image unavailable: WALLENSTEINWALLENSTEIN
IN a previous chapter we have seen how a King of England got rid of a contentious Archbishop of the Church of Rome by assassination when the latter stood in the way of his usurpation. In a similar manner, also by assassination, an Emperor of Germany freed himself from a general who had twice saved him from ruin, but who had grown too powerful for his security, and whose loyalty he (perhaps justly) mistrusted. Although nearly three hundred years have passed away since Wallenstein’s assassination at Eger, Bohemia, the most searching investigations of historians have been unable to establish beyond a reasonable doubt the certainty or extent of his treasonable intentions, although there are strong indications that they existed, and that the crown of Bohemia, as a sovereign state, was to be the price which he exacted for his treason.
The religious war, which had broken out between the Emperor of Germany, as representative of the Catholic Church, and the Protestant princes of North Germany in 1618, had been waged with great cruelty and varying success for several years. Neither party had won such decisive advantages that the end of the terrible struggle,which partook as much of the character of a civil war as of a religious war, could be predicted with any degree of certainty. The most unfortunate feature of this strife was that not only the different German princes were fighting against each other, but that also foreign princes, upon the invitation of the Germans, participated in the struggle and gave their support to either the Catholic or the Protestant side. The German princes themselves had formed two different alliances: the Catholics had formed the League, while the Protestants were members of the Protestant Union; and both parties had powerful armies in the field commanded by experienced and able generals, the Catholics by Tilly, the Protestants by Mansfeld and the Duke of Brunswick. The greatest of these generals was perhaps Tilly, but he was extremely cruel and vindictive, fully as much from religious hatred for the enemies of his church as from natural disposition. His conquest and pillage of Magdeburg has given to his name a deplorable immortality. The Emperor of Germany, Ferdinand the Second, was rather nominally than actually the war-lord of the Catholic party; for the Catholic League, which had placed the army in the field, had elected Maximilian of Bavaria as its supreme chief. Thus, while the Catholic armies were called the Imperialists, and while the victories which they achieved were supposed to redound to the Emperor’s glory, Ferdinand could not repress a feeling of humiliation at the thought that he owed these victories and the advantages which resulted from them more to the generosity and loyalty of the Catholic League than to his own power and resources. Once or twice Protestant soldiers had even threatened him in his own imperialpalace, and he had owed his safety from capture or death only to the timely intervention of some Spanish and Croatian horsemen who dispersed the aggressors.
In November, 1620, Tilly had, at the head of a powerful army, won a decisive victory over the army of the Protestant Union by the battle of White Mountain; then, having restored Bohemia and Moravia to the rule of the Emperor, the victorious general quickly marched to the Palatinate, where the cause of the Protestants was at that time supreme. But he was defeated there by the Protestant army under Mansfeld and the Margrave of Baden; and at that time Protestantism might have been triumphantly established in western and northern Germany at least, had not the two victorious Protestant generals made the mistake of separating their armies,—a mistake which proved fatal to both of them. Tilly was not slow to see the advantage which he gained by this dismemberment of the army which had so signally defeated him at Wiesloch; he rallied his forces and defeated first the Margrave of Baden at Wimpfen, and shortly afterwards Mansfeld and the Duke of Brunswick at Höchst. Then the Protestant armies crossed the frontier of the Netherlands in the hope of receiving assistance from England.
In the meantime the German Emperor, emboldened by the successes of Tilly, strained every nerve to reëstablish Catholicism and stamp out Protestantism in the Empire. The excessive zeal which he displayed in accomplishing this purpose, and the terrible work of destruction which Tilly and his lieutenants were carrying on in all those districts of the Empire which were unfortunate enough to fall under their sway, were, however,the means of setting Protestantism on its feet again, of reviving the waning hopes of the German Protestant princes, and of arousing a powerful interest in their behalf among their neighbors. The most important accession which the cause of Protestantism had at that time was that of King Christian the Fourth of Denmark, who joined the Protestants with a large army and took supreme command in northern Germany.
Such were the conditions in Germany at the moment when the man who is the subject of this chapter appeared on the stage as principal actor in the terrible war of thirty years. This man, one of the most remarkable men of the seventeenth century, and one of the most eminent generals in German history was Wallenstein. For seven years he was the greatest man of the war, eclipsing the fame of Tilly himself, filling the minds of enemies and friends, and finally that of the Emperor himself, with vague fears and apprehensions of his treason and unbridled ambition. But in the flower of his age his life was cut short by the hands of assassins.
The Empire seemed to be hopelessly divided between Catholicism and Protestantism, and civil war with all its terrors and horrors laid waste its fairest provinces. The Emperor had lost much of his authority, while Maximilian of Bavaria, commander-in-chief of the armies of the Catholic League, wielded a power which was supreme wherever the so-called Imperialists held possession of country or town. It was a humiliating position for the Emperor, but he was utterly powerless to extricate himself from it. Suddenly a deliverer came to him in the person of Albert, Lord Wallenstein, a Bohemian nobleman, who had married the daughter of Count Harrach,the Emperor’s special favorite. He was immensely rich, and had won great military distinction in the Bohemian wars. It was this Lord Wallenstein who on a morning in June, 1625, presented himself before the Emperor Ferdinand of Germany with a proposition which, at first, appeared so extravagant and incredible to the Emperor himself and to his counsellors that they doubted the sanity or sincerity of the man who made it. But he insisted on the feasibility of his plan with so much eloquence and enthusiasm that they finally consented to it. Wallenstein proposed to the Emperor to enroll, entirely at his own personal expense, an army to fight for the cause of the Emperor and to protect his hereditary states, provided he should have the power to make that army at least fifty thousand strong, to appoint all the officers, and take supreme command himself, without being interfered with by other generals, no matter how highly stationed they might be. The immense wealth of Wallenstein guaranteed the financial success of the plan; moreover he received permission to make his army self-sustaining by pillage, marauding, and forced contributions in all those districts which it might temporarily occupy.
