THE THIRTY YEARS’ WAR FROM THE PEACE OF
LÜBECK TO THE PEACE OF PRAGUE
Difference between Wallenstein and the Emperor--Opposition of
the League to Wallenstein--Dismissal of Wallenstein--Critical
state of Protestantism in Germany--Condition of Sweden--Policy of
Gustavus Adolphus--His wars with Denmark, Russia, and Poland--His
interference in Germany and Alliance with France--The Campaign
of 1631 and sack of Magdeburg--Alliance between Saxony and
Sweden--Battle of Breitenfeld--Military successes and political
difficulties of Gustavus--Wallenstein appointed dictator--Gustavus
baffled by Wallenstein at Nuremburg--Battle of Lützen--The League of
Heilbronn--The murder of Wallenstein--The battle of Nördlingen--The
Peace of Prague--Policy of John George of Saxony.
[Sidenote: =Difference of policy between Wallenstein and
Ferdinand.=]
The recklessness with which Ferdinand had undertaken to revolutionise
Germany soon made itself apparent. To crush the political opposition
of Denmark and the lower Saxon circle, he had had to call to his aid
Wallenstein and his personal army. To carry out the far more difficult
task of transferring from Protestants to Catholics large districts
of north Germany, which had been for eighty or ninety years in the
hands of Protestants, and of forcibly converting to his own religion
thousands of Protestant Germans, he had but the same force upon which
to rely. It was idle to think that the Edict of Restitution could be
carried out without the help of soldiers. It was certain that Tilly and
the troops of the League would not suffice to enforce the Edict and
resist the threatened advance of Sweden. To whom could the Emperor turn
except to Wallenstein and his 60,000 men? Yet it was just here that he
was least sure of his ground. Wallenstein himself strongly disapproved
of the policy of the Edict. It ran counter to the principle of
religious equality upon which he had organised his own power. His army
was the only place in Europe where Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists
met on equal terms and served loyally one with another as comrades.
To put an army organised on such a basis to the work of ousting
Protestant clergy and superintending conversions would split it to its
very foundations. More than that. It was no mere caprice which had led
Wallenstein to make religious equality the basis of the organisation of
his army. He believed strongly that it was the only possible basis for
the reorganisation of Germany, and he looked forward to the time when,
as dictator of Germany, he might at the head of an irresistible force
impose upon the fanatics of both sides the boons of peace and religious
toleration. For the first time in his career his own convictions and
his own ambition led away from the policy and interests of his suzerain.
[Sidenote: =Opposition of the League to Wallenstein.=]
Just at this time the leaders of the League were becoming on their
side very much dissatisfied with Wallenstein. They disliked his
opinions. They feared his ambition. They distrusted his loyalty. His
system of supporting his army by requisitions, though venial enough
when exercised at the expense of the Protestant enemy, became sheer
plunder when Catholics were the victims. During the winters 1626–27
and 1628–29, his drums had been beating continuously in all the chief
towns of Germany, and not unnaturally it appeared intolerable that the
Emperor’s own general should be even more oppressive to his friends
than to his enemies.
[Sidenote: =The Diet of Regensburg, 1630.=]
The opposition came to a head at the diet held at Regensburg in July
1630. The lead was taken by Maximilian of Bavaria. Father Joseph,
Richelieu’s accomplished diplomatist, laboured indefatigably and
successfully in fomenting the discontent, and Ferdinand soon found
that he had to choose between Wallenstein and the League. There was
no middle course possible. He must part with one or the other. To a
man of lofty soul, high ambition, and bold courage, there was much to
attract in the prospect held out by Wallenstein. If Ferdinand could
only make up his mind to risk all in order to gain all, throw himself
without reserve into Wallenstein’s arms, and at the head of 100,000
men impose upon Germany a new constitution, in which the imperial
power should be established upon the ruin of that of the princes, a
new era would dawn for the Emperor, the supremacy of the House of
Austria in Europe would be assured. But a policy such as this was too
revolutionary and too venturesome for a conscientious and commonplace
nature like that of Ferdinand. It certainly involved the overthrow
of the traditional relations between the Emperor and the princes. It
certainly necessitated the withdrawal of the Edict of Restitution. It
might not improbably make the Emperor the slave of his too successful
general instead of the lord of the world. It was not given to Ferdinand
to drive the horses of the Sun. For him there was no alternative. He
was nothing if not traditionally legal. [Sidenote: =Dismissal of
Wallenstein, 1630.=] Wallenstein was the disturber of precedent and
law, and Wallenstein must be sacrificed. A few weeks after Gustavus
Adolphus had landed on the coast of Pomerania, Ferdinand, at the
bidding of the Catholic powers of Germany, dismissed the only general
capable of withstanding the Protestant champion.
[Sidenote: =Critical state of Protestantism in Germany.=]
With the coming of Gustavus Adolphus the war was lifted for a while
into a higher region of politics. It became ennobled by higher
motives and a greater policy. Hitherto what nobility of motive had
been discoverable was all on the Catholic side. The maintenance of
the authority of the Emperor and the institutions of the Empire,
the establishment of the authority of the Church, in the teeth of a
factious and reckless nobility, were at least nobler objects to fight
for than the winning of a crown, or the command of an army, or the
right to provide for younger sons out of secularised church lands.
But the victories of Tilly and Wallenstein and the issue of the Edict
of Restitution had brought a great change. With Christian of Denmark
beaten to his knees, with the troops of the League and the Emperor
in occupation of north Germany, with Wallenstein, admiral of the
Baltic and duke of Mecklenberg, in possession of the Baltic coast and
harbours, the questions at stake were no longer the maintenance of the
authority of the Emperor, but the independence of the north German
princes, and the sovereignty of the Baltic. By the publication of the
Edict of Restitution, not merely were the secularised lands endangered,
but Protestantism itself in north Germany was threatened.
[Sidenote: =Objects of Gustavus Adolphus.=]
The Thirty Years’ War is the last of the great wars of religion, and
the first of the great wars of politics. In Gustavus Adolphus, the
hero of the war, both aspects are united. When he landed in Pomerania
in July 1630, he came distinctly as the champion of Protestantism, to
save German Protestantism from being overwhelmed by brute force; but
he came no less distinctly as the national king of Sweden, to defend
and establish that supremacy over the Baltic sea and the Baltic coast,
which was essential to the prosperity and existence of his country.
