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The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III by Kuno Francke (Editor in Chief)

K >> Kuno Francke (Editor in Chief) >> The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III




The terrors of the king's irresistible strength, and the near prospect
of his vengeance, had also compelled George, Landgrave of Hesse
Darmstadt, to a timely submission. His connection with the Emperor,
and his indifference to the Protestant cause, were no secret to the
king, but he was satisfied with laughing at so impotent an enemy. As
the Landgrave knew his own strength and the political situation of
Germany so little as to offer himself as mediator between the
contending parties, Gustavus used jestingly to call him the
peacemaker. He was frequently heard to say, when at play he was
winning from the Landgrave, "that the money afforded double
satisfaction, as it was Imperial coin." To his affinity with the
Elector of Saxony, whom Gustavus had cause to treat with forbearance,
the Landgrave was indebted for the favorable terms he obtained from
the king, who contented himself with the surrender of his fortress of
Ruesselheim and his promise of observing a strict neutrality during the
war. The Counts of Westerwald and Wetterau also visited the king in
Frankfort, to offer him their assistance against the Spaniards, and to
conclude an alliance, which was afterward of great service to him. The
town of Frankfort itself had reason to rejoice at the presence of this
monarch, who took their commerce under his protection, and by the most
effectual measures restored the fairs, which had been greatly
interrupted by the war.

The Swedish army was now reinforced by ten thousand Hessians, which
the Landgrave of Casse commanded. Gustavus Adolphus had already
invested Koenigstein; Kostheim and Floersheim surrendered after a short
siege; he was in command of the Main; and transports were preparing
with all speed at Hoechst to carry his troops across the Rhine. These
preparations filled the Elector of Mentz, Anselm Casimir, with
consternation; and he no longer doubted but that the storm of war
would next fall upon him. As a partisan of the Emperor, and one of the
most active members of the League, he could expect no better treatment
than his confederates, the Bishops of Wuertzburg and Bamberg, had
already experienced. The situation of his territories upon the Rhine
made it necessary for the enemy to secure them, while their fertility
afforded an irresistible temptation to a necessitous army.
Miscalculating his own strength and that of his adversaries, the
Elector flattered himself that he was able to repel force by force,
and weary out the valor of the Swedes by the strength of his
fortresses. He ordered the fortifications of his capital to be
repaired with all diligence, provided it with every necessary for
sustaining a long siege, and received into the town a garrison of
2,000 Spaniards, under Don Philip de Sylva. To prevent the approach of
the Swedish transports, he endeavored to close the mouth of the Main
by driving piles and sinking large heaps of stones and vessels. He
himself, however, accompanied by the Bishop of Worms, and carrying
with him his most precious effects, took refuge in Cologne, and
abandoned his capital and territories to the rapacity of a tyrannical
garrison. But these preparations, which bespoke less of true courage
than of weak and overweening confidence, did not prevent the Swedes
from marching against Mentz and making serious preparations for an
attack upon the city. While one body of their troops poured into the
Rheingau, routed the Spaniards who remained there, and levied
contributions on the inhabitants, another laid the Roman Catholic
towns in Westerwald and Wetterau under similar contributions. The main
army had encamped at Cassel, opposite Mentz; and Bernhard, Duke of
Weimar, made himself master of the Maeusethurm and the Castle of
Ehrenfels, on the other side of the Rhine. Gustavus was now actively
preparing to cross the river and to blockade the town on the land
side, when the movements of Tilly in Franconia suddenly called him
from the siege, and obtained for the Elector a short repose.

The danger of Nuremberg, which, during the absence of Gustavus
Adolphus on the Rhine, Tilly had made a show of besieging, and, in the
event of resistance, threatened with the cruel fate of Magdeburg,
occasioned the king suddenly to retire from before Mentz. Lest he
should expose himself a second time to the reproaches of Germany, and
the disgrace of abandoning a confederate city to a ferocious enemy, he
hastened to its relief by forced marches. On his arrival at Frankfort,
however, he heard of its spirited resistance, and of the retreat of
Tilly, and lost not a moment in prosecuting his designs against Mentz.
Failing in an attempt to cross the Rhine at Cassel, under the cannon
of the besieged, he directed his march toward the Bergstrasse, with a
view of approaching the town from an opposite quarter. Here he quickly
made himself master of all the places of importance, and at
Stockstadt, between Gernsheim and Oppenheim, appeared a second time
upon the banks of the Rhine. The whole of the Bergstrasse was
abandoned by the Spaniards, who endeavored obstinately to defend the
other bank of the river. For this purpose, they had burned or sunk all
the vessels in the neighborhood, and arranged a formidable force on
the banks, in case the king should attempt the passage at that place.

