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Title: The Garotters
Author: William D. Howells
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Translated from the German
PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION.
BOOK V.
Wallenstein's death rendered necessary the appointment of a new generalissimo;
and the Emperor yielded at last
to the advice of the Spaniards,
to raise his son Ferdinand,
King of Hungary,
to that dignity.
Under him,
Count Gallas commanded,
who performed the functions of commander-in-chief,
while the prince brought
to this post nothing but his name and dignity.
A considerable force was soon assembled under Ferdinand;
the Duke of Lorraine brought up a considerable body of auxiliaries in person,
and the Cardinal Infante joined him from Italy
with 10,000 men.
In order
to drive the enemy from the Danube,
the new general undertook the enterprise in which his predecessor had failed,
the siege of Ratisbon.
In vain did Duke Bernard of Weimar penetrate into the interior of Bavaria,
with a view
to draw the enemy from the town;
Ferdinand continued
to press the siege
with vigour,
and the city,
after a most obstinate resistance,
was obliged
to open its gates
to him.
Donauwerth soon shared the same fate,
and Nordlingen in Swabia was now invested.
The loss of so many of the imperial cities was severely felt by the Swedish party;
as the friendship of these towns had so largely contributed
to the success of their arms,
indifference
to their fate would have been inexcusable.
It would have been an indelible disgrace,
had they deserted their confederates in their need,
and abandoned them
to the revenge of an implacable conqueror.
Moved by these considerations,
the Swedish army,
under the command of Horn,
and Bernard of Weimar,
advanced upon Nordlingen,
determined
to relieve it even at the expense of a battle.
The undertaking was a dangerous one,
for in numbers the enemy was greatly superior
to that of the Swedes.
There was also a further reason
for avoiding a battle at present;
the enemy's force was likely soon
to divide,
the Italian troops being destined
for the Netherlands.
In the mean time,
such a position might be taken up,
as
to cover Nordlingen,
and cut off their supplies.
All these grounds were strongly urged by Gustavus Horn,
in the Swedish council of war;
but his remonstrances were disregarded by men who,
intoxicated by a long career of success,
mistook the suggestions of prudence
for the voice of timidity.
Overborne by the superior influence of Duke Bernard,
Gustavus Horn was compelled
to risk a contest,
whose unfavourable issue,
a dark foreboding seemed already
to announce.
The fate of the battle depended upon the possession of a height which commanded the imperial camp.
An attempt
to occupy it during the night failed,
as the tedious transport of the artillery through woods and hollow ways delayed the arrival of the troops.
When the Swedes arrived about midnight,
they found the heights in possession of the enemy,
strongly entrenched.
They waited,
therefore,
for daybreak,
to carry them by storm.
Their impetuous courage surmounted every obstacle;
the entrenchments,
which were in the form of a crescent,
were successfully scaled by each of the two brigades appointed
to the service;
but as they entered at the same moment from opposite sides,
they met and threw each other into confusion.
At this unfortunate moment,
a barrel of powder blew up,
and created the greatest disorder among the Swedes.
The imperial cavalry charged upon their broken ranks,
and the flight became universal.
No persuasion on the part of their general could induce the fugitives
to renew the assault.
He resolved,
therefore,
in order
to carry this important post,
to lead fresh troops
to the attack.
But in the interim,
some Spanish regiments had marched in,
and every attempt
to gain it was repulsed by their heroic intrepidity.
One of the duke's own regiments advanced seven times,
and was as often driven back.
The disadvantage of not occupying this post in time,
was quickly and sensibly felt.
The fire of the enemy's artillery from the heights,
caused such slaughter in the adjacent wing of the Swedes,
that Horn,
who commanded there,
was forced
to give orders
to retire.
Instead of being able
to cover the retreat of his colleague,
and
to check the pursuit of the enemy,
Duke Bernard,
overpowered by numbers,
was himself driven into the plain,
where his routed cavalry spread confusion among Horn's brigade,
and rendered the defeat complete.
Almost the entire infantry were killed or taken prisoners.
More than 12,000 men remained dead upon the field of battle;
80 field pieces,
about 4,000 waggons,
and 300 standards and colours fell into the hands of the Imperialists.
Horn himself,
with three other generals,
were taken prisoners.
Duke Bernard
with difficulty saved a feeble remnant of his army,
which joined him at Frankfort.
The defeat at Nordlingen,
cost the Swedish Chancellor the second sleepless night he had passed in Germany.--[The first was occasioned by the death of Gustavus Adolphus.]--The consequences of this disaster were terrible.
The Swedes had lost by it at once their superiority in the field,
and
with it the confidence of their confederates,
which they had gained solely by their previous military success.
A dangerous division threatened the Protestant Confederation
with ruin.
Consternation and terror seized upon the whole party;
while the Papists arose
with exulting triumph from the deep humiliation into which they had sunk.
Swabia and the adjacent circles first felt the consequences of the defeat of Nordlingen;
and Wirtemberg,
in particular,
was overrun by the conquering army.
All the members of the League of Heilbronn trembled at the prospect of the Emperor's revenge;
those who could,
fled
to Strasburg,
while the helpless free cities awaited their fate
with alarm.
A little more of moderation towards the conquered,
would have quickly reduced all the weaker states under the Emperor's authority;
but the severity which was practised,
even against those who voluntarily surrendered,
drove the rest
to despair,
and roused them
to a vigorous resistance.
In this perplexity,
all looked
to Oxenstiern
for counsel and assistance;
Oxenstiern applied
for both
to the German States.
Troops were wanted;
money likewise,
to raise new levies,
and
to pay
to the old the arrears which the men were clamorously demanding.
Oxenstiern addressed himself
to the Elector of Saxony;
but he shamefully abandoned the Swedish cause,
to negociate
for a separate peace
with the Emperor at Pirna.
He solicited aid from the Lower Saxon States;
but they,
long wearied of the Swedish pretensions and demands
for money,
now thought only of themselves;
and George,
Duke of Lunenburg,
in place of flying
to the assistance of Upper Germany,
laid siege
to Minden,
with the intention of keeping possession of it
for himself.
Abandoned by his German allies,
the chancellor exerted himself
to obtain the assistance of foreign powers.
England,
Holland,
and Venice were applied
to
for troops and money;
and,
driven
to the last extremity,
the chancellor reluctantly resolved
to take the disagreeable step which he had so long avoided,
and
to throw himself under the protection of France.
The moment had at last arrived which Richelieu had long waited for
with impatience.
Nothing,
he was aware,
but the impossibility of saving themselves by any other means,
could induce the Protestant States in Germany
to support the pretensions of France upon Alsace.
This extreme necessity had now arrived;
the assistance of that power was indispensable,
and she was resolved
to be well paid
for the active part which she was about
to take in the German war.
Full of lustre and dignity,
it now came upon the political stage.
Oxenstiern,
who felt little reluctance in bestowing the rights and possessions of the empire,
had already ceded the fortress of Philipsburg,
and the other long coveted places.
The Protestants of Upper Germany now,
in their own names,
sent a special embassy
to Richelieu,
requesting him
to take Alsace,
the fortress of Breyssach,
which was still
to be recovered from the enemy,
and all the places upon the Upper Rhine,
which were the keys of Germany,
under the protection of France.
What was implied by French protection had been seen in the conduct of France towards the bishoprics of Metz,
Toul,
and Verdun,
which it had held
for centuries against the rightful owners.
Treves was already in the possession of French garrisons;
Lorraine was in a manner conquered,
as it might at any time be overrun by an army,
and could not,
alone,
and
with its own strength,
withstand its formidable neighbour.
France now entertained the hope of adding Alsace
to its large and numerous possessions,
and,--since a treaty was soon
to be concluded
with the Dutch
for the partition of the Spanish Netherlands--the prospect of making the Rhine its natural boundary towards Germany.
Thus shamefully were the rights of Germany sacrificed by the German States
to this treacherous and grasping power,
which,
under the mask of a disinterested friendship,
aimed only at its own aggrandizement;
and while it boldly claimed the honourable title of a Protectress,
was solely occupied
with promoting its own schemes,
and advancing its own interests amid the general confusion.
In return
for these important cessions,
France engaged
to effect a diversion in favour of the Swedes,
by commencing hostilities against the Spaniards;
and if this should lead
to an open breach
with the Emperor,
to maintain an army upon the German side of the Rhine,
which was
to act in conjunction
with the Swedes and Germans against Austria.
For a war
with Spain,
the Spaniards themselves soon afforded the desired pretext.
Making an inroad from the Netherlands,
upon the city of Treves,
they cut in pieces the French garrison;
and,
in open violation of the law of nations,
made prisoner the Elector,
who had placed himself under the protection of France,
and carried him into Flanders.
When the Cardinal Infante,
as Viceroy of the Spanish Netherlands,
refused satisfaction
for these injuries,
and delayed
to restore the prince
to liberty,
Richelieu,
after the old custom,
formally proclaimed war at Brussels by a herald,
and the war was at once opened by three different armies in Milan,
in the Valteline,
and in Flanders.
The French minister was less anxious
to commence hostilities
with the Emperor,
which promised fewer advantages,
and threatened greater difficulties.
A fourth army,
however,
was detached across the Rhine into Germany,
under the command of Cardinal Lavalette,
which was
to act in conjunction
with Duke Bernard,
against the Emperor,
without a previous declaration of war.
A heavier blow
for the Swedes,
than even the defeat of Nordlingen,
was the reconciliation of the Elector of Saxony
with the Emperor.
After many fruitless attempts both
to bring about and
to prevent it,
it was at last effected in 1634,
at Pirna,
and,
the following year,
reduced into a formal treaty of peace,
at Prague.
The Elector of Saxony had always viewed
with jealousy the pretensions of the Swedes in Germany;
and his aversion
to this foreign power,
which now gave laws within the Empire,
had grown
with every fresh requisition that Oxenstiern was obliged
to make upon the German states.
This ill feeling was kept alive by the Spanish court,
who laboured earnestly
to effect a peace between Saxony and the Emperor.
Wearied
with the calamities of a long and destructive contest,
which had selected Saxony above all others
for its theatre;
grieved by the miseries which both friend and foe inflicted upon his subjects,
and seduced by the tempting propositions of the House of Austria,
the Elector at last abandoned the common cause,
and,
caring little
for the fate of his confederates,
or the liberties of Germany,
thought only of securing his own advantages,
even at the expense of the whole body.
In fact,
the misery of Germany had risen
to such a height,
that all clamorously vociferated
for peace;
and even the most disadvantageous pacification would have been hailed as a blessing from heaven.
The plains,
which formerly had been thronged
with a happy and industrious population,
where nature had lavished her choicest gifts,
and plenty and prosperity had reigned,
were now a wild and desolate wilderness.
The fields,
abandoned by the industrious husbandman,
lay waste and uncultivated;
and no sooner had the young crops given the promise of a smiling harvest,
than a single march destroyed the labours of a year,
and blasted the last hope of an afflicted peasantry.