It was a defensive war that he came to wage, a war in defence of his
religion and in defence of his kingdom, though it necessarily took from
the circumstances of the case an aggressive form. Between the policy
of Gustavus in 1630 and that of Richelieu in 1635 there is the whole
difference between patriotism and aggrandisement.
[Sidenote: =Condition of Sweden.=]
No one who looked attentively at Sweden at the beginning of the
seventeenth century would for a moment have anticipated the fortune
which in fact was about to attend her. Poor in material resources,
sadly deficient in roads and means of communication, sparsely
populated, frost-bound for half the year, cut off almost wholly by her
old conqueror Denmark from the ocean, she seemed to be doomed to be
pressed out of existence by her more fortunately placed neighbours.
From this fate she was saved by one of the most remarkable races of
kings of whom history makes mention. [Sidenote: =The monarchy.=]
From Gustavus Vasa, the emancipator of Sweden from the tyranny of the
Danes, who ascended the throne in 1523, to Charles XII., the
terror and pride of Europe, who lost his life in 1718, there was not
one sovereign of the House of Vasa who did not in some ways show the
marks of fine and original genius. Well may the historian of Sweden
exclaim, ‘The history of Sweden is the history of her kings,’ for in
few countries have national characteristics and national development
been so intimately bound up with the monarchy. [Sidenote: =The
Lutheran Church.=] Gustavus Vasa achieved the independence of
Sweden, and established his new monarchy on the ruins of the Church.
Seizing with the eye of a statesman the close affinity between
Lutheranism and state power, he introduced the Reformation into Sweden
as a political measure, enriching the Crown and purchasing the support
of the nobles by the confiscation of the Church lands. From that time
Sweden had two enemies to contend against, the hostility of Denmark,
and the power of the nobility; to which, under John III.,
the husband of Catherine Jagellon, the heiress of the Jagellon kings
of Poland, a third was added, namely the Counter-Reformation. At the
beginning of the seventeenth century this last was the most pressing
danger, for Sigismund, the son of John III. and Catherine
Jagellon, was an ardent Catholic. [Sidenote: =Attempt of Sigismund
to restore Catholicism, 1592–1604.=] He had become king of Poland
by election in 1587, and had done much to re-establish Catholicism
in that country before he succeeded by inheritance to the crown of
Sweden in 1592. On his attempting a similar policy in Sweden he found
himself at once opposed by the self-interest of the nobility, who held
so large a share of the Church lands, and by a spirit of nationality
among the people, who resented the interference of Poles and Italians
with a sturdy independence, which reminds us of the hatred of the
medieval English for all ‘outlandish’ people. These feelings found a
representative in Charles, the youngest son of Gustavus Vasa, and uncle
of Sigismund, who after a brief contest expelled his nephew from Sweden
and seated himself on the throne in his stead in 1604.
[Sidenote: =Reign of Charles IX., 1604–1611.=]
This dynastic revolution strengthened Sweden by making her religion the
symbol and the test of her liberty. Lutheranism became the political as
well as the religious faith of the country. It weakened her by adding
another to the number of her hereditary foes. If Denmark could not
forget that she had once been the ruler of Sweden, neither could Poland
forget, at any rate during the life of Sigismund, that her king had by
law no less right to rule at Stockholm than at Warsaw. If, however,
Charles IX. increased the external he diminished the internal
difficulties of his country. Nobles and king had united together
against foreign influence, and when raised to the throne, Charles
succeeded by his wise administration in making the bond still closer
and was able to hand on to his son, the young Gustavus Adolphus, the
government of a united and prosperous nation. Nevertheless, patriotic
and religious as Sweden was on the accession of Gustavus Adolphus
in 1611, she had not yet passed through that crisis common to the
infancy of nations, when extension of territory and influence becomes
essential to the preservation of national-life. Since she had become
an independent nation her mineral wealth had been much developed by
her kings. Education and civilisation had made great strides. Since
she had become Protestant, she had naturally been drawn into political
and commercial relations with the English and the Dutch, who were
rapidly establishing their commercial supremacy in the northern seas,
and especially in the Baltic, on the ruins of the Hansa. [Sidenote:
=Weakness of Sweden.=] But as yet Denmark held the southern
provinces of the Swedish peninsula. Only in one place, at the mouth of
the river Gota, where the fortress of Elfsborg stood and the houses
and wharves of Gottenburg were beginning to rise, did Sweden touch the
outer sea. For all practical purposes her trade was a purely Baltic
trade, and could only reach the outside world by the permission, and
subject to the regulations, of Denmark, who held the Sound and imposed
tolls on all ships which passed through.
[Sidenote: =Policy of Gustavus Adolphus.=]
Within the confines of the Baltic itself the position of Sweden was by
no means assured. The coast line which she held was large, but only
because it included the inhospitable and semi-barbarous Finland. She
had not a city, not even Stockholm, which could vie in riches or in
trade with Lübeck or with Dantzig. Since the days of Ivan the Terrible,
Russia had made her appearance in the north as a power which must be
reckoned with, and threatened to claim her share of the Baltic. In
the ‘troublous times’ which preceded the rise of the Romanoff dynasty
Sweden saw her opportunity, and under Eric and Charles IX.
had stretched across the sea, and made good her hold over the first
of her Baltic provinces in Esthonia and Livonia; but situated as they
were between hostile Poland and semi-hostile Russia, they could not be
looked upon in any other light than that of an outpost to be withdrawn
or reinforced as occasion might serve. Exceedingly precarious therefore
was the position of the young monarchy. A combined attack by its three
enemies must at any moment destroy it. Steady hostile pressure under
the forms of peace might gradually stifle it. Sweden could not be
safe until she had obtained supremacy in the Baltic, she could not be
prosperous until she had gained free access to the ocean, she could
not be dominant in the north until she had secured her supremacy over
the Baltic by the acquisition of a substantial foothold on its eastern
coast. These were the three main objects of Swedish national policy
steadily pursued by Gustavus Adolphus, and after his death by his
friend and chancellor Oxenstjerna. They necessitated an aggressive
policy. To sit still was to die. The martial instincts and the youth of
the king combined with motives of policy to urge him to a bold course,
and the nation well understanding the nature of the crisis seconded him
nobly.
