Chapter V

THE THIRTY YEARS’ WAR FROM THE PEACE OF
LÜBECK TO THE PEACE OF PRAGUE

Difference between Wallenstein and the Emperor--Opposition of the League to Wallenstein--Dismissal of Wallenstein--Critical state of Protestantism in Germany--Condition of Sweden--Policy of Gustavus Adolphus--His wars with Denmark, Russia, and Poland--His interference in Germany and Alliance with France--The Campaign of 1631 and sack of Magdeburg--Alliance between Saxony and Sweden--Battle of Breitenfeld--Military successes and political difficulties of Gustavus--Wallenstein appointed dictator--Gustavus baffled by Wallenstein at Nuremburg--Battle of Lützen--The League of Heilbronn--The murder of Wallenstein--The battle of Nördlingen--The Peace of Prague--Policy of John George of Saxony.

[Sidenote: =Difference of policy between Wallenstein and Ferdinand.=]

The recklessness with which Ferdinand had undertaken to revolutionise Germany soon made itself apparent. To crush the political opposition of Denmark and the lower Saxon circle, he had had to call to his aid Wallenstein and his personal army. To carry out the far more difficult task of transferring from Protestants to Catholics large districts of north Germany, which had been for eighty or ninety years in the hands of Protestants, and of forcibly converting to his own religion thousands of Protestant Germans, he had but the same force upon which to rely. It was idle to think that the Edict of Restitution could be carried out without the help of soldiers. It was certain that Tilly and the troops of the League would not suffice to enforce the Edict and resist the threatened advance of Sweden. To whom could the Emperor turn except to Wallenstein and his 60,000 men? Yet it was just here that he was least sure of his ground. Wallenstein himself strongly disapproved of the policy of the Edict. It ran counter to the principle of religious equality upon which he had organised his own power. His army was the only place in Europe where Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists met on equal terms and served loyally one with another as comrades. To put an army organised on such a basis to the work of ousting Protestant clergy and superintending conversions would split it to its very foundations. More than that. It was no mere caprice which had led Wallenstein to make religious equality the basis of the organisation of his army. He believed strongly that it was the only possible basis for the reorganisation of Germany, and he looked forward to the time when, as dictator of Germany, he might at the head of an irresistible force impose upon the fanatics of both sides the boons of peace and religious toleration. For the first time in his career his own convictions and his own ambition led away from the policy and interests of his suzerain.

[Sidenote: =Opposition of the League to Wallenstein.=]

Just at this time the leaders of the League were becoming on their side very much dissatisfied with Wallenstein. They disliked his opinions. They feared his ambition. They distrusted his loyalty. His system of supporting his army by requisitions, though venial enough when exercised at the expense of the Protestant enemy, became sheer plunder when Catholics were the victims. During the winters 1626–27 and 1628–29, his drums had been beating continuously in all the chief towns of Germany, and not unnaturally it appeared intolerable that the Emperor’s own general should be even more oppressive to his friends than to his enemies.

[Sidenote: =The Diet of Regensburg, 1630.=]

The opposition came to a head at the diet held at Regensburg in July 1630. The lead was taken by Maximilian of Bavaria. Father Joseph, Richelieu’s accomplished diplomatist, laboured indefatigably and successfully in fomenting the discontent, and Ferdinand soon found that he had to choose between Wallenstein and the League. There was no middle course possible. He must part with one or the other. To a man of lofty soul, high ambition, and bold courage, there was much to attract in the prospect held out by Wallenstein. If Ferdinand could only make up his mind to risk all in order to gain all, throw himself without reserve into Wallenstein’s arms, and at the head of 100,000 men impose upon Germany a new constitution, in which the imperial power should be established upon the ruin of that of the princes, a new era would dawn for the Emperor, the supremacy of the House of Austria in Europe would be assured. But a policy such as this was too revolutionary and too venturesome for a conscientious and commonplace nature like that of Ferdinand. It certainly involved the overthrow of the traditional relations between the Emperor and the princes. It certainly necessitated the withdrawal of the Edict of Restitution. It might not improbably make the Emperor the slave of his too successful general instead of the lord of the world. It was not given to Ferdinand to drive the horses of the Sun. For him there was no alternative. He was nothing if not traditionally legal. [Sidenote: =Dismissal of Wallenstein, 1630.=] Wallenstein was the disturber of precedent and law, and Wallenstein must be sacrificed. A few weeks after Gustavus Adolphus had landed on the coast of Pomerania, Ferdinand, at the bidding of the Catholic powers of Germany, dismissed the only general capable of withstanding the Protestant champion.

[Sidenote: =Critical state of Protestantism in Germany.=]

With the coming of Gustavus Adolphus the war was lifted for a while into a higher region of politics. It became ennobled by higher motives and a greater policy. Hitherto what nobility of motive had been discoverable was all on the Catholic side. The maintenance of the authority of the Emperor and the institutions of the Empire, the establishment of the authority of the Church, in the teeth of a factious and reckless nobility, were at least nobler objects to fight for than the winning of a crown, or the command of an army, or the right to provide for younger sons out of secularised church lands. But the victories of Tilly and Wallenstein and the issue of the Edict of Restitution had brought a great change. With Christian of Denmark beaten to his knees, with the troops of the League and the Emperor in occupation of north Germany, with Wallenstein, admiral of the Baltic and duke of Mecklenberg, in possession of the Baltic coast and harbours, the questions at stake were no longer the maintenance of the authority of the Emperor, but the independence of the north German princes, and the sovereignty of the Baltic. By the publication of the Edict of Restitution, not merely were the secularised lands endangered, but Protestantism itself in north Germany was threatened.

[Sidenote: =Objects of Gustavus Adolphus.=]

The Thirty Years’ War is the last of the great wars of religion, and the first of the great wars of politics. In Gustavus Adolphus, the hero of the war, both aspects are united. When he landed in Pomerania in July 1630, he came distinctly as the champion of Protestantism, to save German Protestantism from being overwhelmed by brute force; but he came no less distinctly as the national king of Sweden, to defend and establish that supremacy over the Baltic sea and the Baltic coast, which was essential to the prosperity and existence of his country. It was a defensive war that he came to wage, a war in defence of his religion and in defence of his kingdom, though it necessarily took from the circumstances of the case an aggressive form. Between the policy of Gustavus in 1630 and that of Richelieu in 1635 there is the whole difference between patriotism and aggrandisement.

