Warrior Kings of Sweden

by Gary Dean Peterson

  Early the next morning Gustav renewed his efforts, but Wallenstein had brought up fresh troops and with these he counterattacked, driving the Swedes back to the river and their earthworks at Fürth. The first battle between the two great generals had gone to the Bohemian duke. Gustav had suffered 2,400 casualties including 1000 dead. Wallenstein lost just 600 men. The legend of Swedish invincibility had suffered a severe blow.

  His nose bloodied, the king pulled his troops back into the encampment at Fürth. The crowded conditions quickly led to an outbreak of disease followed by desertions. Within twenty days he had lost a third of his army. On September 8 he broke camp. Leaving Oxenstierna with 6,000 men to garrison Nuremberg, he headed south. He was also leaving John George to his own devices, but the Saxon regiments lent him for the Alte Veste battle had acquitted themselves well and with Wallenstein tied up, Arnim had cleared most of Saxony of Imperial forces.

  Gustav crossed the Danube and threatened western Bavaria. When this brought no response from Wallenstein, he turned and threatened Ingolstadt. This did at least bring Maximilian and his Bavarian contingent rushing south to take up position at Regensburg. The other Swedish armies were doing well. Horn was completing the mopping up operation on the Rhine and the landgrave was reducing Alsace. Todt was busy chasing Pappenheim in Lower Saxony.

  Then Gustav received word that Wallenstein had ordered Pappenheim to the south-east to join him for an invasion of Saxony. Their combined force could overwhelm John George.

  Gustav broke off his operations in Bavaria and headed north. He reached Nördlinger on October 10 where he learned that the two Imperialists had not yet joined up. A week later he was back at Nuremberg to pick up Oxenstierna and his Swedish forces. In the next 17 days his troops marched 400 miles, reaching the Thuringian Passes with the intention of heading off Pappenheim. He would have been too late, except for Bernard of Weimar who moved his army into the passes ahead of Pappenheim and held them until the king’s arrival. Gustav pushed his men harder than ever to get to Naumberg and prevent Wallenstein from crossing the Saale. Here the Swedish king built a fortified camp and gathered his forces. Wallenstein interpreted this move as Gustav going into winter quarters. He had drawn the wrong conclusion. Based on this misconception, the Bohemian duke spread his army out to cut off Swedish supply lines, calculating that by spring the invaders would be sick, starved and ready for annihilation. He was still convinced of his original assessment that this “little enemy” was indeed the “Snow King” and would simply melt away given some pressure.

  Gustav, of course, had no intention of ending the 1632 campaign season and was just waiting for an opportunity. On November 4 he received the astonishing news that Wallenstein was dispersing his forces, apparently going into winter quarters. He is said to have exclaimed, “Now in very truth I believe God has delivered him into my hands.”1 In fact Wallenstein had removed fifteen regiments to quarters in other parts of the country, including nine under Pappenheim stationed thirty-five miles away. Gustav had a slight advantage in numbers, 20,000 to Wallenstein’s 18,000, but his cavalry was weak, 6,200 compared to the Imperial 8,600. And he did not have any of his best generals with him. Horn, Banér, and Todt were away at other fronts. The advantage of surprise, he felt, would more than make up for these weaknesses.

  Very early on November 5, 1632, the Swedish king rolled his troops out for the march to the area planned for the attack. The king hoped for a complete surprise, but at the Rippach River crossing a detachment of Imperial troops blundered into the advancing army. Now it was the Swedes who were surprised. They wasted several hours in forming up and sweeping the enemy from their path. It was time that might have made the difference.

  Wallenstein was immediately warned of Gustav’s threat and sent couriers to Pappenheim, the only sizable force close enough to help. Riders arrived at Pappenheim’s camp at midnight and he immediately dispatched his cavalry. The infantry did not start for another six hours.

