Neumark, where Wallenstein made a general review. At the sight of this
formidable force, he could not refrain from indulging in a childish
boast: "In four days," said he, "it will be shown whether I or the King
of Sweden is to be master of the world." Yet, notwithstanding his
superiority, he did nothing to fulfil his promise; and even let slip the
opportunity of crushing his enemy, when the latter had the hardihood to
leave his lines to meet him. "Battles enough have been fought," was his
answer to those who advised him to attack the King, "it is now time to
try another method." Wallenstein's well-founded reputation required not
any of those rash enterprises on which younger soldiers rush, in the
hope of gaining a name. Satisfied that the enemy's despair would dearly
sell a victory, while a defeat would irretrievably ruin the Emperor's
affairs, he resolved to wear out the ardour of his opponent by a tedious
blockade, and by thus depriving him of every opportunity of availing
himself of his impetuous bravery, take from him the very advantage which
had hitherto rendered him invincible. Without making any attack,
therefore, he erected a strong fortified camp on the other side of the
Pegnitz, and opposite Nuremberg; and, by this well chosen position, cut
off from the city and the camp of Gustavus all supplies from Franconia,
Swabia, and Thuringia. Thus he held in siege at once the city and the
King, and flattered himself with the hope of slowly, but surely, wearing
out by famine and pestilence the courage of his opponent whom he had no
wish to encounter in the field.
Little aware, however, of the resources and the strength of his
adversary, Wallenstein had not taken sufficient precautions to avert
from himself the fate he was designing for others. From the whole of
the neighbouring country, the peasantry had fled with their property;
and what little provision remained, must be obstinately contested with
the Swedes. The King spared the magazines within the town, as long as
it was possible to provision his army from without; and these forays
produced constant skirmishes between the Croats and the Swedish cavalry,
of which the surrounding country exhibited the most melancholy traces.
The necessaries of life must be obtained sword in hand; and the foraging
parties could not venture out without a numerous escort. And when this
supply failed, the town opened its magazines to the King, but
Wallenstein had to support his troops from a distance. A large convoy
from Bavaria was on its way to him, with an escort of a thousand men.
Gustavus Adolphus having received intelligence of its approach,
immediately sent out a regiment of cavalry to intercept it; and the
darkness of the night favoured the enterprise. The whole convoy, with
the town in which it was, fell into the hands of the Swedes; the
Imperial escort was cut to pieces; about 1,200 cattle carried off; and a
thousand waggons, loaded with bread, which could not be brought away,
were set on fire. Seven regiments, which Wallenstein had sent forward
to Altdorp to cover the entrance of the long and anxiously expected
convoy, were attacked by the King, who had, in like manner, advanced to
cover the retreat of his cavalry, and routed after an obstinate action,
being driven back into the Imperial camp, with the loss of 400 men. So
many checks and difficulties, and so firm and unexpected a resistance on
the part of the King, made the Duke of Friedland repent that he had
declined to hazard a battle. The strength of the Swedish camp rendered
an attack impracticable; and the armed youth of Nuremberg served the
King as a nursery from which he could supply his loss of troops. The
want of provisions, which began to be felt in the Imperial camp as
strongly as in the Swedish, rendered it uncertain which party would be
first compelled to give way.
Fifteen days had the two armies now remained in view of each other,
equally defended by inaccessible entrenchments, without attempting
anything more than slight attacks and unimportant skirmishes. On both
sides, infectious diseases, the natural consequence of bad food, and a
crowded population, had occasioned a greater loss than the sword. And
this evil daily increased. But at length, the long expected succours
arrived in the Swedish camp; and by this strong reinforcement, the King
was now enabled to obey the dictates of his native courage, and to break
the chains which had hitherto fettered him.
In obedience to his requisitions, the Duke of Weimar had hastily drawn
together a corps from the garrisons in Lower Saxony and Thuringia,
which, at Schweinfurt in Franconia, was joined by four Saxon regiments,
and at Kitzingen by the corps of the Rhine, which the Landgrave of
Hesse, and the Palatine of Birkenfeld, despatched to the relief of the
King. The Chancellor, Oxenstiern, undertook to lead this force to its
destination. After being joined at Windsheim by the Duke of Weimar
himself, and the Swedish General Banner, he advanced by rapid marches to
Bruck and Eltersdorf, where he passed the Rednitz, and reached the
Swedish camp in safety. This reinforcement amounted to nearly 50,000
men, and was attended by a train of 60 pieces of cannon, and 4,000
baggage waggons. Gustavus now saw himself at the head of an army of
nearly 70,000 strong, without reckoning the militia of Nuremberg, which,
in case of necessity, could bring into the field about 30,000 fighting
men; a formidable force, opposed to another not less formidable. The
war seemed at length compressed to the point of a single battle, which
was to decide its fearful issue. With divided sympathies, Europe looked
with anxiety to this scene, where the whole strength of the two
contending parties was fearfully drawn, as it were, to a focus.
