History for ready reference, Volume 2, El Dorado to Greaves (part 9 of 10)

History for ready reference, Volume 2, El Dorado to Greaves (part 9 of 10)

"Otho II. had a short and troubled reign, 973-983 A. D., having to repress the Slavi, the Danes, the Greeks of Lower Italy, and to defend Lorraine against the French. He died at Rome in his twenty-eighth year. 983 A. D. Otho III. (aged three years) succeeded under the regency of his mother, Theophania (a Greek princess), who had to contend with the rebellious nobles, the Slavi, the Poles, the Bohemians, and with France, which desired to conquer Lorraine. This able lady died 991 A. D. Otho III. made three expeditions into Italy, and in 998 A. D. put down the republic of Rome, which had been created by the patrician Crescentius. The resistance of Crescentius had been pardoned the preceding year, but on this occasion he was publicly beheaded on the battlements of Rome, in view of the army and of the people. In 999 A. D. Otho placed his tutor Gerbert in the papal chair as Sylvester II. The tutor and the emperor were in advance of their age. The former had gleaned from Saracen translations from the Greek, as well as from Latin literature, and was master of the science of the day. It is supposed that they had planned to remove the seat of empire to Rome--a project which, had he lived, he would not have been able to carry out, for the centre of political power had long moved northward: he died at the early age of twenty-two, 1002 A. D. Henry II. (the Holy), Duke of Bavaria, was elected emperor, and had to battle, like his predecessors, with rebellious nobles, with the Poles, and Bohemians, and the Slavi. He was thrice in Italy, and died 1024 A. D. 'Perhaps, with the single exception of St. Louis IX., there was no other prince of the middle ages so uniformly swayed by justice.' Conrad II. (the Salic) of Franconia was elected emperor in a diet in the plains between Mentz and Worms, near Oppenheim, which was attended by princes, nobles, and 50,000 people altogether. His reign was remarkable for the justice and mercy which he always kept in view. The kingdom of Aries and Burgundy was united to the empire, 1033 A. D. He checked the Poles, the Hungarians, and the Lombards, and gave Schleswiek to Denmark as a fief. In 1037 A. D. he granted to the lower vassals of the empire the hereditary succession to their offices and estates, and so extended the privileges of the great nobles, as to make them almost independent of the crown. Henry III. succeeded, 1039 A. D., and established the imperial power with a high hand."

W. B. Boyce, Introduction to the Study of History, pages 230-231.

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"Henry III. was, as sovereign, able, upright, and resolute; and his early death--for his reign was cut short by disasters that preyed upon his health--is one of the calamities of history. The cause of the Roman Court he judged with vigor and good sense. His strong hand, more than any man's, dragged the Church out of the slough it had fallen into [see ROME: A. D. 962-1057]. ... A few years before, in 1033, a child ten years old, son of one of the noble houses, had been put on the papal throne, under the name of Benedict IX.; and was restored to it by force of arms, five years later, when he had grown into a lewd, violent, and wilful boy of fifteen. At the age of twenty-one he was weary of the struggle, and sold out, for a large sum of money paid down, to a rich purchaser,--first plundering the papal treasury of all the funds he could lay his hands on. His successor, Gregory VI., naturally complained of his hard bargain, which was made harder by another claimant (Sylvester III.), elected by a different party; while no law that could possibly be quoted or invented would make valid the purchase and sale of the spiritual sovereignty of the world, which in theory the Papacy still was. Gregory appears to have been a respectable and even conscientious magistrate, by the standard of that evil time. But his open purchase of the dignity not only gave a shock to whatever right feeling there was left, but it made the extraordinary dilemma and scandal of three popes at once,--a knot which the German king, now Emperor, was called in to cut. ... The worthless Benedict was dismissed, as having betrayed his charge. The impotent Sylvester was not recognized at all. The respectable Gregory was duly convinced of his deep guilt of Simony,--because he had 'thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money,'--and was suffered as a penitent to end his days in peace. A fourth, a German ecclesiastic, who was clean of all these intrigues, was set in the chair of Peter, where he reigned righteously for two years under the name of Clement II."

J. H. Allen, Christian History in its Three Great Periods: Second period, pages 57-58.

"With the popes of Henry's appointment a new and most powerful force rose to the control of the papacy--a strong and earnest movement for reformation which had arisen outside the circle of papal influence during the darkest days of its degradation, indeed, and entirely independent of the empire. This had started from the monastery of Cluny, founded in 910, in eastern France, as a reformation of the monastic life, but it involved gradually ideas of a wider reformation throughout the whole church. Two great sins of the time, as it regarded them, were especially attacked, the marriage of priests and simony, or the purchase of ecclesiastical preferment for money, including also appointments to church offices by temporal rulers. ... The earnest spirit of Henry III. was not out of sympathy with the demand for a real reformation, and with the third pope of his appointment, Leo IX., in 1048, the ideas of Cluny obtained the direction of affairs. ... One apparently insignificant act of Leo's had important consequences. He brought back with him to Rome the monk Hildebrand. He had been brought up in a monastery in Rome in the strictest ideas of Cluny, had been a supporter of Gregory VI., one of the three rival popes deposed by Henry, who, notwithstanding his outright purchase of the papacy, represented the new reform demand, and had gone with him into exile on his deposition. It does not appear that he exercised any decisive influence during the reign of Leo IX., but so great was his ability and such the power of his personality that very soon he became the directing spirit in the papal policy, though his influence over the papacy before his own pontificate was not so great nor so constant as it has sometimes been said to have been. So long as Henry lived the balance of power was decidedly in favor of the emperor, but in 1056 happened that disastrous event, which occurred so many times at critical points of imperial history, from Arnulf to Henry VI., the premature death of the emperor. His son, Henry IV., was only six years old at his father's death, and a minority followed just in the crisis of time needed to enable the feudal princes of Germany to recover and strengthen their independence against the central government, and to give free hands to the papacy to carry out its plans for throwing off the imperial control. Never again did an emperor occupy, in respect either to Germany or the papacy, the vantage-ground on which Henry III. had stood. ... The triumph of the reform movement and of its ecclesiastical theory is especially connected with the name of Hildebrand, or Gregory VII., as he called himself when pope, and was very largely, if not entirely, due to his indomitable spirit and iron will, which would yield to no persuasion or threats or actual force. He is one of the most interesting personalities of history. ... The three chief points which the reform party attempted to gain were the independence of the church from all outside control in the election of the pope, the celibacy of the clergy, and the abolition of simony or the purchase of ecclesiastical preferment. The foundation for the first of these was laid under Nicholas II. by assigning the selection of the pope to the college of cardinals in Rome, though it was only after some considerable time that this reform was fully secured. The second point, the celibacy of the clergy, had long been demanded by the church, but the requirement had not been strictly enforced, and in many parts of Europe married clergy were the rule. ... As interpreted by the reformers, the third of their demands, the suppression of simony, was as great a step in advance and as revolutionary as the first. Technically, simony was the sin of securing an ecclesiastical office by bribery, named from the incident recorded in the eighth chapter of the Acts concerning Simon Magus. But at this time the desire for the complete independence of the church had given to it a new and wider meaning which made it include all appointment to positions in the church by laymen, including kings and the emperor. ... According to the conception of the public law the bishop was an officer of the state. He had, in the great majority of cases, political duties to perform as important as his ecclesiastical duties. The lands which formed the endowment of his office had always been considered as being, still more directly than any other feudal land, the property of the state. ... {1443} It was a matter of vital importance whether officers exercising such important functions and controlling so large a part of its area--probably everywhere as much as one-third of the territory--should be selected by the state or by some foreign power beyond its reach and having its own peculiar interests to seek. But this question of lay investiture was as vitally important for the church as for the state. ... It was as necessary to the centralization and independence of the church that it should choose these officers as that it should elect the head of all--the pope. This was not a question for Germany alone. Every northern state had to face the same difficulty. ... The struggle was so much more bitter and obstinate with the emperor than with any other sovereign because of the close relation of the two powers one to another, and because the whole question of their relative rights was bound up with it. It was an act of rebellion on the part of the papacy against the sovereign, who had controlled it with almost absolute power for a century, and it was rising into an equal, or even superior, place beside the emperor of what was practically a new power, a rival for his imperial position. ... It was absolutely impossible that a conflict with these new claims should be avoided as soon as Henry IV. arrived at an age to take the government into his own hands and attempted to exercise his imperial rights as he understood them."

G. B. Adams, Civilization During the Middle Ages, chapter 10.

"At Gregory's accession, he [Henry] was a young man of twenty-three. His violence had already driven a whole district into rebellion. ... The Pope sided with the insurgents. He summoned the young king to his judgment-seat at Rome; threatened at his refusal to 'cut him off as a rotten limb'; and passed on him the awful sentence of excommunication. The double terror of rebellion at home and the Church's curse at length broke down the passionate pride of Henry. Humbled and helpless, he crossed the Alps in midwinter, groping among the bleak precipices and ice-fields,--the peasants passing him in a rude sledge of hide down those dreadful slopes,--and went to beg absolution of Gregory at the mountain castle of Canossa. History has few scenes more dramatic than that which shows the proud, irascible, crest-fallen young sovereign confronted with the fiery, little, indomitable old man. To quote Gregory's own words:--'Here he came with few attendants, and for three days before the gate--his royal apparel laid aside, barefoot, clad in wool, and weeping abundantly--he never ceased to implore the aid and comfort of apostolic mercy, till all there present were moved with pity and compassion; insomuch that, interceding for him with many prayers and tears they all wondered at my strange severity, and some even cried out that it was not so much the severe dignity of an apostle as the cruel wrath of a tyrant. Overcome at length by the urgency of his appeal and the entreaties of all present, I relaxed the bond of anathema, and received him to the favor of communion and the bosom of our holy Mother the Church.' It was a truce which one party did not mean nor the other hope to keep. It was policy, not real terror or conviction, that had led Henry to humble himself before the Pope. It was policy, not contrition or compassion, that had led Gregory (against his better judgment, it is said) to accept his Sovereign's penance. In the war of policy, the man of the world prevailed. Freed of the Church's curse, he quickly won back the strength he had lost. He overthrew in battle the rival whom Gregory upheld. He swept his rebellious lands with sword and flame. He carried his victorious army to Rome, and was there crowned Emperor by a rival Pope [1084]. Gregory himself was only saved by his ferocious allies, Norman and Saracen, at cost of the devastation of half the capital,--that broad belt of ruin which still covers the half mile between the Coliseum and the Lateran gate. Then, hardly rescued from the popular wrath, he went away to die, defeated and heart-broken, at Salerno, with the almost despairing words on his lips: 'I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and therefore I die in exile!' But 'a spirit hath not flesh or bones,' as a body hath, and so it will not stay mangled and bruised. The victory lay, after all, with the combatant who could appeal to fanaticism as well as force."

J. H. Allen, Christian History in its Three Great Periods: second period, pages 69-72.

"Meanwhile, the Saxons had recognized Hermann of Luxemburg as their King, but in 1087 he resigned the crown: and another claimant, Eckbert, Margrave of Meissen, was murdered. The Saxons were now thoroughly' weary of strife, and as years and bitter experience had softened the character of Henry, they were the more willing to return to their allegiance. Peace was therefore, for a time, restored in Germany. The Papacy did not forgive Henry. He was excommunicated several times, and in 1091 his son Conrad was excited to rebel against him. In 1104 a more serious rebellion was headed by the Emperor's second son Henry, who had been crowned King, on promising not to seize the government during his father's lifetime, in 1099. The Emperor was treated very cruelly, and had to sign his own abdication at Ingelheim in 1105. A last effort was made on his behalf by the Duke of Lotharingia; but worn out by his sorrows and struggles, Henry died in August, 1106. His body lay in a stone coffin in an unconsecrated chapel at Speyer for five years. Not till 1111, when the sentence of excommunication was removed, was it properly buried. Henry V. was not so obedient to the Church as the Papal party had hoped. He stoutly maintained the very point which had brought so much trouble on his father. The right of investiture, he declared, had always belonged to his predecessors, and he was not to give up what they had handed on to him. In 1110 he went to Rome, accompanied by a large army. Next year Pope Paschal II. was forced to crown him Emperor: but as soon as the Germans had crossed the Alps again Paschal renewed all his old demands. The struggle soon spread to Germany. The Emperor was excommunicated; and the discontented princes, as eager as ever to break the royal power, sided with the Pope against him. Peace was not restored till 1122, when Calixtus II. was Pope. In that year, in a Diet held at Worms, both parties agreed to a compromise, called the Concordat of Worms."

J. Sime, History of Germany, chapter 8.

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"The long-desired reconciliation was effected in the form of the following concordat. The emperor renounced the right of investiture with the ring and crosier, and conceded that all bishoprics of the empire should be filled by canonical election and free consecration; the election of the German bishops (not of the Italian and Burgundian) should be held in presence of the emperor; the bishops elect should receive investiture, but only of their fiefs and regalia, by the sceptre in Germany before, in Italy and in Burgundy after, their consecration; for these grants they should promise fidelity to the emperor; contested elections should be decided by the emperor in favour of him who should be considered by the provincial synod to possess the better right. Finally he should restore to the Roman Church all the possessions and regalia of St. Peter. This convention secured to the Church many things, and above all, the freedom of ecclesiastical elections. Hitherto, the different Churches had been compelled to give their consent to elections that had been made by the king; but now the king was pledged to consent to the elections made by the Churches; and although these elections took place in his presence, he could not refuse his consent and investiture without violating the treaty, in which he had promised that for the future elections should be according to the canons. This, and the great difference, that the king, when he gave the ring and crosier, invested the bishop elect with his chief dignity, namely, his bishopric, but now granted him by investiture with the sceptre, only the accessories, namely the regalia, was felt by Lothaire, the successor of Henry, when he required of pope Innocent II. the restoration of the right of investiture. Upon one important point, the homage which was to be sworn to the king, the concordat was silent. By not speaking of it, Calixtus seemed to tolerate it, and the Roman see therefore permitted it, although it had been prohibited by Urban and Paschal. It is certain that Calixtus was as fully convinced as his predecessors, that the condition of vassals, to which bishops and abbots were reduced by their oath of homage, could hardly be reconciled with the nature and dignity of the episcopacy, or with the freedom of the Church, but he perhaps foresaw, that by insisting too strongly upon its discontinuance, he might awaken again the unholy war, and without any hopes of benefit, inflict many evils upon the Church. Sometime later Adrian endeavoured to free the Italian bishops from the homage, instead of which, the emperor was to be content with an oath of fidelity: but Frederick I. would not renounce the homage unless they resigned the regalia. The greatest concession made by the papal see in this concordat, was, that by its silence it appeared to have admitted the former pretensions of the emperors to take a part in the election of the Roman pontiff. ... In the following year the concordat was ratified in the great council of three hundred bishops, the ninth general council of the Church, which was convened by Calixtus in Rome."

J. J. I. Döllinger, History of the Church, volume 3, pages 345-347.

See, also, PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122; CANOSSA; ROME: A. D. 1081-1084; and SAXONY: A. D. 1073-1075.

ALSO IN: A. F. Villemain, Life of Gregory VII., book 2.

Comte C. F. Montalembert, The Monks of the West, book 19.

H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, books 6-8.

_W. R. W. Stephens, Hildebrand and His Times._

E. F. Henderson, Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages, book 4.

GERMANY: A. D. 1101. Disastrous Crusade under Duke Welf of Bavaria.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1101-1102.

GERMANY: A. D. 1125. Election of Lothaire II., King, afterwards Emperor.

GERMANY: A. D. 1125-1152. The rise of the College of Electors.

The election of Lothaire II., in 1125, when a great assembly of nobles and church dignitaries was convened at Mentz, and when certain of the chiefs made a selection of candidates to be voted for, has been regarded by some historians--Hallam, Comyn and Dunham, for example--as indicating the origin of the German electoral college. They have held that a right of "pretaxation," or preliminary choice, was gradually acquired by certain princes, which grew into the finally settled electoral right. But this view is now looked upon as more than questionable, and is not supported by the best authorities. "The phrase electoral princes (electores principes) first occurs in the Privilegium majus Austriacum, which dates from 1156, but it does not appear what princes were intended, and the accounts extant of the elections of the rival kings, Philip and Otho (IV.) in 1198, show beyond question that the right of election was not then limited to a few princes. The election of Frederick II. (1213) is only described by the authorities in general terms. They inform us that many princes took part in the proceedings. The following brief passage concerning the royal elections occurs in the Auctor Vetus de Beneficiis: 'When the king elected by the Germans goes to Rome to be 'consecrated (the) six princes who first cast their votes for him shall by rights accompany him that the justice of his election may be evident to the Pope.' The Sachsenspiegel Lehurecht substantially copies this sentence, but designates as the six princes: 'the Bishop of Mentz and of Treves and of Cologne, and the Palsgrave of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, and the Margrave of Brandenburg.' The Sachsenspiegel of Landrecht is still more explicit: 'In voting for Emperor, the first shall be the Bishop of Mentz; the second, the (Bishop) of Treves; the third, the (Bishop) of Cologne. The first of the laymen to vote is the Palsgrave of the Rhine, the steward of the Empire; the second, the Duke of Saxony, the marshal; the third, the Margrave of Brandenburg, the chamberlain. The butler of the Empire (is) the King of Bohemia. He has no vote because he is not German.' The obvious inference is that these three temporal princes voted before the rest because they were respectively the steward, marshal, and chamberlain. In the chronicle of Albert of Stade, the inference is given as fact in these words: 'The Palsgrave votes because he is steward, the Duke of Saxony because (he is) marshal, and the Margrave of Brandenburg, because (he is) chamberlain.' The mere fact that the right of casting the first six votes attached to six particular princes implies that their votes greatly outweighed those of their fellow-princes, and this is well known to have been the case in all the elections held in the thirteenth century subsequent to that of Frederick II. Only two others were associated with them in the double election of Richard of Cornwall and Alphonso of Castile (1256), namely, the King of Bohemia and the Duke of Bavaria. The whole number of participants was therefore eight, yet Urban IV., in a letter written March 31, 1263, to Richard of Cornwall, mentions the King of Bohemia alone as associated with them, and incidentally states that the 'princes having a voice' in the royal elections were 'seven in number.' It seems as if this must have been the statement of an idea rather than of a fact, although a college of seven electors was a recognized institution ten years later, as the circumstances attending the election of Rudolph of Hapsburg, demonstrate."

S. E. Turner, A Sketch of the Germanic Constitution, chapter 4.

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The Mark of Brandenburg was raised to the rank of an Electorate in 1356--not in 1152 as erroneously stated by Carlyle. The Margraf then became Kurfürst--"one of the Seven who have a right ... to choose, to 'kieren' the Romish Kaiser; and who are therefore called Kur Princes, Kurfürste, or Electors. ... Fürst (prince) I suppose is equivalent originally to our noun of number, 'First.' The old verb 'kieren' (participle 'erkoren' still in use, not to mention 'Val-kyr' and other instances) is essentially the same word as our 'choose,' being written 'kiesen' as well as 'kieren.' Nay, say the etymologists, it is also written 'Küssen ('to kiss,'--to choose with such emphasis!), and is not likely to fall obsolete in that form.--The other Six Electoral Dignitaries, who grew to Eight by degrees, and may be worth noting once by the readers of this book, are:

1. Three Ecclesiastical, Mainz, Cöln, Trier (Mentz, Cologne, Treves), Archbishops all. ...

2. Three Secular, Sachsen, Pfalz, Böhmen (Saxony, Palatinate, Bohemia); of which the last, Böhmen, since it fell from being a kingdom in itself, to being a Province of Austria, is not very vocal in the Diets.

These Six, with Brandenburg, are the Seven Kurfürsts in old time; Septemvirs of the Country, so to speak. But now Pfalz, in the Thirty-Years War (under our Prince Rupert's Father, whom the Germans call the 'Winter-King'), got abrogated, put to the ban, so far as an indignant Kaiser could; and the vote and Kur of Pfalz was given to his Cousin of Baiern (Bavaria),--so far as an indignant Kaiser could.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1621-1623.

However, at the Peace of Westphalia (1648) it was found incompetent to any Kaiser to abrogate Pfalz or the like of Pfalz, a Kurfürst of the Empire. So, after jargon inconceivable, it was settled, that Pfalz must be reinstated, though with territories much clipped, and at the bottom of the list, not the top as formerly; and that Baiern, who could not stand to be balked after twenty-years possession, must be made Eighth Elector.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

The Ninth, we saw (Year 1692), was Gentleman Ernst of Hanover.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648-1705.

There never was any Tenth."

T. Carlyle, Frederick the Great, book 2, chapter 4.

"All the rules and requisites of the election were settled by Charles the Fourth in the Golden Bull [A. D. 1356--see below: A. D. 1347-1493], thenceforward a fundamental law of the Empire."

J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapter 14.

GERMANY: A. D. 1138-1268. The house of Suabia, or the Hohenstaufen. Its struggles in Germany and Italy, and its end. The Factions of the Guelfs and Ghibellines. Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick the Second.

On the death of Henry V., in 1125, the male line of the house of Franconia became extinct. Frederick, duke of Suabia, and his brother Conrad, duke of the Franks, were grandchildren of Henry IV. on their mother's side, and, inheriting the patrimonial estates, were plainly the heirs of the crown, if the crown was to be recognized as hereditary and dynastic. But jealousy of their house and a desire to reassert the elective dependence of the imperial office prevailed against their claims and their ambition. At an election which was denounced as irregular, the choice fell upon Lothaire of Saxony. The old imperial family was not only set aside, but its bitterest enemies were raised over it. The consequences were a feud and a struggle which grew and widened into the long-lasting, far-reaching, historical conflict of Guelfs and Ghibellines.

See GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES; also, SAXONY: DISSOLUTION OF THE OLD DUCHY.

The Saxon emperor Lothaire found his strongest support in the great Wölf, Welf, or Guelf nobleman, Henry the Proud, duke of Bavaria, to whom he (Lothaire) now gave his daughter in marriage, together with the dukedom of Saxony, and whom he intended to make his successor on the imperial throne. But the scheme failed. On Lothaire's death, in 1138, the partisans of the Suabian family carried the election of Conrad (the Crusader--see CRUSADES: A. D. 1147-1149), and the dynasty most commonly called Hohenstaufen rose to power. It took the name of Hohenstaufen from its original family seat on the lofty hill of Staufen, in Suabia, overlooking the valley of the Rems. Its party, in the wars and factions of the time, received the name of the Waiblingen, from the birth-place of the Suabian duke Frederick--the little town of Waiblingen in Franconia. Under the tongue of the Italians, when these party names and war-cries were carried across the Alps, Waiblingen became Ghibelline and Welf became Guelf. During the first half century of the reign of the Hohenstaufen, the history of Germany is the history, for the most part, of the strife in which the Guelf dukes, Henry the Proud and Henry the Lion, are the central figures, and which ended in the breaking up of the old powerful duchy of Saxony. But Italy was the great historical field of the energies and the ambitions of the Hohenstaufen emperors. There, Frederick Barbarossa (Frederick Red beard, as the Italians called him), the second of the line, and Frederick II., his adventurous grandson, fought their long, losing battle with the popes and with the city-republics of Lombardy and Tuscany.

_U. Balzani, The Popes and the Hohenstaufen._

Frederick Barbarossa, elected Emperor in 1152, passed into Italy in 1154. "He came there on the invitation of the Pope, of the Prince of Capua, and of the towns which had been subjected to the ambition of Milan. He marched at the head of his German feudatories, a splendid and imposing array. His first object was to crush the power of Milan, and to exalt that of Pavia, the head of a rival league. Nothing could stand against him. At Viterbo he was compelled to hold the stirrup of the Pope, and in return for this submission he received the crown from the Pontiff's hands in the Basilica of St. Peter. He returned northwards by the valley of the Tiber, dismissed his army at Ancona, and with difficulty escaped safely into Bavaria. His passage left little that was solid and durable behind it. He had effected nothing against the King of Naples. His friendship with the Pope was illusory and short-lived. The dissensions of the North, which had been hushed for a moment by his presence, broke out again as soon as his back was turned. He had, however, received the crown of Charles the Great from the hands of the successor of St. Peter. But Frederick was not a man to brook easily the miscarriage of his designs. In 1158 he collected another army at Ulm. Brescia was quickly subdued; Lodi, which had been destroyed by the Milanese, was rebuilt, and Milan itself was reduced to terms. {1446} This peace lasted but for a short time; Milan revolted, and was placed under the ban of the Empire. The fate of Cremona taught the Milanese what they had to expect from the clemency of the Emperor. After a desultory warfare, regular siege was laid to the town. On March 1, 1162, Milan, reduced by famine, surrendered at discretion, and a fortnight later all the inhabitants were ordered to leave the town. The circuit of the walls was partitioned out among the most pitiless enemies of its former greatness, and the inhabitants of Lodi, of Cremona, of Pavia, of Novara, and of Como were encouraged to wreak their vengeance on their defeated rival. For six days the imperial army laboured to overturn the walls and public buildings, and when the Emperor left for Pavia, on Palm Sunday 1162, not a fiftieth part of the city was standing. This terrible vengeance produced a violent reaction. The homeless fugitives were received by their ancient enemies, and local jealousies were merged in common hatred of the common foe. Frederick had already been excommunicated by Pope Alexander III. as the supporter of his rival Victor. Verona undertook to be the public vindicator of discontent. Five years after the destruction of Milan the Lombard league numbered fifteen towns amongst its members. Venice, Verona, Vicenza, Treviso, Ferrara, Brescia, Bergamo, Cremona, Milan, Lodi, Piacenza, Parma, Modena, and Bologna. The confederation solemnly engaged to expel the Emperor from Italy. The towns on the frontier of Piedmont asked and obtained admission to the league, and to mark the dawn of freedom a new town was founded on the low marshy ground which is drained by the Bormida and the Tanaro, and which afterwards witnessed the victory of Marengo. It was named by its founders Alessandria, in honour of the Pope, who had vindicated their independence of the Empire. ... The Lombard league had unfortunately a very imperfect constitution. It had no common treasure, no uniform rules for the apportionment of contributions; it existed solely for the purposes of defence against the external foe. The time was not yet come when self-sacrifice and self-abnegation could lay the foundations of a united Italy. Frederick spent six years in preparing vengeance. In 1174 he laid siege to the new Alexandria, but did not succeed in taking it. A severe struggle took place two years later. In 1176 a new army arrived from Germany, and on May 29 Frederick Barbarossa was entirely defeated at Legnano. In 1876 the seventh hundred anniversary of the battle was celebrated on the spot where it was gained, and it is still regarded as the birthday of Italian freedom."

O. Browning, Guelphs and Ghibellines, chapter 1.

See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1154-1162 to 1174-1183.

"The end was that the Emperor had to make peace with both the Pope and the cities, and in 1183 the rights of the cities were acknowledged in a treaty or law of the Empire, passed at Constanz or Constance in Swabia. In the last years of his reign, Frederick went on the third Crusade, and died on the way.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1188-1192.

Frederick was succeeded by his son Henry the Sixth, who had already been chosen King, and who in the next year, 1191, was crowned Emperor. The chief event of his reign was the conquest of the Kingdom of Sicily, which he claimed in right of his wife Constance, the daughter of the first King William. He died in 1197, leaving his son Frederick a young child, who had already been chosen King in Germany, and who succeeded as hereditary King in Sicily. The Norman Kingdom of Sicily thus came to an end, except so far as it was continued through Frederick, who was descended from the Norman Kings through his mother. On the death of the Emperor Henry, the election of young Frederick seems to have been quite forgotten, and the crown was disputed between his uncle Philip of Swabia and Otto of Saxony. He was son of Henry the Lion, who had been Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, but who had lost the more part of his dominions in the time of Frederick Barbarossa. Otto's mother was Matilda, daughter of Henry the Second of England. ... Both Kings were crowned, and, after the death of Philip, Otto was crowned Emperor in 1209. But presently young Frederick was again chosen, and in 1220 he was crowned Emperor, and reigned thirty years till his death in 1250. This Frederick the Second, who joined together so many crowns, was called the Wonder of the World. And he well deserved the name, for perhaps no King that ever reigned had greater natural gifts, and in thought and learning he was far above the age in which he lived. In his own kingdom of Sicily he could do pretty much as he pleased, and it flourished wonderfully in his time. But in Germany and Italy he had constantly to struggle against enemies of all kinds. In Germany he had to win the support of the Princes by granting them privileges which did much to undermine the royal power, and on the other hand he showed no favour to the rising power of the cities. In Italy he had endless strivings with one Pope after another, with Innocent the Third; Honorius the Third, Gregory the Ninth, and Innocent the Fourth; as well as with the Guelfic cities, which withstood him much as they had withstood his grandfather. He was more than once excommunicated by the Popes, and in 1245 Pope Innocent the Fourth held a Council at Lyons, in which he professed to depose the Emperor. More than one King was chosen in opposition to him in Germany, just as had been done in the time of Henry the Fourth, and there were civil wars all his time, both in Germany and in Italy, while a great part of the Kingdom of Burgundy was beginning to slip away from the Empire altogether."

E. A. Freeman, General Sketch of European History, chapter 11.

"It is probable that there never lived a human being endowed with greater natural gifts, or whose natural gifts were, according to the means afforded him by his age, more sedulously cultivated, than the last Emperor of the House of Swabia. There seems to be no aspect of human nature which was not developed to the highest degree in his person. In versatility of gifts, in what we may call manysidedness of character, he appears as a sort of mediæval Alkibiadês, while he was undoubtedly far removed from Alkibiadês' utter lack of principle or steadiness of any kind. Warrior, statesman, lawgiver, scholar, there was nothing in the compass of the political or intellectual world of his age which he failed to grasp. In an age of change, when, in every corner of Europe and civilized Asia, old kingdoms, nations, systems, were falling and new ones rising, Frederick was emphatically the man of change, the author of things new and unheard of--he was stupor mundi et immutator mirabilis. {1447} A suspected heretic, a suspected Mahometan, he was the subject of all kinds of absurd and self-contradictory charges; but the charges mark real features in the character of the man. He was something unlike any other Emperor or any other man. ... Of all men, Frederick the Second might have been expected to be the founder of something, the beginner of some new era, political or intellectual. He was a man to whom some great institution might well have looked back as its creator, to whom some large body of men, some sect or party or nation, might well have looked back as their prophet or founder or deliverer. But the most gifted of the sons of men has left behind him no such memory, while men whose gifts cannot bear a comparison with his are reverenced as founders by grateful nations, churches, political and philosophical parties. Frederick in fact founded nothing, and he sowed the seeds of the destruction of many things. His great charters to the spiritual and temporal princes of Germany dealt the death-blow to the Imperial power, while he, to say the least, looked coldly on the rising power of the cities and on those commercial Leagues which were in his time the best element of German political life. In fact, in whatever aspect we look at Frederick the Second, we find him, not the first, but the last, of every series to which he belongs. An English writer [Capgrave], two hundred years after his time, had the penetration to see that he was really the last Emperor. He was the last Prince in whose style the Imperial titles do not seem a mockery; he was the last under whose rule the three Imperial kingdoms retained any practical connexion with one another and with the ancient capital of all. ... He was not only the last Emperor of the whole Empire; he might almost be called the last King of its several Kingdoms. After his time Burgundy vanishes as a kingdom. ... Italy too, after Frederick, vanishes as a kingdom; any later exercise of the royal authority in Italy was something which came and went wholly by fits and starts. ... Germany did not utterly vanish, or utterly split in pieces, like the sister kingdoms; but after Frederick came the Great Interregnum, and after the Great Interregnum the royal power in Germany never was what it had been before. In his hereditary Kingdom of Sicily he was not absolutely the last of his dynasty, for his son Manfred ruled prosperously and gloriously for some years after his death. But it is none the less clear that from Frederick's time the Sicilian Kingdom was doomed. ... Still more conspicuously than all was Frederick the last Christian King of Jerusalem, the last baptized man who really ruled the Holy Land or wore a crown in the Holy City. ... In the world of elegant letters Frederick has some claim to be looked on as the founder of that modern Italian language and literature which first assumed a distinctive shape at his Sicilian court. But in the wider field of political history Frederick appears nowhere as a creator, but rather everywhere as an involuntary destroyer. ... Under Frederick the Empire and everything connected with it seems to crumble and decay while preserving its external splendour. As soon as its brilliant possessor is gone, it at once falls asunder. It is a significant fact that one who in mere genius, in mere accomplishments, was surely the greatest prince who ever wore a crown, a prince who held the greatest place on earth, and who was concerned during a long reign in some of the greatest transactions of one of the greatest ages, seems never, even from his own flatterers, to have received that title of Great which has been so lavishly bestowed on far smaller men. ... Many causes combined to produce this singular result, that a man of the extraordinary genius of Frederick, and possessed of every advantage of birth, office, and opportunity, should have had so little direct effect upon the world. It is not enough to attribute his failure to the many and great faults of his moral character. Doubtless they were one cause among others. But a man who influences future ages is not necessarily a good man. ... The weak side in the brilliant career of Frederick is one which seems to have been partly inherent in his character, and partly the result of the circumstances in which he found himself. Capable of every part, and in fact playing every part by turns, he had no single definite object, pursued honestly and steadfastly, throughout his whole life. With all his powers, with all his brilliancy, his course throughout life seems to have been in a manner determined for him by others. He was ever drifting into wars, into schemes of policy, which seem to be hardly ever of his own choosing. He was the mightiest and most dangerous adversary that the Papacy ever had. But he does not seem to have withstood the Papacy from any personal choice, or as the voluntary champion of any opposing principle. He became the enemy of the Papacy, he planned schemes which involved the utter overthrow of Papacy, yet he did so simply because he found that no Pope would ever let him alone. ... The most really successful feature in Frederick's career, his acquisition of Jerusalem [see CRUSADES: A. D. 1216-1229], is not only a mere episode in his life, but it is something that was absolutely forced upon him against his will. ... With other Crusaders the Holy War was, in some cases, the main business of their lives; in all cases it was something seriously undertaken as a matter either of policy or of religious duty. But the Crusade of the man who actually did recover the Holy City is simply a grotesque episode in his life. Excommunicated for not going, excommunicated again for going, excommunicated again for coming back, threatened on every side, he still went, and he succeeded. What others had failed to win by arms, he contrived to win by address, and all that came of his success was that it was made the ground of fresh accusations against him. ... For a man to influence his age, he must in some sort belong to his age. He should be above it, before it, but he should not be foreign to it. ... But Frederick belongs to no age; intellectually he is above his own age, above every age; morally it can hardly be denied that he was below his age; but in nothing was he of his age."

_E. A. Freeman, The Emperor Frederick the Second (Historical Essays, volume 1, Essay 10)._

For an account of Frederick's brilliant Sicilian court, and of some of the distinguishing features of his reign in Southern Italy, as well as of the end of his family, in the tragical deaths of his son Manfred and his grandson Conradin (1268).

See ITALY: A. D. 1183-1250.

ALSO IN: _T. L. Kington, History of Frederick the Second._

J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapters 10-13.

H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, book 8, chapter 7, and book 9.

{1448}

GERMANY: A. D. 1142-1152. Creation of the Electorate of Brandenburg.

See BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1142-1152.

GERMANY: A. D. 1156. The Margravate of Austria created a Duchy.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 805-1246.

GERMANY: A. D. 1180-1214. Bavaria and the Palatinate of the Rhine acquired by the house of Wittelsbach.

See BAVARIA: A. D. 1180-1356.

GERMANY: A. D. 1196-1197. The Fourth Crusade.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1196-1197.

GERMANY: 13th Century. The rise of the Hanseatic League.

See HANSA TOWNS.

GERMANY: 13th Century. Cause of the multiplication of petty principalities and states.

"While the duchies and counties of Germany retained their original character of offices or governments, they were of course, even though considered as hereditary, not subject to partition among children. When they acquired the nature of fiefs, it was still consonant to the principles of a feudal tenure that the eldest son should inherit according to the law of primogeniture; an inferior provision or appanage, at most, being reserved for the younger children. The law of England favoured the eldest exclusively; that of France gave him great advantages. But in Germany a different rule began to prevail about the thirteenth century. An equal partition of the inheritance, without the least regard to priority of birth, was the general law of its principalities. Sometimes this was effected by undivided possession, or tenancy in common; the brothers residing together, and reigning jointly. This tended to preserve the integrity of dominion; but as it was frequently incommodious, a more usual practice was to divide the territory. From such partitions are derived those numerous independent principalities of the same house, many of which still subsist in Germany. In 1589 there were eight reigning princes of the Palatine family; and fourteen, in 1675, of that of Saxony. Originally these partitions were in general absolute and without reversion; but, as their effect in weakening families became evident, a practice was introduced of making compacts of reciprocal succession, by which a fief was prevented from escheating to the empire, until all the male posterity of the first feudatory should be extinct. Thus, while the German empire survived, all the princes of Hesse or of Saxony had reciprocal contingencies of succession, or what our lawyers call cross-remainders, to each other's dominions. A different system was gradually adopted. By the Golden Bull of Charles IV. the electoral territory, that is, the particular district to which the electoral suffrage was inseparably attached, became incapable of partition, and was to descend to the eldest son. In the 15th century the present house of Brandenburg set the first example of establishing primogeniture by law; the principalities of Anspach and Bayreuth were dismembered from it for the benefit of younger branches; but it was declared that all the other dominions of the family should for the future belong exclusively to the reigning elector. This politic measure was adopted in several other families; but, even in the 16th century, the prejudice was not removed, and some German princes denounced curses on their posterity, if they should introduce the impious custom of primogeniture. ... Weakened by these subdivisions, the principalities of Germany in the 14th and 15th centuries shrink to a more and more diminutive size in the scale of nations."

H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 5 (volume 2).

See, also, CITIES, IMPERIAL AND FREE, OF GERMANY.

GERMANY: A. D. 1212. The Children's Crusade.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1212.

GERMANY: A. D. 1231-1315. Relations of the Swiss Forest Cantons to the Empire and to the House of Austria.

See SWITZERLAND: THE THREE FOREST CANTONS.

GERMANY: A. D. 1250-1272. Degradation of the Holy Roman Empire. The Great Interregnum. Anarchy and disorder universal. Election of Rudolf of Hapsburg.

"With Frederick [the Second] fell the Empire. From the ruin that overwhelmed the greatest of its houses it emerged, living indeed, and destined to a long life, but so shattered, crippled, and degraded, that it could never more be to Europe and to Germany what it once had been. ... The German kingdom broke down beneath the weight of the Roman Empire. To be universal sovereign Germany had sacrificed her own political existence. The necessity which their projects in Italy and disputes with the Pope laid the Emperors under of purchasing by concessions the support of their own princes, the ease with which in their absence the magnates could usurp, the difficulty which the monarch returning found in resuming the privileges of his crown, the temptation to revolt and set up pretenders to the throne which the Holy See held out, these were the causes whose steady action laid the foundation of that territorial independence which rose into a stable fabric at the era of the Great Interregnum. Frederick II. had, by two Pragmatic Sanctions, A. D. 1220 and 1232, granted, or rather confirmed, rights already customary, such as to give the bishops and nobles legal sovereignty in their own towns and territories, except when the Emperor should be present; and thus his direct jurisdiction became restricted to his narrowed domain, and to the cities immediately dependent on the crown. With so much less to do, an Emperor became altogether a less necessary personage; and hence the seven magnates of the realm, now by law or custom sole electors, were in no haste to fill up the place of Conrad IV., whom the supporters of his father Frederick had acknowledged. William of Holland [A. D. 1254] was in the field, but rejected by the Swabian party: on his death a new election was called for, and at last set on foot. The archbishop of Cologne advised his brethren to choose some one rich enough to support the dignity, not strong enough to be feared by the electors: both requisites met in the Plantagenet Richard, earl of Cornwall, brother of the English Henry III. He received three, eventually four votes, came to Germany, and was crowned at Aachen [A. D. 1256]. But three of the electors, finding that his bribe to them was lower than to the others, seceded in disgust, and chose Alfonso X. of Castile, who, shrewder than his competitor, continued to watch the stars at Toledo, enjoying the splendours of his title while troubling himself about it no further than to issue now and then a proclamation. Meantime the condition of Germany was frightful. The new Didius Julianus, the chosen of princes baser than the prætorians whom they copied, had neither the character nor the outward power and resources to make himself respected. Every floodgate of anarchy was opened: prelates and barons extended their domains by war: robber-knights infested the highways and the rivers: the misery of the weak, the tyranny and violence of the strong, were such as had not been seen for centuries. {1449} Things were even worse than under the Saxon and Franconian Emperors; for the petty nobles who had then been in some measure controlled by their dukes were now, after the extinction of the great houses, left without any feudal superior. Only in the cities was shelter or peace to be found. Those of the Rhine had already leagued themselves for mutual defence, and maintained a struggle in the interests of commerce and order against universal brigandage. At last, when Richard had been some time dead, it was felt that such things could not go on for ever: with no public law, and no courts of justice, an Emperor, the embodiment of legal government, was the only resource. The Pope himself, having now sufficiently improved the weakness of his enemy, found the disorganization of Germany beginning to tell upon his revenues, and threatened that if the electors did not appoint an Emperor, he would. Thus urged, they chose, in 1272 [1273?], Rudolf, count of Hapsburg, founder of the house of Austria. From this point there begins a new era. We have seen the Roman Empire revived in A. D. 800, by a prince whose vast dominions gave ground to his claim of universal monarchy; again erected, in A. D. 962, on the narrower but firmer basis of the German kingdom. We have seen Otto the Great and his successors during the three following centuries, a line of monarchs of unrivalled vigour and abilities, strain every nerve to make good the pretensions of their office against the rebels in Italy and the ecclesiastical power. Those efforts had now failed signally and hopelessly. Each successive Emperor had entered the strife with resources scantier than his predecessors, each had been more decisively vanquished by the Pope, the cities, and the princes. The Roman Empire might, and, so far as its practical utility was concerned, ought now to have been suffered to expire; nor could it have ended more gloriously than with the last of the Hohenstaufen. That it did not so expire, but lived on 600 years more, till it became a piece of antiquarianism hardly more venerable than ridiculous--till, as Voltaire said, all that could be said about it was that it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire--was owing partly indeed to the belief, still unshaken, that it was a necessary part of the world's order, yet chiefly to its connection, which was by this time indissoluble, with the German kingdom. The Germans had confounded the two characters of their sovereign so long, and had grown so fond of the style and pretensions of a dignity whose possession appeared to exalt them above the other peoples of Europe, that it was now too late for them to separate the local from the universal monarch. If a German king was to be maintained at all, he must be Roman Emperor; and a German king there must still be. ... That head, however, was no longer what he had been. The relative position of Germany and France was now exactly the reverse of that which they had occupied two centuries earlier. Rudolf was as conspicuously a weaker sovereign than Philip III. of France, as the Franconian Emperor Henry III. had been stronger than the Capetian Philip I. In every other state of Europe the tendency of events had been to centralize the administration and increase the power of the monarch, even in England not to diminish it: in Germany alone had political union become weaker, and the independence of the princes more confirmed."

J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapter 13.

See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1250-1520.

GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308. The first Hapsburg kings of the Romans, Rodolph and Albert.

The choice made (A. D. 1273) by the German Electors of Rodolph of Hapsburg for King of the Romans (see AUSTRIA: A. D. 1246-1282), was duly approved and confirmed by Pope Gregory X., who silenced, by his spiritual admonitions, the rival claims of King Alfonso of Castile. But Rodolph, to secure this papal confirmation of his title, found it necessary to promise, through his ambassadors, a renewal of the Capitulation of Otho IV., respecting the temporalities of the Pope. This he repeated in person, on meeting the Pope at Lausanne, in 1275, On that occasion, "an agreement was entered into which afterwards ratified to the Church the long disputed gift of Charlemagne, comprising Ravenna, Æmilia, Bobbio, Cesena, Forumpopoli, Forli, Faenza, Imola, Bologna, Ferrara, Comacchio, Adria, Rimini, Urbino, Monteferetro, and the territory of Bagno. Rodolph also bound himself to protect the privileges of the Church, and to maintain the freedom of Episcopal elections, and the right of appeal in all ecclesiastical causes; and having stipulated for receiving the imperial crown in Rome he promised to undertake an expedition to the holy land. If Rodolph were sincere in these last engagements, the disturbed state of his German dominions afforded him an apology for their present non-fulfilment: but there is good reason for believing that he never intended to visit either Rome or Palestine; and his indifference to Italy has even been the theme of panegyric with his admirers. The repeated and mortifying reverses of the two Frederics were before his eyes; there was little to excite his sympathy with the Italians; and though Lombardy seemed ready to acknowledge his supremacy, the Tuscan cities evinced aspirations after independence." During the early years of Rodolph's reign he was employed in establishing his authority, as against the contumacy of Ottocar, King of Bohemia, and the Duke of Bavaria.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1246-1282.

Meantime, Gregory X. and three short-lived successors in the papal office passed away, and Nicholas III. had come to it (1277). That vigorous pontiff called Rodolph to account for not having yet surrendered the states of the Church in due form, and whispered a hint of excommunication and interdict. "Rodolph was too prudent to disregard this admonition: he evaded the projected crusade and journey to Rome; but he took care to send thither an emissary, who in his name surrendered to the Pope the territory already agreed on. ... During his entire reign Rodolph maintained his indifference towards Italy." His views "were rather directed to the wilds of Hungary and Germany than to the delicious regions of the south. ... He compelled Philip, Count of Savoy, to surrender Morat, Payerne, and Guminen, which had been usurped from the Empire. By a successful expedition across the Jura, he brought back to obedience Otho IV. Count of Burgundy; and forced him to renounce the allegiance he had proffered to Philip III. King of France. ... He crushed an insurrection headed by an impostor, who had persuaded the infatuated multitude to believe that he was the Emperor Frederic II. {1450} And he freed his dominions from rapine and desolation by the destruction of several castles, whose owners infested the country with their predatory incursions." Before his death, in 1291, Rodolph "grew anxious to secure to his son Albert the succession to the throne, and his nomination by the Electors ere the grave closed upon himself. ... But all his entreaties were unavailing; he was coldly reminded that he himself was still the 'King,' and that the Empire was too poor to support two kings. Rodolph might now repent his neglect to assume the imperial crown: but the character of Albert seems to have been the real obstacle to his elevation. With many of the great qualities of his father, this prince was deficient in his milder virtues; and his personal bravery and perseverance were tainted with pride, haughtiness; and avarice." On Rodolph's death, the Electors chose for his successor Adolphus, Count of Nassau, a choice of which they soon found reason to repent. By taking pay from Edward I. of England, for an alliance with the latter against the King of France, and by attempts to enforce a purchased claim upon the Landgraviate of Thuringia, Adolphus brought himself into contempt, and in 1298 he was solemnly deposed by the Electors, who now conferred the kingship upon Albert of Austria whom they had rejected six years before. "The deposed sovereign was, however, strongly supported; and he promptly collected his adherents, and marched at the head of a vast army against Albert, who was not unprepared for his reception. A great battle took place at Gelheim, near Worms; and, after a bloody contest, the troops of Adolphus were entirely defeated," and he himself was slain. But Albert, now unopposed in Germany, found his title disputed at Rome. Boniface VIII., the most arrogant of all popes, refused to acknowledge the validity of his election, and drove him into a close alliance with the Pope's implacable and finally triumphant enemy, Philip IV. of France (see PAPACY: A. D. 1294-1348). He was soon at enmity, moreover, with a majority of the Electors who had given the crown to him, and they, stimulated by the Pope, were preparing to depose him, as they had deposed Adolphus. But Albert's energy broke up their plans. He humbled their leader, the Archbishop-Elector of Mentz, and the rest became submissive. The Pope now came to terms with him, and invited him to Rome to receive the imperial crown; also offering to him the crown of France, if he would take it from the head of the excommunicated Philip; but while these proposals were under discussion, Boniface suffered humiliations at the hands of the French king which caused his death. During most of his reign, Albert was busy with undertakings of ambition and rapacity which had no success. He attempted to seize the counties of Holland, Zealand, and Friesland, as fiefs reverting to the crown, on the death of John, Count of Holland, in 1299. He claimed the Bohemian crown in 1306, when Wenceslaus V., the young king, was assassinated, and invaded the country; but only to be beaten back. He was defeated at Lucka, in 1308, when attempting to grasp the inheritance of the Landgrave of Thuringia--under the very transaction which had chiefly caused his predecessor Adolphus to be deposed, and he himself invested with the Roman crown. Finally, he was in hostilities with the Swiss Forest Cantons, and was leading his forces against them, in May, 1308, when he was assassinated by several nobles, including his cousin John, whose enmity he had incurred.

Sir R. Comyn, History of the Western Empire, chapters 14-17 (volume 1).

ALSO IN; W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 5 (volume 1).

GERMANY: A. D. 1282. Acquisition of the duchy of Austria by the House of Hapsburg.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1246-1282.

GERMANY: A. D. 1308-1313. The reign of Henry of Luxemburg.

The king (subsequently crowned emperor) chosen to succeed Albert was Count Henry of Luxemburg, an able and excellent prince. The new sovereign was crowned as Henry VII. "Henry did not make the extension of his private domains his object, yet favoring fortune brought it to him in the largest measure. Since the death of Wenzel III., the succession to the throne of Bohemia had been a subject of constant struggles. A very small party was in favor of Austria; but the chief power was in the hands of Henry of Carinthia, husband of Anna, Wenzel's eldest daughter. But he was hated by the people, whose hopes turned more and more to Elizabeth, a younger daughter of Wenzel; though she was kept in close confinement by Henry, who was about to marry her, it was supposed, below her rank. She escaped, fled to the emperor, and implored his aid. He gave her in marriage to his young son John, sending him to Bohemia in charge of Peter Aichspalter; to take possession of the kingdom. He did so, and it remained for more than a century in the Luxemburg family. This King John of Bohemia was a man of mark. His life was spent in the ceaseless pursuit of adventure--from tournament to tournament, from war to war, from one enterprise to another. We meet him now in Avignon, and now in Paris; then on the Rhine, in Prussia, Poland, or Hungary, and then prosecuting large plans in Italy, but hardly ever in his own kingdom. Yet his restless activity accomplished very little, apart from some important acquisitions in Silesia. Henry then gave attention to the public peace; came to an understanding with Leopold and Frederick, the proud sons of Albert, and put under the ban Everard of Wirtemberg, long a fomenter of disturbances, sending against him a strong imperial army. ... At the Diet of Spires, in September, 1309, it was cheerfully resolved to carry out Henry's cherished plan of reviving the traditional dignity of the Roman emperors by an expedition to the Eternal City. Henry expected thus to renew the authority of his title at home, as well as in Italy, where, in the traditional view, the imperial crown was as important and as necessary as in Germany. Every thing here had gone to confusion and ruin since the Hohenstaufens had succumbed to the bitter hostility of the popes. The contending parties still called themselves Guelphs and Ghibellines, though they retained little of the original characteristics attached to these names. A formal embassy, with Matteo Visconti at its head, invited Henry to Milan; and the parties every where anticipated his coming with hope. The great Florentine poet, Dante, hailed him as a saviour for distracted Italy. Thus, with the pope's approval, he crossed the Alps in the autumn of 1310, attended by a splendid escort of princes of the empire. {1451} The news of his approach excited general wonder and expectation, and his reception at Milan in December was like a triumph. He was crowned King of Lombardy without opposition. But when, in the true imperial spirit, he announced that he had come to serve the nation, and not one or another party, and proved his sincerity by treating both parties alike, all whose selfish hopes were deceived conspired against him. Brescia endured a frightful siege for four months, showing that the national hatred of German rule still survived. At length a union of all his adversaries was formed under King Robert of Naples, the grandson of Charles of Anjou, who put Conradin to death. Meanwhile Henry VII. went to Rome, May 1312, and received the crown of the Cæsars from four cardinals, plenipotentiaries of the pope, in the church of St. John Lateran, south of the Tiber, St. Peter's being occupied by the Neapolitan troops. But many of his German soldiers left him, and he retired, with a small army, to Pisa, after an unsuccessful effort to take Florence. From the faithful city of Pisa he proclaimed King Robert under the ban, and, in concert with Frederick of Sicily, prepared for war by land and sea. But the pope, now a mere tool of the King of France, commanded an armistice; and when Henry, in an independent spirit, hesitated to obey, Clement V. pronounced the ban of the Church against him. It never reached the emperor, who died suddenly in the monastery of Buon-Convento: poisoned, as the German annalists assert, by a Dominican monk, in the sacramental cup, August 24, 1313. He was buried at Pisa. Meanwhile his army in Bohemia had been completely successful in establishing King John on the throne."

C. T. Lewis, A History of Germany, book 3, chapter 10.

See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1310-1313.

GERMANY: A. D. 1314-1347. Election of rival emperors, Lewis (Ludowic) of Bavaria and Frederic of Austria. Triumph of Lewis at the Battle of Mühldorf. Papal interference and excommunication of Lewis. Germany under interdict. Unrelenting hostility of the Church.

"The death of Heinric [Henry] replunged Germany into horrors to which, since the extinction of the Swabian line of emperors, it had been a stranger. The Austrian princes, who had never forgiven the elevation of the Luxemburg family, espoused the interests of Frederic, their head; the Bohemians as naturally opposed them. From the accession of John, the two houses were of necessity hostile; and it was evident that there could be no peace in Germany until one of them was subjected to the other. The Bohemians, indeed, could not hope to place their king on the vacant throne, since their project would have found an insurmountable obstacle in the jealousy of the electors; but they were at least resolved to support the pretensions of a prince hostile to the Austrians. ... The diet being convoked at Frankfort, the electors repaired thither, but with very different views; for, as their suffrages were already engaged, while the more numerous party proclaimed the duke of Bavaria as Ludowic V., another no less eagerly proclaimed Frederic. Although Ludowic was a member of the Austro-Hapsburg family--his mother being a daughter of Rodolf I.--he had always been the enemy of the Austrian princes, and in the same degree the ally of the Luxemburg faction. The two candidates being respectively crowned kings of the Romans, Ludowic at Aix-la-Chapelle, by the archbishop of Mentz--Frederic at Bonn, by the metropolitan of Cologne, a civil war was inevitable: neither had virtue enough to sacrifice his own rights to the good of the state. ... The contest would have ended in favour of the Austrians, but for the rashness of Frederic, who, in September 1322, without waiting for the arrival of his brother Leopold, assailed Ludowic between Mahldorf and Ettingen in Bavaria. ... The battle was maintained with equal valour from the rising to the setting sun; and was evidently in favour of the Austrians, when an unexpected charge in flank by a body of cavalry under the margrave of Nuremburg decided the fortune of the day. Heinric of Austria was first taken prisoner; and Frederic himself, who disdained to flee, was soon in the same condition. To his everlasting honour, Ludowic received Frederic with the highest assurances of esteem; and though the latter was conveyed to the strong fortress of Trapnitz, in the Upper Palatinate, he was treated with every indulgence consistent with his safe custody. But the contest was not yet decided; the valiant Leopold was still at the head of a separate force; and pope John XXII., the natural enemy of the Ghibelins, incensed at some succours which Ludowic sent to that party in Lombardy, excommunicated the king of the Romans, and declared him deposed from his dignity. Among the ecclesiastics of the empire this iniquitous sentence had its weight; but had not other events been disastrous to the king, he might have safely despised it. By Leopold he was signally defeated; he had the mortification to see the inconstant king of Bohemia join the party of Austria; and the still heavier misfortune to learn that the ecclesiastical and two or three secular electors were proceeding to another choice--that of Charles de Valois, whose interests were warmly supported by the pope. In this emergency, his only chance of safety was a reconciliation with his enemies; and Frederic was released on condition of his renouncing all claim to the empire. But though Frederic sincerely resolved to fulfil his share of the compact, Leopold and the other princes of his family refused; and their refusal was approved by the pope. With the magnanimity of his character, Frederic, unable to execute the engagements which he had made, voluntarily surrendered himself to his enemy. But Ludowic, who would not be outdone in generosity, received him, not as a prisoner, but a friend. 'They ate,' says a contemporary writer, 'at the same table, slept on the same couch;' and when the King left Bavaria, the administration of that duchy was confided to Frederic. Two such men could not long remain even politically hostile; and by another treaty, it was agreed that they should exercise conjointly the government of the empire. When this arrangement was condemned both by the pope and the electors, Ludowic proposed to take Italy as his seat of government, and leave Germany to Frederic. But the death [1326] of the war-like Leopold--the great support of the Austrian cause--and the continued opposition of the states to any compromise, enabled Ludowic to retain the sceptre of the kingdom; and in 1329, that of Frederic strengthened his party. But his reign was destined to be one of troubles. ... His open warfare against the head of the church did not much improve his affairs, the vindictive pope, in addition to the former sentence, placing all Germany under an interdict. ... {1452} In 1338, the diet of Frankfort issued a declaration for ever memorable in the annals of freedom. That the imperial authority depended on God alone; that the pope had no temporal influence, direct or indirect, within the empire; ... it concluded by empowering the emperor (Ludowic while in Italy [see ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330] had received the imperial crown from the anti-pope whom he had created in opposition to John XXII.) to raise, of his own authority, the interdict which, during four years, had oppressed the country. Another diet, held the following year, ratified this bold declaration. ... But this conduct of the diet was above the comprehension of the vulgar, who still regarded Ludowic as under the curse of God and the church. ... Unfortunately for the national independence, Ludowic himself contradicted the tenor of his hitherto spirited conduct, by mean submissions, by humiliating applications for absolution. They were unsuccessful; and he had the mortification to see the king of Bohemia, who had always acted an unaccountable part, become his bitter enemy. ... From this moment the fate of Ludowic was decided. In conjunction with the pope and the French king, Charles of Bohemia, who in 1346 succeeded to his father's kingdom and antipathy, commenced a civil war; and in the midst of these troubled scenes the emperor breathed his last [October 11, 1347]. Twelve months before the decease of Ludowic, Charles of Bohemia [son of John, the blind king of Bohemia, who fell, fighting for the French, at the battle of Crecy], assisted by Clement VI., was elected king of the Romans."