When the new plan and the appointment of Wallenstein to the command of a large army—larger than any other in the field—became known, the world, and especially Germany, was struck with amazement, and there were but few who believed that it could be carried out. But those who doubted did not know the tremendous energy, the boundless resources, and the towering ambition of the man. The plan was carried out to its fullest extent: within a few months a large and well-equippedarmy was ready to take the field, and Wallenstein, whose name was comparatively unknown in the history of war, suddenly assumed an importance which eclipsed that of the renowned generals of the Catholic League and of the Protestant Union. The suddenness of his elevation, the apparent mystery surrounding him, and the rumors of the royal rewards in store for him, made the imperialistic generals very jealous. It may be truthfully said that from the very moment Wallenstein took command of his army, he had not only to face the Protestant armies in the field, but also to guard against his Catholic rivals, who used their high connections at the imperial court to undermine his position and blacken his character in a most unscrupulous manner. The achievements of Wallenstein fully realized the high expectations of the Emperor. He displayed consummate generalship in the field, and had a magnetic power of attraction which caused his whole army, both officers and men, to idolize him. At the same time his army increased rapidly and wonderfully. It soon reached the one hundred thousand mark and still they were coming, while the armies of the League were decreasing at a fearful rate from camp diseases and the ravages of war. The Emperor made him Duke of Friedland, and “the Friedlanders” became soon a terror to friend and foe. In his march of victory, which extended from Hungary and Transylvania to the Baltic Sea, he swept the Protestant armies from the face of the earth. Where the Friedlanders had passed, no human dwelling, no human being remained to tell of the cruelty and devastation which had struck the country, and which fell with the same crushing weight on Catholics and Protestants. The army was tobe self-sustaining and was therefore given full liberty of pillage and marauding wherever it went. Coming to the extreme north of Germany, he invaded Mecklenburg, whose dukes had furnished men and money to the King of Denmark in his campaign against the imperialists. The King of Denmark had after a decisive defeat left Germany and returned to his own kingdom, and on Wallenstein’s approach the Duke of Mecklenburg also hastily decamped and left his country to the mercy of the conqueror. Wallenstein took possession of it and was rewarded with the title of Duke of Mecklenburg and the rank of a sovereign prince of the Empire. The royal crown of Bohemia, which rumor and secret whisperings designated as the reward in store for him after the conclusion of peace, was now not so far off as on the day he took the command of his army. But the higher he rose, the greater became the envy and hatred of his rivals, especially of the sovereign princes whose countries and cities had suffered from the passing of his army.
From Mecklenburg Wallenstein turned to Pomerania, where Stralsund, one of the greatest fortresses of the Empire, impeded his further progress. Wallenstein invested it with his army, and made several assaults, which were successfully repulsed. The brave inhabitants had sworn to hold out to the last and rather perish in the defence of their hearths and homes and families than surrender their city to a conqueror who showed no mercy to the vanquished. Wallenstein, on the other hand, was determined to enter the city as a conqueror. Hearing that the inhabitants would defend the city unto death, he swore that he would take it, even if it were boundwith chains to Heaven, and he laid a regular siege to it. But all his efforts were in vain. The Swedes succeeded in giving succor to the beleaguered city from the seaward side, reinforcing it with troops, ammunition, and provisions. Finally, after a delay of two months and a loss of twelve thousand men, Wallenstein abandoned the project of taking the city, raised the siege, and returned to Mecklenburg. There the conquest of the strongly fortified city of Rostock consoled him to a certain extent for his failure at Stralsund.
Emboldened by the great successes of Wallenstein and the almost complete overthrow of the Protestant armies, the Emperor rather rashly undertook to reinstate the Catholic Church in all its former privileges and to compel the Protestant states to restore all the property and real estate which had been confiscated and estranged from that church during the preceding eighty years. To carry out this imperial plan the so-called Restitution Edict was promulgated,—a very unwise measure, which spread consternation and alarm throughout the Empire, and fanned the dying embers of the religious war into a new flame. Not only Protestants, but many Catholics protested against the edict, and Wallenstein himself criticised it sharply. But the Emperor would not recede from the resolution he had taken.
Wallenstein’s influence was already rapidly declining; his overthrow was near at hand. In 1630 the imperial diet of Regensburg was held. All the sovereign princes of Germany, and especially all the Electors of the Empire were present, and they made jointly a terrible onslaught on Wallenstein, whom they all hated or envied. They united their complaints against him and demanded hisimmediate and peremptory dismissal from the service, as a punishment for the outrages committed by his army and for the extortions and exorbitant levies which he had made from friend and foe for his own self-aggrandizement. For a long time the Emperor resisted these demands and stood up for the great general to whom he owed so much; but he was anxious to secure the votes of the Electors for his son, the King of Hungary, as heir to the imperial crown, and the dismissal of Wallenstein was to be the price for these votes. He therefore issued the decree, deposing Wallenstein from his office of generalissimo of the army. It is said that he trembled in affixing his signature to the document, and that for weeks afterwards he lived in extreme fear of the wrath of the powerful chieftain. But Wallenstein took his disgrace very coolly. The news came to him at a moment when he was with Seni, a famous astrologer, in whom he placed implicit confidence. Seni had just predicted to him, from a configuration of the stars, that he would experience a tremendous disappointment, but that this disappointment would be followed soon by his complete reinstatement in all the honors which he might be deprived of. Wallenstein took the decree of deposition as the confirmation of Seni’s prediction. Without showing much irritation, and only with an expression of regret that the Emperor had been ill-advised and had yielded to bad counsels, he left the army and withdrew to Prague, the capital of Bohemia, to live there in royal splendor and luxury.
When Wallenstein’s soldiers were informed of the dismissal of their chief, whom they idolized and regarded with an affection mingled with awe and terror, therewas danger of an open revolt against the Emperor’s decree; but Wallenstein himself and some of his generals quieted their rage and suppressed all manifestations of rebellion. Thousands of soldiers and a great number of officers refused to remain in the Emperor’s service, declaring that they had enlisted only in order to serve under Wallenstein and under no other commander. More than one half of the entire army left the service, and most of the officers, at their own request, accompanied the deposed general to his new place of residence, Prague. The disgrace of the general, or rather the act of removal which, in the eyes of the German princes, was intended to disgrace him, turned out to be a triumph, greater than a victory in the field, and made his position in Germany even more conspicuous. Moreover, everybody seemed to feel that the hour of his reinstatement would soon come. And Wallenstein, on his part, neglected nothing to confirm this opinion, which flattered his vanity, and which he firmly believed would be realized, because “it was written in the stars.”
