The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III
by
Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

Part 12 out of 13



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 everything 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 Neuburg 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
conquest 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 reconnoitering the works, a 24-pounder killed his
horse under him, and he fell to the ground, while almost immediately
afterward another ball struck his favorite, 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 favored
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 favorite
project of making himself master of the Danube, and cutting off his
adversaries' supplies from Bohemia. He suddenly raised the siege of
Ingoldstadt, 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 toward 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 toward his religion, far from making him depart from
the obligations of humanity toward that unfortunate people, seemed to
impose upon him the stricter duty to honor 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
splendor 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 intrenchments. 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 endeavored, in the meantime, to amuse his
enemy and keep him inactive, by reviving the negotiation 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 favorable 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 Leipzic, 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 toward 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 drove 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 endeavoring to
repair the first. To deprive his enemy of so powerful an ally, he had
opened, through the intervention of Spain, a negotiation 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 toward Bohemia, where a combination of favorable
circumstances seemed to insure them an easy victory. In his kingdom,
the first scene of this fatal war, the flames of dissension still
smoldered 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 favor 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 favorable to a revolution and saw with pleasure their
deliverers on the frontiers.

The Saxon army was already on its march toward 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,
toward its defence, he seized the favorable 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 succors 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 colors. 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.

[Illustration: WALLENSTEIN VAN DYCK]

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 Swedes 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 succors 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 further 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 was 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 at 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
in the house of Lichtenstein, being 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 such 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 everything 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 rid of these insecure possessions, and to convert their immovable
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 succors 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 intrenchments 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 bishop of Wuertzburg 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 Transylvania Prince, Ragotsky, a
successor of Bethlem Gabor and the inheritor of his restless mind;
while the Porte was making great preparation to profit by the
favorable 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 favorable 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 lacked harmony among themselves, 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
have allowed 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 ardor 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
cooeperation 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 vigor. 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
intrust 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 endeavoring 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 toward 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 favors,
to absolve him from every obligation toward 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 when 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 Leipzic 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 laboring. Scarcely 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 favorable 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 afterward endeavored to renew
the negotiation; but the favorable 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
cooeperated in an enterprise which eminently demanded mutual submission
and sacrifice. 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 the 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 intrusted 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 favor 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 labored 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 toward Bohemia and overrun that defenceless
kingdom, where their rapid conquests were 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 negotiating
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 endeavoring 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 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 honor,
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 favor 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 negotiations, 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 negotiation. "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 favorite, 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 favor 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 favor 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 long been laid, and he only put in motion the machinery
which for 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 from his personal 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 tranquilized 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 intrusted to his own relations, creatures, and
favorites. 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 owned 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, it had only flattered his pride and increased
his obstinacy. If this sacrifice had been made in vain, he would not
answer, but only that the suppliant might be converted into the
sovereign and 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 was of
itself, 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 further 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 to the required conditions. The use which Wallenstein
intended to make of his army (widely different indeed from that for
which it was intrusted 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 favorable 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 forces 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
negotiation. 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 acted faithlessly 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 negotiation. 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
opened 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 negotiations 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
favorite 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 dispatch in
the meantime 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 toward 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 cooeperation
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
waited 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
endeavor 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 favoring 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 dispatched 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
honor, 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 intrenched 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 neighboring 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 enlisted 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 meantime, 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 meantime, 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
ardor 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 neighboring 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 favored the
enterprise. The whole convoy, with the town in which it was, fell into
the hands of the Swedes; the Imperial escort was broken up; about
1,200 cattle were carried off; and a thousand wagons, 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 intrenchments, without attempting
anything more than slight attacks and unimportant skirmishes. On both
sides, infectious diseases, the natural consequences 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 succor
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 dispatched 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 wagons. 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 upon 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 succor, 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 confronting 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 the excesses practised by the latter, Gustavus's care
for the morals of his soldiers encouraged 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 whom the army might 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 immovable in his intrenchments, 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 barricades, 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 infuriated 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 honor. 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 intrepedity and
loss on both sides. The Duke of Friedland and Prince Bernard of Weimar
had each a horse shot under him; 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 unbridled excesses of the furious
soldiers 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;[61] 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 were in
ashes, the plundered peasantry lay faint and dying on the highways;
foul odors 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 5th of 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 toward 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 afterward 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 neighborhood, 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. In the mean time, the imperial
Bavarian army had marched into the Bishopric of Bamberg, where the
Duke of Friedland a second time mustered his troops. He found this
force, which so lately had amounted to 60,000 men, diminished by the
sword, desertion, and disease, to about 24,000, and of these a fourth
were Bavarians. Thus had the encampments before Nuremberg weakened
both parties more than two great battles would have done, apparently
without advancing the termination of the war, or satisfying, by any
decisive result, the expectations of Europe. The king's conquests in
Bavaria, were, it is true, checked for a time by this diversion before
Nuremberg, and Austria itself secured against the danger of immediate
invasion; but by the retreat of the king from that city, he was again
left at full liberty to make Bavaria the seat of war. Indifferent
toward the fate of that country, and weary of the restraint which his
union with the Elector imposed upon him, the Duke of Friedland eagerly
seized the opportunity of separating from this burdensome associate,
and prosecuting, with renewed earnestness, his favorite plans. Still
adhering to his purpose of detaching Saxony from its Swedish
alliance, he selected that country for his winter quarters, hoping by
his destructive presence to force the Elector the more readily into
his views.

