Hero Tales of the Far NorthRiis, Jacob A. (Jacob August)
History
Hero Tales of the Far North
Riis, Jacob A. (Jacob August)
Scandinavia -- History
When Wallenstein was sure he had gone, he burned his camp and
turned toward Saxony to punish the Elector for joining the Swedes.
A wail of anguish went up from that unhappy land and the King heard
it clear across the country. By forced marches he hurried to the
rescue of his ally, picking up Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar on the way.
At Naumburg the people crowded about him and sought to kiss or even
to touch his garments. The King looked sadly at them. “They put
their trust in me, poor weak mortal, as if I were the Almighty.
It may be that He will punish their folly soon upon the object
of their senseless idolatry.” He had come to stay, but when he
learned that Wallenstein had sent Pappenheim away to the west, thus
weakening his army, and was going into winter quarters at Lützen,
near Leipzig, a half-day’s march from the memorable Breitenfeld, he
broke camp at once and hastened to attack him. Starting early, his
army reached Lützen at nightfall on November 15, 1632.
Wallenstein believed the campaign was over for that year and the
Swedes in winter quarters, and was taken completely by surprise.
Had the King given battle that night, he would have wiped the enemy
out. Two things, in themselves of little account, delayed him: a
small brook that crossed his path, and the freshly plowed fields.
His men were tired after the long march and he decided to let them
rest. It was Wallenstein’s chance. Overnight he posted his army
north of the highway that leads from Lützen to Leipzig, dug deep
the ditches that enclosed it, and made breastworks of the dirt.
Sunrise found sheltered behind them twenty-seven thousand seasoned
veterans to whom Gustav Adolf could oppose but twenty thousand; but
he had more guns and they were better served.
As the day broke the Swedish army, drawn up in battle array,
intoned Luther’s hymn, “A mighty fortress is our God,” and cheered
the King. He wore a leathern doublet and a gray mantle. To the
pleadings of his officers that he put on armor he replied only,
“God is my armor.” “To-day,” he cried as he rode along the lines,
“will end all our hardships.” He himself took command of the right
wing, the gallant Duke Bernhard of the left. As at Breitenfeld, the
rallying cry was, “God with us!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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