A History of Germany Part 28

On both sides the troops had been arranged with great military skill.

Wallenstein had 25,000 men and Gustavus 20,000. The latter made a stirring address to his Swedes, and then the whole army united in singing Luther's grand hymn: "Our Lord He is a Tower of Strength." For several hours the battle raged furiously, without any marked advantage on either side; then the Swedes broke Wallenstein's left wing and captured the artillery. The Imperialists rallied and retook it, throwing the Swedes into some confusion. Gustavus rode forward to rally them and was carried by his horse among the enemy. A shot, fired at close quarters, shattered his left arm, but he refused to leave the field, and shortly afterwards a second shot struck him from his horse. The sight of the steed, covered with blood and wildly galloping to and fro, told the Swedes what had happened; but, instead of being disheartened, they fought more furiously than before, under the command of Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar.

[Sidenote: 1632. THE BATTLE OF LuTZEN.]

At this juncture Pappenheim, who had been summoned from Halle the day before, arrived on the field. His first impetuous charge drove the Swedes back, but he also fell, mortally wounded, his cavalry began to waver, and the lost ground was regained. Night put an end to the conflict, and before morning Wallenstein retreated to Leipzig, leaving all his artillery and colors on the field. The body of Gustavus Adolphus was found after a long search, buried under a heap of dead, stripped, mutilated by the hoofs of horses, and barely recognizable. The loss to the Protestant cause seemed irreparable, but the heroic king, in falling, had so crippled the power of its most dangerous enemy that its remaining adherents had a little breathing-time left them, to arrange for carrying on the struggle.

Wallenstein was so weakened that he did not even remain in Saxony, but retired to Bohemia, where he vented his rage on his own soldiers. The Protestant princes felt themselves powerless without the aid of Sweden, and when the Chancellor of the kingdom, Oxenstierna, decided to carry on the war, they could not do otherwise than accept him as the head of the Protestant Union, in the place of Gustavus Adolphus. A meeting was held at Heilbronn, in the spring of 1633, at which the Suabian, Franconian and Rhenish princes formally joined the new league. Duke Bernard and the Swedish Marshal Horn were appointed commanders of the army. Electoral Saxony and Brandenburg, as before, hesitated and half drew back, but they finally consented to favor the movement without joining it, and each accepted 100,000 thalers a year from France, to pay them for the trouble. Richelieu had an amba.s.sador at Heilbronn, who promised large subsidies to the Protestant side: it was in the interest of France to break the power of the Hapsburgs, and there was also a chance, in the struggle, of gaining another slice of German territory.

[Sidenote: 1633.]

Hostilities were renewed, and for a considerable time the Protestant armies were successful everywhere. William of Hesse and Duke George of Brunswick defeated the Imperialists and held Westphalia; Duke Bernard took Bamberg and moved against Bavaria; Saxony and Silesia were delivered from the enemy, and Marshal Horn took possession of Alsatia.

Duke Bernard and Horn were only prevented from overrunning all Bavaria by a mutiny which broke out in their armies, and deprived them of several weeks of valuable time.

While these movements were going on, Wallenstein remained idle at Prague, in spite of the repeated and pressing entreaties of the Emperor that he would take the field. He seems to have considered his personal power secured, and was only in doubt as to the next step which he should take in his ambitious career. Finally, in May, he marched into Silesia, easily out-generaled Arnheim, who commanded the Protestant armies, but declined to follow up his advantage, and concluded an armistice. Secret negotiations then began between Wallenstein, Arnheim and the French amba.s.sador: the project was that Wallenstein should come over to the Protestant side, in return for the crown of Bohemia. Louis XIII. of France promised his aid, but Chancellor Oxenstierna, distrusting Wallenstein, refused to be a party to the plan. There is no positive evidence, indeed, that Wallenstein consented: it rather seems that he was only courting offers from the Protestant side, in order to have a choice of advantages, but without binding himself in any way.

Ferdinand II., in his desperation, summoned a Spanish army from Italy to his aid. This was a new offence to Wallenstein, since the new troops were not placed under his command. In the autumn of 1633, however, he felt obliged to make some movement. He entered Silesia, defeated a Protestant army under Count Thurn, overran the greater part of Saxony and Brandenburg, and threatened Pomerania. In the meantime the Spanish and Austrian troops in Bavaria had been forced to fall back, Duke Bernard had taken Ratisbon, and the road to Vienna was open to him.

