Section II. —English Diplomacy
§ 1. English proposal to Sweden and Denmark.
In August 1624 two English ambassadors, Sir Robert Anstruther and Sir James Spens, set out from London; the first to the King of Denmark, the second to the King of Sweden. The object of the embassies was identical, to urge upon the two kings the necessity of stirring themselves up to take part in a war for the recovery of the Palatinate, and for the re-establishment of the old condition of things in Germany.
§ 2. The Danish answer.
Christian hesitated only so far as to wish to be quite sure that James was too much in earnest to turn back as he had turned back in 1621. Anstruther was to go around the circle of the princes of Lower Saxony, and as soon as a favorable report was received from them, and the impression made by that report was strengthened by the news of Mansfeld's preparations in England, Christian engaged to take part in the war.
§ 3. Foresight of Gustavus.
Gustavus was far more cautious. Never doubting for a moment that the task before him was one of enormous magnitude, he argued that it would not be too much if all who had reason to complain of the House of Austria, from Bethlen Gabor in the east to Lewis of France in the west, were to join heart and soul in the great enterprise. With this view he was already in close communication with his brother-in-law, George William, the Elector of Brandenburg, who for once in his life was eager for war, perhaps because he had hardly reached to a full conception of all that such a war implied.
§ 4. His answer.
Gustavus, too, had his own ideas about the way in which the war was to be carried on. In the first place there must be no divided command, and he himself must have the whole military direction of the troops. A certain number of men must be actually levied, and a certain sum of money actually paid into his hands. To the mere promises which satisfied Christian he would not listen. And besides, two ports, one on the Baltic, the other on the North Sea, must be given over to him in order to secure his communications. Perhaps, however, the part of his scheme which gives the greatest evidence of his prescience is that which relates to France. Avoiding the rock upon which the English government was splitting, he made no attempt to force a Catholic sovereign like Lewis into over-close union with the Protestant powers. Help from France he would most willingly have if he could get it; but he argued that it would be better for the French forces to find a sphere of action for themselves in South Germany or Italy, far away from the regions in which Gustavus himself hoped to operate at the head of a purely Protestant army.
1625
§ 5. England adopts the Danish plan.
In January 1625 the answers of the two kings were known in England. Of the 50,000 men demanded by Gustavus, 17,000 were to be paid out of the English exchequer. Till four months' pay had been provided he would not stir. He, for his part, had no intention of being a second Mansfeld, the leader of an army driven by sheer necessity to exist upon pillage.
§ 6. Thinking it easier to satisfy Christian than Gustavus.
Christian's ideas were framed on a more moderate scale. He thought that 30,000 men would be sufficient altogether, and that 6,000 would be enough to fall to the share of England. Both James and Charles declared that if they must make a choice they preferred the Danish plan. Even 6,000 men would cost them 30,000l. a month, and, though the French marriage was settled, Parliament had not yet been summoned to vote the subsidies on which alone such an expenditure could be based. But they did not yet understand that a choice was necessary. They thought that Gustavus might still come in as an auxiliary to the Danish armament. To this suggestion, however, Gustavus turned a deaf ear. He had no confidence in Christian, or in allies who had taken so scant a measure of the difficulties before them. It was true, he replied to a remonstrance from the English ambassador, that he had asked for hard conditions. 'But,' he added, 'if anyone thinks it easy to make war upon the most powerful potentate in Europe, and upon one, too, who has the support of Spain and of so many of the German princes, besides being supported, in a word, with the whole strength of the Roman Catholic alliance; and if he also thinks it easy to bring into common action so many minds, each having in view their own separate object and to regain for their own masters so many lands out of the power of those who tenaciously hold them, we shall be quite willing to leave to him the glory of his achievement, and all its accompanying advantages.'
§ 7. Gustavus attacks Poland.
With these words of bitter irony Gustavus turned away for a time from the German war to fight out his own quarrel with the King of Poland, a quarrel which he always held to be subservient to the general interests in so far as it hindered Sigismund from taking part in the larger conflict.
§ 8. Attempt of Charles to fulfil his engagements.