S. A. Dunham, History of the Germanic Empire, book 1, chapter 4 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: J. I. von Döllinger, Studies in European History, chapter 5.

J. C. Robertson, History of the Christian Church, book 8, chapter 2, V. 7.

M. Creighton, History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation, introduction, chapter 2.

GERMANY: A. D. 1347-1493. The Golden Bull of Charles IV.

The Luxemburg line of emperors, and the reappearance of the Hapsburgs. The Holy Roman Empire as it was at the end of the Middle Ages.

"John king of Bohemia did not himself wear the imperial crown; but three of his descendants possessed it, with less interruption than could have been expected. His son Charles IV. succeeded Louis of Bavaria in 1347; not indeed without opposition, for a double election and a civil war were matters of course in Germany. Charles IV. has been treated with more derision by his contemporaries, and consequently by later writers, than almost any prince in history; yet he was remarkably successful in the only objects that he seriously pursued. Deficient in personal courage, insensible of humiliation, bending without shame to the pope, to the Italians, to the electors, so poor and so little reverenced as to be arrested by a butcher at Worms for want of paying his demand, Charles IV. affords a proof that a certain dexterity and cold-blooded perseverance may occasionally supply, in a sovereign, the want of more respectable qualities. He has been reproached with neglecting the empire. But he never deigned to trouble himself about the empire, except for his private' ends. He did not neglect the kingdom of Bohemia, to which he almost seemed to render Germany a province. Bohemia had been long considered as a fief of the empire, and indeed could pretend to an electoral vote by no other title. Charles, however, gave the states by law the right of choosing a king, on the extinction of the royal family, which seems derogatory to the imperial prerogative. ... He constantly resided at Prague, where he founded a celebrated university, and embellished the city with buildings. This kingdom, augmented also during his reign by the acquisition of Silesia, he bequeathed to his son Wenceslaus, for whom, by pliancy towards the electors and the court of Rome, he had procured, against all recent example, the imperial succession. The reign of Charles IV. is distinguished in the constitutional history of the empire by his Golden Bull [1356]; an instrument which finally ascertained the prerogatives of the electoral college.

See above: A. D. 1125-1152.

The Golden Bull terminated the disputes which had arisen between different members of the same house as to their right of suffrage, which was declared inherent in certain definite territories. The number was absolutely restrained to seven. The place of legal imperial elections was fixed at Frankfort; of coronations, at Aix-la-Chapelle: and the latter ceremony was to be performed by the arch-bishop of Cologne. These regulations, though consonant to ancient usage, had not always been observed, and their neglect had sometimes excited questions as to the validity of elections. The dignity of elector was enhanced by the Golden Bull as highly as an imperial edict could carry it: they were declared equal to kings, and conspiracy against their persons incurred the penalty of high treason. Many other privileges are granted to render them more completely sovereign within their dominions. It seems extraordinary that Charles should have voluntarily elevated an oligarchy, from whose pretensions his predecessors had frequently suffered injury. But he had more to apprehend from the two great families of Bavaria and Austria, whom he relatively depressed by giving such a preponderance to the seven electors, than from any members of the college. By his compact with Brandenburg [see BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1168-1417] he had a fair prospect of adding a second vote to his own. ... The next reign, nevertheless, evinced the danger of investing the electors with such preponderating authority. Wenceslaus [elected in 1378], a supine and voluptuous man, less respected, and more negligent of Germany, if possible, than his father, was regularly deposed by a majority of the electoral college in 1400. ... They chose Robert count palatine instead of Wenceslaus; and though the latter did not cease to have some adherents, Robert has generally been counted among the lawful emperors. Upon his death [1410] the empire returned to the house of Luxemburg; Wenceslaus himself waiving his rights in favour of his brother Sigismund of Hungary." On the death of Sigismund, in 1437, the house of Austria regained the imperial throne, in the person of Albert, duke of Austria, who had married Sigismund's only daughter, the queen of Hungary and Bohemia. "He died in two years, leaving his wife pregnant with a son, Ladislaus Posthumus, who afterwards reigned in the two kingdoms just mentioned; and the choice of the electors fell upon Frederic duke of Styria, second-cousin of the last emperor, from whose posterity it never departed, except in a single instance, upon the extinction of his male line in 1740. {1453} Frederic III. reigned 53 years [1440-1493], a longer period than any of his predecessors; and his personal character was more insignificant. ... Frederic, always poor, and scarcely able to protect himself in Austria from the seditions of his subjects, or the inroads of the king of Hungary, was yet another founder of his family, and left their fortunes incomparably more prosperous than at his accession. The marriage of his son Maximilian with the heiress of Burgundy [see NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1477] began that aggrandizement of the house of Austria which Frederic seems to have anticipated. The electors, who had lost a good deal of their former spirit, and were grown sensible of the necessity of choosing a powerful sovereign, made no opposition to Maximilian's becoming king of the Romans in his father's lifetime."

H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 5 (volume 2).

"It is important to remark that, for more than a century after Charles IV. had fixed his seat in Bohemia, no emperor appeared, endowed with the vigour necessary to uphold and govern the empire. The bare fact that Charles's successor, Wenceslas, was a prisoner in the hands of the Bohemians, remained for a long time unknown in Germany: a simple decree of the electors' sufficed to dethrone him. Rupert the Palatine only escaped a similar fate by death. When Sigismund of Luxemburg, (who, after many disputed elections, kept possession of the field,) four years after his election, entered the territory of the empire of which he was to be crowned sovereign, he found so little sympathy that he was for a moment inclined to return to Hungary without accomplishing the object of his journey. The active part he took in the affairs of Bohemia, and of Europe generally, has given him a name; but in and for the empire, he did nothing worthy of note. Between the years 1422 and 1430 he never made his appearance beyond Vienna; from the autumn of 1431 to that of 1433 he was occupied with his coronation journey to Rome; and during the three years from 1434 to his death he never got beyond Bohemia and Moravia; nor did Albert II., who has been the subject of such lavish eulogy, ever visit the dominions of the empire. Frederic III., however, far outdid all his predecessors. During seven-and-twenty years, from 1444 to 1471, he was never seen within the boundaries of the empire. Hence it happened that the central action and the visible manifestation of sovereignty, in as far as any such existed in the empire, fell to the share of the princes, and more especially of the prince-electors. In the reign of Sigismund we find them convoking the diets, and leading the armies into the field against the Hussites: the operations against the Bohemians were attributed entirely to them. In this manner the empire became, like the papacy, a power which acted from a distance, and rested chiefly upon opinion. ... The emperor was regarded, in the first place, as the supreme feudal lord, who conferred on property its highest and most sacred sanction. ... Although he was regarded as the head and source of all temporal jurisdiction, yet no tribunal found more doubtful obedience than his own. The fact that royalty existed in Germany had almost been suffered to fall into oblivion; even the title had been lost. Henry VII. thought it an affront to be called King of Germany, and not, as he had a right to be called before any ceremony of coronation, King of the Romans. In the 15th century the emperor was regarded pre-eminently as the successor of the ancient Roman Cæsars, whose rights and dignities had been transferred, first to the Greeks, and then to the Germans in the persons of Charlemagne and Otho the Great; as the true secular head of Christendom. ... The opinion was confidently entertained in Germany that the other sovereigns of Christendom, especially those of England, Spain, and France, were legally subject to the crown of the empire: the only controversy was, whether their disobedience was venial, or ought to be regarded as sinful."

L. von Ranke, History of the Reformation in Germany, volume 1, pages 52-56.

ALSO IN: Sir R. Comyn, History of the Western Empire, chapter 24 (volume l).

E. F. Henderson, Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages, book 2, number 10.

See, also, AUSTRIA: A. D. 1330-1364, to 1471-1491.

GERMANY: A. D. 1363-1364. Tyrol acquired by the House of Austria, with the reversion of the crowns of Bohemia and Hungary.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1330-1364.

GERMANY: A. D. 1378. Final surrender of the Arelate to France.

See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1127-1378.

GERMANY: A. D. 1386-1388. Defeat of the Austrians by the Swiss at Sempach and Naefels.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1386-1388.

GERMANY: A. D. 1405-1434. The Bohemian Reformation and the Hussite wars.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1405-1415, and 1419-1434.

GERMANY: A. D. 1414-1418. Failure of demands for Church Reform in the Council of Constance.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1414-1418.

GERMANY: A. D. 1417. The Electorate of Brandenburg conferred on the Hohenzollerns.

"The March of Brandenburg is one of those districts which was first peopled by the advance of the German nation towards the east during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It was in the beginning, like Silesia, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Prussia, and Livonia, a German colony settled upon an almost uncultivated soil: from the very first, however, it seems to have given the greatest promise of vigour. ... Possession was taken of the soil upon the ground of the rights of the princely Ascanian house--we know not whether these rights were founded upon inheritance, purchase, or cession. The process of occupation was so gradual that the institutions of the old German provinces, like those constituting the northern march, had time to take firm root in the newly-acquired territory; and owing to the constant necessity for unsheathing the sword, the colonists acquired warlike habits which tended to give them spirit and energy. ... The Ascanians were a warlike but cultivated race, incessantly acquiring new possessions, but generous and openhanded; and new life followed in their footsteps. They soon took up an important political position among the German princely houses: their possessions extended over a great part of Thuringia, Moravia, Lausitz, and Silesia; the electoral dignity which they assumed gave to them and to their country a high rank in the Empire. In the Neumark and in Pomerelllen the Poles retreated before them, and on the Pomeranian coasts they protected the towns founded by the Teutonic order from the invasion of the Danes. It has been asked whether this race might not have greatly extended its power; but they were not destined even to make the attempt. {1454} It is said that at the beginning of the fourteenth century nineteen members of this family were assembled on the Margrave's Hill near Rathenau. In the year 1320, of all these not one remained, or had even left an heir. ... In Brandenburg ... it really appeared as if the extinction of the ruling family would entail ruin upon the country. It had formed a close alliance with the imperial power--which at that moment was the subject of contention between the two great families of Wittelsbach and Luxemburg--was involved in the quarrels of those two races, injured by all their alternations of fortune, and sacrificed to their domestic and foreign policy, which was totally at variance with the interests of Brandenburg. At the very beginning of the struggle the March of Brandenburg lost its dependencies. ... At length the Emperor Sigmund, the last of the house of Luxemburg, found himself so fully occupied with the disturbances in the Empire and the dissensions in the Church, that he could no longer maintain his power in the March, and intrusted the task to his friend and relation, Frederick, Burgrave of Nürnberg, to whom he lay under very great obligations, and who had assisted him with money at his need. ... It was a great point gained, after so long a period of anarchy, to find a powerful and prudent prince ready to undertake the government of the province. He could do nothing in the open field against the revolted nobles, but he assailed and vanquished them in their hitherto impregnable strong-holds surrounded with walls fifteen feet thick, which he demolished with his clumsy but effective artillery. In a few years he had so far succeeded that he was able to proclaim a Landfriede, or public peace, according to which each and everyone who was an enemy to him, or to those comprehended in the peace, was considered and treated as the enemy of all. But the effect of all this would have been but transient, had not the Emperor, who had no son, and who was won by Frederick's numerous services and by his talents for action, made the Electorate hereditary in his family. ... The most important day in the history of the March of Brandenburg and the family of Zollern was the 18th of April, 1417, when in the market-place of Constance the Emperor Sigmund formally invested the Burgrave with the dignity of Elector, placed in his hands the flag with the arms of the March and received from him the oath of allegiance. From this moment a prospect was afforded to the territory of Brandenburg of recovering its former prosperity and increasing its importance, while to the house of Zollern a career of glory and usefulness was opened worthy of powers which were thus called into action."

L. von Ranke, Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg, book 1, chapter 2.

See, also, BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1168-1417; and HOHENZOLLERN, RISE OF THE HOUSE OF.

GERMANY: A. D. 1467-1471. Crusade against George Podiebrad, king of Bohemia.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1458-1471.

GERMANY: A. D. 1467-1477. Relations of Charles the Bold of Burgundy to the Empire.

See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1467, and 1476-1477.

GERMANY: A. D. 1492-1514. The Bundschuh insurrections of the Peasantry.

Several risings of the German peasantry, in the later part of the 15th and early part of the 16th century, were named from the Bundschuh, or peasants' clog, which the insurgents bore as their emblem or pictured on their banners. "While the peasants in the Rhætian Alps were gradually throwing off the yoke of the nobles and forming the 'Graubund' [see SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1396-1499], a struggle, was going on between the neighbouring peasantry of Kempten (to the east of Lake Constance) and their feudal lord, the Abbot of Kempten. It began in 1423, and came to an open rebellion in 1492. It was a rebellion against new demands not sanctioned by ancient custom, and though it was crushed, and ended in little good to the peasantry (many of whom fled into Switzerland), yet it is worthy of note because in it for the first time appears the banner of the Bundschuh. The next rising was in Elsass (Alsace), in 1493, the peasants finding allies in the burghers of the towns along the Rhine, who had their own grievances. The Bundschuh was again their banner, and it was to Switzerland that their anxious eyes were turned for help. This movement also was prematurely discovered and put down. Then, in 1501, other peasants, close neighbours to those of Kempten, caught the infection, and in 1502, again in Elsass, but this time further north, in the region about Speyer and the Neckar, lower down the Rhine, nearer Franconia, the Bundschuh was raised again. It numbered on its recruit rolls many thousands of peasants from the country round, along the Neckar and the Rhine. The wild notion was to rise in arms, to make themselves free, like the Swiss, by the sword, to acknowledge no superior but the Emperor, and all Germany was to join the League. They were to pay no taxes or dues, and commons, forests, and rivers were to be free to all. Here, again, they mixed up religion with their demands, and 'Only what is just before God' was the motto on the banner of the Bundschuh. They, too, were betrayed, and in savage triumph the Emperor Maximilian ordered their property to be confiscated, their wives and children to be banished, and themselves to be quartered alive. ... Few ... really fell victims to this cruel order of the Emperor. The ringleaders dispersed, fleeing some into Switzerland and some into the Black Forest. For ten years now there was silence. The Bundschuh banner was furled, but only for a while. In 1512 and 1513, on the east side of the Rhine, in the Black Forest and the neighbouring districts of Würtemberg, the movement was again on foot on a still larger scale. It had found a leader in Joss Fritz. A soldier, with commanding presence and great natural eloquence, ... he bided his time. ... Again the League was betrayed ... and Joss Fritz, with the banner under his clothes, had to fly for his life to Switzerland. ... He returned after a while to the Black Forest, went about his secret errands, and again bided his time. In 1514 the peasantry of the Duke Ulrich of Würtemberg rose to resist the tyranny of their lord [in a combination called 'the League of Poor Conrad']. ... The same year, in the valleys of the Austrian Alps, in Carinthia, Styria, and Crain, similar risings of the peasantry took place, all of them ending in the triumph of the nobles."

F. Seebohm, The Era of the Protestant Revolution, part 1, chapter 4.

See, also, below: A. D. 1524-1525.

GERMANY: A. D. 1493. Maximilian I. becomes emperor.

{1455}

GERMANY: A. D. 1493-1519. The reign of Maximilian. His personal importance and his imperial powerlessness. Constitutional reforms in the Empire. The Imperial Chamber. The Circles. The Aulic Council.

"Frederic [the Third] died in 1493, after a protracted and inglorious reign of 53 years. ... On the death of his father, Maximilian had been seven years king of the Romans; and his accession to the imperial crown encountered no opposition. ... Scarcely had he ascended the throne, when Charles VIII., king of France, passed through the Milanese into the south of Italy, and seized on Naples without opposition.

See ITALY: A. D. 1494-1496.

Maximilian endeavoured to rouse the German nation to a sense of its danger, but in vain. ... With difficulty he was able to despatch 3,000 men to aid the league, which Spain, the pope, the Milanese, and the Venetians had formed, to expel the ambitious intruders from Italy. To cement his alliance with Fernando the Catholic, he married his son Philip to Juana, the daughter of the Spaniard. The confederacy triumphed; not through the efforts of Maximilian, but through the hatred of the Italians to the Gallic yoke. ... Louis XII., who succeeded to Charles (1498), ... forced Philip to do homage for Flanders; surrendering, indeed, three inconsiderable towns, that he might be at liberty to renew the designs of his house on Lombardy and Naples. ... The French had little difficulty in expelling Ludovico Moro, the usurper of Milan, and in retaining possession of the country during the latter part of Maximilian's reign.

See ITALY: A. D. 1499-1500.

Louis, indeed, did homage for the duchy to the Germanic head; but such homage was merely nominal: it involved no tribute, no dependence. The occupation of this fine province by the French made no impression on the Germans; they regarded it as a fief of the house of Austria, not of the empire: but even if it had stood in the latter relation, they would not have moved one man, or voted one florin, to avert its fate. That the French did not obtain similar possession of Naples, and thereby become enabled to oppose Maximilian with greater effect, was owing to the valour of the Spanish troops, who retained the crown in the house of Aragon. His disputes with the Venetians were inglorious to his arms; they defeated his armies, and encroached considerably on his Italian possessions. He was equally unsuccessful with the Swiss, whom he vainly persuaded to acknowledge the supremacy of his house. ... For many of his failures ... he is not to be blamed. To carry on his vast enterprises he could command only the resources of Austria: had he been able to wield those of the empire, his name would have been more formidable to his enemies; and it is no slight praise, that with means so contracted he could preserve the Netherlands against the open violence, no less than the subtle duplicity, of France. But the internal transactions of Maximilian's reign are those only to which the attention of the reader can be directed with pleasure. In 1495 we witness the entire abolition of the right of diffidation [private warfare, see LANDFRIEDE],--a right which from time immemorial had been the curse of the empire. ... The passing of the decree which for ever secured the public peace, by placing under the ban of the empire, and fining at 2,000 marks in gold, every city, every individual that should hereafter send or accept a defiance, was nearly unanimous. In regard to the long-proposed tribunal [to take cognizance of all violations of the public tranquillity], which was to retain the name of the Imperial chamber, Maximilian relaxed much from the pretensions of his father. ... It was solemnly decreed that the new court should consist of one grand judge, and of 16 assessors, who were presented by the states, and nominated by the emperor. ... Though a new tribunal was formed, its competency, its operation, its support, its constitution, the enforcement of its decisions, were left to chance; and many successive diets--even many generations--were passed before anything like an organised system could be introduced into it. For the execution of its decrees the Swabian league was soon employed; then another new authority, the Council of Regency. ... But these authorities were insufficient to enforce the execution of the decrees emanating from the chamber; and it was found necessary to restore the proposition of the circles, which had been agitated in the reign of Albert II. ...

Originally they comprised only-- 1. Bavaria, 2. Franconia, 3. Saxony, 4. the Rhine, 5. Swabia, and 6. Westphalia; thus excluding the states of Austria and the electorates. But this exclusion was the voluntary act of the electors, who were jealous of a tribunal which might encroach on their own privileges. In 1512, however, the opposition of most appears to have been removed; for four new circles were added. 7. The circle of Austria comprised the hereditary dominions of that house. 8. That of Burgundy contained the states inherited from Charles the Rash in Franche-Comté; and the Netherlands. 9. That of the Lower Rhine comprehended the three ecclesiastical electorates and the Palatinate. 10. That of Upper Saxony extended over the electorate of that name and the march of Brandenburg. ...

Bohemia and Prussia ... refused to be thus partitioned. Each of these circles had its internal organisations, the elements of which were promulgated in 1512, but which was considerably improved by succeeding diets. Each had its hereditary president, or director, and its hereditary prince convoked, both offices being frequently vested in the same individual. ... Each circle had its military chief, elected by the local states, whose duty it was to execute the decrees of the imperial Chamber. Generally this office was held by the prince director. ... The establishment of the Imperial Chamber was ... disagreeable to the emperor. To rescue from its jurisdiction such causes as he considered lay more peculiarly within the range of his prerogative, and to encroach by degrees on the jurisdiction of this odious tribunal, Maximilian, in 1501, laid the foundation of the celebrated Aulic Council. But the competency of this tribunal was soon extended; from political affairs, investitures, charters, and the numerous matters which concerned the Imperial chancery, it immediately passed to judicial crimes. ... By an imperial edict of 1518, the Aulic Council was to consist of 18 members, all nominated by the emperor. Five only were to be chosen from the states of the empire, the rest from those of Austria. About half were legists, the other half nobles, but all dependent on their chief. ... When he [Maximilian] laboured to make this council as arbitrary in the empire as in Austria, he met with great opposition. ... But his purpose was that of encroachment no less than of defence; and his example was so well imitated by his successors, that in most cases the Aulic Council was at length acknowledged to have a concurrent jurisdiction with the Imperial Chamber, in many the right of prevention over its rival."

S. A. Dunham, History of the Germanic Empire, book 3, chapter 1 (volume 2).

{1456}

"The received opinion which recognises in [Maximilian] the creative founder of the later constitution of the empire, must be abandoned. ... He had not the power of keeping the princes of the empire together; ... on the contrary, everything about him split into parties. It followed of necessity that abroad he rather lost than gained ground. ... The glory which surrounds the memory of Maximilian, the high renown which he enjoyed even among his contemporaries, were therefore not won by the success of his enterprises, but by his personal qualities. Every good gift of nature had been lavished upon him in profusion. ... He was a man ... formed to excite admiration, and to inspire enthusiastic attachment; formed to be the romantic hero, the exhaustless theme of the people."

L. von Ranke, History of the Reformation in Germany, volume 1, pages 379-381.

ALSO IN: L. von Ranke, History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations from 1494 to 1514, book 1, chapter 3, and book 2, chapters 2 and 4.

See, also, AUSTRIA: A. D. 1477-1495.

GERMANY: A. D.1496-1499. The Swabian war. Practical separation of the Swiss Confederacy from the Empire.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1396-1499.

GERMANY: A. D. .1508-1509. The League of Cambrai against Venice.

See VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509.

GERMANY: A. D. 1513-1515. The emperor in the pay of England. Peace with France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1513-1515.

GERMANY: A. D. 1516. Abortive invasion of Milaness by Maximilian.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1516-1517.

GERMANY: A. D. 1517-1523. Beginning of the movement of Religious Reformation. Papal Indulgences, and Luther's attack on them.

"The Reformation, like all other great social convulsions, was long in preparation. It was one part of that general progress, complex in its character, which marked the fifteenth century and the opening of the sixteenth as the period of transition from the Middle Ages to modern civilization. ... But while the Reformation was one part of a change extending over the whole sphere of human knowledge and activity, it had its own specific origin and significance. These are still, to some extent, a subject of controversy. ... One of its causes, as well as one of the sources of its great power, was the increasing discontent with the prevailing corruption and misgovernment in the Church, and with papal interference in civil affairs. ... The misconduct of the popes in the last half of the fifteenth century was not more flagrant than that of their predecessors in the tenth century. But the fifteenth century was an age of light. What was done by the pontiffs was not done in a corner, but under the eyes of all Europe. Besides, there was now a deep-seated craving, especially in the Teutonic peoples, who had so long been under the tutelage of a legal, judaizing form of Christianity, for a more spiritual type of religion. ... The Reformation may be viewed in two aspects. On the one hand it is a religious revolution affecting the beliefs, the rites, the ecclesiastical organization of the Church, and the form of Christian life. On the other hand, it is a great movement in which sovereigns and nations are involved; the occasion of wars and treaties; the close of an old, and the introduction of a new, period in the history of culture and civilization. Germany, including the Netherlands and Switzerland, was the stronghold of the Reformation. It was natural that such a movement should spring up and rise to its highest power among a people in whom a love of independence was mingled with a yearning for a more spiritual form of religion than was encouraged by mediæval ecclesiasticism. Hegel has dwelt with eloquence upon the fact that while the rest of the world was gone out to America or to the Indies, in quest of riches and a dominion that should encircle the globe, a simple monk, turning away from empty forms and the things of sense, was finding him whom the disciples once sought in a sepulchre of stone. Unquestionably the hero of the Reformation was Martin Luther. ... As an English writer has pointed out, Luther's whole nature was identified with his great work, and while other leaders, like Melancthon and even Calvin, can be separated in thought from the Reformation, Luther, apart from the Reformation, would cease to be Luther.' ... In 1517 John Tetzel, a hawker of indulgences, the proceeds of which were to help pay for the building of St. Peter's Church, appeared in the neighborhood of Wittenberg. To persuade the people to buy his spiritual wares, he told them, as Luther himself testifies, that as soon as their money clinked in the bottom of the chest the souls of their deceased friends forthwith went up to heaven. Luther was so struck with the enormity of this traffic that he determined to stop it. He preached against it, and on October 31, 1517, he posted on the door of the Church of All Saints, at Wittenberg, his ninety-five theses. [For the full text of these, see PAPACY: A. D. 1517], relating to the doctrine and practice of selling indulgences. Indulgences ... were at first commutations of penance by the payment of money. The right to issue them had gradually become the exclusive prerogative of the popes. The eternal punishment of mortal sin being remitted or commuted by the absolution of the priest, it was open to the pope or his agents, by a grant of indulgences, to remove the temporal or terminable penalties, which might extend into purgatory. For the benefit of the needy he could draw upon the treasury of merit stored up by Christ and the saints. Although it was expressly declared by Pope Sixtus IV., that souls are delivered from purgatorial fires in a way analogous to the efficacy of prayer, and although contrition was theoretically required of the recipient of an indulgence, it often appeared to the people as a simple bargain, according to which, on payment of a stipulated sum, the individual obtained a full discharge from the penalties of sin, or procured the release of a soul from the flames. Luther's theses assailed the doctrines which made this baneful traffic possible. ... Unconsciously to their author, they struck a blow at the authority of Rome and of the priesthood. Luther had no thought of throwing off his allegiance to the Roman Church. Even his theses were only propositions, propounded for academic debate, according to the custom in mediæval universities. He concluded them with the solemn declaration that he affirmed nothing, but left all to the judgment of the Church. ... {1457} The theses stirred up a commotion all over Germany. ... A controversy arose between the new champion of reform and the defenders of indulgences. It was during this dispute that Luther began to realize that human authority was against him and to see the necessity of planting himself more distinctly on the Scriptures. His clear arguments and resolute attitude won the respect of the Elector of Saxony, who, though he often sought to restrain his vehemence, nevertheless protected him from his enemies. This the elector was able to do because of his political importance, which became still greater when, after the death of Maximilian, he was made regent of Northern Germany."

G. P. Fisher, History of the Christian Church, pages 287-293.

"At first neither Luther, nor others, saw to what the contest about the indulgences would lead. The Humanists believed it to be only a scholastic disputation, and Hutten laughed to see theologians engaged in a fight with each other. It was not till the Leipzig disputation (1519), where Luther stood forward to defend his views against Eck, that the matter assumed a grave aspect, took another turn, and after the appearance of Luther's appeals 'To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation,' 'On the Babylonian Captivity,' and against Church abuses, that it assumed national importance. All the combustible materials were ready, the spark was thrown among them, and the flames broke out from every quarter. Hundreds of thousands of German hearts glowed responsive to the complaints which the Wittenberg monk flung against Papal Rome, in a language whose sonorous splendour and iron strength were now first heard in all the fulness, force, and beauty of the German idiom. That was an imperishable service rendered to his country by Luther. He wrote in German, and he wrote such German. The papal ban hurled back against him in 1520 was disregarded. He burnt it outside the gate of Wittenberg by the leper hospital, in the place where the rags and plague-stained garments of the lepers were wont to be consumed. The nobility, the burghers, the peasants, all thrilled at his call. Now the moment had come for a great emperor, a second Charlemagne, to stand forward and regenerate at once religion and the empire. There was, however, at the head of the state, only Charles V., the grandson of Maximilian, a man weak where he ought to have been strong, and strong where he ought to have been weak, a Spanish Burgundian prince, of Romance stock, who despised and disliked the German tongue, the tongue of the people whose imperial crown he bore, a prince whose policy was to combat France and humble it. It was convenient for him, at the time, to have the pope on his side, so he looked with dissatisfied eyes on the agitation in Germany. The noblest hearts among the princes bounded with hope that he would take the lead in the new movement. The lesser nobility, the cities, the peasantry, all expected of the emperor a reformation of the empire politically and religiously. ... But all hopes were dashed. Charles V. as little saw his occasion as had Maximilian. He took up a hostile position to the new movement at once. He was, however, brought by the influential friends of Luther, among whom first of all was the Elector of Saxony, to hear what the reformer had to say for himself, before he placed him under the ban of the empire. Luther received the imperial safe-conduct, and was summoned to the Diet of Worms, there to defend himself. He went, notwithstanding that he was warned and reminded of the fate of Huss. 'I will go to Worms,' said he, 'even were as many devils set against me as there are tiles on the roofs.' It was probably on this journey that the thoughts entered his mind which afterwards (1530) found their expression in that famous chorale, 'Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott,' which became the battle-song of Protestants. Those were memorable days, the 17th and 18th of April, 1521, in which a poor monk stood up before the emperor and all the estates of the empire, undazzled by their threatening splendour, and conducted his own case. At that moment when he closed his defence with the stirring words, 'Let me be contradicted out of Holy Scripture--till that is done I will not recant. Here stand I. I can do no other, so help me God, amen!' then he had reached the pinnacle of his greatness. The result is well known. The emperor and his papal adviser remained unmoved, and the ban was pronounced against the heretic. Luther was carried off by his protector, the Elector of Saxony, and concealed in the Wartburg, where he worked at his translation of the Bible. ... Brandenburg, Hesse, and Saxony declared in favour of reform. In 1523 Magdeburg, Wismar, Rostock, Stettin, Danzig, Riga, expelled the monks and priests, and appointed Lutheran preachers. Nürnberg and Breslau hailed the Reformation with delight."

S. Baring-Gould, The Church in Germany, chapter 18.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1516-1517, to 1522-1525.

ALSO IN: _L. von Ranke, History of the Reformation in Germany._

_L. Hausser, The Period of the Reformation._

_J. H. Merle d'Aubigne, History of the Reformation._

_M. J. Spaulding, History of the Protestant Reformation._

_F. Seebohm, The Era of the Protestant Revolution._

_P. Bayne, Martin Luther._

_C. Beard, Martin Luther and the Reformation._

_J. Köstlin, Life of Luther._

GERMANY: A. D. 1519, Contest for the imperial crown, Three royal candidates in the field. Election of Charles V., the Austro-Spanish monarch of many thrones.

In his last years, Maximilian made great efforts to secure the Imperial Crown for his grandson Charles, who had already inherited, through his mother Joanna, of Spain, the kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and the Two Sicilies, and through his father, Philip of Austria, the duchy of Burgundy and the many lordships of the Netherlands. "In 1518 he obtained the consent of the majority of the electors to the Roman crown being bestowed on that prince. The electors of Treves and Saxony alone opposed the project, on the ground that, as Maximilian had never received the Imperial crown [but was styled Emperor Elect] he was himself still King of the Romans, and that consequently Charles could not assume a dignity that was not vacant. To obviate this objection, Maximilian pressed Leo to send the golden crown to Vienna; but this plan was defeated by the intrigues of the French court. Francis, who intended to become a candidate for the Imperial crown, intreated the Pope not to commit himself by such an act; and while these negociations were pending, Maximilian died at Wels, in Upper Austria, January 12th 1519. ... Three candidates for the Imperial crown appeared in the field: the Kings of Spain, France, and England. {1458} Francis I. [of France] was now at the height of his reputation. His enterprises had hitherto been crowned with success, the popular test of ability, and the world accordingly gave him credit for a political wisdom which he was far from possessing. He appears to have gained three or four of the Electors by the lavish distribution of his money, which his agent, Bonnivet, was obliged to carry through Germany on the backs of horses; for the Fuggers, the rich bankers of Augsburg, were in the interest of Charles, and refused to give the French any accommodation. But the bought votes of these venal Electors could not be depended on, some of whom sold themselves more than once to different parties. The infamy of Albert, Elector of Mentz, in these transactions, was particularly notorious. The chances of Henry VIII. [of England] were throughout but slender. Henry's hopes, like those of Francis, were chiefly founded on the corruptibility of the Electors, and on the expectation that both his rivals, from the very magnitude of their power, might be deemed ineligible. Of the three candidates the claims of Charles seemed the best founded and the most deserving of success. The House of Austria had already furnished six emperors, of whom the last three had reigned eighty years, as if by an hereditary succession. Charles's Austrian possessions made him a German prince, and from their situation constituted him the natural protector of Germany against the Turks. The previous canvass of Maximilian had been of some service to his cause, and all these advantages he seconded, like his competitors, by the free use of bribery. ... Leo X., the weight of whose authority was sought both by Charles and Francis, though he seemed to favour each, desired the success of neither. He secretly advised the Electors to choose an emperor from among their own body; and as this seemed an easy solution of the difficulty, they unanimously offered the crown to Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony. But Frederick magnanimously refused it, and succeeded in uniting the suffrages of the Electors in favour of Charles; principally on the ground that he was the sovereign best qualified to meet the great danger impending from the Turk. ... The new Emperor, now in his 20th year, assumed the title of Charles V. ... He was proclaimed as 'Emperor Elect,' the title borne by his grandfather, which he subsequently altered to that of 'Emperor Elect of the Romans,' a designation adopted by his successors, with the omission of the word 'elect,' down to the dissolution of the empire."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 2, chapter 2 (volume l).

On his election to the Imperial throne, Charles ceded to his younger brother, Ferdinand, all the German possessions of the family. The latter, therefore, became Archduke of Austria, and the German branch of the House of Austria was continued through him; while Charles himself became the founder of a new branch of the House--the Spanish.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1496-1526.

ALSO IN: W. Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles V., book 1.

J. S. Brewer, The Reign of Henry VIII., chapter 11 (volume 1).

J. Van Praet, Essays on the Political History of the 15th-17th Centuries, chapter 2, (volume 1).

GERMANY: A. D. 1520-1521. The Capitulation of Charles V. His first Diet, at Worms, and its political measures.

The election of Charles V. "was accompanied with a new and essential alteration in the constitution of the empire. Hitherto a general and verbal promise to confirm the Germanic privileges had been deemed a sufficient security; but as the enormous power and vast possessions of the new emperor rendered him the object of greater jealousy and alarm than his predecessors, the electors digested into a formal deed or capitulation all their laws, customs, and privileges, which the ambassadors of Charles signed before his election, and which he himself ratified before his coronation; and this example has been followed by his successors. It consisted of 36 articles, partly relating to the Germanic body in general, and partly to the electors and states in particular. Of those relating to the Germanic body in general, the most prominent were, not to confer the escheated fiefs, but to re-unite and consolidate them, for the benefit of the emperor and empire; not to intrust the charges of the empire to any but Germans; not to grant dispensations of the common law; to use the German language in the proceedings of the chancery; and to put no one arbitrarily to the ban, who had not been previously condemned by the diet or imperial chamber. He was to maintain the Germanic body in the exercise of its legislative powers, in its right of declaring war and making peace, of passing laws on commerce and coinage, of regulating the contingents, imposing and directing the perception of ordinary contributions, of establishing and superintending the superior tribunals, and of judging the personal causes of the states. Finally, he promised not to cite the members of the Germanic body before any tribunal except those of the empire, and to maintain them in their legitimate privileges of territorial sovereignty. The articles which regarded the electors were of the utmost importance, because they confirmed the rights which had been long contested with the emperors. ... Besides these concessions, be promised not to make any attempt to render the imperial crown hereditary in his family, and to re-establish the council of regency, in conformity with the advice of the electors and great princes of the empire. On the 6th of January, 1521, Charles assembled his first diet at Worms, where he presided in person. At his proposition the states passed regulations to terminate the troubles which had already arisen during the short interval of the interregnum, and to prevent the revival of similar disorders. ... The imperial chamber was re-established in all its authority, and the public peace again promulgated, and enforced by new penalties. In order to direct the affairs of the empire during the absence of Charles, a council of regency was established. ... It was to consist of a lieutenant-general, appointed by the emperor, and 22 assessors, of' whom 18 were nominated by the states, and four by Charles, as possessor of the circles of Burgundy and Austria. ... At the same time an aid of 20,000 foot and 4,000 horse was granted, to accompany the emperor in his expedition to Rome; but the diet endeavoured to prevent him from interfering, as Maximilian had done, in the affairs of Italy, by stipulating that these troops were only to be employed as an escort, and not for the purpose of aggression."

W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 26 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: L. von Ranke, History of the Reformation in Germany, book 2, chapter 4 (volume 1).

{1459}

GERMANY: A. D. 1522-1525. Systematic organization and adoption in northern Germany of the Lutheran Reformation. The Diets at Nuremberg. The Catholic League of Ratisbon.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1522-1525.

GERMANY: A. D. 1524-1525. The Peasants' War.

"A political ferment, very different from that produced by the Gospel, had long been troubling the empire. The people, weighed down under civil and ecclesiastical oppression, attached in many places to the lands belonging to the lords, and sold with them, threatened to rise, and furiously burst their chains. In Holland, at the end of the preceding century, the peasants had mustered around standards inscribed with the words 'bread' and 'cheese,' to them the two necessaries of life. In 1503 the 'Cobblers' League' ['Bundschuh'--see GERMANY: A. D. 1492-1514] had burst forth in the neighbourhood of Spires. In 1513 this was renewed in Brisgau, and encouraged by the priests. In 1514 Wurtemburg had witnessed 'the League of poor Conrad,' the object of which was to uphold 'the justice of God' by revolt. In 1515 terrible commotions had taken place in Carinthia and Hungary. These insurrections were stifled by torrents of blood, but no relief had been given to the peoples. A political reform was as much wanted as a religious one. The people had a right to it, but they were not ripe to enjoy it. Since the commencement of the Reformation these popular agitations had been suspended, the minds of men being absorbed with other thoughts. ... But everything showed that peace would not last long. ... The main dykes which had hitherto kept the torrent back were broken, and nothing could restrain its fury. Perhaps it must be admitted that the movement communicated to the people by the Reform gave new force to the discontent which was fermenting in the nation. ... Erasmus did not hesitate to say to Luther: 'We are now reaping the fruits of the seed you have sown.' ... The evil was augmented by the pretensions of certain fanatical men, who laid claim to celestial inspirations. ... The most distinguished of these enthusiasts was Thomas Münzer. ... His first appearance was at Zwickau. He left Wittenberg after Luther's return [from his concealment at Wartburg, 1522], dissatisfied with the inferior part he had played, and he became pastor of the little town of Alstadt in Thuringia. There he could not long be at rest, and he accused the reformers of founding a new papacy by their attachment to the letter, and of forming churches which were not pure and holy. He regarded himself as called of God to bear a remedy for so great an evil. ... He maintained that to obey princes, 'destitute of reason,' was to serve God and Belial at the same time. Then, marching at the head of his parishioners, to a chapel which was visited by pilgrims from all quarters, he pulled it to the ground. After this exploit he was obliged to quit the country, wandered over Germany, and came to Switzerland, spreading as he went, wherever people would hear him, his plan for a universal revolution. In every place he found elements ready for his purpose. He threw his powder upon the burning coals, and a violent explosion soon followed. ... The revolt commenced in those regions of the Black Forest, and the sources of the Danube, which were so often the scene of popular disturbances. On the 19th of July, 1524, the Thurgovian peasantry rose against the Abbot of Reichenau, who would not grant them an evangelical preacher. Thousands soon gathered around the little town of Tengen, to liberate an ecclesiastic who was imprisoned there. The revolt spread, with inconceivable rapidity, from Suabia to the Rhine countries, to Franconia, to Thuringia, and to Saxony. In January, 1525, the whole of these countries were in insurrection. Towards the end of that month the peasants published a declaration in twelve articles, asking the liberty to choose their own pastors, the abolition of petty tithes, serfdom, the duties on inheritance, and liberty to hunt, fish, cut wood, &c., and each demand was supported by a passage of Scripture."

J. H. Merle D'Aubigné, The Story of the Reformation, part 3, chapter 8, (History of the Reformation, book 10, chapters 10-11).

"Had the feudal lords granted proper and fair reforms long ago, they would never have heard of these twelve articles. But they had refused reform, and they now had to meet revolution. And they knew of but one way of meeting it, namely, by the sword. The lords of the Swabian League sent their army of foot and horsemen, under their captain, George Truchsess. The poor peasants could not hold out against trained soldiers and cavalry. Two battles on the Danube, in which thousands of peasants were slain, or drowned in the river, and a third equally bloody one in Algau, near the Boden See, crushed this rebellion in Swabia, as former rebellions had so often been crushed before. This was early in April 1525. But in the meantime the revolution had spread further north. In the valley of the Neckar a body of 6,000 peasants had come together, enraged by the news of the slaughter of their fellow peasants in the south of Swabia." They stormed the castle of the young Count von Helfenstein, who had recently cut the throats of some peasants who met him on the road, and put the Count to death, with 60 of his companions. "A yell of horror was raised through Germany at the news of the peasants' revenge. No yell had risen when the Count cut peasants' throats, or the Swabian lords slew thousands of peasant rebels. Europe had not yet learned to mete out the same measure of justice to noble and common blood. ... The revolution spread, and the reign of terror spread with it. North and east of the valley of the Neckar, among the little towns of Franconia, and in the valleys of the Maine, other bands of peasants, mustering by thousands, destroyed alike cloisters and castles. Two hundred of these lighted the night with their flames during the few weeks of their temporary triumph. And here another feature of the revolution became prominent. The little towns were already ... passing through an internal revolution. The artisans were rising against the wealthier burghers, overturning the town councils, and electing committees of artisans in their place, making sudden changes in religion, putting down the Mass, unfrocking priests and monks, and in fact, in the interests of what they thought to be the gospel, turning all things upside down. ... It was during the Franconian rebellion that the peasants chose the robber knight Goetz von Berlichingen as their leader. It did them no good. More than a robber chief was needed to cope with soldiers used to war. ... While all this was going on in the valleys of the Maine, the revolution had crossed the Rhine into Elsass and Lothringen, and the Palatinate about Spires and Worms, and in the month of May had been crushed in blood, as in Swabia and Franconia. {1460} South and east, in Bavaria, in the Tyrol, and in Carinthia also, castles and monasteries went up in flames, and then, when the tide of victory turned, the burning houses and farms of the peasants lit up the night and their blood flowed freely. Meanwhile Münzer, who had done so much to stir up the peasantry in the south to rebel, had gone north into Thuringia, and headed a revolution in the town of Mülhausen, and became a sort of Savonarola of a madder kind. ... But the end was coming. The princes, with their disciplined troops, came nearer and nearer. What could Münzer do with his 8,000 peasants? He pointed to a rainbow and expected a miracle, but no miracle came. The battle, of course, was lost; 5,000 peasants lay dead upon the field near the little town of Frankenhausen, where it was fought. Münzer fled and concealed himself in a bed, but was found and taken before the princes, thrust into a dungeon, and afterwards beheaded. So ended the wild career of this misguided, fanatical, self-deceived, but yet, as we must think, earnest and in many ways heroic spirit. ... The princes and nobles now everywhere prevailed over the insurgent peasants. Luther, writing on June 21, 1525, says:--'It is a certain fact, that in Franconia 11,000 peasants have been slain. Markgraf Casimir is cruelly severe upon his peasants, who have twice broken faith with him. In the Duchy of Wurtemberg, 6,000 have been killed; in different places in Swabia, 10,000. It is said that in Alsace the Duke of Lorraine has slain 20,000. Thus everywhere the wretched peasants are cut down.' ... Before the Peasants' War was ended at least 100,000 perished, or twenty times as many as were put to death in Paris during the Reign of Terror in 1793. ... Luther, throughout the Peasants' War, sided with the ruling powers. ... The reform he sought was by means of the civil power; and in order to clear himself and his cause from all participation in the wild doings of the peasantry, he publicly exhorted the princes to crush their rebellion."

F. Seebohm, The Era of the Protestant Revolution, part 2, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: L. von Ranke, History of the Reformation in Germany, book 3, chapter 6 (volume 2).

P. Bayne, Martin Luther: His Life and Work, book 11 (volume 2).

J. Köstlin, Life of Luther, part 4, chapter 5.

_C. W. C. Oman, The German Peasant War of 1525 (English History Review, volume 5)._

GERMANY: A. D. 1525-1529. League of Torgau. The Diets at Spires. Legal recognition of the Reformed Religion, and the withdrawal of it. The Protest which gave rise to the name "Protestants."

See PAPACY: A. D.1525-1529.

GERMANY: A. D. 1529. Turkish invasion of Austria. Siege of Vienna.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1526-1567.

GERMANY: A. D. 1530. The Diet at Augsburg. The signing and reading of the Protestant Confession of Faith. The condemnatory decree. Breach between the Protestants and the emperor.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1530-1531.

GERMANY: A. D. 1530-1532. The Augsburg Decree. Alarm of the Protestants. Their League of Smalkalde and alliance with the king of France. Pacification of Nuremberg with the emperor. Expulsion of the Turks from Hungary.

The decree issued by the Diet at Augsburg was condemnatory of most of the tenets peculiar to the protestants, "forbidding any person to protect or tolerate such as taught them, enjoining a strict observance of the established rites, and prohibiting any farther innovation, under severe penalties. All orders of men were required to assist with their persons and fortunes in carrying this decree into execution; and such as refused to obey it were declared incapable of acting as judges, or of appearing as parties in the imperial chamber, the supreme court of judicature in the empire. To all which was subjoined a promise, that an application should be made to the pope, requiring him to call a general council within six months, in order to terminate all controversies by its sovereign decisions. The severity of this decree, which was considered as a prelude to the most violent persecution, alarmed the protestants, and convinced them that the emperor was resolved on their destruction." Under these circumstances, the protestant princes met at Smalkalde, December 22, 1530, and there "concluded a league of mutual defence against all aggressors, by which they formed the protestant states of the empire into one regular body, and, beginning already to consider themselves as such, they resolved to apply to the kings of France and England, and to implore them to patronise and assist their new confederacy. An affair not connected with religion furnished them with a pretence for courting the aid of foreign princes.'" This was the election of the emperor's brother, Ferdinand, to be King of the Romans, against, which they had protested vigorously. "When the protestants, who were' assembled a second time at Smalkalde [February, 1531], received an account of this transaction, and heard, at the same time, that prosecutions were commenced in the imperial chamber against some of their number, on account of their religious principles, they thought it necessary, not only to renew their former confederacy, but immediately to despatch their ambassadors into France and England." The king of France "listened with the utmost eagerness to the complaints of the protestant princes; and, without seeming to countenance their religious opinions, determined secretly to cherish those sparks of political discord which might be afterwards kindled into a flame. For this purpose he sent William de Bellay, one of the ablest negotiators in France, into Germany, who, visiting the courts of the malecontent princes, and heightening their ill-humour by various arts, concluded an alliance between them, and his master, which, though concealed at that time, and productive of no immediate effects, laid the foundation of a union fatal on many occasions to Charles's ambitious projects. ... The king of England [Henry VIII.], highly incensed against Charles, in complaisance to whom, the pope had long retarded, and now openly opposed, his divorce [from Catharine of Aragon], was no less disposed than Francis to strengthen a league which might be rendered so formidable to the emperor. But his favourite project of the divorce led him into such a labyrinth of schemes and negotiations, and he was, at the same time, so intent on abolishing the papal jurisdiction in England, that he had no leisure for foreign affairs. This obliged him to rest satisfied with giving general promises, together with a small supply in money, to the confederates of Smalkalde. Meanwhile, many circumstances convinced Charles that this was not a juncture" in which he could afford to let his zeal for the church push him to extremities with the protestants. {1461} "Negotiations were, accordingly, carried on by his direction with the elector of Saxony and his associates; after many delays ... terms of pacification were agreed upon at Nuremberg [July 23], and ratified solemnly in the diet at Ratisbon [August 3]. In this treaty it was stipulated: that universal peace be established in Germany, until the meeting of a general council, the convocation of which within six months the emperor shall endeavour to procure; that no person shall be molested on account of religion; that a stop shall be put to all processes begun by the imperial chamber against protestants, and the sentences already passed to their detriment shall be declared void. On their part, the protestants engaged to assist the emperor with all their forces in resisting the invasion of the Turks. ... The protestants of Germany, who had hitherto been viewed only as a religious sect, came henceforth to be considered as a political body of no small consequence. The intelligence which Charles received of Solyman's having entered Hungary, at the head of 300,000 men, brought the deliberations of the diet at Ratisbon to a period. ... The protestants, as a testimony of their gratitude to the emperor, exerted themselves with extraordinary zeal, and brought into the field forces which exceeded in number the quota imposed on them; and the catholics imitating their example, one of the greatest and best-appointed armies that had ever been levied in Germany assembled near Vienna. ... It amounted in all to 90,000 disciplined foot, and 30,000 horse, besides a prodigious swarm of irregulars. Of this vast army ... the emperor took the command in person; and mankind waited in suspense the issue of a decisive battle between the two greatest monarchs in the world. But each of them dreading the other's power and good fortune, they both conducted their operations with such excessive caution, that a campaign for which such immense preparations had been made ended without any memorable event. Solyman, finding it impossible to gain ground upon an enemy always attentive and on his guard, marched back to Constantinople towards the end of autumn. ... About the beginning of this campaign, the elector of Saxony died, and was succeeded by his son John Frederick. ... Immediately after the retreat of the Turks, Charles, impatient to revisit Spain, set out, on his way thither, for Italy."

W. Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles V., book 5.

ALSO IN: L. von Ranke, History of the Reformation in Germany, book 6, chapters 1-8 (volume 3).

H. Stebbing, History of the Reformation, chapters 12-13 (volume 2).

GERMANY: A. D. 1532-1536. Fanaticism of the Anabaptists of Münster. Siege and capture of the city.

See ANABAPTISTS OF MÜNSTER.

GERMANY: A. D. 1533-1546. Mercenary aspects of the Reformation. Protestant intolerance. Union with the Swiss Reformers. The Catholic Holy League. Preparations for war.

"During the next few years [after the peace concluded at Nuremberg] there was no open hostility between the two religious parties. ... But there was dissension enough. In the first place there was much disputation as to the meaning of the articles concluded at Nuremberg. The catholic princes, under the pretext that, if no man was to be disturbed for his faith, or for things depending on faith, he was still amenable for certain offences against the church, which were purely of a civil nature, were eager that the imperial chamber should take cognisance of future cases, at least, where protestants should seek to invade the temporalities of the church. ... But nothing was effected; the tribunal was too powerless to enforce its decrees. In 1534, the protestants, in a public assembly, renounced all obedience to the chamber; yet they did not cease to appropriate to themselves the property of such monasteries and churches as, by the conversion of catholics to their faith--and that faith was continually progressive--lay within their jurisdiction. We need scarcely observe, that the prospect of spoliation was often the most powerful inducement with the princes and nobles to change their religion. When they, or the magistracy of any particular city, renounced the faith hitherto established, the people were expected to follow the example: the moment Lutheranism was established in its place, the ancient faith was abolished; nobody was allowed to profess it; and, with one common accord, all who had any prospect of benefiting by the change threw themselves on the domains of the expelled clergy. That the latter should complain before the only tribunal where justice could be expected, was natural; nor can we be surprised that the plunderers should soon deny, in religious affairs, the jurisdiction of that tribunal. From the departure of the emperor to the year 1538, some hundreds of domains were thus seized, and some hundreds of complaints addressed to him by parties who resolved to interpret the articles of Nuremberg in their own way. The protestants declared, in a letter to him, that their consciences would not allow them to tolerate any papist in their states. ... By espousing the cause of the exiled duke of Wittemberg, they procured a powerful ally. ... But a greater advantage was the union of the sacramentarians [the Swiss reformers, who accepted the doctrine of Zwingli respecting the purely symbolical significance of the commemoration of the Lord's Supper--see SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1528-1531] with the Lutherans. Of such a result, at the diet of Augsburg, there was not the least hope; but Bucer, being deputed by the imperial cities to ascertain whether a union might not be effected, laboured so zealously at the task that it was effected. He consented to modify some of his former opinions; or at least to wrap them in language so equivocal that they might mean anything or nothing at the pleasure of the holder. The Swiss, indeed, especially those of Zurich, refused to sanction the articles on which Luther and Bucer had agreed. Still, by the union of all protestant Germany under the same banners, much was gained. ... In the meantime, the dissensions between the two great parties augmented from day to day. To pacify them, Charles sent fruitless embassies. Roused by the apparent danger, in 1538, the catholic princes formed, at Nuremberg, a counter league to that of Smalcald [calling it the Holy League]. ... The death of Luther's old enemy, George, duke of Saxony [1539], transferred the dominion of that prince's states into the hands of [his brother Henry] a Lutheran. Henry, duke of Brunswick, was now the only great secular prince in the north of Germany who adhered to the Roman catholic faith. ... A truce was concluded at Frankfort, in 1539; but it could not remove the existing animosity, which was daily augmented. Both parties were in the wrong. ... {1462} At the close of 1540, Worms was the scene of a conference very different from that where, 20 years before, Luther had been proscribed. There was an interminable theological disputation. ... As little good resulted, Charles, who was hastening from the Low Countries to his German dominions, evoked the affair before a diet at Ratisbon, in April, 1541. ... The diet of Ratisbon was well attended; and never did prince exert himself more zealously than Charles to make peace between his angry subjects. But ... all that could be obtained was, that things should be suffered to remain in their present state until a future diet or a general council. The reduction of Buda, however, by the Turks, rendered king Ferdinand, his brother, and the whole of Germany, eager for an immediate settlement of the dispute. ... Hence the diet of Spires in 1542. If, in regard to religion, nothing definitive was arranged, except the selection of Trent as the place most suitable for a general council, one good end was secured--supplies for the war with the Turks. The campaign, however, which passed without an action, was inglorious to the Germans, who appear to have been in a lamentable state of discipline. Nor was the public satisfaction much increased by the disputes of the Smalcald league with Henry of Brunswick. The duke was angry with his subjects of Brunswick and Breslau, who adhered to the protestant league; and though he had reason enough to be dissatisfied with both, nothing could be more vexatious than his conduct towards them. In revenge, the league of Smalcald sent 19,000 men into the field,--a formidable display of protestant power!--and Henry was expelled from his hereditary states, which were seized by the victors. He invoked the aid of the imperial chamber, which cited the chiefs of the league; but as, in 1538, the competency of that tribunal had been denied in religious, so now it was denied in civil matters. ... The following years exhibit on both sides the same jealousy, the same duplicity, often the same violence where the mask was no longer required, with as many ineffectual attempts to procure a union between them. ... The progress of events continued to favour the reformers. They had already two votes in the electoral college,--those of Saxony and Brandenburg; they were now to have the preponderance; for the elector palatine and Herman archbishop of Cologne abjured their religion, thus placing at the command of the reformed party four votes against three. But this numerical superiority did not long remain. ... The pope excommunicated the archbishop, deposed him from his dignity, and ordered the chapter to proceed to a new election; and when Herman refused to obey, Charles sent troops to expel him, and to install the archbishop elect, Count Adolf of Nassau. Herman retired to his patrimonial estates, where he died in the profession of the reformed religion. These events mortified the members of the Smalcald league; but they were soon partially consoled by the capture of Henry duke of Brunswick [1546], who had the temerity to collect troops and invade his patrimonial dominions. Their success gave umbrage to the emperor. ... He knew that the confederates had already 20,000 men under arms, and that they were actively, however secretly, augmenting their forces. His first care was to cause troops to be as secretly collected in his hereditary states; his second, to seduce, if possible, some leaders of the protestants. With Maurice duke of Saxony he was soon successful; and eventually with the two margraves of Brandenburg, who agreed to make preparations for a campaign and join him at the proper moment. ... His convocation of the diet at Ratisbon [1546], which after a vain parade ended in nothing, was only to hide his real designs. As he began to throw off the mask, the reformed theologians precipitately withdrew; and both parties took the field, but not until they had each published a manifesto to justify this extreme proceeding. In each there was much truth, and more falsehood."

S. A. Dunham, History of the Germanic Empire, book 3, chapter 2 (volume 3).

GERMANY: A. D. 1542-1544. War with Francis I. of France. Battle of Cerisoles. Treaty of Crespy.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547.

GERMANY: A. D. 1542-1563. The beginning of the Roman Catholic reaction. The Council of Trent.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1537-1563.

GERMANY: A. D. 1546-1552. War of Charles against the Protestants. The treachery of Maurice of Saxony. The battle of Muhlberg. The emperor's proposed "Interim" and its failure. His reverse of fortune. Protestantism triumphant. The Treaty of Passau.

