Vexation of Ferdinand.—Gustavus Adolphus.—Address to the nobles of Sweden.—March of Gustavus.—Appeal to the Protestants.—Magdeburg joins Gustavus.—Destruction of the city.—Consternation of the Protestants.—Exultation of the Catholics.—The Elector of Saxony driven from his domains.—Battle of Leipsig.—The Swedes penetrate Bohemia.—Freedom of conscience established.—Death of Tilly.—The Retirement of Wallenstein.—The command resumed by Wallenstein.—Capture of Prague.—Encounter between Wallenstein and Gustavus.—Battle of Lutzen.—Death of Gustavus.
The hand of France was conspicuous in wresting all these sacrifices from the emperor, and was then still more conspicuous in thwarting his plans for the election of his son. The ambassadors of Richelieu, with diplomatic adroitness, urged upon the diet the Duke of Bavaria as candidate for the imperial crown. This tempting offer silenced the duke, and he could make no more efforts for the emperor. The Protestants greatly preferred the duke to any one of the race of the bigoted Ferdinand. The emperor was excessively chagrined by this aspect of affairs, and abruptly dissolved the diet. He felt that he had been duped by France; that a cunning monk, Richelieu's ambassador, had outwitted him. In his vexation he exclaimed, "A Capuchin friar has disarmed me with his rosary, and covered six electoral caps with his cowl."
The emperor was meditating vengeance—the recall of Wallenstein, the reconstruction of the army, the annulling of the edict of toleration, the march of an invading force into the territories of the Duke of Bavaria, and the chastisement of all, Catholics as well as Protestants, who had aided in thwarting his plans—when suddenly a new enemy appeared. Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, reigning over his remote realms on the western shores of the Baltic, though a zealous Protestant, was regarded by Ferdinand as a foe too distant and too feeble to be either respected or feared. But Gustavus, a man of exalted abilities, and of vast energy, was watching with intense interest the despotic strides of the emperor. In his endeavors to mediate in behalf of the Protestants of Germany, he had encountered repeated insults on the part of Ferdinand. The imperial troops were now approaching his own kingdom. They had driven Christian IV., King of Denmark, from his continental territories on the eastern shore of the Baltic, had already taken possession of several of the islands, and were constructing a fleet which threatened the command of that important sea. Gustavus was alarmed, and roused himself to assume the championship of the civil and religious liberties of Europe. He conferred with all the leading Protestant princes, formed alliances, secured funds, stationed troops to protect his own frontiers, and then, assembling the States of his kingdom, entailed the succession of the crown on his only child Christiana, explained to them his plans of war against the emperor, and concluded a dignified and truly pathetic harangue with the following words.
"The enterprise in which I am about to engage is not one dictated by the love of conquest or by personal ambition. Our honor, our religion and our independence are imperiled. I am to encounter great dangers, and may fall upon the field of battle. If it be God's will that I should die in the defense of liberty, of my country and of mankind, I cheerfully surrender myself to the sacrifice. It is my duty as a sovereign to obey the King of kings without murmuring, and to resign the power I have received from His hands whenever it shall suit His all-wise purposes. I shall yield up my last breath with the firm persuasion that Providence will support my subjects because they are faithful and virtuous, and that my ministers, generals and senators will punctually discharge their duty to my child because they love justice, respect me, and feel for their country."
The king himself was affected as he uttered these words, and tears moistened the eyes of many of the stern warriors who surrounded him. With general acclaim they approved of his plan, voted him all the succors he required, and enthusiastically offered their own fortunes and lives to his service. Gustavus assembled a fleet at Elfsnaben, crossed the Baltic sea, and in June, 1630, landed thirty thousand troops in Pomerania, which Wallenstein had overrun. The imperial army, unprepared for such an assault, fled before the Swedish king. Marching rapidly, Gustavus took Stettin, the capital of the duchy, situated at the mouth of the Oder, and commanding that stream. Driving the imperial troops everywhere before him from Pomerania, and pursuing them into the adjoining Mark of Brandenburg, he took possession of a large part of that territory. He issued a proclamation to the inhabitants of Germany, recapitulating the arbitrary and despotic acts of the emperor, and calling upon all Protestants to aid in an enterprise, in the success of which the very existence of Protestantism in Germany seemed to be involved. But so utterly had the emperor crushed the spirits of the Protestants by his fiend-like severity, that but few ventured to respond to his appeal. The rulers, however, of many of the Protestant States met at Leipsic, and without venturing to espouse the cause of Gustavus, and without even alluding to his invasion, they addressed a letter to the emperor demanding a redress of grievances, and informing him that they had decided to establish a permanent council for the direction of their own affairs, and to raise an army of forty thousand men for their own protection.