Christian's more sanguine ideas were soon to be put to the test. In March James of England died, and two months later Charles I. entered into an engagement to supply the king of Denmark with 30,000l. a month, and scraped together 46,000l. to make a beginning. Mansfeld, it was arranged, should abandon his hopeless attempt to reach the Palatinate along the Rhine, and should convey the remnants of his force by the sea to the assistance of Christian.
§ 9. Commencement of the Danish war.
After all, however, the main point was the success or failure of the king to gain support in Germany itself. The circle of Lower Saxony, indeed, chose him for its military chief. But even then there was much division of opinion. With the commercial classes in the towns war against the Emperor was as yet decidedly unpopular. They were tolerably well assured that they would reap no benefit from any accession of strength to the princes, whilst the danger from the Emperor was still in the future. But they were not strong enough to carry the circle with them. A centre of resistance was formed, which must be broken down if the Emperor's pretensions were not to be abated. On July 18 Tilly crossed the Weser into Lower Saxony, and the Danish war began.
Section III. —Wallenstein's Armament
§ 1. The Emperor's need of support.
Would Tilly's force be sufficient to overcome the King of Denmark and his foreign allies? Ferdinand and his ministers doubted it. In proportion as his power increased, the basis on which it rested grew narrower. Of his allies of 1620 the League alone supported him still. Spain, exhausted for the time with the siege of Breda, could do little for him, and contented herself with forming clever plans for cajoling the Elector of Saxony, and with urging the Pope to flatter the Lutherans by declaring them to be far better than the Calvinists. Of all such schemes as this nothing satisfactory was likely to come. John George of Saxony, indeed, refused to join in the King of Denmark's movement. He thought that the Lower Saxony princes ought to have been content with the agreement of Mühlhausen, and that Frederick ought to have made his submission to the Emperor. But even in the eyes of John George the Lower Saxon war was very different from the Bohemian war. The Emperor's refusal to confirm permanently the Protestant bishoprics had made it impossible for any Protestant to give him more than a passive support.
§ 2. His numerous enemies.
And if the Emperor's friends were fewer, his enemies were more numerous. Christian IV. was more formidable than Frederick. Bethlen Gabor, who had made peace in 1622, was again threatening in the east; and no one could say how soon France might be drawn into the strife in the west. Ferdinand needed another army besides Tilly's. Yet his treasury was so empty that he could not afford to pay a single additional regiment.
§ 3. Wallenstein's offer.
Suddenly, in the midst of his difficulties, one of his own subjects offered to take the burden on his shoulders. Albert of Waldstein, commonly known as Wallenstein, sprang from an impoverished branch of one of the greatest of the families of the Bohemian aristocracy. His parents were Lutheran, but when, at the age of twelve, he was left an orphan, he was placed under the care of an uncle, who attempted to educate him in the strict school of the Bohemian Brotherhood, a body better known in later times under the name of Moravians, and distinguished, as they are now, for their severe moral training.
§ 4. His early life.
The discipline of the brethren seems to have had much the same influence upon the young nobleman that the long sermons of the Scotch Presbyterians had upon Charles II. The boy found his way to the Jesuits at Olmütz, and adopted their religion, so far as he adopted any religion at all. His real faith was in himself and in the revelations of astrology, that mystic science which told him how the bright rulers of the sky had marked him out for fame. For a young Protestant of ability without wealth there was no room in Bohemia under the shadow of the great houses. With Ferdinand, as yet ruler only of his three hereditary duchies, he found a soldier's welcome, and was not long in displaying a soldier's capacity for war. To Wallenstein no path came amiss which led to fortune. A wealthy marriage made him the owner of large estates. When the revolution broke out he was colonel of one of the regiments in the service of the Estates of Moravia. The population and the soldiers were alike hostile to the Emperor. Seizing the cash-box of the estates he rode off, in spite of all opposition, to Vienna. Ferdinand refused to accept booty acquired after the fashion of a highwayman, and sent the money back to be used against himself. The Moravians said openly that Wallenstein was no gentleman. But the events which were hurrying on brought his name into prominence in connexion with more legitimate warfare, and he had become famous for many a deed of skill and daring before Frederick's banner sunk before the victors on the White Hill.