[Sidenote: =Condition of Sweden.=]

No one who looked attentively at Sweden at the beginning of the seventeenth century would for a moment have anticipated the fortune which in fact was about to attend her. Poor in material resources, sadly deficient in roads and means of communication, sparsely populated, frost-bound for half the year, cut off almost wholly by her old conqueror Denmark from the ocean, she seemed to be doomed to be pressed out of existence by her more fortunately placed neighbours. From this fate she was saved by one of the most remarkable races of kings of whom history makes mention. [Sidenote: =The monarchy.=] From Gustavus Vasa, the emancipator of Sweden from the tyranny of the Danes, who ascended the throne in 1523, to Charles XII., the terror and pride of Europe, who lost his life in 1718, there was not one sovereign of the House of Vasa who did not in some ways show the marks of fine and original genius. Well may the historian of Sweden exclaim, ‘The history of Sweden is the history of her kings,’ for in few countries have national characteristics and national development been so intimately bound up with the monarchy. [Sidenote: =The Lutheran Church.=] Gustavus Vasa achieved the independence of Sweden, and established his new monarchy on the ruins of the Church. Seizing with the eye of a statesman the close affinity between Lutheranism and state power, he introduced the Reformation into Sweden as a political measure, enriching the Crown and purchasing the support of the nobles by the confiscation of the Church lands. From that time Sweden had two enemies to contend against, the hostility of Denmark, and the power of the nobility; to which, under John III., the husband of Catherine Jagellon, the heiress of the Jagellon kings of Poland, a third was added, namely the Counter-Reformation. At the beginning of the seventeenth century this last was the most pressing danger, for Sigismund, the son of John III. and Catherine Jagellon, was an ardent Catholic. [Sidenote: =Attempt of Sigismund to restore Catholicism, 1592–1604.=] He had become king of Poland by election in 1587, and had done much to re-establish Catholicism in that country before he succeeded by inheritance to the crown of Sweden in 1592. On his attempting a similar policy in Sweden he found himself at once opposed by the self-interest of the nobility, who held so large a share of the Church lands, and by a spirit of nationality among the people, who resented the interference of Poles and Italians with a sturdy independence, which reminds us of the hatred of the medieval English for all ‘outlandish’ people. These feelings found a representative in Charles, the youngest son of Gustavus Vasa, and uncle of Sigismund, who after a brief contest expelled his nephew from Sweden and seated himself on the throne in his stead in 1604.

[Sidenote: =Reign of Charles IX., 1604–1611.=]

This dynastic revolution strengthened Sweden by making her religion the symbol and the test of her liberty. Lutheranism became the political as well as the religious faith of the country. It weakened her by adding another to the number of her hereditary foes. If Denmark could not forget that she had once been the ruler of Sweden, neither could Poland forget, at any rate during the life of Sigismund, that her king had by law no less right to rule at Stockholm than at Warsaw. If, however, Charles IX. increased the external he diminished the internal difficulties of his country. Nobles and king had united together against foreign influence, and when raised to the throne, Charles succeeded by his wise administration in making the bond still closer and was able to hand on to his son, the young Gustavus Adolphus, the government of a united and prosperous nation. Nevertheless, patriotic and religious as Sweden was on the accession of Gustavus Adolphus in 1611, she had not yet passed through that crisis common to the infancy of nations, when extension of territory and influence becomes essential to the preservation of national-life. Since she had become an independent nation her mineral wealth had been much developed by her kings. Education and civilisation had made great strides. Since she had become Protestant, she had naturally been drawn into political and commercial relations with the English and the Dutch, who were rapidly establishing their commercial supremacy in the northern seas, and especially in the Baltic, on the ruins of the Hansa. [Sidenote: =Weakness of Sweden.=] But as yet Denmark held the southern provinces of the Swedish peninsula. Only in one place, at the mouth of the river Gota, where the fortress of Elfsborg stood and the houses and wharves of Gottenburg were beginning to rise, did Sweden touch the outer sea. For all practical purposes her trade was a purely Baltic trade, and could only reach the outside world by the permission, and subject to the regulations, of Denmark, who held the Sound and imposed tolls on all ships which passed through.

[Sidenote: =Policy of Gustavus Adolphus.=]

Within the confines of the Baltic itself the position of Sweden was by no means assured. The coast line which she held was large, but only because it included the inhospitable and semi-barbarous Finland. She had not a city, not even Stockholm, which could vie in riches or in trade with Lübeck or with Dantzig. Since the days of Ivan the Terrible, Russia had made her appearance in the north as a power which must be reckoned with, and threatened to claim her share of the Baltic. In the ‘troublous times’ which preceded the rise of the Romanoff dynasty Sweden saw her opportunity, and under Eric and Charles IX. had stretched across the sea, and made good her hold over the first of her Baltic provinces in Esthonia and Livonia; but situated as they were between hostile Poland and semi-hostile Russia, they could not be looked upon in any other light than that of an outpost to be withdrawn or reinforced as occasion might serve. Exceedingly precarious therefore was the position of the young monarchy. A combined attack by its three enemies must at any moment destroy it. Steady hostile pressure under the forms of peace might gradually stifle it. Sweden could not be safe until she had obtained supremacy in the Baltic, she could not be prosperous until she had gained free access to the ocean, she could not be dominant in the north until she had secured her supremacy over the Baltic by the acquisition of a substantial foothold on its eastern coast. These were the three main objects of Swedish national policy steadily pursued by Gustavus Adolphus, and after his death by his friend and chancellor Oxenstjerna. They necessitated an aggressive policy. To sit still was to die. The martial instincts and the youth of the king combined with motives of policy to urge him to a bold course, and the nation well understanding the nature of the crisis seconded him nobly.

