[Sidenote: § 1. Battle of Breitenfeld.]
On the morning of September 17 Swede and Saxon were drawn up opposite
Tilly's army, close to the village of Breitenfeld, some five miles
distant from Leipzig. Gustavus had need of all his skill. Before long
the mocking Saxons were flying in headlong rout. The victors, unlike
Rupert at Marston Moor, checked themselves to take the Swedes in the
flanks. Then Gustavus coolly drew back two brigades and presented a
second front to the enemy. Outnumbered though he was, the result was
never for a moment doubtful. Cannon shot and musket ball tore asunder
the dense ranks of the imperialist army. Tilly's own guns were wrenched
from him and turned upon his infantry. The unwieldy host staggered
before the deft blows of a more active antagonist. Leaving six thousand
of their number dying or dead upon the field, Tilly's veterans,
gathering round their aged leader, retreated slowly from their first
defeat, extorting the admiration of their opponents by their steadiness
and intrepidity.
[Sidenote: § 2. Political importance of the victory.]
The victory of Breitenfeld, or Leipzig--the battle bears both names--was
no common victory. It was the grave of the Edict of Restitution, and of
an effort to establish a sectarian domination in the guise of national
unity. The bow, stretched beyond endurance, had broken at last. Since
the battle on the White Hill, the Emperor, the Imperial Council, the
Imperial Diet, had declared themselves the only accredited organs of the
national life. Then had come a coolness between the Emperor and the
leaders of the Diet. A good understanding had been re-established by the
dismissal of Wallenstein. But neither Emperor nor Diet had seen fit to
take account of the feelings or wants of more than half the nation.
They, and they alone, represented legal authority. The falsehood had now
been dashed to the ground by Gustavus. Breitenfeld was the Naseby of
Germany.
[Sidenote: § 3. Victory of intelligence over routine.]
Like Naseby, too, Breitenfeld had in it something of more universal
import. Naseby was the victory of disciplined intelligence over
disorderly bravery. Breitenfeld was the victory of disciplined
intelligence over the stiff routine of the Spanish tactics. Those
tactics were, after all, but the military expression of the religious
and political system in defence of which they were used. Those solid
columns just defeated were the types of what human nature was to become
under the Jesuit organization. The individual was swallowed up in the
mass. As Tilly had borne down by the sheer weight of his veterans
adventurers like Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick, so the renewed
Catholic discipline had borne down the wrangling theologians who had
stepped into the places of Luther and Melanchthon. But now an army had
arisen to prove that order and obedience were weak unless they were
supported by individual intelligence. The success of the principle upon
which its operations were based could not be confined to mere fighting.
It would make its way in morals and politics, in literature and science.
[Sidenote: § 4. Wallenstein's intrigues with Gustavus.]
Great was the joy in Protestant Germany when the news was told. The
cities of the south prepared once more to resist their oppressors. All
that was noblest in France hailed the tidings with acclamation. English
Eliot, writing from his prison in the Tower, could speak of Gustavus as
that person whom fortune and virtue had reserved for the wonder of the
world! Even Wallenstein, from his Bohemian retreat, uttered a cry of
satisfaction. For Wallenstein was already in communication with
Gustavus, who, Protestant as he was, was avenging him upon the League
which had assailed him and the Emperor who had abandoned him. He had
offered to do great things, if he could be trusted with a Swedish force
of 12,000 men. He was well pleased to hear of Tilly's defeat. "If such a
thing had happened to me," he said to an emissary of Gustavus, "I would
kill myself. But it is a good thing for us." If only the King of Sweden
would trust him with men, he would soon bring together the officers of
his old army. He would divide the goods of the Jesuits and their
followers amongst the soldiers. The greatest folly the Bohemians had
committed, he said, had been to throw Martinitz and Slawata out of
window instead of thrusting a sword through their bodies. If his plan
were accepted he would chase the Emperor and the House of Austria over
the Alps. But he hoped Gustavus would not allow himself to be entangled
too far in the French alliances.
[Sidenote: § 5. His designs.]
Wallenstein's whole character was expressed in these proposals, whether
they were meant seriously or not. Cut off from German ideas by his
Bohemian birth, he had no roots in Germany. The reverence which others
felt for religious or political institutions had no echo in his mind. As
he had been ready to overthrow princes and electors in the Emperor's
name, so he was now ready to overthrow the Emperor in the name of the
King of Sweden. Yet there was withal a greatness about him which raised
him above such mere adventurers as Mansfeld. At the head of soldiers as
uprooted as himself from all ties of home or nationality, he alone,
amongst the leaders of the war, had embraced the two ideas which, if
they had been welcomed by the statesmen of the Empire, would have saved
Germany from intolerable evil. He wished for union and strength against
foreign invasion, and he wished to found that union upon religious
liberty. He would have kept out Gustavus if he could. But if that could
not be done, he would join Gustavus in keeping out the French.