If, before the arrival of the Swedish succours, a want of provisions had
been felt, the evil was now fearfully increased to a dreadful height in
both camps, for Wallenstein had also received reinforcements from
Bavaria. Besides the 120,000 men confronted to each other, and more
than 50,000 horses, in the two armies, and besides the inhabitants of
Nuremberg, whose number far exceeded the Swedish army, there were in the
camp of Wallenstein about 15,000 women, with as many drivers, and nearly
the same number in that of the Swedes. The custom of the time permitted
the soldier to carry his family with him to the field. A number of
prostitutes followed the Imperialists; while, with the view of
preventing such excesses, Gustavus's care for the morals of his soldiers
promoted marriages. For the rising generation, who had this camp for
their home and country, regular military schools were established, which
educated a race of excellent warriors, by which means the army might in
a manner recruit itself in the course of a long campaign. No wonder,
then, if these wandering nations exhausted every territory in which they
encamped, and by their immense consumption raised the necessaries of
life to an exorbitant price. All the mills of Nuremberg were
insufficient to grind the corn required for each day; and 15,000 pounds
of bread, which were daily delivered, by the town into the Swedish camp,
excited, without allaying, the hunger of the soldiers. The laudable
exertions of the magistrates of Nuremberg could not prevent the greater
part of the horses from dying for want of forage, while the increasing
mortality in the camp consigned more than a hundred men daily to the
grave.
To put an end to these distresses, Gustavus Adolphus, relying on his
numerical superiority, left his lines on the 25th day, forming before
the enemy in order of battle, while he cannonaded the duke's camp from
three batteries erected on the side of the Rednitz. But the duke
remained immoveable in his entrenchments, and contented himself with
answering this challenge by a distant fire of cannon and musketry. His
plan was to wear out the king by his inactivity, and by the force of
famine to overcome his resolute determination; and neither the
remonstrances of Maximilian, and the impatience of his army, nor the
ridicule of his opponent, could shake his purpose. Gustavus, deceived
in his hope of forcing a battle, and compelled by his increasing
necessities, now attempted impossibilities, and resolved to storm a
position which art and nature had combined to render impregnable.
Intrusting his own camp to the militia of Nuremberg, on the fifty-eighth
day of his encampment, (the festival of St. Bartholomew,) he advanced
in full order of battle, and passing the Rednitz at Furth, easily drove
the enemy's outposts before him. The main army of the Imperialists was
posted on the steep heights between the Biber and the Rednitz, called
the Old Fortress and Altenberg; while the camp itself, commanded by
these eminences, spread out immeasurably along the plain. On these
heights, the whole of the artillery was placed. Deep trenches
surrounded inaccessible redoubts, while thick barricadoes, with pointed
palisades, defended the approaches to the heights, from the summits of
which, Wallenstein calmly and securely discharged the lightnings of his
artillery from amid the dark thunder-clouds of smoke. A destructive
fire of musketry was maintained behind the breastworks, and a hundred
pieces of cannon threatened the desperate assailant with certain
destruction. Against this dangerous post Gustavus now directed his
attack; five hundred musketeers, supported by a few infantry, (for a
greater number could not act in the narrow space,) enjoyed the unenvied
privilege of first throwing themselves into the open jaws of death. The
assault was furious, the resistance obstinate. Exposed to the whole
fire of the enemy's artillery, and infuriate by the prospect of
inevitable death, these determined warriors rushed forward to storm the
heights; which, in an instant, converted into a flaming volcano,
discharged on them a shower of shot. At the same moment, the heavy
cavalry rushed forward into the openings which the artillery had made in
the close ranks of the assailants, and divided them; till the intrepid
band, conquered by the strength of nature and of man, took to flight,
leaving a hundred dead upon the field. To Germans had Gustavus yielded
this post of honour. Exasperated at their retreat, he now led on his
Finlanders to the attack, thinking, by their northern courage, to shame
the cowardice of the Germans. But they, also, after a similar hot
reception, yielded to the superiority of the enemy; and a third regiment
succeeded them to experience the same fate. This was replaced by a
fourth, a fifth, and a sixth; so that, during a ten hours' action, every
regiment was brought to the attack to retire with bloody loss from the
contest. A thousand mangled bodies covered the field; yet Gustavus
undauntedly maintained the attack, and Wallenstein held his position
unshaken.