  Meanwhile, the Swedish army did not reach Wallenstein’s front until late evening and Gustav held up the attack until dawn. At 5:00 am on November 6, 1632, reveille sounded. After a quick meal, prayers and hymns were sung. The Swedish army fell in line and was ready for battle by 8:00 in the morning, but fog obscured the field. Gustav waited until after 10:00 when the mist had thinned. The attack did not commence until nearly 11:00 a.m.

  Wallenstein had organized his position carefully. His right was anchored by the town of Lützen, whose windmills provided excellent cover for musketeers. His front was protected by a ditch and the elevated road running from Lützen to Leipzig. But Wallenstein’s left was unsecured. This was the gap that Pappenheim was to fill.

  Gustav deployed his troops with Nicholas Brahe, count of Weissemberg, front and center, commanding the famous Yellow Brigade. The second line in the center was commanded by the dependable old Klaphausen backed up by a reserve of horse under Colonel Ohm. The left consisted of columns of cavalry interspersed with detachments of musketeers and was commanded by Duke Bernard. The right wing of horse and musketeers was commanded by the king with Stalhauske, captain of the Finnish horse, second.

  Gustav opened with his artillery then ordered his center forward across the ditch and road into the Imperial tercios. The Swedish right enveloped Wallenstein’s unsupported left. But at that moment Pappenheim appeared with his cavalry and charged into the left of the line. Before he could affect the battle, he was hit by a cannonball and his regiments refused to fight, leaving the scene of battle. At the same time the Swedish center was driving the Imperialists back, capturing several guns which they turned on the enemy.

  Suddenly, the fog returned, obscuring the situation on the battlefield. Gustav could not see just how close to victory the Swedish army was. The right and center were gaining ground steadily. Only on the left front was progress impeded and here Gustav brought up his Småland cavalry regiment. He led the charge meant to drive the enemy back, but was immediately hit by a musket ball, losing control of his horse which carried him away from his escort into the thick of the fray. An Imperial horseman shot him in the back with a pistol and he fell from his saddle. A final shot to the head ended his life.

  Bernard of Weimar took command and renewed the general attack all along the line. The right stumbled for now they ran into Piccolomini and his Black Cuirassiers who charged the Swedish line furiously again and again. But the center made steady progress capturing more guns and driving the Imperialists back. On the left, the death of their king had only spurred his soldiers on until they took the windmills, unhinging Wallenstein’s right flank. At sunset Pappenheim’s infantry finally arrived, but it was too late. The Battle of Lützen had been decided. Gustav had beaten his wily adversary, Wallenstein, but it had cost him his life.

  Gustav Adolf Vasa, ruler of an empire stretching from the Arctic to the Danube, from Kexholms to Alseas, was dead. He left a Swedish Empire encompassing much of northern and central Europe. Gustav had reinvigorated the Protestant cause in Germany; there was to be a congress in Ulm to form a new Protestant League. Emperor Frederick’s conquest of all of Germany, which had been so close in 1630, had been smashed.

  17. Oxenstierna Takes Control and Prosecutes the War in Germany

  The 39-year-old King Gustav lay among the dead on the Lüzen battlefield. His nearly stripped body was recovered by his soldiers, who mourned their loss. An officer in a Scottish regiment is quoted to have lamented, “He was, ‘the captain of kings and king of captains.’”1 He was a soldier’s general, suffering their campaigns with them and leading from the front. He died in battle as he thought he would and, perhaps, as he would have preferred.

  Maria Eleanora came to Weissenfels to claim her husband’s body and take the king home. The slow procession through Germany was punctuated by many interruptions to allow the body to lie in state. After two years the royal procession reached Stockholm, where Gustav Adolf Vasa was laid to rest at the Ridderholm Church in the capital.

