27. Kiewning, I, p. 82.
28. Lundorp, III, pp. 998–1000; Ritter, Der Ursprung des Restitutionsediktes. Historische Zeitschrift, LXXVI, pp. 94–5.
29. Carafa, p. 374.
30. See Lundorp, III, pp. 1054–7.
31. Ritter, Ursprung des Restitutionsediktes, p. 85.
32. Lundorp, IV, pp. 1021–2.
33. Wittich, Magdeburg als Katholisches Marienburg. Historische Zeitschrift. LXV, p. 416.
34. Fiedler, p. 194.
35. Chlumecky, p. 94.
36. Lundorp, III, pp. 1045–7.
37. Ibid., IV, pp. 1–2; Lünig, pp. 71–80.
38. Lundorp, IV, pp. 3–8.
39. See Riezler, Geschichte, V, p. 357.
40. Hurter, Ferdinand II, X, p. 265.
41. Ranke, Die römische Päpste, p. 363.
42. Hurter, Ferdinand II, IV, p. 97.
43. Lundorp, IV, pp. 25–7, 35–6.
44. Hauschronik der Familie Holl. Munich, 1910, p. 87.
45. Lundorp, IV, pp. 31 f.
46. Kiewning, I, pp. 130, 141, 242.
47. Ibid., I, p. 141.
48. Ibid., I, pp. 158–9.
49. Ranke, Die römischen Päpste, p. 358.
50. Relazioni dagli Ambasciatori, Roma, I, pp. 319, 339, 360.
51. Lonchay and Cuvelier, II, pp. 471, 482.
52. Annales, XI, pp. 831–2; 400–1. See also Rodriguez Villa, Spinola, pp. 461 f.; Hennequin de Villermond, II, p. 259; Lonchay and Cuvelier, II, p. 471.
53. See Chlumecky, pp. 105, 114 f.
54. Priorato, Valstein, pp. 27–8.
55. See Ranke, Wallenstein, pp. 166 f.
56. Gindely, Die maritimen Pläne, p. 15.
57. Ibid., p. 30.
58. Christian issued credentials for the negotiation of peace on December 7th 1628, Ferdinand on the 19th. Hallwich, Fünf Bücher, III, pp. 423, 426.
59. Riksrådet G. G. Oxenstiernas Berättelse om Mötel mellan Gustaf Adolf och Kristian IV. Historiske Handlingar, VIII, iv, pp. 4–16; Oxenstjerna Brefvexling, II, i, pp. 463–4; II, iii, pp. 173–4; Fridericia, II, p. 179.
60. Chlumecky, pp. 131–3.
61. Fridericia, II, pp. 195–6, 237 f.
62. Chlumecky, p. 132.
63. Lundorp, IV, pp. 1092–3.
64. Ibid., IV, p. 19.
65. Sverges Traktater, V, i, pp. 347–56; Richelieu, Mémoires, ed. Petitot, II, XXV, pp. 133 f.
66. Handlingar rörande till Konung Gustaf Adolfs historia. Handlingar rörande Skandinaviens Historia, II, pp. 79 ff., Richelieu, Mémoires, II, XXV, pp. 150 ff.
67. See Gindely, Die maritimen Pläne, pp. 53–4.
68. Abreu y Bertodano, IV, pp. 105 f., 113 f.
69. Ibid., pp. 127 f.
70. Rodriguez Villa, Correspondencia de la Infanta, p. XXXI; Spinola, pp. 590 f.
71. Rodriguez Villa, Spinola, pp. 590 ff.
72. Hallwich, Briefe und Akten zur Geschichte Wallensteins, Vienna, 1912, I, p. 33; see also Kiewning, I, pp. 147–8; II, pp. 26, 377, 462.
73. Svenska Riksradets Protokoll, II, p. 2.
74. Archenholtz, Historische Merkwürdigkeiten, Leipzig, 1751, II, p. 29.
75. Richelieu, Mémoires, ed. Petitot, II, XXV, p. 119.
76. Hurter, Ferdinand II, X, p. 231.
77. Ferdinand, of course, regarded Sigismund III of Poland as Sweden’s rightful King.
78. Foerster, Wallenstein, I, p. 387.
79. Chlumecky, p. 218.
80. Hallwich, Briefe und Akten, I, pp. 12–19.
81. Roe, Negotiations, p. 43.
82. Lundorp, III, pp. 1084–8.
83. Lundorp, IV, p. 45.
84. Andreae, III, p. 109.
85. Hogl, Die Gegenreformation in Waldsassen, Regensburg, 1905, p. 78.
86. Lammert, pp. 97, 109.
87. Ibid., p. 119.
88. Gebauer, Kurbrandenburg in der Krisis des Jahres 1627, pp. 127–9.
89. Roe, Negotiations, pp. 36–8.
90. Ziegler, Deutsche Soldatenlieder, Leipzig, 1884, p. 18.
91. Cosmus von Simmern, Bericht über die von ihm erlebten Geschichtsereignisse. Baltische Studien, XL, pp. 28, 47–8.
92. Ibid., p. 34.
93. J. Krebs, Die Drangsale der Stadt Schweidnitz. Zeitschrift des Vereins für Geschichte und Altertum Schlesiens, XIV, p. 36.
