By participating in rescuing the city, Gustav had fought not just imperial troops as he had already done in East Prussia, but had faced an Imperial general. Though still technically neutral in the German religions wars, the Swedish king had taken another step toward involvement.
The relief of Stralsund left the two Scandinavian monarchs with a problem. Danish and Swedish soldiers, mutual enemies for decades, were occupying the same city. The situation was untenable and Gustav offered to withdraw if the city would prefer to retain the Danish troops as defenders. The city council, however, voted to accept Swedish protection and Christian began a measured evacuation.
If Gustav was to supply the defense for the city, he wanted some guarantee of loyalty and the burghers militia was obliged to swear allegiance to the Swedish king. Gradually Gustav reinforced his garrison until the Swedish commander became the effective city commandant. Within a year the city had a Swedish governor and was an integral part of Sweden’s Baltic empire.
Meanwhile, the war in East Prussia chugged along. In spite of the numbing cold rains and floods, Gustav tried a drive south along the Vistula. He reached all the way to Graudenz and Koniecpolski’s fortified encampment. He demonstrated outside the earthworks for a few days, but the hetman would not be drawn out and the works were too strong for the Swedish army to storm so Gustav retired, accomplishing little.
In spite of the free roaming Polish cavalry, the Swedes were extending their territory south and east. The summer of 1627 they had taken Wormditt and in October 1628 Gustav captured Strasburg though he lost nearly 5,000 men in the campaign. Marienburg had become the main Swedish fort facing Polish Grandenz.
Still, Koniecpolski’s burn and plunder guerilla tactics were having an effect. The Grosser Werder, once the breadbasket of north central Europe, had become a net importer of grain. The Swedes had shut down the Polish lifeline to the Baltic, stifling trade from Poland. The once rich and prosperous Polish Prussia was becoming a wasteland.
By the beginning of 1629 Swedish forces had shifted even further toward cavalry with 15,400 infantry, mostly on garrison duty or involved in the Danzig siege, and 7,650 horse. Early in the year General Stanislaw Potocki undertook the blockade of the isolated garrison at Strasburg. In February Wrangel organized a relief effort and drove toward the imperiled town. Over half his army was cavalry, some 3,400 men. He met Potocki at Górzno.
Potocki drew up his forces and waited for the attack. Wrangel deployed his infantry in front of the Polish line, then sent his cavalry on a flanking attack, a maneuver typical of Polish forces. The Swedish cavalry scattered Potocki’s mounted troops, then turned to roll up the line. The Poles had been beaten at their own game. Polish defenses collapsed. Potocki lost nearly half his army, almost 2,000 casualties. Strasburg was relieved and Wrangel turned toward Thorn on the Vistula. He threatened the city, but without any heavy guns or siege equipment he could do little and retired northward, avoiding Graudenz.
When the spring campaign season of 1629 began Gustav had 23,000 troops to Koniecpolski’s 19,000, but, as before, the Swedes were stretched across a wide territory in many, sometimes small, garrisons. In June Gustav received word that Wallenstein was sending 5,000 Imperial troops under Hans Georg von Arnim to reinforce the Poles. The Swedish king set out immediately with 5,450 horse and 1,900 foot to intercept the German forces before they could reach Graudenz, but he was too late. Arnim arrived on June 25.
Gustav, now at Marienburg, was heavily outnumbered and decided to withdraw. He sent his infantry north towards Stuhm and used his cavalry to cover the retreat. Arnim wanted to assemble the entire Polish and Imperial army for an attack on the retreating Swedes. Koniecpolski was afraid they would slip away and ordered an immediate advance. On June 17, a unit of dragoons caught up with the Swedish rear guard, some 2,000 horse and a few musketeers under Johan Wilhelm at a river crossing on the Leibe near Honigfelde.
Wilhelm formed up on the crest of a hill above the river. Koniecpolski placed Arnim’s cavalry in the center of his line and put the Cossacks to the left. Wilhelm tried to flank the Cossacks, but was instead flanked himself by Koniecpolski leading his Hussars through a valley hidden from Wilhelm’s view. The Swedish horse was scattered, but regrouped at Struszewo, where they were reinforced. Here they met the Cossacks head on and drove them back until the Hussars caught up with the battle. Then, outnumbered, the Swedes retreated to Pulkowitz where Gustav met them with the main body of his cavalry.
