which they
willingly took. The gates were therefore opened to the King of Sweden,
who marched his army through this imperial town in magnificent
procession, and in admirable order. A garrison of 600 men was left in
Saxenhausen; while the king himself advanced the same evening, with the
rest of his army, against the town of Hoechst in Mentz, which
surrendered to him before night.

While Gustavus was thus extending his conquests along the Maine, fortune
crowned also the efforts of his generals and allies in the north of
Germany. Rostock, Wismar, and Doemitz, the only strong places in the
Duchy of Mecklenburg which still sighed under the yoke of the
Imperialists, were recovered by their legitimate sovereign, the Duke
John Albert, under the Swedish general, Achatius Tott. In vain did the
imperial general, Wolf Count von Mansfeld, endeavour to recover from the
Swedes the territories of Halberstadt, of which they had taken
possession immediately upon the victory of Leipzig; he was even
compelled to leave Magdeburg itself in their hands. The Swedish
general, Banner, who with 8,000 men remained upon the Elbe, closely
blockaded that city, and had defeated several imperial regiments which
had been sent to its relief. Count Mansfeld defended it in person with
great resolution; but his garrison being too weak to oppose for any
length of time the numerous force of the besiegers, he was already about
to surrender on conditions, when Pappenheim advanced to his assistance,
and gave employment elsewhere to the Swedish arms. Magdeburg, however,
or rather the wretched huts that peeped out miserably from among the
ruins of that once great town, was afterwards voluntarily abandoned by
the Imperialists, and immediately taken possession of by the Swedes.

Even Lower Saxony, encouraged by the progress of the king, ventured to
raise its head from the disasters of the unfortunate Danish war. They
held a congress at Hamburg, and resolved upon raising three regiments,
which they hoped would be sufficient to free them from the oppressive
garrisons of the Imperialists. The Bishop of Bremen, a relation of
Gustavus Adolphus, was not content even with this; but assembled troops
of his own, and terrified the unfortunate monks and priests of the
neighbourhood, but was quickly compelled by the imperial general, Count
Gronsfeld, to lay down his arms. Even George, Duke of Lunenburg,
formerly a colonel in the Emperor's service, embraced the party of
Gustavus, for whom he raised several regiments, and by occupying the
attention of the Imperialists in Lower Saxony, materially assisted him.

But more important service was rendered to the king by the Landgrave
William of Hesse Cassel, whose victorious arms struck with terror the
greater part of Westphalia and Lower Saxony, the bishopric of Fulda, and
even the Electorate of Cologne. It has been already stated that
immediately after the conclusion of the alliance between the Landgrave
and Gustavus Adolphus at Werben, two imperial generals, Fugger and
Altringer, were ordered by Tilly to march into Hesse, to punish the
Landgrave for his revolt from the Emperor. But this prince had as
firmly withstood the arms of his enemies, as his subjects had the
proclamations of Tilly inciting them to rebellion, and the battle of
Leipzig presently relieved him of their presence. He availed himself of
their absence with courage and resolution; in a short time, Vach,
Muenden and Hoexter surrendered to him, while his rapid advance alarmed
the bishoprics of Fulda, Paderborn, and the ecclesiastical territories
which bordered on Hesse. The terrified states hastened by a speedy
submission to set limits to his progress, and by considerable
contributions to purchase exemption from plunder. After these
successful enterprises, the Landgrave united his victorious army with
that of Gustavus Adolphus, and concerted with him at Frankfort their
future plan of operations.

In this city, a number of princes and ambassadors were assembled to
congratulate Gustavus on his success, and either to conciliate his
favour or to appease his indignation. Among them was the fugitive King
of Bohemia, the Palatine Frederick V., who had hastened from Holland to
throw himself into the arms of his avenger and protector. Gustavus gave
him the unprofitable honour of greeting him as a crowned head, and
endeavoured, by a respectful sympathy, to soften his sense of his
misfortunes. But great as the advantages were, which Frederick had
promised himself from the power and good fortune of his protector; and
high as were the expectations he had built on his justice and
magnanimity, the chance of this unfortunate prince's reinstatement in
his kingdom was as distant as ever. The inactivity and contradictory
politics of the English court had abated the zeal of Gustavus Adolphus,
and an irritability which he could not always repress, made him on this
occasion forget the glorious vocation of protector of the oppressed, in
which, on his invasion of Germany, he had so loudly announced himself.

The terrors of the king's irresistible strength, and the near prospect
of his vengeance, had also compelled George, Landgrave of Hesse
Darmstadt, to a timely submission. His connection with the Emperor, and
his indifference to the Protestant cause, were no secret to the king,
but he was satisfied with laughing at so impotent an enemy. As the
Landgrave knew his own strength and the political situation of Germany
so little, as to offer himself as mediator between the contending
parties, Gustavus used jestingly to call him the peacemaker. He was
frequently heard to say, when at play he was winning from the Landgrave,
"that the money afforded double satisfaction, as it was Imperial coin."
To his affinity with the Elector of Saxony, whom Gustavus had cause to
treat with forbearance, the Landgrave was indebted for the favourable
terms he obtained from the king, who contented himself with the
surrender of his fortress of Russelheim, and his promise of observing a
strict neutrality during the war. The Counts of Westerwald and Wetteran
also visited the King in Frankfort, to offer him their assistance
against the Spaniards, and to conclude an alliance, which was afterwards
of great service to him. The town of Frankfort itself had reason to
rejoice at the presence of this monarch, who took their commerce under
his protection, and by the most effectual measures restored the fairs,
which had been greatly interrupted by the war.

The Swedish army was now reinforced by ten thousand Hessians, which the
Landgrave of Casse commanded. Gustavus Adolphus had already invested
Koenigstein; Kostheim and Floersheim surrendered after a short siege; he
was in command of the Maine; and transports were preparing with all
speed at Hoechst to carry his troops across the Rhine. These
preparations filled the Elector of Mentz, Anselm Casimir, with
consternation; and he no longer doubted but that the storm of war would
next fall upon him. As a partisan of the Emperor, and one of the most
active members of the League, he could expect no better treatment than
his confederates, the Bishops of Wurtzburg and Bamberg, had already
experienced. The situation of his territories upon the Rhine made it
necessary for the enemy to secure them, while the fertility afforded an
irresistible temptation to a necessitous army. Miscalculating his own
strength and that of his adversaries, the Elector flattered himself that
he was able to repel force by force, and weary out the valour of the
Swedes by the strength of his fortresses. He ordered the fortifications
of his capital to be repaired with all diligence, provided it with every
necessary for sustaining a long siege, and received into the town a
garrison of 2,000 Spaniards, under Don Philip de Sylva. To prevent the
approach of the Swedish transports, he endeavoured to close the mouth of
the Maine by driving piles, and sinking large heaps of stones and
vessels. He himself, however, accompanied by the Bishop of Worms, and
carrying with him his most precious effects, took refuge in Cologne, and
abandoned his capital and territories to the rapacity of a tyrannical
garrison. But these preparations, which bespoke less of true courage
than of weak and overweening confidence, did not prevent the Swedes from
marching against Mentz, and making serious preparations for an attack
upon the city. While one body of their troops poured into the Rheingau,
routed the Spaniards who remained there, and levied contributions on the
inhabitants, another laid the Roman Catholic towns in Westerwald and
Wetterau under similar contributions. The main army had encamped at
Cassel, opposite Mentz; and Bernhard, Duke of Weimar, made himself
master of the Maeusethurm and the Castle of Ehrenfels, on the other side
of the Rhine. Gustavus was now actively preparing to cross the river,
and to blockade the town on the land side, when the movements of Tilly
in Franconia suddenly called him from the siege, and obtained for the
Elector a short repose.

The danger of Nuremberg, which, during the absence of Gustavus Adolphus
on the Rhine, Tilly had made a show of besieging, and, in the event of
resistance, threatened with the cruel fate of Magdeburg, occasioned the
king suddenly to retire from before Mentz. Lest he should expose
himself a second time to the reproaches of Germany, and the disgrace of
abandoning a confederate city to a ferocious enemy, he hastened to its
relief by forced marches. On his arrival at Frankfort, however, he
heard of its spirited resistance, and of the retreat of Tilly, and lost
not a moment in prosecuting his designs against Mentz. Failing in an
attempt to cross the Rhine at Cassel, under the cannon of the besieged,
he directed his march towards the Bergstrasse, with a view of
approaching the town from an opposite quarter. Here he quickly made
himself master of all the places of importance, and at Stockstadt,
between Gernsheim and Oppenheim, appeared a second time upon the banks
of the Rhine. The whole of the Bergstrasse was abandoned by the
Spaniards, who endeavoured obstinately to defend the other bank of the
river. For this purpose, they had burned or sunk all the vessels in the
neighbourhood, and arranged a formidable force on the banks, in case the
king should attempt the passage at that place.

On this occasion, the king's impetuosity exposed him to great danger of
falling into the hands of the enemy. In order to reconnoitre the
opposite bank, he crossed the river in a small boat; he had scarcely
landed when he was attacked by a party of Spanish horse, from whose
hands he only saved himself by a precipitate retreat. Having at last,
with the assistance of the neighbouring fishermen, succeeded in
procuring a few transports, he despatched two of them across the river,
bearing Count Brahe and 300 Swedes. Scarcely had this officer time to
entrench himself on the opposite bank, when he was attacked by 14
squadrons of Spanish dragoons and cuirassiers. Superior as the enemy
was in number, Count Brahe, with his small force, bravely defended
himself, and gained time for the king to support him with fresh troops.
The Spaniards at last retired with the loss of 600 men, some taking
refuge in Oppenheim, and others in Mentz. A lion of marble on a high
pillar, holding a naked sword in his paw, and a helmet on his head, was
erected seventy years after the event, to point out to the traveller the
spot where the immortal monarch crossed the great river of Germany.

Gustavus Adolphus now conveyed his artillery and the greater part of his
troops over the river, and laid siege to Oppenheim, which, after a brave
resistance, was, on the 8th December, 1631, carried by storm. Five
hundred Spaniards, who had so courageously defended the place, fell
indiscriminately a sacrifice to the fury of the Swedes. The crossing of
the Rhine by Gustavus struck terror into the Spaniards and Lorrainers,
who had thought themselves protected by the river from the vengeance of
the Swedes. Rapid flight was now their only security; every place
incapable of an effectual defence was immediately abandoned. After a
long train of outrages on the defenceless citizens, the troops of
Lorraine evacuated Worms, which, before their departure, they treated
with wanton cruelty. The Spaniards hastened to shut themselves up in
Frankenthal, where they hoped to defy the victorious arms of Gustavus
Adolphus.

The king lost no time in prosecuting his designs against Mentz, into
which the flower of the Spanish troops had thrown themselves. While he
advanced on the left bank of the Rhine, the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel
moved forward on the other, reducing several strong places on his march.
The besieged Spaniards, though hemmed in on both sides, displayed at
first a bold determination, and threw, for several days, a shower of
bombs into the Swedish camp, which cost the king many of his bravest
soldiers. But notwithstanding, the Swedes continually gained ground,
and had at last advanced so close to the ditch that they prepared
seriously for storming the place. The courage of the besieged now began
to droop. They trembled before the furious impetuosity of the Swedish
soldiers, of which Marienberg, in Wurtzburg, had afforded so fearful an
example. The same dreadful fate awaited Mentz, if taken by storm; and
the enemy might even be easily tempted to revenge the carnage of
Magdeburg on this rich and magnificent residence of a Roman Catholic
prince. To save the town, rather than their own lives, the Spanish
garrison capitulated on the fourth day, and obtained from the
magnanimity of Gustavus a safe conduct to Luxembourg; the greater part
of them, however, following the example of many others, enlisted in the
service of Sweden.

On the 13th December, 1631, the king made his entry into the conquered
town, and fixed his quarters in the palace of the Elector. Eighty
pieces of cannon fell into his hands, and the citizens were obliged to
redeem their property from pillage, by a payment of 80,000 florins. The
benefits of this redemption did not extend to the Jews and the clergy,
who were obliged to make large and separate contributions for
themselves. The library of the Elector was seized by the king as his
share, and presented by him to his chancellor, Oxenstiern, who intended
it for the Academy of Westerrah, but the vessel in which it was shipped
to Sweden foundered at sea.

After the loss of Mentz, misfortune still pursued the Spaniards on the
Rhine. Shortly before the capture of that city, the Landgrave of Hesse
Cassel had taken Falkenstein and Reifenberg, and the fortress of
Koningstein surrendered to the Hessians. The Rhinegrave, Otto Louis,
one of the king's generals, defeated nine Spanish squadrons who were on
their march for Frankenthal, and made himself master of the most
important towns upon the Rhine, from Boppart to Bacharach. After the
capture of the fortress of Braunfels, which was effected by the Count of
Wetterau, with the co-operation of the Swedes, the Spaniards quickly
lost every place in Wetterau, while in the Palatinate they retained few
places besides Frankenthal. Landau and Kronweisenberg openly declared
for the Swedes; Spires offered troops for the king's service; Manheim
was gained through the prudence of the Duke Bernard of Weimar, and the
negligence of its governor, who, for this misconduct, was tried before
the council of war, at Heidelberg, and beheaded.

