by Will Durant
2. Wallenstein: 1623–30
His real name was Albrecht von Waldstein, and he regularly signed himself so.65 His family was one of the oldest in the Bohemian nobility. Born in 1583, he was educated first by the Bohemian Brethren, then by the Jesuits; he married a rich widow, who soon died, leaving him her fortune. He multiplied it by buying, at prices made nominal by the depreciation of the Bohemian currency, sixty-eight estates confiscated by Ferdinand. He was an intelligent and progressive landlord; he improved agricultural methods and production, financed industry, organized schools, medical services, and poor relief, and laid up surpluses to feed his people in time of famine. He impressed his contemporaries not only by his military genius, but by his tall, thin figure, his pale, stern face, his nervous restlessness, his pride and arrogance, his hot commanding temper. His “immutable chastity”66 made him seem superhuman. His confidence in astrology was more active than his faith in Christ.
He had endeared himself to Ferdinand by supporting him at every stage in the Archduke’s rise to power; and from 1619 onward he lent the Emperor great sums that almost financed the throne—for example, 200,-000 gulden in 1621, 500,000 in 1623. He exacted no security for these loans; it was enough that he owned a fourth of Bohemia, could raise an army at will, and could lead it with superlative skill. When, in 1624, the Valtelline passes had fallen under French-Venetian control, and Spanish soldiers and supplies could no longer go from Italy to Austria, Wallenstein offered to mobilize 50,000 men and put them at the service of the Emperor. Ferdinand hesitated, knowing Wallenstein’s love of power; but Tilly, in 1625, cried out for reinforcements. Ferdinand commissioned Wallenstein to mobilize 20,000 men. With startling speed this new army marched into Lower Saxony, well equipped, well disciplined, idolizing its commander, and feeding itself by ravaging the countryside.
Wallenstein repulsed Mansfeld at Dessau, and Tilly defeated Christian IV at Lutter (1626). Mansfeld died, and Christian found his diminishing army helpless and mutinous. The great alliance formed by Richelieu had fallen apart through Gustavus Adolphus’ jealousy of Christian IV, through England’s declaration of war upon France, and Buckingham’s expedition to aid the Huguenots at La Rochelle; Richelieu had to withdraw his forces from the Valtelline passes, which were again open to Austria and Spain. Wallenstein, his army growing with each day, marched into Brandenburg and forced its Elector George William to declare for the Emperor. He pushed on into Christian’s own duchy of Holstein, easily overcoming all resistance. By the end of 1627 all the mainland of Denmark was in his power.
The salt air of the Baltic inflated Wallenstein’s plans. Now that nearly all the northern coast of Germany and most of Denmark were under the Emperor, why not build an Imperial navy, revive the Hanse, and, in alliance with Catholic Poland, establish Imperial control over the Baltic and North seas? Then the Dutch and the English could no longer bring lumber from Baltic ports through the Sound to build their fleets for control of the North Sea and its trade, or to close the Channel to Spain. Imperial possession of the Palatinate gave the Emperor control of the Rhine; so the Dutch would be blocked on river and sea; their power, their wealth, their obstinate revolution would collapse. Gustavus Adolphus would be shut up in the Scandinavian peninsula. Already in 1627 Wallenstein was styling himself Admiral of the Oceanic and Baltic Sea.
The German princes were not quite happy over his victories. They noted that whereas the army of the Catholic League, under Maximilian of Bavaria and the Count of Tilly, was now fallen to some 20,000 men, Wallenstein commanded 140,000 troops, and acknowledged responsibility only to the Emperor. So long as the Emperor had this army behind him, he could make short work of the princely “liberties.” Indeed, Wallenstein was probably nursing the idea of ending feudal sovereignties and uniting all Germany into one powerful state, as Richelieu was doing in Trance and as Bismarck was to do in Germany 240 years later.
