Lives of the warriors of the thirty years' war. Warriors of the 17th century

Part I. London

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

TO

THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY

COMPILED

FOR NAVAL AND MILITARY INFORMATION,

ARE,

BY HER MAJESTY'S CONDESCENDING PERMISSION,

WITH THE DEEPEST DEVOTION AND MOST

RESPECTFUL ATTACHMENT,

VERY GRATEFULLY DEDICATED BY

HER MAJESTY'S MASTER OF THE CEREMONIES.

"THEN, THEN, YE LAURELLED WARRIORS, OUR FEAST AND SONG SHALL FLOW, TO THE FAME OF YOUR NAME, WHEN THE STORM HA8 CEASED TO BLOW, WHEN THE FIERY FIGHT IS HEARD NO MORE, AND THE STORM HAS CEASED TO BLOW."

CAMPBELL.

Contents

PAGE

Preface vii

PAET I.

Appendix

PAGE 1581 — 1611. John George Arnhehn, a Saxon General . . 539

— 1634. John Aldringer, or Altringher, a Field-Marshal

and Count of the Empire 550

L622— 1660. The Palsgrave (Charles X.), a Swedish General . 552 1608 — 1657. King of Hungary (Ferdinand III.), Imperialist

1599 — 1615. Field-Marshal Count von Goetz, an Imperial

1602—1643. Comte de Guebriant, a Freneh Marshal . . 563 1593 — 1658. Count Melehior von Hatzfeld, Imperialist

1582 — 1635-6. Dodon de Kniphausen, a Swedish General . 568 1600 — 1663. John Christopher Count de Kcenigsmark, a

Swedish General ........ 572

1614 — 1662. The Archduke Leopold William, Imperial Commander 575

— 1645. Franz von Mercy, a Bavarian General . . 579

1600—1650. List of Battles 585

1607 — 1648. Consecpiences of the Revolt of the Netherlands,

and of the Thirty Years' War 587

ERRATA.

P. 27, /or cowering read towering.

— 32, for him read the Archduke, /or he read the Imperial General.

— 45, for Tillary read Tilbury.

— 66. 68. 78. 114. 222, for Kriegs-Kunst-Lexikon read Militair-Conversations-

Lexikon.

— 122, for Danamond read Dunamond.

— 123, for Charrasse read Charnace.

— 184, for 100,000 infantry and 40,000 cavalry read 40,000 infantry and 10,000

cavalry.

— 193, for the Queen read the Klectress.

PKEFACE.

It has long- been my settled persuasion, that at a period when active duty cannot be experienced by the war-professions, the injunction of our great Duke to young officers, " that they should go and see service in the field/' is best obeyed by a study of the past ; and that the histories of wars and warriors are the best and only available substitute for active military service in the field. But unhappily wars and warriors are as old as seas and mountains, and it becomes somewhat difficult to determine within what limits of the world's history we are to confine our study of strategy and tactics. In the earlier stages of strife, before science of any kind could have been engrafted upon it, bodily prowess must have been of course the one thing needful; but we see from our every-day's experience of savage war, how early barbarian cunning and subtlety leads up to military skill, so that war in its fundamental principles is of very remote antiquity.

VI u PREFACE.

Yet, nevertheless, no art was ever devised that has Bhowed so many phases for our study, so that it lias been somewhat the fashion of late years to recur even to the prowess of such ancient conquerors as Belisarius, Hannibal, and Caesar : yet (under favour of high Imperial authority) I venture to assert that there is very little instruction to be gathered from, what may be termed, the a rchaeology of soldiering-. We must descend to the more similar experience of later times if we would be practical, nor can we even be stopped by the gay banners and pennons of mailed knights and barons with their jovial bands of retainers and their brave and dashing enterprise, if we would obtain examples of what may be rendered useful in modern warfare.