[Sidenote: =War with Denmark, 1611–1613.=]

Denmark was the foe upon whom Gustavus was called to whet his virgin steel. Taking advantage of the confusion caused by the minority of the new king, Christian IV. had seized upon Elfsborg and Calmar early in 1611. Directly Gustavus had been pronounced of age he marched to recover the fortresses, and learned his first lesson in the art of war in a year of frontier hostilities, which were ended through the mediation of James I. by the peace of Knarod in January 1613. By this treaty Calmar was at once restored to the Swedes, and Elfsborg covenanted to be restored on the payment of a million dollars, which were duly raised and paid in two years. Relieved from all present anxiety from the side of Denmark, Gustavus at once turned his attention to the growing power of Russia, now gathering itself together under Michael Romanoff. [Sidenote: =War with Russia, 1614–1617.=] In 1614 he invaded Ingria, and spent three years in desultory fighting, in which he was uniformly victorious in battle, and slowly occupied the country. Again England, who had trade relations with Russia, offered her mediation, and by the treaty of Stolbova, signed in February 1617, Sweden obtained from Russia the cession of Ingria and Carelia, thus gaining a continuous coast line on the Baltic from Calmar to Riga, and shutting Russia from the sea altogether. ‘The enemy,’ said Gustavus triumphantly, ‘cannot launch a boat upon the Baltic without our permission.’

[Sidenote: =War with Poland, 1617–1629.=]

Hardly was the peace of Stolbova signed, than an invasion of Swedish Livonia by Sigismund of Poland forced Gustavus to enter upon his third war. Poland was a much more difficult nut to crack than Russia had been, for behind Sigismund lay the forces of the Counter-Reformation, but from various circumstances neither side could press the war with vigour. Two armistices (from 1618–1621 and from 1622–1625) interrupted its lethargic course, and enabled Sweden to recruit her failing energies, and her king to perfect the improvements in military tactics for which he is famous. In 1625 he resumed the war in earnest, and crossing the Dwina overran and occupied Courland, pushing the Polish generals back into Lithuania. But neither Riga nor any of the Courland towns gave him what he most wanted, a place of first-rate importance, which he might make the centre of his operations; so in the next year he directed his attack on Dantzig, although it involved the violation of the neutrality of his brother-in-law, George William of Brandenburg. Dantzig was a town strongly fortified on the land side. The Swedish fleet was too weak to enforce the attempted blockade by sea. Hence, like Stralsund and La Rochelle, until cut off from the sea it was impregnable. For four weary years Gustavus attempted unsuccessfully to reduce it. Eventually in 1629, when the affairs in Germany rendered it essential for him to have his hands free, he consented to make peace without gaining the desired end. Yet the Polish war was not thrown away. By the treaty of Stuhmsdorf, Sweden gained the whole of Livonia, and some places in Prussia, and by the training both of himself and of his army in the four Polish campaigns, he had unconsciously made Sweden one of the most formidable military powers of the day.

[Sidenote: =Negotiations between England and Gustavus in 1624.=]

While the Thirty Years’ War was in progress, the eyes both of Catholics and Protestants in Germany had often been turned towards Gustavus in fear and in hope. He himself looked forward with eagerness to the day when his assistance might be necessary, for he longed to cross swords with Tilly and the imperial generals, but it was eagerness tempered with prudence. He would enter into the war at his own time, and on his own terms, or not at all. In 1624 he was asked by England to formulate those terms, and he laid down three conditions as indispensable, that he should have the sole military management of the war, that England should provide the money for 17,000 men, and pay the subsidies for five months in advance, that he should be protected from attack from Denmark, while at war in Germany, and have two ports made over to him to secure his communications. Unlike Christian of Denmark, he would not be content with fair promises, but insisted on performance before he would move. The terms were too onerous for acceptance at that time, but the fate of Christian proved their wisdom and necessity. The defeat of the Danes, and the establishment of Wallenstein on the Baltic coast, brought the danger nearer home. What chance was there for Sweden to obtain supremacy over the Baltic with Mecklenberg and Pomerania in the hands of the imperial admiral? Clearly she would have to fight for her independence, let alone her religion, if Wallenstein was suffered to make himself duke of Mecklenberg. Gustavus recognised the necessity at once. [Sidenote: =Alliance between Sweden and Denmark, 1628.=] In April 1628 he made an alliance with his old enemy Christian IV. of Denmark, by which all foreign ships, except those of the Dutch were excluded from the Baltic. In the summer of the same year, he sent 2000 men under Alexander Leslie to defend Stralsund against Wallenstein. [Sidenote: =Landing of Gustavus in Germany, 1630.=]In September 1629 he put an end to the Polish war by the treaty of Stuhmsdorf, and on the 24th of June 1630 he landed on the island of Usedom, at the head of an army of 13,000 men, which was raised to 40,000 before the end of the year.

[Sidenote: =Measures of Gustavus.=]

Gustavus timed his invasion with great judgment. The diet of Regensburg was still sitting, and the army of Wallenstein was demoralised by the approaching sacrifice of its chief. Hardly a month after the landing of the Swedish king that sacrifice was consummated, a large part of Wallenstein’s army was disbanded, and the rest put under the command of Tilly, who was becoming in his old age extremely dilatory in his movements. Gustavus accordingly found himself for six months practically unopposed, and he at once employed the time in establishing for himself a strong basis of operations on the Baltic and in the enlistment of fresh troops. In January of the next year came a most welcome assistance. Richelieu had long fixed his eyes upon Gustavus, as one of the most formidable weapons capable of being used against the House of Austria, and he desired to put it into the armoury of France. Negotiations had been opened with this object in the spring of the year but had failed. [Sidenote: =Alliance between Gustavus and Richelieu, 1631.=] He had found Gustavus more stubborn than he had expected, and quickly realised that if he wanted the king of Sweden’s help he could have it only on the king of Sweden’s terms. Gracefully submitting to the inevitable, on January 23rd 1631 he concluded with Gustavus the treaty of Bärwalde, by which he undertook to supply the king with 200,000 dollars for six years, on condition that Gustavus maintained an army of 36,000 men, promised to respect the imperial constitution, observed neutrality towards Bavaria and the League as far as they observed it towards him, and left the Catholic religion untouched in those districts where he found it established. The alliance of the foreigner was the only voluntary aid which the liberator of Germany could obtain. [Sidenote: =Jealousy of Gustavus in Germany.=] The old duke Boguslav of Pomerania was as submissive in the hands of Gustavus as he had been in the hands of Wallenstein, but it was helplessness not friendship which put his resources at the disposal of the invader. John George of Saxony and George William of Brandenburg steadily refused to break their neutrality, or take one step in the direction of the dismemberment of the Empire. In March a great gathering of Protestants was held at Leipzig to consider the situation. They agreed to raise troops for their own defence in case they were attacked. They assured the Emperor of their continued loyalty, if only he would withdraw the Edict of Restitution. They said not one word about assistance to the foreigner.

