Frankfort opened its gates to his victorious host and Nuernberg received him as a heaven-sent liberator.  But Tilly was in the field with a fresh army, burning to avenge Breitenfeld.  He had surprised General Horn at Bamberg and beaten him.  At the approach of the King he camped where the river Lech joins the Danube, awaiting attack.  There was but one place to cross to get at him, and right there he stood.  The king seized Donauworth and Ulm, and under cover of the fire of seventy guns threw a bridge across the Lech.  Three hundred Finns carrying picks and spades ran across the shaky planks upon which the fire of Tilly’s whole artillery park was concentrated.  Once across, they burrowed in the ground like moles and, with bullets raining upon them, threw up earthworks for shelter.  Squad after squad of volunteers followed.  Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar swam his horsemen across the river farther up-stream and took the Bavarian troops in the flank, beating them back far enough to let him join the Finns at the landing.  The King himself was directing the artillery on the other shore, aiming the guns with his own hand.  The Walloons, Tilly’s last hope, charged, but broke under the withering fire.  In desperation the old field-marshal seized the standard and himself led the forlorn hope.  Half-way to the bridge he fell, one leg shattered by a cannon-ball, and panic seized his men.  The imperialists fled in the night, carrying their wounded leader.  He died on the march soon after.  Men said of him that he had served his master well.

The snow-king had not melted in the south.  He was master of the Roman empire from the Baltic to the Alps.  The way to Austria and Italy lay open before him.  Protestant princes crowded to do him homage, offering him the imperial crown.  But Gustav Adolf did not lose his head.  Toward the humbled Catholics he showed only forbearance and toleration.  In Munich he visited the college of the Jesuits, and spoke long with the rector in the Latin tongue, assuring him of their safety as long as they kept from politics and plotting.  The armory in that city was known to be the best stocked in all Europe and the King’s surprise was great when he found gun-carriages in plenty, but not a single cannon.  Looking about him, he saw evidence that the floor had been hastily relaid and remembered the “dead” monks at Wuerzburg.  He had it taken up and a dark vault appeared.  The King looked into it.

“Arise!” he called out, “and come to judgment,” and amid shouts of laughter willing hands brought out a hundred and forty good guns, welcome reenforcements.

The ignorant Bavarian peasants had been told that the King was the very anti-Christ, come to harass the world for its sins, and carried on a cruel guerilla warfare upon his army.  They waylaid the Swedes by night on their foraging trips and maimed and murdered those they caught with fiendish tortures.  The bitterest anger filled Gustav Adolf’s soul when upon his entry into Landshut the burgomaster knelt at his stirrup asking mercy for his city.