d he marched onward, taking towns and fortresses in rapid succession
and gaining large reinforcements from the German states.

Three great leaders headed the Austrian armies, the famous Wallenstein,
the able but ferocious Tilly, and the celebrated cavalry leader
Pappenheim. All these skilled soldiers Gustavus had to face alone, but he
did so with the support of the best-drilled army then in Europe, a body
of soldiery which his able hands had formed into an almost irresistible
engine of war.

What spurred Gustavus to the great battle to be described was the capture
by Tilly on May 20, 1631, of the city of Magdeburg, and the massacre of
its thirty thousand citizens, men, women, and children. From this scene
of frightful outrage and destruction Tilly failed to call off his men
until the city lay in ruins and its people in death. A tall, haggard,
grim warrior, hollow-cheeked, and wild-looking, with large bright eyes
under his shaggy brows, Tilly looked capable of the deeds of ferocity
with which the world credited him.

[Illustration: STATUE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.]

While all Christendom shuddered with horror at the savage slaughter at
Magdeburg, the triumphant Tilly marched upon and captured the city of
Leipsic. Here he fixed his headquarters in the house of a grave-digger,
where he grew pale at seeing the death's-head and cross-bones with which
the owner had decorated his walls. These significant emblems may have had
something to do with the unusual mildness with which he treated the
citizens of that town.

The cause of Protestantism in Germany was now in serious jeopardy and
Gustavus felt that the time had come to strike a hard blow in its behalf.
The elector of Saxony, who had hitherto stood aloof, now came to his aid
with an army of eighteen thousand men, and it was resolved to attack
Tilly at once, before the reinforcements on the way to join him could
arrive. These statements are needful, to show the momentous import of the
great battle of September 7, 1631.

In the early morning of that day the two armies came face to face, Tilly
having taken a strong and advantageous position not far from Leipsic,
where he hoped to avoid a battle. But he was obliged, when the enemy
began to move upon him, to alter his plans and move towards the hills on
his left. At the foot of these his army was drawn up in a long line,
with the artillery on the heights beyond, where it would sweep the
extensive plain of Breitenfeld in his fr