Burnt castles,
wasted fields,
villages in ashes,
were
to be seen extending far and wide on all sides,
while the ruined peasantry had no resource left but
to swell the horde of incendiaries,
and fearfully
to retaliate upon their fellows,
who had hitherto been spared the miseries which they themselves had suffered.
The only safeguard against oppression was
to become an oppressor.
The towns groaned under the licentiousness of undisciplined and plundering garrisons,
who seized and wasted the property of the citizens,
and,
under the license of their position,
committed the most remorseless devastation and cruelty.
If the march of an army converted whole provinces into deserts,
if others were impoverished by winter quarters,
or exhausted by contributions,
these still were but passing evils,
and the industry of a year might efface the miseries of a few months.
But there was no relief
for those who had a garrison within their walls,
or in the neighbourhood;
even the change of fortune could not improve their unfortunate fate,
since the victor trod in the steps of the vanquished,
and friends were not more merciful than enemies.
The neglected farms,
the destruction of the crops,
and the numerous armies which overran the exhausted country,
were inevitably followed by scarcity and the high price of provisions,
which in the later years was still further increased by a general failure in the crops.
The crowding together of men in camps and quarters--want upon one side,
and excess on the other,
occasioned contagious distempers,
which were more fatal than even the sword.
In this long and general confusion,
all the bonds of social life were broken up;--respect
for the rights of their fellow men,
the fear of the laws,
purity of morals,
honour,
and religion,
were laid aside,
where might ruled supreme
with iron sceptre.
Under the shelter of anarchy and impunity,
every vice flourished,
and men became as wild as the country.
No station was too dignified
for outrage,
no property too holy
for rapine and avarice.
In a word,
the soldier reigned supreme;
and that most brutal of despots often made his own officer feel his power.
The leader of an army was a far more important person within any country where he appeared,
than its lawful governor,
who was frequently obliged
to fly before him into his own castles
for safety.
Germany swarmed
with these petty tyrants,
and the country suffered equally from its enemies and its protectors.
These wounds rankled the deeper,
when the unhappy victims recollected that Germany was sacrificed
to the ambition of foreign powers,
who,
for their own ends,
prolonged the miseries of war.
Germany bled under the scourge,
to extend the conquests and influence of Sweden;
and the torch of discord was kept alive within the Empire,
that the services of Richelieu might be rendered indispensable in France.
But,
in truth,
it was not merely interested voices which opposed a peace;
and if both Sweden and the German states were anxious,
from corrupt motives,
to prolong the conflict,
they were seconded in their views by sound policy.
After the defeat of Nordlingen,
an equitable peace was not
to be expected from the Emperor;
and,
this being the case,
was it not too great a sacrifice,
after seventeen years of war,
with all its miseries,
to abandon the contest,
not only without advantage,
but even
with loss?
What would avail so much bloodshed,
if all was
to remain as it had been;
if their rights and pretensions were neither larger nor safer;
if all that had been won
with so much difficulty was
to be surrendered
for a peace at any cost?
Would it not be better
to endure,
for two or three years more,
the burdens they had borne so long,
and
to reap at last some recompense
for twenty years of suffering?
Neither was it doubtful,
that peace might at last be obtained on favourable terms,
if only the Swedes and the German Protestants should continue united in the cabinet and in the field,
and pursued their common interests
with a reciprocal sympathy and zeal.
Their divisions alone,
had rendered the enemy formidable,
and protracted the acquisition of a lasting and general peace.
And this great evil the Elector of Saxony had brought upon the Protestant cause by concluding a separate treaty
with Austria.
He,
indeed,
had commenced his negociations
with the Emperor,
even before the battle of Nordlingen;
and the unfortunate issue of that battle only accelerated their conclusion.
By it,
all his confidence in the Swedes was lost;
and it was even doubted whether they would ever recover from the blow.
The jealousies among their generals,
the insubordination of the army,
and the exhaustion of the Swedish kingdom,
shut out any reasonable prospect of effective assistance on their part.
The Elector hastened,
therefore,
to profit by the Emperor's magnanimity,
who,
even after the battle of Nordlingen,
did not recall the conditions previously offered.
While Oxenstiern,
who had assembled the estates in Frankfort,
made further demands upon them and him,
the Emperor,
on the contrary,
made concessions;
and therefore it required no long consideration
to decide between them.
In the mean time,
however,
he was anxious
to escape the charge of sacrificing the common cause and attending only
to his own interests.
All the German states,
and even the Swedes,
were publicly invited
to become parties
to this peace,
although Saxony and the Emperor were the only powers who deliberated upon it,
and who assumed the right
to give law
to Germany.
By this self-appointed tribunal,
the grievances of the Protestants were discussed,
their rights and privileges decided,
and even the fate of religions determined,
without the presence of those who were most deeply interested in it.
Between them,
a general peace was resolved on,
and it was
to be enforced by an imperial army of execution,
as a formal decree of the Empire.
Whoever opposed it,
was
to be treated as a public enemy;
and thus,
contrary
to their rights,
the states were
to be compelled
to acknowledge a law,
in the passing of which they had no share.
Thus,
even in form,
the pacification at Prague was an arbitrary measure;
nor was it less so in its contents.
The Edict of Restitution had been the chief cause of dispute between the Elector and the Emperor;
and therefore it was first considered in their deliberations.
Without formally annulling it,
it was determined by the treaty of Prague,
that all the ecclesiastical domains holding immediately of the Empire,
and,
among the mediate ones,
those which had been seized by the Protestants subsequently
to the treaty at Passau,
should,
for forty years,
remain in the same position as they had been in before the Edict of Restitution,
but without any formal decision of the diet
to that effect.
Before the expiration of this term a commission,
composed of equal numbers of both religions,
should proceed
to settle the matter peaceably and according
to law;
and if this commission should be unable
to come
to a decision,
each party should remain in possession of the rights which it had exercised before the Edict of Restitution.
This arrangement,
therefore,
far from removing the grounds of dissension,
only suspended the dispute
for a time;
and this article of the treaty of Prague only covered the embers of a future war.
The archbishopric of Magdeburg remained in possession of Prince Augustus of Saxony,
and Halberstadt in that of the Archduke Leopold William.
Four estates were taken from the territory of Magdeburg,
and given
to Saxony,
for which the Administrator of Magdeburg,
Christian William of Brandenburg,
was otherwise
to be indemnified.
The Dukes of Mecklenburg,
upon acceding
to this treaty,
were
to be acknowledged as rightful possessors of their territories,
in which the magnanimity of Gustavus Adolphus had long ago reinstated them.
Donauwerth recovered its liberties.
The important claims of the heirs of the Palatine,
however important it might be
for the Protestant cause not
to lose this electorate vote in the diet,
were passed over in consequence of the animosity subsisting between the Lutherans and the Calvinists.
All the conquests which,
in the course of the war,
had been made by the German states,
or by the League and the Emperor,
were
to be mutually restored;
all which had been appropriated by the foreign powers of France and Sweden,
was
to be forcibly wrested from them by the united powers.
The troops of the contracting parties were
to be formed into one imperial army,
which,
supported and paid by the Empire,
was,
by force of arms,
to carry into execution the covenants of the treaty.
As the peace of Prague was intended
to serve as a general law of the Empire,
those points,
which did not immediately affect the latter,
formed the subject of a separate treaty.
By it,
Lusatia was ceded
to the Elector of Saxony as a fief of Bohemia,
and special articles guaranteed the freedom of religion of this country and of Silesia.
All the Protestant states were invited
to accede
to the treaty of Prague,
and on that condition were
to benefit by the amnesty.
The princes of Wurtemberg and Baden,
whose territories the Emperor was already in possession of,
and which he was not disposed
to restore unconditionally;
and such vassals of Austria as had borne arms against their sovereign;
and those states which,
under the direction of Oxenstiern,
composed the council of the Upper German Circle,
were excluded from the treaty,--not so much
with the view of continuing the war against them,
as of compelling them
to purchase peace at a dearer rate.
Their territories were
to be retained in pledge,
till every thing should be restored
to its former footing.
Such was the treaty of Prague.
Equal justice,
however,
towards all,
might perhaps have restored confidence between the head of the Empire and its members-- between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics--between the Reformed and the Lutheran party;
and the Swedes,
abandoned by all their allies,
would in all probability have been driven from Germany
with disgrace.
But this inequality strengthened,
in those who were more severely treated,
the spirit of mistrust and opposition,
and made it an easier task
for the Swedes
to keep alive the flame of war,
and
to maintain a party in Germany.
The peace of Prague,
as might have been expected,
was received
with very various feelings throughout Germany.
The attempt
to conciliate both parties,
had rendered it obnoxious
to both.
The Protestants complained of the restraints imposed upon them;
the Roman Catholics thought that these hated sectaries had been favoured at the expense of the true church.
In the opinion of the latter,
the church had been deprived of its inalienable rights,
by the concession
to the Protestants of forty years'
undisturbed possession of the ecclesiastical benefices;
while the former murmured that the interests of the Protestant church had been betrayed,
because toleration had not been granted
to their co-religionists in the Austrian dominions.
But no one was so bitterly reproached as the Elector of Saxony,
who was publicly denounced as a deserter,
a traitor
to religion and the liberties of the Empire,
and a confederate of the Emperor.
In the mean time,
he consoled himself
with the triumph of seeing most of the Protestant states compelled by necessity
to embrace this peace.
The Elector of Brandenburg,
Duke William of Weimar,
the princes of Anhalt,
the dukes of Mecklenburg,
the dukes of Brunswick Lunenburg,
the Hanse towns,
and most of the imperial cities,
acceded
to it.
The Landgrave William of Hesse long wavered,
or affected
to do so,
in order
to gain time,
and
to regulate his measures by the course of events.
He had conquered several fertile provinces of Westphalia,
and derived from them principally the means of continuing the war;
these,
by the terms of the treaty,
he was bound
to restore.
Bernard,
Duke of Weimar,
whose states,
as yet,
existed only on paper,
as a belligerent power was not affected by the treaty,
but as a general was so materially;
and,
in either view,
he must equally be disposed
to reject it.
His whole riches consisted in his bravery,
his possessions in his sword.
War alone gave him greatness and importance,
and war alone could realize the projects which his ambition suggested.
But of all who declaimed against the treaty of Prague,
none were so loud in their clamours as the Swedes,
and none had so much reason
for their opposition.
Invited
to Germany by the Germans themselves,
the champions of the Protestant Church,
and the freedom of the States,
which they had defended
with so much bloodshed,
and
with the sacred life of their king,
they now saw themselves suddenly and shamefully abandoned,
disappointed in all their hopes,
without reward and without gratitude driven from the empire
for which they had toiled and bled,
and exposed
to the ridicule of the enemy by the very princes who owed every thing
to them.