No conjuncture could be more favorable for his designs. The Saxons had
invaded Silesia, where, reinforced by troops from Brandenburg and
Sweden, they had gained several advantages over the Emperor's troops.
Silesia would be saved by a diversion against the Elector in his own
territories, and the attempt was the more easy as Saxony, left
undefended during the war in Silesia, lay open on every side to
attack. The pretext of rescuing from the enemy a hereditary dominion
of Austria would silence the remonstrances of the Elector of Bavaria,
and, under the mask of a patriotic zeal for the Emperor's interests,
Maximilian might be sacrificed without much difficulty. By giving up
the rich country of Bavaria to the Swedes, he hoped to be left
unmolested by them in his enterprise against Saxony, while the
increasing coldness between Gustavus and the Saxon Court gave him
little reason to apprehend any extraordinary zeal for the deliverance
of John George. Thus a second time abandoned by his artful protector,
the Elector separated from Wallenstein at Bamberg, to protect his
defenceless territory with the small remains of his troops, while the
imperial army, under Wallenstein, directed its march through Bayreuth
and Coburg toward the Thuringian Forest.

An imperial general, Holk, had previously been sent into Vogtland with
6,000 men, to waste this defenceless province with fire and sword; he
was soon followed by Gallas, another of the Duke's generals, and an
equally faithful instrument of his inhuman orders. Finally,
Pappenheim, too, was recalled from Lower Saxony, to reinforce the
diminished army of the duke and to complete the miseries of the
devoted country. Ruined churches, villages in ashes, harvests wilfully
destroyed, families plundered, and murdered peasants, marked the
progress of these barbarians, under whose scourge the whole of
Thuringia, Vogtland, and Meissen, lay defenceless. Yet this was but
the prelude to greater sufferings with which Wallenstein himself, at
the head of the main army, threatened Saxony. After having left behind
him fearful monuments of his fury, in his march through Franconia and
Thuringia, he arrived with his whole army in the Circle of Leipzic,
and compelled the city, after a short resistance, to surrender. His
design was to push on to Dresden, and by the conquest of the whole
country to prescribe laws to the Elector. He had already approached
the Mulda, threatening to overpower the Saxon army which had advanced
as far as Torgau to meet him, when the King of Sweden's arrival at
Erfurt gave an unexpected check to his operations. Placed between the
Saxon and Swedish armies, which were likely to be further reinforced
by the troops of George, Duke of Lueneburg, from Lower Saxony, he
hastily retired upon Meresberg, to form a junction there with Count
Pappenheim and to repel the further advance of the Swedes.

