GUST. ADOLPHUS.
During the fourteenth, and the beginning of the fifteenth century, Sweden, lying under vassalage to the crown of Denmark, suffered the evils which commonly belong to that condition. Gustavus Vasa, after a series of romantic adventures, established the independence of his country, and was deservedly elected by the Swedish Diet, in 1523, to wear its crown. The same kingdom to which he gave a place among free states, his grandson, Gustavus Adolphus, raised from the obscurity of a petty northern power, to rule in Germany, and to be the terror of the Church of Rome.
The establishment of the Reformation was coeval with the independence of Sweden; and a fundamental law forbade any future sovereign to alter the national religion, or to admit Roman Catholics to offices of power and trust. For infringing this principle, Sigismond, by election King of Poland, the lineal successor of Gustavus Vasa, was set aside by the Diet, and the crown was given to his father’s younger brother, Charles, Duke of Sudermania. Charles died, and was succeeded by his son Gustavus Adolphus, December 31, 1611; the high promise of whose youth induced the States to abridge the period of minority, and admit him at once to the exercise of regal power, though he had but just attained the age of seventeen, being born December 9, 1594.
He had been trained up in the knowledge likely to be serviceable to a king and a soldier. He spoke the Latin language, then a universal medium of communication, with uncommon energy and precision; he conversed fluently in French, Italian, and German; he had studied history, political science, mathematics, and military tactics; and commencing with the part of a musketeer, he had been made master, by practice, of all the details of a soldier’s life. He was capable of very severe application to abstruse study, and is said tohave passed whole nights in reading the military history of the ancients. He was of uncommon stature and strength, and his constitution was early inured to labour and endurance.
Gustavus’s situation, at his accession, was critical. The King of Poland laid claim to his dominions, and Denmark and Muscovy were in arms against him. The danger was most pressing on the side of Denmark; and thither Gustavus’s first efforts were directed. But in Christian IV. he had to contend with an able enemy, from whom he gained no advantage; and after one unsuccessful campaign he accommodated the quarrel at the expense of some concessions. In the war with Muscovy he was more fortunate; and he reduced the Czar to purchase peace in 1617, by the sacrifice of the provinces which border the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic sea. During these years of warfare, Gustavus found leisure to bestow attention upon internal improvements. He devoted much thought and care upon strengthening the Swedish navy, esteeming that to be his surest defence against invasion; he sought to encourage commerce; he purified the administration of justice, by rendering judges less dependant upon the crown, and by abridging the tediousness and expense of lawsuits; and he laboured to devise means for increasing the revenue by judicious arrangement, without adding to the burdens of the people. Both in peace and war he received the most valuable assistance from his zealous, faithful, and sagacious minister, the celebrated Oxenstiern.
In 1620 Gustavus travelled incognito through the chief towns of Germany. At Berlin he formed acquaintance with Maria Eleonora, sister to the Elector of Brandenburg, whom he espoused at Stockholm in November of the same year. One daughter, the famous Christina, his successor, was the offspring of this marriage.
The King of Poland’s enmity was not seconded by his ability. He endeavoured in vain to shake the fidelity of Gustavus’s subjects, and he tried the fortune of war with no better success. In the contests between the cousins, which occurred in the first ten years of Gustavus’s reign, the advantage was always on the side of Sweden. Gustavus was desirous of peace, and forbore to press his superiority. But Sigismond’s hostility was nourished and stimulated by the leading Catholic powers, Spain and Austria; and he made so bad a return for this moderation, that in 1621 the war was renewed in a more determined manner, and in the course of eight years Livonia, Courland, and Polish Prussia, were gradually subjected to Sweden. During this time Gustavus was no careless spectator of the Thirty Years’ War,which was raging in Germany. However well inclined he might be to step forward as the defender of the Protestant cause, he could not do so with effect while his exertions were demanded in Poland; and though he made an offer of assistance to the Protestants in 1626, it was clogged with conditions which induced them to decline his proposals. But in 1629, under the mediation of France, he concluded a truce for six years with Sigismond, retaining possession of the conquered provinces; and being thus relieved from all fear of Poland, and guaranteed against injury from Denmark by the interest of that country in checking the progress of the Imperial arms, he found himself qualified to take the decisive part which he had long desired in the affairs of Germany. How far his determination was influenced by personal and ambitious motives, how far it was due to patriotism and religious zeal, it must be left to each inquirer to decide for himself. The crisis was one of extreme importance: for the temporal rights of the whole German empire were endangered by the inordinate and seemingly prosperous ambition of the House of Austria; and the Protestant states in particular had reason to apprehend the speedy destruction of their own, and the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic church. And if the influence of the Emperor, Ferdinand II., supported by the papal hierarchy re-established in its great power and rich benefices through the north of Germany, were suffered unchecked to extend itself to the Baltic sea, the liberties of Sweden and Denmark, and the very existence of the Reformation on the Continent, seemed to be involved in no remote danger. To pull down the power of Ferdinand and the Catholic League thus became of vital moment to the King of Sweden. But though the Protestant princes were ready to invoke his assistance in secret complaints, none of them dared to conclude an open treaty with a distant prince, and a kingdom hitherto obscure, and thus to incur the resentment of the Emperor, whose formidable armies, anxious above all things for the renewal of war and rapine, were at hand. Moreover, the jealousy and selfishness of the chiefs of the Protestant union formed a greater obstacle to the King of Sweden’s views, than even the weakness of their individual states. Unable, therefore, to obtain the cordial and willing co-operation of those who were linked to him by the bond of a common interest, Gustavus had only the alternative to abandon them to their fate and share the dangers which he sought to obviate, or to take the equivocal and rarely defensible step of occupying their territories and compelling their assistance, an unsolicited, though an honourable and friendly, ally. He chose the latter.
