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The swollen Yssel, during a brief period of dry weather, had sunk so low in certain shallows as not to be navigable for his transports, and after his trains of artillery and munitions had been dragged wearily overland as far as Groll, the deluge had returned in such force, that physical necessity as well as considerations of humanity compelled him to defer his entrenching operations until the weather should moderate.
His force was weakened by the withdrawal of Sir Francis Vere with three of the English regiments, Elizabeth having sent peremptory orders that this force should follow those already withdrawn to aid Henry of Navarre in Brittany. Very unwillingly Vere obeyed, and marched to Doesburg on the Yssel.
Nothing could induce the stadholder, who held an observing position at Wesel, with his back against the precious watery quadrilateral, to risk the defence of those most vital lines of the Yssel and the Waal. While attempting to save Rheinberg, he felt it possible that he might lose Nymegen, or even Utrecht. The swift but wily Genoese was not to be trifled with or lost sight of an instant.
The citizens next fell a defenceless, prey; some being, stabbed in the streets, some hanged on the trees which decorated the city, some stripped stark naked; and turned out into the fields to freeze to death in the wintry night. As the work of death became too fatiguing for the butchers, five hundred innocent burghers were tied two and two, back to back, and drowned like dogs in the river Yssel.
It has been computed that Germany imports half its food-supply through Rotterdam, and much of this is borne to its destined markets on tjalks. The William Canal connects Bois le Duc with Limburg, and saves the great bend of the Meuse. The Yssel connects with the Drenthe the Orange and the Reitdiep canals, which convey to the Rhine the produce of remote Groningen and Friesland.
But the works in that direction had been entrusted to an experienced campaigner, Warmelo, sheriff of Zalant, who received the impetuous Spinola and his lieutenant, Count Solre, so warmly, that they reeled backwards at last, after repeated assaults and great loss of men, and never more attempted to cross the Yssel. Obviously, the campaign had failed.
George feasting, Knewstub sermons, and forces of Hercules, were all finished, the Earl had taken the field with five thousand foot and fifteen hundred horse. His intention was to clear the Yssel; by getting possession of Doesburg and Zutphen, but, hearing of Parma's demonstrations upon Grave, he abandoned the contemplated siege of those cities, and came to Arnheim.
The military operations of the year were, accordingly, along the Meuse, where the main object of Parma was to wrest Grave From the Netherlands; along the Waal, where, on the other hand, the patriots wished to recover Nymegen; on the Yssel, where they desired to obtain the possession of Zutphen; and in the Cologne electorate, where the Spaniards meant, if possible, to transfer Neusz and Rheinberg from Truchsess to Elector Ernest.
Upon its elder branch, the Yssel, Zutphen was in Parma's hands, while, a little below, Deventer had been recently and adroitly saved by Leicester and Count Meurs from falling into the same dangerous grasp. Thus the triple Rhine, after it had crossed the German frontier, belonged mainly, although not exclusively, to the States.
With him were Count Lewis William of Nassau, and Sir Philip Sidney, while the Earl himself, crossing the Yssel on a bridge of boats which he had constructed, reserved for himself the reduction of the forts upon the Veluwe side. Farnese, meantime, was not idle; and Leicester's calculations proved correct.
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