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As he had not resources, like Tilly, for supplying the wants of his army, he was obliged to march his troops into fertile countries which had not as yet suffered from war. Disobeying, therefore, the order to form a junction with the general of the League, he marched into the territories of Halberstadt and Magdeburg, and at Dessau made himself master of the Elbe.
It was at this time that Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland, was appointed general of the Imperial troops, and soon after succeeded in completely routing Mansfeld at the battle of Dessau Bridge in 1626. Four months later Tilly completely defeated Christian IV and his Danes at Lutter. Wallenstein, on his side, followed up his success, driving Mansfeld into Hungary.
The Elector of Saxony hesitated to take sides; he refused Gustavus Adolphus a passage over the bridge of Dessau, on the Elbe. On the 20th of May Magdeburg fell, and Tilly gave over the place to the soldiery; thirty thousand persons were massacred, and the houses committed to the flames. "Nothing like it has been seen since the taking of Troy and of Jerusalem," said Tilly in his savage joy.
Dessau, we should have said for the English reader's behoof, was and still is a little independent Principality; about the size of Huntingdonshire, but with woods instead of bogs; revenue of it, at this day, is 60,000 pounds, was perhaps not 20, or even 10,000 in Leopold's first time. It lies some fourscore miles southwest of Berlin, attainable by post-horses in a day.
At Branik the victorious King had one great disappointment: Prince Moritz of Dessau, who should have been here long hours ago, with Keith's right wing, a fresh 15,000, to fall upon the enemy's rear; no Moritz visible; not even now, when the business is to chase! "How is this?" "Ill luck, your Majesty!" Moritz's Pontoon Bridge would not reach across, when he tried it.
The troops had been passing out of the city all the afternoon on the road to Elbing and Konigsberg. "It is the same," said a man standing near to Sebastian, "at the Hohes Thor, where they are marching out by the road leading to Konigsberg by way of Dessau."
On this last field his words were, "O Lord God, let me not be disgraced in my old days. Or if Thou wilt not help me, do not help these scoundrels, but leave us to try it ourselves." With this great victory Leopold's career ended. He retired from active service, and the short remainder of his life was spent at Dessau, where he died on the 7th of April 1747.
His good exterior, his knowledge and talents, his integrity, which no one could call in question, had won him the affection and esteem of distinguished persons, on whose recommendation he was appointed tutor to the hereditary prince of Dessau, and at the court of a prince, excellent in every respect, found a solid happiness.
The same author, in association with Herr Bernhard Dessau, has likewise written a more important work, Die Telegraphie ohne Draht; and La Telegraphie sans fil et les ondes Électriques of MM. J. Boulanger and G. Ferrié may also be consulted with advantage, as may La Telegraphie sans fil of Signor Dominico Mazotto.
Old Joachim Greff, schoolmaster at Dessau in 1545, who has a place in the history of German poetry, has left it on record that he trained his scholars to render noble dramas in the conscientious hope "that a little spark of art might be kept alive in the schools under the ashes of barbarism."
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