During the winter of 1627–28 the Imperial electors, meeting at Mülhausen, debated their hopes and fears. The Catholic electors were inclined to support Wallenstein, trusting that he would eradicate Protestantism from the land of its birth. But when Ferdinand deposed the Protestant Duke of Mecklenburg and transferred the duchy to Wallenstein (March 11, 1628), even the Catholic princes were alarmed by the Emperor’s assumption of power to depose and appoint dukes by his sole will. The electors had one card to play against Ferdinand. He was about to ask them to name his son King of Rome—i.e., to guarantee the son’s succession to the Imperial throne. On March 28 they notified the Emperor that while his armies continued under Wallenstein’s command they would not guarantee the succession. And Maximilian of Bavaria warned him that the general’s army and power, if not soon reduced, would dictate Imperial policy.
As if to point this warning, Wallenstein, apparently on his own authority, began secret negotiations with Christian IV, culminating in the Peace of Lübeck (May 22, 1629). To the surprise of Europe he restored to the Danish King Jutland, Schleswig, and the royal portion of Holstein, exacted no indemnity, but merely required the cession of Christian’s German sees and military authority. What had motivated this generosity? Partly fear of a Western coalition against Imperial control of the Baltic and the straits; partly the belief that Gustavus Adolphus was planning to invade Germany. In the end, Wallenstein foresaw, the issue would be between himself and Gustavus, not Christian.
Ferdinand may have been disturbed by his general’s assumption of diplomatic authority, but his rising suspicions and jealousy had to be concealed, for he was now planning the boldest move of his career, and would need the support of Wallenstein’s troops at every stage of the perilous game. His Jesuit advisers had long been pleading with him to take advantage of his new power, and by Imperial edict to restore to the Catholic Church as much as possible of the property and revenues that had been taken from her since the outbreak of the Reformation, or at least since 1552. Ferdinand, strongly Catholic, saw some justice in the plea, but underestimated its practical difficulties. Since 1552 many properties originally belonging to the Church had been bought and paid for by their present possessors. To effect the restitution thousands of proprietors would have to be dispossessed, presumably by force, and the consequent chaos might throw all Germany into revolution. Maximilian of Bavaria had once favored the idea; now he was appalled by its scope and implications, and he urged the Emperor to defer it until a Diet could give it careful consideration. Ferdinand feared that the Diet would reject it. On March 6, 1629, he promulgated his Edict of Restitution. “There remains nothing for us,” it said, “but to uphold the injured party, and to send forth our commissioners that they may demand from the present unauthorized possessors the restitution of all archbishoprics, bishoprics, prelacies, monasteries, and other ecclesiastical property confiscated since the Treaty of Passau” (1552). This was the Counter Reformation with a vengeance. It was also an assertion of absolute Imperial power, such as even Charles V might have hesitated to assume.
The edict was met with widespread and passionate protests, but it was enforced. Whenever resistance was attempted Wallenstein’s soldiers were called in, and opposition collapsed everywhere except at Magdeburg, which successfully withstood Wallenstein’s siege. Entire cities—Augsburg, Rothenburg, Dortmund—and thirty towns passed into Catholic hands; so did five bishoprics and a hundred monasteries. Hundreds of Catholic parishes were reconstituted. As the principle Cuius regio eius religio was applied by the new owners, requiring the subjects to accept the religion of the ruler, thousands of Protestants were compelled to apostatize or emigrate; from Augsburg alone eight thousand went into exile, including the Elias Holl who had just completed its stately town hall. Exiled Protestant pastors wandered about the country begging for bread; the Catholic priests who had replaced them petitioned the government to give them relief.67 Only the coming of Gustavus Adolphus prevented the final success of the edict, and of the Counter Reformation in Germany.
Having used Wallenstein’s army to enforce the edict, and finding no Protestant a
rmies in the field, Ferdinand was no longer obstinate about retaining him. In May 1630 he asked the general to release 30,000 of his men for service in Italy. Wallenstein objected, urging that the King of Sweden was planning to invade the Empire; he was overruled, and the 30,000 men were taken. In July the electors again proposed the removal of Wallenstein. The Emperor agreed, and on September 13 he notified the officers of the army that their general had been replaced in supreme command by Maximilian of Bavaria. Wallenstein retired peacefully to his estates in Bohemia, knowing that Gustavus had landed on German soil and that the Empire would soon need a general again.
