Wallenstein. The Enigma of the Thirty Years War

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104 Wallenstein


in exchange for a promise to take no further part in German affairs,
together with the renunciation of his family’s claims on the territories
of various secularised north German bishoprics. This the Danish council
successfully pressed upon Christian, despite his last-minute attempt to
reactivate the war by launching a series of seaborne raids on the Holstein
coast, while Wallenstein likewise persuaded the court at Vienna. Even so
the peace was finally ratified only at the end of June 1629.
Wallenstein’s military strategy had been fully justified. Rather than
seeking out the enemy at the earliest opportunity in 1627 he had waited
until his army was completely ready and the necessary advance posi-
tions had been established. Even then he had not rushed into a direct
confrontation with Christian, instead methodically reducing strong-
hold after stronghold in Silesia until the smaller Danish army had been
eliminated and most of the men enrolled in his own regiments. Only
then had he turned on Christian, ensuring by joining up with Tilly that
the king was boxed in by a vastly superior force, and leaving him no
choice but to retreat to the safety of his islands. The events of 1628 had
been mainly a mopping-up exercise, in which Wallenstein had again
been able to concentrate his forces at the right place and time to over-
whelm the Danish king at Wolgast. There had been fighting enough in
the campaign, but the war had been won by superior strategy rather
than being hazarded on the fortunes of the battlefield.
The peace was as much Wallenstein’s achievement as the victory. In
a manner which was to become familiar in the following years he had
seen each military success as an opportunity for negotiations, which
he had repeatedly urged on the emperor. He knew only too well that
the resources of the anti-Habsburg powers greatly exceeded those of
the Imperialists, as he wrote in 1626: ‘The emperor does not have the
means to wage war, and without money this is something which cannot
long be sustained.’ Later in that year, with the military position bol-
stered by the victories at the Dessau bridge and at Lutter, he wrote to
Ferdinand: ‘With the advantage and the renown, you now have the
best opportunity to negotiate a peace’, adding that no reliance could
be placed on that situation continuing. In late 1627, with Christian
effectively defeated, he renewed the appeal: ‘The great strength which
Your Majesty has will enable a good and lasting peace to be made in
the Empire, which I respectfully advise.’ Although Wallenstein himself
briefly considered imposing punitive terms on Christian he soon recog-
nised that these were unrealistic, and that no quick or enduring peace
settlement would be reached on that basis. While Vienna persisted with
a hard line at the formal negotiations in Lübeck, and made no progress,

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