The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 03: Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English. in Twenty Volumes
General
The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 03: Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English. in Twenty Volumes
German literature -- 19th century -- Translations into English; German literature -- 20th century -- Translations into English
justice, and his respect for the laws, were so many ties by which he
bound the German Protestants to his cause; while the crying atrocities
of the Imperialists, the Spaniards, and the troops of Lorraine,
powerfully contributed to set his own conduct and that of his army in
a favorable light.
If Gustavus Adolphus owed his success chiefly to his own genius, at
the same time, it must be owned, he was greatly favored by fortune and
by circumstances. Two great advantages gave him a decided superiority
over the enemy. While he removed the scene of war into the lands of
the League, drew their youth as recruits, enriched himself with booty,
and used the revenues of their fugitive princes as his own, he at once
took from the enemy the means of effectual resistance and maintained
an expensive war with little cost to himself. And, moreover, while his
opponents, the princes of the League, divided among themselves, and
governed by different and often conflicting interests, acted without
unanimity, and therefore without energy; while their generals were
deficient in authority, their troops in obedience, the operations of
their scattered armies without concert; while the general was
separated from the lawgiver and the statesman--these several functions
were united in Gustavus Adolphus, the only source from which authority
flowed, the sole object to which the eye of the warrior turned, the
soul of his party, the inventor as well as the executor of his plans.
In him, therefore, the Protestants had a centre of unity and harmony,
which was altogether wanting to their opponents. No wonder, then, if
favored by such advantages, at the head of such an army, with such a
genius to direct it, and guided by such political prudence, Gustavus
Adolphus was irresistible.
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