[Sidenote: § 6. Impossibility of an understanding between Wallenstein
and Gustavus.]
Yet between Wallenstein and Gustavus it was impossible that there should
be anything really in common. Wallenstein was large-minded because he
was far removed from the ordinary prejudices of men. He was no more
affected by their habits and thoughts than the course of a balloon is
affected by the precipices and rivers below. Gustavus trod firmly upon
his mother earth. His Swedish country, his Lutheran religion, his
opposition to the House of Austria, were all very real to him. His
greatness was the greatness which rules the world, the greatness of a
man who, sharing the thoughts and feelings of men, rises above them just
far enough to direct them, not too far to carry their sympathies with
him.
[Sidenote: § 7. Political plans of Gustavus.]
Such a man was not likely to be content with mere military success. The
vision of a soldier sovereignty to be shared with Wallenstein had no
charms for him. If the Empire had fallen, it must be replaced not by an
army but by fresh institutions; and those institutions, if they were to
endure at all, must be based as far as possible on institutions already
existing. Protestant Germany must be freed from oppression. It must be
organized apart sufficiently for its own defence. Such an organization,
the _Corpus Evangelicorum_, as he called it, like the North German
Confederation of 1866, might or might not spread into a greater Germany
of the future. It would need the support of Sweden and of France. It
would not, indeed, satisfy Wallenstein's military ambition, or the more
legitimate national longings of German patriots. But it had the
advantage of being attainable if anything was attainable. It would form
a certain bulwark against the aggression of the Catholic states without
necessitating any violent change in the existing territorial
institutions.
[Sidenote: § 8. His military schemes.]
If these were the views of Gustavus--and though he never formally
announced them to the world his whole subsequent conduct gives reason to
believe that he had already entertained them--it becomes not so very
hard to understand why he decided upon marching upon the Rhine, and
despatching the Elector of Saxony to rouse Bohemia. It is true that
Oxenstjerna, the prudent Chancellor of Sweden, wise after the event,
used to declare that his master had made a mistake, and later military
historians, fancying that Vienna was in the days of Gustavus what it was
in the days of Napoleon, have held that a march upon Ferdinand's capital
would have been as decisive as a march upon the same capital in 1805 or
1809. But the opinion of Gustavus is at least as good as that of
Oxenstjerna, and it is certain that in 1631 Vienna was not, in the
modern sense of the word, a capital city. If we are to seek for a
parallel at all, it was rather like Madrid in the Peninsular War. The
King had resided at Madrid. The Emperor had resided at Vienna. But
neither Madrid in 1808 nor Vienna in 1631 formed the centre of force. No
administrative threads controlling the military system stretched out
from either. In the nineteenth century Napoleon or Wellington might be
in possession of Madrid and have no real hold of Spain. In the
seventeenth century, Ferdinand and Gustavus might be in possession of
Vienna and have no real hold on Austria or Bohemia. Where an army was,
there was power; and there would be an army wherever Wallenstein, or
some imitator of Wallenstein, might choose to beat his drums. If
Gustavus had penetrated to Vienna, there was nothing to prevent a fresh
army springing up in his rear.
[Sidenote: § 9. Necessity of finding a basis for his operations.]
The real danger to be coped with was the military system which
Wallenstein had carried to perfection. And, in turning to the Rhine,
Gustavus showed his resolution not to imitate Wallenstein's example. His
army was to be anchored firmly to the enthusiasm of the Protestant
populations. There lay the Palatinate, to be freed from the oppressor.
There lay the commercial cities Augsburg, Nüremberg, Ulm, and
Strassburg, ready to welcome enthusiastically the liberator who had set
his foot upon the Edict of Restitution; and if in Bohemia too there were
Protestants to set free, they were not Protestants on whom much
dependence could be placed. If past experience was to be trusted, the
chances of organizing resistance would be greater amongst Germans on the
Rhine than amongst Slavonians on the Moldau.
[Sidenote: § 10. He resolves to march to the south-west.]
For purposes of offence, too, there was much to induce Gustavus to
prefer the westward march. Thither Tilly had retreated with only the
semblance of an army still in the field. There, too, were the long
string of ecclesiastical territories, the Priest's Lane, as men called
it, Würzburg, Bamberg, Fulda, Cologne, Treves, Mentz, Worms, Spires, the
richest district in Germany, which had furnished men and money to the
armies of the League, and which were now to furnish at least money to
Gustavus. There Spain, with its garrisons on the left bank of the Rhine,
was to be driven back, and France to be conciliated, whilst the
foundations were laid of a policy which would provide for order in
Protestant Germany, so as to enable Gustavus to fulfil in a new and
better spirit the work left undone by Christian of Anhalt. Was it
strange if the Swedish king thought that such work as this would be
better in his own hands than in those of John George of Saxony?