Once More unto the Breach 141enemy France, and thereby linked to the Swedes, who were in process
of invading the Empire. The position was only tenable, if at all, as
long as Gustavus could be confined to north Germany, well away from
Maximilian’s domains. Before Breitenfeld this seemed feasible; after-
wards it was not. The unfortunate Tilly, with his dual command, was
also left in an impossible position, required by one master, Maximilian,
to keep his distance from the Swedes, and by the other, the emperor,
to take energetic measures to defeat them. His decision to turn instead
first on Magdeburg and then on Saxony may have been in part a result
of this dilemma.
After Breitenfeld Maximilian’s anxiety turned into panic, and he
sought to go yet further in the attempt to preserve his lands from
Swedish attack. With Gustavus virtually on his borders and Tilly, dis-
traught after his defeat, bereft of ideas as to how he was to be contained,
a separate peace with Sweden and withdrawal into neutrality seemed
his only hope. A forlorn hope. Gustavus, rightly perceiving Maximilian
as one of the principal opponents of the Protestant religion and a prime
mover behind the Edict of Restitution, was not inclined to sympathy.
Despite French mediation he was prepared to offer him nothing other
than virtual surrender, a principal condition of which was the reduc-
tion of the Catholic League army to a mere garrison force a fraction
of its fighting size. This was scarcely a serious offer, as it would have
left Bavaria defenceless and dependent on dubious Swedish goodwill
and ineffectual French influence. Even though intercepted letters had
revealed to Vienna Maximilian’s attempt at what amounted to deser-
tion of the Imperial cause, by early 1632 he had no choice but to creep
back, vociferously asserting his loyalty to the emperor, and begging for
assistance from Wallenstein’s new army against the coming Swedish
storm.^1
Gustavus was more interested in pursuing his military advantage
than in negotiating, although he also had to take political factors into
account. At Breitenfeld the raw Saxon army had fared badly, and it had
been the Swedes who had won the day, so that the king had to view his
reluctant ally as both militarily and politically unreliable. Consequently
Gustavus did not, as had been expected, exploit his success by march-
ing through Silesia or Bohemia towards Vienna. Instead Arnim’s Saxons
made an independent but essentially diversionary advance in that direc-
tion, although this at least prevented the Imperialist forces still in those
territories from joining Tilly as he tried to regroup his army. Gustavus’s
own immediate priority was to move into prosperous and unspoiled
territory where he could find winter quarters and exact substantial