Memoirs of a Cavalier<br />A Military Journal of the Wars in Germany, and the Wars in England.<br /> by Daniel Defoe (best romantic books to read TXT) 📕

it is." "Why, it is," says the king, "that you shall never fight but when you have orders, for I shall not be willing to lose my colonel before I have the regiment." "I shall be ready at all times, sir," returned I, "to obey your Majesty's orders."

I sent my man express with the king's answer and the commission to my father, who had the regiment completed in less than two months' time, and six of the officers, with a list of the rest, came away to me, whom I presented to his Majesty when he lay before Nuremberg, where they kissed his hand.

One of the captains offered to bring the whole regiment travelling as private men into the army in six weeks' time, and either to transport their equipage, or buy it in Germany, but 'twas thought impracticable. However, I had so many come in that manner that I had a complete troop always about me, and obtained the king's order to muster them as a troop.

On the 8th of March the king decamped, and, marching up the river Maine, bent his course directly for Bavaria, taking several small places by the way, and expecting to engage with Tilly, who he thought would dispute his entrance into Bavaria, kept his army together; but Tilly, finding himself too weak to encounter him, turned away, and leaving Bavaria open to the king, marched into the Upper Palatinate. The king finding the country clear of the Imperialists comes to Nuremberg, made his entrance into that city the 21st of March, and being nobly treated by the citizens, he continued his march into Bavaria, and on the 26th sat down before Donauwerth. The town was taken the next day by storm, so swift were the conquests of this invincible captain. Sir John Hepburn, with the Scots and the English volunteers at the head of them, entered the town first, and cut all the garrison to pieces, except such as escaped over the bridge.

I had no share in the business of Donauwerth, being now among the horse, but I was posted on the roads with five troops of horse, where we picked up a great many stragglers of the garrison, whom we made prisoners of war.

'Tis observable that this town of Donauwerth is a very strong place and well fortified, and yet such expedition did the king make, and such resolution did he use in his first attacks, that he carried the town without putting himself to the trouble of formal approaches. 'Twas generally his way when he came before any town with a design to besiege it; he never would encamp at a distance and begin his trenches a great way off, but bring his men immediately within half musket-shot of the place; there getting under the best cover he could, he would immediately begin his batteries and trenches before their faces; and if there was any place possibly to be attacked, he would fall to storming immediately. By this resolute way of coming on he carried many a town in the first heat of his men, which would have held out many days against a more regular siege.

This march of the king broke all Tilly's measures, for now he was obliged to face about, and leaving the Upper Palatinate, to come to the assistance of the Duke of Bavaria; for the king being 20,000 strong, besides 10,000 foot and 4000 horse and dragoons which joined him from the Duringer Wald, was resolved to ruin the duke, who lay now open to him, and was the most powerful and inveterate enemy of the Protestants in the empire.

Tilly was now joined with the Duke of Bavaria, and might together make about 22,000 men, and in order to keep the Swedes out of the country of Bavaria, had planted themselves along the banks of the river Lech, which runs on the edge of the duke's territories; and having fortified the other side of the river, and planted his cannon for several miles at all the convenient places on the river, resolved to dispute the king's passage.

I shall be the longer in relating this account of the Lech, being esteemed in those days as great an action as any battle or siege of that age, and particularly famous for the disaster of the gallant old General Tilly; and for that I can be more particular in it than other accounts, having been an eye-witness to every part of it.

The king being truly informed of the disposition of the Bavarian army, was once of the mind to have left the banks of the Lech, have repassed the Danube, and so setting down before Ingolstadt, the duke's capital city, by the taking that strong town to have made his entrance into Bavaria, and the conquest of such a fortress, one entire action; but the strength of the place and the difficulty of maintaining his leaguer in an enemy's country while Tilly was so strong in the field, diverted him from that design; he therefore concluded that Tilly was first to be beaten out of the country, and then the siege of Ingolstadt would be the easier.

Whereupon the king resolved to go and view the situation of the enemy. His Majesty went out the 2nd of April with a strong party of horse, which I had the honour to command. We marched as near as we could to the banks of the river, not to be too much exposed to the enemy's cannon, and having gained a little height, where the whole course of the river might be seen, the king halted, and commanded to draw up. The king alighted, and calling me to him, examined every reach and turning of the river by his glass, but finding the river run a long and almost a straight course he could find no place which he liked; but at last turning himself north, and looking down the stream, he found the river, stretching a long reach, doubles short upon itself, making a round and very narrow point. "There's a point will do our business," says the king, "and if the ground be good I'll pass there, let Tilly do his worst."