[Sidenote: =The campaign of 1631.=]

German patriotic feeling was against Gustavus. It was clear that he would have to make his way by the sword, and the sword alone. At the end of March the campaign began. Tilly suddenly dashed at Neu Brandenburg, captured it on March 29th, and destroyed its garrison of 2000 Swedes, thus thrusting himself in between Gustavus in Pomerania and Horn in Mecklenburg. Gustavus saw the danger. By forced marches he succeeded in circumventing Tilly and effecting his junction with Horn, and the old marshal sullenly retreated to the Elbe, where he formed the siege of Magdeburg, which had of its own accord declared against the Emperor, and asked for a Swedish garrison. Meanwhile Gustavus had marched to the Oder, and captured the important fortress of Frankfort, which was garrisoned by the imperialists. From there he designed to move to the relief of Magdeburg, now hard pressed by Tilly and Pappenheim. Every motive of honour and policy impelled him to ensure its safety. But unforeseen obstacles presented themselves. In order to march to Magdeburg, it was necessary to cross the territories of Brandenburg and Saxony, and neither of the electors would for a moment think of permitting an act which might seem to the Emperor a violation of their neutrality. While Magdeburg was in its death throes fruitless negotiations continued. Both the electors remained stubbornly immovable. At last in desperation Gustavus appeared at Berlin with a more potent argument at his back in the shape of an army, and forced the unwilling George William to throw open to him the fortress of Spandau. But it was too late. Saxony had still to be dealt with, and while Saxony was deliberating Magdeburg fell. [Sidenote: =Fall of Magdeburg.=] On May 20th, Pappenheim stormed the town. Amid the confusion of the assault the houses caught fire. The imperialist soldiers, maddened by victory and plunder, lost all self-control, and amid the roar of the flames and the crash of falling houses ensued a scene of carnage, of outrage, and of horror, at which Europe stood aghast. By the next morning the cathedral alone showed gaunt against the sky, amid a mass of blackened ruins, to say where Magdeburg once had been.

The sack of Magdeburg is one of the darkest spots on the page of history. For many years it has been allowed to stain the reputation of the veteran Tilly, unjustly, for he was far away at the time, but upon Gustavus must rightly rest some part of the fearful responsibility. [Sidenote: =Responsibility of Gustavus.=] Magdeburg had risen against the Emperor trusting in him. He had sent one of his own officers to lead the defence. He knew to what desperate straits the town was reduced, and though he could not have anticipated the actual horrors of the sack, he knew well enough what the storming of a town by soldiers of fortune meant in those brutal days. Yet for two critical months he allowed his march to be checked, and his honour compromised, by the mulish stubbornness of the two electors, who had no force at their command sufficient to resist his advance, had he nobly acted upon the necessity which knows no law. It is just possible that by such an action he might have driven the electors to throw themselves into the arms of the Emperor, but it is not likely. Gustavus had not hesitated in 1626 to seize Pillau by force from the elector of Brandenburg, when he wanted a basis of operations against Dantzig. In this very campaign, when too late, he had to use force to gain possession of Spandau, yet the elector was not moved from his neutrality by either of these high-handed acts. Surely the least which Magdeburg might fairly ask of him in her distress was not to be more scrupulous about violating neutrality for her safety than he had been for his own advantage.

[Sidenote: =Retreat of Gustavus.=]

From a military point of view the loss of Magdeburg was a crushing blow. The incipient movements in favour of Gustavus, which had begun to show themselves among the Protestant towns, at once ceased. No German princes except William of Hesse-Cassel and Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar joined him. As Gustavus slowly fell back down the Elbe, and entrenched himself at Werben, he must have felt that all the imperialist leaders had to do was to leave him alone, and his power would melt away of itself. But to leave things alone was just what Ferdinand and Maximilian in the flush of their anticipated victory could not do. In April peace had been signed at Cherasco between Ferdinand and France, and the Italian army of the Emperor had now crossed the Alps and reinforced Tilly. Forty thousand men followed his standard, and in the hope of quelling all opposition and ending the war at a blow, orders were sent to the marshal to procure the dismissal of the Saxon troops, and then to march against the Swedes. [Sidenote: =Invasion of Saxony by Tilly.=] But John George unexpectedly resented this interference with his independence. He refused to dismiss his troops. Tilly immediately occupied Merseburg and Leipzig and began harrying the country. The sight of his burning villages, and the invasion of his cherished independence, roused the sluggish elector at last. He sent messengers post haste to Gustavus offering his alliance and demanding his help. By one fatal blunder Ferdinand had done more to destroy his own cause, than all his foes together had hitherto succeeded in doing. He had driven Saxony over to the enemy. [Sidenote: =Alliance between Saxony and Sweden.=] It was not so much the material resources which the elector possessed, which made his friendship so important to Gustavus, as the position which he held in Germany. Drunken, sluggish, obstinate, irresolute as he was, men recognised in him a strenuous loyalty to the constitution of the Empire as it then existed, a hearty dread of revolutionary proposals, and a certain political shrewdness. It was these qualities, quite as much as his hereditary position as the leader of the Lutheran party, which had hitherto determined the attitude of the north German princes both towards Frederick and Christian of Denmark. That he should now join his forces to the Swedes meant that to him the foreigner and the invader appeared less of a revolutionary than the legal head of the Empire himself.