The king had protracted the campaign into the depth of winter, and the
severity of the season was perhaps one cause of the advantage his
soldiers gained over those of the enemy. But the exhausted troops now
stood in need of the repose of winter quarters, which, after the
surrender of Mentz, Gustavus assigned to them, in its neighbourhood. He
himself employed the interval of inactivity in the field, which the
season of the year enjoined, in arranging, with his chancellor, the
affairs of his cabinet, in treating for a neutrality with some of his
enemies, and adjusting some political disputes which had sprung up with
a neighbouring ally. He chose the city of Mentz for his winter
quarters, and the settlement of these state affairs, and showed a
greater partiality for this town, than seemed consistent with the
interests of the German princes, or the shortness of his visit to the
Empire. Not content with strongly fortifying it, he erected at the
opposite angle which the Maine forms with the Rhine, a new citadel,
which was named Gustavusburg from its founder, but which is better known
under the title of Pfaffenraub or Pfaffenzwang.--[Priests' plunder;
alluding to the means by which the expense of its erection had been
defrayed.]

While Gustavus Adolphus made himself master of the Rhine, and threatened
the three neighbouring electorates with his victorious arms, his
vigilant enemies in Paris and St. Germain's made use of every artifice
to deprive him of the support of France, and, if possible, to involve
him in a war with that power. By his sudden and equivocal march to the
Rhine, he had surprised his friends, and furnished his enemies with the
means of exciting a distrust of his intentions. After the conquest of
Wurtzburg, and of the greater part of Franconia, the road into Bavaria
and Austria lay open to him through Bamberg and the Upper Palatinate;
and the expectation was as general, as it was natural, that he would not
delay to attack the Emperor and the Duke of Bavaria in the very centre
of their power, and, by the reduction of his two principal enemies,
bring the war immediately to an end. But to the surprise of both
parties, Gustavus left the path which general expectation had thus
marked out for him; and instead of advancing to the right, turned to the
left, to make the less important and more innocent princes of the Rhine
feel his power, while he gave time to his more formidable opponents to
recruit their strength. Nothing but the paramount design of reinstating
the unfortunate Palatine, Frederick V., in the possession of his
territories, by the expulsion of the Spaniards, could seem to account
for this strange step; and the belief that Gustavus was about to effect
that restoration, silenced for a while the suspicions of his friends and
the calumnies of his enemies. But the Lower Palatinate was now almost
entirely cleared of the enemy; and yet Gustavus continued to form new
schemes of conquest on the Rhine, and to withhold the reconquered
country from the Palatine, its rightful owner. In vain did the English
ambassador remind him of what justice demanded, and what his own solemn
engagement made a duty of honour; Gustavus replied to these demands with
bitter complaints of the inactivity of the English court, and prepared
to carry his victorious standard into Alsace, and even into Lorraine.

A distrust of the Swedish monarch was now loud and open, while the
malice of his enemies busily circulated the most injurious reports as to
his intentions. Richelieu, the minister of Louis XIII., had long
witnessed with anxiety the king's progress towards the French frontier,
and the suspicious temper of Louis rendered him but too accessible to
the evil surmises which the occasion gave rise to. France was at this
time involved in a civil war with her Protestant subjects, and the fear
was not altogether groundless, that the approach of a victorious monarch
of their party might revive their drooping spirit, and encourage them to
a more desperate resistance. This might be the case, even if Gustavus
Adolphus was far from showing a disposition to encourage them, or to act
unfaithfully towards his ally, the King of France. But the vindictive
Bishop of Wurtzburg, who was anxious to avenge the loss of his
dominions, the envenomed rhetoric of the Jesuits and the active zeal of
the Bavarian minister, represented this dreaded alliance between the
Huguenots and the Swedes as an undoubted fact, and filled the timid mind
of Louis with the most alarming fears. Not merely chimerical
politicians, but many of the best informed Roman Catholics, fully
believed that the king was on the point of breaking into the heart of
France, to make common cause with the Huguenots, and to overturn the
Catholic religion within the kingdom. Fanatical zealots already saw
him, with his army, crossing the Alps, and dethroning the Viceregent of
Christ in Italy. Such reports no doubt soon refute themselves; yet it
cannot be denied that Gustavus, by his manoeuvres on the Rhine, gave a
dangerous handle to the malice of his enemies, and in some measure
justified the suspicion that he directed his arms, not so much against
the Emperor and the Duke of Bavaria, as against the Roman Catholic
religion itself.

The general clamour of discontent which the Jesuits raised in all the
Catholic courts, against the alliance between France and the enemy of
the church, at last compelled Cardinal Richelieu to take a decisive step
for the security of his religion, and at once to convince the Roman
Catholic world of the zeal of France, and of the selfish policy of the
ecclesiastical states of Germany. Convinced that the views of the King
of Sweden, like his own, aimed solely at the humiliation of the power of
Austria, he hesitated not to promise to the princes of the League, on
the part of Sweden, a complete neutrality, immediately they abandoned
their alliance with the Emperor and withdrew their troops. Whatever the
resolution these princes should adopt, Richelieu would equally attain
his object. By their separation from the Austrian interest, Ferdinand
would be exposed to the combined attack of France and Sweden; and
Gustavus Adolphus, freed from his other enemies in Germany, would be
able to direct his undivided force against the hereditary dominions of
Austria. In that event, the fall of Austria was inevitable, and this
great object of Richelieu's policy would be gained without injury to the
church. If, on the other hand, the princes of the League persisted in
their opposition, and adhered to the Austrian alliance, the result would
indeed be more doubtful, but still France would have sufficiently proved
to all Europe the sincerity of her attachment to the Catholic cause, and
performed her duty as a member of the Roman Church. The princes of the
League would then appear the sole authors of those evils, which the
continuance of the war would unavoidably bring upon the Roman Catholics
of Germany; they alone, by their wilful and obstinate adherence to the
Emperor, would frustrate the measures employed for their protection,
involve the church in danger, and themselves in ruin.

Richelieu pursued this plan with greater zeal, the more he was
embarrassed by the repeated demands of the Elector of Bavaria for
assistance from France; for this prince, as already stated, when he
first began to entertain suspicions of the Emperor, entered immediately
into a secret alliance with France, by which, in the event of any change
in the Emperor's sentiments, he hoped to secure the possession of the
Palatinate. But though the origin of the treaty clearly showed against
what enemy it was directed, Maximilian now thought proper to make use of
it against the King of Sweden, and did not hesitate to demand from
France that assistance against her ally, which she had simply promised
against Austria. Richelieu, embarrassed by this conflicting alliance
with two hostile powers, had no resource left but to endeavour to put a
speedy termination to their hostilities; and as little inclined to
sacrifice Bavaria, as he was disabled, by his treaty with Sweden, from
assisting it, he set himself, with all diligence, to bring about a
neutrality, as the only means of fulfilling his obligations to both.
For this purpose, the Marquis of Breze was sent, as his plenipotentiary,
to the King of Sweden at Mentz, to learn his sentiments on this point,
and to procure from him favourable conditions for the allied princes.
But if Louis XIII. had powerful motives for wishing for this
neutrality, Gustavus Adolphus had as grave reasons for desiring the
contrary. Convinced by numerous proofs that the hatred of the princes
of the League to the Protestant religion was invincible, their aversion
to the foreign power of the Swedes inextinguishable, and their
attachment to the House of Austria irrevocable, he apprehended less
danger from their open hostility, than from a neutrality which was so
little in unison with their real inclinations; and, moreover, as he was
constrained to carry on the war in Germany at the expense of the enemy,
he manifestly sustained great loss if he diminished their number without
increasing that of his friends. It was not surprising, therefore, if
Gustavus evinced little inclination to purchase the neutrality of the
League, by which he was likely to gain so little, at the expense of the
advantages he had already obtained.

The conditions, accordingly, upon which he offered to adopt the
neutrality towards Bavaria were severe, and suited to these views. He
required of the whole League a full and entire cessation from all
hostilities; the recall of their troops from the imperial army, from the
conquered towns, and from all the Protestant countries; the reduction of
their military force; the exclusion of the imperial armies from their
territories, and from supplies either of men, provisions, or ammunition.
Hard as the conditions were, which the victor thus imposed upon the
vanquished, the French mediator flattered himself he should be able to
induce the Elector of Bavaria to accept them. In order to give time for
an accommodation, Gustavus had agreed to a cessation of hostilities for
a fortnight. But at the very time when this monarch was receiving from
the French agents repeated assurances of the favourable progress of the
negociation, an intercepted letter from the Elector to Pappenheim, the
imperial general in Westphalia, revealed the perfidy of that prince, as
having no other object in view by the whole negociation, than to gain
time for his measures of defence. Far from intending to fetter his
military operations by a truce with Sweden, the artful prince hastened
his preparations, and employed the leisure which his enemy afforded him,
in making the most active dispositions for resistance. The negociation
accordingly failed, and served only to increase the animosity of the
Bavarians and the Swedes.

Tilly's augmented force, with which he threatened to overrun Franconia,
urgently required the king's presence in that circle; but it was
necessary to expel previously the Spaniards from the Rhine, and to cut
off their means of invading Germany from the Netherlands. With this
view, Gustavus Adolphus had made an offer of neutrality to the Elector
of Treves, Philip von Zeltern, on condition that the fortress of
Hermanstein should be delivered up to him, and a free passage granted to
his troops through Coblentz. But unwillingly as the Elector had beheld
the Spaniards within his territories, he was still less disposed to
commit his estates to the suspicious protection of a heretic, and to
make the Swedish conqueror master of his destinies. Too weak to
maintain his independence between two such powerful competitors, he took
refuge in the protection of France. With his usual prudence, Richelieu
profited by the embarrassments of this prince to augment the power of
France, and to gain for her an important ally on the German frontier. A
numerous French army was despatched to protect the territory of Treves,
and a French garrison was received into Ehrenbreitstein. But the object
which had moved the Elector to this bold step was not completely gained,
for the offended pride of Gustavus Adolphus was not appeased till he had
obtained a free passage for his troops through Treves.

Pending these negociations with Treves and France, the king's generals
had entirely cleared the territory of Mentz of the Spanish garrisons,
and Gustavus himself completed the conquest of this district by the
capture of Kreutznach. To protect these conquests, the chancellor
Oxenstiern was left with a division of the army upon the Middle Rhine,
while the main body, under the king himself, began its march against the
enemy in Franconia.

The possession of this circle had, in the mean time, been disputed with
variable success, between Count Tilly and the Swedish General Horn, whom
Gustavus had left there with 8,000 men; and the Bishopric of Bamberg, in
particular, was at once the prize and the scene of their struggle.
Called away to the Rhine by his other projects, the king had left to his
general the chastisement of the bishop, whose perfidy had excited his
indignation, and the activity of Horn justified the choice. In a short
time, he subdued the greater part of the bishopric; and the capital
itself, abandoned by its imperial garrison, was carried by storm. The
banished bishop urgently demanded assistance from the Elector of
Bavaria, who was at length persuaded to put an end to Tilly's
inactivity. Fully empowered by his master's order to restore the bishop
to his possessions, this general collected his troops, who were
scattered over the Upper Palatinate, and with an army of 20,000 men
advanced upon Bamberg. Firmly resolved to maintain his conquest even
against this overwhelming force, Horn awaited the enemy within the walls
of Bamberg; but was obliged to yield to the vanguard of Tilly what he
had thought to be able to dispute with his whole army. A panic which
suddenly seized his troops, and which no presence of mind of their
general could check, opened the gates to the enemy, and it was with
difficulty that the troops, baggage, and artillery, were saved. The
reconquest of Bamberg was the fruit of this victory; but Tilly, with all
his activity, was unable to overtake the Swedish general, who retired in
good order behind the Maine. The king's appearance in Franconia, and
his junction with Gustavus Horn at Kitzingen, put a stop to Tilly's
conquests, and compelled him to provide for his own safety by a rapid
retreat.

The king made a general review of his troops at Aschaffenburg. After
his junction with Gustavus Horn, Banner, and Duke William of Weimar,
they amounted to nearly 40,000 men. His progress through Franconia was
uninterrupted; for Tilly, far too weak to encounter an enemy so superior
in numbers, had retreated, by rapid marches, towards the Danube.
Bohemia and Bavaria were now equally near to the king, and, uncertain
whither his victorious course might be directed, Maximilian could form
no immediate resolution. The choice of the king, and the fate of both
provinces, now depended on the road that should be left open to Count
Tilly. It was dangerous, during the approach of so formidable an enemy,
to leave Bavaria undefended, in order to protect Austria; still more
dangerous, by receiving Tilly into Bavaria, to draw thither the enemy
also, and to render it the seat of a destructive war. The cares of the
sovereign finally overcame the scruples of the statesman, and Tilly
received orders, at all hazards, to cover the frontiers of Bavaria with
his army.

Nuremberg received with triumphant joy the protector of the Protestant
religion and German freedom, and the enthusiasm of the citizens
expressed itself on his arrival in loud transports of admiration and
joy. Even Gustavus could not contain his astonishment, to see himself
in this city, which was the very centre of Germany, where he had never
expected to be able to penetrate. The noble appearance of his person,
completed the impression produced by his glorious exploits, and the
condescension with which he received the congratulations of this free
city won all hearts. He now confirmed the alliance he had concluded
with it on the shores of the Baltic, and excited the citizens to zealous
activity and fraternal unity against the common enemy. After a short
stay in Nuremberg, he followed his army to the Danube, and appeared
unexpectedly before the frontier town of Donauwerth. A numerous
Bavarian garrison defended the place; and their commander, Rodolph
Maximilian, Duke of Saxe Lauenburg, showed at first a resolute
determination to defend it till the arrival of Tilly. But the vigour
with which Gustavus Adolphus prosecuted the siege, soon compelled him to
take measures for a speedy and secure retreat, which amidst a tremendous
fire from the Swedish artillery he successfully executed.