"Luther's death [which occurred in 1546] made no change in the resolution which Charles had at last taken to crush the Reformation in his German dominions by force of arms; on the contrary, he was more than ever stimulated to carry out his purpose by two occurrences: the adoption of the new religion by one who was not only an Elector of the Empire, but one of the chief prelates of the Church, the Prince-Archbishop of Cologne. ... The other event that influenced him was the refusal of the Protestants to accept as binding the decrees of the Council of Trent, which was composed of scarcely any members but a few Italian and Spanish prelates, and from which they appealed to either a free general Council or a national Council of the Empire; offering, at the same time, if Charles should prefer it, to submit the whole question of religion to a joint Commission, composed of divines of each party. These remonstrances, however, the Emperor treated with contempt. He had been for some time secretly raising troops in different quarters; and, early in 1546, he made a fresh treaty with the Pope, by which he bound himself instantly to commence warlike operations, and which, though it had been negotiated, as a secret treaty, Paul instantly published, to prevent any retraction or delay on his part. War therefore now began, though Charles professed to enter upon it, not for the purpose of enforcing a particular religious belief on the recusants, but for that of re-establishing the Imperial authority, which, as he affirmed, many of the confederate princes had disowned. Such a pretext he expected to sow disunion in the body, some members of which were far from desirous to weaken the great confederacy of the Empire: and, in effect, it did produce a hesitation in their early steps that had the most important consequences on the first campaign; for, in spite of the length of time during which he had secretly been preparing for war, when it came they were more ready than he. They at once took the field with an army of 90,000 men and 120 guns, while he, for the first few weeks after the declaration of war, had hardly 10,000 men with him in Ratisbon. ... {1463} But the advantage of a single over a divided command was perhaps never more clearly exemplified than in the first operations of the two armies. He, as the weaker party, took up a defensive position near Ingolstadt; but, though they advanced within sight of his lines, they could not agree on the mode of attack, or even on the prudence of attacking him at all. ... At last, the confederates actually drew off, and Charles, advancing, made himself master of many important towns, which their irresolution alone had enabled him to approach." Meanwhile the Emperor had won an important ally. This was Duke Maurice, of the Albertine line of the House of Saxony (see SAXONY: A. D. 1180-1553), to whom several opportune deaths had given the ducal seat unexpectedly, in 1541, and whose ambition now hungered for the Electorate, which was held by the other (the Ernestine) branch of the family. He conceived the idea of profiting by the troubles of the time to win possession of it. "With this view, though he also was a Protestant, he tendered his services to the Emperor, who, in spite of his youth, discerned in him a promise of very superior capacity, gladly accepted his aid, and promised to reward him with the territories which he coveted. The advantages which Protestantism eventually derived from Maurice's success has blinded some historians to the infamy of the conduct by which he achieved it. ... The Elector [John Frederick] was his [second] cousin; the Landgrave of Hesse was his father-in-law. Pleading an unwillingness while so young (he was barely 21) to engage in the war, he volunteered to undertake the protection of his cousin's dominions during his absence in the field. His offer was thankfully accepted; but he was no sooner installed in his charge than he began to negotiate with the enemy to invade the territories which he had bound himself to protect. And on receiving from Charles a copy of a decree, called the Ban of the Empire, which had just been issued against both the Elector and the Landgrave, he at once raised a force of his own, with which he overran one portion of [the Elector's] dominions, while a division of the Imperial army attacked the rest; and he would probably have succeeded at once in subduing the whole Electorate, had the main body of the Protestants been able to maintain the war on the Danube." But Charles's successes there brought about a suspension ol hostilities which enabled the Elector to return and "chastise Maurice for his treachery; to drive him not only from the towns and districts which he had seized, but to strip him also of the greater part of the territory which belonged to him by inheritance." Charles was unable, at first, to give any assistance to his ally. The Elector, however, who was the worst of generals, so scattered his forces that when, "on the 23d of April [1547], Charles reached the Elbe and prepared to attack him, he had no advantage over his assailant but that of position. That indeed was very strong. He lay at Muhlberg, on the right bank of the river, which at that point is 300 yards wide and more than four feet deep, with a stream so rapid as to render the passage, even for horsemen, a task of great difficulty and danger." Against the remonstrances of his ablest general, the Duke of Alva, Charles, favored by a heavy fog, led his army across the river and boldly attacked. The Ejector attempted to retreat, but his retreat became a rout. Many fell, but many more were taken prisoners, including the Elector and the Landgrave of Hesse. The victory was decisive for the time, and Charles used it without moderation or generosity. He declared a forfeiture of the whole Electorate of Saxony by John Frederick, and conferred it upon the treacherous Maurice; and, "though Maurice was son-in-law of the Landgrave of Hesse, he stripped that prince of his territories, and, by a device scarcely removed from the tricks of a kidnapper, threw him also into prison." Charles seemed now to be completely master of the situation in Germany, and there was little opposition to his will in a diet which he convened at Augsburg.

C. D. Yonge, Three Centuries of Modern History, chapter 4.

"He opened the Diet of Augsburg (September 1, 1547), in the hope of finally bringing about the union so long desired and so frequently attempted, but which he despaired of effecting through a council which the Protestants had rejected in advance. ... By the famous 'Interim' of Augsburg--the joint production of Julius von Pflug, Bishop of Naumberg; Michael Helding, coadjutor of Mentz; and the wily and subtle John Agricola, preacher to the Elector of Brandenburg--Protestants were permitted to receive the Holy Eucharist under both kinds; the Protestant clergy already married to retain their wives; and a tacit approval given to the retention of property already taken from the Church. This instrument was, from beginning to end, a masterpiece of duplicity, and as such satisfied no party. The Catholics of Germany, the Protestants, and the Court of Rome, each took exception to it. ... Maurice, the new Elector of Saxony, unwilling to give the Interim an unconditional approval, consulted with a number of Protestant theologians, headed by Melancthon, as to how far he might accept its provisions with a safe conscience. In reply they drew up what is known as the Leipsig Interim (1548), in which they stated that questions of ritual and ceremony, and others of minor importance, which they designated by the generic word adiaphora, might be wholly overlooked; and even in points of a strictly doctrinal character, they expressed themselves favourable to concession and compromise. ... Such Lutheran preachers as professed to be faithful followers of their master, made a determined opposition to the 'Interim,' and began a vigorous assault upon its adiaphoristic clauses. The Anti-adiaphorists, as they were called, were headed by Flacius Illyricus, who being an ardent disciple of Luther's, and possessing somewhat of his courage and energy, repaired to Magdeburg, whose bold citizens were as defiant of imperial power as they were contemptuous of papal authority. But in spite of this spirited opposition, the Interim was gradually accepted by several Protestant countries and cities--a fact which encouraged the emperor at the Diet of Augsburg, in 1550, to make a final effort to have the Protestants attend the sessions of the Council of Trent, again opened by Pope Julius III. ... After a short delay, deputies from Brandenburg, Würtemberg, and Saxony began to appear at Trent; and even the Wittenberg theologians, headed by Melancthon, were already on their way to the Council, when Maurice of Saxony, having secured all the advantages he hoped to obtain by an alliance with the Catholic party, and regardless of the obligations by which he was bound, proceeded to betray both the emperor and his country. {1464} Having received a commission to carry into effect the ban of the empire passed upon Magdeburg, he was in a position to assemble a large body of troops in Germany without exciting suspicion, or revealing his ulterior purposes. Besides uniting to himself, as confederates in his plot, John Albert, Duke of Mecklenburg; Albert, Margrave of Brandenburg; and William, Landgrave of Hesse, eldest son of Philip of Hesse, he entered into a secret treaty (Oct. 5, 1551) with Henry II., King of France, who, as was pretended, coming into Germany as the saviour of the country, seized the cities of Metz, Toul, and Verdun. Maurice also held out to Henry the prospect of securing the imperial crown. Everything being in readiness for action, Maurice advancing through Thuringia, seized the city of Augsburg, and suddenly made his appearance before Innspruck, whence the emperor, who lay sick of a severe attack of the gout, was hastily conveyed on a litter, through the passes of the mountains, to Villach, in Carinthia. While Maurice was thus making himself master of Innspruck, the King of the French was carrying out his part of the programme by actively prosecuting the war in Lorraine. Charles V., now destitute of the material resources necessary to carry on a successful campaign against the combined armies of the French king and the German princes, and despairing of putting an end to the obstinate conflict by his personal endeavours, resolved to re-establish, if possible, his waning power by peaceful negotiations. To this end, he commissioned his brother Ferdinand to conclude the Treaty of Passau (July 30, 1552), which provided that Philip of Hesse should be set at liberty, and gave pledges for the speedy settlement of all religious and political differences by a Diet, to be summoned at an early day. It further provided that neither the emperor nor the Protestant princes should put any restraint upon freedom of conscience, and that all questions arising in the interval between the two parties should be referred for settlement to an Imperial Commission, composed of an equal number of Catholics and Protestants. In consequence of the war then being carried on by the empire against France for the recovery of the three bishoprics of Lorraine of which the French had taken possession, the Diet did not convene until February 5, 1555."

J. Alzog, Manual of Universal Church History, volume 3, pages 276-279.

ALSO IN: W. Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles V., books 8-10 (volume 2-3).

L. von Ranke, Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, chapter 6.

_E. E. Crowe, Cardinal Granvelle and Maurice of Saxony (Eminent Foreign Statesmen, volume 1)._

L. Häusser, The Period of the Reformation, chapters 15-17.

G. P. Fisher, History of the Reformation, chapter 5.

F. Kohlrausch, History of Germany, chapter 20.

GERMANY: A. D. 1547. Pragmatic Sanction of Charles V., changing the relations of the Netherland provinces to the Empire.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1547.

GERMANY: A. D. 1552-1561. Battle of Sievershausen and death of Maurice. The Religious Peace of Augsburg. Abdication of Charles V. Succession of Ferdinand I. The halting of the Reformation and the rally of Catholic resistance.

By the treaty of Passau, Maurice of Saxony bound himself to defend the empire against the French and the Turks. "He accordingly took the field against the latter, but with little success, the imperial commander, Castaldo, contravening all his efforts by plundering Hungary and drawing upon himself the hatred of the people. Charles, meanwhile, marched against the French, and, without hesitation, again deposed the corporative governments reinstated by Maurice, on his way through Augsburg, Ulm, Esslingen, etc. Metz, valiantly defended by the Duke de Guise, was vainly besieged for some months, and the Emperor was at length forced to retreat. The French were, nevertheless, driven out of Italy. The aged emperor now sighed for peace. Ferdinand, averse to open warfare, placed his hopes on the imperceptible effect of a consistently pursued system of suppression and Jesuitical obscurantism. Maurice was answerable for the continuance of the peace, the terms of which he had prescribed. ... Albert the Wild [of Brandenburg] was the only one among the princes who was still desirous of war. Indifferent to aught else, he marched at the head of some thousand followers through central Germany, murdering and plundering as he passed along, with the intent of once more laying the Franconian and Saxon bishoprics waste in the name of the gospel. The princes at length formed the Heidelberg confederacy against this monster and the emperor put him under the bann of the empire, which Maurice undertook to execute, although he had been his old friend and companion in arms. Albert was engaged in plundering the archbishopric of Magdeburg, when Maurice came up with him at Sievershausen. A murderous engagement took place (A. D. 1553). Three of the princes of Brunswick were slain. Albert was severely wounded, and Maurice fell at the moment when victory declared in his favour, in the 33d year of his age, in the midst of his promising career. ... Every obstacle was now removed, and a peace, known as the religious peace of Augsburg, was concluded by the diet held in that city, A. D. 1555. This peace was naturally a mere political agreement provisionally entered into by the princes for the benefit, not of religion, but of themselves. Popular opinion was dumb, knights, burgesses, and peasants bending in lowly submission to the mandate of their sovereigns. By this treaty, branded in history as the most lawless ever concerted in Germany, the principle 'cujus regio, ejus religio,' the faith of the prince must be that of the people, was laid down, By it not only all the Reformed subjects of a Catholic prince were exposed to the utmost cruelty and tyranny, but the religion of each separate country was rendered dependent on the caprice of the reigning prince; of this the Pfalz offered a sad example, the religion of the people being thus four times arbitrarily changed. ... Freedom of belief, confined to the immediate subjects of the empire, for instance, to the reigning princes, the free nobility, and the city councillors, was monopolized by at most 20,000 privileged persons. ... The false peace concluded at Augsburg was immediately followed by Charles V. 's abdication of his numerous crowns [see NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1555]. He would willingly have resigned that of the empire to his son Philip, had not the Spanish education of that prince, his gloomy and bigoted character, inspired the Germans with an aversion as unconquerable as that with which he beheld them. {1465} Ferdinand had, moreover, gained the favour of the German princes. Charles, nevertheless, influenced by affection towards his son, bestowed upon him one of the finest of the German provinces, the Netherlands, besides Spain, Milan, Naples, and the West Indies (America). Ferdinand received the rest of the German hereditary possessions of his house, besides Bohemia and Hungary. ... Ferdinand I., opposed in his hereditary provinces by a predominating Protestant party, which he was compelled to tolerate, was politically overbalanced by his nephew, Philip II., in Spain and Italy, where Catholicism flourished. The preponderance of the Spanish over the Austrian branch of the house of Habsburg exercised the most pernicious influence on the whole of Germany, by securing to the Catholics a support which rendered reconciliation impossible. ... The religious disputes and petty egotism of the several estates of the empire had utterly stifled every sentiment of patriotism, and not a dissentient voice was raised against the will of Charles V., which bestowed the whole of the Netherlands, one of the finest of the provinces of Germany, upon Spain, the division and consequent weakening of the powerful house of Habsburg being regarded by the princes with delight. At the same time that the power of the Protestant party was shaken by the peace of Augsburg, Cardinal Caraffa mounted the pontifical throne as Paul IV., the first pope who, following the plan of the Jesuits, abandoned the system of defence for that of attack. The Reformation no sooner ceased to progress, than a preventive movement began [see PAPACY: A. D. 1537-1563]. ... Ferdinand I. was in a difficult position. Paul IV. refused to acknowledge him on account of the peace concluded between him and the Protestants, whom he was unable to oppose, and whose tenets he refused to embrace, notwithstanding the expressed wish of the majority of his subjects. Like his brother, he intrigued and diplomatized until his Jesuitical confessor, Bobadilla, and the new pope, Pius IV., again placed him on good terms with Rome, A. D. 1559. ... Augustus, elector of Saxony, the brother of Maurice, alarmed at the fresh alliance between the emperor and pope, convoked a meeting of the Protestant leaders at Naumberg. His fears were, however, allayed by the peaceful proposals of the emperor (A. D. 1561). ... A last attempt to save the unity of the German church, in the event of its separation from that of Rome, was made by Ferdinand, who convoked the spiritual electoral princes, the archbishops and bishops, for that purpose to Vienna, but the consideration with which he was compelled to treat the pope rendered his efforts weak and ineffectual. ... The Protestants, blind to the unity and strength resulting from the policy of the Catholics, weakened themselves more and more by division."

W. Menzel, History of Germany, sections 197-198 (volume 2).

GERMANY: A. D. 1556-1558. Abdication of the emperor, Charles V., and election of his brother, Ferdinand.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1555.

GERMANY: A. D. 1556-1609. The degeneracy of the Reformation. Internal hostilities of Protestantism. Tolerant reigns of Ferdinand I. and Maximilian II. Renewed persecution under Rudolf II. The risings against him. His cessions and abdications.

"Germany was externally at peace. When the peace was broken in Protestant states, the Protestants themselves, that is, a part of their divines, were the cause of' the disturbance. These were 'frantic' Lutherans. The theologian Flacius, at Jena, openly attacked Melancthon as a 'traitor to the church,' on account of his strivings for peace. The religious controversies in the bosom of the adherents of the Augsburg Confession had been since Luther's death inflamed to madness by a strict Lutheran party, by slaves of the letter, who raged not only against the Zwinglian and Calvinistic reformations, but against Melancthon and those who sympathized with him. The theological pugilists disgraced Protestantism, and aroused such a spirit of persecution that Melancthon died on the 19th of April, 1560, 'weary and full of anxiety of soul about the future of the Reformation and the German nation.' His followers, 'Lutheran' preachers and professors, were persecuted, banished, imprisoned, on account of suspicion of being inclined to the 'Reformed' [Calvinistic] as distinguished from 'Evangelical' views; prayers for the 'extirpation of heresy' were offered in the churches of Saxony, and a medal struck 'to commemorate the victory of Christ over the Devil and Reason,' that is, over Melancthon and his moderate party. ... Each parson and professor held himself to be a divinely inspired watchman of Zion, who had to watch over purity of doctrine. ... The universal prevalence of 'trials for witchcraft' in Protestant districts, with their chambers of torture and burnings at the stake, marked the new priestcraft of Lutheran Protestantism in its debasement into a dogmatizing church. This quickly degenerating Protestant Church comprised a mass of separate churches, because the vanity and selfishness of the court clergy at every court, and the professors of every university, would have a church of their own. ... Every misfortune to the 'Reformed' churches caused a malevolent joy in the Lutheran camp, and every common measure against the common enemy was rejected by the Lutheran clergy from hatred to the 'Reformed.' ... The emperor Ferdinand I. had long been convinced that some change was required in the Church of Rome. As he wrote to his ambassador in Trent, 'If a reform of the Church did not proceed from the Church herself, he would undertake the charge of it in Germany.' He never ceased to offer his mediation between the two religious parties. He thought, and thought justly, that a compromise was possible in Germany. ... The change which gradually took place in the head and heart of Ferdinand had not extended to those who sat in St. Peter's chair. Ferdinand I., to improve the moral state of the old Church, insisted most strongly on the abolition of the celibacy of the clergy; this the Pope declared the most indispensable prop of the Papacy. As thus his proposals came to naught, he attempted to introduce the proposed reformation into his hereditary domains; but just as he was beginning to be the Reformer of these provinces, death removed him from the world, on the 25th of July, 1564. ... His oldest son and successor, Maximilian II., ... was out and out German. Growing up in the great movement of the time, the Emperor Maximilian II. was warmly devoted to the new ideas. He hated the Jesuits and the Papacy. ... {1466} He remained in the middle between Protestants and Catholics,' but really above both. ... He favored the Reformation in his Austrian dominions; at the very time when Philip II. of Spain, the son of Charles V., had commenced the bloodiest persecution against the Reformed Church in the Netherlands ... ; at the very time when the French court, ruled and led by Jesuits, put into execution the long-prepared conspiracy of St. Bartholomew. ... He never ceased to call the kings of France and Spain to gentleness and toleration. ... 'I have no power,' said the emperor, 'over consciences, and may constrain no man's faith.' The princes unanimously elected the son of Maximilian as King of the Romans, and Max received another gratification: he was elected king by the gallant nation of the Poles. Thus the house of Austria was again powerfully strengthened. Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, and Germany, united under one ruler, formed a power which could meet Turkey and Russia. The Turks and the Russians were pressing forward. The Turkish wars, more than anything else, prevented Max from carrying out his long-cherished plan and giving a constitution to the empire and church of the Germans. He who towered high above the Papal party and the miserable controversies of Protestant divines, and whose clear mind saw what the times required, would have had every qualification for such a task. But in the midst of his great projects, Maximilian II. died, in his 49th year, on the 12th of October, 1576; as emperor, honest, mild and wise, and elevated above all religious controversies to a degree that no prince has ever reached. He had always been a rock of offence to the Catholic party. ... But Rudolf [son of Maximilian II.], when he became emperor [1576], surrounded by secret Jesuits who had been his teachers and advisers, became the humblest slave of the order and let it do what it would. Rudolf had been sent by his father for the interests of his own house to the Spanish court; a terrible punishment now followed this self-seeking. Rudolf confirmed liberty of conscience only to the nobles, not to the citizens or peasants. He forbade the two latter classes to visit the Evangelical churches, he closed their schools, ordered them to frequent Catholic churches, threatened disobedience with banishment, and even in the case of nobles he dismissed from his court charges all who were not strict papists. The people of Vienna and Austria hated him for these orders. ... Without any judicial investigation he threatened free cities with 'execution.' Aix la Chapelle expelled his troops. Gebhard, the elector of Cologne, married a Countess von Mansfeld and went over to Protestantism. ... The Protestants supported him badly; Lutherans and Calvinists were at bitter feud with each other, and weakened themselves in the struggle. ... It was a croaking of ravens, and a great field of the dead was not far off. ... The Emperor Rudolf, ... on a return journey from Rome, vowed to Our Lady of Loretto, 'his Generalissima,' to extirpate heretics at the risk of his life. In his hereditary estates he ordered all who were not papists to leave the territory. Soon afterwards he pulled down the Evangelical churches, and dispersed the citizens by arms. He intended soon to begin the same proceedings in Hungary and Bohemia; but in Hungary the nation rose in defence of its liberty and faith. The receipt of the intelligence that the Hungarian malcontents were progressing victoriously produced--what there had been symptoms of before--insanity. The members of the house of Austria assembled, and declared 'The Emperor Rudolf can be no longer head of the house, because unfortunately it is too plain that his Roman Imperial Majesty ... was not competent or fit to govern the kingdoms.' The Archduke Matthias [eldest brother of Rudolf] was elected head of the Austrian house [1606]. He collected an army of 20,000 men, and made known that he would depose the emperor from the government of his hereditary domains. Rudolf's Jesuitical flatterers had named him the 'Bohemian Solomon.' He now, in terror, without drawing sword, ceded Hungary and Austria to Matthias, and gave him also the government of Moravia. Matthias guaranteed religious liberty to the Austrians. Rudolf did the same to the Bohemians and Silesians by the 'Letters of Majesty.' Rudolf, to escape deposition by Matthias, abdicated the throne of Bohemia."

W. Zimmerman, Popular History of Germany, book 5, chapter 2 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: F. Kohlrausch, History of Germany, chapter 21.

GERMANY: A. D. 1608-1618. The Evangelical Union and the Catholic League. The Jülich-Cleve contest. Troubles in Bohemia. The beginning of the Thirty Years War.

"Many Protestants were alarmed by the attempts Rudolf had made to put them down, and especially by his allowing the Duke of Bavaria to seize the free city of Donauwörth, formerly a Bavarian town, and make it Catholic. In 1608 a number of Protestants joined together and formed, for ten years, a league called The Union. Its formation was due chiefly to the exertions of Prince Christian of Anhalt, who had busily intrigued with Henry IV. of France; but its head was the Elector Palatine. As the latter belonged to the Reformed Church, the Lutherans for the most part treated the Union coldly; and the Elector of Saxony would have nothing to do with it. It soon had an opportunity of acting. Duke William of Jülich, who held Jülich, Cleve, and other lands, died in 1609. John Sigmund, Elector of Brandenburg, and the Palsgrave of Neuberg, both members of the Union, claimed to be his heirs, and took possession of his lands. The Emperor Rudolf sent his brother, the Archduke Leopold, Bishop of Passau, to drive out these princes. The Union thereupon formed an alliance with Henry IV. of France [see FRANCE: A. D. 1599-1610], and, coming to the aid of its members, scattered the forces of the Archduke in 1610. The Catholics now took fright, and hastened to form a League which should hold the Union in check. It was formed for nine years, and the supreme command was given to Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria. The death of Henry IV. took away from the Union its chief source of strength, so that it shrank from a general war. The two princes, however, who had given rise to the quarrel, kept for a time the Jülich-Cleve territory. In 1611 [1618] the power of the Elector of Brandenburg was further increased by his succeeding to the Duchy of Prussia. From this time East Prussia was always joined to the Mark or Electorate of Brandenburg. It was now, therefore, that the house of Brandenburg laid the foundations of its future greatness. Matthias, in order to pacify the Austrian States, granted them full religious liberty. {1467} In 1609 the Bohemian States also obtained from Rudolf a Royal Charter, called 'The Letter of Majesty,' conceding to nobility, knights and towns perfect freedom in religious matters, and the right to build Protestant churches and schools on their own and on the royal lands. Bohemia showed no gratitude for this favour. Suspecting his designs, the Bohemians even shut Rudolf up in his castle at Prague in 1611, and asked Matthias to come to their aid. He did so, and seized the supreme power. Next year Rudolf died. Matthias was crowned at Frankfurt with great pomp, but he was no better fitted for the throne than his brother. He was compelled to yield much to the Protestants, yet favoured the Jesuits in their continued efforts to convert Germany. His government was so feeble that his brothers at length made him accept Ferdinand, Duke of Styria, as his coadjutor. In 1617 Ferdinand was elected as Rudolf's successor to the crowns of Bohemia and Hungary, and from this time all real power in the Habsburg possessions was wielded by him. Ferdinand was a young man, but had already given proof of great energy of character. ... The Protestants looked forward with dread to his reign if he should receive the Imperial crown. Styria had become almost wholly Lutheran. When Ferdinand succeeded his father, he had driven out the Protestant families, and made the land altogether Catholic. No Catholic prince had ever shown himself more reckless as to the means by which he served his church. The Protestants, therefore, had good reason to fear that if he became Emperor he would renew the policy of Charles V., and try to bring back the old state of things, in which there was but one Church as there was but one Empire. Events proved that these fears were well founded. The last days of Matthias were very troubled. Two Protestant churches were built in Bohemia, one in the territory of the Archbishop of Prague, the other in that of the Abbot of Braunau. These princes, with permission of the Emperor, pulled down one of the churches and shut up the other. The Protestants complained; but their appeal was met by the reply that the Letter of Majesty did not permit them to build churches on the lands of ecclesiastics. This answer excited great indignation in Bohemia; and a rumour was got up that it had not come from the Emperor, but had been written in Prague. On May 23, 1618, a number of Protestants, headed by Count Thurn, marched to the Council Hall of the Royal Castle, and demanded to be told the real facts. When the councillors hesitated, two of them, with the private secretary, were seized and thrown out of the window.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1611-1618.

The Protestants then took possession of the Royal Castle, drove the Jesuits out of Bohemia, and appointed a council of thirty nobles to carry on the government." These events formed the beginning of the "Thirty Years War."

J. Sime, History of Germany, chapter 14.

"The Thirty Years' War was the last struggle which marked the progress of the Reformation. This war, whose direction and object were equally undetermined, may be divided into four distinct portions, in which the Elector Palatine, Denmark, Sweden, and France played in succession the principal part. It became more and more complicated, until it spread over the whole of Europe. It was prolonged indefinitely by various causes.

I. The intimate union between the two branches of the house of Austria and of the Catholic party--their opponents, on the other hand, were not homogeneous.

II. The inaction of England, the tardy intervention of France, the poverty of Denmark and Sweden, &c. The armies which took part in the Thirty Years' War were no longer feudal militias, they were permanent armies, although their sovereigns were incapable of supporting them. They lived at the expense of the countries which they laid waste. The ruined peasant turned soldier and sold himself to the first comer."

J. Michelet, Summary of Modern History, chapter 12.

ALSO IN: A. Gindely, History of the Thirty Years' War, chapters 1-3 (volume 1).

T. Carlyle, History of Frederick the Great, book 3, chapter 14 (volume 1).

GERMANY: A. D. 1612. Election of the Emperor Matthias.

GERMANY: A. D. 1618-1620. The Thirty Years War: Hostilities in Bohemia precipitated by Ferdinand. His election to the imperial throne and his deposition in Bohemia. Acceptance of the Bohemian crown by Frederick, the Palatine Elector. His unsupported situation. The Treaty of Ulm.

"The emperor was not a little disconcerted when he received the news of what was passing [in Bohemia]. For whence could he receive the aid necessary to put down these revolutionary acts and restore order in Bohemia? Discontent, indeed, was scarcely less formidably expressed even in his Austrian territories, whilst in Hungary its demonstration was equally as serious. Conciliation appeared to be the only means of preserving to the house of Austria that important country, and even the confessor and usual counsellor of the emperor, Cardinal Klesel, the most zealous opponent of the Protestants, advised that course. But such considerations were most strenuously opposed by young Ferdinand. ... At his instigation, and that of the other archdukes, backed by the pope, the pacific Cardinal Klesel was unexpectedly arrested, and charged with a variety of crimes. The intention was to remove him from the presence of the old and weak emperor, who was now without support, and obliged to resign all to the archdukes. From this moment the impotency of the emperor was complete, and all hopes of an amicable pacification of Bohemia lost. The Bohemians, likewise, took to arms, and possessed themselves of every city in their country as far as Budweis and Pilsen, which were still occupied by the imperial troops. They obtained assistance, quite unlooked for, in the person of one who may be regarded as one of the most remarkable heroes of that day. ... Count Ernest of Mansfield, a warrior from his youth, was of a bold and enterprising spirit; he had already encountered many dangers, and had just been raising some troops for the Duke of Savoy against the Spaniards. The duke, who now no longer required them, gave him permission to serve in the cause of the Evangelical Union in Germany; and by that body he was despatched with 3,000 men to Bohemia, as having apparently received his appointment from that country. He appeared there quite unexpectedly, and immediately took from the imperial army the important city of Pilsen [November 21, 1618]. ... The Emperor Matthias died on the 10th of March, 1619 ... and the Bohemians, who acknowledged his sovereignty while living, now resolved to renounce his successor Ferdinand, whose hostile intentions were already too clearly expressed. Ferdinand attained the throne under circumstances the most perplexing. {1468} Bohemia in arms, and threatening Vienna itself with invasion; Silesia and Moravia in alliance with them; Austria much disposed to unite with them; Hungary by no means firmly attached, and externally menaced by the Turks; besides which, encountering in every direction the hatred of the Protestants, against whom his zeal was undisguised. ... Count Thurn advanced upon Vienna with a Bohemian army. ... He came before Vienna, and his men fired, even upon the imperial castle itself, where Ferdinand, surrounded by open and secret foes, had taken up his quarters. He dared not leave his capital, for by so doing Austria, and with it the preservation of the empire itself, must have been sacrificed. But his enemies looked upon him as lost; and they already spoke of confining him in a convent, and educating his children in the Protestant faith. ... Count Thurn was obliged soon to return to Bohemia, as Prague was menaced by the armies of Austria, and Ferdinand availed himself of this moment in order to undertake another hazardous and daring project. ... He ... resolved to proceed to Frankfort to attend the election of emperor. The spiritual electors had been gained over; Saxony also adhered closely to the house of Austria; Brandenburg was not unfriendly; hence the opposition of the palatinate alone against him could accomplish nothing; accordingly Ferdinand was unanimously chosen emperor on the 28th of August, 1619." Just two days previously, on the 26th of August, the Bohemians, at a general assembly of the states, had formally deposed Ferdinand from the kingship of their nation, and proceeded to elect another king in his place. "The Catholics proposed the Duke of Savoy and Maximilian of Bavaria, whilst, in the Protestant interest, the Elector John George of Saxony, and Frederick V., of the palatinate, were put forward. The latter obtained the election, being a son-in-law of King James I. of England, from whom they expected assistance, and who personally was regarded as resolute, magnanimous, and generous. The incorporated provinces of Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia supported the election, and even the Catholic states of Bohemia pledged their fidelity and obedience. Frederick was warned against accepting so dangerous a crown by Saxony, Bavaria, and even by his father-in-law; but his chaplain, Scultetus, and his own consort, Elizabeth, who as the daughter of a king aspired to a royal crown, persuaded him with all their influence to accept it. Frederick was accordingly ruled by them, received the regal dignity in Bohemia, and was crowned at Prague with great pomp on the 25th of October, 1619. ... Ferdinand in returning from Frankfort passed on to Munich, and there concluded with the Duke of Bavaria that important treaty which secured to him the possession of Bohemia. These two princes had been companions in youth, and the Evangelical Union had by several incautious proceedings irritated the duke. Maximilian undertook the chief command in the cause of the Catholic party, and stipulated with the house of Austria that he should be indemnified for every outlay and loss incurred, to the extent even, if necessary, of the surrender of the territories of Austria itself into his hands. With Spain, also, the emperor succeeded in forming an alliance, and the Spanish general, Spinola, received orders to invade the countries of the palatinate from the Netherlands. Subsequently the Elector of Mentz arranged a convention at Mülhausen with the Elector John George of Saxony, the Elector of Cologne, and the Landgrave Lewis of Darmstadt, wherein it was determined to render all possible assistance to the emperor for the maintenance of his kingdom and the imperial dignity. Frederick, the new Bohemian king, was now left with no other auxiliary but the Evangelical Union; for the Transylvanian prince, Bethlen Gabor, was, notwithstanding all his promises, a very dubious and uncertain ally, whilst the troops he sent into Moravia and Bohemia were not unlike a horde of savage banditti. Meanwhile the union commenced its preparations for war, as well as the league. The whole of Germany resembled a grand depot for recruiting. Every eye was directed to the Swabian district, where the two armies were to meet; there, however, at Ulm, on the 3rd of July, 1620, they unexpectedly entered into a compact, in which the forces of the union engaged to lay down their arms, and both parties pledged each other to preserve peace and tranquillity. The unionists felt themselves too weak to maintain the contest, since Saxony was now likewise against them, and Spinola threatened them from the Netherlands. It was, however, a great advantage for the emperor, that Bohemia was excluded from this treaty, for, now the forces of the league were at liberty to aid him in subjugating his royal adversary. Maximilian of Bavaria, therefore, immediately took his departure, and on his war reduced the states of Upper Austria to the obedience due to Ferdinand, joined the imperial army, and made a spirited attack upon Bohemia. On the other side, the Elector of Saxony took possession of Lusatia in the name of the emperor."

F. Kohlrausch, History of Germany, chapter 22.

ALSO IN: S. R. Gardiner, History of England, 1603-1642, chapters 29-32 (volume 3).

W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapters 46-48 (volume 2).

Miss Benger, Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, chapters 6-9 (volumes 1-2).

GERMANY: A. D. 1620. The Thirty Years War: Disappointment of the Bohemians in their elected king. Frederick's offensive Calvinism. Defeat of his army before Prague. Loss of Bohemian liberties. Prostration of Protestantism.

"The defection of the Union accelerated the downfall of Frederick; but its cordial support could scarcely have hindered it. For the Bohemians had been disappointed in their king, disappointed in the strength they had expected from him through his connexions, equally disappointed in the man, and in the hopes of protection and sympathy which they had expected from him in the exercise of their religion. Within a month of his coronation the metropolitan church was spoiled of its images, the crucifix cut in pieces, the statues of the saints cast out, broken, and burnt, the ornaments used in divine service, and venerable in the eyes of Catholics and Lutherans alike, scattered here and there, and turned upside down with contempt and execration. These proceedings, which were presumed, not without reason, to have the king's authority--for during their enactment the court chaplain addressed the people in praise of this purgation of the temple--called forth loud complaints and increased the disaffection which, more than any external force brought against Frederick, produced his ruin. {1469} Early in November Maximilian appeared before Prague, and found the Bohemians, under Christian van Anhalt, skilfully and strongly posted on the Weissenberg [White Mountain] to offer battle. The cautious Bucquoi would have declined the offer, and attacked the city from another point; but an enthusiastic friar who broke in upon the conference of the leaders, and, exhibiting a mutilated image of the Virgin, reproached them with their hesitation, put to flight all timid counsels. The battle began at twelve o'clock. It was a Sunday, the octave of the festival of All Saints [November 8, 1620]. ... In the Catholic army Bucquoi was at the head of the Imperial division. Tilly commanded in chief, and led the front to the battle. He was received with a heavy fire; and for half an hour the victory trembled in the balance: then the Hungarians, who had been defeated by the Croats the day before, fled, and all the efforts of the Duke of Saxe Weimar to rally them proved fruitless. Soon the whole Bohemian army, Germans, English, horse and foot, fled in disorder. One gallant little band of Moravians only, under the Count of Thurn and the young Count of Sehlick, maintained their position, and, with the exception of their leaders, fell almost to a man. The battle lasted only an hour; but the victory was not the less complete. A hundred banners, ten guns, and a rich spoil fell into the hands of the victors. Four thousand of the Bohemian army, but scarcely as many hundreds of their opponents (if we may believe their account), lay dead upon the field. ... Frederick had returned from the army the day before, with the intelligence that the Bavarians were only eight (English) miles distant; but relying on the 28,000 men which he had to cover his capital, he felt that night no uneasiness. ... He had invited the English ambassadors to dine; and he remained to entertain them. After dinner he mounted his horse to ride to the Star Park; but before he could get out of the city gate, he was met with the news of the total overthrow of his army. His negotiations with Maximilian failing, or receiving no answer, the next morning he prepared for flight. ... Accompanied by his queen, Van Anhalt, the Prince of Hohenlohe, and the Count of Thurn, he made a precipitate retreat from Prague, leaving behind him the insignia of that monarchy which he had not the wisdom to firmly establish, nor resolution to defend to the last. It must be confessed, however, that his position, after the defeat at Prague, was not altogether so promising, and consequently his abandonment of his capital not altogether so pusillanimous, as some have represented."

B. Chapman, History of Gustavus Adolphus, chapter 5.

"Frederick fled for his life through North Germany, till he found a refuge at the Hague. The reign of the Bohemian aristocracy was at an end. ... The chiefs perished on the scaffold. Their lands were confiscated, and a new German and Catholic nobility arose. ... The Royal Charter was declared to have been forfeited by rebellion, and the Protestant churches in the towns and on the royal estates had nothing to depend on but the will of the conqueror. The ministers of one great body --the Bohemian Brethren--were expelled at once. The Lutherans were spared for a time."

S. R. Gardiner, The Thirty Years' War, chapter 3, section 1.

ALSO IN: C. A. Peschek, Reformation and Anti-Reformation in Bohemia, volume 1, chapter 9.

See, also, BOHEMIA: A. D. 1621-1648; and HUNGARY: A. D. 1606-1660.

GERMANY: A. D. 1621-1623. The Thirty Years War: The Elector Palatine placed under the ban. Dissolution of the Evangelical Union. Invasion and conquest of the Palatinate. Transfer of the electoral dignity to the Duke of Bavaria.

"Ferdinand, though firm, patient, and resigned in adversity, was stern, vengeful, and overbearing in prosperity. He was urged by many motives of resentment, policy, and zeal to complete the ruin of the elector Palatine, and he did not possess sufficient magnanimity to resist the temptation. Having squandered away the confiscated property among his Jesuits and favourites, he had still many allies and adherents whose fidelity he was desirous to reward; he was anxious to recover Upper Austria, which he had mortgaged to the duke of Bavaria, as a pledge for the expenses of the war; he wished to regain possession of Lusatia; and he was bound in honour to satisfy the elector of Saxony for his opportune assistance. ... These motives overbearing an considerations of justice and prudence, Ferdinand published the ban of the empire [January 22, 1621], of his own authority, against the elector Palatine and his adherents the prince of Anhalt, the count of Hohenlohe, and the duke of Jaegendorf. The execution of this informal sentence he intrusted to the archduke Albert, as possessor of the circle of Burgundy, and to the duke of Bavaria, commanding the former to occupy the Lower, and the latter the Upper Palatinate. This vigorous act was instantly followed by the most decisive effects; for the Protestants were terrified by the prospect of sharing the fate of the unfortunate elector. The members of the union now felt the fatal consequences of their own indecision and want of foresight. ... Threatened at once by Spinola [commanding the Spanish auxiliaries from the Netherlands] and the duke of Bavaria, and confounded by the growing power of the emperor, they vied in abandoning a confederacy which exposed them to his vengeance. On the 12th of April, 1621, they concluded at Mentz a treaty of neutrality, by which they promised not to interfere in the affairs of the Palatinate, agreed to disband their troops within a month, and to enter into no new confederacy to the disadvantage of the emperor. This dishonourable treaty was followed by the dissolution of the union, which, on its expiration, was not renewed. During these events, Spinola, having completed the reduction of the Lower Palatinate, was occupied in the siege of Frankendahl, which was on the point of surrendering, and its capture must have been followed by the submission of Heidelberg and Manheim. The duke of Bavaria had been still more successful in the Upper Palatinate, and had rapidly subjugated the whole province, together with the district of Cham. The elector Palatine, deserted by the Protestant union, and almost abandoned by his relatives, the kings of England and Denmark, owed the first revival of his hopes of restoration to Mansfeld, an illegitimate adventurer, with no other resources than plunder and devastation. Christian of Brunswick, administrator of Halberstadt, distinguished indeed by illustrious birth, but equally an adventurer, and equally destitute of territory or resources, espoused his cause, as well from ties of affinity [he was the cousin of Elizabeth, the electress Palatine, or queen of Bohemia, as she preferred to be called] as from a chivalrous attachment to his beautiful consort; and George Frederic, margrave of Baden, even abdicated his dignity to devote himself to his support." {1470} Mansfeld, who had held his ground in Bohemia for nearly a year after the battle of the White Mountain, now became hard pressed there by Tilly, and suddenly escaped by forced marches (October, 1621,) into the Lower Palatinate. "Here he found a more favourable field of action; for Spinola being recalled with the greater part of the Spanish forces, had left the remainder to Gonzales de Cordova, who, after reducing several minor fortresses, was pressing the siege of Frankendahl. The name of the brave adventurer drew to his standard multitudes of the troops, who had been disbanded by the Protestant union, and he was joined by a party of English, who had been sent for the defence of the Palatinate. Finding himself at the head of 20,000 men, he cleared the country in his passage, relieved Frankendahl, and provided for the safety of Heidelberg and Manheim. Unable, however, to subsist in a district so recently the seat of war, he turned into Alsace, where he increased his forces; from thence he invaded the neighbouring bishoprics of Spire and Strasburgh, levying heavy contributions, and giving up the rich domains of those sees to the devastations of his troops. Encouraged by this gleam of hope, the elector Palatine quitted his asylum in Holland, passed in disguise through Loraine and Alsace, joined Mansfeld, and gave his name and countenance to this predatory army." Mansfeld, recrossing the Rhine, effected a junction with the margrave of Baden; and Christian of Brunswick, after pillaging the rich sees of Lower Saxony, was on his way with a considerable force to unite with both. "At the same time the duke of Wirtemberg, the landgrave of Hesse, and other Protestant princes, began to arm, and hopes were even entertained of the revival of the Protestant union. Tilly, who had followed Mansfeld from Bohemia, had in vain endeavoured to prevent his junction with the margrave of Baden. Defeated at Mingelsheim by Mansfeld, on the 29th of April, 1622, he had been reduced to the defensive, and in this situation saw a powerful combination rising on every side against the house of Austria. He waited therefore for an opportunity of attacking those enemies singly, whom he could not resist when united, and that opportunity was presented by the separation of the margrave of Baden from Mansfeld, and his attempt to penetrate into Bavaria. Tilly suddenly drew together the Spanish troops, and with this accession of force defeated, on the 6th of May, the margrave at Wimpfen, with the loss of half his army, and took his whole train of artillery and military chest. Leaving Mansfeld employed in the siege of Ladenburgh, he next directed his attention to Christian of Brunswick, routed him on the 20th of June, at Hoechst [Höchst], as he was crossing the Main, pursued him till his junction with Mansfeld, and drove their united forces beyond the Rhine, again to seek a refuge and subsistence in Alsace. These successes revived the cause of Ferdinand; the margrave of Baden retired from the contest; the duke of Wirtemberg and the other Protestant princes suspended their armaments; and although Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick laid siege to Saverne, and evinced a resolution to maintain the contest to the last extremity, yet the elector Palatine again gave way to that weakness which had already lost him a crown." He was persuaded by his witless father-in-law, James I. of England, to trust his cause to negotiations in which the latter was being duped by the emperor. He consented, accordingly, "to disavow his intrepid defenders, to dismiss them from his service, to retire again into Holland, and wait the mercy of the emperor. By this disavowal, Mansfeld and Christian were left without a name to countenance their operations; and after various negotiations, feigned or real, for entering into the service of the emperor, Spain, or France, they accepted the overtures of the Prince of Orange and forced their way through the Spanish army which attempted to oppose their passage, to join at Breda the troops of the United Provinces. The places in Alsace and the bishopric of Spire which had been occupied by the enemy were recovered by the archduke Leopold; and Tilly, having completed the conquest of the Palatinate by the capture of Heidelberg and Manheim, directed his attacks against the forces which Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick had again assembled. After a short continuance in Holland, Mansfeld, in November, had led his predatory army into the rich province of East Friesland, conquered the principal fortresses, and extorted enormous contributions from the duke, who was in alliance with Spain. On the other hand, Christian, passing into Lower Saxony, persuaded the states of the circle to collect an army of observation amounting to 12,000 men, and intrust him with the command; and he soon increased this army to almost double that number, by the usual incitements of pillage and plunder. These levies attracting the attention of the emperor, his threats, together with the advance of Tilly, compelled the Saxon states to dismiss Christian and his army. Thus left a second time without authority, he pushed towards Westphalia, with the hope of joining Mansfeld and renewing hostilities in the Palatinate; his design was however anticipated by Tilly, who overtook him at Loen [or Stadtlohn], in the district of Munster, and defeated him with the loss of 6,000 killed and 4,000 prisoners, in August, 1623. The victorious general then turned towards East Friesland; but Mansfeld, who had hitherto maintained himself in that country, avoided an unequal contest by disbanding his troops, and withdrawing into Holland, in January, 1624. ... Having despoiled the elector Palatine of all his dominions, and delivered himself from his enemies in Germany, Ferdinand had proceeded to carry his plans into execution, by transferring the electoral dignity to the duke of Bavaria, and dividing the conquered territories among his adherents. ... He gained the elector of Saxony, by promising him the revenues and perhaps the cession of Lusatia; and the landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt, by offering to favour his pretensions to the succession of Marburgh, which he was contesting with the landgrave of Hesse Cassel. ... Having thus gained those whose opposition was most likely to frustrate his design, he paid little regard to the feeble threats of James, and to the remonstrances of the king of Denmark. ... He summoned, on the 25th of February, 1623, a meeting of the electors and princes who were most devoted to his cause at Ratisbon, and, in concurrence with the majority of this irregular assembly, transferred the Palatine electorate, with all its honours, privileges, and offices, to Maximilian, duke of Bavaria. {1471} To keep up, however, the hopes of the elector Palatine and his adherents, and not to drive his family and connections to desperation, the whole extent of the plan was not developed; the partition of his territories was deferred, the transfer of the electorate was made only for the life of Maximilian, and the rights of the sons and collateral heirs of the unfortunate elector were expressly reserved."

W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 49 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: A. Gindely, History of the Thirty Years' War, volume 1, chapter 7.

F. Schiller, History of the Thirty Years' War, book 2.

C. R. Markham, The Fighting Veres; part 2, chapter 3.

GERMANY: A. D. 1624-1626. The Thirty Years War: Alliance of England, Holland, and Denmark to support the Protestant cause. Creation of the imperial army of Wallenstein, and its first campaigns.

"Had the Emperor been as wise as he was resolute, it is probable that, victorious in every direction, he might have been able to conclude a permanent peace with the Protestant Party. But the bigotry which was a very part of his nature was spurred on by his easy triumphs to refuse to sheathe the sword until heresy had been rooted out from the land. In vain did the Protestant princes, who had maintained a selfish and foolish neutrality, remonstrate against the continuance of hostilities after the avowed object for which those hostilities were undertaken had been gained. In the opinion of Ferdinand II. the real object still remained to be accomplished. Under these critical circumstances the emigrants, now grown numerous [see BOHEMIA: A. D. 1621-1648], and the awakened Protestant princes, earnestly besought the aid of a foreign power. It was their representations which at length induced three nations of the reformed faith--England, Holland, and Denmark--to ally themselves to assist their oppressed brethren.

See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.

England agreed to send subsidies, Holland to supply troops. The command of the delivering army was confided to Christian IV., King of Denmark (1625). He was to be supported in Germany by the partisan Mansfeldt, by Prince Christian of Brunswick, and by the Protestants of Lower Saxony, who had armed themselves to resist the exactions of the Emperor. Ferdinand II., after vainly endeavouring to ward off hostilities by negotiations, despatched Tilly to the Weser to meet the enemy. Tilly followed the course of that river as far as Minden, causing to be occupied, as he marched, the places which commanded its passage. Pursuing his course northwards, he crossed the river at Neuburg (midway between Minden and Bremen), and occupied the principality of Kalenberg. The King of Denmark was near at hand, in the Duchy of Brunswick, anxious, for the moment, to avoid a battle. Tilly, superior to him in numbers, was as anxious to fight one. As though the position of the King of Denmark were not already sufficiently embarrassing, the Emperor proceeded at this period to make it almost unendurable by launching upon him likewise an imperial army. ... Up to the period of the complete overthrow and expulsion from the Palatinate of Frederic V., ex-King of Bohemia, Ferdinand had been indebted for all his successes to Maximilian of Bavaria. It was Maximilian who, as head of the Holy League, had reconquered Bohemia for the Emperor: it was Maximilian's general, Tilly, who had driven the Protestant armies from the Palatinate; and it was the same general who was now opposing the Protestants of the north in the lands watered by the Weser. Maximilian had been rewarded by the cession to him of the Palatinate, but it was not advisable that so near a neighbour of Austria should be made too strong. It was this feeling, this jealousy of Maximilian, which now prompted Ferdinand to raise, for the first time in this war, an imperial army, and to send it to the north. This army was raised by and at the expense of Albert Wenzel Eusebius of Waldstein, known in history as Wallenstein. A Czech by nationality, born in 1583 of noble parents, who belonged to one of the most advanced sects of the reformers but who died whilst their son was yet young, Wallenstein had, when yet a child, been committed to the care of his uncle, Albert Slavata, an adherent of the Jesuits, and by him educated at Olmütz in the strictest Catholic faith." By marrying, first, a rich widow, who soon died, and then an heiress, daughter of Count Harrach, and by purchasing with the fortune thus acquired many confiscated estates, he had become possessed of enormous wealth. He had already won distinction as a soldier. "For his faithful services, Ferdinand in 1623 nominated Wallenstein to be Prince, a title changed, the year following, into that of Duke of Friedland. At this time the yearly income he derived from his various estates, all economically managed, was calculated to be 30,000,000 florins--little short of £2,500,000." Wallenstein now, in 1625, "divining his master's wishes, and animated by the ambition born of natural ability, offered to raise and maintain, at his own cost, an army of 50,000 men, and to lead it against the enemy. Ferdinand eagerly accepted the offer. Named Generalissimo and Field Marshal in July of the same year, Wallenstein marched at the head of 30,000 men, a number which increased almost daily, first to the Weser, thence, after noticing the positions of Tilly and of King Christian, to the banks of the Elbe, where he wintered. ... In the spring ... Mansfeldt, with the view to prevent a junction between Tilly and Wallenstein, marched against the latter, and, though his troops were fewer in number, took up a position at Dessau in full view of the imperial camp, and there intrenched himself. Here Wallenstein attacked (25 April 1626) and completely defeated him. Not discouraged by this overthrow, and still bearing in mind the main object of the campaign, Mansfeldt fell back into Brandenburg, recruited there his army, called to himself the Duke of Saxe-Weimar and then suddenly dashed, by forced marches, towards Silesia and Moravia, with the intention of reaching Hungary, where Bethlen Gabor had promised to meet him." Wallenstein followed and "pressed him so hard that, though Mansfeldt did effect a junction with Bethlen Gabor, it was with but the skeleton of his army. Despairing of success against numbers vastly superior, Bethlen Gabor withdrew from his new colleague, and Mansfeldt, reduced to despair, disbanded his remaining soldiers, and sold his camp-equipage to supply himself with the means of flight (September).

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1606-1660.

{1472}

He died soon after (30th November). ... Wallenstein then retraced his steps to the north. Meanwhile Tilly, left to deal with Christian IV., had followed that prince into Lower Saxony, had caught, attacked, and completely defeated him at Lutter (am Barenberge), the 27th July 1626. This victory gave him complete possession of that disaffected province, and, despite a vigorous attempt made by the Margrave George Frederic of Baden to wrest it from him, he held it till the return of Wallenstein from the pursuit of Mansfeldt. As two stars of so great a magnitude could not shine in the same hemisphere, it was then decided that Tilly should carry the war into Holland, whilst to Wallenstein should be left the honour of dealing with the King of Denmark and the Protestant princes of the north."

G. B. Malleson, The Battle-fields of Germany, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: W. Zimmermann, Popular History of Germany, book 5, chapter 2 (volume 4).

GERMANY: A. D. 1627-1629. The Thirty Years War: Wallenstein's campaign against the Danes. His power and his oppression in Germany. The country devoured by his army. Unsuccessful siege of Stralsund. First succor from the king of Sweden. The Peace of Lubeck. The Edict of Restitution.

"Wallenstein opened the campaign of 1627 at the head of a refreshed and well-equipped army of 40,000 men. His first effort was directed against Silesia; and the Danish troops, few in number, and ill commanded, gave way at his approach. To prevent the fugitives from infringing on the neutrality of Brandenburg, he occupied the whole electorate. Mecklenburg and Pomerania soon shared the same fate. Remonstrances and assurances of perfect neutrality were treated with absolute scorn; and Wallenstein declared, in his usual haughty style, that 'the time had arrived for dispensing altogether with electors; and that Germany ought to be governed like France and Spain, by a single and absolute sovereign.' In his rapid march towards the frontiers of Holstein, he acted fully up to the principle he had laid down, and naturally exercised despotic power, as the representative of the absolute monarch of whom he spoke. ... He ... followed up the Danes, defeated their armies in a series of actions near Heiligenhausen, overran the whole peninsula of Jutland before the end of the campaign, and forced the unhappy king to seek shelter, with the wrecks of his army, in the islands beyond the Belt. ... Brilliant as the campaign of 1627 proved in its general result, few very striking feats of arms were performed during its progress. ... Now it was that the princes and states of Lower Germany began to feel the consequences of their pusillanimous conduct; and the very provinces which had just before refused to raise troops for their own protection, were obliged to submit, without a murmur, to every species of insult and exaction. Wallenstein's army, augmented to 100,000 men, occupied the whole country; and the lordly leader following, on a far greater scale, the principle on which Mansfeld had acted, made the war maintain the war, and trampled alike on the rights of sovereigns and of subjects. And terrible was the penalty now paid for the short-sighted policy which avarice and cowardice had suggested, and which cunning had vainly tried to disguise beneath affected philanthropy, and a generous love of peace. Provided with imperial authority, and at the head of a force that could no longer be resisted, Wallenstein made the empire serve as a vast storehouse, and wealthy treasury for the benefit of the imperial army. He forbade even sovereigns and electors to raise supplies in their own countries, and was justly termed 'the princes' scourge, and soldiers' idol.' The system of living by contributions had completely demoralised the troops. Honour and discipline were entirely gone; and it was only beneath the eye of the stern and unrelenting commander, that anything like order continued to be observed. Dissipation and profligacy reigned in all ranks: bands of dissolute persons accompanied every regiment, and helped to extinguish the last sparks of morality in the breast of the soldier. The generals levied arbitrary taxes; the inferior officers followed the example of their superiors; and the privates, soon ceasing to obey those whom they ceased to respect, plundered in every direction; while blows, insults, or death awaited all who dared to resist. ... The sums extorted, in this manner, prove that Germany must have been a wealthy country in the 17th century; for the money pressed out of some districts, by the imperial troops, far exceeds anything which the same quarters could now be made to furnish. Complaints against the author of such evils were, of course, not wanting; but the man complained of had rendered the Emperor all-powerful in Germany: from the Adriatic to the Baltic, Ferdinand reigned absolute, as no monarch had reigned since the days of the Othos. This supremacy was due to Wallenstein alone; and what could the voice of the humble and oppressed effect against such an offender? Or when did the voice of suffering nations, arrest the progress of power and ambition? During the winter that followed on the campaign of 1627, Wallenstein repaired to Prague, to claim [and to receive] from the Emperor, who was residing in the Bohemian capital, additional rewards for the important services so lately rendered. The boon solicited was nothing less than the Duchy of Mecklenburg, which was to be taken from its legitimate princes, on the ground of their having joined the King of Denmark, and bestowed on the successful general. ... Hitherto the ocean had alone arrested the progress of Wallenstein: a fleet was now to be formed, which should enable him to give laws beyond the Belts, and perhaps beyond the Baltic also. Every seaport in Mecklenburg and Pomerania is ordered to be taken possession of and fortified. ... The siege of Stralsund, which was resolved upon early in 1628, constitutes one of the most memorable operations of the war. Not merely because it furnishes an additional proof of what may be effected by skill, courage and resolution, against vastly superior forces, but because its result influenced, in an eminent degree, some of the most important events that followed. When Wallenstein ordered the seaports along the coast of Pomerania to be occupied, Stralsund, claiming its privilege as an imperial and Hanseatic free town, refused to admit his troops. ... After a good deal of negotiation, which only cost the people of Stralsund some large sums of money, paid away in presents to the imperial officers, Arnheim invested the place on the 7th of May with 8,000 men. ... {1473} The town ... , unable to obtain assistance from the Duke of Pomerania, the lord superior of the province, who, however willing, had no means of furnishing relief, placed itself under the protection of Sweden; and Gustavus Adolphus, fully sensible of the importance of the place, immediately dispatched the celebrated David Leslie, at the head of 600 men, to aid in its defence. Count Brahe, with 1,000 more, soon followed; so that when Wallenstein reached the army on the 27th of June, he found himself opposed by a garrison of experienced soldiers, who had already retaken all the outworks which Arnheim had captured in the first instance. ... Rain began to fall in such torrents that the trenches were entirely filled, and the flat moor ground, on which the army was encamped, became completely inundated and untenable. The proud spirit of Friedland, unused to yield, still persevered; but sickness attacked the troops, and the Danes having landed at Jasmund, he was obliged to march against them with the best part of his forces; and in fact to raise the siege. ... The Danes having effected their object, in causing the siege of Stralsund to be raised, withdrew their troops from Jasmund, and landed them again at Wolgast. Here, however, Wallenstein surprised, and defeated them with great loss. ... There being on all sides a willingness to bring the war to an end, peace was ... concluded at Lubeck in January 1629. By this treaty the Danes recovered, without reserve or indemnity, all their former possessions; only pledging themselves not again to interfere in the affairs of the Empire. ... The peace of Lubeck left Wallenstein absolute master in Germany, and without an equal in greatness: his spirit seemed to hover like a storm-charged cloud over the land, crushing to the earth every hope of liberty and successful resistance. Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick had disappeared from the scene; Frederick V. had retired into obscurity. Tilly and Pappenheim, his former rivals, now condescended to receive favours, and to solicit pensions and rewards through the medium of his intercession. Even Maximilian of Bavaria was second in greatness to the all-dreaded Duke of Friedland: Europe held no uncrowned head that was his equal in fame, and no crowned head that surpassed him in power. ... Ferdinand, elated with success, had neglected the opportunity, again afforded him by the peace of Lubeck, for restoring tranquillity to the empire. ... Instead of a general peace, Ferdinand signed the fatal Edict of Restitution, by which the Protestants were called upon to restore all the Catholic Church property they had sequestrated since the religious pacification of 1555: such sequestration being, according to the Emperor's interpretation, contrary to the spirit of the treaty of Passau. The right of long-established possession was here entirely overlooked; and Ferdinand forgot, in his zeal for the church, that he was actually setting himself up as a judge, in a case in which he was a party also. It was farther added, that, according to the same treaty, freedom of departure from Catholic countries, was the only privilege which Protestants had a right to claim from Catholic princes. This decree came like a thunder-burst over Protestant Germany. Two archbishopricks, 12 bishopricks, and a countless number of convents and clerical domains, which the Protestants had confiscated, and applied to their own purposes, were now to be surrendered. Imperial commissioners were appointed to carry the mandate into effect, and, to secure immediate obedience, troops were placed at the disposal of the new officials. Wherever these functionaries appeared, the Protestant service was instantly suspended; the churches deprived of their bells; altars and pulpits pulled down; all Protestant books, bibles and catechisms were seized; and gibbets were erected to terrify those who might be disposed to resist. All Protestants who refused to change their religion were expelled from Augsburg: summary proceedings of the same kind were resorted to in other places. Armed with absolute power, the commissioners soon proceeded from reclaiming the property of the church to seize that of individuals. The estates of all persons who had served under Mansfeld, Baden, Christian of Brunswick; of all who had aided Frederick V., or rendered themselves obnoxious to the Emperor, were seized and confiscated. ... The Duke of Friedland, who now ruled with dictatorial sway over Germany, had been ordered to carry the Edict of Restitution into effect, in all the countries occupied by his troops. The task, if we believe historians, was executed with unbending rigour."

