From Mecklenburg, Wallenstein fixed his ambitious eyes on Pomerania, which territory he grew desirous of adding to his dominions.  Here was an important commercial city, Stralsund, a member of the Hanseatic League, and one which enjoyed the privilege of self-government.  It had contributed freely to the expenses of the imperial army, but Wallenstein, in furtherance of his designs upon Pomerania, now determined to place in it a garrison of his own troops.

This was an interference with their vested rights which roused the wrath of the citizens of Stralsund.  They refused to receive the troops sent them:  Wallenstein, incensed, determined to teach the insolent burghers a lesson, and bade General Arnim to march against and lay siege to the place, doubting not that it would be quickly at his mercy.

He was destined to a disappointment.  Stralsund was to put the first check upon his uniformly successful career.  The citizens defended their walls with obstinate courage.  Troops, ammunition, and provisions were sent them from Denmark and Sweden, and they continued to oppose a successful resistance to every effort to reduce them.

This unlooked for perversity of the Stralsunders filled the soul of Wallenstein with rage.  It seemed to him unexampled insolence that these merchants should dare defy his conquering troops.  “Even if this Stralsund be linked by chains to the very heavens above,” he declared, “still I swear it shall fall!”

He advanced in person against the city and assailed it with his whole army, bringing all the resources at his command to bear against its walls.  But with heroic courage the citizens held their own.  Weeks passed, while he continued to thunder upon it with shot and shell.  The Stralsunders thundered back.  His most furious assaults were met by them with a desperate valor which in time left his ranks twelve thousand men short.  In the end, to his unutterable chagrin, he was forced to raise the siege and march away, leaving the valiant burghers lords of their homes.

The war now seemingly came to its conclusion.  The King of Denmark asked for peace, which the emperor granted, and terms were signed at Luebeck on May 12, 1629.  The contest was, for the time being, at an end, for there was no longer any one to oppose the emperor.  For twelve years it had continued, its ravages turning rich provinces into deserts, and making beggars and fugitives of wealthy citizens.  The opposition of the Protestants was at an end, and there were but two disturbing elements of the seemingly pacific situation.

One of these was the purpose which the Catholic party soon showed to suppress Protestantism and bring what they considered the heretical provinces again under the dominion of the pope.  The other was the army of Wallenstein, whose intolerable tyranny over friends and foes alike had now passed the bounds of endurance.  From all sides complaints reached the emperor’s ears, charges of pillage, burnings, outrages, and shameful oppressions of every sort inflicted by the imperial troops upon the inhabitants of the land.  So many were the complaints that it was impossible to disregard them.  The whole body of princes—­every one of whom cordially hated Wallenstein—­joined in the outcry, and in the end Ferdinand, with some hesitation, yielded to their wishes, and bade the general to disband his forces.