[1] Enders, _Dr Martin Luther's Briefwechsel_, iii. 292-295; von
Bezold, _Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte_ xx. 186 sqq.; Barge,
_Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt_, i. 432 sqq.
LUTHERANS, the general title given to those Christians who have adopted
the principles of Martin Luther in his opposition to the Roman Church,
to the followers of Calvin, and to the sectaries of the times of the
Reformation. Their distinctive name is the _Evangelical_, as opposed to
the _Reformed_ church. Their dogmatic symbols are usually said to
include nine separate creeds which together form the _Book of Concord_
(_Liber Concordiae_). Three belong to the Early Christian church--the
_Apostles' Creed_, the _Nicene Creed_ (in its Western form, i.e. with
the _filioque_), and the so-called _Athanasian Creed_; six come from the
16th century--the _Augsburg Confession_, the _Apology for the Augsburg
Confession_, the _Schmalkald Articles_, Luther's two _Catechisms_, and
the _Form of Concord_. But only the three early creeds and the Augsburg
Confession are recognized by all Lutherans. Luther's Catechisms,
especially the shorter of the two, have been almost universally
accepted, but the Form of Concord was and is expressly rejected by many
Lutheran churches. The Augsburg Confession and Luther's Short Catechism
may therefore be said to contain the distinctive principles which all
Lutherans are bound to maintain, but, as the principal controversies of
the Lutheran church all arose after the publication of the Augsburg
Confession and among those who had accepted it, it does not contain all
that is distinctively Lutheran. Its universal acceptance is perhaps due
to the fact that it exists in two forms (the _variata_ and the
_invariata_) which vary slightly in the way in which they state the
doctrine of the sacrament of the Supper. The _variata_ edition was
signed by Calvin, in the meaning, he said, of its author Melanchthon.
After Luther's death the more rigid Lutherans declared it to be their
duty to preserve the _status religionis in Germania per Lutherum
instauratus_, and to watch over the _depositum Jesu Christi_ which he
had committed to their charge. As Luther was a much greater preacher
than a systematic thinker, it was not easy to say exactly what this
deposit was, and controversies resulted among the Lutheran theologians
of the 16th century. The Antinomian controversy was the earliest
(1537-1560). It arose from differences about the precise meaning of the
word "law" in Luther's distinction between law and gospel. Luther
limited the meaning of the word to mean a definite command accompanied
by threats, which counts on terror to produce obedience. He declared
that Christ was not under the dominion of the law in this sense of the
word, and that believers enter the Christian life only when they
transcend a rule of life which counts on selfish motives for obedience.
But law may mean ethical rule, and the Antinomians so understood it, and
interpreted Luther's declaration to mean that believers are not under
the dominion of the moral law. The controversy disturbed the Lutheran
church for more than twenty years.
The Arminian controversy in the Reformed church, the Jansenist
controversy in the Roman Catholic church, had their parallel in three
separate disputes among the Lutherans lasting from 1550 to 1580. (1)
George Major, discussing the relation of good works to conversion,
declared that such works were both useful and necessary to holiness. He
was attacked by Flacius and Amsdorf, and after a long controversy, full
of ambiguities and lacking in the exhibition of guiding principles, he
was condemned because his statement savoured of Pelagianism. (2) The
same problem took a new form in the Synergist controversy, which
discussed the first impulse in conversion. One party taught that while
the first impulse must come from the Holy Spirit the work might be
compared to reviving a man _apparently_ dead. It was answered that the
sinner was _really_ dead, and that the work of the Spirit was to give an
actually new life. The latter assertion was generally approved of. (3)
Then a fresh controversy was started by the assertion that sin was part
of the substance of man in his fallen condition. It was answered that
sin had not totally destroyed man's ethical nature, and that grace
changed what was morally insensitive into what was morally sensitive, so
that there could be a co-operation between God's grace and man's will.