The conquest of Donauwerth opened to the king the further side of the
Danube, and now the small river Lech alone separated him from Bavaria.
The immediate danger of his dominions aroused all Maximilian's activity;
and however little he had hitherto disturbed the enemy's progress to his
frontier, he now determined to dispute as resolutely the remainder of
their course. On the opposite bank of the Lech, near the small town of
Rain, Tilly occupied a strongly fortified camp, which, surrounded by
three rivers, bade defiance to all attack. All the bridges over the
Lech were destroyed; the whole course of the stream protected by strong
garrisons as far as Augsburg; and that town itself, which had long
betrayed its impatience to follow the example of Nuremberg and
Frankfort, secured by a Bavarian garrison, and the disarming of its
inhabitants. The Elector himself, with all the troops he could collect,
threw himself into Tilly's camp, as if all his hopes centred on this
single point, and here the good fortune of the Swedes was to suffer
shipwreck for ever.

Gustavus Adolphus, after subduing the whole territory of Augsburg, on
his own side of the river, and opening to his troops a rich supply of
necessaries from that quarter, soon appeared on the bank opposite the
Bavarian entrenchments. It was now the month of March, when the river,
swollen by frequent rains, and the melting of the snow from the
mountains of the Tyrol, flowed full and rapid between its steep banks.
Its boiling current threatened the rash assailants with certain
destruction, while from the opposite side the enemy's cannon showed
their murderous mouths. If, in despite of the fury both of fire and
water, they should accomplish this almost impossible passage, a fresh
and vigorous enemy awaited the exhausted troops in an impregnable camp;
and when they needed repose and refreshment they must prepare for
battle. With exhausted powers they must ascend the hostile
entrenchments, whose strength seemed to bid defiance to every assault.
A defeat sustained upon this shore would be attended with inevitable
destruction, since the same stream which impeded their advance would
also cut off their retreat, if fortune should abandon them.

The Swedish council of war, which the king now assembled, strongly urged
upon him all these considerations, in order to deter him from this
dangerous undertaking. The most intrepid were appalled, and a troop of
honourable warriors, who had grown gray in the field, did not hesitate
to express their alarm. But the king's resolution was fixed. "What!"
said he to Gustavus Horn, who spoke for the rest, "have we crossed the
Baltic, and so many great rivers of Germany, and shall we now be checked
by a brook like the Lech?" Gustavus had already, at great personal
risk, reconnoitred the whole country, and discovered that his own side
of the river was higher than the other, and consequently gave a
considerable advantage to the fire of the Swedish artillery over that of
the enemy. With great presence of mind he determined to profit by this
circumstance. At the point where the left bank of the Lech forms an
angle with the right, he immediately caused three batteries to be
erected, from which 72 field-pieces maintained a cross fire upon the
enemy. While this tremendous cannonade drove the Bavarians from the
opposite bank, he caused to be erected a bridge over the river with all
possible rapidity. A thick smoke, kept up by burning wood and wet
straw, concealed for some time the progress of the work from the enemy,
while the continued thunder of the cannon overpowered the noise of the
axes. He kept alive by his own example the courage of his troops, and
discharged more than 60 cannon with his own hand. The cannonade was
returned by the Bavarians with equal vivacity for two hours, though with
less effect, as the Swedish batteries swept the lower opposite bank,
while their height served as a breast-work to their own troops. In
vain, therefore, did the Bavarians attempt to destroy these works; the
superior fire of the Swedes threw them into disorder, and the bridge was
completed under their very eyes. On this dreadful day, Tilly did every
thing in his power to encourage his troops; and no danger could drive
him from the bank. At length he found the death which he sought, a
cannon ball shattered his leg; and Altringer, his brave
companion-in-arms, was, soon after, dangerously wounded in the head.
Deprived of the animating presence of their two generals, the Bavarians
gave way at last, and Maximilian, in spite of his own judgment, was
driven to adopt a pusillanimous resolve. Overcome by the persuasions of
the dying Tilly, whose wonted firmness was overpowered by the near
approach of death, he gave up his impregnable position for lost; and the
discovery by the Swedes of a ford, by which their cavalry were on the
point of passing, accelerated his inglorious retreat. The same night,
before a single soldier of the enemy had crossed the Lech, he broke up
his camp, and, without giving time for the King to harass him in his
march, retreated in good order to Neuburgh and Ingolstadt. With
astonishment did Gustavus Adolphus, who completed the passage of the
river on the following day behold the hostile camp abandoned; and the
Elector's flight surprised him still more, when he saw the strength of
the position he had quitted. "Had I been the Bavarian," said he,
"though a cannon ball had carried away my beard and chin, never would I
have abandoned a position like this, and laid open my territory to my
enemies."

Bavaria now lay exposed to the conqueror; and, for the first time, the
tide of war, which had hitherto only beat against its frontier, now
flowed over its long spared and fertile fields. Before, however, the
King proceeded to the conquest of these provinces, he delivered the town
of Augsburg from the yoke of Bavaria; exacted an oath of allegiance from
the citizens; and to secure its observance, left a garrison in the town.
He then advanced, by rapid marches, against Ingolstadt, in order, by the
capture of this important fortress, which the Elector covered with the
greater part of his army, to secure his conquests in Bavaria, and obtain
a firm footing on the Danube.

Shortly after the appearance of the Swedish King before Ingolstadt, the
wounded Tilly, after experiencing the caprice of unstable fortune,
terminated his career within the walls of that town. Conquered by the
superior generalship of Gustavus Adolphus, he lost, at the close of his
days, all the laurels of his earlier victories, and appeased, by a
series of misfortunes, the demands of justice, and the avenging manes of
Magdeburg. In his death, the Imperial army and that of the League
sustained an irreparable loss; the Roman Catholic religion was deprived
of its most zealous defender, and Maximilian of Bavaria of the most
faithful of his servants, who sealed his fidelity by his death, and even
in his dying moments fulfilled the duties of a general. His last
message to the Elector was an urgent advice to take possession of
Ratisbon, in order to maintain the command of the Danube, and to keep
open the communication with Bohemia.

With the confidence which was the natural fruit of so many victories,
Gustavus Adolphus commenced the siege of Ingolstadt, hoping to gain the
town by the fury of his first assault. But the strength of its
fortifications, and the bravery of its garrison, presented obstacles
greater than any he had had to encounter since the battle of
Breitenfeld, and the walls of Ingolstadt were near putting an end to his
career. While reconnoitring the works, a 24-pounder killed his horse
under him, and he fell to the ground, while almost immediately
afterwards another ball struck his favourite, the young Margrave of
Baden, by his side. With perfect self-possession the king rose, and
quieted the fears of his troops by immediately mounting another horse.

The occupation of Ratisbon by the Bavarians, who, by the advice of
Tilly, had surprised this town by stratagem, and placed in it a strong
garrison, quickly changed the king's plan of operations. He had
flattered himself with the hope of gaining this town, which favoured the
Protestant cause, and to find in it an ally as devoted to him as
Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Frankfort. Its seizure by the Bavarians seemed
to postpone for a long time the fulfilment of his favourite project of
making himself master of the Danube, and cutting off his adversaries'
supplies from Bohemia. He suddenly raised the siege of Ingolstadt,
before which he had wasted both his time and his troops, and penetrated
into the interior of Bavaria, in order to draw the Elector into that
quarter for the defence of his territories, and thus to strip the Danube
of its defenders.

The whole country, as far as Munich, now lay open to the conqueror.
Mosburg, Landshut, and the whole territory of Freysingen, submitted;
nothing could resist his arms. But if he met with no regular force to
oppose his progress, he had to contend against a still more implacable
enemy in the heart of every Bavarian--religious fanaticism. Soldiers
who did not believe in the Pope were, in this country, a new and
unheard-of phenomenon; the blind zeal of the priests represented them to
the peasantry as monsters, the children of hell, and their leader as
Antichrist. No wonder, then, if they thought themselves released from
all the ties of nature and humanity towards this brood of Satan, and
justified in committing the most savage atrocities upon them. Woe to
the Swedish soldier who fell into their hands! All the torments which
inventive malice could devise were exercised upon these unhappy victims;
and the sight of their mangled bodies exasperated the army to a fearful
retaliation. Gustavus Adolphus, alone, sullied the lustre of his heroic
character by no act of revenge; and the aversion which the Bavarians
felt towards his religion, far from making him depart from the
obligations of humanity towards that unfortunate people, seemed to
impose upon him the stricter duty to honour his religion by a more
constant clemency.

The approach of the king spread terror and consternation in the capital,
which, stripped of its defenders, and abandoned by its principal
inhabitants, placed all its hopes in the magnanimity of the conqueror.
By an unconditional and voluntary surrender, it hoped to disarm his
vengeance; and sent deputies even to Freysingen to lay at his feet the
keys of the city. Strongly as the king might have been tempted by the
inhumanity of the Bavarians, and the hostility of their sovereign, to
make a dreadful use of the rights of victory; pressed as he was by
Germans to avenge the fate of Magdeburg on the capital of its destroyer,
this great prince scorned this mean revenge; and the very helplessness
of his enemies disarmed his severity. Contented with the more noble
triumph of conducting the Palatine Frederick with the pomp of a victor
into the very palace of the prince who had been the chief instrument of
his ruin, and the usurper of his territories, he heightened the
brilliancy of his triumphal entry by the brighter splendour of
moderation and clemency.

The King found in Munich only a forsaken palace, for the Elector's
treasures had been transported to Werfen. The magnificence of the
building astonished him; and he asked the guide who showed the
apartments who was the architect. "No other," replied he, "than the
Elector himself."--"I wish," said the King, "I had this architect to
send to Stockholm." "That," he was answered, "the architect will take
care to prevent." When the arsenal was examined, they found nothing but
carriages, stripped of their cannon. The latter had been so artfully
concealed under the floor, that no traces of them remained; and but for
the treachery of a workman, the deceit would not have been detected.
"Rise up from the dead," said the King, "and come to judgment." The
floor was pulled up, and 140 pieces of cannon discovered, some of
extraordinary calibre, which had been principally taken in the
Palatinate and Bohemia. A treasure of 30,000 gold ducats, concealed in
one of the largest, completed the pleasure which the King received from
this valuable acquisition.

A far more welcome spectacle still would have been the Bavarian army
itself; for his march into the heart of Bavaria had been undertaken
chiefly with the view of luring them from their entrenchments. In this
expectation he was disappointed. No enemy appeared; no entreaties,
however urgent, on the part of his subjects, could induce the Elector to
risk the remainder of his army to the chances of a battle. Shut up in
Ratisbon, he awaited the reinforcements which Wallenstein was bringing
from Bohemia; and endeavoured, in the mean time, to amuse his enemy and
keep him inactive, by reviving the negociation for a neutrality. But
the King's distrust, too often and too justly excited by his previous
conduct, frustrated this design; and the intentional delay of
Wallenstein abandoned Bavaria to the Swedes.

Thus far had Gustavus advanced from victory to victory, without meeting
with an enemy able to cope with him. A part of Bavaria and Swabia, the
Bishoprics of Franconia, the Lower Palatinate, and the Archbishopric of
Mentz, lay conquered in his rear. An uninterrupted career of conquest
had conducted him to the threshold of Austria; and the most brilliant
success had fully justified the plan of operations which he had formed
after the battle of Breitenfeld. If he had not succeeded to his wish in
promoting a confederacy among the Protestant States, he had at least
disarmed or weakened the League, carried on the war chiefly at its
expense, lessened the Emperor's resources, emboldened the weaker States,
and while he laid under contribution the allies of the Emperor, forced a
way through their territories into Austria itself. Where arms were
unavailing, the greatest service was rendered by the friendship of the
free cities, whose affections he had gained, by the double ties of
policy and religion; and, as long as he should maintain his superiority
in the field, he might reckon on every thing from their zeal. By his
conquests on the Rhine, the Spaniards were cut off from the Lower
Palatinate, even if the state of the war in the Netherlands left them at
liberty to interfere in the affairs of Germany. The Duke of Lorraine,
too, after his unfortunate campaign, had been glad to adopt a
neutrality. Even the numerous garrisons he had left behind him, in his
progress through Germany, had not diminished his army; and, fresh and
vigorous as when he first began his march, he now stood in the centre of
Bavaria, determined and prepared to carry the war into the heart of
Austria.

While Gustavus Adolphus thus maintained his superiority within the
empire, fortune, in another quarter, had been no less favourable to his
ally, the Elector of Saxony. By the arrangement concerted between these
princes at Halle, after the battle of Leipzig, the conquest of Bohemia
was intrusted to the Elector of Saxony, while the King reserved for
himself the attack upon the territories of the League. The first fruits
which the Elector reaped from the battle of Breitenfeld, was the
reconquest of Leipzig, which was shortly followed by the expulsion of
the Austrian garrisons from the entire circle. Reinforced by the troops
who deserted to him from the hostile garrisons, the Saxon General,
Arnheim, marched towards Lusatia, which had been overrun by an Imperial
General, Rudolph von Tiefenbach, in order to chastise the Elector for
embracing the cause of the enemy. He had already commenced in this
weakly defended province the usual course of devastation, taken several
towns, and terrified Dresden itself by his approach, when his
destructive progress was suddenly stopped, by an express mandate from
the Emperor to spare the possessions of the King of Saxony.

