Yet between Wallenstein and Gustavus it was impossible that there should be anything really in common. Wallenstein was large-minded because he was far removed from the ordinary prejudices of men. He was no more affected by their habits and thoughts than the course of a balloon is affected by the precipices and rivers below. Gustavus trod firmly upon his mother earth. His Swedish country, his Lutheran religion, his opposition to the House of Austria, were all very real to him. His greatness was the greatness which rules the world, the greatness of a man who, sharing the thoughts and feelings of men, rises above them just far enough to direct them, not too far to carry their sympathies with him.
§ 7. Political plans of Gustavus.
Such a man was not likely to be content with mere military success. The vision of a soldier sovereignty to be shared with Wallenstein had no charms for him. If the Empire had fallen, it must be replaced not by an army but by fresh institutions; and those institutions, if they were to endure at all, must be based as far as possible on institutions already existing. Protestant Germany must be freed from oppression. It must be organized apart sufficiently for its own defence. Such an organization, the Corpus Evangelicorum, as he called it, like the North German Confederation of 1866, might or might not spread into a greater Germany of the future. It would need the support of Sweden and of France. It would not, indeed, satisfy Wallenstein's military ambition, or the more legitimate national longings of German patriots. But it had the advantage of being attainable if anything was attainable. It would form a certain bulwark against the aggression of the Catholic states without necessitating any violent change in the existing territorial institutions.
§ 8. His military schemes.
If these were the views of Gustavus—and though he never formally announced them to the world his whole subsequent conduct gives reason to believe that he had already entertained them—it becomes not so very hard to understand why he decided upon marching upon the Rhine, and despatching the Elector of Saxony to rouse Bohemia. It is true that Oxenstjerna, the prudent Chancellor of Sweden, wise after the event, used to declare that his master had made a mistake, and later military historians, fancying that Vienna was in the days of Gustavus what it was in the days of Napoleon, have held that a march upon Ferdinand's capital would have been as decisive as a march upon the same capital in 1805 or 1809. But the opinion of Gustavus is at least as good as that of Oxenstjerna, and it is certain that in 1631 Vienna was not, in the modern sense of the word, a capital city. If we are to seek for a parallel at all, it was rather like Madrid in the Peninsular War. The King had resided at Madrid. The Emperor had resided at Vienna. But neither Madrid in 1808 nor Vienna in 1631 formed the centre of force. No administrative threads controlling the military system stretched out from either. In the nineteenth century Napoleon or Wellington might be in possession of Madrid and have no real hold of Spain. In the seventeenth century, Ferdinand and Gustavus might be in possession of Vienna and have no real hold on Austria or Bohemia. Where an army was, there was power; and there would be an army wherever Wallenstein, or some imitator of Wallenstein, might choose to beat his drums. If Gustavus had penetrated to Vienna, there was nothing to prevent a fresh army springing up in his rear.
§ 9. Necessity of finding a basis for his operations.
The real danger to be coped with was the military system which Wallenstein had carried to perfection. And, in turning to the Rhine, Gustavus showed his resolution not to imitate Wallenstein's example. His army was to be anchored firmly to the enthusiasm of the Protestant populations. There lay the Palatinate, to be freed from the oppressor. There lay the commercial cities Augsburg, Nüremberg, Ulm, and Strassburg, ready to welcome enthusiastically the liberator who had set his foot upon the Edict of Restitution; and if in Bohemia too there were Protestants to set free, they were not Protestants on whom much dependence could be placed. If past experience was to be trusted, the chances of organizing resistance would be greater amongst Germans on the Rhine than amongst Slavonians on the Moldau.
§ 10. He resolves to march to the south-west.
For purposes of offence, too, there was much to induce Gustavus to prefer the westward march. Thither Tilly had retreated with only the semblance of an army still in the field. There, too, were the long string of ecclesiastical territories, the Priest's Lane, as men called it, Würzburg, Bamberg, Fulda, Cologne, Treves, Mentz, Worms, Spires, the richest district in Germany, which had furnished men and money to the armies of the League, and which were now to furnish at least money to Gustavus. There Spain, with its garrisons on the left bank of the Rhine, was to be driven back, and France to be conciliated, whilst the foundations were laid of a policy which would provide for order in Protestant Germany, so as to enable Gustavus to fulfil in a new and better spirit the work left undone by Christian of Anhalt. Was it strange if the Swedish king thought that such work as this would be better in his own hands than in those of John George of Saxony?