[Sidenote: =War with Denmark, 1611–1613.=]
Denmark was the foe upon whom Gustavus was called to whet his virgin
steel. Taking advantage of the confusion caused by the minority of the
new king, Christian IV. had seized upon Elfsborg and Calmar
early in 1611. Directly Gustavus had been pronounced of age he marched
to recover the fortresses, and learned his first lesson in the art of
war in a year of frontier hostilities, which were ended through the
mediation of James I. by the peace of Knarod in January 1613.
By this treaty Calmar was at once restored to the Swedes, and Elfsborg
covenanted to be restored on the payment of a million dollars, which
were duly raised and paid in two years. Relieved from all present
anxiety from the side of Denmark, Gustavus at once turned his attention
to the growing power of Russia, now gathering itself together under
Michael Romanoff. [Sidenote: =War with Russia, 1614–1617.=] In
1614 he invaded Ingria, and spent three years in desultory fighting, in
which he was uniformly victorious in battle, and slowly occupied the
country. Again England, who had trade relations with Russia, offered
her mediation, and by the treaty of Stolbova, signed in February 1617,
Sweden obtained from Russia the cession of Ingria and Carelia, thus
gaining a continuous coast line on the Baltic from Calmar to Riga, and
shutting Russia from the sea altogether. ‘The enemy,’ said Gustavus
triumphantly, ‘cannot launch a boat upon the Baltic without our
permission.’
[Sidenote: =War with Poland, 1617–1629.=]
Hardly was the peace of Stolbova signed, than an invasion of Swedish
Livonia by Sigismund of Poland forced Gustavus to enter upon his third
war. Poland was a much more difficult nut to crack than Russia had
been, for behind Sigismund lay the forces of the Counter-Reformation,
but from various circumstances neither side could press the war with
vigour. Two armistices (from 1618–1621 and from 1622–1625) interrupted
its lethargic course, and enabled Sweden to recruit her failing
energies, and her king to perfect the improvements in military tactics
for which he is famous. In 1625 he resumed the war in earnest, and
crossing the Dwina overran and occupied Courland, pushing the Polish
generals back into Lithuania. But neither Riga nor any of the Courland
towns gave him what he most wanted, a place of first-rate importance,
which he might make the centre of his operations; so in the next year
he directed his attack on Dantzig, although it involved the violation
of the neutrality of his brother-in-law, George William of Brandenburg.
Dantzig was a town strongly fortified on the land side. The Swedish
fleet was too weak to enforce the attempted blockade by sea. Hence,
like Stralsund and La Rochelle, until cut off from the sea it was
impregnable. For four weary years Gustavus attempted unsuccessfully to
reduce it. Eventually in 1629, when the affairs in Germany rendered it
essential for him to have his hands free, he consented to make peace
without gaining the desired end. Yet the Polish war was not thrown
away. By the treaty of Stuhmsdorf, Sweden gained the whole of Livonia,
and some places in Prussia, and by the training both of himself and of
his army in the four Polish campaigns, he had unconsciously made Sweden
one of the most formidable military powers of the day.
[Sidenote: =Negotiations between England and Gustavus in 1624.=]
While the Thirty Years’ War was in progress, the eyes both of Catholics
and Protestants in Germany had often been turned towards Gustavus in
fear and in hope. He himself looked forward with eagerness to the day
when his assistance might be necessary, for he longed to cross swords
with Tilly and the imperial generals, but it was eagerness tempered
with prudence. He would enter into the war at his own time, and on his
own terms, or not at all. In 1624 he was asked by England to formulate
those terms, and he laid down three conditions as indispensable, that
he should have the sole military management of the war, that England
should provide the money for 17,000 men, and pay the subsidies for
five months in advance, that he should be protected from attack from
Denmark, while at war in Germany, and have two ports made over to him
to secure his communications. Unlike Christian of Denmark, he would
not be content with fair promises, but insisted on performance before
he would move. The terms were too onerous for acceptance at that
time, but the fate of Christian proved their wisdom and necessity.
The defeat of the Danes, and the establishment of Wallenstein on the
Baltic coast, brought the danger nearer home. What chance was there
for Sweden to obtain supremacy over the Baltic with Mecklenberg and
Pomerania in the hands of the imperial admiral? Clearly she would have
to fight for her independence, let alone her religion, if Wallenstein
was suffered to make himself duke of Mecklenberg. Gustavus recognised
the necessity at once. [Sidenote: =Alliance between Sweden and
Denmark, 1628.=] In April 1628 he made an alliance with his old
enemy Christian IV. of Denmark, by which all foreign ships,
except those of the Dutch were excluded from the Baltic. In the summer
of the same year, he sent 2000 men under Alexander Leslie to defend
Stralsund against Wallenstein. [Sidenote: =Landing of Gustavus in
Germany, 1630.=]In September 1629 he put an end to the Polish war
by the treaty of Stuhmsdorf, and on the 24th of June 1630 he landed on
the island of Usedom, at the head of an army of 13,000 men, which was
raised to 40,000 before the end of the year.
[Sidenote: =Measures of Gustavus.=]
Gustavus timed his invasion with great judgment. The diet of Regensburg
was still sitting, and the army of Wallenstein was demoralised by
the approaching sacrifice of its chief. Hardly a month after the
landing of the Swedish king that sacrifice was consummated, a large
part of Wallenstein’s army was disbanded, and the rest put under the
command of Tilly, who was becoming in his old age extremely dilatory
in his movements. Gustavus accordingly found himself for six months
practically unopposed, and he at once employed the time in establishing
for himself a strong basis of operations on the Baltic and in the
enlistment of fresh troops. In January of the next year came a most
welcome assistance. Richelieu had long fixed his eyes upon Gustavus,
as one of the most formidable weapons capable of being used against the
House of Austria, and he desired to put it into the armoury of France.
