212 Wallenstein
are in vain’. Nevertheless he procrastinated. He insisted that he must
have precise instructions before going to meet Wallenstein, so that all
possibilities which might arise in the course of negotiations had first
to be examined. This detained him in Dresden until the beginning of
February, even though Wallenstein had issued a safe conduct for him
on 10 January.^27
Arnim’s anxieties were increased by a Swedish campaign to discredit
him, claiming that he was too close to Wallenstein and resurrecting the
story that he had deliberately abandoned Thurn at Steinau the previous
October. Moreover the Swedes were attempting to detach Brandenburg
and to persuade its elector to join the Heilbronn League. Action had to
be taken to prevent this, Arnim argued, in order to maintain a united
front when it came to negotiations with Wallenstein. Consequently he
was himself despatched to Berlin, while Wallenstein waited for him and
fretted. Instead Franz Albrecht was sent to Pilsen to excuse the delay,
where he spent the first half of February writing repeatedly to Arnim
and Elector John George urging haste, while Wallenstein sent to him
daily, sometimes more often, to enquire whether there was any news of
Arnim’s approach.^28
From 6 to 10 February Arnim was in Berlin, where he found the
electoral council not disposed towards further negotiations with
Wallenstein, and certainly not without Sweden being party to them. He
persisted, and he obtained an audience with the elector himself, later
summarising their discussion in a letter to John George of Saxony, a
missive striking for its anti-Swedish tone.^29 He had, he reported, pointed
out that the Swedes had waged war for decades against the Russians and
the Poles, and were now on course to do so in Germany. They had no
interest in peace, as not they but Germany were the losers from contin-
uing the conflict, while they were determined to secure Pomerania for
themselves. This last shot struck home with the elector of Brandenburg,
who expected to inherit Pomerania when its duke died, and he con-
ceded to Arnim that he did not want to be separated from Saxony but
to seek peace together. Arnim thought that he had made progress, but
once this was put in writing the council’s proviso that any peace would
have to be acceptable to Sweden had reappeared. It was the best he
could get, and on 12 February he was back in Dresden.
All the while Wallenstein continued to consider resignation, and to
sound out Vienna on the possibilities. Richel reported to Maximilian
that he had learned from no less a person than Schlick, president of the
war council, that on 17 January one of Wallenstein’s officials, Count
Hardegg, had brought a message that ‘His Princely Grace is minded to