94. Hurter, Zur Geschichte Wallensteins, p. 47.
95. Simmern, p. 37.
96. Lundorp, III, p. 996.
97. Einert, Ein Thüringer Landpfarrer. Arnstadt, 1893, pp. 2–3.
98. Gindely, Waldstein während seinses ersten Generalats, I, pp. 348 f.
99. Die Bauernchronik des Hartich Sierk. Flensburg, 1925, pp. 173–5.
100. Grimmelshausen, Simplicissimus, I, IV, XIV. The novelist, although he had experienced some of the incidents described in his book, naturally allowed himself a certain licence in the compilation of his story. One critic has pointed out the suspicious likeness between one of his scenes and a picture by Callot showing the same subject—the plundering of a farm-house. Both of these are set-pieces in which every form of atrocity is shown happening at the same moment. There is, however, evidence enough to show that all these things happened, though not all in the same place and on the same day.
101. Lundorp, IV, p. 40.
102. Gebauer, Die Restitutionsedikt in Kurbrandenburg, pp. 72–88.
103. Richelieu, Mémoires, ed. Petitot, II, XXV, p. 115; Relazioni dagli Ambasciatori, Roma, I, pp. 296, 337.
104. Hurter, Zur Geschichte Wallensteins, pp. 247–8.
105. Perhaps only the luckless Frederick of Bohemia; a case of poetic justice?
106. H. Günter, Die Habsburger Liga, Berlin, 1908, pp. 213–23.
107. Lundorp, III, p. 1103; IV, pp. 111–16.
108. Gindely, Die maritimen Pläne der Habsburger, p. 21.
109. Lundorp, IV, pp. 53–4.
110. Ibid., pp. 59 f.
111. Ibid., pp. 61 f.
112. Hermann Wäschke, Tagebuch Christians II von Anhalt. Deutsche Geschichtsblätter, XVI, V, p. 122.
113. Richelieu, Mémoires, ed. Petitot, II, xxvi, p. 285.
114. Hermann Wäschke, Tagebuch Christians II von Anhalt. Deutsche Geschichtsblätter, XVI, V, p. 132.
115. Lundorp, IV, p. 73.
116. Ibid., pp. 65–72.
117. Hermann Wäschke, Tagebuch Christians II von Anhalt. Deutsche Geschichtsblätter, XVI, V, pp. 129 f.
118. Lundorp, IV, pp. 72–3.
119. Dudik, Correspondenz, p. 273.
120. Hallwich, Briefe und Akten, pp. 54–5, 75 f.
121. Annales, XI, p. 1133; Pekař, Wallenstein.
122. Relazioni dagli Ambasciatori, Francia, II, p. 272.
123. Richelieu, Mémoires, ed. Petitot, II, XXVI, p. 377.
124. Ibid., VI, p. 360.
125. Wäschke, XVI, V, pp. 104, 110, 116.
126. Wäschke, p. 131.
127. Lundorp, IV, pp. 116–25.
128. Ibid., pp. 103–14.
129. See Heyne, Der Kurfürstentag zu Regensburg von 1630. Berlin, 1866, pp. 190–1.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE KING OF SWEDEN
1630–2
I hope more of the King of Sweden’s own person than of all his country . . . he is all and worth all.
THOMAS ROE
I make account of Your Majesty as of an angel of God
JOHN DURIE
1.
There was conflict between France and Spain; Germany was the fighting ground. This alone had come out of the jangled discords at Regensburg; Hapsburg or Bourbon must dominate this little section of the world. Ferdinand and his vision of united Empire, Maximilian and the German Catholic party, John George and the Lutheran constitutionalists, Wallenstein and his army, these were the weapons with which the dynasties fought out their rivalry.
The war was covert still, for neither Richelieu nor Olivarez could afford open hostility. The French monarchy still rode insecurely on the waves of barely still revo
lt: the Spanish treasury was drained by the Dutch and Italian wars, and each rival sought to ruin the other by indirect attack. The true welfare of Germany, Richelieu had stated, lay in her government by Germans to the exclusion of Spaniards;[1] Regensburg had shown him that the Germans, at least as represented by their quarrelling rulers, were incapable of carrying out that policy. He had no choice, therefore, for the safety of France but to exclude the Spaniards by means of foreign allies.