[Sidenote: =The battle of Breitenfeld.=]

Gustavus did not let the grass grow under his feet. He set out at once for Saxony with the elector of Brandenburg, effected a junction with the Saxon army, and marching towards Leipsig met the army of Tilly drawn up in battle array on the field of Breitenfeld on September 17th, 1631. Tilly marshalled his men to the number of 32,000 in one long line of battle along rising ground overlooking the little stream of the Loderbach. In the centre were posted as usual the solid squares of pikemen flanked by musketeers, which formed the main battle according to the tactics of the Spanish school. On the right wing was Furstenberg with the horse of the Italian army, while the left was guarded by the fiery Pappenheim and his famous cavalry. Between the wings and the centre were placed the heavy guns, probably between thirty and forty in number. Tilly himself on his well-known white horse put himself among his Walloon fellow-countrymen in the centre. The arrangement adopted by Gustavus was somewhat different. The army was drawn up in two lines, with a reserve of cavalry behind each line, and a final reserve also of cavalry behind the centre of the whole army. The extreme left opposed to Furstenberg was occupied by the Saxon troops under the elector in person. On the right of the Saxons, and in touch with the Swedish centre, was Horn with the Swedish cavalry. Gustavus himself took command of the right wing, opposed to Pappenheim, with the rest of the cavalry; but between each division of cavalry on both wings in the first line was a detachment of two hundred musketeers. The infantry occupied the centre, marshalled in very much smaller squares than those of Tilly, and having a much greater proportion of musketeers to pikemen, while in front of each regiment was the light or field artillery. The heavier guns, in all about one hundred, under the command of Torstenson, were placed in the left centre. In numbers Gustavus was decidedly superior. His own army amounted to some 26,000 men while the Saxons could not be less than 15,000. His guns, too, though not so heavy as those of Tilly, were far more numerous, and could fire three shots to one of the imperialists. The wind and the ground favoured Tilly. The battle began with an artillery duel in which the quick-firing Swedish pieces wrought fearful havoc among the dense masses of the imperialist army. Yet the stubborn old marshal remained immovable amid the hail of the balls. Pappenheim, younger and less disciplined, lost patience. Without orders he suddenly launched his cavalry on the Swedish right, but Gustavus was ready for him. The musketeers received him with a volley which made him reel, and Baner at the head of the reserve cavalry, and Gustavus himself with the right wing, dashed upon him at the moment and drove him fairly off the field. Meanwhile on the extreme imperialist right Furstenberg in his turn threw himself upon the Saxons, drove back their cavalry first on to their guns and then on to their infantry, until the whole mass in wild confusion broke and ran, carrying the elector with them to Duben, and even to Eilenburg, pursued by the victorious imperialists. Tilly saw his opportunity, and ordered his centre to advance to take Horn in the flank left exposed by the flying Saxons, but the well-disciplined and mobile Swedes falling back a little formed a new front on their old flank and defended themselves vigorously. In making this flank movement Tilly had necessarily left his artillery undefended, and Gustavus, checking his pursuit of Pappenheim, wheeled back his cavalry, and sweeping the position originally occupied by Tilly from left to right, captured the guns and turned them against their own masters, while he himself with his horsemen swooped down upon Tilly’s rear. Caught between Horn’s foot in front and Gustavus’s cavalry in the rear, with their own guns directing a plunging fire into their flanks, the imperialist infantry proved themselves worthy of their reputation. They fought like heroes, but the longer they fought the more hopeless became the struggle, the more decisive the defeat. When the autumn sun went down on the field of blood, but six hundred men remained in disciplined array to make a ring round their veteran leader and carry him in safety from the field. The imperialist army was entirely destroyed as a fighting force. About 10,000 men were left on the field of battle, as many more were taken prisoners, and according to the custom of the time took service with the victors. One hundred and six standards and all the guns remained to grace the conqueror’s triumph. Tilly retreated on the Weser, gathering up the fragments of his defeated army as he went, but he found no rest there. Pressed back by the advance of the victorious Swedes to the Danube and even across the Danube, he did not dare to make head against Gustavus again until the following spring.

[Sidenote: =March of Gustavus to the Main.=]

The victory of Breitenfeld placed all north Germany at the feet of the Swedish king. Perceiving at a glance that even a successful attack upon Vienna would not end the war, and recognising that his first duty was to the troubled Protestants of the centre and of the south, Gustavus marched straight into the heart of Germany on the Main and the Rhine, disregarding the characteristic suggestions of Wallenstein that they should divide Germany between them at the expense of the Emperor and the Catholic party. On October 10th he occupied Würtzburg. The 18th of November saw him at Frankfort on the Main, the old capital of Germany. He spent Christmas Day at Mainz, and there in the fair and rich Rhineland he rested his tired troops, while in the north Tott was completing the reduction of the Mecklenberg coast line, and the Protestant administrators who had been ousted under the Edict of Restitution were being replaced. No one, however, knew better than Gustavus on what slender foundations his power rested. Richelieu was already beginning to think that his ally was becoming too powerful. Louis XIII., it was said, had been heard to mutter ‘It is time to put a limit to the progress of this Goth.’ Force, far more than inclination or policy, had brought him the Saxon alliance, and force might easily break the bond which it had forged. Tilly was mustering new forces beyond the Danube, and at any moment a general of reputation might stamp his feet and produce an army of soldiers of fortune on his flank or in his rear. Even the Protestants could not be trusted should misfortune come. Except at Nuremberg and a few other places, which had felt the hand of the oppressor, there was no enthusiasm in Germany for the Protestant Liberator. Two things were necessary to secure the fruits of the victory which he had won. [Sidenote: =His schemes for a general Protestant alliance under Sweden.=] He must crush the enemy before he had time to recover from the blow of Breitenfeld, and he must gain a basis of military operations and political influence by uniting the Protestant states in a firm league under his leadership. With Tilly destroyed, and the _Corpus Evangelicorum_ formed, and trusty Swedish captains placed in occupation of the ecclesiastical lands of central Germany, then and not till then might Gustavus consider his work secure.

