The sack of Magdeburg is one of the darkest spots on the page of history. For many years it has been allowed to stain the reputation of the veteran Tilly, unjustly, for he was far away at the time, but upon Gustavus must rightly rest some part of the fearful responsibility. [Sidenote: =Responsibility of Gustavus.=] Magdeburg had risen against the Emperor trusting in him. He had sent one of his own officers to lead the defence. He knew to what desperate straits the town was reduced, and though he could not have anticipated the actual horrors of the sack, he knew well enough what the storming of a town by soldiers of fortune meant in those brutal days. Yet for two critical months he allowed his march to be checked, and his honour compromised, by the mulish stubbornness of the two electors, who had no force at their command sufficient to resist his advance, had he nobly acted upon the necessity which knows no law. It is just possible that by such an action he might have driven the electors to throw themselves into the arms of the Emperor, but it is not likely. Gustavus had not hesitated in 1626 to seize Pillau by force from the elector of Brandenburg, when he wanted a basis of operations against Dantzig. In this very campaign, when too late, he had to use force to gain possession of Spandau, yet the elector was not moved from his neutrality by either of these high-handed acts. Surely the least which Magdeburg might fairly ask of him in her distress was not to be more scrupulous about violating neutrality for her safety than he had been for his own advantage. [Sidenote: =Retreat of Gustavus.=]