"But it is impossible, your Highness, to give a guess!" said a grave and stout general officer. "When we know what force we have to dispose of----"
"Yes! Yes!" said the impatient princess. "But still, what do you think?"
Her Highness left him to growl at his fellow-officers at the extraordinary habit of woman, even lovely woman, even a Habsburger, to ask questions which did not admit of an answer, and in any case did not concern her. Then she attacked the next she met with similar results.
She even dared to beard the old general in his quarters, beginning with sympathetic inquiries after his wounds. The old general, taciturn and not over gracious by force of habit, unbent a little to the Emperor's daughter.
"Give me time, your Highness, and I shall beat the Swede."
"Look you, your Highness! The farther the Swede marches from the Baltic the longer must be his chain of garrisons in his rear, for if he once sustain a great defeat he must retreat. By the time he reaches the Rhine his army of Swedes must be greatly diminished, and his force consist largely of German Protestants, recruited as he goes."
"And do not Protestants fight as well as Catholics?"
"And where will _you_ get trained soldiers?"
"From the Imperial garrisons! Then there are the Spaniards in the Rhenish Palatinate, the best infantry in the world."
"And if Richelieu launches the French soldiers at them?"
"It would be the devil!" Count Tilly became very thoughtful. "It is not to be expected that a Catholic power would give aid to the Swedes. Was it not Richelieu who turned the scales against Wallenstein at Ratisbon?"
"But," objected the princess, "what did that prove? Did it not result in the dispersal of Wallenstein's army, and the weakening of the Catholic power, of the Imperial power?"
"I am not politician, your Highness! I hate cardinals and politicians equally. I am a soldier. If I have a moderate measure of fortune, and Pappenheim does not make any more blunders, it is odds but we beat the Swede, Richelieu or no Richelieu."
The Archduchess showed by her manner that she thought otherwise.
"There is Saxony! There is Brandenburg! There is Weimar!"
"Confound them all!" growled Count Tilly, who had done nothing else but look at the astonishing problem he proposed to face, and he at present tied by the leg with a mere eight or ten battalions under his banner. "And," this was an after-thought born of sheer impatience, "your Highness, there is a lady who calls herself Ottilie von Thüringen, who takes a great interest in the Lutheran cause."