Gustavus Adolphus had witnessed, with great uneasiness, the arts
employed by Spain and Austria to detach his allies from him. The more
important his alliance with Saxony, the more anxiety the inconstant
temper of John George caused him. Between himself and the Elector a
sincere friendship could never subsist. A prince, proud of his
political importance and accustomed to consider himself as the head of
his party, could not see without annoyance the interference of a
foreign power in the affairs of the Empire; and nothing but the
extreme danger of his dominions could overcome the aversion with which
he had long witnessed the progress of this unwelcome intruder. The
increasing influence of the king in Germany, his authority with the
Protestant states, the unambiguous proofs which he gave of his
ambitious views, which were of a character calculated to excite the
jealousies of all the states of the Empire, awakened in the Elector's
breast a thousand anxieties, which the imperial emissaries did not
fail skilfully to keep alive and cherish. Every arbitrary step on the
part of the King, every demand, however reasonable, which he
addressed to the princes of the Empire, was followed by bitter
complaints from the Elector, which seemed to announce an approaching
rupture. Even the generals of the two powers, whenever they were
called upon to act in common, manifested the same jealousy as divided
their leaders. John George's natural aversion to war, and a lingering
attachment to Austria, favored the efforts of Arnheim, who,
maintaining a constant correspondence with Wallenstein, labored
incessantly to effect a private treaty between his master and the
Emperor; and if his representatives were long disregarded, still the
event proved that they were not altogether without effect.

Gustavus Adolphus, naturally apprehensive of the consequences which
the defection of so powerful an ally would produce on his future
prospects in Germany, spared no pains to avert so pernicious an event;
and his remonstrances had hitherto had some effect upon the Elector.
But the formidable power with which the Emperor seconded his seductive
proposals, and the miseries which, in the case of hesitation, he
threatened to accumulate upon Saxony, might at length overcome the
resolution of the Elector, should he be left exposed to the vengeance
of his enemies; while an indifference to the fate of so powerful a
confederate would irreparably destroy the confidence of the other
allies in their protector. This consideration induced the king a
second time to yield to the pressing entreaties of the Elector and to
sacrifice his own brilliant prospects to the safety of this ally. He
had already resolved upon a second attack on Ingoldstadt; and the
weakness of the Elector of Bavaria gave him hopes of soon forcing this
exhausted enemy to accede to a neutrality. An insurrection of the
peasantry in Upper Austria opened to him a passage into that country,
and the capital might be in his possession before Wallenstein could
have time to advance to its defence. All these views he now gave up
for the sake of an ally, who, neither by his services nor his fidelity
was worthy of the sacrifices; who, on the pressing occasions of
common good, had steadily adhered to his own selfish projects; and who
was important, not for the services he was expected to render, but
merely for the injuries he had it in his power to inflict. Is it
possible, then, to refrain from indignation, when we know that, in
this expedition, undertaken for the benefit of such an ally, the great
king was destined to terminate his career?

