FERDINAND II. AND GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.
From 1629 to 1632.
Vexation of Ferdinand.--Gustavus Adolphus.--Address to the nobles of
Sweden.--March of Gustavus.--Appeal to the Protestants.--Magdeburg joins
Gustavus.--Destruction of the city.--Consternation of the Protestants.--
Exultation of the Catholics.--The Elector of Saxony driven from his
domains.--Battle of Leipsig.--The Swedes penetrate Bohemia.--Freedom of
conscience established.--Death of Tilly.--The Retirement of
Wallenstein.--The command resumed by Wallenstein.--Capture of
Prague.--Encounter between Wallenstein and Gustavus.--Battle of
Lutzen.--Death of Gustavus.
The hand of France was conspicuous in wresting all these sacrifices from
the emperor, and was then still more conspicuous in thwarting his plans
for the election of his son. The ambassadors of Richelieu, with
diplomatic adroitness, urged upon the diet the Duke of Bavaria as
candidate for the imperial crown. This tempting offer silenced the duke,
and he could make no more efforts for the emperor. The Protestants
greatly preferred the duke to any one of the race of the bigoted
Ferdinand. The emperor was excessively chagrined by this aspect of
affairs, and abruptly dissolved the diet. He felt that he had been duped
by France; that a cunning monk, Richelieu's ambassador, had outwitted
him. In his vexation he exclaimed, "A Capuchin friar has disarmed me
with his rosary, and covered six electoral caps with his cowl."
The emperor was meditating vengeance--the recall of Wallenstein, the
reconstruction of the army, the annulling of the edict of toleration,
the march of an invading force into the territories of the Duke of
Bavaria, and the chastisement of all, Catholics as well as Protestants,
who had aided in thwarting his plans--when suddenly a new enemy
appeared. Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, reigning over his remote
realms on the western shores of the Baltic, though a zealous Protestant,
was regarded by Ferdinand as a foe too distant and too feeble to be
either respected or feared. But Gustavus, a man of exalted abilities,
and of vast energy, was watching with intense interest the despotic
strides of the emperor. In his endeavors to mediate in behalf of the
Protestants of Germany, he had encountered repeated insults on the part
of Ferdinand. The imperial troops were now approaching his own kingdom.
They had driven Christian IV., King of Denmark, from his continental
territories on the eastern shore of the Baltic, had already taken
possession of several of the islands, and were constructing a fleet
which threatened the command of that important sea. Gustavus was
alarmed, and roused himself to assume the championship of the civil and
religious liberties of Europe. He conferred with all the leading
Protestant princes, formed alliances, secured funds, stationed troops to
protect his own frontiers, and then, assembling the States of his
kingdom, entailed the succession of the crown on his only child
Christiana, explained to them his plans of war against the emperor, and
concluded a dignified and truly pathetic harangue with the following
words.
"The enterprise in which I am about to engage is not one dictated by the
love of conquest or by personal ambition. Our honor, our religion and
our independence are imperiled. I am to encounter great dangers, and may
fall upon the field of battle. If it be God's will that I should die in
the defense of liberty, of my country and of mankind, I cheerfully
surrender myself to the sacrifice. It is my duty as a sovereign to obey
the King of kings without murmuring, and to resign the power I have
received from His hands whenever it shall suit His all-wise purposes. I
shall yield up my last breath with the firm persuasion that Providence
will support my subjects because they are faithful and virtuous, and
that my ministers, generals and senators will punctually discharge their
duty to my child because they love justice, respect me, and feel for
their country."
The king himself was affected as he uttered these words, and tears
moistened the eyes of many of the stern warriors who surrounded him.
With general acclaim they approved of his plan, voted him all the
succors he required, and enthusiastically offered their own fortunes and
lives to his service. Gustavus assembled a fleet at Elfsnaben, crossed
the Baltic sea, and in June, 1630, landed thirty thousand troops in
Pomerania, which Wallenstein had overrun. The imperial army, unprepared
for such an assault, fled before the Swedish king. Marching rapidly,
Gustavus took Stettin, the capital of the duchy, situated at the mouth
of the Oder, and commanding that stream. Driving the imperial troops
everywhere before him from Pomerania, and pursuing them into the
adjoining Mark of Brandenburg, he took possession of a large part of
that territory. He issued a proclamation to the inhabitants of Germany,
recapitulating the arbitrary and despotic acts of the emperor, and
calling upon all Protestants to aid in an enterprise, in the success of
which the very existence of Protestantism in Germany seemed to be
involved. But so utterly had the emperor crushed the spirits of the
Protestants by his fiend-like severity, that but few ventured to respond
to his appeal. The rulers, however, of many of the Protestant States met
at Leipsic, and without venturing to espouse the cause of Gustavus, and
without even alluding to his invasion, they addressed a letter to the
emperor demanding a redress of grievances, and informing him that they
had decided to establish a permanent council for the direction of their
own affairs, and to raise an army of forty thousand men for their own
protection.