Ferdinand had perceived too late the errors of that policy, which
reduced the Elector of Saxony to extremities, and forcibly driven this
powerful monarch into an alliance with Sweden. By moderation, equally
ill-timed, he now wished to repair if possible the consequences of his
haughtiness; and thus committed a second error in endeavouring to repair
the first. To deprive his enemy of so powerful an ally, he had opened,
through the intervention of Spain, a negociation with the Elector; and
in order to facilitate an accommodation, Tiefenbach was ordered
immediately to retire from Saxony. But these concessions of the
Emperor, far from producing the desired effect, only revealed to the
Elector the embarrassment of his adversary and his own importance, and
emboldened him the more to prosecute the advantages he had already
obtained. How could he, moreover, without becoming chargeable with the
most shameful ingratitude, abandon an ally to whom he had given the most
solemn assurances of fidelity, and to whom he was indebted for the
preservation of his dominions, and even of his Electoral dignity?

The Saxon army, now relieved from the necessity of marching into
Lusatia, advanced towards Bohemia, where a combination of favourable
circumstances seemed to ensure them an easy victory. In this kingdom,
the first scene of this fatal war, the flames of dissension still
smouldered beneath the ashes, while the discontent of the inhabitants
was fomented by daily acts of oppression and tyranny. On every side,
this unfortunate country showed signs of a mournful change. Whole
districts had changed their proprietors, and groaned under the hated
yoke of Roman Catholic masters, whom the favour of the Emperor and the
Jesuits had enriched with the plunder and possessions of the exiled
Protestants. Others, taking advantage themselves of the general
distress, had purchased, at a low rate, the confiscated estates. The
blood of the most eminent champions of liberty had been shed upon the
scaffold; and such as by a timely flight avoided that fate, were
wandering in misery far from their native land, while the obsequious
slaves of despotism enjoyed their patrimony. Still more insupportable
than the oppression of these petty tyrants, was the restraint of
conscience which was imposed without distinction on all the Protestants
of that kingdom. No external danger, no opposition on the part of the
nation, however steadfast, not even the fearful lessons of past
experience could check in the Jesuits the rage of proselytism; where
fair means were ineffectual, recourse was had to military force to bring
the deluded wanderers within the pale of the church. The inhabitants of
Joachimsthal, on the frontiers between Bohemia and Meissen, were the
chief sufferers from this violence. Two imperial commissaries,
accompanied by as many Jesuits, and supported by fifteen musketeers,
made their appearance in this peaceful valley to preach the gospel to
the heretics. Where the rhetoric of the former was ineffectual, the
forcibly quartering the latter upon the houses, and threats of
banishment and fines were tried. But on this occasion, the good cause
prevailed, and the bold resistance of this small district compelled the
Emperor disgracefully to recall his mandate of conversion. The example
of the court had, however, afforded a precedent to the Roman Catholics
of the empire, and seemed to justify every act of oppression which their
insolence tempted them to wreak upon the Protestants. It is not
surprising, then, if this persecuted party was favourable to a
revolution, and saw with pleasure their deliverers on the frontiers.

The Saxon army was already on its march towards Prague, the imperial
garrisons everywhere retired before them. Schloeckenau, Tetschen,
Aussig, Leutmeritz, soon fell into the enemy's hands, and every Roman
Catholic place was abandoned to plunder. Consternation seized all the
Papists of the Empire; and conscious of the outrages which they
themselves had committed on the Protestants, they did not venture to
abide the vengeful arrival of a Protestant army. All the Roman
Catholics, who had anything to lose, fled hastily from the country to
the capital, which again they presently abandoned. Prague was
unprepared for an attack, and was too weakly garrisoned to sustain a
long siege. Too late had the Emperor resolved to despatch Field-Marshal
Tiefenbach to the defence of this capital. Before the imperial orders
could reach the head-quarters of that general, in Silesia, the Saxons
were already close to Prague, the Protestant inhabitants of which showed
little zeal, while the weakness of the garrison left no room to hope a
long resistance. In this fearful state of embarrassment, the Roman
Catholics of Prague looked for security to Wallenstein, who now lived in
that city as a private individual. But far from lending his military
experience, and the weight of his name, towards its defence, he seized
the favourable opportunity to satiate his thirst for revenge. If he did
not actually invite the Saxons to Prague, at least his conduct
facilitated its capture. Though unprepared, the town might still hold
out until succours could arrive; and an imperial colonel, Count Maradas,
showed serious intentions of undertaking its defence. But without
command and authority, and having no support but his own zeal and
courage, he did not dare to venture upon such a step without the advice
of a superior. He therefore consulted the Duke of Friedland, whose
approbation might supply the want of authority from the Emperor, and to
whom the Bohemian generals were referred by an express edict of the
court in the last extremity. He, however, artfully excused himself, on
the plea of holding no official appointment, and his long retirement
from the political world; while he weakened the resolution of the
subalterns by the scruples which he suggested, and painted in the
strongest colours. At last, to render the consternation general and
complete, he quitted the capital with his whole court, however little he
had to fear from its capture; and the city was lost, because, by his
departure, he showed that he despaired of its safety. His example was
followed by all the Roman Catholic nobility, the generals with their
troops, the clergy, and all the officers of the crown. All night the
people were employed in saving their persons and effects. The roads to
Vienna were crowded with fugitives, who scarcely recovered from their
consternation till they reached the imperial city. Maradas himself,
despairing of the safety of Prague, followed the rest, and led his small
detachment to Tabor, where he awaited the event.

Profound silence reigned in Prague, when the Saxons next morning
appeared before it; no preparations were made for defence; not a single
shot from the walls announced an intention of resistance. On the
contrary, a crowd of spectators from the town, allured by curiosity,
came flocking round, to behold the foreign army; and the peaceful
confidence with which they advanced, resembled a friendly salutation,
more than a hostile reception. From the concurrent reports of these
people, the Saxons learned that the town had been deserted by the
troops, and that the government had fled to Budweiss. This unexpected
and inexplicable absence of resistance excited Arnheim's distrust the
more, as the speedy approach of the Silesian succours was no secret to
him, and as he knew that the Saxon army was too indifferently provided
with materials for undertaking a siege, and by far too weak in numbers
to attempt to take the place by storm. Apprehensive of stratagem, he
redoubled his vigilance; and he continued in this conviction until
Wallenstein's house-steward, whom he discovered among the crowd,
confirmed to him this intelligence. "The town is ours without a blow!"
exclaimed he in astonishment to his officers, and immediately summoned
it by a trumpeter.

The citizens of Prague, thus shamefully abandoned by their defenders,
had long taken their resolution; all that they had to do was to secure
their properties and liberties by an advantageous capitulation. No
sooner was the treaty signed by the Saxon general, in his master's name,
than the gates were opened, without farther opposition; and upon the
11th of November, 1631, the army made their triumphal entry. The
Elector soon after followed in person, to receive the homage of those
whom he had newly taken under his protection; for it was only in the
character of protector that the three towns of Prague had surrendered to
him. Their allegiance to the Austrian monarchy was not to be dissolved
by the step they had taken. In proportion as the Papists' apprehensions
of reprisals on the part of the Protestants had been exaggerated, so was
their surprise great at the moderation of the Elector, and the
discipline of his troops. Field-Marshal Arnheim plainly evinced, on
this occasion, his respect for Wallenstein. Not content with sparing
his estates on his march, he now placed guards over his palace, in
Prague, to prevent the plunder of any of his effects. The Roman
Catholics of the town were allowed the fullest liberty of conscience;
and of all the churches they had wrested from the Protestants, four only
were now taken back from them. From this general indulgence, none were
excluded but the Jesuits, who were generally considered as the authors
of all past grievances, and thus banished the kingdom.

John George belied not the submission and dependence with which the
terror of the imperial name inspired him; nor did he indulge at Prague,
in a course of conduct which would assuredly have been pursued against
himself in Dresden, by imperial generals, such as Tilly or Wallenstein.
He carefully distinguished between the enemy with whom he was at war,
and the head of the Empire, to whom he owed obedience. He did not
venture to touch the household furniture of the latter, while, without
scruple, he appropriated and transported to Dresden the cannon of the
former. He did not take up his residence in the imperial palace, but
the house of Lichtenstein; too modest to use the apartments of one whom
he had deprived of a kingdom. Had this trait been related of a great
man and a hero, it would irresistibly excite our admiration; but the
character of this prince leaves us in doubt whether this moderation
ought to be ascribed to a noble self-command, or to the littleness of a
weak mind, which even good fortune could not embolden, and liberty
itself could not strip of its habituated fetters.

The surrender of Prague, which was quickly followed by that of most of
the other towns, effected a great and sudden change in Bohemia. Many of
the Protestant nobility, who had hitherto been wandering about in
misery, now returned to their native country; and Count Thurn, the
famous author of the Bohemian insurrection, enjoyed the triumph of
returning as a conqueror to the scene of his crime and his condemnation.
Over the very bridge where the heads of his adherents, exposed to view,
held out a fearful picture of the fate which had threatened himself, he
now made his triumphal entry; and to remove these ghastly objects was
his first care. The exiles again took possession of their properties,
without thinking of recompensing for the purchase money the present
possessors, who had mostly taken to flight. Even though they had
received a price for their estates, they seized on every thing which had
once been their own; and many had reason to rejoice at the economy of
the late possessors. The lands and cattle had greatly improved in their
hands; the apartments were now decorated with the most costly furniture;
the cellars, which had been left empty, were richly filled; the stables
supplied; the magazines stored with provisions. But distrusting the
constancy of that good fortune, which had so unexpectedly smiled upon
them, they hastened to get quit of these insecure possessions, and to
convert their immoveable into transferable property.

The presence of the Saxons inspired all the Protestants of the kingdom
with courage; and, both in the country and the capital, crowds flocked
to the newly opened Protestant churches. Many, whom fear alone had
retained in their adherence to Popery, now openly professed the new
doctrine; and many of the late converts to Roman Catholicism gladly
renounced a compulsory persuasion, to follow the earlier conviction of
their conscience. All the moderation of the new regency, could not
restrain the manifestation of that just displeasure, which this
persecuted people felt against their oppressors. They made a fearful
and cruel use of their newly recovered rights; and, in many parts of the
kingdom, their hatred of the religion which they had been compelled to
profess, could be satiated only by the blood of its adherents.

Meantime the succours which the imperial generals, Goetz and Tiefenbach,
were conducting from Silesia, had entered Bohemia, where they were
joined by some of Tilly's regiments, from the Upper Palatinate. In
order to disperse them before they should receive any further
reinforcement, Arnheim advanced with part of his army from Prague, and
made a vigorous attack on their entrenchments near Limburg, on the Elbe.
After a severe action, not without great loss, he drove the enemy from
their fortified camp, and forced them, by his heavy fire, to recross the
Elbe, and to destroy the bridge which they had built over that river.
Nevertheless, the Imperialists obtained the advantage in several
skirmishes, and the Croats pushed their incursions to the very gates of
Prague. Brilliant and promising as the opening of the Bohemian campaign
had been, the issue by no means satisfied the expectations of Gustavus
Adolphus. Instead of vigorously following up their advantages, by
forcing a passage to the Swedish army through the conquered country, and
then, with it, attacking the imperial power in its centre, the Saxons
weakened themselves in a war of skirmishes, in which they were not
always successful, while they lost the time which should have been
devoted to greater undertakings. But the Elector's subsequent conduct
betrayed the motives which had prevented him from pushing his advantage
over the Emperor, and by consistent measures promoting the plans of the
King of Sweden.

The Emperor had now lost the greater part of Bohemia, and the Saxons
were advancing against Austria, while the Swedish monarch was rapidly
moving to the same point through Franconia, Swabia, and Bavaria. A long
war had exhausted the strength of the Austrian monarchy, wasted the
country, and diminished its armies. The renown of its victories was no
more, as well as the confidence inspired by constant success; its troops
had lost the obedience and discipline to which those of the Swedish
monarch owed all their superiority in the field. The confederates of
the Emperor were disarmed, or their fidelity shaken by the danger which
threatened themselves. Even Maximilian of Bavaria, Austria's most
powerful ally, seemed disposed to yield to the seductive proposition of
neutrality; while his suspicious alliance with France had long been a
subject of apprehension to the Emperor. The bishops of Wurtzburg and
Bamberg, the Elector of Mentz, and the Duke of Lorraine, were either
expelled from their territories, or threatened with immediate attack;
Treves had placed itself under the protection of France. The bravery of
the Hollanders gave full employment to the Spanish arms in the
Netherlands; while Gustavus had driven them from the Rhine. Poland was
still fettered by the truce which subsisted between that country and
Sweden. The Hungarian frontier was threatened by the Transylvanian
Prince, Ragotsky, a successor of Bethlen Gabor, and the inheritor of his
restless mind; while the Porte was making great preparation to profit by
the favourable conjuncture for aggression. Most of the Protestant
states, encouraged by their protector's success, were openly and
actively declaring against the Emperor. All the resources which had
been obtained by the violent and oppressive extortions of Tilly and
Wallenstein were exhausted; all these depots, magazines, and
rallying-points, were now lost to the Emperor; and the war could no
longer be carried on as before at the cost of others. To complete his
embarrassment, a dangerous insurrection broke out in the territory of
the Ens, where the ill-timed religious zeal of the government had
provoked the Protestants to resistance; and thus fanaticism lit its
torch within the empire, while a foreign enemy was already on its
frontier. After so long a continuance of good fortune, such brilliant
victories and extensive conquests, such fruitless effusion of blood, the
Emperor saw himself a second time on the brink of that abyss, into which
he was so near falling at the commencement of his reign. If Bavaria
should embrace the neutrality; if Saxony should resist the tempting
offers he had held out; and France resolve to attack the Spanish power
at the same time in the Netherlands, in Italy and in Catalonia, the ruin
of Austria would be complete; the allied powers would divide its spoils,
and the political system of Germany would undergo a total change.