Most of these events had occurred while the emperor, with Wallenstein, was at Ratisbon, intriguing to secure the succession of the imperial crown for his son. They both looked upon the march of the King of Sweden into the heart of Germany as the fool-hardy act of a mad adventurer. The courtiers ridiculed his transient conquests, saying, "Gustavus Adolphus is a king of snow. Like a snowball he will melt in a southern clime." Wallenstein was particularly contemptuous. "I will whip him back to his country," said he, "like a truant school-boy, with rods." Ferdinand was for a time deceived by these representations, and was by no means aware of the real peril which threatened him. The diet which the emperor had assembled made a proclamation of war against Gustavus, but adopted no measures of energy adequate to the occasion. The emperor sent a silly message to Gustavus that if he did not retire immediately from Germany he would attack him with his whole force. To this folly Gustavus returned a contemptuous reply.
A few of the minor Protestant princes now ventured to take arms and join the standard of Gustavus. The important city of Magdeburg, in Saxony, on the Elbe, espoused his cause. This city, with its bastions and outworks completely commanding the Elbe, formed one of the strongest fortresses of Europe. It contained, exclusive of its strong garrison, thirty thousand inhabitants. It was now evident to Ferdinand that vigorous action was called for. He could not, consistently with his dignity, recall Wallenstein in the same breath with which he had dismissed him. He accordingly concentrated his troops and placed them under the command of Count Tilly. The imperial troops were dispatched to Magdeburg. They surrounded the doomed city, assailed it furiously, and proclaimed their intention of making it a signal mark of imperial vengeance. Notwithstanding the utmost efforts of Gustavus to hasten to their relief, he was foiled in his endeavors, and the town was carried by assault on the 10th of May. Never, perhaps, did earth witness a more cruel exhibition of the horrors of war. The soul sickens in the contemplation of outrages so fiend-like. We prefer to give the narrative of these deeds, which it is the duty of history to record, in the language of another.
"All the horrors ever exercised against a captured place were repeated and almost surpassed, on this dreadful event, which, notwithstanding all the subsequent disorders and the lapse of time, is still fresh in the recollection of its inhabitants and of Germany. Neither age, beauty nor innocence, neither infancy nor decrepitude, found refuge or compassion from the fury of the licentious soldiery. No retreat was sufficiently secure to escape their rapacity and vengeance; no sanctuary sufficiently sacred to repress their lust and cruelty. Infants were murdered before the eyes of their parents, daughters and wives violated in the arms of their fathers and husbands. Some of the imperial officers, recoiling from this terrible scene, flew to Count Tilly and supplicated him to put a stop to the carnage. 'Stay yet an hour,' was his barbarous reply; 'let the soldier have some compensation for his dangers and fatigues.'
"The troops, left to themselves, after sating their passions, and almost exhausting their cruelty in three hours of pillage and massacre, set fire to the town, and the flames were in an instant spread by the wind to every quarter of the place. Then opened a scene which surpassed all the former horrors. Those who had hitherto escaped, or who were forced by the flames from their hiding-places, experienced a more dreadful fate. Numbers were driven into the Elbe, others massacred with every species of savage barbarity—the wombs of pregnant women ripped up, and infants thrown into the fire or impaled on pikes and suspended over the flames. History has no terms, poetry no language, painting no colors to depict all the horrors of the scene. In less than ten hours the most rich, the most flourishing and the most populous town in Germany was reduced to ashes. The cathedral, a single convent and a few miserable huts, were all that were left of its numerous buildings, and scarcely more than a thousand souls all that remained of more than thirty thousand inhabitants.