Negotiations had been opened with this object in the spring of the year
but had failed. [Sidenote: =Alliance between Gustavus and Richelieu,
1631.=] He had found Gustavus more stubborn than he had expected,
and quickly realised that if he wanted the king of Sweden’s help he
could have it only on the king of Sweden’s terms. Gracefully submitting
to the inevitable, on January 23rd 1631 he concluded with Gustavus
the treaty of Bärwalde, by which he undertook to supply the king with
200,000 dollars for six years, on condition that Gustavus maintained
an army of 36,000 men, promised to respect the imperial constitution,
observed neutrality towards Bavaria and the League as far as they
observed it towards him, and left the Catholic religion untouched in
those districts where he found it established. The alliance of the
foreigner was the only voluntary aid which the liberator of Germany
could obtain. [Sidenote: =Jealousy of Gustavus in Germany.=]
The old duke Boguslav of Pomerania was as submissive in the hands
of Gustavus as he had been in the hands of Wallenstein, but it was
helplessness not friendship which put his resources at the disposal of
the invader. John George of Saxony and George William of Brandenburg
steadily refused to break their neutrality, or take one step in
the direction of the dismemberment of the Empire. In March a great
gathering of Protestants was held at Leipzig to consider the situation.
They agreed to raise troops for their own defence in case they were
attacked. They assured the Emperor of their continued loyalty, if only
he would withdraw the Edict of Restitution. They said not one word
about assistance to the foreigner.
[Sidenote: =The campaign of 1631.=]
German patriotic feeling was against Gustavus. It was clear that he
would have to make his way by the sword, and the sword alone. At
the end of March the campaign began. Tilly suddenly dashed at Neu
Brandenburg, captured it on March 29th, and destroyed its garrison of
2000 Swedes, thus thrusting himself in between Gustavus in Pomerania
and Horn in Mecklenburg. Gustavus saw the danger. By forced marches
he succeeded in circumventing Tilly and effecting his junction with
Horn, and the old marshal sullenly retreated to the Elbe, where he
formed the siege of Magdeburg, which had of its own accord declared
against the Emperor, and asked for a Swedish garrison. Meanwhile
Gustavus had marched to the Oder, and captured the important fortress
of Frankfort, which was garrisoned by the imperialists. From there he
designed to move to the relief of Magdeburg, now hard pressed by Tilly
and Pappenheim. Every motive of honour and policy impelled him to
ensure its safety. But unforeseen obstacles presented themselves. In
order to march to Magdeburg, it was necessary to cross the territories
of Brandenburg and Saxony, and neither of the electors would for a
moment think of permitting an act which might seem to the Emperor a
violation of their neutrality. While Magdeburg was in its death throes
fruitless negotiations continued. Both the electors remained stubbornly
immovable. At last in desperation Gustavus appeared at Berlin with a
more potent argument at his back in the shape of an army, and forced
the unwilling George William to throw open to him the fortress of
Spandau. But it was too late. Saxony had still to be dealt with, and
while Saxony was deliberating Magdeburg fell. [Sidenote: =Fall of
Magdeburg.=] On May 20th, Pappenheim stormed the town. Amid the
confusion of the assault the houses caught fire. The imperialist
soldiers, maddened by victory and plunder, lost all self-control, and
amid the roar of the flames and the crash of falling houses ensued a
scene of carnage, of outrage, and of horror, at which Europe stood
aghast. By the next morning the cathedral alone showed gaunt against
the sky, amid a mass of blackened ruins, to say where Magdeburg once
had been.
The sack of Magdeburg is one of the darkest spots on the page of
history. For many years it has been allowed to stain the reputation of
the veteran Tilly, unjustly, for he was far away at the time, but upon
Gustavus must rightly rest some part of the fearful responsibility.
[Sidenote: =Responsibility of Gustavus.=] Magdeburg had risen
against the Emperor trusting in him. He had sent one of his own
officers to lead the defence. He knew to what desperate straits the
town was reduced, and though he could not have anticipated the actual
horrors of the sack, he knew well enough what the storming of a town by
soldiers of fortune meant in those brutal days. Yet for two critical
months he allowed his march to be checked, and his honour compromised,
by the mulish stubbornness of the two electors, who had no force at
their command sufficient to resist his advance, had he nobly acted upon
the necessity which knows no law. It is just possible that by such an
action he might have driven the electors to throw themselves into the
arms of the Emperor, but it is not likely. Gustavus had not hesitated
in 1626 to seize Pillau by force from the elector of Brandenburg, when
he wanted a basis of operations against Dantzig. In this very campaign,
when too late, he had to use force to gain possession of Spandau,
yet the elector was not moved from his neutrality by either of these
high-handed acts. Surely the least which Magdeburg might fairly ask
of him in her distress was not to be more scrupulous about violating
neutrality for her safety than he had been for his own advantage.
[Sidenote: =Retreat of Gustavus.=]
From a military point of view the loss of Magdeburg was a crushing
blow. The incipient movements in favour of Gustavus, which had begun to
show themselves among the Protestant towns, at once ceased. No German
princes except William of Hesse-Cassel and Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar
joined him. As Gustavus slowly fell back down the Elbe, and entrenched
himself at Werben, he must have felt that all the imperialist leaders
had to do was to leave him alone, and his power would melt away
of itself. But to leave things alone was just what Ferdinand and
Maximilian in the flush of their anticipated victory could not do. In
April peace had been signed at Cherasco between Ferdinand and France,
and the Italian army of the Emperor had now crossed the Alps and
reinforced Tilly. Forty thousand men followed his standard, and in the
hope of quelling all opposition and ending the war at a blow, orders
were sent to the marshal to procure the dismissal of the Saxon
troops, and then to march against the Swedes. [Sidenote: =Invasion
of Saxony by Tilly.=] But John George unexpectedly resented this
interference with his independence. He refused to dismiss his troops.
Tilly immediately occupied Merseburg and Leipzig and began harrying the
country. The sight of his burning villages, and the invasion of his
cherished independence, roused the sluggish elector at last. He sent
messengers post haste to Gustavus offering his alliance and demanding
his help. By one fatal blunder Ferdinand had done more to destroy his
own cause, than all his foes together had hitherto succeeded in doing.
He had driven Saxony over to the enemy. [Sidenote: =Alliance between
Saxony and Sweden.=] It was not so much the material resources
which the elector possessed, which made his friendship so important to
Gustavus, as the position which he held in Germany. Drunken, sluggish,
obstinate, irresolute as he was, men recognised in him a strenuous
loyalty to the constitution of the Empire as it then existed, a hearty
dread of revolutionary proposals, and a certain political shrewdness.
