154 Wallenstein
Experience had repeatedly shown that relatively small garrisons in well-
fortified cities could hold off full-scale armies for prolonged periods,
Stralsund and Magdeburg being two prominent examples. Positions
defended by a force the size of the Swedish army would be still more
difficult and costly in terms of attackers’ lives to take by storm. Tilly
had withdrawn rather than make such an attempt against Gustavus’s
camp a year earlier at Werben, while Gustavus himself had recently
marched impotently away from the fortifications of Ingolstadt and
Regensburg.^2 On the other hand Wallenstein could not simply lay siege
to Nuremberg and the Swedish camp. He knew that Gustavus would
send for reinforcements, but he did not know from which direction or
in what strength they would come, nor how long they would take to
arrive. History offered too many examples of besieging forces defeated
by surprise attacks from the rear for him to make such a simple error.
Wallenstein’s answer was to build a heavily defended encampment
of his own, from which he would be equally safe from attack while he
watched and waited. Gustavus could not escape until he had accumu-
lated reinforcements, but he would then have to stand and fight, or
else retreat ignominiously back to Saxony with the Imperialist army
hard on his heels, and he might well be driven back to his Baltic base.
Wallenstein also had another reason to be patient. Storming the camp
and defeating Gustavus’s relatively small army, even were it possible,
would not be final. The king himself would probably escape – generals
usually did – to rally the much larger balance of his forces and fight
again. Waiting for him to bring in his reinforcements offered the chance
of inflicting a much more decisive defeat, particularly as he would then
be able to force Gustavus to take the initiative simply by staying behind
his own defences. In the meantime the spectacle of the Swedish king
trapped at Nuremberg could cause second thoughts among some of his
more uncertain recent allies.
Wallenstein chose his position carefully. The River Rednitz flows
northwards past Nuremberg four to five miles west of the city centre,
and although it is not large it provided protection for the camp which
he established beyond it. The road from Nuremberg to Rothenburg
crossed the site, running due west somewhat above and parallel to a
tributary river, the Bibert, from which the land rises gradually to a ridge
which became the southern boundary. At one end of this ridge a small
hill, the Hainberg, overlooks the Rednitz, while at the other a strong
artillery fortress was established on the high ground of the Petershöhe,
outside the main defences and standing above the more open territory
to the west. From the Bibert valley the land rises higher to the north,