The Dutch were useful against Spain in the Low Countries, but they had no strength to spare for Germany. The English alliance had broken lamentably in his hand. The King of Denmark had retired defeated. By a process of trial and exclusion Richelieu’s interest had fastened at last upon the King of Sweden. The German Protestants looked towards Gustavus as towards the dawn, Richelieu had declared, and he made haste to secure for France the warmth of the rising sun. The preliminaries of a Franco-Swedish treaty had been outlined in December 1629,[2] and although Gustavus Adolphus had so far not confirmed these, French agents hovered on the outskirts of his march, and the ultimate alliance depended only on the detailed settlement of terms. Richelieu had lost no time in repudiating the guarantee, which his agents had given at Regensburg, that he would give no help to the Emperor’s enemies.
While Richelieu negotiated with the King of Sweden, substituting vicarious attack for open war, Olivarez sought to strengthen Spain so that open war would become too dangerous. He concentrated not on Germany, but on the Netherlands, and tried to forge the way to Spain’s recovery by the suppression of Dutch competition, the rehabilitation of Antwerp’s trade and the reconquest of the colonies.
2.
On July 4th 1630, the King of Sweden landed at Usedom. Stepping from the ship down the narrow gangway, he stumbled and slightly injured his knee,[3] an incident which contemporary historians, with a fine sense of the dramatic, instantly converted into a deliberate act; the Protestant hero, as soon as his foot touched the land, had fallen upon his knees to ask the blessing of God on his just cause.[4] The legend embodies at least a poetic truth, for whatever the forces behind the King of Sweden, his personal belief in his mission never faltered.
At the time of his landing, Gustavus Adolphus was thirty-six years old. Tall, but broad in proportion so that his height seemed less, fair, florid, his pointed beard and short hair were of a tawny colouring, so that Italian soldiers of fortune called him ‘il re d’oro’, and his more usual soubriquet, ‘the Lion of the North’, gained an additional meaning. Coarsely made and immensely strong, he was slow and rather clumsy in movement, but he could swing a spade or pick-axe with any sapper in his army. In contrast his skin, where it was not tanned by the weather, was as white as a girl’s. He held himself erect, a King in his every gesture, no matter to what task he lent himself. As the years went by, he stooped a little forward from the neck, contracting his short-sighted light blue eyes.[5] The King’s appetites were hearty and his dress simple; he wore for preference the buff coat and beaver hat of a soldier, relieved only by a scarlet sash or cloak. He could look as well in the ballroom as in the camp, but he did not on that account evade the toils of campaigning: he would sweat and starve, freeze and thirst with his men, and had stayed fifteen hours at a stretch in the saddle. Blood and filth mattered nothing to him—the kingly boots had waded ankle-deep in both.
Yet no greater mistake could be made than to imagine that Gustavus was simple because he was soldierly. Ambassadors, who were shocked by his too easy manners and the tactless directness with which he expressed his opinions, overcame their initial repugnance when they discovered the concentrated thought and practical knowledge behind his rapid judgements. Courtiers who took advantage of his friendliness raised a storm that they could rarely allay; servants who lingered to ask unnecessary questions were sharply sent about their business, and ambassadors whose credentials were not correctly inscribed with his titles could find no admission until the mistake was set right.[6]
Educated from his earliest childhood to the task of kingship, he had played in his father’s study during the transaction of state affairs almost before he could stand upright. At six years old he had accompanied the army on campaign, at ten sat at the council table and given voice to his opinions, and in his teens received ambassadors unaided. He had a smattering of ten languages, an interest in learning, perhaps a little perfunctory, and a passion for practical philosophy; he carried a volume of Grotius with him everywhere.[7]
Not excepting either Richelieu, or that prince so much advertised among his contemporaries, Maximilian of Bavaria, Gustavus was the most successful administrator in Europe. In the nineteen years of his active reign, for he had been king in word and deed since his seventeenth year, he had stabilized the finances of Sweden, centralized the administration of justice, organized relief, hospitals, postal services, education, evolved an elaborate and successful conscription scheme for his army and tackled the problem of an idle and ambitious nobility by forming the Riddarhus, an assembly of nobles who were responsible to the Crown for the government of Sweden. He was in no sense a democratic king; his theory of politics was aristocratic, but while his guiding hand controlled the aristocracy, one and a half million people in Sweden and Finland[8] enjoyed the smoothest rule in Europe. Moreover, he had encouraged commerce and developed the natural resources of his country, her mineral wealth especially. Sweden had the materials to manufacture her own armaments and she had used them; there had hardly been a full year of peace since the accession of the King.[9] In these circumstances, it was hardly remarkable that the Swedish Estates in 1629 had unanimously voted the subsidies for a three years’ war in Germany.
