Chapter XXIV: Section III: Wallenstein's Armament

[Sidenote: § 1. The Emperor's need of support.]

Would Tilly's force be sufficient to overcome the King of Denmark and his foreign allies? Ferdinand and his ministers doubted it. In proportion as his power increased, the basis on which it rested grew narrower. Of his allies of 1620 the League alone supported him still. Spain, exhausted for the time with the siege of Breda, could do little for him, and contented herself with forming clever plans for cajoling the Elector of Saxony, and with urging the Pope to flatter the Lutherans by declaring them to be far better than the Calvinists. Of all such schemes as this nothing satisfactory was likely to come. John George of Saxony, indeed, refused to join in the King of Denmark's movement. He thought that the Lower Saxony princes ought to have been content with the agreement of Mühlhausen, and that Frederick ought to have made his submission to the Emperor. But even in the eyes of John George the Lower Saxon war was very different from the Bohemian war. The Emperor's refusal to confirm permanently the Protestant bishoprics had made it impossible for any Protestant to give him more than a passive support.

[Sidenote: § 2. His numerous enemies.]

And if the Emperor's friends were fewer, his enemies were more numerous. Christian IV. was more formidable than Frederick. Bethlen Gabor, who had made peace in 1622, was again threatening in the east; and no one could say how soon France might be drawn into the strife in the west. Ferdinand needed another army besides Tilly's. Yet his treasury was so empty that he could not afford to pay a single additional regiment.

[Sidenote: § 3. Wallenstein's offer.]

Suddenly, in the midst of his difficulties, one of his own subjects offered to take the burden on his shoulders. Albert of Waldstein, commonly known as Wallenstein, sprang from an impoverished branch of one of the greatest of the families of the Bohemian aristocracy. His parents were Lutheran, but when, at the age of twelve, he was left an orphan, he was placed under the care of an uncle, who attempted to educate him in the strict school of the Bohemian Brotherhood, a body better known in later times under the name of Moravians, and distinguished, as they are now, for their severe moral training.

[Sidenote: § 4. His early life.]

The discipline of the brethren seems to have had much the same influence upon the young nobleman that the long sermons of the Scotch Presbyterians had upon Charles II. The boy found his way to the Jesuits at Olmütz, and adopted their religion, so far as he adopted any religion at all. His real faith was in himself and in the revelations of astrology, that mystic science which told him how the bright rulers of the sky had marked him out for fame. For a young Protestant of ability without wealth there was no room in Bohemia under the shadow of the great houses. With Ferdinand, as yet ruler only of his three hereditary duchies, he found a soldier's welcome, and was not long in displaying a soldier's capacity for war. To Wallenstein no path came amiss which led to fortune. A wealthy marriage made him the owner of large estates. When the revolution broke out he was colonel of one of the regiments in the service of the Estates of Moravia. The population and the soldiers were alike hostile to the Emperor. Seizing the cash-box of the estates he rode off, in spite of all opposition, to Vienna. Ferdinand refused to accept booty acquired after the fashion of a highwayman, and sent the money back to be used against himself. The Moravians said openly that Wallenstein was no gentleman. But the events which were hurrying on brought his name into prominence in connexion with more legitimate warfare, and he had become famous for many a deed of skill and daring before Frederick's banner sunk before the victors on the White Hill.

[Sidenote: § 5. Offers to raise an army.]

Wallenstein was now in a position to profit by his master's victory. Ferdinand was not a man of business. In peace as in war he gladly left details to others, and there were good pickings to be had out of the ruin of the defeated aristocracy. Besides the lands which fell to Wallenstein's share as a reward for his merit, he contrived to purchase large estates at merely nominal prices. Before long he was the richest landowner in Bohemia. He became Prince of Friedland. And now, when Ferdinand's difficulties were at their height, Wallenstein came forward offering to raise an army at his own cost. The Emperor needed not to trouble himself about its pay. Nor was it to be fed by mere casual plunder. Wherever it was cantoned the general would raise contributions from the constituted authorities. Discipline would thus be maintained, and the evils upon which Mansfeld's projects had been wrecked would be easily avoided.

[Sidenote: § 6. The larger the better.]

Modern criticism has rejected the long accredited story of Wallenstein's assertion at this time that he could find means to support an army of 50,000 men, but not an army of 20,000. It is certain that his original request was for only 20,000. But the idea was sure to occur to him sooner or later. Government by military force was the essence of his proposal, and for that purpose the larger the number of his army the better.

[Sidenote: § 7. Ferdinand cannot refuse.]

The connexion between two men whose characters differed so widely as those of Ferdinand and Wallenstein was from first to last of a nature to excite curiosity. Yet, after all, it was only the natural result of Ferdinand's own methods of government. The ruler who knows nothing beyond the duty of putting the law in execution, whilst he shuts his eyes to the real requirements of those for whom the law ought to have been made, must in the end have recourse to the sword to maintain him and his legality from destruction.

[Sidenote: § 8. Wallenstein's system.]