Most of these events had occurred while the emperor, with Wallenstein,
was at Ratisbon, intriguing to secure the succession of the imperial
crown for his son. They both looked upon the march of the King of Sweden
into the heart of Germany as the fool-hardy act of a mad adventurer. The
courtiers ridiculed his transient conquests, saying, "Gustavus Adolphus
is a king of snow. Like a snowball he will melt in a southern clime."
Wallenstein was particularly contemptuous. "I will whip him back to his
country," said he, "like a truant school-boy, with rods." Ferdinand was
for a time deceived by these representations, and was by no means aware
of the real peril which threatened him. The diet which the emperor had
assembled made a proclamation of war against Gustavus, but adopted no
measures of energy adequate to the occasion. The emperor sent a silly
message to Gustavus that if he did not retire immediately from Germany
he would attack him with his whole force. To this folly Gustavus
returned a contemptuous reply.
A few of the minor Protestant princes now ventured to take arms and join
the standard of Gustavus. The important city of Magdeburg, in Saxony, on
the Elbe, espoused his cause. This city, with its bastions and outworks
completely commanding the Elbe, formed one of the strongest fortresses
of Europe. It contained, exclusive of its strong garrison, thirty
thousand inhabitants. It was now evident to Ferdinand that vigorous
action was called for. He could not, consistently with his dignity,
recall Wallenstein in the same breath with which he had dismissed him.
He accordingly concentrated his troops and placed them under the command
of Count Tilly. The imperial troops were dispatched to Magdeburg. They
surrounded the doomed city, assailed it furiously, and proclaimed their
intention of making it a signal mark of imperial vengeance.
Notwithstanding the utmost efforts of Gustavus to hasten to their
relief, he was foiled in his endeavors, and the town was carried by
assault on the 10th of May. Never, perhaps, did earth witness a more
cruel exhibition of the horrors of war. The soul sickens in the
contemplation of outrages so fiend-like. We prefer to give the narrative
of these deeds, which it is the duty of history to record, in the
language of another.
"All the horrors ever exercised against a captured place were repeated
and almost surpassed, on this dreadful event, which, notwithstanding all
the subsequent disorders and the lapse of time, is still fresh in the
recollection of its inhabitants and of Germany. Neither age, beauty nor
innocence, neither infancy nor decrepitude, found refuge or compassion
from the fury of the licentious soldiery. No retreat was sufficiently
secure to escape their rapacity and vengeance; no sanctuary sufficiently
sacred to repress their lust and cruelty. Infants were murdered before
the eyes of their parents, daughters and wives violated in the arms of
their fathers and husbands. Some of the imperial officers, recoiling
from this terrible scene, flew to Count Tilly and supplicated him to put
a stop to the carnage. 'Stay yet an hour,' was his barbarous reply; 'let
the soldier have some compensation for his dangers and fatigues.'
"The troops, left to themselves, after sating their passions, and almost
exhausting their cruelty in three hours of pillage and massacre, set
fire to the town, and the flames were in an instant spread by the wind
to every quarter of the place. Then opened a scene which surpassed all
the former horrors. Those who had hitherto escaped, or who were forced
by the flames from their hiding-places, experienced a more dreadful
fate. Numbers were driven into the Elbe, others massacred with every
species of savage barbarity--the wombs of pregnant women ripped up, and
infants thrown into the fire or impaled on pikes and suspended over the
flames. History has no terms, poetry no language, painting no colors to
depict all the horrors of the scene. In less than ten hours the most
rich, the most flourishing and the most populous town in Germany was
reduced to ashes. The cathedral, a single convent and a few miserable
huts, were all that were left of its numerous buildings, and scarcely
more than a thousand souls all that remained of more than thirty
thousand inhabitants.
