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1629.]
Winter campaign.
Battle of Wallhof. GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. POLISH WAR. War removed into
Prussia, I62f). 247
commissary general) arranged matters." It was
attempted to preserve the troops from sickness by
the use of brandy and garlic. Against the cold
tliey were provided with skins and double leggings
(one pair of wool and one pair of cloth, which
reached far above the hose), with water-tight Rus-
sian half-boots. Disease reached even the king’s
nearest attendants. " I am secretary and cham-
berlain," he writes in another letter to the chan-
cellor,
" wex’e I calefactor I should be ail the three."
The chancellor was likewise in his place to give a
pitying interest to the concerns of the sick, yet to
look closely whether there were not " such as lied
to the Lord."
The negotiations proved fruitless, and Gustavus
Adolphus decided, in the midst of winter, as he
himself expresses it,
" to set foot to the foe," lying
under Sapieha’s command in Wallhof, a hamlet
of Courland, before they could unite with Radziwil,
who was posted further back, in the neighbour-
hood of Bauske. The 6th January, 1G26’, the king
crossed the Duna with the cavalry and a thousand
musketeers. During the march, in the night of
the 6th to the 7th January, he came upon a body
of the enemy, whom he drove back. In the morn-
ing of the 7 th he attacked them, arrayed on the
level before their intrenchments, after they had
set fire to the village. A vehement charge of
cavalry decided the victory. Between five and
six hundred of the enemy remained dead on the
field ;
a hundred and fifty privates, with several
officers, were made prisoners, among them the
general Gosiewski ;
the baggage and four pieces of
cannon fell into the hands of the Swedes^. Rad-
ziwil, who was approaching, now hastily retreated,
and Livonia was cleared of the enemy. The king
before his departure issued various ordinances re-
lating to the govei’nment of the country, its defence,
and the sustenance of the army. Under the latter
head may be mentioned the foundation of a so-
called military colony of six hundred men in and
around Dorpt. The soldiers received a piece of
land, in the tillage of which the peasants were to
assist them, and to be exempted instead from work
for the crown. The king came to Revel to meet
his wishfully-waiting spouse, and journeyed back
to Sweden to follow his mother to the grave. The
queen dowager had died on the 8tli December,
1625. She had been an austere mother, and an
arbitrarily-inclined ruler, as well in her own domain
as in Charles Philip’s duchy. Gustavus Adolphus
paid the greatest reverence to her memory, and
confirmed all her ordinances. He continued the
buildings she had begun, because, as he said, she
had undertaken them for her remembrance.
After the battle of Wallhof the movements of
the war were bi’ought to a close ;
a truce was con-
cluded for si.x weeks, which after the king’s de-
parture was prolonged to the 21st May. The
king ordered de la Gardie afterwards not to accede
to any shorter cessation of arms, without, however,
rejecting negotiation ;
above all he must be master
of the Duna, and guard the strong places taken in
Courland,
" which were foreborows to Livonia ;"
for that portion of territory which the duke of
Courland still possessed, and which was of little
service for the objects of Sweden, neutrality might
2
According to the king’s o\yn letter to dela Gardie, dated
Wallhof, Jan. 8 (the day after the battle). He expresses
be granted under certain conditions. The king
himself had determined to remove the Avar from
the Duna to the Vistula, in order to attack the
Poles in a vital part and draw nearer to Germany.
Herewith began that compartment of the Polish
war which is also called tlie Prussian.
This plan was attended with political difficulties.
The king needed a harbour in East Pi’ussia, and
its duke, imder Polish superiority, was his own
brother-in-law the elector of Brandenburg. Gus-
tavus Adolphus did not allow himself to be deterred
by this consideration. Having augmented his native
and foreign troops, he set sail on the 15th June,
with a fleet of one hundred and fifty ships, and
an army of thirteen regiments of foot and nine
companies of horse, anchored at Pillau on the 26th,
and made himself master of the town almost with-
out resistance ;
for a Prussian garrison of three
hundred men, in the redoubt protecting the haven,
evacuated it, when unable to prevent him from
landing. Four Swedish ships of war were left
before Pillau ;
with a squadron of six, afterwards
reinforced by others, the high admiral was sent to
the roads of Dantzic, to seize the customs’ revenues
at that place also. Gustavus Adolphus himself
turned his arms against the garrisons absolutely
Polish, and sailed from Pillau to Braunsberg,
where he debarked his army half a mile from the
town. Beneath the enemy’s fire the Swedes
marched under the town walls, burst in the gates,
and drove out the Polish garrison, which in its flight
set fire to the suburbs. Braunsberg surrendered
to the king on the 30th of June, Frauenburg on
the 1st July, the strong place of Elbing on the 6th,
the well-fortified Marienburg on the 8th, with several
smaller towns beside. After the taking of Dirschau
on the 12th, the king threw a bridge there over
the Vistula, and extended his conquests on the
west from Mewe to Stargard, Putzick, and Zarno-
witz on the Pomeranian frontier. With reason
does his palace chaplain remark of this expedition,
that the king took towns " with like celerity as
if he had ridden through the country ^." The in-
habitants were in great part evangelically minded,
and the religious oppression which they had ex-
perienced at the hands of Sigismund, made them
well inclined to Gustavus Adolphus. The estates
of the Jesuits, the clergy, the Polish nobility, and
all who were devoted to the Polish crown, were
declared to be forfeited. Only those who volun-
tarily placed themselves in submission to Sweden
were exempted from plundering. Every morning
three hundred foot soldiers under a colonel, and
one hundred and fifty horse under a captain, issued
from the camp, with orders to collect booty in
common, and bring it into the camp, where it was
distributed by the major-general and the provost-
marshal. First, the wants of the king’s kitchen
were supplied, then the generals, aftervvai-d the
officers, and lastly the rest of the troops. Every
man who upon such a foray or otherwise extorted
plunder irregularly was hanged; the same punish-
ment overtook those who plmidered in a village
where the quarters were, or safeguard was given;
nor was any one allowed upon pain of death to
his hope that this defeat would deter the foe from renewing
his incursions across the Duna. Reg. for 1626.
3 John Botvidson, Funeral Sermon 7apon Gustavus Adol-
phus.
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