On this occasion, the king's impetuosity exposed him to great danger
of falling into the hands of the enemy. In order to reconnoitre the
opposite bank, he crossed the river in a small boat; he had scarcely
landed when he was attacked by a party of Spanish horse, from whose
hands he saved himself only by a precipitate retreat. Having at last,
with the assistance of the neighboring fishermen, succeeded in
procuring a few transport, he dispatched two of them across the river,
bearing Count Brahe and 300 Swedes. Scarcely had this officer time to
intrench himself on the opposite bank, when he was attacked by 14
squadrons of Spanish dragoons and cuirassiers. Superior as the enemy
was in numbers, Count Brahe, with his small force, bravely defended
himself, and gained time for the king to support him with fresh
troops. The Spaniards at last retired with the loss of 600 men, some
taking refuge in Oppenheim, and others in Mentz. A lion of marble on a
high pillar, holding a naked sword in his paw, and a helmet on his
head, was erected seventy years after the event, to point out to the
traveler the spot where the immortal monarch crossed the great river
of Germany.

Gustavus Adolphus now conveyed his artillery and the greater part of
his troops over the river, and laid siege to Oppenheim, which, after a
brave resistance, was, on December 8, 1631, carried by storm. Five
hundred Spaniards, who had so courageously defended the place, fell
indiscriminately a sacrifice to the fury of the Swedes. The crossing
of the Rhine by Gustavus struck terror into the Spaniards and
Lorrainers, who had thought themselves protected by the river from the
vengeance of the Swedes. Rapid flight was now their only security;
every place incapable of an effectual defence was immediately
abandoned. After a long train of outrages on the defenceless citizens,
the troops of Lorraine evacuated Worms, which, before their departure,
they treated with wanton cruelty. The Spaniards hastened to shut
themselves up in Frankenthal, where they hoped to defy the victorious
arms of Gustavus Adolphus.

The king lost no time in prosecuting his designs against Mentz, into
which the flower of the Spanish troops had thrown themselves. While he
advanced on the left bank of the Rhine, the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel
moved forward on the other, reducing several strong places on his
march. The besieged Spaniards, though hemmed in on both sides,
displayed at first a bold determination, and threw, for several days,
a shower of bombs into the Swedish camp, which cost the king many of
his bravest soldiers. But notwithstanding, the Swedes continually
gained ground, and had at last advanced so close to the ditch that
they prepared seriously for storming the place. The courage of the
besieged now began to droop. They trembled before the furious
impetuosity of the Swedish soldiers, of which Marienberg, in
Wuertzburg, had afforded so fearful an example. The same dreadful fate
awaited Mentz, if taken by storm; and the enemy might even be easily
tempted to revenge the carnage of Magdeburg on this rich and
magnificent residence of a Roman Catholic prince. To save the town,
rather than their own lives, the Spanish garrison capitulated on the
fourth day, and obtained from the magnanimity of Gustavus a safe
conduct to Luxemburg; the greater part of them, however, following the
example of many others, enlisted in the service of Sweden.

On the 13th of December, 1631, the king made his entry into the
conquered town, and fixed his quarters in the palace of the Elector.
Eighty pieces of cannon fell into his hands, and the citizens were
obliged to redeem their property from pillage by a payment of 80,000
florins. The benefits of this redemption did not extend to the Jews
and the clergy, who were obliged to make large and separate
contributions for themselves. The library of the Elector was seized by
the king as his share, and presented by him to his chancellor,
Oxenstiern, who intended it for the Academy of Westerrah, but the
vessel in which it was shipped to Sweden foundered at sea.

After the loss of Mentz, misfortune still pursued the Spaniards on the
Rhine. Shortly before the capture of that city, the Landgrave of Hesse
Cassel had taken Falkenstein and Reifenberg, and the fortress of
Koeningstein surrendered to the Hessians. The Rhinegrave, Otto Louis,
one of the king's generals, defeated nine Spanish squadrons who were
on their march for Frankenthal, and made himself master of the most
important towns upon the Rhine, from Boppart to Bacharach. After the
capture of the fortress of Braunfels, which was effected by the Count
of Wetterau, with the cooeperation of the Swedes, the Spaniards quickly
lost every place in Wetterau, while in the Palatine they retained few
places besides Frankenthal. Landau and Kronweisenberg openly declared
for the Swedes; Spires offered troops for the king's service; Mannheim
was gained through the prudence of the Duke Bernard of Weimar and the
negligence of its governor, who, for this misconduct, was tried before
the council of war, at Heidelberg, and beheaded.

