Gustavus Adolphus had resumed his course of success: he came up with Tilly again on the Leek, April 10, 1632, and crushed his army; the general was mortally wounded, and the King of Sweden, entering Augsburg in triumph, proclaimed religious liberty there. He had moved forward in front of Ingolstadt, and was making a reconnaissance in person. “A king is not worthy of his crown who makes any difficulty about carrying it wherever a simple soldier can go,” he said. A cannon-ball carried off the hind quarters of his horse and threw him down. He picked himself up, all covered with blood and mud. “The fruit is not yet ripe,” he cried, with that strange mixture of courage and fatalism which so often characterizes great warriors; and he marched to Munich, on which he imposed a heavy war-contribution. The Elector of Bavaria, strongly favored by France, sought to treat in the name of the Catholic League; but Gustavus Adolphus required complete restitution of all territories wrested from the Protestant princes, the withdrawal of the troops occupying the dominions of the evangelicals, and the absolute neutrality of the Catholic princes. “These conditions smacked rather of your victorious prince, who would lay down and not accept the law.” He summoned to him all the inhabitants of the countries he traversed in conqueror’s style: “Surgite d mortuis,” he said to the Bavarians, “et venite ad judieium” (Rise from the dead, and come to judgment). Protestant Suabia had declared for him, and Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, one of his ablest lieutenants, carried the Swedish arms to the very banks of the Lake of Constance. The Lutheran countries of Upper Austria had taken up arms; and Switzerland had permitted the King of Sweden to recruit on her territory. “Italy began to tremble,” says Cardinal Richelieu; “the Genevese themselves were fortifying their town, and, to see them doing so, it seemed as if the King of Sweden were at their gates; but God had disposed it otherwise.”
The Emperor Ferdinand had recalled the only general capable of making a stand against Gustavus Adolphus. Wallenstein, deeply offended, had for a long while held out; but, being assured of the supreme command over the fresh army which Ferdinand was raising in all directions, he took the field at the end of April, 1632. Wallenstein effected a junction with the Elector of Bavaria, forcing Gustavus Adolphus back, little by little, on Nuremberg. “I mean to show the King of Sweden a new way of making war,” said the German general. The sufferings of his army in an intrenched camp soon became intolerable to Gustavus Adolphus. In spite of inferiority of forces, he attacked the enemy’s redoubts, and was repulsed; the king revictualled Nuremberg, and fell back upon Bavaria. Wallenstein at first followed him, and then flung himself upon Saxony, and took Leipzig; Gustavus Adolphus advanced to succor his ally, and the two armies met near the little town of Lutzen, on the 16th of November, 1632.
There was a thick fog. Gustavus Adolphus, rising before daybreak, would not put on his breastplate, his old wounds hurting him under harness: “God is my breastplate,” he said. When somebody came and asked him for the watchword, he answered, “God with us;” and it was Luther’s hymn, “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott” (Our God is a strong tower), that the Swedes sang as they advanced towards the enemy. The king had given orders to march straight on Lutzen. “He animated his men to the fight,” says Richelieu, “with words that he had at command, whilst Wallenstein, by his mere presence and the sternness of his silence, seemed to let his men understand that, as he had been wont to do, he would reward them or chastise them, according as they did well or ill on that great day.”
It was ten A. M., and the fog had just lifted; six batteries of cannon and two large ditches defended the Imperialists; the artillery from the ramparts of Lutzen played upon the king’s army, the balls came whizzing about him; Bernard of Saxe-Weimar was the first to attack, pushing forward on Lutzen, which was soon taken; Gustavus Adolphus marched on to the enemy’s intrenchments; for an instant the Swedish infantry seemed to waver; the king seized a pike and flung himself amidst the ranks. “After crossing so many rivers, scaling so many walls, and storming so many places, if you have not courage enough to defend yourselves, at least turn your heads to see me die,” he shouted to the soldiers. They rallied: the king remounted his horse, bearing along with him a regiment of Smalandaise cavalry. “You will behave like good fellows, all of you,” he said to them, as he dashed over the two ditches, carrying, as he went, two batteries of the enemy’s cannon. “He took off his hat and rendered thanks to God for the victory He was giving him.”
Two regiments of Imperial cuirassiers rode up to meet him; the king charged them at the head of his Swedes; he was in the thickest of the fight; his horse received a ball through the neck; Gustavus had his arm broken; the bone came through the sleeve of his coat; he wanted to have it attended to, and begged the Duke of Saxe-Altenburg to assist him in leaving the battle-field; at that very moment, Falkenberg, lieutenant-colonel in the Imperial army, galloped his horse on to the king and shot him, point-blank, in the back with a pistol. The king fell from his horse; and Falkenberg took to flight, pursued by one of the king’s squires, who killed him. Gustavus Adolphus was left alone with a German page, who tried to raise him; the king could no longer speak; three Austrian cuirassiers surrounded him, asking the page the name of the wounded man; the youngster would not say, and fell, riddled with wounds, on his master’s body; the Austrians sent one more pistol-shot into the dying man’s temple, and stripped him of his clothes, leaving him only his shirt. The melley recommenced, and successive charges of cavalry passed over the hero’s corpse; there were counted nine open wounds and thirteen scars on his body when it was recovered towards the evening.
One of the king’s officers, who had been unable to quit the fight in time to succor him, went and announced his fall to Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar. To him a retreat was suggested; but, “We mustn’t think of that,” said he, “but of death or victory.” A lieutenant-colonel of a cavalry regiment made some difficulty about resuming the attack: the duke passed his sword through his body, and, putting himself at the head of the troops, led them back upon the enemy’s intrenchments which he carried and lost three times. At last he succeeded in turning the cannon upon the enemy, and “that gave the turn to the victory, which, nevertheless, was disputed till night.”
“It was one of the most horrible ever heard of,” says Cardinal Richelieu; “six thousand dead or dying were left on the field of battle, where Duke Bernard encamped till morning.”
When day came, he led the troops off to Weisenfeld. The army knew nothing yet of the king’s death. The Duke of Saxe-Weimar had the body brought to the front. “I will no longer conceal from you,” he said, “the misfortune that has befallen us; in the name of the glory that you have won in following this great prince, help me to exact vengeance for it, and to let all the world see that he commanded soldiers who rendered him invincible, and, even after his death, the terror of his enemies.” A shout arose from the host, “We will follow you whither you will, even to the end of the earth.”