No satisfaction,
no indemnification
for the expenses which they had incurred,
no equivalent
for the conquests which they were
to leave behind them,
was provided by the treaty of Prague.
They were
to be dismissed poorer than they came,
or,
if they resisted,
to be expelled by the very powers who had invited them.
The Elector of Saxony at last spoke of a pecuniary indemnification,
and mentioned the small sum of two millions five hundred thousand florins;
but the Swedes had already expended considerably more,
and this disgraceful equivalent in money was both contrary
to their true interests,
and injurious
to their pride.
"The Electors of Bavaria and Saxony,"
replied Oxenstiern,
"have been paid
for their services,
which,
as vassals,
they were bound
to render the Emperor,
with the possession of important provinces;
and shall we,
who have sacrificed our king
for Germany,
be dismissed
with the miserable sum of 2,500,000 florins?"
The disappointment of their expectations was the more severe,
because the Swedes had calculated upon being recompensed
with the Duchy of Pomerania,
the present possessor of which was old and without heirs.
But the succession of this territory was confirmed by the treaty of Prague
to the Elector of Brandenburg;
and all the neighbouring powers declared against allowing the Swedes
to obtain a footing within the empire.
Never,
in the whole course of the war,
had the prospects of the Swedes looked more gloomy,
than in the year 1635,
immediately after the conclusion of the treaty of Prague.
Many of their allies,
particularly among the free cities,
abandoned them
to benefit by the peace;
others were compelled
to accede
to it by the victorious arms of the Emperor.
Augsburg,
subdued by famine,
surrendered under the severest conditions;
Wurtzburg and Coburg were lost
to the Austrians.
The League of Heilbronn was formally dissolved.
Nearly the whole of Upper Germany,
the chief seat of the Swedish power,
was reduced under the Emperor.
Saxony,
on the strength of the treaty of Prague,
demanded the evacuation of Thuringia,
Halberstadt,
and Magdeburg.
Philipsburg,
the military depot of France,
was surprised by the Austrians,
with all the stores it contained;
and this severe loss checked the activity of France.
To complete the embarrassments of Sweden,
the truce
with Poland was drawing
to a close.
To support a war at the same time
with Poland and in Germany,
was far beyond the power of Sweden;
and all that remained was
to choose between them.
Pride and ambition declared in favour of continuing the German war,
at whatever sacrifice on the side of Poland.
An army,
however,
was necessary
to command the respect of Poland,
and
to give weight
to Sweden in any negotiations
for a truce or a peace.
The mind of Oxenstiern,
firm,
and inexhaustible in expedients,
set itself manfully
to meet these calamities,
which all combined
to overwhelm Sweden;
and his shrewd understanding taught him how
to turn even misfortunes
to his advantage.
The defection of so many German cities of the empire deprived him,
it is true,
of a great part of his former allies,
but at the same time it freed him from the necessity of paying any regard
to their interests.
The more the number of his enemies increased,
the more provinces and magazines were opened
to his troops.
The gross ingratitude of the States,
and the haughty contempt
with which the Emperor behaved,
(who did not even condescend
to treat directly
with him about a peace,)
excited in him the courage of despair,
and a noble determination
to maintain the struggle
to the last.
The continuance of war,
however unfortunate it might prove,
could not render the situation of Sweden worse than it now was;
and if Germany was
to be evacuated,
it was at least better and nobler
to do so sword in hand,
and
to yield
to force rather than
to fear.
In the extremity in which the Swedes were now placed by the desertion of their allies,
they addressed themselves
to France,
who met them
with the greatest encouragement.
The interests of the two crowns were closely united,
and France would have injured herself by allowing the Swedish power in Germany
to decline.
The helpless situation of the Swedes,
was rather an additional motive
with France
to cement more closely their alliance,
and
to take a more active part in the German war.
Since the alliance
with Sweden,
at Beerwald,
in 1632,
France had maintained the war against the Emperor,
by the arms of Gustavus Adolphus,
without any open or formal breach,
by furnishing subsidies and increasing the number of his enemies.
But alarmed at the unexpected rapidity and success of the Swedish arms,
France,
in anxiety
to restore the balance of power,
which was disturbed by the preponderance of the Swedes,
seemed,
for a time,
to have lost sight of her original designs.
She endeavoured
to protect the Roman Catholic princes of the empire against the Swedish conqueror,
by the treaties of neutrality,
and when this plan failed,
she even meditated herself
to declare war against him.
But no sooner had the death of Gustavus Adolphus,
and the desperate situation of the Swedish affairs,
dispelled this apprehension,
than she returned
with fresh zeal
to her first design,
and readily afforded in this misfortune the aid which in the hour of success she had refused.
Freed from the checks which the ambition and vigilance of Gustavus Adolphus placed upon her plans of aggrandizement,
France availed herself of the favourable opportunity afforded by the defeat of Nordlingen,
to obtain the entire direction of the war,
and
to prescribe laws
to those who sued
for her powerful protection.
The moment seemed
to smile upon her boldest plans,
and those which had formerly seemed chimerical,
now appeared
to be justified by circumstances.
She now turned her whole attention
to the war in Germany;
and,
as soon as she had secured her own private ends by a treaty
with the Germans,
she suddenly entered the political arena as an active and a commanding power.
While the other belligerent states had been exhausting themselves in a tedious contest,
France had been reserving her strength,
and maintained the contest by money alone;
but now,
when the state of things called
for more active measures,
she seized the sword,
and astonished Europe by the boldness and magnitude of her undertakings.
At the same moment,
she fitted out two fleets,
and sent six different armies into the field,
while she subsidized a foreign crown and several of the German princes.
Animated by this powerful co-operation,
the Swedes and Germans awoke from the consternation,
and hoped,
sword in hand,
to obtain a more honourable peace than that of Prague.
Abandoned by their confederates,
who had been reconciled
to the Emperor,
they formed a still closer alliance
with France,
which increased her support
with their growing necessities,
at the same time taking a more active,
although secret share in the German war,
until at last,
she threw off the mask altogether,
and in her own name made an unequivocal declaration of war against the Emperor.
To leave Sweden at full liberty
to act against Austria,
France commenced her operations by liberating it from all fear of a Polish war.
By means of the Count d'Avaux,
its minister,
an agreement was concluded between the two powers at Stummsdorf in Prussia,
by which the truce was prolonged
for twenty-six years,
though not without a great sacrifice on the part of the Swedes,
who ceded by a single stroke of the pen almost the whole of Polish Prussia,
the dear-bought conquest of Gustavus Adolphus.
The treaty of Beerwald was,
with certain modifications,
which circumstances rendered necessary,
renewed at different times at Compiegne,
and afterwards at Wismar and Hamburg.
France had already come
to a rupture
with Spain,
in May,
1635,
and the vigorous attack which it made upon that power,
deprived the Emperor of his most valuable auxiliaries from the Netherlands.
By supporting the Landgrave William of Cassel,
and Duke Bernard of Weimar,
the Swedes were enabled
to act
with more vigour upon the Elbe and the Danube,
and a diversion upon the Rhine compelled the Emperor
to divide his force.
The war was now prosecuted
with increasing activity.
By the treaty of Prague,
the Emperor had lessened the number of his adversaries within the Empire;
though,
at the same time,
the zeal and activity of his foreign enemies had been augmented by it.
In Germany,
his influence was almost unlimited,
for,
with the exception of a few states,
he had rendered himself absolute master of the German body and its resources,
and was again enabled
to act in the character of emperor and sovereign.
The first fruit of his power was the elevation of his son,
Ferdinand III.,
to the dignity of King of the Romans,
to which he was elected by a decided majority of votes,
notwithstanding the opposition of Treves,
and of the heirs of the Elector Palatine.
But,
on the other hand,
he had exasperated the Swedes
to desperation,
had armed the power of France against him,
and drawn its troops into the heart of the kingdom.
France and Sweden,
with their German allies,
formed,
from this moment,
one firm and compactly united power;
the Emperor,
with the German states which adhered
to him,
were equally firm and united.
The Swedes,
who no longer fought
for Germany,
but
for their own lives,
showed no more indulgence;
relieved from the necessity of consulting their German allies,
or accounting
to them
for the plans which they adopted,
they acted
with more precipitation,
rapidity,
and boldness.
Battles,
though less decisive,
became more obstinate and bloody;
greater achievements,
both in bravery and military skill,
were performed;
but they were but insulated efforts;
and being neither dictated by any consistent plan,
nor improved by any commanding spirit,
had comparatively little influence upon the course of the war.
Saxony had bound herself,
by the treaty of Prague,
to expel the Swedes from Germany.
From this moment,
the banners of the Saxons and Imperialists were united:
the former confederates were converted into implacable enemies.
The archbishopric of Magdeburg which,
by the treaty,
was ceded
to the prince of Saxony,
was still held by the Swedes,
and every attempt
to acquire it by negociation had proved ineffectual.
Hostilities commenced,
by the Elector of Saxony recalling all his subjects from the army of Banner,
which was encamped upon the Elbe.
The officers,
long irritated by the accumulation of their arrears,
obeyed the summons,
and evacuated one quarter after another.
As the Saxons,
at the same time,
made a movement towards Mecklenburg,
to take Doemitz,
and
to drive the Swedes from Pomerania and the Baltic,
Banner suddenly marched thither,
relieved Doemitz,
and totally defeated the Saxon General Baudissin,
with 7000 men,
of whom 1000 were slain,
and about the same number taken prisoners.
Reinforced by the troops and artillery,
which had hitherto been employed in Polish Prussia,
but which the treaty of Stummsdorf rendered unnecessary,
this brave and impetuous general made,
the following year
(1636),
a sudden inroad into the Electorate of Saxony,
where he gratified his inveterate hatred of the Saxons by the most destructive ravages.
Irritated by the memory of old grievances which,
during their common campaigns,
he and the Swedes had suffered from the haughtiness of the Saxons,
and now exasperated
to the utmost by the late defection of the Elector,
they wreaked upon the unfortunate inhabitants all their rancour.
Against Austria and Bavaria,
the Swedish soldier had fought from a sense,
as it were,
of duty;
but against the Saxons,
they contended
with all the energy of private animosity and personal revenge,
detesting them as deserters and traitors;
for the hatred of former friends is of all the most fierce and irreconcileable.
The powerful diversion made by the Duke of Weimar,
and the Landgrave of Hesse,
upon the Rhine and in Westphalia,
prevented the Emperor from affording the necessary assistance
to Saxony,
and left the whole Electorate exposed
to the destructive ravages of Banner's army.
At length,
the Elector,
having formed a junction
with the Imperial General Hatzfeld,
advanced against Magdeburg,
which Banner in vain hastened
to relieve.
The united army of the Imperialists and the Saxons now spread itself over Brandenburg,
wrested several places from the Swedes,
and almost drove them
to the Baltic.
But,
contrary
to all expectation,
Banner,
who had been given up as lost,
attacked the allies,
on the 24th of September,
1636,
at Wittstock,
where a bloody battle took place.