The substitution of contributions for pillage may have seemed to Ferdinand a mode of having recourse to a legal, orderly way of making war. Unfortunately for him, it was not so. As the civil laws of the Empire gave him no right to raise a penny for military purposes without the assent of the Diet, and as, in the distracted condition of Germany, the Diet was no longer available for the purpose, no one was likely to regard money so raised as legal in any sense at all. In fact, it could only be justified as Charles I. justified the forced loan of 1626, as an act done out of the plenitude of power inherent in the Crown, authorizing him to provide in cases of emergency for the good of his subjects. Ferdinand, in truth had brought himself into a position from which he could neither advance nor retreat with honour. If he did not accept Wallenstein's services he would almost certainly be beaten. If he did accept them, he would almost certainly raise a feeling in Germany which would provoke a still stronger opposition than that which he had for the present to deal with.

[Sidenote: § 9. Moderation impossible to Wallenstein.]

For the contributions were to be raised by military authority, with no check or control whatever from civil officials. Even if the utmost moderation was used there was something utterly exasperating to the peasant or the townsman in having to pay over a greater or less share of his hoardings to a colonel who had no civil authority to produce, and who had no limit to his demands excepting in his own conscience. Those who expected that moderation would be used must have formed a very sanguine idea of the influence of the events of the war upon ordinary military character.

[Sidenote: § 10. Wallenstein's army.]

In point of fact, neither Wallenstein nor his soldiers thought of moderation. With him there was just enough of regularity to preserve the discipline he needed; just enough order to wring the utmost possible amount of money out of the country. 'God help the land to which these men come,' was the natural exclamation of a frightened official who watched the troops march past him.

[Sidenote: § 11. Explanation of Wallenstein's success.]

How was it then, if Wallenstein's system was no better than Mansfeld's system more thoroughly organized, that he did not meet with Mansfeld's misfortunes? The true explanation doubtless is that he was able to avoid the cause of Mansfeld's misfortunes. Mansfeld was a rolling stone from the beginning. With troops supporting themselves by plunder, he had to make head against armies in excellent condition, and commanded by such generals as Tilly and Cordova, before his own men had acquired the consistency of a disciplined army. Wallenstein made up his mind that it should not be so with him. He would lead his new troops where there was much to be gained and little to do. In due course of time they would learn to have confidence in him as their leader, and would be ready to march further under his orders.

[Sidenote: § 12. Wallenstein in the autumn of 1625.]

In the autumn, Wallenstein entered the dioceses of Magdeburg and Halberstadt, levying the means of support for his army upon rich and poor. Nor were the requirements of himself and his men like the modest requirements of Tilly. With him every man was more highly paid. Splendid equipments and magnificence of every kind were necessaries of life to the general and his officers, and the example was quickly followed, so far as imitation was possible, in the lower ranks of the army. To Tilly's entreaties for aid Wallenstein turned a deaf ear, and left him to carry on the war against the Danes as best he could. He was doubtless wise in refusing to expose his recruits so early to the fierce trial of battle. With him everything was based on calculation. Even his luxury and splendour would serve to fix upon him the eyes of his soldiers, and to hold out to them another prospect than that of the endless hardships, varied by an occasional debauch at the storming of a town, which was the lot of those who followed Tilly. Yet Wallenstein never allowed this luxury and splendour to stand in the way of higher objects. He was himself a strategist of no mean order. He had a keen eye for military capacity. He never troubled himself to inquire what a man's religion was if he thought he could render good service as a soldier. There were generals in his army whose ancestry was as illustrious as that of any sovereign in Europe, and generals who had no other title to eminence than their skill and valour. High and low were equal before his military code. Honours and rewards were dispensed to the brave: his friendship was accorded to those who had been distinguished for special acts of daring.

[Sidenote: § 13. Wallenstein not a German.]

It was a new power in Germany, a power which had no connexion with the princes of the Empire, scarcely more than a nominal connexion with the Emperor himself. And the man who wielded it was not even a German. By his birth he was a Bohemian, of Slavonian race. The foremost men of the war, Tilly, Wallenstein, Gustavus, were foreigners. Germany had failed to produce either a statesman or a warrior of the first rank.

[Sidenote: 1626.

§ 14. Failure of peace negotiations.]

During the winter, negotiations for peace were opened at Brunswick. But they foundered on the old rock. The Emperor and the League would grant the terms of Mühlhausen and nothing more. It was against their consciences to grant a permanent guarantee to the Protestant administrators, and to admit them to the full enjoyment of the privileges of princes of the Empire. With this the Lower Saxon princes refused to be contented. Amongst the means by which the chapters had secured their Protestant character were some acts of formal and even of technical illegality. Such acts might easily be made use of by the Emperor and his council to effect an alteration in the character of those bodies. The Emperor and his council might possibly intend to be just, but somehow or another they always contrived to decide disputed questions in favour of their own partisans. On behalf of the religious and political institutions of Protestant Germany, the King of Denmark and his allies refused to accept the terms which had been offered them, and demanded that Protestant territories should receive a legal and permanent confirmation of their right to continue Protestant.