Then Gustavus advanced in earnest. Tilly had taken no measures to hold him off while the invasion of Saxony was in Battle of Breitenfeld. progress, and he crossed the Elbe at Wittenberg. 16,000 Saxons joined the 26,000 Swedes at Düben, and some of the western Germans had already come in. Tilly had just captured Leipzig, and outside that place, carried away by Pappenheim's enthusiasm, he gave battle on the 7/17 September to the now superior allies. The first battle of Breitenfeld (q.v.) was a triumphant success for Gustavus and for the new Swedish system of war, such a battle as no living soldier had seen. The raw Saxons, who were commanded by Arnim, once Wallenstein's lieutenant, were routed by Tilly's men without the least difficulty, and the balance of numbers returned again to the imperialist side. But the veterans of the League army were nevertheless driven off the field in disorder, leaving 6000 dead. Tilly himself was thrice wounded, and only the remnant of his own faithful Walloon regiments remained with him and bore him from the field.
All Protestant Germany hailed Gustavus as the liberator. Wallenstein, glad of the defeat of the Catholic army, proposed to co-operate with the Swedes. John George, the Swedish general Horn and the Swedish chancellor Oxenstierna united Strong position of Gustavus Adolphus. in advising Gustavus to march straight upon Vienna. Richelieu, who desired to humble Ferdinand rather than to disestablish the power of the Catholic princes, was of the same mind. But Gustavus deliberately chose to move into South Germany, there to relieve the Protestants oppressed by Maximilian, to organize the cities and the princes in a new and stronger Protestant Union, the Corpus Evangelicorum, and to place himself in a country full of resources whence he could strike out against the emperor, Tilly, and the Rhine Spaniards in turn. To the Saxons he left the task of rousing the Bohemian Protestants, perhaps with the idea of thoroughly committing them to the war upon Ferdinand. The Swedish army pushed on through Halle, Erfurt, Würzburg to Mainz, where in the middle of the “Pfaffengasse,” the long lane of bishoprics and abbacies along the Main and the Rhine, it wintered in luxury. The Palatinate was reorganized under Swedish officials and the reformed religion established again. In March 1632 the campaign was resumed. Nuremberg and Donauwörth welcomed Gustavus. Tilly's army, rallied and re-organized for the defence of Bavaria, awaited him on the Lech, but after a fierce battle the passage was forced by the Swedes (4/14 April) and Tilly himself was mortally wounded. Augsburg, Munich and all the towns and open country south of the Danube were occupied without resistance. At the same time John George's army entered Prague without firing a shot.
The emperor had now either to submit or to reinstate Wallenstein. Wallenstein demanded as the price of his services the Wallenstein returns to the imperial service. reversal of the Edict, and power to dethrone every prince who adhered to the Swedes. His terms were accepted, and in April 1632 he took the field as the emperor's alter ego with a new army that his recruiters had gathered in a few weeks. He soon expelled the Saxons from Bohemia and offered John George amnesty and the rescinding of the Edict as the basis of peace. The elector, bound by his alliance with Gustavus, informed the Swedish king of this offer, and a series of negotiations began between the three leaders. But John George had too much in common with each to follow either Wallenstein or Gustavus unreservedly, and the war recommenced. Gustavus's first danger was on the Rhine side, where Pappenheim, aided by the Spaniards, entered the field. But Richelieu, the half-hearted enemy of distant Catholic princes, was a vigorous enough opponent of Spain on his own frontier, and Gustavus was free in turn to meet Wallenstein's new army of 60,000, composed of the men immortalized by Schiller's play, excellent in war and in plundering, destitute of all home and national ties, and owning allegiance to its general alone. While Gustavus in Franconia was endeavouring with little success to consolidate his Corpus Evangelicorum Wallenstein came upon the scene. Gustavus, as soon as his Rhine detachments had rejoined, offered him battle. But as in 1625 Wallenstein would risk no battle until his army had gained confidence. He entrenched himself near Furth, while Gustavus camped his army about Nuremberg and a contest of endurance ensued, in which the Swedes, who, although they had learned to plunder in Bavaria, were kept rigidly in hand, fared worse. Wallenstein, aided by his The lines of Nuremberg. superiority in irregular cavalry, was able to starve for three days longer than the king, and at last Gustavus furiously attacked the entrenchments (battle of the Alte Veste, 24 August/3 September, 1632) and was repulsed with heavy losses. Thereupon Gustavus retired, endeavouring in vain to tempt Wallenstein out of his stronghold by making his retreat openly and within striking distance of the imperialists. Wallenstein had other views than simple military success. Instead of following Gustavus, who first retired north-westward and then returned to the Danube at Ingolstadt, he marched into Saxony, his army plundering and burning even more thoroughly than usual in order to force the Saxons into peace. Gustavus followed with the swiftness that was peculiar to the Swedish system, and his detachments on the Main under Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar having secured the road through Thuringia, he concentrated at Erfurt when Wallenstein had scarcely mastered Leipzig. But it was now late in the season, and Wallenstein, hoping to spin out the few remaining weeks of the campaign in an entrenched position, allowed Pappenheim, who had joined him, to return towards the Weser country, where, as in many other districts, spasmodic minor campaigns were waged by local forces and small detachments from the lesser bodies. Within forty-eight hours Pappenheim Battle of Lützen. was called back. Gustavus, without waiting for Arnim's Saxons to join him, had suddenly moved forward, and on the 6/16 November the battle of Lützen (q.v.) was fought, a battle as fierce even as Breitenfeld. Gustavus and Pappenheim were slain, and Wallenstein's army, yielding to Bernhard's last attack, retreated.
The fall of Gustavus practically determined the intervention of France, for Richelieu supported all electors, Catholic or Protestant, against the central power at Vienna as part of his anti-Spanish policy, and French assistance was now indispensable to the Protestants. For although Lützen was a victory and the Protestant circles formed the League of Heilbronn in April 1633, the emperor was really in the ascendant. John League of Heilbronn. George of Saxony, uneasy both at the prospect of League more foreign armies in Germany and at the expressed intention of Bernhard to carve out a principality for himself, needed but little inducement to make peace. But the tragedy of Lützen was soon to be followed by the tragedy of Eger. Wallenstein, gradually forming the resolve of forcing peace on Germany with his army, relaxed his pressure on Saxony, and drawing Arnim's army out of Silesia to protect Dresden, he flung himself upon the Swedish garrisons in Silesia. Winning a victory at Steinau (October 11, 1633) and capturing one town after another, he penetrated almost to the Baltic. But he was recalled to the south-west before his operations had had any effect. The Swedish army, under Bernhard, Horn and Banér, had before the formation of the League of Heilbronn returned to the Palatinate, and while Horn and Banér operated against an imperial army under Aldringer in the Neckar country, Bernhard took Regensburg from Maximilian's army. But it was now late in the year and Wallenstein was intent upon peace. With this object he endeavoured to secure the higher officers of the army, but these were gradually won over by Dismissal and murder of Wallenstein. Spanish emissaries; the emperor, having decided to continue the war in alliance with Spain, dismissed his general for the second time. Wallenstein then openly attempted to unite the Swedish, Saxon and other Protestant armies with his own, so as to compel all parties to make peace. But his army would not follow, the coup d'état failed, and Wallenstein was murdered at Eger (15/25 February 1634).
All unity, Catholic or Protestant, died with him, and for the
