No More Learning

The roaring of musketry, the pealing of the alarm-bells, and
the growing tumult apprised the awakening citizens of their danger.
Hastily arming themselves, they rushed in blind confusion against the
enemy. Still some hope of repulsing the besiegers remained; but the
governor being killed, their efforts were without plan and co-operation,
and at last their ammunition began to fail them. In the meanwhile, two
other gates, hitherto unattacked, were stripped of their defenders, to
meet the urgent danger within the town. The enemy quickly availed
themselves of this confusion to attack these posts. The resistance was
nevertheless spirited and obstinate, until four imperial regiments, at
length, masters of the ramparts, fell upon the garrison in the rear, and
completed their rout. Amidst the general tumult, a brave captain, named
Schmidt, who still headed a few of the more resolute against the enemy,
succeeded in driving them to the gates; here he fell mortally wounded,
and with him expired the hopes of Magdeburg. Before noon, all the works
were carried, and the town was in the enemy’s hands.

Two gates were now opened by the storming party for the main body, and
Tilly marched in with part of his infantry. Immediately occupying the
principal streets, he drove the citizens with pointed cannon into their
dwellings, there to await their destiny. They were not long held in
suspense; a word from Tilly decided the fate of Magdeburg.

Even a more humane general would in vain have recommended mercy to such
soldiers; but Tilly never made the attempt. Left by their general’s
silence masters of the lives of all the citizens, the soldiery broke
into the houses to satiate their most brutal appetites. The prayers of
innocence excited some compassion in the hearts of the Germans, but none
in the rude breasts of Pappenheim’s Walloons. Scarcely had the savage
cruelty commenced, when the other gates were thrown open, and the
cavalry, with the fearful hordes of the Croats, poured in upon the
devoted inhabitants.

Here commenced a scene of horrors for which history has no language--
poetry no pencil. Neither innocent childhood, nor helpless old age;
neither youth, sex, rank, nor beauty, could disarm the fury of the
conquerors. Wives were abused in the arms of their husbands, daughters
at the feet of their parents; and the defenceless sex exposed to the
double sacrifice of virtue and life. No situation, however obscure, or
however sacred, escaped the rapacity of the enemy. In a single church
fifty-three women were found beheaded. The Croats amused themselves
with throwing children into the flames; Pappenheim’s Walloons with
stabbing infants at the mother’s breast. Some officers of the League,
horror-struck at this dreadful scene, ventured to remind Tilly that he
had it in his power to stop the carnage. “Return in an hour,” was his
answer; “I will see what I can do; the soldier must have some reward for
his danger and toils. ” These horrors lasted with unabated fury, till at
last the smoke and flames proved a check to the plunderers. To augment
the confusion and to divert the resistance of the inhabitants, the
Imperialists had, in the commencement of the assault, fired the town in
several places. The wind rising rapidly, spread the flames, till the
blaze became universal. Fearful, indeed, was the tumult amid clouds of
smoke, heaps of dead bodies, the clash of swords, the crash of falling
ruins, and streams of blood. The atmosphere glowed; and the intolerable
heat forced at last even the murderers to take refuge in their camp. In
less than twelve hours, this strong, populous, and flourishing city, one
of the finest in Germany, was reduced to ashes, with the exception of
two churches and a few houses. The Administrator, Christian William,
after receiving several wounds, was taken prisoner, with three of the
burgomasters; most of the officers and magistrates had already met an
enviable death. The avarice of the officers had saved 400 of the
richest citizens, in the hope of extorting from them an exorbitant
ransom. But this humanity was confined to the officers of the League,
whom the ruthless barbarity of the Imperialists caused to be regarded as
guardian angels.

Scarcely had the fury of the flames abated, when the Imperialists
returned to renew the pillage amid the ruins and ashes of the town.
Many were suffocated by the smoke; many found rich booty in the cellars,
where the citizens had concealed their more valuable effects. On the
13th of May, Tilly himself appeared in the town, after the streets had
been cleared of ashes and dead bodies. Horrible and revolting to
humanity was the scene that presented itself. The living crawling from
under the dead, children wandering about with heart-rending cries,
calling for their parents; and infants still sucking the breasts of
their lifeless mothers. More than 6,000 bodies were thrown into the
Elbe to clear the streets; a much greater number had been consumed by
the flames. The whole number of the slain was reckoned at not less than
30,000.

The entrance of the general, which took place on the 14th, put a stop to
the plunder, and saved the few who had hitherto contrived to escape.
About a thousand people were taken out of the cathedral, where they had
remained three days and two nights, without food, and in momentary fear
of death. Tilly promised them quarter, and commanded bread to be
distributed among them. The next day, a solemn mass was performed in
the cathedral, and ‘Te Deum’ sung amidst the discharge of artillery.
The imperial general rode through the streets, that he might be able, as
an eyewitness, to inform his master that no such conquest had been made
since the destruction of Troy and Jerusalem. Nor was this an
exaggeration, whether we consider the greatness, importance, and
prosperity of the city razed, or the fury of its ravagers.

In Germany, the tidings of the dreadful fate of Magdeburg caused
triumphant joy to the Roman Catholics, while it spread terror and
consternation among the Protestants. Loudly and generally they
complained against the king of Sweden, who, with so strong a force, and
in the very neighbourhood, had left an allied city to its fate. Even
the most reasonable deemed his inaction inexplicable; and lest he should
lose irretrievably the good will of the people, for whose deliverance he
had engaged in this war, Gustavus was under the necessity of publishing
to the world a justification of his own conduct.

He had attacked, and on the 16th April, carried Landsberg, when he was
apprised of the danger of Magdeburg. He resolved immediately to march
to the relief of that town; and he moved with all his cavalry, and ten
regiments of infantry towards the Spree. But the position which he held
in Germany, made it necessary that he should not move forward without
securing his rear. In traversing a country where he was surrounded by
suspicious friends and dangerous enemies, and where a single premature
movement might cut off his communication with his own kingdom, the
utmost vigilance and caution were necessary. The Elector of Brandenburg
had already opened the fortress of Custrin to the flying Imperialists,
and closed the gates against their pursuers. If now Gustavus should
fail in his attack upon Tilly, the Elector might again open his
fortresses to the Imperialists, and the king, with an enemy both in
front and rear, would be irrecoverably lost. In order to prevent this
contingency, he demanded that the Elector should allow him to hold the
fortresses of Custrin and Spandau, till the siege of Magdeburg should be
raised.

