. Great captains : a course of six lectures showing the influence on the art of war of the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick, and Napoleon. s army,and took possession of all the islands at the mouths of theOder. He then captured Stettin and extended his graspright and left along the coast. He proposed to base him-self on the Baltic, as Alexander had done on the Mediter-ranean. He took and garrisoned many seaboard townsand others lying not far inland. His army, reenforcedby German allies and recruitment, soon rose to twenty-fivethousand men, and he establishe


. Great captains : a course of six lectures showing the influence on the art of war of the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick, and Napoleon. s army,and took possession of all the islands at the mouths of theOder. He then captured Stettin and extended his graspright and left along the coast. He proposed to base him-self on the Baltic, as Alexander had done on the Mediter-ranean. He took and garrisoned many seaboard townsand others lying not far inland. His army, reenforcedby German allies and recruitment, soon rose to twenty-fivethousand men, and he established a firm footing on theOder, which river was an excellent line for operations intothe heart of Germany. The imperial Field MarshalConti, who had ten thousand men in his front, was unableto interfere with his operations. Garrisoning Stettin,Gustavus moved into Mecklenburg to encourage its Prot-estant princes, further secure his base, increase his suppliesand forces, and gain active allies. He relied on collectingseventy to eighty thousand men. Count Tilly had beenput in supreme command of the Imperial forces, in placeof Wallenstein, against whom the Catholic princes had. GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 121 conceived a marked prejudice. This resulted in disband-ing a large part of Wallensteins soldiers, who consideredthemselves only in his personal service, and left Ferdinandfor the nonce but unimportant armies to oppose to theSwedish advance, y. Having substantially rescued Mecklenburg from theImperialists, Gustavus left a force to operate there and re-turned to Stettin, purposing to move with the main armyup the Oder (Dec, 1630). The end of the year was athand. The Imperial army in his front was in no condi-tion for a winter campaign, either from habit, discipline, orequipment. For this very reason Gustavus moved againstit, his own troops being well clad and equipped, andinured to cold. He soon drove the enemy back to the lineof the Warta, and then sat down in an entrenched camp atBarwalde


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