As Gustavus made inroads in northern Europe, his military opponent Tilly bided his time, waiting for the return of the Imperial troops which had lately sacked Mantua. They were back under his command by the middle of January 1631, and ready for more action. At this juncture Gustavus invaded Mecklenburg, having given up the effort to negotiate with its citizens, and easily captured it. In the entire region of Pomerania and Mecklenburg the Imperial forces retained a weak hold only of three fortresses – Greifswald, Kolberg and Demmin – and these Gustavus now captured too. By March the whole area was under his control.
It was at this moment that Georg-Wilhelm of Brandenburg and Johann-Georg of Saxony convened the Leipzig Colloquy in hopes of avoiding war being fought across their territories by other people’s armies. Also attending, apart from the academics and divines who debated the Lutheran–Calvinist doctrinal differences, were the minor Protestant princes, bishops and rulers of the Imperial Free Cities. They resolved on an alliance, which they called the Leipziger Bund, and the establishment of a defensive armed force. Johann-Georg of Saxony raised an army 40,000 strong and put it under the command of the man who had been Wallenstein’s second-in-command, Hans-Georg von Arnim. Some of the other Protestant rulers, chief among them Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, provided smaller forces. Then the Bund sent a memorial to the Emperor saying that if he would revoke the Edict of Restitution they would ally themselves with him against the Swedes.1
Ferdinand II rejected the Bund’s proposal. He had been convinced by his confessor Lamormaini that he would do better to lose cities than his hopes of salvation, and that these latter were closely tied to the Edict of Restitution. But while the Bund awaited Ferdinand’s decision, Gustavus was in a quandary; if he struck westward to relieve the siege of Magdeburg, only to find the Leipziger Bund allying with the Emperor, he would be cut off from the Baltic. So he delayed, and the delay was fatal for Magdeburg. On 20 May 1631 it fell, its women were raped, 30,000 of its citizens were slaughtered, and the city itself was put to the torch.
News of the event went like wildfire through a horrified Europe. Magdeburg was the principal Lutheran city of the German world, and its destruction at the hands of Catholic forces galvanised the Protestants yet again. Those minor Protestant princes who had yet to raise troops for the Leipziger Bund – the rulers of Swabia and Franconia for example – now did so, and sent them post haste to von Arnim.
Gustavus was as galvanised as the rest; he no longer wished to wait to see which way the Leipziger Bund would jump, but decided to ensure that it jumped his way. He marched his army through Brandenburg to its capital Berlin and camped under its walls, by his presence encouraging Georg-Wilhelm to agree an alliance. As the Bund’s approach to Ferdinand II shows, the German Protestant princes were not over-eager to ally with Gustavus, whose intentions they mistrusted – rightly, because a major reason for his presence in northern Europe was not just about saving Protestantism. It was just as much a matter of repairing Swedish finances by getting more territory (i.e. more tax income). It was with some reluctance therefore that Georg-Wilhelm of Brandenburg put pen to parchment, agreeing the alliance and the level of subsidies to the ever money-hungry Gustavus.
Tilly remained in camp beside the smoking ruins of Magdeburg until June 1631, waiting for more Imperial troops to join him. Then he invaded Saxony. He occupied Merseburg and Halle, and sent a message to Elector Johann-Georg offering him a choice: Swedish King or Holy Roman Emperor. If the latter, Tilly told him, he would have to disband the army he had gathered, and then quarter and provision the Imperial army in his fertile Saxon lands. This gracious offer helped Johann-Georg to make his mind up swiftly: he chose the Swedish King. A treaty between the Saxons and Swedes was concluded on 30 August 1631, and Tilly now found himself outnumbered by their joint forces.
Tilly did not want to engage in direct battle with the Swedish alliance therefore, but chose instead to lay siege to Leipzig, hoping to weaken the alliance by attrition. But his irrepressible cavalry commander, the Graf zu Pappenheim, forced him into a set battle against his better judgment. On 7 September 1631, as the opposing forces converged on Leipzig, Pappenheim and his cavalry went on a sortie against the Protestant forces, partly as reconnaissance and partly to slow them down while Tilly approached the city itself. But when fighting started Pappenheim sent a message saying that he was unable to disengage and needed help. Very reluctantly Tilly obliged, the opposing armies meeting on a plain near Breitenfeld, a village lying about eight kilometres from Leipzig’s walls.