Nothing could be more reasonable than this demand. The services which
Gustavus had lately rendered the Elector, by expelling the Imperialists
from Brandenburg, claimed his gratitude, while the past conduct of the
Swedes in Germany entitled them to confidence. But by the surrender of
his fortresses, the Elector would in some measure make the King of
Sweden master of his country; besides that, by such a step, he must at
once break with the Emperor, and expose his States to his future
vengeance. The Elector’s struggle with himself was long and violent,
but pusillanimity and self-interest for awhile prevailed. Unmoved by
the fate of Magdeburg, cold in the cause of religion and the liberties
of Germany, he saw nothing but his own danger; and this anxiety was
greatly stimulated by his minister Von Schwartzenburgh, who was secretly
in the pay of Austria. In the mean time, the Swedish troops approached
Berlin, and the king took up his residence with the Elector. When he
witnessed the timorous hesitation of that prince, he could not restrain
his indignation: “My road is to Magdeburg,” said he; “not for my own
advantage, but for that of the Protestant religion. If no one will
stand by me, I shall immediately retreat, conclude a peace with the
Emperor, and return to Stockholm. I am convinced that Ferdinand will
readily grant me whatever conditions I may require. But if Magdeburg is
once lost, and the Emperor relieved from all fear of me, then it is for
you to look to yourselves and the consequences. ” This timely threat, and
perhaps, too, the aspect of the Swedish army, which was strong enough to
obtain by force what was refused to entreaty, brought at last the
Elector to his senses, and Spandau was delivered into the hands of the
Swedes.

The king had now two routes to Magdeburg; one westward led through an
exhausted country, and filled with the enemy’s troops, who might dispute
with him the passage of the Elbe; the other more to the southward, by
Dessau and Wittenberg, where bridges were to be found for crossing the
Elbe, and where supplies could easily be drawn from Saxony. But he
could not avail himself of the latter without the consent of the
Elector, whom Gustavus had good reason to distrust. Before setting out
on his march, therefore, he demanded from that prince a free passage and
liberty for purchasing provisions for his troops. His application was
refused, and no remonstrances could prevail on the Elector to abandon
his system of neutrality. While the point was still in dispute, the
news of the dreadful fate of Magdeburg arrived.

Tilly announced its fall to the Protestant princes in the tone of a
conqueror, and lost no time in making the most of the general
consternation. The influence of the Emperor, which had sensibly
declined during the rapid progress of Gustavus, after this decisive blow
rose higher than ever; and the change was speedily visible in the
imperious tone he adopted towards the Protestant states. The decrees of
the Confederation of Leipzig were annulled by a proclamation, the
Convention itself suppressed by an imperial decree, and all the
refractory states threatened with the fate of Magdeburg. As the
executor of this imperial mandate, Tilly immediately ordered troops to
march against the Bishop of Bremen, who was a member of the Confederacy,
and had himself enlisted soldiers. The terrified bishop immediately
gave up his forces to Tilly, and signed the revocation of the acts of
the Confederation. An imperial army, which had lately returned from
Italy, under the command of Count Furstenberg, acted in the same manner
towards the Administrator of Wirtemberg. The duke was compelled to
submit to the Edict of Restitution, and all the decrees of the Emperor,
and even to pay a monthly subsidy of 100,000 dollars, for the
maintenance of the imperial troops. Similar burdens were inflicted upon
Ulm and Nuremberg, and the entire circles of Franconia and Swabia. The
hand of the Emperor was stretched in terror over all Germany. The
sudden preponderance, more in appearance, perhaps, than in reality,
which he had obtained by this blow, carried him beyond the bounds even
of the moderation which he had hitherto observed, and misled him into
hasty and violent measures, which at last turned the wavering resolution
of the German princes in favour of Gustavus Adolphus. Injurious as the
immediate consequences of the fall of Magdeburg were to the Protestant
cause, its remoter effects were most advantageous. The past surprise
made way for active resentment, despair inspired courage, and the German
freedom rose, like a phoenix, from the ashes of Magdeburg.

Among the princes of the Leipzig Confederation, the Elector of Saxony
and the Landgrave of Hesse were the most powerful; and, until they were
disarmed, the universal authority of the Emperor was unconfirmed.
Against the Landgrave, therefore, Tilly first directed his attack, and
marched straight from Magdeburg into Thuringia. During this march, the
territories of Saxe Ernest and Schwartzburg were laid waste, and
Frankenhausen plundered before the very eyes of Tilly, and laid in ashes
with impunity. The unfortunate peasant paid dear for his master’s
attachment to the interests of Sweden. Erfurt, the key of Saxony and
Franconia, was threatened with a siege, but redeemed itself by a
voluntary contribution of money and provisions. From thence, Tilly
despatched his emissaries to the Landgrave, demanding of him the
immediate disbanding of his army, a renunciation of the league of
Leipzig, the reception of imperial garrisons into his territories and
fortresses, with the necessary contributions, and the declaration of
friendship or hostility. Such was the treatment which a prince of the
Empire was compelled to submit to from a servant of the Emperor. But
these extravagant demands acquired a formidable weight from the power
which supported them; and the dreadful fate of Magdeburg, still fresh in
the memory of the Landgrave, tended still farther to enforce them.
Admirable, therefore, was the intrepidity of the Landgrave’s answer:
“To admit foreign troops into his capital and fortresses, the Landgrave
is not disposed; his troops he requires for his own purposes; as for an
attack, he can defend himself. If General Tilly wants money or
provisions, let him go to Munich, where there is plenty of both. ” The
irruption of two bodies of imperial troops into Hesse Cassel was the
immediate result of this spirited reply, but the Landgrave gave them so
warm a reception that they could effect nothing; and just as Tilly was
preparing to follow with his whole army, to punish the unfortunate
country for the firmness of its sovereign, the movements of the King of
Sweden recalled him to another quarter.

Gustavus Adolphus had learned the fall of Magdeburg with deep regret;
and the demand now made by the Elector, George William, in terms of
their agreement, for the restoration of Spandau, greatly increased this
feeling. The loss of Magdeburg had rather augmented than lessened the
reasons which made the possession of this fortress so desirable; and the
nearer became the necessity of a decisive battle between himself and
Tilly, the more unwilling he felt to abandon the only place which, in
the event of a defeat, could ensure him a refuge. After a vain
endeavour, by entreaties and representations, to bring over the Elector
to his views, whose coldness and lukewarmness daily increased, he gave
orders to his general to evacuate Spandau, but at the same time declared
to the Elector that he would henceforth regard him as an enemy.

To give weight to this declaration, he appeared with his whole force
before Berlin. “I will not be worse treated than the imperial
generals,” was his reply to the ambassadors whom the bewildered Elector
despatched to his camp. “Your master has received them into his
territories, furnished them with all necessary supplies, ceded to them
every place which they required, and yet, by all these concessions, he
could not prevail upon them to treat his subjects with common humanity.
All that I require of him is security, a moderate sum of money, and
provisions for my troops; in return, I promise to protect his country,
and to keep the war at a distance from him. On these points, however, I
must insist; and my brother, the Elector, must instantly determine to
have me as a friend, or to see his capital plundered. ” This decisive
tone produced a due impression; and the cannon pointed against the town
put an end to the doubts of George William. In a few days, a treaty was
signed, by which the Elector engaged to furnish a monthly subsidy of
30,000 dollars, to leave Spandau in the king’s hands, and to open
Custrin at all times to the Swedish troops. This now open alliance of
the Elector of Brandenburg with the Swedes, excited no less displeasure
at Vienna, than did formerly the similar procedure of the Duke of
Pomerania; but the changed fortune which now attended his arms, obliged
the Emperor to confine his resentment to words.

