Oesterreich Uber Alles!

Prologue


For two hundred years, the Haus Habsburg had been on a course of inevitable rise. By the late 15th century, they had become the Imperial house and it would have taken the most extraordinary of events to unseat them. Such an event come in the form of the Reformation, which the Haus’ greatest monarch yet, Charles V, was unable to successfully defeat, in the end conceding that Lutheranism had a right to exist. From his abdication in 1555 till the outbreak of the Twenty Years War, the aftershock of that check on the power of the emperor, despite the Peace of Augsburg, was leading to the further diminishing of Imperial power. This was to be the fundamental cause of the temporary fall of the Habsburg and the beginning of the Twenty Years War; this is evidenced by the weakness of the imperial power, by the gross lack of patriotism manifested by the estates of the empire, and by the paralysis of the imperial authority and its agencies among the Protestant estates of Southwestern Germany, which had been in a state of discontent since 1555. Consequently the whole of Germany was in a continual state of unrest.

The decay of the empire encouraged the other nations of Western Europe to infringe upon its territory. Spain and the Netherlands made use of the period of the twelve-years truce* to secure a footing in the neighboring district of the Lower Rhine so as to increase their strategic base. For nearly a hundred years France had made treaties with many of the estates hostile to the emperor. Henry IV of France was murdered in 1610 at the very moment he was about to interfere in the war over the Jülich-Cleve succession. James I of England was the father-in-law of the head of the Protestant party of action in Germany, Elector Frederick V of the Palatinate, and was inclined to take part in a continental quarrel. Denmark sought obstinately to obtain the power of "administration" over the dioceses of Northern Germany that had become Protestant, and to get control of the mouth of the Elbe. Gustavus Adolphus (1611-32), of Sweden, also showed a strong desire to interfere in German affairs. At the outbreak of the Twenty Years War all these countries, it is true, were prevented from taking part in it by internal difficulties or by wars in other directions. Still the disposition to do so existed everywhere.

Another cause of the war was that the countries forming the Austrian provinces belonged to the empire. For, in the first place, the empire, owing to the geographical position of these countries, became involved in the contemporary affairs in Eastern Europe. The general aristocratic reaction that appeared throughout Europe at the end of the fifteenth and in the sixteenth centuries gradually became so powerful in the eastern and northern countries that a life-and-death struggle between its representatives and the sovereign power broke out at the beginning of the seventeenth century in the more active districts of these sections. These causes gave the first impulse to the Twenty Years War.

A further important cause was the religious sectarianism which, after diminishing for a short time, grew more intense early in the seventeenth century. In the Catholic movement (about 1592) which followed the Council of Trent only Catholic theologians and a few princes had taken part; the second movement, on the contrary, carried with it the masses of the clergy and laity, and was marked by an ardent spirit of faith and a passionate demand for the spread of Catholicism. If among Protestants the idealistic enthusiasm was perhaps not so great, still their partisan feeling was equally violent and their combativeness no less ardent. After the war began it soon became manifest that social and economic reasons made Germany a favorable soil for its growth. Economic life, which for a long time had flourished greatly, from the second half of the sixteenth century had grown stagnant. Consequently there existed a large number who were glad to have the opportunity of supporting themselves as paid soldiers and of enriching themselves by plunder. The nobles, also, who were numerous in proportion to the rest of the population, took advantage of the opportunity to indulge their private feuds and robberies. As only a small number of them were attracted by foreign wars, they were ready therefore for internal disorders. Soon there appeared leaders of ability who gathered both nobles and burghers under their banners and retained them in their service by indulging their evil instincts. On the other hand, the people of Germany, who had been long unaccustomed to war and were not trained to bear public burdens, chafed under the hardships now imposed upon them. This discontent, combined with the ease with which troops were equipped, aided in prolonging the war.