It was perhaps as a challenge to his princely enemies at the imperial court and in defiance of the Emperor himself that he established his household on a footing more becoming a reigning monarch than a private citizen. He had a secret desire to accustom the people of Bohemia to look upon him as the man who might, within a short time, be called upon to rule over them as king. Otherwise it is hardly reasonable to suppose that he would have paraded such wealth and magnificence as could not but confirm the charges preferred against him by his influential enemies,—namely, gigantic extortions and robberies of public and private moneys, and plans tosatisfy an insatiable ambition. His palace had six public entrances, and he caused a hundred houses to be torn down to enlarge the vacant place surrounding it. By day and by night it was guarded by sentinels, and during the night the public streets leading to it were barred with chains, that the rest of the Duke might not be disturbed. In the hall leading to the antechamber of his private apartments fifty halberdiers were constantly on guard, while sixty pages, all from the best families of Germany, four chamberlains, six barons, and a master of ceremonies belonging to one of the most illustrious houses of the Empire, were always ready to receive the orders of the great man. Whenever he travelled, his own carriage was drawn by eight full-blooded horses; his attendants followed in fifty carriages, each drawn by six horses, while as many baggage wagons, each drawn by four horses, transported the baggage for the ducal procession, and sixty richly mounted cavaliers formed the regular escort of “His Highness.”
As if Providence wished to advance the pretensions of Wallenstein, the Emperor’s affairs took a turn for the worse soon after his removal from the command of the army. Incensed at the intolerance of the German Emperor and his Restitution Edict, which was to be enforced in its full severity, Gustavus Adolphus, the great and high-minded King of Sweden, came to the assistance of the Protestant princes of northern Germany. He came not unsupported; behind him, and as his secret ally, stood the King of France, or rather Richelieu. This great French statesman, although a cardinal of the Catholic Church, saw the time had come to curtail the power of Austria, and therefore utilized the military genius ofGustavus Adolphus to effectually cripple the Emperor’s power, and to raise France to a predominant position in Europe. Richelieu equipped and subsidized the Swedish armies and, by doing so, enabled the Swedish King, whose country was comparatively poor and whose resources were consequently limited, to take the field in Germany with a strong force.
On the twenty-fourth of June, 1630, Gustavus Adolphus landed his army in Pomerania. That date marks the turning-point in the fortunes of the Thirty Years’ War. The Swedish King’s piety, and the strict discipline which he maintained in his army, stood in such glaring contrast to the excesses and outrages committed by the armies of Tilly and Wallenstein that the King was welcomed by the sovereigns of northern Germany as a savior and liberator. It is not our purpose to describe the glorious and victorious career of Gustavus Adolphus in the Empire. Suffice it to say that the conditions of victory and defeat, of triumph and despondency, were entirely reversed, that the imperial armies were unable to stem the tide of victory which had set in for the Protestant cause since the Swedish King’s appearance on German soil, that his progress southward was rapid and incessant, that the Catholic princes were either vanquished or fugitives from their states, and that the Emperor himself was trembling in his palace at Vienna, as report after report informed him of the uninterrupted onward march of the royal hero. Who can help? Who can oppose and prevent this steady march of conquest? To the terrified mind of the Emperor only one man presents himself. It is Wallenstein. But Wallenstein has been mortally offended by him. How can the Emperor humiliate himselfbefore a subject and assuage his wrath? The danger is increasing.
Gustavus is still on the Rhine, but he prepares an invasion of Würtemberg, many of whose inhabitants will gladly welcome him. The advance of his army, under General Horn, is in Franconia and driving the Imperialists before him. No time is to be lost. The Emperor sends a friendly message to Wallenstein; but the message is haughtily rejected, and the messengers are treated with arrogance, not to say contempt. He sends back word to the Emperor that he does not care to repair the faults of others; that he is not on friendly terms with the allies of the Emperor; that he is tired and sick of war; that he is in need of rest, etc. The Emperor sends new messengers, holds out new rewards. He insists and appeals. At last, in December, 1631, Wallenstein promises to raise a new army, equip it and place it in the field by the first of March, 1632; but he positively refuses to command it. The magic power of his name renews the prodigy of six years before. On the first of March the hereditary states of Austria—Bohemia, Silesia, and Moravia—had furnished him a splendid army of forty thousand men. But it was a body without a soul; it lacked a leader able to command it and lead it to victory. The most urgent demands, prayers, supplications of the Emperor at last decide Wallenstein to take the command of this army, which is crazed with enthusiasm when he finally accepts. But he accepts only on conditions most humiliating to the Emperor. He will be generalissimo of the armies of Austria and Spain; he will appoint all his subordinate officers; the Emperor will not be permitted to join the army, and will in no way interfere with its direction ormovements; Wallenstein will receive one of the hereditary states of Austria as a reward; he will be war-governor of all the territory occupied by his army; he will have the right to levy contributions, and all confiscated property will belong to him; he alone can grant amnesty; he will remain Duke of Mecklenburg, even if another crown be given to him; all his expenditures will be paid back to him at the conclusion of peace; and in case of defeat, he will have the right to retire upon Vienna, and remain there. These conditions, readily granted by the Emperor, made Wallenstein practically the Dictator of the Empire.