The controversy raised by Andrew Osiander was more important. He felt
that Luther had omitted to make adequate answer to an important
practical question, how Christ's death on the cross could be brought
into such actual connexion with every individual believer as to be the
ground of his actual justification. The medieval church had spanned the
centuries by supposing that Christ's death was continuous down through
the age in the sacrifice of the Mass; Protestant theology had nothing
equivalent. He proposed to supply the lack by the theory that
justification is a real work done in the individual by the same Christ
who died so many centuries ago. Redemption, he said, was the result of
the historical work of Christ; but justification was the work of the
living risen Christ, dwelling within the believer and daily influencing
him. Osiander's theory did not win much support, but it was the
starting-point of two separate doctrines. In the Lutheran church,
Striegel taught that the principal effect of Christ's work on the cross
was to change the attitude of God towards the whole human race, and
that, in consequence, when men come into being and have faith, they can
take advantage of the change of attitude effected by the past historical
work of Christ. The Reformed church, on the other hand, constructed
their special doctrine of the limited reference in the atonement.
The other controversies concerned mainly the doctrine of the sacrament
of the Supper, and Luther's theory of Consubstantiation. This required a
doctrine of _Ubiquity_, or the omnipresence of the body of Christ
extended in space, and therefore of its presence in the communion
elements. Calvin had taught that the true way to regard substance was to
think of its power (_vis_), and that the presence of a substance was the
immediate application of its power. The presence of the body of Christ
in the sacramental elements did not need a presence extended in space.
Melanchthon and many Lutherans accepted the theory of Calvin, and
alleged that Luther before his death had approved of it. Whereupon the
more rigid Lutherans accused their brethren of Crypto-Calvinism, and
began controversies which dealt with that charge and with a defence of
the idea of ubiquity.
The university of Jena, led by Matthias Flacius, was the headquarters of
the stricter Lutherans, while Wittenberg and Leipzig were the centres of
the Philippists or followers of Melanchthon. Conferences only increased
the differences. The Lutheran church seemed in danger of falling to
pieces. This alarmed both parties. New conferences were held and various
articles of agreement were proposed, the most notable being the _Torgau
Book_ (1576). In the end, the greater proportion adopted the _Book of
Concord_ (1577), drafted chiefly by Jacob Andreae of Tübingen, Martin
Chemnitz of Brunswick and Nicolas Selnecker of Leipzig. Its recognition
was mainly due to the efforts of Augustus, elector of Saxony. This _Book
of Concord_ was accepted by the Lutheran churches of Sweden and of
Hungary in 1593 and 1597; but it was rejected by the Lutheran churches
of Denmark, of Hesse, of Anhalt, of Pomerania and of several of the
imperial cities. It was at first adopted and then rejected by Brunswick,
the Palatinate and Brandenburg. The churches within Germany which
refused the _Book of Concord_ became for the most part Calvinistic or
Reformed. They published, as was the fashion among the Reformed
churches, separate creeds for themselves, but almost all accepted the
_Heidelberg Catechism_. These differences in the German Protestant
churches of the second half of the 16th century are reflected in the
great American Lutheran church. The church exists in three separate
organizations. The General Synod of the Evangelical Church of the United
States, organized in 1820, has no other creed than the _Augsburg
Confession_, so liberally interpreted as not to exclude Calvinists. The
Synodical Conference of North America, organized in 1872, compels its
pastors to subscribe to the whole of the nine creeds contained in the
Book of Concord. The General Council, a secession from the General
Synod, was organized in 1867, and accepts the "unaltered" (_invariata_)
_Augsburg Confession_ in its original sense, and the other Lutheran
symbols as explanatory of the Augsburg Confession.
The divided state of German Protestantism, resulting from these
theological differences, contributed in no small degree to the disasters
of the Thirty Years' War, and various attempts were made to unite the
two confessions. Conferences were held at Leipzig (1631), Thorn (1645),
Cassel (1661); but without success. At length the union of the two
churches was effected by the force of the civil authorities in Prussia
(1817), in Nassau (1817), in Hesse (1823), in Anhalt-Dessau (1827) and
elsewhere. These unions for the most part aimed, not at incorporating
the two churches in doctrine and in worship, but at bringing churches or
congregations professing different confessions under one government and
discipline. They permitted each congregation to use at pleasure the
_Augsburg Confession_ or the _Heidelberg Catechism_. The enforced union
in Prussia was combined with the publication of a new liturgy intended
for common use. This led to secessions from the state church. These
seceders were at first treated with great harshness, but have won their
way to toleration, and form the Lutheran Free churches of Germany.
