Chapter XXXVII: Section III: March of Gustavus into South Germany

[Sidenote: § 1. March of Gustavus upon the Rhine.]

The march of the victorious army was a triumphal progress. On October 2, Gustavus was at Erfurt. On the 10th he entered Würzburg: eight days later, the castle on its height beyond the Main was stormed after a fierce defence. Through all the north the priests were expelled from the districts which had been assigned them by the Edict of Restitution. Gustavus was bent upon carrying on reprisals upon them in their own homes. On December 16, Oppenheim was stormed and its Spanish garrison put to the sword. The Priest's Lane was defenceless. Gustavus kept his Christmas at Mentz. His men, fresh from the rough fare and hard quarters of the north, revelled in the luxuries of the southern land, and drank deep draughts of Rhenish wine from their helmets.

[Sidenote: § 2. Gustavus at Mentz.]

There is always a difficulty in conjecturing the intentions of Gustavus. He did not, like Ferdinand, form plans which were never to be changed. He did not, like Wallenstein, form plans which he was ready to give up at a moment's notice for others entirely different. The essence of his policy was doubtless the formation, under his own leadership, of the _Corpus Evangelicorum_. What was to be done with the ecclesiastical territories which broke up the territorial continuity of South German Protestantism he had, perhaps, not definitely decided. But everything points to the conclusion that he wished to deal with them as Wallenstein would have dealt with them, to parcel them out amongst his officers and amongst the German princes who had followed his banner. In doing so, he would have given every security to the Catholic population. Gustavus, at least in Germany, meddled with no man's religion. In Sweden it was otherwise. There, according to the popular saying, there was one king, one religion, and one physician.

[Sidenote: § 3. The French startled at his victories.]

He placed the conquered territories in sure hands. Mentz itself was committed to the Chancellor Oxenstjerna. French ambassadors remonstrated with him roundly. Richelieu had hoped that, if the House of Austria were humbled, the German ecclesiastics would have been left to enjoy their dignities. The sudden uprising of a new power in Europe had taken the French politicians as completely by surprise as the Prussian victories took their successors by surprise in 1866. "It is high time," said Lewis, "to place a limit to the progress of this Goth." Gustavus, unable to refuse the French demands directly, laid down conditions of peace with the League which made negotiation hopeless. But the doubtful attitude of France made it all the more necessary that he should place himself in even a stronger position than he was in already.

[Sidenote: § 4. Campaign in South Germany.]

On March 31 he entered Nüremberg. As he rode through the streets he was greeted with heartfelt acclamations. Tears of joy streamed down the cheeks of bearded men as they welcomed the deliverer from the north, whose ready jest and beaming smile would have gone straight to the popular heart even if his deserts had been less. The picture of Gustavus was soon in every house, and a learned citizen set to work at once to compose a pedigree by which he proved to his own satisfaction that the Swedish king was descended from the old hereditary Burggraves of the town. In all that dreary war, Gustavus was the one man who had reached the heart of the nation, who had shown a capacity for giving them that for which they looked to their Emperor and their princes, their clergy and their soldiers, in vain.

[Sidenote: § 5. Gustavus at Donauwörth.]

Gustavus did not tarry long with his enthusiastic hosts. On April 5 he was before Donauwörth. After a stout resistance the imperialists were driven out. Once more a Protestant Easter was kept within the walls, and the ancient wrong was redressed.

[Sidenote: § 6. The passage of the Lech and the death of Tilly.]

On the 14th the Swedes found the passage of the Lech guarded by Tilly. Every advantage appeared to be on the side of the defenders. But Gustavus knew how to sweep their positions with a terrible fire of artillery, and to cross the river in the very teeth of the enemy. In the course of the battle Tilly was struck down, wounded by a cannon shot above the knee. His friends mournfully carried him away to Ingolstadt to die. His life's work was at an end. If simplicity of character and readiness to sacrifice his own personal interests be a title to esteem, that esteem is but Tilly's due. To the higher capacity of a statesman he laid no claim. Nor has he any place amongst the masters of the art of war. He was an excellent officer, knowing no other rule than the orders of constituted authorities, no virtue higher than obedience. The order which he reverenced was an impossible one, and there was nothing left him but to die for it.

[Sidenote: § 7. Gustavus at Augsburg and Munich.]

The conqueror pushed on. In Augsburg he found a city which had suffered much from the Commissions of Resumption which had, in the south, preceded the Edict of Restitution. The Lutheran clergy had been driven from their pulpits; the Lutheran councillors had been expelled from the town hall. In the midst of the jubilant throng Gustavus felt himself more strongly seated in the saddle. Hitherto he had asked the magistrates of the recovered cities to swear fidelity to him as long as the war lasted. At Augsburg he demanded the oath of obedience as from subjects to a sovereign. Gustavus was beginning to fancy that he could do without France.

Then came the turn of Bavaria. As Gustavus rode into Munich, Frederick, the exiled Elector Palatine, was by his side, triumphing over the flight of his old enemy. It was not the fault of Gustavus if Frederick was not again ruling at Heidelberg. Gustavus had offered him his ancestral territories on the condition that he would allow Swedish garrisons to occupy his fortresses during the war, and would give equal liberty to the Lutheran and the Calvinist forms of worship. Against this latter demand Frederick's narrow-hearted Calvinism steeled itself, and when, not many months later, he was carried off by a fever at Bacharach, he was still, through his own fault, a homeless wanderer on the face of the earth.

[Sidenote: § 8. Gustavus at Munich.]

At Munich Gustavus demanded a high contribution. Discovering that Maximilian had buried a large number of guns in the arsenal, he had them dug up again by the Bavarian peasants, who were glad enough to earn the money with which the foreign invader paid them for their labours. When this process was over--waking up the dead, he merrily called it--he prepared to leave the city with his booty. During his stay he had kept good discipline, and took especial care to prohibit any insult to the religion of the inhabitants. If, as may well have been the case, he was looking beyond the _Corpus Evangelicorum_ to the Empire itself, if he thought it possible that the golden crown of Ferdinand might rest next upon a Lutheran head, he was resolved that religious liberty, not narrow orthodoxy, should be the corner-stone on which that Empire should be built.

[Sidenote: § 9. Strong position of Gustavus.]

All Germany, except the hereditary dominions of the House of Austria, was at his feet. And he knew well that, as far as those dominions were concerned, there was no strength to resist him. Ferdinand had done enough to repress the manifestation of feeling, nothing to organize it. He would have been even more helpless to resist a serious attack than he had been in 1619, and this time Bavaria was as helpless as himself. Even John George, who had fled hastily from the field of Breitenfeld, marched through Bohemia without finding the slightest resistance. His army entered Prague amidst almost universal enthusiasm.