From the Fury of the Norsemen Deliver Us 157Soldiers and their dependants fell sick and died. Horses died or were
slaughtered, although mostly draught animals rather than cavalry
mounts. The citizens, also besieged, suffered most of all, both from
disease and from hunger, as they took second place to the troops in the
queue for food. According to the Theatrum Europaeum 29,406 people
died in Nuremberg during 1632, many times more than in a normal
year, indicating the scale of their tribulation.^8
During this time reinforcements were assembling. Wallenstein brought
in some himself, but the Swedes were busily gathering all their avail-
able forces, principally from the Rhine and southern Germany. Count
Axel Oxenstierna, the Swedish chancellor and Gustavus’s confidant,
headed the operation, slowly but surely gathering together a reported
30,000 men before starting to move on Nuremberg in the latter part of
August. It has been suggested that Wallenstein could have intercepted
this army, but this is an unrealistic view. Intelligence was poor and
armies had been known to slip past one another, so that interception
was by no means certain, as demonstrated by Gustavus’s own recent
failure to catch the Bavarian army. Moreover had Wallenstein moved to
meet the reinforcements the king would have been able to follow and
to attack him from the rear as they engaged him from the front. The
general was not inclined to such risky undertakings, and he preferred
to confront the full Swedish force from the strength of his carefully
prepared position.
When all were assembled they constituted the largest armies to
face one another during the Thirty Years War, estimated to number
around 45,000 on each side, although Gustavus had significantly more
cavalry and correspondingly fewer infantry than Wallenstein. Both
sides also had a formidable array of guns, but the Swedes had the larger
number, having seized many in Munich which had been captured
by the Bavarians earlier in the war. Still Wallenstein made no move,
but Gustavus did not have the option of blockading him until he was
forced into the field to offer battle. His men in Nuremberg were already
far too short of supplies, and the arrival of 30,000 reinforcements had
made the position still more critical. As Wallenstein had anticipated, he
was forced to take the initiative, and quickly. Oxenstierna’s relief army
arrived on 27 August, but they were granted only three days respite after
their long march before being ordered into action.^9
Gustavus had had six weeks to study Wallenstein’s finished camp, and
given his habit of carrying out often risky reconnaissances personally
it would be surprising if he had not looked at it very closely. He will
have known the western side to be the weakest, but to attack from that