It was at Nuremberg, one of the most ancient and prosperous cities of Bavaria, that the two great captains met face to face for the first time. Gustavus Adolphus had many friends in the city, which he wanted to protect against the Imperialists and from which he had received many reinforcements and supplies. His army had taken quarters in the immediate neighborhood. When Wallenstein approached, the King expected an immediate attack, but in this expectation he was disappointed. Whether he was afraid to endanger his party and his own reputation by the chances of a battle, or whether he thought that to check the victorious progress of the King was equivalent to a victory and would dishearten his allies, or whether the hope of starving the army of the King by cutting off his communications and supplies prompted his action, Wallenstein massed his army in front of Nuremberg, erected breastworks and strongly fortified them, and observed every movement of his great antagonist. It was evident that he wished to avoid giving battle. In this way they remained for eleven weeksopposed to one another, neither daring to become the aggressor or to leave his fortified position. It was the King who moved first. Provisions both in his camp and in the city were getting very scarce, and a contagious camp disease had broken out among his troops and spread to the city, decimating the ranks of his army. He therefore resolved to attack the position of Wallenstein and take it by storm. A terrible battle ensued. The Swedes and the Protestant army showed wonderful bravery, but the heavy artillery of Wallenstein mowed them down in long lines, and they were unable to stand the incessant volleys of shot and shell which poured into their ranks all day long. The assault was repulsed with terrible loss to the Swedish army, and Wallenstein had the glory of having inflicted the first defeat on Gustavus Adolphus. This defeat was the more painful to the King because he had lost from ten to twelve thousand of his best soldiers and some of his ablest commanders in the vain attempt to take Wallenstein’s position. But the defeat had no other bad results for Gustavus Adolphus, for Wallenstein permitted him to retreat from Nuremberg without molesting, attacking or pursuing him, although his army was greatly superior in numbers to the King’s army, and although his loss during the battle of the preceding day was much smaller; in fact Wallenstein’s loss in killed and wounded was estimated at no more than one thousand.
This neglect of Wallenstein to annihilate the King’s army, when everything seemed to favor such an attempt, is among the strongest evidences of his treacherous sentiments. It caused consternation at Vienna, and his enemies charged him openly with treason. But the Emperorhad no right to interfere! Finally Wallenstein also left his fortified camp, but instead of following Gustavus Adolphus to Thuringia, he went in an easterly direction and invaded Saxony, where he captured a detachment of two thousand five hundred Swedes and with them Count Thurn, a German nobleman, who for some reason or other had left the Emperor’s service and had entered the Swedish King’s. This Count Thurn was especially odious to the Emperor, and when the news of his capture reached Vienna, there was general rejoicing. The Count would unquestionably have been executed, but to the utter dismay of the court Wallenstein set him free and permitted him to return to the King,—as his enemies asserted, with secret overtures from the Imperialist commander. It is possible, although by no means certain, that Wallenstein, remembering how ungratefully he had been treated before, and thinking that the same ingratitude might be shown to him again as soon as his services were no longer needed, may have tried to open negotiations with the Swedish King to secure from him personal recognition and advantages which he was afraid would be withheld from him after the King’s final overthrow. His fears were certainly not unreasonable, for the Emperor was surrounded by, and lent a willing ear to, the bitter enemies of Wallenstein, and to the very men who had brought about his first disgrace and dismissal. The King, on the other hand, if he received such overtures from Wallenstein, either distrusted him or did not see fit to act upon them favorably, possibly because Wallenstein’s terms were too extravagant.
As soon as Gustavus Adolphus had learned of Wallenstein’s invasion of Saxony he turned round, and in forcedmarches hurried also to Saxony in order to protect that unfortunate country from the ravages of the Friedlanders. The Elector of Saxony, while secretly favoring the German Emperor, had appealed to the King of Sweden for protection, and Gustavus Adolphus had granted his request. He marched so rapidly that Wallenstein, when informed of his approach, at first refused to believe the truth of the report, but nevertheless prepared to give him a warm reception. Having sent, a few days before, his most renowned cavalry general, Pappenheim, in another direction, he now sent messengers after him to recall him. The two great captains met at Lützen on the sixth of November. A terrible battle ensued, in which Gustavus Adolphus was killed. But Wallenstein was defeated; at least he left the battle-field in the possession of the enemy and retreated to Bohemia.
This retrograde movement and his retreat from the battle-field were unfavorably commented on at Vienna and declared unnecessary. Insinuations of treason were again whispered into the Emperor’s ear, and his suspicion was aroused to such a degree that Wallenstein’s removal from the army was resolved upon, although this intention was kept secret for a while. The Emperor surrounded himself with Spanish soldiers to be safe from an attack of the Friedlanders. He also succeeded by bribes and promises in estranging a number of Wallenstein’s prominent lieutenants from him and in securing them for his own service. To some extent Wallenstein was kept informed of these secret steps of the Emperor, and he tried to counteract them and to protect himself. He renewed his negotiations with the Swedes and the Protestant princes, who had found in Bernard, Duke ofSaxe-Weimar, a worthy successor of King Gustavus Adolphus as a military leader; and it is said that an agreement had been made by the two leaders of the opposing armies that Wallenstein’s forces should join the Protestant army, and that they jointly should impose conditions of peace upon the Emperor. It goes without saying that a sovereignty for Wallenstein—most likely that of Bohemia—was included in the terms of peace.
Before this agreement could be carried out, events occurred which not only precipitated the downfall, but cut short the life of the over-ambitious military chieftain. It was of the greatest importance to Wallenstein to find out how far he would be able to rely on his army commanders and on their regiments in carrying out his treasonable projects. He first revealed these to three of them,—Terzky, Kinsky, and Illo,—the first two related to him by marriage, and the last an avowed and bitter enemy of the Emperor, who had refused to raise him to the rank of count. It was Illo who undertook to find out how the generals and colonels would feel and act; he called them together one evening and very cautiously proceeded to inflame their minds against the Emperor and glorify the services of Wallenstein, who, he said, was the only one who could have saved the Emperor from ruin, and who was now to be sacrificed again to the envy and jealousy of his enemies. This announcement caused loud protests and great indignation among those present. “But,” concluded Illo, “the Duke is not willing to undergo this new humiliation, which is a shameful reward for his long and glorious services; no, he will not wait until it pleases the Emperor to kick him out, but he will go voluntarily and resign his command;but what pains him deeply is the thought that, in doing so, he must leave his devoted friends and comrades, and cannot reward them as he intended.” It may well be thought that these remarks kindled revolt in the hearts of the soldiers, and that they swore they would not let the Duke leave the army. The next morning they sent a delegation to their commander-in-chief, imploring him to desist from his intention of leaving the army, and assuring him that they would stand by him, no matter what might happen. It was only when a second delegation of the highest and most popular officers waited upon him, that the Duke gave way to their entreaties and promised to remain at the head of the army. But he attached one condition to this promise: he exacted from all the commanders a written pledge that they would all, jointly and singly, stand by him as their chief, and would consider his removal from the command of the army a public calamity. They all agreed to this condition, and a paper embodying this declaration was gotten up to be signed by all of them.