The shortest apology for this determination, which as a matter of policy was opposed by Oxenstiern, may be found in the substance of the king’s answer to that minister’s objections, as it is abridged by Schiller in his History of the Thirty Years’ War. “If we wait for the enemy in Sweden, in losing a battle, all is lost: all, on the contrary, is gained if we obtain the first success in Germany. The sea is large, and we have extensive coasts to watch. Should the enemy’s fleet escape us, or our own be beaten, it is not possible for us to prevent a landing. We must therefore use all our efforts for the preservation of Stralsund. So long as this harbour shall be in our power Ave shall maintain the honour of our flag in the Baltic, and shall be able to keep up a free intercourse with Germany. But in order to defend Stralsund we must not shut ourselves up in Sweden; but must pass over with an army into Pomerania. Speak to me then no more of a defensive war, by which we shall lose our most precious advantages. Sweden herself must not behold the standards of the enemy; and, if we are vanquished in Germany, it will still be time enough to have recourse to your plan.”
The army which Gustavus carried into Germany consisted only of 15,000 men; but it was formidable from its bravery, its high discipline, and the reliance which the general and the troops felt upon each other. “All excesses,” we quote from Schiller, “were punished in a severe manner; but blasphemy, theft, gaming, and duelling, met with a more severe chastisement. The Swedish articles of war prescribed moderation; there was not to be seen in the Swedish camp, even in the tent of the king, either gold or silver. The general’s eye watched carefully over the manners of the soldiers, while it en-flamed their courage in battle. Every regiment must each morning and evening form itself in a circle round its chaplain, and, in the open air, address prayers to the Almighty. In all this the legislator himself served as a model. An unaffected and pure piety animated the courage of his great mind. Equally free from that gross incredulity which leaves without restraint the ferocious movements of the barbarian, and the grovelling bigotry of a Ferdinand, who abased himself in the dust before the Divinity, and yet disdainfully trampled on the necks of mankind, in the height of his good fortune, Gustavus was always a man and a Christian; amid all his devotion, the hero and the king. He supported all the hardships of war like the lowest soldier in his army; his mind was serene in the midst of the most furious battle; his genius pointed out the results to him beforehand; everywhere present, he forgot death which surrounded him, and he wasalways found where there was the greatest danger. His natural valour made him too often lose sight of what was due to the general, and this great king terminated his life as a common soldier. But the coward as well as the brave followed such a leader to victory, and not any of the heroical actions which his example had created ever escaped his penetrating eye. The glory of their sovereign inflamed the entire Swedish nation with a noble confidence; proud of his king, the peasant of Finland and Gothland joyfully gave up what his poverty could afford; the soldier willingly shed his blood; and that elevated sentiment which the genius of this single man gave to the nation survived him a considerable time.”
Gustavus took a solemn farewell of the States of the kingdom, May 20, 1630, presenting to them his daughter Christina, as his heir and successor. Adverse winds delayed his departure, and it was not till the 24th of June that he reached the coast of Pomerania. He disembarked his army on the islands of Wollin and Usedom, at the mouth of the Oder, and having taken possession of the strong town of Stettin on the same river, established a sure footing on the continent, and secured his means of retreat and communication with Sweden. To this proceeding he gained a reluctant consent from the Duke of Pomerania, who, though wearied and disgusted with the ravages of the Imperial troops, was unwilling to commit himself in defence of that which still appeared the weaker cause. But having no force to prevent the hostile, if he refused to warrant the friendly, occupation of his country, he made a virtue of necessity, and allied himself closely with the Swede.
