164 Wallenstein
but now hungry men, demoralised by a long period on the defensive
followed by two failed attacks, started to desert. Many simply slipped
away to the Imperialist camp, where they found food, a welcome and
often a reward. By 15 September they were ‘running away in droves’,
Wallenstein reported, noting that his own recruitment was going well
as a result. On one occasion an entire company of cavalry, 80 men,
killed their own captain and came across. ‘More will follow them’, he
concluded. Within a fortnight of the failure at the Alte Veste Gustavus
is believed to have lost a third of his army, leaving him with no choice
but to withdraw.^17 Wallenstein noted with professional approval that
‘he sent six cavalry regiments in advance, their strongest company
only twenty horse, before he himself made a fine retreat silently in the
night’, adding that he could see ‘from this as from all his campaigns
that unfortunately he understands his calling only too well’.^18
Much to Maximilian’s annoyance Wallenstein did not immediately
follow. His reasons, given in his report to the emperor, were firstly that
he had dispersed his own cavalry widely in order to conserve supplies of
food and fodder in the camp, and secondly that the Swedes retained pos-
session of the route by which Oxenstierna had approached, so that they
could retreat safely from one strong point to the next. Instead he was
waiting for Pappenheim’s army, which he understood to be marching
towards him from the north, in order to trap Gustavus between them,
‘and then he will be done for’. Although better off than the Swedes,
Wallenstein’s own army was also suffering from the effects of the long
stand-off over the summer, including illness and shortage of supplies,
so that, as he added to the emperor, ‘I do not want to place at risk what
I have made certain of ’.^19 He stayed five more days in the camp, but as
nothing was heard from Pappenheim he then marched off in a different
direction. To begin with neither army went very far, Gustavus moving
some 30 miles west to Bad Windsheim while Wallenstein headed 20
miles north to Forchheim, where both detached substantial parts of their
forces for other purposes while they considered their next moves.
Lützen
Gustavus was at a loss to know what to do. He had planned to use the
summer of 1632 to make a decisive strike east along the Danube into
the Austrian heartland, putting himself in a position to dictate terms
to Emperor Ferdinand. Instead he had been outmanoeuvred by
Wallenstein and forced to sit idly in Nuremberg while the campaigning
season slipped away. By the end of September it was too late for any