" The proud soldier
never knew how near he came to entertaining the snow-king as his
unwilling guest then. In a fight between his rear-guard and the
imperial army Gustav Adolf was disarmed and taken prisoner by two
troopers. There was another prisoner who had kept his pistol. He
handed it to the King behind his back and with it he shot one of his
captors and brained the other. For all that they nearly got him. He
saved himself only by wriggling out of his belt and leaving it in
the hands of the enemy. Eight years he campaigned in Poland and
Prussia, learning the arts of war. Then he was ready for his
life-work. He made a truce with Poland that freed his hands for a
season, and went home to Sweden.
That spring (1629) he laid before the Swedish Estates his plan of
freeing the Protestants. To defend Sweden, he declared, was to
defend her faith, and the Estates voted supplies for the war. To
gauge fully the splendid courage of the nation it must be remembered
that the whole kingdom, including Finland, had a population of only
a million and a half at the time and was preparing to attack the
mighty Roman empire. In the first year of the war the Swedish budget
was thirteen millions of dollars, of which nine and a half went for
armaments.
Pages:
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177