Ferdinand, by these cautious steps, was now prepared to concentrate his energies upon Bohemia.  He first attacked the dependent provinces of Bohemia, one by one, sending an army of twenty-five thousand men to take them unprepared.  Having subjected all of Upper Austria to his sway, with fifty thousand men he entered Bohemia.  Their march was energetic and sanguinary.  With such an overpowering force they took fortress after fortress, scaling ramparts, mercilessly cutting down garrisons, plundering and burning towns, and massacreing the inhabitants.  Neither sex nor age was spared, and a brutal soldiery gratified their passions in the perpetration of indescribable horrors.  Even the Duke of Bavaria was shocked at such barbarities, and entered his remonstrances against them.  Many large towns, terrified by the atrocities perpetrated upon those who resisted the imperial arms, threw open their gates, hoping thus, by submission, to appease the vengeance of the conqueror.

Frederic was a weak man, not at all capable of encountering such a storm, and the Bohemians had consequently no one to rally and to guide them with efficiency.  His situation was now alarming in the extreme.  He was abandoned by the Protestant league, hemmed in on every side by the imperial troops, and his hereditary domains of the Palatinate were overrun by twenty thousand Spaniards.  His subjects, alarmed at his utter inefficiency, and terrified by the calamities which were falling, like avalanche after avalanche upon them, became dissatisfied with him, and despairing respecting their own fate.  He was a Calvinist, and the Lutherans had never warmly received him.  The impotent monarch, instead of establishing himself in the affections of his subjects, by vigorously driving the invaders from his realms, with almost inconceivable silliness endeavored to win their popularity by balls and smiles, pleasant words and masquerades.  In fact, Frederic, by his utter inefficiency, was a foe more to be dreaded by Bohemia than Ferdinand.

The armies of the emperor pressed on, throwing the whole kingdom into a state of consternation and dismay.  The army of Frederic, which dared not emerge from its intrenchments at Pritznitz, about fifty miles south of Prague, consisted of but twenty-two thousand men, poorly armed, badly clothed, wretchedly supplied with military stores, and almost in a state of mutiny from arrears of pay.  The generals were in perplexity and disagreement.  Some, in the recklessness of despair, were for marching to meet the foe and to risk a battle; others were for avoiding a conflict, and thus protracting the war till the severity of winter should drive their enemies from the field, when they would have some time to prepare for another year’s campaign.  These difficulties led Frederic to apply for a truce.  But Ferdinand was too wise to lose by wasting time in negotiations, vantage ground he had already gained.  He refused to listen to any word except the unequivocal declaration that Frederic relinquished all right to the crown.  Pressing his forces onward, he drove the Bohemians from behind their ramparts at Pritznitz, and pursued them down the Moldau even to the walls of Prague.