Rapidly assembling his troops in Franconia, he followed the route of
Wallenstein through Thuringia. Duke Bernard of Weimar, who had been
dispatched to act against Pappenheim, joined the king at Armstadt, who
now saw himself at the head of 20,000 veterans. At Erfurt he took
leave of his queen, who was not to behold him save in his coffin at
Weissenfels. Their anxious adieus seemed to forbode an eternal
separation. He reached Naumburg on the 1st of November, 1632, before
the corps, which the Duke of Friedland had dispatched for that
purpose, could make itself master of that place. The inhabitants of
the surrounding country flocked in crowds to look upon the hero, the
avenger, the great king, who, a year before, had first appeared in
that quarter, like a guardian angel. Shouts of joy everywhere attended
his progress; the people knelt before him, and struggled for the honor
of touching the sheath of his sword or the hem of his garment. The
modest hero disliked this innocent tribute which a sincerely grateful
and admiring multitude paid him. "Is it not," said he, "as if this
people would make a God of me? Our affairs prosper, indeed; but I fear
the vengeance of Heaven will punish me for this presumption, and soon
enough reveal to this deluded multitude my human weakness and
mortality!" How amiable does Gustavus appear before us at this moment,
when about to leave us forever! Even in the plentitude of success, he
honors an avenging Nemesis, declines that homage which is due only to
the Immortal, and strengthens his title to our tears, the nearer the
moment approaches that is to call them forth! In the mean time, the
Duke of Friedland had determined to advance to meet the king, as far
as Weissenfels, and, even at the hazard of a battle, to secure his
winter-quarters in Saxony. His inactivity before Nuremberg had
occasioned a suspicion that he was unwilling to measure his powers
with those of the Hero of the North, and his hard-earned reputation
would be at stake, if, a second time, he should decline a battle. His
present superiority in numbers, though much less than what it was at
the beginning of the siege of Nuremberg, was still enough to give him
hopes of victory, if he could compel the king to give battle before
his junction with the Saxons. But his present reliance was not so much
in his numerical superiority as in the predictions of his astrologer
Seni, who had read in the stars that the good fortune of the Swedish
monarch would decline in the month of November. Besides, between
Naumburg and Weissenfels there was a range of narrow defiles formed by
a long mountainous ridge, and also the river Saal which ran at their
foot, along which the Swedes could not advance without difficulty, and
which might, with the assistance of a few troops, be rendered almost
impassable. If attacked there, the king would have no choice but
either to penetrate with great danger through the defiles, or commence
a laborious retreat through Thuringia, and to expose the greater part
of his army to a march through a desert country entirely destitute of
all necessary supplies. But the rapidity with which Gustavus Adolphus
had taken possession of Naumburg disappointed this plan, and it was
now Wallenstein himself who awaited the attack.

But in this expectation he was disappointed; for the king, instead of
advancing to meet him at Weissenfels, made preparations for
intrenching himself near Naumburg, with the intention of awaiting
there the reinforcements which the Duke of Luneburg was bringing up.
Undecided whether to advance against the king through the narrow
passes between Weissenfels and Naumburg or to remain inactive in his
camp, he called a council of war, in order to have the opinion of his
most experienced generals. None of these thought it prudent to attack
the king in his advantageous position. On the other hand, the
preparations which the latter made to fortify his camp plainly showed
that it was not his intention soon to abandon it. But the approach of
winter rendered it impossible to prolong the campaign and by a
continued encampment to exhaust the strength of the army, already so
much in need of repose. All voices were in favor of immediately
terminating the campaign, and the more so, as the important city of
Cologne upon the Rhine was threatened by the Dutch, while the progress
of the enemy in Westphalia and the Lower Rhine called for effective
reinforcements in that quarter. Wallenstein yielded to the weight of
these arguments, and, almost convinced that, at this season, he had no
reason to apprehend an attack from the King, he put his troops into
winter-quarters, but so that, if necessary, they might be rapidly
assembled. Count Pappenheim was dispatched, with a great part of the
army, to the assistance of Cologne, with orders to take possession, on
his march, of the fortress of Moritzburg, in the territory of Halle.
Different corps took up their winter-quarters in the neighboring
towns, to watch, on all sides, the motions of the enemy. Count
Colloredo guarded the castle of Weissenfels, and Wallenstein himself
encamped with the remainder not far from Merseburg, between Flotzgaben
and the Saal, from whence he purposed to march to Leipzic and to cut
off the communication between the Saxons and the Swedish army.

