COUNTDOWN TO LÜTZEN IV: DAYS OF VICTORIES II

DAYS OF VICTORIES

A historical tale by Werner von Heidenstam
translated from the Swedish and adapted by Sandra Dermark

II. The Battle of Breitenfeld

After new raids, Tilly was sitting one night in a cot with his generals in council. The smouldering ruins of Magdeburg had finally scared the Saxon Elector off his tankard. Now allied with the Saxons, Gustavus Adolphus was ready for battle. This council would decide whether Tilly should, the very next day, confront the young victor on the open field of battle. Doubting and troubled, the so experienced warlord shook his aged head. The red plume, that hung from his hat downwards on his back, fluttered and flickered, and his stern face was plowed with countless furrows and little wrinkles. Strict and clever, with deeply sunken eyes, he sternly beheld his brothers in arms. But Pappenheim smirked to himself at the old man's anxious carefulness, impatiently pounding his own chest. There was, on his body, not a spot the size of a hand where he didn't have a scar. He was as old as Gustavus Adolphus, and there was a legend in his household that, one day, a scarred Count of Pappenheim on a white steed should defeat a great king. He was burning with impatience to ride his snow-white gelding and test if the prophecy was true.
As he spoke, the sword-like scars on his forehead flared up.

Finally, Tilly gave in. He slowly got up and buttoned his green doublet. Without being aware of it, they had been sitting in the Leipzig morgue, and the dawn began to let its light in through the little windows. As they walked out of the room, they saw that the walls were completely decorated with paintings of craniums, crossbones, and coffins. A gloomy Tilly folded the brim of his hat over his bushy eyebrows and got on his saddle.

They were now on the plains north of Leipzig, and, by a hill not far from the estate of Breitenfeld, Tilly had laid his army in battle array. One of the Croatians, who had lost his horse, was sitting astride on one of his huge heavy cannons. His old-fashioned breastplate lay heavy upon his shoulders, such was its weight! But, quite unexpectedly, he began, after all, to jump with both feet in the air, as he pointed with his sabre.

"There! The Swedes are coming!", he shouted with glee, while skipping higher and higher. "My eyes are sharp, but I can't see that they have any cannons. Neither can I see any matches on their guns, nor any fork rests for them to support their arquebuses. And the gunners are running among the riders, like the lasses among the lads at a dance! I must tell you something..." he said, after having coolly watched them for a moment. "These folks simply don't understand the good old art of war. Yes, they're warriors indeed! But they don't know their own profession. And they must be so bored, or so I have heard! As soon as they have a moment of spare time, they will all stand upright and sing their songs. Pardon me, Holy Mary, but I know more exciting tunes. Ugh! Curses on those herring-eaters!"

The Croatian didn't notice that Tilly was turning pale. The dreaded Titan's seventy-year-old eyes were sharper than his own. Through the spyglass, he beheld the handy flintlocks on the Swedes' muskets, their shorter pikes, and the little light cannons that they had concealed within the brigades. But what kind of cannons were these ones, that did not need more than one or two horses to be harnessed to? Well, they were made of leather. Anyway, dressing in skins and writing on skins were things as old as time. But firing with guns made of skins was just a whim of the Finns' and their Nordic brothers'. No, this was certainly not the way that it should be, whether for a Croatian or for a laurel-crowned, white-haired warlord of the old school. This was a young genius who, with a brand new art of war, rushed into a storm, against his obsolete elders.

Tilly's army was arranged in thirteen massive square tercios. They looked like thirteen large holdfasts, because from every square's perimetre of gunners arose the infantry's eighteen-foot pikes, like palisades. The officers gasped for breath and gave commands:

"Arms on forks!"
"Blow off match!"
"Open pan!", the commands were carefully and decently given.

Sometimes, it would take up to ninety-nine different steps before an arquebus was finally fired, as it tossed forth heavily in its supportive fork rest. That had been the way of fighting ever since the Middle Ages. The autumn sun shone blankly on their uncomfortable iron armours, but it was gradually darkened by clouds and bluish gunsmoke, and the setting grew even more dire. Light and free of movements, the troops of Gustavus Adolphus were arrayed in long lines, and his little cannons began to peal. Pappenheim was already down in the fray, on his white steed, to seek the King in the right wing, where he usually could be found. Seven times did Pappenheim rush into attack, but every time, he was violently thrown back in the heat of furious fighting. In the end, the terrified horses turned around and pulled their riders with them into dizzying flight. Pikes and swords crossed, muskets thundered, and Tilly's redoubtable cannons made the ground quake.

The gunsmoke grew thicker, and the drums drubbed for the soldiers not to lose each other. Forsaken by the Saxons, who had already taken to flight, the Swedes kept on advancing forwards. With the unbent Finns at their head, the eastern Swedes pursued the enemy up the hill, as flames of fire lit up their faces. But could they really be sons of the North? The Croatian who still was sitting on the cannon pensively clutched his head. They were dark of face, as if they had just arisen from the ruins of Magdeburg. Then he saw how one of them stroked his hair, and, where he had laid his hands, his hair turned a fair shade of blond. The gunsmoke had laid itself like wet black paint over their skins and clothes.

