142 Wallenstein
contributions to support his campaign. Hence he split his forces, send-
ing some west to extend his control in north Germany, while he led the
main army into the rich bishoprics of Franconia and on to Frankfurt
and Mainz. There he celebrated Christmas in 1631, and only the onset
of winter and strong Spanish garrisons prevented him from pressing on
to Heidelberg, the capital of Frederick’s Palatinate.
He had already driven the Spanish out of a number of places en route,
and the French also moved troops towards the Rhine, further threaten-
ing the Spanish hold on the Palatinate. The Catholic electors of Trier
and Cologne, the latter Maximilian’s brother, then prudently placed
themselves under French protection and denied use of their territories
to the Spanish. Faced with these additional pressures the king of Spain
was in no position to help the emperor, other than with a little money,
and that only a drop in the ocean compared to what was needed.
Gustavus, on the other hand, suddenly had allies enough, as some of
the bolder spirits among the Protestant German princes responded to
his success by plucking up the courage to join him in arms, while others
had their minds made up by a Swedish army at their gates. The Dutch
too offered him money to add to the French subsidy, although by now
Richelieu was finding that paying Gustavus was one thing, controlling
him quite another.
Wallenstein’s second army
‘The sinews of war are unlimited money’, wrote Cicero in the time of
Julius Caesar, and this was equally true in the Habsburg lands 1700 years
later, as Wallenstein set out to reconstruct his army. When he had done
so Arnim commented that ‘the duke of Friedland has laid out money on
130 regiments, but not the emperor, not the Empire, not half of Europe
will be able to pay them’.^2 An accurate summary. Gustavus reportedly
had 100,000 men, and if he were to be defeated a force of like size was
essential. Somehow the money was found to create it, but how to pay
for it thereafter was a question no-one was inclined to ask, let alone able
to answer. To drum up enough cash to make a start the Estates of the
Habsburg hereditary lands were coerced into making grants, and special
commissioners of the highest standing set about collecting the money
with a great deal more than the usual expedition. Some help came
from Spain, and even the pope felt obliged to make a modest grant, nee-
dled by accusations that his pro-French stance was effectively putting
him on the side of the arch-Protestant Gustavus. Colonels and captains
were expected – as was usual – to make advances towards raising and