Читать книгу The Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648 - Gardiner Samuel Rawson - Страница 11

§ 1. Frederick does not give up hope.

If Frederick could only have made it clear that he had really renounced all his pretensions to meddle with other people's lands he might possibly have ended his days peaceably at Heidelberg. But he could not give up his hopes of regaining his lost kingdom. One day he talked of peace; another day he talked of war. When he was most peaceably inclined he would give up his claim if he could have an amnesty for the past. But he would not first give up his claim and then ask for an amnesty.

§ 2. Part taken by James of England.

Even to this he had been driven half unwillingly by his father-in-law. The King of England charged himself with the office of a mediator, and fancied that it was unnecessary to arm in the meantime.

§ 3. Dissolution of the Union.

The states of the Union were in great perplexity. The Landgrave of Hesse Cassel was compelled by his own subjects to come to terms with Spinola. The cities of Strasburg, Ulm, and Nüremberg were the next to give way. On April 12 a treaty was signed at Mentz, by which the Union dissolved itself, and engaged to withdraw its troops from the Palatinate. On the other hand, Spinola promised to suspend hostilities till May 14.

§ 4. Chances in Frederick's favour.

The danger to which the Palatinate was exposed, and the hints let drop that the conquest of the Palatinate might be followed by the transference of the electorate, caused alarm in quarters by no means favourable to Frederick. John George began to raise objections, and even the Catholic ecclesiastics were frightened at the prospects of the enlargement of the war, and at the risk of seeing many powers, hitherto neutral, taking the part of the proscribed Elector.

§ 5. He still holds places in Bohemia.

The claim kept up by Frederick to Bohemia was something more than a claim to an empty title. He had appointed Mansfeld to act there as his general; and, though Mansfeld had lost one post after another, at the end of April he still held Tabor and Wittingau in Frederick's name.

§ 6. Mansfeld's army.

The appointment of Mansfeld was unfortunately in itself fatal to the chances of peace. Ever since the capture of Pilsen, his troops, destitute of support, had been the terror of the country they were called upon to defend. In those days, indeed, the most disciplined army was often guilty of excesses from which in our days the most depraved outcasts would shrink. The soldiers, engaged merely for as long a time as they happened to be wanted, passed from side to side as the prospect of pay or booty allured them. No tie of nationality bound the mercenary to the standard under which accident had placed him. He had sold himself to his hirer for the time being, and he sought his recompense in the gratification of every evil passion of which human nature in its deepest degradation is capable.

§ 7. Soldiers of the Thirty Years' War.

Yet, even in this terrible war, there was a difference between one army and another. In an enemy's country all plundered alike. Tilly's Bavarians had been guilty of horrible excesses in Bohemia. But a commander like Tilly, who could pay his soldiers, and could inspire them with confidence in his generalship, had it in his power to preserve some sort of discipline; and if, as Tilly once told a complaining official, his men were not nuns, they were at all events able to refrain on occasion from outrageous villany. A commander, like Mansfeld, who could not pay his soldiers, must, of necessity, plunder wherever he was. His movements would not be governed by military or political reasons. As soon as his men had eaten up one part of the country they must go to another, if they were not to die of starvation. They obeyed, like the elements, a law of their own, quite independent of the wishes or needs of the sovereign whose interests they were supposed to serve.

§ 8. Mansfeld takes the offensive.

Before the end of May the breaking up of the army of the Union sent fresh swarms of recruits to Mansfeld's camp. He was soon at the head of a force of 16,000 men in the Upper Palatinate. The inhabitants suffered terribly, but he was strong enough to maintain his position for a time. Nor was he content with standing on the defensive. He seized a post within the frontiers of Bohemia, and threatened to harry the lands of the Bishop of Bamberg and Würzburg if he did not withdraw his troops from the army of the League. He then fell upon Leuchtenberg, and carried off the Landgrave a prisoner to his camp.

§ 9. A truce impossible for him.

The first attack of the Bavarians failed entirely. Bethlen Gabor, too, was again moving in Hungary, had slain Bucquoi, and was driving the Emperor's army before him. Under these circumstances, even Ferdinand seems to have hesitated, and to have doubted whether he had not better accept the English offer of mediation. Yet such was the character of Mansfeld's army that it made mediation impossible. It must attack somebody in order to exist.

§ 10. Vere in the Lower Palatinate.

Yet it was in the Lower, not in the Upper, Palatinate that the first blow was struck. Sir Horace Vere, who had gone out the year before, with a regiment of English volunteers, was now in command for Frederick. But Frederick had neither money nor provisions to give him, and the supplies of the Palatinate were almost exhausted. The existing truce had been prolonged by the Spaniards. But the lands of the Bishop of Spires lay temptingly near. Salving his conscience by issuing the strictest orders against pillage, he quartered some of his men upon them.

§ 11. War recommenced in the Lower Palatinate.

The whole Catholic party was roused to indignation. Cordova, left in command of the Spanish troops after Spinola's return to Brussels, declared the truce to have been broken, and commenced operations against Vere.

§ 12. Mansfeld driven from the Upper Palatinate.

By this time Mansfeld's power of defending the Upper Palatinate was at an end. The magistrates of the towns were sick of his presence, and preferred coming to terms with Maximilian to submitting any longer to the extortions of their master's army. Mansfeld, seeing how matters stood, offered to sell himself and his troops to the Emperor. But he had no real intention of carrying out the bargain. On October 10 he signed an engagement to disband his forces. Before the next sun arose he had slipped away, and was in full march for Heidelberg.

Tilly followed hard upon his heels. But Mansfeld did not stop to fight him. Throwing himself upon Alsace, he seized upon Hagenau, and converted it into a place of strength.