J. Mitchell, Life of Wallenstein, chapters 2-3.

ALSO IN: _L. Häusser, The Period of the Reformation, 1517 to 1648, chapter 33._

GERMANY: A. D. 1627-1631. War of the Emperor and Spain with France, over the succession to the duchy of Mantua.

See ITALY: A. D. 1627-1631.

GERMANY: A. D. 1630. The Thirty Years War: Universal hostility to Wallenstein. His dismissal by the Emperor. The rising of a new champion of Protestantism in Sweden.

"Wallenstein had ever shown great toleration in his own domains; but it is not to be denied that ... he aided to carry out the edict [of Restitution] in the most barbarous and relentless manner. It would be as tedious as painful to dwell upon all the cruelties which were committed, and the oppression that was exercised, by the imperial commissioners; but a spirit of resistance was aroused in the hearts of the German people, which only waited for opportunity to display itself. Nor was it alone against the emperor that wrath and indignation was excited. Wallenstein drew down upon his head even more dangerous enmity than that which sprung up against Ferdinand. He ruled in Germany with almost despotic sway; for the emperor himself seemed at this time little more than a tool in his hands. His manners were unpopular, stern, reserved, and gloomy. . . . Princes were kept waiting in his ante-chamber; and all petitions and remonstrances against his stern decrees were treated with the mortifying scorn which adds insult to injury. The magnificence of his train, the splendor of his household, the luxury and profusion that spread every where around him, afforded continual sources of envy and jealous hate to the ancient nobility of the empire. The Protestants throughout the land were his avowed and implacable enemies; and the Roman Catholic princes viewed him with fear and suspicion. Maximilian of Bavaria, whose star had waned under the growing luster of Wallenstein's renown, who had lost that authority in the empire which he knew to be due to his services and his genius, solely by the rise and influence of Wallenstein, and whose ambitious designs of ruling Germany through an emperor dependent upon him for power, had been frustrated entirely by the genius which placed the imperial throne upon a firm and independent basis, took no pains to conceal his hostility to the Duke of Friedland. ... {1474} Though the soldiery still generally loved him, their officers hated the hand that put a limit to the oppression by which they throve, and would fain have resisted its power. ... While these feelings were gathering strength in Germany; while Wallenstein, with no friends, though many supporters, saw himself an object of jealousy or hatred to the leaders of every party throughout the empire; and while the suppressed but cherished indignation of all Protestant Germany was preparing for the emperor a dreadful day of reckoning, events were taking place in other countries which hurried on rapidly the dangers that Wallenstein had foreseen. In France, a weak king, and a powerful, politic, and relentless minister, appeared in undissembled hostility to the house of Austria; and the famous Cardinal de Richelieu busied himself, successfully, to raise up enemies to the German branch of that family. ... In Poland, Sigismund, after vainly contending with Gustavus Adolphus, and receiving an inefficient aid from Germany, was anxious to conclude the disastrous war with Sweden. Richelieu interfered; Oxenstiern negotiated on the part of Gustavus; and a truce of six years was concluded in August, 1629, by which the veteran and victorious Swedish troops were set free to act in any other direction. A great part of Livonia was virtually ceded to Gustavus, together with the towns and territories of Memel, Braunsberg and Elbingen, and the strong fortress of Pillau. At the same time, Richelieu impressed upon the mind of Gustavus the honor, the advantage, and the necessity of reducing the immense power of the emperor, and delivering the Protestant states of Germany from the oppression under which they groaned. ... Confident in his own powers of mind and warlike skill, supported by the love and admiration of his people, relying on the valor and discipline of' his troops, and foreseeing all the mighty combinations which were certain to take place in his favor, Gustavus hesitated but little. He consulted with his ministers, indeed heard and answered every objection that could be raised; and then applied to the Senate at Stockholm to insure that his plans were approved, and that his efforts would be seconded by his people. His enterprise met with the most enthusiastic approbation; and then succeeded all the bustle of active preparation. ... While this storm was gathering in the North, while the towns of Sweden were bristling with arms, and her ports filled with ships, Ferdinand was driven or persuaded to an act the most fatal to himself, and the most favorable to the King of Sweden. A Diet was summoned to meet at Ratisbon early in the year 1630; and the chief object of the emperor in taking a step so dangerous to the power he had really acquired, and to the projects so boldly put forth in his name, seems to have been to cause his son to be elected King of the Romans. ... The name of the archduke, King of Hungary, is proposed to the Diet for election as King of the Romans, and a scene of indescribable confusion and murmuring takes place: A voice demands that, before any such election is considered, the complaints of the people of Germany against the imperial armies shall be heard; and then a perfect storm of accusations pours down. Every sort of tyranny and oppression, every sort of cruelty and exaction, every sort of licentiousness and vice is attributed to the emperor's troops; but the hatred and the charges all concentrate themselves upon the head of the great commander of the imperial forces; and there is a shout for his instant dismissal. ... Ferdinand hesitated, and affected much surprise at the charges brought against his general and his armies. He yielded in the end, however; and it is said, upon very good authority, that his ruinous decision was brought about by the arts of the same skillful politician who had conjured up the storm which now menaced the empire from the north. Richelieu had sent an embassador to Ratisbon. ... In the train of the embassador came the well-known intriguing friar, Father Joseph, the most unscrupulous and cunning of the cardinal's emissaries; and he, we are assured, found means to persuade the emperor that, by yielding to the demand of the electors and removing Wallenstein for a time, he might obtain the election of the King of Hungary, and then reinstate the Duke of Friedland in his command as soon as popular anger had subsided. However that might be, Ferdinand, as I have said, yielded, openly expressing his regret at the step he was about to take, and the apprehensions which he entertained for the consequences. Count Questenberg and another nobleman, who had been long on intimate terms with Wallenstein, were sent to the camp to notify to him his removal from command, and to soften the disgrace by assuring him of the emperor's gratitude and affection."

G. P. R. James, Dark Scenes of History: Wallenstein, chapters 3-4.

ALSO IN: S. R. Gardiner, The Thirty Years' War, chapter 7, section 3.

A. Gindely, History of the Thirty Years' War, volume 2, chapter 1.

GERMANY: A. D. 1630-1631. The Thirty Years War: The Coming of Gustavus Adolphus. His occupation of Pomerania and Brandenburg. The horrible fate of Magdeburg at the hands of Tilly's ruffians.

"On June 24, 1630, one hundred years, to a day, after the Augsburg Confession was promulgated, Gustavus Adolphus landed on the coast of Pomerania, near the mouth of the river Peene, with 13,000 men, veteran troops, whose rigid discipline was sustained by their piety, and who were simple-minded, noble, and glowing with the spirit of the battle. He had reasons enough for declaring war against Ferdinand, even if 10,000 of Wallenstein's troops had not been sent to aid Sigismund against him. But the controlling motive, in his own mind, was to succor the imperiled cause of religious freedom in Germany. Coming as the protector of the evangelic Church, he expected to be joined by the Protestant princes. But he was disappointed. Only the trampled and tortured people of North Germany, who in their despair were ready for revolts and conspiracies of their own, welcomed him as their deliverer from the bandits of Wallenstein and the League. Gustavus Adolphus appeared before Stettin, and by threats compelled the old duke, Bogislaw XIV., to open to him his capital city, He then took measures to secure possession of Pomerania. His army grew rapidly, while that of the emperor was widely dispersed, so that he now advanced into Brandenburg. George William, the elector, was a weak prince, though a Protestant, and a brother of the Queen of Sweden; he was guided by his Catholic chancellor, Schwarzenberg, and had painfully striven to keep neutral throughout the war, neither side, however, respecting his neutrality. {1475} In dread of the plans of Gustavus Adolphus concerning Pomerania and Prussia, he held aloof from him. Meanwhile Tilly, general-in-chief of the troops of the emperor and the League, drew near, but suddenly turned aside to New Brandenburg, in the Mecklenburg territory, now occupied by the Swedes, captured it after three assaults, and put the garrison to the sword (1631). He then laid siege to Magdeburg. Gustavus Adolphus took Frankfort-on-the-Oder, where there was an imperial garrison, and treated it, in retaliation, with the same severity. Thence, in the spring of 1631, he set out for Berlin. ... In Potsdam he heard of the fall of Magdeburg. He then marched with flying banners into Berlin, and compelled the elector to become his ally. Magdeburg was the strong refuge of Protestantism, and the most important trading centre in North Germany. It had resisted the Augsburg Interim of 1548, and now resisted the Edict of Restitution, rejected the newly appointed prince bishop, Leopold William, son of the emperor himself, and refused to receive the emperor's garrison. The city was therefore banned by the emperor, and was besieged for many weeks by Pappenheim, a general of the League, who was then reinforced by Tilly himself with his army. Gustavus Adolphus was unable to make an advance, in view of the equivocal attitude of the two great Protestant electors, without exposing his rear to garrisoned fortresses. From Brandenburg as well as Saxony he asked in vain for help to save the Protestant city. Thus Magdeburg fell, May 10, 1631. The citizens were deceived by a pretended withdrawal of the enemy. But suddenly, at early dawn, the badly guarded fortifications were stormed."

C. T. Lewis, History of Germany, chapter 18, sections 3-4.

Two gates of the city having been opened by the storming party, "Tilly marched in with part of his infantry. Immediately occupying the principal streets, he drove the citizens with pointed cannon into their dwellings, there to await their destiny. They were not long held in suspense; a word from Tilly decided the fate of Magdeburg. Even a more humane general would in vain have recommended mercy to such soldiers; but Tilly never made the attempt. Left by their general's silence masters of the lives of all the citizens, the soldiery broke into the houses to satiate their most brutal appetites. The prayers of innocence excited some compassion in the hearts of the Germans, but none in the rude breasts of Pappenheim's Walloons. Scarcely had the savage cruelty commenced, when the other gates were thrown open, and the cavalry, with the fearful hordes of the Croats, poured in upon the devoted inhabitants. Here commenced a scene of horrors for which history has no language--poetry no pencil. Neither innocent childhood, nor helpless old age; neither youth, sex, rank, nor beauty, could disarm the fury of the conquerors. Wives were abused in the arms of their husbands, daughters at the feet of their parents; and the defenceless sex exposed to the double sacrifice of virtue and life. No situation, however obscure, or however sacred, escaped the rapacity of the enemy. In a single church fifty-three women were found beheaded. The Croats amused themselves with throwing children into the flames; Pappenheim's Walloons with stabbing infants at the mother's breast. Some officers of the League, horror-struck at this dreadful scene, ventured to remind Tilly that he had it in his power to stop the carnage. 'Return in an hour,' was his answer; 'I will see what I can do; the soldier must have some reward for his danger and toils.' These horrors lasted with unabated fury, till at last the smoke and flames proved a check to the plunderers. To augment the confusion and to divert the resistance of the inhabitants, the Imperialists had, in the commencement of the assault, fired the town in several places. The wind rising rapidly, spread the flames, till the blaze became universal. Fearful, indeed, was the tumult amid clouds of smoke, heaps of dead bodies, the clash of swords, the crash of falling ruins, and streams of blood. The atmosphere glowed; and the intolerable heat forced at last even the murderers to take refuge in their camp. In less than twelve hours, this strong, populous, and flourishing city, one of the finest in Germany, was reduced to ashes, with the exception of two churches and a few houses. ... The avarice of the officers had saved 400 of the richest citizens, in the hope of extorting from them an exorbitant ransom. But this humanity was confined to the officers of the League, whom the ruthless barbarity of the Imperialists caused to be regarded as guardian angels. Scarcely had the fury of the flames abated, when the Imperialists returned to renew the pillage amid the ruins and ashes of the town. Many were suffocated by the smoke; many found rich booty in the cellars, where the citizens had concealed their more valuable effects. On the 13th of May, Tilly himself appeared in the town, after the streets had been cleared of ashes and dead bodies. Horrible and revolting to humanity was the scene that presented itself. The living crawling from under the dead, children wandering about with heart-rending cries, calling for their parents; and infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers. More than 6,000 bodies were thrown into the Elbe to clear the streets; a much greater number had been consumed by the flames. The whole number of the slain was reckoned at not less than 30,000. The entrance of the general, which took place on the 14th, put a stop to the plunder, and saved the few who had hitherto contrived to escape. About a thousand people were taken out of the cathedral, where they had remained three days and two nights, without food, and in momentary fear of death."

F. Schiller, History of the Thirty Years' War, book 2.

ALSO IN: _Sir E. Cust, Lives of the Warriors of the Thirty Years' War, part 1._

GERMANY: A. D. 1631 (January). The Thirty Years War: The Treaty of Bärwalde between Gustavus Adolphus and the king of France.

"On the 13th of January, 1631, the Treaty of Barwalde was concluded between France and Sweden. Hard cash had been the principal subject of the negotiation, and Louis XIII. had agreed to pay Gustavus a lump sum of $120,000 in consideration of his recent expenditure,--a further sum of $400,000 a year for six years to come. Until that time, or until a general peace, if such should supervene earlier, Sweden was to keep in the field an army of 30,000 foot and 6, 000 horse. The object of the alliance was declared to be 'the protection of their common friends, the security of the Baltic, the freedom of commerce, the restitution of the oppressed members of the Empire, the destruction of the newly erected fortresses in the Baltic, the North Sea, and in the Grisons territory, so that all should be left in the state in which it was before the German war had begun.' {1476} Sweden was not to 'violate the Imperial constitution' where she conquered; she was to leave the Catholic religion undisturbed in all districts where she found it existing. She was to observe towards Bavaria and the League--the spoilt darlings of Richelieu's anti-Austrian policy--friendship or neutrality, so far as they would observe it towards her. If, at the end of six years, the objects were not accomplished, the treaty was to be renewed."

C. R. L. Fletcher, Gustavus Adolphus and the Struggle of Protestantism for Existence, chapter 9.

GERMANY: A. D. 1631. The Thirty Years War: The elector of Brandenburg brought to terms by the king of Sweden. The elector of Saxony frightened into line. Defeat of Tilly at Leipsig (Breitenfeld). Effects of the great victory.

"Loud were the cries against Gustavus for not having relieved Magdeburg. To answer them he felt himself bound to publish a careful apology. In this document he declared, among other things, that if he could have obtained from the Elector of Brandenburg the passage of Küstrin he might not only have raised the siege of Magdeburg but have destroyed the whole of the Imperial army. The passage, however, had been denied him; and though the preservation of Magdeburg so much concerned the Elector of Saxony, he could obtain from him a passage toward it neither by Wittemberg, nor the Bridge of Dessau, nor such assistance in provision and shipping as was necessary for the success of the enterprise. ... Something more than mere persuasion had induced the Elector of Brandenburg, after the capture of Francfort, to grant Gustavus possession of Spandau for a month. The month expired on the 8th of June; and the elector demanded back his stronghold. The king, fettered by his promise, surrendered it; but the next day, having marched to Berlin and pointed his guns against the palace, the ladies came forth as mediators, and the elector consented both to surrender Spandau again and to pay, for the maintenance of the Swedish troops, a monthly subsidy of 30,000 rix-dollars. At the end of May Tilly removed from Magdeburg and the Elbe to Ascherleben. This enabled the king to take Werben, on the confluence of the Elbe and Havel, where, after the reduction of Tangermünde and Havelberg, he established his celebrated camp." In the latter part of July, Tilly made two attacks on the king's camp at Werben, and was repulsed on both occasions with heavy loss. "In the middle of August, Gustavus broke up his camp. His force at that time, according to the muster-rolls, amounted to 13,000 foot, and 8,850 cavalry. He drew towards Leipsig, then threatened by Tilly, who, having been joined at Eisleben by 15,000 men under Fürstenburg, now possessed an army 40,000 strong to enforce the emperor's ban against the Leipsig decrees [or resolutions of a congress of Protestant princes which had assembled at Leipsig in February, 1631, moved to some organized common action by the Edict of Restitution] within the limits of the electorate. The Elector of Saxony was almost frightened out of his wits by the impending danger. ... His grief and rage at the fall of Magdeburg had been so great that, for two days after receiving the news, he would admit no one into his presence. But that dire event only added to his perplexity; he could resolve neither upon submission, nor upon vengeance. In May, indeed, terrified by the threats of Ferdinand, he discontinued his levies, and disbanded a part of his troops already enlisted: but in June he sent Arnim to Gustavus with such overtures that the king drank his health, and seemed to have grown sanguine in the hope of his alliance. In July, his courage still rising, he permitted Gustavus to recruit in his dominions. In August, his courage falling again at the approach of Fürstenburg, he gave him and his troops a free passage through Thuringia." But now, later in the same month, he sent word to Gustavus Adolphus "that not only Wittemberg but the whole electorate was open to him; that not only his son, but himself, would serve under the king; that he would advance one month's payment for the Swedish troops immediately, and give security for two monthly payments more. ... Gustavus rejoiced to find the Duke of Saxony in this temper, and, in pursuance of a league now entered into with him, and the Elector of Brandenburg, crossed the Elbe at Wittemberg on the 4th of September. The Saxons, from 16,000 to 20,000 strong, moving simultaneously from Torgau, the confederated armies met at Düben on the Mulda, three leagues from Leipsig. At a conference held there, it was debated whether it would be better to protract the war or to hazard a battle. The king took the former side, but yielded to the strong representations of the Duke of Saxony. ... On the 6th of September the allies came within six or eight miles of the enemy, where they halted for the night. ... Breitenfeld, the place at which Tilly, urged by the importunity of Pappenheim, had chosen to offer battle, was an extensive plain, in part recently ploughed, about a mile from Leipsig and near the cemetery of that city. Leipsig had surrendered to Tilly two days before. The Imperial army, estimated at 44,000 men, occupied a rising ground on the plain. ... The army was drawn up in one line of great depth, having the infantry in the centre, the cavalry on the wings, according to the Spanish order of battle, The king subdivided his army, about 20,000 strong, into centre and wings, each of which consisted of two lines and a reserve. ... To this disposition is attributed, in a great degree, the success of the day. ... The files being so comparatively shallow, artillery made less havoc among them. Then, again, the division of the army into small maniples, with considerable intervals between each, gave space for evolutions, and the power of throwing the troops with rapidity wherever their services or support might be found requisite. ... The battle began at 12 o'clock." It only ended with the setting of the sun; but long before that time the great army of Tilly was substantially destroyed. It had scattered the Saxons easily enough, and sent them flying, with their worthless elector; but Gustavus and his disciplined, brave, powerfully handled Swedes had broken and ruined the stout but clumsy imperial lines. "It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the importance of this success. On the event of that day, as Gustavus himself said, the whole (Protestant) cause, 'summa rei,' depended. The success was great in itself. The numbers engaged on either side had been nearly equal. Not so their loss. The Imperial loss in killed and wounded, according to Swedish computation, was from 8,000 to 10,000; according to the enemy's own account, between 6,000 and 7,000; while all seem to agree that the loss on the side of the allies was only 2,700, of which 2,000 were Saxon, 700 Swedes. Besides, Gustavus won the whole of the enemy's artillery, and more than 100 standards. Then the army of Tilly being annihilated left him free to choose his next point of attack, almost his next victory."

B. Chapman, History of Gustavus Adolphus, chapter 8.

{1477}

"The battle of Breitenfeld was an epoch in war, and it was an epoch in history. It was an epoch in war, because first in it was displayed on a great scale the superiority of mobility over weight. It was an epoch in history, because it broke the force upon which the revived Catholicism had relied for the extension of its empire over Europe. ... 'Germany might tear herself and be torn to pieces for yet another half-generation, but the actual result of the Thirty-Years' War was as good as achieved.'"

C. R. L. Fletcher, Gustavus Adolphus and the Struggle of Protestantism for Existence, chapter 11.

ALSO IN: G. B. Malleson, The Battle-fields of Germany, chapter 1.

GERMANY: A. D. 1631-1632. The Thirty Years War: Movements and plans of the Swedish king in southern Germany. Temporary recovery of the Palatinate. Occupation of Bavaria. The Saxons in Bohemia. Battle of the Lech. Death of Tilly. Wallenstein's recall. Siege and relief of Nuremberg. Battle of Lützen, and death of Gustavus Adolphus.

"This battle, sometimes called Breitenwald [Breitenfeld], sometimes the First Battle of Leipsic, ... was the first victory on the Protestant side that had been achieved. It was Tilly's first defeat after thirty battles. It filled with joy those who had hitherto been depressed and hopeless. Cities which had dreaded to declare themselves for fear of the fate of Magdeburg began to lift up their heads, and vacillating princes to think that they could safely take the part which they preferred. Gustavus knew, however, that he must let the Germans do as much as possible for themselves, or he should arouse their national jealousy of him as a foreign conqueror. So he sent the Elector of Saxony to awaken the old spirit in Bohemia. As for himself, his great counsellor, Oxenstierna, wanted him to march straight on Vienna, but this was not his object. He wanted primarily to deliver the northern states, and to encourage the merchant cities, Ulm, Augsburg, Nuremberg, which had all along been Protestant, and to deliver the Palatinate from its oppressors. And, out of mortification, a strange ally offered himself, namely, Wallenstein, who wanted revenge on the Catholic League which had insisted on his dismissal, and the Emperor who had yielded to them. ... He said that if Gustavus would trust him, he would soon get his old army together again, and chase Ferdinand and the Jesuits beyond the Alps. But Gustavus did not trust him, though he sat quiet at Prague while the Saxons were in possession of the city, plundering everywhere, and the Elector sending off to Dresden fifty waggon-loads filled with the treasures of the Emperor Rudolf's museum. ... Many exiles returned, and there was a general resumption of the Hussite form of worship. Gustavus had marched to Erfurt, and then turned towards the Maine, where there was a long row of those prince bishoprics established on the frontier by the policy of Charlemagne--Wurtzburg, Bamberg, Fulda, Köln, Triers, Mentz, Wurms, Spiers. These had never been secularised and were popularly called the Priests' Lane. They had given all their forces to the Catholic League, and Gustavus meant to repay himself upon them. He permitted no cruelties, no persecutions; but he levied heavy contributions, and his troops made merry with the good Rhenish wine when he kept his Christmas at Mentz. He invited the dispossessed Elector Palatine to join him, and Frederick started for the camp, after the christening of his thirteenth child. ... The suite was numerous enough to fill forty coaches, escorted by seventy horse--pretty well for an exiled prince dependent on the bounty of Holland and England. ... There was the utmost enthusiasm for the Swede in England, and the Marquess of Hamilton obtained permission to raise a body of volunteers to join the Swedish standards, and in the August of 1631 brought 6,000 English and Scots in four small regiments; but they proved of little use ... many dying. ... So far as the King's plans can be understood, he meant to have formed a number of Protestant principalities, and united them in what he called 'Corpus Evangelicorum' around the Baltic and the Elbe, as a balance to the Austrian Roman Catholic power in southern Germany. Frederick wanted to raise an army of his own people and take the command, but to this Gustavus would not consent, having probably no great confidence in his capacity. All the Palatinate was free from the enemy except the three fortresses of Heidelberg, Frankenthal, and Kreuznach, and the last of these was immediately besieged. ... In the midst of the exultation Frederick was grieved to learn that his beautiful home at Heidelberg had been ravaged by fire, probably by the Spanish garrison in expectation of having to abandon it. But as Tilly was collecting his forces again, Gustavus would not wait to master that place or Frankenthal, and recrossed the Rhine. Sir Harry Vane had been sent as ambassador from Charles I. to arrange for the restoration of the Palatinate, the King offering £10,000 a mouth for the expense of the war, and proposing that if, as was only too probable, he should be prevented from performing this promise, some of the fortresses should be left as guarantees in the hands of the Swedes. Frederick took great and petulant offence at this stipulation, and complained, with tears in his eyes, to Vane and the Marquess of Hamilton. ... He persuaded them to suppress this article, though they warned him that if the treaty failed it would be by his own fault. It did in fact fail, for, as usual, the English money was not forthcoming, and even if it had been, Gustavus declared that he would be no man's servant for a few thousand pounds. Frederick also refused the King's own stipulation, that Lutherans should enjoy equal rights with Calvinists. Moreover, the Swedish success had been considerably more than was desired by his French allies. ... Louis XIII. was distressed, but Richelieu silenced him, only attempting to make a treaty with the Swedes by which the Elector of Bavaria and the Catholic League should be neutral on condition of the restoration of the bishops. To this, however, Gustavus could not fully consent, and imposed conditions which the Catholics could not accept. Tilly was collecting his forces and threatening Nuremberg, but the Swedes advanced, and he was forced to retreat, so that it was as a deliverer that, on the 31st March [1632], Gustavus was received in beautiful old Nuremberg with a rapture of welcome. ... {1478} Tilly had taken post on the Lech, and Maximilian was collecting an army in Bavaria. The object of Gustavus was now to beat one or other of them before they could join together: so he marched forward, took Donauwerth, and tried to take Ingoldstadt, but found it would occupy too much time, and, though all the generals were of a contrary opinion, resolved to attack Tilly and force the passage of the Lech. The Imperialists had fortified it to the utmost, but in their very teeth the Swedes succeeded in taking advantage of a bend in the river to play on them with their formidable artillery, construct a pontoon bridge, and, after a desperate struggle, effect a passage. Tilly was struck by a cannon-shot in the knee," and died soon afterwards. "On went Gustavus to Augsburg ... where the Emperor had expelled the Lutheran pastors and cleared the municipal council of Protestant burgomasters. In restoring the former state of things, Gustavus took a fresh step, making the magistrates not only swear fidelity to him as an ally till the end of the war, but as a sovereign. This made the Germans begin to wonder what were his ulterior views. Then he marched on upon Bavaria, intending to bridge the Danube and take Ratisbon, but two strong forts prevented this. ... He, however, made his way into the country between the Inn and the Lech, Maximilian retreating before him. ... At Munich the inhabitants brought him their keys. As they knelt he said, 'Rise, worship God, not man.' ... To compensate the soldiers for not plundering the city, the King gave them each a crown on the day of their entrance. ... Catholic Germany was in despair. There was only one general in whom there was any hope, and that was the discarded Wallenstein. ... He made himself be courted. He would not come to Vienna, only to Znaim in Moravia, where he made his terms like an independent prince. ... At last he undertook to collect an army, but refused to take the command for more than three months. His name was enough to bring his Friedlanders flocking to his standard. Not only Catholics, but Protestants came, viewing Gustavus as a foreign invader. ... Wallenstein received subsidies not only from the Emperor, but from the Pope and the King of Spain, towards levying and equipping them, and by the end of the three months he had the full 40,000 all in full order for the march. Then he resigned the command. ... He affected to be bent only on going back to his tower and his stars at Prague [the study of astrology being his favorite occupation], and to yield slowly to the proposals made him. He was to be Generalissimo, neither Emperor nor Archduke was ever to enter his camp; he was to name all his officers, and have absolute control. ... Moreover, he might levy contributions as he chose, and dispose as he pleased of lands and property taken from the enemy; Mecklenburg was to be secured to him, together with further rewards yet unspecified; and when Bohemia was freed from the enemy, the Emperor was to live there, no doubt under his control. ... There was no help for it, and Wallenstein thus became the chief power in the Empire, in fact a dictator. The power was conferred on him in April. The first thing he did was to turn the Saxons out of Bohemia, which was an easy matter." At Egra, Wallenstein was joined by the Elector of Bavaria, which raised the Catholic force to 60,000. "The whole army marched upon Nuremberg, and Gustavus, with only 20,000 men, dashed back to its defence. Wallenstein had intrenched himself on an eminence called Fürth." As Nuremberg was terribly distressed, his own army suffering, and being infected with the lawless habits of German warfare, Gustavus found it necessary to attempt (August 24) the storming of the Imperialists' camp. He was repulsed, after losing 3,000 of his Swedes and thrice as many Germans. He then returned to Bavaria, while Wallenstein, abandoning his hope of taking Nuremberg, moved into Saxony and began ravaging the country. The Swedish king followed him so quickly that he had, no time to establish the fortified camp he had intended, but was forced to take up an intrenched position at Lützen. There he was attacked on the 6th of November, 1632, and defeated in a desperate battle, which became one of the memorable conflicts in history because it brought to an end the great and splendid career of Gustavus Adolphus, the Swede. The king fell as he was leading a charge, and the fierce fight went on over his body until the enemy had been driven from the field.

_C. M. Yonge, Cameos from English History, 6th series, chapter 19._

ALSO IN: G. B. Malleson, Battle-fields of Germany, chapters 2-3.

_R. C. Trench, Gustavus Adolphus in Germany._

J. L. Stevens, History of Gustavus Adolphus, chapters 15-18.

GERMANY: A. D. 1631-1641. The Thirty Years War: The war in Lorraine. Possession of the duchy taken by the French.

See LORRAINE: A. D. 1624-1663.

GERMANY: A. D. 1632-1634. The Thirty Years War: Retirement of Wallenstein to Bohemia. Oxenstiern in the leadership of the Protestant cause. Union of Heilbronn. Inaction and suspicious conduct of Wallenstein. The Ban pronounced against him. His assassination.

"The account of the battle [of Lützen] transmitted by Wallenstein to the Imperial Court, led Ferdinand to think that he had gained the day. ... But ... the reputed conqueror was glad to shelter himself behind the mountains of the Bohemian frontier. After the battle, Wallenstein found it necessary to evacuate Saxony in all haste; and, leaving garrisons at Leipsic, Plauen, Zwickau, Chemnitz, Freiberg, Meissen, and Frauenstein, he reached Bohemia without further loss, and put his army into winter-quarters. After his arrival at Prague, he caused many of his officers to be executed for their conduct at Lützen, among whom were several who belonged to families of distinction, nor would he allow them to plead the Emperor's pardon. A few he rewarded. The harshness of his proceedings increased the hatred already felt for him by many of his officers, and especially the Italian portion: of them. ... Axel Oxenstiern, the Swedish Chancellor, succeeded, on the death of Gustavus Adolphus, to the supreme direction of the affairs of Sweden in Germany, and was invested by the Council at Stockholm with full powers both to direct the army and to negotiate with the German courts. Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar retained the military command of the Swedish-German army, divisions of which were cantoned from the Baltic to the Danube. {1479} After driving the Imperialists from Saxony, Bernhard had hastened into Franconia, the bishoprics of which, according to a promise of Gustavus, were to be erected in his favour into a duchy; but, after taking Bamberg, his assistance was invoked by General Horn, on the Upper Danube. One of the first cares of Oxenstiern was to consolidate the German alliance; and, in March 1633, he summoned a meeting at Heilbronn of the States of the four Circles of the Upper and Lower Rhine, Franconia, and Suabia, as well as deputies from Nuremberg, Strasburg, Frankfort, Ulm, Augsburg, and other cities of the empire. The assembly was also attended by ambassadors from France, England, and Holland; and on April 9th was effected the Union of Heilbronn. Brandenburg and Saxony stood aloof; nor was France, though she renewed the alliance with Sweden, included in the Union. The French minister at Heilbronn assisted, however, in the formation of the Union, although he endeavoured to limit the power of Oxenstiern, to whom the conduct of the war was intrusted. At the same time, the Swedes also concluded a treaty with the Palatinate, now governed, or rather claimed to be governed, by Louis Philip, brother of the Elector Frederick V., as guardian and regent for the latter's youthful son Charles Louis. The unfortunate Frederick had expired at Mentz in his 37th year, not many days after the death of Gustavus Adolphus. ... Swedish garrisons were to be maintained in Frankenthal, Bacharach, Kaub, and other places; Mannheim was to be at the disposal of the Swedes so long as the war should last. ... After the junction of Duke Bernhard with Horn, the Swedish army,--for so we shall continue to call it, though composed in great part of Germans,--endeavoured to penetrate into Bavaria; but the Imperial General Altringer, aided by John von Werth, a commander of distinction, succeeded in covering Munich, and enabled Maximilian to return to his capital. The Swedish generals were also embarrassed by a mutiny of their mercenaries, as well as by their own misunderstandings and quarrels; and all that Duke Bernhard was able to accomplish in the campaign of 1633, besides some forays into Bavaria, was the capture of Ratisbon in November."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 4, chapter 6 (volume 2).

Wallenstein, meantime, had been doing little. "After a long period of inaction in Bohemia, he marched during the summer of 1633, with imperial pomp and splendor, into Silesia. There he found a mixed army of Swedes, Saxons, and Brandenburgers, with Matthias Thurn, who began the war, among them. Wallenstein finally shut in this army [at Steinau] so that he might have captured it; but he let it go, and went back to Bohemia, where he began to negotiate with Saxony for peace. Meanwhile the alliance formed at Heilbronn had brought Maximilian of Bavaria into great distress. Regensburg [Ratisbon], hitherto occupied by him, and regarded as an outwork of Bavaria and Austria, had been taken by Bernard of Weimar. But Wallenstein, whom the emperor sent to the rescue, only went into the Upper Palatinate, and then returned to Bohemia. He seemed to look upon that country as a strong and commanding position from which he could dictate peace. He carried on secret negotiations with France, Sweden, and all the emperor's enemies. He had, indeed, the power to do this under his commission; but his attitude toward his master became constantly more equivocal. The emperor was anxious to be rid of him without making him an enemy, and wished to give to his own son, the young King of Hungary, the command in chief. But the danger of losing his place drove Wallenstein to bolder schemes. At his camp at Pilsen, all his principal officers were induced by him to unite in a written request that he should in no case desert them--a step which seemed much like a conspiracy. But some of the generals, as Gallas, Aldringer, and Piccolomini, soon abandoned Wallenstein, and gave warning to the emperor. He secretly signed a patent deposing Wallenstein, and placed it in the hands of Piccolomini and Gallas, January 24, 1634, but acted with the profoundest dissimulation until he had made sure of most of the commanders who served under him. Then, suddenly, on February 18, Wallenstein, his brother-in-law Tertzski, Ilow, Neumann, and Kinsky were put under the ban, and the general's possessions were confiscated. Now, at length, Wallenstein openly revolted, and began to treat with the Swedes for desertion to them; but they did not fully trust him. Attended only by five Sclavonic regiments, who remained faithful to him, he went to Eger, where he was to meet troops of Bernard of Weimar; but before he could join them, he and the friends named above were assassinated, February 25, by traitors who had remained in his intimate companionship, and whom he trusted, under the command of Colonel Butler, an Irishman, employed by Piccolomini."

C. T. Lewis, History of Germany, chapter 18, section 10.

ALSO IN: F. Schiller, History of the Thirty Years' War, book 4.

J. Mitchell, Life of Wallenstein, chapters 8-10.

Sir E. Cust, Lives of the Warriors of the Thirty Years' War, part 1.

GERMANY: A, D. 1634-1639. The Thirty Years War: Successes of the Imperialists. Their victory at Nördlingen. Richelieu and France become active in the war. Duke Bernhard's conquest of Alsace. Richelieu's appropriation of the conquest for France.

"Want of union among the Protestants prevented them from deriving all the benefit which they had at first anticipated from Wallenstein's death. The King of Hungary assumed the command of the army, and by the aid of money, which was plentifully distributed, the soldiers were, without difficulty, kept in obedience; not the slightest attempt was any where made to resist the Emperor's orders. On the other hand, Bernhard of Weimar and Field-Marshal Horn were masters of Bavaria. In July 1634, they gained a complete victory at Landshut, over General Altringer, who was slain in the action. ... The Swedes, who had so long been victorious, were, in their turn, destined to taste the bitterness of defeat. 15,000 Spaniards, under the Cardinal Infant, son of Philip III., entered Germany [see NETHERLANDS: A.D. 1621-1633, and 1635-1638], and in conjunction with the imperial army, under the King of Hungary, laid siege to Nördlingen. Field-Marshal Horn, and Bernhard of Weimar, hurried to the relief of the place. Owing to the superiority of the enemy, who was besides strongly intrenched, the Swedish commanders had no intention to hazard a battle, before the arrival of the Rhin-graff Count Otho, with another division of the army, which was already close at hand; but the impetuosity of the Duke of Weimar lost every thing. {1480} Horn had succeeded in carrying a hill, called the Amsberg, a strong point, which placed him in communication with the town, and almost secured the victory. Bernhard, thinking that so favourable an opening should not be neglected, hurried on to the attack of another post. It was taken and retaken; both armies were gradually, and without method, drawn into the combat, which, after eight hours' duration, ended in the complete defeat of the Swedes. Horn was made prisoner; and Bernhard escaped on a borrowed horse. ... The defeat of' Nördlingen almost ruined the Swedish cause in Germany; the spell of invincibility was gone, and the effects of the panic far surpassed those which the sword had produced. Strong fortresses were abandoned before the enemy came in sight; provinces were evacuated, and armies, that had been deemed almost inconquerable, deserted their chiefs, and broke into bands of lawless robbers, who pillaged their way in every direction. Bavaria, Suabia and Franconia were lost; and it was only behind the Rhine that the scattered fugitives could again be brought into something like order. ... The Emperor refused to grant the Swedes any other terms of peace than permission to retire from the empire. The Elector of Saxony, forgetful of what was due to his religion, and forgetful of all that Sweden had done for his country, concluded, at Prague, a separate peace with the Emperor; and soon afterwards joined the Imperialists against his former allies. The fortunes of the Protestants would have sunk beneath this additional blow, had not France come to their aid. Richelieu had before only nourished the war by means of subsidies, and had, at one time, become nearly as jealous of the Swedes as of the Austrians; but no sooner was their power broken, than the crafty priest took an active share in the contest."

J. Mitchell, Life of Wallenstein, chapter 10.

"Richelieu entered resolutely into the contest, and in 1635 displayed enormous diplomatic activity. He wished not only to reduce Austria, but, at the same time, Spain. Spanish soldiers, Spanish treasure, and Spanish generals made in great part the strength of the imperial armies, and Spain besides never ceased to ferment internal troubles in France. Richelieu signed the treaty of Compiegne with the Swedes against Ferdinand II. By its conditions he granted them considerable subsidies in order that they should continue the war in Germany. He made the treaty of St. Germain en Laye with Bernard of Saxe Weimar, to whom he promised an annual allowance of money as well as Alsace, provided that he should remain in arms to wrest Franche-Comté from Philip IV. He made the treaty of Paris with the Dutch, who were to help the King of France to conquer Flanders, which was to be divided between France and the United Provinces. He made the treaty of Rivoli with the dukes of Savoy, of Parma, and of Mantua, who were to undertake in concert with France the invasion of the territories of Milan and to receive a portion of the spoils of Spain. At the same time he declared war against the Spanish Government, which had arrested and imprisoned the Elector of Trèves, the ally of France, and refused to surrender him when demanded. Hostilities immediately began on five different theatres of war--in the Low Countries, on the Rhine, in Eastern Germany, in Italy, and in Spain. The army of the Rhine, commanded by Cardinal de la Valette, was to operate in conjunction with the corps of Bernard of Saxe Weimar against the Imperialists, commanded by Count Gallas. To this army Turenne was attached. It consisted of 20,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry, and 14 guns. This was the army upon which Richelieu mainly relied. ... Valette was to annoy the enemy without exposing himself, and was not to approach the Rhine; but induced by Bernard, who had a dashing spirit and wished to reconquer all he had lost, encouraged by the terror of the Imperialists who raised the siege of Mayence, he determined to pass the river. He was not long in repenting of that step. He established his troops round Mayence and revictualled this place, which was occupied by a Swedish garrison, throwing in all the supplies of which the town had need. The Imperialists, who had calculated on this imprudence, immediately took to cutting off his supplies, so that soon everything was wanting in the French camp. ... The scourge of famine threatened the French: it was necessary to retreat, to recross the Rhine, to pass the Sarre, and seek a refuge at Metz. Few retreats have been so difficult and so sad. The army was in such a pitiable condition that round Mayence the men had to be fed with roots and green grapes, and the horses with branches of trees. ... The sick and the weary were abandoned, the guns were buried, villages were burnt to stay the pursuit of the enemy, and to prevent the wretched soldiers who would fall out of the ranks from taking refuge in them."

H. M. Hozier, Turenne, chapter 2.

"Meanwhile, Saxony had concluded with the Emperor at Pirna, at the close of 1634, a convention which ripened into a treaty of alliance, to which almost all the princes of Northern Germany subscribed, at Prague, in the month of May following. The Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg were thus changed into enemies of Sweden. The Swedish General, Banner [or Baner], who, at the period of the battle of Nördlingen, had been encamped side by side with the Saxon army on the White Hill near Prague, had, on the first indication of wavering on the part of its Elector, managed skilfully to withdraw his troops from the dangerous proximity. On the 22nd October 1635, he defeated the Saxon army, at Dömitz on the Elbe, then invaded Brandenburg, took Havelberg, and even threatened Berlin. Compelled by the approach of a Saxon and Imperialist army to quit his prey, he turned and beat the combined army at Wittstock (24th September 1636). After that battle, he drew the reinforced Imperialists, commanded by Gallas, after him into Pomerania; there he caused them great losses by cutting off their supplies, then forced them back into Saxony, and, following them up closely, attacked and beat them badly at Chemnitz (4th April, 1639)." In the south, Duke Bernhard had gained meantime some solid successes. After his retreat from Mayence, in 1635, he had concluded his secret treaty with Richelieu, placing himself wholly at the service of France, and receiving the promise of 4,000,000 francs yearly, for the support of his army, and the ultimate sovereignty of Alsace for himself. "Having concerted measures with La Valette [1636], ... he invaded Lorraine, drove the enemy thence, taking Saarburg and Pfalzburg, and then, entering Alsace, took Saverne. His career of conquest in Alsace was checked by the invasion of Burgundy by Gallas, with an army of 40,000 men. {1481} Duke Bernhard marched with all haste to Dijon, and forced Gallas to fall back, with great loss, beyond the Saone (November 1636). Pursuing his advantages, early the following year he forced the passage of the Saone at Gray, despite the vivid resistance of Prince Charles of Lorraine (June 1637), and pursued that commander as far as Besançon. Reinforced during the autumn, he marched towards the Upper Rhine, and, undertaking a winter campaign, captured Lauffenburg, after a skirmish with John of Werth; then Säckingen and Waldshut, and laid siege to Rheinfelden. The Imperialist army, led by John of Werth, succeeded, indeed, after a very hot encounter, in relieving that place; but three days later Duke Bernhard attacked and completely defeated it (21st February 1638), taking prisoners not only John of Werth himself, but the generals, Savelli, Enkefort, and Sperreuter. The consequences of this victory were the fall of Rheinfelden, Rötteln, Neuenberg, and Freiburg. Duke Bernhard then laid siege to Breisach (July 1638). ... The Imperial general, Götz, advanced at the head of a force considerably outnumbering that of Duke Bernhard. Leaving a portion of his army before the place, Duke Bernhard then drew to himself Turenne, who was lying in the vicinity with 3,000 men, fell upon the Imperialists at Wittenweiher (30th July), completely defeated them, and captured their whole convoy. Another Imperialist army, led by the Duke of Lorraine in person, shared a similar fate at Thann, in the Sundgau, on the 4th October following. Götz, who was hastening with a strengthened army to support the Duke of Lorraine, attacked Duke Bernhard ten days later, but was repulsed with great loss. Breisach capitulated on the 7th December. Duke Bernhard took possession of it in his own name, and foiled all the efforts of Richelieu to secure it for France, by garrisoning it with German soldiers. To compensate the French Cardinal Minister for Breisach, Duke Bernhard undertook a winter campaign to drive the Imperialists from Franche-Comté. Entering that province at the end of December, he speedily made himself master of its richest part. He then returned to Alsace with the resolution to cross the Rhine and carry the war once again into Bavaria," and then, in junction with Banner, to Vienna. "He had made all the necessary preparations for this enterprise, had actually sent his army across the Rhine, when he died very suddenly, not without suspicion of poison, at Neuberg am Rhein (8th July, 1639). The lands he had conquered he bequeathed to his brother. ... But Richelieu paid no attention to the wishes of the dead general. Before any of the family could interfere, he had secured all the fortresses in Alsace, even Breisach, which was its key, for France."

G. B. Malleson, The Battle-fields of Germany, chapter 5.

"During [1639] Piccolomini, at the head of the Imperialist and Spanish troops, gave battle to the French at Diedenhofen. The battle took place on the 7th of June, and the French were beaten and suffered great losses."

A. Gindely, History of the Thirty Years' War, chapter 8.

ALSO IN: Sir E. Cust, Lives of the Warriors of the Thirty Years' War, part 2.

S. R. Gardiner, The Thirty Years' War, chapter 9, section 5.

GERMANY: A. D. 1635-1638. The Thirty Years War: Campaigns in the Netherlands. The Dutch and French against the Spaniards.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1635-1638.

GERMANY: A. D. 1636-1637. Diet at Ratisbon. Attempted negotiations of peace. Death of the Emperor Ferdinand II

"An electoral diet was assembled at Ratisbon, by the emperor in person, on the 15th of September, 1636, for the ostensible purpose of restoring peace, for which some vague negotiations had been opened under the mediation of the pope and the king of Denmark, and congresses appointed at Hamburgh and Cologne; but with the real view of procuring the election of his son Ferdinand as king of the Romans. ... Ferdinand was elected with only the fruitless protest of the Palatine family, and the dissenting voice of the elector of Treves. ... The emperor did not long survive this happy event. He died on the 15th of February, 1637. ... Ferdinand ... seems to have been the first who formally established the right of primogeniture in all his hereditary territories. By his testament, dated May 10th. 1621, he ordered that all his Austrian dominions should devolve on his eldest male descendant, and fixed the majority at 18 years."

W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 56 (volume 2).

GERMANY: A. D. 1637. Election of the Emperor Ferdinand III.

GERMANY: A. D. 1640-1645. The Thirty Years War: Campaigns of Baner and Torstenson. The second Breitenfeld. Jankowitz. Mergentheim. Allerheim. War in Denmark. Swedish army in Austria. Saxony forced to neutrality.

"The war still went on for eight years, but the only influence that it exerted upon the subsequent Peace was that it overcame the last doubts of the Imperial court as to the indispensable principles of the Peace. ... The first event of importance on the theatre of war after Bernhard's death was Baner's attempt to join the army of Weimar in central Germany. Not in a condition to pass the winter in Bohemia, and threatened in Saxony and Silesia, he ... commenced [March, 1640] a retreat amidst fearful devastations, crossed the Elbe at Leitmeritz, and arrived April 3rd at Zwickau. He succeeded in joining with the mercenaries of Weimar and the troops of Lüneburg and Hesse at Saalfeld;" but no joint action was found possible. "Until December, the war on both sides consisted of marches hither and thither, accompanied with horrible devastation; but nothing decisive occurred. In September the Diet met at Ratisbon. While wearisome attempts were being made to bend the obstinacy of Austria, Baner resolved to compel her to yield by a bold stroke, to invade the Upper Palatinate, to surprise Ratisbon, and to put an end to the Diet and Emperor together. ... Not without difficulty Guebriant [commanding the French in Alsace] was induced to follow, and to join Baner at Erfurt. ... But the surprise of Ratisbon was a failure. ... The armies now separated again. Baner exhausted his powers of persuasion in vain to induce Guebriant to go with him. The French went westward. Hard pressed himself, Baner proceeded by forced marches towards Bohemia, and by the end of March reached Zwickau, where he met Guebriant again, and they had a sharp conflict with the Imperialists on the Saal. There Baner died, on the 21st of May, 1641, leaving his army in a most critical condition, The warfare of the Swedish-French arms was come to a standstill. {1482} Both armies were near dissolution, when, in November, Torstenson, the last of the Gustavus Adolphus school of generals, and the one who most nearly equalled the master, appeared with the Swedish army, and by a few vigorous strokes, which followed each other with unexampled rapidity, restored the supremacy of its arms. ... After three months of rest, which he mainly devoted to the reorganization and payment of his army, by the middle of January [1642] he had advanced towards the Elbe and the Altmark; and as the Imperial forces were weakened by sending troops to the Rhine, he formed the great project of proceeding through Silesia to the Austrian hereditary dominions. On April 3rd he crossed the Elbe at Werben, between the Imperial troops, increased his army to 20,000 men, stormed Glogau on May 4th, stood before Schweidnitz on the 30th, and defeated Francis Albert of Lauenburg; Schweidnitz, Neisse, and Oppeln fell into his hands. Meanwhile Guebriant, after subduing the defiant and mutinous spirit of his troops by means of money and promises, had, on January 17th, defeated the Imperialists near Kempen, not far from Crefeld [at Hulst], for which he was honoured with the dignity of marshal. But this was a short-lived gleam of light, and was soon followed by dark days, occasioned by want of money and discontent in the camp. ... He had turned eastward from the Rhine to seek quarters for his murmuring troops in nether Germany, when Torstenson effected a decision in Saxony. After relieving Glogau, and having in vain tried to enter Bohemia, he had joined the detachments of Königsmark and Wrangel, and on October 30th he appeared before Leipzig. On November 2nd there was a battle near Breitenfeld, which ended in a disastrous defeat of the Imperialists and Leipzig surrendered to Torstenson three weeks afterwards. In spite of all the advantages which Torstenson gained for himself, it never came to a united action with the French; and the first victory won by the French in the Netherlands, in May, 1643, did not alter this state of things. Torstenson ... was suddenly called to a remote scene of war in the north. King Christian IV. of Denmark had been persuaded, by means of the old Danish jealousy of Sweden, to take up arms for the Emperor. He declared war just as Torstenson was proceeding to Austria. Vienna was now saved; but so much the worse for Denmark. In forced marches, which were justly admired, Torstenson set out from Silesia towards Denmark at the end of October, conducted a masterly campaign against the Danes, beat them wherever he met with them, conquered Holstein and Schleswig, pushed on to Jutland, then, while Wrangel and Horn carried on the war (till the peace of Brömsebro, August, 1645), he returned and again took up the war against the Imperialists, everywhere an unvanquished general. The Imperialists under the incompetent Gallas intended to give Denmark breathing-time by creating a diversion; but it did not save Denmark, and brought another defeat upon themselves. Gallas did not bring back more than 2,000 men from Magdeburg to Bohemia, and they were in a very disorganized state. He was pursued by Torstenson, while Ragoczy threatened Hungary. The Emperor hastily collected what forces he could command, and resolved to give battle. Torstenson had advanced as far as Glattau in February, and on March 6th, 1645, a battle was fought near Jankowitz, three miles from Tabor. It was the most brilliant victory ever gained by the Swedes. The Imperial army was cut to pieces; several of its leaders imprisoned or killed. In a few weeks Torstenson conquered Moravia and Austria as far as the Danube. Not far from the capital itself he took possession of the Wolfsbrücke. As in 1618, Vienna was in great danger." But the ill-success of the French "always counterbalanced the Swedes' advantages. Either they were beaten just as the Swedes were victorious, or could not turn a victory to account. So it was during this year [1645]. The west frontier of the empire was guarded on the imperial side by Mercy, together with John of Werth, after he was liberated from prison. On 26th March, Turenne crossed the Rhine, and advanced towards Franconia. There he encamped near Mergentheim and Rosenberg. On 5th May, a battle near Mergentheim ended with the entire defeat of the French, and Turenne escaped with the greatest difficulty by way of Hammelburg, towards Fulda. The victors pushed on to the Rhine. To avenge this defeat, Enghien was sent from Paris, and, at the beginning of July, arrived at Spires, with 12,000 men. His forces, together with Königsmark's, the remnant of Turenne's and the Hessians, amounted to 30,000 men. At first Mercy dexterously avoided a battle under unfavourable circumstances, but on August 3d the contest was inevitable. A bloody battle was fought between Nördlingen and Donauwörth, near Allerheim [called the battle of Nordlingen, by the French], which was long doubtful, but, after tremendous losses, resulted in the victory of the French. Mercy's fall, Werth's imprudent advance, and a final brave assault of the Hessians, decided the day. But the victors were so weakened that they could not fully take advantage of it. Condé was ill; and in the autumn Turenne was compelled, not without perceptible damage to the cause, to retreat with his army to the Neckar and the Rhine. Neither had Torstenson been able to maintain his position in Austria. He had been obliged to raise the siege of Brunn, and learnt at the same time that Ragoczy had just made peace with the Emperor. Obliged to retire to Bohemia, he found his forces considerably diminished. Meanwhile, Kônigsmark had won an important advantage. While Torstenson was in Austria he gained a firm footing in Saxony. Then came the news of Allerheim, and of the peace of Brömsebro. Except Dresden and Königstein, all the important points were in the hands of the Swedes; so, on the 6th of September [1645], the Elector John George concluded a treaty of neutrality for six months. Besides money and supplies, the Swedes received Leipzig, Torgau, and the right of passage through the country. Meanwhile, Torstenson had retreated into the north-east of Bohemia, and severe physical sufferings compelled him to give up the command. He was succeeded by Charles Gustavus Wrangel."

_L. Hausser, The Period of the Reformation, 1517 to 1648, chapter 39._

ALSO IN: W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 58 (volume 2).

GERMANY: A. D. 1642-1643. The Thirty Years War: Condé's victory at Rocroi and campaign on the Moselle.

See FRANCE: A.D. 1642-1648, and 1643.

{1483}

GERMANY: A. D. 1643-1644. The Thirty Years War: Campaigns of Turenne and Condé against Merci, on the Upper Rhine. Dütlingen. Freiburg. Philipsburg.

"After the death of Bernard of Saxe Weimar, Marshal Guébriant had been placed in command of the troops of Weimar. He had besieged and taken Rottweil in Suabia, but had there been killed. Rantzau, who succeeded him in command of the Weimar army, marched (24-25 November, 1643) upon Dütlingen [or Tuttlingen], on the Upper Rhine, was there beaten by Mercy and made prisoner, with the loss of many officers and 7,000 soldiers. This was a great triumph for the Bavarians; a terrible disaster for France. The whole of the German infantry in the French service was dispersed or taken, the cavalry retreated as they best could upon the Rhine. ... Circumstances required active measures. Plenipotentiaries had just assembled at Münster to begin the negotiations which ended with the peace of Westphalia. It was desired that the French Government should support the French diplomatist by quick successes. ... Turenne was sent to the Rhine with reinforcements. ... He re-established discipline, and breathed into [the army] a new spirit. ... At the same time, by negotiations, the prisoners who had been taken at Dütlingen were restored to France, the gaps in the ranks were filled up, and in the spring of 1644 Turenne found himself at the head of 9,000 men, of whom 5,000 were cavalry, and was in a position to take the field." He "pushed through the Black Forest, and near the source of the Danube gained a success over a Bavarian detachment. For some reason which is not clear he threw a garrison into Freiburg, and retired across the Rhine. Had he remained near the town he would have prevented Mercy from investing it. So soon as Turenne was over the river, Mercy besieged Freiburg, and although Turenne advanced to relieve the place, a stupid error of some of his infantry made him fail, and Freiburg capitulated to Mercy."

H. M. Hozier, Turenne, chapter 3 and 5.

"Affairs being in so bad a state about the Black Forest, the Great Condé, at that time Duc d'Enghien, was brought up, with 10,000 men; thus raising the French to a number above the enemy's. He came crowned with the immortal laurels of Rocroi; and in virtue of his birth, as a prince of the blood-royal, took precedence of the highest officers in the service. Merci, a capable and daring general, aware of his inferiority, now posted himself a short distance from Freyburg, in a position almost inaccessible. He garnished it with felled trees and intrenchments, mountains, woods, and marshes, which of themselves defied attack." Turenne advocated a flank movement, instead of a direct assault upon Merci's position; but Condé, reckless of his soldiers' lives, persisted in leading them against the enemy's works. "A terrible action ensued (August 3, 1644). Turenne made a long detour through a defile; Condé, awaiting his arrival on the ground, postponed the assault till three hours before sunset, and then ascended the steep. Merci had the worse, and retreated to a fresh position on the Black Mountain, where he successfully repulsed for one day Condé's columns (August 5). In this action Gaspard Merci was killed. Condé now adopted the flank movement, which, originally recommended by Turenne, would have saved much bloodshed; and Merci, hard pressed, escaped by a rapid retreat, leaving behind him his artillery and baggage (August 9). These are the 'three days of Freyburg.' To retake the captured Freyburg after their victory ... was the natural suggestion first heard." But Turenne persuaded Condé that the reduction of Philipsburg was more important. "Philipsburg was taken after a short siege; and its fall was accompanied by the submission of the adjacent towns of Germersheim, Speier, Worms, Mentz, Oppenheim and Landau. Condé at this conjuncture left the Upper Rhine, and took away his regiments with him."