  At her father’s death,
six-year-old Christina Augusta became Queen of the Swedes, Goths, and Vandals, Great Princess of Finland, Duchess of Estonia and Karelia, and Lady of Ingria. The country rallied around her as the symbol of Swedish unity and accord at a time of national insecurity that comes with the loss of a strong national leader. During a series of meetings and ceremonies the child was able to get only snatches of sleep and later wrote of the period in her life, “that I knew neither my misfortune nor my fortune. I remember, however, that I was enchanted to see all these people at my feet, kissing my hand.”2

  After months of separation the newly minted queen met her mother and the funeral procession at Nyköping where the queen mother showed uncharacteristic motherly emotion toward her daughter. After the funeral Maria took complete control of her eight-year-old daughter’s life and at the same time entered a period of intense mourning, filling her rooms with black draperies and minimizing communication with the outside world. Still ten years away from maturity Christina was queen in name only. The real head of state was the chancellor, Alex Oxenstierna, still in Germany trying to cope with the burdens of ruling this Swedish empire bequeathed to him upon the death of his close friend and king.

  It was an empire like that of Alexander or Attila in that it was held together by the personality, will and force of one man. When that uniting spirit was removed these empires began to disintegrate. But for a time pure momentum would carry the empire forward.

  The Battle of Lützen had broken Wallenstein’s army. He had lost perhaps 12,000 men, all his artillery and Pappenheim, his best general and cavalry commander. He was forced from the field of battle and withdrew into Bohemia to reconstitute his forces.

  Though the Swedish held the field and the battle restored Sweden’s reputation of arms, their casualties were crippling. The Swedes lost five to seven thousand dead and wounded. Gustav’s army settled into winter quarters concerned about the future without their king and commander.

  The congress of Protestant princes at Ulm took place as planned and resulted in the formation of a political organization that would become the League of Heilbronn on April 13, 1633, with Oxenstierna as president. One of the league’s primary functions was to provide monetary support for the Swedish forces in Germany, but the money was slow in coming. The political machinery was so cumbersome that Oxenstierna could do little to make the organization really effective. Two of the most important German states never joined. George William of Brandenburg, unhappy with Sweden’s insistence on retaining control of Pomerania, remained aloof as did John George of Saxony. Other allies were also uncooperative. Adolf Frederick of Mecklenburg, William of Weimar, Frederick Ulric of Wolfenbüttel and others whom Gustav had slighted or bullied at one time or another lent only half-hearted support to the Swedish cause. They saw in the treatment of Friedrich of the Palatinate (pushed aside) the prime example of the former king’s priority of military necessity over what was right. Oxenstierna had these malcontents to deal with along with his other obligations.

  The aging chancellor was saddled with running the administrative apparatus organized in Germany after the Swedish conquests. He had to run the postal system, fix tolls on river crossings, regulate trade, arrange a new ecclesiastical system, organize the educational system, and arrange a tax system on households, tradesmen, farmers and stock-growers. To accomplish all this he had a whole new civil service of mostly German personnel untrained in the Swedish governmental system.

  Added to this were his responsibilities as head of the Swedish government. Executive operations in Stockholm were in the hands of the regents. Oxenstierna, as chancellor, was the head of this group with his brother Baron Gabriel Oxenstierna; Baron Gylldenhielm, a natural son of Karl IX and half brother of Gustav Adolf; Gabrial Bengtsson, a cousin of the chancellor as treasurer; and Count Jacob de la Gardie, high marshal of the Army. A steady flow of correspondence ran between the chancellor and the other four regents, but mail was slow, a month in summer, two or three times that in winter. Orders and descriptions of situations might change in days, complicating the governing process immensely.

  The chancellor also had to contend with an anti–Oxenstierna faction at the capital headed by Karl Karlsson Gyllenhielm, Per Banér and Oxenstierna’s old enemy Johan Skytte. This group plotted to recall the chancellor. Their objective was the withdrawal of all Swedish forces from Germany and they saw Oxenstierna as the main obstruction to achieving this end.

  The chancellor was performing all the labors he had previously plus those the king had been doing. Among the latter and the area Oxenstierna was least qualified in was conducting military operations. Besides trying to figure out how to supply and pay for the five field armies, he had to direct their movement and deployment, often overriding generals who were sure they knew better than he what should be done. Tactics and military strategy had been the king’s sole purview. Now Oxenstierna had to delve into this sphere as well.