The king had protracted the campaign into the depth of winter, and the
severity of the season was perhaps one cause of the advantage his
soldiers gained over those of the enemy. But the exhausted troops now
stood in need of the repose of winter quarters, which, after the
surrender of Mentz, Gustavus assigned to them in its neighborhood. He
himself employed the interval of inactivity in the field, which the
season of the year enjoined, in arranging, with his chancellor, the
affairs of his cabinet, in treating for a neutrality with some of his
enemies, and adjusting some political disputes which had sprung up
with a neighboring ally. He chose the city of Mentz for his winter
quarters, and the settlement of these state affairs, and showed a
greater partiality for this town than seemed consistent with the
interests of the German princes, or the shortness of his visit to the
Empire. Not content with strongly fortifying it, he erected at the
opposite angle which the Main forms with the Rhine, a new citadel,
which was named Gustavusburg from its founder, but which is better
known under the title of Pfaffenraub or Pfaffenzwang.[60]

While Gustavus Adolphus made himself master of the Rhine, and
threatened the three neighboring electorates with his victorious arms,
his vigilant enemies in Paris and St. Germain's made use of every
artifice to deprive him of the support of France, and, if possible, to
involve him in a war with that power. By his sudden and equivocal
march to the Rhine, he had surprised his friends, and furnished his
enemies with the means of exciting a distrust of his intentions. After
the conquest of Wuertzburg, and of the greater part of Franconia, the
road into Bavaria and Austria lay open to him through Bamberg and the
Upper Palatinate; and the expectation was as general, as it was
natural, that he would not delay to attack the Emperor and the Duke of
Bavaria in the very centre of their power, and, by the reduction of
his two principal enemies, bring the war immediately to an end. But to
the surprise of both parties, Gustavus left the path which general
expectation had thus marked out for him; and instead of advancing to
the right, turned to the left, to make the less important and more
innocent princes of the Rhine feel his power, while he gave time to
his more formidable opponents to recruit their strength. Nothing but
the paramount design of reinstating the unfortunate Palatine,
Frederick V., in the possession of his territories, by the expulsion
of the Spaniards, could seem to account for this strange step; and
the belief that Gustavus was about to effect that restoration silenced
for a while the suspicions of his friends and the calumnies of his
enemies. But the Lower Palatinate was now almost entirely cleared of
the enemy; and yet Gustavus continued to form new schemes of conquest
on the Rhine, and to withhold the reconquered country from the
Palatine, its rightful owner. In vain did the English ambassador
remind him of what justice demanded, and what his own solemn
engagement made a duty of honor; Gustavus replied to these demands
with bitter complaints of the inactivity of the English court, and
prepared to carry his victorious standard into Alsace, and even into
Lorraine.

A distrust of the Swedish monarch was now loud and open, while the
malice of his enemies busily circulated the most injurious reports as
to his intentions. Richelieu, the minister of Louis XIII., had long
witnessed with anxiety the king's progress toward the French frontier,
and the suspicious temper of Louis rendered him but too accessible to
the evil surmises which the occasion gave rise to. France was at this
time involved in a civil war with her Protestant subjects, and the
fear was not altogether groundless that the approach of a victorious
monarch of their party might revive their drooping spirit, and
encourage them to a more desperate resistance. This might be the case,
even if Gustavus Adolphus was far from showing a disposition to
encourage them, or to act unfaithfully toward his ally, the King of
France. But the vindictive Bishop of Wuertzburg, who was anxious to
avenge the loss of his dominions, the envenomed rhetoric of the
Jesuits and the active zeal of the Bavarian minister, represented this
dreaded alliance between the Huguenots and the Swedes as an undoubted
fact, and filled the timid mind of Louis with the most alarming fears.
Not merely chimerical politicians, but many of the best informed Roman
Catholics, fully believed that the king was on the point of breaking
into the heart of France, to make common cause with the Huguenots, and
to overturn the Catholic religion within the kingdom. Fanatical
zealots already saw him, with his army, crossing the Alps, and
dethroning the Vice-regent of Christ in Italy. Such reports no doubt
soon refute themselves; yet it cannot be denied that Gustavus, by his
manoeuvres on the Rhine, gave a dangerous handle to the malice of his
enemies, and in some measure justified the suspicion that he directed
his arms, not so much against the Emperor and the Duke of Bavaria, as
against the Roman Catholic religion itself.

