The Complete Works of Stephen Crane (230 page)

Magdeburg, one of the richest towns of Germany, enjoyed a republican liberty under its wise magistrates. The rich archbishopric of which it was the capital had belonged for a long period to the Protestant princes of the House of Brandenburg, who had introduced their religion there. The Emperor Ferdinand had removed the Protestant administration and given the archbishopric to his own son, Leopold, but, nevertheless, the city of Magdeburg had found it possible to conclude an alliance with the King of Sweden, by which he promised to protect with all his powers its religious and civil liberties, while he obtained permission to recruit in its territory and was granted free passage through its gates.

He sent there Dietrich, of Falkenberg, an experienced soldier, to direct their military operations, and the magistrates made him governor of the city during the war.

While Gustavus was hindered from coming to its relief, Magdeburg was invested by the forces of Tilly, with those of Count Pappenheim, who served under him. Having ordered the Elector of Saxony to comply with the Edict of Restitution and to order Magdeburg to surrender, and having received a firm refusal, Tilly proceeded, March 30, 1631, to conduct the siege personally with great vigour, and finally, after a long, heroic defence, his men carried it by storm May 20. Falkenberg was one of the first to fall. Then began the storied horrors of Magdeburg, the slaughter of the soldiers, the citizens, the children, the outrages and murder of the women, many of whom killed themselves to escape the demons let loose by Tilly.

Many Germans felt pity for the wretched women delivered into their hands, but the Walloons of Pappenheim’s army were monsters of brutal fury. The scenes of crime in Magdeburg were unsurpassed in animal insanity by anything that has been recorded. When some officers of the League, sickened with these sights, appealed to Tilly to stop them, he said, “The soldier must have some reward for his danger and his labours.”

The inhabitants themselves, it is said, set fire to the city in twelve different places, preferring to be buried under the walls to yielding; but some authorities say it was fired by Pappenheim. Only the Cathedral and fifty houses were left from the conflagration; the rest had gone to ruin, soot, and ashes.

At last, on May 23, Tilly walked through the ruined streets of the city. More than six thousand bodies had been thrown into the Elbe; a much greater number of living and dead had been consumed in the flames — altogether thirty thousand were killed.

On the 24th a Te Deum was chanted in the Cathedral by Tilly’s orders, and he wrote to his emperor that since the taking of Troy and the destruction of Jerusalem no such victory had been seen. He then marched his men away through the Hartz Mountains, avoiding a meeting with Gustavus.

Great and bitter complaints arose in all quarters now against Gustavus for not succouring the city that depended upon him, and he was obliged to publish a justification of himself. The facts had been that the two Protestant Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg insisted, in the most cowardly spirit, upon preserving their neutrality, and would not allow the king’s army to cross their territory. Had he done so in despite of them, his retreat might have been cut off. While the siege was in progress, however, Gustavus finally came to Berlin, and said to the pusillanimous elector:

“I march towards Magdeburg not for my own advantage, but for that of the Protestants. If no person will assist me I will immediately retreat, offer an accommodation to the emperor, and return to Stockholm. I am certain that Ferdinand will grant me whatever peace I desire; but let Magdeburg fall, and the emperor will have nothing more to fear from me; then behold the fate that awaits you!” The elector was frightened, but would not yield a free passage for the Swedes through his dominions, and insisted upon having Spandau given back to him, and while Gustavus was arguing the question with him the news came that Magdeburg had fallen.

The horrible fate of the city sent a shudder throughout Germany. On the strength of it Ferdinand began to make fresh exactions, clearing out more Protestant bishoprics and demanding more men and funds from the electors; but all this had the effect of opening the eyes of the members of the Protestant Union to their own foolishness in not supporting Gustavus, “and the liberties of Germany arose out of the ashes of Magdeburg,” says Schiller.

It was now realised that within eight months the “Snow King” had made himself master of four cities, forts, and castles, and had cleared the whole country behind him to the shores of the Baltic — a territory one hundred and forty miles wide. But while other princes were changing their attitude, the Elector of Brandenburg remained obstinately, stupidly resolved on his own idea, — he must have Spandau  back; at last Gustavus ordered his commander to evacuate the fortress, but he declared that from that day his brother-in-law should be treated as his enemy. To emphasise this, he brought his whole army before Berlin, and when the elector sent ambassadors to his camp he said to them: “I will not be worse treated than the emperor’s generals. Your master has received them in his states, has furnished them with all necessaries, surrendered every place which they desired, and, notwithstanding so much complaisance, he has not been able to prevail upon them to treat his people with more humanity. All that I require from him is security, a moderate sum of money, and bread for my troops; in return for which I promise to protect his states and to keep the war at a distance from him. I must, however, insist upon these points, and my brother the elector must quickly decide whether he will accept me for his friend or his capital plunderer.” A report of this speech, together with pointing the cannon against the town, had the effect of clearing away the elector’s doubts and sweetening his fraternal relations with Gustavus. Most amiably he concluded a treaty, in which he consented to pay thirty thousand dollars monthly to the king, to allow the fortress of Spandau to remain in his hands, and engaged to open Kustrin at all times to his troops.

This decisive union of the Elector of Brandenburg with the Swedes was soon followed by others. The Elector of Saxony, who had had two hundred of his villages burned by Tilly, now joined Gustavus eagerly. When Gustavus, in order to test the Saxon ruler, who had heretofore been so shifty, sent word that he would make no alliance with him unless he would deliver up the fortress of Wittenberg, surrender as a hostage his eldest son, give the Swedish troops three months’ pay, and surrender up all traitors in his ministry, the elector replied:

“Not only Wittenberg, but Torgau, all Saxony, shall be open to him; I will surrender the whole of my family to him as hostages; and if that be insufficient, I will even yield up myself to him. Hasten back, and tell him that I am ready to deliver up all the traitors he will name, to pay his army the money he desires, and to venture my life and property for the good cause.”

