Austria itself with immediate danger, urgently
demanded his presence in Bavaria; and the expulsion of the Saxons and
Swedes from Silesia, deprived him of every pretext for longer resisting
the Imperial orders, and leaving the Elector of Bavaria without
assistance. With his main body, therefore, he immediately set out for
the Upper Palatinate, and his retreat freed Upper Saxony for ever of
this formidable enemy.

So long as was possible, he had delayed to move to the rescue of
Bavaria, and on every pretext evaded the commands of the Emperor. He
had, indeed, after reiterated remonstrances, despatched from Bohemia a
reinforcement of some regiments to Count Altringer, who was defending
the Lech and the Danube against Horn and Bernard, but under the express
condition of his acting merely on the defensive. He referred the
Emperor and the Elector, whenever they applied to him for aid, to
Altringer, who, as he publicly gave out, had received unlimited powers;
secretly, however, he tied up his hands by the strictest injunctions,
and even threatened him with death, if he exceeded his orders. When
Duke Bernard had appeared before Ratisbon, and the Emperor as well as
the Elector repeated still more urgently their demand for succour, he
pretended he was about to despatch General Gallas with a considerable
army to the Danube; but this movement also was delayed, and Ratisbon,
Straubing, and Cham, as well as the bishopric of Eichstaedt, fell into
the hands of the Swedes. When at last he could no longer neglect the
orders of the Court, he marched slowly toward the Bavarian frontier,
where he invested the town of Cham, which had been taken by the Swedes.
But no sooner did he learn that on the Swedish side a diversion was
contemplated, by an inroad of the Saxons into Bohemia, than he availed
himself of the report, as a pretext for immediately retreating into that
kingdom. Every consideration, he urged, must be postponed to the
defence and preservation of the hereditary dominions of the Emperor; and
on this plea, he remained firmly fixed in Bohemia, which he guarded as
if it had been his own property. And when the Emperor laid upon him his
commands to move towards the Danube, and prevent the Duke of Weimar from
establishing himself in so dangerous a position on the frontiers of
Austria, Wallenstein thought proper to conclude the campaign a second
time, and quartered his troops for the winter in this exhausted kingdom.

Such continued ins