The most important of these latter is the Evangelical Lutheran church of
Prussia, sometimes called the Old Lutherans. It came into being in 1817
and gradually gained the position of a tolerated nonconformist church
(1845 being the date of its complete recognition by the state). At the
1905 census it numbered 51,600 members under 75 pastors. Its affairs are
managed by an _Oberkirchencollegium_, with four ordained and two lay
members. The Evangelical Lutheran Immanuel Synod came into being in
1864, and has a membership of 5300 with 13 ordained pastors. Its
headquarters is Liegnitz. The Independent Evangelical Lutheran church in
the lands of Hesse arose partly on account of the slumbering opposition
to the union of 1823 and more particularly in consequence of an attempt
made at a stricter union in 1874. It has a membership of about 1800. The
_renitente_ church of Lower Hesse has a membership of 2400. The
Evangelical Lutheran Free Church of Hanover has a membership of 3050
under 10 ordained pastors. The Hermannsburg Free Church has a membership
of about 2000 under 2 pastors. The Evangelical Lutheran Community in
Baden has a membership of about 1100 with 2 ordained pastors. The
Evangelical Lutheran Free Church of Saxony has a membership of about
3780 with 15 ordained pastors. These free churches exist separate from
the State Evangelical United Church (_Evangelische unirte Landskirche_).
The general system of ecclesiastical government which prevails among all
Lutheran churches is called the _consistorial_. It admits of great
variety of detail under certain common features of organization. It
arose partly from the makeshift policy of the times of the Reformation,
and partly from Luther's strong belief that the _jus episcopale_
belonged in the last resort to the civil authorities. It may be most
generally described by saying that the idea was taken from the
consistorial courts through which the medieval bishops managed the
affairs of their dioceses. Instead of the appointments to the membership
of the consistories being made by the bishops, they were made by the
supreme civil authority, whatever that might be. Richter, in his
_Evangelische Kirchenordnungen des 16ten Jahrhunderts_ (2 vols., 1846),
has collected more than one hundred and eight separate ecclesiastical
constitutions, and his collection is confessedly imperfect. The
publication of a complete collection by Emil Sehling was begun in 1902.
The liturgies of the Lutheran churches exhibit the same diversities in
details as appear in their constitutions. It may be said in general that
while Luther insisted that public worship ought to be conducted in a
language understood by the people, and that all ideas and actions which
were superstitious and obscured the primary truth of the priesthood of
all believers should be expurged, he wished to retain as much as
possible of the public service of the medieval church. The external
features of the medieval churches were retained; but the minor altars,
the _tabernacula_ to contain the Host, and the light permanently burning
before the altar, were done away with. The ecclesiastical year with its
fasts and festivals was retained in large measure. In 1526 Luther
published the _German Mass and order of Divine Service_, which, without
being slavishly copied, served as a model for Lutheran communities. It
retained the altar, vestments and lights, but explained that they were
not essential and might be dispensed with. The peril attending the
misuse of pictures in churches was recognized, but it was believed to be
more than counterbalanced by the instruction given through them when
their presence was not abused. In short Luther contented himself with
setting forth general principles of divine service, leaving them to be
applied as his followers thought best. The consequence was that there is
no uniform Lutheran liturgy. In his celebrated _Codex Liturgicus
Ecclesiae Lutheranae in epitomen redactus_ (Leipzig, 1848), Daniel has
used 98 different liturgies and given specimens to show the differences
which they exhibit.