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*The Spanish and the Dutch renewed this truce in the 1620's as their mutual attention was focused on the war in the Empire.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century the regions ruled by the German Habsburgs included Upper and Lower Austria, Bohemia together with Moravia and Silesia, the lesser part of Hungary which had not been conquered by the Turks, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, the Tyrol, and the provinces bordering on Germany. This territory, however, was divided among three branches of the family, the main line, the Styrian, and that of Tyrol-Vorarlberg. Although the main line of the German Habsburgs held by far the larger part of these landed possessions yet its territories did not form a compact whole, but were only a number of loosely connected countries, each having its own provincial estates, which were largely composed of nobles and which maintained an incessant opposition to the dynasty, and therefore largely desired religious freedom, that is the right to become Protestant and to introduce Protestantism into their domains. The struggle of the nobility against the dynasty reached its height during the last decade of the reign of Rudolph II (1576-1612). Even at that time the nobility maintained relations with the active Protestant party in the empire. In 1604 the Hungarian nobles revolted with the aid of the ruler of Transylvania, and in 1607 they rebelled again and became the allies of the Turks. On 25 June, 1608, Rudolph was obliged to transfer the government of Hungary, Austria, and Moravia to his more compliant brother Matthias; he did not, however, give up his rights as King of Bohemia, and in 1609 was able to pacify an outbreak of the Bohemian nobility only by granting the Imperial Charter (Majestätsbrief) or Royal Letter of Bohemia which gave religious liberty not only to the nobles and their dependents in Bohemia but also to those living on the crown lands. This concession greatly strengthened the power of the nobles.


After Rudolph's death, Cardinal Klesl sought, as the councilor of Matthias (1612-19), to avoid above all any new crisis, so as to gain time to reorganize the resources of the ruling dynasty. Matthias, like Rudolph, had no son and the royal family chose as his successor Ferdinand, the head of the Styrian branch of the Habsburgs, who had restored Catholicism in Styria. In 1617 the dynasty persuaded the Bohemians to accept Ferdinand as their future king, and in 1618 they prevailed upon the Hungarians to elect him king. Before this, the Bohemian nobles had revolted anew under the leadership of Graf von Thurn. The revolt began in Prague after the Royal Letter of Bohemia had been recalled. Two royal officers were hurled from a window by Protestant members of the Bohemian diet, the so-called Defenestration of Prague (January, 1618). Ferdinand was declared deposed and the Bohemian throne was offered to Frederick V, the Elector Palatinate, head of the Protestant party. Rebel armies also arose in Sudeten and in Silesia, numbering 6,000 and 16,000 strong respectively, raided the countryside and besieged Imperial garrisons at Pilsen and Breslau. The silence in response from Vienna gave the rebels encouragement, thinking that their revolution might be carried forth without a shot. They apparently did not know Ferdinand very well.

Vienna’s silence was not caused by weakness but by perplexity. Ferdinand fiercely wanted to crush the Bohemians and ordered the Imperial army under von Wallenstein to march with haste on Prague. The general objected, saying that the 68,000 men that had been raised in Austria were not ready for combat and were not yet properly paid by Ferdinand*. He suggested instead that he march his army into Ostmarch, thus threatening both Prague and the Sudeten rebels while Ferdinand asked Maximilian, the Duke of Bavaria, to contribute troops and his great general, Graf von Tilly, to the war effort. Most historians have speculated that this was just the first of von Wallenstein’s many machinations during the war which were solely in the interest of increasing his own power, not of the Archduke or the Empire. In his defense, he told the truth. The army was untried and unpaid. If these factors really mattered in a war against armies that were no more than bands of fervent rabble is subjective. On March 1, 1618 von Wallenstein, as promised, left Vienna with half the Imperial forces available and made camp in Ostmarch, nearer to relieving Pilsen than storming Prague.


Archduke Ferdinand had much more than the Bohemian rebels to worry him. In 1617, the Protestant princes of Northern Germany strengthened their positions versus what they saw as a radical, Counter-Reform Austrian state; some Catholic princes saw such a state as a threat as well. Brandenburg joined in league with the Netherlands, King James I of England, Cologne, and Bremen. The Margrave of Baden allied himself with the Pope, Venice, and Modena, preferring an Italian alliance than to get involved in a new religious civil war. Savoy and Lorraine bound themselves to France. At the center, the Elector Palatinate, John-George of Saxony, and the princes of Brunswick formed the preeminent league of Protestant princes. The only counter to these powerful combinations were Austria, Bavaria, and their Iberian allies under the command of Philip III. These hostile camps also made, for the first time in over a century, the election of a Habsburg to the Imperial throne almost unlikely. Ferdinand did not panic at this, but resolved to draw closer to Maximilian and the King of Poland, already seeking resolution of his problems by force of arms.