Ferdinand II. and Maximilian of Bavaria sent messenger after messenger to Wallenstein, imploring him to return from the North without delay. He moved with the greatest slowness, evidently enjoying their anxiety and alarm, crossed the northern frontier of Bavaria, and then, instead of marching against Duke Bernard, he turned about and took up his winter-quarters at Pilsen, in Bohemia.

[Sidenote: 1634. WALLENSTEIN'S CONSPIRACY.]

Here he received an order from the Emperor, commanding him to march instantly against Ratisbon, and further, to send 6,000 of his best cavalry to the Spanish army. This step compelled him, after a year's hesitation, to act without further delay. He was already charged, at Vienna, with being a traitor to the Imperial cause: he now decided to become one, in reality. He first confided his design to his brothers-in-law, Counts Kinsky and Terzky, and one of his Generals, Illo. Then a council of war, of all the chief officers of his army, was called on the 11th of January, 1634; Wallenstein stated what Ferdinand II. had ordered, and in a cunning speech commented on the latter's ingrat.i.tude to the army which had saved him, ending by declaring that he should instantly resign his command. The officers were thunderstruck: they had boundless faith in Wallenstein's military genius, and they saw themselves deprived of glory, pay and plunder by his resignation. He and his a.s.sociates skilfully made use of their excitement: at a grand banquet, the next day, all of them, numbering 42, signed a doc.u.ment pledging their entire fidelity to Wallenstein.

General Piccolomini, one of the signers, betrayed all this to the Emperor, who, twelve days afterwards, appointed General Gallas, another of the signers, commander in Wallenstein's stead. At the same time a secret order was issued for the seizure of Wallenstein, Illo and Terzky, dead or alive. Both sides were now secretly working against each other, but Wallenstein's former delay told against him. He could not go over to the Protestant side, unless certain important conditions were secured in advance, and while his agents were negotiating with Duke Bernard, his own army, privately worked upon by Gallas and other agents of the Emperor, began to desert him. What arrangement was made with Duke Bernard, is uncertain; the chief evidence is that he, and Wallenstein with the few thousand troops who still stood by him, moved rapidly towards each other, as if to join their forces.

[Sidenote: 1634.]

On the 24th of February, 1634, Wallenstein reached the town of Eger, near the Bohemian frontier: only two or three more days were required, to consummate his plan. Then Colonel Butler, an Irishman, and two Scotch officers, Gordon and Leslie, conspired to murder him and his a.s.sociates--no doubt in consequence of instructions received from Vienna. Illo, Terzky and Kinsky accepted an invitation to a banquet in the citadel, the following evening; but Wallenstein, who was unwell, remained in his quarters in the Burgomaster's house. Everything had been carefully prepared, in advance: at a given signal, Gordon and Leslie put out the lights, dragoons entered the banquet-hall, and the three victims were murdered in cold blood. Then a Captain Devereux, with six soldiers, forced his way into the Burgomaster's house, on pretence of bearing important dispatches, cut down Wallenstein's servant and entered the room where he lay. Wallenstein, seeing that his hour had come, made no resistance, but silently received his death-blow.

When Duke Bernard arrived, a day or two afterwards, he found Eger defended by the Imperialists. Ferdinand II. shed tears when he heard of Wallenstein's death, and ordered 3,000 ma.s.ses to be said for his soul; but, at the same time, he raised the a.s.sa.s.sins, Butler and Leslie, to the rank of Count, and rewarded them splendidly for the deed.

Wallenstein's immense estates were divided among the officers who had sworn to support him, and had then secretly gone over to the Emperor.

CHAPTER XXIX.

END OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.

(1634--1648.)

The Battle of Nordlingen. --Aid furnished by France. --Treachery of Protestant Princes. --Offers of Ferdinand II. --Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar visits Paris. --His Agreement with Louis XIII. --His Victories. --Death of Ferdinand II. --Ferdinand III. succeeds.

--Duke Bernard's Bravery, Popularity and Death. --Banner's Successes. --Torstenson's Campaigns. --He threatens Vienna. --The French victorious in Southern Germany. --Movements for Peace.

--Wrangel's Victories. --Capture of Prague by the Swedes. --The Peace of Westphalia. --Its Provisions. --The Religious Settlement.

--Defeat of the Church of Rome. --Desolation of Germany.

--Sufferings and Demoralization of the People. --Practical Overthrow of the Empire. --A Mult.i.tude of Independent States.

[Sidenote: 1634. DEFEAT OF THE PROTESTANTS.]