"After an interval of two days, when the soldiers were fatigued, if not
sated, with devastation and slaughter, and when the flames had begun to
subside, Tilly entered the town in triumph. To make room for his passage
the streets were cleared and six thousand carcasses thrown into the
Elbe. He ordered the pillage to cease, pardoned the scanty remnant of
the inhabitants, who had taken refuge in the cathedral, and, surrounded
by flames and carnage, had remained three days without food or
refreshment, under all the terrors of impending fate. After hearing a
_Te Deum_ in the midst of military pomp, he paraded the streets; and
even though his unfeeling heart seemed touched with the horrors of the
scene, he could not refrain from the savage exultation of boasting to
the emperor, and comparing the assault of Magdeburg to the sack of Troy
and of Jerusalem."
This terrible display of vengeance struck the Protestants with
consternation. The extreme Catholic party were exultant, and their
chiefs met in a general assembly and passed resolutions approving the
course of the emperor and pledging him their support. Ferdinand was much
encouraged by this change in his favor, and declared his intention of
silencing all Protestant voices. He recalled an army of twenty-four
thousand men from Italy. They crossed the Alps, and, as they marched
through the frontier States of the empire, they spread devastation and
ruin through all the Protestant territories, exacting enormous
contributions, compelling the Protestant princes, on oath, to renounce
the Protestant league, and to unite with the Catholic confederacy
against the King of Sweden.
In the meantime, Gustavus pressed forward into the duchy of Mecklenburg,
driving the imperial troops before him. Tilly retired into the territory
of the Elector of Saxony, robbing, burning and destroying everywhere.
Uniting his force with the army from Italy he ravaged the country,
resistlessly advancing even to Leipsic, and capturing the city. The
elector, quite unable to cope with so powerful a foe, retired with his
troops to the Swedish camp, where he entered into an offensive and
defensive alliance with Gustavus. The Swedish army, thus reinforced,
hastened to the relief of Leipsic, and arrived before its walls the very
day on which the city surrendered.
Tilly, with the pride of a conqueror, advanced to meet them. The two
armies, about equal in numbers, and commanded by their renowned
captains, met but a few miles from the city. Neither of the commanders
had ever before suffered a defeat. It was a duel, in which one or the
other must fall. Every soldier in the ranks felt the sublimity of the
hour. For some time there was marching and countermarching--the planting
of batteries, and the gathering of squadrons and solid columns, each one
hesitating to strike the first blow. At last the signal was given by the
discharge of three pieces of cannon from one of the batteries of Tilly.
Instantly a thunder peal rolled along the extended lines from wing to
wing. The awful work of death was begun. Hour after hour the fierce and
bloody fight continued, as the surges of victory and defeat swept to and
fro upon the plain. But the ever uncertain fortune of battle decided in
favor of the Swedes. As the darkness of evening came prematurely on,
deepened by the clouds of smoke which canopied the field, the
imperialists were everywhere flying in dismay. Tilly, having been struck
by three balls, was conveyed from the field in excruciating pain to a
retreat in Halle. Seven thousand of his troops lay dead upon the field.
Five thousand were taken prisoners. All the imperial artillery and
baggage fell into the hands of the conqueror. The rest of the army was
so dispersed that but two thousand could be rallied under the imperial
banners.
Gustavus, thus triumphant, dispatched a portion of his army, under the
Elector of Saxony, to rescue Bohemia from the tyrant grasp of the
emperor. Gustavus himself, with another portion, marched in various
directions to cut off the resources of the enemy and to combine the
scattered parts of the Protestant confederacy. His progress was like the
tranquil march of a sovereign in his own dominions, greeted by the
enthusiasm of his subjects. He descended the Maine to the Rhine, and
then ascending the Rhine, took every fortress from Maine to Strasbourg.
While Gustavus was thus extending his conquests through the very heart
of Germany, the Elector of Saxony reclaimed all of Bohemia from the
imperial arms. Prague itself capitulated to the Saxon troops. Count
Thurn led the Saxon troops in triumph over the same bridge which he, but
a few months before, had traversed a fugitive. He found, impaled upon
the bridge, the shriveled heads of twelve of his companions, which he
enveloped in black satin and buried with funeral honors.
The Protestants of Bohemia rose enthusiastically to greet their
deliverers. Their churches, schools and universities were reëstablished.
Their preachers resumed their functions. Many returned from exile and
rejoiced in the restoration of their confiscated property. The Elector
of Saxony retaliated upon the Catholics the cruel wrongs which they had
inflicted upon the Protestants. Their castles were plundered, their
nobles driven into exile, and the conquerors loaded themselves with the
spoils of the vanquished.