He immediately ordered a small party of horse to view the ground, and to bring him word particularly how high the bank was on each side and at the point. "And he shall have fifty dollars," says the king, "that will bring me word how deep the water is." I asked his Majesty leave to let me go, which he would by no means allow of; but as the party was drawing out, a sergeant of dragoons told the king, if he pleased to let him go disguised as a boor, he would bring him an account of everything he desired. The king liked the notion well enough, and the fellow being very well acquainted with the country, puts on a ploughman's habit, and went away immediately with a long pole upon his shoulder. The horse lay all this while in the woods, and the king stood undiscerned by the enemy on the little hill aforesaid. The dragoon with his long pole comes down boldly to the bank of the river, and calling to the sentinels which Tilly had placed on the other bank, talked with them, asked them if they could not help him over the river, and pretended he wanted to come to them. At last being come to the point where, as I said, the river makes a short turn, he stands parleying with them a great while, and sometimes, pretending to wade over, he puts his long pole into the water, then finding it pretty shallow he pulls off his hose and goes in, still thrusting his pole in before him, till being gotten up to his middle, he could reach beyond him, where it was too deep, and so shaking his head, comes back again. The soldiers on the other side, laughing at him, asked him if he could swim? He said, "No," "Why, you fool you," says one of the sentinels, "the channel of the river is twenty feet deep." "How do you know that?" says the dragoon. "Why, our engineer," says he, "measured it yesterday." This was what he wanted, but not yet fully satisfied, "Ay, but," says he, "maybe it may not be very broad, and if one of you would wade in to meet me till I could reach you with my pole, I'd give him half a ducat to pull me over." The innocent way of his discourse so deluded the soldiers, that one of them immediately strips and goes in up to the shoulders, and our dragoon goes in on this side to meet him; but the stream took t' other soldier away, and he being a good swimmer, came swimming over to this side. The dragoon was then in a great deal of pain for fear of being discovered, and was once going to kill the fellow, and make off; but at last resolved to carry on the humour, and having entertained the fellow with a tale of a tub, about the Swedes stealing his oats, the fellow being a-cold wanted to be gone, and he as willing to be rid of him, pretended to be very sorry he could not get over the river, and so makes off.

By this, however, he learned both the depth and breadth of the channel, the bottom and nature of both shores, and everything the king wanted to know. We could see him from the hill by our glasses very plain, and could see the soldier naked with him. Says the king, "He will certainly be discovered and knocked on the head from the other side: he is a fool," says the king, "he does not kill the fellow and run off." But when the dragoon told his tale, the king was extremely well satisfied with him, gave him a hundred dollars, and made him a quartermaster to a troop of cuirassiers.

The king having farther examined the dragoon, he gave him a very distinct account of the shore and the ground on this side, which he found to be higher than the enemy's by ten or twelve foot, and a hard gravel.

Hereupon the king resolves to pass there, and in order to it gives, himself, particular directions for such a bridge as I believe never army passed a river on before nor since.

His bridge was only loose planks laid upon large tressels in the same homely manner as I have seen bricklayers raise a low scaffold to build a brick wall; the tressels were made higher than one another to answer to the river as it became deeper or shallower, and was all framed and fitted before any appearance was made of attempting to pass.

When all was ready the king brings his army down to the bank of the river, and plants his cannon as the enemy had done, some here and some there, to amuse them.

At night, April 4th, the king commanded about 2000 men to march to the point, and to throw up a trench on either side, and quite round it with a battery of six pieces of cannon at each end, besides three small mounts, one at the point and one of each side, which had each of them two pieces upon them. This work was begun so briskly and so well carried on, the king firing all the night from the other parts of the river, that by daylight all the batteries at the new work were mounted, the trench lined with 2000 musketeers, and all the utensils of the bridge lay ready to be put together.

Now the Imperialists discovered the design, but it was too late to hinder it; the musketeers in the great trench, and the five new batteries, made such continual fire that the other bank, which, as before, lay twelve feet below them, was too hot for the Imperialists; whereupon Tilly, to be provided for the king at his coming over, falls to work in a wood right against the point, and raises a great battery for twenty pieces of cannon, with a breastwork or line, as near the river as he could, to cover his men, thinking that when the king had built his bridge he might easily beat it down with his cannon.

But the king had doubly prevented him, first by laying his bridge so low that none of Tilly's shot could hurt it; for the bridge lay not above half a foot above the water's edge, by which means the king, who in that showed himself an excellent engineer, had secured it from any batteries to be made within the land, and the angle of the bank secured it from the remoter batteries on the other side, and the continual