The Austrian army, composed chiefly of Wallenstein's troops and commanded nominally by the Emperor's son, the Archduke Ferdinand, but really by General Gallas, marched upon Ratisbon and forced the Swedish garrison to surrender before Duke Bernard, hastening back from Eger, could reach the place. Then, uniting with the Spanish and Bavarian forces, the Archduke took Donauworth and began the siege of the fortified town of Nordlingen, in Wurtemberg. Duke Bernard effected a junction with Marshal Horn, and, with his usual daring, determined to attack the Imperialists at once. Horn endeavored to dissuade him, but in vain: the battle was fought on the 6th of September, 1634, and the Protestants were terribly defeated, losing 12,000 men, beside 6,000 prisoners, and nearly all their artillery and baggage-wagons. Marshal Horn was among the prisoners, and Duke Bernard barely succeeded in escaping with a few followers.

The result of this defeat was that Wurtemberg and the Palatinate were again ravaged by Catholic armies. Oxenstierna, who was consulting with the Protestant princes in Frankfort, suddenly found himself nearly deserted: only Hesse-Ca.s.sel, Wurtemberg and Baden remained on his side.

In this crisis he turned to France, which agreed to a.s.sist the Swedes against the Emperor, in return for more territory in Lorraine and Alsatia. For the first time, Richelieu found it advisable to give up his policy of aiding the Protestants with money, and now openly supported them with French troops. John George of Saxony, who had driven the Imperialists from his land and invaded Bohemia, cunningly took advantage of the Emperor's new danger, and made a separate treaty with him, at Prague, in May, 1635. The latter gave up the "Edict of Rest.i.tution" so far as Saxony was concerned, and made a few other concessions, none of which favored the Protestants in other lands. On the other hand, he positively refused to grant religious freedom to Austria, and excepted Baden, the Palatinate and Wurtemberg from the provision which allowed other princes to join Saxony in the treaty.

[Sidenote: 1635.]

Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Brunswick, Anhalt, and many free cities followed the example of Saxony. The most important, and--apparently for the Swedes and South-German Protestants--fatal provision of the treaty was that all the States which accepted it should combine to raise an army to enforce it, the said army to be placed at the Emperor's disposal. The effect of this was to create a union of the Catholics and German Lutherans against the Swedish Lutherans and German Calvinists--a measure which gave Germany many more years of fire and blood. Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar and the Landgrave of Hesse-Ca.s.sel scorned to be parties to such a compact: the Swedes and South-Germans were outraged and indignant: John George was openly denounced as a traitor, as, on the Catholic side, the Emperor was also denounced, because he had agreed to yield anything whatever to the Protestants. France, only, enjoyed the miseries of the situation.

Ferdinand II. was evidently weary of the war, which had now lasted nearly eighteen years, and he made an effort to terminate it by offering to Sweden three and a half millions of florins and to Duke Bernard a princ.i.p.ality in Franconia, provided they would accept the treaty of Prague. Both refused: the latter took command of 12,000 French troops and marched into Alsatia, while the Swedish General Banner defeated the Saxons, who had taken the field against him, in three successive battles. The Imperialists, who had meanwhile retaken Alsatia and invaded France, were recalled to Germany by Banner's victories, and Duke Bernard, at the same time, went to Paris to procure additional support.

During the years 1636 and 1637 nearly all Germany was wasted by the opposing armies; the struggle had become fiercer and more barbarous than ever, and the last resources of many States were so exhausted that famine and disease carried off nearly all of the population whom the sword had spared.

[Sidenote: 1636. DUKE BERNARD IN PARIS.]

Duke Bernard made an agreement with Louis XIII. whereby he received the rank of Marshal of France, and a subsidy of four million livres a year, to pay for a force of 18,000 men, which he undertook to raise in Germany. After the death of Gustavus Adolphus, the hope of the Protestants was centred on him; soldiers flocked to his standard at once, and his fortunes suddenly changed. The Swedes were driven from Northern Germany, with the aid of the Elector of Brandenburg, who surrendered to the Emperor the most important of his rights as reigning prince: by the end of 1637, Banner was compelled to retreat to the Baltic coast, and there await reinforcements. At the same time, Duke Bernard entered Alsatia, routed the Imperialists, took their commander prisoner, and soon gained possession of all the territory with the exception of the fortress of Breisach, to which he laid siege.

