more favorable for his designs. The Saxons had
invaded Silesia, where, reinforced by troops from Brandenburg and
Sweden, they had gained several advantages over the Emperor's troops.
Silesia would be saved by a diversion against the Elector in his own
territories, and the attempt was the more easy as Saxony, left
undefended during the war in Silesia, lay open on every side to
attack. The pretext of rescuing from the enemy a hereditary dominion
of Austria would silence the remonstrances of the Elector of Bavaria,
and, under the mask of a patriotic zeal for the Emperor's interests,
Maximilian might be sacrificed without much difficulty. By giving up
the rich country of Bavaria to the Swedes, he hoped to be left
unmolested by them in his enterprise against Saxony, while the
increasing coldness between Gustavus and the Saxon Court gave him
little reason to apprehend any extraordinary zeal for the deliverance
of John George. Thus a second time abandoned by his artful protector,
the Elector separated from Wallenstein at Bamberg, to protect his
defenceless territory with the small remains of his troops, while the
imperial army, under Wallenstein, directed its march through Bayreuth
and Coburg toward the Thuringian Forest.

An imperial general, Holk, had previously been sent into Vogtland with
6,000 men, to waste this defenceless province with fire and sword; he
was soon followed by Gallas, another of the Duke's generals, and an
equally faithful instrument of his inhuman orders. Finally,
Pappenheim, too, was recalled from Lower Saxony, to reinforce the
diminished army of the duke and to complete the miseries of the
devoted country. Ruined churches, villages in ashes, harvests wilfully
destroyed, families plundered, and murdered peasants, marked the
progress of these barbarians, under whose scourge the whole of
Thuringia, Vogtland, and Meissen, lay defenceless. Yet this was but
the prelude to greater sufferings with which Wallenstein himself, at
the head of the main army, threatened Saxony. After having left behind
him fearful monuments of his fury, in his march through Franconia and
Thuringia, he arrived with his whole army in the Circle of Leipzic,
and compelled the city, after a short resistance, to surrender. His
design was to push on to Dresden, and by the conquest of the whole
country to prescribe laws to the Elector. He had already approached
the Mulda, threatening to overpower the Saxon army which had advanced
as far a