Scarcely had Gustavus Adolphus been informed of Pappenheim's
departure, when, suddenly breaking up his camp at Naumburg, he
hastened with his whole force to attack the enemy, now weakened to one
half. He advanced, by rapid marches, toward Weissenfels, from whence
the news of his arrival quickly reached the enemy and greatly
astonished the Duke of Friedland. But a speedy resolution was now
necessary; and the measures of Wallenstein were soon taken. Though he
had little more than 12,000 men to oppose to the 20,000 of the enemy,
he might hope to maintain his ground until the return of Pappenheim,
who could not have advanced farther than Halle, five miles distant.
Messengers were hastily dispatched to recall him, while Wallenstein
moved forward into the wide plain between the Canal and Luetzen, where
lie awaited the King in full order of battle, and, by this position,
cut off his communication with Leipzic and the Saxons auxiliaries.

Three cannon shots, fired by Count Colloredo from the castle of
Weissenfels, announced the king's approach; and at this concerted
signal, the light troops of the Duke of Friedland, under the command
of the Croatian General Isolani, moved forward to possess themselves
of the villages lying upon the Rippach. Their weak resistance did not
impede the advance of the enemy, who crossed the Rippach, near the
village of that name, and formed in line below Luetzen, opposite the
Imperialists. The high road which goes from Weissenfels to Leipzic is
intersected between Luetzen and Markranstadt by the canal which extends
from Zeitz to Merseburg and unites the Elster with the Saal. On this
canal rested the left wing of the Imperialists, and the right of the
King of Sweden; but so that the cavalry of both extended themselves
along the opposite side. To the northward, behind Luetzen, was
Wallenstein's right wing, and to the south of that town was posted the
left wing of the Swedes; both armies fronted the high road, which ran
between them and divided their order of battle; but the evening before
the battle, Wallenstein, to the great disadvantage of his opponent,
had possessed himself of this highway, deepened the trenches which ran
along its sides, and planted them with musketeers, so as to make the
crossing of it both difficult and dangerous. Behind these, again, was
erected a battery of seven large pieces of cannon, to support the fire
from the trenches; and at the windmills, close behind Luetzen, fourteen
smaller field-pieces were ranged on an eminence from which they could
sweep the greater part of the plain. The infantry, divided into no
more than five unwieldy brigades, was drawn up at the distance of 300
paces from the road, and the cavalry covered the flanks. All the
baggage was sent to Leipzic that it might not impede the movements of
the army; and the ammunition-wagons alone remained, which were placed
in rear of the line. To conceal the weakness of the Imperialists, all
the camp-followers and sutlers were mounted and posted on the left
wing, but only until Pappenheim's troops arrived. These arrangements
were made during the darkness of the night; and when the morning
dawned all was ready for the reception of the enemy.

On the evening of the same day, Gustavus Adolphus appeared on the
opposite plain and formed his troops in the order of attack. His
disposition was the same as that which had been so successful the year
before at Leipzic. Small squadrons of horse were interspersed among
the divisions of the infantry, and troops of musketeers were placed
here and there among the cavalry. The army was arranged in two lines,
the canal on the right and in its rear, the high road in front, and
the town on the left. In the centre the infantry was formed, under the
command of Count Brahe; the cavalry on the wings; the artillery in
front. To the German hero, Bernard, Duke of Weimar, was intrusted the
command of the German cavalry of the left wing; while, on the right,
the king led on the Swedes in person, in order to excite the emulation
of the two nations to a noble competition. The second line was formed
in the same manner; and behind these was placed the reserve, commanded
by Henderson, a Scotchman.