"After an interval of two days, when the soldiers were fatigued, if not sated, with devastation and slaughter, and when the flames had begun to subside, Tilly entered the town in triumph. To make room for his passage the streets were cleared and six thousand carcasses thrown into the Elbe. He ordered the pillage to cease, pardoned the scanty remnant of the inhabitants, who had taken refuge in the cathedral, and, surrounded by flames and carnage, had remained three days without food or refreshment, under all the terrors of impending fate. After hearing a Te Deum in the midst of military pomp, he paraded the streets; and even though his unfeeling heart seemed touched with the horrors of the scene, he could not refrain from the savage exultation of boasting to the emperor, and comparing the assault of Magdeburg to the sack of Troy and of Jerusalem."
This terrible display of vengeance struck the Protestants with consternation. The extreme Catholic party were exultant, and their chiefs met in a general assembly and passed resolutions approving the course of the emperor and pledging him their support. Ferdinand was much encouraged by this change in his favor, and declared his intention of silencing all Protestant voices. He recalled an army of twenty-four thousand men from Italy. They crossed the Alps, and, as they marched through the frontier States of the empire, they spread devastation and ruin through all the Protestant territories, exacting enormous contributions, compelling the Protestant princes, on oath, to renounce the Protestant league, and to unite with the Catholic confederacy against the King of Sweden.
In the meantime, Gustavus pressed forward into the duchy of Mecklenburg, driving the imperial troops before him. Tilly retired into the territory of the Elector of Saxony, robbing, burning and destroying everywhere. Uniting his force with the army from Italy he ravaged the country, resistlessly advancing even to Leipsic, and capturing the city. The elector, quite unable to cope with so powerful a foe, retired with his troops to the Swedish camp, where he entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with Gustavus. The Swedish army, thus reinforced, hastened to the relief of Leipsic, and arrived before its walls the very day on which the city surrendered.
Tilly, with the pride of a conqueror, advanced to meet them. The two armies, about equal in numbers, and commanded by their renowned captains, met but a few miles from the city. Neither of the commanders had ever before suffered a defeat. It was a duel, in which one or the other must fall. Every soldier in the ranks felt the sublimity of the hour. For some time there was marching and countermarching—the planting of batteries, and the gathering of squadrons and solid columns, each one hesitating to strike the first blow. At last the signal was given by the discharge of three pieces of cannon from one of the batteries of Tilly. Instantly a thunder peal rolled along the extended lines from wing to wing. The awful work of death was begun. Hour after hour the fierce and bloody fight continued, as the surges of victory and defeat swept to and fro upon the plain. But the ever uncertain fortune of battle decided in favor of the Swedes. As the darkness of evening came prematurely on, deepened by the clouds of smoke which canopied the field, the imperialists were everywhere flying in dismay. Tilly, having been struck by three balls, was conveyed from the field in excruciating pain to a retreat in Halle. Seven thousand of his troops lay dead upon the field. Five thousand were taken prisoners. All the imperial artillery and baggage fell into the hands of the conqueror. The rest of the army was so dispersed that but two thousand could be rallied under the imperial banners.
Gustavus, thus triumphant, dispatched a portion of his army, under the Elector of Saxony, to rescue Bohemia from the tyrant grasp of the emperor. Gustavus himself, with another portion, marched in various directions to cut off the resources of the enemy and to combine the scattered parts of the Protestant confederacy. His progress was like the tranquil march of a sovereign in his own dominions, greeted by the enthusiasm of his subjects. He descended the Maine to the Rhine, and then ascending the Rhine, took every fortress from Maine to Strasbourg. While Gustavus was thus extending his conquests through the very heart of Germany, the Elector of Saxony reclaimed all of Bohemia from the imperial arms. Prague itself capitulated to the Saxon troops. Count Thurn led the Saxon troops in triumph over the same bridge which he, but a few months before, had traversed a fugitive. He found, impaled upon the bridge, the shriveled heads of twelve of his companions, which he enveloped in black satin and buried with funeral honors.
The Protestants of Bohemia rose enthusiastically to greet their deliverers. Their churches, schools and universities were reëstablished. Their preachers resumed their functions. Many returned from exile and rejoiced in the restoration of their confiscated property. The Elector of Saxony retaliated upon the Catholics the cruel wrongs which they had inflicted upon the Protestants. Their castles were plundered, their nobles driven into exile, and the conquerors loaded themselves with the spoils of the vanquished.