There are, however, many things in books that officers ought to know, and which they would gladly know, and which they only do not know because lewhave given themselves the trouble to cater for their information. I say this specially in regard to our own country, in the literature of which the military element is very sparse, and is neither encouraged nor rewarded. The soldier-class more than any other requires to be taught, because they are precluded from the opportunity of searching out things for themselves ; nor have they the leisure nor the quiet necessary to make voluminous researches by any exertions of their own. Eveiy other class — the country gentleman, the parson, the lawyer, nay even the sailor — can collect libraries and read books at their leisure in com-

PREFACE. IX

fortable sedillas with all the facilities of annotation and comparison ; but the soldier has neither the means of carrying" libraries about with him, nor does he possess convenient arrangements for study of any kind. His pocket must hold his circulating- library, and the bare ground must be his reading-desk, or he must literally " read as he runs," if he desires to read at all l. Beyond the unattractive barrack-room he can command no retirement in which to consult books of reference, if he can get them, or in which he might digest deeplyreasoned intelligence. Above all other professions he requires to be mentally fed by popular instruction, or what may be termed compressed knowledge — articles in reviews or pamphlets, books in short sections or chapters, which admit of easy breaks and resting-places, should the bugle or the drum disturb the current of his study, and summon him from his books to his duties. It is a desire to meet this characteristic of the military service that has converted me in the decline of life into an Author. Like my "Annals of the Wars," the "Lives of the Warriors" is intended to place before the soldier the great theatre of the wars of the past, which presents a busy and a brilliant stage on which actors of great name and celebrity (veritable " stars ") have " fretted their hour." I desire also to introduce him into the green-room, where we may

1 For this cause I have arranged that several volumes of this publication should be divided into two parts, and bound up, each completely separate in a limp binding, as a soldier's copy.

x PREFACE.

hoar somewhat of their " saying's and doings." These biographies are not intended to note the mere existenee of warriors <>i' ancient times, with the dates of their births, marriages, and deaths, but, somewhat after the manner of Plutarch, I would collect together every incident on record that ma}' illustrate the character and the services of each, while their careers are intertwined with the Annals of the Wars in which they bore a conspicuous part. We shall see that the reputation obtained is often very superior to the actions performed, and that many were not altogether the demigods they have been thought to be, according to the old proverb of the hero and his valet de chambre. When the puppet has doffed his stage robes, he often becomes an idol of brass and clay of very small dimensions. I think we shall also find, that in the early portion of the seventeenth century the pretensions of the French to have been the great teachers of modern warfare are not quite made out; that it was the nations of the hardy North, who by their extraordinary powers of personal endurance, energy, and activity, supplanted the pompous and cumbersome tactics of the Spaniard, who up to the close of the previous century had been regarded as the Warrior of Europe ; that Maurice of Nassau, Spinola, Mansfeld, Gustavus Adolphus, and Torstenson first introduced regular discipline, order, and simplicity into the movements of armies, and first set fatigue and climate at nought. Doubtless in the later portion

PREFACE. XI

of the same century the French improved the sciences of fortification, artillery, and strategy; but perhaps the greater amendments in arms and dress were as much the work of one nation as of another.

Nearly one-third of the biographies here recorded are not to be found in any English Biographical Dictionary or Encyclopedia. Some are not even introduced in that most valuable and wonderful repertory, La Biographie Universelle ; and one or two have even escaped the industrial research of the Militair-Conversations-Lexikon. But all Swedish histories record with a just pride the prowess of their arms in the Thirty Years' War, and dwell upon the great deeds of their warriors with very pardonable admiration. The names of Baner, Horn, Wrangel, and Kniphausen, are probably quite unknown to even a double-first at our Universities, but deserve nevertheless to be introduced to every military student; and the school of Gustavus Adolphus is more deserving of study at our Staff College than that of any warriorclass that has preceded or followed it.

