United States or Sudan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There was something in his love of letters, his habits of luxury and expence, the energy of his mind the solitude, the darkness, the hauteur, the reserve, of his manners and life, which reminded me of the German Wallenstein; nor was he altogether without the superstition of that evil, but extraordinary man.
David Grief pulled himself together with a jerk, for he found himself gazing fascinated at the heads of the three men he had left at New Gibbon. The yellow mustache of Wallenstein had lost its fierce curl and drooped and wilted on the upper lip. "I don't know how it happened," the Scotchman's voice went on drearily. "But I surmise they went into the bush after the old devil." "And where is Koho?"
The death of Wallenstein was followed by a short pause in the war. It had entirely frustrated all the plans and hopes of the Protestants, and it caused a delay in the movement of the Imperialists.
"Had Wallenstein commanded, matters would never have come to this," exclaimed a thousand voices; while their opinions found supporters, even in the Emperor's privy council. Their repeated remonstrances were not needed to convince the embarrassed Emperor of his general's merits, and of his own error.
The astrologer had taken his leave, and Wallenstein had retired to bed, when Captain Deveroux appeared before his residence with six halberdiers, and was immediately admitted by the guard, who were accustomed to see him visit the general at all hours. A page who met him upon the stairs, and attempted to raise an alarm, was run through the body with a pike.
It had become a question with the two armies which could starve the longest, and for three months they lay encamped, each waiting until famine should drive the other out. Surely such a situation had never before been known. What had preceded this event? A few words will tell. Ferdinand the emperor had, with the aid of Tilly and Wallenstein, laid all Germany prostrate at his feet.
But now our destinies drove us asunder; He paced with rapid step the way of greatness, Was count, and prince, duke-regent, and dictator, And now is all, all this too little for him; He stretches forth his hands for a king's crown, And plunges in unfathomable ruin. BUTLER. No more, he comes. To these enter WALLENSTEIN, in conversation with the BURGOMASTER of Egra.
In 1625 Christian IV., king of Denmark, entered the war as leader on the Protestant side, only to yield to the perseverance of Tilly, the general of the Catholic armies, and to the genius of Wallenstein, the representative of Emperor Ferdinand; and to retire in 1629, leaving north Germany more completely than before at the mercy of the emperor and of the Catholic party.
The King of Denmark, with his whole army, was unable to cope with Tilly alone; much less, therefore, with a shattered force could he hold his ground against the two imperial generals. The Danes retired from all their posts on the Weser, the Elbe, and the Havel, and the army of Wallenstein poured like a torrent into Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Holstein and Sleswick.
These humiliating terms were accepted by Ferdinand, and in a few months after the death of Tilly, Wallenstein was in the field with a large and powerful army, raised, as before, by his own exertions. He drove the Saxons from Bohemia, and thence marched to Leipsic, which capitulated.
Word Of The Day