The Search for Allies 201were, however, widely dispersed, while larger-scale new recruiting had
to be undertaken mainly in more distant Catholic territories such as the
Spanish Netherlands or northern Italy. This gave rise to two problems.
Firstly, until the army could be concentrated the smaller local units were
potentially vulnerable to Union attack, and secondly the forces recruited
outside Germany had to find their way to the mustering point without
being intercepted. In Munich in December 1619 Maximilian had boldly
rebuffed the Union delegation’s demands and implied threats, but he
was nevertheless extremely anxious that as a result they might initiate
military action before he himself was ready. He was particularly con-
cerned that their first target might be the Franconian bishoprics, where
troops recruited for the League by the elector of Cologne were quartered,
and there were also concerns that they might move into the Habsburg
possessions in Alsace and south-west Germany in order, in cooperation
with the Protestant Swiss cantons, to block reinforcements for the Impe-
rial and League armies coming from that direction. Hence Maximilian
decided at the end of January to concentrate his available forces around
Donauwörth, as a strategic point from which to respond to a possible
Union first strike, from whichever direction, as well as to be ready to
prevent any Protestant incursion over the Danube.^44
His anxieties were increased in mid-March, when Margrave Georg
Friedrich of Baden-Durlach, a leading member of the Union, moved
his forces into Habsburg territory around Freiburg and Breisach in
order to install an artillery battery alongside the Rhine near the lat-
ter town, thereby effectively closing the river and a principal crossing
point to Catholic troop movements. It was still there in early May, when
Maximilian wrote to warn Ferdinand that he would only commence
the campaign against Bohemia after his army had been strengthened by
reinforcements which had been assembled in Lorraine and on the lower
Rhine reaching him despite Protestant attempts to bar their way. In the
event though, when on 8 June League and Imperial regiments moving
east to join the Catholic armies reached Breisach and deployed in battle
order, Baden’s forces declined this overt challenge to attack them. Thus
while an Imperial regiment remained at Breisach to hold Baden’s men in
check the remainder crossed and marched on to the League mustering
point at Günzburg, near Ulm.^45
The political news was not encouraging for Maximilian, as in late
May information arrived that the Bohemians had formed the new
alliance with Bethlen Gabor mentioned above, and were also in negoti-
ations with the Ottoman sultan for an anti-Habsburg pact. Meanwhile
Archduke Albrecht was still delaying making a final commitment to the