It was these qualities, quite as much as his hereditary position
as the leader of the Lutheran party, which had hitherto determined
the attitude of the north German princes both towards Frederick and
Christian of Denmark. That he should now join his forces to the Swedes
meant that to him the foreigner and the invader appeared less of a
revolutionary than the legal head of the Empire himself.
[Sidenote: =The battle of Breitenfeld.=]
Gustavus did not let the grass grow under his feet. He set out at once
for Saxony with the elector of Brandenburg, effected a junction with
the Saxon army, and marching towards Leipsig met the army of Tilly
drawn up in battle array on the field of Breitenfeld on September
17th, 1631. Tilly marshalled his men to the number of 32,000 in
one long line of battle along rising ground overlooking the little
stream of the Loderbach. In the centre were posted as usual the
solid squares of pikemen flanked by musketeers, which formed the
main battle according to the tactics of the Spanish school. On the
right wing was Furstenberg with the horse of the Italian army, while
the left was guarded by the fiery Pappenheim and his famous cavalry.
Between the wings and the centre were placed the heavy guns, probably
between thirty and forty in number. Tilly himself on his well-known
white horse put himself among his Walloon fellow-countrymen in the
centre. The arrangement adopted by Gustavus was somewhat different.
The army was drawn up in two lines, with a reserve of cavalry behind
each line, and a final reserve also of cavalry behind the centre of
the whole army. The extreme left opposed to Furstenberg was occupied
by the Saxon troops under the elector in person. On the right of the
Saxons, and in touch with the Swedish centre, was Horn with the Swedish
cavalry. Gustavus himself took command of the right wing, opposed to
Pappenheim, with the rest of the cavalry; but between each division
of cavalry on both wings in the first line was a detachment of two
hundred musketeers. The infantry occupied the centre, marshalled in
very much smaller squares than those of Tilly, and having a much
greater proportion of musketeers to pikemen, while in front of each
regiment was the light or field artillery. The heavier guns, in all
about one hundred, under the command of Torstenson, were placed in the
left centre. In numbers Gustavus was decidedly superior. His own army
amounted to some 26,000 men while the Saxons could not be less than
15,000. His guns, too, though not so heavy as those of Tilly, were far
more numerous, and could fire three shots to one of the imperialists.
The wind and the ground favoured Tilly. The battle began with an
artillery duel in which the quick-firing Swedish pieces wrought fearful
havoc among the dense masses of the imperialist army. Yet the stubborn
old marshal remained immovable amid the hail of the balls. Pappenheim,
younger and less disciplined, lost patience. Without orders he suddenly
launched his cavalry on the Swedish right, but Gustavus was ready for
him. The musketeers received him with a volley which made him reel, and
Baner at the head of the reserve cavalry, and Gustavus himself with the
right wing, dashed upon him at the moment and drove him fairly off the
field. Meanwhile on the extreme imperialist right Furstenberg in his
turn threw himself upon the Saxons, drove back their cavalry first on
to their guns and then on to their infantry, until the whole mass in
wild confusion broke and ran, carrying the elector with them to Duben,
and even to Eilenburg, pursued by the victorious imperialists. Tilly
saw his opportunity, and ordered his centre to advance to take Horn in
the flank left exposed by the flying Saxons, but the well-disciplined
and mobile Swedes falling back a little formed a new front on their
old flank and defended themselves vigorously. In making this flank
movement Tilly had necessarily left his artillery undefended, and
Gustavus, checking his pursuit of Pappenheim, wheeled back his cavalry,
and sweeping the position originally occupied by Tilly from left to
right, captured the guns and turned them against their own masters,
while he himself with his horsemen swooped down upon Tilly’s rear.
Caught between Horn’s foot in front and Gustavus’s cavalry in the rear,
with their own guns directing a plunging fire into their flanks, the
imperialist infantry proved themselves worthy of their reputation. They
fought like heroes, but the longer they fought the more hopeless became
the struggle, the more decisive the defeat. When the autumn sun went
down on the field of blood, but six hundred men remained in disciplined
array to make a ring round their veteran leader and carry him in safety
from the field. The imperialist army was entirely destroyed as a
fighting force. About 10,000 men were left on the field of battle, as
many more were taken prisoners, and according to the custom of the time
took service with the victors. One hundred and six standards and all
the guns remained to grace the conqueror’s triumph. Tilly retreated
on the Weser, gathering up the fragments of his defeated army as he
went, but he found no rest there. Pressed back by the advance of the
victorious Swedes to the Danube and even across the Danube, he did not
dare to make head against Gustavus again until the following spring.
[Sidenote: =March of Gustavus to the Main.=]
The victory of Breitenfeld placed all north Germany at the feet of the
Swedish king. Perceiving at a glance that even a successful attack
upon Vienna would not end the war, and recognising that his first
duty was to the troubled Protestants of the centre and of the south,
Gustavus marched straight into the heart of Germany on the Main and
the Rhine, disregarding the characteristic suggestions of Wallenstein
that they should divide Germany between them at the expense of the
Emperor and the Catholic party. On October 10th he occupied Würtzburg.
The 18th of November saw him at Frankfort on the Main, the old capital
of Germany. He spent Christmas Day at Mainz, and there in the fair
and rich Rhineland he rested his tired troops, while in the north
Tott was completing the reduction of the Mecklenberg coast line, and
the Protestant administrators who had been ousted under the Edict of
Restitution were being replaced. No one, however, knew better than
Gustavus on what slender foundations his power rested. Richelieu was
already beginning to think that his ally was becoming too powerful.
Louis XIII., it was said, had been heard to mutter ‘It is time
to put a limit to the progress of this Goth.’ Force, far more than
inclination or policy, had brought him the Saxon alliance, and force
might easily break the bond which it had forged. Tilly was mustering
new forces beyond the Danube, and at any moment a general of reputation
might stamp his feet and produce an army of soldiers of fortune on his
flank or in his rear. Even the Protestants could not be trusted should
misfortune come. Except at Nuremberg and a few other places, which had
felt the hand of the oppressor, there was no enthusiasm in Germany for
the Protestant Liberator. Two things were necessary to secure the
fruits of the victory which he had won. [Sidenote: =His schemes for a
general Protestant alliance under Sweden.=] He must crush the enemy
before he had time to recover from the blow of Breitenfeld, and he must
gain a basis of military operations and political influence by uniting
the Protestant states in a firm league under his leadership. With Tilly
destroyed, and the _Corpus Evangelicorum_ formed, and trusty
Swedish captains placed in occupation of the ecclesiastical lands of
central Germany, then and not till then might Gustavus consider his
work secure.
