Ere the first day of 1625 had dawned it was too late. Germany was already the prey of foreign intervention, but it was as yet the intervention of foreigners who had distinct interests in Germany. James of England had at last been forced to acknowledge the hopelessness of trying to settle the affairs of Europe after his own wishes, by means of an alliance with Spain. The rash visit of prince Charles and Buckingham to Madrid in 1623 had at length opened their eyes to the fact, which all the rest of the world had understood long ago, that Spain only valued the negotiations for the proposed alliance as a means of preventing James from drawing his sword in the German quarrel, and the alliance itself as a stepping-stone to the eventual recovery of England to the obedience of the Pope. Angry at the discovery, the prince and the favourite pushed the old and timid king unwillingly into war. In 1624 English envoys hurried between the courts of Sweden and Denmark and the princes of the lower Saxon circle, eager to negotiate a general alliance to win back the Palatinate. James himself received Mansfeld graciously in London, permitted him to enlist 20,000 men for the war in the Palatinate, and obtained permission from Louis of France for the army to march through France to its destination. The English dockyards resounded with preparations for a great maritime expedition against the ports of Spain and the treasure ships from the Indies. In March 1625, James died, and Charles and Buckingham, no longer hampered by an old man’s caution, threw themselves into the German war with a lightness of heart and want of foresight worthy of Frederick himself. Christian IV. of Denmark was the victim who fell into the trap which was so innocently but unerringly laid. Interference of Denmark, 1625. He, like other Lutheran princes, had watched with nervous anxiety the spread of the war into northern Germany, and had winced under the blow dealt to the Lutheran cause by the establishment of Catholicism by Ferdinand and Maximilian in Bohemia and the upper Palatinate. He was nearly concerned too in the question of the ecclesiastical lands, for he had secured for one of his sons the Protestant bishopric of Verden and the succession to that of Bremen. Alliance of England, Denmark, and part of north Germany against the Emperor and Spain, 1625. So when the offer came from England to pay him £30,000 a month, in addition to the sending of the naval expedition against the coasts of Spain, Christian felt that religion and interest combined to urge him to action. In May 1625, a treaty was made on those terms between Charles I. of England, Christian of Denmark, and the lower Saxon circle, and the first instalment of the English subsidy was duly paid.
Ill-success dogged their well-meant efforts from the first. In the previous year, Louis had at the last moment found reasons to recall his verbal permission to Mansfeld to cross the soil of France, and the troops had been sent instead into the Low Countries, where, unpaid and unprovided with necessaries, they fell victims to disease. The naval expedition, which, under Wimbledon’s leadership, arrived at Cadiz in the October of 1625, achieved nothing but disaster and contempt. In England quarrels broke out between Charles and his Parliaments, which effectually prevented the payment of the promised subsidies to Christian IV. Difficulties of Ferdinand. Nevertheless the united forces of Mansfeld, Christian of Brunswick, and Christian of Denmark, ill provided as they were, far outnumbered the army of Tilly and the League, and it was clear to Ferdinand and Maximilian that with discontent seething in Silesia, Bohemia, and Austria, with Bethlen Gabor again threatening the frontiers of Hungary, and the Danish forces invading upper Germany, it was absolutely essential to place another army in the field. Yet where was it to come from? The Emperor could not stoop to employ a brigand army paid by plunder like that of Mansfeld, but the resources of Maximilian and the League were strained to the utmost. Spain, threatened alike by England and France, could spare nothing, and Ferdinand’s treasury was as usual empty.
Wallenstein.
It was in this crisis that a man stepped forward to the help of Ferdinand, who is in some ways the most interesting figure of the Thirty Years’ War. Albert von Waldstein, or Wallenstein, was the younger son of an illustrious Bohemian family of Sclavonic blood. Educated partly by the Moravian Brethren and partly by the Jesuits, he never surrendered himself dogmatically to either creed, but out of the mysticism of both constructed for himself a religion, which, not unlike that of Napoleon afterwards, chiefly expressed itself in an unfailing belief in his own star. Thus removed somewhat apart from the controversies of the day, he was able to see more clearly through the mists which darkened the eyes of ordinary politicians. Statesmanship as well as interest and tradition led him to devote himself to the cause of the Emperor, as the one stable element in Germany among the disintegrating influences of rival religions and personal jealousies. True patriotism made common cause with ambition to urge him to risk much to keep the foreigner out of Germany. Common sense allied with dogmatic indifference made him see more clearly than others, that in toleration for all creeds lay the only possibility of civil unity. But statesman and patriot though he was in his conception of the real needs of Germany and the necessity of resisting foreign interference, his statesmanship and his patriotism were never allowed to free themselves from the trammels of an overmastering ambition. In the settlement of Germany, it was he who was to dictate the terms. In the ousting of the foreigner and the crushing of the factions, it was he who was to receive the lion’s share of the spoil. He was an imperialist, but only on condition of military independence. He was a patriot, but only on condition of being also a dictator. As long as the stream of his own policy and personal aggrandisement flowed in the same channel with that of the Emperor and his allies, all would be well. But should they diverge, Germany could no more contain a Ferdinand and a Wallenstein, than France could afterwards contain a Directory and a Napoleon.