The onset was terrific;
and the whole force of the enemy was directed against the right wing of the Swedes,
which was led by Banner in person.
The contest was long maintained
with equal animosity and obstinacy on both sides.
There was not a squadron among the Swedes,
which did not return ten times
to the charge,
to be as often repulsed;
when at last,
Banner was obliged
to retire before the superior numbers of the enemy.
His left wing sustained the combat until night,
and the second line of the Swedes,
which had not as yet been engaged,
was prepared
to renew it the next morning.
But the Elector did not wait
for a second attack.
His army was exhausted by the efforts of the preceding day;
and,
as the drivers had fled
with the horses,
his artillery was unserviceable.
He accordingly retreated in the night,
with Count Hatzfeld,
and relinquished the ground
to the Swedes.
About 5000 of the allies fell upon the field,
exclusive of those who were killed in the pursuit,
or who fell into the hands of the exasperated peasantry.
One hundred and fifty standards and colours,
twenty-three pieces of cannon,
the whole baggage and silver plate of the Elector,
were captured,
and more than 2000 men taken prisoners.
This brilliant victory,
achieved over an enemy far superior in numbers,
and in a very advantageous position,
restored the Swedes at once
to their former reputation;
their enemies were discouraged,
and their friends inspired
with new hopes.
Banner instantly followed up this decisive success,
and hastily crossing the Elbe,
drove the Imperialists before him,
through Thuringia and Hesse,
into Westphalia.
He then returned,
and took up his winter quarters in Saxony.
But,
without the material aid furnished by the diversion upon the Rhine,
and the activity there of Duke Bernard and the French,
these important successes would have been unattainable.
Duke Bernard,
after the defeat of Nordlingen,
reorganized his broken army at Wetterau;
but,
abandoned by the confederates of the League of Heilbronn,
which had been dissolved by the peace of Prague,
and receiving little support from the Swedes,
he found himself unable
to maintain an army,
or
to perform any enterprise of importance.
The defeat at Nordlingen had terminated all his hopes on the Duchy of Franconia,
while the weakness of the Swedes,
destroyed the chance of retrieving his fortunes through their assistance.
Tired,
too,
of the constraint imposed upon him by the imperious chancellor,
he turned his attention
to France,
who could easily supply him
with money,
the only aid which he required,
and France readily acceded
to his proposals.
Richelieu desired nothing so much as
to diminish the influence of the Swedes in the German war,
and
to obtain the direction of it
for himself.
To secure this end,
nothing appeared more effectual than
to detach from the Swedes their bravest general,
to win him
to the interests of France,
and
to secure
for the execution of its projects the services of his arm.
From a prince like Bernard,
who could not maintain himself without foreign support,
France had nothing
to fear,
since no success,
however brilliant,
could render him independent of that crown.
Bernard himself came into France,
and in October,
1635,
concluded a treaty at St. Germaine en Laye,
not as a Swedish general,
but in his own name,
by which it was stipulated that he should receive
for himself a yearly pension of one million five hundred thousand livres,
and four millions
for the support of his army,
which he was
to command under the orders of the French king.
To inflame his zeal,
and
to accelerate the conquest of Alsace,
France did not hesitate,
by a secret article,
to promise him that province
for his services;
a promise which Richelieu had little intention of performing,
and which the duke also estimated at its real worth.
But Bernard confided in his good fortune,
and in his arms,
and met artifice
with dissimulation.
If he could once succeed in wresting Alsace from the enemy,
he did not despair of being able,
in case of need,
to maintain it also against a friend.
He now raised an army at the expense of France,
which he commanded nominally under the orders of that power,
but in reality without any limitation whatever,
and without having wholly abandoned his engagements
with Sweden.
He began his operations upon the Rhine,
where another French army,
under Cardinal Lavalette,
had already,
in 1635,
commenced hostilities against the Emperor.
Against this force,
the main body of the Imperialists,
after the great victory of Nordlingen,
and the reduction of Swabia and Franconia had advanced under the command of Gallas,
had driven them as far as Metz,
cleared the Rhine,
and took from the Swedes the towns of Metz and Frankenthal,
of which they were in possession.
But frustrated by the vigorous resistance of the French,
in his main object,
of taking up his winter quarters in France,
he led back his exhausted troops into Alsace and Swabia.
At the opening of the next campaign,
he passed the Rhine at Breysach,
and prepared
to carry the war into the interior of France.
He actually entered Burgundy,
while the Spaniards from the Netherlands made progress in Picardy;
and John De Werth,
a formidable general of the League,
and a celebrated partisan,
pushed his march into Champagne,
and spread consternation even
to the gates of Paris.
But an insignificant fortress in Franche Comte completely checked the Imperialists,
and they were obliged,
a second time,
to abandon their enterprise.
The activity of Duke Bernard had hitherto been impeded by his dependence on a French general,
more suited
to the priestly robe,
than
to the baton of command;
and although,
in conjunction
with him,
he conquered Alsace Saverne,
he found himself unable,
in the years 1636 and 1637,
to maintain his position upon the Rhine.
The ill success of the French arms in the Netherlands had cheated the activity of operations in Alsace and Breisgau;
but in 1638,
the war in that quarter took a more brilliant turn.
Relieved from his former restraint,
and
with unlimited command of his troops,
Duke Bernard,
in the beginning of February,
left his winter quarters in the bishopric of Basle,
and unexpectedly appeared upon the Rhine,
where,
at this rude season of the year,
an attack was little anticipated.
The forest towns of Laufenburg,
Waldshut,
and Seckingen,
were surprised,
and Rhinefeldt besieged.
The Duke of Savelli,
the Imperial general who commanded in that quarter,
hastened by forced marches
to the relief of this important place,
succeeded in raising the siege,
and compelled the Duke of Weimar,
with great loss
to retire.
But,
contrary
to all human expectation,
he appeared on the third day after,
(21st February,
1638,)
before the Imperialists,
in order of battle,
and defeated them in a bloody engagement,
in which the four Imperial generals,
Savelli,
John De Werth,
Enkeford,
and Sperreuter,
with 2000 men,
were taken prisoners.
Two of these,
De Werth and Enkeford,
were afterwards sent by Richelieu's orders into France,
in order
to flatter the vanity of the French by the sight of such distinguished prisoners,
and by the pomp of military trophies,
to withdraw the attention of the populace from the public distress.
The captured standards and colours were,
with the same view,
carried in solemn procession
to the church of Notre Dame,
thrice exhibited before the altar,
and committed
to sacred custody.
The taking of Rhinefeldt,
Roeteln,
and Fribourg,
was the immediate consequence of the duke's victory.
His army now increased by considerable recruits,
and his projects expanded in proportion as fortune favoured him.
The fortress of Breysach upon the Rhine was looked upon as holding the command of that river,
and as the key of Alsace.
No place in this quarter was of more importance
to the Emperor,
and upon none had more care been bestowed.
To protect Breysach,
was the principal destination of the Italian army,
under the Duke of Feria;
the strength of its works,
and its natural defences,
bade defiance
to assault,
while the Imperial generals who commanded in that quarter had orders
to retain it at any cost.
But the duke,
trusting
to his good fortune,
resolved
to attempt the siege.
Its strength rendered it impregnable;
it could,
therefore,
only be starved into a surrender;
and this was facilitated by the carelessness of the commandant,
who,
expecting no attack,
had been selling off his stores.
As under these circumstances the town could not long hold out,
it must be immediately relieved or victualled.
Accordingly,
the Imperial General Goetz rapidly advanced at the head of 12,000 men,
accompanied by 3000 waggons loaded
with provisions,
which he intended
to throw into the place.
But he was attacked
with such vigour by Duke Bernard at Witteweyer,
that he lost his whole force,
except 3000 men,
together
with the entire transport.
A similar fate at Ochsenfeld,
near Thann,
overtook the Duke of Lorraine,
who,
with 5000 or 6000 men,
advanced
to relieve the fortress.
After a third attempt of general Goetz
for the relief of Breysach had proved ineffectual,
the fortress,
reduced
to the greatest extremity by famine,
surrendered,
after a blockade of four months,
on the 17th December 1638,
to its equally persevering and humane conqueror.
The capture of Breysach opened a boundless field
to the ambition of the Duke of Weimar,
and the romance of his hopes was fast approaching
to reality.
Far from intending
to surrender his conquests
to France,
he destined Breysach
for himself,
and revealed this intention,
by exacting allegiance from the vanquished,
in his own name,
and not in that of any other power.
Intoxicated by his past success,
and excited by the boldest hopes,
he believed that he should be able
to maintain his conquests,
even against France herself.
At a time when everything depended upon bravery,
when even personal strength was of importance,
when troops and generals were of more value than territories,
it was natural
for a hero like Bernard
to place confidence in his own powers,
and,
at the head of an excellent army,
who under his command had proved invincible,
to believe himself capable of accomplishing the boldest and largest designs.
In order
to secure himself one friend among the crowd of enemies whom he was about
to provoke,
he turned his eyes upon the Landgravine Amelia of Hesse,
the widow of the lately deceased Landgrave William,
a princess whose talents were equal
to her courage,
and who,
along
with her hand,
would bestow valuable conquests,
an extensive principality,
and a well disciplined army.
By the union of the conquests of Hesse,
with his own upon the Rhine,
and the junction of their forces,
a power of some importance,
and perhaps a third party,
might be formed in Germany,
which might decide the fate of the war.
But a premature death put a period
to these extensive schemes.
"Courage,
Father Joseph,
Breysach is ours!"
whispered Richelieu in the ear of the Capuchin,
who had long held himself in readiness
to be despatched into that quarter;
so delighted was he
with this joyful intelligence.
Already in imagination he held Alsace,
Breisgau,
and all the frontiers of Austria in that quarter,
without regard
to his promise
to Duke Bernard.
But the firm determination which the latter had unequivocally shown,
to keep Breysach
for himself,
greatly embarrassed the cardinal,
and no efforts were spared
to retain the victorious Bernard in the interests of France.
He was invited
to court,
to witness the honours by which his triumph was
to be commemorated;
but he perceived and shunned the seductive snare.
The cardinal even went so far as
to offer him the hand of his niece in marriage;
but the proud German prince declined the offer,
and refused
to sully the blood of Saxony by a misalliance.
He was now considered as a dangerous enemy,
and treated as such.
His subsidies were withdrawn;
and the Governor of Breysach and his principal officers were bribed,
at least upon the event of the duke's death,
to take possession of his conquests,
and
to secure his troops.
These intrigues were no secret
to the duke,
and the precautions he took in the conquered places,
clearly bespoke the distrust of France.
But this misunderstanding
with the French court had the most prejudicial influence upon his future operations.
The preparations he was obliged
to make,
in order
to secure his conquests against an attack on the side of France,
compelled him
to divide his military strength,
while the stoppage of his subsidies delayed his appearance in the field.