The chain of these disasters began with the battle of Breitenfeld, the
unfortunate issue of which plainly revealed the long decided decline of
the Austrian power, whose weakness had hitherto been concealed under the
dazzling glitter of a grand name. The chief cause of the Swedes'
superiority in the field, was evidently to be ascribed to the unlimited
power of their leader, who concentrated in himself the whole strength of
his party; and, unfettered in his enterprises by any higher authority,
was complete master of every favourable opportunity, could control all
his means to the accomplishment of his ends, and was responsible to none
but himself. But since Wallenstein's dismissal, and Tilly's defeat, the
very reverse of this course was pursued by the Emperor and the League.
The generals wanted authority over their troops, and liberty of acting
at their discretion; the soldiers were deficient in discipline and
obedience; the scattered corps in combined operation; the states in
attachment to the cause; the leaders in harmony among themselves, in
quickness to resolve, and firmness to execute. What gave the Emperor's
enemy so decided an advantage over him, was not so much their superior
power, as their manner of using it. The League and the Emperor did not
want means, but a mind capable of directing them with energy and effect.
Even had Count Tilly not lost his old renown, distrust of Bavaria would
not allow the Emperor to place the fate of Austria in the hands of one
who had never concealed his attachment to the Bavarian Elector. The
urgent want which Ferdinand felt, was for a general possessed of
sufficient experience to form and to command an army, and willing at the
same time to dedicate his services, with blind devotion, to the Austrian
monarchy.

This choice now occupied the attention of the Emperor's privy council,
and divided the opinions of its members. In order to oppose one monarch
to another, and by the presence of their sovereign to animate the
courage of the troops, Ferdinand, in the ardour of the moment, had
offered himself to be the leader of his army; but little trouble was
required to overturn a resolution which was the offspring of despair
alone, and which yielded at once to calm reflection. But the situation
which his dignity, and the duties of administration, prevented the
Emperor from holding, might be filled by his son, a youth of talents and
bravery, and of whom the subjects of Austria had already formed great
expectations. Called by his birth to the defence of a monarchy, of
whose crowns he wore two already, Ferdinand III., King of Hungary and
Bohemia, united, with the natural dignity of heir to the throne, the
respect of the army, and the attachment of the people, whose
co-operation was indispensable to him in the conduct of the war. None
but the beloved heir to the crown could venture to impose new burdens on
a people already severely oppressed; his personal presence with the army
could alone suppress the pernicious jealousies of the several leaders,
and by the influence of his name, restore the neglected discipline of
the troops to its former rigour. If so young a leader was devoid of the
maturity of judgment, prudence, and military experience which practice
alone could impart, this deficiency might be supplied by a judicious
choice of counsellors and assistants, who, under the cover of his name,
might be vested with supreme authority.

But plausible as were the arguments with which a part of the ministry
supported this plan, it was met by difficulties not less serious,
arising from the distrust, perhaps even the jealousy, of the Emperor,
and also from the desperate state of affairs. How dangerous was it to
entrust the fate of the monarchy to a youth, who was himself in need of
counsel and support! How hazardous to oppose to the greatest general of
his age, a tyro, whose fitness for so important a post had never yet
been tested by experience; whose name, as yet unknown to fame, was far
too powerless to inspire a dispirited army with the assurance of future
victory! What a new burden on the country, to support the state a royal
leader was required to maintain, and which the prejudices of the age
considered as inseparable from his presence with the army! How serious a
consideration for the prince himself, to commence his political career,
with an office which must make him the scourge of his people, and the
oppressor of the territories which he was hereafter to rule.

But not only was a general to be found for the army; an army must also
be found for the general. Since the compulsory resignation of
Wallenstein, the Emperor had defended himself more by the assistance of
Bavaria and the League, than by his own armies; and it was this
dependence on equivocal allies, which he was endeavouring to escape, by
the appointment of a general of his own. But what possibility was there
of raising an army out of nothing, without the all-powerful aid of gold,
and the inspiriting name of a victorious commander; above all, an army
which, by its discipline, warlike spirit, and activity, should be fit to
cope with the experienced troops of the northern conqueror? In all
Europe, there was but one man equal to this, and that one had been
mortally affronted.

The moment had at last arrived, when more than ordinary satisfaction was
to be done to the wounded pride of the Duke of Friedland. Fate itself
had been his avenger, and an unbroken chain of disasters, which had
assailed Austria from the day of his dismissal, had wrung from the
Emperor the humiliating confession, that with this general he had lost
his right arm. Every defeat of his troops opened afresh this wound;
every town which he lost, revived in the mind of the deceived monarch
the memory of his own weakness and ingratitude. It would have been well
for him, if, in the offended general, he had only lost a leader of his
troops, and a defender of his dominions; but he was destined to find in
him an enemy, and the most dangerous of all, since he was least armed
against the stroke of treason.

Removed from the theatre of war, and condemned to irksome inaction,
while his rivals gathered laurels on the field of glory, the haughty
duke had beheld these changes of fortune with affected composure, and
concealed, under a glittering and theatrical pomp, the dark designs of
his restless genius. Torn by burning passions within, while all without
bespoke calmness and indifference, he brooded over projects of ambition
and revenge, and slowly, but surely, advanced towards his end. All that
he owed to the Emperor was effaced from his mind; what he himself had
done for the Emperor was imprinted in burning characters on his memory.
To his insatiable thirst for power, the Emperor's ingratitude was
welcome, as it seemed to tear in pieces the record of past favours, to
absolve him from every obligation towards his former benefactor. In the
disguise of a righteous retaliation, the projects dictated by his
ambition now appeared to him just and pure. In proportion as the
external circle of his operations was narrowed, the world of hope
expanded before him, and his dreamy imagination revelled in boundless
projects, which, in any mind but such as his, madness alone could have
given birth to. His services had raised him to the proudest height
which it was possible for a man, by his own efforts, to attain. Fortune
had denied him nothing which the subject and the citizen could lawfully
enjoy. Till the moment of his dismissal, his demands had met with no
refusal, his ambition had met with no check; but the blow which, at the
diet of Ratisbon, humbled him, showed him the difference between
ORIGINAL and DEPUTED power, the distance between the subject and his
sovereign. Roused from the intoxication of his own greatness by this
sudden reverse of fortune, he compared the authority which he had
possessed, with that which had deprived him of it; and his ambition
marked the steps which it had yet to surmount upon the ladder of
fortune. From the moment he had so bitterly experienced the weight of
sovereign power, his efforts were directed to attain it for himself; the
wrong which he himself had suffered made him a robber. Had he not been
outraged by injustice, he might have obediently moved in his orbit round
the majesty of the throne, satisfied with the glory of being the
brightest of its satellites. It was only when violently forced from its
sphere, that his wandering star threw in disorder the system to which it
belonged, and came in destructive collision with its sun.

Gustavus Adolphus had overrun the north of Germany; one place after
another was lost; and at Leipzig, the flower of the Austrian army had
fallen. The intelligence of this defeat soon reached the ears of
Wallenstein, who, in the retired obscurity of a private station in
Prague, contemplated from a calm distance the tumult of war. The news,
which filled the breasts of the Roman Catholics with dismay, announced
to him the return of greatness and good fortune. For him was Gustavus
Adolphus labouring. Scarce had the king begun to gain reputation by his
exploits, when Wallenstein lost not a moment to court his friendship,
and to make common cause with this successful enemy of Austria. The
banished Count Thurn, who had long entered the service of Sweden,
undertook to convey Wallenstein's congratulations to the king, and to
invite him to a close alliance with the duke. Wallenstein required
15,000 men from the king; and with these, and the troops he himself
engaged to raise, he undertook to conquer Bohemia and Moravia, to
surprise Vienna, and drive his master, the Emperor, before him into
Italy. Welcome as was this unexpected proposition, its extravagant
promises were naturally calculated to excite suspicion. Gustavus
Adolphus was too good a judge of merit to reject with coldness the
offers of one who might be so important a friend. But when Wallenstein,
encouraged by the favourable reception of his first message, renewed it
after the battle of Breitenfeld, and pressed for a decisive answer, the
prudent monarch hesitated to trust his reputation to the chimerical
projects of so daring an adventurer, and to commit so large a force to
the honesty of a man who felt no shame in openly avowing himself a
traitor. He excused himself, therefore, on the plea of the weakness of
his army which, if diminished by so large a detachment, would certainly
suffer in its march through the empire; and thus, perhaps, by excess of
caution, lost an opportunity of putting an immediate end to the war. He
afterwards endeavoured to renew the negociation; but the favourable
moment was past, and Wallenstein's offended pride never forgave the
first neglect.

But the king's hesitation, perhaps, only accelerated the breach, which
their characters made inevitable sooner or later. Both framed by nature
to give laws, not to receive them, they could not long have co-operated
in an enterprise, which eminently demanded mutual submission and
sacrifices. Wallenstein was NOTHING where he was not EVERYTHING; he
must either act with unlimited power, or not at all. So cordially, too,
did Gustavus dislike control, that he had almost renounced his
advantageous alliance with France, because it threatened to fetter his
own independent judgment. Wallenstein was lost to a party, if he could
not lead; the latter was, if possible, still less disposed to obey the
instructions of another. If the pretensions of a rival would be so
irksome to the Duke of Friedland, in the conduct of combined operations,
in the division of the spoil they would be insupportable. The proud
monarch might condescend to accept the assistance of a rebellious
subject against the Emperor, and to reward his valuable services with
regal munificence; but he never could so far lose sight of his own
dignity, and the majesty of royalty, as to bestow the recompense which
the extravagant ambition of Wallenstein demanded; and requite an act of
treason, however useful, with a crown. In him, therefore, even if all
Europe should tacitly acquiesce, Wallenstein had reason to expect the
most decided and formidable opponent to his views on the Bohemian crown;
and in all Europe he was the only one who could enforce his opposition.
Constituted Dictator in Germany by Wallenstein himself, he might turn
his arms against him, and consider himself bound by no obligations to
one who was himself a traitor. There was no room for a Wallenstein
under such an ally; and it was, apparently, this conviction, and not any
supposed designs upon the imperial throne, that he alluded to, when,
after the death of the King of Sweden, he exclaimed, "It is well for him
and me that he is gone. The German Empire does not require two such
leaders."

His first scheme of revenge on the house of Austria had indeed failed;
but the purpose itself remained unalterable; the choice of means alone
was changed. What he had failed in effecting with the King of Sweden,
he hoped to obtain with less difficulty and more advantage from the
Elector of Saxony. Him he was as certain of being able to bend to his
views, as he had always been doubtful of Gustavus Adolphus. Having
always maintained a good understanding with his old friend Arnheim, he
now made use of him to bring about an alliance with Saxony, by which he
hoped to render himself equally formidable to the Emperor and the King
of Sweden. He had reason to expect that a scheme, which, if successful,
would deprive the Swedish monarch of his influence in Germany, would be
welcomed by the Elector of Saxony, who he knew was jealous of the power
and offended at the lofty pretensions of Gustavus Adolphus. If he
succeeded in separating Saxony from the Swedish alliance, and in
establishing, conjointly with that power, a third party in the Empire,
the fate of the war would be placed in his hand; and by this single step
he would succeed in gratifying his revenge against the Emperor,
revenging the neglect of the Swedish monarch, and on the ruin of both,
raising the edifice of his own greatness.

But whatever course he might follow in the prosecution of his designs,
he could not carry them into effect without an army entirely devoted to
him. Such a force could not be secretly raised without its coming to
the knowledge of the imperial court, where it would naturally excite
suspicion, and thus frustrate his design in the very outset. From the
army, too, the rebellious purposes for which it was destined, must be
concealed till the very moment of execution, since it could scarcely be
expected that they would at once be prepared to listen to the voice of a
traitor, and serve against their legitimate sovereign. Wallenstein,
therefore, must raise it publicly and in name of the Emperor, and be
placed at its head, with unlimited authority, by the Emperor himself.
But how could this be accomplished, otherwise than by his being
appointed to the command of the army, and entrusted with full powers to
conduct the war. Yet neither his pride, nor his interest, permitted him
to sue in person for this post, and as a suppliant to accept from the
favour of the Emperor a limited power, when an unlimited authority might
be extorted from his fears. In order to make himself the master of the
terms on which he would resume the command of the army, his course was
to wait until the post should be forced upon him. This was the advice
he received from Arnheim, and this the end for which he laboured with
profound policy and restless activity.

Convinced that extreme necessity would alone conquer the Emperor's
irresolution, and render powerless the opposition of his bitter enemies,
Bavaria and Spain, he henceforth occupied himself in promoting the
success of the enemy, and in increasing the embarrassments of his
master. It was apparently by his instigation and advice, that the
Saxons, when on the route to Lusatia and Silesia, had turned their march
towards Bohemia, and overrun that defenceless kingdom, where their rapid
conquests was partly the result of his measures. By the fears which he
affected to entertain, he paralyzed every effort at resistance; and his
precipitate retreat caused the delivery of the capital to the enemy. At
a conference with the Saxon general, which was held at Kaunitz under the
pretext of negociating for a peace, the seal was put to the conspiracy,
and the conquest of Bohemia was the first fruits of this mutual
understanding. While Wallenstein was thus personally endeavouring to
heighten the perplexities of Austria, and while the rapid movements of
the Swedes upon the Rhine effectually promoted his designs, his friends
and bribed adherents in Vienna uttered loud complaints of the public
calamities, and represented the dismissal of the general as the sole
cause of all these misfortunes. "Had Wallenstein commanded, matters
would never have come to this," exclaimed a thousand voices; while their
opinions found supporters, even in the Emperor's privy council.

