which Charles'
thirty-two pieces could make scant reply. They did not dare attack the
impoverished trenches. "I would have done it," wrote the Landgrave, "had
I been alone." On the other hand it was reported that the Lutherans laid
the blame on Philip, that he had refused to move, "for every fox must
save his own skin." The Cockerel, as the confessor, De Soto, had
contemptuously prophesied, had crowed better than he fought. Charles, on
the other hand, was at his best. He rode round the trenches, exhorting
his soldiers to stand firm, with the assurance that artillery made more
noise than mischief. In vain Granvelle sent the confessor to persuade
him that Christianity needed an emperor less gallant and more sensible.
He answered that no king nor emperor had ever been killed by a
cannon-ball, and, if he were so unfortunate as to make a start, it would
be better so to die than to live. When Ferdinand afterward expostulated
with his brother, Charles assured him that his self-exposure had been
exaggerated, but that they were short of hands, and it was not a time to
set bad example.

The division of Lutheran command was already giving Charles the expected
opportunities. The princes withdrew westward, a palpable confession of
weakness. They had been the aggressors, and yet they now surrendered the
initiative to Charles. Their retirement enabled the Count of Buren to
march in with his Netherland division, and with him the troops of Albert
and Hans of Hohenzollern. This march of Buren was the strategic feat of
the war. He had led the hostile forces which were watching him a dance
up and down the Rhine, and slipped across it unopposed. He had brought
his troops three hundred miles, mainly through the heart of Protestant
Germany, with no certain knowledge where he should find the Emperor, for
communications could only be maintained by means of long detours.
Finally he marched boldly past the vastly superior army of the league,
which had professedly retired from Ingolstadt to bar his passage.

Charles now took the offensive, pushing the enemy slowly up the Danube,
and steadily forcing his way toward Ulm. The strongly Protestant Count
Palatine of Neuburg, Otto Henry, was the first prince to lose his
territory, which, indeed, his debts had already forced him to desert.

The Lutherans now showed more fight, and during the last fortnight of
October the advance came almost to a standstill. Charles was ill, money
and supplies were fall