Tilly had not immediately responded to the Swedish invasion, being engaged in what seemed to be more pressing matters in northern Italy.
Gustav's sole ally is the city of Stralsund, and over the ensuing months, the situation has not improved.
While he can claim the support from German princes, these are the “dispossessed” like Mecklenburg and Saxe-Weimar, the expectant like the claimants to Brunswick-Lüneburg, the occupied, like Magdeburg, and the threatened, like Hesse-Kassel.
In terms of real support of money, men, supplies and arms, these alliances meanlittle.
External alliances are little better: Russia had offered duty free grain to be sold in Amsterdam, a scheme that has raised only seventy-eight thousand thalers, and France has hedged its bets.
The difficulty in developing concrete alliances with German states is understandable.
Non-threatened Lutheran princes see the advantage in using the Swedish "menace" to wrest terms from Vienna, rather than commit what amount to acts of treason.
French reticence at entering an alliance is less understandable for, like Sweden, France has been engaged in several decades of fighting, so peace and demobilization offer significant advantages; like Sweden, though, there are significant and concrete gains to be achieved in territory, influence, and prestige, if they are to be on the winning side of the renewal of fighting in northern Europe.
The Imperialists had captured Mantua in early 1631, effectively ending the Mantuan war, and the ensuing peace treaty at Cherasco (February 1631) insured that the large imperial army tied up in northern Italy is now free to expend its energy in the German states.
