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oftA
^’^^ hostile armies in presence
-’•" 111’ eaoli Dtlier HISTORY OF THE SWEDES.
on the field of Lutzen.
Their probalile strenKlli.
[1628—
world than to shed his blood for his majesty’s and
the general weal ", instead of this went his own
way, and appeared not, any more than the elector,
at the battle of Lutzen ’.
It was at four o’clock in the morning of the 5th
November that the king broke up from Naumburg.
Halfway to Pegan, towards ten in the forenoon, the
tidings of Pappenlieim’s departure were confirmed,
with the addition, that Wallenstein’s troops, unpre-
pared for an attack, were lying in the villages round
Lutzen. The king exclaimed :
" Now do 1 verily
believe that God hath given the enemy into my
hand," and then resolved to attack Wallenstein.
He caused Weissenfels, abandoned by the Impe-
rialists, to be occupied. Count Rudolph Colloredo,
who was despatched to withdraw the last hundred
men remaining there, from the high castle of
Weissenfels beheld the king advancing on his way
to Lutzen, and was the first to bring the know-
ledge of the fact to Wallenstein. The latter wrote
forthwith to Pappenheim to return without delay,
since the enemy was approaching, and already at
the pass. The letter, steeped in Pappenheim’s blood,
is extant in the archives of Vienna ^; he carried it
about him in the battle. The pass referred to is at
Rippach, a village on a brook of the same name, that
flows through low-lying meadows between heights,
from which the wide level around Leipsic and Lutzen
extends. When the king, having routed Isolani’s
Croats at the pass, descended into the plain the
night had already set in. He spent it in his cha-
riot, with Kniphausen and Bernard of Weimar; the
army on the open field. In the Imperialist leaguer
there was great confusion. Three cannon-shots
called the regiments together; orders were sent in
all directions to hasten to camp. The regiments
took their places in the array as they came up.
The Imperialist dragoons and pioneers worked
throughout the night, to deepen the ditches on
both sides of the high-road from Leipsic to Lutzen,
so that they might serve as breast-works for mus-
keteers. Wallenstein’s position was north of this
road, which covered his front. His right wing
rested on the town of Lutzen and the windmills,
which lay before him ;
in the gardens between
9 " His rnyal majesty may safely and surely depend upon
this, that liis priiieely prace is eager to shed his blood for
his majesty and the commonwealtli, seeing that he desires
no greater honour in this world than to display this on occa-
sion olTering, and really as well as corporally to demonstrate
it." Duke George’s relation to the king, Brunswick, Oct. 2,
1632. See v. d. Decken, duke George of Brunswick and
Luneburg, ii. doc. 100. The duke, instead of going to the
king, hastened to join the Saxons, and was now with his
corps at Torgau, where a thousand Saxon cavalry had placed
themselves under him, 1. c. ii. 103. Others state the num-
ber of the Saxons as considerably higher, and their whole
strength at 8000 men or upwards. But it is certain that the
main body of the Saxons was still detained in Silesia by Arn-
heim, in spite of all the elector’s injunctions. Arnheim
came with 2000 men on the 28th October to Dresden, there-
after inspected the Swedish corps under duke George of
Luneburg at Torgau, came back on the 31st October, and
repaired again to Silesia. Chemnitz, i. 459. Arnheim con-
sequently at this lime was neither with 10,000 men, nor with
the Saxon main army at Dresden, as the above-mentioned
historian of duke George says, ii. 100, 109.
’
Gustavus Adolphus, on the night before the battle, is said
to have comidained of the untrustworthiness of duke George
of Luneburg. He resolved on battle witliout waiting for the
effect of his last orders. The king’s last letter to the elector
these and the town musketeers were posted. The
left wing stretched into the open plain (here Pap-
penheim was to come up), and had at a little dis-
tance from it a canal (the so-called float-ditch),
which connects the Saal with the Elster, and tra-
verses the field in a north-west direction. Four
great brigades of infantry, each of several regi-
ments, occupied the centre of the Imperial army,
where Wallenstein himself took post. Immense
squares, ten men deep, with similar smaller squares
at the corners, they resembled fortresses with pro-
jecting bastions. Before them, on the high-road,
they had that battery of seven cannon, which was to
be the object of so murdei-ous a struggle. The re-
maining artillery grazed the front from the wind-
mills in a slanting direction. On the left of the
masses of infantry which have been mentioned,
were seen in great colunms Piccolomini’s cuiras-
siers, on whom the attack of the Swedes was
broken, and where the king lost his life ;
on the
right likewise deep columns of cavalry, and then
infantry again ;
on the extreme of both wings the
Croats. In order to j)lant themselves over-against
the enemy, the Swedes, on their side, were obliged
to pass the canal just mentioned, and their right
wing reached in its first position some distance
beyond it.
Wallenstein’s strength is very differently stated.
Prisoners of the Swedish army, whom he caused
to be examined by Pappenheina in Weissenfels,
heard it alleged to be 50,000 men ^, but they them-
selves remarked the exaggeration of this statement.
For the rest, we may form a notion of one of Wal-
lenstein’s armies, when we know that in this were
found no fewer than 10,000 women, baggage-lads,
and children. In his account to the emperor after
the battle, Wallenstein himself states its force at
Lutzen as not higher than 12,000 men ;
an asser-
tion still more improbable, which Catholic authors
however have adopted. Gustavus Adolphus esti-
mated his enemy on the field at 30,000 men, ac-
cording to ocular measurement, and the extent of
his front *.
By the lowest statement the last mili-
tary writer upon this battle assumes, that Wal-
lenstein was at least 20,000 men strong, even
of Saxony in Torgau was despatched on the 4 th November
from Naumburg; he bade him march straight to Eiienburg,
informed bim that he was himself going to Pegau, and ap-
pointed Grimma for the place of meeting. Swedish Intel, iii.
121. To this letter duke Bernard appeals in his memorial to
the elector after the battle of Lutzen, Nov. 11, 1632, where he
again presses for a junction. In this second instance it is said:
" Since God hath assisted his grace in this, and the enemy
hath retired in affright, therefore his grace linds it higlily
needful (according to his majesty’s own opinion, as shown by
his last letter), that his electoral highness may determine
himself to give his people the order to conjoin themselves
with the royal army, as his grace, being one in the service of
his majesty of Sweden, would have prayed, to the end that
his grace duke Bernard may march the Oth to Peja (Pegau),
and the 10th to Grimma." Thirdly, duke Bernard prays the
elector (as it is said, also according to the view expressed by
the king in his lifetime,) to leave Arnheim and his army in
Silesia. Glatfey, de gladio Gust Adol , Leipsic, 17-19. Hereby
is contradicted the assertion of Rose, i. 176, that duke Ber-
nard, after his difference with Gustavus Adolphus at Arn-
stadt, never styled himself a Swedish general. Yet Rose
cites this very memorial !
(i. 368. n. 66.)
2
Fbrster, Wallenstein’s Letters, ii. 273.
3 Swedish Intel, iii. 119.
••
Ibid. 133.
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