But Ferdinand, as firm and inexorable in adversity as in prosperity, bowed not before disaster. He roused the Catholics to a sense of their danger, organized new coalitions, raised new armies. Tilly, with recruited forces, was urged on to arrest the march of the conqueror. Burning under the sense of shame for his defeat at Leipsic, he placed himself at the head of his veterans, fell, struck by a musket-ball, and died, after a few days of intense suffering, at the age of seventy-three. The vast Austrian empire, composed of so many heterogeneous States, bound together only by the iron energy of Ferdinand, seemed now upon the eve of its dissolution. The Protestants, who composed in most of the States a majority, were cordially rallying beneath the banners of Gustavus. They had been in a state of despair. They now rose in exalted hope. Many of the minor princes who had been nominally Catholics, but whose Christian creeds were merely political dogmas, threw themselves into the arms of Gustavus. Even the Elector of Bavaria was so helpless in his isolation, that, champion as he had been of the Catholic party, there seemed to be no salvation for him but in abandoning the cause of Ferdinand. Gustavus was now, with a victorious army, in the heart of Germany. He was in possession of the whole western country from the Baltic to the frontiers of France, and apparently a majority of the population were in sympathy with him.
Ferdinand at first resolved, in this dire extremity, to assume himself the command of his armies, and in person to enter the field. This was heroic madness, and his friends soon convinced him of the folly of one so inexperienced in the arts of war undertaking to cope with Gustavus Adolphus, now the most experienced and renowned captain in Europe. He then thought of appointing his son, the Archduke Ferdinand, commander-in-chief. But Ferdinand was but twenty-three years of age, and though a young man of decided abilities, was by no means able to encounter on the field the skill and heroism of the Swedish warrior. In this extremity, Ferdinand was compelled to turn his eyes to his discarded general Wallenstein.
This extraordinary man, in renouncing, at the command of his sovereign, his military supremacy, retired with boundless wealth, and assumed a style of living surpassing even regal splendor. His gorgeous palace at Prague was patrolled by sentinels. A body-guard of fifty halberdiers, in sumptuous uniform, ever waited in his ante-chamber. Twelve nobles attended his person, and four gentlemen ushers introduced to his presence those whom he condescended to favor with an audience. Sixty pages, taken from the most illustrious families, embellished his courts. His steward was a baron of the highest rank; and even the chamberlain of the emperor had left Ferdinand's court, that he might serve in the more princely palace of this haughty subject. A hundred guests dined daily at his table. His gardens and parks were embellished with more than oriental magnificence. Even his stables were furnished with marble mangers, and supplied with water from an ever-living fountain. Upon his journeys he was accompanied by a suite of twelve coaches of state and fifty carriages. A large retinue of wagons conveyed his plate and equipage. Fifty mounted grooms followed with fifty led horses richly caparisoned.2
Wallenstein watched the difficulties gathering around the emperor with satisfaction which he could not easily disguise. Though intensely eager to be restored to the command of the armies, he affected an air of great indifference, and when the emperor suggested his restoration, he very adroitly played the coquette. The emperor at first proposed that his son, the Archduke Ferdinand, should nominally have the command, while Wallenstein should be his executive and advisory general. "I would not serve," said the impious captain, "as second in command under God Himself."
After long negotiation, Wallenstein, with well-feigned reluctance, consented to relinquish for a few weeks the sweets of private life, and to recruit an army, and bring it under suitable discipline. He, however, limited the time of his command to three months. With his boundless wealth and amazing energy, he immediately set all springs in motion. Adventurers from all parts of Europe, lured by the splendor of his past achievements, crowded his ranks. In addition to his own vast opulence, the pope and the court of Spain opened freely to him their purses. As by magic he was in a few weeks at the head of forty thousand men. In companies, regiments and battalions they were incessantly drilled, and by the close of three months this splendid army, thoroughly furnished, and in the highest state of discipline, was presented to the emperor. Every step he had taken had convinced, and was intended to convince Ferdinand that his salvation depended upon the energies of Wallenstein. Gustavus was now, in the full tide of victory, marching from the Rhine to the Danube, threatening to press his conquests even to Vienna. Ferdinand was compelled to assume the attitude of a suppliant, and to implore his proud general to accept the command of which he had so recently been deprived. Wallenstein exacted terms so humiliating as in reality to divest the emperor of his imperial power. He was to be declared generalissimo of all the forces of the empire, and to be invested with unlimited authority. The emperor pledged himself that neither he nor his son would ever enter the camp. Wallenstein was to appoint all his officers, distribute all rewards, and the emperor was not allowed to grant either a pardon or a safe-conduct without the confirmation of Wallenstein. The general was to levy what contribution he pleased upon the vanquished enemy, confiscate property, and no peace or truce was to be made with the enemy without his consent. Finally, he was to receive, either from the spoils of the enemy, or from the hereditary States of the empire, princely remuneration for his services.
