But Brutus Says He Was Ambitious 247allowing Protestant worship to continue undisturbed and even bringing
in a Protestant as his chancellor.^13 In his armies he applied no religious
criterion, whether to ordinary soldiers or to his field marshals. It has
been said that, like Richelieu, his approach to religion in the political
world was pragmatic, but that should not be mistaken for personal
indifference.
He did, however, become increasingly hostile to the Jesuits over the
years. There are indications that Jesuit influence assisted both his initial
conversion and his first marriage, but when he made a religious foun-
dation a few years later it was Carthusian, because, it was said, their
demands were less exorbitant. During the Danish war he came to see
the Jesuits as opposed to peace, seeking religious advantage from mili-
tary success, while his own opposition to the Edict of Restitution in turn
aroused their hostility to him. Lamormaini, formerly inclined to be one
of his supporters in Vienna, turned against him on this account, and
by the latter days the Jesuits around Ferdinand were among his bitterest
opponents and he was among their most outspoken critics.
As a military organiser Wallenstein had few equals in his own or any
other age, but as a general he was unusual for the time, not least because
he fought few major battles. Lützen, and to a lesser extent the Dessau
bridge, alone qualify for this description, as the Alte Veste was not an
open-field battle, while Wolgast and Steinau were too one-sided to rate
such a description. In part this is attributable to his opponents. On the
Hungarian border in 1626 Mansfeld avoided him, and Bethlen Gabor
slipped away in the night rather than do battle. In 1627 the Danish
forces in Silesia were captured in a series of fortified places rather than
making a stand in the field, while Christian retreated back to Denmark
as Wallenstein advanced. In 1632 Arnim’s Saxons evacuated Bohemia
as soon as he moved against them, and Gustavus preferred to attempt
a surprise attack on the Alte Veste fortifications from the north rather
than confront Wallenstein’s army drawn up for battle outside to the
west, while at Naumburg the king again declined the challenge. These
particular instances demonstrate Wallenstein’s successful application of
one of the main principles of good generalship, that of concentrating
superior forces before engaging the enemy, but they can also be placed
in a wider context in which he too was inclined to avoid battles except
when he could achieve such superiority. This can be ascribed in large
measure to his oft-expressed conviction that the resources of their
opponents were much greater than those of the Imperialists, who in
consequence were much less able to afford – and hence to risk – a lost
battle, as Breitenfeld only too clearly showed.