The king’s satisfaction, on this favourable event, was increased by the
agreeable intelligence that Griefswald, the only fortress which the
Imperialists still held in Pomerania, had surrendered, and that the
whole country was now free of the enemy. He appeared once more in this
duchy, and was gratified at the sight of the general joy which he had
caused to the people. A year had elapsed since Gustavus first entered
Germany, and this event was now celebrated by all Pomerania as a
national festival. Shortly before, the Czar of Moscow had sent
ambassadors to congratulate him, to renew his alliance, and even to
offer him troops. He had great reason to rejoice at the friendly
disposition of Russia, as it was indispensable to his interests that
Sweden itself should remain undisturbed by any dangerous neighbour
during the war in which he himself was engaged. Soon after, his queen,
Maria Eleonora, landed in Pomerania, with a reinforcement of 8000
Swedes; and the arrival of 6000 English, under the Marquis of Hamilton,
requires more particular notice because this is all that history
mentions of the English during the Thirty Years’ War.

During Tilly’s expedition into Thuringia, Pappenheim commanded in
Magdeburg; but was unable to prevent the Swedes from crossing the Elbe
at various points, routing some imperial detachments, and seizing
several posts. He himself, alarmed at the approach of the King of
Sweden, anxiously recalled Tilly, and prevailed upon him to return by
rapid marches to Magdeburg. Tilly encamped on this side of the river at
Wolmerstadt; Gustavus on the same side, near Werben, not far from the
confluence of the Havel and the Elbe. His very arrival portended no
good to Tilly. The Swedes routed three of his regiments, which were
posted in villages at some distance from the main body, carried off half
their baggage, and burned the remainder. Tilly in vain advanced within
cannon shot of the king’s camp, and offered him battle. Gustavus,
weaker by one-half than his adversary, prudently declined it; and his
position was too strong for an attack. Nothing more ensued but a
distant cannonade, and a few skirmishes, in which the Swedes had
invariably the advantage. In his retreat to Wolmerstadt, Tilly’s army
was weakened by numerous desertions. Fortune seemed to have forsaken
him since the carnage of Magdeburg.

The King of Sweden, on the contrary, was followed by uninterrupted
success. While he himself was encamped in Werben, the whole of
Mecklenburg, with the exception of a few towns, was conquered by his
General Tott and the Duke Adolphus Frederick; and he enjoyed the
satisfaction of reinstating both dukes in their dominions. He proceeded
in person to Gustrow, where the reinstatement was solemnly to take
place, to give additional dignity to the ceremony by his presence. The
two dukes, with their deliverer between them, and attended by a splendid
train of princes, made a public entry into the city, which the joy of
their subjects converted into an affecting solemnity. Soon after his
return to Werben, the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel appeared in his camp, to
conclude an offensive and defensive alliance; the first sovereign prince
in Germany, who voluntarily and openly declared against the Emperor,
though not wholly uninfluenced by strong motives. The Landgrave bound
himself to act against the king’s enemies as his own, to open to him his
towns and territory, and to furnish his army with provisions and
necessaries. The king, on the other hand, declared himself his ally and
protector; and engaged to conclude no peace with the Emperor without
first obtaining for the Landgrave a full redress of grievances. Both
parties honourably performed their agreement. Hesse Cassel adhered to
the Swedish alliance during the whole of this tedious war; and at the
peace of Westphalia had no reason to regret the friendship of Sweden.

Tilly, from whom this bold step on the part of the Landgrave was not
long concealed, despatched Count Fugger with several regiments against
him; and at the same time endeavoured to excite his subjects to
rebellion by inflammatory letters. But these made as little impression
as his troops, which subsequently failed him so decidedly at the battle
of Breitenfield. The Estates of Hesse could not for a moment hesitate
between their oppressor and their protector.

But the imperial general was far more disturbed by the equivocal conduct
of the Elector of Saxony, who, in defiance of the imperial prohibition,
continued his preparations, and adhered to the confederation of Leipzig.
At this conjuncture, when the proximity of the King of Sweden made a
decisive battle ere long inevitable, it appeared extremely dangerous to
leave Saxony in arms, and ready in a moment to declare for the enemy.
Tilly had just received a reinforcement of 25,000 veteran troops under
Furstenberg, and, confident in his strength, he hoped either to disarm
the Elector by the mere terror of his arrival, or at least to conquer
him with little difficulty. Before quitting his camp at Wolmerstadt, he
commanded the Elector, by a special messenger, to open his territories
to the imperial troops; either to disband his own, or to join them to
the imperial army; and to assist, in conjunction with himself, in
driving the King of Sweden out of Germany. While he reminded him that,
of all the German states, Saxony had hitherto been most respected, he
threatened it, in case of refusal, with the most destructive ravages.

But Tilly had chosen an unfavourable moment for so imperious a
requisition. The ill-treatment of his religious and political
confederates, the destruction of Magdeburg, the excesses of the
Imperialists in Lusatia, all combined to incense the Elector against the
Emperor. The approach, too, of Gustavus Adolphus, (however slender his
claims were to the protection of that prince,) tended to fortify his
resolution. He accordingly forbade the quartering of the imperial
soldiers in his territories, and announced his firm determination to
persist in his warlike preparations. However surprised he should be, he
added, “to see an imperial army on its march against his territories,
when that army had enough to do in watching the operations of the King
of Sweden, nevertheless he did not expect, instead of the promised and
well merited rewards, to be repaid with ingratitude and the ruin of his
country. ” To Tilly’s deputies, who were entertained in a princely
style, he gave a still plainer answer on the occasion. “Gentlemen,”
said he, “I perceive that the Saxon confectionery, which has been so
long kept back, is at length to be set upon the table. But as it is
usual to mix with it nuts and garnish of all kinds, take care of your
teeth. ”

Tilly instantly broke up his camp, and, with the most frightful
devastation, advanced upon Halle; from this place he renewed his demands
on the Elector, in a tone still more urgent and threatening. The
previous policy of this prince, both from his own inclination, and the
persuasions of his corrupt ministers had been to promote the interests
of the Emperor, even at the expense of his own sacred obligations, and
but very little tact had hitherto kept him inactive. All this but
renders more astonishing the infatuation of the Emperor or his ministers
in abandoning, at so critical a moment, the policy they had hitherto
adopted, and by extreme measures, incensing a prince so easily led. Was
this the very object which Tilly had in view? Was it his purpose to
convert an equivocal friend into an open enemy, and thus to relieve
himself from the necessity of that indulgence in the treatment of this
prince, which the secret instructions of the Emperor had hitherto
imposed upon him? Or was it the Emperor’s wish, by driving the Elector
to open hostilities, to get quit of his obligations to him, and so
cleverly to break off at once the difficulty of a reckoning? In either
case, we must be equally surprised at the daring presumption of Tilly,
who hesitated not, in presence of one formidable enemy, to provoke
another; and at his negligence in permitting, without opposition, the
union of the two.

