Incompetent, over-trustful, perpetually defeated and perpetually gathering their spent forces for a new attack, betrayed by one ally only to look for another, obstinate, wrong-headed and sincere, the King and Queen drew the interests of Protestant Europe towards Germany, and for nine disastrous years kept their cause alive until the genius of Richelieu and Gustavus Adolphus came to destroy for ever the Empire of the Hapsburg and the dominion of Spain.
In the dual combination Frederick was the figure-head, Elizabeth the spirit. His lands, his titles, real or assumed, his rights—these were the pieces on the board. ‘The grey mare’, wrote her brother the Prince of Wales, ‘is the best horse.’[24] It was Elizabeth who wrote voluminously to all the unofficial powers, her father’s favourite and the leading courtiers of France, Elizabeth who tactfully christened her new-born daughter Louisa Hollandina and asked the Dutch States to be godfathers, Elizabeth who dazzled ambassadors and substituted the currency of her favours for the money which her husband had not got.
Their first important ally was the youthful Prince Christian of Brunswick, who offered his services to recruit and lead a new army for which the Dutch were to pay. A younger brother of the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Christian had been created at eighteen ‘Administrator’ of the secularized bishopric of Halberstadt; he possessed little qualification for this office save an unreasonable dislike of the Catholics. ‘I must confess’, he wrote once to his mother, ‘that I have a taste for war, that I have it because I was born so, and shall have it indeed to my end.’[25] Handsome, lively and vigorous, Christian was his mother’s favourite son and had been spoilt from childhood. Irresponsible and opinionated, he affected soldierly manners and a blasphemous turn of speech, from which superficial tricks of adolescence he gained the reputation for reckless cruelty and vice which has clung to him for three centuries. When he was excited and a little drunk he certainly shouted down his elders, characterized the Archduchess Isabella as an alte Vettel,[26] and dismissed the German princes and the King of Great Britain with obscene brevity as cojones.[27] The best known of his atrocities, namely that he forced the nuns of a plundered convent to wait, naked, on him and his officers,[28] was invented by a journalist in Cologne. In fact, he showed consideration to his prisoners and courtesy to his enemies.[29]
Suspicious of the Hapsburg dynasty and hostile to the Catholic Church, Christian invested his commonplace political views with an aura of romance by declaring himself passionately, although chivalrously, in love with the beautiful Queen of Bohemia.[30] When she dropped her glove he pounced upon it with a flourish and to her laughing request for its return cried, ‘Madam, I will give it you in the Palatinate’.[31] Thereafter he wore it in his hat with the motto ‘Pour Dieu et pour elle’, a device which he also carried on his banners.
Christian was the material of which great leaders are made, had he had the patience to learn. With almost no money and very few officers, he raised an army of more than ten thousand men in the autumn of 1621. This feat, however ill-armed and ill-disciplined his troops, proves at least his dauntless energy and should earn a better name for the man who accomplished it than that of mere freebooter.[32] The ‘mad Halberstädter’ his contemporaries called him, but his madness smacked of inspiration.
Another ally had appeared at the same time in George Frederick, Margrave of Baden-Durlach. He was a devout Calvinist and a good German, who was impelled to act by the menace of the Spaniards on the Rhine. George Frederick was a popular ruler and despite his sixty years as energetic and high-spirited as a young man; these characteristics enabled him to raise an army of eleven thousand men, largely from among his own subjects. Thus by the spring of 1622 Frederick’s cause fluttered three gallant little flags in defiance of the Emperor—Mansfeld in Alsace, Christian of Brunswick in Westphalia, George Frederick in Baden.
The junction of these three forces on the Rhine would give Frederick an army of about forty thousand men, enough with dexterous leadership to handle Tilly and the Spaniards. At present the armies were far apart, Christian’s in Westphalia, the other two in the upper valley of the Rhine. Between them lay over a hundred miles of country and the rivers Main and Neckar, so that there was time for Tilly and the Spaniards to intercept them, and time, too, for the Archduchess Isabella, frightened at this recrudescence of Protestant arms,[33] to send her agents to suborn Mansfeld.
