98 Wallenstein
Wallenstein himself, advanced on him from the south-east. Tilly too
was on the march, crossing the Elbe from the west and driving between
the principal sections of the Danish army, which were commanded
respectively by Christian and his lieutenant-general, the ageing mar-
grave of Baden-Durlach. All but deserted by his allies, Christian had
been on the defensive throughout the year, and now he had no choice
but to retreat. At the end of August Wallenstein and Tilly met at
Lauenburg, twenty miles east of Hamburg, where a brief peace negotia-
tion took place, but the Danish representative was offered severe and
unacceptable conditions. The campaigning season was not over, the
Imperial and League generals were in a very strong military position,
and their armies would soon need winter quarters. Where better to find
them than in Denmark.
The advance continued under joint command, but Tilly was wounded
during a siege, putting him out of action and leaving the campaign
and the glory to Wallenstein. Baden-Durlach retreated to the small
offshore island of Poel, east of Lübeck, but under pressure from Arnim
he evacuated this refuge by sea, landing on the Holstein coast. Here
he was confronted by Schlick’s division, at which point his men hast-
ily surrendered and joined the Imperial army, although he himself
managed to get away to Denmark. Christian and his remaining forces
had already withdrawn into Holstein, and with Wallenstein following
they retired further northwards. The garrisons of individual fortresses
resisted for a time but there was no major battle, and the retreat contin-
ued into Schleswig and the Jutland peninsula, part of Denmark itself.
The main campaign took only six weeks, and by the end of October
Schlick had advanced to the northern tip of the peninsula, thus leaving
only the Danish islands (and Norway) in Christian’s possession. The
king himself, with the remnant of his army, was already in Funen, the
island on which the city of Odense stands, safely out of Wallenstein’s
reach.
Wallenstein’s success was total, but at the same time limited.
Although defeated on land, Danish strength at sea meant that the
Imperialists could advance no further, and hence Christian could nei-
ther be forced to make peace nor be prevented from rebuilding his army.
Worse still, he would be able to land a force for a new campaign at any
point on the Baltic coast from Jutland to Pomerania, just as Gustavus
had appeared without warning in Prussia the previous year. There was
little Wallenstein could do except watch and wait, guarding as much
as possible of this extended coastline in readiness for whatever the cam-
paigning season of 1628 might bring.