This victory gained,
an effort was made to suppress Lutheranism in Upper Austria. It led to a
revolt, and soon the whole country was in a flame of war. Tilly and
Pappenheim, the imperial commanders, swept all before them, until they
suddenly found themselves opposed by a man their equal in ability, Count
Mansfeld, who had played an active part in the Bohemian wars.
A diminutive, deformed, sickly-looking man was Mansfeld, but he had the
soul of a soldier in his small frame. No sooner was his standard raised
than the Protestants flocked to it, and he quickly found himself at the
head of twenty thousand men. But as the powerful princes failed to
support him he was compelled to subsist his troops by pillage, an
example which was followed by all the leaders during that dreadful
contest.
And now began a frightful struggle, a game of war on the chess-board of
a nation, in which the people were the helpless pawns and suffered alike
from friends and foes. Neither side gained any decisive victory, but
both sides plundered and ravaged, the savage soldiery, unrestrained and
unrestrainable, committing cruel excesses wherever they came.
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