To begin with it seemed that Pappenheim’s ploy would succeed; his seasoned cavalry made short work of the inexperienced Saxon conscripts, who broke ranks and fled. But Gustavus was a commander of great skill. He moved his forces quickly and astutely, outmanoeuvring the Imperial effort to turn his flank. His cavalry made a brilliant foray against the Imperial artillery, capturing it all; the guns were immediately turned on the Imperial forces and contributed to the devastating defeat now inflicted on them. The Imperial commanders retreated, Pappenheim to Westphalia and Tilly to the Upper Palatinate, leaving Gustavus supreme in the German lands.
This was the high point for Gustavus. His Swedish forces marched rapidly into the Main and Rhine valleys, capturing the wealthy Catholic Archbishoprics of Würzburg and Mainz – he had promised his troops rich plunder in ‘priests’ alley’ as these territories were collectively known – and taking the Lower Palatinate. Meanwhile his Saxon allies marched east and captured Lusatia, Bohemia and Moravia, taking Prague without a fight.2
Gustavus’ rapid and decisive victories alarmed the French, who had paid for them but now disliked having his army so close to their own borders. Moreover the Swedes had not kept to their agreement to leave Catholics unmolested. Their promise not to fight Catholic League forces if the latter remained neutral had anyway been nullified by the fact that those forces, in combining with the Imperial armies, had not remained neutral. What worried the French even more was that some of the Catholic princes were minded to ally themselves with Gustavus because the Emperor appeared not to be able to defend them. France’s diplomatic efforts to get Gustavus to relinquish control of some of the Catholic territories he had overrun – cannily, of course, the ones closest to France’s own borders – were partially successful, the benefit for Gustavus in return being a promise that Catholic League troops would be reduced in number and returned to their home territories. The promise was not kept, however, because Maximilian I of Bavaria would not agree.
At the same time France ‘offered protection’ to a number of cities in Alsace, and the cities accepted; French garrisons were installed, as a measure of defence should Gustavus choose to tear up the Treaty of Bärwalde and march on France itself.
As the Saxons invaded Bohemia, Wallenstein decided to return to public life. He contracted his former comrade von Arnim to open discussion with the latter’s new master, the Elector of Saxony. It was not clear whether Wallenstein was offering his services to the Swedish alliance or trying to entice the Saxons back to the Imperial cause. In any event Ferdinand II, in desperation because of the Swedish victories, was now himself a party to negotiations with Wallenstein; he wanted him back, and Wallenstein was prepared to re-enter service provided he could have carte blanche in the conduct of war and any peace negotiations arising as a consequence of it. Ferdinand II agreed, and Wallenstein set about raising a grand army of 70,000 men.
While these arrangements were in process Tilly and Maximilian joined forces and attacked the bishopric of Bamberg, which was held by a Swedish garrison. They drove the garrison out and congratulated themselves on a victory, only to find that Gustavus had immediately started to march towards them with his whole army – to Maximilian’s alarm, for it was clear that Gustavus was intent on invading Bavaria.
Tilly chose the River Lech near the city of Rain as his place to confront Gustavus. On 15 April 1632 the Swedes attacked, mounting a furious and withering artillery bombardment on the Imperial forces. They forded the river in a frontal assault on Tilly’s troops, who were dazed by the bombardment, and overpowered them. Tilly himself was fatally wounded by cannon fire, and died two weeks later in Ingoldstadt where loyal soldiers had taken him.