The Saxon Elector, rendered desperate by the entrance of Tilly into his
territories, threw himself, though not without a violent struggle, under
the protection of Sweden.

Immediately after dismissing Tilly’s first embassy, he had despatched
his field-marshal Arnheim in all haste to the camp of Gustavus, to
solicit the prompt assistance of that monarch whom he had so long
neglected. The king concealed the inward satisfaction he felt at this
long wished for result. “I am sorry for the Elector,” said he, with
dissembled coldness, to the ambassador; “had he heeded my repeated
remonstrances, his country would never have seen the face of an enemy,
and Magdeburg would not have fallen. Now, when necessity leaves him no
alternative, he has recourse to my assistance. But tell him, that I
cannot, for the sake of the Elector of Saxony, ruin my own cause, and
that of my confederates. What pledge have I for the sincerity of a
prince whose minister is in the pay of Austria, and who will abandon me
as soon as the Emperor flatters him, and withdraws his troops from his
frontiers? Tilly, it is true, has received a strong reinforcement; but
this shall not prevent me from meeting him with confidence, as soon as I
have covered my rear. ”

The Saxon minister could make no other reply to these reproaches, than
that it was best to bury the past in oblivion.

He pressed the king to name the conditions, on which he would afford
assistance to Saxony, and offered to guarantee their acceptance. “I
require,” said Gustavus, “that the Elector shall cede to me the fortress
of Wittenberg, deliver to me his eldest sons as hostages, furnish my
troops with three months’ pay, and deliver up to me the traitors among
his ministry. ”

“Not Wittenberg alone,” said the Elector, when he received this answer,
and hurried back his minister to the Swedish camp, “not Wittenberg
alone, but Torgau, and all Saxony, shall be open to him; my whole family
shall be his hostages, and if that is insufficient, I will place myself
in his hands. Return and inform him I am ready to deliver to him any
traitors he shall name, to furnish his army with the money he requires,
and to venture my life and fortune in the good cause. ”

The king had only desired to test the sincerity of the Elector’s new
sentiments. Convinced of it, he now retracted these harsh demands.
“The distrust,” said he, “which was shown to myself when advancing to
the relief of Magdeburg, had naturally excited mine; the Elector’s
present confidence demands a return. I am satisfied, provided he grants
my army one month’s pay, and even for this advance I hope to indemnify
him. ”

Immediately upon the conclusion of the treaty, the king crossed the
Elbe, and next day joined the Saxons. Instead of preventing this
junction, Tilly had advanced against Leipzig, which he summoned to
receive an imperial garrison. In hopes of speedy relief, Hans Von der
Pforta, the commandant, made preparations for his defence, and laid the
suburb towards Halle in ashes. But the ill condition of the
fortifications made resistance vain, and on the second day the gates
were opened. Tilly had fixed his head quarters in the house of a
grave-digger, the only one still standing in the suburb of Halle: here
he signed the capitulation, and here, too, he arranged his attack on the
King of Sweden. Tilly grew pale at the representation of the death’s
head and cross bones, with which the proprietor had decorated his house;
and, contrary to all expectation, Leipzig experienced moderate
treatment.

Meanwhile, a council of war was held at Torgau, between the King of
Sweden and the Elector of Saxony, at which the Elector of Brandenburg
was also present. The resolution which should now be adopted, was to
decide irrevocably the fate of Germany and the Protestant religion, the
happiness of nations and the destiny of their princes. The anxiety of
suspense which, before every decisive resolve, oppresses even the hearts
of heroes, appeared now for a moment to overshadow the great mind of
Gustavus Adolphus. “If we decide upon battle,” said he, “the stake will
be nothing less than a crown and two electorates. Fortune is
changeable, and the inscrutable decrees of Heaven may, for our sins,
give the victory to our enemies. My kingdom, it is true, even after the
loss of my life and my army, would still have a hope left. Far removed
from the scene of action, defended by a powerful fleet, a well-guarded
frontier, and a warlike population, it would at least be safe from the
worst consequences of a defeat. But what chances of escape are there
for you, with an enemy so close at hand? ” Gustavus Adolphus displayed
the modest diffidence of a hero, whom an overweening belief of his own
strength did not blind to the greatness of his danger; John George, the
confidence of a weak man, who knows that he has a hero by his side.
Impatient to rid his territories as soon as possible of the oppressive
presence of two armies, he burned for a battle, in which he had no
former laurels to lose. He was ready to march with his Saxons alone
against Leipzig, and attack Tilly. At last Gustavus acceded to his
opinion; and it was resolved that the attack should be made without
delay, before the arrival of the reinforcements, which were on their
way, under Altringer and Tiefenbach. The united Swedish and Saxon
armies now crossed the Mulda, while the Elector returned homeward.

Early on the morning of the 7th September, 1631, the hostile armies came
in sight of each other. Tilly, who, since he had neglected the
opportunity of overpowering the Saxons before their union with the
Swedes, was disposed to await the arrival of the reinforcements, had
taken up a strong and advantageous position not far from Leipzig, where
he expected he should be able to avoid the battle. But the impetuosity
of Pappenheim obliged him, as soon as the enemy were in motion, to alter
his plans, and to move to the left, in the direction of the hills which
run from the village of Wahren towards Lindenthal. At the foot of these
heights, his army was drawn up in a single line, and his artillery
placed upon the heights behind, from which it could sweep the whole
extensive plain of Breitenfeld. The Swedish and Saxon army advanced in
two columns, having to pass the Lober near Podelwitz, in Tilly’s front.

To defend the passage of this rivulet, Pappenheim advanced at the head
of 2000 cuirassiers, though after great reluctance on the part of Tilly,
and with express orders not to commence a battle. But, in disobedience
to this command, Pappenheim attacked the vanguard of the Swedes, and
after a brief struggle was driven to retreat. To check the progress of
the enemy, he set fire to Podelwitz, which, however, did not prevent the
two columns from advancing and forming in order of battle.

On the right, the Swedes drew up in a double line, the infantry in the
centre, divided into such small battalions as could be easily and
rapidly manoeuvred without breaking their order; the cavalry upon their
wings, divided in the same manner into small squadrons, interspersed
with bodies of musqueteers, so as both to give an appearance of greater
numerical force, and to annoy the enemy’s horse. Colonel Teufel
commanded the centre, Gustavus Horn the left, while the right was led by
the king in person, opposed to Count Pappenheim.

On the left, the Saxons formed at a considerable distance from the
Swedes,--by the advice of Gustavus, which was justified by the event.
The order of battle had been arranged between the Elector and his
field-marshal, and the king was content with merely signifying his
approval. He was anxious apparently to separate the Swedish prowess
from that of the Saxons, and fortune did not confound them.