[Sidenote: =Advance upon the Danube to Munich, 1632.=]
The first thing was to crush military opposition. At the end of March
the Swedes were again in the field. On the 31st Gustavus entered
Nuremberg in triumph and received an enthusiastic welcome. On April
5th he captured Donauwörth, on the 14th he found Tilly entrenched
behind the Lech, forced the passage of the river, stormed the enemies’
position, and drove back the old marshal to Ingolstadt wounded to
death. Bavaria was at his feet. Side by side with the Elector Palatine
he rode into Munich on the 7th of May. There was now no enemy left to
be dealt with except the Emperor, and the dominions of the Hapsburgs
were still in far too disorganised a state to be able to offer much
opposition. Even the Saxons had marched unopposed into Bohemia, and
when Gustavus was celebrating his triumph with the winter-king at
Munich, John George, who had done more than any one else to oust
Frederick from Bohemia, was keeping high festival himself at Prague.
[Sidenote: =Wallenstein appealed to by the Emperor.=]
It was not for long. There was but one man in all wide Europe who
could save Ferdinand from the storm just breaking upon his head, for
there was but one capable of drawing to himself and binding together
into an organised army the soldiers of fortune who were scattered all
over the civilised world. In December, Eggenberg, Ferdinand’s most
trusted counsellor, had been sent to Wallenstein to ask him to forgive
the past and strike one more blow for the defence of the House of
Austria. Wallenstein eagerly seized the opportunity, for circumstances
had played singularly into his hand. The victories of Gustavus had
drawn the teeth of Maximilian and the League. The necessities of the
Emperor must force him to agree to whatever terms were demanded. The
long wished for moment had arrived when he at the head of an army,
wholly his own, owing no allegiance to the Emperor, might become the
dictator of Germany, and, ousting from her soil all foreigners except
himself, might impose peace upon Germany on the basis of religious
toleration. [Sidenote: =His terms.=] The terms which he exacted
from the Emperor forbid any doubt as to his intentions. No army was
to be allowed in the Empire except under his command, he alone was
to have the right of pardoning offenders and confiscating lands.
[Sidenote: =Appointed dictator.=] The Edict of Restitution was to
be withdrawn. In other words, he was to be the military and political
dictator of Germany. The terms were accepted, his standard raised.
From Italy, Scotland, Ireland, as well as from every part of Germany,
flocked to him men eager for distinction and more eager for plunder,
without distinction of nationality and without distinction of religion.
In May 1632, his organisation was completed. [Sidenote: =His plan
of campaign.=] Falling suddenly upon the Saxons at Prague he drove
them headlong out of Bohemia, then turning swiftly to the left directed
his main army upon the rich and Protestant Nuremberg, while Pappenheim
scoured the Rhine country at the head of his horse. Gustavus saw the
crisis, threw himself into Nuremberg and fortified it, then, summoning
to his assistance his outlying detachments, offered Wallenstein battle
in the hope of crushing this new enemy by another Breitenfeld. But
Wallenstein had made up his mind to show Gustavus quite another sort of
warfare. He knew the great difficulties which the Swedes experienced in
conducting their operations in a country, largely hostile, at such a
distance from their base. He knew also the value of his own superiority
in light cavalry in provisioning his own army, and in hampering the
commissariat of the Swedes. He did not trust the discipline of his own
recent levies on the battle-field, and so, forming a huge entrenched
camp on an eminence overlooking the plain on which Nuremberg stands, he
prepared to force Gustavus away by sheer starvation.
[Sidenote: =The camp at Nuremberg.=]
At the end of June the camp was finished, and the duel between the two
greatest soldiers of the day began. But it was not only a duel between
soldiers, it was also a duel between rival policies. The crisis of
the fate of the Empire was being then decided. On the one side was
military dictatorship and religious toleration in connection with
the traditional institutions of the Empire, on the other Protestant
supremacy and political federation under the leadership of the
foreigner. Stubbornly the question was fought out, not by arms but
by endurance, but day by day it became clearer that Wallenstein had
calculated rightly, and that Gustavus must starve the first. By the
beginning of September the strain was growing intolerable, discipline
was becoming relaxed, and the king felt that he must stake all on one
last attack. On September 3d he led his army against Wallenstein’s
entrenchments, but in vain. After heroic efforts he had to retire
baffled. [Sidenote: =Retreat of Gustavus.=] A few days afterwards
he marched out of Nuremberg, leaving the best part of his army dead
before the ramparts of the Alte Veste, or dying in the hospitals
of the town. [Sidenote: =Invasion of Saxony by Wallenstein.=]
Wallenstein, following out determinedly the plan he had laid down for
himself, never attempted to pursue, but turning north into Saxony
prepared somewhat leisurely to choose a position between the Elbe and
the Saale, where he might entrench himself for the winter, and apply
the gentle pressure of his marauding and requisitioning bands to the
ever-vacillating will of John George, and detach him from the Swedish
alliance. Gustavus had in the previous year lost Magdeburg by a want of
decision. He was not going to lose Saxony in the same way. Summoning
Oxenstjerna and Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar to his aid, he flew through
Thuringia as quick as he could go, and seized Erfurt and Naumberg
before Wallenstein quite realised what had happened. It was now the
beginning of November, the weather had suddenly turned piercingly cold,
and Wallenstein, making up his mind that Gustavus would not pursue his
operations further that winter, prepared to entrench himself between
Merseburg and Torgau, and gave permission to Pappenheim to return to
the Rhineland capturing Halle as he went. It was a great blunder.
Gustavus dashed forwards on Wallenstein’s main army to crush it before
the mistake could be repaired. Wallenstein finding a battle inevitable
sent messenger after messenger to bring Pappenheim back, and hastily
throwing up some field entrenchments and deepening the ditches which
intersected the plain, awaited the onslaught of the Swedish king at
Lützen on the 16th of November.