Further ominous thundering issued from the north in the autumn of 1617 surrounded the Archbishopic of Munster. After many years of influence from Denmark, the Duke of Oldenburg left his alliance with the Archbishop and converted to the faith of Luther early in November. The Margrave of Brandenburg took this was a long awaited opportunity to annex Munster to his western lands and eliminate a possible ally of Austria. The Netherlands also saw this an opportunity to further expanded their power in Germany, also looking towards annexing Munster. King James, while having no ambitions in Germany, wished to support his allies and support their moves with more words than action. Vienna had no way to respond, lest a wider war and loss of the Imperial election be caused. Thus, Poland was called upon to chastise Brandenburg and she did so happily, declaring war on their vassal on the 13th of November, 1617, aiming at the reduction of Prussia or, unknown to Vienna, expansion within the empire itself. In the extreme north, the King of Denmark took advantage of the confusion of the empire to annex the Imperial realm of Holstein to his Kingdom in July, 1618. The power of the Imperial state had surely reached its nadir.

Archduke Ferdinand was not dismayed, but emboldened. He sent envoys to Baden, Württemberg, and Cologne to convince the princes to either side with him in the coming election and war or, at least, stay neutral while Austria and Bavaria “set things right again.” On September 14th, 1618, most of Central Europe saw a bright red meteor illuminate the sky about midnight before crashing to earth. Astrologers, clergy, and the common people all proclaimed it an ill omen of grand proportions, most likely upon the Haus Habsburg and its Emperor-in-waiting. The pious Ferdinand laughed it these predictions, calling their predictions “the auguries of heathens,” despite the effect the meteor sighting had on the people, the army, and even the court. October and November saw the fall of Pilsen and Breslau and the rebels completely taking over these provinces, pledging loyalty to the provisional government in Prague. Brandenburg used December to contract marriages with the Palatinate and Franciszek I, the new Duke of Pomerania, Denmark to contract marriage with their new ally, the Czar of Russia. Ferdinand discounted it all for he was looking forward to 1619 and the Imperial election at Frankfurt. Ferdinand, though bitter about the actions of most of the princes, was sure that they would not forsake the Habsburgs. God was on his side after all.

By the time of the Frankfurt election, the Archduke was not so arrogant. He could only depend on Baden, Cologne, and Bavaria to vote for him, as far as he knew, and the Elector Palatinate proclaimed to his fellows that anyone but Ferdinand was to be elected. “I will not vote for Ferdinand because he has proven that his loyalty is not to the empire but to Rome. In Bohemia, he has already deprived the people of their rights as granted by the late Emperor Rudolph and shall, if elected, expand this effort to the whole of the empire and undo those rights so dearly won at Augsburg! To elect such man is treason to the empire and a sin before God.” Some believed that Frederick was preparing have himself elected, but that was not his aim at all. To him, the title of Emperor was hollow, especially without the crown of Bohemia. That is where the Elector Palatinate’s attention lay, as he excepted their offer of the crown and on 21st of March received the invitation of the Bohemians to come to Prague to be coroneted and lead his new kingdom. Ecstatic over the news, Frederick forced the issue of the election while Franciszek of Pomerania was finally put forward as the opposition candidate. The little known prince, at the end of a raucous all-day session, found himself the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Archduke Ferdinand left Frankfurt the next day in a fury and vowed that now nothing would withhold his heavy hand on Bohemia.


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*von Wallenstein began to pay the troops himself, which further endeared to the army to him and not the government.

*bump*

Any thoughts? Comments are welcome, really.

Fiftypence & MAlexander06 - Frederick V is the classic troublemaker and what makes it worse is that Ferdinand does not even officially have the title of Emperor to back up his righteous cause, though he will find a away around that. Frederick will get whats coming to him, but there is much to be done before that...

Grundius - Glad you like it and have not been scared away by my long-windedness, though I feel no so much so when I read other aars that I like. I do shorthand by comparision.

Frederick V, the Elector Palatinate, entered Prague a hero in late March of 1619. His coronation was followed by weeks of constant balls and fireworks displays, he and his English wife always being at the center. Amidst these festivities, the new King also accomplished some work, such as joining Bohemia to his Protestant League (Saxony, Palatinate, Brunswick) and getting the Bohemian Diet to raise more funds for the army. Fredrick felt assured that Austria, by these measured alone could be cowed into silence before the new order of things in the Empire. Frederick then returned to his parties with the socialites of Prague.

