Four days after the fall of Magdeburg, Tilly vainly implored Wallenstein to provide food for his men.[71] As the summer advanced every hopeful outlet was cut off. The Swedes beat him back in the north, taking Havelberg on July 22nd and overrunning Mecklenburg. Tilly had hoped that in this extremity Wallenstein would put his lands and resources at his disposal rather than lose his duchy to the enemy. But Wallenstein preferred to lose his duchy; he knew what he wanted.[72]
Desperate for food and quarters but still true to Maximilian’s policy, Tilly turned away from the Saxon border and marched south-westwards for Hesse; the Landgrave incontinently signed a treaty of alliance with the King of Sweden and called on Gustavus for immediate help.[73] Not daring to risk a pursuit, Tilly faced about once more and now, cut off on all sides in the wasted plain of Magdeburg, he had no choice but to march for Saxony.
It was John George’s turn to stand between two fires. On the one hand was the King of Sweden, more than ever anxious for his alliance since the destruction of Magdeburg had robbed him of his projected base on the Elbe; on the other hand was Tilly with his hungry troops, ravenous for the fleshpots of Saxony. One way or another, the pacific policy of John George was doomed, but he had acted more cautiously and could make better terms than his colleague of Brandenburg. When Tilly sent word that he was to disband his army or be declared contumacious to imperial authority, he evaded an immediate answer,[74] having the determination left to play off one enemy against another. He did not intend any open breach with the Emperor until he had sold himself dearly to the King of Sweden. Until the last minute he made it appear to Gustavus that he might yet jump in the other direction.
On August 31st, about fourteen thousand fresh troops, hastily gathered from the south and west, joined Tilly, bringing his numbers up to thirty-six thousand,[75] and four days later he crossed the Saxon border. Wild with renewed strength, Tilly’s troops flung themselves into the conquest of Saxony with a zeal they had not shown for months, and the rich town of Merseburg fell at their first attack. By the 6th they were already on the road to Leipzig, laying the province waste about them, their march slowed down by the weight of their booty.
In the crisis the two soldiers, Gustavus and Arnim, swept the negotiations out of John George’s hand.[76] Neither dared move without the other, for each misjudged Tilly’s strength. The terms of the alliance were hastily agreed and signed on September 11th 1631, the Elector promising to join Gustavus with all his troops as soon as he should cross the Elbe, to give him quarters and food in his lands, to hold the Elbe for him and perform all necessary actions for the defence of the key positions on the river in conjunction with him. He also agreed to make no separate peace and to give the chief, though not the uncontrolled, command of the two armies to the Swedish king so long as the emergency continued. Here was his loophole, for there was no criterion laid down by which the emergency could be measured, and John George was in fact free to withdraw from the alliance when he thought good. In return the King promised to keep good discipline in his army, to restrict the operations of war in Saxony as far as possible and to clear the Electorate of enemies before he proceeded to any further action.[77]
There was all the difference in the world between this treaty and the alliance concluded with Brandenburg; George William was bound helplessly to the invader’s policy, John George asserted his own dominance. The treaty might on the surface appear to give the King of Sweden all he wanted, but, in his anxiety for immediate help, he had agreed to that nebulous time limit on his ally’s obligations—a time limit to be judged and set by John George alone. From the moment of signing the treaty until his death, Gustavus was never certain of this ally; he had to act always so as to be sure of his continued goodwill. John George had neither created a German constitutional party nor defended the integrity of the Empire, but he had at least secured for himself, a native prince, a controlling vote in the decisions of the invader.
4.
