§ 9. Storming of Magdeburg.
That fate was not long in coming. The city was hardly in a state to make a desperate resistance. The council had levied men to fight their battle. But amongst the body of the townsmen there were some who counselled submission, and others who preferred taking their ease whilst the hired soldiers were manning the walls. On May 20, Pappenheim stormed the city. In those days the sack of a town taken by storm was claimed as a right by the soldiers, as firmly by those of Gustavus as by those of Tilly and Wallenstein. But a few weeks before, the Protestant population of Frankfort had been exposed to the violence and greed of the Swedish army, simply because they had been unable to prevent the imperialists from defending the place. But the sack of Magdeburg was accompanied by circumstances of peculiar horror. Scarcely had the first rush taken place over the walls when, either intentionally or by accident, some of the houses were set on fire. In the excitement of plunder or of terror no one thought of stopping the progress of the flames. The conquerors, angered by the thought that their booty was being snatched away from before their eyes by an enemy more irresistible than themselves, were inflamed almost to madness. Few could meet that infuriated soldiery and live. Whilst every form of death, and of outrage worse than death, was encountered in the streets, the shrieks of the wretched victims were overpowered by the roaring of the flames. In a few hours the great city, the virgin fortress which had resisted Charles V. and Wallenstein, with the exception of the Cathedral and a few houses around it, was reduced to a blackened ruin, beneath which lay the calcined bones of men, of tender women, and of innocent babes.
§ 10. Tilly's part in the matter.
For the horrors of that day Tilly was not personally responsible. He would have hindered the storm if he had been able. The tales which carried through all Protestant Germany the evil deeds of the old warrior, and represented him as hounding on his men to the wretched work, were pure inventions. He had nothing to gain by the destruction of Magdeburg. He had everything to gain by saving it as a basis of operations for his army.
§ 11. False policy which led to the disaster.
But if Tilly was not responsible for the consequences of the siege, he and his masters were responsible for the policy which had made the siege possible. That cathedral standing out from amidst the ruins of Magdeburg was but too apt a symbol of the work which he and the League had set themselves to do. That the rights of the clergy and the church might be maintained, all the homes and dwellings of men in Germany were to be laid waste, all the social and political arrangements to which they had attached themselves were to be dashed into ruin.
§ 12. Ferdinand refuses to cancel the Edict of Restitution.
Even now Ferdinand was preparing his answer to the last appeal of the faithful Protestant estates. The Edict of Restitution he would maintain to the uttermost. Of the armament of the princes he spoke in terms of contemptuous arrogance. Let John George and his companions in ill-doing dismiss their soldiers, and not presume to dictate terms by force to the head of the Empire. Ferdinand had declared the law as it was, and by the law he meant to abide.