In the mean time, a sharp contest had taken place between the imperial
cavalry and the left wing of the Swedes, which was posted in a thicket
on the Rednitz, with varying success, but with equal intrepidity and
loss on both sides. The Duke of Friedland and Prince Bernard of Weimar
had each a horse shot under them; the king himself had the sole of his
boot carried off by a cannon ball. The combat was maintained with
undiminished obstinacy, till the approach of night separated the
combatants. But the Swedes had advanced too far to retreat without
hazard. While the king was seeking an officer to convey to the
regiments the order to retreat, he met Colonel Hepburn, a brave
Scotchman, whose native courage alone had drawn him from the camp to
share in the dangers of the day. Offended with the king for having not
long before preferred a younger officer for some post of danger, he had
rashly vowed never again to draw his sword for the king. To him
Gustavus now addressed himself, praising his courage, and requesting him
to order the regiments to retreat. "Sire," replied the brave soldier,
"it is the only service I cannot refuse to your Majesty; for it is a
hazardous one,"--and immediately hastened to carry the command. One of
the heights above the old fortress had, in the heat of the action, been
carried by the Duke of Weimar. It commanded the hills and the whole
camp. But the heavy rain which fell during the night, rendered it
impossible to draw up the cannon; and this post, which had been gained
with so much bloodshed, was also voluntarily abandoned. Diffident of
fortune, which forsook him on this decisive day, the king did not
venture the following morning to renew the attack with his exhausted
troops; and vanquished for the first time, even because he was not
victor, he led back his troops over the Rednitz. Two thousand dead
which he left behind him on the field, testified to the extent of his
loss; and the Duke of Friedland remained unconquered within his lines.
For fourteen days after this action, the two armies still continued in
front of each other, each in the hope that the other would be the first
to give way. Every day reduced their provisions, and as scarcity became
greater, the excesses of the soldiers rendered furious, exercised the
wildest outrages on the peasantry. The increasing distress broke up all
discipline and order in the Swedish camp; and the German regiments, in
particular, distinguished themselves for the ravages they practised
indiscriminately on friend and foe. The weak hand of a single
individual could not check excesses, encouraged by the silence, if not
the actual example, of the inferior officers. These shameful breaches
of discipline, on the maintenance of which he had hitherto justly prided
himself, severely pained the king; and the vehemence with which he
reproached the German officers for their negligence, bespoke the
liveliness of his emotion. "It is you yourselves, Germans," said he,
"that rob your native country, and ruin your own confederates in the
faith. As God is my judge, I abhor you, I loathe you; my heart sinks
within me whenever I look upon you. Ye break my orders; ye are the
cause that the world curses me, that the tears of poverty follow me,
that complaints ring in my ear--'The king, our friend, does us more harm
than even our worst enemies.' On your account I have stripped my own
kingdom of its treasures, and spent upon you more than 40 tons of gold;
--[A ton of gold in Sweden amounts to 100,000 rix dollars.]--while from
your German empire I have not received the least aid. I gave you a
share of all that God had given to me; and had ye regarded my orders, I
would have gladly shared with you all my future acquisitions. Your want
of discipline convinces me of your evil intentions, whatever cause I
might otherwise have to applaud your bravery."
Nuremberg had exerted itself, almost beyond its power, to subsist for
eleven weeks the vast crowd which was compressed within its boundaries;
but its means were at length exhausted, and the king's more numerous
party was obliged to determine on a retreat. By the casualties of war
and sickness, Nuremberg had lost more than 10,000 of its inhabitants,
and Gustavus Adolphus nearly 20,000 of his soldiers. The fields around
the city were trampled down, the villages lay in ashes, the plundered
peasantry lay faint and dying on the highways; foul odours infected the
air, and bad food, the exhalations from so dense a population, and so
many putrifying carcasses, together with the heat of the dog-days,
produced a desolating pestilence which raged among men and beasts, and
long after the retreat of both armies, continued to load the country
with misery and distress. Affected by the general distress, and
despairing of conquering the steady determination of the Duke of
Friedland, the king broke up his camp on the 8th September, leaving in
Nuremberg a sufficient garrison. He advanced in full order of battle
before the enemy, who remained motionless, and did not attempt in the
least to harass his retreat. His route lay by the Aisch and Windsheim
towards Neustadt, where he halted five days to refresh his troops, and
also to be near to Nuremberg, in case the enemy should make an attempt
upon the town. But Wallenstein, as exhausted as himself, had only
awaited the retreat of the Swedes to commence his own. Five days
afterwards, he broke up his camp at Zirndorf, and set it on fire. A
hundred columns of smoke, rising from all the burning villages in the
neighbourhood, announced his retreat, and showed the city the fate it
had escaped. His march, which was directed on Forchheim, was marked by
the most frightful ravages; but he was too far advanced to be overtaken
by the king. The latter now divided his army, which the exhausted
country was unable to support, and leaving one division to protect
Franconia, with the other he prosecuted in person his conquests in
Bavaria.
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 towards 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 favourite
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 favourable for his designs. The Saxons had
invaded Silesia, where, reinforced by troops from Brandenburgh 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 an 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 towards 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 Leipzig, 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 farther reinforced by the troops of George, Duke
of Luneburg, 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, favoured the efforts of
Arnheim; who, maintaining a constant correspondence with Wallenstein,
laboured incessantly to effect a private treaty between his master and
the Emperor; and if his representations were long disregarded, still the
event proved that they were not altogether without effect.