Count von Tilly.

PART THE FIRST.

THE old saying that truth is great and will prevail has been seldom more conspicuously verified than in the case of the man whose career we now propose to pass under review. More than two hundred years have rolled by since this old warrior lived, and during these long years his name has been almost a bye-word for cruelty and religious bigotry. The name of Magdeburg has been engraven on the page of history as the symbol of his shame; while historians of almost every sort have vied with each other in writing opprobrious epitaphs for his tomb. And yet, strange as it may seem, never has history been more at fault, never has the slanderer more cruelly injured the slandered, never has wicked crime been more successful in transferring its black pall from itself to the innocent and virtuous than in the case of Count Tilly. The avenger of Tilly's name has at last arisen within the country that witnessed his exploits, in a man that has sacrificed the prejudices and the traditions of his sect to the claims of truth. Herr Onno Klopp has chosen as the motto of his book the strikingly apposite words of Tacitus-Ne virtutes sileantur. Tilly's life has hitherto been regarded as the record of crimes which would be a disgrace to humanity; at least justice imperatively demands that we should judge him by his actions. Of these we can but give an imperfect account: if any would have more we must refer them to the same authority that we have ourselves consulted.

Born in or near Brussels, in February, 1559, Tilly belonged to a good family, whose estate bore the family name and have handed it down to the present day. He was educated at Cologne by the Jesuits, and is said, with truth as far as we can learn, to have entered the Novitiate of the Society of Jesus. Beyond this however he did not go. While still a young man he joined the Spanish army in the Netherlands, and served with distinction under Alexander of Parma. In the war against the apostate Archbishop and Elector of Cologne, Gebhard, he had the command of a regiment, in which position he won the reputation of a brave

and promising soldier. We next find him serving as a volunteer under Parma at the famous seige of Antwerp in 1585. After refusing an advantageous offer from Henry IV. of France, in 1594, to enter that King's service, he is next found serving in the east of Europe, against the then terrible enemies of Christendom. The dominions of the Hapsburgs were from their position most exposed to the fiery assaults of Islam, and were by consequence continually harassed by wars which owed their end merely to the exhaustion of the contending nations. The war in which Tilly served came to a close in 1606, but only to be succeeded by the domestic troubles of the imperial family. The throne was at this time filled by Rudolf II., a Prince devoted to science and learning, but unfitted to the difficult task of quelling the disorders and lawlessness of a factious nobility. When the Reformation broke with the traditions of the past, and cast them aside as worn-out and obsolete, the reverence for civil authority and its rights gradually disappeared, along with the religious principles on which that reverence was founded; and as the idea of the superiority of physical force over moral power gained ground, every one began to guide and control his ambition by the calculation of his own and his neighbour's forces. The Hungarian nobility were clamouring for greater liberty, and Matthias, the Emperor's short-sighted brother, fell into the snare of heading the rebellion of men whom he had hoped to use as instruments in the gratification of his own ambition. In employing them to wrest the sceptre from his brother's hands he committed himself to a course from which he afterwards found it impossible to extricate himself.

In this painful struggle between two brothers, Tilly was the general of Rudolf's scanty troops. He successfully resisted the attempts made upon his loyalty, and foiled the Archduke when the latter was tampering with that of his own officers and soldiers. Enraged that his insidious proposals were baffled, Matthias assailed the honour of the man who had rejected his advances, and in a public writing accused Tilly of allowing his men to commit atrocities on the peaceful inhabitants of Moravia. The answer of Tilly, which shows that he was touched in a tender point, was such that the odious charge disappeared from history. "The writing," says Tilly, "asserts that my soldiers have done great damage on the Moravian frontier by robbery and burning. I cannot remember that any one suffered the slightest harm through robbery, nor has the slightest complaint on that score been made to me by great or little. Had this happened I should have

known how to meet it. As to the burning however, I publicly declare and pledge myself to any one that, if it be proved by undoubted and sufficient evidence that the smallest building has been with my knowledge either burnt or set on fire by my troops, I will answer for it with my head and life, and I am ready with the approbation of the Emperor to appear wherever I may be for that purpose summoned." It appears that some one had the baseness to accuse him of attempting to destroy the nobility. After a direct refutation of the charge, he adds: "I live in the confidence and hope that without any unbecoming pride it may be my good fortune to say that my good name is so widely known that I have been all my life occupied at the expense of life, goods, and blood, in noble actions against the hereditary foe of the Christian name, and not in private murder."