T. O. Cockayne, Life of Turenne, pages 20-22.

ALSO IN: G. B. Malleson, The Battle-fields of Germany, chapter 6.

GERMANY: A. D. 1646-1648. The Thirty Years War: Its final campaigns. The sufferings of Bavaria. Truce and peace negotiations initiated by the Elector Maximilian. The ending of the war at Prague.

"The retreat of the French [after the battle of Allerheim] enabled the enemy to turn his whole force upon the Swedes in Bohemia. Gustavus Wrangel, no unworthy successor of Banner and Torstensohn, had, in 1646, been appointed Commander-in-chief of the Swedish army. ... The Archduke, after reinforcing his army ... moved against Wrangel, in the hope of being able to overwhelm him by his superior force before Koenigsmark could join him, or the French effect a diversion in his favour. Wrangel, however, did not await him." He moved through Upper Saxony and Hesse, to Weimar, where he was joined by the flying corps of Koenigsmark. Finally, after much delay, he was joined likewise by Turenne and the French. "The junction took place at Giessen, and they now felt themselves strong enough to meet the enemy. The latter had followed the Swedes into Hesse, in order to intercept their commissariat, and to prevent their union with Turenne. In both designs they had been unsuccessful; and the Imperialists now saw themselves cut off from the Maine, and exposed to great scarcity and want from the loss of their magazines. Wrangel took advantage of their weakness to execute a plan by which he hoped to give a new turn to the war. ... He determined to follow the course of the Danube, and to break into the Austrian territories through the midst of Bavaria. ... He moved hastily, ... defeated a Bavarian corps near Donauwerth, and passed that river, as well as the Lech, unopposed. But by wasting his time in the unsuccessful siege of Augsburg, he gave opportunity to the Imperialists, not only to relieve that city, but also to repulse him as far as Lauingen. No sooner, however, had they turned towards Suabia, with a view to remove the war from Bavaria, than, seizing the opportunity, he repassed the Lech, and guarded the passage of it against the Imperialists themselves. Bavaria now lay open and defenceless before him; the French and Swedes quickly overran it; and the soldiery indemnified themselves for all dangers by frightful outrages, robberies, and extortions. The arrival of the Imperial troops, who at last succeeded in passing the Lech at Thierhaupten, only increased the misery of this country, which friend and foe indiscriminately plundered. And now, for the first time during the whole course of this war, the courage of Maximilian, which for eight-and-twenty years had stood unshaken amidst fearful dangers, began to waver. Ferdinand II., his school-companion at Ingolstadt, and the friend of his youth, was no more; and, with the death of his friend and benefactor, the strong tie was dissolved which had linked the Elector to the House of Austria. ... {1484} Accordingly, the motives which the artifices of France now put in operation, in order to detach him from the Austrian alliance, and to induce him to lay down his arms, were drawn entirely from political considerations. ... The Elector of Bavaria was unfortunately led to believe that the Spaniards alone were disinclined to peace, and that nothing but Spanish influence had induced the Emperor so long to resist a cessation of hostilities. Maximilian detested the Spaniards, and could never forgive their having opposed his application for the Palatine Electorate. ... All doubts disappeared; and, convinced of the necessity of this step, he thought he should sufficiently discharge his obligations to the Emperor if he invited him also to share in the benefit of the truce. The deputies of the three crowns, and of Bavaria, met at Ulm, to adjust the conditions. But it was soon evident, from the instructions of the Austrian ambassador, that it was not the intention of the Emperor to second the conclusion of a truce, but if possible· to prevent it. ... The good intentions of the Elector of Bavaria, to include the Emperor in the benefit of the truce, having been thus rendered unavailing, he felt himself justified in providing for his own safety. ... He agreed to the Swedes extending their quarters in Suabia and Franconia, and to his own being restricted to Bavaria and the Palatinate. The conquests which he had made in Suabia were ceded to the allies, who, on their part, restored to him what they had taken from Bavaria. Cologne and Hesse Cassel were also included in the truce. After the conclusion of this treaty, upon the 14th March, 1647, the French and Swedes left Bavaria. ... Turenne, according to agreement, marched into Wurtemburg, where he forced the Landgrave of Darmstadt and the Elector of Mentz to imitate the example of Bavaria, and to embrace the neutrality. And now, at last, France seemed to have attained the great object of its policy, that of depriving the Emperor of the support of the League, and of his Protestant allies. ... But ... after a brief crisis, the fallen power of Austria rose again to a formidable strength. The jealousy which France entertained of Sweden, prevented it from permitting the total ruin of the Emperor, or allowing the Swedes to obtain such a preponderance in Germany, which might have been destructive to France herself. Accordingly, the French minister declined to take advantage of the distresses of Austria; and the army of Turenne, separating from that of Wrangel, retired to the frontiers of the Netherlands. Wrangel, indeed, after moving from Suabia into Franconia, taking Schweinfurt, ... attempted to make his way into Bohemia, and laid siege to Egra, the key of that kingdom. To relieve this fortress, the Emperor, put his last army in motion, and placed himself at its head. But ... on his arrival Egra was already taken." Meantime the Emperor had engaged in intrigues with the Bavarian officers and had nearly seduced the whole army of the Elector. The latter discovered this conspiracy in time to thwart it; but he now suddenly, on his own behalf, struck hands with the Emperor again, and threw over his late agreements with the Swedes and French. "He had not derived from the truce the advantages he expected. Far from tending to accelerate a general peace, it had a pernicious influence upon the negociations at Munster and Osnaburg, and had made the allies bolder in their demands." Maximilian, therefore, renounced the truce and began hostilities anew. "This resolution, and the assistance which he immediately despatched to the Emperor in Bohemia, threatened materially to injure the Swedes, and Wrangel was compelled in haste to evacuate that kingdom. He retired through Thuringia into Westphalia and Lunenburg, in the hope of forming a junction with the French army under Turenne, while the Imperial and Bavarian army followed him to the Weser, under Melander and Gronsfeld. His ruin was inevitable if the enemy should overtake him before his junction with Turenne; but the same consideration which had just saved the Emperor now proved the salvation of the Swedes. ... The Elector of Bavaria could not allow the Emperor to obtain so decisive a preponderance as, by the sudden alteration of affairs, might delay the chances of a general peace. ... Now that the power of the Emperor threatened once more to attain a dangerous superiority, Maximilian at once ceased to pursue the Swedes. ... Melander, prevented by the Bavarians from further pursuing Wrangel, crossed by Jena and Erfurt into Hesse. ... In this exhausted country, his army was oppressed by want, while Wrangel was recruiting his strength, and remounting his cavalry in Lunenburg. Too weak to maintain his wretched quarters against the Swedish general, when he opened the campaign in the winter of 1648, and marched against Hesse, he was obliged to retire with disgrace, and take refuge on the banks of the Danube. ... Turenne received permission to join the Swedes; and the last campaign of this eventful war was now opened by the united armies. Driving Melander before them along the Danube, they threw supplies into Egra, which was besieged by the Imperialists, and defeated the Imperial and Bavarian armies on the Danube, which ventured to oppose them at Susmarshausen, where Melander was mortally wounded." They then forced a passage of the Lech, at the point where Gustavus Adolphus formerly overcame Tilly, and ravaged Bavaria once more; while nothing but a prolonged rain-storm, which flooded the Inn, saved Austria from a similar devastation. Koenigsmark, with his flying corps, entered Bohemia, penetrated to Prague and surprised and captured the lesser side of the city (the Kleinsite), thus acquiring the reputation of "closing the Thirty Years' War by the last brilliant achievement. This decisive stroke, which vanquished the Emperor's irresolution, cost the Swedes only the loss of a single man. But the old town, the larger half of Prague, which is divided into two parts by the Moldau, by its vigorous resistance wearied out the efforts of the Palatine, Charles Gustavus, the successor of Christina on the throne, who had arrived from Sweden with fresh troops. ... The approach of winter at last drove the besiegers into their quarters, and in the meantime the intelligence arrived that a peace had been signed at Munster, on the 24th October,"--the "solemn and ever memorable and sacred treaty which is known by the name of the Peace of Westphalia."

F. Schiller, History of the Thirty Years' War, book 5.

ALSO IN: G. B. Malleson, The Battle-fields of Germany, chapter 7.

{1485}

GERMANY: The Thirty Years War: Its horrors. Its destructiveness. The state of the country at its close.

"The materials of which the armies were composed passed inevitably from bad to worse. This, which had been a civil war at the first, did not continue such for long; or rather it united presently all the dreadfulness of a civil war and a foreign. It was not long before the hosts which trampled the German soil had in large part ceased to be German; every region of Europe sending of its children, and, as it would seem, of those whom it must have been gladdest to be rid of, to swell the ranks of the destroyers. ... From all quarters they came trooping, not singly, but in whole battalions. ... All armies draw after them a train of camp-followers; they are a plague which in the very nature of things is inevitable. But never perhaps did this evil rise to so enormous a height as now. Toward the close of this War an Imperial army of 40,000 men was found to be attended by the ugly accompaniment of 140,000 of these. The conflict had in fact by this time lasted so long that the soldiery had become as a distinct nation, camping in the midst of another; and the march of an army like the migration of some wild nomade horde, moving with wives and children through the land. And not with these only. There were others too in its train, as may easily be supposed. ... It is a thought to make one shudder, the passage of one of these armies with its foul retinue through some fair and smiling and well-ordered region--what it found, and what it must have left it, and what its doings there will have been. Bear in mind that there was seldom in these armies any attempt whatever at a regular commissariat; rations being never issued except to the actual soldiers, and most irregularly to them; that the soldier's pay too was almost always enormously in arrear, so that he could not purchase even if he would. ... It was indeed the bitterest irony of all, that this War, which claimed at the outset to be waged for the highest religious objects, for the glory of God and for the highest interests of His Church, should be signalized ere long by a more shameless treading under foot of all laws human and divine, disgraced by worse and wickeder outrages against God, and against man, the image of God, than probably any war which modern Christendom has seen. The three master sins of our fallen nature, hate, lust, and covetousness, were all rampant to the full. ... Soon it became evident that there was no safety in almost any remoteness from that which might be the scene of warfare at the actual moment. When all in their immediate neighbourhood was wasted, armed bands variously disguised, as merchants, as gipsies, as travellers, or sometimes as women, would penetrate far into the land. ... Nor was the condition of the larger towns much better. ... It did not need actual siege or capture to make them acquainted with the miseries of the time. With no draught-cattle to bring firewood in, there was no help for it but that abandoned houses, by degrees whole streets, and sometimes the greater part of a town, should be pulled down to prevent those of its inhabitants who remained from perishing by cold, the city thus living upon and gradually consuming itself. ... Under conditions like these, it is not wonderful that the fields were left nearly or altogether untilled; for who would sow what he could never hope to reap? ... What wonder that famine, thus invited, should before long have arrived? ... Persons were found dead in the fields with grass in their mouths; while the tanners' and knackers' yards were beset for the putrid carcasses of beasts; the multitudes, fierce with hunger, hardly enduring to wait till the skin had been stript away. The bodies of malefactors, broken on the wheel, were secretly removed to serve for food; or men climbed up the gibbets, and tore down the bodies which were suspended there, and devoured them. This, indeed, was a supply which was not likely to fail. ... Prisoners in Alsace were killed that they might be eaten. Children were enticed from home. ... Putting all together, it is not too much to say that the crowning horrors of Samaria, of Jerusalem, of Saguntum, found their parallels, and often worse than their parallels, in Christian Germany only two centuries ago. I had thought at one time that there were isolated examples of these horrors, one here, one there, just enough to warrant the assertion that such things were done; but my conviction now is that they were very frequent indeed, and in almost every part of the land. ... Districts which had for centuries been in the occupation of civilized men were repossessed by forests. ... When Peace was at length proclaimed, and Germany had leisure to take an inventory of her losses, it was not altogether impossible to make a rude and rough estimate. ... The statistics, so far as they were got together, tell a terrible tale. ... Of the population it was found that three-fourths, in some parts a far larger proportion, had perished; or, not having perished, were not less effectually lost to their native land, having fled to Switzerland, to Holland, and to other countries, never to return from them again. Thus in one group of twenty villages which had not exceptionally suffered, 85 per cent., or more than four-fifths of the inhabitants, had disappeared. ... Of the houses, three-fourths were destroyed. ... Careful German writers assure us that there are districts which at this present day [1872] have just attained the population, the agricultural wealth, the productive powers which they had when the War commenced."

R. C. Trench, Gustavus Adolphus in Germany, and other Lectures on the Thirty Years' War, lectures 3 and 5.

See, also, BOHEMIA: A. D. 1621-1648.

GERMANY: A. D. 1648. The Peace of Westphalia. Cession of Alsace to France. Separation of Switzerland from the Empire. Loosening of the constitutional bonds of the Empire.

"The opening of the peace negotiations between the Emperor and his enemies was ... fixed for the 25th of March, 1642, and the cities of Münster and Osnabrück as the places of the sitting; but neither in this year nor in the next did it take place. It was not until the year 1644 that in the former of these cities" were assembled the following: The Papal Nuncio and the envoy of the Republic of Venice, acting as mediators, two imperial ambassadors, two representatives of France, three of Spain, and the Catholic Electors; later came also the Catholic Princes. To Osnabrück, Sweden sent two ambassadors and France three, while the Electors, the German Princes and the imperial cities were represented. Questions of etiquette, which demanded prior settlement, occupied months, and serious matters when reached were dealt with slowly and jealously, with many interruptions. It was not until the 24th of October, 1648, that the articles of peace forming the two treaties of Münster and Osnabrück, and known together as the Peace of Westphalia, were signed by all the negotiators at Münster. {1486} The more important of the provisions of the two instruments were the following "To France was secured the perpetual possession of the Bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, as also Moyenvic and Pignerol, with the right to keep a garrison in Philipsburg, and finally Breisach, Alsace, with its ten imperial cities, and the Sundgau. The Emperor bound himself to gain the assent of the Archduke Ferdinand, of Tyrol and Spain, to this last-named cession. France made good to the Archduke this loss by the payment of 3,000,000 francs. Although it was not expressly provided that the connection with the Empire of the German provinces ceded to France should be dissolved, yet the separation became, as a matter of fact, a complete one. The Emperor did not summon the Kings of France to the Diets of the Empire, and the latter made no demand for such summons. ... In relation to Italy, the French treaty provided that the peace concluded in 1631 [see ITALY: A. D. 1627-1631] should remain in force, except the part relating to Pignerol. ['Pinerolo was definitely put under the French overlordship.']

G. W. Kitchin, History of France, volume 3, page 98.

Switzerland was made independent of the German Empire; but the Circle of Burgundy [the Spanish Netherlands and Franche-Comté] was still to form a part of the Empire, and after the close of the war between France and Spain, in which the Emperor and the Empire were to take no part, was to be included in the peace. No aid was to be rendered to the Duke of Lorraine against France, although the Emperor and the Empire were left free to mediate for him a peace. Sweden received Hither Pomerania, including the Island of Rügen, from Further Pomerania the Island of Wollin and several cities, with their surroundings, among which were Stettin, as also the expectancy of Further Pomerania in case of the extinction of the house of Brandenburg. Furthermore, it received the city of Wismar, in Mecklenburg, and the Bishoprics of Bremen [secularized and made a Grand Duchy] and Verden, with reservation of the rights and immunities of the city of Bremen. Sweden was to hold all the ceded territory as feudal tenures of the Empire, and be represented for them in the Imperial Diet. ... Brandenburg received for its loss of Pomerania the Bishoprics of Halberstadt, Minden, and Camin, and the expectancy of that of Magdeburg as soon as this should become vacant by the death of its Administrator, the Saxon Prince, although the four bailiwicks separated from it were to remain with Saxony as provided in the Peace of Prague. ... The house of Brunswick-Lüneberg was to renounce its right to the coadjutorship of Magdeburg, Bremen, Halberstadt, and Ratzeburg, and, in return for this renunciation, was to alternate with a Catholic prelate in the possession of the Bishopric of Osnabrück. ... To Duke Maximilian of Bavaria was conveyed the Electorate, together with the Upper Palatinate, to be hereditary in his family of the line of William, for which he, on the other hand, was to surrender to the Emperor the account of the 13,000,000 florins which he had made for the execution of the sentence against the Palsgrave Frederic. To the Palsgrave, Charles Lewis, son of the proscribed Elector [Frederic, who had died in 1632], was given back the Lower Palatinate, while a new Electorate, the eighth, was created for him. ... There were numerous provisions relating to the restoration of the Dukes of Würtemberg, the Margraves of Baden, and the Counts of Nassau and those of Hanau to several parts of the territories which either belonged to them or were contested. A general amnesty was indeed provided, and everyone was to be restored to the possession of the lands which he had held before the war. This general article was, however, limited by various special provisions, as that in relation to the Palsgrave, and was not to be applied to Austria at all. ... Specially important are the sections which relate to the settlement of religious grievances. The treaty of Passau and the Augsburg religious peace were confirmed; the 1st of January, 1624, was fixed as the time which was to govern mutual reclamations between the Catholics and Protestants; both parties were secured the right to all ecclesiastical foundations, whether in mediate or immediate connection with the Empire, which they severally held in possession on the first day of January, 1624; if any such had been taken from them after this date, restoration was to be made, unless otherwise specially provided. The Ecclesiastical Reservation was acknowledged by the Protestants, and Protestant holders of ecclesiastical property were freely admitted to the Imperial Diets. The right of reformation was conceded to the Estates, and permission to emigrate to the subjects; while it was at the same time provided that, if in 1624 Protestant subjects of Catholic Princes, or the reverse, enjoyed freedom of religion, this right should not in the future be diminished. It was specially granted for Silesia that all the concessions which had been made before the war to the Dukes of Liegnitz, Münsterburg, and Oels, and to the city of Breslau, relating to the free exercise of the Augsburg Confession, should remain in force. ... Finally, the Reformed--that is, the adherents of Calvinism--were placed upon the same ground with those of the Augsburg Confession; and it was provided that if a Lutheran Estate of the Empire should become a Calvinist, or the reverse, his subjects should not be forced to change with their Prince."

A. Gindely, History of the Thirty Years' War,' volume 2, chapter 10.

"The emperor, in his own name, and in behalf of his family and the 'empire, ceded the full sovereignty of Upper and Lower Alsace, with the prefecture of Haguenau, or the ten towns [Haguenau, Schelestadt, Weissemburgh, Colmar, Landau, Oberenheim, Rosheim, Munster in the Val de St. Gregoire, Kaiserberg, and Turingheim], and their dependencies. But by one of those contradictions which are common in treaties, when both parties wish to preserve their respective claims, another article was introduced, binding the king of France to leave the ecclesiastics and immediate nobility of those provinces in the immediacy which they had hitherto possessed with regard to the Roman empire, and not to pretend to any sovereignty over them, but to remain content with such rights as belonged to the house of Austria. Yet this was again contradicted by a declaration, that this exception should not derogate from the supreme sovereignty before yielded to the king of France."

W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 59 (volume 2).

[Image: Germany at the peace of Westphalia.]

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"Respecting the rights of sovereignty due to the princes and the relations of the states of the empire with the emperor, the Peace of Westphalia contained such regulations as must in the course of time produce a still greater relaxation of those ties, already partially loosened, which held together the empire in one entirety. ... At the Peace of Westphalia the independence of the princes was made completely legal. They received the entire right of sovereignty over their territory, together with the power of making war, concluding peace, and forming alliances among themselves, as well as with foreign powers, provided such alliances were not to the injury of the empire. But what a feeble obstacle must this clause have presented? For henceforward, if a prince of the empire, having formed an alliance with a foreign power, became hostile to the emperor, he could immediately avail himself of the pretext that it was for the benefit of the empire, the maintenance of his rights, and the liberty of Germany. And in order that the said pretext might, with some appearance of right, be made available on every occasion, foreigners established themselves as the guardians of the empire; and accordingly France and Sweden took upon themselves the responsibility of legislating as guarantees, not only for the Germanic constitution, but for everything else that was concluded in the Peace of Westphalia at Münster and Osnaburg. Added to this, in reference to the imperial cities, whose rights had hitherto never been definitively fixed, it was now declared that they should always be included under the head of the other states, and that they should command a decisive voice in the diets; thenceforth, therefore, their votes and those of the other states--the electoral and other princes--should be of equal validity."

F. Kohlrausch, History of Germany, chapter 26.

Peace between Spain and the United Provinces was embodied in a separate treaty, but negotiated at Münster, and concluded and signed a few months earlier in the same year. The war between Spain and France went on.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1646-1648.

GERMANY: A. D. 1648. Effects of the Peace of Westphalia on the Empire. It becomes a loose confederacy and purely German.

"It may ... be said of this famous peace, as of the other so-called 'fundamental law of the Empire,' the Golden Bull, that it did no more than legalize a condition of things already in existence, but which by being legalized acquired new importance. ... While the political situation, to use a current phrase, had changed within the last two hundred years, the eyes with which men regarded it had changed still more. Never by their fiercest enemies in earlier times, not once by the Popes or Lombard republicans in the heat of their strife with the Franconian and Swabian Cæsars, had the Emperors been reproached as mere German kings, or their claim to be the lawful heirs of Rome denied. The Protestant jurists of the 16th or rather of the 17th century were the first persons who ventured to scoff at the pretended lordship of the world, and declare their Empire to be nothing more than a German monarchy, in dealing with which no superstitious reverence need prevent its subjects from making the best terms they could for themselves, and controlling a sovereign whose religious predilections made him the friend of their enemies. ... It was by these views ... that the states, or rather France and Sweden acting on their behalf, were guided in the negotiations of Osnabrück and Münster. By extorting a full recognition of the sovereignty of all the princes, Catholics and Protestants alike, in their respective territories, they bound the Emperor from any direct interference with the administration, either in particular districts or throughout the Empire. All affairs of public importance, including the rights of making war or peace, of levying contributions, raising troops, building fortresses, passing or interpreting laws, were henceforth to be left entirely in the hands of the Diet. ... Both Lutherans and Calvinists were declared free from all jurisdiction of the Pope or any Catholic prelate. Thus the last link which bound Germany to Rome was snapped, the last of the principles by virtue of which the Empire had existed was abandoned. For the Empire now contained and recognized as its members persons who formed a visible body at open war with the Holy Roman Church; and its constitution admitted schismatics to a full share in all those civil rights which, according to the doctrines of the early Middle Age, could be enjoyed by no one who was out of the communion of the Catholic Church. The Peace of Westphalia was therefore an abrogation of the sovereignty of Rome, and of the theory of Church and State with which the name of Rome was associated. And in this light was it regarded by Pope Innocent X., who commanded his legate to protest against it, and subsequently declared it void by the bull 'Zelo domus Dei.' ... The Peace of Westphalia is an era in imperial history not less clearly marked than the coronation of Otto the Great, or the death of Frederick II. As from the days of Maximilian it had borne a mixed or transitional character, well expressed by the name Romano-Germanic, so henceforth it is in everything but title purely and solely a German Empire. Properly, indeed, it was no longer an empire at all, but a Confederation, and that of the loosest sort. For it had no common treasury, no efficient common tribunals, no means of coercing a refractory member; its states were of different religions, were governed according to different forms, were administered judicially and financially without any regard to each other. ... There were 300 petty principalities between the Alps and the Baltic, each with its own laws, its own courts, ... its little armies, its separate coinage, its tolls and custom-houses on the frontier, its crowd of meddlesome and pedantic officials. ... This vicious system, which paralyzed the trade, the literature, and the political thought of Germany, had been forming itself for some time, but did not become fully established until the Peace of Westphalia, by emancipating the princes from imperial control, had made them despots in their own territories."

J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapter 19.

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GERMANY: A. D. 1648-1705. After the Peace of Westphalia. French influence in the Empire. Creation of the Ninth Elector.

After the Peace of Westphalia, the remainder of the reign of Ferdinand III. "passed in tranquillity. ... He caused his son to be elected king of the Romans, under the title of Ferdinand IV.; but the young prince, already king of Bohemia and Hungary, preceded him to the tomb, and left the question of the succession to be decided by a diet. Ferdinand III. died in 1657. ... The interregnum, and, indeed, the century which followed the death of Ferdinand, showed the alarming preponderance of the influence gained by France in the affairs of the empire, and the consequent criminality of the princes who had first invoked the assistance of that power. Her recent victories, her character as joint guarantee of the treaty of Westphalia, and the contiguity of her possessions to the states of the empire, encouraged her ministers to demand the imperial crown for the youthful Louis XIV. Still more extraordinary is the fact that four of the electors were gained, by that monarch's gold, to espouse his views. ... Fortunately for Germany and for Europe, the electors of Treves, Brandenburg, and Saxony, were too patriotic to sanction this infatuated proposal; they threatened to elect a native prince of their own authority,--a menace which caused the rest to co-operate with them; so that, after some fruitless negotiations, Leopold, son of the late emperor, king of Bohemia and of Hungary, was raised to the vacant dignity. His reign was one of great humiliation to his house and to the empire. Without talents for government, without generosity, feeble, bigoted, and pusillanimous, he was little qualified to augment the glory of the country. ... Throughout his long reign [1657-1705], he had the mortification to witness, on the part of Louis XIV., a series of the most unprovoked, wanton, and unprincipled usurpations ever recorded in history. ... Internally, the reign of Leopold affords some interesting particulars. ... Not the least is the establishment of a ninth electoral dignity in favour of Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick Lunenburg, who then became (1692) the first elector of Hanover. This was the act of Leopold, in return for important aid in money and troops from two princes of that house; but it could not be effected without the concurrence of the electoral body, who long resisted it. ... The establishment of a permanent diet, attended, not by the electors in person, but by their representatives, is one of the most striking peculiarities of Leopold's reign."

S. A. Dunham, History of the Germanic Empire, book 3, chapter 3 (volume 3).

See, DIET, THE GERMANIC.

GERMANY: A. D. 1648-1780. The Austrian incubus.

"Before the Thirty Years' War the territories of the German Hapsburgs were not very considerable. The greatest part of Hungary was in the hands of the Turks; the Tyrol belonged to a collateral line; and, in the other provinces, the independence of the Nobility was much stronger than the sovereignty of the Archdukes. The Nobles were all zealous protestants, so that a monarchical power could only be created after a victory of the Catholic faith. For the first time since 1621, the crown was seen in these regions to assume a really dominant position. Efforts in this direction had been zealously carried on since 1648; the Tyrolese Estates now lost their most important privileges; and, above all, the Emperor succeeded, by the help of Polish and German troops, in driving out the Turks from Hungary, and at the same time crushing the national freedom of the Magyars with frightful bloodshed. By these victories the Monarchy gained, in the first place, a large increase of territory--which placed it nearly on a level with France. In the second place it acquired at home the power of raising as many taxes and soldiers as were necessary to increase the army to the extent of its wishes; and of distributing its officials and troops--without distinction of nation--as imperial servants, throughout its dominions. And thus it secured submission at home and disposable strength for its operations abroad. Here it stopped short. As it had no national, and, consequently, no warm and natural relation to any of its provinces--which were merely used as passive tools to promote the lofty aims of the Hapsburg family--the Government had no intention of using its power at home for the furtherance of the public good, or the building up of a generally useful Administration. The Nobility had no longer the strength to resist the demands of the Crown for men and money, but it still retained exemption from taxes, the jurisdiction and police among its own peasants, and a multitude of feudal rights, which, often enough, degraded the peasant to the condition of a serf, and everywhere bound down agriculture in the most galling bonds. Of manufactures there were little or none; trade was carried on on the system of guilds. The State officials exercised but little influence over the internal affairs of the Communes, or Provinces; and the privileged orders had full liberty to prosecute their own interests among their inferiors with inconsiderate selfishness. In this aristocracy, the Church, from its wealth and its close internal unity, assumed the first place; and its superior importance was still farther enhanced by the fact of its being the chief bond of unity between the otherwise so loosely compacted portions of the Empire. ... The Church attached the Nobility to the Government; for we must not forget that a very considerable portion of the estates of the Nobles had passed into the hands of new possessors who had received them as a reward for being good catholics. The Church, too, taught all the youth of the Empire--in all its different languages-- obedience to the House of Hapsburg, and received from the Crown, in return, exclusive control of the national education. It formed, in spite of the resistance of nationalities, a sort of public opinion in favour of the unity of the Empire; and the Crown, in return, excluded all non-catholic opinions from the schools, from literature and religion. Austria, therefore, continued to be catholic, even after 1648; and by this we mean, not only that its Princes were personally devout--or that the Catholic clergy were supported in the performance of their spiritual functions--or that the institutions of the Church were liberally supported--but also that the State directed its policy according to ecclesiastical views, made use of the Church for political purposes, and crushed every movement hostile to it in all other spheres of the national life. In Austria, therefore, it was not merely a question of theological differences, but of the deepest and most comprehensive points of distinction between the mediæval and the modern world. Austria was still, in its whole nature, a Mediæval State or Confederacy of States. The consequences of this condition were most strikingly seen in its relation to Germany. In the first place, there was a complete separation, in regard to all mental and spiritual matters, between the great body of the Empire, and its powerful Eastern member. This was the period, in which Germany was awaking to a new intellectual life in modern Europe, and laying the foundation of its modern science in every branch--in History and Statistics, Chemistry and Geology, Jurisprudence and Philosophy--and assuming by its Literature, an equal rank with other nations in national refinement and civilization. {1489} By the works of genius which this period produced Austria remained entirely uninfluenced; and it has been said, that Werther had only been made known to the Viennese in the form of fireworks in the Prater. The literary policy allowed no seed of modern culture to enter the Empire; and the Jesuit schools had rendered the soil unfit for its reception. All the progress of German civilization, at this period, was based on the principle of the independence of the mind in art and science. The education of the Jesuits, on the contrary, though unsurpassed where the object is to prepare men for a special purpose, commences by disowning individual peculiarities, and the right of a man to choose his own career. There was, at this time, no other characteristic of an Austrian than an entire estrangement from the progress of the German mind. ... The progress of the people in science and art, in politics and military strength, was only seen in the larger secular territories, which, after 1648, enjoyed their own sovereignty; and even these were checked in their movements at every step by the remnants of the Imperial Constitution. The Members of the Empire alone, in whom the decaying remains of Mediæval existence still lingered on--the Ecclesiastical Princes--the small Counts--the Imperial Knights and the Imperial Towns,--clung to the Emperor and the Imperial Diet. In these, partly from their small extent of territory, partly from the inefficiency of their institutions, neither active industry, nor public spirit, nor national pride, were to be found. In all which tended to elevate the nation, and raise its hopes for the future, they took, at this period, as little part as Austria herself. ... The Imperial constitution, therefore, was inwardly decayed, and stood in no relation to the internal growth of the nation. ... There was the same divergence between Austria and Germany with respect to their foreign interests, as we have observed in their internal relations. After the Turks had been driven from Hungary, and the Swedes from the half of' Pomerania, Germany had only two neighbours whom it was a matter of vital importance to watch,--the Poles and the French. In the South, on the contrary, it had no interests in opposition to Italy, except the protection of its frontier by the possession or the neutrality of the Alpine passes. And yet it was just towards Italy that the eyes of the House of Hapsburg had been uninterruptedly directed for centuries past. The favourite traditions of the family, and their political and ecclesiastical interest in securing the support of the Pope, and thereby that of the Clergy, constantly impelled them to consolidate and extend their dominion in that country. All other considerations yielded to this; and this is intelligible enough from an Austrian point of view; but it was not on that account less injurious to the German Empire. How strikingly was this opposition of interests displayed at the end of the glorious war of the Spanish succession, when the Emperor rejected a peace which would have restored Strasburg and Alsace to the Empire, because only Naples, and not Sicily also, was offered to Austria! How sharply defined do the same relations present themselves to our view, in the last years of the Hapsburg dynasty, at the peace of Vienna in 1738!--on which occasion the Emperor--in order at least to gain Tuscany, as a compensation for the loss of Naples,--gave up Lorraine to the French, without even consulting the Empire, which he had dragged into the war. Austria thus maintained a predominant influence in Italy; but the Empire, during the whole century after the Peace of Westphalia, did not obtain a single noteworthy advantage over France. How much more was this the case with respect to Poland, which during the whole period of the religious wars had been the most zealous ally of Spain and the Hapsburgs, and which subsequently seemed to threaten no danger to Austrian interests."

H. Von Sybel, History of the French Revolution, book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).

GERMANY: A. D. 1658. Election of the Emperor, Leopold I.

GERMANY: A. D. 1660-1664. Renewed war with the Turks. Victory of St. Gothard. Transylvania liberated. A twenty years truce.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1660-1664.

GERMANY: A. D. 1672-1679. The war of the Coalition against Louis XIV.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1672-1674, and 1674-1678; also NIMEGUEN, PEACE OF.

GERMANY: A. D. 1675-1678. War with Sweden. Battle of Fehrbellin.

See BRANDENBURG: A.D. 1640-1688; and SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1644-1697.

GERMANY: A. D. 1679-1681. The final absorption of Alsace and Les Trois-Evêchés by France, with boundaries widened. Bold encroachments of the French Chambers of Reannexation. The seizure of Strasburg.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1679-1681.

GERMANY: A. D. 1686. The League of Augsburg against Louis XIV.

"The Duke of Orleans, the French King's brother, had married the sister of the Elector Palatine, the last of the House of Simmern, who died in May 1685, when his next relative, the Count Palatine Philip William, Duke of Neuberg, took possession of the Electorate. The Duchess of Orleans had by her marriage contract renounced all her feudal rights to the Palatinate, but not her claims to the allodial property and the moveables of her family." These latter claims, taken in hand by Louis XIV. on behalf of his sister-in-law, were made so formidable that the new Elector appealed to the Empire for protection, "and, thus redoubled the uneasiness felt in Germany, and indeed throughout the greater part of Europe, respecting the schemes of Louis. The Prince of Orange availed himself of these suspicions to forward his plans against Louis. He artfully inflamed the general alarm, and at length succeeded in inducing the Emperor Leopold, the Kings of Spain, and Sweden, as princes of the Empire, the Electors of Saxony and Bavaria, the circles of Suabia, Franconia, Upper Saxony, and Bavaria, to enter into the celebrated League of Augsburg (July 9th 1686). The object of this league was to maintain the Treaties of Münster and Nimeguen and the Truce of Ratisbon. If any of the members of it was attacked he was to be assisted by the whole confederacy; 60,000 men were to be raised, who were to be frequently drilled, and to form a camp during some weeks of every year, and a common fund for their support was to be established at Frankfort. The League was to be in force only for three years, but might be prolonged at the expiration of that term should the public safety require it. The Elector Palatine, who was in fact the party most directly interested, acceded to the League early in September, as well as the Duke of Holstein Gottorp."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 5, chapter 5 (volume 3).

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"To Madame's great anger France set up a claim to the Palatinate on her behalf, Louvois persuading the King and the royal family that with a few vigorous measures the Palatinate would be abandoned by the Neubourgs and annexed to France as part of Madame's dowry. This led to the devastation of the states, to which Madame [Charlotte Elizabeth, the Duchess of Orleans] so often and so bitterly alludes during the next ten years. Obliged by Louis XIV. 's policy to represent herself as desirous to recover her rights over her father's and brother's succession, in many documents which she was never even shown, Madame protested in all her private letters against France's action in the matter, and made every one at court thoroughly aware of her grief and disapproval of what the king was doing on her behalf."

Life and Letters of Charlotte Elizabeth, Princess Palatine, chapter 2.

GERMANY: A. D. 1689-1696. The War of the League of Augsburg, or Grand Alliance, against Louis XIV.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690 to 1695-1696.

GERMANY: A. D. 1690. The second Devastation of the Palatinate.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690.

GERMANY: A. D. 1700. Interest in the question of the Spanish Succession.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1698-1700.

GERMANY: A. D. 1700. Prussia raised to the dignity of a kingdom.

See PRUSSIA: A. D. 1700.

GERMANY: A. D. 1700-1740. The first king of Prussia and his shabby court. The second king, his Brobdingnagian army and his extraordinary character. The up-bringing of Frederick the Great.

The "Great Elector" of Brandenburg "left to his son Frederic a principality as considerable as any which was not called a kingdom."

See BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1640-1688.

"Frederic aspired to the style of royalty. Ostentatious and profuse, negligent of his true interests and of his high duties, insatiably eager for frivolous distinctions, he added nothing to the real weight of the state which he governed: perhaps he transmitted his inheritance to his children impaired rather than augmented in value; but he succeeded in gaining the great object of his life, the title of King. In the year 1700 he assumed this new dignity. He had, on that occasion to undergo all the mortifications which fall to the lot of ambitious upstarts. Compared with the other crowned heads of Europe, he made a figure resembling that which a Nabob or a Commissary, who had bought a title, would make in the company of Peers whose ancestors had been attainted for treason against the Plantagenets. The envy of the class which Frederic quitted, and the civil scorn of the class into which he intruded himself, were marked in very significant ways. ... Frederic was succeeded by his son, Frederic William, a prince who must be allowed to have possessed some talents for administration, but whose character as disfigured by odious vices, and whose eccentricities were such as had never before been seen out of a madhouse. He was exact and diligent in the transacting of business; and he was the first who formed the design of obtaining for Prussia a place among the European powers, altogether out of proportion to her extent and population, by means of a strong military organization. Strict economy enabled him to keep up a peace establishment of 60,000 troops. These troops were disciplined in such a manner, that, placed beside them, the household regiments of Versailles and St. James's would have appeared an awkward squad. The master of such a force could not but be regarded by all his neighbours as a formidable enemy and a valuable ally. But the mind of Frederic William was so ill regulated, that all his inclinations became passions, and all his passions partook of the character of moral and intellectual disease. His parsimony degenerated into sordid avarice. His taste for military pomp and order became a mania, like that of a Dutch burgomaster for tulips, or that of a member of the Roxburghe Club for Caxtons. While the envoys of the Court of Berlin were in a state of such squalid poverty as moved the laughter of foreign capitals; while the food placed before the princes and princesses of the blood-royal of Prussia was too scanty to appease hunger, and so bad that even hunger loathed it, no price was thought too extravagant for tall recruits. The ambition of the king was to form a brigade of giants, and every country was ransacked by his agents for men above the ordinary stature. ... Though his dominant passion was the love of military display, he was yet one of the most pacific of princes. We are afraid that his aversion to war was not the effect of humanity, but was merely one of his thousand whims. His feeling about his troops seems to have resembled a miser's feeling about his money. He loved to collect them, to count them, to see them increase; but he could not find it in his heart to break in upon the precious hoard. He looked forward to some future time when his Patagonian battalions were to drive hostile infantry before them like sheep: but this future time was always receding; and it is probable that, if his life had been prolonged 30 years, his superb army would never have seen any harder service than a sham fight in the fields near Berlin. But the great military means which he had collected were destined to be employed by a spirit far more daring and inventive than his own. Frederic, surnamed the Great, son of Frederic William, was born in January 1712. It may safely be pronounced that he had received from nature a strong and sharp understanding, and a rare firmness of temper and intensity of will. As to the other parts of his character, it is difficult to say whether they are to be ascribed to nature, or to the strange training which he underwent. The history of his boyhood is painfully interesting. Oliver Twist in the parish work-house, Smike at Dotheboys Hall, were petted children when compared with this wretched heir-apparent of a crown. The nature of Frederic William was hard and bad, and the habit of exercising arbitrary power had made him frightfully savage. His rage constantly vented itself to right and left in curses and blows. When his Majesty took a walk, every human being fled before him, as if a tiger had broken loose from a menagerie. ... But it was in his own house that he was most unreasonable and ferocious. His palace was hell, and he the most execrable of fiends. ... Early in the year 1740, Frederic William met death with a firmness and dignity worthy of a better and wiser man; and Frederic, who had just completed his 28th year, became king of Prussia."

_Lord Macaulay, Frederic the Great (Essays)._

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"Frederick William I. became ... the founder of the first modern State in Germany. His was a nature in which the repulsive and the imposing, the uncouth and the admirable, were closely united. In his manners a rough and unrefined peasant, in his family a tyrant, in his government a despot, choleric almost to madness, his reign would have been a curse to the country, had he not united with his unlimited power a rare executive ability and an incorruptible fidelity to duty; and from first to last he consecrated all his powers to the common weal. By him effective limitations were put upon the independent action of the provinces, and upon the overgrown privileges of the estates. He did not do away with the guilds of the different orders, but placed them under the strict control of a strongly centralized superintendence, and compelled their members to make every necessary sacrifice for the sake of assisting him in his efforts for the prosperity and power of Prussia. It is astonishing to see with what practical judgment he recognized a needed measure both in general and in detail; how he trained a body of officials, suited in all grades to the requirements of their position; how he disciplined them in activity, prudence, and rectitude, by strict inspection, by encouraging instruction, and by brutal punishments; how he enforced order and economy in the public finances; how he improved the administration of his own domains, so that it became a fruitful example to all proprietors; and how, full of the desire to make the peasants free owners of the soil, although he did not yet venture on such a radical measure, he nevertheless constantly protected the poor against the arbitrariness and oppression of the higher classes. ... There was no department of life to which he did not give encouragement and assistance; it is also true that there was none which he did not render subservient to his own will, and the products of which he did not make conducive to the one great end,--the independence and aggrandizement of the State. So that he who was the ruler of, at most, three million people, created, without exhausting the country, a standing army of eighty thousand men: a remarkably skilful and ready army, which he disciplined with barbarous severity on the slightest occasion, at the same time that he looked out for the welfare of every soldier even in the smallest detail, according to his saying, that 'a king's warrior must live better than a gentleman's servant.' What he had in his mind, almost a hundred years before Scharnhorst, was the universal obligation of military service; but it fared with him in regard to this as in regard to the freedom of the peasants: strong as he was, he could not turn the world he lived in upside down; he contented himself with bequeathing his best ideas to a more propitious future. The foundations of the government rested upon the estates in spite of all monarchical reforms. Thus, beside the federative Empire of the Hapsburgs, arose the small, compact Prussian State, which, by reason of the concentration of its forces, was a match for its five-times-larger rival."

H. Von Sybel, The Founding of the German Empire by William I., book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: T. Carlyle, History of Frederick II., called the Great, book 3, chapter 19, books 5-10 (volumes 1-2).

GERMANY: A. D. 1702. The War of the Spanish Succession: Siege of Landau. Battle of Friedlingen.

On the part of the Imperialists, the War of the Spanish Succession was opened on the Rhine frontier in June 1702, by a movement of the army commanded by the Margrave Louis of Baden, which "came over the Rhine and laid siege to the important fortress of Landau,--the bulwark of Alsace as it was then regarded. The Margrave was subsequently joined by the Emperor's eldest son, the young King of the Romans, who desired to share in the glory, though not in the toils of the expected conquest. ... The Maréchal de Catinat, one of the soldiers of whom France has most reason to be proud,--the virtuous Catinat as Rousseau terms him--held command at this period in Alsace. So inferior were his numbers that he could make no attempt to relieve Landau. But after its reduction an opportunity appeared in which by detaching a portion of his army he might retrieve the fortunes of France in another quarter. The Elector of Bavaria, after much irresolution, had openly espoused the cause of Louis. He seized upon the city of Ulm and issued a proclamation in favor of his new ally. To support his movements an enterprising and ambitious officer, the Marquis de Villars, was sent across the Rhine with part of the army of Alsace. The declaration of the Elector of Bavaria and the advance of Villars into Germany disquieted in no slight degree the Prince Louis of Baden. Leaving a sufficient garrison in Landau, he also passed the Rhine. The two armies met at Friedlingen on the 14th of October. Louis of Baden, a ponderous tactician bred in the wars against the Turks, might out-manœuvre some Grand Vizier, but was no match for the quick-witted Frenchman. He was signally defeated with the loss of 3,000 men; soon after which, the season being now far advanced, Villars led back his army to winter quarters in France. His victory of Friedlingen gained for him at Versailles the rank of Maréchal de France."

Earl Stanhope (Lord Mahon), History of England: Reign of Queen Anne, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 68 (volume 2).

See, also; NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704, and SPAIN: A. D. 1702.

GERMANY: A. D. 1703. The War of the Spanish Succession: Campaigns on the Upper Rhine and in Bavaria.

"Early in June [A. D. 1703], Marshal Tallard assumed the command of the French forces in Alsace, ... took Prissac on the 7th of September, and invested Landau on the 16th of October. The allies, under the Prince of Hesse, attempted to raise the siege, but were defeated with considerable loss; and, soon after, Landau surrendered, thus terminating with disaster the campaign on the Upper Rhine. Still more considerable were the losses sustained in Bavaria. Marshal Villars commanded there, and, at the head of the French and Bavarians, defeated General Stirum, who headed the Imperialists, on the 20th of September. In December, Marshal Marsin, who had succeeded Villars in the command, made himself master of the important city of Augsburg, and in January, 1704, the Bavarians got possession of Passau. Meanwhile, a formidable insurrection had broken out in Hungary, which so distracted the cabinet of Vienna that the capital seemed to be threatened by the combined forces of the French and Bavarians after the fall of Passau. ... Instead of confining the war to one of posts and sieges in Flanders and Italy, it was resolved [by the French] to throw the bulk of their forces at once into Bavaria, and operate against Austria from the heart of Germany, by pouring down the valley of the Danube. {1492} The advanced post held there by the Elector of Bavaria in front, forming a salient angle, penetrating, as it were, into the Imperial dominions, the menacing aspect of the Hungarian insurrection in the rear, promised the most successful issue to this decisive operation. For this purpose, Marshal Tallard, with the French army on the Upper Rhine, received orders to cross the Black Forest and advance into Swabia, and unite with the Elector of Bavaria, which he accordingly did at Donawerth, in the beginning of July. Marshal Villeroy, with forty battalions and thirty-nine squadrons, was to break off from the army in Flanders and support the advance by a movement on the Moselle, so as to be in a condition to join the main army on the Danube, of which it would form, as it were, the left wing; while Vendôme, with the army of Italy, was to penetrate into the Tyrol, and advance by Innspruck on Salzburg. The united armies, which it was calculated, after deducting all the losses of the campaign, would muster 80,000 combatants, was then to move direct by Lintz and the valley of the Danube on Vienna, while a large detachment penetrated into Hungary to lend a hand to the already formidable insurrection in that kingdom. The plan was grandly conceived. ... Marlborough, by means of the secret information which he obtained from the French head-quarters, had got full intelligence of it, and its dangers to the allies, if it succeeded, struck him as much as the chances of great advantage to them if ably thwarted. His line was instantly taken."

A. Alison, Military Life of Marlborough, chapter 2, sections 30-33.

The measures taken by Marlborough to defeat the plans of the French in this campaign are briefly stated in the account of his first campaigns in the Netherlands.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704.

ALSO IN: H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV. (translated by M. L. Booth), volume 2, chapter 5.

W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 69 (volume 2).

GERMANY: A. D. 1704. The War of the Spanish Succession: Marlborough and Prince Eugene on the Danube. The Battle of Blenheim.

"Marlborough, with his motley army of English, Dutch, Danes and Germans, concealing his main purpose, was marching south along the Rhine, with a design to strike his critical blow, by attacking the French armies that were forming for the campaign of the Danube, and thus protect the Emperor and Vienna, and punish the Elector of Bavaria, whose territories would be then exposed. On the route, Marlborough was joined by Prince Eugene and the Margrave of Baden: but as a new French force was approaching, Prince Eugene was sent to keep it in check. Marlborough and the Prince of Baden, with united forces of about 60,000 men, then advanced, in rapid marches, and took, by gallant assault, the fortifications of the Schellenberg in Bavaria, and the old town of Donauworth, a critical and commanding position on the Danube. The allies were now masters of the main passages of the Danube--and had a strong place as a basis of action. The allied leaders thereupon sent troops into the heart of Bavaria, and devastated the country even to the vicinity of Munich--burning and destroying as they marched, and taking several minor fortresses. Marlborough's forces and those of Prince Eugene were distant from each other some forty miles, when came the news of the march of a French army of 25,000 men under Tallard, to form a junction with the others, to succor the Elector, and take revenge for the defeat of the Schellenberg. Two French Marshals, Tallard and Marsin, were now in command: their design was to attack Marlborough and Eugene's armies in detail. By rapid marches, Marlborough crossed the Danube and joined Prince Eugene near Donauworth, and thereupon occurred one of the most important and decisive contests of modern times, fought between the old town of Hochstadt and the village of Blenheim, about fifteen miles south of Donauworth. The skilful tactics of the allied generals precipitated the battle. The allied French and Bavarians numbered 60,000 [56,000; Malleson] men--the English, Dutch and Germans and other allies, about 53,000 [52,000; Malleson]. The allies were allowed to cross an intervening brook without opposition, and form their lines. A great charge, in full force, of the allies was then made; they broke the enemy's extended line; and an ensuing charge of cavalry scattered his forces right and left, and drove many into the Danube. More than 14,000 French and Bavarians, who had not struck a blow, except to defend their position, entrenched and shut up in the village of Blenheim, waiting for orders to move, were then surrounded by the victorious allies, and compelled to surrender as prisoners of war. The scattered remnants of the French and Bavarian army either disbanded, or were driven over the Rhine. The garrison at Ulm capitulated, and the Elector fled into France."

J. W. Gerard, The Peace of Utrecht, chapter 16.

"The armies of Marchin and of Max Emanuel [of Bavaria] had been defeated; that of Tallard had been annihilated. Whilst the loss of the victors in killed and wounded reached 12,000 men, that of the French and Bavarians exceeded 14,000. In addition, the latter lost 13,000 men taken prisoners, 47 pieces of cannon, 25 standards, and 90 colours. Such was the battle of Blenheim. It was one of the decisive battles of history, and it changed the character of the war. Up to that moment, the action of France against. Germany had been aggressive; thenceforward it became purely defensive. Blenheim, in fact, dashed to the ground the hopes of Louis XIV. and Max Emanuel of Bavaria. It saved the house of Habsburg in Germany, and helped it greatly in Hungary. It showed likewise that it was possible to inflict a crushing defeat on the armies of Louis XIV."

Colonel G. B. Malleson, Prince Eugene of Savoy, chapter 6.

"Marlborough [after the battle], having detached part of his force to besiege Ulm, drew near with the bulk of his army to the Rhine, which he passed near Philipsburg on the 6th of September, and soon after commenced the siege of Landau, on the French side; Prince Louis, with 20,000 men, forming the besieging force, and Eugene and Marlborough, with 30,000, the covering army. Villeroi, with the French army, abandoned an intrenched camp which he had constructed to cover the town. Marlborough followed, and made every effort to bring the French marshal to battle, but in vain. ... Ulm surrendered on the 16th of September, ... which gave the allies a solid foundation on the Danube, and effectually crushed the power of the Elector of Bavaria, who, isolated now in the midst of his enemies, had no alternative but to abandon his dominions and seek refuge in Brussels, where he arrived in the end of September. ... {1493} The Electress of Bavaria, who had been left regent of that state in the absence of the Elector in Flanders, had now no resource left but submission; and a treaty was accordingly concluded in the beginning of November, by which she agreed to disband all her troops. Trêves and Traerbach were taken in the end of December; the Hungarian insurrection was suppressed; Landau capitulated in the beginning of the same month; a diversion which the enemy attempted toward Trêves was defeated by Marlborough's activity and vigilance, and that city put in a sufficient posture of defense; and, the campaign being now finished, that accomplished commander returned to the Hague and London."

A. Alison, Military Life of Marlborough, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: G. B. Malleson, Battle-fields of Germany, chapter 10.

W. Coxe, Memoirs of Marlborough, chapters 22-26 (volume 1).

J. H. Burton, History of the Reign of Queen Anne, chapter 6 (volume 1).

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV., volume 2, chapter 5.

GERMANY: A. D. 1705. The Election of the Emperor Joseph I.

GERMANY: A. D. 1705. The War of the Spanish Succession: The dissolution of Bavaria.

"The campaign of 1705 was destitute of any important events on the side of Germany. ... In Bavaria, the peasants, irritated by the oppressions of the Austrian government, rose in a body in the autumn, and, could they have been supported by France, would have placed the Emperor in great danger; but without that aid the insurrection only proved fatal to themselves. The insurgents were beaten in detail, and the Emperor now resolved on the complete dissolution of Bavaria as a state. The four elder sons of Maximilian were carried to Klagenfurt in Carinthia, to be there educated under the strictest inspection as Counts of Wittelsbach, while the younger sons were consigned to the care of a court lady at Munich, and the daughters sent to a convent. The Electress, who had been on a visit to Venice, was not permitted to return to her dominions, and the Elector Maximilian, as well as the Elector of Cologne, was, by a decree of the Electoral College, placed under the ban of the Empire. The Upper Palatinate was restored to the Elector Palatine. ... The remaining Bavarian territories were confiscated, and divided among various princes."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 5, chapter 6 (volume 3).

W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 72 (volume 3).

The campaign of 1705 in the Netherlands was unimportant; but in Spain it had brilliant results.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1705; and NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1705.

GERMANY: A. D. 1706-1711. The War of the Spanish Succession: Successes of the French.

During 1706, little was attempted on either side by the forces which watched each other along the Rhine. In 1707 Villars, the French commander, obtained liberty to act. "The Emperor, greatly preoccupied with Hungary, had furnished but indifferent resources to the new general of the army of the Rhine, Brandenburg-Baireuth; the German army was ill paid and in bad condition in its immense lines on the right bank, which extended along the Rhine from Philippsburg as far as Stolhofen, then, in a square, from Stolhofen to the Black Mountains by Bühl. May 22, the lines were attacked simultaneously at four points. ... The success was complete; the enemy fled into the mountains, abandoning artillery, baggage, and munitions, and did not stop till beyond the Neckar. The lines were razed; Swabia and a part of Franconia were put under contribution. Villars marched on Stuttgart, crossed the Neckar, and subjected the whole country to ransom as far as the Danube. The enemies in vain rallied and reinforced themselves with tardy contingents of the Empire; they could not prevent Villars from laying under contribution the Lower Neckar, then the country between the Danube and Lake Constance, and from maintaining himself beyond the Rhine till he went into winter-quarters. French parties scoured the country as conquerors as far as the fatal field of Hochstadt." At the beginning of the campaign of 1708, it was the plan of the allies to make their chief attack on France "by the way of the Rhine and the Moselle, with two armies of 60,000 men each, under the command of the Elector of Hanover and Eugene, whilst Marlborough occupied the great French army in Flanders." But this plan was changed. "Eugene left the Elector of Hanover in the north of Swabia, behind the lines of Etlingen, which the allies had raised during the winter to replace the lines of Bühl at Stolhofen, and, with 24,000 soldiers collected on the Moselle, he marched by the way of Coblentz towards Belgium (June 30). The French forces of the Rhine and the Moselle followed this movement." The campaign then ensuing in the Netherlands was that which was signalized by Marlborough and Eugene's victory at Oudenarde and the siege of Lille. In 1709, "the attention of Europe, as in 1708, was chiefly directed to Flanders; but it was not only on that side that France was menaced. France was to be encroached upon at once on the north and the east. Whilst the great allied army penetrated into Artois, the army of the Rhine and the army of the Alps were to penetrate, the latter into Bresse by the way of Savoy, the former into Franche-Comté by the way of Alsace, and to combine their operations. ... The Germans had not taken the offensive in Alsace till in the month of August. Marshal Harcourt, with over 20,000 men, had covered himself with the lines of the Lauter: the Elector of Hanover, who had crossed the Rhine at Philippsburg with superior forces, did not attack Harcourt, and strove to amuse him whilst 8,000 or 9,000 Germans, left in Swabia with General Merci, moved rapidly on Neuberg ... and established there a tête-du-pont in order to enter Upper Alsace." By swiftly sending a sufficient force to attack and defeat Merci at Neuberg, August 26, Harcourt completely frustrated these plans. "The Elector of Hanover recrossed the river and retired behind the lines of Etlingen." During the two following years the French and German forces on the side of the Rhine did little more than observe one another.

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV:, volume 2, chapters 5-6.

Meantime, Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet had been fought in the Netherlands; Prince Eugene had won his victory at Turin, and the contest had been practically decided in Spain, at Almanza.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1706-1707, 1708-1709, 1710-1712; ITALY: A. D. 1701-1713; SPAIN: A. D. 1706, 1707, and 1707-1710; and ENGLAND: A. D. 1710-1712.

ALSO IN: W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapters 75-79 (volume 3).

F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapter 45 (volume 5).

GERMANY: A. D. 1711. Election of the Emperor Charles VI.

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GERMANY: A. D. 1711. The War of the Spanish Succession: Change in the circumstances of the war.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1711.

GERMANY: A. D. 1713-1719. The Emperor's continued differences with the King of Spain. The Triple Alliance. The Quadruple Alliance.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.

GERMANY: A. D. 1714. Ending of the War of the Spanish Succession: The Peace of Utrecht and the Treaty of Rastadt.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

GERMANY: A. D. 1732-1733. Interference in the election of the King of Poland.

See POLAND: A. D. 1732-1733.

GERMANY: A. D. 1733-1735. The War of the Polish Succession. Cession of Lorraine to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.

GERMANY: A. D. 1740. The question of the Austrian Succession. The Pragmatic Sanction.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738, and 1740.