§ 5. Offers to raise an army.
Wallenstein was now in a position to profit by his master's victory. Ferdinand was not a man of business. In peace as in war he gladly left details to others, and there were good pickings to be had out of the ruin of the defeated aristocracy. Besides the lands which fell to Wallenstein's share as a reward for his merit, he contrived to purchase large estates at merely nominal prices. Before long he was the richest landowner in Bohemia. He became Prince of Friedland. And now, when Ferdinand's difficulties were at their height, Wallenstein came forward offering to raise an army at his own cost. The Emperor needed not to trouble himself about its pay. Nor was it to be fed by mere casual plunder. Wherever it was cantoned the general would raise contributions from the constituted authorities. Discipline would thus be maintained, and the evils upon which Mansfeld's projects had been wrecked would be easily avoided.
§ 6. The larger the better.
Modern criticism has rejected the long accredited story of Wallenstein's assertion at this time that he could find means to support an army of 50,000 men, but not an army of 20,000. It is certain that his original request was for only 20,000. But the idea was sure to occur to him sooner or later. Government by military force was the essence of his proposal, and for that purpose the larger the number of his army the better.
§ 7. Ferdinand cannot refuse.
The connexion between two men whose characters differed so widely as those of Ferdinand and Wallenstein was from first to last of a nature to excite curiosity. Yet, after all, it was only the natural result of Ferdinand's own methods of government. The ruler who knows nothing beyond the duty of putting the law in execution, whilst he shuts his eyes to the real requirements of those for whom the law ought to have been made, must in the end have recourse to the sword to maintain him and his legality from destruction.
§ 8. Wallenstein's system.
The substitution of contributions for pillage may have seemed to Ferdinand a mode of having recourse to a legal, orderly way of making war. Unfortunately for him, it was not so. As the civil laws of the Empire gave him no right to raise a penny for military purposes without the assent of the Diet, and as, in the distracted condition of Germany, the Diet was no longer available for the purpose, no one was likely to regard money so raised as legal in any sense at all. In fact, it could only be justified as Charles I. justified the forced loan of 1626, as an act done out of the plenitude of power inherent in the Crown, authorizing him to provide in cases of emergency for the good of his subjects. Ferdinand, in truth had brought himself into a position from which he could neither advance nor retreat with honour. If he did not accept Wallenstein's services he would almost certainly be beaten. If he did accept them, he would almost certainly raise a feeling in Germany which would provoke a still stronger opposition than that which he had for the present to deal with.
§ 9. Moderation impossible to Wallenstein.
For the contributions were to be raised by military authority, with no check or control whatever from civil officials. Even if the utmost moderation was used there was something utterly exasperating to the peasant or the townsman in having to pay over a greater or less share of his hoardings to a colonel who had no civil authority to produce, and who had no limit to his demands excepting in his own conscience. Those who expected that moderation would be used must have formed a very sanguine idea of the influence of the events of the war upon ordinary military character.
§ 10. Wallenstein's army.
In point of fact, neither Wallenstein nor his soldiers thought of moderation. With him there was just enough of regularity to preserve the discipline he needed; just enough order to wring the utmost possible amount of money out of the country. 'God help the land to which these men come,' was the natural exclamation of a frightened official who watched the troops march past him.
§ 11. Explanation of Wallenstein's success.
How was it then, if Wallenstein's system was no better than Mansfeld's system more thoroughly organized, that he did not meet with Mansfeld's misfortunes? The true explanation doubtless is that he was able to avoid the cause of Mansfeld's misfortunes. Mansfeld was a rolling stone from the beginning. With troops supporting themselves by plunder, he had to make head against armies in excellent condition, and commanded by such generals as Tilly and Cordova, before his own men had acquired the consistency of a disciplined army. Wallenstein made up his mind that it should not be so with him. He would lead his new troops where there was much to be gained and little to do. In due course of time they would learn to have confidence in him as their leader, and would be ready to march further under his orders.
§ 12. Wallenstein in the autumn of 1625.