The king, convinced of his sincerity, withdrew his severe conditions. “The mistrust,” said he, “which they showed me when I wished to go to the aid of Magdeburg awakened mine; the present confidence of the elector merits an equal return from me. I am content if he will furnish my army with a month’s whole pay, and I even hope to be able to indemnify him for this advance.” The Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel also joined him. The Dukes of Mecklenburg and Pomerania were already his firm friends.

Shortly after these events the king summoned his allies to meet him at Torgau at a council of war, for Tilly had invested Leipzig with a large army, and was threatening it with the fate of Magdeburg. The council decided upon pursuing Tilly at once, the Saxon elector saying this vehemently. Gustavus had had a short respite from warlike labours; he had visited Pomerania in June, where great rejoicings had been held on his behalf, and where he was joined by his queen, Maria Eleonora (just a year after he had landed), who had come from Sweden with reinforcements of six thousand Swedes.

But, after all, war was the dominating thought always with Gustavus; soon he was at headquarters making active preparations for the next battle. Cust, in his
Lives of the Warriors of the Thirty Years’ War,
says: “The bridge of Wittenberg being in his hands, he had already issued orders to Horn and Baner to meet him at this place of rendezvous, about sixteen miles from thence; Colonel Hay had been directed to occupy Havelberg; while Banditzen was now directed to remain in charge of the camp at Werben. The king, however, with the delicacy of a man of honour and station, kept all his troops on the western bank of the Elbe, that he might leave the Saxon army encamped on the right bank until he obtained from the elector his authority in writing to cross the bridge.”

The united Saxon and Swedish armies joined their forces on September 7, 1631, and came within sight of Tilly’s forces near Breitenfeld, a small town four miles from Leipzig. The king’s governor of Leipzig had surrendered to Tilly two days before, but the “old corporal,” as Gustavus called him, had inflicted no outrages upon the town.

Gustavus pushed his men forward rapidly, leaving tents and baggage behind him in his camp, thinking his men might well sleep in the fields at this season of the year. On the evening before the action Gustavus called his generals to him, explained the plan of battle to them, and told them that “they were about to fight tomorrow troops of a different stamp from Polanders or Cossacks, to whom they had hitherto been opposed.

“Fellow-soldiers,” he said, “I will not dissemble the danger of the crisis. You will have a day’s work that will be worthy of you. It is not my temper to diminish the merit of veteran troops like the Imperialists, but I know my own officers well, and scorn the thought of deceiving them. Our numbers are perhaps inferior, but God is just; and remember Magdeburg.”

After riding about through the ranks with the sanguine, light-hearted manner that always inspired courage in his men, he retired for a few hours’ sleep in his coach. And here, the chroniclers say, he dreamed that he had a pugilistic encounter with Tilly and floored him.

Tilly was waiting for them next morning on the slope of a hill, with large woods behind him, and his artillery on an eminence. His men wore white ribbons in their hats and helmets, and the allies, or confederates, as they were called, sprigs of holly or oak. The Imperial army was stretched in a single line, having neither a second line nor a reserve.

Gustavus kept his own men well separated from his Saxon troops. The Saxons were upon and behind a hill with their guns, while his own men were in separate bodies, each under its own commander, but capable of being shifted or massed according to the will of Gustavus in an incredibly short space of time. This manner of making his battle-field a chess-board, on which only his hand controlled the moves, was at that time unknown. It has been said by experts that Gustavus’s tactics on the day of Leipzig added more to the art of war than any that had been invented since the days of Julius Caesar.

A strong wind raged, blowing thick dust in the faces of the Swedes, and, as the battle proceeded, the smoke of the powder. As Gustavus moved his men to the attack in compact columns, in order to pass the Loderbach, Pappenheim, at the head of two thousand cuirassiers, plunged at them with violence. The king, clad in gray, with a green plume in his gray beaver hat, and mounted on his horse — of the sort called “flea-bitten,” — made a dash forward at the head of his cavalry, anxious to get the wind in his favour and to get his left flank out of range of a battery. Pappenheim, whose advance had been made without orders, received a volley from the musketeers that made him reel, and Baner at the head of the reserve cavalry, and Gustavus himself with the right wing, came on him with such impetus as to drive him fairly from the field.

Meanwhile on Tilly’s extreme right Furstenberg threw himself on the Saxons; they had no such training as the king’s old forces, and flew in a wild rout. The Elector of Saxony, who was in the rear, joining their flight with his body-guard, never stopped until he reached Eilenburg, where he consoled himself with deep draughts of beer, quite content to be out of the fray.

Gustavus witnessed the panic and flight of the Saxons, — from whom he had not expected too much, — and an officer he had summoned being shot dead in the saddle, the king took his place and cheered his men forward, crying “Vivat! vivat!”

The enemy fell back before the vigour of this attack. At the same time the king discovered from the thick clouds of dust about him that some large body of troops was near; he was told they were Swedes, but they were not there in accordance with his plan of battle, so he galloped up close to them, and coming back quickly organised his troops to receive an attack. “They are Imperialists,” he said. “I see the Burgundian cross on their ensigns.” It was here that the two Scottish regiments under Hepburn and Munro first practised firing by platoons. This was so amazing to the veteran Cronenberg and his fine Walloon infantry that they retired with all speed.