Illo took it upon himself to secure all the signatures, and in order to make short work of it, invited the commanders to an evening party at his headquarters, where he read the paper to them; but, in order to preclude all suspicion in the minds of the signers, Wallenstein had inserted a clause which bound the signers to the agreement only as long as Wallenstein used the army in the service of the Emperor. After Illo had read the paper containing the saving clause, he dexterously withdrew it and substituted for it another copy without the clause, and unknowingly the commanders signed it. Moreover, most of them were half or entirely intoxicated and couldnot have discovered the deception; but one or two had remained sober, and when they read the paper again before signing it, they found that it was different from the one which had been read to them. They indignantly charged Illo with having practised a fraud on them, and the company broke up in confusion and anger. This half-failure seems to have opened Wallenstein’s eyes to the real situation in which he found himself. Many of his commanders were too devoted Catholics to make common cause with the enemies of their Church, and while they were willing to stand by Wallenstein to the last as the defender of their faith, they refused to follow him into the Protestant camp and as a deserter from the Emperor’s service. It also opened the Emperor’s eyes to the necessity of prompt action, unless he would permit Wallenstein to concoct some plan by which he might lead the whole army into the camp of the Protestants. He therefore secretly commissioned General Gallas, one of Wallenstein’s subordinates, to take command of the army as soon as the time had come for openly deposing the Duke of Friedland. It was a game of duplicity and deception on both sides. The Emperor tried to cheat Wallenstein out of his command and reward, and Wallenstein tried to cheat the Emperor out of the army.
Until then Wallenstein had been at Pilsen; but after the demonstration of the commanders, he deemed it advisable for his own plans and interests to transfer his headquarters to the strongly fortified city of Eger, which was commanded by Gordon, whom he considered one of his most reliable friends. The larger part of the army remained at Pilsen, while Wallenstein himself, escorted by a number of picked regiments under the command ofhis most trusted lieutenants, went to Eger. But there he was to meet his doom. The thunderclouds of imperial wrath had been gathering more and more threateningly above his head. Wallenstein saw them not and feared them not. Had not the stars prophesied his coming elevation? Even when the Emperor published a proclamation, which was secretly distributed in the army, declaring him a rebel and offering a reward for his surrender, dead or alive, he would not believe it; he laughed at it when it was shown him. Under ordinary circumstances he would have had the courage to treat any imperial edict with contempt, for with his army his name was a much greater power and authority than that of the Emperor; but a complication had arisen which in the minds of his soldiers paralyzed his efforts and reëstablished the Emperor’s supremacy. This complication was the increasing strength of the Protestant armies. The Duke’s army, lawless, cruel, and violating every rule of morality, was nevertheless composed of men who stood in slavish fear of the Church and of the priest, and as soon as Wallenstein turned against these two, the soldiers turned against him. They were willing to follow him to death in a Catholic cause, when death would open to them the gates of Paradise, but they refused to follow him to death when death would deliver them to the everlasting torments of hell.
With this invisible moral power the great commander had not reckoned. Among the very men whom he had picked out as his escort to Eger were his murderers. And they did not wait long, for fear that others might anticipate them in their bloody work, and capture not only the imperial reward, but also the benedictions of theChurch. These men were Gordon, the commander of the Eger garrison, and Leslie (both Scotchmen), Deveroux and Butler (both Irishmen). They had always been enthusiastic friends and admirers of Wallenstein, but they were also fanatical Catholics, and when they had to choose between their commander and the Church, their devotion to the latter prevailed. Deveroux was the leading spirit in the plot. He had received private instructions from Gallas and Piccolomini and won over the others. They also secured the assistance of a number of soldiers in their regiments, and solemnly pledged themselves to surrender Wallenstein’s person, dead or alive, to Gallas, who was to take command of the imperial army. But in order to prevent interference with their dark design, Gordon, the commander of the garrison, invited them all to the citadel for an evening entertainment. At this entertainment, while eating supper, Illo, Terzky, Kinsky and Newman, were murdered. It was on a Saturday evening, February 25, 1634, the day after they had arrived with Wallenstein at Eger. Wallenstein himself was not present. He had retired early that night, after having once more consulted the stars with his Italian astrologer, who discovered unfavorable signs in the constellations. But it seems Wallenstein paid no attention to these warnings, and fell soundly asleep soon afterwards. Toward midnight, or perhaps shortly after midnight, he was aroused from his sleep by a loud noise. Coming from the citadel, where Wallenstein’s lieutenants had been slain, Butler, with a number of his dragoons, and Deveroux, with a number of his halberdiers, marched up to Wallenstein’s residence. Since both Butler and Deveroux were well known to the guards in the hall,they were immediately admitted, but when they reached the anteroom to the Duke’s apartments, the sentinel wanted to stop them. He was cut down, not, however, before he had called for help, and cried out: “Murderers! Rebels!” It was this tumult that aroused Wallenstein. He jumped out of bed and hurried to the window to ask the sentinel posted at the entrance what was the matter. At that moment the door leading to the anteroom was burst open, and Deveroux, a halberd in his hands, and followed by half a dozen of his men, entered the bedroom, where he found himself face to face with Wallenstein. “Are you the scoundrel,” said he, “who wants to rob his Imperial Majesty of his crown? You must die now!” And without having given any answer, Wallenstein received a stab of the halberd which lacerated the intestines and caused almost immediate death. Like Cæsar, he might have exclaimed, “Et tu, Brute!” for he had always especially befriended and distinguished this man Deveroux, who had come to him poor and friendless, and who owed to him everything. One of the halberdiers wished to throw Wallenstein’s corpse out of the window, but Deveroux would not permit it; he rolled the body up in a table cover and had it transported to the citadel, where the Duke’s murdered friends were lying in the yard, waiting for their burial. Wallenstein’s body was placed by their side. It was then resolved to send the bodies of the dead generals to one of Illo’s country-seats, which was in the neighborhood. In placing them in their coffins, it was found that Wallenstein’s coffin was too small, and in order to force him into it his legs had to be broken.