3. Gustavus’ Saga: 1630–32
We must not picture the great King as a Galahad going forth to save the true religion from idolaters. His task was to preserve and strengthen Sweden in political independence and economic development; for these ends he fought against Catholic Poland, Orthodox Russia, Protestant Denmark; if now he dared to match his modest resources against Empire, papacy and Spain combined, it was not because these were Catholic, but because they threatened to make his country the vassal of alien and hostile potentates. He felt that the best defense against such a threat was to establish Swedish bastions on the mainland. Protestant Saxony hesitated, and Catholic France was led to ally itself with Gustavus, because they knew that the issue was no theorem in theology but a struggle for security through power. Nevertheless religion, though a minor motive among the leaders, was a passionate stimulus among the people, and its energy had to be added to patriotism to lift the populace to martial holocausts.
So Gustavus, disembarking his 13,000 troops in Pomerania, offered himself to the north-German states as the savior of Protestantism, and to France as a sword against the swelling Hapsburgs. He waited for reinforcements from Sweden, Scotland, Brandenburg, and Poland, till he had some 40,000 men, well disciplined, armed with the new-style flintlock (not the old matchlock) muskets, and trained to move swiftly with their light artillery. The commander was still young, only thirty-six, but despite his campaigns he had grown stout, and was a problem to his horses as well as to his enemies. Nevertheless he was too often in front of the fray, confidently following his golden beard to victory. His soldiers loved him not because he was lenient, but because he was just. While German armies were followed by flocks of prostitutes so numerous that special officers were appointed to keep them in order, Gustavus allowed no courtesan in his camp, though wives were allowed to serve their soldier husbands.68 Every morning and evening each regiment attended prayer, and every Sunday it heard a sermon; here was the discipline of Cromwell’s Ironsides a decade before Cromwell’s wars. Like Cromwell, Gustavus forbade forcible conversions; wherever he conquered he left religion free.
He spent the remainder of 1630 in spreading his control through Pomerania and seeking allies. If he could associate in one crusade all the foes of the Hapsburgs, he might have an army of 100,000 men, fit to face Wallenstein’s. On January 13, 1631, France and Sweden signed a bond by which the King would find the men, and the Cardinal would supply 400,000 thalers ($4,000,000?) annually, for a five-year campaign; neither power was to make peace without the consent of the other, and Gustavus bound himself not to interfere with the exercise of the Catholic religion. Richelieu invited Maximilian to join this alliance; instead, the Duke-Elector sent Tilly to check the Swedish advance. Tilly took Neubrandenburg (March 19, 1631), and slaughtered the garrison of 3,000 men. Gustavus took Frankfurt an der Oder (April 13), and slaughtered the garrison of 2,000 men. While the King spent time in efforts to add John George of Saxony to his alliance, Tilly and Count zu Pappenheim besieged Magdeburg, which was still resisting the Edict of Restitution. On May 20, after holding out for six months, the city was taken; the victorious troops ran riot in four days of pillage; in the greatest shambles of the war 20,000 persons were slain—not only the garrison of 3,000 men, but 17,000 of the 36,000 inhabitants; and all of the city but the cathedral was burned to the ground. A contemporary writer described the scene:
Then was there naught but beating and burning, plundering, torture, and murder. Most especially was everyone of the enemy bent on securing much booty…. What with blows and threats of shooting, stabbing, or hanging, the poor people were so terrified that if they had had anything left they would have brought it forth if it had been … hidden away in a thousand castles. In this frenzied rage the great and splendid city that had stood like a fair princess in the land was now … given over to the flames, and thousands of innocent men, women, and children, in the midst of a horrible din of heart-rending shrieks and cries, were tortured and put to death in so cruel and shameful a manner that no words would suffice to describe, nor tears to bewail it.69
Tilly, now an old man of seventy-one, did what he could to stop the massacre; he rightly predicted that the Protestant states would “without doubt be only strengthened in their hatred” by this destruction of one of their fairest cities.