The divergences in ritual and organization, the principle underlying all
the various ecclesiastical unions, viz. to combine two different
confessions under one common government, and, resulting from it, the
possibility of changing from one confession to another, have all
combined to free the state churches from any rigid interpretation of
their theological formulas. A liberal and a conservative theology
(rationalist and orthodox) exist side by side within the churches, and
while the latter clings to the theology of the 16th century, the former
ventures to raise doubts about the truth of such a common and simple
standard as the Apostles' Creed. The extreme divergence in doctrinal
position is fostered by the fact that the theology taught in the
universities is in a great measure divorced from the practical religious
life of the people, and the theological opinions uttered in the
theological literature of the country cannot be held to express the
thoughts of the members of the churches. In each state the sovereign is
still held to be the _summus episcopus_. He appoints a minister of
public worship, and through him nominates the members of the governing
body, the _Oberkirchenrath_ or _Consistorium_ or _Directorium_. This
council deals with the property, patronage and all other ecclesiastical
matters. But each parish elects its own council for parochial affairs,
which has a legal status and deals with such matters as the
ecclesiastical assessments. Delegates from these parish councils form
the _Landessynode_. In cases that call for consultation together, the
_Consistorium_ and the Synod appoint committees to confer. In
Alsace-Lorraine about half of those entitled to vote appear at the
polls; but in other districts of Germany very little interest is shown
in the elections to the parish councils.
The income of the state churches is derived from four sources. The state
makes an annual provision for the stipends of the clergy, for the
maintenance of fabrics and for other ecclesiastical needs. The
endowments for church purposes, of which there are many, and which are
destined to the support of foreign missions, clerical pensions, supply
of books to the clergy, &c. are administered by the supreme council. The
voluntary contributions of the people are all absorbed in the common
income of the national churches and are administered by the supreme
council. Each parish is legally entitled to levy ecclesiastical
assessments for defined purposes.
Appointments to benefices are in the hands of the state (sometimes with
consent of parishes), of private patrons and of local parish councils.
The number of these benefices is always increasing; and in 1897 they
amounted to 16,400, or 300 more than in 1890. The state appoints to 56%,
private and municipal patrons to 34%, and congregations to 10% of the
whole. Customs vary in different states; thus in Schleswig-Holstein the
state nominates but the parish elects; in Alsace-Lorraine the
directorium or supreme consistory appoints, but the appointment must be
confirmed by the viceroy; in Baden the state offers the parish a
selection from six names and then appoints the one chosen.
The Lutheran state churches of Denmark, Sweden and Norway have retained
the episcopate. In all of them the king is recognized to be the _summus
episcopus_ or supreme authority in all ecclesiastical matters, but in
Norway and Sweden his power is somewhat limited by that of parliament.
The king exercises his ecclesiastical authority through a minister who
superintends religion and education. The position and functions of the
bishops vary in the different countries. In all the rite of ordination
is in their hands. In Denmark they are the inspectors of the clergy and
of the schools. In Sweden they preside over local consistories composed
of clerical and lay members. The episcopate in all three countries
accommodates itself to something like the Lutheran consistorial system
of ecclesiastical government.
The two leading religions within Germany are the Evangelical (Lutheran)
and the Roman Catholic, including respectively 58 and 39% of the
population. The proportions are continually varying, owing to the new
migratory habits of almost every class of the population. Generally
speaking, the Roman Catholics are on the increase in Prussia, Bavaria,
Saxony and Württemburg; and the Evangelicals in the other districts of
Germany, especially in the large cities. There is a growing tendency to
mixed marriages, which are an important factor in religious changes.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Richter, _Die evangelischen Kirchenordnungen des
sechzehnten Jahrhunderts_ (Weimar, 1846); Sehling, _Die evangelischen
Kirchenordnungen des 16ten Jahrhunderts_ (Leipzig, 1902, &c.);
Richter, _Lehrbuch des katholischen und evangelischen Kirchenrechts_
(8th ed., Leipzig, 1886); Hundeshagen, _Beiträge zur
Kirchenverfassungsgeschichte und Kirchenpolitik inbesondere des
Protestantismus_, i. (Wiesbaden, 1864), or in _Ausgewählte kl.
