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l«32.]
Rav^ages^ort°h7pIigue.
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. GERMAN WAR. The Saxon troops join „«„
the Swedes. ^"^
weeks not had a penny. It is known to every man
that we look to you for their payment; thereon have
both officers and privates reliance. Besides this hope
we have had nought for their sustenance but ammu-
nition bread, which we liave exacted from the towns;
but even to this there is now an end. Among the
horsemen, who were not to be satisfied therewith,
we have been able to keep no order; they lived
merely on irregular and intolerable pillage. Thus
one has ruined the other, so that there is no-
thing more to be taken either for them, or the sol-
diers in the towns or the country. Had we ob-
tained what ye should have furnished for these
months, we would have had hopes at least to defend
the Elbe and the Oder, and to clear the Baltic, if
more could not have been effected this year, but
now we must fear a retreat with loss. —For what
concerns our condition here, it would have been
good otherwise, had means been but to be found.
A fortnight ago we moved out with our cavalry
and routed three of the enemy’s regiments at
Wolmirstadt. Since we retired to Steudal, Tilly
has conjoined his troops with Pappenheim’s, and
marched up hither, whereupon we had some days’
skirmishing with him. As we retired, he fol-
lowed us gradually, and lodged for some days but
a short quarter of a mile hence. Now hath he
withdrawn, and we annoyed him on the retreat."
Thus modestly does the king express himself upon
Tilly’s attempt against the camp at Werben, which,
nevertheless, is said to have cost the latter GOOO
men in all. He had 26,000, Gustavus Adolphus only
12,000 men’. The plague raged in the track of the
armies. Six thousand Scots and English had been
levied by the marquis of Hamilton, for the king,
who intended to employ them on the Weser. They
landed instead in Pomerania, where Hamilton pa-
raded the magnificence of a prince. He received
orders to ascend the Oder and watch Frankfort.
Before the end of summer his troops had melted
down to fifteen hundred, and of these soon only
five hundred were left ^. The plague was likewise
in the leaguer of Werben. It was regarded as an
especial mercy of God that the disease ceased there
just when the summer heats were fiercest. In the
preceding year it had visited Sweden *. The king
now received a reinforcement from home, which
his consort followed to Germany *. Of these troops
one division was employed in the conquest of Meck-
lenburg ;
four thousand men, with new artillery,
were among the troops which Horn conducted from
the Oder to the royal army. The king broke up
from Werben in the middle of August, and drew
near Saxony. When he came to the bridge of the
•
Swedish Intelligencer. Monro.
- That so considerable a body of troops, without any ex-
ploit of name, liad utterly dispersed and, as it were, vanished
away, is ascribed principally to the infection then raging, as
also to their strangeness in the country, the air, and the
hard treatment of soldiers in Germany. Chemnitz, i. 193.
3 " In 1630 a grievous pestilence invaded Nykiiping."
Palmsk. MSS. t. 38. The same year the plague was at Wax-
holm, so that the Council of State and the Chancery removed
from Stockholm to Upsala, 1. c. 190.
1 Jan. 21, 1631, the king writes to his sister Catharine:
" I intend in the spring to bring hither my dear and loving
wife; but because I would not willingly see my daughter
accompany lier, 1 beg your lovingness will do me the sisterly
kmdness to take the child to yourself, as also to look closely
to those who have the care of her." 1. c.
I
Elbe at Wittemberg, his force, according to the
rolls then given in, consisted of 13,000 infantry and
8850 cavalry 5.
Tilly, having formed a junction with a part of
the imperial army returning from Italy, threat-
ened Saxduy with a strength of 40,000 men’’. Two
hundred burning villages lighted up his inroad, and
Leipsic fell before long into his hands. This was
the fate of Saxony’s neutrality. The terrified
elector threw himself into the arms of Gustavus
Adolphus. Not only Wittemberg, John George
notified to him, but the whole land and he himself
stood at the king’s service. The junction of the
Swedish and Saxon troops took place at Duben on
the 5th September. Two days after, the victory
at Leipsic put an end to Tilly’s fortune in arms
and to the emperor’s predominance.
The battle has been sufficiently described by
writers skilled in war. The improvements which
Gustavus Adolphus introduced into the military art,
and chiefly a greater celerity of motion in all arms,
were here shown in full operation. What we sub-
join is from the king’s own hand. "On the 7th of
this month," he writes to his sister in Sweden,
" we delivered general Tilly an open battle, in
which God fought for and with us, and granted us
such grace, that after a hai’d combat we remained
masters of the field, slew some thousands of the
enemy’s men, put him to flight, took all his can-
non, great and small, won from him sixty-six
standards and twenty-two cornets, and so utterly
ruined his army, that we may go unhindered whi-
ther it pleaseth us ’." In a letter to Axel Oxen-
stierna the king gives more full details :
—" On the
morning of the 4th we marched to Duben, and
pitched our camp before it, to wait for the elector
of Saxony, who was approaching from Eilenburg,
and came up early on the 5th with his army, about
20,000 men strong, well mounted, and gallant to
look upon. The elector arranged his army in
divers brigades, and signified, that if it were agree-
able to us, he would come to salute us. We there-
fore took with us a good body of the cavalry, and
rode forth a little way to meet him. Our brother-
in-law, the elector of Brandenburg, was in his com-
pany. We rode with the electors the round of the
Saxon army, and thence to our infantry, which kept
also in battle-array*; and after we had viewed both
armies, we took the electors with us to our quar-
ters. There we consulted with them, especially
with the elector of Saxony, how the enemy should
be attacked, whether by diversions to harass him
partisan fasliion, or by delivering a general action.
’ Chemnitz, i. 203.
6 " Broke up, Aug. 18, from Wolmirstadt, with the whole
army to Eisleben, and there conjoined his force with the
army of Furatenberg, which some days before had arrived
there 25,000 strong; thence they broke up together three
days after, and marched towards the electorate of Saxony."
Khevenhiiller, xi. 1698. The king supposed Tilly, after this
junction, to be considerably stronger than we, following
several authors, have stated. He writes home to Jacob
de la Gardie, Kopwick, Aug. 21 (O. S.): "The enemy
camps 60,000 strong, and of the elector of Saxony we know
not how he inclines." Reg.
7 To the Palsgravine, Halle, Sept. H, 1631. Reg.
8
Monro, I. c. ii. 62, says, that as the Swedish army had
lain over night on a newly-ploughed field, the soldiers were
covered with dust, and smutched like kitchen- servants,
whereat the Saxons made merry.
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