In this position they awaited the eventful dawn of morning, to begin a
contest which long delay, rather than the probability of decisive
consequences, and the picked body, rather than the number of the
combatants, was to render so terrible and remarkable. The strained
expectation of Europe, so disappointed before Nuremberg, was now to be
gratified on the plains of Luetzen. During the whole course of the
war, two such generals, so equally matched in renown and ability, had
not before been pitted against each other. Never, as yet, had daring
been cooled by so awful a hazard, or hope animated by so glorious a
prize. Europe was next day to learn who was her greatest
general--tomorrow the leader, who had hitherto been invincible, must
acknowledge a victor. This morning was to place it beyond a doubt
whether the victories of Gustavus at Leipzic and on the Lech were
owing to his own military genius, or to the incompetency of his
opponent; whether the services of Wallenstein were to vindicate the
Emperor's choice and justify the high price at which they had been
purchased. The victory was as yet doubtful, but certain were the labor
and the bloodshed by which it must be earned. Every private in both
armies felt a jealous share in their leader's reputation, and under
every corslet beat the same emotions that inflamed the bosoms of the
generals. Each army knew the enemy to which it was to be opposed: and
the anxiety which each in vain attempted to repress was a convincing
proof of their opponent's strength.

At last the fateful morning dawned; but an impenetrable fog, which
spread over the plain, delayed the attack till noon. Kneeling in front
of his lines, the king offered up his devotions; and the whole army,
at the same moment dropping on their knees, burst into a moving hymn,
accompanied by the military music. The king then mounted his horse,
and clad only in a leathern doublet and surtout (for a wound he had
formerly received prevented his wearing armor), rode along the ranks
to animate the courage of his troops with a joyful confidence, which,
however, the foreboding presentiment of his own bosom contradicted.
"God with us!" was the war-cry of the Swedes; "Jesus Maria!" that of
the Imperialists. About eleven the fog began to disperse, and the
enemy became visible. At the same moment Luetzen was seen in flames,
having been set on fire by command of the duke to prevent his being
outflanked on that side. The charge was now sounded; the cavalry
rushed upon the enemy, and the infantry advanced against the trenches.

Received by a tremendous fire of musketry and heavy artillery, these
intrepid battalions maintained the attack with undaunted courage, till
the enemy's musketeers abandoned their posts, the trenches were
passed, the battery carried and turned against the enemy. They pressed
forward with irresistible impetuosity; the first of the five imperial
brigades was immediately routed, the second soon after, and the third
put to flight. But here the genius of Wallenstein opposed itself to
their progress. With the rapidity of lightning he was on the spot to
rally his discomfited troops; and his powerful word was itself
sufficient to stop the flight of the fugitives. Supported by three
regiments of cavalry, the vanquished brigades, forming anew, faced the
enemy and pressed vigorously into the broken ranks of the Swedes. A
murderous conflict ensued. The nearness of the enemy left no room for
fire-arms, the fury of the attack no time for loading; man was matched
to man, the useless musket exchanged for the sword and pike, and
science gave way to desperation. Overpowered by numbers, the wearied
Swedes at last retire beyond the trenches; and the captured battery is
again lost by the retreat. A thousand mangled bodies already strewed
the plain, and as yet not a single step of ground had been won. In the
meantime the king's right wing, led by himself, had fallen upon the
enemy's left. The first impetuous shock of the heavy Finland
cuirassiers dispersed the lightly-mounted Poles and Croats, who were
posted here, and their disorderly flight spread terror and confusion
among the rest of the cavalry. At this moment notice was brought the
king that his infantry were retreating over the trenches, and also
that his left wing, exposed to a severe fire from the enemy's cannon
posted at the windmills, was beginning to give way. With rapid
decision he committed to General Horn the pursuit of the enemy's left,
while he flew, at the head of the regiment of Steinboek, to repair
the disorder of his right wing. His noble charger bore him with the
velocity of lightning across the trenches, but the squadrons that
followed could not come on with the same speed, and only a few
horsemen, among whom was Francis Albert, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg, were
able to keep up with the king. He rode directly to the place where his
infantry were most closely pressed, and while he was reconnoitering
the enemy's line for an exposed point of attack, the shortness of his
sight unfortunately led him too close to their ranks. An imperial
Gefreyter,[62] remarking that every one respectfully made way for him
as he rode along, immediately ordered a musketeer to take aim at him.
"Fire at him yonder," said he; "that must be a man of consequence."
The soldier fired, and the king's left arm was shattered. At that
moment his squadron came hurrying up, and a confused cry of "The king
bleeds! the king is shot!" spread terror and consternation through all
the ranks. "It is nothing--follow me," cried the king, collecting his
whole strength; but overcome by pain and nearly fainting, he requested
the Duke of Lauenburg, in French, to lead him unobserved out of the
tumult. While the duke proceeded toward the right wing with the king,
making a long circuit to keep this discouraging sight from the
disordered infantry, his majesty received a second shot through the
back, which deprived him of his remaining strength. "Brother," said
he, with a dying voice, "I have enough! look only to your own life."
At the same moment he fell from his horse pierced by several more
shots; and abandoned by all his attendants, he breathed his last
amidst the plundering hands of the Croats. His charger, flying without
its rider and covered with blood, soon made known to the Swedish
cavalry the fall of their king. They rushed madly forward to rescue
his sacred remains from the hands of the enemy. A murderous conflict
ensued over the body, till his mangled remains were buried beneath a
heap of slain.