Three days later, on September 14th 1631, Tilly stormed and took the fortress of Pleissenburg which guards Leipzig; on the following day he entered the city, his soldiers gathering an immense booty. Twenty-five miles to the north, the forces of the King of Sweden and the Elector of Saxony met at Düben and turned their faces southwards. It could mean nothing but annihilation for Tilly. Retreat was out of the question, even had he been able to drag his unwilling troops without a mutiny from the earthly paradise into which so many of them had come after months of wretchedness.[78] The nearest friendly country was Württemberg, but he would have to cross a hostile Thuringia, with the King of Sweden close on his heels, before he reached it. If he attempted to strike in the opposite direction, traverse the still undefended southern part of Saxony and fall back on Bohemia, he would find no welcome from Wallenstein, the uncrowned ruler of Bohemia, and would encourage the advance of the Swedish King into the very heart of the imperial lands. Retreat was therefore impossible; Tilly’s best hope was to barricade himself in Leipzig and play for time until General Aldringer should come up with the reinforcements which the Emperor was hurriedly raising.[79]
Gustavus, on the other hand, stood to gain by hazarding a battle. A startling victory would confirm the recent friendship of John George, who was clamorous for the rescue of his cherished Leipzig; besides, the joint Saxon and Swedish army outnumbered Tilly’s by ten thousand men.[80]
The veteran Catholic general was a conscientious commander but had never been a great one, and with age his natural caution had increased. Unhappily, he had Pappenheim for his second-in-command, and while this skilful cavalry leader lacked the patience and grasp of detail necessary for the chief command, he lacked also the temperament for a subordinate post. He regarded Tilly as incompetent, if not actually senile. At Magdeburg he had given the order for attack without his chief’s assent and had carried the city; encouraged no doubt by this recollection, he did the same at Leipzig. On September 16th he left the camp with a reconnoitring party, and late that night sent back word that he had sighted the enemy, could not return without grave danger and must be supported where he stood. Never yet defeated, the arrogant nobleman doubtless already saw himself slaughtering these barbarian Swedes and raw Saxons as easily as he had slaughtered the peasants at Gmünden. He was utterly without fear, and the marks on his body bore witness to his repeated defiance of death; moreover there was a legend in his family that a scion of their house should kill an invading king and save the fatherland. Never a realist, Pappenheim throughout his military career attempted the impossible and sometimes achieved it by the very madness of his courage. But Leipzig was an ill-chosen moment for such a venture, and Tilly, clutching his head in anguish when he heard the news, loudly lamented: ‘This fellow will rob me of my honour and reputation, and the Emperor of his lands and people.’[81] Pappenheim had engineered a battle and Tilly had no choice but to follow him.
About nine o’clock on Wednesday, September 18th, the Protestant forces, cautiously advancing, came on the imperialists outside the village of Breitenfeld four miles to the north of Leipzig. The day was hot and a gusty wind made choking whirlwinds of the powdery dust which lies three or four inches deep on that dry ground; both sun and wind were against the King of Sweden. So also was the slight, but almost imperceptible, incline of the ground.
Tilly’s army was drawn up in the traditional formation, the infantry in the centre, the cavalry massed on the wings, Tilly commanding in the centre and Pappenheim on the left. As soon as the enemy came in sight, the imperialists opened fire and continued to bombard Gustavus’s lines, although with singularly small effect, while he marshalled his men for action. On the left wing was the Saxon cavalry with the Elector himself, very spick and span with well-polished arms and handsome uniforms, the officers, young noblemen of Saxony, in gay scarves and cloaks; ‘a cheerful and beautiful company to see’, said the Swedish King. Next came the Saxon detachment of infantry, and then part of the Swedish infantry in the centre, and on the right wing the rest of the infantry with Gustav
