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.
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