Frederick himself, meanwhile, left The Hague secretly in disguise and on April 22nd 1622 joined Mansfeld at Germersheim in his own Palatinate, to the delight of his subjects and the stupefaction of the general.[34] Mansfeld, indeed, who had not expected him so soon, was engaged as usual in bargaining for the price of his withdrawal with the agents of the enemy.[35] The arrival of his employer decided him to postpone the discussion and, crossing with the greater part of his forces on to the right bank of the Rhine, he intercepted the junction of Tilly with the Spanish general, Cordoba, and thrust him back with some loss on April 27th at the little village of Mingolsheim. Nevertheless, Tilly proved the better strategist, for while Mansfeld waited for the Margrave of Baden to come up with his army, he circumvented him unhindered and joined with Cordoba early in May.
The problem now before Frederick’s allies was how to outmarch the enemy’s joint forces and meet Christian of Brunswick, who was advancing slowly and with immense booty from the north. Mansfeld and the Margrave of Baden together hardly had enough troops to risk engaging Tilly and the Spaniards, but above all they needed the help of Christian’s treasure to keep their armies paid. The young prince had occupied the past months in extracting sums of money and precious metals, by blood-curdling threats, from the wealthy bishoprics of Münster and Paderborn. He had issued startling letters, suggestively burnt at the four corners, and bearing the words ‘Fire! Fire! Blood! Blood!’ to every sizeable village he passed. This method seldom failed to extract a ransom in hard cash from the people. He had also systematically stripped Catholic churches of their gold and silver ornaments, minting some of them into money with the impertinent superscription, ‘God’s friend and the priests’ foe’.[36] The letters and the money had sufficed to give him a reputation for blasphemous barbarity which was already broadcast over Germany by the pamphlet press. Curiously enough, his proven conduct was of the mildest: at Paderborn the cathedral chapter could find no fault with his manners, and he was at pains to restore the bones of their saints uninjured, provided that he might melt down the reliquaries.[37]
The first barrier between Christian and Frederick’s troops on the Rhine was the line of the Neckar. Unwisely, Mansfeld and the Margrave of Baden decided to cross it apart, hoping thus to divide Tilly and Cordoba. The plan failed; on May 6th the Margrave, trying to make the crossing at Wimpfen, found himself cut off by Tilly and Cordoba in person with the greater part of their troops. Although he was outnumbered his case was not hopeless, his loyal and zealous soldiers were pitted against an army seriously weakened by lack of provisions[38] and under a divided command. Relying on his cannon, the Margrave took up his position on a low hill dominating the flat country and entrenched his artillery with conscientious thoroughness. He had planned to break the advancing Spanish and Bavarian troops by a cavalry charge supported by a heavy cannonade. At first his plan seemed to work, Cordoba’s front line broke before his horsemen and the terrific bombardment of his well-placed batteries. Two of the Spanish cannon were seized and the whole of the Spanish wing began to waver, when suddenly, so suddenly that afterwards it was attributed to a miracle, the Margrave’s cannon ceased their murderous fire and his troops fell back in disorder. A white-robed woman, half-seen in the smoky air, floated above the heads of Cordoba’s men, and one of them, dumb from birth, cried out ‘Victory, victory!’ and urged his wavering comrades back to fight. Thus the legend: the white-robed woman was a cloud of smoke from George Frederick’s arsenal blown sky-high by a random shot. Seizing the chance, Tilly and Cordoba simultaneously closed in on the hill and forced the Badeners, after a long and murderous resistance, to relinquish th
eir guns and fly.[39]
Rumour had it that at nightfall, alone and dropping on his spent horse, George Frederick was battering on the gates of Heilbronn, calling to the astonished watchman, ‘Give me a drink, friend, I am only the old Margrave’. It was a fact that on the day after the battle, May 7th 1622, he rode into Stuttgart with a few wretched companions, a broken man.[40]
Yet from the military point of view very little had happened. Within the next few days more than two-thirds of the army were again collected. The destruction among Cordoba’s troops was nearly as serious, and Tilly’s men were in need of rest, refreshment, and better fodder for their horses. The passage of the Neckar could still be made while Tilly and Cordoba repaired their losses, was indeed made by Mansfeld who now struck boldly northwards across the neutral lands of the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. But the old Margrave, bowed down by the horror through which he had passed, the memory of the shambles to which he had brought his own loyal and trusting subjects, had no heart for further campaigning; as an ally he had ceased to be significant, and his reassembled army melted again for lack of organization.[41]
The chief necessity for Frederick was that Mansfeld and Christian should meet. The Neckar valley lay behind, and Mansfeld and Tilly both raced for the Main, the one to assist Christian’s crossing, the other to prevent it. Mansfeld’s quickest way lay across the lands of the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. This unoffending prince was a good imperialist, but he was unarmed, and when Frederick and Mansfeld appeared outside his small capital he was forced to shelter their army and give the leaders hospitality. In vain he himself attempted to evade responsibility by secret flight; brought back ignominiously, muddy and footsore from a long nocturnal walk, he was peremptorily required to hand over Rüsselsheim, a small fortress on the Main. With obstinacy that was almost heroic the Landgrave refused, and Mansfeld continued his march to the Main, indignant at the useless detour and carrying off the prince and his young son as hostages.[42]
This brief resistance saved the situation for Tilly and Cordoba. They reached the Main before Mansfeld and found Christian newly arrived at the bridge-head of Höchst, a mile or two west of Frankfort.