On the 15th of February, 1637, the Emperor Ferdinand II. died, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, after having occasioned, by his policy, the death of 10,000,000 of human beings. Yet the responsibility of his fatal and terrible reign rests not so much upon himself, personally, as upon the Jesuits who educated him. He appears to have sincerely believed that it was better to reign over a desert than a Protestant people. As a man he was courageous, patient, simple in his tastes, and without personal vices. But all the weaknesses and crimes of his worst predecessors, added together, were scarcely a greater curse to the German people than his devotion to what he considered the true faith. His son, Ferdinand III., was immediately elected to succeed him. The Protestants considered him less subject to the Jesuits and more kindly disposed towards themselves, but they were mistaken: he adopted all the measures of his father, and carried on the war with equal zeal and cruelty.

[Sidenote: 1638.]

More than one army was sent to the relief of Breisach, but Duke Bernard defeated them all, and in December, 1638, the strong fortress surrendered to him. His compact with France stipulated that he should possess the greater part of Alsatia as his own independent princ.i.p.ality, after conquering it, relinquishing to France the northern portion, bordering on Lorraine. But now Louis XIII. demanded Breisach, making its surrender to him the condition of further a.s.sistance. Bernard refused, gave up the French subsidy, and determined to carry on the war alone.

His popularity was so great that his chance of success seemed good: he was a brave, devout and n.o.ble-minded man, whose strong personal ambition was always controlled by his conscience. The people had entire faith in him, and showed him the same reverence which they had manifested towards Gustavus Adolphus; yet their hope, as before, only preceded their loss.

In the midst of his preparations Duke Bernard died suddenly, on the 18th of July, 1639, only thirty-six years old. It was generally believed that he had been poisoned by a secret agent of France, but there is no evidence that this was the case, except that a French army instantly marched into Alsatia and held the country.

Duke Bernard's successes, nevertheless, had drawn a part of the Imperialists from Northern Germany, and in 1638 Banner, having recruited his army, marched through Brandenburg and Saxony into the heart of Bohemia, burning and plundering as he went, with no less barbarity than Tilly or Wallenstein. Although repulsed in 1639, near Prague, by the Archduke Leopold (Ferdinand III.'s brother), he only retired as far as Thuringia, where he was again strengthened by Hessian and French troops.

In this condition of affairs, Ferdinand III. called a Diet, which met at Ratisbon in the autumn of 1640. A majority of the Protestant members united with the Catholics in their enmity to Sweden and France, but they seemed incapable of taking any measures to put an end to the dreadful war: month after month went by and nothing was done.

Then Banner conceived the bold design of capturing the Emperor and the Diet. He made a winter march, with such skill and swiftness, that he appeared before the walls of Ratisbon at the same moment with the first news of his movement. Nothing but a sudden thaw, and the breaking up of the ice in the Danube, prevented him from being successful. In May, 1641, he died, his army broke up, and the Emperor began to recover some of the lost ground. Several of the Protestant princes showed signs of submission, and amba.s.sadors from Austria, France and Sweden met at Hamburg to decide where and how a Peace Congress might be held.

[Sidenote: 1642. VICTORIES OF TORSTENSON.]

In 1642 the Swedish army was reorganized under the command of Torstenson, one of the greatest of the many distinguished generals of the time. Although he was a constant sufferer from gout and had to be carried in a litter, he was no less rapid than daring and successful in all his military operations. His first campaign was through Silesia and Bohemia, almost to the gates of Vienna; then, returning through Saxony, towards the close of the year, he almost annihilated the army of Piccolomini before the walls of Leipzig. The Elector John George, fighting on the Catholic side, was forced to take refuge in Bohemia.

Denmark having declared war against Sweden, Torstenson made a campaign in Holstein and Jutland in 1643, in conjunction with a Swedish fleet on the coast, and soon brought Denmark to terms. The Imperialist general, Gallas, followed him, but was easily defeated, and then Torstenson, in turn, followed him back through Bohemia into Austria. In March, 1645, the Swedish army won such a splendid victory near Tabor, that Ferdinand III. had scarcely any troops left to oppose their march. Again Torstenson appeared before Vienna, and was about commencing the siege of the city, when a pestilence broke out among his troops and compelled him to retire, as before, through Saxony. Worn out with the fatigues of his marches, he died before the end of the year, and the command was given to General Wrangel.