[Sidenote: =Battle of Lützen, 1632.=]
As at Breitenfeld the Swedes were drawn up in two lines, and the
imperialists only in one, but Wallenstein, unlike Tilly, seems to have
interspersed bodies of musketeers among the troops of the cavalry, and
posted a strong reserve behind his centre. The battle began as usual
with the artillery in the early morning, then, as the autumn mist
cleared away, the Swedes advanced to the attack about ten o’clock.
There was no room for generalship. It was hard hand-to-hand fighting.
For two hours the battle swayed backwards and forwards, the hardest
of the fighting being on the Swedish right, where the king himself
was engaged with Piccolomini’s black cuirassiers. Bit by bit the
Swedes were gaining ground, when Wallenstein bringing up his reserves
directed a terrible charge upon the Swedish centre, and forced it back
with fearful loss, especially among the officers. [Sidenote: =Death
of Gustavus.=]Gustavus, at the head of such horsemen as he could
muster, flew to the rescue, and as he made his way through the mist
which had gathered again for a few moments in the hollow, found himself
unexpectedly in the middle of a troop of the enemy’s cavalry. A shot
broke his left arm, another pierced his back, and he fell heavily to
the ground, where he was soon despatched by a bullet through the head.
His white horse, riderless and bloodstained, tore on through the enemy
into the Swedish ranks and announced the loss of their leader. Bernhard
of Saxe-Weimar took the command, and rallying the army with the cry
of vengeance, renewed the charge with an enthusiasm which carried
all before it. Just then Pappenheim and his cavalry appeared on the
right flank of the Swedes, and the battle again settled down to hard
hand-to-hand fighting for three hours more. Pappenheim himself fell
dead in the first charge, but his men, like their enemies, fought on
the more fiercely to avenge the fall of their captain. At last as the
darkness fell the Swedes nerved themselves for a supreme effort, and
drove the imperialists from their entrenchments just as the leading
columns of Pappenheim’s infantry appeared upon the field.
[Sidenote: =Results of his death.=]
The honours of the battle were with the Swedes, its fruits were with
Wallenstein. As regards mere numbers the Swedish loss was probably
heavier than that of the imperialists, and their army more weakened as
a fighting force. But if Gustavus had been the only man killed on that
side, his death would have more than counterbalanced the whole of the
imperialist losses, for not only was he the general and the king, not
only was the one man capable of uniting the forces of Protestantism,
the one who could successfully cope both with the ambition of Richelieu
and the fanaticism of Ferdinand, but he was also the only man still in
power in Germany who ennobled the struggle with a distinct moral ideal.
Whether Protestants in Germany had sufficient powers of cohesion and
strength of conviction to follow a common policy, whether Sweden, even
under Gustavus, could have become sufficiently German in interests and
sympathies to command the allegiance of Germans, may be doubtful; but
at any rate it was a policy worth trying, it was a policy based on the
moral and political needs of the people, and not upon the personal
ambition of the successful general. If it failed it would fail only
because Protestantism in Germany had not the qualities necessary to
make it succeed. But when Gustavus Adolphus died on the field of Lützen
all moral and religious ideal died too out of the Thirty Years’ War.
On the one side was the personal ambition of a military dictator, on
the other the national ambition of a foreign aggressor, and the very
followers and companions of the noble Gustavus himself soon sank to be
little more than ‘condottiere’ bent only upon gorging themselves and
their country out of the spoils of helpless Germany.
[Sidenote: =The lead taken by Oxenstjerna.=]
On the death of Gustavus the supreme direction of Swedish affairs
passed into the hands of Oxenstjerna, whose one object was to carry
out the policy of his dead friend and king; but Oxenstjerna was no
general, and being without the supreme authority which Gustavus
wielded, had often to persuade where he would have commanded. His first
step showed the change which had taken place. Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar,
like other military adventurers, required his reward before he would
venture his life further in the cause, and a duchy had to be carved
for him out of the bishoprics of Bamberg and Würtzburg. It was the
first confiscation of Catholic lands by the Protestant forces, the
first forcible subjection of a Catholic population to a Protestant
ruler. However justifiable it might be as an act of retaliation for the
Edict of Restitution, it was but too evident a proof of the increasing
tendency to consider the interests of the German people as of no value
in comparison with the political and military necessities of their
so-called saviours. [Sidenote: =The League of Heilbronn, 1633.=]
Sure of the assistance of Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, Oxenstjerna was
enabled to unite the circles of Swabia Franconia and the upper and
lower Rhine to Sweden by an offensive and defensive league, which was
signed at Heilbronn in April 1633. Bernhard took command of the forces
raised by the circles, and prepared in conjunction with the Swedish
army to resume the attack on Vienna.
The supreme word on military affairs for the moment lay not with
Bernhard or with Oxenstjerna but with Wallenstein. [Sidenote:
=Schemes of Wallenstein.=] The death of Gustavus left him, as he
well knew, without a rival in Germany, and retiring slowly from Lützen
behind the mountains of Bohemia, he surrendered himself to the illusion
that he could now dictate peace to Germany on his own terms. Secure, as
he thought, of the support of his army, contemptuous of the politics
both of Ferdinand and of Oxenstjerna, he prepared to enforce his own
conditions of peace upon the Emperor and upon the Swedes alike. The
Edict of Restitution was to be withdrawn, the Swedes to be compensated
by some places on the Baltic coast, while he himself, the peacemaker,
would exchange the duchy of Mecklenberg for the Rhenish Palatinate,
or possibly the crown of Bohemia. During the summer of 1633 he was
pressing these terms upon Oxenstjerna and upon John George. In June
he had almost obtained the consent of the latter, but Oxenstjerna,
cautious and hostile, would not trust him. Couriers went quick and
often between the two, and rumours of treachery were beginning to be
heard behind Wallenstein’s back, not merely at Vienna, but, a far
more serious thing, in the camp. The more they were canvassed the
more did Wallenstein’s proposals seem hateful to important interests
in Europe. [Sidenote: =Opposition of the Jesuits, the Spaniards and
the army.=] The Jesuits and the Catholics were not willing to give
up so soon the policy of the Edict of Restitution. The Spaniards and
the French would risk anything rather than see Wallenstein lord of the
Palatinate. Conservative statesmen and the loyal soldiers resented the
attempt to impose terms on the unwilling Emperor by the brute force
of an army nominally his own. The soldiers of fortune, especially the
officers, did not want an end put to a war which had been so lucrative
and promised to be more lucrative still. In January 1634, the Spaniards
were plying the Emperor with accusations, and demanding the dismissal
of Wallenstein, just as Maximilian and the League had done four years
ago. Wallenstein contented himself with binding his officers closer to
him by an oath. Sure of their support he could face the world. But in
the beginning of February his support began to give way underneath him.