Gustavus had applied to war that same ardent and adventurous intelligence which he applied to the affairs of peace. An admirer of Maurice of Orange, he had developed the tactics of that prince so as to get the utmost mobility and efficiency from his troops. He had brought over Dutch professionals to instruct his men in the use of artillery and in siege warfare, and had himself experimented in the manufacture of a light and mobile form of cannon. His so-called ‘leathern’ guns were, however, only partly successful and he relied in general on quick-firing four-pounders, light enough for one horse or three men to move.[10]
Like all great leaders, Gustavus believed in himself as well as in his cause. Repeatedly in the moment of crisis he declared his unshaken conviction that God was with him. By education he was a Lutheran, but his toleration of the Calvinists more than once aroused doubts among his subjects and allies.[11] He was nevertheless convinced of the peculiar rightness of his own broad Protestantism, and could not easily conceive how any man could be persuaded by force to change his religion. Yet he was tolerant at least in this respect, that as he scorned those who were converted by compulsion, he scorned himself to use it. He was willing to allow the defeated, of whatever faith, to continue in their errors.
Gustavus was a brilliant administrator, a skilful soldier, fearless, resolute, impetuous; but these characteristics alone do not explain his power over his contemporaries. The cause lay rather in his own mind, in that terrific confidence in himself which hypnotized not only his followers but those who had never seen him. An Italian in Gustavus’s army, a soldier of fortune with neither nation nor faith to make him love the Swedish King, was paid to shoot him. More than once he levelled his pistol for the act, yet though the opportunity were never so favourable he could not fire; for as he looked his heart would turn to lead and his hand refuse to act.[12] Did fate indeed endow the King with supernatural armour, or did his own gigantic confidence, imparting itself to others, give him his virtue? ‘He thinks the ship cannot sink that carries him’;[13] that was the King’s secret, that his revelation, the inspired egoism of the prophet.
His dearest friend was his grey, taciturn, scholarly chancellor, Axel Oxenstierna, from whom alone he would accept advice and reproof. Gustavus had the impulsive passions of genius, Oxenstierna the cooler brain of the man of affairs; he was the expert who could translate his master’s diz
zy conceptions into the sane language of fact. ‘If we were all as cold as you,’ the King rated him, ‘we should freeze.’ ‘If we were all as hot as Your Majesty,’ replied Oxenstierna, ‘we should burn.’[14]
The chancellor needed something more than his actual twelve years’ seniority to give him his unique power over the King; his qualities were in some respects equal and in others supplementary to those of his master: he had the same immense energy, the same rapidity of judgement and flexibility of mind, the same or even greater powers of memory and gifts of organization. Both men enjoyed the same robust health, a characteristic important enough in a time of perpetual danger and unskilful doctoring: Oxenstierna in particular boasted of his ability to sleep soundly at nights in the midst of anxiety and danger. Twice only, he averred, did the political situation keep him awake; both occasions were during the German war.[15]
If Oxenstierna gives less the impression of a dominating personality than his master it is because his genius was less aggressive; he was a natural diplomat, courteous yet reserved, opportunist yet fundamentally honest, difficult to outwit yet difficult to dislike. He spoke German and French, particularly the latter, with astonishing fluency, and never missed those delicate ambiguities on which the French diplomatists occasionally relied. Brilliant as was his diplomacy, effective as he made his government in Europe both before and after the King’s death, he never found full outlet for his humane talents. He appears in his personal outlook and interests a far more civilized and generous man than the King himself: selfless, devoted, kindly in his personal relations, capable of profound affection, intensely interested in the improvement of Swedish culture and the welfare of the subject—such was the man whose chief part in European history was to engineer the continuance of war in Germany for sixteen years. That he performed, both before and after, much constructive work in Swedish administration is not to be denied, yet what he did for peace serves only to stress the loss to Sweden and Europe through the absorption of such men as he in the organization of slaughter. And in the end, whatever immediate glory the ruler and generals of Sweden gained, whatever impetus was given to Swedish trade, the bad even in Sweden outweighed the good, for the central authority was weakened by the ambitions of the soldiers, the people exhausted by the demands of the war, and the territorial gain untenable. Oxenstierna served his government and his King with all his powers, but both they and the times exacted the wrong service.
The Thirty Years War Page 30