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1654]
Invasion of Bohemia by
Torstenson. CHRISTINA’S ADMINISTRATION, Great victory at
Jankowitz. 325
is the bright side of tlie picture; tlie shadows will
not be slow of showing themselves.
Torstenson’s last victories still east their radiance
on the beginning of Christina’s own administration.
After he had overwhelmed and destroyed the Im-
perialist array under Gallas, which had been sent
to shut him up in Jutland’, he broke in the com-
mencement of the year 164-5 into Bohemia, leaving
Konigsmai’k in Westphalia, and committing to
major-general Axel Lilye, governor of Leipsic ®,
the business of negotiating with the elector of
Saxony as to a truce, which was concluded in the
course of this year. He had resolved, he said,
" to
attack the emperor in the heart, and force him to
peace ;" and the ministry approved his intention,
"since the grounds were weighty and the design
great’." The emperor Ferdinand III. had re-
paired to Prague, collected a new army, and drawn
reinforcements from the Rhine, from Bavaria, and
even from Hungary. To this army, commanded
by the Imperialist field-marslial Hatzfeld, Torsten-
son delivered battle at Jankau or Jankowitz on the
24th February. We cite an extract from his own
account of the affair.
" Since I broke up from
Caaden," he writes to Axel Lilye on the 27th
February*, "I have written to the major-general
from Pressnitz, two miles from Pilsen ;
but hear
that the messenger whom T despatched thence has
been taken and shot by one of the enemy’s bands.
I continued my march without resting to Glattau,
and so further to Oroschewitz, directly upon the
enemy ;
and I am happily come hither on the 16th
of this month. But inasmuch as the enemy’s
army shortly before my arrival crossed tlie stream
called Ottawa, and nothing could be midertaken
against it, I continued my march on tliis side
of the river and the enemy on the other to Stracko-
nitz, and throughout the day, upon the mai’ch, we
saluted one another from the mountains with can-
non-shots, from which little loss was experienced
on our side. As the enemy now disputed this
stream with me, I pushed with all possible haste
to the Mulda, and found, half a mile below Zwickau,
a ford, where I crossed on the 20th, and advanced
with the ai’my to Woditz and Jankau. Here on
the 23rd, three miles from Tabor, we found the
enemy, who, leaving his baggage behind, had fol-
lowed us vvith great haste, and before my arrival
had already occupied all the hills, placing himself
’ Several letters have reached us touching a glorious
victory, which God granted you the 23rd November, 1644,
over Gallas, when you pursued and routed the imperial
cavalry, about Jiiterbock, crushing them and taking pri-
soners the greatest part, with general Enkefort, and some
colonels. (A very small part would have escaped, Torstenson
writes to Wrangel the day after the battle, had not our
cavalry, who made fifteen miles on one fodder, been so tired.)
Then we heard that the army moved toward Meissen, and
that Konigsmark was left with the Hessians at Magdeburg,
to look after Gallas, who is lying there with the rest of the
infantry, and one regiment of horse, that he may not be
able to come off without being totally ruined. The Admi-
nistration to Torstenson, Jan. 14, 1615. Reg. Gallas
attempted to escape to Wittenberg, with the remains of his
army, Dec. 23, 1644 Konigsmark surprised him, made
one thousand prisoners, and of the whole army, only two
thousand men escaped from Wittenberg to Bohemia. Puf-
fendorf, xvi. § 16.
6 An impetuous and haughty man ; he was vice-governor
in one division of Pomerania. July 27, 1641, the ministry
rebuke him for
"
wasting time, and neglecting the service
in such a position that Jankau was between the
two armies, and benefited neither much. The
situation of this spot is such, that from the incon-
veniency of the mountains no battle in just array
can be delivered. But as the enemy, daily on the
niarcli, kept by us, and from the incessant camp-
ing in the severe and cold winter, ruin might at
last have ensued on our side, it was at length
unanimously determined, after mature deliberation
with the whole of the generals and colonels, in
God’s name to attack the enemy. I therefore
on the 24th caused the army to advance by the
left against a hill, where the enemy’s outposts were
stationed, and behind which he kept his army in a
wood. This, though di-sputing it hardly, he was
obliged to quit, leaving three pieces, and field-
marshal Gotz killed on the spot. Thence the
enemy drew back from one hill to another, in
an arc, to the head- quarters he had occupied on
the previous night, and there again took up a
position anew. I followed in as good order as the
many hills and woods allowed, whereat the enemy-
fell upon us with great fury. A hard and bloody
action began, the like of which will not soon be
seen ;
and although the enemy was two or three
thousand men superior to us in cavalry, and equal
in infantry, yet our men together gave him so
gallant a reception, that after a stubborn fight
from eight o’clock in the morning to four in the
afternoon, at length the Almighty graciously vouch-
safed us the victory. The prisoners we have taken
are according to the here following list. On our
side no general is killed ; major-general Goldstein,
who made the first assault, is wounded in the right
hand. The colonels Reuseh and Sestedt also, with
siirae officers of inferior rank, were wounded. The
number of the killed cannot be accurately stated,
I
since they lie scattered here and there on the
hills and in the woods, for a length of two miles
very thickly." According to the list
subjoined by
Torstenson, six Imperialist generals, among them
Hatzfeld himself, a multitude of superior and in-
ferior officers, and four thousand common soldiers,
were taken at Jankowitz, with seventy-seven stand-
ards and twenty-six cannon. The number of the
enemy’s dead is stated at three to four thousand ;
of the superior officers, field- marshal Gotz and the
younger Piecolomini fell ; the imperial field-mar-
of the state in profitless disputes about pretensions to
dignity, while he takes no opportunity of distinguishing
himself, but, when there is any thing important to execute,
sends a youth or a man of no conduct, whereby every laudii-
ble design must fall into the well." Torstenson appointed
him governor of Leipsic, his office of vice-governor of Pome-
rania, with the revenues annexed, meanwhile remaining
open to him; which the ministry confirm in their letter t"
Torstenson, of Jan. 28, 1643. But Lilye quitted Leipsic of
his own impulse, and returned to Pomerania. "By this
imprudent and unseasonable journey," the ministry write to
Torstenson, in July, 1643, "he has endangered our affairs
in all Meissen ;
"
wherefore he is strictly commanded forth-
with to repair back to Leipsic. Otherwise he was not with-
out talents. It was earlier in question to make him governor
of Westphalia,
" since he understood well to obtain obe-
dience." Reg.
^ To Torstenson, March G, 1645. Reg.
8 The letter is contained in the Extraordinary Post Jour-
nal of April 19, 1645. This year commenced an Ordinary
Post-Journal (Ordinarie Post-tidender), in successive num-
bers, published weekly, at Stockholm. Some numbers are
preserved in the Palmskold Collections, t. 41.
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