The mournful tidings soon ran through the Swedish army; but instead
of destroying the courage of these brave troops, it but excited it
into a new, a wild, and consuming flame. Life had lessened in value,
now that the most sacred life of all was gone; death had no terrors
for the lowly since the anointed head was not spared. With the fury of
lions the Upland, Smaeland, Finland, East and West Gothland regiments
rushed a second time upon the left wing of the enemy, which, already
making but feeble resistance to General Horn, was now entirely beaten
from the field. Bernard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, gave to the bereaved
Swedes a noble leader in his own person; and the spirit of Gustavus
led his victorious squadrons anew. The left wing quickly formed again
and vigorously pressed the right of the Imperialists. The artillery at
the windmills, which had maintained so murderous a fire upon the
Swedes, was captured and turned against the enemy. The centre, also,
of the Swedish infantry, commanded by the duke and Knyphausen,
advanced a second time against the trenches, which they successfully
passed, and retook the battery of seven cannons. The attack was now
renewed with redoubled fury upon the heavy battalions of the enemy's
centre; their resistance became gradually less, and chance conspired
with Swedish valor to complete the defeat. The imperial powder-wagons
took fire, and, with a tremendous explosion, grenades and bombs filled
the air. The enemy, now in confusion, thought they were attacked in
the rear, while the Swedish brigades pressed them in front. Their
courage began to fail them. Their left wing was already beaten, their
right wavering, and their artillery in the enemy's hands. The battle
seemed to be almost decided; another moment would settle the fate of
the day, when Pappenheim appeared on the field, with his cuirassiers
and dragoons; all the advantages already gained were lost, and the
battle was to be fought anew.

The order which recalled that general to Luetzen had reached him in
Halle, while his troops were still plundering the town. It was
impossible to collect the scattered infantry with that rapidity which
the urgency of the order and Pappenheim's impatience required. Without
waiting for it, therefore, he ordered eight regiments of cavalry to
mount; and at their head he galloped at full speed for Luetzen, to
share in the battle. He arrived in time to witness the flight of the
imperial right wing, which Gustavus Horn was driving from the field,
and to be at first involved in their rout. But with rapid presence of
mind he rallied the flying troops, and led them once more against the
enemy. Carried away by his wild bravery, and impatient to encounter
the king who he supposed was at the head of this wing, he burst
furiously upon the Swedish ranks, which, exhausted by victory, and
inferior in numbers, were, after a noble resistance, overpowered by
this fresh body of enemies. Pappenheim's unexpected appearance revived
the drooping courage of the Imperialists, and the Duke of Friedland
quickly availed himself of the favorable moment to re-form his line.
The closely serried battalions of the Swedes were, after a tremendous
conflict, again driven across the trenches; and the battery, which had
been twice lost, was again rescued from their hands. The whole yellow
regiment, the finest of all that distinguished themselves in this
dreadful day, lay dead on the field, covering the ground almost in the
same excellent order which, when alive, they maintained with such
unyielding courage. The same fate befell another regiment of Blues,
which Count Piccolomini attacked with the imperial cavalry and cut
down after a desperate contest. Seven times did this intrepid general
renew the attack; seven horses were shot under him, and he himself was
pierced with six musket balls; yet he would not leave the field, until
he was carried along in the general rout of the whole army.
Wallenstein himself was seen riding through his ranks with cool
intrepidity, amidst a shower of balls, assisting the distressed,
encouraging the valiant with praise, and the wavering by his fearful
glance. Around and close by him his men were falling thick, and his
own mantle was perforated by several shots. But avenging destiny this
day protected that breast for which another weapon was reserved; on
the same field where the noble Gustavus expired, Wallenstein was not
allowed to terminate his guilty career.

