1632

Banйr turned his horse and shouted orders at his own couriers and dispatch riders. Within seconds, the neatly arrayed Swedish right wing erupted into that peculiar disorder which precedes coordinated action. Company commanders and their subofficers dashed about, shouting their own commands-unneeded commands, for the most part. The Swedish and Finnish cavalry were veteran units themselves, as such things were counted in those days. Within a minute, the scene was one of individual frenzy. Men jumped to the ground to cinch a girth, or checked the ease of a saber's draw, or changed pyrites in the jaws of a wheel lock, swearing all the while. Cursing their refractory horses and equipment, perhaps; or clumsy mates who impeded them; or their own clumsiness-or, often enough, simply the state of the world. Many-most-took the time as well for a quick prayer.

The Brownian motion of a real battlefield, nothing more. Logic and order emerged from chaos soon enough. Within five minutes, Banйr and his West Gothlanders began their charge.

The king, in the meantime, had been organizing the heavier forces which would drive home the assault. Four regiments, numbering perhaps three thousand men.

The Smalanders and East Gothlanders were Swedish. Heavy cuirassiers, in their arms and armor, although the term was mocked by the puny size of their horses. The two Finnish regiments were more lightly armed and armored, but their Russian horses were much superior.

The Finns, like their mounts, favored the wild Eastern European style of cavalry warfare. What they lacked in discipline they made up for in fervor. They were already screeching their savage battle cry: Haakkaa pддlle!

Hack them down!

Gustav would lead the charge, at the head of his Swedish regiments. He hesitated only long enough to gauge the battle on his left. He could see nothing now. The farmland dust thrown up by thousands of chargers, mixed with billowing gunsmoke, had turned the battlefield into a visual patchwork.

But he could hear the battle, and it did not take him more than a few seconds to draw the conclusion. Horn-good Horn! reliable Horn!-was holding Tilly at bay.

He drew his saber and pointed it forward. "Gott mit uns!" he bellowed. "Victory!"

***

The first imperial cavalry charge shattered against Horn's defense. The Catholic horsemen had been astonished at the speed with which the Swedes took new positions. They had been expecting the sluggish maneuvers of Continental armies.

Others could have warned them. The Danes and Poles and Russians had been bloodied enough, over the past twenty years, by Gustav's small army. The Danes could have told them of Borgholm, Christianopel, Kalmar and Waxholm-all places where a teenage Swedish king had bested them. The Russians could have told them of Angdov and Pleskov, and the Poles could have recited a very litany of woe: Riga, Kockenhusen, Mittau, Bauske, Walhof, Braunsberg, Frauenburg, Tolkemit, Elbing, Marienburg, Dirschau, Mewe, Putzig, Wцrmditt, Danzig, Gurzno and the Nogat.

The haughty cuirassiers in Tilly's army never thought to ask. They were south Germans, in the main, taking the coin of Maximillian of Bavaria. The peculiar-sounding names of Baltic and Slavic battlefields and sieges meant nothing to them.

In all those years Gustav II Adolf had suffered defeats as well. The Danes had beaten him at Helsingborg, and the Poles at Honigfeld. But the Danes and the Poles could have warned the forces under the Habsburg banner of the incredible elasticity of the Swedish king. He rebounded from reverses with renewed energy, using defeat as his school.

Tilly's men would study in that school themselves-study long and hard, before this day was over. They were not, alas, apt pupils. Arrogant Pappenheim, now trying-and failing-to rally his cavalrymen somewhere on the Halle road, had learned one lesson. Pathetic the Swedish nags might be, but there was nothing pitiful about the men astride them. Neither they, nor the infantrymen who formed their shield. Seven times his Black Cuirassiers had charged the Swedish line. Seven times they had been beaten back-and then routed by a countercharge.

Not apt pupils, no. Now, on the opposite flank, the imperial cavalry failed the lesson for the eighth time. The first charge, headlong, exuberant, certain of victory-no caracole here!-broke like a wave against a rock. They had been expecting a confused and shaken enemy, disorganized by the sudden rout of the Saxons. Instead, the Catholic cuirassiers found themselves piling into a solid and well-positioned defense. Horn had even managed to seize and prepare the ditches alongside the Dьben road.

The Swedish arquebus roared; the Swedish pike held firm. The imperial cavalry fell back.