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The army "contented."

Swedish advances [1632-3

provided with sham passes, roamed over the country in quest of plunder. The old discipline had fallen out of gear; and the Swedish name was beginning to be associated in the mind of the German population with the worst horrors of war. But Bernard's return was still delayed this time by intrigues between his brother Duke William and John George of Saxony. At last Bernard induced William to allow part of his troops to reinforce the army of the Danube, which he rejoined early in August, and which now seems to have reached a total of 12,000 horse and nearly as many foot. Commissaries of the Swedish Crown had already arrived at Augsburg. While, with some demur, the officers and men accepted a month's pay from the Heilbronn Alliance, the commanders of regiments consented to accept in satisfaction of their claims grants of land which, though guaranteed by the Swedish Crown, purported to be bestowed as hereditary fiefs of the Empire. The grantees had to pay the war contributions already fixed or to be eventually imposed by the Alliance, and bound themselves to "depend" on Oxenstierna as Legate of the Swedish Crown. The value of the lands thus granted in the south-west was estimated at over four millions of dollars.

The army having thus been "contented," and measures taken to prevent further excesses (August-September), it once more became possible to contemplate offensive operations on a larger scale. Although the division of the supreme command boded ill for the maintenance of the requisite unity of design, the general condition of affairs was favourable to the allies of Heilbronn. Elsass had been almost entirely conquered by Horn. In August Christian of Birkenfeld defeated the Duke of Lorraine at Pfaffenhofen when advancing to defend Hagenau in Elsass, over which he had certain rights. The favourable opportunity for reopening hostilities against Lorraine was at once seized by France, under whose protection the Elector of Trier had now openly placed himself. Fredrerick Henry of Orange had taken Rheinberg; and in Switzerland also French influence was active. The whole line of the Rhine was thus held by the United Provinces, France, and Sweden; and the alliance between the latter two Powers was nearer than ever to becoming an alliance in the field.

While the Austrian possessions in Elsass were thus in hostile hands, Spain too had every reason for breaking the existing control of the line of the Rhine. The peace negotiations opened in 1632 between her and the United Provinces had led to no result; and, as the days of the Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia drew to a close, the hopes of a pacific settlement dwindled. Philip IV had some time since resolved on sending his youngest brother Ferdinand, who, though Archbishop of Toledo and a Cardinal, was full of secular ambition, into the Spanish Netherlands, where he was in time to succeed the Archduchess as Governor. As the Dutch were masters of the sea, the Cardinal Infante would, when the time came, have to proceed to the Provinces by land;

1633]

Arrival of Feria. Fall of Ratisbon

231

and the Spanish Government proposed to clear the way for him by means of a force of 24,000 men to be levied in Italy. They were to be commanded by the Duke of Feria, Governor of Milan, who had already had some experience of the German War. It will be seen how this Spanish expedition, even while still remote, excited the jealousy of Wallenstein, and how his displeasure was intensified by the Emperor's consenting, against the tenour of the agreement between them, to place Aldringer and his force at the disposal of Maximilian of Bavaria, for the defence of his electorate. Bernard had steadily kept in view an attack upon Ratisbon; but, on his return to Donauwörth, he found that Horn had already departed with part of the army to lay siege to Constance.

In the middle of September Feria actually appeared at Innsbruck, though with a force of only 8000 foot and 1200 horse, and not in very good case. But he managed to effect his junction with Aldringer and to relieve Constance and Breisach, before Horn and Bernard had united their forces. In October the two armies lay close to each other, near the Lake of Constance, neither side caring to risk a battle, when, direct hostilities having at last broken out between Wallenstein's troops and Arnim's Saxo-Swedish forces in Silesia, Oxenstierna instructed Bernard to create a diversion in their favour by invading either Bavaria or Bohemia, and leaving Horn to deal with Feria and Aldringer. Bernard could thus at last carry out his long-cherished design against Ratisbon..

