Gustavus entered Germany with a strong force of
disciplined soldiers and tried to form alliances with the Protestant princes.
They received him coolly at first, for the Swedish king seemed to them only a
foreign invader. Just at this time the imperialists captured Magdeburg, the
largest and most prosperous city in northern Germany. At least twenty thousand
of the inhabitants perished miserably amid the smoking ruins of their homes.
This massacre turned Protestant sentiment toward Gustavus as the "Lion of
the North" who had come to preserve Germany from destruction. With the
help of his allies Gustavus reconquered most of Germany for the Protestants,
but he fell at the battle of Lützen in the moment of victory. His work,
however, was done. The Swedish king had saved the cause of Protestantism in
Germany.
RICHELIEU AND THE INTERVENTION OF FRANCE
After the death of Gustavus the war assumed more and more
a political character. The German Protestants found an ally, strangely enough,
in Cardinal Richelieu, the all-powerful minister of the French king. Richelieu
entered the struggle in order to humble the Austrian Hapsburgs and extend the
boundaries of France toward the Rhine, at the expense of the Holy Roman Empire.
Since the Spanish Hapsburgs were aiding their Austrian kinsmen, Richelieu
naturally fought against Spain also. The war thus became a great international
conflict in which religion played only a minor part. The Holy Roman Emperor had
to yield at last and consented to the treaties of peace signed at two cities in
the province of Westphalia.
