Go, Captain, Greet the Danish King 97bringing this to a successful conclusion. Hence Wallenstein despatched
a regiment to Poland early in 1627, as the first instalment of more sub-
stantial assistance which was to follow.^29 The second requirement was
to limit Danish freedom of movement. Christian’s options were already
closed off to the south and west, as after Lutter he was unlikely to risk
battle with Tilly unless he had clear superiority of numbers, but to his
east the two dukes of Mecklenburg were among the few German princes
who remained actively supportive of his campaign, while the elector
of Brandenburg hid his sympathy under a cloak of nervous neutrality.
The most feasible route to the Habsburg heartlands lay across these ter-
ritories into Silesia, where the rebuilt Mansfeld army, now under Danish
command, was waiting. Wallenstein needed both to pen Christian in
and to prevent a conjunction of his two armies. In April he sent the
regiments which he had left with Tilly the previous year to take control
of key places along the Havel river, a tributary of the Elbe which flows
through Brandenburg west of Berlin. Next he despatched Arnim with a
section of his main army to march north along the Oder through Silesia
and into eastern Brandenburg. There Arnim quickly occupied strategic
points on that river and on the Spree, a tributary which joins the Havel
near Berlin, thus securing the lines of march and potential crossing
points against Danish movements.
With these preparations completed it was time to begin the main
campaign.^30 In early June Wallenstein moved north-east from Prague
into Silesia, where the Danish forces had established themselves in a
number of fortified towns. Against them he deployed the largest section
of his army, reportedly 40,000 men and more than twice the strength
of the opposing forces. Not surprisingly the latter preferred to remain
behind their defences rather than risk taking the field, so that a system-
atic reduction of one place after another was quickly carried through,
with surrender in most cases followed by the enrolment of the defend-
ers in the Imperial army. Only the cavalry got away, but with Arnim’s
forces blocking escape to the west they too were soon trapped, defeated
and mostly captured. Among them were a number of prominent
Bohemian exiles and the Danish Colonel Heinrich Holk, who became
one of Wallenstein’s own principal officers a few years later. Though
relatively easily gained this string of successes was just what the Vienna
court was looking for, so that with the usual fickleness of public opinion
Wallenstein soon became the object of general admiration instead of
the earlier criticism, at least for the time being.
Christian was still in Lower Saxony, so while Arnim moved into
Mecklenburg the main force, in two divisions under Schlick and