Archduke Ferdinand, on the other hand, had no time for frivolities. Upon his return to Vienna, he officially was coroneted as ruler of Austria while that same day at Frankfurt, Franciszek I of Pommern (a Protestant) was anointed as Holy Roman Emperor*. Ferdinand made clear his intentions, issuing a proclamation ordering the Bohemians to deliver up Frederick and those who had made him king, lest a state of war exist between Austria and Bohemia. All he received in response was silence, so he prepared for war. Maximilian of Bavaria and Philip III of Spain and Portugal declared their absolute support for war and other princes quietly pledged neutrality. In Ostmarch, von Wallenstein finally said the army was ready for the test of battle. In Vienna, the people were also excited for war, looking forward to the restoration of the “stolen” Imperial dignity to Ferdinand and a final reckoning with their heretical cousins to the north. With such support, Ferdinand would wait no longer and declared war upon Bohemia on the 1st of June, 1619. The Protestant League responded in kind and over the summer all placed embargoes upon Austrian trade in their realms. Economics now became part of this new war of religion and sovereignty.


As one could have predicted, von Wallenstein’s first move was to march on Sudeten. He planned to retake Pilsen and block any Saxon movement south. The province was, except for the rebel force at Pilsen, completely undefended as the rebel army had decamped to rush north to seize Erz with the aid of the Silesian rebels. In the meantime, Würzburg joined the Protestant League, despite its large Catholic population, and placed an embargo on Austrian commerce. This was brazen opportunism, but Würzburg was soon to pay as Tilly and his Bavarians were unleashed upon Thuringia. On 21st July, von Wallenstein arrived before Pilsen and laid siege, but that very evening 11,200 Saxon infantry arrived to prevent it. On the 22nd, von Wallenstein eagerly gave battle as he found his infantry was twice that of the enemies and that he held the advantage in artillery and cannon. The result was decisive and the Saxons fled the field after an hour. The siege was resumed and on the 4th of August, an assault was order against the ill-prepared defenders. Pilsen fell with few casualties to the attackers. With the defeat of an army from Würzburg on the 11th, von Wallenstein now turned his eyes north to Saxony proper. His plans for an autumn campaign had nothing to do with Prague but instead aimed at the capture of Dresden and putting Saxony out of the war by Christmas.


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*Ferdinand declared that Frankfurt was a Lutheran sham and acted from that time on as if he had been elected Emperor, even calling his military forces 'Imperial', eventhough he was not legally so. Yet, the Pommeranian Emperors were so insignificant and powerless, that it was as if the Imperial crown had never passed from the Habsburgs.

Albrecht von Wallenstein arrived at Dresden on the 27th of October. Saxon arms were once more disgraced by the Imperial veterans and the city was besieged, John-George trapped within. The Elector had stayed to give courage to the defenders and maintain his prestige, but upon seeing the enemy, he privately regretted not having fled to Anhalt. To the south, Tilly was sweeping through Würzburg and lay siege to Erfurt which he had already assaulted without success. The well-planned campaign dragged on as both Erfurt and Dresden continued to stand defiantly against Imperial forces. Tilly had time to wait but von Wallenstein found that Sachsen lacked victuals to last a longer siege. The weather got worse, chillingly cold, and the walls of Dresden were holding. Christmas came and went; on the 8th of January, the General lifted the siege and moved to destroy the rebel army in Erz.


The pacification of Erz also did not proceed as planned, as the 9,700 rebels scattered to the hills and only fought the Imperial army when it was divided into smaller detachments. Though he did not admit it in his reports to Vienna, these Bohemian rag-tags dealt von Wallenstein and the Imperial army its first defeat of the war by March, 1620. He withdrew first to Sudeten in April and Ostmarch by early May to build his army up again. He reported to Ferdinand, “I have tried to accomplish the subjugation of your Excellent Grace’s enemies as best as possible, but months of raising new troops shall be required for any possible progress. It is to Pappenheim that your orders must be issued to now.”


This Graf von Pappenheim, an eccentric aristocrat and bold commander, had his own plan for winning the war. By early December, 1619 he had already moved up his army to winter at Presburg. From there, he would invade Moravia in the spring and fall upon Prague before the end of the summer. In Moravia, there were only 4,000 troops to oppose the will of the Graf and were brushed aside without any trouble. Pappenheim laid siege to the fortresses of the country in late May and announced to his officers that they would dine in Prague before All Saint’s Day.