The enemy was drawn up under the heights towards the west, in one
immense line, long enough to outflank the Swedish army,--the infantry
being divided in large battalions, the cavalry in equally unwieldy
squadrons. The artillery being on the heights behind, the range of its
fire was over the heads of his men. From this position of his
artillery, it was evident that Tilly’s purpose was to await rather than
to attack the enemy; since this arrangement rendered it impossible for
him to do so without exposing his men to the fire of his own cannons.
Tilly himself commanded the centre, Count Furstenberg the right wing,
and Pappenheim the left. The united troops of the Emperor and the
League on this day did not amount to 34,000 or 35,000 men; the Swedes
and Saxons were about the same number. But had a million been
confronted with a million it could only have rendered the action more
bloody, certainly not more important and decisive. For this day
Gustavus had crossed the Baltic, to court danger in a distant country,
and expose his crown and life to the caprice of fortune. The two
greatest generals of the time, both hitherto invincible, were now to be
matched against each other in a contest which both had long avoided; and
on this field of battle the hitherto untarnished laurels of one leader
must droop for ever. The two parties in Germany had beheld the approach
of this day with fear and trembling; and the whole age awaited with deep
anxiety its issue, and posterity was either to bless or deplore it for
ever.

Tilly’s usual intrepidity and resolution seemed to forsake him on this
eventful day. He had formed no regular plan for giving battle to the
King, and he displayed as little firmness in avoiding it. Contrary to
his own judgment, Pappenheim had forced him to action. Doubts which he
had never before felt, struggled in his bosom; gloomy forebodings
clouded his ever-open brow; the shade of Magdeburg seemed to hover over
him.

A cannonade of two hours commenced the battle; the wind, which was from
the west, blew thick clouds of smoke and dust from the newly-ploughed
and parched fields into the faces of the Swedes. This compelled the
king insensibly to wheel northwards, and the rapidity with which this
movement was executed left no time to the enemy to prevent it.

Tilly at last left his heights, and began the first attack upon the
Swedes; but to avoid their hot fire, he filed off towards the right, and
fell upon the Saxons with such impetuosity that their line was broken,
and the whole army thrown into confusion. The Elector himself retired
to Eilenburg, though a few regiments still maintained their ground upon
the field, and by a bold stand saved the honour of Saxony. Scarcely had
the confusion began ere the Croats commenced plundering, and messengers
were despatched to Munich and Vienna with the news of the victory.

Pappenheim had thrown himself with the whole force of his cavalry upon
the right wing of the Swedes, but without being able to make it waver.
The king commanded here in person, and under him General Banner. Seven
times did Pappenheim renew the attack, and seven times was he repulsed.
He fled at last with great loss, and abandoned the field to his
conqueror.

In the mean time, Tilly, having routed the remainder of the Saxons,
attacked with his victorious troops the left wing of the Swedes. To
this wing the king, as soon as he perceived that the Saxons were thrown
into disorder, had, with a ready foresight, detached a reinforcement of
three regiments to cover its flank, which the flight of the Saxons had
left exposed. Gustavus Horn, who commanded here, showed the enemy’s
cuirassiers a spirited resistance, which the infantry, interspersed
among the squadrons of horse, materially assisted. The enemy were
already beginning to relax the vigour of their attack, when Gustavus
Adolphus appeared to terminate the contest. The left wing of the
Imperialists had been routed; and the king’s division, having no longer
any enemy to oppose, could now turn their arms wherever it would be to
the most advantage. Wheeling, therefore, with his right wing and main
body to the left, he attacked the heights on which the enemy’s artillery
was planted. Gaining possession of them in a short time, he turned upon
the enemy the full fire of their own cannon.

The play of artillery upon their flank, and the terrible onslaught of
the Swedes in front, threw this hitherto invincible army into confusion.
A sudden retreat was the only course left to Tilly, but even this was to
be made through the midst of the enemy. The whole army was in disorder,
with the exception of four regiments of veteran soldiers, who never as
yet had fled from the field, and were resolved not to do so now.
Closing their ranks, they broke through the thickest of the victorious
army, and gained a small thicket, where they opposed a new front to the
Swedes, and maintained their resistance till night, when their number
was reduced to six hundred men. With them fled the wreck of Tilly’s
army, and the battle was decided.

Amid the dead and the wounded, Gustavus Adolphus threw himself on his
knees; and the first joy of his victory gushed forth in fervent prayer.
He ordered his cavalry to pursue the enemy as long as the darkness of
the night would permit. The pealing of the alarm-bells set the
inhabitants of all the neighbouring villages in motion, and utterly lost
was the unhappy fugitive who fell into their hands. The king encamped
with the rest of his army between the field of battle and Leipzig, as it
was impossible to attack the town the same night. Seven thousand of the
enemy were killed in the field, and more than 5,000 either wounded or
taken prisoners. Their whole artillery and camp fell into the hands of
the Swedes, and more than a hundred standards and colours were taken.
Of the Saxons about 2,000 had fallen, while the loss of the Swedes did
not exceed 700. The rout of the Imperialists was so complete, that
Tilly, on his retreat to Halle and Halberstadt, could not rally above
600 men, or Pappenheim more than 1,400--so rapidly was this formidable
army dispersed, which so lately was the terror of Italy and Germany.

Tilly himself owed his escape merely to chance. Exhausted by his
wounds, he still refused to surrender to a Swedish captain of horse, who
summoned him to yield; but who, when he was on the point of putting him
to death, was himself stretched on the ground by a timely pistol-shot.
But more grievous than danger or wounds was the pain of surviving his
reputation, and of losing in a single day the fruits of a long life.
All former victories were as nothing, since he had failed in gaining the
one that should have crowned them all. Nothing remained of all his past
exploits, but the general execration which had followed them. From this
period, he never recovered his cheerfulness or his good fortune. Even
his last consolation, the hope of revenge, was denied to him, by the
express command of the Emperor not to risk a decisive battle.

The disgrace of this day is to be ascribed principally to three
mistakes; his planting the cannon on the hills behind him, his
afterwards abandoning these heights, and his allowing the enemy, without
opposition, to form in order of battle. But how easily might those
mistakes have been rectified, had it not been for the cool presence of
mind and superior genius of his adversary!

Tilly fled from Halle to Halberstadt, where he scarcely allowed time for
the cure of his wounds, before he hurried towards the Weser to recruit
his force by the imperial garrisons in Lower Saxony.

The Elector of Saxony had not failed, after the danger was over, to
appear in Gustavus’s camp. The king thanked him for having advised a
battle; and the Elector, charmed at his friendly reception, promised
him, in the first transports of joy, the Roman crown. Gustavus set out
next day for Merseburg, leaving the Elector to recover Leipzig. Five
thousand Imperialists, who had collected together after the defeat, and
whom he met on his march, were either cut in pieces or taken prisoners,
of whom again the greater part entered into his service. Merseburg
quickly surrendered; Halle was soon after taken, whither the Elector of
Saxony, after making himself master of Leipzig, repaired to meet the
king, and to concert their future plan of operations.

