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Updated: May 11, 2025
This feat of crossing the Lech in the face of a hostile force is by military experts regarded as the greatest strategic feat of Gustavus. In the meanwhile the emperor had not been idle. There was but one man whose name was potent enough to summon an army adequate for so perilous a situation; and that man was Albrecht von Wallenstein.
Changing their intentions, they left two thousand horse in front of his camp, making believe that they intended to attack him, then marched with all haste to the Lech and advanced against Landsberg, which they took by assault.
In order to retain the command of the important banks of the Lech and the Danube, they were under the necessity of recalling the Rhinegrave Otto Louis from Alsace, where he had, after the departure of Horn, found it difficult to defend himself against the exasperated peasantry.
The capture of Augsburg was hailed with peculiar satisfaction, as the city was regarded as the birthplace of the Reformation in Germany. Leaving a garrison there the king retraced his steps along the Lech to Neuberg, and marched thence to join Marshal Horn in front of Ingolstadt. This town was one of the strongest places in Germany and had never been captured.
This morning was to place it beyond a doubt, whether the victories of Gustavus at Leipzig and on the Lech, were owing to his own military genius, or to the incompetency of his opponent; whether the services of Wallenstein were to vindicate the Emperor's choice, and justify the high price at which they had been purchased.
But the vigour with which Gustavus Adolphus prosecuted the siege, soon compelled him to take measures for a speedy and secure retreat, which amidst a tremendous fire from the Swedish artillery he successfully executed. The conquest of Donauwerth opened to the king the further side of the Danube, and now the small river Lech alone separated him from Bavaria.
The same night, before a single soldier of the enemy had crossed the Lech, he broke up his camp, and, without giving time for the King to harass him in his march, retreated in good order to Neuburgh and Ingolstadt.
Along the placid banks of the Lech, on which river the city stands, the "hydra of rebellion" lay ever coiled and threatening. Brederode was supposed to be revolving vast schemes, both political and military, and Margaret of Parma was kept in continual apprehension by the bravado of this very noisy conspirator. She called upon William of Orange, as usual, for assistance.
"Should the Austrians attack before April tenth," were the orders given on March twenty-eighth, "the army shall be collected behind the Lech, the right occupying Augsburg, the left resting on the right bank of the Danube at Donauwörth." Then followed the most minute instructions to Berthier, explaining every move, and setting forth the reasons why Ratisbon had been chosen as headquarters.
They had met the Kaiser on the plains of the Lech, this morning; and, no doubt, gloomed unutterable things on George and his Speech. George could not help it. Readers of this enlightened gold-nugget generation can form to themselves no conception of the spirit that then possessed the nobler kingly mind.
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