GERMANY: A. D. 1740-1756. Early years of the reign of Frederick the Great in Prussia. The War of the Austrian Succession.

When Frederick II., known as Frederick the Great, succeeded his father, in 1740, "nobody had the least suspicion that a tyrant of extraordinary military and political talents, of industry more extraordinary still, without fear, without faith, and without mercy, had ascended the throne."

_Lord Macaulay, Frederic the Great (Essays)._

The reign of Frederick II. "was expected to be an effeminate one; but when at the age of twenty-nine he became king, he forgot his pleasures, thought of nothing but glory, and no longer employed himself but in attention to his finances, his army, his policy, and his laws. His provinces were scattered, his resources weak, his power precarious; his army of seventy thousand soldiers was more remarkable for handsomeness of the men, and the elegance of their appearance, than for their discipline. He augmented it, instructed it, exercised it, and fortune began to open the field of glory to him at the moment he was fully prepared to enjoy her favours. Charles XII. was dead, and his station filled by a king without authority. Russia, deprived of Peter the Great, who had only rough-hewn her civilization, languished under the feeble government of the Empress Anne, and of a cruel and ignorant minister. Augustus III. King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, a Prince devoid of character, could not inspire him with any dread. Louis XV., a weak and peaceable king, was governed by Cardinal Fleuri, who loved peace, but always by his weakness suffered himself to be drawn into war. He presented to Frederic rather a support than an obstacle. The court of France had espoused the cause of Charles VII. against Francis I. Maria Theresa, wife of Francis, and Queen of Hungary, saw herself threatened by England, Holland, and France; and whilst she had but little reason to hope the preservation of her hereditary dominions, that arrogant princess wished to place her husband on the Imperial Throne. This quarrel kindled the flames of war in Europe; the genius of Frederic saw by a single glance that the moment was arrived for elevating Prussia to the second order of powers; he made an offer to Maria Theresa to defend her, if she would cede Silesia to him, and threatened her with war in case of refusal. The Empress, whose firmness nothing could shake, impoliticly refused that proposition; war was declared, and Frederic entered Silesia at the head of eighty thousand men. This first war lasted eighteen months.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740 to 1741.

Frederic, by gaining five battles, shewed that Europe would recognize one great man more in her bloody annals. He had begun the war from ambition, and contrary to strict justice; he concluded it with ability, but by the abandonment of France his ally, without giving her information of it, and he thus put in practice, when he was seated on the throne, the principles of Machiavel, whom he had refuted before he ascended it. Men judge according to the event. The hero was absolved by victory from the wrongs with which justice reproached him; and this brilliant example serves to confirm men in that error, too generally and too lightly adopted, that ability in politics is incompatible with the strict rule of morality. Four years after, in [1744], Frederic again took up arms.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743-1744 to 1744-1745.

He invaded Bohemia, Upper Silesia, and Moravia. Vienna thought him at her gates; but the defection of the Bavarians, the retreat of the French, and the return of Prince Charles into Bohemia, rapidly changed the face of affairs. The position of Frederic became as dangerous as it had been menacing; he was on the point of being lost, and he saw himself compelled to retire with as much precipitation, as he had advanced with boldness. The gaining the battle of Hohen-Friedberg saved him. That retreat and that victory fixed the seal to his reputation. It was after this action that he wrote to Louis XV. 'I have just discharged in Silesia the bill of exchange which your majesty drew on me at Fontenoy.' A letter so much the more modest, as Frederic had conquered, and Louis had only been witness to a victory. He displayed the same genius and the same activity in the campaign of 1745, and once more abandoned France in making his separate peace at Dresden. By this treaty Francis was peaceably assured of the empire, and the cession of Silesia was confirmed to Frederic. France during this war committed some wrongs, which might palliate the abandonment of Prussia. The French did not keep Prince Charles within bounds, they made no diversion into Germany, and fought no where but in Flanders. ... In 1756, Europe was again in a flame. France and England declared war against each other, and both sought alliances; Frederic ranged himself on the side of England, and by that became the object of the unreflecting vengeance of the French, and of the alliance of that power with Austria; Austria also formed an alliance with the Court of Petersburg by means of a Saxon secretary; Frederic discovered the project of the Courts of Petersburg, Dresden, and Vienna, to invade the Prussian dominions. He was before-hand with them, and began the war by some conquests."

L. P. Ségur, the elder, History of the Principal Events of the Reign of Frederic William II., King of Prussia, volume 1, pages 2-6.

GERMANY: A. D. 1742. The Elector of Bavaria crowned Emperor (Charles VII.).

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1741 (OCTOBER).

GERMANY: A. D. 1745. The consort of Maria Theresa elected Emperor (Francis I.). Rise of the imperial house of Hapsburg-Lorraine.

See AUSTRIA: A. D.1745 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER); also, 1744-1745.

GERMANY: A. D. 1748. End and results of the War of the Austrian Succession.

See AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. THE CONGRESS.

{1495}

GERMANY: A. D. 1755-1756. The Seven Years War: Its causes and provocations.

"The great national quarrel between England and the powers which restrained her free movements on the sea and her extension of colonies, had never ceased. England would have the freedom of the sea: and on land she pushed population and ploughs where France paraded soldiers. In such a struggle war must come, but, by laws invariable as the laws of nature, the population will win in the end. After much bickering, blows began in 1754, and at the beginning of 1755 England despatched the ill-fated Braddock with a small force, which was destroyed in July. ... As yet, however, the quarrel was only colonial. England embittered it by seizing French ships without any declaration of war. But why did Frederick [of Prussia] strike in, if indeed he desired peace? In truth there was no choice for him. As early as 1752-53 his secret agents had discovered that Austria, Russia and Saxony were hatching a plot for the destruction of Prussia, and such a partition as afterwards befell unhappy Poland. In 1753 a Saxon official, Mentzel by name, began to supply the Prussian agents with copies of secret documents from the archives at Dresden, which proved that, during the whole of the peace, negotiations had been proceeding for a simultaneous attack on Frederick, though the astute Brühl [Saxon minister], mindful of former defeats, objected to playing the part of jackal to the neighbouring lions. In short, by the end of 1755 the king knew that preparations were already on foot in Austria and Russia, and that he would probably be attacked next year certainly, or, at latest, the year after. A great war was coming between England and France, in which the continental power would attack Hanover, and tread closely on the skirts of Prussia. The situation was dangerous, and became terribly menacing when England bargained with Russia to subsidise a Muscovite army of 55,000 men for defence of Hanover. Russia consented with alacrity. Money was all that the czarina needed for her preparations against Frederick, and in the autumn of 1755 she assembled, not 55,000, but 70,000 men on the Prussian frontier, nominally for the use of England. But throughout the winter all the talk at St. Petersburg was of Frederick's destruction in the coming spring. It was time for him to stir. His first move was one of policy. He offered England a 'neutrality convention' by which the two powers jointly should guarantee the German Reich against all foreign intervention during the coming war. On the 16th of January, 1756, the convention was signed in London, and the Russian agreement thrown over, as it could well be, since it had not been ratified. Europe was now ranking herself for the struggle. In preceding years, the Austrian diplomatist, Kaunitz, had so managed the French court, especially through the medium of Madame de Pompadour, that Louis XV. was now on the side of Maria Theresa, who had bowed her neck so far as to write to the French king's mistress as 'Ma Cousine,' while Frederick forgot policy, and spoke of the Pompadour in slighting terms. 'Je ne la connais pas,' said he once, and was never forgiven. ... The agreement with Russia to partition Prussia had already been made, and Frederick's sharp tongue had betrayed him into calling the czarina that 'Infame catin du nord.' Saxony waited for the appearance of her stronger neighbours in order to join them. England alone was Frederick's ally."

Colonel C. B. Brackenbury, Frederick the Great, chapter 9.

"The secret sources of the Third Silesian War, since called 'Seven-Years War,' go back to 1745; nay, we may say, to the First Invasion of Silesia in 1740. For it was in Maria Theresa's incurable sorrow at loss of Silesia, and her inextinguishable hope to reconquer it, that this and all Friedrich's other Wars had their origin. ... Traitor Menzel the Saxon Kanzellist ... has been busy for Prussia ever since 'the end of 1752.' Got admittance to the Presses; sent his first Excerpt 'about the time of Easter-Fair 1753,'--time of Voltaire's taking wing. And has been at work ever since. Copying Despatches from the most secret Saxon Repositories; ready always on Excellency Maltzahn's indicating the Piece wanted [Maltzahn being the Prussian Minister at Dresden]. ... Menzel ... lasted in free activity till 1757; and was then put under lock and key. Was not hanged: sat prisoner for twenty-seven years after; over-grown with hair, legs and arms chained together, heavy iron-bar uniting both ankles; diet bread-and-water;--for the rest, healthy; and died, not very miserable it is said, in 1784."

T. Carlyle, History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, book 17, chapter 1 (volume 7).

ALSO IN: Duc de Broglie, The King's Secret, chapters 1-2 (volume 1).

_Frederick II., History of the Seven Years War (Posthumous Works, volume 2), chapter 3._

_H. Tuttle, History of Prussia, 1745-1756 (volume 3), chapters 6-9._

_F. Von Raumer, Contributions to Modern History: Frederick II. and his Times, chapters 24-28._

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1754-1755; and AUSTRIA: A. D. 1755-1763.

GERMANY: A. D. 1756. The Seven Years War: Frederick strikes the first blow. Saxony subdued.

"Finding that the storm was wholly inevitable, and must burst on him next year, he [Frederick], with bold sagacity, determined to forestall it. First, then, in August, 1756, his ambassador at Vienna had orders to demand of the Empress Queen a statement of her intentions, to announce war as the alternative, and to declare that he would accept no answer 'in the style of an oracle.' The answer, as he expected, was evasive. Without further delay an army of 60,000 Prussians, headed by Frederick in person, poured into Saxony. The Queen of Poland was taken in Dresden: the King of Poland [Augustus III. Elector of Saxony, and, by election, King of Poland] and his troops were blockaded in Pirna. Thus did Frederick commence that mighty struggle which is known to Germans by the name of the Seven Years' War. The first object of the Prussian monarch at Dresden was to obtain possession of the original documents of the coalition against him, whose existence he knew by means of the traitor Menzel. The Queen of Poland, no less aware than Frederick of the importance of these papers, had carried them to her own bed-chamber. She sat down on the trunk which contained the most material ones, and declared to the Prussian officer sent to seize them that nothing but force should move her from the spot. [The official account of this occurrence which Carlyle produces represents the Queen as 'standing before the door' of the 'archive apartment' in which the compromising documents were locked up, she having previously sealed the door.] This officer was of Scottish blood, General Keith, the Earl Marischal's brother. {1496} 'All Europe,' said the Queen, 'would exclaim against this outrage; and then, sir, you will be the victim; depend upon it, your King is a man to sacrifice you to his own honour!' Keith, who knew Frederick's character, was startled, and sent for further orders; but on receiving a reiteration of the first he did his duty. The papers were then made public, appended to a manifesto in vindication of Frederick's conduct; and they convinced the world that, although the apparent aggressor in his invasion of Saxony, he had only acted on the principles of self-defence. Meanwhile, the Prussian army closely blockaded the Saxon in Pirna, but the Austrian, under Marshal Brown, an officer of British extraction, was advancing to its relief through the mountain passes of Bohemia. Frederick left a sufficient force to maintain the blockade, marched against Brown with the remainder, and gave him battle at Lowositz [or Lobositz] on the 1st of October. It proved a hard-fought day; the King no longer found, as he says in one of his letters, the old Austrians he remembered; and his loss in killed and wounded was greater than theirs [3,308 against 2,984]; but victory declared on his side. Then retracing his steps towards Pirna he compelled, by the pressure of famine, the whole Saxon army, 17,000 strong, to an unconditional surrender. The officers were sent home on parole, but the soldiers were induced, partly by force and partly by persuasion, to enlist in the Prussian ranks, and swear fidelity to Frederick. Their former sovereign, King Augustus, remained securely perched on his castle-rock of Königstein, but, becoming weary of confinement, solicited, and was most readily granted, passports to Warsaw. During the whole winter Frederick fixed his head-quarters at Dresden, treating Saxony in all respects as a conquered province, or as one of his own. Troops and taxes were levied throughout that rich and populous land with unsparing rigour, and were directed against the very cause which the sovereign of that land had embraced."

Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapter 33 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: T. Carlyle, History of Friedrich II., book 17, chapters 4-8 (volume 7).

Lord Dover, Life of Frederick IL, volume 2, chapter 1.

GERMANY: A.-D. 1756-1757. The Seven Years War: Frederick under the Ban of the Empire. The coalition against Frederick.

"All through the winter Austria strained every nerve to consolidate her alliances, and she did not scruple to use her position at the head of the Empire, in order to drag that body into the quarrel that had arisen between two of its members. On his own responsibility, without consulting the electors, princes, and cities, the Emperor passed sentence on Frederick, and condemned him, unheard, as a disturber of the peace. Many of the great cities altogether refused to publish the Emperor's decree, and even among the states generally subservient to Austria there were some that were alarmed at so flagrant a disregard of law and precedent. It may have seemed a sign of what was to be expected should Prussia be annihilated, and no state remain in Germany that dared to lift up its voice against Austria. Nevertheless, in spite of this feeling, and in spite of the opposition of nearly all the Protestant states, Austria succeeded in inducing the Empire to espouse her cause. In all three colleges of electors, princes, and cities she obtained a majority, and at a diet held on January 17, 1757, it was resolved that an army of the Empire should be set on foot for the purpose of making war on Prussia. Some months later Frederick was put to the ban of the Empire. But the use of this antiquated weapon served rather to throw ridicule on those who employed it than to injure him against whom it was launched. ... It has been calculated that the population of the States arrayed against Frederick the Great amounted to 90,000,000, and that they put 430,000 men into the field in the year 1757. The population of Prussia was 4,500,000, her army 200,000 strong; but, after deducting the garrisons of the fortresses, there remained little over 150,000 men available for service in the field. The odds against Frederick were great, but they were not absolutely overwhelming. His territories were scattered and difficult of defence, the extremities hardly defensible at all; but he occupied a central position from which he might, by rapidity of movement, be able to take his assailants in detail, unless their plans were distinguished by a harmony unusual in the efforts of a coalition."

F. W. Longman, Frederick the Great and the Seven Years' War, chapter 8, section 3.

GERMANY: A. D. 1756-1758. War of Prussia with Sweden in Pomerania.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1720-1792.

GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (April-June). The Seven Years War: Frederick's, invasion of Bohemia. Victory at Prague and defeat at Kolin.

"At the commencement of 1757, the grand confederacy against the king of Prussia was consolidated by the efforts and intrigues of the court of Vienna. The French had drawn together 80,000 men on the Rhine, under the command of marshal d' Etrées; the army of execution was assembling in the empire; the Swedes were preparing to penetrate into Pomerania, and 60,000 Russians were stationed on the frontiers of Livonia, waiting the season of action to burst into the kingdom of Prussia. With this favourable aspect of affairs, the empress prepared for the campaign by augmenting her forces in Hungary and Bohemia to 150,000 men; the main army, stationed in the vicinity of Prague, was commanded by Prince Charles, who was assisted by the skill of marshal Brown, and the other corps intrusted to count Daun. Frederic possessed too much foresight and vigilance to remain inactive while his enemies were collecting their forces; he therefore resolved to carry the war into the heart of the Austrian territories, and by a decisive stroke to shake the basis of the confederacy. He covered this plan with consummate address; he affected great trepidation and uncertainty, and, to deceive the Austrians into a belief that he only intended to maintain himself in Saxony, put Dresden in a state of defence, broke down the bridges, and marked out various camps in the vicinity. In the midst of this apparent alarm three Prussian columns burst into Bohemia, in April, and rapidly advanced towards Prague. ... The Austrians, pressed on all sides, retreated with precipitation under the walls of Prague, on the southern side of the Moldau, while the Prussians advancing towards the capital formed two bodies; one under Schwerin remaining at Jung Bunzlau, and the other, headed by the king, occupying the heights between the Moldau and the Weisseberg. {1497} Expecting to be joined by marshal Daun, who was hastening from Moravia, the Austrians remained on the defensive; but prince Charles took so strong a position as seemed to defy all apprehensions of an attack. ... These obstacles, however, were insufficient to arrest the daring spirit of Frederic, who resolved to attack the Austrians before the arrival of Daun. Leaving a corps under prince Maurice above Prague, he crossed the Moldau near Rostock and Podabe on the 5th of May, with 16,000 men, and on the following morning at break of day was joined by the corps under marshal Schwerin. ... Victory declared on the side of the Prussians, but was purchased by the loss of their best troops, not less than 18,000, even by the avowal of the king, being killed, with many of his bravest officers, and Schwerin, the father of the Prussian discipline, and the guide of Frederic in the career of victory. Of the Austrians 8,000 were killed and wounded, 9,000 made prisoners, and 28,000 shut up within the walls of Prague. ... A column of 16,000 Austrians made good their retreat along the Moldau to join the army of marshal Daun. Prague was instantly blockaded by the victorious army, and not less than 100,000 souls were confined within the walls, almost without the means of subsistence. They were soon reduced to the greatest extremities. ... In this disastrous moment the house of Austria was preserved from impending destruction by the skill and caution of a general, who now, for the first time, appeared at the head of an army. This general was Leopold count Daun, a native of Bohemia. ... Daun had marched through Moravia towards Prague, to effect a junction with prince Charles. On arriving at Boehmischgrod, within a few miles of Prague, he was apprised of the recent defeat, and halted a few days to collect the fugitives, till his corps swelled so considerably that Frederic detached against him the prince of Bevern with 20,000 men." Daun declined battle and retreated, until he had collected an army of 60,000 men and restored their courage. He then advanced, forcing back the prince of Bevern, and when Frederick, joining the latter with reinforcements, attacked him at Kolin, on the 18th of June, he inflicted on the Prussian king a disastrous defeat--the first which Frederick had known. The Prussian troops, "for the first time defeated, gave way to despondency, and in their retreat exclaimed, 'This is our Pultawa.' Daun purchased the victory with the loss of 9,000 men; but on the side of the Prussians not less than 14,000 were killed, wounded, and taken prisoners, and 43 pieces of artillery, with 22 standards, fell into the hands of the Austrians. Maria Theresa ... conveyed in person the news of this important victory to the countess Daun, and instituted the military order of merit, or the Order of Maria Theresa, with which she decorated the commander and officers who had most signalised themselves, and dated its commencement from the æra of that glorious victory. To give repose to the troops, and to replace the magazines which had been destroyed by the Prussians, Daun remained several days on the field of battle; and as he advanced to Prague found that the Prussians had raised the siege on the 20th of June, and were retreating with precipitation towards Saxony and Lusatia."

W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 112 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: Colonel C. B. Brackenbury, Frederick the Great, chapters 11-12.

F. Kugler, Pict. History of Germany during the Reign of Frederick the Great, chapter 25.

GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (July-December). The Seven Years War: Darkening and brightening of Frederick's career. Closter-Seven. Rossbach. Leuthen.

The enemies of the King of Prussia "were now closing upon him from every side. The provinces beyond the Vistula became the prey of Russian hordes, to which only one division of Prussians under Marshal Lehwald was opposed. In the result, however, their own devastations, and the consequent want of supplies, proved a check to their further progress during this campaign. In Westphalia above 80,000 effective French soldiers were advancing, commanded by the Mareschal d'Estrées, a grandson of the famous minister Louvois. The Duke of Cumberland, who had undertaken to defend his father's electorate against them, was at the head of a motley army of scarce 50,000 men. ... His military talents were not such as to supply his want of numbers or of combination; he allowed the French to pass the deep and rapid Weser unopposed; he gave them no disturbance when laying waste great part of the Electorate; he only fell back from position to position until at length the enemy came up with him at the village of Hastenback near Hameln. There, on the 26th of July, an action was fought, and the Duke was worsted with the loss of several hundred men, The only resource of His Royal Highness was a retreat across the wide Lüneberg moors, to cover the town of Stade towards the mouth of the Elbe, where the archives and other valuable effects from Hanover had been already deposited for safety." Intrigue at Versailles having recalled D'Estrées and sent the Duke de Richelieu into his place, the latter pressed the Duke of Cumberland so closely, hemming him in and cutting off his communications, that he was soon glad to make terms. On the 8th of September the English Duke signed, at Closter-Seven, a convention under which the auxiliary troops in his army were sent home, the Hanoverians dispersed, and only a garrison left at Stade. "After the battle of Kolin and the Convention of Closter-Seven, the position of Frederick,-- hemmed in on almost every side by victorious enemies,--was not only most dangerous but well-nigh desperate. To his own eyes it seemed so. He resolved in his thoughts, and discussed with his friends, the voluntary death of Otho as a worthy example to follow. Fully resolved never to fall alive into the hands of his enemies, nor yet to survive any decisive overthrow, he carried about his person a sure poison in a small glass phial. Yet ... he could still, with indomitable skill and energy, make every preparation for encountering the Prince de Soubise. He marched against the French commander at the head of only 22,000 men; but these were veterans, trained in the strictest discipline, and full of confidence in their chief. Soubise, on the other hand, owed his appointment in part to his illustrious lineage, as head of the House of Rohan, and still more to Court-favour, as the minion of Madame de Pompadour, but in no degree to his own experience or abilities. He had under his orders nearly 40,000 of his countrymen, and nearly 20,000 troops of the Empire; for the Germanic diet also had been induced to join the league against Frederick. On the 5th of November the two armies came to a battle at Rosbach [or Rossbach], close to the plain of Lützen, where in the preceding century Gustavus Adolphus conquered and fell. {1498} By the skilful manœvres of Frederick the French were brought to believe that the Prussians intended nothing but retreat, and they advanced in high spirits as if only to pursue the fugitives. Of a sudden they found themselves attacked with all the compactness of discipline, and all the courage of despair. The troops of the Empire, a motley crew, fled at the first fire. ... So rapid was the victory that the right wing of the Prussians, under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, was never engaged at all. Great numbers of the French were cut down in their flight by the Prussian cavalry, not a few perished in the waters of the Saale, and full 7,000 were made prisoners, with a large amount of baggage, artillery and standards. ... The battle of Rosbach was not more remarkable for its military results than for its moral influence. It was hailed throughout Germany as a triumph of the Teutonic over the Gallic race. ... So precarious was now Frederick's position that the battle of Rosbach, as he said himself, gained him nothing but leisure to fight another battle elsewhere. During his absence on the Saale, the Austrian armies had poured over the mountains into Silesia; they had defeated the Prussians under the Duke of Bevern; they had taken the main fortress, Schweidnitz, and the capital, Breslau; nearly the whole province was already theirs. A flying detachment of 4,000 cavalry, under General Haddick, had even pushed into Brandenburg, and levied a contribution from the city of Berlin [entering one of the suburbs of the Prussian capital and holding it for twelve hours]. The advancing season seemed to require winter quarters, but Frederick never dreamed of rest until Silesia was recovered. He hastened by forced marches from the Saale to the Oder, gathering reinforcements while he went along. As he drew near Breslau, the Imperial commander, Prince Charles of Lorraine, flushed with recent victory and confident in superior numbers, disregarded the prudent advice of Marshal Daun, and descended from an almost inaccessible position to give the King of Prussia battle on the open plain. ... On the 5th of December, one month from the battle of Rosbach, the two armies met at Leuthen, a small village near Breslau, Frederick with 40,000, Prince Charles of Lorraine with between 60,000 and 70,000 men. For several hours did the conflict rage doubtfully and fiercely. It was decided mainly by the skill and the spirit of the Prussian monarch. 'The battle of Leuthen,' says Napoleon, 'was a master-piece. Did it even stand alone it would of itself entitle Frederick to immortal fame.' In killed, wounded and taken, the Austrians lost no less than 27,000 men; above 50 standards, above 100 cannon, above 4,000 waggons, became the spoil of the victors; Breslau was taken, Schweidnitz blockaded, Silesia recovered; the remnant of the Imperial forces fled back across the mountains; and Frederick, after one of the longest and most glorious campaigns that History records, at length allowed himself and his soldiers some repose."

Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapter 34 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: T. Carlyle, History of Friedrich II., book 18, chapters 5-10.

Lord Dover, Life of Frederick II., volume 2, chapters 3-4.

Sir E. Cust, Annals of the Wars of the 18th Century, volume 2, pages 217-240.

GERMANY: A. D. 1758. The Seven Years War: Campaign in Hanover. Siege of Olmütz. Russian defeat at Zorndorf. Prussian defeat at Hochkirch.

"Before the end of 1757, England began to take a more active part on the Continent. Lord Chatham brought about the rejection of the Convention of Closter-Zeven by Parliament, and the recall of Cumberland by the king. The efficient Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick was proposed by Frederick and made commander of the English and Hanoverian forces. He opened the campaign of 1758 in the winter. The French, under Clermont, being without discipline or control, he drove them in headlong flight out of their winter-quarters in Hanover and Westphalia, to the Rhine and across it; and on June 23 defeated them at the battle of Crefeld. A French army under Soubise afterward crossed the Rhine higher up, and Ferdinand, retreated, but succeeded in protecting the west as far as the Weser against General Contades. Frederick first retook Schweidnitz, April 16. He then, in order to prevent the junction of the Russians and Austrians, ventured to attack Austria, and invaded Moravia. His brother, Prince Henry, had but a small force in Saxony, and Frederick thought that he could best cover that country by an attack on Austria. But the siege of Olmütz detained him from May until July, and his prospects grew more doubtful. The Austrians captured a convoy of 300 wagons of military stores, which Ziethen was to have escorted to him. [Instead of 800, the convoy comprised 3,000 to 4,000 wagons, of which only 200 reached the Prussian camp, and its destruction by General Loudon completely frustrated Frederick's plan of campaign.] Frederick raised the siege, and, by an admirable retreat, brought his army through Bohemia by way of Königgrätz to Landshut. Here he received bad news. The Russians, under Fermor, were again in Prussia, occupying the eastern province, but treating it mildly as a conquered country, where the empress already received the homage of the people. They then advanced, with frightful ravages, through Pomerania and Neumark to the Oder, and were now near Küstrin, which they laid in ashes. Frederick made haste to meet them. He was so indignant at the desolation of the country and the suffering of his people that he forbade quarter to be given. The report of this fact also embittered the Russians. At Zorndorf, Frederick met the enemy, 50,000 strong, August 25, 1758. They were drawn up in a great square or phalanx, in the ancient, half-barbarous manner. A frightfully bloody fight followed, since the Russians would not yield, and were cut down in heaps. Seidlitz, the victor of Rossbach, by a timely charge of his cavalry, captured the Russian artillery, and crushed their right wing. On the second day the Russians were driven back, but not without inflicting heavy loss on the Prussians, who, though they suffered much less than their enemies, left more than one third of their force on the field. The Russians were compelled to withdraw from Prussia. Frederick then hastened to Saxony, where his brother Henry was sorely pressed by Daun and the imperial army. He could not even wait to relieve Silesia, where Neisse, his principal fortress, was threatened. Daun, hearing of his approach, took up a position in his way, between Bautzen and Görlitz. But Frederick, whose contempt for this prudent and slow general was excessive, occupied a camp in a weak and exposed position, at Hochkirch, under Daun's very eyes, against the protest of his own generals. {1499} He remained there three days unmolested; but on October 14, the day fixed for advancing, the Austrians attacked him with twice his numbers. A desperate fight took place in the burning village; the Prussians were driven out, and lost many guns. Frederick himself was in imminent danger, and his friends Keith and Duke Francis of Brunswick fell at his side. Yet the army did not lose its spirit or its discipline. Within eleven days Frederick, who had been joined by his brother Henry, was in Silesia, and relieved Neisse and Kosel. Thus the campaign of 1758 ended favorably to Frederick. The pope sent Daun a consecrated hat and sword, as a testimonial for his victory at Hochkirch."

C. T. Lewis, History of Germany, book 5, chapter 23, sections 7-9.

ALSO IN: G. B. Malleson, Military Life of Loudon, chapters 7-8.

F. Kugler, Pict. History of Germany during the Reign of Frederick the Great, chapters 29-31.

_Frederick II., History of the Seven Years War (Posthumous Works, volume 2), chapter 8._

GERMANY: A. D. 1759 (April-August). The Seven Years War: Prince Ferdinand's Hanoverian campaign. Defeat at Bergen and victory at Minden.

In the Hanoverian field of war, where Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick held command, the campaign of 1759 was important, and prosperous in the end for the allies of Prussia. "Besides the Hanoverians and Hessians in British pay, he [Prince Ferdinand] had under his direction 10,000 or 12,000 British soldiers, amongst whom, since the death of the Duke of Marlborough, Lord George Sackville was the senior officer. The French, on their part, were making great exertions, under the new administration of the Duke de Choiseul; large reinforcements were sent into Germany, and early in the year they surprised by stratagem the free city of Frankfort and made it the place of arms for their southern army. No object could be of greater moment to Ferdinand than to dislodge them from this important post." Marching quickly, with 30,000 of his army, he attacked the French, under the Duke de Broglie, at Bergen, on the Nidda, in front of Frankfort, April 13, and was repulsed, after heavy fighting, with a loss of 2,000 men. "This reverse would, it was supposed, reduce Prince Ferdinand to the defensive during the remainder of the campaign. Both De Broglie and Contades eagerly pushed forward, their opponents giving way before them. Combining their forces, they reduced Cassel, Munster, and Minden, and they felt assured that the whole Electorate must soon again be theirs. Already had the archives and the most valuable property been sent off from Hanover to Stade. Already did a new Hastenbeck--a new Closter-Seven--rise in view. But it was under such difficulties that the genius of Ferdinand shone forth. With a far inferior army (for thus much is acknowledged, although I do not find the French numbers clearly or precisely stated), he still maintained his ground on the left of the Weser, and supplied every defect by his superiority of tactics. He left a detachment of 5,000 men exposed, and seemingly unguarded, as a bait to lure De Contades from his strong position at Minden. The French Mareschal was deceived by the feint, and directed the Duke De Broglie to march forward and profit by the blunder, as he deemed it to be. On the 1st of August, accordingly, De Broglie advanced into the plain, his force divided in eight columns." Instead of the small corps expected, he found the whole army of the allies in front of him. De Contades hurried to his assistance, and the French, forced to accept battle in an unfavorable position, were overcome. At the decisive moment of their retreat, "the Prince sent his orders to Lord George Sackville, who commanded the whole English and some German cavalry on the right wing of the Allies, and who had hitherto been kept back as a reserve. The orders were to charge and overwhelm the French in their retreat, before they could reach any clear ground to rally. Had these orders been duly fulfilled, it is acknowledged by French writers that their army must have been utterly destroyed; but Lord George either could not or would not understand what was enjoined on him. ... Under such circumstances the victory of Minden would not have been signal or complete but for a previous and most high-spirited precaution of Prince Ferdinand. He had sent round to the rear of the French a body of 10,000 men, under his nephew--and also the King of Prussia's--the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick. ... Thus Ferdinand became master of the passes, and the French were constrained to continue their retreat in disorder. Upon the whole, their loss was 8,000 men killed, wounded, or taken, 30 pieces of artillery, and 17 standards. ... Great was the rejoicing in England at the victory of Minden"; but loud the outcry against Lord George Sackville, who was recalled and dismissed from all his employments.

Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapter 36 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: Sir E. Cust, Annals of the Wars of the 18th Century, volume 2, pages 327-333.

GERMANY: A. D. 1759 (July-November). The Seven Years War: Disasters of Frederick. Kunersdorf. Dresden. Maxen.

"Three years of the war were gone and the ardour of Frederick's' enemies showed no signs of abating. The war was unpopular in the Russian army, but the Czarina thought no sacrifice too great for the gratification of her hatred. France was sick of it too, and tottering on the verge of national bankruptcy, but Louis was kept true to his engagements by domestic influences and by the unbending determination of Maria Theresa never to lay down arms until Prussia was thoroughly humbled. ... Already Frederick was at his wits' end for men and money. Of the splendid infantry which had stormed the heights at Prague, and stemmed the rout of Kollin, very little now remained. ... Moreover, Austria, relying on her vastly larger population, had ceased to exchange prisoners, and after the end of 1759 Russia followed her example. ... Frederick's pecuniary difficulties were even greater still. But for the English subsidy he could hardly have subsisted at all. ... The summer was half gone before there was any serious fighting. Frederick had got together 125,000 men of some sort, besides garrison troops, but he no longer felt strong enough to take the initiative, and the Austrians were equally indisposed to attack without the co-operation of their allies. Towards the middle of July the Russians, under Count Soltikoff, issued from Posen, advanced to the Oder', and, after defeating a weak Prussian corps near Kay, took possession of Frankfort. {1500} It now became necessary for the king to march in person against them, the more especially as Laudon [or Loudon] with 18,000 Austrians was on his way to join Soltikoff. Before he could reach Frankfort, Laudon, eluding with much dexterity the vigilance of his enemies, effected his junction, and Frederick, with 48,000 men, found himself confronted by an army 78,000 strong. The Russians were encamped on the heights of Kunersdorf, east of Frankfort." Frederick attacked them, August 12, with brilliant success at first, routing their left wing and taking 70 guns, with several thousand prisoners. "The Prussian generals then besought the king to rest content with the advantage he had gained. The day was intensely hot; his soldiers had been on foot for twelve hours, and were suffering severely from thirst and exhaustion; moreover, if the Russians were let alone, they would probably go off quietly in the night, as they had done after Zorndorf. Unhappily Frederick refused to take counsel. He wanted to destroy the Russian army, not merely to defeat it; he had seized the Frankfort bridge and cut off its retreat." He persisted in his attack and was beaten off. "The Prussians were in full retreat when Laudon swept down upon them with eighteen fresh squadrons. The retreat became a rout more disorderly than in any battle of the war except Rossbach. The king, stupefied with his disaster, could hardly be induced to quit the field, and was heard to mutter, 'Is there then no cursed bullet that can reach me?' The defeat was overwhelming. Had it been properly followed up, it must have put an end to the war, and Kunersdorf would have ranked among the decisive battles of the world. Berlin lay open to the enemy; the royal family fled to Magdeburg. For the first (and last) time in his life Frederick gave way utterly to despair. 'I have no resources left,' he wrote to the minister Finckenstein the evening after the battle, 'and to tell the truth I hold all for lost. I shall not survive the ruin of my country. Farewell for ever.' The same night he resigned the command of the army to General Finck. Eighteen thousand, five hundred of his soldiers were killed, wounded, or prisoners, and the rest were so scattered that no more than 3,000 remained under his command. All the artillery was lost, and most of his best generals were killed or wounded. ... By degrees, however, the prospect brightened. The fugitives kept coming in, and the enemy neglected to give the finishing stroke. Frederick shook off his despair, and resumed the command of his army. Artillery was ordered up from Berlin, and the troops serving against the Swedes were recalled from Pomerania. Within a week of Kunersdorf he was at the head of 33,000 men, and in a position to send relief to Dresden, which was besieged by an Austrian and Imperialist army. The relief, as it happened, arrived just too late." Dresden was surrendered by its commandant, Schmettau, on the 4th of September, to the great wrath of Frederick. By a wonderful march of fifty-eight miles in fifty hours, Prince Henry, the brother of Frederick, prevented the Austrians from gaining the whole electorate of Saxony. The Russians and the Austrians quarrelled, the former complaining that they were left to do all the fighting, and presently they withdrew into Poland. "With the departure of the Russians, the campaign would probably have ended, had not Frederick's desire to close it with a victory led him into a fresh disaster, hardly less serious and far more disgraceful than that of Kunersdorf. ... With the view of hastening the retreat of the Austrians, and of driving them, if possible, into the difficult Pirna country, he ordered General Finck to take post with his corps at Maxen, to bar their direct line of communications with Bohemia." As the result, Finck, with his whole corps, of 12,000, were overwhelmed and taken prisoners. "The capitulation of Maxen was no less destructive of Frederick's plans than galling to his pride. The Austrians now retained Dresden, a place of great strategical importance, though the king, in the hope of dislodging them, exposed the wrecks of his army to the ruinous hardships of a winter campaign, in weather of unusual severity, and borrowed 12,000 men of Ferdinand of Brunswick to cover his flank while so engaged. The new year had commenced before he allowed his harassed troops to go into winter-quarters."

F. W. Longman, Frederick the Great and the Seven Years War, chapter 10, section 2.

ALSO IN: T. Carlyle, History of Friedrich II.; book 19, chapters 4-7.

_Frederick II., History of the Seven Years War (Posthumous Works, volume 3), chapter 10._

GERMANY: A. D. 1760. The Seven Years War: Saxony reconquered by Frederick. Dresden bombarded. Battles of Liegnitz, Torgau and Warburg.

"The campaign of 1759 had extended far into the winter, and Frederick conceived the bold idea of renewing it while the vigilance of his enemies was relaxed in winter quarters, and of making another effort to drive the Austrians from Saxony. His head-quarters were at Freyberg. Having received reinforcements from Prince Ferdinand, and been joined by 12,000 men under the hereditary prince, he left the latter to keep guard behind the Mulde, and in January 1760, at a time when the snow lay deep upon the ground, he made a fierce spring upon the Austrians, who were posted at Dippoldiswalde; but General Maguire, who commanded there, baffled him by the vigilance and skill with which he guarded every pass, and compelled him to retrace his steps to Freyberg. When the winter had passed and the regular campaign had opened, Laudohn [Loudon], one of the most active of the Austrian generals--the same who had borne a great part in the victories of Hochkirchen and Kunersdorf--entered Silesia, surprised with a greatly superior force the Prussian General Fouqué, compelled him, with some thousands of soldiers, to surrender [at Landshut, June 22], and a few days later reduced the important fortress of Glatz [July 26]. Frederick, at the first news of the danger of Fouqué, marched rapidly towards Silesia, Daun slowly following, while an Austrian corps, under General Lacy, impeded his march by incessant skirmishes. On learning the surrender of Fouqué, Frederick at once turned and hastened towards Dresden. It was July, and the heat was so intense that on a single day more than a hundred of his soldiers dropped dead upon the march. He hoped to gain some days upon Daun, who was still pursuing, and to become master of Dresden before succours arrived. As he expected, he soon outstripped the Austrian general, and the materials for the siege were collected with astonishing rapidity, but General Maguire, who commanded at Dresden, defended it with complete success till the approach of the Austrian army obliged Frederick to retire. {1501} Baffled in his design, he took a characteristic vengeance by bombarding that beautiful city with red-hot balls, slaughtering multitudes of its peaceable inhabitants, and reducing whole quarters to ashes; and he then darted again upon Silesia, still followed by the Austrian general. Laudohn had just met with his first reverse, having failed in the siege of Breslau [an attempted surprise and a brief bombardment]; on August 15, when Daun was still far off, Frederick fell upon him and beat him in the battle of Liegnitz. [The statement that 'Daun was still far off' appears to be erroneous. Loudon and Daun had formed a junction four days before, and had planned a concerted attack on Frederick's camp; Loudon was struck and defeated while making the movement agreed upon, and Daun was only a few miles away at the time.] Soon after, however, this success was counterbalanced by Lacy and Totleben, who; at the head of some Austrians and Russians, had marched upon Berlin, which, after a brave resistance, was once more captured and ruthlessly plundered; but on the approach of Frederick the enemy speedily retreated. Frederick then turned again towards Saxony, which was again occupied by Daun, and on November 3 he attacked his old enemy in his strong entrenchments at Torgau. Daun, in addition to the advantage of position, had the advantage of great numerical superiority, for his army was reckoned at 65,000, while that of Frederick was not more than 44,000. But the generalship of Frederick gained the victory. General Ziethen succeeded in attacking the Austrians in the rear, gaining the height, and throwing them into confusion. Daun was wounded and disabled, and General O'Donnell, who was next in command, was unable to restore the Austrian line. The day was conspicuous for its carnage, even among the bloody battles of the Seven Years' War: 20,000 Austrians were killed, wounded, or prisoners, while 14,000 Prussians were left on the field. The battle closed the campaign for the year, leaving all Saxony in the possession of the Prussians, with the exception of Dresden, which was still held by Maguire. The English and German army, under Prince Ferdinand, succeeded in the meantime in keeping at bay a very superior French army, under Marshal Broglio; and several slight skirmishes took place, with various results. The battle of Warburg, which was the most important, was won chiefly by the British cavalry, but Prince Ferdinand failed in his attempts to take Wesel and Gottingen; and at the close of the year the French took up their quarters at Cassel."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England, 18th Century, chapter 8 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 115 (volume 3).

G. B. Malleson, Military Life of Loudon, chapter 10.

T. Carlyle, History of Friedrich II., book 20, chapters 1-6.

GERMANY: A. D. 1761-1762. The Seven Years War: The closing campaigns.

"All Frederick's exertions produced him only 96,000 men for defence of Silesia and Saxony this year [1761]. Prince Henry had to face Daun in Saxony; the king himself stood in Silesia against Loudon and the Russians under Butterlin. Loudon opened the campaign by advancing against Goltz, near Schweidnitz, in April. Goltz had only 12,000 to his adversary's 30,000, but posted himself so well that Loudon could not attack him. Reinforcements came gradually to Loudon, raising his army to 72,000, but orders from Vienna obliged him to remain inactive till he could be joined near Neisse by the Russians with 60,000. Goltz, manœuvring against the Russians, was taken prisoner. The king himself delayed the junction of his enemies for some time, but could not now offer battle. The junction took place the 18th of August. He then struck at Loudon's communications, but the thrust was well parried, and on the 20th of August, Frederick, for the first time, was reduced to an attitude of pure defence. He formed an intrenched camp at Bunzelwitz, and lay there, blocking the way to Schweidnitz. Loudon's intreaties could not persuade the Russians to join him in full force to attack the position, and on the 9th of September Butterlin's army fell back across the Oder, leaving 20,000 of his men to act under Loudon. Frederick remained a fortnight longer in the camp of Bunzelwitz, but was then forced to go, as his army was eating up the magazines of Schweidnitz. Again he moved against Loudon's magazines, but the Austrian general boldly marched for Schweidnitz, and captured the place by assault on the night of the 30th September--1st October. No fight took place between London and the king. They both went into winter quarters in December--Prussians at Strehlen, Austrians at Kunzendorf, and Russians about Glatz. ... In the western theatre Ferdinand defeated Broglio and Soubise at Vellinghausen [or Wellinghausen, or Kirch-Denkern, as the battle, fought July 15, is differently called], the English contingent again behaving gloriously. ... Prince Henry and Daun manœuvred skilfully throughout the campaign, but never came to serious blows. Frederick is described as being very gloomy in mind this winter. The end of the year left him with but 60,000 men in Saxony, Silesia, and the north. Eugene of Wurtemburg had 5,000 to hold back the Swedes, Prince Henry 25,000 in Saxony, the king himself 30,000. But the agony of France was increasing; Maria Theresa had to discharge 20,000 men from want of money, and Frederick's bitter enemy, 'cette infame Catin du Nord' [the czarina Elizabeth], was failing fast in health. A worse blow to the king than the loss of a battle had been the fall of Pitt, in October, and with him all hope of English subsidies. Still, the enemies of Prussia were almost exhausted. One more year of brave and stubborn resistance, and Prussia must be left in peace. By extraordinary exertions, and a power of administrative organisation which was one of his greatest qualities, Frederick not only kept up his 60, 000, but doubled their number. In the spring he had 70,000 for his Silesian army, 40,000 for Prince Henry in Saxony, and 10,000 for the Swedes or other purposes. Best news of all, the czarina died on the 5th of January, 1762, and Peter, who succeeded her--only for a short time, poor boy--was an ardent admirer of the great king. Frederick at once released and sent home his Russian prisoners, an act which brought back his Prussians from Russia. On the 23rd February Peter declared his intention to be at peace and amity with Frederick, concluded peace on the 5th of May, and a treaty of alliance a month later. The Swedes, following suit, declared peace on the 22nd of May, and Frederick could now give his sole attention to the Austrians." For a few weeks, only, the Prussian king had a Russian contingent of 20,000 in alliance with him, but could make no use of it. {1502} It was recalled in July, by the revolution at St. Petersburg, which deposed the young czar, Peter, in favour of his ambitious consort, Catherine. Frederick succeeded in concealing the fact long enough to frighten Daun by a show of preparations for attacking him, with the Russian troops included in his army, and the Austrian general retired to Glatz and Bohemia. Frederick then took Schweidnitz, and marched on Dresden. "Daun followed heavily. Like a prize-fighter knocked out of time, he had no more fight in him. Prince Henry had two affairs with the Reich's army and its Austrian contingent. Forced to retire from Freyburg on the 15th, he afterwards attacked them on the 29th of October and defeated them by a turning movement. They had 40,000, he 30, 000. The Austrian contingent suffered most. In the western theatre Ferdinand held his own and had his usual successes. His part in the war was to defend only, and he never failed to show high qualities as a general. Thus, nowhere had Frederick's enemies succeeded in crushing his defences. For seven years the little kingdom of Prussia had held her ground against the three great military powers, France, Austria, and Russia. All were now equally exhausted. The constancy, courage, and ability of Frederick were rewarded at last; on the 15th of February, 1763, the treaty of Hubertsburg was signed, by which Austria once more agreed to the cession of Silesia. Prussia was now a Great Power like the rest, her greatness resting on no shams, as she had proved."

Colonel C. B. Brackenbury, Frederick the Great, chapter 18.

ALSO IN: Sir E. Cust, Annals of the Wars of the 18th Century, volume 3, pages 57-87.

_Frederick II., History of the Seven Years War (Posthumous Works, volume 3), chapters 14-16._

GERMANY: A. D. 1763. The end, results and costs of the Seven Years War. The Peace of Hubertsburg and Peace of Paris.

See SEVEN YEARS WAR.

GERMANY: A. D. 1763-1790. A period of peace and progress. Intellectual cultivation. Accession of the Emperor Joseph II. His character and his reforms. Accession of Leopold II.

"The peace of nearly thirty years which followed the Seven-Years' War in Germany was a time of rich mental activity and growth. Court life itself, if its vanities were not abolished, still acquired a more enlightened and humane tone. The fierce passions of the princes no longer exclusively controlled it: there was something of regard for education, for art and science, and for the public welfare. This is particularly true of courts which were intimately connected with Prussia; as that of Brunswick, where Duke Charles, Frederick II.'s brother-in-law, though personally an extravagant prince, founded an institution of learning which brought together many of the best intellects of Germany (1740 to 1760), or that of Anhalt-Dessau, where the famous 'Philanthropinum' was established. Several princes imitated Frederick's military administration, and that sometimes on a scale so small as to be ludicrous. Prince William of Lippe-Schaumburg founded in his little territory a fortress and a school of war. But this school educated Scharnhorst, and the prince himself won fame in distant lands. He invited Herder to his little court at Bückeburg. Weimar, too, imitated Frederick's example, where the Duchess Amalie, daughter of Charles of Brunswick, and her intellectual son, Charles Augustus, made their little cities Weimar and Jena places of gathering for the greatest men of genius of the time. Among the petty Thuringian princes of this period, there were others of noble character. In 1764 the Saxon throne was ascended by Frederick Augustus, grandson of Augustus III., but, being a minor, he could not be elected king of Poland. This put an end to the union of the two titles, which had been the cause of immeasurable evil to Saxony and to Germany. When the young elector attained his majority, the government of Saxony was greatly improved, and a period of prosperity followed. Duke Charles Eugene of Wirtemberg (1737-1793), during his early years, rivaled Louis XV. in extravagance and immorality, but in after-days was greatly changed. He founded the Charles School, at which Schiller was educated. Baden enjoyed a high degree of prosperity under Charles Frederick (1746-1811). Even the spiritual lords, on the whole, threw their influence in favor of enlightenment and progress. ... The prelates of Cologne, Trèves, Mayence, and Salzburg, strange to say, agreed at Ems in 1786 to renounce the supremacy of Rome, and to found an independent German Catholic Church; but the plan was broken down by the resistance of the inferior clergy and of the Emperor Joseph II. Some of the German states were slow to take part in the general progress. Bavaria was constantly retarded by the influence of the Jesuits. ... The Palatinate, too, was under luxurious and idle rulers, mostly in the pay of France. In some territories the boundless extravagance of the princes was a terrible burden upon their subjects. ... Men who professed enlightenment and humanity were often shamefully tyrannical. The courts of Cassel and Wirtemberg sold their people by regiments to England, to fight against the independence of the North American Colonies. ...

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JANUARY-JUNE).

Austria shared in the general intellectual awakening of Germany. Maria Theresa was a firm, strong character, with a clear mind and sincere desire for the people's welfare. She found Austria in decay, and was able to introduce many reforms. She alleviated the condition of the peasants, who were still mostly serfs. The nobles had before lived mainly for show, but she provided institutions for their education. ... It was a condition of the Peace of Hubertsburg that Frederick II. should give his electoral vote for the eldest son of Francis I. None of the other electors objected to the choice, and on March 27, 1764, they performed the ceremony of choosing Joseph 'King of the Romans,' but without power to interfere with the government during his father's life. Francis I. died August 18, 1765, and his son Joseph II. (1765-1790) was then crowned emperor in the traditional fashion. He was also associated with his mother in the government of' Austria; but she retained the royal power mainly in her own hands, assigning to her son the executive control of military affairs. Joseph II. was an impetuous and intellectual character, all aglow with the new ideas of enlightenment and progress, and was perhaps more deeply impressed by the example of Frederick II. than any other prince of the age. ... At the same time, Joseph II. was eager to aggrandize Austria, and at least to obtain an equivalent for Silesia. {1503} For a long time Austria had been longing to acquire Bavaria, and there now seemed to be some reason to hope for success, The ancient line of electors of the house of Wittelsbach died out in 1777 with Maximilian Joseph (December 30). The next heir was the Elector Palatine, Charles Theodore, also Duke of Jülich and Berg, who was not eager to obtain Bavaria, since, by the Peace of Westphalia, he must then forfeit the electorate of the Palatinate. ... Under these circumstances Joseph II. made an unfounded claim to Lower Bavaria, under a pretended grant of the Emperor Sigismund in 1426. A secret treaty was made by him with Charles Theodore, by which he was to pay that prince a large sum of money for Lower Bavaria; and soon after Maximilian Joseph's death, Joseph II. occupied the land with troops. Frederick II., who was ever jealous of the growth of Austria, resolved to prevent this acquisition. ...

See BAVARIA: A. D. 1777-1779.

Thus the war of the Bavarian Succession broke out (1778-79). ... By the death of Maria Theresa, November 29, 1780, her son Joseph II. became sole monarch of Austria. ... Joseph II. was a man of large mind and noble aims. Like Frederick, he was unwearying in labor, accessible to everyone, and eager to assume his share of work or responsibility. The books and the people's memory are full of anecdotes of him, though he was far from popular during his life. But he lacked the strong practical sense and calculating foresight of the veteran Prussian king. In his zeal for reforms he hastened to heap one upon another in confusion. Torture was abolished, and for a time even the death penalty. Rigid equality before the law was introduced, and slavery done away.

See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: GERMANY.

His reforms in the Church were still more sweeping. He closed more than half of the monasteries, and devoted their estates to public instruction; he introduced German hymns of praise and the German Bible. By his Edict of Toleration, June 22, 1781, he secured to all Protestants throughout the Austrian states their civil rights and freedom of worship, 'in houses of prayer without bells or towers.' ... He zealously followed up Maria Theresa's policy of consolidating Austria into one state; and it was this course which made him enemies. He offended the powerful nobility of Hungary by abolishing serfdom (November 1, 1781), and the whole people by the measures he took to promote the use of the German language. In the Netherlands, he alienated from him the powerful clergy by his innovations; and they stirred up against him the people, already aggrieved by the loss of some of their ancient liberties. A revolution broke out among them in 1788, and was threatening to extend to Hungary and Bohemia, when the emperor suddenly died, still in the full vigor of manhood, at the age of forty-nine, February 20, 1790. ... After his death, the progress of reform was checked in Austria; but he had awakened new and strong forces there, and a complete return to the ancient system was impossible. ... Leopold II. (1790-1792), who succeeded his brother Joseph II., both in Austria and as emperor, was a self-indulgent but prudent ruler."

C. T. Lewis, History of Germany, book 5, chapter 24, sections 8-18.

GERMANY: A. D. 1772-1773. The first Partition of Poland.

See POLAND: A. D. 1763-1773.

GERMANY: A. D. 1787. Prussian intervention in Holland. Restoration of the expelled stadtholder.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1746-1787.

GERMANY: A. D. 1791. The forming of the Coalition against French democracy.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1790-1791; and 1791 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).

GERMANY: A. D. 1791-1792. The question of war with France, and the question of the Partition of Poland. Motives and action of Prussia and Austria.

"After the acceptance of the Constitution by Louis XVI. [September--see FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (JULY-SEPTEMBER)], the Emperor indulged for a time a confident hope, that the French question was solved, and that he was relieved from all fear of trouble from that quarter. He had cares enough upon him to make him heartily congratulate himself on this result. ... In foreign affairs, the Polish question--the next in importance to the French--was still unsettled, and daily presented fresh difficulties. ... The fact that Russia began to show the greatest favour to the Emigrés, and to preach at Berlin and Vienna a crusade against the wicked Jacobins, only served to confirm the Emperor in his peaceful sentiments. He rightly concluded that Catharine wished to entangle the German Powers in a struggle with France, that she might have her own way in Poland; and he was not at all inclined to be the dupe of so shallow an artifice. ... At the same time he set about bringing his alliance with Prussia to a definite conclusion, in order to secure to himself a firm support for every emergency. On the 17th of November--a week after the enactment of the first edict against the Emigrés--Prince Reuss made a communication on this subject to the Prussian Ministry, and on this occasion declared himself empowered to commence at any moment the formal draft of an alliance. ... 'We are now convinced,' wrote the Ministers to their ambassador at Vienna, 'that Austria will undertake nothing against France.' This persuasion was soon afterwards fully confirmed by Kaunitz, who descanted in the severest terms on the intrigues of the Emigrés on the Rhine, which it was not in the interest of any Power to support. It was ridiculous, he said, in the French Princes, and in Russia and Spain, to declare the acceptance of the constitution by the King compulsory, and therefore void; and still more so to dispute the right of Louis XVI. to alter the constitution at all. He said that they would vainly endeavour to goad Austria into a war, which could only have the very worst consequences for Louis and the present predominance of the moderate party in France. ... Here, again, we see that without the machinations of the Girondists, the revolutionary war would never have been commenced. It is true, indeed, that at this time a very perceptible change took place in the opinions of the second German potentate--the King of Prussia. Immediately after the Congress of Pillnitz, great numbers of French Emigrés, who had been driven from Vienna by the coldness of Leopold, had betaken themselves to Berlin. At the Prussian Court they met with a hospitable reception, and aroused in the King, by their graphic descriptions, a warm interest for the victims of the Revolution. ... He loaded the Emigrés with marks of favour of every kind, and thereby excited in them the most exaggerated hopes. {1504} Yet the King was far from intending to risk any important interest of the State for the sake of his protégés; he had no idea of pursuing an aggressive policy towards France; and the only point in which he differed from Leopold was in the feeling with which he regarded the development of the warlike tendencies of the French. His Ministers, moreover, were, without exception, possessed by the same idea as Prince Kaunitz; that a French war would be a misfortune to all Europe." As the year 1791 drew towards its close, "unfavourable news arrived from Paris. The attempts of the Feuillants had failed; Lafayette had separated himself from them and from the Court; and the zeal and confidence of victory among the Democrats were greater than ever. The Emigrés in Berlin were jubilant; they had always declared that no impression was to be made upon the Jacobins except by the edge of the sword, and that all hopes founded on the stability of a moderate middle party were futile. The King of Prussia agreed with them, and determined to begin the unavoidable struggle as quickly as possible. He told his Ministers that war was certain, and that Bischoffswerder ought to go once more to the Emperor. ... Bischoffswerder, having received instructions from the King himself, left Berlin, and arrived in Vienna, after a speedy journey, on the 28th of February. But he was not destined again to discuss the fate of Europe with his Imperial patron; for on the 29th the smallpox showed itself, of which Leopold died after three days sickness. The greatest consternation and confusion reigned in Vienna. ... No one knew to whom the young King Francis--he was as yet only king of Hungary and Bohemia--would give his confidence, or what course he would take; nay, his weakly and nervous constitution rendered it doubtful whether he could bear--even for a short period--the burdens of his office. For the present he confirmed the Ministers in their places, and expressed to them his wish to adhere to the political system of his father. ... He ... ordered one of his most experienced Generals, Prince Hohenlohe-Kirchberg, to be summoned to Vienna, that he might take council with Bischoffswerder respecting the warlike measures to be adopted by both Powers, in case of a French attack. At the same time, however, the Polish question was, if possible, to be brought to a decision, and Leopold's plan in all its details was to be categorically recommended for adoption, both in Berlin and Petersburg. ... The Austrian Minister, Spielmann, had prepared the memorial on Poland, which Prince Reuss presented at Berlin, on the 10th of March. It represented that Austria and Prussia had the same interest in stopping a source of eternal embarrassment and discussion, by strengthening the cause of peace and order in Poland. That herein lay an especially powerful motive to make the crown of that country hereditary; that for both Powers the Elector of Saxony would be the most acceptable wearer of that crown. ... The important point, the memorial went on to say, was this, that Poland should no longer be dependent on the predominant influence of any one neighbouring Power. ... When the King had read this memorial, in which the Saxon-Polish union was brought forward, not as an idea of the feeble Elector, but as a proposal of powerful Austria; he cried out, 'We must never give our consent to this.' He agreed with his Ministers in the conclusion that nothing would be more dangerous to Prussia, than the formation of such a Power as would result from the proposed lasting union of Poland and Saxony--a Power, which, in alliance with Austria, could immediately overrun Silesia, and in alliance with Russia, might be fatal to East Prussia. ... In the midst of this angry and anxious excitement, which for a moment alienated his heart from Austria, the King received a fresh and no less important despatch from Petersburg. Count Golz announced the first direct communication of Russia respecting Poland. 'Should Poland' [wrote the Russian Vice Chancellor] 'be firmly and lastingly united to Saxony, a Power of the first rank will arise, and one which will be able to exercise the most sensible pressure upon each of its neighbours. We are greatly concerned in this, in consequence of the extension of our Polish frontier; and Prussia is no less so, from the inevitable increase which would ensue of Saxon influence in the German Empire. We therefore suggest, that Prussia, Austria, and Russia, should come to an intimate understanding with one another on this most important subject.' ... This communication sounded differently in the ears of the King from that which he had received from Austria. The fears which agitated his own mind and those of the Russian chancellor were identical. While Austria called upon him to commit a political suicide, Russia offered her aid in averting the most harassing danger, and even opened a prospect of a considerable territorial increase. The King had no doubt to which of the two Powers he ought to incline. He would have come to terms with Russia on the spot, had not an insurmountable obstacle existed in the new path which was opened to the aggrandizement of Prussia,--viz., the Polish treaty of 1790; in which Prussia had expressly bound herself to protect the independence and integrity of Poland. ... He decided that there was no middle course between the Russian and Austrian plans. On the one side was his Polish treaty of 1790, the immediate consequence of which would be a new breach, and perhaps a war, with Russia, and the final result such a strengthening of Poland, as would throw back the Prussian State into that subordinate position, both in Germany and Europe, which it had occupied in the seventeenth century. On the other side there was, indeed, a manifest breach of faith, but also the salvation of Prussia from a perilous dilemma, and perhaps the extension of her boundaries by a goodly Polish Province. If he wavered at all in this conflict of feeling, the Parisian complications soon put an end to his doubts. In quick succession came the announcements that Delessart's peaceful Ministry had fallen; that King Louis had suffered the deepest humiliation; and that the helm of the State had passed into the hands of the Girondist war party. A declaration of war on the part of France against Francis· II. might be daily expected, and the Russian-Polish contest would then only form the less important moiety of the European catastrophe. Austria would now be occupied for a long time in the West; there could be no more question of the formation of a Polish-Saxon State; and Austria could no longer be reckoned upon to protect the constitution of 1791, or even to repel a Russian invasion of Poland. Prussia was bound to aid the Austrians against France, and for many months the King had cherished no more ardent wish than to fulfil this obligation with all his power. {1505} Simultaneously to oppose the Empress Catharine, was out of the question. ... The King wrote on the 12th of March to his Ministers as follows: ... 'Russia is not far removed from thoughts of a new partition; and this would indeed be the most effectual means of limiting the power of a Polish King, whether hereditary or elective. I doubt, however, whether in this case a suitable compensation could be found for Austria; and whether, after such a curtailment of the power of Poland, the Elector of Saxony would accept the crown. Yet if Austria could be compensated, the Russian plan would be the most advantageous for Prussia,--always provided that Prussia received the whole left bank of the Vistula, by the acquisition of which that distant frontier--so hard to be defended--would be well rounded off. This is my judgment respecting Polish affairs.' This was Poland's sentence of death. It was not, as we have seen, the result of a long-existing greed, but a suddenly seized expedient, which seemed to be accompanied with the least evil, in the midst of an unexampled European crisis. ... On the 20th of April the French National Assembly proclaimed war against the King of Hungary and Bohemia. A fortnight later the Prince of Hohenlohe-Kirchberg appeared in Berlin to settle some common plan for the campaign; and at the same time Kaunitz directed Prince Reuss to enter into negociations on the political question of expenditure and compensation. Count Schulenburg ... immediately sent a reply to the Prince, to the effect that Prussia--as it had uniformly declared since the previous summer--could only engage in the war on condition of receiving an adequate compensation. ... Both statesmen well knew with what secret mistrust each of these Powers contemplated the aggrandizement of the other; their deliberations were therefore conducted with slow and anxious caution, and months passed by before their respective demands were reduced to any definite shape."