Christian’s army consisted of about twelve to fifteen thousand men, very moderately armed and with an artillery of three cannon, of which two were unfit to be used. He was therefore in no position to offer battle to his enemies. But he knew that Mansfeld was not far off and that he needed above all reinforcements and money. The problem for Christian was to cross the Main with as many men as he could and all his booty; and this, in the face of the united Spanish and Bavarian forces, Christian did. He lost two thousand men, he lost much of his baggage, he lost his famous three cannon, but he crossed the Main and joined Mansfeld with nearly all his cavalry intact and his treasury triumphantly saved.[43]
It was typical of the hide-bound military theory of the time that Christian’s exploit, because it had been foolhardy and extravagant of lives, should be decried throughout Europe as a crushing defeat. It was natural, no doubt, that Tilly and Cordoba should claim the victory, although they had signally failed in their only important object. It was less natural and very galling for Christian that when he joined Mansfeld and Frederick in the highest spirits, visibly denying the rumour that he had been killed,[44] the professional soldier should have nothing but hard words for what he had done.[45]
The united armies can hardly have numbered less than twenty-five thousand men, and if Tilly and Cordoba had more, their troops were by this time dispirited by continuous marches and the impact of two hard-fought engagements. Mansfeld may have been jealous of the youthful princeling who took precedence of him at meals and seems to have had a habit of dominating the conversation; certainly he had been intermittently ill throughout the spring and summer[46] and was tired and bad-tempered. His men were so short of money that Christian’s booty failed to satisfy them, and the question of fodder in the occupied country was becoming for them, no less than for Tilly’s troops, acute.[47]
Mansfeld’s only valuable possession was his army, and he did not wish to risk it in a joint action with the reckless Christian; he had neither the prince’s belief in the Protestant Cause nor his carelessness of the common soldiers’ lives. Unsupported, Christian could do nothing, and Mansfeld within a few days of the battle of Höchst insisted on retreating with the united armies over the Rhine to Landau, leaving the enemy in unhampered occupation of the right bank.
They were an ill-assorted and quarrelsome company which trailed southwards towards Alsace, Frederick explaining at intervals to the Landgrave that he was not technically at war with the Emperor,[48] Mansfeld arguing about what should have been done at Höchst, Christian declaring noisily to shocked listeners that he had peopled the bishopric of Paderborn with ‘young Dukes of Brunswick’ who would all grow up to keep the priests in order.[49]
Three weeks of Mansfeld’s company on a retreat was enough for Frederick. Making across Alsace, the troops set fire to one town and thirty villages; what shreds of reputation were left to Frederick were torn away by this conduct. In Strasbourg, where ten thousand fugitives had fled for shelter with all their cattle, famine was feared both for man and beast. Small wonder that a high-flown manifesto on the defence of the German Liberties was received with the utmost scepticism. The country was by this time so far wasted, the villages so deserted, that Mansfeld could not feed his army and must perforce march into Lorraine.[50] ‘There ought to be some difference made between friend and enemy’, lamented Frederick, ‘but these people ruin both alike . . . I think these are men who are possessed of the devil and who take a pleasure in setting fire to everything. I should be very glad to leave them.’[51] Mansfeld was equally tired of Frederick’s service, and on July 13th 1622, he secured the revocation of his and Christian’s commission.[52] This done, Frederick, without armies or possessions, almost without servants, retired to his uncle the Duke of Bouillon at Sedan, there in the intervals of bathing and tennis to search for new allies.[53]
Mansfeld was looking for employment, Christian for some new way to serve the Protestant Cause. For the time being they decided to act together. Rumour of distress in the United Provinces decided them to make northwards. Since the expiration of the truce everything had gone amiss for the Dutch; Spanish troops had overrun the neighbouring German province of Jülich, and with all his efforts Maurice could barely guarantee the safety of the frontiers. Offensive war was out of the question, and in the summer of 1622 Spinola crossed the border and laid siege to the key fortress of Bergen op Zoom.