The way to Munich now lay open to Gustavus. Maximilian fled to Salzburg, the Swedes helped themselves to Bavaria, and would have enjoyed the fruits of conquest longer were it not for Wallenstein. He had raised and equipped his new army, had easily recaptured Bohemia from the Saxons, and was now on his way south to join the remnants of Maximilian’s army. Gustavus, understanding the danger, tried to get between the two forces to prevent them from uniting, but when he found that he could not do so he decided instead to position himself at Nuremberg, which he hastily fortified. Wallenstein arrived outside the fortifications and camped, choosing to lay siege rather than to mount an assault, leaving it to disease and starvation to deal with the Swedish army. To this end he started building a huge fortified camp outside the city. But Gustavus was not prepared to let either disease or starvation do Wallenstein’s work for him, so after launching an attack on the Imperial camp he escaped from Nuremberg and headed for Coburg. Wallenstein did not pursue, but took his army northwards instead.
The reason for these manoeuvres was the same in each case. Gustavus’ plan was to attack Upper Austria, thinking that a direct threat to the Habsburg hereditary heartlands would force Wallenstein to direct battle. Wallenstein had the same idea in the opposite direction: threaten Saxony, ruled by Gustavus’ important but unreliable ally Johann-Georg, and Gustavus would have to come to Saxony’s defence. In each case the general was thinking about where and how he would like to stage a decisive battle.
It was Wallenstein whose intuitions proved to be more accurate. Gustavus hurried north to protect the Saxons, but also to keep open his route to the Baltic – this was all-important to him: Wallenstein, recognising this, had placed himself exactly in Gustavus’ way to the sea. The resulting Battle of Lützen, one of the bloodiest and grimmest of the war, was a victory for the Swedes and their allies, yet at the same time a defeat for both sides. Wallenstein’s bruised army was forced to retreat into Bohemia, the Swedes held the field and preserved the Saxon alliance; but they lost their King, and the Protestant cause its unifying and guiding centre – for Gustavus was killed in the battle. A dramatic painting by Carl Wahlbom shows Gustavus falling backwards off his horse in the midst of a deadly mêlée, already moribund. Every year to this day on the anniversary of the battle, 9 November, the Swedes remember Gustavus, who led their country to the greatest power and influence it has ever known.
Gustavus was succeeded by his six-year-old daughter Princess Christina. Her mother Maria-Eleonora of Brandenburg was insane and unable to act as regent. Power was therefore transferred to a council of Swedish nobles, with Axel Oxenstierna at their head. But the personal momentum given by Gustavus was lost, and the first result of the more cautious policy pursued by Oxenstierna was withdrawal of Sweden’s troops to the Baltic coast, leaving the German princes to consolidate Gustavus’ gains in the Rhineland. A meeting of the Protestant princes, though with the electors of Brandenburg and Saxony refusing to attend, was held at Heilbronn in April 1633 to form a new league, its chief decision being to provide a large subsidy to Sweden to maintain its military endeavour.
Talk of subsidies was not quite the same thing as their being paid. In some cases arrears of pay in the Swedish army stretched back five years and more. Mutterings about mutiny forced Oxenstierna to act; he offered some of his senior officers titles and grants of land in lieu of pay. One of the chief beneficiaries was Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, who was made Duke of Franconia. To pacify the soldiery the only option was to pay cash, so Oxenstierna forced the League to part with some of the money. All-out mutiny was thereby averted, but narrowly.
Richelieu sent an ambassador to Heilbronn, to argue that the King of France should be co-guarantor of the League of Heilbronn along with the infant Christina of Sweden, that the Treaty of Bärwalde should be reaffirmed, and that France’s subsidies to Sweden should be redirected into the coffers of the League of Heilbronn. These terms were accepted. But France was not the only bargainer in the picture. Johann-Georg of Saxony was still unhappy about his alliance with the Swedes; he continued to refuse to join the League of Heilbronn, and he kept his lines open to Wallenstein in the hope of making a separate peace. Oxenstierna and the League could not however do without Johann-Georg, for Saxony was unignorable geographically, financially and militarily. In December 1632 Oxenstierna visited Leipzig and persuaded Johann-Georg to participate in the planned spring campaign against Wallenstein. Johann-Georg agreed on strict conditions: that the fighting be done across the border in Silesia and not in his own lands, and that command of the Swedish army be given to Matthias Thurn, the hero of the Defenestration of Prague fourteen years before. Command of Johann-Georg’s own Saxon forces remained with von Arnim.
