Wallenstein is a trilogy, but in name rather than in real connection and relation of parts. Wallenstein’s Camp is a picture of masses, introducing only common soldiers and none of the chief personages of the other parts of the composition.  Its purpose is to present something of the tremendous background of the action proper and to give a realizing sense of the influence upon Wallenstein’s career of the soldiery with which he operated—­as Schiller expressed it in a line of his Prologue:  “His camp alone explains to us his crime.”  By this he meant that, on the one hand, the blind confidence of the troops in the luck and the destiny of their leader made him arrogant and reckless, and, on the other hand, perhaps, that the mercenary character of these soldiers of fortune forced Wallenstein to steps which his calm judgment would have condemned.

In a succession of eleven scenes of very unequal length the various arms of the service are introduced, together with camp followers and a Capuchin preacher; in reminiscences the earlier features of the great war and some feats of the general are recalled; in discussions the character of Wallenstein and of his leading officers is sketched; finally the report of the recent demand of the Emperor, that Wallenstein detach 8,000 men to escort the Cardinal Infant to the Netherlands, reveals the opposition of the army to such an order and its unconditional loyalty to Wallenstein.

The second and third parts of the trilogy, The Piccolomini and Wallenstein’s Death, constitute, in fact, one ten-act play, which requires two evenings for presentation.  So slight is the organic division between the two plays that, as first presented, in the fall of 1798 and the spring of 1799, The Piccolomini included the first two acts of Wallenstein’s Death as later printed and here given, while the last three acts were so divided as to constitute five.

The Piccolomini, which could not be reprinted in this anthology, presents essentially what is called the “exposition” of the entire drama, together with a part of the complication of the plot.  Questenberg, the imperial commissioner, visits Wallenstein’s headquarters in Pilsen to present the order of the Emperor for the detachment of eight regiments of Wallenstein’s best cavalry to serve as escort to the Cardinal Infant on his way to the Netherlands.  He meets distrust and almost incredible defiance from Wallenstein’s officers, excepting Octavio Piccolomini, one of the oldest and most trusted, to whom he brings secret dispatches directing him to supersede Wallenstein in case of the latter’s open rebellion, which the court believes he has already determined upon.  Wallenstein himself meets the demands with a reproachful reference to the violation of the plenary powers intrusted to him by the Emperor as the condition of his assuming the command, but announces that he will relieve him from embarrassment by resigning.  This announcement