It had been his intention
to cross the Rhine,
to support the Swedes,
and
to act against the Emperor and Bavaria on the banks of the Danube.
He had already communicated his plan of operations
to Banner,
who was about
to carry the war into the Austrian territories,
and had promised
to relieve him so,
when a sudden death cut short his heroic career,
in the 36th year of his age,
at Neuburgh upon the Rhine
(in July,
1639).
He died of a pestilential disorder,
which,
in the course of two days,
had carried off nearly 400 men in his camp.
The black spots which appeared upon his body,
his own dying expressions,
and the advantages which France was likely
to reap from his sudden decease,
gave rise
to a suspicion that he had been removed by poison--a suspicion sufficiently refuted by the symptoms of his disorder.
In him,
the allies lost their greatest general after Gustavus Adolphus,
France a formidable competitor
for Alsace,
and the Emperor his most dangerous enemy.
Trained
to the duties of a soldier and a general in the school of Gustavus Adolphus,
he successfully imitated his eminent model,
and wanted only a longer life
to equal,
if not
to surpass it.
With the bravery of the soldier,
he united the calm and cool penetration of the general and the persevering fortitude of the man,
with the daring resolution of youth;
with the wild ardour of the warrior,
the sober dignity of the prince,
the moderation of the sage,
and the conscientiousness of the man of honour.
Discouraged by no misfortune,
he quickly rose again in full vigour from the severest defeats;
no obstacles could check his enterprise,
no disappointments conquer his indomitable perseverance.
His genius,
perhaps,
soared after unattainable objects;
but the prudence of such men,
is
to be measured by a different standard from that of ordinary people.
Capable of accomplishing more,
he might venture
to form more daring plans.
Bernard affords,
in modern history,
a splendid example of those days of chivalry,
when personal greatness had its full weight and influence,
when individual bravery could conquer provinces,
and the heroic exploits of a German knight raised him even
to the Imperial throne.
The best part of the duke's possessions were his army,
which,
together
with Alsace,
he bequeathed
to his brother William.
But
to this army,
both France and Sweden thought that they had well-grounded claims;
the latter,
because it had been raised in name of that crown,
and had done homage
to it;
the former,
because it had been supported by its subsidies.
The Electoral Prince of the Palatinate also negociated
for its services,
and attempted,
first by his agents,
and latterly in his own person,
to win it over
to his interests,
with the view of employing it in the reconquest of his territories.
Even the Emperor endeavoured
to secure it,
a circumstance the less surprising,
when we reflect that at this time the justice of the cause was comparatively unimportant,
and the extent of the recompense the main object
to which the soldier looked;
and when bravery,
like every other commodity,
was disposed of
to the highest bidder.
But France,
richer and more determined,
outbade all competitors:
it bought over General Erlach,
the commander of Breysach,
and the other officers,
who soon placed that fortress,
with the whole army,
in their hands.
The young Palatine,
Prince Charles Louis,
who had already made an unsuccessful campaign against the Emperor,
saw his hopes again deceived.
Although intending
to do France so ill a service,
as
to compete
with her
for Bernard's army,
he had the imprudence
to travel through that kingdom.
The cardinal,
who dreaded the justice of the Palatine's cause,
was glad
to seize any opportunity
to frustrate his views.
He accordingly caused him
to be seized at Moulin,
in violation of the law of nations,
and did not set him at liberty,
until he learned that the army of the Duke of Weimar had been secured.
France was now in possession of a numerous and well disciplined army in Germany,
and from this moment began
to make open war upon the Emperor.
But it was no longer against Ferdinand II.
that its hostilities were
to be conducted;
for that prince had died in February,
1637,
in the 59th year of his age.
The war which his ambition had kindled,
however,
survived him.
During a reign of eighteen years he had never once laid aside the sword,
nor tasted the blessings of peace as long as his hand swayed the imperial sceptre.
Endowed
with the qualities of a good sovereign,
adorned
with many of those virtues which ensure the happiness of a people,
and by nature gentle and humane,
we see him,
from erroneous ideas of the monarch's duty,
become at once the instrument and the victim of the evil passions of others;
his benevolent intentions frustrated,
and the friend of justice converted into the oppressor of mankind,
the enemy of peace,
and the scourge of his people.
Amiable in domestic life,
and respectable as a sovereign,
but in his policy ill advised,
while he gained the love of his Roman Catholic subjects,
he incurred the execration of the Protestants.
History exhibits many and greater despots than Ferdinand II.,
yet he alone has had the unfortunate celebrity of kindling a thirty years'
war;
but
to produce its lamentable consequences,
his ambition must have been seconded by a kindred spirit of the age,
a congenial state of previous circumstances,
and existing seeds of discord.
At a less turbulent period,
the spark would have found no fuel;
and the peacefulness of the age would have choked the voice of individual ambition;
but now the flash fell upon a pile of accumulated combustibles,
and Europe was in flames.
His son,
Ferdinand III.,
who,
a few months before his father's death,
had been raised
to the dignity of King of the Romans,
inherited his throne,
his principles,
and the war which he had caused.
But Ferdinand III.
had been a closer witness of the sufferings of the people,
and the devastation of the country,
and felt more keenly and ardently the necessity of peace.
Less influenced by the Jesuits and the Spaniards,
and more moderate towards the religious views of others,
he was more likely than his father
to listen
to the voice of reason.
He did so,
and ultimately restored
to Europe the blessing of peace,
but not till after a contest of eleven years waged
with sword and pen;
not till after he had experienced the impossibility of resistance,
and necessity had laid upon him its stern laws.
Fortune favoured him at the commencement of his reign,
and his arms were victorious against the Swedes.
The latter,
under the command of the victorious Banner,
had,
after their success at Wittstock,
taken up their winter quarters in Saxony;
and the campaign of 1637 opened
with the siege of Leipzig.
The vigorous resistance of the garrison,
and the approach of the Electoral and Imperial armies,
saved the town,
and Banner,
to prevent his communication
with the Elbe being cut off,
was compelled
to retreat into Torgau.
But the superior number of the Imperialists drove him even from that quarter;
and,
surrounded by the enemy,
hemmed in by rivers,
and suffering from famine,
he had no course open
to him but
to attempt a highly dangerous retreat into Pomerania,
of which,
the boldness and successful issue border upon romance.
The whole army crossed the Oder,
at a ford near Furstenberg;
and the soldiers,
wading up
to the neck in water,
dragged the artillery across,
when the horses refused
to draw.
Banner had expected
to be joined by General Wrangel,
on the farther side of the Oder in Pomerania;
and,
in conjunction
with him,
to be able
to make head against the enemy.
But Wrangel did not appear;
and in his stead,
he found an Imperial army posted at Landsberg,
with a view
to cut off the retreat of the Swedes.
Banner now saw that he had fallen into a dangerous snare,
from which escape appeared impossible.
In his rear lay an exhausted country,
the Imperialists,
and the Oder on his left;
the Oder,
too,
guarded by the Imperial General Bucheim,
offered no retreat;
in front,
Landsberg,
Custrin,
the Warta,
and a hostile army;
and on the right,
Poland,
in which,
notwithstanding the truce,
little confidence could be placed.
In these circumstances,
his position seemed hopeless,
and the Imperialists were already triumphing in the certainty of his fall.
Banner,
with just indignation,
accused the French as the authors of this misfortune.
They had neglected
to make,
according
to their promise,
a diversion upon the Rhine;
and,
by their inaction,
allowed the Emperor
to combine his whole force upon the Swedes.
"When the day comes,"
cried the incensed General
to the French Commissioner,
who followed the camp,
"that the Swedes and Germans join their arms against France,
we shall cross the Rhine
with less ceremony."
But reproaches were now useless;
what the emergency demanded was energy and resolution.
In the hope of drawing the enemy by stratagem from the Oder,
Banner pretended
to march towards Poland,
and despatched the greater part of his baggage in this direction,
with his own wife,
and those of the other officers.
The Imperialists immediately broke up their camp,
and hurried towards the Polish frontier
to block up the route;
Bucheim left his station,
and the Oder was stripped of its defenders.
On a sudden,
and under cloud of night,
Banner turned towards that river,
and crossed it about a mile above Custrin,
with his troops,
baggage,
and artillery,
without bridges or vessels,
as he had done before at Furstenberg.
He reached Pomerania without loss,
and prepared
to share
with Wrangel the defence of that province.
But the Imperialists,
under the command of Gallas,
entered that duchy at Ribses,
and overran it by their superior strength.
Usedom and Wolgast were taken by storm,
Demmin capitulated,
and the Swedes were driven far into Lower Pomerania.
It was,
too,
more important
for them at this moment than ever,
to maintain a footing in that country,
for Bogislaus XIV.
had died that year,
and Sweden must prepare
to establish its title
to Pomerania.
To prevent the Elector of Brandenburg from making good the title
to that duchy,
which the treaty of Prague had given him,
Sweden exerted her utmost energies,
and supported its generals
to the extent of her ability,
both
with troops and money.
In other quarters of the kingdom,
the affairs of the Swedes began
to wear a more favourable aspect,
and
to recover from the humiliation into which they had been thrown by the inaction of France,
and the desertion of their allies.
For,
after their hasty retreat into Pomerania,
they had lost one place after another in Upper Saxony;
the princes of Mecklenburg,
closely pressed by the troops of the Emperor,
began
to lean
to the side of Austria,
and even George,
Duke of Lunenburg,
declared against them.
Ehrenbreitstein was starved into a surrender by the Bavarian General de Werth,
and the Austrians possessed themselves of all the works which had been thrown up on the Rhine.
France had been the sufferer in the contest
with Spain;
and the event had by no means justified the pompous expectations which had accompanied the opening of the campaign.
Every place which the Swedes had held in the interior of Germany was lost;
and only the principal towns in Pomerania still remained in their hands.
But a single campaign raised them from this state of humiliation;
and the vigorous diversion,
which the victorious Bernard had effected upon the Rhine,
gave quite a new turn
to affairs.
The misunderstandings between France and Sweden were now at last adjusted,
and the old treaty between these powers confirmed at Hamburg,
with fresh advantages
for Sweden.
In Hesse,
the politic Landgravine Amelia had,
with the approbation of the Estates,
assumed the government after the death of her husband,
and resolutely maintained her rights against the Emperor and the House of Darmstadt.
Already zealously attached
to the Swedish Protestant party,
on religious grounds,
she only awaited a favourable opportunity openly
to declare herself.
By artful delays,
and by prolonging the negociations
with the Emperor,
she had succeeded in keeping him inactive,
till she had concluded a secret compact
with France,
and the victories of Duke Bernard had given a favourable turn
to the affairs of the Protestants.
She now at once threw off the mask,
and renewed her former alliance
with the Swedish crown.
The Electoral Prince of the Palatinate was also stimulated,
by the success of Bernard,
to try his fortune against the common enemy.