Thus died one of the most remarkable men of theseventeenth century,—the greatest of the German generals of the terrible Thirty Years’ War. As a strategist, he may not have been fully the equal of Gustavus Adolphus, but he had a magnetic power over his men which even that great commander did not possess, and which would have made him invincible, had not superstition and religious awe counteracted it. The German Emperor, hearing of his assassination, appeared to be overwhelmed with grief, and ordered three thousand masses to be read for the salvation of his soul; but he tried in vain to deceive the world by this hypocritical sorrow for a murder which he had planned and for which he rewarded the assassins. To this very day the treason of Wallenstein remains shrouded in doubt; and very likely it will remain forever an unsolved problem.
image unavailable: JOHN DE WITTJOHN DE WITT
NEVER, perhaps, was the old saying, “Republics are ungrateful,” more strikingly verified than in the case of the two brothers De Witt, who, after having rendered many great services to the Dutch Republic, were foully murdered by an infuriated mob in the streets of the Hague, August 20, 1672. John and Cornelius de Witt were the sons of a distinguished citizen of the city of Dordrecht, who had represented that city in the general assemblies of Holland and Friesland and was known as an eloquent and incorruptible defender of popular rights. He had placed himself at the head of the anti-Orange party because he considered the ambition and power of the princes of Orange a standing danger to the Republic. Grown up under the direction of such a father, the two sons had naturally imbibed his strong democratic principles, and their undoubted patriotism was strongly tinged with hostility to the house of Orange. The two De Witts have often been compared to the Gracchi, and, like those illustrious Romans, they worked and died for their democratic principles. Both were highly talented and, whilequite young, rose to the highest honors and dignities among their countrymen,—Cornelius, the elder of the two, by his eminent legal ability and his skill as a military and naval director and commissary, and John, by his eminence as an administrator and statesman. It is difficult to decide which of the two was intellectually the superior. A medal struck in their honor bore the inscription, “Hic armis maximus, ille toga.” It should not be inferred, however, from this inscription, that Cornelius, to whom the word “armis” applied, was at any time commander-in-chief of the Dutch army and navy, since he held only the office of government inspector of the navy, in which capacity he greatly distinguished himself.
John was, at the age of twenty-five, elected pensionary of the city of Dordrecht, and two years later, in 1652, Grand Pensionary of Holland, one of the highest offices in the United Provinces. His political influence was very great, and he used it to the best of his ability against the house of Orange. William the Second, Prince of Orange, had died on the second of October, 1650, leaving only a widow and a posthumous son as his heirs. On these circumstances, so unfavorable to the illustrious house which had played for so many years a conspicuous part in the history of the Netherlands, John de Witt built his hopes of dealing a deathblow to its political pretensions and of abolishing forever the office of stadtholder. It was, however, no easy task to accomplish this object. The province of Zealand was full of friends and partisans of the late stadtholder, who vigorously opposed any attempt in the direction contemplated by De Witt; and the other provinces, either from loyalty to the house of Orange, or from a secret jealousy of the supremacy ofthe states of Holland, which always wanted to control the policy of the Republic, either openly rejected the plans of De Witt or modified and attenuated them as exaggerated.
At the moment when John de Witt took the reins of government, the states were at war with England, and the war had taken a very unfavorable turn for them. The Dutch admirals had suffered several terrible defeats. Tromp, one of their most celebrated naval heroes, had been killed in battle, and an English fleet was cruising along the coast of Holland, blockading its ports, and paralyzing its commerce. But De Witt repaired these disasters with such rapidity, and restored to the Dutch navy such a formidable strength by his administrative genius, that Cromwell was willing to enter into negotiations for peace, which he had haughtily rejected before. A treaty of peace, submitted by the Grand Pensionary of Holland and signed at Westminster on the fifteenth of April, 1654, reëstablished virtually the conditions which had existed between the two nations before the war. However, the Dutch Republic was compelled to recognize the superiority of the English flag in the channel, and bound itself to give the Stuart dynasty no support, and that no Prince of Orange should be elected again either Stadtholder or Captain-General. This last section of the treaty was signed, at first by the province of Holland only, and was kept secret for a long time. In getting this provision of exclusion of the house of Orange passed (which, by the way, was as welcome to De Witt as to Cromwell) by the other provinces also, the Grand Pensionary practised a good deal of duplicity, and laid himself open to serious charges of official deception which later on contributed to his downfall.
In the meantime another complication had arisen and taxed the statesmanship of the Dutch government and the patriotism of the Netherlanders to the utmost. In France Louis the Fourteenth had taken the reins of government into his own hands, and manifested an ambition for conquest which endangered the security of all his neighbors. Although the wife of Louis, at the time of her marriage, had solemnly renounced all her rights of succession to the Spanish throne and any Spanish provinces, the King nevertheless after the death of his wife’s father, Philip the Fourth, claimed the Spanish Netherlands as justly belonging to his wife, and defended this claim not so much by argument as by an invasion and armed occupation of the disputed territory. No state was more deeply interested in the outcome of this dispute than the Netherlands. With growing fear they beheld the rapid progress which the armies of the French King under the command of great generals were making, and they thought that their own independence might suffer from the immediate neighborhood of so powerful and aggressive a monarch. With great skill the Dutch government secretly formed an alliance with Sweden and England by which these three powers agreed that the Spanish Netherlands should remain under Spanish dominion and that Louis the Fourteenth should be prevented from annexing them to the French monarchy. This Triple Alliance was too powerful to be defied by the French King, and he made peace with Spain, evacuating Franche-Comté, which he had already conquered, but retaining possession of a number of important cities in the Netherlands,—such as Charleroi, Douai, Lille, Tournay and Oudenarde, which by the genius ofVauban were converted into almost impregnable fortresses. Dutch statesmanship was the obstacle which had placed itself in the King’s way and frustrated his ambitious designs. Personal irritation and offended vanity were added to his chagrin at the failure of his plans.
