Of Peace and Other Demons 191had said, thought that he could count on the support of most of his
officers, and he had plans to neutralise those of whom he was unsure by
posting them to distant places. He would ally himself with the Swedes
and then proceed personally against Austria, while Bernhard and Holk
were to occupy Bavaria and Horn would deal with Feria. Oxenstierna
was extremely dubious, commenting that it would be a great oppor-
tunity ‘were it genuine, but it seems to me much too suspicious’. He
had, he said, probed further ‘in order to find out the real motive, but
he [Arnim] was decidedly reticent, as is his manner and temperament’,
although when pressed he had conceded that he himself had some
doubts as to Wallenstein’s designs. Nevertheless Oxenstierna had told
him to assure Wallenstein that ‘if he proceeds with his intentions we
will not abandon him’, commenting to Bernhard that come what may
‘this business can do us no harm’.^22
Wallenstein, on the other hand, had everything to lose and nothing
to gain from such a scheme, apart from the satisfaction of an assumed
obsessive desire for revenge, which however does not feature in his
voluminous correspondence and is not supported by any confirmed
action of his. Therefore the proposition has to be presumed to be a
deception, necessary to allay Swedish anxieties while attempts were
made to reach a peace settlement with their allies. Thurn, neither the
most astute of politicians nor the most competent of soldiers, was easy
to deceive. Oxenstierna, more worldly wise, was right to be suspicious.
More difficult is to say who was carrying out the deception, a question
to which we will return.
As well as Oxenstierna, Arnim also met the electors of Saxony and
Brandenburg during this second truce, and they furnished him with
responses to Wallenstein’s proposals which went only slightly further
than in June. These envisaged an ‘arrangement’ between the Imperial
and Saxon armies, a term as ambiguous in the German original as in
English, accompanied by polite references to the interests of Sweden
and lofty phrases about the desirability of working towards a gen-
eral peace.^23 Arnim appears to have believed – or he sought to per-
suade others to believe – that this might suffice to draw Wallenstein
into a ‘German third party’ with the Protestant electors in order to
coerce the emperor into making peace on terms acceptable to them.
To Wallenstein himself it was becoming apparent that little progress
was being made but a lot of campaigning time was being wasted. On
14 September he said in a brief note to Trcˇka that nothing was going to
come of the negotiations. On the same day he ordered another officer
to start preparing supplies for renewed campaigning, ‘as from various