But Ferdinand, as firm and inexorable in adversity as in prosperity,
bowed not before disaster. He roused the Catholics to a sense of their
danger, organized new coalitions, raised new armies. Tilly, with
recruited forces, was urged on to arrest the march of the conqueror.
Burning under the sense of shame for his defeat at Leipsic, he placed
himself at the head of his veterans, fell, struck by a musket-ball, and
died, after a few days of intense suffering, at the age of
seventy-three. The vast Austrian empire, composed of so many
heterogeneous States, bound together only by the iron energy of
Ferdinand, seemed now upon the eve of its dissolution. The Protestants,
who composed in most of the States a majority, were cordially rallying
beneath the banners of Gustavus. They had been in a state of despair.
They now rose in exalted hope. Many of the minor princes who had been
nominally Catholics, but whose Christian creeds were merely political
dogmas, threw themselves into the arms of Gustavus. Even the Elector of
Bavaria was so helpless in his isolation, that, champion as he had been
of the Catholic party, there seemed to be no salvation for him but in
abandoning the cause of Ferdinand. Gustavus was now, with a victorious
army, in the heart of Germany. He was in possession of the whole western
country from the Baltic to the frontiers of France, and apparently a
majority of the population were in sympathy with him.
Ferdinand at first resolved, in this dire extremity, to assume himself
the command of his armies, and in person to enter the field. This was
heroic madness, and his friends soon convinced him of the folly of one
so inexperienced in the arts of war undertaking to cope with Gustavus
Adolphus, now the most experienced and renowned captain in Europe. He
then thought of appointing his son, the Archduke Ferdinand,
commander-in-chief. But Ferdinand was but twenty-three years of age, and
though a young man of decided abilities, was by no means able to
encounter on the field the skill and heroism of the Swedish warrior. In
this extremity, Ferdinand was compelled to turn his eyes to his
discarded general Wallenstein.
This extraordinary man, in renouncing, at the command of his sovereign,
his military supremacy, retired with boundless wealth, and assumed a
style of living surpassing even regal splendor. His gorgeous palace at
Prague was patrolled by sentinels. A body-guard of fifty halberdiers, in
sumptuous uniform, ever waited in his ante-chamber. Twelve nobles
attended his person, and four gentlemen ushers introduced to his
presence those whom he condescended to favor with an audience. Sixty
pages, taken from the most illustrious families, embellished his courts.
His steward was a baron of the highest rank; and even the chamberlain of
the emperor had left Ferdinand's court, that he might serve in the more
princely palace of this haughty subject. A hundred guests dined daily at
his table. His gardens and parks were embellished with more than
oriental magnificence. Even his stables were furnished with marble
mangers, and supplied with water from an ever-living fountain. Upon his
journeys he was accompanied by a suite of twelve coaches of state and
fifty carriages. A large retinue of wagons conveyed his plate and
equipage. Fifty mounted grooms followed with fifty led horses richly
caparisoned. (Coxe's "House of Austria," ii., 254.)
Wallenstein watched the difficulties gathering around the emperor with
satisfaction which he could not easily disguise. Though intensely eager
to be restored to the command of the armies, he affected an air of great
indifference, and when the emperor suggested his restoration, he very
adroitly played the coquette. The emperor at first proposed that his
son, the Archduke Ferdinand, should nominally have the command, while
Wallenstein should be his executive and advisory general. "I would not
serve," said the impious captain, "as second in command under God
Himself."
After long negotiation, Wallenstein, with well-feigned reluctance,
consented to relinquish for a few weeks the sweets of private life, and
to recruit an army, and bring it under suitable discipline. He, however,
limited the time of his command to three months. With his boundless
wealth and amazing energy, he immediately set all springs in motion.
Adventurers from all parts of Europe, lured by the splendor of his past
achievements, crowded his ranks. In addition to his own vast opulence,
the pope and the court of Spain opened freely to him their purses. As by
magic he was in a few weeks at the head of forty thousand men. In
companies, regiments and battalions they were incessantly drilled, and
by the close of three months this splendid army, thoroughly furnished,
and in the highest state of discipline, was presented to the emperor.
Every step he had taken had convinced, and was intended to convince
Ferdinand that his salvation depended upon the energies of Wallenstein.
Gustavus was now, in the full tide of victory, marching from the Rhine
to the Danube, threatening to press his conquests even to Vienna.