H. von Sybel, History of the French Revolution, book 4, chapter 1 (volume 2).

GERMANY: A. D. 1792. Accession of the Emperor Francis II.

GERMANY: A. D. 1792-1793. War with Revolutionary France. The Coalition.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1791-1792; 1792 (APRIL-.JULY), and (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER); 1792-1793 (DECEMBER-FEBRUARY); 1793 (FEBRUARY-APRIL), (MARCH-SEPTEMBER), and (JULY-DECEMBER).

GERMANY: A. D. 1192-1796. The second and third Partitions of Poland.

See POLAND: A. D. 1791-1792; and 1793-1796.

GERMANY: A. D. 1794. Withdrawal of Prussia from the Coalition. French conquest of the Austrian Netherlands and successes on the Rhine.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (MARCH-JULY).

GERMANY: A. D. 1795. Treaty of Basle between Prussia and France. Crumbling of the Coalition.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (OCTOBER-MAY).

GERMANY: A. D. 1796-1797. Expulsion of Austria from Italy. Bonaparte's first campaigns. Advance of Moreau and Jourdan beyond the Rhine. Their retreat. Peace preliminaries of Leoben.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER); and 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).

GERMANY: A. D. 1797 (October). The Treaty of Campo Formio between Austria and France. Austrian cession of the Netherlands and Lombardy and acquisition of Venice.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER).

GERMANY: A. D. 1798. The second Coalition against Revolutionary France. Prussia and the Empire withheld from it.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-APRIL).

GERMANY: A. D. 1799. The Congress at Rastadt. Murder of French envoys.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER).

GERMANY: A. D. 1800 (May-December). The disastrous campaigns of Marengo and Hohenlinden.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).

GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803. The Peace of Luneville. Territorial cessions and changes. The settlement of indemnities in the Empire. Confiscation and secularization of the ecclesiastical principalities. Absorption of Free Cities. Re-constitution of the Electoral College.

"By the treaty of Luneville, which the Emperor Francis was obliged to subscribe, 'not only as Emperor of Austria, but in the name of the German empire,' Belgium and all the left bank of the Rhine were again formally ceded to France; Lombardy was erected into an independent state, and the Adige declared the boundary betwixt it and the dominions of Austria; Venice, with all its territorial possessions as far as the Adige, was guaranteed to Austria; the Duke of Modena received the Brisgau in exchange for his duchy, which was annexed to the Cisalpine republic; the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Emperor's brother, gave up his dominions to the infant Duke of Parma, a branch of the Spanish family [who was thereupon raised to royal rank by the fiat of Bonaparte, who transformed the grand-duchy of Tuscany into the kingdom of Etruria], on the promise of an indemnity in Germany; France abandoned Kehl, Cassel, and Ehrenbreitstein, on condition that these forts should remain in the situation in which they were when given up; the princes dispossessed by the cession of the left bank of the Rhine were promised an indemnity in the bosom of the Empire; the independence of the Batavian, Helvetic, Cisalpine and Ligurian republics was guaranteed, and their inhabitants declared 'to have the power of choosing whatever form of government they preferred.' These conditions did not differ materially from those contained in the treaty of Campo Formio, or from those offered by Napoleon previous to the renewal of the war. ... The article which compelled the Emperor to subscribe this treaty as head of the empire, as well as Emperor of Austria, gave rise in the sequel ... to the most painful internal divisions in Germany. By a fundamental law of the empire, the Emperor could not bind the electors and states of which he was the head, without either their concurrence or express powers to that effect previously conferred. ... The emperor hesitated long before he subscribed such a condition, which left the seeds of interminable discord in the Germanic body; but the conqueror was inexorable, and no means of evasion could be found. He vindicated himself to the electors in a dignified letter, dated 8th February 1801, the day before that when the treaty was signed. ... The electors and princes of the empire felt the force of this touching appeal; they commiserated the situation of the first monarch in Christendom, compelled to throw himself on his subjects for forgiveness of a step which he could not avoid; and one of the first steps of the Diet of the empire, assembled after the treaty of Luneville was signed, was to give it their solemn ratification, grounded on the extraordinary situation in which the Emperor was then placed. {1506} But the question of indemnities to the dispossessed princes was long and warmly agitated. It continued for above two years to distract the Germanic body; the intervention both of France and Russia was required to prevent the sword being drawn in these internal disputes; and by the magnitude of the changes which were ultimately made, and the habit of looking to foreign protection which was acquired, the foundation was laid of that league to support separate interests which afterwards, under the name of the Confederation of the Rhine, so well served the purposes of French ambition, and broke up the venerable fabric of the German empire."

Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1789-1815, chapter 32 (volume 7).

"Germany: lost by this treaty about 24,000 square miles of its best territory and 3,500,000 of its people; while the princes were indemnified by the plunder of their peers. But the hardest task, the satisfactory distribution of this plunder, remained. While the Diet at Regensburg, after much complaint and management, assigned the arrangement of these affairs to a committee, the princely bargainers were in Paris, employing the most disgraceful means to obtain the favor of Talleyrand and other influential diplomatists. On the 25th of February, 1803, the final decision of the delegation or committee of the empire was adopted by the Diet, and promulgated with the approval of the emperor, Francis II., and of Prussia and Bavaria. It confiscated all the spiritual principalities in Germany, except that the Elector of Mayence, Charles Theodore of Dalberg, received Regensburg, Aschaffenburg, and Wetzlar, as an indemnity, and retained a seat and a voice in the imperial Diet. Of the 48 free cities of the empire, six only remained--Hamburg, Bremen, Lubeck, Frankfort, Nuremburg, and Augsburg. Austria obtained the bishoprics of Trent and Brixen; Prussia, as a compensation for the loss of 1,018 square miles with 122,000 inhabitants west of the Rhine, received 4,875 square miles, with 580,000 inhabitants, including the endowments of the religious houses of Hildesheim and Paderborn, and most of Münster; also Erfurt and Eichsfeld, and the free cities of Nordhausen, Mülhausen, and Goslar; Hanover obtained Osnabruck; to Bavaria, in exchange for the Palatinate, were assigned Würzburg, Bamberg, Freisingen, Augsburg, and Passau, besides a number of cities of the empire, in all about 6,150 square miles, to compensate for 4,240, vastly increasing its political importance. Wirtemberg, too, was richly compensated for the loss of the Mömpelgard by the confiscation of monastery endowments and free cities in Suabia. But Baden made the best bargain of all, receiving about 1,270 square miles of land, formerly belonging to bishops or to the Palatinate, in exchange for 170. After this acquisition, Baden extended, though in patches, from the Neckar to the Swiss border. By building up these three South German states, Napoleon sought to erect a barrier for himself against Austria and Prussia. With the same design, Hesse-Darmstadt and Nassau were much enlarged. There were multitudes of smaller changes, under the name of 'compensations and indemnities.' Four new lay electorates were established in the place of the three secularized prelacies, and were given to Baden, Wirtemberg, Hesse-Cassel, and Salzburg. But they never had occasion to take part in the election of an emperor."

C. T. Lewis, History of Germany, chapter 25, sections 26-27.

ALSO IN: A. Thiers, History of the Consulate and the Empire, books 7 and 15 (volume 1).

J. R. Seeley, Life and Times of Stein, part 1, chapter 4 (volume 1).

GERMANY: A. D. 1803. Bonaparte's seizure of Hanover in his war with England.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1802-1803.

GERMANY: A. D. 1805 (January-April). The third Coalition against France. Prussian Neutrality.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (JANUARY-APRIL).

GERMANY: A. D. 1805 (September-December). Napoleon's overwhelming campaign. The catastrophes at Ulm and Austerlitz.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (MARCH-DECEMBER).

GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806. The Peace of Presburg. Territorial losses of Austria. Aggrandizement of Bavaria and Würtemberg, which become kingdoms, and Baden a grand duchy. The Confederation of the Rhine. End of the Holy Roman Empire.

"On the 6th of December, hostilities ceased, and the Russians retired by way of Galicia, but in accordance with the terms of the armistice, the French troops continued to occupy all the lands they had invaded, Austria, Tyrol, Venetia, Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria; within Bohemia they were to have the circle of Tabor, together with Brno and Znoymo in Moravia and Pozsony (Pressburg) in Hungary. The Morava (March) and the Hungarian frontier formed the line of demarcation between the two armies. A definitive peace was signed at Pressburg on the 26th of December, 1805. Austria recognized the conquests of France in Holland and Switzerland and the annexation of Genoa, and ceded to the kingdom of Italy Friuli, Istria, Dalmatia with its islands, and the Bocche di Cattaro. A little later, by the explanatory Act of Fontainebleau, she lost the last of her possessions to the west of the Isonzo, when she exchanged those portions of the counties of Gorico and Gradisca which are situated on the right bank of that river for the county of Montefalcone in Istria. The new kingdoms of Bavaria and Würtemberg [brought into existence by this treaty, through the recognition of them by the Emperor Francis] were aggrandized at the expense of Austria. Bavaria obtained Vorarlberg, the county of Hohenembs, the town of Lindau, and the whole of Tyrol, with Brixen and Trent. Austrian Suabia was given to Würtemberg, while Breisgau and the Ortenau were bestowed on the new grand duke of Baden. One compensation alone, the duchy of Salzburg, fell to Austria for all her sacrifices, and this has remained in her possession ever since. The old bishopric of Würzburg was created an electorate and granted to Ferdinand III. of Tuscany and Salzburg. Altogether the monarchy lost about 25,400 square miles and nearly 3,000,000 of inhabitants. She lost Tyrol with its brave and loyal inhabitants and the Vörlande which had assured Austrian influence in Germany; every possession on the Rhine, in the Black Forest, and on the Lower Danube; she no longer touched either Switzerland or Italy, and she ceased to be a maritime power. Besides all this, she had to pay forty millions for the expenses of the war, while she was exhausted by contributions and requisitions. Vienna had suffered much, and the French army had carried off the 2,000 cannons and the 100,000 guns which had been contained in her arsenals. On the 16th of January, 1806, the emperor Francis returned to his capital. {1507} He was enthusiastically received, and the Viennese returned to the luxurious and easy way of life which has always characterized them. ... Austria seemed no longer to have any part to play in German politics. Bavaria, Würtemberg and Baden had been formed into a separate league--the Confederation of the Rhine--under French protection. On the 1st of August, 1806, these states announced to the Reichstag at Ratisbon that they looked upon the empire as at an end, and on the 6th, Francis II. formally resigned the empire altogether, and released all the Imperial officials from their engagements to him. Thus the sceptre of Charlemagne fell from the hands of the dynasty which had held it without interruption from 1438."

L. Leger, History of Austro-Hungary, chapter 25.

"Every bond of union was dissolved with the diet of the empire and with the imperial chamber. The barons and counts of the empire and the petty princes were mediatised; the princes of Hohenlohe, Oettingen, Schwarzenberg, Thurn, and Taxis, the Truchsess von Waldburg, Fürstenberg, Fugger, Leiningen, Löwenstein, Solms, Hesse-Homburg, Wied-Runkel, and Orange-Fulda, became subject to the neighbouring Rhenish confederated princes. Of the remaining six imperial free cities, Augsburg and Nuremberg fell to Bavaria; Frankfurt, under the title of grand-duchy, to the ancient elector of Mayence, who was again transferred thither from Ratisbon. The ancient Hanse-towns, Hamburg, Lübeck, and Bremen, alone retained their freedom."

W. Menzel, History of Germany, chapter 253 (volume 3).

"A swift succession of triumphs had left only one thing still preventing the full recognition of the Corsican warrior as sovereign of Western Europe, and that one was the existence of the old Romano-Germanic Empire. Napoleon had not long assumed his new title when he began to mark a distinction between 'la France' and 'l'Empire Française.' France had, since A. D. 1792, advanced to the Rhine, and, by the annexation of Piedmont, had overstepped the Alps; the French Empire included, besides the kingdom of Italy, a mass of dependent states, Naples, Holland, Switzerland, and many German principalities, the allies of France in the same sense in which the 'socii populi Romani' were allies of Rome. When the last of Pitt's coalitions had been destroyed at Austerlitz, and Austria had made her submission by the peace of Presburg, the conqueror felt that his hour was come. He had now overcome two Emperors, those of Austria and Russia, claiming to represent the old and new Rome respectively, and had in eighteen months created more kings than the occupants of the Germanic throne in as many centuries. It was time, he thought, to sweep away obsolete pretensions, and claim the sole inheritance of that Western Empire, of which the titles and ceremonies of his court presented a grotesque imitation. The task was an easy one after what had been already accomplished. Previous wars and treaties had so redistributed the territories and changed the constitution of the Germanic Empire that it could hardly be said to exist in anything but name. ... The Emperor Francis, partly foreboding the events that were at hand, partly in order to meet Napoleon's assumption of the imperial name by depriving that name of its peculiar meaning, began in A. D. 1805 to style himself 'Hereditary Emperor of Austria,' while retaining at the same time his former title. The next act of the drama was one in which we may more readily pardon the ambition of a foreign conqueror than the traitorous selfishness of the German princes, who broke every tie of ancient friendship and duty to grovel at his throne. By the Act of the Confederation of the Rhine, signed at Paris, July 12th, 1806, Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden, and several other states, sixteen in all, withdrew from the body and repudiated the laws of the Empire, while on August 1st the French envoy at Regensburg announced to the Diet that his master, who had consented to become Protector of the Confederate princes, no longer recognized the existence of the Empire. Francis II. resolved at once to anticipate this new Odoacer, and by a declaration, dated August 6th, 1806, resigned the imperial dignity. His deed states that finding it impossible, in the altered state of things, to fulfil the obligations imposed by his capitulation, he considers as dissolved the bonds which attached him to the Germanic body, releases from their allegiance the states who formed it, and retires to the government of his hereditary dominions under the title of 'Emperor of Austria.' Throughout, the term 'German Empire' (Deutsches Reich) is employed. But it was the crown of Augustus, of Constantine, of Charles, of Maximilian, that Francis of Hapsburg laid down, and a new era in the world's history was marked by the fall of its most venerable institution. One thousand and six years after Leo the Pope had crowned the Frankish king, eighteen hundred and fifty-eight years after Cæsar had conquered at Pharsalia, the Holy Roman Empire came to its end."

J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapter 20.

GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (January-August). The Confederation of the Rhine. Cession of Hanover to Prussia. Double dealing and weakness of the latter. Her submission to Napoleon's insults and wrongs. Final goading of the nation to war.

"The object at which all French politicians had aimed since the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the exclusion of both Austria and Prussia from influence in Western Germany, was now completely attained. The triumph of French statesmanship, the consummation of two centuries of German discord, was seen in the Act of Federation subscribed by the Western German Sovereigns in the summer of 1806. By this Act the Kings of Bavaria and Würtemberg, the Elector of Baden, and 13 minor princes, united themselves, in the League known as the Rhenish Confederacy, under the protection of the French Emperor, and undertook to furnish contingents, amounting to 63,000 men, in all wars in which the French Empire should engage. Their connection with the ancient Germanic Body was completely severed; the very town in which the Diet of the Empire had held its meetings was annexed by one of the members of the Confederacy. The Confederacy itself, with a population of 8,000,000, became for all purposes of war and foreign policy a part of France. Its armies were organised by French officers; its frontiers were fortified by French engineers; its treaties were made for it at Paris. In the domestic changes which took place within these States the work of consolidation begun in 1801 was carried forward with increased vigour. Scores of tiny principalities which had escaped dissolution in the earlier movement were now absorbed by their stronger neighbours. ... {1508} With the establishment of the Rhenish Confederacy and the conquest of Naples, Napoleon's empire reached, but did not overpass, the limits within which the sovereignty of France might probably have been long maintained. ... If we may judge from the feeling with which Napoleon was regarded in Germany down to the middle of the year 1806, and in Italy down to a much later date, the Empire then founded might have been permanently upheld, if Napoleon had abstained from attacking other States." During the winter of 1806, Count Haugwitz, the Prussian minister, had visited Paris "for the purpose of obtaining some modification in the treaty which he had signed [at the palace of Schönbrunn, near Vienna] on behalf of Prussia after the battle of Austerlitz. The principal feature in that treaty had been the grant of Hanover to Prussia by the French Emperor in return for its alliance. This was the point which above all others excited King Frederick William's fears and scruples; He desired to acquire Hanover, but he also desired to derive his title rather from its English owner [King George III., who was also Elector of Hanover] than from its French invader. It was the object of Haugwitz' visit to Paris to obtain an alteration in the terms of the treaty which should make the Prussian occupation of Hanover appear to be merely provisional, and reserve to the King of England at least a nominal voice in its ultimate transfer. In full confidence that Napoleon would agree to such a change, the King of Prussia, on taking possession of Hanover in January, 1806, concealed the fact of its cession to himself by Napoleon, and published an untruthful proclamation. ... The bitter truth that the treaty between France and Prussia contained no single word reserving the rights of the Elector, and that the very idea of qualifying the absolute cession of Hanover was an afterthought, lay hidden in the conscience of the Prussian Government. Never had a Government more completely placed itself at the mercy of a pitiless enemy. Count Haugwitz, on reaching Paris, was received by Napoleon with a storm of indignation and contempt. Napoleon declared that the ill-faith of Prussia had made an end even of that miserable pact which had been extorted after Austerlitz, and insisted that Prussia should openly defy Great Britain by closing the ports of Northern Germany to British vessels, and by declaring itself endowed by Napoleon with Hanover in virtue of Napoleon's own right of conquest. Haugwitz signed a second and more humiliating treaty [February 15] embodying these conditions; and the Prussian Government, now brought into the depths of contempt, but unready for immediate war, executed the orders of its master. ... A decree was published excluding the ships of England from the ports of Prussia and from those of Hanover itself (March 28, 1806). It was promptly followed by the seizure of 400 Prussian vessels in British harbours, and by the total extinction of Prussian maritime commerce by British privateers. Scarcely was Prussia committed to this ruinous conflict with Great Britain when Napoleon opened negotiations for peace with Mr. Fox's Government. The first condition required by Great Britain was the restitution of Hanover to King George III. It was unhesitatingly granted by Napoleon. Thus was Prussia to be mocked of its prey, after it had been robbed of all its honour. ... There was scarcely a courtier in Berlin who did not feel that the yoke of the French had become past endurance; even Haugwitz himself now considered war as a question of time. The patriotic party in the capital and the younger officers of the army bitterly denounced the dishonoured Government, and urged the King to strike for the credit of his country. ... Brunswick was summoned to the King's council to form plans of a campaign; and appeals for help were sent to Vienna, to St. Petersburg, and even to the hostile Court of London. The condition of Prussia at this critical moment was one which filled with the deepest alarm those few patriotic statesmen who were not blinded by national vanity or by a slavery to routine. ... Early in the year 1806 a paper was drawn up by Stein, exposing, in language seldom used by a statesman, the character of the men by whom Frederick William was surrounded, and declaring that nothing but a speedy change of system could save the Prussian State from utter downfall and ruin. Two measures of immediate necessity were specified by Stein, the establishment of a responsible council of Ministers, and the removal of Haugwitz and all his friends from power. ... The army of Prussia ... was nothing but the army of Frederick the Great grown twenty years older. ... All Southern Germany was still in Napoleon's hands. The appearance of a Russian force in Dalmatia, after that country had been ceded by Austria to the French Emperor, had given Napoleon an excuse for maintaining his troops in their positions beyond the Rhine. As the probability of a war with Prussia became greater and greater, Napoleon tightened his grasp upon the Confederate States. Publications originating among the patriotic circles of Austria were beginning to appeal to the German people to unite against a foreign oppressor. An anonymous pamphlet, entitled 'Germany in its Deep Humiliation,' was sold by various booksellers in Bavaria, among others by Palm, a citizen of Nuremberg. There is no evidence that Palm was even acquainted with the contents of the pamphlet; but ... Napoleon ... required a victim to terrify those who, among the German people, might be inclined to listen to the call of patriotism. Palm was not too obscure for the new Charlemagne. The innocent and unoffending man, innocent even of the honourable crime of attempting to save his country, was dragged before a tribunal of French soldiers, and executed within twenty-four hours of his trial, in pursuance of the imperative orders of Napoleon (August 26). ... Several years later, ... the story of Palm's death was one of those that kindled the bitterest sense of wrong; at the time, it exercised no influence upon the course of political events. Prussia had already resolved upon war."

C. A. Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, volume 1, chapters 6-7.

ALSO IN: Sir W. Scott, Life of Napoleon, chapters 51-52.

J. R. Seeley, Life and Times of Stein, part 2, chapters 4-5 (volume 1).

P. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon, volume 2, chapter 15.

{1509}

GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (October). Napoleon's sudden invasion of Prussia. The decisive battle of Jena. Prostration of the Prussian Kingdom.

"The Emperor of Russia ... visited Berlin, when the feelings of Prussia, and indeed of all the neighbouring states, were in this fever of excitement. He again urged Frederick William to take up arms in the common cause, and offered to back him with all the forces of his own great empire. The English government, taking advantage of the same crisis, sent Lord Morpeth to Berlin, with offers of pecuniary supplies--about the acceptance of which, however, the anxiety of Prussia on the subject of Hanover created some difficulty. Lastly, Buonaparte, well informed of what was passing in Berlin, and desirous, since war must be, to hurry Frederick into the field ere the armies of the Czar could be joined with his, now poured out in the 'Moniteur' such abuse on the persons and characters of the Queen, Prince Louis, and every illustrious patriot throughout Prussia, that the general wrath could no longer be held in check. War-like preparations of every kind filled the kingdom during August and September. On the 1st of October the Prussian minister at Paris presented a note to Talleyrand, demanding, among other things, that the formation of a confederacy in the north of Germany should no longer be thwarted by French interference, and that the French troops within the territories of the Rhenish League should recross the Rhine into France, by the 8th of the same month of October. But Napoleon was already in person on the German side of the Rhine; and his answer to the Prussian note was a general order to his own troops, in which he called on them to observe in what manner a German sovereign still dared to insult the soldiers of Austerlitz. The conduct of Prussia, in thus rushing into hostilities without waiting for the advance of the Russians, was as rash as her holding back from Austria during the campaign of Austerlitz had been cowardly. As if determined to profit by no lesson, the Prussian council also directed their army to advance towards the French, instead of lying on their own frontier--a repetition of the great leading blunder of the Austrians in the preceding year. The Prussian army accordingly invaded the Saxon provinces, and the Elector ... was compelled to accept the alliance which the cabinet of Berlin urged on him, and to join his troops with those of the power by which he had been thus insulted and wronged. No sooner did Napoleon know that the Prussians had advanced into the heart of Saxony, than he formed the plan of his campaign; and they, persisting in their advance, and taking up their position finally on the Saale, afforded him, as if studiously, the means of repeating, at their expense, the very manœvres which had ruined the Austrians in the preceding campaign." The flank of the Prussian position was turned,--the bridge across the Saale, at Saalfield, having been secured, after a hot engagement with the corps of Prince Louis of Prussia who fell in the fight,--"the French army passed entirely round them; Napoleon seized Naumburg and blew up the magazines there,--announcing, for the first time, by this explosion, to the King of Prussia and his generalissimo the Duke of Brunswick, that he was in their rear. From this moment the Prussians were isolated, and cut off from all their resources, as completely as the army of Mack was at Ulm, when the French had passed the Danube and overrun Suabia. The Duke of Brunswick hastily endeavoured to concentrate his forces for the purpose of cutting his way back again to the frontier which he had so rashly abandoned. Napoleon, meantime, had posted his divisions so as to watch the chief passages of the Saale, and expected, in confidence, the assault of his outwitted opponent. It was now that he found leisure to answer the manifesto of Frederick William. ... His letter, dated at Gera, is written in the most elaborate style of insult. ... The Prussian King understood well, on learning the fall of Naumburg, the imminent danger of his position; and his army was forthwith set in motion, in two great masses; the former, where he was in person present, advancing towards Naumburg; the latter attempting, in like manner, to force their passage through the French line in the neighbourhood of Jena. The King's march was arrested at Auerstadt by Davoust, who, after a severely contested action, at length repelled the assailant. Napoleon himself, meanwhile, was engaged with the other great body of the Prussians. Arriving on the evening of the 13th October at Jena, he perceived that the enemy were ready to attempt the advance next morning, while his own heavy train was still six-and-thirty hours' march in his rear. Not discouraged with this adverse circumstance, the Emperor laboured all night in directing and encouraging his soldiery to cut a road through the rocks, and draw up by that means such light guns as he had at command to a position on a lofty plateau in front of Jena, where no man could have expected beforehand that any artillery whatever should be planted. ... Lannes commanded the centre, Augereau the right, Soult the left, and Murat the reserve and cavalry. Soult had to sustain the first assault of the Prussians, which was violent--and sudden; for the mist lay so thick on the field that the armies were within half-gunshot of each other ere the sun and wind rose and discovered them, and on that instant Mollendorf charged. The battle was contested well for some time on this point; but at length Ney appeared in the rear of the Emperor with a fresh division; and then the French centre advanced to a general charge, before which the Prussians were forced to retire. They moved for some space in good order; but Murat now poured his masses of cavalry on them, storm after storm, with such rapidity and vehemence that their rout became inevitable. It ended in the complete breaking up of the army--horse and foot all flying together, in the confusion of panic, upon the road to Weimar. At that point the fugitives met and mingled with their brethren flying, as confusedly as themselves, from Auerstadt. In the course of this disastrous day 20,000 Prussians were killed or taken, 300 guns, 20 generals, and 60 standards. The Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Brunswick, being wounded in the face with a grape-shot, was carried early off the field, never to recover. ... The various routed divisions roamed about the country, seeking separately the means of escape: they were in consequence destined to fall an easy prey. ... The Prince of Hohenlohe at length drew together not less than 50,000 of these wandering soldiers," and retreated towards the Oder; but was forced, in the end, to lay down his arms at Prentzlow. "His rear, consisting of about 10,000, under the command of the celebrated General Blucher, was so far behind as to render it possible for them to attempt escape. Their heroic leader traversed the country with them for some time unbroken, and sustained a variety of assaults, from far superior numbers, with the most obstinate resolution. {1510} By degrees, however, the French, under Soult, hemmed him in on one side, Murat on the other, and Bernadotte appeared close behind him. He was thus forced to throw himself into Lubeck, where a severe action was fought in the streets of the town, on the 6th of November. The Prussian, in this battle, lost 4,000 prisoners, besides the slain and wounded: he retreated to Schwerta, and there, it being impossible for him to go farther without violating the neutrality of Denmark, on the morning of the 7th, Blucher at length laid down his arms. ... The strong fortresses of the Prussian monarchy made as ineffectual resistance as the armies in the field. ... Buonaparte, in person, entered Berlin on the 25th of October; and before the end of November, except Konigsberg--where the King himself had found refuge, and gathered round, him a few thousand troops ... --and a few less important fortresses, the whole of the German possessions of the house of Brandenburg were in the hands of the conqueror. Louis Buonaparte, King of Holland, meanwhile had advanced into Westphalia and occupied that territory also, with great part of Hanover, East Friesland, Embden, and the dominions of Hesse-Cassel."

J. G. Lockhart, Life of Napoleon, chapter 20.

ALSO IN: C. Adams, Great Campaigns in Europe from 1796 to 1870, chapter. 4.

Baron Jomini, Life of Napoleon, chapter 9 (volume 2),

Memoirs of Napoleon dictated at St. Helena, volume 6, pages 60-72.

Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1789-1815, chapter 43 (volume 10).

Duke of Rovigo, Memoirs, volume 1, part 2, chapters 21-23.

GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (October-December). Napoleon's ungenerous use of his victory. His insults to the Queen of Prussia. The kingdom governed as conquered territory. The French advance into Poland, to meet the Russians. Saxony made a kingdom.

"Napoleon made a severe and ungenerous use of his victory. The old Duke of Brunswick, respectable from his age, his achievements under the Great Frederick, and the honourable wounds he had recently received on the field of battle, and who had written a letter to Napoleon, after the battle of Jena, recommending his subjects to his generosity, was in an especial manner the object of invective. His states were overrun, and the official bulletins disgraced by a puerile tirade against a general who had done nothing but discharge his duty to his sovereign. For this he was punished by the total confiscation of his dominions. So virulent was the language employed, and such the apprehensions in consequence inspired, that the wounded general was compelled, with great personal suffering, to take refuge in Altona, where he soon after died. The Queen, whose spirit in prosperous and constancy in adverse fortune had justly endeared her to her subjects, and rendered her the admiration of all Europe, was pursued in successive bulletins with unmanly sarcasms; and a heroic princess, whose only fault, if fault it was, had been an excess of patriotic ardour, was compared to Helen, whose faithless vices had involved her country in the calamities consequent on the siege of Troy. The whole dominions of the Elector of Hesse Cassel were next seized; and that prince, who had not even combated at Jena, but merely permitted, when he could not prevent, the entry of the Prussians into his dominions, was dethroned and deprived of all his possessions. ... The Prince of Orange, brother-in-law to the King of Prussia, ... shared the same fate: while to the nobles of Berlin he used publicly the cruel expression, more withering to his own reputation than theirs,--'I will render that noblesse so poor that they shall be obliged to beg their bread.' ... Meanwhile the French armies, without any further resistance, took possession of the whole country between the Rhine and the Oder; and in the rear of the victorious bands appeared, in severity unprecedented even in the revolutionary armies, the dismal scourge of contributions. Resolved to maintain the war exclusively on the provinces which were to be its theatre, Napoleon had taken only 24,000 francs in specie across the Rhine in the military chest of the army. It soon appeared from whom the deficiency was to be supplied. On the day after the battle of Jena appeared a proclamation, directing the levy of an extraordinary war contribution of 159,000,000 francs (£6,300,000) on the countries at war with France, of which 100,000,000 was to be borne by the Prussian states to the west of the Vistula, 25,000,000 by the Elector of Saxony [who had already detached himself from his alliance with Prussia], and the remainder by the lesser states in the Prussian confederacy. This enormous burden ... was levied with unrelenting severity. ... Nor was this all. The whole civil authorities who remained in the abandoned provinces were compelled to take an oath of fidelity to the French Emperor,--an unprecedented step, which clearly indicated the intention of annexing the Prussian dominions to the great nation. ... Early in November there appeared an elaborate ordinance, which provided for the complete civil organisation and military occupation of the whole country from the Rhine to the Vistula. By this decree the conquered states were divided into four departments; those of Berlin, of Magdeburg, of Stettin, and of Custrin; the military and civil government of the whole conquered territory was intrusted to a governor-general at Berlin, having under him eight commanders of provinces into which it was divided. ... The same system of government was extended to the duchy of Brunswick, the states of Hesse and Hanover, the duchy of Mecklenburg, and the Hanse towns, including Hamburg, which was speedily oppressed by grievous contributions. ... The Emperor openly announced his determination to retain possession of all these states till England consented to his demands on the subject of the liberty of the seas. ... Meanwhile the negotiations for the conclusion of a separate peace between France and Prussia were resumed. ... The severity of the terms demanded, as well as ... express assurances that no concessions, how great soever, could lead to a separate accommodation, as Napoleon was resolved to retain all his conquests until a general peace, led, as might have been expected, to the rupture of the negotiations. Desperate as the fortunes of Prussia were, ... the King ... declared his resolution to stand or fall with the Emperor of Russia [who was vigorously preparing to fulfil his promise of help to the stricken nation]. This refusal was anticipated by Napoleon. It reached him at Posen, whither he had advanced on his road to the Vistula; and nothing remained but to enter vigorously on the prosecution of the war in Poland. {1511} To this period of the war belongs the famous Berlin decree [see FRANCE: A. D. 1806-1810] of the 21st November against the commerce of Great Britain. ... Napoleon ... at Posen, in Prussian Poland, gave audience to the deputies of that unhappy kingdom, who came to implore his support to the remains of its once mighty dominion. His words were calculated to excite hopes which his subsequent conduct never realised. ... While the main body of the French army was advancing by rapid strides from the Oder to the Vistula, Napoleon, ever anxious to secure his communications, and clear his rear of hostile bodies, caused two different armies to advance to support the flanks of the invading force. ... The whole of the north of Germany was overrun by French troops, while 100,000 were assembling to meet the formidable legions of Russia in the heart of Poland. Vast as the forces of Napoleon were, such prodigious efforts, over so great an extent of surface, rendered fresh supplies indispensable. The senate at Paris was ready to furnish them; and on the requisition of the Emperor 80,000 were voted from the youth who were to arrive at the military age in 1807. ... A treaty, offensive and defensive, between Saxony and France, was the natural result of these successes. This convention, arranged by Talleyrand, was signed at Posen, on the 12th December. It stipulated that the Elector of Saxony should be elevated to the dignity of king; he was admitted into the Confederation of the Rhine, and his contingent fixed at 20,000 men. By a separate article, it was provided that the passage of foreign troops across the kingdom of Saxony should take place without the consent of the sovereign: a provision which sufficiently pointed it out as a military outpost of the great nation--while, by a subsidiary treaty, signed at Posen three days afterwards, the whole minor princes of the House of Saxony were also admitted into the Confederacy."

Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1789-1815, chapter 43, sections 87-99 (volume 10).

ALSO IN: P. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon, volume 2, chapter 16.

Mrs. S. Austin, Germany from 1760 to 1814, page 294, and after.

_E. H. Hudson, Life and Times of Louisa, Queen of Prussia, volume 2, chapters 8-9._

GERMANY: A. D. 1806-1807. Opening of Napoleon's campaign against the Russians. The deluding of the Poles. indecisive battle of Eylau.

The campaign against the Russians "opened early in the winter. The 1st of November, the Russians and French marched towards the Vistula, the former from the Memel, the latter from the Oder. Fifty thousand Russians pressed forward under General Benningsen; a second and equal army followed at a distance with a reserve force. Some of the Russian forces on the Turkish frontier were recalled, but were still remote. The first two Russian armies, with the remaining Prussians, numbered about 120,000. England made many promises and kept few of them, thinking more of conquering Spanish and Dutch colonies than of helping her allies. Her aid was limited to a small reinforcement of the Swedes guarding Swedish Pomerania, the only portion of Northern Germany not yet in French power. Gustavus II., the young King of Sweden, weak and impulsive, rushed headlong, without a motive, into the ... alliance [against Napoleon], destined to be so fatal to Sweden. ... Eighty thousand men under Murat crossed the Oder and entered Prussian Poland, and an equal number stood ready to sustain them. November 9, Davout's division entered Posen, the principal town of the Polish provinces still preserving the national sentiment, and whose people detested Prussian rule and resented the treachery with which Prussia dismembered Poland after swearing alliance with her. All along the road, the peasants hastened to meet the French; and at Posen, Davout was hailed with an enthusiasm which moved even him, cold and severe as he was, and he urged Napoleon to justify the hopes of Poland, who looked to him as her savior. The Russian vanguard reached Warsaw before the French, but made no effort to remain there, and recrossed the Vistula. November 28, Davout and Murat entered the town, and public delight knew no bounds. It would be a mere illusion to fancy that sentiments of right and justice had any share in Napoleon's resolve, and that he was stirred by a desire to repair great wrongs. His only question was whether the resurrection of Poland would increase his greatness or not; and if he told the Sultan that he meant to restore Poland, it was because he thought Turkey would assist him the more willingly against Russia. He also offered part of Silesia to Austria, if she would aid him in the restoration of Poland by the cession of her Polish provinces; but it was not a sufficient offer, and therefore not serious. The truth was that he wanted promises from the Poles before he made any to them. ... Thousands of Poles enlisted under the French flag and joined the Polish legions left from the Italian war. Napoleon established a provisional government of well-known Poles in Warsaw, and required nothing but volunteers of the country. He had seized without a blow that line of the Vistula which the Prussian king would not barter for a truce, and might have gone into winter-quarters there; but the Russians were close at hand on the opposite shore, in two great divisions 100,000 strong, in a wooded and marshy country forming a sort of triangle, whose point touches the union of the Narew and Ukra rivers with the Vistula, a few leagues below Warsaw. The Russians communicated with the sea by a Prussian corps stationed between them and Dantzic. Napoleon would not permit them to hold this post, and resolved to strike a blow, before going into winter-quarters, which should cut them off from the sea and drive them back towards the Memel and Lithuania. He crossed the Vistula, December 23, and attacked the Russians between the Narew and the Ukra. A series of bloody battles followed [the most important being at Pultusk and Golymin, December 26] in the dense forests and deep bogs of the thawing land. Napoleon said that he had discovered a fifth element in Poland,--mud. Men and horses stuck in the swamp and the cannons could not be extricated. Luckily the Russians were in the incompetent hands of General Kamenski, and both parties fought in the dark, the labyrinth of swamps and woods preventing either army from guessing the other's movements. The Russians were finally driven, with great loss, beyond the Narew towards the forests of Belostok, and a Prussian corps striving to assist them was driven back to the sea. ... The grand army did not long enjoy the rest it so much needed; for the Russians, whose losses were more than made up by the arrival of their reserves, suddenly resumed the offensive. {1512} General Benningsen, who gave a fearful proof of his sinister energy by the murder of Paul I., had been put in command in Kamenski's place. Marching round the forests and traversing the line of lakes which divide the basin of the Narew from those watercourses flowing directly to the sea, he reached the maritime part of old Prussia, intending to cross the Vistula and drive the French from their position in Poland. He had hoped to surprise the French left wing, lying between the Passarge and Lower Vistula, but arrived too late. Ney and Bernadotte rapidly concentrated their forces and fought with a bravery which arrested the Russians (January 25 and 27). Napoleon came to the rescue, and having once driven the enemy into the woods and marshes of the interior, now strove to turn those who meant to turn him, by an inverse action forcing them to the sea-coast. ... Benningsen then halted beyond Eylau, and massed his forces to receive battle next day [February 8]. He had about 70,000 men, twice the artillery of Napoleon (400 guns against 200), and hoped to be joined betimes by a Prussian corps. Napoleon could only dispose of 60,000 out of his 300,000 men,--Ney being some leagues away and Bernadotte out of reach. ... The battlefield was a fearful sight next day. Twelve thousand Russians and 10,000 French lay dying and dead on the vast fields of snow reddened with blood. The Russians, besides, carried off 15,000 wounded. 'What an ineffectual massacre" cried Ney, as he traversed the scene of carnage. This was too true; for although Napoleon drove the Russians to the sea, it was not in the way he desired. Benningsen succeeded in reaching Konigsberg, where he could rest and reinforce his army, and Napoleon was not strong enough to drive him from this last shelter."

H. Martin, Popular History of France from 1789, volume 2, chapter 11.

ALSO IN: Baron Jomini, Life of Napoleon, chapter 10 (volume 2).

C. Joyneville, Life and Times of Alexander I., volume 1, chapter 8.

J. C. Ropes, The First Napoleon, lecture 3.

Baron de Marbot, Memoirs, volume 1, chapters 29-30.

GERMANY: A. D. 1806-1810. Commercial blockade by the English Orders in Council and Napoleon's Decrees.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1806-1810.

GERMANY: A. D. 1807 (February-June). Closer alliance of Prussia and Russia. Treaty of Bartenstein. Napoleon's victory at Friedland. End of the campaign.

The effect produced in Europe by the doubtful battle of Eylau "was unlucky for France; in Paris the Funds fell. Bennigsen boldly ordered the Te Deum to be sung. In order to confirm his victory, re-organise his army, reassure France, re-establish the opinion of Europe, encourage the Polish insurrection, and to curb the ill-will of Germany and Austria, Napoleon remained a week at Eylau. He negotiated: on one side he caused Talleyrand to write to Zastrow, the Prussian foreign minister, to propose peace and his alliance; he sent Bertrand to Memel to offer to re-establish the King of Prussia, on the condition of no foreign intervention. He also tried to negotiate with Bennigsen; to which the latter made answer, 'that his master had charged him to fight, and not negotiate.' After some hesitation, Prussia ended by joining her fortunes to those of Russia. By the convention of Bartenstein (25th April, 1807) the two sovereigns came to terms on the following points: 1. The re-establishment of Prussia within the limits of 1805. 2. The dissolution of the Confederation of the Rhine. 3. The restitution to Austria of the Tyrol and Venice. 4. The accession of England to the coalition, and the aggrandisement of Hanover. 5. The co-operation of Sweden. 6. The restoration of the house of Orange, and indemnities to the kings of Naples and Sardinia.

This document is important; it nearly reproduces the conditions offered to Napoleon at the Congress of Prague, in 1813. Russia and Prussia proposed then to make a more pressing appeal to Austria, Sweden, and England; but the Emperor Francis was naturally undecided, and the Archduke Charles, alleging the state of the finances and the army, strongly advised him against any new intervention. Sweden was too weak; and notwithstanding his fury against Napoleon, Gustavus III. had just been forced to treat with Mortier. The English minister showed a remarkable inability to conceive the situation; he refused to guarantee the new Russian loan of a hundred and fifty millions, and would lend himself to no maritime diversion. Napoleon showed the greatest diplomatic activity. The Sultan Selim III. declared war against Russia; General Sebastiani, the envoy at Constantinople, put the Bosphorus in a state of defence, and repulsed the English fleet [see TURKS: A. D. 1806-1807]; General Gardane left for Ispahan, with a mission to cause a Persian outbreak in the Caucasus. Dantzig had capitulated [May 24, after a long siege], and Lefèbvre's 40,000 men were therefore ready for service. Masséna took 36,000 of them into Italy, In the spring, Bennigsen, who had been reinforced by 10,000 regular troops, 6,000 Cossacks, and the Imperial Guard, being now at the head of 100,000 men, took the offensive; Gortchakof commanding the right and Bagration the left. He tried, as in the preceding year, to seize Ney's division; but the latter fought, as he retired, two bloody fights, at Gutstadt and Ankendorff. Bennigsen, again in danger of being surrounded, retired on Heilsberg. He defended himself bravely (June 10); but the French, extending their line on his right, marched on Eylau, so as to cut him off from Konigsberg. The Russian generalissimo retreated; but being pressed, he had to draw up at Friedland, on the Alle. The position he had taken up was most dangerous. All his army was enclosed in an angle of the Alle, with the steep bed of the river at their backs, which in case of misfortune left them only one means of retreat, over the three bridges of Friedland. ... 'Where are the Russians concealed?' asked Napoleon when he came up. When he had noted their situation, he exclaimed, 'It is not every day that one surprises the enemy in such a fault.' He put Lannes and Victor in reserve, ordered Mortier to oppose Gortchakof on the left and to remain still, as the movement which 'would be made by the right would pivot on the left.' As to Ney, he was to cope on the right with Bagration, who was shut in by the angle of the river; he was to meet them 'with his head down,' without taking any care of his own safety. Ney led the charge with irresistible fury; the Russians were riddled by his artillery at 150 paces: he successively crushed the chasseurs of the Russian Guard, the Ismaïlovski, and the Horse Guards, burnt Friedland by shells, and cannonaded the bridges which were the only means of retreat. ... The Russian left wing was almost thrown into the river; Bagration, with the Semenovski and other troops, was hardly able to cover the defeat. {1513} On the Russian right, Gortchakof, who had advanced to attack the immovable Mortier, had only time to ford the Alle. Count Lambert retired with 29 guns by the left bank; the rest fled by the right bank, closely pursued by the cavalry. Meanwhile Murat, Davoust, and Soult, who had taken no part in the battle, arrived before Konigsberg. Lestocq, with 25,000 men, tried to defend it, but on learning the disaster of Friedland he hastily evacuated it. Only one fortress now remained to Frederick William--the little town of Memel. The Russians had lost at Friedland from 15,000 to 20,000 men, besides 80 guns (June 14, 1807). ... Alexander had no longer an army. Only one man, Barclay de Tolly, proposed to continue the war; but in order to do this it would be necessary to re-enter Russia, to penetrate into the very heart of the empire, to burn everything on the way, and only present a desert to the enemy. Alexander hoped to get off more cheaply. He wrote a severe letter to Bennigsen, and gave him powers to treat."

A. Rambaud, History of Russia, volume 2, chapter 12.

ALSO IN: Duke de Rovigo, Memoirs, volume 2, part 1, chapters 4-6.

GERMANY: A. D. 1807 (June-July). The Treaty of Tilsit. Its known and its unknown agreements.

"Alexander I. now determined to negotiate in person with the rival emperor, and on the 25th of June the two sovereigns met at Tilsit, on a raft which was moored in the middle of the Niemen. The details of the conference are a secret, as Napoleon's subsequent account of it is untrustworthy, and no witnesses were present. All that is certain is that Alexander I., whose character was a curious mixture of nobility and weakness, was completely won over by his conqueror. ... Napoleon, ... instead of attempting to impose extreme terms upon a country which it was impossible to conquer, ... offered to share with Russia the supremacy in Europe which had been won by French arms. The only conditions were the abandonment of the cause of the old monarchies, which seemed hopeless, and an alliance with France against England. Alexander had several grievances against the English government, especially the lukewarm support that had been given in recent operations, and made no objection to resume the policy of his predecessors in this respect. Two interviews sufficed to arrange the basis of an agreement. Both sovereigns abandoned their allies without scruple. Alexander gave up Prussia and Sweden, while Napoleon deserted the cause of the Poles, who had trusted to his zeal for their independence, and of the Turks, whom his envoy had recently induced to make war upon Russia. The Treaty of Tilsit was speedily drawn up; on the 7th of July peace was signed between France and Russia, on the 9th between France and Prussia. Frederick William III. had to resign the whole of his kingdom west of the Elbe, together with all the acquisitions which Prussia had made in the second and third partitions of Poland. The provinces that were left, amounting to barely half of what he had inherited, were burthened with the payment of an enormous sum as compensation to France. The district west of the Elbe was united with Hesse-Cassel, Brunswick, and ultimately with Hanover, to form the kingdom of Westphalia, which was given to Napoleon's youngest brother, Jerome. Of Polish Prussia, one province, Bialystock, was added to Russia, and the rest was made into the grand duchy of Warsaw, and transferred to Saxony. Danzig, with the surrounding territory, was declared a free state under Prussian and Saxon protection, but it was really subject to France, and remained a centre of French power on the Baltic. All trade between Prussia and England was cut off. Alexander I., on his side, recognised all Napoleon's new creations in Europe--the Confederation of the Rhine, the kingdoms of Italy, Naples, Holland, and Westphalia, and undertook to mediate between France and England. But the really important agreement between France and Russia was to be found, not in the formal treaties, but in the secret conventions which were arranged by the two emperors. The exact text of these has never been made public, and it is probable that some of the terms rested upon verbal rather than on written understandings, but the general drift of them is unquestionable. The bribe offered to Alexander was the aggrandisement of Russia in the East. To make him an accomplice in the acts of Napoleon, he was to be allowed to annex Finland from Sweden, and Moldavia and Wallachia from Turkey. With regard to England, Russia undertook to adopt Napoleon's blockade-system, and to obtain the adhesion of those states which still remained open to English trade--Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal."

H. Lodge, History of Modern Europe, chapter 24, section 25.

"'I thought,' said Napoleon at St. Helena, 'it would benefit the world to drive these brutes, the Turks, out of Europe. But when I reflected what power it would give to Russia, from the number of Greeks in the Turkish dominions who may be considered Russians, I refused to consent to it, especially as Alexander wanted Constantinople, which would have destroyed the equilibrium of power in Europe. France would gain Egypt, Syria, and the islands; but those were nothing to what Russia would have obtained.' This coincides with Savary's [Duke de Rovigo's] statement, that Alexander told him Napoleon said he was under no engagements to the new Sultan, and that changes in the world inevitably changed the relations of states to one another; and again, Alexander said that, in their conversations at Tilsit, Napoleon often told him he did not require the evacuation of Moldavia and Wallachia; he would place things in a train to dispense with it, and it was not possible to suffer longer the presence of the Turks in Europe. 'He even left me,' said Alexander, 'to entertain the project of driving them back into Asia. It is only since that he has returned to the idea of leaving Constantinople to them, and some surrounding provinces.' Due day, when Napoleon was talking to Alexander, he asked his secretary, M. Meneval, for the map of Turkey, opened it, then renewed the conversation; and placing his finger on Constantinople said several times to the secretary, though not loud enough to be heard by Alexander, 'Constantinople, Constantinople, never. It is the capital of the world.' ... It is very evident in their conversations that Napoleon agreed to his [Alexander's] possessing himself of the Turkish Empire up to the Balkan, if not beyond; though Bignon denies that any plan for the actual partition of Turkey was embodied in the treaty of Tilsit. Hardenberg, not always well informed, asserts that it was. {1514} Savary says he could not believe that Napoleon would have abandoned the Turks without a compensation in some other quarter; and he felt certain Alexander had agreed in return to Napoleon's project for the conquest of Spain, 'which the Emperor had very much at heart'"

C. Joyneville, Life and Times of Alexander I., volume 1, chapter 8.

ALSO IN: Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1789-1815, chapter 46 (volume 10).

Count Miot de Melito, Memoirs, chapter 24.

P. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon, chapters 3-4.

Prince de Talleyrand, Memoirs, part 3 (volume 1).

A. Thiers, History of the Consulate and the Empire, book 27 (volume 2).

GERMANY: A. D. 1807 (July). The collapse of Prussia and its Causes.

"For the five years that followed, Prussia is to be conceived, in addition to all her other humiliations, as in the hands of a remorseless creditor whose claims are decided by himself without appeal, and who wants more than all he can get. She is to be thought of as supporting for more than a year after the conclusion of the Treaty a French army of more than 150,000 men, then as supporting a French garrison in three principal fortresses, and finally, just before the period ends, as having to support the huge Russian expedition in its passage through the country. ... It was not in fact from the Treaty of Tilsit, but from the systematic breach of it, that the sufferings of Prussia between 1807 and 1813 arose. It is indeed hardly too much to say that the advantage of the Treaty was received only by France, and that the only object Napoleon can have had in signing it was to inflict more harm on Prussia than he could inflict by simply continuing the war. Such was the downfall of Prussia. The tremendousness of the catastrophe strikes us less because we know that it was soon retrieved, and that Prussia rose again and became greater than ever. But could this recovery be anticipated? A great nation, we say, cannot be dissolved by a few disasters; patriotism and energy will retrieve everything. But precisely these seemed wanting. The State seemed to have fallen in pieces because it had no principle of cohesion, and was only held together by an artificial bureaucracy. It had been created by the energy of its government and the efficiency of its soldiers, and now it appeared to come to an end because its government had ceased to be energetic and its soldiers to be efficient. The catastrophe could not but seem as irremediable as it was sudden and complete." There may be discerned "three distinct causes for it. First, the undecided and pusillanimous policy pursued by the Prussian government since 1803 had an evident influence upon the result by making the great Powers, particularly England and Austria, slow to render it assistance, and also by making the commanders, especially Brunswick, irresolute in action because they could not, even at the last moment, believe the war to be serious. This indecision we have observed to have been connected with a mal-organisation of the Foreign Department. Secondly, the corruption of the military system, which led to the surrender of the fortresses. Thirdly, a misfortune for which Prussia was not responsible, its desertion by Russia at a critical moment, and the formation of a close alliance between Russia and France."

J. R. Seeley, Life and Times of Stein, part 2, chapter 5 (volume 1).

GERMANY: A. D. 1807-1808. The great Revolutionary Reforms of Hardenberg, Stein and Scharnhorst. Edict of Emancipation. Military reorganization. Beginning of local self-government. Seeds of a new national life.