In the autumn, Wallenstein entered the dioceses of Magdeburg and Halberstadt, levying the means of support for his army upon rich and poor. Nor were the requirements of himself and his men like the modest requirements of Tilly. With him every man was more highly paid. Splendid equipments and magnificence of every kind were necessaries of life to the general and his officers, and the example was quickly followed, so far as imitation was possible, in the lower ranks of the army. To Tilly's entreaties for aid Wallenstein turned a deaf ear, and left him to carry on the war against the Danes as best he could. He was doubtless wise in refusing to expose his recruits so early to the fierce trial of battle. With him everything was based on calculation. Even his luxury and splendour would serve to fix upon him the eyes of his soldiers, and to hold out to them another prospect than that of the endless hardships, varied by an occasional debauch at the storming of a town, which was the lot of those who followed Tilly. Yet Wallenstein never allowed this luxury and splendour to stand in the way of higher objects. He was himself a strategist of no mean order. He had a keen eye for military capacity. He never troubled himself to inquire what a man's religion was if he thought he could render good service as a soldier. There were generals in his army whose ancestry was as illustrious as that of any sovereign in Europe, and generals who had no other title to eminence than their skill and valour. High and low were equal before his military code. Honours and rewards were dispensed to the brave: his friendship was accorded to those who had been distinguished for special acts of daring.
§ 13. Wallenstein not a German.
It was a new power in Germany, a power which had no connexion with the princes of the Empire, scarcely more than a nominal connexion with the Emperor himself. And the man who wielded it was not even a German. By his birth he was a Bohemian, of Slavonian race. The foremost men of the war, Tilly, Wallenstein, Gustavus, were foreigners. Germany had failed to produce either a statesman or a warrior of the first rank.
1626
§ 14. Failure of peace negotiations.
During the winter, negotiations for peace were opened at Brunswick. But they foundered on the old rock. The Emperor and the League would grant the terms of Mühlhausen and nothing more. It was against their consciences to grant a permanent guarantee to the Protestant administrators, and to admit them to the full enjoyment of the privileges of princes of the Empire. With this the Lower Saxon princes refused to be contented. Amongst the means by which the chapters had secured their Protestant character were some acts of formal and even of technical illegality. Such acts might easily be made use of by the Emperor and his council to effect an alteration in the character of those bodies. The Emperor and his council might possibly intend to be just, but somehow or another they always contrived to decide disputed questions in favour of their own partisans. On behalf of the religious and political institutions of Protestant Germany, the King of Denmark and his allies refused to accept the terms which had been offered them, and demanded that Protestant territories should receive a legal and permanent confirmation of their right to continue Protestant.
Section IV. —Defeat of Mansfeld and Christian IV
§ 1. Campaign of 1626.
When the campaign opened, in the spring of 1626, the numbers at the disposal of the two belligerents were not so very unequal. Wallenstein's forces had been swelling far beyond his original reckoning. He and Tilly together, it is said could command the services of 70,000 men, whilst 60,000 were ready to march against them. On Christian's side were fighting Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick, and a nobler than either, John Ernest of Saxe-Weimar, on whom, first of German men, the idea had dawned of composing the distractions of his fatherland by proclaiming a general toleration. Bethlen Gabor was once more threatening Vienna from the side of Hungary. Even the Protestant peasants in Lower Austria had risen in defence of their religion and their homes against the Bavarian garrisons which guarded the land till their master's expenses had been paid.
§ 2. Christian IV. at a disadvantage.
In other respects than numbers, however, the conditions were most unequal. Tilly and Wallenstein both quartered their troops on the enemy's country. In raising supplies they had no susceptibilities to consult, no friendly princes or cities to spare. Christian, on the other hand, was still amongst his allies, and was forced, on pain of driving them over to the Emperor, to show them every consideration. And in the midst of these difficulties one source of supply on which he had been justified in counting entirely failed him.
1625
§ 3. Failure of the English supplies.