Their repeated remonstrances were not needed to convince the embarrassed
Emperor of his general's merits, and of his own error. His dependence
on Bavaria and the League had soon become insupportable; but hitherto
this dependence permitted him not to show his distrust, or irritate the
Elector by the recall of Wallenstein. But now when his necessities grew
every day more pressing, and the weakness of Bavaria more apparent, he
could no longer hesitate to listen to the friends of the duke, and to
consider their overtures for his restoration to command. The immense
riches Wallenstein possessed, the universal reputation he enjoyed, the
rapidity with which six years before he had assembled an army of 40,000
men, the little expense at which he had maintained this formidable
force, the actions he had performed at its head, and lastly, the zeal
and fidelity he had displayed for his master's honour, still lived in
the Emperor's recollection, and made Wallenstein seem to him the ablest
instrument to restore the balance between the belligerent powers, to
save Austria, and preserve the Catholic religion. However sensibly the
imperial pride might feel the humiliation, in being forced to make so
unequivocal an admission of past errors and present necessity; however
painful it was to descend to humble entreaties, from the height of
imperial command; however doubtful the fidelity of so deeply injured and
implacable a character; however loudly and urgently the Spanish minister
and the Elector of Bavaria protested against this step, the immediate
pressure of necessity finally overcame every other consideration, and
the friends of the duke were empowered to consult him on the subject,
and to hold out the prospect of his restoration.

Informed of all that was transacted in the Emperor's cabinet to his
advantage, Wallenstein possessed sufficient self-command to conceal his
inward triumph and to assume the mask of indifference. The moment of
vengeance was at last come, and his proud heart exulted in the prospect
of repaying with interest the injuries of the Emperor. With artful
eloquence, he expatiated upon the happy tranquillity of a private
station, which had blessed him since his retirement from a political
stage. Too long, he said, had he tasted the pleasures of ease and
independence, to sacrifice to the vain phantom of glory, the uncertain
favour of princes. All his desire of power and distinction were
extinct: tranquillity and repose were now the sole object of his
wishes. The better to conceal his real impatience, he declined the
Emperor's invitation to the court, but at the same time, to facilitate
the negociations, came to Znaim in Moravia.

At first, it was proposed to limit the authority to be intrusted to him,
by the presence of a superior, in order, by this expedient, to silence
the objections of the Elector of Bavaria. The imperial deputies,
Questenberg and Werdenberg, who, as old friends of the duke, had been
employed in this delicate mission, were instructed to propose that the
King of Hungary should remain with the army, and learn the art of war
under Wallenstein. But the very mention of his name threatened to put a
period to the whole negociation. "No! never," exclaimed Wallenstein,
"will I submit to a colleague in my office. No--not even if it were God
himself, with whom I should have to share my command." But even when
this obnoxious point was given up, Prince Eggenberg, the Emperor's
minister and favourite, who had always been the steady friend and
zealous champion of Wallenstein, and was therefore expressly sent to
him, exhausted his eloquence in vain to overcome the pretended
reluctance of the duke. "The Emperor," he admitted, "had, in
Wallenstein, thrown away the most costly jewel in his crown: but
unwillingly and compulsorily only had he taken this step, which he had
since deeply repented of; while his esteem for the duke had remained
unaltered, his favour for him undiminished. Of these sentiments he now
gave the most decisive proof, by reposing unlimited confidence in his
fidelity and capacity to repair the mistakes of his predecessors, and to
change the whole aspect of affairs. It would be great and noble to
sacrifice his just indignation to the good of his country; dignified and
worthy of him to refute the evil calumny of his enemies by the double
warmth of his zeal. This victory over himself," concluded the prince,
"would crown his other unparalleled services to the empire, and render
him the greatest man of his age."

These humiliating confessions, and flattering assurances, seemed at last
to disarm the anger of the duke; but not before he had disburdened his
heart of his reproaches against the Emperor, pompously dwelt upon his
own services, and humbled to the utmost the monarch who solicited his
assistance, did he condescend to listen to the attractive proposals of
the minister. As if he yielded entirely to the force of their
arguments, he condescended with a haughty reluctance to that which was
the most ardent wish of his heart; and deigned to favour the ambassadors
with a ray of hope. But far from putting an end to the Emperor's
embarrassments, by giving at once a full and unconditional consent, he
only acceded to a part of his demands, that he might exalt the value of
that which still remained, and was of most importance. He accepted the
command, but only for three months; merely for the purpose of raising,
but not of leading, an army. He wished only to show his power and
ability in its organization, and to display before the eyes of the
Emperor, the greatness of that assistance, which he still retained in
his hands. Convinced that an army raised by his name alone, would, if
deprived of its creator, soon sink again into nothing, he intended it to
serve only as a decoy to draw more important concessions from his
master. And yet Ferdinand congratulated himself, even in having gained
so much as he had.

Wallenstein did not long delay to fulfil those promises which all
Germany regarded as chimerical, and which Gustavus Adolphus had
considered as extravagant. But the foundation for the present
enterprise had been long laid, and he now only put in motion the
machinery, which many years had been prepared for the purpose. Scarcely
had the news spread of Wallenstein's levies, when, from every quarter of
the Austrian monarchy, crowds of soldiers repaired to try their fortunes
under this experienced general. Many, who had before fought under his
standards, had been admiring eye-witnesses of his great actions, and
experienced his magnanimity, came forward from their retirement, to
share with him a second time both booty and glory. The greatness of the
pay he promised attracted thousands, and the plentiful supplies the
soldier was likely to enjoy at the cost of the peasant, was to the
latter an irresistible inducement to embrace the military life at once,
rather than be the victim of its oppression. All the Austrian provinces
were compelled to assist in the equipment. No class was exempt from
taxation--no dignity or privilege from capitation. The Spanish court,
as well as the King of Hungary, agreed to contribute a considerable sum.
The ministers made large presents, while Wallenstein himself advanced
200,000 dollars from his own income to hasten the armament. The poorer
officers he supported out of his own revenues; and, by his own example,
by brilliant promotions, and still more brilliant promises, he induced
all, who were able, to raise troops at their own expense. Whoever
raised a corps at his own cost was to be its commander. In the
appointment of officers, religion made no difference. Riches, bravery
and experience were more regarded than creed. By this uniform treatment
of different religious sects, and still more by his express declaration,
that his present levy had nothing to do with religion, the Protestant
subjects of the empire were tranquillized, and reconciled to bear their
share of the public burdens. The duke, at the same time, did not omit
to treat, in his own name, with foreign states for men and money. He
prevailed on the Duke of Lorraine, a second time, to espouse the cause
of the Emperor. Poland was urged to supply him with Cossacks, and Italy
with warlike necessaries. Before the three months were expired, the
army which was assembled in Moravia, amounted to no less than 40,000
men, chiefly drawn from the unconquered parts of Bohemia, from Moravia,
Silesia, and the German provinces of the House of Austria. What to
every one had appeared impracticable, Wallenstein, to the astonishment
of all Europe, had in a short time effected. The charm of his name, his
treasures, and his genius, had assembled thousands in arms, where before
Austria had only looked for hundreds. Furnished, even to superfluity,
with all necessaries, commanded by experienced officers, and inflamed by
enthusiasm which assured itself of victory, this newly created army only
awaited the signal of their leader to show themselves, by the bravery of
their deeds, worthy of his choice.

The duke had fulfilled his promise, and the troops were ready to take
the field; he then retired, and left to the Emperor to choose a
commander. But it would have been as easy to raise a second army like
the first, as to find any other commander for it than Wallenstein. This
promising army, the last hope of the Emperor, was nothing but an
illusion, as soon as the charm was dissolved which had called it into
existence; by Wallenstein it had been raised, and, without him, it sank
like a creation of magic into its original nothingness. Its officers
were either bound to him as his debtors, or, as his creditors, closely
connected with his interests, and the preservation of his power. The
regiments he had entrusted to his own relations, creatures, and
favourites. He, and he alone, could discharge to the troops the
extravagant promises by which they had been lured into his service. His
pledged word was the only security on which their bold expectations
rested; a blind reliance on his omnipotence, the only tie which linked
together in one common life and soul the various impulses of their zeal.
There was an end of the good fortune of each individual, if he retired,
who alone was the voucher of its fulfilment.

However little Wallenstein was serious in his refusal, he successfully
employed this means to terrify the Emperor into consenting to his
extravagant conditions. The progress of the enemy every day increased
the pressure of the Emperor's difficulties, while the remedy was also
close at hand; a word from him might terminate the general
embarrassment. Prince Eggenberg at length received orders, for the
third and last time, at any cost and sacrifice, to induce his friend,
Wallenstein, to accept the command.

He found him at Znaim in Moravia, pompously surrounded by the troops,
the possession of which he made the Emperor so earnestly to long for.
As a suppliant did the haughty subject receive the deputy of his
sovereign. "He never could trust," he said, "to a restoration to
command, which he owed to the Emperor's necessities, and not to his
sense of justice. He was now courted, because the danger had reached
its height, and safety was hoped for from his arm only; but his
successful services would soon cause the servant to be forgotten, and
the return of security would bring back renewed ingratitude. If he
deceived the expectations formed of him, his long earned renown would be
forfeited; even if he fulfilled them, his repose and happiness must be
sacrificed. Soon would envy be excited anew, and the dependent monarch
would not hesitate, a second time, to make an offering of convenience to
a servant whom he could now dispense with. Better for him at once, and
voluntarily, to resign a post from which sooner or later the intrigues
of his enemies would expel him. Security and content were to be found
in the bosom of private life; and nothing but the wish to oblige the
Emperor had induced him, reluctantly enough, to relinquish for a time
his blissful repose."

Tired of this long farce, the minister at last assumed a serious tone,
and threatened the obstinate duke with the Emperor's resentment, if he
persisted in his refusal. "Low enough had the imperial dignity," he
added, "stooped already; and yet, instead of exciting his magnanimity by
its condescension, had only flattered his pride and increased his
obstinacy. If this sacrifice had been made in vain, he would not
answer, but that the suppliant might be converted into the sovereign,
and that the monarch might not avenge his injured dignity on his
rebellious subject. However greatly Ferdinand may have erred, the
Emperor at least had a claim to obedience; the man might be mistaken,
but the monarch could not confess his error. If the Duke of Friedland
had suffered by an unjust decree, he might yet be recompensed for all
his losses; the wound which it had itself inflicted, the hand of Majesty
might heal. If he asked security for his person and his dignities, the
Emperor's equity would refuse him no reasonable demand. Majesty
contemned, admitted not of any atonement; disobedience to its commands
cancelled the most brilliant services. The Emperor required his
services, and as emperor he demanded them. Whatever price Wallenstein
might set upon them, the Emperor would readily agree to; but he demanded
obedience, or the weight of his indignation should crush the refractory
servant."

Wallenstein, whose extensive possessions within the Austrian monarchy
were momentarily exposed to the power of the Emperor, was keenly
sensible that this was no idle threat; yet it was not fear that at last
overcame his affected reluctance. This imperious tone of itself, was to
his mind a plain proof of the weakness and despair which dictated it,
while the Emperor's readiness to yield all his demands, convinced him
that he had attained the summit of his wishes. He now made a show of
yielding to the persuasions of Eggenberg; and left him, in order to
write down the conditions on which he accepted the command.

Not without apprehension, did the minister receive the writing, in which
the proudest of subjects had prescribed laws to the proudest of
sovereigns. But however little confidence he had in the moderation of
his friend, the extravagant contents of his writing surpassed even his
worst expectations. Wallenstein required the uncontrolled command over
all the German armies of Austria and Spain, with unlimited powers to
reward and punish. Neither the King of Hungary, nor the Emperor
himself, were to appear in the army, still less to exercise any act of
authority over it. No commission in the army, no pension or letter of
grace, was to be granted by the Emperor without Wallenstein's approval.
All the conquests and confiscations that should take place, were to be
placed entirely at Wallenstein's disposal, to the exclusion of every
other tribunal. For his ordinary pay, an imperial hereditary estate was
to be assigned him, with another of the conquered estates within the
empire for his extraordinary expenses. Every Austrian province was to
be opened to him if he required it in case of retreat. He farther
demanded the assurance of the possession of the Duchy of Mecklenburg, in
the event of a future peace; and a formal and timely intimation, if it
should be deemed necessary a second time to deprive him of the command.