us’s cavalry. Here Tilly’s veterans saw a strange formation rapidly come into shape: instead of massing his horsemen in columns riding almost knee to knee, the King formed his cavalry in small squares, each square having room to skirmish, and each man space to move on all sides. Between these groups were smaller detachments of musketeers, so that in place of the uniform appearance to which they were accustomed, Tilly’s officers perceived a loosely extended chess-board in which squares of infantry and cavalry alternated. Hardly had they had time to note this peculiarity than they became aware of another and an even more disturbing characteristic. Gustavus had trained his musketeers to stand in files of five, one behind the other, the front man kneeling so that the first two could fire simultaneously; they then walked to the back of the file, and the process was repeated by the next two, the men making ready to fire as they came up to the front. By dint of unceasing practice, Gustavus had brought this drill to such brisk perfection that his firing was not only three times as fast as Tilly’s, but far more than three times as effective. No matter which way the attack came, the chess-board formation made it possible for both cavalry and musketeers to change their direction with the slightest possible delay. For seven hours on end, through clouds of blinding dust, Tilly was to hear the regular, unceasing chatter of the Swedish musketry.[82]
It was nearly half past two before either side moved, and the sun was shining almost full into the faces of the Swedes. Pappenheim moved first; sweeping outwards, he made a wide circle beyond the immediate range of Gustavus’s deadly firing, and crashed in behind the main body of the Swedish cavalry on to the reserves. Had Gustavus’s troops been drawn up in the habitual formation, this charge of Pappenheim’s might have been fatal, but the Swedish cavalry immediately faced about so that the enemy was trapped at right angles between the reserves and the main body. Baffled, Pappenheim withdrew as best he could; seeing the embarrassment of their left wing and judging that it would be best to attack the Saxons when the Swedes were fully engaged, both Tilly in the centre and Fuerstenberg, his commander on the right, took the opportunity to charge for the Saxon guns, which were massed between the Saxon horse on the left wing of the opposing army and the Saxon foot in the centre.
John George’s untried forces had faced the redoubtable foe boldly for the last two hours, but now a sudden redoubled energy among the enemy musketeers played havoc with their front line, and when the great mass of the opposing column moved forward with deafening uproar, more than half concealed in dust, the Saxon front line was already wavering. The Croatian cavalry led the charge, their red cloaks streaming in the wind, their sabres flashing, while such outlandish cries issued from their mouths that the Saxons imagined nothing less than that these were the devil’s minions hot from hell. John George himself, brave enough in the hunting field, had never imagined such fury as was now bearing down upon him. The gunners fled first, and the cannon were seized; sweating and straining in the stifling dust, the imperialists dragged them round to face the Saxon cavalry and opened fire. Until that moment Arnim might yet have rallied his wavering troops, but the new disaster overpowered them. John George himself spurred his horse out of the battle without more ado, and never drew rein until he reached Eilenburg, fifteen miles away. Of his cavalry, two whole regiments, being Saxon subjects and more inclined to follow their ruler’s example than to obey their newly appointed general, defied Arnim’s efforts, threw away their arms and ran or rode for safety. They were wiser or less well mounted than the Elector, for they had not gone a mile before they realized there was no pursuit and, snatching an immediate advantage from their disaster, fell upon the Swedish baggage wagons in the rear and carried off all that they could lay hands on.
The Saxon cavalry being thus broken, and most of the infantry gone, the imperialist cavalry on both wings reformed and charged the Swedes. For all the good that the Saxon arms had done, the King might never have signed his treaty with John George; the whole brunt of the imperialist attack must now be borne by the Swedes alone, and the once incredible victory of the imperialists seemed now assured. Two things saved the King of Sweden—his own genius and the caprice of the wind. The Swedish squares stood like a rock against which Tilly’s cavalry broke in vain, and up each of the innumerable alleys between the narrow groups of horsemen, on whichever side the imperialists attacked, came that unrelenting stream of deadly fire. The King and his officers, without armour, in their buff coats and plumed hats, showed themselves fearlessly wherever the danger was greatest, the King himself seeming to be everywhere at once, so that when the day was over he, of all men, had the most confused recollection of the fight. Blinded with dust, the sweat streaming from his face, he galloped up and down the lines, exhorting his men until his throat gave up, bawling hoarsely for a drink of water, and spurring off again before any one had time to hand him a flask.