A full scale cavalry battle took place with both Polish and Imperial horse engaged. Twice Gustav was almost killed or captured. At nightfall the Swedes were able to slip away to join their infantry at Stuhm. The Swedish king had successfully covered his retreat, but at a cost of nearly a thousand casualties. The Swedish cavalry had performed admirably, standing up to the best horse of both Poland and the emperor. In the end they had left the field to the enemy and the effect was to restore, to some extent, Polish morale.
Gustav withdrew into his extensive defensive works at Marienburg. Koniecpolski and Arnim concentrated their forces outside these works and spent the summer besieging and attacking the Swedes in their defensive position. As the Polish offense continued, peace negotiations were begun to end the stalemate.
The French cardinal Richelieu sent his chief envoy, Hercule de Charnacé, to try to end the war so the Swedes might be free to enter the German war. Richelieu had already made an alliance with the Dutch and was at war with the Hapsburgs in Italy. Imperial successes in northern Germany and Denmark threatened Dutch trade in the Baltic, a main source of their revenue. France could not afford to have her old enemy, the Hapsburgs, take over the Baltic and outflank them.
Charnacé was joined by George William as mediators and through the summer of 1629 they worked at hammering out a treaty Sigismund could live with. The Polish king was also under considerable pressure to end the long conflict with Sweden. The Sejm was tired of the huge tax burden required to maintain armies in both Livonia and Prussia. They had little to show for all their sacrifices. Livonia and especially Riga had been lost, their part of the Prussia was now in Swedish hands and the Vistula trade to the Baltic blocked. The Polish Baltic fleet Sigismund had been building was bottled up in Danzig Harbor. The Polish nobles had had enough of their king’s Vasa feud.
Gustav was little better off. Simultaneous wars in Livonia and Prussia had stretched his country to the breaking point in both manpower and money. Financing the war through crown income only was not sufficient. New taxes were created and passed by the Riksdag: the Stock and Land Tax of 1620, the Little Toll of 1622 on all goods brought to market (a sales tax) and the Mill Toll of 1625 on all grain brought to mills for grinding. By the late 1620s the financial burden on Sweden was being alleviated somewhat by tolls on trade at Prussian ports and the taxing of the conquered territories.
The Truce of Altmark, September 1629, gave Gustav what he had been striving for, a guaranteed six year cessation in the conflict with Poland. In addition, Gustav kept Livonia north of the Düna and Elbing in East Prussia including the surrounding area and the duties collected from the ports. Marienburg, Danziger Haupt and the Grosser Werder were turned over to George William to administer for the duration of the truce. Then they would go to Sweden if no permanent peace was agreed to. As insurance, Sweden was allowed to occupy and collect tolls on George William’s cities of Pillau, Fischhausen, Lochstädt and Memel.
On February 18, 1630, the Treaty of Tiegenhaft was concluded with Danzig by which Sweden received the lion’s share of the 5.5 percent toll on the rich Danzig trade. All these revenue sources helped relieve the financial strain on the homeland and made possible Gustav’s German expedition. Sweden now controlled most of the major ports in the eastern Baltic. The eastern part of the sea had indeed become a Swedish lake. Sigismund removed his warships from Danzig to Wismar where they joined Wallenstein’s Imperial fleet.
The long Swedish-Polish war had ended, the struggle between the Vasa princes finally concluded. It had been a c
onflict stretching from Moscow to the Vistula. In the end it turned Sweden into a major European power. Sweden’s theater of war had been Eastern Europe so far. But soon Central and Western Europe would learn first hand of this new rising military force.