Schriften_, ii. (Gotha, 1875); Höfling, _Grundsätze der
evangelischen-Lutherischen Kirchenverfassung_ (Erlangen, 1850, 3rd
ed., 1853); Drews, _Das kirchl. Leben d. deutschen evangelischen
Landeskirchen_ (Tübingen, 1902); Erich Forster, _Die Enstehung der
preussischen Landeskirchen unter der Regierung König Friedrich
Wilhelms III._, i. (Tübingen, 1905); Emil Sehling, _Geschichte der
protestantischen Kirchenverfassung_ (Leipzig, 1907); articles in
Herzog's _Realencyklopädie für protest. Theologie_ (3rd ed.), on
Kirchenregiment, Kirchenrecht, Kirchenordnung, Konsistorien,
Episcopalsystem, Gemeinde, Kollegialsystem, Territorialsystem; Schaff,
_History of the Creeds of Christendom_ (London, 1877). (T. M. L.)
LUTHER LEAGUE, a religious association for young people in the United
States of America. It began with a local society founded by delegates of
six Lutheran church societies in New York City in 1888. The first
national convention was held at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, on the 30th and
31st of October 1895. The basis of the league is the Augsburg
Confession. Its membership is open to "any society of whatever name
connected with a Lutheran congregation or a Lutheran institution of
learning." According to the constitution its objects are "to encourage
the formation of the young people's societies in all Lutheran
congregations in America, to urge their affiliation with their
respective state or territorial leagues, and with this league to
stimulate the various young people's societies to greater Christian
activity and to foster the spirit of loyalty to the church." The league
publishes a monthly paper, _The Luther League Review_, in Washington.
According to its official report it had 70,000 members in 1906, which
had increased to more than 100,000 in 1910.
LUTON, a market town and municipal borough in the southern or Luton
parliamentary division of Bedfordshire, England, 30 m. N.W. by N. of
London by the Midland railway, served also by a branch of the Great
Northern. Pop. (1901) 36,404. It lies in a narrow valley on the south
flank of the Chiltern Hills, on the upper part of the river Lea. The
church of St Mary is mainly Decorated, but has portions of Early English
and Perpendicular work. It has brasses and monuments of interest and a
late Decorated baptistery of stone, an ornate roofed structure,
octagonal in form. The font within it is Early English. Luton is the
principal seat in England of the straw-plait manufacture, and large
quantities of hats and other straw goods have been exported, though in
recent years the industry has suffered from increased foreign
competition. The industry originated with the colony of straw-plaiters
transplanted by James I. from Scotland, whither they had been brought
from Lorraine by Queen Mary. The town has also foundries, motor car
works and other manufactures. The borough is under a mayor, 6 aldermen
and 18 councillors. Area, 3133 acres.
LUTSK (Polish, _Luck_), a town of southern Russia, in the government of
Volhynia, on the Styr, 51 m. by rail N.W. of Kovel. Pop. (1900) 17,701.
It is supposed to have been founded in the 7th century; in the 11th
century it was known as Luchesk, and was the chief town of an
independent principality. In the 15th century it was the seat of a
bishop and became wealthy, but during the wars between Russia and Poland
in the second half of the 16th century, and especially after the
extermination of its 40,000 inhabitants, it lost its importance. In 1791
it was taken by Russia. Its inhabitants, many of them Jews, live mainly
by shipping goods on the Styr. Among its buildings is a 16th-century
castle. Lutsk is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop.
LUTTERWORTH, a market town in the Harborough parliamentary division of
Leicestershire, England; 90 m. N.N.W. from London by the Great Central
railway. Pop. (1901) 1734. It lies in a pleasant undulating country on
the small river Swift, an affluent of the Avon. The church of St Mary is
a fine building, mainly Decorated and Perpendicular, wherein are
preserved relics of John Wycliffe, who was rector here from 1374 until
his death in 1384. The exhumation and burning of his body in 1428, when
the ashes were cast into the Swift, gave rise to the saying that their
distribution by the river to the ocean resembled that of Wycliffe's
doctrines over the world. Wycliffe is further commemorated by a modern
obelisk in the town. Trade is principally agricultural.
LUTTRELL, HENRY (c. 1765-1851), English wit and writer of society verse,
was the illegitimate son of Henry Lawes Luttrell, 2nd earl of Carhampton
(1743-1821), a grandson of Colonel Henry Luttrell (c. 1655-1717), who
served James II. in Ireland in 1689 and 1690, and afterwards deserted
him, being murdered in Dublin in November 1717. Colonel Luttrell's son
Simon (1713-1787) was created earl of Carhampton in 1785, and the
latter's son was Henry Lawes Luttrell. Before succeeding to the peerage,
the 2nd earl, then Colonel Luttrell, had won notoriety by opposing John
Wilkes at the Middlesex election of 1769. He was beaten at the poll, but
the House of Commons declared that he and not Wilkes had been elected.