Disregarding the successful operations of Johann von Werth and the insecure condition of his own duchy of Franconia, Bernard with characteristic impetuosity now moved direct upon his goal. Starting with ten thousand men from Donauwörth, he executed a rapid march between the Scylla of Ingolstadt and the Charybdis of Eichstedt to the Altmühl, and thence direct upon Ratisbon. In vain at the last moment Maximilian applied for aid to Feria and Aldringer - they were too far away; to Gallas, who had succeeded Holk, and whom Wallenstein would not allow to move from the Bohemian frontier; and to Wallenstein himself, who had no intention of coming to the Elector's aid. Ratisbon was garrisoned by two thousand Bavarian troops under Colonel Troibreze; but notwithstanding a powerful and active Catholic clergy, the sympathies of the majority of the citizens, and of a minority of the town council, were Protestant, and with Maximilian the city had a long-standing quarrel. Ratisbon, which lay on the right bank of the Danube, was completely blocked by Bernard; Johann von Werth's horse were kept at a distance; and the bombardment, begun on November 10, 1633, having after two days' intermission been resumed with great vigour on the 13th, the garrison capitulated on the following day. It was allowed free departure with the honours of war; but the majority of the garrison proposed to come over to Bernard. Hereupon, he held his entry into Ratisbon, amidst the rejoicings of the population; and on November 16, the anniversary of the battle of Lützen, a solemn Protestant service was held in

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[1633 the Cathedral. No excesses dishonoured Bernard of Weimar's brilliant achievement, which at once made him the hero of the Protestant west. Not only had he succeeded while others at Constance and at Breisach — had failed, but he had carried out a difficult design with dazzling promptitude; and while "the bulwark of Bavaria" had fallen, the line of the Danube-the road to Vienna itself - lay open before him. In the meantime, the Bishop and the Catholic clergy of Ratisbon were heavily fined; while the latter were for the most part expelled and their domains sequestrated. The burghers were organised for defence; and the free and Imperial city, so intimately associated with many notable vicissitudes in the history of the Empire, was enrolled in the Heilbronn Alliance.

Ratisbon, then, had not been relieved by Wallenstein; and no coals of fire had been heaped by him on the head of Maximilian of Bavaria for the action of the Diet held in that city three years before. How is the quiescence of Wallenstein-if quiescence it was- during the twelvemonths which had elapsed since the battle of Lützen to be explained?

For him, too, the situation had been changed by that battle and the death of Gustavus Adolphus. Hitherto he had committed no disloyal act, and had in all probability entertained no definitely disloyal intentions. His general scheme of policy had been to aid the Emperor in restoring the Imperial authority and in bringing about a settlement which, while leaving that authority unimpaired, should be acceptable to the Protestant Princes and include conditions favourable to his personal interests. No side, however, trusted him, because he was identified with no party or interest, because he was at any time ready to exchange combination for combination, and because, as his occasional abrupt and passionate utterances indicate, the outlines of his successive schemes were apt to lose themselves in the mists of a vague and boundless ambition. His withdrawal into Bohemia after the battle of Lützen was hardly reconcilable with his official announcement of a complete Imperialist victory, and his prestige as a general suffered in consequence; indeed there was some gossip among the courtiers at Vienna as to his being superseded in the command. Fortunately for him, Bernard of Weimar had declined to follow the Imperialist army, still numerically the stronger, into Bohemia.

Thus Wallenstein had time for augmenting his army at Prague and restoring its efficiency. In the campaigns of 1633 he seems to have intended to play a vigorous part, both by putting an end to the alliance between Saxony and Sweden, and by saving Breisach and if possible recovering the Austrian lands in Elsassa task which he had no intention of leaving the Spaniards to accomplish. Franconia and Bavaria, as well as the Weser lands, he proposed to leave more or less to themselves. Still, being unable to place in the field an army so preponderant in strength as to ensure success, and habitually preferring diplomatic to military measures in the first instance, he continued to

1633]

Wallenstein and the Bohemians

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keep in view the alternative of peace. He was probably quite sincere in telling Count Wartensleben, whom Christian IV of Denmark had sent to push negotiations for peace between Vienna and Dresden, "that he was growing old, was plagued by bad health and in want of rest; that he was quite satisfied with his present position; and that from the continuance of war he could look for no increase of reputation - rather for the contrary." The Emperor was duly informed of Wallenstein's views; and peace negotiations with Saxony and Brandenburg ensued, turning on the withdrawal of the Edict of Restitution and the Catholic interpretation of the reservatum ecclesiasticum, on the rights of the Bohemian Protestants, and on the restoration of the Elector Frederick's son in part at least of the Palatinate. The Emperor would not hear of any concessions in Bohemia; but the negotiations continued with Wallenstein's cognisance and general approval, and it was well understood that in the meantime he would not molest Saxony, if her troops in return left Bohemia untouched. In all this there was nothing either disloyal or illogical; but now there came into the web a strand of intrigue of which the importance cannot be mistaken. The involutions of Wallenstein's course of action, and the motives which determined it, often defy analysis. But there are certain connecting threads which, if the story is to be understood at all, must be throughout kept in view.