Less fortunate was Pappenheim, the Telamon of the army, the bravest
soldier of Austria and the church. An ardent desire to encounter the
king in person carried this daring leader into the thickest of the
fight, where he thought his noble opponent was most surely to be met.
Gustavus had also expressed a wish to meet his brave antagonist, but
these hostile wishes remained ungratified; death first brought
together these two great heroes. Two musket-balls pierced the breast
of Pappenheim; and his men forcibly carried him from the field. While
they were conveying him to the rear, a murmur reached him that he whom
he had sought lay dead upon the plain. When the truth of the report
was confirmed to him, his look became brighter, his dying eye sparkled
with a last gleam of joy. "I Tell the Duke of Friedland," said he,
"that I lie without hope of life, but that I die happy, since I know
that the implacable enemy of my religion has fallen on the same day."

With Pappenheim, the good fortune of the Imperialists departed. The
cavalry of the left wing, already beaten, and only rallied by his
exertions, no sooner missed their victorious leader than they gave up
everything for lost and abandoned the field of battle in spiritless
despair. The right wing fell into the same confusion, with the
exception of a few regiments which the bravery of their colonels Goetz,
Terzky, Colloredo, and Piccolomini compelled to keep their ground. The
Swedish infantry, with prompt determination, profited by the enemy's
confusion. To fill up the gaps which death had made in the front line,
they formed both lines into one, and with it made the final and
decisive charge. A third time they crossed the trenches, and a third
time they captured the battery. The sun was setting when the two lines
closed. The strife grew hotter as it drew to an end; the last efforts
of strength were mutually exerted, and skill and courage did their
utmost to repair in these precious moments the fortune of the day. It
was in vain; despair endows every one with superhuman strength; no one
can conquer, no one will give way. The art of war seemed to exhaust
its powers on one side, only to unfold some new and untried
masterpiece of skill on the other. Night and darkness at last put at
end to the fight, before the fury of the combatants was exhausted; and
the contest ceased only when no one could any longer find an
antagonist. Both armies separated, as if by tacit agreement; the
trumpets sounded, and each party claiming the victory, quitted the
field.

The artillery on both sides, as the horses could not be found,
remained all night upon the field, at once the reward and the evidence
of victory to him who should hold it. Wallenstein, in his haste to
leave Leipzic and Saxony, forgot to remove his part. Not long after
the battle was ended, Pappenheim's infantry, who had been unable to
follow the rapid movements of their general and who amounted to six
regiments, marched on the field, but the work was done. A few hours
earlier, so considerable a reinforcement would perhaps have decided
the day in favor of the Imperialists; and, even now, by remaining on
the field, they might have saved the duke's artillery and made a prize
of that of the Swedes. But they had received no orders to act; and,
uncertain as to the issue of the battle, they retired to Leipzic,
where they hoped to join the main body.

The Duke of Friedland had retreated thither, and was followed on the
morrow by the scattered remains of his army, without artillery,
without colors, and almost without arms. The Duke of Weimar, it
appears, after the toils of this bloody day, allowed the Swedish army


 


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