[Sidenote: =Advance upon the Danube to Munich, 1632.=]

The first thing was to crush military opposition. At the end of March the Swedes were again in the field. On the 31st Gustavus entered Nuremberg in triumph and received an enthusiastic welcome. On April 5th he captured Donauwörth, on the 14th he found Tilly entrenched behind the Lech, forced the passage of the river, stormed the enemies’ position, and drove back the old marshal to Ingolstadt wounded to death. Bavaria was at his feet. Side by side with the Elector Palatine he rode into Munich on the 7th of May. There was now no enemy left to be dealt with except the Emperor, and the dominions of the Hapsburgs were still in far too disorganised a state to be able to offer much opposition. Even the Saxons had marched unopposed into Bohemia, and when Gustavus was celebrating his triumph with the winter-king at Munich, John George, who had done more than any one else to oust Frederick from Bohemia, was keeping high festival himself at Prague.

[Sidenote: =Wallenstein appealed to by the Emperor.=]

It was not for long. There was but one man in all wide Europe who could save Ferdinand from the storm just breaking upon his head, for there was but one capable of drawing to himself and binding together into an organised army the soldiers of fortune who were scattered all over the civilised world. In December, Eggenberg, Ferdinand’s most trusted counsellor, had been sent to Wallenstein to ask him to forgive the past and strike one more blow for the defence of the House of Austria. Wallenstein eagerly seized the opportunity, for circumstances had played singularly into his hand. The victories of Gustavus had drawn the teeth of Maximilian and the League. The necessities of the Emperor must force him to agree to whatever terms were demanded. The long wished for moment had arrived when he at the head of an army, wholly his own, owing no allegiance to the Emperor, might become the dictator of Germany, and, ousting from her soil all foreigners except himself, might impose peace upon Germany on the basis of religious toleration. [Sidenote: =His terms.=] The terms which he exacted from the Emperor forbid any doubt as to his intentions. No army was to be allowed in the Empire except under his command, he alone was to have the right of pardoning offenders and confiscating lands. [Sidenote: =Appointed dictator.=] The Edict of Restitution was to be withdrawn. In other words, he was to be the military and political dictator of Germany. The terms were accepted, his standard raised. From Italy, Scotland, Ireland, as well as from every part of Germany, flocked to him men eager for distinction and more eager for plunder, without distinction of nationality and without distinction of religion. In May 1632, his organisation was completed. [Sidenote: =His plan of campaign.=] Falling suddenly upon the Saxons at Prague he drove them headlong out of Bohemia, then turning swiftly to the left directed his main army upon the rich and Protestant Nuremberg, while Pappenheim scoured the Rhine country at the head of his horse. Gustavus saw the crisis, threw himself into Nuremberg and fortified it, then, summoning to his assistance his outlying detachments, offered Wallenstein battle in the hope of crushing this new enemy by another Breitenfeld. But Wallenstein had made up his mind to show Gustavus quite another sort of warfare. He knew the great difficulties which the Swedes experienced in conducting their operations in a country, largely hostile, at such a distance from their base. He knew also the value of his own superiority in light cavalry in provisioning his own army, and in hampering the commissariat of the Swedes. He did not trust the discipline of his own recent levies on the battle-field, and so, forming a huge entrenched camp on an eminence overlooking the plain on which Nuremberg stands, he prepared to force Gustavus away by sheer starvation.

[Sidenote: =The camp at Nuremberg.=]

At the end of June the camp was finished, and the duel between the two greatest soldiers of the day began. But it was not only a duel between soldiers, it was also a duel between rival policies. The crisis of the fate of the Empire was being then decided. On the one side was military dictatorship and religious toleration in connection with the traditional institutions of the Empire, on the other Protestant supremacy and political federation under the leadership of the foreigner. Stubbornly the question was fought out, not by arms but by endurance, but day by day it became clearer that Wallenstein had calculated rightly, and that Gustavus must starve the first. By the beginning of September the strain was growing intolerable, discipline was becoming relaxed, and the king felt that he must stake all on one last attack. On September 3d he led his army against Wallenstein’s entrenchments, but in vain. After heroic efforts he had to retire baffled. [Sidenote: =Retreat of Gustavus.=] A few days afterwards he marched out of Nuremberg, leaving the best part of his army dead before the ramparts of the Alte Veste, or dying in the hospitals of the town. [Sidenote: =Invasion of Saxony by Wallenstein.=] Wallenstein, following out determinedly the plan he had laid down for himself, never attempted to pursue, but turning north into Saxony prepared somewhat leisurely to choose a position between the Elbe and the Saale, where he might entrench himself for the winter, and apply the gentle pressure of his marauding and requisitioning bands to the ever-vacillating will of John George, and detach him from the Swedish alliance. Gustavus had in the previous year lost Magdeburg by a want of decision. He was not going to lose Saxony in the same way. Summoning Oxenstjerna and Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar to his aid, he flew through Thuringia as quick as he could go, and seized Erfurt and Naumberg before Wallenstein quite realised what had happened. It was now the beginning of November, the weather had suddenly turned piercingly cold, and Wallenstein, making up his mind that Gustavus would not pursue his operations further that winter, prepared to entrench himself between Merseburg and Torgau, and gave permission to Pappenheim to return to the Rhineland capturing Halle as he went. It was a great blunder. Gustavus dashed forwards on Wallenstein’s main army to crush it before the mistake could be repaired. Wallenstein finding a battle inevitable sent messenger after messenger to bring Pappenheim back, and hastily throwing up some field entrenchments and deepening the ditches which intersected the plain, awaited the onslaught of the Swedish king at Lützen on the 16th of November.

