Go, Captain, Greet the Danish King 89and potentially mutinous, to add to which he himself was often ill. He
wrote several times to Harrach about the possibility of resigning his
command, but that would have left him massively indebted and with
little hope of securing repayment from the emperor in the foreseeable
future. Victory or peace were the only ways out. In May he initiated
contacts with the Danish king through intermediaries, and in June
he advised the emperor to reopen peace negotiations before Christian
strengthened his forces further and perhaps secured additional allies.
Ferdinand and his advisers were reluctant, saying that the initiative
should come from the other side, but when Christian did make a direct
approach they still temporised and it came to nothing.^10
Wallenstein had forgotten neither Bethlen Gabor nor Mansfeld. For
months he had been urging Vienna to recruit troops to guard against
an attack from Bethlen, and to strengthen garrisons in Silesia to deter
Mansfeld from making an incursion. Little had been done in response,
and the victory at the Dessau bridge was seen as justifying doing even
less, causing Wallenstein to comment ironically that ‘once a couple of
flies have been killed they cease recruiting in Vienna’. In mid-1626 a
peasants’ revolt broke out in Upper Austria, setting a large if amateur
army on the rampage, while to the east Bethlen was making unmistake-
able preparations for a further campaign which only Wallenstein had
the forces to counter. Consequently his command, initially limited to
Germany, was extended to include the Habsburg hereditary lands, and
he despatched troops to Silesia to prepare its defences.^11
Mansfeld rapidly rebuilt his army in Brandenburg territory, despite
Wallenstein reminding the elector that allowing this was incompatible
with his neutrality, and on 10 July he broke camp and moved swiftly
east, passing to the north of Berlin and then across the River Oder
into Silesia. Christian sent troops under Duke Johann Ernst of Weimar
to support him, although for most of the following campaign the two
forces moved independently, albeit in parallel, while serious differences
over strategy later arose between the two commanders. Wallenstein was
in a dilemma. To follow them would leave Tilly exposed, outnumbered
and facing Christian of Denmark alone. Not to do so would leave the
Habsburg territories undefended against Mansfeld and Bethlen. As a
first step he despatched cavalry to follow them and to harass their rear,
but a brief attempt at interception had to be abandoned in order not to
be drawn too far away from Christian. Hence he watched and waited for
almost a month to see how events developed, by which time Mansfeld
was already approaching the northern borders of Hungary and threat-
ening Moravia. Wallenstein could delay no longer, and on 8 August he