e sack; no consideration of age or
sex availing to prevent the massacre, which lasted for two days, and
extended to 30,000 of the inhabitants. This monstrous crime was
severely avenged by the indignant Gustavus. He forced the Electors of
Brandenburg and Saxony to render him assistance, and, with an
augmented army, hesitated not to give battle to Tilly at Leipsic, and
defeated him September 7, 1631. The Protestants took courage and
joined Gustavus in great numbers. He continued his victorious march,
defeating the enemy at Merseberg, capturing Wurzburg, then advancing
on the Rhine, and reducing on the way Frankfort-on-the-Main, Mentz,
Spires, Mannheim, and other cities. He next turned to Bavaria, where
Tilly and Maximilian entrenched themselves at Rain-on-the-Lech. The
former was killed by a cannon-ball during the siege, in 1632. Gustavus
marched through Augsburg, where the citizens did him homage, and
besieged Munich, which speedily surrendered. He now threatened to
subdue Bavaria and Austria, when his progress was stopped from an
unexpected quarter.

The emperor, justly mistrusting the loyalty of Maximilian, who was in
league with France, now saw himself deprived of his ablest generals,
and felt his power failing. He turned to Wallenstein as the only man
who could save the Empire. That leader was meantime living in
retirement, and secretly glad of the success of Gustavus. He refused
at first to take the command of the imperial army, and only consented
at last on condition of having sole and absolute authority, with the
right of disposing as he pleased of his conquests. These humiliating
terms were accepted by Ferdinand, and in a few months after the death
of Tilly, Wallenstein was in the field with a large and powerful army,
raised, as before, by his own exertions. He drove the Saxons from
Bohemia, and thence marched to Leipsic, which capitulated. At
Nuremberg, where Gustavus offered him battle, he wisely refused, and
for three months the two camps remained close to each other, each
general trying to exhaust the patience of his adversary, and relying
on the destructive effects of famine and pestilence. Gustavus was
forced to withdraw, after losing 20,000 men; a yet heavier loss,
nevertheless, having befallen Wallenstein, whose numbers were better
able to bear it.

Gustavus marched southward, but soon returned to attack Wallenstein,
who had moved northward, and was pillaging the neighborhood of
Leipsic. The two armies