[Sidenote: § 1. March of Gustavus upon the Rhine.]
The march of the victorious army was a triumphal progress. On October 2,
Gustavus was at Erfurt. On the 10th he entered Würzburg: eight days
later, the castle on its height beyond the Main was stormed after a
fierce defence. Through all the north the priests were expelled from the
districts which had been assigned them by the Edict of Restitution.
Gustavus was bent upon carrying on reprisals upon them in their own
homes. On December 16, Oppenheim was stormed and its Spanish garrison
put to the sword. The Priest's Lane was defenceless. Gustavus kept his
Christmas at Mentz. His men, fresh from the rough fare and hard quarters
of the north, revelled in the luxuries of the southern land, and drank
deep draughts of Rhenish wine from their helmets.
[Sidenote: § 2. Gustavus at Mentz.]
There is always a difficulty in conjecturing the intentions of Gustavus.
He did not, like Ferdinand, form plans which were never to be changed.
He did not, like Wallenstein, form plans which he was ready to give up
at a moment's notice for others entirely different. The essence of his
policy was doubtless the formation, under his own leadership, of the
_Corpus Evangelicorum_. What was to be done with the ecclesiastical
territories which broke up the territorial continuity of South German
Protestantism he had, perhaps, not definitely decided. But everything
points to the conclusion that he wished to deal with them as Wallenstein
would have dealt with them, to parcel them out amongst his officers and
amongst the German princes who had followed his banner. In doing so, he
would have given every security to the Catholic population. Gustavus, at
least in Germany, meddled with no man's religion. In Sweden it was
otherwise. There, according to the popular saying, there was one king,
one religion, and one physician.
[Sidenote: § 3. The French startled at his victories.]
He placed the conquered territories in sure hands. Mentz itself was
committed to the Chancellor Oxenstjerna. French ambassadors remonstrated
with him roundly. Richelieu had hoped that, if the House of Austria were
humbled, the German ecclesiastics would have been left to enjoy their
dignities. The sudden uprising of a new power in Europe had taken the
French politicians as completely by surprise as the Prussian victories
took their successors by surprise in 1866. "It is high time," said
Lewis, "to place a limit to the progress of this Goth." Gustavus, unable
to refuse the French demands directly, laid down conditions of peace
with the League which made negotiation hopeless. But the doubtful
attitude of France made it all the more necessary that he should place
himself in even a stronger position than he was in already.
[Sidenote: § 4. Campaign in South Germany.]
On March 31 he entered Nüremberg. As he rode through the streets he was
greeted with heartfelt acclamations. Tears of joy streamed down the
cheeks of bearded men as they welcomed the deliverer from the north,
whose ready jest and beaming smile would have gone straight to the
popular heart even if his deserts had been less. The picture of Gustavus
was soon in every house, and a learned citizen set to work at once to
compose a pedigree by which he proved to his own satisfaction that the
Swedish king was descended from the old hereditary Burggraves of the
town. In all that dreary war, Gustavus was the one man who had reached
the heart of the nation, who had shown a capacity for giving them that
for which they looked to their Emperor and their princes, their clergy
and their soldiers, in vain.
[Sidenote: § 5. Gustavus at Donauwörth.]
Gustavus did not tarry long with his enthusiastic hosts. On April 5 he
was before Donauwörth. After a stout resistance the imperialists were
driven out. Once more a Protestant Easter was kept within the walls, and
the ancient wrong was redressed.
[Sidenote: § 6. The passage of the Lech and the death of Tilly.]
On the 14th the Swedes found the passage of the Lech guarded by Tilly.
Every advantage appeared to be on the side of the defenders. But
Gustavus knew how to sweep their positions with a terrible fire of
artillery, and to cross the river in the very teeth of the enemy. In the
course of the battle Tilly was struck down, wounded by a cannon shot
above the knee. His friends mournfully carried him away to Ingolstadt to
die. His life's work was at an end. If simplicity of character and
readiness to sacrifice his own personal interests be a title to esteem,
that esteem is but Tilly's due. To the higher capacity of a statesman he
laid no claim. Nor has he any place amongst the masters of the art of
war. He was an excellent officer, knowing no other rule than the orders
of constituted authorities, no virtue higher than obedience. The order
which he reverenced was an impossible one, and there was nothing left
him but to die for it.
[Sidenote: § 7. Gustavus at Augsburg and Munich.]
The conqueror pushed on. In Augsburg he found a city which had suffered
much from the Commissions of Resumption which had, in the south,
preceded the Edict of Restitution. The Lutheran clergy had been driven
from their pulpits; the Lutheran councillors had been expelled from the
town hall. In the midst of the jubilant throng Gustavus felt himself
more strongly seated in the saddle. Hitherto he had asked the
magistrates of the recovered cities to swear fidelity to him as long as
the war lasted. At Augsburg he demanded the oath of obedience as from
subjects to a sovereign. Gustavus was beginning to fancy that he could
do without France.
Then came the turn of Bavaria. As Gustavus rode into Munich, Frederick,
the exiled Elector Palatine, was by his side, triumphing over the flight
of his old enemy. It was not the fault of Gustavus if Frederick was not
again ruling at Heidelberg. Gustavus had offered him his ancestral
territories on the condition that he would allow Swedish garrisons to
occupy his fortresses during the war, and would give equal liberty to
the Lutheran and the Calvinist forms of worship. Against this latter
demand Frederick's narrow-hearted Calvinism steeled itself, and when,
not many months later, he was carried off by a fever at Bacharach, he
was still, through his own fault, a homeless wanderer on the face of the
earth.
[Sidenote: § 8. Gustavus at Munich.]
At Munich Gustavus demanded a high contribution. Discovering that
Maximilian had buried a large number of guns in the arsenal, he had them
dug up again by the Bavarian peasants, who were glad enough to earn the
money with which the foreign invader paid them for their labours. When
this process was over--waking up the dead, he merrily called it--he
prepared to leave the city with his booty. During his stay he had kept
good discipline, and took especial care to prohibit any insult to the
religion of the inhabitants. If, as may well have been the case, he was
looking beyond the _Corpus Evangelicorum_ to the Empire itself, if he
thought it possible that the golden crown of Ferdinand might rest next
upon a Lutheran head, he was resolved that religious liberty, not narrow
orthodoxy, should be the corner-stone on which that Empire should be
built.
[Sidenote: § 9. Strong position of Gustavus.]
All Germany, except the hereditary dominions of the House of Austria,
was at his feet. And he knew well that, as far as those dominions were
concerned, there was no strength to resist him. Ferdinand had done
enough to repress the manifestation of feeling, nothing to organize it.
He would have been even more helpless to resist a serious attack than he
had been in 1619, and this time Bavaria was as helpless as himself. Even
John George, who had fled hastily from the field of Breitenfeld, marched
through Bohemia without finding the slightest resistance. His army
entered Prague amidst almost universal enthusiasm.