The victory was gained, but only a prudent use of it could render it
decisive. The imperial armies were totally routed, Saxony free from the
enemy, and Tilly had retired into Brunswick. To have followed him
thither would have been to renew the war in Lower Saxony, which had
scarcely recovered from the ravages of the last. It was therefore
determined to carry the war into the enemy’s country, which, open and
defenceless as far as Vienna, invited attack. On their right, they
might fall upon the territories of the Roman Catholic princes, or
penetrate, on the left, into the hereditary dominions of Austria, and
make the Emperor tremble in his palace. Both plans were resolved on;
and the question that now remained was to assign its respective parts.
Gustavus Adolphus, at the head of a victorious army, had little
resistance to apprehend in his progress from Leipzig to Prague, Vienna,
and Presburg. As to Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, and Hungary, they had
been stripped of their defenders, while the oppressed Protestants in
these countries were ripe for a revolt. Ferdinand was no longer secure
in his capital: Vienna, on the first terror of surprise, would at once
open its gates. The loss of his territories would deprive the enemy of
the resources by which alone the war could be maintained; and Ferdinand
would, in all probability, gladly accede, on the hardest conditions, to
a peace which would remove a formidable enemy from the heart of his
dominions. This bold plan of operations was flattering to a conqueror,
and success perhaps might have justified it. But Gustavus Adolphus, as
prudent as he was brave, and more a statesman than a conqueror, rejected
it, because he had a higher end in view, and would not trust the issue
either to bravery or good fortune alone.

By marching towards Bohemia, Franconia and the Upper Rhine would be left
to the Elector of Saxony. But Tilly had already begun to recruit his
shattered army from the garrisons in Lower Saxony, and was likely to be
at the head of a formidable force upon the Weser, and to lose no time in
marching against the enemy. To so experienced a general, it would not
do to oppose an Arnheim, of whose military skill the battle of Leipzig
had afforded but equivocal proof; and of what avail would be the rapid
and brilliant career of the king in Bohemia and Austria, if Tilly should
recover his superiority in the Empire, animating the courage of the
Roman Catholics, and disarming, by a new series of victories, the allies
and confederates of the king? What would he gain by expelling the
Emperor from his hereditary dominions, if Tilly succeeded in conquering
for that Emperor the rest of Germany? Could he hope to reduce the
Emperor more than had been done, twelve years before, by the
insurrection of Bohemia, which had failed to shake the firmness or
exhaust the resources of that prince, and from which he had risen more
formidable than ever?

Less brilliant, but more solid, were the advantages which he had to
expect from an incursion into the territories of the League. In this
quarter, his appearance in arms would be decisive. At this very
conjuncture, the princes were assembled in a Diet at Frankfort, to
deliberate upon the Edict of Restitution, where Ferdinand employed all
his artful policy to persuade the intimidated Protestants to accede to a
speedy and disadvantageous arrangement. The advance of their protector
could alone encourage them to a bold resistance, and disappoint the
Emperor’s designs. Gustavus Adolphus hoped, by his presence, to unite
the discontented princes, or by the terror of his arms to detach them
from the Emperor’s party. Here, in the centre of Germany, he could
paralyse the nerves of the imperial power, which, without the aid of the
League, must soon fall--here, in the neighbourhood of France, he could
watch the movements of a suspicious ally; and however important to his
secret views it was to cultivate the friendship of the Roman Catholic
electors, he saw the necessity of making himself first of all master of
their fate, in order to establish, by his magnanimous forbearance, a
claim to their gratitude.

He accordingly chose the route to Franconia and the Rhine; and left the
conquest of Bohemia to the Elector of Saxony.





BOOK III.



The glorious battle of Leipzig effected a great change in the conduct
of Gustavus Adolphus, as well as in the opinion which both friends and
foes entertained of him. Successfully had he confronted the greatest
general of the age, and had matched the strength of his tactics and the
courage of his Swedes against the elite of the imperial army, the most
experienced troops in Europe. From this moment he felt a firm
confidence in his own powers--self-confidence has always been the parent
of great actions. In all his subsequent operations more boldness and
decision are observable; greater determination, even amidst the most
unfavourable circumstances, a more lofty tone towards his adversaries, a
more dignified bearing towards his allies, and even in his clemency,
something of the forbearance of a conqueror. His natural courage was
farther heightened by the pious ardour of his imagination. He saw in
his own cause that of heaven, and in the defeat of Tilly beheld the
decisive interference of Providence against his enemies, and in himself
the instrument of divine vengeance. Leaving his crown and his country
far behind, he advanced on the wings of victory into the heart of
Germany, which for centuries had seen no foreign conqueror within its
bosom. The warlike spirit of its inhabitants, the vigilance of its
numerous princes, the artful confederation of its states, the number of
its strong castles, its many and broad rivers, had long restrained the
ambition of its neighbours; and frequently as its extensive frontier had
been attacked, its interior had been free from hostile invasion. The
Empire had hitherto enjoyed the equivocal privilege of being its own
enemy, though invincible from without. Even now, it was merely the
disunion of its members, and the intolerance of religious zeal, that
paved the way for the Swedish invader. The bond of union between the
states, which alone had rendered the Empire invincible, was now
dissolved; and Gustavus derived from Germany itself the power by which
he subdued it. With as much courage as prudence, he availed himself of
all that the favourable moment afforded; and equally at home in the
cabinet and the field, he tore asunder the web of the artful policy,
with as much ease, as he shattered walls with the thunder of his cannon.
Uninterruptedly he pursued his conquests from one end of Germany to the
other, without breaking the line of posts which commanded a secure
retreat at any moment; and whether on the banks of the Rhine, or at the
mouth of the Lech, alike maintaining his communication with his
hereditary dominions.

The consternation of the Emperor and the League at Tilly’s defeat at
Leipzig, was scarcely greater than the surprise and embarrassment of the
allies of the King of Sweden at his unexpected success. It was beyond
both their expectations and their wishes. Annihilated in a moment was
that formidable army which, while it checked his progress and set bounds
to his ambition, rendered him in some measure dependent on themselves.
He now stood in the heart of Germany, alone, without a rival or without
an adversary who was a match for him. Nothing could stop his progress,
or check his pretensions, if the intoxication of success should tempt
him to abuse his victory. If formerly they had dreaded the Emperor’s
irresistible power, there was no less cause now to fear every thing for
the Empire, from the violence of a foreign conqueror, and for the
Catholic Church, from the religious zeal of a Protestant king. The
distrust and jealousy of some of the combined powers, which a stronger
fear of the Emperor had for a time repressed, now revived; and scarcely
had Gustavus Adolphus merited, by his courage and success, their
confidence, when they began covertly to circumvent all his plans.
Through a continual struggle with the arts of enemies, and the distrust
of his own allies, must his victories henceforth be won; yet resolution,
penetration, and prudence made their way through all impediments. But
while his success excited the jealousy of his more powerful allies,
France and Saxony, it gave courage to the weaker, and emboldened them
openly to declare their sentiments and join his party. Those who could
neither vie with Gustavus Adolphus in importance, nor suffer from his
ambition, expected the more from the magnanimity of their powerful ally,
who enriched them with the spoils of their enemies, and protected them
against the oppression of their stronger neighbours. His strength
covered their weakness, and, inconsiderable in themselves, they acquired
weight and influence from their union with the Swedish hero. This was
the case with most of the free cities, and particularly with the weaker
Protestant states. It was these that introduced the king into the heart
of Germany; these covered his rear, supplied his troops with
necessaries, received them into their fortresses, while they exposed
their own lives in his battles. His prudent regard to their national
pride, his popular deportment, some brilliant acts of justice, and his
respect for the laws, were so many ties by which he bound the German
Protestants to his cause; while the crying atrocities of the
Imperialists, the Spaniards, and the troops of Lorraine, powerfully
contributed to set his own conduct and that of his army in a favourable
light.