Character of Wallenstein’s army.
Such difficulties were, however, in the womb of the future. For the present Ferdinand required a disciplined army and a capable general, and had not the means to provide himself with either. Wallenstein offered to raise 20,000 men without putting any additional strain on the treasury of the Empire, provided he might be allowed to support them by requisitions on the country in which they were quartered. As with Napoleon, war was to support war, not by the unlicensed waste and brutal plunder of a Mansfeld, but by orderly and methodical requisitions couched in the form of law. The Emperor accepted the conditions, though he well knew that the constitution of the Empire gave him no authority to levy requisitions. Directly the standard of Wallenstein was raised men flocked to it from all sides. Soldiers of fortune, peasants ruined by the war, younger sons who had to make their own way in the world, adventurers of all religions, and all nationalities, hastened to serve under a leader who had already carved for himself by his sword and his wits a colossal fortune out of the spoils of the Bohemian revolution. In the autumn of 1625, he found himself at the head of an army of 50,000 men, whose only bond of union was their allegiance to himself, and he advanced into the dioceses of Magdeburg and Halberstadt and spent the winter there in training his forces for the coming struggle.
The campaign of 1626.
The plan of campaign arranged by the king of Denmark and his allies was a simple one. Christian himself, with his own troops and those paid by the English subsidies, was to advance up the Weser against Tilly and the army of the League, thus securing the bishoprics of Bremen and Verden, and driving the enemy, as it was hoped, out of Halberstadt back to the line of the Main. Meanwhile Mansfeld was to operate against Wallenstein on the Elbe, push him back into Bohemia, and force him either to let go his hold upon the upper Palatinate, or lay Vienna open to a combined attack from the army of Mansfeld and that of Bethlen Gabor, who was again stirring on the side of Hungary. The plan, however, was better conceived than executed. No subsidies arrived from England, and Mansfeld had to begin his attack without the co-operation of Christian. Wallenstein awaited him withdrawn behind the line of the Elbe, having carefully fortified the bridge of Dessau, which was the key of his position. On April 25th, Mansfeld dashed himself in vain against the fortifications of the bridge, and Wallenstein, seizing the moment when the enemy, thrown into confusion by the repulse, was retiring in some disorder, took the offensive, and by a brilliant counter-attack turned the repulse into a complete rout.
Foiled in his attempt to force Wallenstein’s position on the Elbe by a front attack, Mansfeld now determined to turn it, and by making a long flank march through discontented Silesia, to effect a junction with Bethlen Gabor in Hungary, and advance upon Vienna from the east. The plan was not creditable to Mansfeld’s military genius. A long flank march, in the presence of a victorious force acting on interior lines, is one of the most hazardous operations in war; and with an army of soldiers of fortune dependent on plunder for their support, and ignorant of discipline, was doomed to certain failure. Wallenstein, leaving 8000 men to co-operate with Tilly against Christian, contented himself with moving slowly after Mansfeld on an interior circle covering Vienna, and finally entrenched himself at Gran on the Danube, about half-way between Pesth and Pressburg, where he awaited the combined attack. Mansfeld did not dare to risk another bridge of Dessau with his attenuated and dispirited force, recruited though it was by the half barbarous levies of the Transylvanian prince, while Bethlen himself saw that he could gain more by negotiation than by war. A truce was quickly made by which Mansfeld was obliged to leave Hungary. Death of Mansfeld, 1626. Ill in mind and body, the indefatigable adventurer attempted to make his way across the mountains to Italy in the depth of winter, in the hope of stirring up the Republic of Venice to greater exertions, but as he struggled on through Bosnia, death overtook him on the 30th of November. Thus suddenly disappeared from the scene one who by his military talents had been the chief obstacle to the success of the imperialists, and by his total want of morality and patriotism had been the greatest foe to the peace of Germany. His removal unfortunately came too late. The dragon’s teeth which he had sown produced a crop of military adventurers all over the soil of Germany as reckless and as able as himself, and already round the carcase of prostrate Germany were gathering the foreign powers, who did not scruple to use such auxiliaries for their own selfish purposes. For the moment the death of Mansfeld made the restoration of peace between the Emperor and Bethlen Gabor more easy, and on the 28th of December the treaty of Pressburg was signed by which Bethlen was to retain the sovereignty over the thirteen counties of Hungary, and the army of Mansfeld was disbanded.
Battle of Lutter.