Ferdinand was compelled to assume the attitude of a suppliant, and to
implore his proud general to accept the command of which he had so
recently been deprived. Wallenstein exacted terms so humiliating as in
reality to divest the emperor of his imperial power. He was to be
declared generalissimo of all the forces of the empire, and to be
invested with unlimited authority. The emperor pledged himself that
neither he nor his son would ever enter the camp. Wallenstein was to
appoint all his officers, distribute all rewards, and the emperor was
not allowed to grant either a pardon or a safe-conduct without the
confirmation of Wallenstein. The general was to levy what contribution
he pleased upon the vanquished enemy, confiscate property, and no peace
or truce was to be made with the enemy without his consent. Finally, he
was to receive, either from the spoils of the enemy, or from the
hereditary States of the empire, princely remuneration for his services.
Armed with such enormous power, Wallenstein consented to place himself
at the head of the army. He marched to Prague, and without difficulty
took the city. Gradually he drove the Saxon troops from all their
fortresses in Bohemia. Then advancing to Bavaria, he effected a junction
with Bavarian troops, and found himself sufficiently strong to attempt
to arrest the march of Gustavus. The imperial force now amounted to
sixty thousand men. Wallenstein was so sanguine of success, that he
boasted that in a few days he would decide the question, whether
Gustavus Adolphus or Wallenstein was to be master of the world. The
Swedish king was at Nuremberg with but twenty thousand men, when he
heard of the approach of the imperial army, three times outnumbering his
own. Disdaining to retreat, he threw up redoubts, and prepared for a
desperate defense. As Wallenstein brought up his heavy battalions, he
was so much overawed by the military genius which Gustavus had displayed
in his strong intrenchments, and by the bold front which the Swedes
presented, that notwithstanding his boast, he did not dare to hazard an
attack. He accordingly threw up intrenchments opposite the works of the
Swedes, and there the two armies remained, looking each other in the
face for eight weeks, neither daring to withdraw from behind their
intrenchments, and each hoping to starve the other party out. Gustavus
did every thing in his power to provoke Wallenstein to the attack, but
the wary general, notwithstanding the importunities of his officers, and
the clamors of his soldiers, refused to risk an engagement. Both parties
were all the time strengthening their intrenchments and gathering
reinforcements.
At last Gustavus resolved upon an attack. He led his troops against the
intrenchments of Wallenstein, which resembled a fortress rather than a
camp. The Swedes clambered over the intrenchments, and assailed the
imperialists with as much valor and energy as mortals ever exhibited.
They were, however, with equal fury repelled, and after a long conflict
were compelled to retire again behind their fortifications with the loss
of three thousand of their best troops. For another fortnight the two
armies remained watching each other, and then Gustavus, leaving a strong
garrison in Nuremberg, slowly and defiantly retired. Wallenstein stood
so much in fear of the tactics of Gustavus that he did not even venture
to molest his retreat. During this singular struggle of patient
endurance, both armies suffered fearfully from sickness and famine. In
the city of Nuremberg ten thousand perished. Gustavus buried twenty
thousand of his men beneath his intrenchments. And in the imperial army,
after the retreat of Gustavus, but thirty thousand troops were left to
answer the roll-call.
Wallenstein claimed, and with justice, the merit of having arrested the
steps of Gustavus, though he could not boast of any very chivalrous
exploits. After various maneuvering, and desolating marches, the two
armies, with large reinforcements, met at Lutzen, about thirty miles
from Leipsic. It was in the edge of the evening when they arrived within
sight of each other's banners. Both parties passed an anxious night,
preparing for the decisive battle which the dawn of the morning would
usher in.
Wallenstein was fearfully alarmed. He had not willingly met his dreaded
antagonist, and would now gladly escape the issues of battle. He called
a council of war, and even suggested a retreat. But it was decided that
such an attempt in the night, and while watched by so able and vigilant
a foe, would probably involve the army in irretrievable ruin, besides
exposing his own name to deep disgrace. The imperial troops, thirty
thousand strong, quite outnumbered the army of Gustavus, and the
officers of Wallenstein unanimously advised to give battle. Wallenstein
was a superstitious man and deeply devoted to astrological science. He
consulted his astrologers, and they declared the stars to be
unpropitious to Gustavus. This at once decided him. He resolved,
however, to act on the defensive, and through the night employed the
energies of his army in throwing up intrenchments. In the earliest dawn
of the morning mass was celebrated throughout the whole camp, and
Wallenstein on horseback rode along behind the redoubts, urging his
troops, by every consideration, to fight valiantly for their emperor and
their religion.