In vain the minister entreated him to moderate his demands, which, if
granted, would deprive the Emperor of all authority over his own troops,
and make him absolutely dependent on his general. The value placed on
his services had been too plainly manifested to prevent him dictating
the price at which they were to be purchased. If the pressure of
circumstances compelled the Emperor to grant these demands, it was more
than a mere feeling of haughtiness and desire of revenge which induced
the duke to make them. His plans of rebellion were formed, to their
success, every one of the conditions for which Wallenstein stipulated in
this treaty with the court, was indispensable. Those plans required
that the Emperor should be deprived of all authority in Germany, and be
placed at the mercy of his general; and this object would be attained,
the moment Ferdinand subscribed the required conditions. The use which
Wallenstein intended to make of his army, (widely different indeed from
that for which it was entrusted to him,) brooked not of a divided power,
and still less of an authority superior to his own. To be the sole
master of the will of his troops, he must also be the sole master of
their destinies; insensibly to supplant his sovereign, and to transfer
permanently to his own person the rights of sovereignty, which were only
lent to him for a time by a higher authority, he must cautiously keep
the latter out of the view of the army. Hence his obstinate refusal to
allow any prince of the house of Austria to be present with the army.
The liberty of free disposal of all the conquered and confiscated
estates in the empire, would also afford him fearful means of purchasing
dependents and instruments of his plans, and of acting the dictator in
Germany more absolutely than ever any Emperor did in time of peace. By
the right to use any of the Austrian provinces as a place of refuge, in
case of need, he had full power to hold the Emperor a prisoner by means
of his own forces, and within his own dominions; to exhaust the strength
and resources of these countries, and to undermine the power of Austria
in its very foundation.

Whatever might be the issue, he had equally secured his own advantage,
by the conditions he had extorted from the Emperor. If circumstances
proved favourable to his daring project, this treaty with the Emperor
facilitated its execution; if on the contrary, the course of things ran
counter to it, it would at least afford him a brilliant compensation for
the failure of his plans. But how could he consider an agreement valid,
which was extorted from his sovereign, and based upon treason? How could
he hope to bind the Emperor by a written agreement, in the face of a law
which condemned to death every one who should have the presumption to
impose conditions upon him? But this criminal was the most
indispensable man in the empire, and Ferdinand, well practised in
dissimulation, granted him for the present all he required.

At last, then, the imperial army had found a commander-in-chief worthy
of the name. Every other authority in the army, even that of the
Emperor himself, ceased from the moment Wallenstein assumed the
commander's baton, and every act was invalid which did not proceed from
him. From the banks of the Danube, to those of the Weser and the Oder,
was felt the life-giving dawning of this new star; a new spirit seemed
to inspire the troops of the emperor, a new epoch of the war began. The
Papists form fresh hopes, the Protestant beholds with anxiety the
changed course of affairs.

The greater the price at which the services of the new general had been
purchased, the greater justly were the expectations from those which the
court of the Emperor entertained. But the duke was in no hurry to
fulfil these expectations. Already in the vicinity of Bohemia, and at
the head of a formidable force, he had but to show himself there, in
order to overpower the exhausted force of the Saxons, and brilliantly to
commence his new career by the reconquest of that kingdom. But,
contented with harassing the enemy with indecisive skirmishes of his
Croats, he abandoned the best part of that kingdom to be plundered, and
moved calmly forward in pursuit of his own selfish plans. His design
was, not to conquer the Saxons, but to unite with them. Exclusively
occupied with this important object, he remained inactive in the hope of
conquering more surely by means of negociation. He left no expedient
untried, to detach this prince from the Swedish alliance; and Ferdinand
himself, ever inclined to an accommodation with this prince, approved of
this proceeding. But the great debt which Saxony owed to Sweden, was as
yet too freshly remembered to allow of such an act of perfidy; and even
had the Elector been disposed to yield to the temptation, the equivocal
character of Wallenstein, and the bad character of Austrian policy,
precluded any reliance in the integrity of its promises. Notorious
already as a treacherous statesman, he met not with faith upon the very
occasion when perhaps he intended to act honestly; and, moreover, was
denied, by circumstances, the opportunity of proving the sincerity of
his intentions, by the disclosure of his real motives.

He, therefore, unwillingly resolved to extort, by force of arms, what he
could not obtain by negociation. Suddenly assembling his troops, he
appeared before Prague ere the Saxons had time to advance to its relief.
After a short resistance, the treachery of some Capuchins opens the
gates to one of his regiments; and the garrison, who had taken refuge in
the citadel, soon laid down their arms upon disgraceful conditions.
Master of the capital, he hoped to carry on more successfully his
negociations at the Saxon court; but even while he was renewing his
proposals to Arnheim, he did not hesitate to give them weight by
striking a decisive blow. He hastened to seize the narrow passes
between Aussig and Pirna, with a view of cutting off the retreat of the
Saxons into their own country; but the rapidity of Arnheim's operations
fortunately extricated them from the danger. After the retreat of this
general, Egra and Leutmeritz, the last strongholds of the Saxons,
surrendered to the conqueror: and the whole kingdom was restored to its
legitimate sovereign, in less time than it had been lost.

Wallenstein, less occupied with the interests of his master, than with
the furtherance of his own plans, now purposed to carry the war into
Saxony, and by ravaging his territories, compel the Elector to enter
into a private treaty with the Emperor, or rather with himself. But,
however little accustomed he was to make his will bend to circumstances,
he now perceived the necessity of postponing his favourite scheme for a
time, to a more pressing emergency. While he was driving the Saxons
from Bohemia, Gustavus Adolphus had been gaining the victories, already
detailed, on the Rhine and the Danube, and carried the war through
Franconia and Swabia, to the frontiers of Bavaria. Maximilian, defeated
on the Lech, and deprived by death of Count Tilly, his best support,
urgently solicited the Emperor to send with all speed the Duke of
Friedland to his assistance, from Bohemia, and by the defence of
Bavaria, to avert the danger from Austria itself. He also made the same
request to Wallenstein, and entreated him, till he could himself come
with the main force, to despatch in the mean time a few regiments to his
aid. Ferdinand seconded the request with all his influence, and one
messenger after another was sent to Wallenstein, urging him to move
towards the Danube.

It now appeared how completely the Emperor had sacrificed his authority,
in surrendering to another the supreme command of his troops.
Indifferent to Maximilian's entreaties, and deaf to the Emperor's
repeated commands, Wallenstein remained inactive in Bohemia, and
abandoned the Elector to his fate. The remembrance of the evil service
which Maximilian had rendered him with the Emperor, at the Diet at
Ratisbon, was deeply engraved on the implacable mind of the duke, and
the Elector's late attempts to prevent his reinstatement, were no secret
to him. The moment of revenging this affront had now arrived, and
Maximilian was doomed to pay dearly for his folly, in provoking the most
revengeful of men. Wallenstein maintained, that Bohemia ought not to be
left exposed, and that Austria could not be better protected, than by
allowing the Swedish army to waste its strength before the Bavarian
fortress. Thus, by the arm of the Swedes, he chastised his enemy; and
while one place after another fell into their hands, he allowed the
Elector vainly to await his arrival in Ratisbon. It was only when the
complete subjugation of Bohemia left him without excuse, and the
conquests of Gustavus Adolphus in Bavaria threatened Austria itself,
that he yielded to the pressing entreaties of the Elector and the
Emperor, and determined to effect the long-expected union with the
former; an event, which, according to the general anticipation of the
Roman Catholics, would decide the fate of the campaign.

Gustavus Adolphus, too weak in numbers to cope even with Wallenstein's
force alone, naturally dreaded the junction of such powerful armies, and
the little energy he used to prevent it, was the occasion of great
surprise. Apparently he reckoned too much on the hatred which alienated
the leaders, and seemed to render their effectual co-operation
improbable; when the event contradicted his views, it was too late to
repair his error. On the first certain intelligence he received of
their designs, he hastened to the Upper Palatinate, for the purpose of
intercepting the Elector: but the latter had already arrived there, and
the junction had been effected at Egra.

This frontier town had been chosen by Wallenstein, for the scene of his
triumph over his proud rival. Not content with having seen him, as it
were, a suppliant at his feet, he imposed upon him the hard condition of
leaving his territories in his rear exposed to the enemy, and declaring
by this long march to meet him, the necessity and distress to which he
was reduced. Even to this humiliation, the haughty prince patiently
submitted. It had cost him a severe struggle to ask for protection of
the man who, if his own wishes had been consulted, would never have had
the power of granting it: but having once made up his mind to it, he
was ready to bear all the annoyances which were inseparable from that
resolve, and sufficiently master of himself to put up with petty
grievances, when an important end was in view.

But whatever pains it had cost to effect this junction, it was equally
difficult to settle the conditions on which it was to be maintained.
The united army must be placed under the command of one individual, if
any object was to be gained by the union, and each general was equally
averse to yield to the superior authority of the other. If Maximilian
rested his claim on his electoral dignity, the nobleness of his descent,
and his influence in the empire, Wallenstein's military renown, and the
unlimited command conferred on him by the Emperor, gave an equally
strong title to it. If it was deeply humiliating to the pride of the
former to serve under an imperial subject, the idea of imposing laws on
so imperious a spirit, flattered in the same degree the haughtiness of
Wallenstein. An obstinate dispute ensued, which, however, terminated in
a mutual compromise to Wallenstein's advantage. To him was assigned the
unlimited command of both armies, particularly in battle, while the
Elector was deprived of all power of altering the order of battle, or
even the route of the army. He retained only the bare right of
punishing and rewarding his own troops, and the free use of these, when
not acting in conjunction with the Imperialists.

After these preliminaries were settled, the two generals at last
ventured upon an interview; but not until they had mutually promised to
bury the past in oblivion, and all the outward formalities of a
reconciliation had been settled. According to agreement, they publicly
embraced in the sight of their troops, and made mutual professions of
friendship, while in reality the hearts of both were overflowing with
malice. Maximilian, well versed in dissimulation, had sufficient
command over himself, not to betray in a single feature his real
feelings; but a malicious triumph sparkled in the eyes of Wallenstein,
and the constraint which was visible in all his movements, betrayed the
violence of the emotion which overpowered his proud soul.

The combined Imperial and Bavarian armies amounted to nearly 60,000 men,
chiefly veterans. Before this force, the King of Sweden was not in a
condition to keep the field. As his attempt to prevent their junction
had failed, he commenced a rapid retreat into Franconia, and awaited
there for some decisive movement on the part of the enemy, in order to
form his own plans. The position of the combined armies between the
frontiers of Saxony and Bavaria, left it for some time doubtful whether
they would remove the war into the former, or endeavour to drive the
Swedes from the Danube, and deliver Bavaria. Saxony had been stripped
of troops by Arnheim, who was pursuing his conquests in Silesia; not
without a secret design, it was generally supposed, of favouring the
entrance of the Duke of Friedland into that electorate, and of thus
driving the irresolute John George into peace with the Emperor.
Gustavus Adolphus himself, fully persuaded that Wallenstein's views were
directed against Saxony, hastily despatched a strong reinforcement to
the assistance of his confederate, with the intention, as soon as
circumstances would allow, of following with the main body. But the
movements of Wallenstein's army soon led him to suspect that he himself
was the object of attack; and the Duke's march through the Upper
Palatinate, placed the matter beyond a doubt. The question now was, how
to provide for his own security, and the prize was no longer his
supremacy, but his very existence. His fertile genius must now supply
the means, not of conquest, but of preservation. The approach of the
enemy had surprised him before he had time to concentrate his troops,
which were scattered all over Germany, or to summon his allies to his
aid. Too weak to meet the enemy in the field, he had no choice left,
but either to throw himself into Nuremberg, and run the risk of being
shut up in its walls, or to sacrifice that city, and await a
reinforcement under the cannon of Donauwerth. Indifferent to danger or
difficulty, while he obeyed the call of humanity or honour, he chose the
first without hesitation, firmly resolved to bury himself with his whole
army under the ruins of Nuremberg, rather than to purchase his own
safety by the sacrifice of his confederates.

Measures were immediately taken to surround the city and suburbs with
redoubts, and to form an entrenched camp. Several thousand workmen
immediately commenced this extensive work, and an heroic determination
to hazard life and property in the common cause, animated the
inhabitants of Nuremberg. A trench, eight feet deep and twelve broad,
surrounded the whole fortification; the lines were defended by redoubts
and batteries, the gates by half moons. The river Pegnitz, which flows
through Nuremberg, divided the whole camp into two semicircles, whose
communication was secured by several bridges. About three hundred
pieces of cannon defended the town-walls and the intrenchments. The
peasantry from the neighbouring villages, and the inhabitants of
Nuremberg, assisted the Swedish soldiers so zealously, that on the
seventh day the army was able to enter the camp, and, in a fortnight,
this great work was completed.

While these operations were carried on without the walls, the
magistrates of Nuremberg were busily occupied in filling the magazines
with provisions and ammunition for a long siege. Measures were taken,
at the same time, to secure the health of the inhabitants, which was
likely to be endangered by the conflux of so many people; cleanliness
was enforced by the strictest regulations. In order, if necessary, to
support the King, the youth of the city were embodied and trained to
arms, the militia of the town considerably reinforced, and a new
regiment raised, consisting of four-and-twenty names, according to the
letters of the alphabet. Gustavus had, in the mean time, called to his
assistance his allies, Duke William of Weimar, and the Landgrave of
Hesse Cassel; and ordered his generals on the Rhine, in Thuringia and
Lower Saxony, to commence their march immediately, and join him with
their troops in Nuremberg. His army, which was encamped within the
lines, did not amount to more than 16,000 men, scarcely a third of the
enemy.