On July 22, 1631, the Elector of Brandenburg placed all his resources at Gustavus’ disposal; on April 30 John George allied Saxony with Sweden; and on September 17 the combined Swedish and Saxon armies overwhelmed the outnumbered forces of Tilly at Breitenfeld, near Leipzig. This was the first substantial Protestant victory in the war; it revived the spirit of the Protestant population; and the figure of the Swedish King, fighting without armor in the thick of that battle, covered with dust and sweat but guiding and leading his men fearlessly, became a heartening symbol to a people so recently divided, defenseless, and cowed by the army of Wallenstein. Mecklenburg was recaptured, and the deposed Duke was restored. One state after another entered the Swedish alliance; soon Gustavus controlled a line stretching across Germany from the Oder to the Rhine. He took up his headquarters at Mainz, in the heart of a region normally Catholic. In November John George marched his Saxon army, unresisted, into Prague, carefully sparing Wallenstein’s estates on the way.
Ferdinand, left with no ally but impoverished Spain and no general except the aged Tilly, turned humbly to Wallenstein (December 1631), and asked him to raise an army for the rescue of Bohemia and the protection of Austria. The proud general agreed, but on extraordinary terms: he was to have supreme command of all Imperial forces; he was to have authority to negotiate and sign treaties, except with Adolphus; in lands conquered by him he was to have the right of confiscation and pardon. In April 1632 all these conditions were granted. Wallenstein collected an army and the funds to finance it, offered John George a separate peace, and recaptured Prague without a shot. The Saxon army retreated into Saxony.
Meanwhile Gustavus took the field and defeated Tilly at Rain (April 15); Tilly died a fortnight later of his wounds, and Gustavus occupied Munich. Wallenstein marched out of Bohemia and joined his army with Maximilian’s. Gustavus was now greatly outnumbered in men; his allies, suspecting him of Imperial ambitions, were restless and unreliable; his troops, beginning to starve, were pillaging and alienating Protestants as well as Catholics. John George, in his cups, revealed his anxiety to rid himself of the Swedish King. Gustavus had hoped to capture Vienna, but now, fearing that John George would join Wallenstein, he turned north. At Nuremberg, conscious that the tide was running against him, he sent final instructions to Oxenstierna for carrying on the Swedish government and the war. At Erfurt he bade farewell to his wife. On November 16, 1632, at Lützen, near Leipzig, the two greatest generals of the age came at last face to face: Gustavus with 25,000, Wallenstein with 40,000 men. All day the armies fought and bled, wavered and re-formed. Wallenstein was forced to give way, but Pappenheim reversed that rout till, shot through the lung, he choked with blood and died. Gustavus, seeing his center retreat, put himself at the head of a regiment of cavalry and led a wild rally. A bullet struck his bridle arm, another his horse; he fell; a bullet entered his back; Imperial cuirassiers closed around him and asked who he was; he answered, “I am the King of Sweden, who do seal the religion and liberty of the German nation with my blood.”70 They drove their swords again and again into his body, and shouted
out the news of his death. Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, took over the command; and the Swedes, maddened by the loss of their King, carried everything before them, won the costly victory, and reclaimed Gustavus’ body, riddled with shot and sword. That night the defeated rejoiced and the victors mourned, for the Lion of the North was dead.
4. Degradation: 1633–48
Thereafter greatness left the war. Richelieu took the leadership of the German Protestants, Oxenstierna carried on his dead master’s will with wise diplomacy, Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar led the French, Banér and Torstensson the Swedes, to new victories; but the glory was departed and only the horror remained. The Protestant princes were half relieved at Gustavus’ death; they grudged the heavy price he had been forced to take for rescuing them from Ferdinand; and in the process their fields had been ravaged by the rival armies, their cities had been destroyed, and a foreign King had led Germans against Germans to a hundred thousand deaths.