“What his plans may be we cannot yet say, but at any rate it would not do to be delaying here and leaving Germany open to Wallenstein to operate as he will.  It was a stern day at Leipzig, but, mark my words, it will be sterner still when we meet Wallenstein; for, great captain as Tilly undoubtedly was, Wallenstein is far greater, and Europe will hold its breath when Gustavus and he, the two greatest captains of the age, meet in a pitched battle.”

At Munich the regiments of Munro and Spynie were quartered in the magnificent Electoral Palace, where they fared sumptuously and enjoyed not a little their comfortable quarters and the stores of old wines in the cellar.  Sir John Hepburn was appointed military governor of Munich.

In the arsenal armour, arms, and clothing sufficient for 10,000 infantry were found, and a hundred and forty pieces of cannon were discovered buried beneath the floors of the palace.  Their carriages were ready in the arsenal, and they were soon put in order for battle.  For three weeks the army remained at Munich, Gustavus waiting to see what course Wallenstein was taking.  The Imperialist general had entered Bohemia, had driven thence, with scarcely an effort, Arnheim and the Saxons, and formed a junction near Eger with the remnants of the army which had been beaten on the Lech; then, leaving a strong garrison in Ratisbon, he had marched on with an army of sixty thousand men.

He saw that his best plan to force Gustavus to loose his hold of Bavaria was to march on some important point lying between him and North Germany.  He therefore selected a place which Gustavus could not abandon, and so would be obliged to leave Bavaria garrisoned only by a force insufficient to withstand the attacks of Pappenheim, who had collected a considerable army for the recovery of the territories of Maximilian.  Such a point was Nuremberg, the greatest and strongest of the free cities, and which had been the first to open its gates to Gustavus.  The Swedish king could hardly abandon this friendly city to the assaults of the Imperialists, and indeed its fall would have been followed by the general defection from his cause of all that part of Germany, and he would have found himself isolated and cut off from the North.

As soon as Gustavus perceived that Nuremberg was the point towards which Wallenstein was moving, he hastened at once from Munich to the assistance of the threatened city.  The forces at his disposal had been weakened by the despatch of Marshal Horn to the Lower Palatinate, and by the garrisons left in the Bavarian cities, and he had but 17,000 men disposable to meet the 60,000 with whom Wallenstein was advancing.  He did not hesitate, however, but sent off messengers at once to direct the corps in Swabia under General Banner, Prince William of Weimar, and General Ruthven, to join him, if possible, before Nuremberg.