A rider, who was constantly surrounded by flashing blades in the thick of the battle, had had his costly lace collar so soiled that it looked like a dirty gray rag. He was a man in the prime of youth. But he closed his eyes a little, as if he were short-sighted. And he was so heavy and so overweight that his horse was panting for breath and full of froth. The rider held his head backwards, with a fluttering green plume in his broad-brimmed hat. His chest was not shielded by any steel breastplate, but only covered in a buff doublet of moose-skin. This man was the King of Sweden.

"Hold tight, my daring boys!", he shouted in a gallantly cheerful voice. "Think of our loved ones at home! One hour more, and victory is ours for years and days beyond our lives!"

"Jesus, Mary!", the Leaguers replied, and, at those words, was heard the fanfare of Tilly's trumpets.

The Croatian seized a knotted whip, a cat-of-nine-tails, in haste. The enormous siege cannon, decorated with coats of arms and images of saints, had sunk into the ground with one of its wheels, and it stood there leaning. Fourteen pairs of horses were harnessed to it. Some of them lay dead, for they had been slain. The others got up on their hind legs at the Croatian's whiplashes. Froth dripped from their mouths, and they lifted their hooves in the dark. But it was impossible to move the obsolete colossus away. The Swedes hasted forth, they took Tilly's cannons, and they threw their fire at his own soldiers.

No one except the commanders could any longer realize what really was going on in that chaos... no one except the superhuman Titans, who could see in the dark and hear everything and know everything.
Tilly was a hair's breadth from being taken prisoner, and he fell, losing consciousness, as blows from the stocks of muskets struck his white-haired head. The bravest of his Walloons encircled him in a square formation, and himself undefeated, though put to rout as a warlord, he was led, as muskets were fired, away from the Swedish ranks.

Thus the great victory at Breitenfeld was won, and the day was coming to an end. The thunderstorm of battle had gradually faded away, and the darkness of night descended, but once more did the king place his weary army in battle array. It was his most precious treasure, and he didn't want to expose it to any ambush.
One day, long ago, when he and his Finns had fallen victim to an ambush, he had stood, after the battle, looking with concern at the slain. He had said: "How many feats should these heroes have carried out, had not my carelessness led to their untimely death!" This experience had made him more careful.
When he had thus carefully prepared himself for every risk, he rode before the regiments and thanked them for a day that never should be forgotten. He embraced serious Horn, and he shook hands with merry Banér. Then, he commanded that each and every one of the soldiers should lay down for the night on the spot where they were.  After having eaten and drunk his fill at the camp follower's, he laid himself in a wooden cart, in which he also had encamped the night before. It was a long time since he had last slept in his own royal bed. He had to spend the nights sometimes in a tent, sometimes in a cart, and the great lords had to lay themselves to sleep on horseback or on a wooden cart like he slept himself. And this adventure would not last mere weeks or months, but the months grouped into years.

Silence lay deeper upon the sleeping army, that lay rank by rank, with their weapons ready, on the trampled ground, and the stars twinkled in the night sky. Did Martin Luther ever dream, at the twilight of his life, that his word should have such defenders?

A lone rider was standing upright a few steps from the lit cart lantern, looking at his sword. The gunner beside him turned his head towards him and said:

"That's a scary blade, shepherd lad! What you're carrying into battle is a really old executioner's sword! A Catherine wheel and a gallows are engraved on the steel!"
"It is", the rider replied. "One night, a weary and heavy-hearted executioner came in rags to my father's cottage, and he warmed himself beside our fire. He took water in his cupped hands and drank heartily, and then he said: 'Many ill people, out of superstition, have believed that they should be healed if they drank from my despicable hands. But that can't help me at all. My illness is rooted deep inside my chest, in my heart of hearts, and it's called melancholy.' We curled ourselves up in our beds of straw, for as long as we could, and, at the break of day, we found out that the executioner had died during the night. For a long time, this dreadful sword was resting on a corner, with no one to dare to touch it, not even my little siblings. But then, war broke out, and I girded it by my side."

After a short break of silence, the rider resumed his tale:
"In the bloody days of old King Charles the Ninth, this sword turned many a Swedish lady into a dowager. I'm thinking about that right now. Nowadays, we don't any longer use our steel on our own countrymen. Do you see who it is, that gentleman who carefully and respectfully, yet as a good friend, lies asleep by the King in that wagon? That's Banér. His father himself was beheaded by the King's father. Now, both the sons are sleeping together like brothers."
"Yes indeed, new times have come for us Swedes", the gunner replied, as he pushed his hands to the nape of his neck and fell fast asleep.

The King had already closed his eyes beside his gallant Banér. His father's old enemies and their descendants had finally forgotten all of the old grudges before his chivalry and sense of justice, becoming his devoted friends.

As soon as the sun had risen, the army marched towards the Leaguers' abandoned camp. There, they found the bags that contained Tilly's whole war treasury, and, in the carts, they discovered the looted spoils of Magdeburg and those from many other raids. And what horses! These steeds were like meant to ride on in the sunny crowd, among captured flags and cannons! The saddles were fit for royalty. It looked empty at home in the little churches and estates in the woods, but from that day onward there would be more splendour.

Thus began a triumphal procession among elated Protestants, who called the King of Sweden their saviour and their leader. At night, they wandered through deep forests, as blazing torches lit the way. Over vineyard-decked hills went the entourage, towards the splendid Catholic Rhineland.

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