Charles I. of England had engaged in the spring of 1625 to pay over to the King of Denmark 30,000l. a month, reckoning that Parliament would enable him to fulfil his promise. Parliament met in May, but it had no confidence either in Charles or in his favourite and adviser, the Duke of Buckingham. A war carried on in Germany with English money was most distasteful to the English feeling. The session came to an end after a vote of a bare 140,000l., to meet a war expenditure scarcely, if at all, short of 1,000,000l. a year. Still Charles persisted. In the winter Buckingham went over to Holland and negotiated the Treaty of the Hague, by which the Dutch were to pay 5,000l. a month, and the English renewed their obligation to pay the 30,000l. already promised to Christian IV. This time, it was thought, a fresh Parliament would be ready to take up the king's engagement. But the fresh Parliament proved more recalcitrant than its predecessor. The sum of 46,000l. which had been sent across the seas in May 1625 was the only representative of Charles' promised support.
1626
§ 4. Danger of the Danish army.
Christian of Denmark and his allies, therefore, were to some extent in the position in which Mansfeld had been in 1621 and 1622. If not utterly without resource, they were sadly straitened, and were obliged to govern their movements by the necessity of finding supplies rather than by military calculations.
§ 5. Mansfeld in the north.
Mansfeld was the first to meet the enemy. For some time he had been quartered beyond the Elbe, making himself troublesome to the Lübeckers and the Elector of Brandenburg. But this could not go on for ever. Wallenstein was in front of him, and he must fight him, or leave him to join Tilly against the king.
§ 6. Battle of the bridge of Dessau.
Wallenstein never, in his whole career, exposed his men to a battle in the open field if he could help it; and least of all was he likely to do so whilst they were yet untried. He seized upon the bridge of Dessau over the Elbe, and, having fortified it strongly, waited for Mansfeld to do his work. On April 25 Mansfeld appeared. In vain he dashed his troops against the entrenchments. Then, watching a favourable opportunity, Wallenstein ordered a charge. The enemy fled in confusion and the victory was gained.
§ 7. Mansfeld's march towards Hungary.
Not long after Mansfeld's defeat at the bridge of Dessau, Christian of Brunswick died. The remaining chiefs of the Danish party had a desperate game to play. Mansfeld, reinforced by John Ernest of Weimar, was dispatched through Silesia, to hold out a hand to Bethlen Gabor. Wallenstein followed in pursuit, after sending some of his regiments to the assistance of Tilly.
§ 8. The battle of Lutter.
What could Christian do in the face of the danger? The English subsidies did not come. To remain on the defensive was to court starvation, with its inevitable accompaniment, mutiny. Elated by a slight success over the enemy, he made a dash at Thuringia, hoping to slip through into Bohemia, and to combine with Bethlen Gabor and Mansfeld in raising the old Protestant flag in the heart of the Emperor's hereditary dominions. But Tilly was on the watch. On August 27 he came up with the Danish army at Lutter. The fight was fiercely contested. But before it was decided a cry arose from some of the men in the Danish ranks that they would fight no longer without pay. Christian was driven from the field. In after days he complained bitterly that if the King of England had fulfilled his promises the battle would have ended otherwise.
§ 9. Mansfeld's death.
The soldiers lent by Wallenstein to Tilly had borne them well in the fight. Wallenstein himself was far away. Mansfeld had been welcomed by the Protestants of Silesia, and when Wallenstein followed he found the principal towns garrisoned by the enemy. By the time he reached Hungary Mansfeld had joined Bethlen Gabor. Once more Wallenstein pursued his old tactics. Taking up a strong position, he left his opponents to do what they could. The events showed that his calculations were well founded. Bethlen Gabor had counted on help from the Turks. But the Turks gave him no adequate assistance, and he did not venture to repeat unaided the operation of the bridge of Dessau, and to attack Wallenstein in his entrenchments. He preferred making a truce, one of the conditions of which was that Mansfeld should be expelled from Hungary. On his way to Venice the great adventurer was seized by a mortal disease. The unconquerable man, like an old northern warrior, refused to die in a bed. 'Raise me up,' he said to his friends, 'I am dying now.' Propped up in an upright position in their arms, and gazing out upon the dawn, which was lighting up the hills with the first rays of morning, he passed away. 'Be united, united,' he murmured with his last breath; 'hold out like men.' His own absence from the scene would perhaps remove one of the chief difficulties in the way of union.