Gustavus’s progress at first produced no uneasiness at Vienna: the courtiers called him the snow-king, and said in derision that he would melt in his progress southward. But in the first campaign he nearly cleared Pomerania of the Imperialists; and he was strengthened by the accession of the Duke of Mecklenburg, who, having been despoiled of his territories in favour of Wallenstein, now openly raised troops in support of the King of Sweden. As winter approached, the Imperialists negotiated for a suspension of arms; but Gustavus replied, “The Swedes are soldiers in winter as well as summer, and are not disposed to make the peaceable inhabitants of the country support any longer than necessary the evils of war. The Imperialists may do as they choose, but the Swedes do not intend to remain inactive.”
Meanwhile he met with cold support from the Protestant princes, in whose cause he had taken arms. The chief of these was the Elector of Saxony, who felt a jealousy, not unnatural, of the power and the ultimate views of the King of Sweden, and was himself ambitious to playthe first part among the Protestants of Germany. Seeking to act independently, and to hold the balance between Sweden and Austria, he invited the Protestant States to a conference at Leipsic, February 6, 1613, at which it was determined to demand from the Emperor the redress of grievances, and to levy an army of 40,000 men, to give weight to their remonstrances. On the 13th of January, Gustavus had concluded an alliance with France, by the terms of which he was to maintain in Germany 30,000 men, France furnishing a subsidy of 400,000 dollars yearly, to use his best endeavours to reinstate those princes who had been expelled from their dominions by the Emperor, or the Catholic League, and to restore the empire to the condition in which it existed at the commencement of the war. Richelieu tried to bring the princes who had joined in the convention of Leipsic to accede to this alliance, but with very partial success. A few promised to support the Swedes, when opportunity should favour; but the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg kept aloof. During these negotiations Gustavus made progress in Brandenburg. The memorable siege and destruction of Magdeburg, May 10, by Tilly, for a time cast a gloom over the Protestant cause. Gustavus has been censured, both as a man and a soldier, for suffering that well-deserving and important place to fall without risking a battle in its behalf. His defence rests upon the interposed delays, and the insincerity of the Electors, which involved him in the risk of total destruction if he advanced thus far without having his retreat secured. But even this signal misfortune proved finally serviceable to the Protestant cause. It induced Gustavus to adopt a different tone with his brother-in-law of Brandenburg, who, finding no alternative but a real union or an open rupture with Sweden, wisely chose the former. The pride of success led the Imperial generals into acts of insolence, which induced the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, first of the German princes, to conclude a close and hearty alliance with Sweden, and left the Elector of Saxony no choice between entire dependence on the already exasperated Emperor, and an effective support of the only power that could protect him. Accordingly he formed a junction with the Swedes, and the united forces joined battle with Tilly not far from Leipsic, September 7, 1631. The opposing armies were nearly equal in strength. The stress of the conflict fell on the right wing of the Swedes, where the King commanded in person. The fiery Pappenheim led seven impetuous charges of the whole Austrian cavalry against the Swedish battalions without success, and, seven times repulsed, abandoned the field with great loss. The Saxons on the left wing were broken by Tilly. Butthe day was restored by a decisive movement of the Swedish right wing upon Tilly’s flank, and the Imperialists dispersed in utter confusion. Leipsic, Merseburg, and Halle speedily fell into the victor’s hands; and no obstacle existed to check his advance even to the heart of the Emperor’s hereditary dominions. This was a tempting prospect to an ambitious man: but it would have abandoned Germany to Tilly, who was already occupied in raising a fresh army; and the King of Sweden determined to march towards Franconia and the Rhine, to encourage by his presence the Protestants who wavered, and to cut the sinews of the Catholic League, by occupying the territories, and diverting the revenues of its princes. Bohemia lay open to the Elector of Saxony, and he left it to that prince to divert the Emperor’s attention, by carrying the war into that country.
From Leipsic, Gustavus pursued his triumphant way to the southward. The rich bishopric of Wurtzburg fell into his hands, almost without resistance. Nuremburg placed itself under his protection. The nobility and citizens of Franconia declared in his favour as soon as they were relieved from the presence of the Imperial troops, and when his drum beat for recruits, crowds flocked to the Swedish standards. He pursued his course along the Maine to Frankfort, which opened its gates, and received a Swedish garrison; and being strengthened by the junction of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, with 10,000 men, he crossed the Rhine, and, after a short siege, became master of Mentz by capitulation, December 13, 1631. There he gave his troops a few weeks’ repose, being himself busily engaged in diplomatic labours. Early in the following year he completed the conquest of the Palatinate, and threatened to carry the war into Alsace and Lorraine.
