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328
Desolate condition of
Germany. HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. Wrangel appointed com-
mander-in-chief. [1644-
of the new field-marshal Wrangel with the German
princes, towns, and communities, is loaded with the
calamities and oppression of Germany ^. North
Germany, after the neutrality of Saxony and Bran-
denbui’g, lay defenceless. The war again rolled
more and more toward the south. But the land
was every where a prey to the soldiery, whether
styling themselves friends or foes, and the people
in despair fled in crowds to the camp of their
oppressors. General Gronsfeld writes, March 31,
1648, to Maximilian, elector of Bavaria, who had
issued rigorous orders against plundering and rob-
bing, that in the two armies (Imperialist and
Bavarian) there were certainly more than 180,000
men, women, and children, who all must live as
well as the soldiers; provisions were distributed
for 40,000 every twenty-four hours; how the re-
maining 140,000 persons were to live, if they
might not pick up a bit of bread for themselves,
passed his comprehension; there was not a single
place where the soldiers, if
they had money, could
buy any thing; he said that not as approving ex-
orbitancies, but only to apprise his highness that
all was not done out of insolence, but much out of
mere hunger *.
At the commencement of the year 1646 the Swe-
dish army consisted of 15,000 horse and 8000 foot,
mostly old soldiers, besides the garrisons in Aus-
tria, Moravia, Silesia, Bohemia, Westphalia, Upper
and Lower Saxony, and the various bodies which
Konigsmark commanded. The artillery consisted,
when Wrangel assumed the command, of seventy
pieces of cannon ^. One of his first cares was to
3 We might cite many details, as for example of the atro-
cities practised in Saxony, notwithstanding the truce, if
space permitted. The Swedes, however, were not the worst;
the Germans in the Swedish service appear to have surpassed
them in cruelty towards their own countrymen. The tor-
ture called the " Swedish drink," was so termed, because it
had been first employed by the soldiers of Bernard of
Weimar: " Bernard’s soldiers poured cold water down the
throat, until, when the belly of the person was pressed by
the foot, it came out again, and styled this the Swedish
drink." Raumer, History of Europe from the end of the
fifteenth century (from the statement of Forstner, a con-
temporary), iii. 602. Bernard of Weimar, who, it is proved,
gave a loose, sometimes intentionally, to the excesses of his
soldiers (comp. Rose, ii. 10), yet daily read his chapter of the
Bible. Such was often the temper of religion. From the
correspondence of Wrangel, which abounds in German sup-
plicatory memorials, we will quote one from the council of
Alstett, in Saxony, because it contains an anecdote of Gus-
tavus Adolphus. The letter is dated March 2, 1646, and
mentions the following circumstance. In the year 1G31,
after the victory at Leipsic, the king took his march to Er-
furth by this place, and breakfasted there. Some of the
army had hastened into the town, and began to plunder
there. On hearing of this the king commanded Gustavus
Horn to appoint an officer to cause the wrong-doers to be
seized and shot. Horn charged with this duty a rittmaster,
named Verhauber, who misunderstood his orders, and in-
stead had eighteen persons of the council and burgesship
taken and shot. When the king came to hear this he bared
his head, clasped his hands, and called to God in heaven
that he was innocent of this blood. The rittmaster s.ived
himself from his anger by flight. The king issued a si)ecial
safe-guard for this town (a copy, dated Ilmenau, Sept. 28,
1631, is added), which was afterwards renewed by Axel
Oxenstierna and succeeding generals; wherefore they now
solicited the same from Wrangel. The town, however, ob-
tained no alleviation ; for on March 6, 1646, duke William
of Weimar entreats, in a letter to Wrangel, for Alstett,
secure the pass over the Bohemian mountains to
Saxony ^, whitlier he also retrograded in February,
becau.se the Imperialists, after their junction with
the Bavarians, outmatched hin>^ The plan for the
campaign of 1646 was sketched by Torstenson. It
was directed to maintain the army, and evade a
general action, until a union had been effected
with the French; afterwards they were to aim at
driving, with conjoined forces, the enemy across
the Danube ’. The junction with the French, who
had promised to be in Mcntz by May, was judged
necessary, to induce them to uninterrupted co-
operation;
" it was else their fashion to lie still in
winter, and thereby give the Imperialists and
Bavarians opportunity to fall conjointly upon the
Swedes, so that these usually lost in winter what
they had gained in summer *." While Wrangel
and Turenne advanced against Upper Germany
and Bavaria, general Wittenberg’, reinforced bj
3000 foot and 900 horse, fresh troops from Swe-
den, was to push forward to Silesia, win a footing
in Upper Silesia by the capture of Troppau, and
thence make a diversion to Austria, either through
Bohemia or Moravia ’
.
Wrangel’s commission as field-marshal, with a
stipend of 17,000 rix-doUars yearly, had been
made out on the 28th of April, 1646. Of this
Christina had informed him by a special letter ol
grace; and he received a similar communication
from Lewis XIV., accompanied by the present of
a sword for himself, and the portraits of the king
and queen-regent for his wife*. On the other
which place had been completely laid waste by the passage
of troops. Wrangel replied that no exception could be made,
since the burden of inquartering would then fall the heaviei
on others. Correspondence in the Library of Sko-Cloister.
"•
Westenrieder, History of the Thirty Years’ War, iii. 217,
note.
s
Puffendorf, xviii. § 1.
6 The truce with Saxony was prolonged ; but perpetual
disputes in respect to quarters for the Swedes, occasioned
great disorders and complaints. Torstenson himself writes
to Wrangel, March 5, 1646 :
" To obtain meanwhile the
necessary sustenance for the army, the general will not omit
to devise and embrace all practicable methods, let them me-
morialize as they may." Correspondence.
7 Torstenson to Wrangel, Leipsic, Feb. 27, 1646. Corre-
spondence.
8 Torstenson’s words in his letter to the landgravine
Amelia Elizabeth of Hesse-Cassel. Leipsic, April 12, 1646.
He li-stens to her counsel, even in military affairs, with
great respect. It is a pleasure to read the letters of this
princess, masculine even in her handwriting, a number ol
which, with her signature, both to Torstenson and Wrangel,
are preserved in the latter’s correspondence.
3 Now appointed master-general of the ordnance, after
Wrangel.
>
Field-marshal Torstenson’s memorial to assistant-coun-
cillor Lilyestrom, on what he was to execute by the master-
general of the ordnance, Arwid Wittenberg, was first pre-
sented after Torstenson’s arrival in Pomerania. Bahrdt,
July 4, 1646. Torstenson returned to Sweden in the autumn
of this year. He was elevated by one creation, Feb. 4, 1647.
to the ranks of baron and count, with the hereditary county
of Lyhundra, a district of Upland, with twelve parishes, and
the mine of Ortala, and on the 31st May, 1648, appointed
!
governor-general of Westgolhland, Dalsland, Vermeland, and
I Halland.
,
2
Original, dated Fontainebleau, Aug. 31, 1646, in C. G.
I
Wrangel’s correspondence in Sko-Cloister. On the Joy of
I
the enemy at Torstenson’s departure, see Puffendorf, xviii.
I
§ 15.
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