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*Tilly won his laurels on the 11th of April with the fall of Erfurt. His was the sole success of the Imperial winter campaign.

Ernst, Graf von Mansfield, was an illegitimate son of Peter Ernst, Fürst von Mansfeld, and passed his early years in his father's palace at Luxembourg. He gained his earliest military experiences in Hungary, where his half-brother Charles (1543-1595), also a soldier of renown, held a high command in the imperial army. Later he served under the Archduke Leopold, until that prince's ingratitude, real or fancied, drove him into the arms of the enemies of the house of Habsburg. Although remaining a Roman Catholic he allied himself with the Protestant princes, and during the earlier part of the Twenty Years' War he became one of their foremost champions.


He was dispatched by Charles Emmanuel, duke of Savoy, at the head of about 2000 men to aid the revolting Bohemians when war broke out in 1618. He took Plzeň, but in the summer of 1619 he was defeated at Záblatí; after this he offered his services to Ferdinand II and remained inactive while the titular king of Bohemia, Frederick V, dithered in Prague. Mansfeld, however, was soon appointed by Frederick to command his large army in the Rhenish Palatinate, and in 1620 he entered the undefended Spanish Netherlands. He swiftly occupied his native Luxemburg and by June had besieged Arras and even Brussels, the capital of the southern Low Countries.


Meanwhile in Bohemia, Pappenheim pressed on with his Moravian campaign, besieging Brunn and laying waste to the country. Christian of Brunswick had about this time sent his army south to defend Bohemia and its commander, George Luneburg, took the initiative to relieve Brunn. He arrived on the 13th of August and immediately offered battle. Pappenheim was quite surprised and the Austrians began the battle with very little organization. Unlike previous battles, the Protestants were evenly matched with the Imperials, even though they lacked the amount of cavalry Pappenheim had. Luneburg’s artillery hit the Imperial army hard, raking its front with heavy fire. He then pressed his advance and ordered his cavalry to break the Imperial cavalry on the right flank. This gambit nearly worked and the Imperial center seemed to be failing after an hour, but the Protestant cavalry had to fall back in the end. Pappenheim now ordered his cavalry to attack the flanks of the enemy while he rode to the center and restored order by example, riding at the front with his sword pointed at the enemy. The army with renewed vigor fought back against the Protestants and by the evening Luneburg had no choice but to withdraw, though he felt he had been very close to victory. Brunn would have to remain under siege.


Now with the advent of autumn, the reformed Feld Armee under von Wallenstein finally marched forth from Ostmarch with the aim of capturing Prague and Frederick V. This had been what Ferdinand had wanted since the start of the war, but von Wallenstein had remained cautious. Throughout the spring and summer of 1620, he had been recruiting new soldiers and collecting funds from the estates of rebels in Sudeten as well as forcing loans from Ferdinand. With the new army created by this money, von Wallenstein was certain of victory, not wishing to be upstaged by Pappenheim in the race to take Prague. On the 30th of September, he arrived in the vicinity of Prague, causing much panic among its citizens as they had not yet been touched by the war. Frederick V though had faith in his untried levies and put them under the command of Luneburg of Brunswick. Luneburg assembled his troops, and deployed them on the slopes of a hill (Bílá Hora in Czech, Weissenberg in German, both meaning White Mountain) blocking the road to Prague. His troops occupied a solid position, with his right flank covered by a hunting castle, his left covered by a brook, and a small brook with some moors in front of them. By the 2nd of October, von Wallenstein had observed the enemy position and sent his well-trained men over a small bridge crossing the brook. After just two hours of heavy fighting, including a successful but reckless cavalry charge by von Mercy, they smashed through the center of the enemy line. This decided the battle and Luneburg’s well chosen position became a killing field as the Imperials chased down the routed Protestant forces.

Prague did not immediately fall, however, and von Wallenstein was forced to lay siege. Frederick also slipped through his hands. The King of Bohemia had decided to make his escape as soon as the news of White Mountain reached the capital. He, the royal household, and 50 guards left the city on the night of the 4th, just a day before von Wallenstein arrived. Still, the citizens of Prague pledged to defend the city to the last man for their king and their freedom. Frederick, for his part, vowed to return and made his way back to the Palatinate.