If Gustavus Adolphus owed his success chiefly to his own genius, at the
same time, it must be owned, he was greatly favoured by fortune and by
circumstances. Two great advantages gave him a decided superiority over
the enemy. While he removed the scene of war into the lands of the
League, drew their youth as recruits, enriched himself with booty, and
used the revenues of their fugitive princes as his own, he at once took
from the enemy the means of effectual resistance, and maintained an
expensive war with little cost to himself. And, moreover, while his
opponents, the princes of the League, divided among themselves, and
governed by different and often conflicting interests, acted without
unanimity, and therefore without energy; while their generals were
deficient in authority, their troops in obedience, the operations of
their scattered armies without concert; while the general was separated
from the lawgiver and the statesman; these several functions were united
in Gustavus Adolphus, the only source from which authority flowed, the
sole object to which the eye of the warrior turned; the soul of his
party, the inventor as well as the executor of his plans. In him,
therefore, the Protestants had a centre of unity and harmony, which was
altogether wanting to their opponents. No wonder, then, if favoured by
such advantages, at the head of such an army, with such a genius to
direct it, and guided by such political prudence, Gustavus Adolphus was
irresistible.

With the sword in one hand, and mercy in the other, he traversed Germany
as a conqueror, a lawgiver, and a judge, in as short a time almost as
the tourist of pleasure. The keys of towns and fortresses were
delivered to him, as if to the native sovereign. No fortress was
inaccessible; no river checked his victorious career. He conquered by
the very terror of his name. The Swedish standards were planted along
the whole stream of the Maine: the Lower Palatinate was free, the
troops of Spain and Lorraine had fled across the Rhine and the Moselle.
The Swedes and Hessians poured like a torrent into the territories of
Mentz, of Wurtzburg, and Bamberg, and three fugitive bishops, at a
distance from their sees, suffered dearly for their unfortunate
attachment to the Emperor. It was now the turn for Maximilian, the
leader of the League, to feel in his own dominions the miseries he had
inflicted upon others. Neither the terrible fate of his allies, nor the
peaceful overtures of Gustavus, who, in the midst of conquest, ever held
out the hand of friendship, could conquer the obstinacy of this prince.
The torrent of war now poured into Bavaria. Like the banks of the
Rhine, those of the Lecke and the Donau were crowded with Swedish
troops. Creeping into his fortresses, the defeated Elector abandoned to
the ravages of the foe his dominions, hitherto unscathed by war, and on
which the bigoted violence of the Bavarians seemed to invite
retaliation. Munich itself opened its gates to the invincible monarch,
and the fugitive Palatine, Frederick V. , in the forsaken residence of
his rival, consoled himself for a time for the loss of his dominions.

While Gustavus Adolphus was extending his conquests in the south, his
generals and allies were gaining similar triumphs in the other
provinces. Lower Saxony shook off the yoke of Austria, the enemy
abandoned Mecklenburg, and the imperial garrisons retired from the banks
of the Weser and the Elbe. In Westphalia and the Upper Rhine, William,
Landgrave of Hesse, rendered himself formidable; the Duke of Weimar in
Thuringia, and the French in the Electorate of Treves; while to the
eastward the whole kingdom of Bohemia was conquered by the Saxons. The
Turks were preparing to attack Hungary, and in the heart of Austria a
dangerous insurrection was threatened. In vain did the Emperor look
around to the courts of Europe for support; in vain did he summon the
Spaniards to his assistance, for the bravery of the Flemings afforded
them ample employment beyond the Rhine; in vain did he call upon the
Roman court and the whole church to come to his rescue. The offended
Pope sported, in pompous processions and idle anathemas, with the
embarrassments of Ferdinand, and instead of the desired subsidy he was
shown the devastation of Mantua.

On all sides of his extensive monarchy hostile arms surrounded him.
With the states of the League, now overrun by the enemy, those ramparts
were thrown down, behind which Austria had so long defended herself, and
the embers of war were now smouldering upon her unguarded frontiers.
His most zealous allies were disarmed; Maximilian of Bavaria, his
firmest support, was scarce able to defend himself. His armies,
weakened by desertion and repeated defeat, and dispirited by continued
misfortunes had unlearnt, under beaten generals, that warlike
impetuosity which, as it is the consequence, so it is the guarantee of
success. The danger was extreme, and extraordinary means alone could
raise the imperial power from the degradation into which it was fallen.

The most urgent want was that of a general; and the only one from whom
he could hope for the revival of his former splendour, had been removed
from his command by an envious cabal. So low had the Emperor now
fallen, that he was forced to make the most humiliating proposals to his
injured subject and servant, and meanly to press upon the imperious Duke
of Friedland the acceptance of the powers which no less meanly had been
taken from him. A new spirit began from this moment to animate the
expiring body of Austria; and a sudden change in the aspect of affairs
bespoke the firm hand which guided them. To the absolute King of
Sweden, a general equally absolute was now opposed; and one victorious
hero was confronted with another. Both armies were again to engage in
the doubtful struggle; and the prize of victory, already almost secured
in the hands of Gustavus Adolphus, was to be the object of another and a
severer trial. The storm of war gathered around Nuremberg; before its
walls the hostile armies encamped; gazing on each other with dread and
respect, longing for, and yet shrinking from, the moment that was to
close them together in the shock of battle. The eyes of Europe turned
to the scene in curiosity and alarm, while Nuremberg, in dismay,
expected soon to lend its name to a more decisive battle than that of
Leipzig. Suddenly the clouds broke, and the storm rolled away from
Franconia, to burst upon the plains of Saxony. Near Lutzen fell the
thunder that had menaced Nuremberg; the victory, half lost, was
purchased by the death of the king. Fortune, which had never forsaken
him in his lifetime, favoured the King of Sweden even in his death, with
the rare privilege of falling in the fulness of his glory and an
untarnished fame. By a timely death, his protecting genius rescued him
from the inevitable fate of man--that of forgetting moderation in the
intoxication of success, and justice in the plenitude of power. It may
be doubted whether, had he lived longer, he would still have deserved
the tears which Germany shed over his grave, or maintained his title to
the admiration with which posterity regards him, as the first and only
JUST conqueror that the world has produced. The untimely fall of their
great leader seemed to threaten the ruin of his party; but to the Power
which rules the world, no loss of a single man is irreparable. As the
helm of war dropped from the hand of the falling hero, it was seized by
two great statesmen, Oxenstiern and Richelieu. Destiny still pursued
its relentless course, and for full sixteen years longer the flames of
war blazed over the ashes of the long-forgotten king and soldier.