The Imperialists had, in the mean time, by slow marches, advanced to
Neumark, where Wallenstein made a general review. At the sight of this
formidable force, he could not refrain from indulging in a childish
boast: "In four days," said he, "it will be shown whether I or the King
of Sweden is to be master of the world." Yet, notwithstanding his
superiority, he did nothing to fulfil his promise; and even let slip the
opportunity of crushing his enemy, when the latter had the hardihood to
leave his lines to meet him. "Battles enough have been fought," was his
answer to those who advised him to attack the King, "it is now time to
try another method." Wallenstein's well-founded reputation required not
any of those rash enterprises on which younger soldiers rush, in the
hope of gaining a name. Satisfied that the enemy's despair would dearly
sell a victory, while a defeat would irretrievably ruin the Emperor's
affairs, he resolved to wear out the ardour of his opponent by a tedious
blockade, and by thus depriving him of every opportunity of availing
himself of his impetuous bravery, take from him the very advantage which
had hitherto rendered him invincible. Without making any attack,
therefore, he erected a strong fortified camp on the other side of the
Pegnitz, and opposite Nuremberg; and, by this well chosen position, cut
off from the city and the camp of Gustavus all supplies from Franconia,
Swabia, and Thuringia. Thus he held in siege at once the city and the
King, and flattered himself with the hope of slowly, but surely, wearing
out by famine and pestilence the courage of his opponent whom he had no
wish to encounter in the field.

Little aware, however, of the resources and the strength of his
adversary, Wallenstein had not taken sufficient precautions to avert
from himself the fate he was designing for others. From the whole of
the neighbouring country, the peasantry had fled with their property;
and what little provision remained, must be obstinately contested with
the Swedes. The King spared the magazines within the town, as long as
it was possible to provision his army from without; and these forays
produced constant skirmishes between the Croats and the Swedish cavalry,
of which the surrounding country exhibited the most melancholy traces.
The necessaries of life must be obtained sword in hand; and the foraging
parties could not venture out without a numerous escort. And when this
supply failed, the town opened its magazines to the King, but
Wallenstein had to support his troops from a distance. A large convoy
from Bavaria was on its way to him, with an escort of a thousand men.
Gustavus Adolphus having received intelligence of its approach,
immediately sent out a regiment of cavalry to intercept it; and the
darkness of the night favoured the enterprise. The whole convoy, with
the town in which it was, fell into the hands of the Swedes; the
Imperial escort was cut to pieces; about 1,200 cattle carried off; and a
thousand waggons, loaded with bread, which could not be brought away,
were set on fire. Seven regiments, which Wallenstein had sent forward
to Altdorp to cover the entrance of the long and anxiously expected
convoy, were attacked by the King, who had, in like manner, advanced to
cover the retreat of his cavalry, and routed after an obstinate action,
being driven back into the Imperial camp, with the loss of 400 men. So
many checks and difficulties, and so firm and unexpected a resistance on
the part of the King, made the Duke of Friedland repent that he had
declined to hazard a battle. The strength of the Swedish camp rendered
an attack impracticable; and the armed youth of Nuremberg served the
King as a nursery from which he could supply his loss of troops. The
want of provisions, which began to be felt in the Imperial camp as
strongly as in the Swedish, rendered it uncertain which party would be
first compelled to give way.

Fifteen days had the two armies now remained in view of each other,
equally defended by inaccessible entrenchments, without attempting
anything more than slight attacks and unimportant skirmishes. On both
sides, infectious diseases, the natural consequence of bad food, and a
crowded population, had occasioned a greater loss than the sword. And
this evil daily increased. But at length, the long expected succours
arrived in the Swedish camp; and by this strong reinforcement, the King
was now enabled to obey the dictates of his native courage, and to break
the chains which had hitherto fettered him.

In obedience to his requisitions, the Duke of Weimar had hastily drawn
together a corps from the garrisons in Lower Saxony and Thuringia,
which, at Schweinfurt in Franconia, was joined by four Saxon regiments,
and at Kitzingen by the corps of the Rhine, which the Landgrave of
Hesse, and the Palatine of Birkenfeld, despatched to the relief of the
King. The Chancellor, Oxenstiern, undertook to lead this force to its
destination. After being joined at Windsheim by the Duke of Weimar
himself, and the Swedish General Banner, he advanced by rapid marches to
Bruck and Eltersdorf, where he passed the Rednitz, and reached the
Swedish camp in safety. This reinforcement amounted to nearly 50,000
men, and was attended by a train of 60 pieces of cannon, and 4,000
baggage waggons. Gustavus now saw himself at the head of an army of
nearly 70,000 strong, without reckoning the militia of Nuremberg, which,
in case of necessity, could bring into the field about 30,000 fighting
men; a formidable force, opposed to another not less formidable. The
war seemed at length compressed to the point of a single battle, which
was to decide its fearful issue. With divided sympathies, Europe looked
with anxiety to this scene, where the whole strength of the two
contending parties was fearfully drawn, as it were, to a focus.

If, before the arrival of the Swedish succours, a want of provisions had
been felt, the evil was now fearfully increased to a dreadful height in
both camps, for Wallenstein had also received reinforcements from
Bavaria. Besides the 120,000 men confronted to each other, and more
than 50,000 horses, in the two armies, and besides the inhabitants of
Nuremberg, whose number far exceeded the Swedish army, there were in the
camp of Wallenstein about 15,000 women, with as many drivers, and nearly
the same number in that of the Swedes. The custom of the time permitted
the soldier to carry his family with him to the field. A number of
prostitutes followed the Imperialists; while, with the view of
preventing such excesses, Gustavus's care for the morals of his soldiers
promoted marriages. For the rising generation, who had this camp for
their home and country, regular military schools were established, which
educated a race of excellent warriors, by which means the army might in
a manner recruit itself in the course of a long campaign. No wonder,
then, if these wandering nations exhausted every territory in which they
encamped, and by their immense consumption raised the necessaries of
life to an exorbitant price. All the mills of Nuremberg were
insufficient to grind the corn required for each day; and 15,000 pounds
of bread, which were daily delivered, by the town into the Swedish camp,
excited, without allaying, the hunger of the soldiers. The laudable
exertions of the magistrates of Nuremberg could not prevent the greater
part of the horses from dying for want of forage, while the increasing
mortality in the camp consigned more than a hundred men daily to the
grave.

To put an end to these distresses, Gustavus Adolphus, relying on his
numerical superiority, left his lines on the 25th day, forming before
the enemy in order of battle, while he cannonaded the duke's camp from
three batteries erected on the side of the Rednitz. But the duke
remained immoveable in his entrenchments, and contented himself with
answering this challenge by a distant fire of cannon and musketry. His
plan was to wear out the king by his inactivity, and by the force of
famine to overcome his resolute determination; and neither the
remonstrances of Maximilian, and the impatience of his army, nor the
ridicule of his opponent, could shake his purpose. Gustavus, deceived
in his hope of forcing a battle, and compelled by his increasing
necessities, now attempted impossibilities, and resolved to storm a
position which art and nature had combined to render impregnable.

Intrusting his own camp to the militia of Nuremberg, on the fifty-eighth
day of his encampment, (the festival of St. Bartholomew,) he advanced
in full order of battle, and passing the Rednitz at Furth, easily drove
the enemy's outposts before him. The main army of the Imperialists was
posted on the steep heights between the Biber and the Rednitz, called
the Old Fortress and Altenberg; while the camp itself, commanded by
these eminences, spread out immeasurably along the plain. On these
heights, the whole of the artillery was placed. Deep trenches
surrounded inaccessible redoubts, while thick barricadoes, with pointed
palisades, defended the approaches to the heights, from the summits of
which, Wallenstein calmly and securely discharged the lightnings of his
artillery from amid the dark thunder-clouds of smoke. A destructive
fire of musketry was maintained behind the breastworks, and a hundred
pieces of cannon threatened the desperate assailant with certain
destruction. Against this dangerous post Gustavus now directed his
attack; five hundred musketeers, supported by a few infantry, (for a
greater number could not act in the narrow space,) enjoyed the unenvied
privilege of first throwing themselves into the open jaws of death. The
assault was furious, the resistance obstinate. Exposed to the whole
fire of the enemy's artillery, and infuriate by the prospect of
inevitable death, these determined warriors rushed forward to storm the
heights; which, in an instant, converted into a flaming volcano,
discharged on them a shower of shot. At the same moment, the heavy
cavalry rushed forward into the openings which the artillery had made in
the close ranks of the assailants, and divided them; till the intrepid
band, conquered by the strength of nature and of man, took to flight,
leaving a hundred dead upon the field. To Germans had Gustavus yielded
this post of honour. Exasperated at their retreat, he now led on his
Finlanders to the attack, thinking, by their northern courage, to shame
the cowardice of the Germans. But they, also, after a similar hot
reception, yielded to the superiority of the enemy; and a third regiment
succeeded them to experience the same fate. This was replaced by a
fourth, a fifth, and a sixth; so that, during a ten hours' action, every
regiment was brought to the attack to retire with bloody loss from the
contest. A thousand mangled bodies covered the field; yet Gustavus
undauntedly maintained the attack, and Wallenstein held his position
unshaken.

In the mean time, a sharp contest had taken place between the imperial
cavalry and the left wing of the Swedes, which was posted in a thicket
on the Rednitz, with varying success, but with equal intrepidity and
loss on both sides. The Duke of Friedland and Prince Bernard of Weimar
had each a horse shot under them; the king himself had the sole of his
boot carried off by a cannon ball. The combat was maintained with
undiminished obstinacy, till the approach of night separated the
combatants. But the Swedes had advanced too far to retreat without
hazard. While the king was seeking an officer to convey to the
regiments the order to retreat, he met Colonel Hepburn, a brave
Scotchman, whose native courage alone had drawn him from the camp to
share in the dangers of the day. Offended with the king for having not
long before preferred a younger officer for some post of danger, he had
rashly vowed never again to draw his sword for the king. To him
Gustavus now addressed himself, praising his courage, and requesting him
to order the regiments to retreat. "Sire," replied the brave soldier,
"it is the only service I cannot refuse to your Majesty; for it is a
hazardous one,"--and immediately hastened to carry the command. One of
the heights above the old fortress had, in the heat of the action, been
carried by the Duke of Weimar. It commanded the hills and the whole
camp. But the heavy rain which fell during the night, rendered it
impossible to draw up the cannon; and this post, which had been gained
with so much bloodshed, was also voluntarily abandoned. Diffident of
fortune, which forsook him on this decisive day, the king did not
venture the following morning to renew the attack with his exhausted
troops; and vanquished for the first time, even because he was not
victor, he led back his troops over the Rednitz. Two thousand dead
which he left behind him on the field, testified to the extent of his
loss; and the Duke of Friedland remained unconquered within his lines.

For fourteen days after this action, the two armies still continued in
front of each other, each in the hope that the other would be the first
to give way. Every day reduced their provisions, and as scarcity became
greater, the excesses of the soldiers rendered furious, exercised the
wildest outrages on the peasantry. The increasing distress broke up all
discipline and order in the Swedish camp; and the German regiments, in
particular, distinguished themselves for the ravages they practised
indiscriminately on friend and foe. The weak hand of a single
individual could not check excesses, encouraged by the silence, if not
the actual example, of the inferior officers. These shameful breaches
of discipline, on the maintenance of which he had hitherto justly prided
himself, severely pained the king; and the vehemence with which he
reproached the German officers for their negligence, bespoke the
liveliness of his emotion. "It is you yourselves, Germans," said he,
"that rob your native country, and ruin your own confederates in the
faith. As God is my judge, I abhor you, I loathe you; my heart sinks
within me whenever I look upon you. Ye break my orders; ye are the
cause that the world curses me, that the tears of poverty follow me,
that complaints ring in my ear--'The king, our friend, does us more harm
than even our worst enemies.' On your account I have stripped my own
kingdom of its treasures, and spent upon you more than 40 tons of gold;
--[A ton of gold in Sweden amounts to 100,000 rix dollars.]--while from
your German empire I have not received the least aid. I gave you a
share of all that God had given to me; and had ye regarded my orders, I
would have gladly shared with you all my future acquisitions. Your want
of discipline convinces me of your evil intentions, whatever cause I
might otherwise have to applaud your bravery."

Nuremberg had exerted itself, almost beyond its power, to subsist for
eleven weeks the vast crowd which was compressed within its boundaries;
but its means were at length exhausted, and the king's more numerous
party was obliged to determine on a retreat. By the casualties of war
and sickness, Nuremberg had lost more than 10,000 of its inhabitants,
and Gustavus Adolphus nearly 20,000 of his soldiers. The fields around
the city were trampled down, the villages lay in ashes, the plundered
peasantry lay faint and dying on the highways; foul odours infected the
air, and bad food, the exhalations from so dense a population, and so
many putrifying carcasses, together with the heat of the dog-days,
produced a desolating pestilence which raged among men and beasts, and
long after the retreat of both armies, continued to load the country
with misery and distress. Affected by the general distress, and
despairing of conquering the steady determination of the Duke of
Friedland, the king broke up his camp on the 8th September, leaving in
Nuremberg a sufficient garrison. He advanced in full order of battle
before the enemy, who remained motionless, and did not attempt in the
least to harass his retreat. His route lay by the Aisch and Windsheim
towards Neustadt, where he halted five days to refresh his troops, and
also to be near to Nuremberg, in case the enemy should make an attempt
upon the town. But Wallenstein, as exhausted as himself, had only
awaited the retreat of the Swedes to commence his own. Five days
afterwards, he broke up his camp at Zirndorf, and set it on fire. A
hundred columns of smoke, rising from all the burning villages in the
neighbourhood, announced his retreat, and showed the city the fate it
had escaped. His march, which was directed on Forchheim, was marked by
the most frightful ravages; but he was too far advanced to be overtaken
by the king. The latter now divided his army, which the exhausted
country was unable to support, and leaving one division to protect
Franconia, with the other he prosecuted in person his conquests in
Bavaria.