Raising troops in Holland
with English money,
he formed a magazine at Meppen,
and joined the Swedes in Westphalia.
His magazine was,
however,
quickly lost;
his army defeated near Flotha,
by Count Hatzfeld;
but his attempt served
to occupy
for some time the attention of the enemy,
and thereby facilitated the operations of the Swedes in other quarters.
Other friends began
to appear,
as fortune declared in their favour,
and the circumstance,
that the States of Lower Saxony embraced a neutrality,
was of itself no inconsiderable advantage.
Under these advantages,
and reinforced by 14,000 fresh troops from Sweden and Livonia.
Banner opened,
with the most favourable prospects,
the campaign of 1638.
The Imperialists who were in possession of Upper Pomerania and Mecklenburg,
either abandoned their positions,
or deserted in crowds
to the Swedes,
to avoid the horrors of famine,
the most formidable enemy in this exhausted country.
The whole country betwixt the Elbe and the Oder was so desolated by the past marchings and quarterings of the troops,
that,
in order
to support his army on its march into Saxony and Bohemia,
Banner was obliged
to take a circuitous route from Lower Pomerania into Lower Saxony,
and then into the Electorate of Saxony through the territory of Halberstadt.
The impatience of the Lower Saxon States
to get rid of such troublesome guests,
procured him so plentiful a supply of provisions,
that he was provided
with bread in Magdeburg itself,
where famine had even overcome the natural antipathy of men
to human flesh.
His approach spread consternation among the Saxons;
but his views were directed not against this exhausted country,
but against the hereditary dominions of the Emperor.
The victories of Bernard encouraged him,
while the prosperity of the Austrian provinces excited his hopes of booty.
After defeating the Imperial General Salis,
at Elsterberg,
totally routing the Saxon army at Chemnitz,
and taking Pirna,
he penetrated
with irresistible impetuosity into Bohemia,
crossed the Elbe,
threatened Prague,
took Brandeis and Leutmeritz,
defeated General Hofkirchen
with ten regiments,
and spread terror and devastation through that defenceless kingdom.
Booty was his sole object,
and whatever he could not carry off he destroyed.
In order
to remove more of the corn,
the ears were cut from the stalks,
and the latter burnt.
Above a thousand castles,
hamlets,
and villages were laid in ashes;
sometimes more than a hundred were seen burning in one night.
From Bohemia he crossed into Silesia,
and it was his intention
to carry his ravages even into Moravia and Austria.
But
to prevent this,
Count Hatzfeld was summoned from Westphalia,
and Piccolomini from the Netherlands,
to hasten
with all speed
to this quarter.
The Archduke Leopold,
brother
to the Emperor,
assumed the command,
in order
to repair the errors of his predecessor Gallas,
and
to raise the army from the low ebb
to which it had fallen.
The result justified the change,
and the campaign of 1640 appeared
to take a most unfortunate turn
for the Swedes.
They were successively driven out of all their posts in Bohemia,
and anxious only
to secure their plunder,
they precipitately crossed the heights of Meissen.
But being followed into Saxony by the pursuing enemy,
and defeated at Plauen,
they were obliged
to take refuge in Thuringia.
Made masters of the field in a single summer,
they were as rapidly dispossessed;
but only
to acquire it a second time,
and
to hurry from one extreme
to another.
The army of Banner,
weakened and on the brink of destruction in its camp at Erfurt,
suddenly recovered itself.
The Duke of Lunenburg abandoned the treaty of Prague,
and joined Banner
with the very troops which,
the year before,
had fought against him.
Hesse Cassel sent reinforcements,
and the Duke of Longueville came
to his support
with the army of the late Duke Bernard.
Once more numerically superior
to the Imperialists,
Banner offered them battle near Saalfeld;
but their leader,
Piccolomini,
prudently declined an engagement,
having chosen too strong a position
to be forced.
When the Bavarians at length separated from the Imperialists,
and marched towards Franconia,
Banner attempted an attack upon this divided corps,
but the attempt was frustrated by the skill of the Bavarian General Von Mercy,
and the near approach of the main body of the Imperialists.
Both armies now moved into the exhausted territory of Hesse,
where they formed intrenched camps near each other,
till at last famine and the severity of the winter compelled them both
to retire.
Piccolomini chose the fertile banks of the Weser
for his winter quarters;
but being outflanked by Banner,
he was obliged
to give way
to the Swedes,
and
to impose on the Franconian sees the burden of maintaining his army.
At this period,
a diet was held in Ratisbon,
where the complaints of the States were
to be heard,
measures taken
for securing the repose of the Empire,
and the question of peace or war finally settled.
The presence of the Emperor,
the majority of the Roman Catholic voices in the Electoral College,
the great number of bishops,
and the withdrawal of several of the Protestant votes,
gave the Emperor a complete command of the deliberations of the assembly,
and rendered this diet any thing but a fair representative of the opinions of the German Empire.
The Protestants,
with reason,
considered it as a mere combination of Austria and its creatures against their party;
and it seemed
to them a laudable effort
to interrupt its deliberations,
and
to dissolve the diet itself.
Banner undertook this bold enterprise.
His military reputation had suffered by his last retreat from Bohemia,
and it stood in need of some great exploit
to restore its former lustre.
Without communicating his designs
to any one,
in the depth of the winter of 1641,
as soon as the roads and rivers were frozen,
he broke up from his quarters in Lunenburg.
Accompanied by Marshal Guebriant,
who commanded the armies of France and Weimar,
he took the route towards the Danube,
through Thuringia and Vogtland,
and appeared before Ratisbon,
ere the Diet could be apprised of his approach.
The consternation of the assembly was indescribable;
and,
in the first alarm,
the deputies prepared
for flight.
The Emperor alone declared that he would not leave the town,
and encouraged the rest by his example.
Unfortunately
for the Swedes,
a thaw came on,
which broke up the ice upon the Danube,
so that it was no longer passable on foot,
while no boats could cross it,
on account of the quantities of ice which were swept down by the current.
In order
to perform something,
and
to humble the pride of the Emperor,
Banner discourteously fired 500 cannon shots into the town,
which,
however,
did little mischief.
Baffled in his designs,
he resolved
to penetrate farther into Bavaria,
and the defenceless province of Moravia,
where a rich booty and comfortable quarters awaited his troops.
Guebriant,
however,
began
to fear that the purpose of the Swedes was
to draw the army of Bernard away from the Rhine,
and
to cut off its communication
with France,
till it should be either entirely won over,
or incapacitated from acting independently.
He therefore separated from Banner
to return
to the Maine;
and the latter was exposed
to the whole force of the Imperialists,
which had been secretly drawn together between Ratisbon and Ingoldstadt,
and was on its march against him.
It was now time
to think of a rapid retreat,
which,
having
to be effected in the face of an army superior in cavalry,
and betwixt woods and rivers,
through a country entirely hostile,
appeared almost impracticable.
He hastily retired towards the Forest,
intending
to penetrate through Bohemia into Saxony;
but he was obliged
to sacrifice three regiments at Neuburg.
These
with a truly Spartan courage,
defended themselves
for four days behind an old wall,
and gained time
for Banner
to escape.
He retreated by Egra
to Annaberg;
Piccolomini took a shorter route in pursuit,
by Schlakenwald;
and Banner succeeded,
only by a single half hour,
in clearing the Pass of Prisnitz,
and saving his whole army from the Imperialists.
At Zwickau he was again joined by Guebriant;
and both generals directed their march towards Halberstadt,
after in vain attempting
to defend the Saal,
and
to prevent the passage of the Imperialists.
Banner,
at length,
terminated his career at Halberstadt,
in May 1641,
a victim
to vexation and disappointment.
He sustained
with great renown,
though
with varying success,
the reputation of the Swedish arms in Germany,
and by a train of victories showed himself worthy of his great master in the art of war.
He was fertile in expedients,
which he planned
with secrecy,
and executed
with boldness;
cautious in the midst of dangers,
greater in adversity than in prosperity,
and never more formidable than when upon the brink of destruction.
But the virtues of the hero were united
with all the railings and vices which a military life creates,
or at least fosters.
As imperious in private life as he was at the head of his army,
rude as his profession,
and proud as a conqueror;
he oppressed the German princes no less by his haughtiness,
than their country by his contributions.
He consoled himself
for the toils of war in voluptuousness and the pleasures of the table,
in which he indulged
to excess,
and was thus brought
to an early grave.
But though as much addicted
to pleasure as Alexander or Mahomet the Second,
he hurried from the arms of luxury into the hardest fatigues,
and placed himself in all his vigour at the head of his army,
at the very moment his soldiers were murmuring at his luxurious excesses.
Nearly 80,000 men fell in the numerous battles which he fought,
and about 600 hostile standards and colours,
which he sent
to Stockholm,
were the trophies of his victories.
The want of this great general was soon severely felt by the Swedes,
who feared,
with justice,
that the loss would not readily be replaced.
The spirit of rebellion and insubordination,
which had been overawed by the imperious demeanour of this dreaded commander,
awoke upon his death.
The officers,
with an alarming unanimity,
demanded payment of their arrears;
and none of the four generals who shared the command,
possessed influence enough
to satisfy these demands,
or
to silence the malcontents.
All discipline was at an end,
increasing want,
and the imperial citations were daily diminishing the number of the army;
the troops of France and Weimar showed little zeal;
those of Lunenburg forsook the Swedish colours;
the Princes also of the House of Brunswick,
after the death of Duke George,
had formed a separate treaty
with the Emperor;
and at last even those of Hesse quitted them,
to seek better quarters in Westphalia.
The enemy profited by these calamitous divisions;
and although defeated
with loss in two pitched battles,
succeeded in making considerable progress in Lower Saxony.
At length appeared the new Swedish generalissimo,
with fresh troops and money.
This was Bernard Torstensohn,
a pupil of Gustavus Adolphus,
and his most successful imitator,
who had been his page during the Polish war.
Though a martyr
to the gout,
and confined
to a litter,
he surpassed all his opponents in activity;
and his enterprises had wings,
while his body was held by the most frightful of fetters.
Under him,
the scene of war was changed,
and new maxims adopted,
which necessity dictated,
and the issue justified.
All the countries in which the contest had hitherto raged were exhausted;
while the House of Austria,
safe in its more distant territories,
felt not the miseries of the war under which the rest of Germany groaned.
Torstensohn first furnished them
with this bitter experience,
glutted his Swedes on the fertile produce of Austria,
and carried the torch of war
to the very footsteps of the imperial throne.
In Silesia,
the enemy had gained considerable advantages over the Swedish general Stalhantsch,
and driven him as far as Neumark.
Torstensohn,
who had joined the main body of the Swedes in Lunenburg,
summoned him
to unite
with his force,
and in the year 1642 hastily marched into Silesia through Brandenburg,
which,
under its great Elector,
had begun
to maintain an armed neutrality.
