88 Wallenstein
fortifications. Yesterday God gave us the good fortune to defeat him,
cutting through his forces and putting them to flight.He sent an officer to provide a fuller account to the emperor, who was
delighted with these ‘impressive and knightly deeds’, as he enthusiasti-
cally wrote in congratulatory letters to Wallenstein and his principal
officers.^9
1626: A campaign and a conference
What was Wallenstein to do next? Mansfeld took refuge only briefly in
Zerbst before hastening off into the neutral but pro-Protestant territory
of the elector of Brandenburg. Following him would not only risk turn-
ing its wavering prince into an enemy, contrary to Wallenstein’s orders,
but would also be pointless. Mansfeld’s cavalry would be hard to catch
and harder to pin down to a fight, and – a key point of seventeenth-
century logistics – Wallenstein had no fodder available for his horses.
Moving ahead of him, Mansfeld would take whatever was to be found in
the barns, while it was too early in the year for the horses to find much
to eat in the fields. Moreover the very purpose of such a pursuit was
questionable. The armies of the Thirty Years War were hydra-headed;
cut one down and another swiftly grew in its place. Mansfeld was an
expert in raising armies and if deprived of one he would soon replace
it, provided that his employer still had the money. For the moment he
had been neutralised, but Christian of Denmark’s much more formida-
ble army was still in the field. Wallenstein went back to his station in
Magdeburg-Halberstadt territory.
A stalemate ensued, as Christian could not break out but neither
could Tilly and Wallenstein agree united action against him. Wallenstein
was becoming increasingly frustrated and depressed by the lack of
progress. His original concept had been to raise his army in early 1625,
to campaign against and defeat Christian in that same summer, and to
make peace before the end of the year, a timescale which offered some
hope of financial viability. Instead approval had been delayed so long
that nothing was achieved militarily in 1625, and nor had he been able
to secure Tilly’s agreement to a joint attack on Christian in early 1626.
Even after Dessau Tilly preferred a war of attrition, laying siege one by
one to cities far to the west of where Wallenstein’s large but inexperi-
enced army confronted Christian at uncomfortably close quarters.
Little by way of provisions and even less money came from Vienna, so
that Wallenstein’s debts mounted and his troops were unpaid, hungry