15. Gustav Enters Germany and the Thirty Years’ War
On May 19, 1630, Gustav stood before an Assembly of the Råd and the three upper Estates. He addressed those present, the Peasant Estate (not represented) and all Swedish citizens. The speech is considered a masterpiece. He celebrated the union of the king and his subjects. It was a farewell address in which he prophesied his own end:
As it is bound to occur, according to His word, that the jar carries water on the farm until at last it is broken: so be it with me ultimately. How often I have been in the midst of blood and danger in the cause of our Swedish Kingdom and yet through God’s mercy, even though injured, have been allowed to return. Now I must shed blood one last time. So before I leave you I commend you, my Swedish subjects, to the protection of Almighty God and desire that we will meet again in His heavenly Kingdom.1
He urged the nobility to remember their ancestors, the ancient Goths and to follow their example in courage and steadfastness. To the Burghers he wished “that your little cabins may become great houses of stone, your little boats great ships and merchantmen, and that the oil in your cruse fail not.”2
For the peasants, “My wish for them is that their meadows may be green with grass, their fields bear an hundred fold, so that their barns may be full; and that they may so increase and multiply in all plenteousness that they may gladly and without sighing perform the duties and obligations that lie upon them.”3
The clergy were admonished to remember that they had the power to “turn and twist the hearts of men,”4 and were warned to be good examples following church precepts and guard against the sin of pride. Thus the great Vasa king bid farewell to his countrymen and for the last time departed Sweden for a campaign on foreign soil.
On June 17 the great fleet left Älvsnabben and on July 26, 1630, it arrived off the German coast. Gustav waded ashore and fell to his knees imploring God for mercy in the battles to come. The Lion of the North had come to Germany for his final and greatest campaign. The events that had precipitated this endeavor were both religious and political with roots imbedded in the Catholic Counter-Reformation.
The Reformation is generally considered to have begun with Martin Luther’s posting of the 95 theses on the Wittenberg Castle in 1517. Lutheranism spread in Germany and to Sweden where it became the state religion. This form of Protestantism also became established in Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Finland and in the northern Baltic states. Other forms, notably Calvinism, spread in Switzerland, France, the Netherlands and even to the Americas. Under Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth, England had severed its church from Rome. This reform from outside the Church of Rome also migrated eastward into Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, and Austria. But reform from inside the Catholic Church was also taking place.
The term Counter-Revolution is a bit of a misnomer. Although the Protestant movement did provide impetus, parties inside the Roman Church had been agitating for changes for some time. As early as the late fourteenth century, reformers such as John Hess, John Wycliffe and St. Catherine of Siena were pushing for changes. St. Bridget of Sweden had fought corruption in the church in both Sweden and in Rome in the mid–1300s. Gradually, a small but growing reform party began to take shape within the church. The Oratory of Divine Love, a society of both priests and laymen, became the focus of this movement.
Founded in Genoa as a group dedicated to charitable works, it expanded into the spiritual arena and then into the church hierarchy in Rome. Prestige was lent to the movement from abroad by such men as Thomas More, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, John Fisher and Cardinal Jiménez. From this group came St. Cajetan and Cardinal Carafa, who would later be Pope Paul IV. The reform party viewed the church as having become badly corrupted; they called for revamping of certain practices of the church, of the ecclesiastic administration, and reform of the clergy.
During the Middle Ages much of the Roman Catholic Church became thoroughly integrated into the feudal political system. Many monasteries were operated like fiefs. Some bishops took on the appendages of barons, even having their own standing military force; witness the Bishop’s Cavalry in Sweden. The papal state fought to extend its territory like any other feudal principality.
With the coming of the Renaissance many of the bishops, cardinals and even some popes assumed the ostentatious trappings of the central and southern European courts of the period. Great harm to church prestige was done by the well publicized scandals of some of the fifteenth century’s immoral papal courts.
The French Captivity (1309–1377), and the Great Schism (1378–1417) further eroded the authority of the pope. His position was weakened to the point where he could not be of help to moderate reformers like Girolamo Savonarola and Nicholas of Cusa.
The worldliness of the church peaked under Alexander IV (1492–1503) and Leo X (1513–1522). Leo X raised funds to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica using the high-pressure sale of indulgences in the German states. This was one of the excesses which prompted Martin Luther to post his ninety-five theses.
At the lowest levels of the church the main problem was education. While most priests and monks were sincere and hard working, and seminary educated clergy were well prepared to serve, many parish priests were poorly trained and self-indulgent. Consequently, immorality, drunkenness, slovenliness and poor officiating of the sacraments was rampant. The high ideals of the early church had eroded to a point that disgusted the reformers.