Meanwhile the westering sun no longer shone into the eyes of the Swedes. The wind had veered and the powdery dust, the curse of that hard-fought day, blew in hot gusts into the faces of the exhausted imperialists. It was the occasion for which Gustavus had waited. After the first attack, his reserves of cavalry had taken no further active part in the fight and were now the freshest troops in the field. They were in two detachments, comprising about a thousand men whom the King now called forward: he intended himself to charge with the main body of the army, making a swerving movement to divide the imperialist cavalry from the infantry, while the reserves followed and engaged the cavalry alone. The manoeuvre succeeded; infantry and cavalry were cut off one from another, the Saxon guns recaptured and turned on the broken enemy. Already Tilly’s men had had more than enough, and now they were thinking of their booty stored in Leipzig. They began to break and fly, the Swedes pursuing them with great slaughter. Tilly himself, wounded in the neck and chest, his right arm shattered, left the field with only a few companions, too ill to know which way he rode or what was happening to his men. Pappenheim was left alone to save the army. The dust clouds, once his worst enemies, were now his only friends; under cover of fog and twilight he beat off the pursuers, and with about four regiments made good his retreat on Leipzig. He himself fought in the hottest of the rearguard action all the way; once, it was said, he cut himself free of fourteen Swedish soldiers. But he could not hold Leipzig, and on the following morning he withdrew his bedraggled troops towards Halle. More than twenty cannon—all the artillery—were gone, with nearly a hundred standards. Of the army, twelve thousand lay on the parched field of Breitenfeld and the long road to Leipzig, seven thousand were prisoners in the Swedish camp that night and soldiers in the Swedish army by the morning.
And whither now? In his weary mind, hot with the fiery images of pain, the drooping Tilly must have asked himself this question as he took shelter at an inn late that night on the road to Halle. But Pappenheim, burning with anger, indignant and contemptuous, snatched the first opportunity to write to Wallenstein: ‘It is hard for me to bear the burden of this disaster alone’, he said. ‘I see no other way to set the work on foot again but that your Excellency will once more take charge of this war to serve God and the faith, to help the Emperor and the Fatherland.’[83]
The first charge was made at half past two in the afternoon, but the ‘blue darkness’ had come up cool above the dust clouds before Gustavus was satisfied that the day was his. There was little rest that night round his camp-fires, and in the small hours he could not sleep for the deafening clatter that his men were making with the sacred bells they had looted from the priests in the defeated army. ‘How merry our brothers are’, the King laughed.[84]
It was thirteen years since the war had begun, and the Protestant fortunes had turned at last. From the day of Breitenfeld no man feared again the conquest of the Fatherland by the Hapsburg dynasty or the Catholic Church, and for more than a hundred years they kept September 17th as a day of thanksgiving at Dresden.[85] What the German princes could not do for themselves the King of Sweden had done for them, and the battle which freed their country from
the Austrian gave it to the Swede.
Certain events have a moral effect irrespective of their physical importance. The battle of Breitenfeld is one of these. It seemed to the Protestants of Europe both then and later that Gustavus on that day liberated Europe from the fear of Catholic-Hapsburg tyranny which had haunted her since the time of Philip II. But in fact the animosity of the Pope and Richelieu had undermined the religious policy of the House of Austria before Gustavus himself set foot on German soil. On the field of Breitenfeld he had struck not at the root but only at a branch of the Hapsburg tree. A bare week before, off the coast of Zeeland, a Spanish fleet bearing an army ready to land had been destroyed by the Dutch. This event, overshadowed in the popular report by the battle at Leipzig, struck a harder blow at the House of Austria. Its future depended above all on the recovery of Spain, and every defeat in the Netherlands made that recovery less possible.
The battle of Breitenfeld was a heavy blow to Ferdinand, but it did not break him. The most perilous time for the Protestants had not yet come. It was not the weeks which preceded the Swedish victory at Breitenfeld, but those which followed the Swedish defeat three years later at Nördlingen.
Yet this cannot affect the position of Breitenfeld in the history of Europe. Almost at once it became a symbol. The giant personality of the King, and his belief in himself, endowed his every action with miraculous significance, most of all this great battle, the first Protestant victory. Therefore it must take its place in the simplified tradition which is customarily called history, not because of what it achieved but because of what men thought it had achieved. It was as though the King of Sweden had written the incontrovertible truth about the situation in letters that every man could read. The Hapsburg dynasty was defeated; the last crusade had failed.
The Thirty Years War Page 33
