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[1631-2

much cordiality and courtesy, he was made to feel that his restoration had become a question of secondary importance.

Of far greater moment than the wishes of England were the designs of France. Richelieu had never intended that Gustavus should take the ultimate issues of European politics into his own hands, or that after his great victory he should, instead of assailing the Emperor's dominions, invade those of members of the League, to whom an opportunity of neutrality had been expressly preserved at Bärwalde, and over whom Richelieu was most anxious to maintain his influence. Already before the battle of Breitenfeld, he had half forced Maximilian into a defensive alliance for eight years; and after the battle, when Maximilian claimed aid in men or money, had instead sent Charnacé to Munich, to persuade the Elector to abandon the Emperor and neutrality towards Sweden. Maximilian, informed by Tilly and Aldringer of the insufficiency of their forces, and aware of the rumour of the approaching return of Wallenstein to the command of the Imperialists, in the end made up his mind for neutrality, as conducive to a general peace. Of the three Spiritual Electors, Trier at once accepted the proposal; while Cologne and Mainz, with the Bishops of Würzburg, Worms, and Osnabrück, were at least prepared to negotiate. At a meeting of the League at Ingolstadt in January, 1632, it was, notwithstanding the protests of the Imperial ambassador Questenberg, resolved to invite the mediation of France.

Gustavus Adolphus, to whom Richelieu's agents now addressed themselves, although he was desirous of a general peace on his own terms, can only have entered into the present negotiation with the view of detaching the League from the Emperor, and of meeting the wishes of France. To the Munich proposal that the contemplated arrangement should be conditional upon his restoring to the members of the League any of their territories now in his occupation, he first returned a blank non possumus. Richelieu himself was very jealous of any encroachment by Sweden on what he regarded as the French sphere of influence - the left bank of the Rhine; and finally Gustavus offered a compromise. His conquests in the dioceses of Trier and Cologne and in the Lower Palatinate (from Bavaria) were to be restored, but all other Swedish acquisitions were to be retained till the conclusion of peace, while the army of the League was to be reduced to 12,000 men and quartered in the lands of its members. These proposals were accepted by Trier, and even by Cologne, who feared invasion, but were refused by Bavaria, who insisted on the restoration of Mainz, Würzburg, and Bamberg, and on a Swedish guarantee of Maximilian's electoral dignity during his life. The League was thus broken up, and Richelieu had in effect suffered a diplomatic rebuff prejudicial to the influence of France in western Germany.

About the same time an effort to bring about a general peace

1631-2] George of Hesse-Darmstadt and John George 211

through the Protestant allies of Sweden was made by the busy Landgrave George of Hesse-Darmstadt, "the peace-maker," in Gustavus' ironical phrase, "of the Holy Roman Empire." Prompted by the landless Elector of Mainz as well as by his fears for his own lands, which, as has been seen, Gustavus had treated with consideration, he proposed a meeting of Catholic and Protestant Estates to lay down the basis of a general pacification; and was ready with a scheme for the reconstitution of the Empire, including the revocation of both the Edict of Restitution and the reservatum ecclesiasticum, the "satisfaction" of Sweden being left to the King's own judgment.

John George of Saxony's mind too was working in the direction of peace-but of a separate peace with the Emperor, who as early as October, 1631, had begun to sound him on the subject. The channel chosen by the Emperor was Wallenstein, whose previous communications with Gustavus Adolphus were as yet unknown at Vienna. The question had been discussed (in November) between Wallenstein and Arnim, who had urged that the policy of Reaction must be abandoned by the Emperor, the status of 1618 restored, and the Bohemian question regulated afresh. These negotiations continued; and, though Richelieu sent an ambassador to John George, and the Elector another to Gustavus Adolphus (December, 1631), to discuss the general design and to propose a "composition meeting at Nürnberg, the King saw through the Elector as he had seen through the Cardinal. At Torgau, in February, 1632, John George made a futile attempt to detach George William of Brandenburg and to bring him over to the policy of a separate peace with the Emperor, after which the King of Sweden, his task done, might be induced to withdraw with an indemnity. Gustavus, after returning a dilatory answer to his untrustworthy ally, early in March took an opportunity of delivering himself in public at Mainz on the selfishness of Saxony, and on the hopelessness of coming to terms with the enemy.