In 1796 he was made commander of the forces in Ireland and in 1798 he
became a general. Being an Irish peer, Carhampton was able to sit in the
English parliament until his death in April 1821. The earldom became
extinct on the death of his brother John, the 3rd earl, in 1829.
Henry Luttrell secured a seat in the Irish parliament in 1798 and a post
in the Irish government, which he commuted for a pension. Introduced
into London society by the duchess of Devonshire, his wit made him
popular. Soon he began to write verse, in which the foibles of
fashionable people were outlined. In 1820 he published his _Advice to
Julia_, of which a second edition, altered and amplified, appeared in
1823 as _Letters to Julia in Rhyme_. This poem, suggested by the ode to
Lydia in the first book of Horace's Odes, was his most important work.
His more serious literary contemporaries nicknamed it "Letters of a
Dandy to a Dolly." In 1827 in _Crockford House_ he wrote a satire on the
high play then in vogue. Byron characterized him as "the best sayer of
good things, and the most epigrammatic conversationist I ever met"; Sir
Walter Scott wrote of him as "the great London wit," and Lady
Blessington described him as the one talker "who always makes me think."
Luttrell died in London on the 19th of December 1851.
LÜTTRINGHAUSEN, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, 6 m.
S.E. of Elberfeld by rail. Pop. (1905) 11,829. It is the seat of various
iron and other metal industries, and has cloth and calico mills.
LÜTZEN, a town in Prussian Saxony, in the circle of Merseburg (pop. in
1905, 3981), chiefly famous as the scene of a great battle fought on the
6/16th of November 1632 between the Swedes, under King Gustavus
Adolphus, and the Imperialists, under Wallenstein. On the 5/15th
November, Gustavus, with some 20,000 men, advanced from Naumburg on the
Saale to meet a contingent of his German allies at Grimma, S.E. of
Leipzig, but becoming aware of the presence of Wallenstein's army near
Lützen, and that it had been weakened by a large detachment sent away
under Pappenheim towards Halle, he turned towards Lützen. Wallenstein's
posts at Weissenfels and Rippach prevented him from fighting his main
battle the same evening, and the Swedes went into camp near Rippach, a
little more than an hour's march from Lützen.
Wallenstein made ready to give battle on the following day and recalled
Pappenheim. The latter had taken a small castle, the reduction of which
was one of the objects of his expedition, but his men had dispersed to
plunder and could not be rallied before the following morning. Gustavus
had now to choose between proceeding to Grimma and fighting Wallenstein
on the chance that Pappenheim had not rejoined. He chose the latter. In
the mist of the early morning Wallenstein's army was formed in line of
battle along the Leipzig road with its right on Lützen. Its left was not
carried out as far as the Flossgraben in order to leave room on that
flank for Pappenheim. His infantry was arranged in five huge oblongs,
four of which (in lozenge formation) formed the centre and one the
right wing at Lützen. These "battalias" had their angles strengthened in
the old-fashioned way that had prevailed since Marignan, with small
outstanding bodies of musketeers, so that they resembled rectangular
forts with bastions. On either side of this centre was the cavalry in
two long lines, while in front of the centre and close to the right at
Lützen were the two batteries of heavy artillery. Lützen was set on fire
as a precaution. Skirmishers lined the bank and the ditch of the Leipzig
road. The total strength of the Imperial army was about 12,000 foot and
8000 horse.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF LÜTZEN November 16th., 1632.]