Piccolomini, Gallas and Aldringer deserted him, and Ferdinand boldly
threw himself into the arms of the Spaniards. [Sidenote: =Dismissal
and murder of Wallenstein, 1634.=] He dismissed Wallenstein from his
command, branded him as a traitor, released his army from its obedience
to him, and put a price upon his head. The breach was complete but
still Wallenstein did not quail. Summoning the colonels to meet him
at Pilsen he obtained from them on February 20th an undertaking to
stand by him against his enemies, and moved to Eger to meet Bernhard
of Saxe-Weimar, in the hope of inducing the Swedes to make common
cause with him, and oblige the Emperor to accept the peace. There
also came four soldiers of fortune, two Irishmen and two Scots, who,
finding in the declaration issued by the Emperor a warrant for their
own dark plots, like Fitzurse and his companions five centuries before,
determined to take upon themselves the responsibility of ridding their
master of too powerful a servant. At nightfall on the 25th of February,
Wallenstein’s chief supporters were invited to a banquet and there
murdered. Devereux, an Irish captain, reeking from the butchery, made
his way to the general’s quarters, and struck him down to the ground as
he arose from his bed alarmed at the noise. So perished Wallenstein in
the height of his fame and power, and with him perished the last chance
of keeping the foreigner out of Germany.
At first the star of Ferdinand seemed to shine the brighter in spite of
the dark shade cast by the murder of Wallenstein. [Sidenote: =Battle
of Nördlingen, 1634.=] The army placed under the orders of the
young Ferdinand, king of Hungary, captured Regensburg in July, stormed
Donauwörth, and laid siege to Nördlingen. There the king was joined by
the cardinal-infant, Ferdinand of Spain, who was on his way to assume
the government of the Netherlands, at the head of 15,000 men. In spite
of inferior numbers Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, ever sanguine and ever
impetuous, prevailed on the wary Horn, who commanded the Swedes, to
risk a battle; but the evening of the 6th of September 1634 saw him a
fugitive, and Horn a prisoner with 16,000 men _hors de combat_.
The battle of Nördlingen was one of the decisive battles of the war.
Just as Breitenfeld had made the conquest of north Germany by the
Emperor and the success of the Edict of Restitution impossible, so
did Nördlingen render the conquest of south Germany by Protestantism
impossible. The Catholic bishoprics were recovered, Bernhard’s duchy
of Franconia vanished, and the line of the Main became once more the
boundary between the religions.
[Sidenote: =Peace of Prague, 1635.=]
In May 1635, the negotiations for peace which had been going on so long
with Saxony were brought to a happy conclusion, and a treaty embodying
the terms agreed upon was duly signed at Prague between John George and
the Emperor. The question of the ecclesiastical lands was settled by
taking the year 1627 as the test year. Whatever belonged to Protestants
at that time was to remain Protestant, whatever was then Catholic was
to be Catholic still. This arrangement secured nearly all the northern
bishoprics to Protestantism. Lusatia was to be made over to Saxony, and
Lutheranism in Silesia guaranteed by the Emperor. Lutheranism was still
to remain the only privileged form of Protestantism. These conditions
were intended to form a basis for a general peace. It was hoped that
other states would accept them, and so gradually put an end to the war.
To some extent the anticipation was realised. A considerable number of
the cities and smaller states of north Germany accepted the treaty of
Prague, but that it would ever form a satisfactory basis for a general
peace was impossible, as long as it provided no security whatever for
the Calvinists, and did not attempt to deal with the dangers of foreign
intervention.
By the treaty of Prague Saxony ranged itself once more upon the side
of the Emperor. It is easy to sneer at the want of public spirit
and the narrowness of aim which marked the policy of John George
throughout this difficult time. [Sidenote: =Policy of John George
of Saxony.=] Yet it will be found by an attentive observer that
from first to last there was a singular consistency in his action,
which sprang not from weakness of will or sluggishness of temperament,
but from settled principles of policy from which he never budged. In
imperial politics John George was a conservative, in ecclesiastical
matters a Lutheran, and he remained steadily, even stubbornly,
consistent to those two conceptions. As a conservative and a Lutheran
he hated the destructive policy of Christian of Anhalt and Frederick
Elector Palatine, and consequently secured to Ferdinand his election
to the Empire, and actually supported him in arms against his revolted
subjects. When Frederick threw himself into the arms of Mansfeld,
when his co-religionists in the north began to feel alarmed, when
Christian of Denmark determined to fight for his religion and his son’s
bishoprics, John George remained sturdily, obstinately, neutral; for
he believed that it was better to run some risk of aggression on the
part of the Emperor than to throw all the institutions of the Empire
into the crucible. The Edict of Restitution was the first thing that
shook him, but even that would not have weighed against the danger
of allowing the foreigner a footing in Germany, had not the Emperor
actually had recourse to violence. If John George had to break his
neutrality, if he was obliged to have a hand in the work of destruction
of Germany, if conservatism was no longer possible, then he would
rather join a Gustavus than a Wallenstein or a Tilly. But he never felt
happy in that alliance. His sense of the desolation of the country, of
the destruction of war, was too great for him ever willingly to remain
long under arms. When the Emperor had been beaten back, when the Edict
of Restitution had become an impossibility, when Wallenstein was dead,
and France beginning to interfere actively in the affairs of Germany,
it was time for John George once more to range himself side by side
with the Emperor, for once more the Emperor had become the champion of
German institutions against revolution. The treaty of Prague represents
no high ideals of policy. It shows that the great religious ideals with
which the war began are over. No longer do men believe that they are
fighting for the Church or for Protestantism, for the highest interests
of nations and of souls. Seventeen years of war have disabused them
of that illusion. But next to religion among the ennobling influences
of life comes that of patriotism, and John George retiring from
alliance with the foreigner, as the Swede and the Frenchman prepare
to put Germany on the rack for thirteen more weary years for their
own aggrandisement, is a figure which shows at any rate something of
patriotism and of policy, among the heartless dissensions of ambitious
brigand chiefs.