Meanwhile the Emperor, like Gustavus himself, was preparing for a renewal of the struggle in a wider rather than a narrower area. In February, 1632, Ferdinand II concluded a close alliance with the ambitious King Philip IV of Spain; and about the same time he demanded, though in vain, an auxiliary force from Poland. He could obtain no promises in Italy except from Florence and Modena, and none from Switzerland. Even Pope Urban VIII, whose policy will be examined in a subsequent chapter, adhered to his view that the war in Germany was not a religious war, as shown by the King of Sweden's abstention from interference with any man's religion. The Sultan, stimulated by Gustavus, was moving troops to the Hungarian frontier. No ally seemed to remain to the Emperor but his Spanish kinsman, unless the restless jealousy of Christian IV were to range him on their side.

Thus the refusal of Bavaria to listen to the offers which would have detached her from his side, and the manifest inclination of Saxony

212 Wallenstein resumes the chief military command [1631–2

to make peace without Sweden and so head a kind of third party in the Empire, afforded much relief to Ferdinand. But he made a provision of his own against the danger which might sooner or later descend upon him, by obtaining, as early as December, 1631, Wallenstein's promise to levy an army for the Imperial service. These transactions had manifestly been hastened by the fear, which at the time had not seemed idle, that, after taking possession of the whole of Bohemia, the Saxon troops might invade the Austrian duchies.

In December, 1631, Wallenstein, at Znaim in Moravia, met Eggenberg, whom he continued to trust. It was agreed that in the course of three months he should levy and equip an army of 70,000 men, but without as yet definitely assuming the command. The sound of his drums had a magical effect; but for after all there had been many other very rapid levies in the course of the war-still more wonderful was the power of organisation, which quickly welded into an effective army a mass heterogeneous in race, religion, and antecedents of service. The genius of a great poet has with idealising touch depicted the selfishness, the savagery, and the superstition which entered into this abnormal compound, and also the force which gave it unity and discipline. In addition to Wallenstein's own vast expenditure, large sums were contributed to the cost of raising this army by the colonels of the new regiments levied, as well as by Eggenberg and other members of the Austrian nobility, and by the young King of Hungary.

Unfortunately, the written conditions under which in April, 1632, the actual resumption of the chief command by Wallenstein was settled at Göllersdorf in Lower Austria are not extant; and the accounts of the bargain contain much that is fictitious. The power of signing treaties of peace was certainly entrusted to the generalissimo, but with limitations which according to his own statement prevented him from treating with Sweden. On the other hand, it may be safely inferred that he exacted from the Emperor the promise of a revocation of the Edict of Restitution. Perfect independence in all matters military was as a matter of course now guaranteed to him; and an explicit promise was made by the Emperor that neither the influence of his confessor, Lamormain, nor that of any other person, should be allowed to interfere with Wallenstein's action. He had exercised the right of nominating his officers already during his earlier tenure of the chief command; but it was now provided that no other independent command should coexist with his own in the Empire; and King Ferdinand, the Emperor's heir, was excluded from active service in the army. Still more notable was the stipulation that in lands conquered by him he should possess not only the right of confiscation, but the prerogative of pardon.

Extraordinary as these provisions are, it should be remembered that both Wallenstein's position as a Prince of the Empire and the actual nature of the political crisis placed him in relations towards the

1632] Wallenstein at Prague.-Tilly retreats to Bavaria 213

Emperor which differed essentially from those between sovereign and servant. Moreover, impenetrable as much remains in Wallenstein's political calculations, his new agreement with the Emperor was not inconsistent with the design of re-establishing and raising the Imperial authority though this involved affronting the pretensions on which the Electors had insisted at Ratisbon, and impeding the progress of the Catholic reaction.

Wallenstein was a man of great thoughts and of aims beyond the common. But, as has been already seen, he was also a man of business. His title as Duke of Mecklenburg was now confirmed by the Emperor; but, as his duchy was in Swedish hands, he was promised a full equivalent, and in the meantime placed in possession of the (mediate) principality of Glogau in Silesia. He was also relieved of a debt of 400,000 dollars, still owing by him to the exchequer of Bohemia from the time of his vast purchase of estates in that country.