The general clamor of discontent which the Jesuits raised in all the
Catholic courts against the alliance between France and the enemy of
the church, at last compelled Cardinal Richelieu to take a decisive
step for the security of his religion, and at once to convince the
Roman Catholic world of the zeal of France, and of the selfish policy
of the ecclesiastical states of Germany. Convinced that the views of
the King of Sweden, like his own, aimed solely at the humiliation of
the power of Austria, he hesitated not to promise to the princes of
the League, on the part of Sweden, a complete neutrality, immediately
they abandoned their alliance with the Emperor and withdrew their
troops. Whatever the resolution these princes should adopt, Richelieu
would equally attain his object. By their separation from the Austrian
interest, Ferdinand would be exposed to the combined attack of France
and Sweden; and Gustavus Adolphus, freed from his other enemies in
Germany, would be able to direct his undivided force against the
hereditary dominions of Austria. In that event, the fall of Austria
was inevitable, and this great object of Richelieu's policy would be
gained without injury to the church. If, on the other hand, the
princes of the League persisted in their opposition and adhered to the
Austrian alliance, the result would indeed be more doubtful, but still
France would have sufficiently proved to all Europe the sincerity of
her attachment to the Catholic cause, and performed her duty as a
member of the Roman Church. The princes of the League would then
appear the sole authors of those evils, which the continuance of the
war would unavoidably bring upon the Roman Catholics of Germany; they
alone, by their wilful and obstinate adherence to the Emperor, would
frustrate the measures employed for their protection, involve the
church in danger, and themselves in ruin.

Richelieu pursued this plan with greater zeal, the more he was
embarrassed by the repeated demands of the Elector of Bavaria for
assistance from France; for this prince, as already stated, when he
first began to entertain suspicion of the Emperor, entered immediately
into a secret alliance with France, by which, in the event of any
change in the Emperor's sentiments, he hoped to secure the possession
of the Palatinate. But though the origin of the treaty clearly showed
against what enemy it was directed, Maximilian now thought proper to
make use of it against the King of Sweden, and did not hesitate to
demand from France that assistance against her ally which she had
simply promised against Austria. Richelieu, embarrassed by this
conflicting alliance with two hostile powers, had no resource left but
to endeavor to put a speedy termination to their hostilities; and as
little inclined to sacrifice Bavaria, as he was disabled, by his
treaty with Sweden, from assisting it, he set himself, with all
diligence, to bring about a neutrality as the only means of fulfilling
his obligations to both. For this purpose, the Marquis of Breze was
sent, as his plenipotentiary, to the King of Sweden at Mentz, to learn
his sentiments on this point, and to procure from him favorable
conditions for the allied princes. But if Louis XIII. had powerful
motives for wishing for this neutrality, Gustavus Adolphus had as
grave reasons for desiring the contrary. Convinced by numerous proofs
that the hatred of the princes of the League to the Protestant
religion was invincible, their aversion to the foreign power of the
Swedes inextinguishable, and their attachment to the House of Austria
irrevocable, he apprehended less danger from their open hostility than
from a neutrality which was so little in unison with their real
inclinations; and, moreover, as he was constrained to carry on the war
in Germany at the expense of the enemy, he manifestly sustained great
loss if he diminished their number without increasing that of his
friends. It was not surprising, therefore, if Gustavus evinced little
inclination to purchase the neutrality of the League, by which he was
likely to gain so little, at the expense of the advantages he had
already obtained.

The conditions, accordingly, upon which he offered to adopt the
neutrality toward Bavaria were severe, and suited to these views. He
required of the whole League a full and entire cessation from all
hostilities; the recall of their troops from the imperial army, from
the conquered towns, and from all the Protestant countries; the
reduction of their military force; the exclusion of the imperial
armies from their territories, and from supplies either of men,
provisions, or ammunition. Hard as the conditions were, which the
victor thus imposed upon the vanquished, the French mediator flattered
himself he should be able to induce the Elector of Bavaria to accept
them. In order to give time for an accommodation, Gustavus had agreed
to a cessation of hostilities for a fortnight. But at the very time
when this monarch was receiving from the French agents repeated
assurances of the favorable progress of the negotiation, an
intercepted letter from the Elector to Pappenheim, the imperial
general in Westphalia, revealed the perfidy of that prince, as having
no other object in view by the whole negotiation than to gain time for
his measures of defence. Far from intending to fetter his military
operations by a truce with Sweden, the artful prince hastened his
preparations, and employed the leisure which his enemy afforded him,
in making the most active dispositions for resistance. The negotiation
accordingly failed, and served only to increase the animosity of the
Bavarians and the Swedes.