Armed with such enormous power, Wallenstein consented to place himself at the head of the army. He marched to Prague, and without difficulty took the city. Gradually he drove the Saxon troops from all their fortresses in Bohemia. Then advancing to Bavaria, he effected a junction with Bavarian troops, and found himself sufficiently strong to attempt to arrest the march of Gustavus. The imperial force now amounted to sixty thousand men. Wallenstein was so sanguine of success, that he boasted that in a few days he would decide the question, whether Gustavus Adolphus or Wallenstein was to be master of the world. The Swedish king was at Nuremberg with but twenty thousand men, when he heard of the approach of the imperial army, three times outnumbering his own. Disdaining to retreat, he threw up redoubts, and prepared for a desperate defense. As Wallenstein brought up his heavy battalions, he was so much overawed by the military genius which Gustavus had displayed in his strong intrenchments, and by the bold front which the Swedes presented, that notwithstanding his boast, he did not dare to hazard an attack. He accordingly threw up intrenchments opposite the works of the Swedes, and there the two armies remained, looking each other in the face for eight weeks, neither daring to withdraw from behind their intrenchments, and each hoping to starve the other party out. Gustavus did every thing in his power to provoke Wallenstein to the attack, but the wary general, notwithstanding the importunities of his officers, and the clamors of his soldiers, refused to risk an engagement. Both parties were all the time strengthening their intrenchments and gathering reinforcements.
At last Gustavus resolved upon an attack. He led his troops against the intrenchments of Wallenstein, which resembled a fortress rather than a camp. The Swedes clambered over the intrenchments, and assailed the imperialists with as much valor and energy as mortals ever exhibited. They were, however, with equal fury repelled, and after a long conflict were compelled to retire again behind their fortifications with the loss of three thousand of their best troops. For another fortnight the two armies remained watching each other, and then Gustavus, leaving a strong garrison in Nuremberg, slowly and defiantly retired. Wallenstein stood so much in fear of the tactics of Gustavus that he did not even venture to molest his retreat. During this singular struggle of patient endurance, both armies suffered fearfully from sickness and famine. In the city of Nuremberg ten thousand perished. Gustavus buried twenty thousand of his men beneath his intrenchments. And in the imperial army, after the retreat of Gustavus, but thirty thousand troops were left to answer the roll-call.
Wallenstein claimed, and with justice, the merit of having arrested the steps of Gustavus, though he could not boast of any very chivalrous exploits. After various maneuvering, and desolating marches, the two armies, with large reinforcements, met at Lutzen, about thirty miles from Leipsic. It was in the edge of the evening when they arrived within sight of each other's banners. Both parties passed an anxious night, preparing for the decisive battle which the dawn of the morning would usher in.
Wallenstein was fearfully alarmed. He had not willingly met his dreaded antagonist, and would now gladly escape the issues of battle. He called a council of war, and even suggested a retreat. But it was decided that such an attempt in the night, and while watched by so able and vigilant a foe, would probably involve the army in irretrievable ruin, besides exposing his own name to deep disgrace. The imperial troops, thirty thousand strong, quite outnumbered the army of Gustavus, and the officers of Wallenstein unanimously advised to give battle. Wallenstein was a superstitious man and deeply devoted to astrological science. He consulted his astrologers, and they declared the stars to be unpropitious to Gustavus. This at once decided him. He resolved, however, to act on the defensive, and through the night employed the energies of his army in throwing up intrenchments. In the earliest dawn of the morning mass was celebrated throughout the whole camp, and Wallenstein on horseback rode along behind the redoubts, urging his troops, by every consideration, to fight valiantly for their emperor and their religion.