By the end of the campaigning season of 1633 Wallenstein had given Johann-Georg even more reason to get out of the war. He cannily persuaded the League to grant him a succession of truces, during which he strengthened his forces and prepared them for a devastating strike against the Swedes and their allies. In September he overran Thurn’s camp in Steinau, inflicting a punishing defeat which led to his taking 8,000 Swedish prisoners and recapturing all the northern Silesian towns that the Swedes had occupied. Then he raided into Saxony and Brandenburg, thereby increasing Johann-Georg’s desire for peace.3
These were momentous years not just in the war but in other respects. In 1630–1 Venice, already in decline from its greatest years, suffered a deadly visitation of the plague. Estimates of the numbers who died vary, the best of them fixing on a third of the population. As a result the Senate of Venice voted to build a church to express the gratitude of the survivors: this is the striking Santa Maria della Salute on the Punta della Dogana which stands at the confluence of the Grand and Giudecca canals.4 Opinions about its qualities differ; it is certainly imposing, if overcooked, though its dome is beautiful and attracted the admiring attention of many notable artists including Canaletto and Turner.
Even more significant for subsequent history, however, was the publication in 1632 of Galileo’s Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (Dialogue Concerning the Two World Systems) which led to his arrest and forced recantation. In histories of the conflict between science and religion this is one of the key moments – in fact, the last great push by the Church to stem the advance of science in its confutation of the literal interpretation of scripture. The book was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books, in company with almost all the world’s greatest or most important literature. The Church fully revoked its condemnation of Galileo in 1992, though it did not condemn the judges who had condemned him, saying that they had acted ‘in good faith’.
One of the forgotten features of Galileo’s trial was that his accusers refused to look through his telescope because they knew what they were being invited to look at could not exist; scripture said so. His views were described by the Inquisition as ‘foolish, absurd, false in theology, and heretical’, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. His sentence would have been death if he had not recanted. Life imprisonment was soon commuted to perpetual house arrest – a more comfortable form of life imprisonment – and he was ordered to remain perpetually silent on scientific matters.5
Reading the Two World Systems now, one is surprised at how little effect a rational argument can have. In Day Two of the book, Salviati talks of the motions of the heavenly bodies: why would nature move all the many tens of thousands of them rather than – more simply and economically – the single relatively small object, the earth itself? Given their distance, the heavenly bodies would have to be moving inconceivably fast to complete a rotation in just twenty-four hours of the point occupied by earth. And what would happen to the heavens’ movement if the earth is removed from the picture?
As the Venetians began to build the Santa Maria della Salute, as Galileo prepared his book for publication, and as the Swedes enjoyed their successes in the fighting in Europe, so a group of English colonists were founding a town on the eastern seaboard of America which was to play a large role in the continent’s history: Boston. The land on which the town was built was bought from its first English owner, one William Blaxton. Its first Governor, John Winthrop, called it ‘a City upon a Hill’ in allusion to its perceived status as a new Jerusalem. As this suggests, from the outset Boston viewed itself as a special place chosen by the deity for the eager settlers, who were zealous in their own moral protection. Church attendance was compulsory, as was rigorous training in scripture, sin was vehemently punished – not least by public whipping – morality enforced, and dissenters from the Puritanism of the place were punished or expelled.
Such expulsions were the cause of new colonies being founded; Roger Williams was driven from Salem in Massachusetts for being too tolerant, and therefore founded Providence in Rhode Island as a place for ‘loving friends and neighbours’. Williams was before his time; he learned native American languages, protested at slavery and argued that it should be abolished in all thirteen colonies, and cherished the idea of freedom of religion. He had been born in London and educated at Cambridge where his command of languages extended from the classical tongues to Hebrew, French and Dutch. Before going to America he was chaplain to Sir William Masham, baronet, grandfather of the third baronet Sir Francis Masham whose wife, Damaris, Lady Masham, was the platonic love-object of the philosopher John Locke, who lived at the Mashams’ home in High Laver, Essex. (She was also the daughter of Ralph Cudworth, the Cambridge Platonist whose views on innate ideas Locke so roundly criticised in the first Book of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding.) Such are the connections and coincidences that wind their way through history; as a great war raged, life went on in these other ways and places.