The morning was dark and lowering, and such an impenetrable fog
enveloped the armies that they were not visible to each other. It was
near noon ere the fog arose, and the two armies, in the full blaze of an
unclouded sun, gazed, awe-stricken, upon each other. The imperial troops
and the Swedish troops were alike renowned; and Gustavus Adolphus and
Wallenstein were, by universal admission, the two ablest captains in
Europe. Neither force could even affect to despise the other. The scene
unfolded, as the vapor swept away, was one which even war has seldom
presented. The vast plain of Lutzen extended many miles, almost as
smooth, level and treeless as a western prairie. Through the center of
this plain ran a nearly straight and wide road. On one side of this
road, in long line, extending one or two miles, was the army of
Wallenstein. His whole front was protected by a ditch and redoubts
bristling with bayonets. Behind these intrenchments his army was
extended; the numerous and well-mounted cavalry at the wings, the
artillery, in ponderous batteries, at the center, with here and there
solid squares of infantry to meet the rush of the assailing columns. On
the other side of the road, and within musket-shot, were drawn up in a
parallel line the troops of Gustavus. He had interspersed along his
double line bands of cavalry, with artillery and platoons of musketeers,
that he might be prepared from any point to make or repel assault. The
whole host stood reverently, with uncovered heads, as a public prayer
was offered. The Psalm which Watts has so majestically versified was
read--
"God is the refuge of his saints,
When storms of dark distress invade;
Ere we can offer our complaints,
Behold him present with his aid.
"Let mountains from their seats be hurled
Down to the deep, and buried there,
Convulsions shake the solid world;
Our faith shall never yield to fear."
From twenty thousand voices the solemn hymn arose and floated over the
field--celestial songs, to be succeeded by demoniac clangor. Both
parties appealed to the God of battle; both parties seemed to feel that
their cause was just. Alas for man!
Gustavus now ordered the attack. A solid column emerged from his ranks,
crossed the road, in breathless silence approached the trenches, while
both armies looked on. They were received with a volcanic sheet of flame
which prostrated half of them bleeding upon the sod. Gustavus ordered
column after column to follow on to support the assailants, and to
pierce the enemy's center. In his zeal he threw himself from his horse,
seized a pike, and rushed to head the attack. Wallenstein energetically
ordered up cavalry and artillery to strengthen the point so fiercely
assailed. And now the storm of war blazed along the whole lines. A
sulphureous canopy settled down over the contending hosts, and
thunderings, shrieks, clangor as of Pandemonium, filled the air. The
king, as reckless of life as if he had been the meanest soldier, rushed
to every spot where the battle raged the fiercest. Learning that his
troops upon the left were yielding to the imperial fire, he mounted his
horse and was galloping across the field swept by the storm of war, when
a bullet struck his arm and shattered the bone. Almost at the same
moment another bullet struck his breast, and he fell mortally wounded
from his horse, exclaiming, "My God! my God!"
The command now devolved upon the Duke of Saxe Weimar. The horse of
Gustavus, galloping along the lines, conveyed to the whole army the
dispiriting intelligence that their beloved chieftain had fallen. The
duke spread the report that he was not killed, but taken prisoner, and
summoned all to the rescue. This roused the Swedes to superhuman
exertions. They rushed over the ramparts, driving the infantry back upon
the cavalry, and the whole imperial line was thrown into confusion. Just
at that moment, when both parties were in the extreme of exhaustion,
when the Swedes were shouting victory and the imperialists were flying
in dismay, General Pappenheim, with eight fresh regiments of imperial
cavalry, came galloping upon the field. This seemed at once to restore
the battle to the imperialists, and the Swedes were apparently undone.
But just then a chance bullet struck Pappenheim and he fell, mortally
wounded, from his horse. The cry ran through the imperial ranks,
"Pappenheim is killed and the battle is lost." No further efforts of
Wallenstein were of any avail to arrest the confusion. His whole host
turned and fled. Fortunately for them, the darkness of the approaching
night, and a dense fog settling upon the plain, concealed them from
their pursuers. During the night the imperialists retired, and in the
morning the Swedes found themselves in possession of the field with no
foe in sight. But the Swedes had no heart to exult over their victory.
The loss of their beloved king was a greater calamity than any defeat
could have been. His mangled body was found, covered with blood, in the
midst of heaps of the slain, and so much mutilated with the tramplings
of cavalry as to be with difficulty recognized.