During this time the French, under the famous Marshals, Turenne and Conde, had not only maintained themselves in Alsatia, but had crossed the Rhine and ravaged Baden, the Palatinate, Wurtemberg and part of Franconia. Although badly defeated by the Bavarians in the early part of 1645, they were reinforced by the Swedes and Hessians, and, before the close of the year, won such a victory over the united Imperialist forces, not far from Donauworth, that all Bavaria lay open to them. The effect of these French successes, and of those of the Swedes under Torstenson, was to deprive Ferdinand III. of nearly his whole military strength. John George of Saxony concluded a separate armistice with the Swedes, thus violating the treaty of Prague, which had cost his people ten years of blood. He was followed by Frederick William, the young Elector of Brandenburg; and then Maximilian of Bavaria, in March, 1647, also negotiated a separate armistice with France and Sweden. Ferdinand III. was thus left with a force of only 12,000 men, the command of which, as he had no Catholic generals left, was given to a renegade Calvinist named Melander von Holzapfel.

[Sidenote: 1645.]

The chief obstacle to peace--the power of the Hapsburgs--now seemed to be broken down. The wanton and tremendous effort made to crush out Protestantism in Germany, although helped by the selfishness, the cowardice or the miserable jealousy of so many Protestant princes, had signally failed, owing to the intervention of three foreign powers, one of which was Catholic. Yet the Peace Congress, which had been agreed upon in 1643, had accomplished nothing. It was divided into two bodies: the amba.s.sadors of the Emperor were to negotiate at Osnabruck with Sweden, as the representative of the Protestant powers, and at Munster with France, as the representative of the Catholic powers which desired peace. Two more years elapsed before all the amba.s.sadors came together, and then a great deal of time was spent in arranging questions of rank, t.i.tle and ceremony, which seem to have been considered much more important than the weal or woe of a whole people. Spain, Holland, Venice, Poland and Denmark also sent representatives, and about the end of 1645 the Congress was sufficiently organized to commence its labors.

But, as the war was still being waged with as much fury as ever, one side waited and then the other for the result of battles and campaigns; and so two more years were squandered.

After the armistice with Maximilian of Bavaria, the Swedish general, Wrangel, marched into Bohemia, where he gained so many advantages that Maximilian finally took sides again with the Emperor and drove the Swedes into Northern Germany. Then, early in 1648, Wrangel effected a junction with Marshal Turenne, and the combined Swedish and French armies overran all Bavaria, defeated the Imperialists in a b.l.o.o.d.y battle, and stood ready to invade Austria. At the same time Konigsmark, with another Swedish army, entered Bohemia, stormed and took half the city of Prague, and only waited the approach of Wrangel and Turenne to join them in a combined movement upon Vienna. But before this movement could be executed, Ferdinand III. had decided to yield. His amba.s.sadors at Osnabruck and Munster had received instructions, and lost no time in acting upon them: the proclamation of peace, after such heartless delays, came suddenly and put an end to thirty years of war.

[Sidenote: 1648. THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA.]

The Peace of Westphalia, as it is called, was concluded on the 24th of October, 1648. Inasmuch as its provisions extended not to Germany alone, but fixed the political relations of Europe for a period of nearly a hundred and fifty years, they must be briefly stated. France and Sweden, as the military powers which were victorious in the end, sought to draw the greatest advantages from the necessities of Germany, but France opposed any settlement of the religious questions (in order to keep a chance open for future interference), and Sweden demanded an immediate and final settlement, which was agreed to. France received Lorraine, with the cities of Metz, Toul and Verdun, which she had held nearly a hundred years, all Southern Alsatia with the fortress of Breisach, the right of appointing the governors of ten German cities, and other rights which practically placed nearly the whole of Alsatia in her power.

Sweden received the northern half of Pomerania, with the cities of Wismar and Stettin, and the coast between Bremen and Hamburg, together with an indemnity of 5,000,000 thalers. Electoral Saxony received Lusatia and part of the territory of Magdeburg. Brandenburg received the other half of Pomerania, the archbishopric of Magdeburg, the bishoprics of Minden and Halberstadt, and other territory which had belonged to the Roman Church. Additions were made to the domains of Mecklenburg, Brunswick, and Hesse-Ca.s.sel, and the latter was also awarded an indemnity of 600,000 thalers. Bavaria received the Upper Palatinate (north of the Danube), and Baden, Wurtemberg and Na.s.sau were restored to their banished rulers. Other petty States were confirmed in the position which they had occupied before the war, and the independence of Switzerland and Holland was acknowledged.

In regard to Religion, the results were much more important to the world. Both Calvinists and Lutherans received entire freedom of worship and equal civil rights with the Catholics. Ferdinand II.'s "Edict of Rest.i.tution" was withdrawn, and the territories which had been secularized up to the year 1624 were not given back to the Church.