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1632.]
The duke of Weimar
takes tlie command. GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. GERMAN WAR. Arrival of the Imperialist
general Pappenheim.
283
him with a pistol between the shoulders ;
that the
king still wished to save himself, but could not
hold out, falling from his horse, which carried hira
along with it amidst the enemy ;
that one of them
approached him, and inquired who he was, to
whom he answered,
" I am the king of Sweden,"
whereupon the man wished to lead him off; but as
our cavalry at the same moment, seeing the king’s
horse running riderless and bloody, made a despe-
rate chai’ge, the hostile trooper gave the king a
pistol-shot tlirough the head, and saved himself by
flight *.
The right wing of the Imperialists stretched at
first beyond the left of the Swedes; wherefore the
king had here ordered three squadrons to march
from the second line to the fii’st. Nevertheless, Iso-
lani with his Ci’oats passed round this wing and fell
upon the baggage, at the same time that the
infantry was driven back across the high-road.
This attack, which caused disorder, and in part
flight among the rear-troops ^, was however re-
pulsed. At this moment the king fell. Truchsess
carried the information to the court-marshal
Kreilsheim ; both communicated it to duke Ber-
nard of Weimar, and he to major-genei-al Knip-
hausen. According to the duke’s own declaration
Kniphausen answered that his ti’oops were in good
order, and could make a fair retreat. The answer
agrees not ill with his character. He was an officer
of the greatest merit, sagacious, trusiy, brave, but
often unlucky, and tlierefoi-e mistrusting fortune ^.
Bernard exclaimed, Avith heat, that hei’e there was
question of no retreat, but of revenge, victory, or
death. Nevertheless, general Kniphausen’s steadi-
ness on this day, no less than duke Bernard’s
heroism, deserved the wreath of triumph.
The duke hastened from the left wing, which he
committed to count Nicholas Brahe, to the right,
and himself assumed the command ’. The bloody
charger of Gustavus Adolphus running loose, was
tlie first messenger of disaster to his army. A
murmur that the king was wounded and taken
flew through the ranks. They rushed with such
fury on the enemy, that not only the battery was
for the second time taken, but the whole of the im-
* The letter is printed by Gidrwell in the Swedish Library,
Stockholm, 1760, and dated Hamburg, Nov. 25, 1632.
5
Something upon this point is found in a letter to duke
William of Weimar the day after the battle, wherein com-
plaint is made of some loose felloAvs, who at the beginning
of the engagement, when it went ill with the Swedes, took
to flight. Rose, i. 367, n. 54.
s He used to say,
" An ounce of luck is better tlian a
pound of prudence." He is called major-general of the royal
armies, and was consequently chief of the king’s general
staff—a system which seems to have been organized by
Gustavus Adolphus.
^ In his own report (compare Richelieu, vii. ’261 ) it is said,
that the duke, when he placed himself at the head of
Stenbock’s regiment, transfixed the lieutenant-colonel with
his sword, because he refused to obey. Waiving this cir-
cumstance, we will only observe tVat this cannot refer to
Stenbock, who had been previously wounded and carried
out of the fight.
8 On Wallenstein’s plan for his order of battle at Lutzen,
delineated with his own hand (communicated by Forster),
he marks the baggage with the words, canally, bagagy.
9 Letter of the resident Hallenius to the government,
Stralsund, Nov. 20, 1632.
’ "
Greatly wondering whence so many new troops came
upon his hands." Richelieu, 1. c.
" The count of Pappen-
perial cavalry on this wing was driven back. The
confusion was terrible among the vast baggage-
train *
;
several powder-waggons were blown up.
Large bodies of cavalry fled, and a crowd of wo-
men, who had gained possession of the baggage
horses, followed them. Prisoners in the hostile
camp heard the fugitives calling,
" We know the
king of Sweden (they had not yet heard of his
death) ;
he is ever worst at the end of the day."
At the same time the left wing of the Swedish
army, which had with difficulty held its ground
against the immerous hostile artillery at the wind-
mill, drove back the enemy on this side also, and
turned their own cannon upon them. Pappenheim
now deployed into the field of battle ^. His first
question was, where commands the king ? A heroic,
although cruel defender of his rehgion, he was the
enemy whom Gustavus Adolphus had most es-
teemed. He now threw himself amidst the right
wing of the Swedes,- burning with the desire of a
personal conflict with an adversary who was no
longer among the living. Two balls struck him ;
he died of his wounds (colonel Stalhandske, who had
just wrested the king’s body from the hands of the
enemy, is said to have shot him); but on his arrival
the combat was renewed with redoubled violence.
Wallenstein’s cavalry and infantry rallied, and
Bernard of Weimar was amazed at the multitude
of fresh troops whom he found in his way ’. The
hardest onslaught of all was now made, and sus-
tained by the Swedes with great valour; and never,
says a contemporary, was a battle better fought by
troops who had stood so long under fire. Of the
Swedish infantry brigades, the two midmost, under
count Nicholas Brahe and colonel Winkel, suffered
most severely. The Imperialists fell upon them in
columns of two to three thousand men, and once
again took the battery on the high-road. Count
Nicholas Brahe was struck by a ball on the knee,
of which he died -. Colonel Winkel was wounded
in the hand and arm; his lieutenant-colonel Caspar
Wolf fell. Several standards, with the royal ban-
ner itself, were lost. But of these brigades, which
were tlie flower of the army, and mostly old sol-
heim with his horse and dragooners arrived, whom some
will needs have to have been in person at the beginning of
the battle. —He being shot, the Walsteiners, whom Pappen-
lieim’s coming had set on, fell to it closely. Piccolomini
advanced, and Tersica, with their cavalry, and the foot regi-
ments seconded them with the utmost resolution. And
now began the sorest, the longest, and the obstinatest con-
flict that had been since the king was killed." Swed. Intel,
iii. 143. According to duke Bernard’s own statement. Pap
penheim first came on the field about two o’clock in the
afternoon. He brought with him eight regiments of cavalry.
Gualdo says, that the king fell when he had parted from his
men for a moment, in order to recognosce on receiving in-
formation of Pappenheim’s arrival. Gualdo was however
not himself present at Lutzen, but about this time in Mon-
tecuculi’s army.
- "
My brother, of happy memory, count Nicholas, re-
ceived the life-guard regiment of the late king after the
battle of Leipsic, was afterwards also at the battle of Lutzen,
where he led the foot and the vanguard of three strong regi-
ments, and put the enemy to flight, taking six pieces from
him, and following up the victory, till Piccolomini with his
cuirassiers took bim in the flank. Our troopers gave no
help to him, and therefore he suffered great loss in his men,
especially the king’s company of body-guards. So he was
shot in the left knee, and brought to Naumburg, where he
expired on the 21st Nov." Count Peter Brahe’s Note-Book-
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