[Sidenote: =Battle of Lützen, 1632.=]

As at Breitenfeld the Swedes were drawn up in two lines, and the imperialists only in one, but Wallenstein, unlike Tilly, seems to have interspersed bodies of musketeers among the troops of the cavalry, and posted a strong reserve behind his centre. The battle began as usual with the artillery in the early morning, then, as the autumn mist cleared away, the Swedes advanced to the attack about ten o’clock. There was no room for generalship. It was hard hand-to-hand fighting. For two hours the battle swayed backwards and forwards, the hardest of the fighting being on the Swedish right, where the king himself was engaged with Piccolomini’s black cuirassiers. Bit by bit the Swedes were gaining ground, when Wallenstein bringing up his reserves directed a terrible charge upon the Swedish centre, and forced it back with fearful loss, especially among the officers. [Sidenote: =Death of Gustavus.=]Gustavus, at the head of such horsemen as he could muster, flew to the rescue, and as he made his way through the mist which had gathered again for a few moments in the hollow, found himself unexpectedly in the middle of a troop of the enemy’s cavalry. A shot broke his left arm, another pierced his back, and he fell heavily to the ground, where he was soon despatched by a bullet through the head. His white horse, riderless and bloodstained, tore on through the enemy into the Swedish ranks and announced the loss of their leader. Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar took the command, and rallying the army with the cry of vengeance, renewed the charge with an enthusiasm which carried all before it. Just then Pappenheim and his cavalry appeared on the right flank of the Swedes, and the battle again settled down to hard hand-to-hand fighting for three hours more. Pappenheim himself fell dead in the first charge, but his men, like their enemies, fought on the more fiercely to avenge the fall of their captain. At last as the darkness fell the Swedes nerved themselves for a supreme effort, and drove the imperialists from their entrenchments just as the leading columns of Pappenheim’s infantry appeared upon the field.

[Sidenote: =Results of his death.=]

The honours of the battle were with the Swedes, its fruits were with Wallenstein. As regards mere numbers the Swedish loss was probably heavier than that of the imperialists, and their army more weakened as a fighting force. But if Gustavus had been the only man killed on that side, his death would have more than counterbalanced the whole of the imperialist losses, for not only was he the general and the king, not only was the one man capable of uniting the forces of Protestantism, the one who could successfully cope both with the ambition of Richelieu and the fanaticism of Ferdinand, but he was also the only man still in power in Germany who ennobled the struggle with a distinct moral ideal. Whether Protestants in Germany had sufficient powers of cohesion and strength of conviction to follow a common policy, whether Sweden, even under Gustavus, could have become sufficiently German in interests and sympathies to command the allegiance of Germans, may be doubtful; but at any rate it was a policy worth trying, it was a policy based on the moral and political needs of the people, and not upon the personal ambition of the successful general. If it failed it would fail only because Protestantism in Germany had not the qualities necessary to make it succeed. But when Gustavus Adolphus died on the field of Lützen all moral and religious ideal died too out of the Thirty Years’ War. On the one side was the personal ambition of a military dictator, on the other the national ambition of a foreign aggressor, and the very followers and companions of the noble Gustavus himself soon sank to be little more than ‘condottiere’ bent only upon gorging themselves and their country out of the spoils of helpless Germany.

[Sidenote: =The lead taken by Oxenstjerna.=]

On the death of Gustavus the supreme direction of Swedish affairs passed into the hands of Oxenstjerna, whose one object was to carry out the policy of his dead friend and king; but Oxenstjerna was no general, and being without the supreme authority which Gustavus wielded, had often to persuade where he would have commanded. His first step showed the change which had taken place. Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, like other military adventurers, required his reward before he would venture his life further in the cause, and a duchy had to be carved for him out of the bishoprics of Bamberg and Würtzburg. It was the first confiscation of Catholic lands by the Protestant forces, the first forcible subjection of a Catholic population to a Protestant ruler. However justifiable it might be as an act of retaliation for the Edict of Restitution, it was but too evident a proof of the increasing tendency to consider the interests of the German people as of no value in comparison with the political and military necessities of their so-called saviours. [Sidenote: =The League of Heilbronn, 1633.=] Sure of the assistance of Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, Oxenstjerna was enabled to unite the circles of Swabia Franconia and the upper and lower Rhine to Sweden by an offensive and defensive league, which was signed at Heilbronn in April 1633. Bernhard took command of the forces raised by the circles, and prepared in conjunction with the Swedish army to resume the attack on Vienna.

The supreme word on military affairs for the moment lay not with Bernhard or with Oxenstjerna but with Wallenstein. [Sidenote: =Schemes of Wallenstein.=] The death of Gustavus left him, as he well knew, without a rival in Germany, and retiring slowly from Lützen behind the mountains of Bohemia, he surrendered himself to the illusion that he could now dictate peace to Germany on his own terms. Secure, as he thought, of the support of his army, contemptuous of the politics both of Ferdinand and of Oxenstjerna, he prepared to enforce his own conditions of peace upon the Emperor and upon the Swedes alike. The Edict of Restitution was to be withdrawn, the Swedes to be compensated by some places on the Baltic coast, while he himself, the peacemaker, would exchange the duchy of Mecklenberg for the Rhenish Palatinate, or possibly the crown of Bohemia. During the summer of 1633 he was pressing these terms upon Oxenstjerna and upon John George. In June he had almost obtained the consent of the latter, but Oxenstjerna, cautious and hostile, would not trust him. Couriers went quick and often between the two, and rumours of treachery were beginning to be heard behind Wallenstein’s back, not merely at Vienna, but, a far more serious thing, in the camp. The more they were canvassed the more did Wallenstein’s proposals seem hateful to important interests in Europe. [Sidenote: =Opposition of the Jesuits, the Spaniards and the army.=] The Jesuits and the Catholics were not willing to give up so soon the policy of the Edict of Restitution. The Spaniards and the French would risk anything rather than see Wallenstein lord of the Palatinate. Conservative statesmen and the loyal soldiers resented the attempt to impose terms on the unwilling Emperor by the brute force of an army nominally his own. The soldiers of fortune, especially the officers, did not want an end put to a war which had been so lucrative and promised to be more lucrative still. In January 1634, the Spaniards were plying the Emperor with accusations, and demanding the dismissal of Wallenstein, just as Maximilian and the League had done four years ago. Wallenstein contented himself with binding his officers closer to him by an oath. Sure of their support he could face the world. But in the beginning of February his support began to give way underneath him. Piccolomini, Gallas and Aldringer deserted him, and Ferdinand boldly threw himself into the arms of the Spaniards. [Sidenote: =Dismissal and murder of Wallenstein, 1634.=] He dismissed Wallenstein from his command, branded him as a traitor, released his army from its obedience to him, and put a price upon his head. The breach was complete but still Wallenstein did not quail. Summoning the colonels to meet him at Pilsen he obtained from them on February 20th an undertaking to stand by him against his enemies, and moved to Eger to meet Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, in the hope of inducing the Swedes to make common cause with him, and oblige the Emperor to accept the peace. There also came four soldiers of fortune, two Irishmen and two Scots, who, finding in the declaration issued by the Emperor a warrant for their own dark plots, like Fitzurse and his companions five centuries before, determined to take upon themselves the responsibility of ridding their master of too powerful a servant. At nightfall on the 25th of February, Wallenstein’s chief supporters were invited to a banquet and there murdered. Devereux, an Irish captain, reeking from the butchery, made his way to the general’s quarters, and struck him down to the ground as he arose from his bed alarmed at the noise. So perished Wallenstein in the height of his fame and power, and with him perished the last chance of keeping the foreigner out of Germany.