The morning was dark and lowering, and such an impenetrable fog enveloped the armies that they were not visible to each other. It was near noon ere the fog arose, and the two armies, in the full blaze of an unclouded sun, gazed, awe-stricken, upon each other. The imperial troops and the Swedish troops were alike renowned; and Gustavus Adolphus and Wallenstein were, by universal admission, the two ablest captains in Europe. Neither force could even affect to despise the other. The scene unfolded, as the vapor swept away, was one which even war has seldom presented. The vast plain of Lutzen extended many miles, almost as smooth, level and treeless as a western prairie. Through the center of this plain ran a nearly straight and wide road. On one side of this road, in long line, extending one or two miles, was the army of Wallenstein. His whole front was protected by a ditch and redoubts bristling with bayonets. Behind these intrenchments his army was extended; the numerous and well-mounted cavalry at the wings, the artillery, in ponderous batteries, at the center, with here and there solid squares of infantry to meet the rush of the assailing columns. On the other side of the road, and within musket-shot, were drawn up in a parallel line the troops of Gustavus. He had interspersed along his double line bands of cavalry, with artillery and platoons of musketeers, that he might be prepared from any point to make or repel assault. The whole host stood reverently, with uncovered heads, as a public prayer was offered. The Psalm which Watts has so majestically versified was read—
"God is the refuge of his saints,
When storms of dark distress invade;
Ere we can offer our complaints,
Behold him present with his aid.
"Let mountains from their seats be hurled
Down to the deep, and buried there,
Convulsions shake the solid world;
Our faith shall never yield to fear."
From twenty thousand voices the solemn hymn arose and floated over the field—celestial songs, to be succeeded by demoniac clangor. Both parties appealed to the God of battle; both parties seemed to feel that their cause was just. Alas for man!
Gustavus now ordered the attack. A solid column emerged from his ranks, crossed the road, in breathless silence approached the trenches, while both armies looked on. They were received with a volcanic sheet of flame which prostrated half of them bleeding upon the sod. Gustavus ordered column after column to follow on to support the assailants, and to pierce the enemy's center. In his zeal he threw himself from his horse, seized a pike, and rushed to head the attack. Wallenstein energetically ordered up cavalry and artillery to strengthen the point so fiercely assailed. And now the storm of war blazed along the whole lines. A sulphureous canopy settled down over the contending hosts, and thunderings, shrieks, clangor as of Pandemonium, filled the air. The king, as reckless of life as if he had been the meanest soldier, rushed to every spot where the battle raged the fiercest. Learning that his troops upon the left were yielding to the imperial fire, he mounted his horse and was galloping across the field swept by the storm of war, when a bullet struck his arm and shattered the bone. Almost at the same moment another bullet struck his breast, and he fell mortally wounded from his horse, exclaiming, "My God! my God!"
The command now devolved upon the Duke of Saxe Weimar. The horse of Gustavus, galloping along the lines, conveyed to the whole army the dispiriting intelligence that their beloved chieftain had fallen. The duke spread the report that he was not killed, but taken prisoner, and summoned all to the rescue. This roused the Swedes to superhuman exertions. They rushed over the ramparts, driving the infantry back upon the cavalry, and the whole imperial line was thrown into confusion. Just at that moment, when both parties were in the extreme of exhaustion, when the Swedes were shouting victory and the imperialists were flying in dismay, General Pappenheim, with eight fresh regiments of imperial cavalry, came galloping upon the field. This seemed at once to restore the battle to the imperialists, and the Swedes were apparently undone. But just then a chance bullet struck Pappenheim and he fell, mortally wounded, from his horse. The cry ran through the imperial ranks, "Pappenheim is killed and the battle is lost." No further efforts of Wallenstein were of any avail to arrest the confusion. His whole host turned and fled. Fortunately for them, the darkness of the approaching night, and a dense fog settling upon the plain, concealed them from their pursuers. During the night the imperialists retired, and in the morning the Swedes found themselves in possession of the field with no foe in sight. But the Swedes had no heart to exult over their victory. The loss of their beloved king was a greater calamity than any defeat could have been. His mangled body was found, covered with blood, in the midst of heaps of the slain, and so much mutilated with the tramplings of cavalry as to be with difficulty recognized.
2. Coxe's "House of Austria," ii., 254.