"Your want of discipline convinces me of your evil intentions, whatever cause I might otherwise have to applaud your bravery. If you murmur, if you forget God and honor so that you forsake me, I shall surround myself with my Swedes and Finns; we shall defend ourselves to the last man, and the whole world shall see that being a Christian king, I have preferred to give up my life rather than to defile by a crime the holy work which God has entrusted to me.
"I request you, for God's sake, to commune with yourselves, and ask your consciences. Remember, you must give an account to God of your conduct, and that you will appear before the judgment seat of the all-seeing heavenly Judge."
Many were moved to tears, and promised to heed his words. Afterward, as the king passed through camp, he saw a cow before one of the tents. He took the young corporal before the court, saying: "Son, it is better I should punish you for this than that God should punish me and my army and all of us together." He punished several officers for stealing, so that while the Nurembergers paid the severe price of war, yet the king did his best for their protection.
But hunger continually pinched in the city and the camp. The one hundred and thirty-eight bakeries in the city could not supply the demand. Men fought for the bread as it came from the ovens. The horses died and infected the air, pestilence in the form of dysentery attacked both city and camp, so that twenty-nine thousand died, and graves could scarcely be found for them.
By August 12th Oxenstiern, Baner and Duke Bernard, also William of Weimar, brought in enough men to give the king an army of seventy thousand men, with an addition of sixty cannon, and four thousand wagons of supplies, clothing and ammunition, but not much food.
Wallenstein also received reinforcements. The lack of food for both camps was fast rendering the men unfit for service, so that the king now determined to attack Wallenstein in his stronghold. On August 21st, 1632, Gustavus thought he saw signs of Wallenstein's retiring, and on the 22d he attacked Wallenstein in his trenches. For twelve long hours the Swedish army stormed that hill with unbroken courage, but with dreadful losses. Bernard on the right held his ground. Gustavus commanded the left, and at his direction the cannon were dragged from place to place, the king pointing many of them with his own hands. In the morning of August 23d rain began to fall. The Swedes had lost four thousand men. Torstenston was prisoner, Baner wounded, the king had the sole of his boot shot away. They had fought all day and all night with insufficient food, and the Swedes were forced to retreat.
Nuremberg had lost over ten thousand inhabitants, and Gustavus, during the siege and battle, had lost twenty thousand of his faithful soldiers. The air was putrid from the decaying flesh of men and animals dead under an August sun.
On September 8th the king withdrew from Nuremberg, leaving a sufficient garrison under Oxenstiern, and four days after Wallenstein broke camp and left a trail of burning towns which for years marked the line of his retreat. He had lost fifty thousand men, and now moved northward to prey upon Saxony. Gustavus still had the desire to finish his work in Bavaria, but when he heard that Protestant Saxony was again under the enemy's heel, he prepared at once to move northward.
CHAPTER XII.
END OF A VALUABLE LIFE.
Wallenstein's letters would not do to use as historic authority, yet his report of the Nuremberg affair to his emperor probably was a fair statement from his point of view. He said: "The king lay fourteen days at Furth, and now having lost nearly one-third of his army from hunger and discomfort, has to-day departed, whither I cannot learn. For military reasons I should imagine that he would betake himself to the Main. I mean, at all events, to follow him and again fix my camp close to him. I hear that Pappenheim is coming this way too, so that we shall probably enclose the king from both sides." ... Later, he says: "I did not follow him first, because my cavalry was too scattered to do so; secondly, because he is sure to guard all passes in his rear; thirdly, because I did not wish to risk the fruits I have won. For I believe the king's course is already downward, that he has completely lost credit, and that he will be utterly done for as soon as Pappenheim arrives."