Wallenstein, however wide the range of his statesmanship, was at all times sensible of the ties of nationality, family history, the associations of descent and early life. He was born a Bohemian noble and bred a utraquist. The leaders of the Bohemian insurrection, who after the catastrophe of the White Hill had become exiles from their country, had never abandoned the hope of reëstablishing the ancient Bohemian constitution in Church and State under an elected King of their own choice. As the star of this or that Protestant leader had been in the ascendant, his possible claims had been considered-Bethlen Gabor was thought of at one time, and even Mansfeld at another. Wallenstein's position differed widely from theirs; but he was a Bohemian magnate, and of Catholic intolerance at least there had never been any trace in his conduct. This had not been overlooked by the Swedes in their negotiations with Wallenstein both before and after the death of Gustavus Adolphus. The Swedish troops in Silesia were in the main officered by Bohemian Protestant exiles, with Count Thurn at their head as royal commissary; and Bohemian agents in plenty were at hand to take part in secret negotiations, from Major-General Bubna to Sezyma Rasin, who in the end turned Crown witness against Wallenstein and contributed more than any man to make the record of his last years a perplexing tangle of truth and fiction. Of a different type was Count William Kinsky, a Bohemian noble who had contrived to preserve his ample estates from confiscation, but was obliged to reside at Dresden, the ordinary place of refuge for his exiled compatriots. He was

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Wallenstein's negotiations with the Bohemians [1633

brother-in-law to Count Adam Erdmann Trezka, another Bohemian noble, who had himself married a younger sister of Wallenstein's second wife, commanded a regiment under him and enjoyed his confidence. Kinsky kept himself closely informed of all Wallenstein's movements, and was consulted by Feuquières, when, after influencing the deliberations at Heilbronn (April, 1633), he paid a visit to Dresden.

By the middle of May, and probably earlier, the Bohemian malcontents were in communication with Nicolai, the Swedish resident at Dresden, as to the revived project of placing Wallenstein on the Bohemian throne; which, on being reported to Oxenstierna, received his general approval. Hereupon Kinsky furnished Nicolai with a list of the commanders fully trusted by Wallenstein. Whether or not this list, in which both Holk and Gallas figured, had been obtained at first hand, Wallenstein about this time actually had an interview with Bubna at Gitschin. It seems certain that Wallenstein here made no declaration as to his intentions with regard to the Bohemian Crown, and that his present object was to become enabled by a junction between Thurn's army and his own to dictate peace. There was as yet no question of his abandoning the Emperor, but he obviously meant to leave both Saxony and Bavaria out in the cold. Oxenstierna, though he had no intention of binding himself, was prepared to carry on negotiations, like Gustavus Adolphus before him, in furtherance of the Bohemian project.

But in the meantime matters had assumed a different aspect in Silesia. Here, with the opening of the summer of 1633, some military action had become unavoidable; and in May Wallenstein began operations against the combined army of Saxons, Brandenburgers, and Swedes. Their commander, Arnim, had, as has been seen, always advocated an accommodation with the Emperor, and was practically the head of the peace party at the Saxon Court. But Wallenstein had a special reason for desiring not to prolong the campaign which he had just begun. Official news had reached him from Vienna that Feria, instead of merely passing through the western borderlands of the Empire, was to be instructed to operate there against the French, and that Aldringer was to be placed under his supreme command. Thus, not only was Spain to control Elsass, but Wallenstein's own position as generalissimo of all Imperialist and Spanish troops in the Empire was to be impaired.

Early in June, when a decisive battle was supposed to be imminent between Wallenstein and Arnim, a fortnight's truce was agreed upon between them, to the bitter disappointment of the Bohemians. Feuquières, who had been intriguing to secure the Saxon army for France, began to fear that Wallenstein intended to attack Bavaria; and Richelieu as well as Oxenstierna came to the conclusion that any agreement with Wallenstein must be conditional upon his open abandonment of the Emperor. But, although in the concessions which he