Following Leo X, the reform party was able to bring about a conference to review these issues, the Fifth Lateran Council, and get a like minded pope elected, Adrian VI. However, the council accomplished little and Adrian died before he could accomplish anything.
Under his successor, Clement VII (1523–34), the reform party began to make real progress. Threatened by an expanding Lutheranism, they founded the Theatines (1524) and the Capuchins (1525), religious orders dedicated to evangelizing common people. They were assisted by the influence of the Holy Roman emperor, Charles V, who was battling Lutheranism in his domain. Also, the sack of Rome in 1527 by a renegade army of German, Italian and Spanish mercenaries doused the last embers of territorial expansionist ambitions of the papal court. The stage was set for the Catholic Reformation.
In 1534 Paul III, from the reform party, became pope. That same year St. Ignatius of Loyola founded the Society of Jesus. Loyola was a Spanish nobleman and soldier who narrowly escaped death from a severe battle wound. Upon recovery, he vowed that he would serve only Almighty God and the pope of Rome, God’s representative on earth. The Jesuits constructed their order like a military organization with the head of the order carrying the title of general. Members were carefully screened, then subjected to intense training. Their vows of chastity, obedience and poverty were rigidly enforced. There was autocratic rule and iron discipline in this new order where the excesses and rich living of the Renaissance church had no place. Jesuits were pious, dedicated, tough, aggressive and fearless. They became the most effective instrument in stopping, then rolling back, the Protestant movement.
The society’s evangelism also spread to Asia and the Americas. An example of their effectiveness is found in South America where they brought the church to native Americans, establishing self-sufficient mission-haciendas on the Colombian Llanos, an environment so hostile even the conquistadors only traveled through it. To these tropical plains, sparsely populated to this day, stretching across eastern Colombia and western Venezuela, they brought civilization. In the Amazon Basin they fought the Spanish and Portuguese slave traders and in Uruguay they built an ecclesiastic empire complete with a native militia. Yet when Rome ordered their removal in 1767, the obedient fathers packed up and left the continent, abandoning all they had built.
In Europe, the Jesuits and Capuchins we
re instrumental in the Catholic offensive against Protestantism winning back Austria, Poland, southern Netherlands, France and parts of Germany, Hungary, and Bohemia. In Spain the religious reforms of the Carmelites of St. Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross along with the effectiveness of the Spanish Inquisition prevented Protestantism from even gaining a foothold. Here as in Ireland and Italy the church was never seriously threatened.
In 1545 Pope Paul II convened the First Council of Trent to deal with reforms. The council met in three sessions in 1545–47, 1551–52 and 1562–63. It rejected any compromise with Protestantism, reaffirming the basic tenets of Catholicism. The seven sacraments were upheld including transubstantiation of the consecrated bread and wine. Salvation by faith and, in contrast to Lutheranism, by works was preserved. Other aspects, rejected by the liberal reformers, were reaffirmed: indulgences, though excesses were curbed, pilgrimages, emphasis of saints and relics, and worship of the Virgin. The basic structure of the church was retained, but more emphasis was placed on the education of parish priests through diocese seminary schools. Manuals and handbooks were produced describing the conduct and expectations of a good priest and confessor.
Paul III was followed by Pope Paul IV (1555–59) who began a determined campaign to eliminate Protestantism. His primary tools in this effort were the Inquisition and censorship of prohibited books. Perhaps his biggest contribution, however, was the reform of the papal court. Paul IV stripped the Vatican of its Renaissance worldliness giving it the dignified, almost monastic atmosphere it retains to this day.
Julius III and Pius IV continued the Council of Trent meetings and pressed the work of reform and combating Protestantism. With the end of the councils in 1563 emphasis shifted to implementing the councils recommendations. The papacy of Pius V (1566–72) was right for the time. He came from humble beginnings; poor, possibly an orphan, he joined the Dominican order as a young man. The Dominican Brothers taught him humility and to engage in a life of service to the destitute and diseased. They instilled in him a regard for the less fortunate. As pontiff he carried on these practices, donating liberally to charities and hospitals. Even as pope he lived his monastic vows of poverty and kept a simple life style. He did his best to extend this philosophy throughout the church. He combated Protestantism by encouraging the Inquisition and was an advocate of Jesuit evangelism in Europe and missionary work in the Americas.
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