§ 6. He attacks the Saxons.
If he was not trusted, however, he might still make himself feared. Throwing himself vigorously upon Silesia, he forced the Swedish garrisons to surrender, and, presenting himself upon the frontiers of Saxony, again offered peace to the two northern electors.
§ 7. Bernhard at Ratisbon.
But Wallenstein could not be everywhere. Whilst the electors were still hesitating, Bernhard made a dash at Ratisbon, and firmly established himself in the city, within a little distance of the Austrian frontier. Wallenstein, turning sharply southward, stood in the way of his further advance, but he did nothing to recover the ground which had been lost. He was himself weary of the war. In his first command he had aimed at crushing out all opposition in the name of the imperial authority. His judgment was too clear to allow him to run the old course. He saw plainly that strength was now to be gained only by allowing each of the opposing forces their full weight. 'If the Emperor,' he said, 'were to gain ten victories it would do him no good. A single defeat would ruin him.' In December he was back again in Bohemia.
§ 8. Wallenstein's difficulties.
It was a strange, Cassandra-like position, to be wiser than all the world, and to be listened to by no one; to suffer the fate of supreme intelligence which touches no moral chord and awakens no human sympathy. For many months the hostile influences had been gaining strength at Vienna. There were War-Office officials whose wishes Wallenstein systematically disregarded; Jesuits who objected to peace with heretics at all; friends of the Bavarian Maximilian who thought that the country round Ratisbon should have been better defended against the enemy; and Spaniards who were tired of hearing that all matters of importance were to be settled by Wallenstein alone.
§ 9. Opposition of Spain.
The Spanish opposition was growing daily. Spain now looked to the German branch of the House of Austria to make a fitting return for the aid which she had rendered in 1620. Richelieu, having mastered Lorraine, was pushing on towards Alsace, and if Spain had good reasons for objecting to see Wallenstein established in the Palatinate, she had far better reasons for objecting to see France established in Alsace. Yet for all these special Spanish interests Wallenstein cared nothing. His aim was to place himself at the head of a German national force, and to regard all questions simply from his own point of view. If he wished to see the French out of Alsace and Lorraine, he wished to see the Spaniards out of Alsace and Lorraine as well.
§ 10. The Cardinal Infant.
And, as was often the case with Wallenstein, a personal difference arose by the side of the political difference. The Emperor's eldest son, Ferdinand, the King of Hungary, was married to a Spanish Infanta, the sister of Philip IV., who had once been the promised bride of Charles I. of England. Her brother, another Ferdinand, usually known from his rank in Church and State as the Cardinal-Infant, had recently been appointed Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, and was waiting in Italy for assistance to enable him to conduct an army through Germany to Brussels. That assistance Wallenstein refused to give. The military reasons which he alleged for his refusal may have been good enough, but they had a dubious sound in Spanish ears. It looked as if he was simply jealous of Spanish influence in Western Germany.