1632

He reintroduced shock tactics into cavalry warfare. He replaced the ineffective caracole, where cavalrymen would wheel around and fire pistols from a distance, with the thundering saber charge. There is an element of truth to this claim, but only an element. Many German armies were abandoning the caracole already, and Gustav learned the value of shock tactics from the ferocious Polish lancers that his army faced in the 1620s. In truth, the Swedish cavalry took many years to become an effective force. Sweden had never been a cavalry nation. Swedish kings-Gustav no less than his predecessors-leaned heavily on their half-civilized Finnish auxiliary cavalry. Even the Swedish horses were small and stout. As late as Breitenfeld, Tilly could still sneer that Gustav's cavalry was no better mounted than his own baggage-boys.

As late as Breitenfeld…

***

After Breitenfeld, of course, Tilly could no longer make the boast. All of central Germany was now open to Gustav, along with its magnificent horses. Soon enough, his Swedish cavalry was as well-mounted as any in the world.

Breitenfeld.

All the legends revolve around that place. They pivot on that day. Wheeling like birds above the flat plains north of Leipzig on September 17, 1631, they try to find sharp truth in murky reality. Never seeing it, but knowing it is there.

The legends would be advanced, and refuted, and advanced again, and refuted again-and it mattered not in the least. Breitenfeld remained. Always Breitenfeld.

After Breitenfeld, how could the legends not be true?

***

Breitenfeld was a rarity in those days. Pitched battles on the open field between huge armies were a thing of the past. For well over a century, warfare had been dominated by the trace italienne, the new system of fortifications developed in Italy and perfected by the Dutch in their struggles against Spain. War was a thing of long campaigns and sieges, not battles. The strength of nations was measured by the depth of their coffers, not the names of victories emblazoned on their standards. Attrition, not maneuver-and even there, attrition was measured in coins rather than lives. Lives were cheap, bullion was hard to find.

On the rare occasions when armies did collide in the open, the queen of battle was the tercio. Swiss pike tactics-with Swiss йlan long gone-married to blocks of arquebusiers. Generals "maneuvered" armies only in the sense that the pharaohs maneuvered great stones to make pyramids.

***

The battle only happened because Tilly made a profound strategic error. Brought on, perhaps, by the overconfidence of seven decades of life without a defeat.

Tilly's greatest asset, since Gustavus Adolphus landed in Germany-on July 4, as it happens, in the year 1630-had always been the vacillation of Sweden's Protestant allies. The Saxons, in particular. Saxony was the most powerful of the German Protestant principalities, and it had always been Tilly's anchor.

One Saxon, rather: the elector of Saxony, John George. For whatever reason-stupidity, cowardice, or simply the cumulative effect of his constant drunken carousing-John George could never make up his mind. The Prince of Yes and No. The Knight of Doubt and Hesitation. Hamlet without the tragic grandeur; certainly without the brains.

John George had been one of the princes who invited Gustav's intervention; and then, when it came, foremost among those who quibbled and lawyered. Elector Hem and Haw. History would blame Tilly for the slaughter at Magdeburg, but the charge is more properly laid at the feet of the prince who was not there himself and would not allow another to come to Magdeburg's aid. When Tilly's soldiers ran amok, Tilly himself rode into the city to stop them. He failed, but at least he tried. And when nothing else could be done, the old soldier plucked a baby from the arms of its dead mother and carried it to the safety of his own tent. John George, secure in the safety of his palace in Dresden, saved not even the dregs of his tankard. As was the prince of Saxony's custom, he poured the dregs over the head of a servant, signaling his desire for another draught.

Tilly should have left him alone. So long as Saxony barred the way, Gustavus Adolphus was safely penned in Pomerania and Mecklenburg. Let the Lion of the North roar in the Baltic, far from the fertile plains of central Germany.

But Tilly grew too bold. Or, perhaps, he was offended by the constant complaints and the whispering sneers of the imperial courtiers. Tilly was past the age of seventy, now, and had never been defeated in battle. Who was this Swedish upstart-a man barely half his age-to sully that reputation?