The advance of Tilly recalled the King of Sweden into Franconia, at the head of 40,000 men. Tilly then retreated into Bavaria, closely followed by the enemy, who passed the Danube at Donawerth, forced the passage of the Lech, and carried the war into the yet uninjured plains of Bavaria. The passage of this river in the face of the enemy, April 5, is regarded as one of the King of Sweden’s most remarkable exploits. His old antagonist Tilly received a mortal wound on this day. Munich, the capital, and the greater part of the Electorate, yielded without resistance. The Emperor was now reduced to the greatest difficulties. Bohemia was overrun by the Saxons, the Austrian dominions lay open to invasion from Bavaria, Tilly was dead, the Duke of Bavaria discouraged by his reverses, and inclined to purchase peace by consenting to a neutrality. There was but one mancapable by the charm of his name and the power of his talents to compete with Gustavus, and he was Wallenstein. In his retirement that wildly ambitious man had long been scheming to bring his master to such a degree of abasement as should enable him to dictate his own terms of reconciliation and assistance; and the time was come when the Emperor saw himself obliged to consent to demands which almost superseded his own authority, and invested his dangerous subject with more than Imperial power. For this event Wallenstein’s plans had long been maturing: a powerful army started up at once at his command, and when it suited his secret purposes to act, Bohemia was cleared of the Saxons more quickly than it had been conquered by them. He then formed a junction with the Duke of Bavaria, and at the head of 60,000 men advanced against Gustavus, who, not having above 18,000 or 20,000 men with him, entrenched himself strongly under the walls of Nuremburg. Wallenstein took up a strong position against him, and the two generals, each hoping to exhaust the other by scarcity of provisions, remained inactive till August 21, when Gustavus, having drawn together his scattered forces, made a desperate and fruitless attempt to carry the Imperial lines. Frustrated in this, he returned to his encampment, which he quitted finally, September 8, and marched into Bavaria.
Wallenstein followed his example on the 12th, and retired without any hostile attempt on Nuremburg. He had determined to fix his winter quarters in Saxony, hoping by the terror of his arms to detach the Elector from the Swedish alliance; and had already advanced beyond Leipsic, on his march against Dresden, when he was recalled by the rapid approach of the King of Sweden. Gustavus arrived at Nuremburg November 1, and entrenched himself there to wait for reinforcements which he expected. Wallenstein, in the belief that his adversary would be in no hurry to quit his strong position, proceeded to canton his troops near Merseburg, in such a manner that they might easily be called into action at the shortest notice, and detached Pappenheim with a large division of the army upon distant service. As soon as Gustavus heard of the latter movement, he marched in haste to attack the diminished enemy, and Wallenstein, though with inferior troops, was not slow to meet him. The King of Sweden’s last victory was gained November 6, 1632, in the plain of Lutzen. Suffering from a recent wound, he did not wear armour, and early in the day, as he mingled in the front of the battle with his usual ardour, his left arm was broken by a musket-ball. As he retreated from the press he received another bullet in the back, and fell. His body was strippedby the Imperialists, a furious contest took place for the possession of it, and it was soon buried under a heap of slain. The Duke of Weimar took the chief command, and completed the victory.
It was probably fortunate for Gustavus’s honour that his brilliant career was here cut short. He died when no more successes could have enhanced the fame as a soldier which he had already acquired; at a period, says Schiller, when he had ceased to be the benefactor of Germany, and when the greatest service that he could render to German liberty was to die. However pure his views had been at the commencement of the war, success had taught him ambition. This was shown by the homage to Sweden which he exacted from Augsburg and other free cities of the empire, by his design of converting the archbishopric of Mentz into an appanage of Sweden, and by his reluctance to reinstate the Elector Palatine in the conquered Palatinate, and the conditions which he finally exacted for so doing. And whether or not he aimed at the Imperial throne, it is probable that his life and prosperity would have proved no less dangerous to the constitution of Germany, and the welfare of the Catholic states, than to the Protestant, the ambition of Ferdinand II., and the Catholic League. But dying thus early, he has preserved the reputation of sincere piety, humanity in the field, heroic courage, consummate policy, and skill united to success in the art of war, unequalled by any general since the downfall of Rome. Of the improvements which he effected in military tactics we have no room to speak: a full account of them, and of his whole system, will be found in the Essay prefixed to Harte’s ‘History of Gustavus Adolphus.’ A more concise and spirited account of the King of Sweden’s exploits in Germany, than is contained in that laborious book, will be found in Schiller’s ‘History of the Thirty Years’ War,’ which is translated both into French and English.
[From the original in the British Museum.]
[From the original in the British Museum.]
[From the original in the British Museum.]