A boastful medal was struck in the Netherlands commemorating the diplomatic victory which their government had achieved over the power of France. On this medal a Dutch statesman was represented as Joshua bidding the sun (the symbol of Louis the Fourteenth) to stand still. For this arrogance the Republic was to be punished, and with matchless skill and cunning the French government went to work to prepare for its overthrow. The general political situation of Europe was highly favorable to the consummation of the French designs. The Emperor of Germany, a weak and pusillanimous sovereign, had his hands full in the eastern provinces of the Empire, in which the Turks had advanced victorious up to the very gates of Vienna; he was therefore powerless to oppose French aggression in the Netherlands. Moreover special negotiations had been opened with some of the sovereign princes of northern Germany by which the French monarch secured the right to march his armies through their territory on their way to the United Netherlands without touching Spanish territory. With equal success the French diplomats dissolved the Triple Alliance, and made both Sweden and England, former allies of the Dutch Republic, subservient to the French monarch. Sweden received an annual subsidy of 600,000 dollars from the French treasury, and England a subsidy of 350,000 pounds sterling and also the promise of the province of Zealand as its share of the dismemberment ofthe United Netherlands. Princess Henrietta of France, wife of the Duke of Orleans and sister of Charles the Second of England, was sent by the wily French King to England to negotiate this infamous treaty. She succeeded in accomplishing her object mainly through the influence which one of the ladies of her suite, Mademoiselle de Querouet, gained over the mind of the English King, who made her his mistress and bestowed on her the title of Duchess of Portsmouth.
Having thus fortified himself on all sides and deprived the United Netherlands of the possibility of taking the field against him with any chance of success, Louis declared war upon them. The result could not be doubtful. Moreover the domestic discord and the active struggle between the political factions added much to the gravity of the situation, and partly paralyzed the efforts of the government to arouse the provinces to a full comprehension of the danger. John de Witt was the chief executive of the government, and upon him rested largely the responsibility of the situation. The Orangist party turned its main attacks against him, and spared neither criticism nor calumny to undermine his standing and authority. It charged him directly with having, either through incompetency or something worse, neglected to place the country in a suitable state of defence, and then having provoked a war with a powerful enemy. These charges against De Witt were largely unjust, and were preferred only to punish him for his opposition to reinstating the house of Orange in the stadtholdership and in the chief command of all the military forces of the Republic.
John de Witt had made two radical errors in his estimateof the political situation. He knew that Louis the Fourteenth felt irritated at the Dutch Republic’s action in preventing his acquisition of the Spanish Netherlands; but he did not know that the French King would resent that action, and make gigantic preparations for crushing the Dutch Republic. Never before had such tremendous efforts been made by a great nation to destroy a weak neighbor. The war was to be short and decisive, and the insolent “traders”—that was the name the haughty French King gave to the citizens of the Netherlands—were to be punished radically. The second error which De Witt committed was his underestimation of the venality and corruption existing in the government circles of his former allies, England and Sweden. He learned at an early day that French diplomacy had induced them to recede from the Triple Alliance; but he did not realize at the time that French gold and French promises had persuaded these two powers to make common cause with him for the dismemberment of the Republic, and to furnish troops for that purpose. When finally the full reality of the King’s revengeful plan was revealed to him, he not only aroused the people of the Netherlands to a realization of the terrible danger which threatened them, but he also, with his usual energy, went to work to find assistance against the overwhelming odds among the other European powers, and his experienced statesmanship served him well in bringing into play all the different motives, both personal and political, by which he could hope to influence their decisions.
Unfortunately the allies he could enlist in his cause were too weak to constitute an adequate counterpoise to the enormous power of his opponent. In stating thegeneral political situation of Europe preceding the attack of Louis the Fourteenth on the Dutch Republic, we have already mentioned the causes which prevented the other powers from active interference in behalf of the Netherlands. The aggressive Turk, also influenced by French money, kept the Emperor of Germany busy in his eastern provinces, and left him little time to care for other things than his own protection. Moreover Louis the Fourteenth had, by munificent presents and liberal payments, won the secret support of the Emperor’s prime minister, Lobkowitz, who did all in his power to overcome his master’s fears concerning the intentions of the French King, and frustrated the efforts of the King’s enemies to draw him over to their side. De Witt had to contend with these difficulties in securing little more than the moral support of the Emperor; but when the rapid progress of the French arms had revealed to him the danger which threatened the Empire, he consented reluctantly and hesitatingly to a sort of active intervention for the protection of the German territory.
One ally of the Dutch Republic should not be forgotten here—Frederick William, the great Elector of Brandenburg, whose political genius enabled him to see the disastrous consequences which the growing power of the King of France would have not only for the German Empire, but also for his own possessions on the Rhine. He, therefore, concluded an alliance with the Dutch Republic, promising an army of twenty thousand men in defence of German soil against the aggression of the French King, and used besides his influence over the German Emperor in persuading him to join the alliance. The Elector of Brandenburg was for one reason a particularlyvaluable ally, because his army was needed to keep in check the Swedes, who were to take the field in northern Germany as soon as the German Emperor would show a disposition to coöperate with the Dutch Republic. The decisive victory of Fehrbellin, in which the great Elector routed a Swedish army much superior in numbers to his own, showed how gloriously he performed his part of the programme.
It was at this time that the Prince of Orange, although only twenty years old, appeared to the Dutch people as a savior from these threatened calamities. The young Prince, after the death of his mother, in 1661, passed under the guardianship of John de Witt, who had him instructed in political science and in the study of modern languages. It would seem that, with the foresight of genius, he foresaw the prominent part which Prince William would sooner or later play in the history of the Republic, and that, in spite of his personal antipathy to the house of Orange, he was patriotic enough to educate him well for his coming career. The precarious condition of his health, which seemed to disqualify the Prince for the hardships and exposures of military life, had no influence whatever on his ambition to equal the great achievements of his ancestors. An opportunity for reaching the goal of his ambition was given him when the States-General, in obedience to the urgent demand of the people, appointed him Captain-General of the Republic. Although the powers of the new commander-in-chief were limited by several provisions, yet the Republican party, under the leadership of De Witt, demanded more and better guarantees for curbing the ambition of the Prince. It demanded and obtained from the States-Generalan order that the Captain-General should be obliged to swear to maintain the Perpetual Edict suppressing the stadtholdership and prohibiting its reëstablishment. John de Witt also strongly opposed the life-appointment of the Prince of Orange until he should have completed his twenty-second year, while the Orangists and the Prince himself made his life-appointment a condition for his acceptance. A compromise was finally reached, and Prince William of Orange, known in history as William the Third, was solemnly inaugurated in his new office of commander-in-chief. On him was imposed the difficult task to oppose the armies of Louis the Fourteenth, commanded by Condé, Turenne, Luxembourg and Vauban. Entire harmony and good-will seemed to exist between the Grand Pensionary and the Prince after the latter’s appointment to the command of the army. They corresponded in a very cordial tone, and De Witt showed the greatest eagerness to satisfy the wishes of the Prince for the thorough defence of the country. It is not our purpose to mention in detail the indefatigable exertions of John de Witt to place the country in a suitable state of defence. But these exertions and the measures they resulted in were not sufficient to avert the calamities of the war and to prevent a conquest which everybody had foreseen. The Netherlanders had enjoyed peace for twenty-four years, and this long rest had unaccustomed the country to war. The constant quarrels between the different parties had weakened the unity of the Republic, and when the time for united and patriotic action came, the nation was but ill prepared for it.