Glogau was carried,
sword in hand,
without a breach,
or formal approaches;
the Duke Francis Albert of Lauenburg defeated and killed at Schweidnitz;
and Schweidnitz itself
with almost all the towns on that side of the Oder,
taken.
He now penetrated
with irresistible violence into the interior of Moravia,
where no enemy of Austria had hitherto appeared,
took Olmutz,
and threw Vienna itself into consternation.
But,
in the mean time,
Piccolomini and the Archduke Leopold had collected a superior force,
which speedily drove the Swedish conquerors from Moravia,
and after a fruitless attempt upon Brieg,
from Silesia.
Reinforced by Wrangel,
the Swedes again attempted
to make head against the enemy,
and relieved Grossglogau;
but could neither bring the Imperialists
to an engagement,
nor carry into effect their own views upon Bohemia.
Overrunning Lusatia,
they took Zittau,
in presence of the enemy,
and after a short stay in that country,
directed their march towards the Elbe,
which they passed at Torgau.
Torstensohn now threatened Leipzig
with a siege,
and hoped
to raise a large supply of provisions and contributions from that prosperous town,
which
for ten years had been unvisited
with the scourge of war.
The Imperialists,
under Leopold and Piccolomini,
immediately hastened by Dresden
to its relief,
and Torstensohn,
to avoid being inclosed between this army and the town,
boldly advanced
to meet them in order of battle.
By a strange coincidence,
the two armies met upon the very spot which,
eleven years before,
Gustavus Adolphus had rendered remarkable by a decisive victory;
and the heroism of their predecessors,
now kindled in the Swedes a noble emulation on this consecrated ground.
The Swedish generals,
Stahlhantsch and Wellenberg,
led their divisions
with such impetuosity upon the left wing of the Imperialists,
before it was completely formed,
that the whole cavalry that covered it were dispersed and rendered unserviceable.
But the left of the Swedes was threatened
with a similar fate,
when the victorious right advanced
to its assistance,
took the enemy in flank and rear,
and divided the Austrian line.
The infantry on both sides stood firm as a wall,
and when their ammunition was exhausted,
maintained the combat
with the butt-ends of their muskets,
till at last the Imperialists,
completely surrounded,
after a contest of three hours,
were compelled
to abandon the field.
The generals on both sides had more than once
to rally their flying troops;
and the Archduke Leopold,
with his regiment,
was the first in the attack and last in flight.
But this bloody victory cost the Swedes more than 3000 men,
and two of their best generals,
Schlangen and Lilienhoeck.
More than 5000 of the Imperialists were left upon the field,
and nearly as many taken prisoners.
Their whole artillery,
consisting of 46 field-pieces,
the silver plate and portfolio of the archduke,
with the whole baggage of the army,
fell into the hands of the victors.
Torstensohn,
too greatly disabled by his victory
to pursue the enemy,
moved upon Leipzig.
The defeated army retired into Bohemia,
where its shattered regiments reassembled.
The Archduke Leopold could not recover from the vexation caused by this defeat;
and the regiment of cavalry which,
by its premature flight,
had occasioned the disaster,
experienced the effects of his indignation.
At Raconitz in Bohemia,
in presence of the whole army,
he publicly declared it infamous,
deprived it of its horses,
arms,
and ensigns,
ordered its standards
to be torn,
condemned
to death several of the officers,
and decimated the privates.
The surrender of Leipzig,
three weeks after the battle,
was its brilliant result.
The city was obliged
to clothe the Swedish troops anew,
and
to purchase an exemption from plunder,
by a contribution of 300,000 rix-dollars,
to which all the foreign merchants,
who had warehouses in the city,
were
to furnish their quota.
In the middle of winter,
Torstensohn advanced against Freyberg,
and
for several weeks defied the inclemency of the season,
hoping by his perseverance
to weary out the obstinacy of the besieged.
But he found that he was merely sacrificing the lives of his soldiers;
and at last,
the approach of the imperial general,
Piccolomini,
compelled him,
with his weakened army,
to retire.
He considered it,
however,
as equivalent
to a victory,
to have disturbed the repose of the enemy in their winter quarters,
who,
by the severity of the weather,
sustained a loss of 3000 horses.
He now made a movement towards the Oder,
as if
with the view of reinforcing himself
with the garrisons of Pomerania and Silesia;
but,
with the rapidity of lightning,
he again appeared upon the Bohemian frontier,
penetrated through that kingdom,
and relieved Olmutz in Moravia,
which was hard pressed by the Imperialists.
His camp at Dobitschau,
two miles from Olmutz,
commanded the whole of Moravia,
on which he levied heavy contributions,
and carried his ravages almost
to the gates of Vienna.
In vain did the Emperor attempt
to arm the Hungarian nobility in defence of this province;
they appealed
to their privileges,
and refused
to serve beyond the limits of their own country.
Thus,
the time that should have been spent in active resistance,
was lost in fruitless negociation,
and the entire province was abandoned
to the ravages of the Swedes.
While Torstensohn,
by his marches and his victories,
astonished friend and foe,
the armies of the allies had not been inactive in other parts of the empire.
The troops of Hesse,
under Count Eberstein,
and those of Weimar,
under Mareschal de Guebriant,
had fallen into the Electorate of Cologne,
in order
to take up their winter quarters there.
To get rid of these troublesome guests,
the Elector called
to his assistance the imperial general Hatzfeldt,
and assembled his own troops under General Lamboy.
The latter was attacked by the allies in January,
1642,
and in a decisive action near Kempen,
defeated,
with the loss of about 2000 men killed,
and about twice as many prisoners.
This important victory opened
to them the whole Electorate and neighbouring territories,
so that the allies were not only enabled
to maintain their winter quarters there,
but drew from the country large supplies of men and horses.
Guebriant left the Hessians
to defend their conquests on the Lower Rhine against Hatzfeldt,
and advanced towards Thuringia,
as if
to second the operations of Torstensohn in Saxony.
But instead of joining the Swedes,
he soon hurried back
to the Rhine and the Maine,
from which he seemed
to think he had removed farther than was expedient.
But being anticipated in the Margraviate of Baden,
by the Bavarians under Mercy and John de Werth,
he was obliged
to wander about
for several weeks,
exposed,
without shelter,
to the inclemency of the winter,
and generally encamping upon the snow,
till he found a miserable refuge in Breisgau.
He at last took the field;
and,
in the next summer,
by keeping the Bavarian army employed in Suabia,
prevented it from relieving Thionville,
which was besieged by Conde.
But the superiority of the enemy soon drove him back
to Alsace,
where he awaited a reinforcement.
The death of Cardinal Richelieu took place in November,
1642,
and the subsequent change in the throne and in the ministry,
occasioned by the death of Louis XIII.,
had
for some time withdrawn the attention of France from the German war,
and was the cause of the inaction of its troops in the field.
But Mazarin,
the inheritor,
not only of Richelieu's power,
but also of his principles and his projects,
followed out
with renewed zeal the plans of his predecessor,
though the French subject was destined
to pay dearly enough
for the political greatness of his country.
The main strength of its armies,
which Richelieu had employed against the Spaniards,
was by Mazarin directed against the Emperor;
and the anxiety
with which he carried on the war in Germany,
proved the sincerity of his opinion,
that the German army was the right arm of his king,
and a wall of safety around France.
Immediately upon the surrender of Thionville,
he sent a considerable reinforcement
to Field-Marshal Guebriant in Alsace;
and
to encourage the troops
to bear the fatigues of the German war,
the celebrated victor of Rocroi,
the Duke of Enghien,
afterwards Prince of Conde,
was placed at their head.
Guebriant now felt himself strong enough
to appear again in Germany
with repute.
He hastened across the Rhine
with the view of procuring better winter quarters in Suabia,
and actually made himself master of Rothweil,
where a Bavarian magazine fell into his hands.
But the place was too dearly purchased
for its worth,
and was again lost even more speedily than it had been taken.
Guebriant received a wound in the arm,
which the surgeon's unskilfulness rendered mortal,
and the extent of his loss was felt on the very day of his death.
The French army,
sensibly weakened by an expedition undertaken at so severe a season of the year,
had,
after the taking of Rothweil,
withdrawn into the neighbourhood of Duttlingen,
where it lay in complete security,
without expectation of a hostile attack.
In the mean time,
the enemy collected a considerable force,
with a view
to prevent the French from establishing themselves beyond the Rhine and so near
to Bavaria,
and
to protect that quarter from their ravages.
The Imperialists,
under Hatzfeldt,
had formed a junction
with the Bavarians under Mercy;
and the Duke of Lorraine,
who,
during the whole course of the war,
was generally found everywhere except in his own duchy,
joined their united forces.
It was resolved
to force the quarters of the French in Duttlingen,
and the neighbouring villages,
by surprise;
a favourite mode of proceeding in this war,
and which,
being commonly accompanied by confusion,
occasioned more bloodshed than a regular battle.
On the present occasion,
there was the more
to justify it,
as the French soldiers,
unaccustomed
to such enterprises,
conceived themselves protected by the severity of the winter against any surprise.
John de Werth,
a master in this species of warfare,
which he had often put in practice against Gustavus Horn,
conducted the enterprise,
and succeeded,
contrary
to all expectation.
The attack was made on a side where it was least looked for,
on account of the woods and narrow passes,
and a heavy snow storm which fell upon the same day,
(the 24th November,
1643,)
concealed the approach of the vanguard till it halted before Duttlingen.
The whole of the artillery without the place,
as well as the neighbouring Castle of Honberg,
were taken without resistance,
Duttlingen itself was gradually surrounded by the enemy,
and all connexion
with the other quarters in the adjacent villages silently and suddenly cut off.
The French were vanquished without firing a cannon.
The cavalry owed their escape
to the swiftness of their horses,
and the few minutes in advance,
which they had gained upon their pursuers.
The infantry were cut
to pieces,
or voluntarily laid down their arms. About 2,000 men were killed,
and 7,000,
with 25 staff-officers and 90 captains,
taken prisoners.
This was,
perhaps,
the only battle,
in the whole course of the war,
which produced nearly the same effect upon the party which gained,
and that which lost;--both these parties were Germans;
the French disgraced themselves.
The memory of this unfortunate day,
which was renewed 100 years after at Rosbach,
was indeed erased by the subsequent heroism of a Turenne and Conde;
but the Germans may be pardoned,
if they indemnified themselves
for the miseries which the policy of France had heaped upon them,
by these severe reflections upon her intrepidity.
Meantime,
this defeat of the French was calculated
to prove highly disastrous
to Sweden,
as the whole power of the Emperor might now act against them,
while the number of their enemies was increased by a formidable accession.
Torstensohn had,
in September,
1643,
suddenly left Moravia,
and moved into Silesia.
The cause of this step was a secret,
and the frequent changes which took place in the direction of his march,
contributed
to increase this perplexity.
From Silesia,
after numberless circuits,
he advanced towards the Elbe,
while the Imperialists followed him into Lusatia.