Hardly waiting for a definite invitation, Mansfeld and Christian set off by the straightest way to the threatened city, trailing a belt of fire, famine and disease across the neutral bishoprics of Metz and Verdun and into the Spanish Netherlands. Their march was utterly unexpected, and in vain Cordoba, racing northward with a handful of troops, attempted to block their way at Fleurus. Here on August 29th Christian carved a way through the Spanish lines for himself and Mansfeld by five desperate charges, the fifth at last shattering the opposing troops and leaving the roads clear to what remained of the victorious army. He had been wounded in the right arm and had to have it amputated a few days later, an occasion which he used for a spectacular display of physical courage. The operation was performed to a fanfare of trumpets and he commemorated the occasion by striking a medal with the superscription ‘Altera restat’.[54] On October 4th, meanwhile, he had arrived with Mansfeld just in time to raise the siege of Bergen op Zoom.
While Mansfeld and Christian were cutting heroic figures in the Netherlands, Tilly and Cordoba completed the subjection of the Palatinate. After a siege of eleven weeks the garrison of Heidelberg, hopeless of relief, marched out with the honours of war on September 19th 1622; the townsfolk, whose indignation at hardship had found vent in ceaseless bickering with their defenders, received less courteous treatment, and Tilly allowed his soldiery the customary reward of plunder.[55] ‘Voilà mon pauvre Heidelberg pris,’ wailed Frederick from Sedan, a
nd wrote desperately to the Kings of Great Britain and Denmark for help. None was forthcoming, and on November 5th Sir Horace Vere abandoned Mannheim on the same terms. Of all Frederick’s rich and beautiful country there was nothing left to him but the little fortress of Frankenthal, where a single English garrison still flew the forlorn banner of the Protestant Cause.
That winter in The Hague he and his wife were busy with new schemes. Bethlen Gabor and the Turks, the King of Denmark, the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, all these were to unite to encircle and destroy the Hapsburg.[56] It was in vain, for money and confidence were lacking. ‘The Palatinate’, said the wits, ‘was likely to have a numerous army shortly on foot, for the King of Denmark would furnish them with a thousand pickled herrings, the Hollanders with ten thousand butter boxes, and England with one hundred thousand ambassadors.’[57]
Frederick’s defences were gone, and Ferdinand realized that he need wait no longer. The time had come to fulfil his promise to Maximilian.
4.
There was a constitutional provision that the Emperor could not call a Diet on his own authority. It was not a Diet, therefore, but only a general Electoral meeting or Deputation-stag, called rather unwillingly by the Elector of Mainz which Ferdinand opened at Regensburg on January 10th 1623.[58] The Electors of Mainz, Treves, and Cologne, of Saxony and Brandenburg, the Dukes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Pomerania, and Bavaria, the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, the bishops of Salzburg and Würzburg either came in person or sent representatives, but the meeting was neither full nor enthusiastic.
Ferdinand had spent the intervening months canvassing the leading princes in preparation for the transference of the Electorate from Frederick to Maximilian. Apart from the Elector of Cologne, Maximilian’s own brother, almost every important prince in Germany was opposed to it. The Electors of Mainz and Treves objected on constitutional grounds; the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg had additional religious motives, fearing equally the increase of Ferdinand’s imperial power and the extension of his religious policy. In the course of the last year he had broken his word to John George of Saxony by forbidding the practice of the Lutheran faith in Bohemia,[59] so that the protection which the Elector had thought to give to the oppressed Protestants had failed utterly. His protests to Ferdinand, alike on behalf of the Bohemian Lutherans and in favour of more constitutional treatment of Frederick, met with the coolest response.[60] He was beginning to see that he had intervened to save the Emperor from an unconstitutional attack, only to lay Germany open to an onslaught more dangerous and more unconstitutional than anything of which Frederick had dreamed. Conscious of his weakness, he wavered from side to side, and Ferdinand realized that, while he could not count on John George’s further support, he would not have to reckon with his enmity.
The Thirty Years War Page 17