Among his enemies, during the remainder of the Thirty Years’ War there was nothing but the extremity of barbarous methods, over which it is well to draw a veil.
Gustavus Adolphus was tall, handsome, and strong. In his later years he grew so heavy that none but well-bred horses of great bone and endurance could carry him. But he rode fast and far. His bearing was noble, full of simple complaisance, and genuine. His quick mind robbed work of effort; his ideas were clear, and he expressed them crisply and in happy words; his voice was rich, his manner convincing. A remarkable memory served to retain the names and merits of his subordinate officers and numberless worthy men. He maintained stern discipline in a just and kindly spirit. His religious fervor was as honest as his courage was high-pitched. The Bible was his constant companion and guide. He began all his acts with unaffected prayer, and ended with thanksgiving. The Christian virtues never resided in a more princely soul. He was sober, of simple habit, and upright life. Towering over all around him in mind and heart, and inflexible withal, he was yet modest and ready to weigh the opinions of others. A tireless worker, he demanded equal exertion from his officials and aides. But in his intercourse with all men were kingly condescension and dignity joined. He was more than monarch,—he was a man.
What has Gustavus Adolphus done for the art of war? In a tactical sense, many things. Before him, not a few noted generals had introduced improvements naturally growing out of the introduction of gunpowder. Gustavus made various changes towards greater mobility. The cumbrous armies of the day were marshalled in battalia, which were huge, dense squares or phalanxes of deep files of musketeers and pikemen mixed, awkward and unwieldy. The recruiting of the day assembled many men of many minds, and the three arms worked at cross-purposes. Gustavus began by reducing the pikemen to one-third the entire infantry, and later (1631) formed whole regiments of musketeers alone. He lightened the musket, did away with the crutch-rest, till then used in firing, introduced wheel-locks, paper cartridges, and cartridge-boxes. He taught his men a much quicker manual of aims. The times and motions of loading and firing had been some one hundred and sixty; Gustavus reduced them to ninety-five, which sounds absurdly slow to us to-day. But his men none the less vastly exceeded the enemy in rapidity of fire. He lightened the guns of his artillery, and made the drill of other arms conform to its manœuvres, so that his whole army worked with one purpose. His batteries became active and efficient. In the Thirty Years’ War he generally had a preponderance of artillery over the Imperialists.
To secure better fire, Gustavus reduced his musketeers to six ranks, which to fire closed into three. This it was which principally gave it so much greater nimbleness of foot. The troops were well armed and equipped, and uniformed for the first time. Few wagons were allowed per regiment, and effectual discipline prevailed. Severe regulations were enforced. The behavior of the Swedish troops was the marked reverse of that of Wallenstein’s and Tilly’s forces. Service and seniority alone secured promotion; nepotism was unknown. The force Gustavus created was the first truly national regular army.
So much for discipline and tactics, which, in themselves, are of minor value. But what has given Gustavus Adolphus unfading reputation as a captain is the conduct, for the first time in the Christian era, of a campaign in which the intellectual conception overrides the able, consistent, and at times brilliant execution. From a mere contest of animal courage he had raised war at one step to what it really should be, a contest in which mind and character win, and not brute force. Little wonder that Gustavus, landing at Rügen to attack the colossal power of the German Empire with his 15,000 men, should have excited the laughter of his enemies, and have provoked Wallenstein to exclaim that he would drive him back to his snow-clad kingdom with switches. It appeared like Don Quixote riding at the windmills. But his action was in truth founded on as substantial a calculation as Hannibal’s march into Italy, and was crowned with abundant results. The method of his work could not but win. And Gustavus did one thing more. He showed the world that war could be conducted within the bounds of Christian teachings; that arson, murder, rapine, were not necessary concomitants of able or successful war; that there was no call to add to the unavoidable suffering engendered of any armed strife, by inflicting upon innocent populations that which should be borne by the armies alone. In both these things he was first and preëminent, and to him belongs unqualifiedly the credit of proving to the modern world that war is an intellectual art; and the still greater credit of humanizing its conduct.
LECTURE V.
FREDERICK.
While Frederick II., or as Prussians love to call him “Friedrich der Einzige,” had been brought up by a military martinet, and had gone through every step by which a Hohenzollern must climb the ladder of army rank, he had, in youth, exhibited so little aptitude for the pipe-clay of war, that few suspected how great his military achievements were to be. But Prince Eugene, then the greatest living soldier, whom young Frederick joined with the Prussian contingent in 1733, is said to have discovered in him that which he pronounced would make him a great general. Frederick had been a keen student of history, and there is nothing which trains the high grade of intellect and the sturdy character which a good leader must possess as birthright, as does the study of the deeds of the great captains, for out of these alone can that knowledge be gleaned, or that inspiration be caught, which constitutes the value of the art. The camp and drill-ground, however essential, teach but the handicraft, not the art, of war.
We all know how Frederick’s youth was passed: how his father sought to mould him into the ramrod pattern of a grenadier, and how he avoided the system by constant subterfuge. He was an intelligent, attractive lad, witty and imaginative, and possessed a reserve of character which grew abreast with his father’s harshness. As we know, Frederick William’s brutality finally culminated in an attempt to punish by death the so-called desertion of his son, to which his own cruelty and insults had impelled him. The succeeding years of retirement were full of active work, and no doubt gave Frederick the business training which in after life made him so wonderful a financier, as well as the opportunity for study; and perhaps the tyranny of his father added to his constancy and self-reliance as well as to his obstinacy, than which no character in history ever exhibited greater. Frederick William, before his death, understood his son’s make-up. Frederick ascended the throne in 1740, and from that day on he was every inch a king.
Frederick had certain hereditary claims to Silesia, in the validity of which he placed entire confidence, though no doubt his belief was colored by the desirability of this province as an appanage of the Prussian crown. Maria Theresa was in the meshes of the Pragmatic Sanction imbroglio. Frederick determined to assert his claims. He was, thanks to his father, equipped with an army drilled, disciplined, and supplied as none since Cæsar’s day had been, unconquerable if only the divine breath were breathed into it, and a well-lined military chest. Giving Austria short shrift, he marched across the border and in a few weeks inundated Silesia with his troops. From this day until 1763, when it was definitely ceded to him, Frederick’s every thought was devoted to holding this province. Nothing could wrest it from his grasp.
His first campaign, however, brought him near discomfiture. Field-Marshal Neipperg quite out-manœuvred Frederick, who, under the tutelage of old Field-Marshal Schwerin, had failed to carry out his own ideas, and cut him off from his supply-camp at Ohlau. Seeking to regain it, the Prussian army ran across the Austrians at Mollwitz (April 10, 1741). Here, but for the discipline of the Prussian infantry, the battle would have been lost, for the Prussians were tactically defeated. But these wonderful troops, drilled to the highest grade of steadiness, had no idea of being beaten. To them rout and disaster on all sides were as nothing. They stood their ground like a stone wall, and their five shots to two of the enemy’s finally decided the day. The young king had been hurried off the field by Schwerin when defeat was imminent.