He agreed to raise and support his own army for the Emperor at his own expense. The banditti of all Europe came to him for the promised loot, and, with an army of over one hundred thousand men, he took the field against Protestantism, already a divided, cowed, broken body of people. Not since the Crusades had there been such a war of devastation. In five years Wallenstein and Tilly, who hated each other, but both under command of the Emperor, had routed the troops of Mansfield, the strongest of the auxiliaries of the king of Denmark, and had subdued Silesia, Lower Saxony and Holstein. As early as August, 1626, Christian IV. was defeated in the battle of Lutter, and was forced back to his own country for its defence. He was obliged to abandon his allies to the vengeance of their enemies. By the end of the five years Mansfield and Brunswick, the leading Protestant princes, were dead, and their troops destroyed or scattered. Everywhere the Imperialists laid the country waste. Wallenstein took possession of Pomerania, and the Imperial forces, without opposition, marched into Holstein, Schleswig and Jutland, occupying all Denmark, except the islands. The neutral Protestant princes had their territories destroyed. This they fully deserved. The Danish king sued for peace, and his possessions were returned to him on condition that he would take no further part in the war. This concession was not from mercy, but because France and Sweden were now preparing to take arms against the House of Austria. In the conference at Lubeck, on May 22d, 1629, Wallenstein, with marked contempt, excluded the Swedish ambassadors while arranging terms with Denmark. Wallenstein had been so successful that he had visions of making himself Emperor, of converting the Baltic Sea into an Austrian lake, and there having a great fleet to increase his wealth and power. For these reasons he now set out to take the cities on the Baltic coast. He besieged Stralsund, a Hanse town. The Hanse towns were the commercial towns of Germany, associated together for the protection of commercial interests. Wallenstein now had the title of "Admiral of the Baltic" conferred on him by the Emperor. The new admiral said, "There are twenty-eight ports in Pomerania; we must fortify them to keep Sweden from attacking them." Stralsund represented not alone the Hanseatic League, but the Protestant faith and liberty of conscience. Wallenstein swore, "I will capture Stralsund though it were chained to the gates of heaven." He did not take into the count God and the king of Sweden.