Throwing a bridge across the Elbe at Torgau,
he gave out that he intended
to penetrate through Meissen into the Upper Palatinate in Bavaria;
at Barby he also made a movement,
as if
to pass that river,
but continued
to move down the Elbe as far as Havelburg,
where he astonished his troops by informing them that he was leading them against the Danes in Holstein.
The partiality which Christian IV.
had displayed against the Swedes in his office of mediator,
the jealousy which led him
to do all in his power
to hinder the progress of their arms,
the restraints which he laid upon their navigation of the Sound,
and the burdens which he imposed upon their commerce,
had long roused the indignation of Sweden;
and,
at last,
when these grievances increased daily,
had determined the Regency
to measures of retaliation.
Dangerous as it seemed,
to involve the nation in a new war,
when,
even amidst its conquests,
it was almost exhausted by the old,
the desire of revenge,
and the deep-rooted hatred which subsisted between Danes and Swedes,
prevailed over all other considerations;
and even the embarrassment in which hostilities
with Germany had plunged it,
only served as an additional motive
to try its fortune against Denmark.
Matters were,
in fact,
arrived at last
to that extremity,
that the war was prosecuted merely
for the purpose of furnishing food and employment
to the troops;
that good winter quarters formed the chief subject of contention;
and that success,
in this point,
was more valued than a decisive victory.
But now the provinces of Germany were almost all exhausted and laid waste.
They were wholly destitute of provisions,
horses,
and men,
which in Holstein were
to be found in profusion.
If by this movement,
Torstensohn should succeed merely in recruiting his army,
providing subsistence
for his horses and soldiers,
and remounting his cavalry,
all the danger and difficulty would be well repaid.
Besides,
it was highly important,
on the eve of negotiations
for peace,
to diminish the injurious influence which Denmark might exercise upon these deliberations,
to delay the treaty itself,
which threatened
to be prejudicial
to the Swedish interests,
by sowing confusion among the parties interested,
and
with a view
to the amount of indemnification,
to increase the number of her conquests,
in order
to be the more sure of securing those which alone she was anxious
to retain.
Moreover,
the present state of Denmark justified even greater hopes,
if only the attempt were executed
with rapidity and silence.
The secret was in fact so well kept in Stockholm,
that the Danish minister had not the slightest suspicion of it;
and neither France nor Holland were let into the scheme.
Actual hostilities commenced
with the declaration of war;
and Torstensohn was in Holstein,
before even an attack was expected.
The Swedish troops,
meeting
with no resistance,
quickly overran this duchy,
and made themselves masters of all its strong places,
except Rensburg and Gluckstadt.
Another army penetrated into Schonen,
which made as little opposition;
and nothing but the severity of the season prevented the enemy from passing the Lesser Baltic,
and carrying the war into Funen and Zealand.
The Danish fleet was unsuccessful at Femern;
and Christian himself,
who was on board,
lost his right eye by a splinter.
Cut off from all communication
with the distant force of the Emperor,
his ally,
this king was on the point of seeing his whole kingdom overrun by the Swedes;
and all things threatened the speedy fulfilment of the old prophecy of the famous Tycho Brahe,
that in the year 1644,
Christian IV.
should wander in the greatest misery from his dominions.
But the Emperor could not look on
with indifference,
while Denmark was sacrificed
to Sweden,
and the latter strengthened by so great an acquisition.
Notwithstanding great difficulties lay in the way of so long a march through desolated provinces,
he did not hesitate
to despatch an army into Holstein under Count Gallas,
who,
after Piccolomini's retirement,
had resumed the supreme command of the troops.
Gallas accordingly appeared in the duchy,
took Keil,
and hoped,
by forming a junction
with the Danes,
to be able
to shut up the Swedish army in Jutland.
Meantime,
the Hessians,
and the Swedish General Koenigsmark,
were kept in check by Hatzfeldt,
and the Archbishop of Bremen,
the son of Christian IV.;
and afterwards the Swedes drawn into Saxony by an attack upon Meissen.
But Torstensohn,
with his augmented army,
penetrated through the unoccupied pass betwixt Schleswig and Stapelholm,
met Gallas,
and drove him along the whole course of the Elbe,
as far as Bernburg,
where the Imperialists took up an entrenched position.
Torstensohn passed the Saal,
and by posting himself in the rear of the enemy,
cut off their communication
with Saxony and Bohemia.
Scarcity and famine began now
to destroy them in great numbers,
and forced them
to retreat
to Magdeburg,
where,
however,
they were not much better off.
The cavalry,
which endeavoured
to escape into Silesia,
was overtaken and routed by Torstensohn,
near Juterbock;
the rest of the army,
after a vain attempt
to fight its way through the Swedish lines,
was almost wholly destroyed near Magdeburg.
From this expedition,
Gallas brought back only a few thousand men of all his formidable force,
and the reputation of being a consummate master in the art of ruining an army.
The King of Denmark,
after this unsuccessful effort
to relieve him,
sued
for peace,
which he obtained at Bremsebor in the year 1645,
under very unfavourable conditions.
Torstensohn rapidly followed up his victory;
and while Axel Lilienstern,
one of the generals who commanded under him,
overawed Saxony,
and Koenigsmark subdued the whole of Bremen,
he himself penetrated into Bohemia
with 16,000 men and 80 pieces of artillery,
and endeavoured a second time
to remove the seat of war into the hereditary dominions of Austria.
Ferdinand,
upon this intelligence,
hastened in person
to Prague,
in order
to animate the courage of the people by his presence;
and as a skilful general was much required,
and so little unanimity prevailed among the numerous leaders,
he hoped in the immediate neighbourhood of the war
to be able
to give more energy and activity.
In obedience
to his orders,
Hatzfeldt assembled the whole Austrian and Bavarian force,
and contrary
to his own inclination and advice,
formed the Emperor's last army,
and the last bulwark of his states,
in order of battle,
to meet the enemy,
who were approaching,
at Jankowitz,
on the 24th of February,
1645.
Ferdinand depended upon his cavalry,
which outnumbered that of the enemy by 3000,
and upon the promise of the Virgin Mary,
who had appeared
to him in a dream,
and given him the strongest assurances of a complete victory.
The superiority of the Imperialists did not intimidate Torstensohn,
who was not accustomed
to number his antagonists.
On the very first onset,
the left wing,
which Goetz,
the general of the League,
had entangled in a disadvantageous position among marshes and thickets,
was totally routed;
the general,
with the greater part of his men,
killed,
and almost the whole ammunition of the army taken.
This unfortunate commencement decided the fate of the day.
The Swedes,
constantly advancing,
successively carried all the most commanding heights.
After a bloody engagement of eight hours,
a desperate attack on the part of the Imperial cavalry,
and a vigorous resistance by the Swedish infantry,
the latter remained in possession of the field.
2,000 Austrians were killed upon the spot,
and Hatzfeldt himself,
with 3,000 men,
taken prisoners.
Thus,
on the same day,
did the Emperor lose his best general and his last army.
This decisive victory at Jancowitz,
at once exposed all the Austrian territory
to the enemy.
Ferdinand hastily fled
to Vienna,
to provide
for its defence,
and
to save his family and his treasures.
In a very short time,
the victorious Swedes poured,
like an inundation,
upon Moravia and Austria.
After they had subdued nearly the whole of Moravia,
invested Brunn,
and taken all the strongholds as far as the Danube,
and carried the intrenchments at the Wolf's Bridge,
near Vienna,
they at last appeared in sight of that capital,
while the care which they had taken
to fortify their conquests,
showed that their visit was not likely
to be a short one.
After a long and destructive circuit through every province of Germany,
the stream of war had at last rolled backwards
to its source,
and the roar of the Swedish artillery now reminded the terrified inhabitants of those balls which,
twenty-seven years before,
the Bohemian rebels had fired into Vienna.
The same theatre of war brought again similar actors on the scene.
Torstensohn invited Ragotsky,
the successor of Bethlen Gabor,
to his assistance,
as the Bohemian rebels had solicited that of his predecessor;
Upper Hungary was already inundated by his troops,
and his union
with the Swedes was daily apprehended.
The Elector of Saxony,
driven
to despair by the Swedes taking up their quarters within his territories,
and abandoned by the Emperor,
who,
after the defeat at Jankowitz,
was unable
to defend himself,
at length adopted the last and only expedient which remained,
and concluded a truce
with Sweden,
which was renewed from year
to year,
till the general peace.
The Emperor thus lost a friend,
while a new enemy was appearing at his very gates,
his armies dispersed,
and his allies in other quarters of Germany defeated.
The French army had effaced the disgrace of their defeat at Deutlingen by a brilliant campaign,
and had kept the whole force of Bavaria employed upon the Rhine and in Suabia.
Reinforced
with fresh troops from France,
which the great Turenne,
already distinguished by his victories in Italy,
brought
to the assistance of the Duke of Enghien,
they appeared on the 3rd of August,
1644,
before Friburg,
which Mercy had lately taken,
and now covered,
with his whole army strongly intrenched.
But against the steady firmness of the Bavarians,
all the impetuous valour of the French was exerted in vain,
and after a fruitless sacrifice of 6,000 men,
the Duke of Enghien was compelled
to retreat.
Mazarin shed tears over this great loss,
which Conde,
who had no feeling
for anything but glory,
disregarded.
"A single night in Paris,"
said he,
"gives birth
to more men than this action has destroyed."
The Bavarians,
however,
were so disabled by this murderous battle,
that,
far from being in a condition
to relieve Austria from the menaced dangers,
they were too weak even
to defend the banks of the Rhine.
Spires,
Worms,
and Manheim capitulated;
the strong fortress of Philipsburg was forced
to surrender by famine;
and,
by a timely submission,
Mentz hastened
to disarm the conquerors.
Austria and Moravia,
however,
were now freed from Torstensohn,
by a similar means of deliverance,
as in the beginning of the war had saved them from the Bohemians.
Ragotzky,
at the head of 25,000 men,
had advanced into the neighbourhood of the Swedish quarters upon the Danube.
But these wild undisciplined hordes,
instead of seconding the operations of Torstensohn by any vigorous enterprise,
only ravaged the country,
and increased the distress which,
even before their arrival,
had begun
to be felt in the Swedish camp.
To extort tribute from the Emperor,
and money and plunder from his subjects,
was the sole object that had allured Ragotzky,
or his predecessor,
Bethlen Gabor,
into the field;
and both departed as soon as they had gained their end.
To get rid of him,
Ferdinand granted the barbarian whatever he asked,
and,
by a small sacrifice,
freed his states of this formidable enemy.
In the mean time,
the main body of the Swedes had been greatly weakened by a tedious encampment before Brunn.
Torstensohn,
who commanded in person,
for four entire months employed in vain all his knowledge of military tactics;
the obstinacy of the resistance was equal
to that of the assault;
while despair roused the courage of Souches,
the commandant,
a Swedish deserter,
who had no hope of pardon.
The ravages caused b