Of the conditions of Wallenstein's military dictatorship, which were made public at the time, Richelieu afterwards recorded his opinion that it would be difficult to decide whether they were more extraordinary or necessary. From Znaim, where in April the Commander-in-Chief had mustered his army, he marched into Bohemia, where the demoralised Saxon troops retreated before his approach. As late as May Thurn sought to reopen negotiations with Wallenstein through his brotherin-law Count Trezka; but in vain. The negotiations with the Elector John George for a separate peace were still in progress; and Gustavus Adolphus, who was kept well informed by his special envoy at the Saxon Court, Count Philip Reinhard von Solms, was already preparing to draw near to the Electorate. On May 21 Wallenstein had an interview at Rakonitz with Arnim, to whom, by virtue of his authority to conclude treaties, he offered as the price of a separate peace the. revocation of the Edict of Restitution and freedom of religion for the Saxon Electorate. At the same time he held out the prospect of an Imperial alliance to follow upon the peace. Nothing was actually concluded; but on the following day Wallenstein easily took possession of Prague, and the Saxon army of occupation withdrew across the frontier to Pirna. It will be seen how materially these events affected the action of Gustavus Adolphus himself in the midst of his victorious course.

The campaigns of 1632, notable for a multiplicity of operations, of which only a few can be mentioned here, began in February by the capture of Bamberg by Field-Marshal Horn, who was in command at Würzburg. Being in his turn attacked by Tilly, he successfully broke out from the episcopal capital at the head of the garrison. Gustavus, who about the same time had taken Kreuznach in the Rhenish Palatinate, at once marched to Horn's assistance, and after effecting a junction with him at Schweinfurt on the Main, drove Tilly back into Bavaria towards the Danube. Here, or on the Lech, Maximilian had resolved.

214

Death of Tilly.-Swedish advance

[1632 that a stand should be made to protect his capital. On the last day of March, after some futile negotiations with the Elector, Gustavus entered Nürnberg in great state, but immediately hurried on till within less than a week he stood before Donauwörth, where the Lech flows into the Danube. Tilly was now near at hand; but after his army of 20,000 men, probably much inferior to his adversary's in numbers, had been joined by the garrison of Donauwörth-which had abandoned the place to the Swedes-it retreated down the river towards Ingolstadt. Here Maximilian appeared in person; and it was resolved to march back upon Rain, in the angle between Danube and Lech, and if possible to prevent the Swedes from crossing the latter river. Gustavus, who had now secured the Danube as far up as Ulm, covered the construction of a bridge of boats across the Lech by his artillery, and thus brought his army over to the right bank. In the battle which followed (April 15) Tilly was carried off the field wounded; and by Maximilian's orders the army now withdrew upon Neuburg and Ingolstadt. Gustavus' success had been made possible by the arms in which he excelled; and the road into Bavaria now lay open. A fortnight later (April 30) Tilly died of his wound at Ingolstadt. His last military doings had not added to his fame; and since he had met his superior at Breitenfeld his habitual caution had been intensified by a sense of failure. The methods which he had learnt from his Spanish exemplars had broken down hopelessly before this new master of war. Nor was he a statesman-soldier of the type of either Gustavus or Wallenstein. But he had rendered great services at the most critical earlier stage of the war; and the main share of the infamy attaching to the sack of Magdeburg should fall not on him, but on the practice of the age of warfare in which he held a conspicuous place.

From Rain the Swedes without loss of time advanced upon Augsburg, which was entered upon April 24. A garrison was placed here, and a monthly contribution was promised by the Free Imperial City. Its municipal administration was entirely Protestantised, and the citizens swore an oath of "security" to the King. From a military point of view the triangle of Donauwörth, Ulm, and Augsburg, between Danube and Lech, formed a position of incomparable strength. But Gustavus had no thought now of taking up a defensive position. On April 26 the advance continued upon Ingolstadt, which Maximilian had likewise abandoned. His only hope now lay in Wallenstein, whose aid he had urgently solicited; for his attempt at securing a recognition of his neutrality from Gustavus Adolphus through the French resident Étienne, who was well aware how unwelcome the tidings of the "Goth's" progress must be to Richelieu, broke down on the demand of disbandment. But the siege of Ingolstadt proved more difficult than had been foreseen; and on May 1 Gustavus pushed on towards Landshut, which soon fell into his hands.