The motives of Matthias and his friends in this attack on Tilly's honour were too evidently those of baffled pride and spite to allow their charges to gain hearing in Germany. But we shall have to return to this question hereafter. Until Rudolf failed himself, by resigning to his brother the sovereignty of Hungary, Tilly served him loyally and truly; but from that event to the opening of the Thirty Years' War in 1618, he retired into private life. The early years of that struggle have been sufficiently described in a previous article. They bore the fitful and irregular character of guerilla combats more than that of sustained operations of war. Unlike the period when the Swedes appeared on the battle-field, the first ten years were passed in desultory explosions, with considerable effect in their aggregate, while the Swedish campaigns resembled the dreadful eruption of a volcano, whose ravages are marked by the wiping out of cities and by desolation and ruin far Neither in Christian of Halberstadt, nor in Mansfeld, nor in Christian of Denmark, did Tilly find an adversary worthy of his genius. Of the three, the first and the last ran blindfold upon Tilly's sword; the second avoided the fatal errors of the other two by omitting from the plans of his campaigns the shock of legions and the crash of armies. He sought war without an enemy. Under these circumstances it will doubtless appear strange that the war was not crushed out before Gustavus Adolphus had an opportunity of landing in Pomerania. But our wonder ceases when we reflect for a moment on the relative power and position of the combatants. Ferdinand, though the nominal chief of a military empire, was dependant on the Electors and Princes of that empire for the means of asserting his prerogative. The army in the field under Tilly was for the most

part formed of troops enrolled in the name and for the special service of Maximilian of Bavaria. Again, though Wallenstein unfurled the imperial banner and acted as the representative of Ferdinand, he was in reality so far unshackled by superior authority that the fear of seeing his army melt away long deterred Ferdinand from relieving his dangerous subject of his command. In truth, a century before this, the Princes of the empire had learnt the art of drawing the teeth of their imperial master and reducing him to a harmless growl by refusing money and neglecting to furnish their contingents of soldiers. England, so also in Germany, the necessities of the sovereign were the opportunities which the subjects in both countries grasped at for lessening his prerogatives and enlarging their own privileges. The jealousy with which the Electoral Princes guarded their once acquired rights must be ranked among the most effective causes of the long continuance of the war. Even Max of Bavaria, despite his great and noble heart, and the three Elector-Bishops of the Rhine, could not escape the contagious nature of this feeling. They had to pass through several years of bloody experience before they were taught that their power could only be preserved by a sincere and devoted union with the head of the empire.

Other causes, however, besides those just mentioned, assisted in no small degree in keeping the plague-spot on the face of the country. A nation which has never been possessed of great wealth and ready resources feels keenly a long drain on its meagre exchequer, and this burthen becomes greatly intensified when no results appear as the reward of their self-denying patriotism. But when to the inconveniences of poverty are added the meannesses of niggardly selfishness, a man who has upon his shoulders the responsibilities of command is paralysed in all action against the enemy from without by the deadening action of his lukewarm friends. It is much to be regretted that this selfishness found place in the counsels of the inferior members of the Catholic German League. The Vienna and Hanoverian archives give us abundant evidence of the difficulties Tilly had to meet in obtaining from those Princes the fixed contributions of men, money, and provisions. Had it not been for Max, who was its heart and soul, and for Ferdinand, whose countenance gave it a sort of lawful existence, the League would have perished before a single Swedish soldier had touched German soil. Justice however requires that it should be stated in extenuation of this conduct that the mercenary system then

prevalent was both burthensome and ineffective. Before an army could be sent into the field it had to be levied, equipped, and paid there was no foundation on which to build, and in building hastily the structure often fell to pieces by its own unwieldiness. There were generally equal chances-if a skilful general on one or the other side did not turn the scale-of all the expense and anxiety of war resulting in nothing but defeat. Under all these circumstances it must cease to be a matter of wonder that war was entered upon with reluctance, and of disgust that the worth of a man like Tilly was neutralised by transforming him for the time from a general into a commissariat officer.

Asking our readers to bear in mind the delays inevitably arising from the state of things just described, we will now briefly trace the course of events from the appointment of Tilly as General of the troops of the League to the siege of Magdeburg. We have already seen Mansfeld and Christian of Halberstadt in arms against the Emperor. Up to May, 1622, nothing of importance was done Mansfeld was ever in flight, Tilly ever in pursuit. But in that month Tilly inflicted a signal defeat, at Wimpfen, on the traitorous Margrave of Baden-Durlach, who after the destruction of his army was forced to throw himself into the arms of Mansfeld. But a greater danger arising from the impending union of Mansfeld and Christian threatened Tilly. In order to escape this the General of the League made a feint upon Mansfeld's line of communications with Alsace, and thus left the ground between himself and Halberstadt, who was coming from the north, free from impediment. Out of twenty thousand men whom Christian led into the battle at Höchst, two-thirds were destroyed. Their rash leader, with about six thousand men, fled to Mansfeld, who, as might be gathered from his character, did not commit himself to a battle. We next find these freebooters gaining time by pretending a desire to enter the imperial service. In 1622-3, Mansfeld, relying on the secret support of Holland, invaded East Friesland, whither he was pursued by Tilly. The hostility of the Hague to the empire, which it was at no pains to conceal, was met by forbearance on the side of Ferdinand and indignation on the side of the General of the League. The latter clearly perceived that it was of no use cutting down the weeds as they from time to time arose unless the root itself was dug up and destroyed. Holland served as a refuge and starting-point for the freebooters who were at this time scourging the country. But Tilly's views were overruled, and the consequence was a continuation of the guerilla warfare. After this, in 1626, Christian IV. of

VOL. XI.

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