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270
Oceu|i;ition of Augsburg
and Munich. HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. The intrenched camps
at Nuremberg.
[1628-
The re-cstablisliment of the Confesision of Augsburij
in the town which had been its cradle, appears, of
all his triumphs, to have been dearest to Gusta-
vus Adoljihus ;
and on public opinion it made a
deep inijU’ession. The unfortunate Frederic of the
Palatinate entered at his side (the only satisfaction
he received) the capital of his enemy, Maximilian
of Bavaria. Gustavus Adolphus in jMunich we
will pourtray in the words of a Bavarian annalist :
"There was nought to compare with the strict dis-
cipline and order in which he kept the very mode-
rate force which was allowed to enter the town
(the army was obliged to remaiu encamped without
it) ; incomparable also was his frank, glad friendli-
ness, and the unembarrassed condescension which
he showed in mixing and conversing with the in-
habitants. He heard divine service with rever-
ence, with his chief associates, in the Catholic
churches, and looked upon the ceremonies (on
Ascension-day, May 20, he was for two hours in
the church of the Nunnery); he demeaned himself
every where as if he were at home in the midst of
his people, heard with pleasure witty though biting
replies, which he answered with a friendly jest, and
was inwardly content when he, in case he went on
foot, came iuto a throng of children and grown
persons, among whom he usually scattered money ’."
The town, however, was obliged to pay 300,000 rix-
dollars, which were rigorously exacted. In Bavaria,
which hei’etofore had been undisturbed by war,
Ingolstadt alone, whose siege wellnigli cost the
king his life *, and the exasperated country people,
offered any resistance. The whole of Protestant
Swabia passed over to Gustavus Adolphus. Ber-
nard of Weimar carried his arms to the lake of
Constance and the Tyrol ;
and with the Swiss, who
allowed the Swedes to hold levies, negotiations were
opened for an alliance. Italy began to tremble,
says Richelieu, while Vienna was in alarm; the
revolted peasant’) of Upper Austria had already
solicited Swedish assistance.
Wallenstein now put his troops in motion, drove
the Saxons, whom he first lulled to repose by nego-
tiations, out of Bohemia, and soon stood, united with
the elector of Bavaria, at Eger. Gustavus Adol-
phus, who had vainly sought to hinder this con-
junction by a rapid march, was obliged to confine
himself to covei’ing Nuremberg, which was threa-
tened with the fate of Magdeburg. He had but
18,000 men 8
against 60,000; but Nuremberg con-
.
by name Becanus (Tract, de fide, spe, et ch.irit. c. l.’i, quaest.
I
4, 5, et 6,) teaches ’
Quod propter solam h ; resin lia^retici
I
reges et alii principes privandi sunt bonis, imperiis, dominiis
j
—et quod oranes alii heeretici puniendi sunt pcena capitis.’
I
Behold, these are the words of the Jesuit Becaiuis, where-
! with he shows himself the thirsting bloodhound of accused
but not yet convicted heretics. And for further proof of this
he mentions also the bull of the Papal ban, which is re-
newed every year at Rome on Maundy Thursday, whereby
all pretended heretics are adjudged from life to death. Yea,
the aforesaid Becanus says (qu. 8),
’
Hasrctici resipiscentes,
tametsi recipiantur de ecclesia—iion tameii permittantur
vivere.’ With these blood-thirsty allegations we do not in the
least hold, sinte it is wholly unchiistian to kill men for mere
heterodoxy. For he that will not unconstrained embrace
the right faith, may leave it, and him we ought not to com-
pel thereto by violent methods. For God requires a volun-
tary worship, and every man will be obliged to give an
account to the Lord, how or what he hath believed." Ser-
mon of Thanksgiving .md Comfort (I)ank-und Trost-Bredigt)
after the conquest of the city of Augsbur^’, printed in the
tained at this time 30,000 men fit to bear arms,
and he surrounded it
completely with a fortified
camp, defended by three hundred cannon. Wal-
lenstein came, says a contemporary narration, in
thunder and lightning, with the Upper Palatinate
in flames around him, to Nuremberg’, and sat
down likewise in a fortified camp.
" It was u])on
a height called Old-hill, where he occupied an old
ca.stle in the foi’est, with a hunter’s lodge near,
called the old fort, which he strongly mtrenclied
with ditches and palisades, erecting likewise on the
hill some large and strong sconces, covering also
the ditches and breast-works with felled trees, and
placing many casks filled with sand and stones on
the batteries •^." Here the two greatest commanders
of the time, with the eyes of the world fixed on
their movements, stood from the beginning of July
nine weeks against each other. "
My army is new,"
said Wallenstein ;
" if it were overcome in a battle
Germany and Italy would be in danger ;
I will
show the king of Sweden a new way of making
war "•." On the 24th August, after the king, by
junctions with Oxenstierna, Baner, the dukes of
Weimar and others had raised his strength to
46,000 men, he assaulted Wallenstein’s camp for
ten hours in vain. Want and disease had laid low
a far greater number than battle. The Nuremberg
bills of mortality for this year state the amount of
the victims at 29,000. The king left Oxenstierna
and Kniphtiusen to defend the town, and on the
8th September led off his army, half melted awaj ;
unpursued by Wallenstein, who a few days after-
wards set his camp on fire and departed.
In the camp at Nuremberg, where Gustavus Adol-
phus had assembled the largest force of any during
all his campaigns, the bonds of strict discipline
were still more slackened than during the distress
of Werben, as we may learn from the king’s vehe-
ment address to the assembled officers.
" Ye
princes, ioi-ds, and nobles," he exclaimed,
"
ye
that help to destroy your own native land !
My
heart is embittered, yea, my bowels tremble when
I hear the complaint made, that Swedish soldiers
are reckoned more shameless than even those of
the enemy. But it is not the Swedes, it is the
very Germans who defile themselves with these
excesses. Had I known that ye Germans bore so
little love and truth to your own land, I would
have saddled no horse for your sakes, far less
risked my crown and life for you *." At Nurem-
year IC32. "Words like these issued out of the heart of Gus-
tavus Adolphus.
^
Westenrieder, History of the Thirty Years’ War. His-
torical Calendar for 1805, Munich, ii. 208.
8 His horse was shot under him. He rose, saying "The
apple is not yet ripe." This was on the 20th April, 1632 ; the
same day Tilly died. The king’s entry into Munich was
made on the 7th May.
9 In all eighteen thousand four hundred and forty-three
men, as I have seen it written out of the array. Swedish
Intelligencer, ii. 240.
’
Like Jupiter in the poet—all in thunder and light, all
in fire and tempest, he takes and destroies the prince pala-
tine’s dominions, and the poor Protestant towns before him.
Ibid. 238.
2 New Chronicle of the War (Newe Kriegs-Chronica),
printed in 1()32, quoted by Schuh. Military Occurrences
about Nuremberg in 1632; Nuremberg, 1824.
^ Swedish Intelligencer, iii. 13, 17.
^ We have followed and abridged an outline of his speech
in the Swedish Intelligencer.
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