Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Reign of Gustavus Adolphus, 1611–1632 - B. The Early Wars - C. Gustavus Adolphus and the Thirty Years’ War
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The Thirty Years’ War 151
quickly pressed the trigger, and one would-be captor
fell dead ; with the butt-end of the pistol he struck an-
other, and he fell into a swoon ;
a third one seized the
king’s sword-belt to drag him off. But Gustavus quickly
slipped the belt over his head, and the prize gained was
only the belt and the king’s hat. Again an enemy
caught the king’s arm and raised his saber to deal a
deathblow, when, in the nick of time one of the king’s
men felled him by a well-aimed shot. "Never have I
been in a hotter bath," declared Gustavus.
Finally after the Swedes had held the Prussian ports
for three years, the Poles could hold out no longer.
In 1629 they concluded a truce of six years. Sweden
kept Livonia and the right to the rich duties at the
Prussian ports from Courland to Danzig. These reve-
nues were very much needed, for a new war was at
hand, a greater war than any that Sweden had ever
before engaged in.
C. GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS AND THE THIRTY YEARS’ WAR
Origin and Early History of the War. While Gus-
tavus Adolphus was engaged in the Polish War, Ger-
many was being torn asunder by a religious war, which
was destined to last for thirty years. It began in 1618,
with an insurrection of the Protestants in Bohemia
against their Catholic king, who was ruler of the
Austrian crown lands, because he would deprive them
of the rights of their religion.
The insurrection soon spread to Germany over which
the ruler of the Austrian lands was Emperor. Ger-
many was then composed of many larger and smaller
states with their princes and magistrates under the
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