  Sweden still had the strongest military machine in Germany. Logistically, Oxenstierna made some changes that even improved the situation. He began to gradually shift native Swedish units to northern Germany where he felt national interests were vital. This also allowed him to rotate regiments back to Sweden, replacing them with home guard units. The chancellor covered these troop movements by shifting mercenary regiments to the south, keeping the five field armies intact. The overall troop strengths remained the same, but the strategy had changed completely.

  Where Gustav had conducted an offensive war, Oxenstierna shifted to a defensive strategy. Peace or at least the turning of the war over to the Protestant princes and cities was his objective with Sweden retaining the all important Baltic coastal areas. Fortunately for the chancellor, 1633 was a year of relative military inactivity.

  After Lützen, Wallenstein had pulled back into Bohemia and by spring had built his army back to strength. He seemed ready for a strike at Saxony, but Arnim kept him at bay through negotiations, arranging truce after truce with his old commander. Oxenstierna appointed von Thurn army commander in Silesia in the hopes of keeping Wallenstein penned in, but Thurn proved to be incompetent and the Bohemian general moved north into Silesia with little problem and was poised to strike at Pomerania. Oxenstierna ordered Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, who had retained command of Gustav’s army of the Main-Danube and added a few contingents from the Heilbronn League, to advance east up the Danube. Maximilian’s Bavarian troops were occupied with a revolt of the Bavarian peasants. Bernard lay siege to and eventually took Regensburg. He might have carried the campaign on into Austria, but here he stopped, claiming jurisdiction over the whole area. The attack did have the intended effect; Wallenstein was ordered to break off his strike to the north and prepare for a defense of the emperor and Vienna if that became necessary.

  By the end of the year Maximilian had put down the revolt. Bavaria was again able to concentrate its forces against the Swedes and Austria was out of danger. Wallenstein, meanwhile, continued to agitate problems with his communications to Arnim and even schemed with France. His ambition was feared by both the emperor and Maximilian. Ferdinand finally declared him guilty of treason. Wallenstein was murdered by a renegade unit of his own troops February 25, 1634, in Eger. His death removed the last really aggressive element within Germany. More and more the Thirty Years’ War would be influenced by countries outside the empire.

  In 1634 France increased its hold on Lorraine, forcing the duke to flee, and crept steadily toward Alsace. Spain sent reinforcements to its garrisons in western Germany and in support of Ferdinand. The emperor placed Imperial forces under the command of his son Ferdinand of Hungary. Maximilian appointed the duke of Lorraine commander of the Bavarian Army. With Wallenstein gone, Arnim drove into Bavaria and tried to retake Prague, but was driven back.

  Imperial and Bavarian forces moved west retaking Regensburg and laying siege to Nördlingen by the first of September. The Imperial thrust had to be stopped and Oxenstierna ordered Horn’s Army of the Rhine and Barnard’s League army forward to re
lieve the siege. These combined armies numbered 25,000 men and looked sufficient to take on the Imperial-Bavarian Army. But on September 2, a Spanish army arrived, bringing the Imperial forces to over 33,000 men.

  The Swedish operation went wrong from the start. A surprise night attack was planned, but the baggage train and heavy artillery got ahead of the infantry advance and warned the Imperial army of the movement. The battle opened on September 6, 1634, with Swedish cavalry charges being thrown back. Scottish infantry gained a footing in the Imperial works, but were eventually driven out by a counterattack of Spanish infantry. Horn’s infantry made some progress, even outflanking the Imperialists, but was eventually stopped and reversed. A strong counterattack against Bernard’s wing pushed the Germans back into Horn’s retreating troops and the Swedish retreat became a rout. A considerable portion of the Swedish army was captured, including Field Marshal Horn. The battle to relieve Nördlingen was a disaster. All of the Danube was lost. Oxenstierna fell back to the Main and reorganized his forces. In March 1635, Duke Bernard was put in command of all Swedish and League troops in central Germany. John Banér retained his independent command in the northern part of the country.