At first the star of Ferdinand seemed to shine the brighter in spite of the dark shade cast by the murder of Wallenstein. [Sidenote: =Battle of Nördlingen, 1634.=] The army placed under the orders of the young Ferdinand, king of Hungary, captured Regensburg in July, stormed Donauwörth, and laid siege to Nördlingen. There the king was joined by the cardinal-infant, Ferdinand of Spain, who was on his way to assume the government of the Netherlands, at the head of 15,000 men. In spite of inferior numbers Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, ever sanguine and ever impetuous, prevailed on the wary Horn, who commanded the Swedes, to risk a battle; but the evening of the 6th of September 1634 saw him a fugitive, and Horn a prisoner with 16,000 men _hors de combat_. The battle of Nördlingen was one of the decisive battles of the war. Just as Breitenfeld had made the conquest of north Germany by the Emperor and the success of the Edict of Restitution impossible, so did Nördlingen render the conquest of south Germany by Protestantism impossible. The Catholic bishoprics were recovered, Bernhard’s duchy of Franconia vanished, and the line of the Main became once more the boundary between the religions.

[Sidenote: =Peace of Prague, 1635.=]

In May 1635, the negotiations for peace which had been going on so long with Saxony were brought to a happy conclusion, and a treaty embodying the terms agreed upon was duly signed at Prague between John George and the Emperor. The question of the ecclesiastical lands was settled by taking the year 1627 as the test year. Whatever belonged to Protestants at that time was to remain Protestant, whatever was then Catholic was to be Catholic still. This arrangement secured nearly all the northern bishoprics to Protestantism. Lusatia was to be made over to Saxony, and Lutheranism in Silesia guaranteed by the Emperor. Lutheranism was still to remain the only privileged form of Protestantism. These conditions were intended to form a basis for a general peace. It was hoped that other states would accept them, and so gradually put an end to the war. To some extent the anticipation was realised. A considerable number of the cities and smaller states of north Germany accepted the treaty of Prague, but that it would ever form a satisfactory basis for a general peace was impossible, as long as it provided no security whatever for the Calvinists, and did not attempt to deal with the dangers of foreign intervention.

By the treaty of Prague Saxony ranged itself once more upon the side of the Emperor. It is easy to sneer at the want of public spirit and the narrowness of aim which marked the policy of John George throughout this difficult time. [Sidenote: =Policy of John George of Saxony.=] Yet it will be found by an attentive observer that from first to last there was a singular consistency in his action, which sprang not from weakness of will or sluggishness of temperament, but from settled principles of policy from which he never budged. In imperial politics John George was a conservative, in ecclesiastical matters a Lutheran, and he remained steadily, even stubbornly, consistent to those two conceptions. As a conservative and a Lutheran he hated the destructive policy of Christian of Anhalt and Frederick Elector Palatine, and consequently secured to Ferdinand his election to the Empire, and actually supported him in arms against his revolted subjects. When Frederick threw himself into the arms of Mansfeld, when his co-religionists in the north began to feel alarmed, when Christian of Denmark determined to fight for his religion and his son’s bishoprics, John George remained sturdily, obstinately, neutral; for he believed that it was better to run some risk of aggression on the part of the Emperor than to throw all the institutions of the Empire into the crucible. The Edict of Restitution was the first thing that shook him, but even that would not have weighed against the danger of allowing the foreigner a footing in Germany, had not the Emperor actually had recourse to violence. If John George had to break his neutrality, if he was obliged to have a hand in the work of destruction of Germany, if conservatism was no longer possible, then he would rather join a Gustavus than a Wallenstein or a Tilly. But he never felt happy in that alliance. His sense of the desolation of the country, of the destruction of war, was too great for him ever willingly to remain long under arms. When the Emperor had been beaten back, when the Edict of Restitution had become an impossibility, when Wallenstein was dead, and France beginning to interfere actively in the affairs of Germany, it was time for John George once more to range himself side by side with the Emperor, for once more the Emperor had become the champion of German institutions against revolution. The treaty of Prague represents no high ideals of policy. It shows that the great religious ideals with which the war began are over. No longer do men believe that they are fighting for the Church or for Protestantism, for the highest interests of nations and of souls. Seventeen years of war have disabused them of that illusion. But next to religion among the ennobling influences of life comes that of patriotism, and John George retiring from alliance with the foreigner, as the Swede and the Frenchman prepare to put Germany on the rack for thirteen more weary years for their own aggrandisement, is a figure which shows at any rate something of patriotism and of policy, among the heartless dissensions of ambitious brigand chiefs.