I have been somewhat severely criticized for what has been regarded as carelessness in my former history in the correct orthography of names and places. At the same time that I do not admit the charge, I think I am entitled to plead that a work dealing so extensively in geographical and personal details has a just claim to much indulgence and great mercy. Brotherauthors must know how difficult, if not impossible, it

XII PREFACE.

is to avoid errors of the kind, from ;i slip of the pen, from oversight, and from the post-dated blunders of the printer. 1 have been always exceedingly desirous to obtain correctness in this matter, and have employed men of ability in that particular department as editors for the very purpose. But it is not very easy to determine the correct spelling- of the names of towns that are very often different even in different maps of the same language. The eight spelling-, moreover, very often depends on this — whether you consult English, French, or German Gazetteers. I charg-e the French with beingthe great sinners in the orthography of names, and with having been the tempters that have led us wrongfor so many years ; and it is now almost vain ever to hope to get right. For any individual writer to attempt to make a complete reform would expose him to a severer criticism and charge of pedantry ; and every one may remember a modern edition of the Arabian Nights, wherein those friends of our youth are introduced in correct oriental costume, very greatly to the confusion of the European reader. What now are we to write in the battle-fields of Europe ? Wien or Vienna, Firenze or Florence, Aachen or Aix-la-Chapelle, S'G raven Hage or the Hague, Herzogenbusch or Bois-le-Duc or Bolduc, and so on ad infinitum ? In reply to my critics I may perhaps be permitted to add, what I should not have done from any desire of vain boasting, that I happen to have made the acquaintance of a German gentleman who is excecding-ly well read

PREFACE. Xlll in military history, and whose home is amid the battle-fields on the banks of the Danube, who told me that he had read many of my volumes, and he had the kindness to volunteer the remark that I was one of the very few foreigners, English or French, who had taken some trouble to spell the names of places and persons of his country with perfect correctness ; and on my adding that it would be doing me a great service if he would kindly point out to me any casual errors, as I was exceedingly desirous to merit such a commendation, he replied, " I cannot recall a single name spelt wrong." There has been indeed a great deal more research requisite than might have been anticipated to bring the history of the Thirty Years' War before the English reader. I am not aware of any ample biographies of the renowned Captains included in this volume that exist either in the English or French language. Harte's Life of Gustavus Adolphus, Mitchell's Life of Wallenstein, and De Peyster's Life of Torstenson, are all that have been open to me in our own language, beyond the very cursory notices of the war in Russell and Coxe's histories ; for Schiller, although he has been admirably translated, is proverbially meagre in all military details. The history of France has not, as far as I know, done more for the great Swedish heroes of the period than name them in so far merely as they are connected with French events. Sporschil's and Becher's histories of the Thirty Years' War, and Menzel's history of Germany, take up the

XIV PREFACE.

Gorman side of the question, and Lundblad'e " Swedish Plutarch/' and Puffendorfs " Schwedisch Kricgsgeschichte/' with the ordinary histories of Sweden, adopt the opposite side. The " Tlieatrnm Europamm, 1662," affords the best details of the battles, and there are several works in Dnteh which relate to the wars of the Netherlands. Many of these volumes being" in languages not universally understood, are inaccessible to the ordinary English reader. Under these circumstances there is ample room and verge enough for any military writer to follow in the same track by which I have travelled ; and there is an imposing grandeur in the history of the Thirty Years' War which would be a rich field for such men as Motley and Froude to illustrate with their researches. I sincerely wish these most interesting historians, who just stop on the threshold of the great politics of the seventeentli century, may be tempted to overstep their present boundaries, and thus make up the deficiency which I have so unworthily attempted in the mean while to occupy.

Leasowe Castle, March, 1865.

LIVES OF THE WAERIOBS.

THIETY YEAES' WAR.

PART I.

CONTENTS

OF

PART I.

MAURICE OF NASSAU . NETHERLANDISH. GENERAL.

MARQUIS DE SPTNOLA .... SPANISH GENERAL.

COUNT MANSFELD GERMAN GENERAL.

TZERCLAES, COUNT YON")

. i

IMPERIALIST GENERAL.

TILLY . .

GUSTAYUS ADOLPHUS .... KING OF SWEDEN. GODFREY YON PAPPENHEIM . . IMPERIALIST GENERAL. ALBRECHT YON WALDSTEIN . . IMPERIALIST GENERAL.

WARRIORS

OF THE

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.