Tilly's augmented force, with which he threatened to overrun
Franconia, urgently required the king's presence in that circle; but
it was necessary to expel previously the Spaniards from the Rhine, and
to cut off their means of invading Germany from the Netherlands. With
this view, Gustavus Adolphus had made an offer of neutrality to the
Elector of Treves, Philip von Zeltern, on condition that the fortress
of Hermanstein should be delivered up to him, and a free passage
granted to his troops through Coblentz. But unwillingly as the Elector
had beheld the Spaniards within his territories, he was still less
disposed to commit his estates to the suspicious protection of a
heretic, and to make the Swedish conqueror master of his destinies.
Too weak to maintain his independence between two such powerful
competitors, he took refuge in the protection of France. With his
usual prudence, Richelieu profited by the embarrassments of this
prince to augment the power of France, and to gain for her an
important ally on the German frontier. A numerous French army was
dispatched to protect the territory of Treves, and a French garrison
was received into Ehrenbreitstein. But the object which had moved the
Elector to this bold step was not completely gained, for the offended
pride of Gustavus Adolphus was not appeased till he had obtained a
free passage for his troops through Treves.

Pending these negotiations with Treves and France, the king's generals
had entirely cleared the territory of Mentz of the Spanish garrisons,
and Gustavus himself completed the conquest of this district by the
capture of Kreutznach. To protect these conquests, the chancellor
Oxenstiern was left with a division of the army upon the Middle Rhine,
while the main body, under the king himself, began its march against
the enemy in Franconia.

The possession of this circle had, in the meantime, been disputed with
variable success between Count Tilly and the Swedish General Horn,
whom Gustavus had left there with 8,000 men; and the Bishopric of
Bamberg, in particular, was at once the prize and the scene of their
struggle. Called away to the Rhine by his other projects, the king had
left to his general the chastisement of the bishop, whose perfidy had
excited his indignation, and the activity of Horn justified the
choice. In a short time, he subdued the greater part of the bishopric;
and the capital itself, abandoned by its imperial garrison, was
carried by storm. The banished bishop urgently demanded assistance
from the Elector of Bavaria, who was at length persuaded to put an end
to Tilly's inactivity. Fully empowered by his master's order to
restore the bishop to his possessions, this general collected his
troops, who were scattered over the Upper Palatinate, and with an army
of 20,000 men advanced upon Bamberg. Firmly resolved to maintain his
conquest even against this overwhelming force, Horn awaited the enemy
within the walls of Bamberg; but was obliged to yield to the vanguard
of Tilly what he had thought to be able to dispute with his whole
army. A panic which suddenly seized his troops, and which no presence
of mind of their general could check, opened the gates to the enemy,
and it was with difficulty that the troops, baggage, and artillery
were saved. The reconquest of Bamberg was the fruit of this victory;
but Tilly, with all his activity, was unable to overtake the Swedish
general, who retired in good order behind the Main. The king's
appearance in Franconia, and his junction with Gustavus Horn at
Kitzingen, put a stop to Tilly's conquests, and compelled him to
provide for his own safety by a rapid retreat.

The king made a general review of his troops at Aschaffenburg. After
his junction with Gustavus Horn, Banner, and Duke William of Weimar,
they amounted to nearly 40,000 men. His progress through Franconia was
uninterrupted; for Tilly, far too weak to encounter an enemy so
superior in numbers, had retreated, by rapid marches, toward the
Danube. Bohemia and Bavaria were now equally near to the king, and,
uncertain whither his victorious course might be directed, Maximilian
could form no immediate resolution. The choice, of the king, and the
fate of both provinces, now depended on the road that should be left
open to Count Tilly. It was dangerous, during the approach of so
formidable an enemy, to leave Bavaria undefended, in order to protect
Austria; still more dangerous, by receiving Tilly into Bavaria, to
draw thither the enemy also, and to render it the seat of a
destructive war. The cares of the sovereign finally overcame the
scruples of the statesman, and Tilly received orders, at all hazards,
to cover the frontiers of Bavaria with his army.