"The work of those who resisted Napoleon--even if no one of them should ever be placed in the highest class of the benefactors of mankind--has in some cases proved enduring, and nowhere so much as in Germany. They began two great works--the reorganisation of Prussia and the revival of the German nationality, and time has deliberately ratified their views. Without retrogression, without mistake, except the mistake which in such matters is the most venial that can be committed, that, namely, of over-caution, of excessive hesitation, the edifice which was then founded has been raised higher and higher till it is near completion. ... Because Frederick-William III. remains quietly seated on the throne through the whole period, we remain totally unaware that a Prussian revolution took place then--a revolution so comprehensive that the old reign and glories of Frederick may fairly be said to belong to another world--to an 'ancien regime' that has utterly passed away. It was a revolution which, though it did not touch the actual framework of government in such a way as to substitute one of Aristotle's forms of government for another, yet went so far beyond government, and made such a transformation both in industry and culture, that it deserves the name of revolution far more, for instance, than our English Revolution of the 17th century. ... In Prussia few of the most distinguished statesmen, few even of those who took the lead in her liberation from Napoleon, were Prussians. Blücher himself began life in the service of Sweden, Scharnhorst was a Hanoverian, so was Hardenberg, and Stein came from Nassau. Niebuhr was enticed to Berlin from the Bank of Copenhagen. Hardenberg served George III. and afterwards the Duke of Brunswick before he entered the service of Frederick-William II.; and when Stein was dismissed by Frederick-William III. in the midst of the war of 1806, though he was a man of property and rank, he took measures to ascertain whether they were in want of a Finance Minister at St. Petersburg. ... We misapprehend the nature of what took place when we say, as we usually do, that some important and useful reforms were introduced by Stein, Hardenberg, and Scharnhorst. In the first place, such a word as reform is not properly applied to changes so vast, and in the second place. the changes then made or at least commenced, went far beyond legislation. We want some word stronger than reform which shall convey that one of the greatest events of modern history now took place in Prussia. Revolution would convey this, but unfortunately we appropriate that word to changes in the form of government, or even mere changes of dynasty, provided they are violent, though such changes are commonly quite insignificant compared to what now took place in Prussia. ... The form of government indeed was not changed. Not merely did the king continue to reign, but no Parliament was created even with powers ever so restricted. Another generation had to pass away before this innovation, which to us seems the beginning of political life, took place. But a nation must be made before it can be made free, and, as we have said, in Prussia there was an administration (in great disorder) and an army, but no nation. {1515} When Stein was placed at the head of affairs in the autumn of 1807, he seems, at first, hardly to have been aware that anything was called for beyond the reform of the administration, and the removal of some abuses in the army. Accordingly he did reform the administration from the top to the bottom, remodelling the whole machinery both of central and local government which had come down from the father of Frederick the Great. But the other work also was forced upon him, and he began to create the nation by emancipating the peasantry, while Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were brooding over the ideas which, five years later, took shape in the Landwehr of East Prussia. Besides emancipating the peasant he emancipated industry,--everywhere abolishing that strange caste system which divided the population rigidly into nobles, citizens, and peasants, and even stamped every acre of land in the country with its own unalterable rank as noble, or citizen, or peasant land. Emancipation, so to speak, had to be given before enfranchisement. The peasant must have something to live for; freewill must be awakened in the citizen; and he must be taught to fight for something before he could receive political liberty. Of such liberty Stein only provided one modest germ. By his Städteordnung he introduced popular election into the towns. Thus Prussia and France set out towards political liberty by different roads. Prussia began modestly with local liberties, but did not for a long time attempt a Parliament. France with her charte, and in imitation of France many of the small German States, had grand popular Parliaments, but no local liberties. And so for a long time Prussia was regarded as a backward State. ... It was only by accident that Stein stopped short at municipal liberties and created no Parliament. He would have gone further, and in the last years of the wartime Hardenberg did summon deliberative assemblies, which, however, fell into disuse again after the peace. ... In spite however of all reaction, the change irrevocably made by the legislation of that time was similar to that made in France by the Revolution, and caused the age before Jena to be regarded as an 'ancien regime.' But in addition to this, a change had been made in men's minds and thoughts by the shocks of the time, which prepared the way for legislative changes which have taken place since. How unprecedented in Prussia, for instance, was the dictatorial authority wielded by Hardenberg early in 1807, by Stein in the latter part of that year and in 1808, and by Hardenberg again from 1810 onwards! Before that time in the history of Prussia we find no subject eclipsing or even approaching the King in importance. Prussia had been made what she was almost entirely by her electors and kings. In war and organisation alike all had been done by the Great Elector or Frederick-William I., or Frederick the Great. But now this is suddenly changed. Everything now turns on the minister. Weak ministers are expelled by pressure put upon the king, strong ones are forced upon him. He is compelled to create a new ministerial power much greater than that of an English Prime Minister, and more like that of a Grand Vizier, and by these dictators the most comprehensive innovations are made. The loyalty of the people was not impaired by this; on the contrary, Stein and Hardenberg saved the Monarchy; but it evidently transferred the Monarchy, though safely, to a lower pedestal."

J. R. Seeley, Prussian History (Macmillan's Magazine, volume 36, pages 342-351).

ALSO IN: J. R. Seeley, Life and Times of Stein, parts 3-5 (volumes 1-2).

R. B. D. Morier, Agrarian Legislation of Prussia (Systems of Land Tenure: Cobden Club Essays, chapter 5).

GERMANY: A. D. 1808. The Awakening of the national spirit. Effects of the Spanish rising, and of Fichte's Addresses.

The beginnings of the great rising in Spain against Napoleon (see SPAIN: A. D. 1808, and after) "were watched by Stein from Berlin while he was engaged in negotiating with Daru; we can imagine with what feelings! His cause had been, since his ministry began, substantially the same as that of Spain; but he had perhaps understood it himself but dimly, at any rate hoped but faintly to see it prosper. But now he ripens at once into a great nationality statesman; the reforms of Prussia begin at once to take a more military stamp, and to point more decisively to a great uprising of the German race against the foreign oppressor. The change of feeling which took place in Prussia after the beginning of the Spanish troubles is very clearly marked in Stein's autobiography. After describing the negotiations at Paris and Berlin, ... he begins a new paragraph thus: 'The popular war which had broken out in Spain and was attended with good success, had heightened the irritation of the inhabitants of the Prussian State caused by the humiliation they had suffered. All thirsted for revenge; plans of insurrection, which aimed at exterminating the French scattered about the country, were arranged; among others, one was to be carried out at Berlin, and I had the greatest trouble to keep the leaders, who confided their intentions to me, from a premature outbreak. We all watched the progress of the Spanish war and the commencement of the Austrian, for the preparations of that Power had not remained a secret; expectation was strained to the highest point; pains were necessary to moderate the excited eagerness for resistance in order to profit by it in more favourable circumstances. ... Fichte's Addresses to the Germans, delivered during the French occupation of Berlin and printed under the censorship of M. Bignon, the Intendant, had a great effect upon the feelings of the cultivated class.' ... That in the midst of such weighty matters he should remember to mention Fichte's Addresses is a remarkable testimony to the effect produced by them on the public mind, and at the same time it leads us to conjecture that they must have strongly influenced his own. They had been delivered in the winter at Berlin and of course could not be heard by Stein, who was then with the King, but they were not published till April. As affecting public opinion therefore, and also as known to Stein, the book was almost exactly of the same date as the Spanish Rebellion, and it is not unnatural that he should mention the two influences together. ... When the lectures were delivered at Berlin a rising in Spain was not dreamed of, and even when they were published it had not taken place, nor could clearly be foreseen. And yet they teach the same lesson. That doctrine of nationality which was taught affirmatively by Spain had been suggested to Fichte's mind by the reductio ad absurdum which events had given to the negation of it in Germany. {1516} Nothing could be more convincing than the concurrence of the two methods of proof at the same moment, and the prophetic elevation of these discourses (which may have furnished a model to Carlyle) was well fitted to drive the lesson home, particularly to a mind like Stein's, which was quite capable of being impressed by large principles. ... Fichte's Addresses do not profess to have in the first instance nationality for their subject. They profess to inquire whether there exists any grand comprehensive remedy for the evils with which Germany is afflicted. They find such a remedy where Turgot long before had looked for deliverance from the selfishness to which he traced all the abuses of the old regime, that is, in a grand system of national education. Fichte reiterates the favourite doctrine of modern Liberalism, that education as hitherto conducted by the Church has aimed only at securing for men happiness in another life, and that this is not enough, inasmuch as they need also to be taught how to bear themselves in the present life so as to do their duty to the state, to others and themselves. He is as sure as Turgot that a system of national education will work so powerfully upon the nation that in a few years they will not be recognisable, and he explains at great length what should be the nature of this system, dwelling principally upon the importance of instilling a love of duty for its own sake rather than for reward. The method to be adopted is that of Pestalozzi. Out of fourteen lectures the first three are entirely occupied with this. But then the subject is changed, and we find ourselves plunged into a long discussion of the peculiar characteristics which distinguish Germany from other nations and particularly other nations of German origin. At the present day this discussion, which occupies four lectures, seems hardly satisfactory; but it is a striking deviation from the fashion of that age. ... But up to this point we perceive only that the subject of German nationality occupies Fichte's mind very much, and that there was more significance than we first remarked in the title, Addresses to the German Nation; otherwise we have met with nothing likely to seem of great importance to a statesman. But the eighth Lecture propounds the question, 'What is a Nation in the higher signification of the word, and what is patriotism? It is here that he delivers what might seem a commentary on the Spanish Revolution, which had not yet taken place. ... Fichte proclaims the Nation not only to be different from the State, but to be something far higher and greater. ... Applied to Germany this doctrine would lead to the practical conclusion that a united German State ought to be set up in which the separate German States should be absorbed. ... In the lecture before us he contents himself with advising that patriotism as distinguished from loyalty to the State should be carefully inculcated in the new education, and should influence the individual German Governments. It would not indeed have been safe for Fichte to propose a political reform, but it rather appears that he thought it an advantage rather than a disadvantage that the Nation and the State should be distinct. ... I should not have lingered so long over this book if it did not strike me as the prophetical or canonical book which announces and explains a great transition in Modern Europe, and the prophecies of which began to be fulfilled immediately after its publication by the rising in Spain. ... It is this Spanish Revolution which when it has extended to the other countries we call the Anti-Napoleonic Revolution of Europe. It gave Europe years of unparalleled bloodshed, but at the same time years over which there broods a light of poetry; for no conception can be more profoundly poetical than that which now woke up in every part of Europe, the conception of the Nation. Those years also led the way to the great movements which have filled so much of the nineteenth century, and have rearranged the whole central part of the map of Europe on a more natural system."

J. R. Seeley, Life and Times of Stein, part 4, chapter 1 (volume 2).

GERMANY: A. D. 1808 (January). Kehl, Cassel and Wesel annexed to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808 (NOVEMBER-FEBRUARY).

GERMANY: A. D. 1808 (April-December). The Tugendbund, and Stein's relations to it.

"English people think of Stein almost exclusively in connexion with land laws. But the second and more warlike period of his Ministry has also left a faint impression in the minds of many among us, who are in the habit of regarding him as the founder of the Tugendbund. In August and September [1808], the very months in which Stein was taking up his new position, this society was attracting general attention, and accordingly this is the place to consider Stein's relation to it. That he was secretly animating and urging it on must have seemed at the time more than probable, almost self-evident. It aimed at the very objects which he had at heart, it spoke of him with warm admiration, and in general it used language which seemed an echo of his own. ... Whatever his connexion with the Tugendbund may have been, it cannot have commenced till April, 1808, for it was in that month that the Tugendbund began its existence, and therefore nothing can be more absurd than to represent Stein as beginning to revolutionise the country with the help of the Tugendbund, for his revolutionary edict had been promulgated in the October before. ... In his autobiography ... Stein [says]: 'An effect and not the cause of this passionate national indignation at the despotism of Napoleon was the Tugendbund, of which I was no more the founder than I was a member, as I can assert on my honour and as is well known to its originators. About July, 1808, there was formed at Königsberg a society consisting of several officers, for example, Colonel Gneisenau, Grolmann, &c., and learned men, such as Professor Krug, in order to combat selfishness and to rouse the nobler moral feelings; and according to the requirements of the existing laws they communicated their statutes and the list of their members to the King's Majesty, who sanctioned the former without any action on my part, it being my belief in general that there was no need of any other institute but to put new life into the spirit of Christian patriotism, the germ of which lay already in the existing institutions of State and Church. The new Society held its meetings, but of the proceedings I knew nothing, and when later it proposed to exert an indirect influence upon educational and military institutions I rejected the proposal as encroaching on the department of the civil and ecclesiastical governing bodies. As I was driven soon afterwards out of the public service, I know nothing of the further operations of this Society.' ... {1517} He certainly seems to intend his readers to understand that he had not even any indirect or underhand connexion with it, but from first to last stood entirely aloof, except in one case when he interfered to restrain its action. It is even possible that by telling us that he had nothing to do with the step taken by the King when he sanctioned the statutes of the society he means to hint that; had his advice been taken, the society would not have been even allowed to exist. ... The principal fact affirmed by Stein is indeed now beyond controversy; Stein was certainly not either the founder or a member of the Tugendbund. The society commonly known by that name, which however designated itself as the Moral and Scientific Union, was founded by a number of persons, of whom many were Freemasons, at Konigsberg in the month of April. Professor Krug, mentioned by Stein, was one of them; Gneisenau and Grolmann, whom he also mentions, were not among the first members, and Gneisenau, it seems, was never a member. The statutes were drawn by Krug, Bardeleben and Baersch, and if anyone person can be called the Founder of the Tugendbund, the second of these, Bardeleben, seems best to deserve the title. The Order of Cabinet by which the society was licensed is dated Konigsberg, June 30th, and runs as follows: 'The revival of morality, religion, serious taste and public spirit, is assuredly most commendable; and, so far as the society now being formed under the name of a Virtue Union (Tugendverein) is occupied with this within the limits of the laws of the country and without any interference in politics or public administration, His Majesty the King of Prussia approves the object and constitution of the society.' ... From Konigsberg missionaries went forth who established branch associations, called Chambers, in other towns, first those of the Province of Prussia, Braunsberg, Elbing, Graudenz, Eylau, Hohenstein, Memel, Stallupöhnen; then in August and September Bardeleben spread the movement with great success through Silesia. The spirit which animated the new society could not but be approved by every patriot. They had been deeply struck with the decay of the nation, as shown in the occurrences of the war, and their views of the way in which it might be revived were much the same as those of Stein and Fichte. The only question was whether they were wise in organising a society in order to promulgate these views, whether such a society was likely to do much good, and also whether it might not by possibility do much harm. Stein's view, as he has given it, was that it was not likely to do much good, and that such an organisation was unnecessary. ... It did not follow because he desired Estates or Parliaments that he was prepared to sanction a political club. ... It may well have seemed to him that to suffer a political club to come into existence was to allow the guidance of the Revolution which he had begun to pass out of his hands. There appears, then, when we consider it closely, nothing unnatural in the course which Stein declares himself to have taken."

J. R. Seeley, Life and Times of Stein, part 4, chapter 3 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: T. Frost, Secret Societies of the European Revolution, volume 1, chapter 4.

GERMANY: A. D. 1808 (September-October). Imperial conference and Treaty of Erfurt.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1808 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).

GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (January-June). Outburst of Austrian feeling against France. Reopening of war. Napoleon's advance to Vienna. His defeat at Aspern and perilous situation. Austrian reverses in Italy and Hungary.

"The one man of all the Austrians who felt the least amount of hatred against France, was, perhaps, the Emperor. All his family and all his people--nobles and priests, the middle classes and the peasantry--evinced a feeling full of anger against the nation which had upset Europe. ... By reason of the French, the disturbers and spoilers, the enemies of the human race, despisers of morality and religion alike, Princes were suffering in their palaces, workmen in their shops, business men in their offices, priests in their churches, soldiers in their camps, peasants in their huts. The movement of exasperation was irresistible. Everyone said that it was a mistake to have laid down their arms; that they ought against France to have fought on to the bitter end, and to have sacrificed the last man and the last florin; that they had been wrong in not having gone to the assistance of Prussia after the Jena Campaign; and that the moment had arrived for all the Powers to coalesce against the common enemy and crush him. ... All Europe had arrived at a paroxysm of indignation. What was she waiting for before rising? A signal. That signal Austria was about to give. And this time with what chances of success! The motto was to be 'victory or death.' But they were sure of victory. The French army, scattered from the Oder to the Tagus, from the mountains of Bohemia to the Sierra Morena, would not be able to resist the onslaught of so many nations eager to break their bonds. ... Vienna, in 1809, indulged in the same language, and felt the same passions, that Berlin did in 1806. ... The Landwehr, then only organized a few months, were impatiently awaiting the hour when they should measure themselves against the Veterans of the French army. Volunteers flocked in crowds to the colours. Patriotic subscriptions flowed in. ... Boys wanted to leave school to fight. All classes of society vied with each other in zeal, courage, and a spirit of sacrifice. When the news was made public that the Archduke Charles had, on the 20th of February, 1809, been appointed Generalissimo, there was an outburst of joy and confidence from one end of the Empire to the other."

Imbert de Saint-Amand, Memoirs of the Empress Marie Louise, part 1, chapter 2.

"On receiving decisive intelligence of these hostile preparations, Napoleon returned with extraordinary expedition from Spain to Paris, in January, 1809, and gave orders to concentrate his forces in Germany, and call out the full contingents of the Confederation of the Rhine. Some further time was consumed by the preparations on either side. At last, on the 8th of April, the Austrian troops crossed the frontiers at once on the Inn, in Bohemia, in the Tyrol and in Italy. The whole burthen of the war rested on Austria alone, for Prussia remained neutral, and Russia, now allied to France, was even bound to make a show at least, though it were no more, of hostility to Austria. On the same day on which the Austrian forces crossed the frontiers, the Tyrol rose in insurrection [see below: A. D. 1809-1810 (APRIL-FEBRUARY)], and was swept clear of the enemy in four days, with the exception of a Bavarian garrison, that still held out in Kufstein. {1518} The French army was at this time dispersed over a line of forty leagues in extent, with numerous undefended apertures between the corps; so that the fairest possible opportunity presented itself to the Austrians for cutting to pieces the scattered forces of the French, and marching in triumph to the Rhine. As usual, however, the archduke's early movements were subjected to most impolitic delays by the Aulic Council; and time was allowed Napoleon to arrive on the theatre of war (April 17), and repair the faults committed by his adjutant-general, Berthier. He instantly extricated his army from its perilous position--almost cut in two by the advance of the Austrians--and, beginning on the 19th, he beat the latter in five battles on five successive days, at Thaun, Abensberg, Landshut, Eckmühl, and Ratisbon. The Archduke Charles retired into Bohemia to collect reinforcements, but General Hiller was, in consequence of the delay in repairing the fortifications of Linz, unable to maintain that place, the possession of which was important, on account of its forming a connecting point between Bohemia and the Austrian Oberland. Hiller, however, at least saved his honour by pushing forward to the Traun, and in a fearfully bloody encounter at Ebersberg, captured three French eagles, one of his colours alone falling into the enemy's hands. He was, nevertheless, compelled to retire before the superior forces of the French, and crossing over at Krems to the left bank of the Danube, he formed a junction with the Archduke Charles. The way was now clear to Vienna, which, after a slight show of defence, capitulated to Napoleon on the 12th of May. The Archduke Charles had hoped to reach the capital before the French, and to give battle to them beneath its walls; but as he had to make a circuit whilst the French pushed forward in a direct line, his plan was frustrated, and he arrived, when too late, from Bohemia. Both armies, separated by the Danube, stood opposed to one another in the vicinity of the imperial city. Both commanders were desirous of coming to a decisive engagement. The French had secured the island of Lobau, to serve as a mustering place, and point of transit across the Danube. The archduke allowed them to establish a bridge of boats, being resolved to await them on the Marchfeld. There it was that Rudolph of Habsburg, in the battle against Ottakar, had laid the foundation of the greatness of the house of Austria; and there the political existence of that house and the fate of the monarchy were now to be decided. Having crossed the river, Napoleon was received on the opposite bank, near Aspern and Esslingen, by his opponent, and, after a dreadful battle [in which Marshal Lannes was killed], that was carried on with unwearied animosity for two days, May 21st and 22nd, 1809, he was completely beaten, and compelled to fly for refuge to the island of Lobau. The rising stream had, meanwhile, carried away the bridge, Napoleon's sole chance of escape to the opposite bank. For two days he remained on the island with his defeated troops, without provisions, and in hourly expectation of being cut to pieces; the Austrians, however, neglected to turn the opportunity to advantage, and allowed the French leisure to rebuild the bridge, a work of extreme difficulty. During six weeks afterwards, the two armies continued to occupy their former positions under the walls of Vienna, on the right and left banks of the Danube, narrowly watching each other's movements, and preparing for a final struggle. Whilst these events were in progress, the Archduke John had successfully penetrated into Italy, where he had totally defeated the Viceroy Eugene at Salice, on the 16th of April. Favoured by the simultaneous revolt of the Tyrolese, he might have obtained the most decisive results from this victory, but the extraordinary progress of Napoleon down the valley of the Danube rendered necessary the concentration of the whole forces of the monarchy for the defence of the capital. Having begun a retreat, he was pursued by Eugene, and defeated on the Piave, with great loss, on the 8th of May. Escaping thence, without further molestation, to Villach, in Carinthia, he received intelligence of the fall of Vienna, together with a letter from the Archduke Charles, of the 15th of May, directing him to move with all his forces upon Lintz, to act on the rear and communications of Napoleon. Instead of obeying these orders, he thought proper to march into Hungary, abandoning the Tyrol and the whole projected operations on the Upper Danube to their fate. His disobedience was disastrous to the fortunes of his house, for it caused the fruits of the victory at Aspern to be lost. He might have arrived, with 50,000 men, on the 24th or 25th, at Lintz, where no one remained but Bernadotte and the Saxons, who were incapable of offering any serious resistance. Such a force, concentrated on the direct line of Napoleon's communications, immediately after his defeat at Aspern, on the 22nd, would have deprived him of all means of extricating himself from the most perilous situation in which he had yet been placed since ascending the consular throne. After totally defeating Jellachich in the valley of the Muhr, Eugene desisted from his pursuit of the army of Italy, and joined Napoleon at Vienna. The Archduke John united his forces at Raab with those of the Hungarian insurrection, under his brother, the Palatine. The viceroy again marched against him, and defeated him at Raab on the 14th of June. The Palatine remained with the Hungarian insurrection in Komorn; Archduke John moved on to Presburg. In the north, the Archduke Ferdinand, who had advanced as far as Warsaw, had been driven back by the Poles: under Poniatowsky, and by a Russian force sent by the Emperor Alexander to their aid, which, on this success, invaded Galicia."

W. K. Kelly, History of the House of Austria (Continuation of Coxe), chapter 4.

ALSO IN: Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1789-1815, chapter 56-57 (volume 12).

Duke de Rovigo, Memoirs, volume 2, part 2, chapters 3-12.

Baron Jomini, Life of Napoleon, chapter 14 (volume 3).

Baron de Marbot, Memoirs, volume 1, chapters 42-48.

GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (April-July). Risings against the French in the North.

"A general revolt against the French had nearly taken place in Saxony and Westphalia, where the enormous burdens imposed on the people, and the insolence of the French troops, had kindled a deadly spirit of hostility against the oppressors. Everywhere the Tugendbund were in activity; and the advance of the Austrians towards Franconia and Saxony, at the beginning of the war, blew up the flame. The two first attempts at insurrection, headed respectively by Katt, a Prussian officer (April 3), and Dornberg, a Westphalian colonel (April 23), proved abortive; but the enterprise of the celebrated Schill was of a more formidable character. {1519} This enthusiastic patriot, then a colonel in the Prussian army, had been compromised in the revolt of Dornberg; and finding himself discovered, he boldly raised the standard (April 29) at the head of 600 soldiers. His force speedily received accessions, but failing in his attempts on Wittenberg and Magdeburg, he moved towards the Baltic, in hope of succour from the British cruisers, and at last threw himself into Stralsund. Here he was speedily invested; the place was stormed (May 31), and the gallant Schill slain in the assault, a few hours only before the appearance of the British vessels --the timely arrival of which might have secured the place, and spread the rising over all Northern Germany. The Duke of Brunswick-Oels, with his 'black band' of volunteers, had at the same time invaded Saxony from Bohemia; and though then obliged to retreat, he made a second incursion in June, occupied Dresden and Leipsic, and drove the King of Westphalia into France. After the battle of Wagram he made his way across all Northern Germany, and was eventually conveyed, with his gallant followers, still 2,000 strong, to England."

Epitome of Alison's History of Europe, sections 525-526.

GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (July-September). Napoleon's victory at Wagram. The Peace of Schonbrunn. Immense surrender of Austrian territory.

"The operation of establishing the bridges between the French camp and the left bank of the Danube commenced on the night of the 30th of June; and during the night of the 4th of July the whole French army, passing between the villages of Enzersdorf and Muhlleuten, debouched on the Marchfeld, wheeling to their left. Napoleon was on horseback in the midst of them by daylight; all the Austrian fortifications erected to defend the former bridge were turned, the villages occupied by their army taken, and the Archduke Charles was menaced both in flank and rear, the French line of battle appuyed on Enzersdorf being at a right angle to his left wing. Under these circumstances the Archduke, retiring his left, attempted to outflank the French right, while Napoleon bore down upon his centre at Wagram. This village became the scene of a sanguinary struggle, and one house only remained standing when night closed in. The Archduke sent courier after courier to hasten the advance of his brother, between whom and himself was Napoleon, whose line on the night of the 5th extended from Loibersdorf on the right to some two miles beyond Wagram on the left. Napoleon passed the night in massing his centre, still determining to manœuvre by his left in order to throw back the Archduke Charles on that side before the Archduke John could come up on the other. At six o'clock on the morning of the 6th of July he commanded the attack in person. Disregarding all risk, he appeared throughout the day in the hottest of the fire, mounted on a snow-white charger, Euphrates, a present from the Shah of Persia. The Archduke Charles as usual committed the error which Napoleon's enemies had not even yet learned was invariably fatal to them: extending his line too greatly he weakened his centre, at the same time opening tremendous assaults on the French wings, which suffered dreadfully. Napoleon ordered Lauriston to advance upon the Austrian centre with a hundred guns, supported by two whole divisions of infantry in column. The artillery, when within half cannon-shot, opened a terrific fire: nothing could withstand such a shock. The infantry, led by Macdonald, charged; the Austrian line was broken and the centre driven back in confusion. The right, in a panic, retrograded; the French cavalry then bore down upon them and decided the battle, the Archduke still fighting to secure his retreat, which he at length effected in tolerably good order. By noon the whole Austrian army was abandoning the contest. Their defeat so demoralized them that the Archduke John, who came up on Napoleon's right before the battle was over, was glad to retire with the rest, unnoticed by the enemy. That evening the Marchfeld and Wagram were in possession of the French. The population of Vienna had watched the battle from the roofs and ramparts of the city, and saw the retreat of their army with fear and gloom. Between 300,000 and 400,000 men were engaged, and the loss on both sides was nearly equal. About 20,000 dead and 30,000 wounded strewed the ground; the latter were conveyed to the hospitals of Vienna. ... Twenty thousand Austrians were taken prisoners, but the number would have been greater had the French cavalry acted with their usual spirit. Bernadotte, issuing a bulletin, almost assuming to himself the sole merit of the victory, was removed from his command. Macdonald was created a marshal of the empire on the morning after the battle. ... The battle of Wagram was won more by good fortune than skill. Napoleon's strategy was at fault, and had the Austrians fought as stoutly as they did at Aspern, Napoleon would have been signally defeated. Had the Archduke John acted promptly and vigorously, he might have united with his brother's left--which was intact--and overwhelmed the French. ... The defeated army retired to Znaim, followed by the French; but further resistance was abandoned by the Emperor of Austria. The Archduke Charles solicited an armistice on the 9th; hostilities ceased, and Napoleon returned to the palace of Schonbrunn while the plenipotentiaries settled the terms of peace. ... English Ministers displayed another instance of their customary spirit of procrastination. Exactly eight days after the armistice of Znaim, which assured them that Austria was no longer in a position to profit by or co-operate with their proceedings, they sent more than 80,000 fighting men, under the command of Lord Chatham, to besiege Antwerp. ...

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1809 (JULY-DECEMBER).

Operations against Naples proved equally abortive. ... In Spain alone English arms were successful. Sir Arthur Wellesley won the battle of Talavera on the 28th of July. ...

See SPAIN: A. D. 1809 (FEBRUARY-JULY).

A treaty of peace, between France and Austria was signed on the 14th of October at Vienna [sometimes called the Treaty of Vienna, but more commonly the Peace of Schonbrunn]. The Emperor of Austria ceded Salzburg and a part of Upper Austria to the Confederation of the Rhine; part of Bohemia, Cracow, and Western Galicia to the King of Saxony as Grand Duke of Warsaw; part of Eastern Galicia to the Emperor of Russia; and Trieste, Carniola, Friuli, Villach, and some part of Croatia and Dalmatia to France: thus connecting the kingdom of Italy with Napoleon's Illyrian possessions, making him master of the entire coast of the Adriatic, and depriving Austria of its last seaport. It was computed that the Emperor Francis gave up territory to the amount of 45,000 square miles, with a population of nearly 4,000,000. He also paid a large contribution in money."

R. H. Horne, Life of Napoleon, chapter 32.

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"The cessions made directly to Napoleon were the county of Görtz, or Goricia, and that of Montefalcone, forming the Austrian Friuli; the town and government of Trieste, Carniola, the circle of Villach in Carinthia, part of Croatia and Dalmatia, and the lordship of Räzuns in the Grison territory. All these provinces, with the exception of Räzuns, were incorporated by a decree of Napoleon, with Dalmatia and its islands, into a single state with the name of the Illyrian Provinces. They were never united with France, but always governed by Napoleon as an independent state. A few districts before possessed by Napoleon were also incorporated with them: as Venetian Istria and Dalmatia with the Bocca di Cattaro, Ragusa, and part of the Tyrol. ... The only other articles of the treaty of much importance are the recognition by Austria of any changes made, or to be made, in Spain, Portugal, and Italy; the adherence of the Emperor to the prohibitive system adopted by France and Russia, and his engaging to cease all correspondence and relationship with Great Britain. By a decree made at Ratisbon, April 24th, 1809, Napoleon had suppressed the Teutonic Order in all the States belonging to the Rhenish Confederation, reannexed its possessions to the domains of the prince in which they were situated, and incorporated Mergentheim, with the rights, domains, and revenues attached to the Grand Mastership of the Order, with the Kingdom of Würtemberg. These dispositions were confirmed by the Treaty of Schönbrunn. The effect aimed at by the Treaty of Schönbrunn was to surround Austria with powerful states, and thus to paralyse all her military efforts. ... The Emperor of Russia ... was very ill satisfied with the small portion of the spoils assigned to him, and the augmentation awarded to the duchy of Warsaw. Hence the first occasion of coldness between him and Napoleon, whom he suspected of a design to reestablish the Kingdom of Poland."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 7, chapter 14 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1789-1815, chapters 59-60 (volume 13).

General Count M. Dumas, Memoirs, chapter 13 (volume 2).

E. Baines, History of the Wars of the French Revolution, book 4, chapter 9 (volume 3).

J. C. Ropes, The First Napoleon, lecture 4.

GERMANY: A. D. 1809-1810. Humboldt's reform of Public Instruction in Prussia.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.-PRUSSIA: A. D. 1809.

GERMANY: A. D. 1809-1810 (April-February). The revolt in the Tyrol. Heroic struggle of Andrew Hofer and his countrymen.

"The Tyrol, for centuries a possession of Austria, was ceded to Bavaria by the Peace of Presburg in 1805. The Bavarians made many innovations, in the French style, some good and some bad; but the mountaineers, clinging to their ancient ways, resisted them all alike. They hated the Bavarians as foreign masters forced upon them; and especially detested the military conscription, to which Austria had never subjected them. The priests had an almost unlimited influence over these faithful Catholics, and the Bavarians, who treated them rudely, were regarded as innovators and allies of revolutionary France. Thus the country submitted restlessly to the yoke of the Rhine League until the spring of 1809. A secret understanding was maintained with Austria and the Archduke John, and the people never abandoned the hope of returning to their Austrian allegiance. When the great war of 1809 began, the Emperor Francis summoned all his people to arms. The Tyrolese answered the call. ... They are a people trained in early life to the use of arms, and to activity, courage, and ready devices in hunting, and in traveling on their mountain paths. Austria could be sure of the faithfulness of the Tyrol, and made haste to occupy the country. When the first troops were seen entering the passes, the people arose and drove away the Bavarian garrisons. The alarm was soon sounded through the deepest ravines of the land. Never was there a more united people, and each troop or company chose its own officers, in the ancient German style, from among their strongest and best men. Their commanders were hunters, shepherds, priests: the former gamekeeper, Speckbacher; the innkeeper, Martin Teimer; the fiery Capuchin monk, Haspinger, whose sole weapon in the field was a huge ebony crucifix, and many more of like peaceful occupations. At the head of the whole army was a man who, like Saul, towered by a head above all others, while his handsome black beard fell to his girdle--Andrew Hofer, formerly an innkeeper at Passeyr--a man of humble piety and simple faithfulness, who fairly represented the people he led. He regarded the war as dutiful service to his religion, his emperor, and his country. The whole land soon swarmed with little bands of men, making their way to Innsprück (April, 1809), whence the Bavarian garrison fled. Meanwhile a small French corps came from Italy to relieve them. Though fired upon by the peasants from every ravine and hill, they passed the Brenner, and reached the Iselberg, near Innsprück. But here they were surrounded on every side, and forced to surrender. The first Austrian soldiers, under General Chasteler, then reached the capital, and their welcome was a popular festival. The liberators, as the Tyrolese soldiers regarded themselves, committed no cruelties, but carried on their enterprise in the spirit of a national jubilee. The tidings of the disasters at Regensburg [Ratisbon] now came upon them like a thunderbolt. The withdrawal of the Austrian army then left the Tyrol without protection. Napoleon treated the war as a mutiny, and set a price upon Chasteler's head. Neither Chasteler nor any of the Austrian officers with him understood the warfare of the peasantry. The Tyrolese were left almost wholly to themselves, but they resolved to defend their mountains. On May 11 the Bavarians under Wrede again set out, from Salzburg, captured the pass of the Strub after a bloody fight, and then climbed into the valley of the Inn. They practiced frightful cruelties in their way. A fierce struggle took place at the little village of Schwatz; the Bavarians burned the place, and marched to Innsprück. Chasteler withdrew, and the Bavarians and French, under Wrede and Lefevre, entered the capital. The country again appeared to be subdued. But cruelty had embittered the people. Wrede was recalled, with his corps, by Napoleon; and now Hofer, with his South Tyrolese, recrossed the Brenner Pass. Again the general alarm was given, the leaders called to arms, and again every pass, every wall of rock, every narrow road was seized. The struggle took place at the Iselberg. {1521} The Bavarians, 7,000 in number, were defeated with heavy loss. The Tyrol now remained for several months undisturbed, during the campaign around Vienna. After the battle of Aspern, an imperial proclamation formally assured the Tyrolese that they should never be severed from the Austrian Empire; and that no peace should be signed unless their indissoluble union with the monarchy were recognized. The Tyrolese quietly trusted the emperor's promise, until the armistice of Znaim. But in this the Tyrol was not mentioned, and the French and their allies prepared to chastise the loyal and abandoned country."

C. T. Lewis, History of Germany, chapter 28.

"In the mouth of July, an army of 40,000 French and Bavarians attacked the Tyrol from the German side; while from Italy, General Rusca, with 18,000 men, entered from Clagenfurth, on the southern side of the Tyrolese Alps. Undismayed by this double and formidable invasion, they assailed the invaders as they penetrated into their fastnesses, defeated and destroyed them. The fate of a division of 10,000 men, belonging to the French and Bavarian army, which entered the Upper Innthal, or Valley of the Inn, will explain in part the means by which these victories were obtained. The invading troops advanced in a long column up a road bordered on the one side by the river Inn, there a deep and rapid torrent, where cliffs of immense height overhang both road and river. The vanguard was permitted to advance unopposed as far as Prutz, the object of their expedition. The rest of the army were therefore induced to trust themselves still deeper in this tremendous pass, where the precipices, becoming more and more narrow as they advanced, seemed about to close above their heads. No sound but of the screaming of the eagles disturbed from, their eyries, and the roar of the river, reached the ears of the soldier, and on the precipices, partly enveloped in a hazy mist, no human forms showed themselves. At length the voice of a man was heard calling across the ravine, 'Shall we begin?'--'No,' was returned in an authoritative tone of voice, by one who, like the first speaker, seemed the inhabitant of some upper region. The Bavarian detachment halted, and sent to the general for orders;' when presently was heard the terrible signal, 'In the name of the Holy Trinity, cut all loose!' Huge rocks, and trunks of trees, long prepared and laid in heaps for the purpose, began now to descend rapidly in every direction, while the deadly fire of the Tyrolese, who never throw away a shot, opened from every bush, crag, or corner of rock, which would afford the shooter cover. As this dreadful attack was made on the whole line at once, two-thirds of the enemy were instantly destroyed; while the Tyrolese, rushing from their shelter, with swords, spears, axes, scythes, clubs and all other rustic instruments which could be converted into weapons, beat down and routed the shattered remainder. As the vanguard, which had reached Prutz, was obliged to surrender, very few of the 10,000 invaders are computed to have extricated themselves from the fatal pass. But not all the courage of the Tyrolese, not all the strength of their country, could possibly enable them to defend themselves, when the peace with Austria had permitted Buonaparte to engage his whole immense means for the acquisition of these mountains. Austria too--Austria herself, in whose cause they had incurred all the dangers of war, instead of securing their indemnity by some stipulations in the treaty, sent them a cold exhortation to lay down their arms. Resistance, therefore, was abandoned as fruitless; Hofer, chief commander of the Tyrolese, resigned his command, and the Bavarians regained the possession of a country which they could never have won back by their own efforts. Hofer, and about thirty chiefs of these valiant defenders of their country, were put to death [February, 1810], in poor revenge for the loss their bravery had occasioned. But their fame, as their immortal spirit, was beyond the power of the judge alike and executioner; and the place where their blood was shed, becomes sacred to the thoughts of freedom, as the precincts of a temple to those of religion."

Sir W. Scott, Life of Napoleon, volume 2, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1789-1815, chapter 58 (volume 12).

_History of Hofer (Quarterly Review, July, 1817)._

_C. H. Hall, Life of Andrew Hofer._

GERMANY: A. D. 1810. Annexation of the Hanse Towns and territory on the North Sea to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1810 (FEBRUARY-DECEMBER).

GERMANY: A. D. 1810-1812. Marriage of the Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria to Napoleon. Alliance of German powers with Napoleon against Russia.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1810-1812.

GERMANY: A. D. 1812. The Russian campaign of Napoleon and its disastrous ending.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER), (SEPTEMBER), and (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

GERMANY: A. D. 1812-1813. The Teutonic uprising against Napoleon. Beginning of the War of Liberation. Alliance of Prussia and Russia.

"During Napoleon's march on Moscow and his fatal return, Macdonald remained on the Lower Dwina, before Riga, with an observation corps of Prussians and Poles, nor had he ever received an order to retreat from Napoleon. Learning of the misfortunes of the grand army, he went from the Dwina towards the Niemen. As he passed through Courland, General York, commander of the Prussian troops, allowed him to lead the way with the Poles, and then signed an agreement of neutrality with the Russians (December 30, 1812). The Prussian troops, from a military spirit of honor, had fought the Russians bravely; they retained some scruples relative to the worthy marshal under whom they served, and forsook without betraying him, that is, they left him time to escape. This was a most important event and the beginning of the inevitable defection of Germany. The attitude of Czar Alexander decided General York; the former was completely dazzled by his triumphs, and aspired to nothing less than to destroy Napoleon and liberate Europe, even France! With mingled enthusiasm and calculation, he promised all things to all men; on returning to Wilna, he granted an amnesty for all acts committed in Poland against Russian authority. On the one hand, he circulated a rumor that he was about to make himself King of Poland, and, on the other hand, he announced to the Prussians that he was ready to restore the Polish provinces taken from them by Napoleon. He authorized ex-Minister Stein to take possession, as we may say, of Old Prussia, just evacuated by the French, and to promise the speedy enfranchisement of Germany, protesting, at the same time, that he would not dispute 'the legitimate greatness' of France. {1522} The French army, on hearing of York's defection, left Königsberg with ten or twelve thousand sick men and eight or ten thousand armed troops, withdrawing to the Vistula and thence to Warta and Posen. General Rapp had succeeded in gathering at Dantzic, the great French depot of stores and reserves, 25,000 men, few of whom had gone through the Russian campaign, and a division of almost equal numbers occupied Berlin. The French had in all barely 80,000 men, from Dantzic to the Rhine, not including their Austrian and Saxon allies, who had fallen back on Warsaw and seemed disposed to fight no more. Murat, to whom Napoleon confided the remains of the grand army, followed the Emperor's example and set out to defend his Neapolitan kingdom, leaving the chief command to Prince Eugene. Great agitation prevailed around the feeble French forces still occupying Germany. The Russians themselves, worn out, did not press the French very hotly; but York and Stein, masters of Königsberg, organized and armed Old Prussia without awaiting authorization from the king, who was not considered as a free agent, being under foreign rule. Pamphlets, proclamations, and popular songs were circulated everywhere, provoking the people to rebellion. The idea of German union ran like wildfire from the Niemen to the Rhine; federal union, not unity in a single body or state, which was not thought of then."

H. Martin, Popular History of France from 1789, volume 2, chapter 16.

"The king of Prussia had suddenly abandoned Berlin [January, 1813], which was still in the hands of the French, for Breslau, whence he declared war against France. A conference also took place between him and the emperor Alexander at Calisch [Kalisch], and, on the 28th of February, 1813, an offensive and defensive alliance was concluded between them. The hour for vengeance had at length arrived. The whole Prussian nation, eager to throw off the hated yoke of the foreigner, to obliterate their disgrace in 1806, to regain their ancient name, cheerfully hastened to place their lives and property at the service of the impoverished government. The whole of the able-bodied population was put under arms. The standing army was increased: to each regiment were appended troops of volunteers, Jaegers, composed of young' men belonging to the higher classes, who furnished their own equipments: a numerous Landwehr, a sort of militia, was, as in Austria, raised besides the standing army, and measures were even taken to call out, in case of necessity, the heads of families and elderly men remaining at home, under the name of the Landsturm. The enthusiastic people, besides furnishing the customary supplies and paying the taxes, contributed to the full extent of their means towards defraying the immense expense of this general arming. Every heart throbbed high with pride and hope. ... More loudly than even in 1809 in Austria was the German cause now discussed, the great name of the German empire now invoked in Prussia, for in that name alone could all the races of Germany be united against their hereditary foe. The celebrated proclamation, promising external and internal liberty to Germany, was, with this view, published at Calisch by Prussia and Russia. Nor was the appeal vain. It found an echo in every German heart, and such plain demonstrations of the state of the popular feeling on this side the Rhine were made, that Davoust sent serious warning to Napoleon, who contemptuously replied, 'Pah! Germans never can become Spaniards!' With his customary rapidity he levied in France a fresh army 300,000 strong, with which he so completely awed the Rhenish confederation as to compel it once more to take the field with thousands of Germans against their brother Germans. The troops, however, reluctantly obeyed, and even the traitors were but lukewarm, for they doubted of success. Mecklenburg alone sided with Prussia. Austria remained neutral. A Russian corps under General Tettenborn had preceded the rest of the troops and reached the coasts of the Baltic. As early as the 24th of March, 1813, it appeared in Hamburg and expelled the French authorities from the city. The heavily oppressed people of Hamburg, whose commerce had been totally annihilated by the continental system, gave way to the utmost demonstrations of delight, received their deliverers with open arms, revived their ancient rights, and immediately raised a Hanseatic corps destined to take the field against Napoleon. Dörnberg, the ancient foe to France, with another flying squadron took the French division under Morand prisoner, and the Prussian, Major Hellwig (the same who, in 1806, liberated the garrison of Erfurt), dispersed, with merely 120 hussars, a Bavarian regiment 1,300 strong and captured five pieces of artillery. In January, the peasantry of the upper country had already revolted against the conscription, and, in February, patriotic proclamations had been disseminated throughout Westphalia under the signature of the Baron von Stein. In this month, also, Captain Maas and two other patriots, who had attempted to raise a rebellion, were executed. As the army advanced, Stein was nominated chief of the provisional government of the still unconquered provinces of Western Germany. The first Russian army, 17,000 strong, under Wittgenstein, pushed forward to Magdeburg, and, at Mökern, repulsed 40,000 French who were advancing upon Berlin. The Prussians, under their veteran general, Blücher, entered Saxony and garrisoned Dresden, on the 27th of March, 1813, after an arch of the fine bridge across the Elbe [had] been uselessly blown up by the French. Blücher, whose gallantry in the former wars had gained for him the general esteem and whose kind and generous disposition had won the affection of the soldiery, was nominated generalissimo of the Prussian forces, but subordinate in command to Wittgenstein, who replaced Kutusow as generalissimo of the united forces of Russia and Prussia. The Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia accompanied the army and were received with loud acclamations by the people of Dresden and Leipzig."

W. Menzel, History of Germany, chapter 260 (volume 3).

Bernadotte, the adopted Crown Prince and expectant King of Sweden, had been finally thrown into the arms of the new Coalition against Napoleon, by the refusal of the latter to take Norway from Denmark and give it to Sweden. "The disastrous retreat of the French from Moscow ... led to the signature of the Treaty of Stockholm on the 2d of March, 1813, by which England acceded to the union of Norway to Sweden, and a Swedish force was sent to Pomerania under General Sandels. On the 18th of May, 1813, Bernadotte landed at Stralsund."

_Lady Bloomfield, Biographical Sketch of Bernadotte (Memoir of Lord Bloomfield, volume 1, page 31)._

ALSO IN: J. R. Seeley, Life and Times of Stein, part 7 (volume 3).

A. Thiers, History of the Consulate and the Empire, book 47 (volume 4).

{1523}

GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (April-May). Battle of Lützen. Humiliation of the King of Saxony.

"On the 14th April, Napoleon left Paris to assume the command of the army. Previous to his departure, with a view, perhaps, of paying a compliment to the Emperor of Austria, the Empress Marie Louise was appointed regent in his absence; but Prince Schwarzenberg, who had arrived on a special mission from Vienna, was treated only as the commander of an auxiliary corps, to which orders would immediately be transmitted. On the 16th he reached Mayence, where, for the last time, vassal princes assembled courtier-like around him; and on the 20th he was already at Erfurt, in the midst of his newly-raised army. The roads were everywhere crowded with troops and artillery, closing in towards the banks of the Saale. From Italy, Marshal Bertrand joined with 40,000 men, old trained soldiers; the Viceroy brought an equal number from the vicinity of Magdeburg; and Marshal Macdonald having, on the 29th, taken Merseburg by assault, the whole army, which Bade, the ablest and most accurate of the authors who have written on this campaign, estimates at 140,000 men, was assembled for action. With this mighty force Napoleon determined to seek out the enemy, and bring them quickly to battle. The Russian and Prussian armies were no sooner united, after the alliance concluded between the sovereigns, than they crossed the Elbe, occupied Dresden, which the King of Saxony had abandoned, and advanced to the banks of the Saale. General Blücher commanded the Prussians, and Count Wittgenstein the Russian corps; and, death having closed the career of old Marshal Kutusoff, ... the command of both armies devolved upon the last mentioned officer. Informed of the rapid advance of the French, the allied monarchs joined their forces, which were drawn together in the plains between the Saale and the Elbe; their numerous cavalry giving them perfect command of this wide and open country. Napoleon, always anxious for battle, determined to press on towards Leipzig, behind which he expected to find the Allied army, who, as it proved, were much nearer than he anticipated. At the passage of the Rippach, a small stream that borders the wide plain of Lützen, he already encountered a body of Russian cavalry and artillery under Count Winzingerode; and as the French were weak in horse, they had to bring the whole of Marshal Ney's corps into action before they could oblige the Russians to retire. Marshal Bessieres, the commander of the Imperial Guard, was killed. ... On the evening of the 1st of May, Napoleon established his quarters in the small town of Lützen. The Allies, conscious of the vast numerical superiority of the French, did not intend to risk a general action on the left bank of the Elbe; but the length of the hostile column of march, which extended from beyond Naumberg almost to the gates of Leipzig, induced Scharnhorst to propose an advance from the direction of Borna and Pegau against the right flank of the enemy, and a sudden attack on the centre of their line in the plain of Lützen. It was expected that a decisive blow might be struck against this centre, and the hostile army broken before the distant wings could close up and take an effective part in the battle. The open nature of the country, well adapted to the action of cavalry, which formed the principal strength of the Allies, spoke in favour of the plan. ... The bold attempt was immediately resolved upon, and the onset fixed for the following morning. The annals of war can hardly offer a plan of battle more skilfully conceived than the one of which we have here spoken; but unfortunately the execution fell far short of the admirable conception. Napoleon, with his Guards and the corps of Lauriston, was already at the gates of Leipzig, preparing for an attack on the city, when about one o'clock [May 2] the roar of artillery burst suddenly on the ear, and gathering thicker and thicker as it rolled along, proclaimed that a general action was engaged in the plain of Lützen,--proclaimed that the army was taken completely at fault, and placed in the most imminent peril. ... The Allies, who, by means of their numerous cavalry, could easily mask their movement, had advanced unobserved into the plain of Lützen," and the action was begun by a brigade of Blücher's corps attacking the French in the village of Great-Görschen (Gross-Görschen). "Reinforcements ... poured in from both sides, and the narrow and intersected ground between the villages became the scene of a most murderous and closely-contested combat of infantry. ... But no attempt was made to employ the numerous and splendid cavalry, that stood idly exposed, on open plain, to the shot of the French artillery. ... When night put an end to the combat, Great-Görschen was the sole trophy of the murderous fight that remained in the hands of the Allies. ... On the side of the Allies, 2,000 Russians and 8,000 Prussians had been killed or wounded: among the slain was Prince Leopold of Hessen-Homburg; among the wounded was the admirable Scharnhorst, who died a few weeks afterwards. ... The loss sustained by the French is not exactly known; but ... Jomini tells us that the 3d corps, to which he was attached as chief of the staff, had alone 500 officers and 12,000 men 'hors de combat.' Both parties laid claim to the victory: the French, because the Allies retired on the day after the action; the Allies, because they remained masters of part of the captured battlefield, had taken two pieces of artillery, and 800 prisoners. ... The Allies alleged, or pretended perhaps, that it was their intention to renew the action on the following morning: in the Prussian army every man, from the king to the humblest soldier, was anxious indeed to continue the fray; and the wrath of Blücher, who deemed victory certain, was altogether boundless when he found the retreat determined upon. But ... opinion has, by degrees, justified Count Wittgenstein's resolution to recross the Elbe and fall back on the reinforcements advancing to join the army. ... On the 8th of May, Napoleon held his triumphal entrance into Dresden. ... On the advance of the Allies, the Saxon monarch had retired to Ratisbon, and from thence to Prague, intending, as he informed Napoleon, to join his efforts to the mediation of Austria. Orders had, at the same time, been given to General Thielman, commanding the Saxon troops at Torgau, to maintain the most perfect neutrality, and to admit neither of the contending parties within the walls of the fortress. Exasperated by this show of independence, Napoleon caused the following demands to be submitted to the King, allowing him only six hours to determine on their acceptance or refusal;

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1. 'General Thielman and the Saxon troops instantly evacuate Torgau, and form the 7th corps under General Réynier; and all the resources of the country to be at the disposal of the Emperor, in conformity with the principles of the Confederation of the Rhine.'

2. 'The Saxon Cavalry'--some regiments had accompanied the King--'return immediately to Dresden.'

3. 'The King declares, in a letter to the Emperor, that he is still a member of the Confederation of the Rhine, and ready to fulfil all the obligations which it imposes upon him.'

'If these conditions are not immediately complied with,' says Napoleon in the instructions to his messenger, 'you will cause his Majesty to be informed that he is guilty of felony, has forfeited the Imperial protection, and has ceased to reign.' ... Frederick Augustus, finding himself threatened with the loss of his crown by an overbearing conqueror already in possession of his capital, ... yielded in an evil hour to those imperious demands, and returned to Dresden. ... Fortune appeared again to smile upon her spoiled and favoured child; and he resolved, on his part, to leave no expedient untried to make the most of her returning aid. The mediation of Austria, which from the first had been galling to his pride, became more hateful every day, as it gradually assumed the appearance of an armed interference, ready to enforce its demands by military means. ... Tidings having arrived that the allied army, instead of continuing their retreat, had halted and taken post at Bautzen, he immediately resolved to strike a decisive blow in the field, as the best means of thwarting the pacific efforts of his father-in-law."

Lieutenant Colonel J. Mitchell, The Fall of Napoleon, book 2, chapter 1 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1789-1815, chapter 75 (volume 13).

Duchess d'Abrantes, Memoirs of Napoleon, volume 2, chapter 44.

GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (May-August). Battle of Bautzen. Armistice of Pleswitz. Accession of Austria and Great Britain to the Coalition against Napoleon.

"While the Emperor paused at Dresden, Ney made various demonstrations in the direction of Berlin, with the view of inducing the Allies to quit Bautzen; but it soon became manifest that they had resolved to sacrifice the Prussian capital, if it were necessary, rather than forego their position. ... Having replaced by wood-work some arches of the magnificent bridge over the Elbe at Dresden, which the Allies had blown up on their retreat, Napoleon now moved towards Bautzen, and came in sight of the position on the morning of the 21st of May. Its strength was obviously great. In their front was the river Spree: wooded hills supported their right, and eminences well fortified their left. The action began with an attempt to turn their right, but Barclay de Tolly anticipated this movement, and repelled it with such vigour that a whole column of 7,000 dispersed and fled into the hills of Bohemia for safety. The Emperor then determined to pass the Spree in front of the enemy, and they permitted him to do so, rather than come down from their position. He took up his quarters in the town of Bautzen, and his whole army bivouacked in presence of the Allies. The battle was resumed at daybreak on the 22d; when Ney on the right, and Oudinot on the left; attempted simultaneously to turn the flanks of the position; while Soult and Napoleon himself directed charge after charge on the centre. During four hours the struggle was maintained with unflinching obstinacy; the wooded heights, where Blucher commanded, had been taken and retaken several times--the bloodshed on either side had been terrible--ere ... the Allies perceived the necessity either of retiring, or of continuing the fight against superior numbers on disadvantageous ground. They withdrew accordingly; but still with all the deliberate coolness of a parade, halting at every favourable spot and renewing their cannonade. 'What,' exclaimed Napoleon, 'no results! not a gun! not a prisoner!--these people will not leave me so much as a nail.' During the whole day he urged the pursuit with impetuous rage, reproaching even his chosen generals as 'creeping scoundrels,' and exposing his own person in the very hottest of the fire." His closest friend, Duroc, Grand Master of the Palace, was mortally wounded by his side, before he gave up the pursuit. "The Allies, being strongly posted during most of the day, had suffered less than the French; the latter had lost 15,000, the former 10,000 men. They continued their retreat into Upper Silesia; and Buonaparte advanced to Breslau, and released the garrison of Glogau. Meanwhile the Austrian, having watched these indecisive though bloody fields, once more renewed his offers of mediation. The sovereigns of Russia and Prussia expressed great willingness to accept it; and Napoleon also appears to have been sincerely desirous for the moment of bringing his disputes to a peaceful termination. He agreed to an armistice [of six weeks], and in arranging its conditions agreed to fall back out of Silesia; thus enabling the allied princes to reopen communications with Berlin. The lines of country to be occupied by the armies, respectively, during the truce, were at length settled, and it was signed on the 1st of June [at Poischwitz, though the negotiations were mostly carried on at Pleswitz, whence the Armistice is usually named]. The French Emperor then returned to Dresden, and a general congress of diplomatists prepared to meet at Prague. England alone refused to send any representative to Prague, alleging that Buonaparte had as yet signified no disposition to recede from his pretensions on Spain, and that he had consented to the armistice with the sole view of gaining time for political intrigue and further military preparation. It may be doubted whether any of the allied powers who took part in the Congress did so with much hope that the disputes with Napoleon could find a peaceful end. ... But it was of the utmost importance to gain time for the advance of Bernadotte; for the arrival of new reinforcements from Russia; for the completion of the Prussian organization; and, above all, for determining the policy of Vienna. Metternich, the Austrian minister, repaired in person to Dresden, and while inferior diplomatists wasted time in endless discussions at Prague, one interview between him and Napoleon brought the whole question to a definite issue. The Emperor ... assumed at once that Austria had no wish but to drive a good bargain for herself, and asked broadly, 'What is your price? Will Illyria satisfy you? I only wish you to be neutral--I can deal with these Russians and Prussians single-handed.' {1525} Metternich stated plainly that the time in which Austria could be neutral was past; that the situation of Europe at large must be considered; ... that events had proved the impossibility of a steadfast peace unless the sovereigns of the Continent were restored to the rank of independence; in a word, that the Rhenish Confederacy must be broken up; that France must be contented with the boundary of the Rhine, and pretend no longer to maintain her usurped and unnatural influence in Germany. Napoleon replied by a gross personal insult: 'Come, Metternich,' said he, 'tell me honestly how much the English have given you to take their part against me.' The Austrian court at length sent a formal document, containing its ultimatum, the tenor of which Metternich had sufficiently indicated in this conversation. Talleyrand and Fouché, who had now arrived from Paris, urged the Emperor to accede to the proffered terms. They represented to him the madness of rousing all Europe to conspire for his destruction, and insinuated that the progress of discontent was rapid in France itself. Their arguments were backed by intelligence of the most disastrous character from Spain. ...

See SPAIN: A. D. 1812-1814.

Napoleon was urged by his military as well as political advisers, to appreciate duly the crisis which his affairs had reached. ... He proceeded to insult both ministers and generals ... and ended by announcing that he did not wish for any plans of theirs, but their service in the execution of his. Thus blinded by arrogance and self-confidence, and incapable of weighing any other considerations against what he considered as the essence of his personal glory, Napoleon refused to abate one iota of his pretensions--until it was too late. Then, indeed, ... he did show some symptoms of concession. A courier arrived at Prague with a note, in which he signified his willingness to accede to a considerable number of the Austrian stipulations. But this was on the 11th of August. The day preceding was that on which, by the agreement, the armistice was to end. On that day Austria had to sign an alliance, offensive and defensive, with Russia and Prussia. On the night between the 10th and 11th, rockets answering rockets, from height to height along the frontiers of Bohemia and Silesia, had announced to all the armies of the Allies this accession of strength, and the immediate recommencement of hostilities."

J. G. Lockhart, Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, chapters 32-33.

"On the 14th of June Great Britain had become a party to the treaty concluded between Russia and Prussia. She had promised assistance in this great struggle; but no aid could have been more effectual than that which she was rendering in the Peninsula."

C. Knight, Popular History of England, chapter 32 (volume 7).

ALSO IN: G. R. Gleig, The Leipsic Campaign, chapters 7-16.

A. Thiers, History of the Consulate and the Empire, book 48-49 (volume 4).

Prince Metternich, Memoirs, 1773-1815, book 1, chapter 8 (volume 1).

J. R. Seeley, Life and Times of Stein, part 7, chapters 4-5 (volume 3).

J. Philippart, Northern Campaign, 1812-1813, volume 2.

GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (August). Great battle and victory of Napoleon at Dresden. French defeats at Kulm, Gross-Beeren and the Katzbach.

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