On the sixth of April, 1672, France issued a declarationof war which had been long expected. Louis the Fourteenth celebrated beforehand the conquest he was about to undertake, although some of his most experienced generals, Condé for instance, did not share his confidence. However, the rapidity with which the French, after having crossed the Yssel, took cities and fortresses almost without firing a gun, seemed fully to justify Louis the Fourteenth in his anticipation of an easy and brilliant victory. One short month had sufficed to place at the mercy of the French monarch the flourishing and prosperous Republic, which four years before had interrupted him in his march of victory. No man suffered more both as a patriot and as a public official, from the disastrous turn in public affairs than John de Witt. He had done all that a sagacious statesman and a noble-minded patriot could do to prevent, and failing in this attempt, sought to repair the disasters which overwhelmed the Republic. But the ungrateful people failed to stand by him and reward his exertions for the public welfare. And not only the honor of having saved the independence of his country in this unequal conflict was denied to him, but his life itself was lost, as a sacrifice to popular hatred and fanaticism.
Under these exasperating circumstances—each new day bringing information of a new calamity, of the surrender of a fortress, of the capitulation of a garrison, of the precipitate retreat of the army—it was not only natural, it was a matter of duty and patriotism for John de Witt, the head of the government, to enter into negotiations with the conqueror in order to check his rapid advance and get from him better terms of peace than might be expected after he had captured the last bulwarksof Dutch independence. It was by no means De Witt’s plan to open negotiations for the surrender of Dutch independence; but he hoped that the French King would consent to suspend hostilities during the progress of the negotiations, and that this intermission would give the Republic time to strengthen its bulwarks. In case of an unfavorable result, he would resume armed resistance with greater chances of success than before. John de Witt had frequently, during the months preceding the outbreak of the war, insisted on making adequate preparations to meet an attack of the French King, whose restless ambition for military glory and territorial expansion was well known. He had also pointed out (if all other means should fail) the necessity of again, as in the war with Spain, resorting to those means of defence which nature had placed in the possession of the Dutch, by opening the sluices and cutting the dykes, in order to let the sea overflow the bottom lands of the country, and thus protecting Holland, and above all Amsterdam, from foreign occupation. This last measure of defence, terrible and destructive as it was necessarily, was really the anchor of hope upon which the minds of Dutch patriots rested their expectations of final triumph.
The Dutch navy was in excellent condition. It was still mistress of the seas, and it had lately, under the able command of De Ruyter one of the greatest naval heroes that ever lived, won two great victories over the fleets of France and England, which secured the Republic against the landing of foreign troops from the sea side. The Republic had spared no efforts to keep the navy in splendid condition, and more than any other man Cornelius de Witt had contributed to its efficiency. He wasan intimate friend of Admiral de Ruyter, and during the naval battle of Solbay, although seriously ill, he sat by his side, as the official delegate of the States-General, assisting him with his counsels, and by his very presence inspiring sailors and commanders with patriotic devotion. The greatness of his services to the Republic had been formally recognized after that battle by a unanimous vote of thanks of the States-General.
It would seem almost a matter of impossibility that with such a record of patriotism, integrity and devotion to the public welfare, the voice of calumny should have been successfully raised against the two illustrious brothers; but it was done nevertheless by the Orange party, which did not forgive their opposition to the elevation of Prince William. The young Prince had, during the short campaign, won no martial laurels by victories in battles or by the capture of fortresses; but he had shown eminent qualities which promised glorious results if an opportunity were given for unfolding them. He was wise and circumspect beyond his years, self-collected and cool amid the most pressing dangers, inexhaustible in resources, and while thoroughly loyal to the Republic, yet proud of his ancestors and the preëminent part they had played in the history of their country.
As soon as the report became public that the Grand Pensionary had taken steps for negotiations with the French King, the Orange party denounced them as acts of treason, and loudly demanded that Prince William should be placed in supreme authority. It also asserted that the failure of the campaign so far was due to the restrictions foolishly and criminally imposed onthe Prince, who might have saved the Republic if he had been permitted to follow the inspirations of his own genius and had not been fettered by instructions from men that had been his life-long enemies and who preferred the rule of a foreign monarch to the stadtholdership of a Prince of Orange. In this manner the public mind was filled with hatred toward the De Witts, while gradually the young Prince of Orange became the idol of the nation. Recollections of the glorious achievements of his forefathers, of their perseverance and patience, of their intrepidity and resoluteness, and of their final triumphs in situations as perilous as theirs, were awakened in the hearts of the burghers, and made them inclined to a restoration of the stadtholdership in behalf of the Prince. It was to be expected that sooner or later public excitement, aggravated from hour to hour by the unfavorable reports from the seat of war, would manifest itself in a violent explosion and fall with destructive force upon the very heads which were most entitled to public gratitude and veneration.
Two attempts on the lives of the two brothers in the summer of 1672—an attack on John de Witt which came very near killing him and prostrated him for weeks on a sick bed, and the other on Cornelius, who escaped from it almost unhurt—were the first serious manifestations of the public ill-will. It was only too evident that the Orange party was at the bottom of these outbursts of hostility, and that Prince William himself was not a stranger to the intrigues. On the second of July, 1672, the Prince of Orange was elected Stadtholder of Holland and Zealand for life. These were the only two provinces not occupied by the French armies, and the Prince’s