I may now be permitted to take a cursory retrospect of Gustavus Adolphus
in his victorious career; glance at the scene in which he alone was the
great actor; and then, when Austria becomes reduced to extremity by the
successes of the Swedes, and by a series of disasters is driven to the
most humiliating and desperate expedients, to return to the history of
the Emperor.

As soon as the plan of operations had been concerted at Halle, between
the King of Sweden and the Elector of Saxony; as soon as the alliance
had been concluded with the neighbouring princes of Weimar and Anhalt,
and preparations made for the recovery of the bishopric of Magdeburg,
the king began his march into the empire. He had here no despicable foe
to contend with. Within the empire, the Emperor was still powerful;
throughout Franconia, Swabia, and the Palatinate, imperial garrisons
were posted, with whom the possession of every place of importance must
be disputed sword in hand. On the Rhine he was opposed by the
Spaniards, who had overrun the territory of the banished Elector
Palatine, seized all its strong places, and would everywhere dispute
with him the passage over that river. On his rear was Tilly, who was
fast recruiting his force, and would soon be joined by the auxiliaries
from Lorraine. Every Papist presented an inveterate foe, while his
connexion with France did not leave him at liberty to act with freedom
against the Roman Catholics. Gustavus had foreseen all these obstacles,
but at the same time the means by which they were to be overcome. The
strength of the Imperialists was broken and divided among different
garrisons, while he would bring against them one by one his whole united
force. If he was to be opposed by the fanaticism of the Roman
Catholics, and the awe in which the lesser states regarded the Emperor’s
power, he might depend on the active support of the Protestants, and
their hatred to Austrian oppression. The ravages of the Imperialist and
Spanish troops also powerfully aided him in these quarters; where the
ill-treated husbandman and citizen sighed alike for a deliverer, and
where the mere change of yoke seemed to promise a relief. Emissaries
were despatched to gain over to the Swedish side the principal free
cities, particularly Nuremberg and Frankfort. The first that lay in the
king’s march, and which he could not leave unoccupied in his rear, was
Erfurt. Here the Protestant party among the citizens opened to him,
without a blow, the gates of the town and the citadel. From the
inhabitants of this, as of every important place which afterwards
submitted, he exacted an oath of allegiance, while he secured its
possession by a sufficient garrison. To his ally, Duke William of
Weimar, he intrusted the command of an army to be raised in Thuringia.
He also left his queen in Erfurt, and promised to increase its
privileges. The Swedish army now crossed the Thuringian forest in two
columns, by Gotha and Arnstadt, and having delivered, in its march, the
county of Henneberg from the Imperialists, formed a junction on the
third day near Koenigshofen, on the frontiers of Franconia.

Francis, Bishop of Wurtzburg, the bitter enemy of the Protestants, and
the most zealous member of the League, was the first to feel the
indignation of Gustavus Adolphus. A few threats gained for the Swedes
possession of his fortress of Koenigshofen, and with it the key of the
whole province. At the news of this rapid conquest, dismay seized all
the Roman Catholic towns of the circle. The Bishops of Wurtzburg and
Bamberg trembled in their castles; they already saw their sees
tottering, their churches profaned, and their religion degraded. The
malice of his enemies had circulated the most frightful representations
of the persecuting spirit and the mode of warfare pursued by the Swedish
king and his soldiers, which neither the repeated assurances of the
king, nor the most splendid examples of humanity and toleration, ever
entirely effaced. Many feared to suffer at the hands of another what in
similar circumstances they were conscious of inflicting themselves.
Many of the richest Roman Catholics hastened to secure by flight their
property, their religion, and their persons, from the sanguinary
fanaticism of the Swedes. The bishop himself set the example. In the
midst of the alarm, which his bigoted zeal had caused, he abandoned his
dominions, and fled to Paris, to excite, if possible, the French
ministry against the common enemy of religion.

The further progress of Gustavus Adolphus in the ecclesiastical
territories agreed with this brilliant commencement. Schweinfurt, and
soon afterwards Wurtzburg, abandoned by their Imperial garrisons,
surrendered; but Marienberg he was obliged to carry by storm. In this
place, which was believed to be impregnable, the enemy had collected a
large store of provisions and ammunition, all of which fell into the
hands of the Swedes. The king found a valuable prize in the library of
the Jesuits, which he sent to Upsal, while his soldiers found a still
more agreeable one in the prelate’s well-filled cellars; his treasures
the bishop had in good time removed. The whole bishopric followed the
example of the capital, and submitted to the Swedes. The king compelled
all the bishop’s subjects to swear allegiance to himself; and, in the
absence of the lawful sovereign, appointed a regency, one half of whose
members were Protestants. In every Roman Catholic town which Gustavus
took, he opened the churches to the Protestant people, but without
retaliating on the Papists the cruelties which they had practised on the
former. On such only as sword in hand refused to submit, were the
fearful rights of war enforced; and for the occasional acts of violence
committed by a few of the more lawless soldiers, in the blind rage of
the first attack, their humane leader is not justly responsible. Those
who were peaceably disposed, or defenceless, were treated with mildness.
It was a sacred principle of Gustavus to spare the blood of his enemies,
as well as that of his own troops.

On the first news of the Swedish irruption, the Bishop of Wurtzburg,
without regarding the treaty which he had entered into with the King of
Sweden, had earnestly pressed the general of the League to hasten to the
assistance of the bishopric. That defeated commander had, in the mean
time, collected on the Weser the shattered remnant of his army,
reinforced himself from the garrisons of Lower Saxony, and effected a
junction in Hesse with Altringer and Fugger, who commanded under him.
Again at the head of a considerable force, Tilly burned with impatience
to wipe out the stain of his first defeat by a splendid victory. From
his camp at Fulda, whither he had marched with his army, he earnestly
requested permission from the Duke of Bavaria to give battle to Gustavus
Adolphus. But, in the event of Tilly’s defeat, the League had no second
army to fall back upon, and Maximilian was too cautious to risk again
the fate of his party on a single battle. With tears in his eyes, Tilly
read the commands of his superior, which compelled him to inactivity.
Thus his march to Franconia was delayed, and Gustavus Adolphus gained
time to overrun the whole bishopric. It was in vain that Tilly,
reinforced at Aschaffenburg by a body of 12,000 men from Lorraine,
marched with an overwhelming force to the relief of Wurtzburg.