Gustavus's hopes of an early decision were frustrated by the fog, which
delayed the approach and deployment of the Swedes. It was 8 A.M. before
all was ready. The royal army was in two lines. The infantry in the
centre was arrayed in the small and handy battalions then peculiar to
Gustavus's army, the horse on either wing extended from opposite Lützen
to some distance beyond Wallenstein's left, which Pappenheim was to
extend on his arrival. By the accident of the terrain, or perhaps,
following the experience of Breitenfeld (q.v.), by design, the right of
the Swedes was somewhat nearer to the enemy than the left. In front,
near the centre, were the heavy guns and each infantry battalion had its
own light artillery. The force of infantry and cavalry on either side
was about equal, the Swedes had perhaps rather less cavalry and rather
more infantry, but their artillery was superior to Wallenstein's. Not
until 11 was it possible to open fire, for want of a visible target, but
about noon, after a preliminary cannonade, Gustavus gave the word to
advance.
The king himself commanded the right wing, which had to wait until small
bodies of infantry detached for the purpose had driven in the
Imperialist skirmish line, and had then to cross a ditch leading the
horses. They were not charged by the Imperialists at this moment, for
Pappenheim had not yet arrived, and the usual cavalry tactics of the day
were founded on the pistol and not on the sword and the charging horse.
Gaining at last room to form, the Swedes charged and routed the first
line of the Imperial cavalry but were stopped by the heavy squadrons of
cuirassiers in second line, and at that moment Gustavus galloped away to
the centre where events had taken a serious turn. The Swedish centre
(infantry) had forced their way across the Leipzig road and engaged
Wallenstein's living forts at close quarters. The "Blue"
brigade--Gustavus's infantry wore distinctive colours--overran the
battery of heavy guns, and the "Swedish"[1] and "Yellow" brigades
engaged the left face of the Imperialist lozenge with success. But a gap
opened between the right of the infantry and the left of the cavalry and
Wallenstein's second line squadrons pressed into it. It was this which
brought Gustavus from the extreme right, and he was killed here in
leading a counter charge.
On the extreme left, meanwhile, the "Green" brigade had come to close
quarters with Wallenstein's infantry and guns about Lützen, and the
heavy artillery had gone forward to close range between the "Green" and
the "Yellow" infantry. But the news of Gustavus's death spread and the
fire of the assault died out. Wallenstein advanced in his turn,
recaptured his guns and drove the Swedes over the road.
But the fiery Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar took up the command and
ordered a fresh advance. He was too good a soldier to waste his reserves
and only brought up a few units of the second line to help the
disordered brigades of the first. Again the Imperialists were driven in
and their guns recaptured, this time all along the line. About three in
the afternoon the Swedes were slowly bearing back Wallenstein's stubborn
infantry when Pappenheim appeared. The famous cavalry leader had brought
on his mounted men ahead of the infantry and asking, "Where is the king
of Sweden?" charged at once in the direction of the enemy's right.
Wallenstein thus gained time to reestablish his order, and once more the
now exhausted brigades of the Swedish first line were driven over the
road. But Pappenheim fell in the moment of victory and his death
disheartened the Imperialists almost as much as the fall of Gustavus had
disheartened the Swedes. For the last time Bernhard, wounded as he was,
forced the Swedish army to the attack. The three infantry brigades of
his second line had not been engaged,[2] and as usual the last closed
reserve, resolutely handled, carried the day. Wallenstein's army gave
way at all points and the Swedes slept on the battlefield. The infantry
of Pappenheim's corps did not appear on the field until the battle was
over. Of the losses on either side no accurate statement can be given,
but the Swedish "Green" and "Yellow" brigades are said to have lost
five-sixths of their numbers. Near the spot where Gustavus fell a
granite boulder was placed in position on the day after the battle. A
canopy of cast-iron was erected over this "Schwedenstein" in 1832, and
close by, a chapel, built by Oskar Ekman. a citizen of Gothenburg (d.
1907), was dedicated on the 6th of November 1907.
Lützen is famous also as the scene of a victory of Napoleon over the
Russians and Prussians on the 2nd of May 1813 (see NAPOLEONIC
CAMPAIGNS). This battle is often called Gross Görschen.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The foregoing account of Gustavus's last victory is
founded chiefly upon Lieut.-Colonel Hon. E. Noel's _Gustaf Adolf_
(London, 1904) and a paper by the same officer in the _Journal of the
United States Institution of India_ (Oct. 1908), which should be
consulted for further details.