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1632.]
The king ovextakes
Wallensteiii. GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. GERMAN WAR. His desertion by the
elector. J79
Arnstadt Gustavus Adolphus parted from Axel
Oxenstierna, who had followed him from Nurem-
berg, and now turned towards Frankfort on the
Maine, in order thence to proceed to Upper Ger-
many as the king’s legate, with unlimited powers.
The army marched to Erfurt, where it was mus-
tered upon a beautiful plain not far from the town.
A new division was adopted. Several regiments
were consolidated ;
the Scottish and English, now
too weak, were dissolved. In all, the infantry
was reckoned at twelve thousand, and the cavalry
at six thousand five hundred; this was the king’s
whole force in the battle of Lutzen*. In Erfurt,
where the king arrived on the evening of the 28th
October, he first of all visited his lieutenant, duke
William of Weimar, who lay ill. In the market-
place the queen came to meet him. In the com-
pany of his wife and duke Ernest of Saxe-Weimar
he swallowed a hasty supper, and spent the night
in his chamber perusing letters, issuing orders, and
despatching couriers. Early m the morning he
I’ose, took a tender leave (the last) of his spouse %
exhorted the burghers of Erfurt to be faithful to
her, if by God’s pleasure any thing fatal should
befall him, mounted his horse, and followed his
arm}’.
Wallenstein meanwhile had taken Leipsic, made
a new movement towards Torgau, and lastly com-
municated with Pappenheim at Merseburg, the
same day the king came to Erfiu’t. The Swedes
had as it were flown, and made incredible marches,
says one of Wallenstein’s officers ^
;
hence the
arrival of the king was unknown to the enemy.
Pappenheim had just advised Wallenstein to tui-n
his whole force against Erfurt, when the news came
that the king was already approaching from that
place. Wallenstein now went to Weissenfels, and
sent in haste to occupy the pass over the Saal
at Naumburg, where only a weak outpost was sta-
tioned. It ,was too late. Naumburg had been
already taken by the king, who, on the 30th Oc-
tober, crossed the Saal. The inhabitants on his
way fell upon their knees, and stretched out their
hands to their rescuer, who exclaimed :
" I fear
that God will punish me ;
these people honour me
like a god." The armies were so near one another
that the outposts skirmished ;
but neither of the
leaders seemed yet determined on an engagement.
Gustavus Adolphus had begun to construct a forti-
fied camp at Naumburg. Wallenstein on his side
intrenched his army. The difficulty of the pass
between Weissenfels and Naumburg prevented
Weimar, could harbour this discontent, and declare in a let-
ter to his brother William :
" It hath almost the appearance
as if some jealousy were springing up, and the king would
not entrust to me the performance of this work, or did not
reckon me competent thereto
"—is excusable ; but that a
historian like Rose should here insinuate envy, and ascribe
motives like these for the king’s conduct :
" He resolves the
accomplishment of the enterprise for himself, in order alone
to reap the renown, and to bind the elector of Saxony to
himself, but not to the hero of Weimar,"—and this of the
expedition to Saxony, where Gustavus Adolphus was playing
for his all, and where he, even after his junction with duke
Bernard, had hardly 20,000 men at Lutzen !
—this we say is
hardly excusable, even if one be the historian of Weimar.
Compare Riise, duke Bernard the Great of Saxe-Weijnar, i.
1/4, 176.
> " And this was the king’s whole strength (and after the
largest reckoning too) in the day of the great battle of Lut-
him from immediately attacking the latter place;
and he requested the opinion of his generals.
They dissuaded a battle ;
the king had already
taken up an advantageous position and fortified
it ;
the season was now far advanced ;
on the
Rhine the enemy threatened to be an over-match.
Pappenheim actually obtained the permission of
his chief to betake himself thither ;
on the way
he was to drive the Swedes from the castle of
Moritzburg at Halle. They held it to be impi’o-
bable that the Swedish army, so much weaker as
it was, would venture to attack the Imperialists.
Wallenstein arranged his plans for winter-quarters,
and retired to Lutzen.—A Spanish officer in his
army states, however, that this was in connexion
with a secret object. Wallenstein is said to have
intended to go from Lutzen to Merseburg, in order
to be nearer to Pappenheim at his assault of
Halle; he had sent colonels Contreras and Suys to
Altenburg and Zwickau, hoping that the king
would avail himself of the opening so left to ad-
vance to Dresden, where he purposed then falling
upon the Swedes in the rear with his collective
force ’. He had ordered Gallas to march from the
Bohemian frontier to join him ;
but this officer
did not arrive early enough for the battle of
Lutzen ^.
The last days of Gustavus Adolphus are for us
too important not to obtain more detailed notice.
The king came to Naumburg on Thursday, the 1st
of November, O.S., and lingered there till the follow-
ing Monday; spending only the nights in the town,
but the days in his camp, whence he was at last
obliged by the cold to remove his infantry into the
town. On Sunday a Saxon peasant came to the
king, and delivered into his hands a letter from the
Imperialist general count Colloredo to the chief of
his regiment at Querfurt, with information of Wal-
lenstein’s march to Lutzen, and Pappenheim’s to
Halle. In a council of war with duke Bernard of
Weimar and general Kniphausen thereby occa-
sioned, the opinion of the latter, that no battle
should be hazarded, overcame that of the former.
When the king broke up from Naumburg, his first
intention therefore was to proceed to meet the elec-
tor of Saxony and duke George of Ltmeburg. He
had calculated upon a junction with both. Duke
George, with the troops under his command in
Lower Saxony, had received timely instructions
with this view. The duke, who had lately assured
the king that he desired no greater honour in this
zen." Swedish Intel, iii. 69. Comp 71. The Theatrum
Europseum states the king’s strength at 20,000 men, adding
that they were his best and oldest soldiers. So Khevenhiiller,
xii. 182. Forgetting this, he speaks in his description of the
battle itself of 25,000 men, although the king had, after the
review of Erfurt, received no reinforcement, but, on the con-
trary, left garrisons at Naumburg and Weissenfels.
5
According to a narrative mentioned by Philippi (death
of Gustavus Adolphus, Leipsic, 1832), the queen came after
the king to Naumburg, and first parted from him there on
the morning of November 5.
6
Gualdo, by Francheville, 205.
^ Swedish Intel, iii. 113. The Spanish relation alluded to
was printed at Lisbon in 1633. Compare Khevenhiiller, xii.
187.
8
Forster, Wallenstein’s Letters, ii. 278. Gualdo incor-
rectly mentions him as present. Khevenhiiller makes the
same mistake as to Horn, whose actions in Alsace at the
I same time he nevertheless relates.
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