October brought further mixed news as Spain bowed out of the Bohemian war, having sent no troops in the first place, wishing to focus on driving Mansfield out of the Netherlands. The Bohemians paid the Spanish 120,000 ducats in return for this promise of peace and the recognition of Frederick as their King; Ferdinand felt utterly betrayed by his cousin in Madrid. What remained of the Bohemian army had entered Ostmarch and this forced von Wallenstein to lift his siege of Prague and march to protect his base. He once again put the Bohemians to flight at Krems but had lost the chance to put down the Bohemian rebellion once and for all.

Don't worry. I'll have updates ready by either Sunday or Monday.

Thanks for your support and readership.

On November the 28th, 1620, Franciszek I, Holy Roman Emperor and Duke of Pommern, died. The Diet at Frankfurt, with Austria and Bavaria notably absent, proclaimed the Duke’s successor, Boguslaw XIV, as the new emperor. It was a second slap in the face of the Habsburgs and the Catholic princes of the empire. Ferdinand II of Austria were further resolved to crush the northern princes and solidify his Imperial rule. At the same time, he did not become a fanatic, as he sent a personal gift of an Arabian stallion to the Margrave of Wurtemberg, wishing to keep at least this southern Protestant prince neutral in the raging conflict. The Archbishop of Munster was also contacted, with the protect of an alliance with Austria, but the prelate demurred.

The new year brought interesting news from abroad; Cardinal Richelieu was made prime minister of the French king, Louis XIII, and set about crushing the uppity Protestant nobles of that realm. Navarre and other Huguenot strongholds in the south rebelled in response, but Richelieu personally led the army to put down the rebels. Meanwhile, Spain finally revealed why they had betrayed Austria by making peace with Bohemia; they were bankrupt. After a century of continental wars and the loss of the Netherlands as a commercial and tax cornucopia, the kingdom’s treasury was empty and Mansfeld’s conquest of the Spanish Netherlands had only made matters worse. At Rome, a new pope, Gregory XV, rose to the throne in Papal States and secretly gave Austria moral support, hoping to return to the true religion to Germany by force of arms if need be.


In February, Tilly and his army of 24,000 Bavarians seized Dresden after a six month siege. After this, the Saxons as an active force in the war were neutralized. Wallenstein perceived that the only princes that still had strong military forces in the field were Christian of Brunswick and the Elector Palatinate, Frederick V. His Bohemian army had been destroyed, but Frederick still had the victorious Mansfeld, who he now ordered to march east so that his promise to save his subjects in Prague might be kept. Wallenstein chose to march on Brunswick first as he thought Mansfeld to be still busy in the Low Countries. In this calculation he was proved wrong when mercenary captain appeared before the Feld Armee near Bamburg on the 1st of March. Mansfeld had greater numbers of infantry and decided to use these in an early offensive push. Wallenstein simply responded by unloading his artillery into the ranks of the enemy and attacking their left flank with the majority of his horse. Mansfeld pulled back to defensive positions and attempted to hold off the Imperial cavalry with his own small contingent, but to no avail. Mansfield withdrew his mercenaries from the battle with surprisingly good order with the loss of only 5,000 men. He presently returned to his paymaster, the Elector, at Heidelberg and immediately began preparing for another thrust into Thuringia.

Mansfeld did return in April, but found his army blocked again. This time it was the Bavarians, 20,000 strong, that opposed him. Wallenstein well on his way to Brunswick and Tilly was reducing Saxon fortresses in Anhalt, meaning there was no captain of ability to oppose Mansfeld. At Erfurt, the Bavarians were scattered and Mansfeld would have advanced if it had not been for the threat of Tilly to the Rhenish Palatinate itself.


To the north, Wallenstein arrived in Brunswick and met the army of Christian at Hanover. The prince, while devout and brave, was not a general by any means and George Luneburg was still in Prague. After an hour of battle, the prince’s army was destroyed, either cut down by the Imperial cavalry or fled the field. Christian gathered a hard core of 5,000 infantry and 1,000 horse around himself. Wallenstein sent a messenger obliging him to surrender and go to Vienna in order to make peace with Ferdinand. The prince humbly agreed, but left Wallenstein the task of capturing the strong points of the northern principalities in Brunswick and Luneburg. This was but the beginning of the turn in the fortunes of Ferdinand and the Catholic cause.