A History of Germany Part 29

Universal amnesty was decreed for everything which had happened during the war, except for the Austrian Protestants, whose possessions were not restored to them. The Emperor retained the authority of deciding questions of war and peace, taxation, defences, alliances, &c. with the concurrence of the Diet: he acknowledged the absolute sovereignty of the several Princes in their own States, and conceded to them the right of forming alliances among themselves or with foreign powers! A special article of the treaty prohibited all persons from writing, speaking or teaching anything contrary to its provisions.

[Sidenote: 1648.]

The Pope (at that time Innocent X.) declared the Treaty of Westphalia null and void, and issued a bull against its observance. The parties to the treaty, however, did not allow this bull to be published in Germany.

The Catholics in all parts of the country (except Austria, Styria and the Tyrol) had suffered almost as severely as the Protestants, and would have welcomed the return of peace upon any terms which simply left their faith free.

Nothing shows so conclusively how wantonly and wickedly the Thirty Years' War was undertaken than the fact that the Peace of 1648, in a religious point of view, yielded even more to the Protestants than the Religious Peace of Augsburg, granted by Charles V. in 1555. After a hundred years, the Church of Rome, acting through its tools, the Hapsburg Emperors, was forced to give up the contest: the sword of slaughter was rusted to the hilt by the blood it had shed, and yet religious freedom was saved to Germany. It was not zeal for the spread of Christian truth which inspired this fearful Crusade against twenty-five millions of Protestants, for the Catholics equally acknowledged the authority of the Bible: it was the despotic determination of the Roman Church to rule the minds and consciences of all men, through its Pope and its priesthood.

Thirty years of war! The slaughters of Rome's worst Emperors, the persecution of the Christians under Nero and Diocletian, the invasions of the Huns and Magyars, the long struggle of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, left no such desolation behind them. At the beginning of the century, the population of the German Empire was about thirty millions: when the Peace of Westphalia was declared, it was scarcely more than twelve millions! Electoral Saxony, alone, lost 900,000 lives in two years. The population of Augsburg had diminished from 80,000 to 18,000, and out of 500,000 inhabitants, Wurtemberg had but 48,000 left.

The city of Berlin contained but three hundred citizens, the whole of the Palatinate of the Rhine but two hundred farmers. In Hesse-Ca.s.sel seventeen cities, forty-seven castles and three hundred villages were entirely destroyed by fire: thousands of villages, in all parts of the country, had but four or five families left out of hundreds, and landed property sank to about one-twentieth of its former value. Franconia was so depopulated that an a.s.sembly held in Nuremberg ordered the Catholic priests to marry, and permitted all other men to have two wives. The horses, cattle and sheep were exterminated in many districts, the supplies of grain were at an end, even for sowing, and large cultivated tracts had relapsed into a wilderness. Even the orchards and vineyards had been wantonly destroyed wherever the armies had pa.s.sed. So terrible was the ravage that in a great many localities, the same amount of population, cattle, acres of cultivated land and general prosperity, was not restored until the year 1848, two centuries afterwards!

[Sidenote: 1648. DESOLATION OF GERMANY.]

This statement of the losses of Germany, however, was but a small part of the suffering endured. Only two commanders, Gustavus Adolphus and Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, preserved rigid discipline among their troops, and prevented them from plundering the people. All others allowed, or were powerless to prevent, the most savage outrages. During the last ten or twelve years of the war both Protestants and Catholics vied with each other in deeds of barbarity; the soldiers were nothing but highway robbers, who maimed and tortured the country people to make them give up their last remaining property, and drove hundreds of thousands of them into the woods and mountains to die miserably or live as half-savages. Mult.i.tudes of others flocked to the cities for refuge, only to be visited by fire and famine. In the year 1637, when Ferdinand II. died, the want was so great that men devoured each other, and even hunted down human beings like deer or hares, in order to feed upon them.

Great numbers committed suicide, to avoid a slow death by hunger: on the island of Rugen many poor creatures were found dead, with their mouths full of gra.s.s, and in some districts attempts were made to knead earth into bread. Then followed a pestilence which carried off a large proportion of the survivors. A writer of the time exclaims: "A thousand times ten thousand souls, the spirits of innocent children butchered in this unholy war, cry day and night unto G.o.d for vengeance, and cease not: while those who have caused all these miseries live in peace and freedom, and the shout of revelry and the voice of music are heard in their dwellings!"

[Sidenote: 1648.]

In character, in intelligence and in morality, the German people were set back two hundred years. All branches of industry had declined, commerce had almost entirely ceased, literature and the arts were suppressed, and except the astronomical discoveries of Copernicus and Kepler there was no contribution to human knowledge. Even the modern High-German language, which Luther had made the cla.s.sic tongue of the land, seemed to be on the point of perishing. Spaniards and Italians on the Catholic, Swedes and French on the Protestant side, flooded the country with foreign words and expressions, the use of which soon became an affectation with the n.o.bility, who did their best to destroy their native language. Wallenstein's letters to the Emperor were a curious mixture of German, French, Spanish, Italian and Latin.

Politically, the change was no less disastrous. The ambition of the house of Hapsburg, it is true, had brought its own punishment; the imperial dignity was secured to it, but henceforth the head of the "Holy Roman Empire" was not much more than a shadow. Each petty State became, practically, an independent nation, with power to establish its own foreign relations, make war and contract alliances. Thus Germany, as a whole, lost her place among the powers of Europe, and could not possibly regain it under such an arrangement: the Emperor and the Princes, together, had skilfully planned her decline and fall. The n.o.bles who, in former centuries, had maintained a certain amount of independence, were almost as much demoralized as the people, and when every little prince began to imitate Louis XIV. and set up his own Versailles, the n.o.bles in his territory became his courtiers and government officials. As for the ma.s.s of the people, their spirit was broken: for a time they gave up even the longing for rights which they had lost, and taught their children abject obedience in order that they might simply _live_.

[Sidenote: 1648. THE GERMAN STATES.]

After the Thirty Years' War, Germany was composed of nine Electorates, twenty-four Religious Princ.i.p.alities (Catholic), nine princely Abbots, ten princely Abbesses, twenty-four Princes with seat and vote in the Diet, thirteen Princes without seat and vote, sixty-two Counts of the Empire, fifty-one Cities of the Empire, and about one thousand Knights of the Empire. These last, however, no longer possessed any political power. But, without them, there were two hundred and three more or less independent, jealous and conflicting States, united by a bond which was more imaginary than real; and this confused, unnatural state of things continued until Napoleon came to put an end to it.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

GERMANY, TO THE PEACE OF RYSWICK.

(1648--1697.)

Contemporary History. --Germany in the Seventeenth Century. --Influence of Louis XIV. --Leopold I. of Austria. --Petty Despotisms. --The Great Elector. --Invasions of Louis XIV. --The Elector Aids Holland. --War with France. --Battle of Fehrbellin. --French Ravages in Baden. --The Peace of Nymwegen. --The Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns. --Louis XIV. seizes Strasburg. --Vienna besieged by the Turks. --Sobieski's Victory. --Events in Hungary. --Prince Eugene of Savoy. --Victories over the Turks. --French Invasion of Germany. --French Barbarity. --Death of the Great Elector. --The War with France. --Peace of Ryswick. --Position of the German States. --The Diet. --The Imperial Court. --State of Learning and Literature.

[Sidenote: 1648.]

The Peace of Westphalia coincides with the beginning of great changes throughout Europe. The leading position on the Continent, which Germany had preserved from the treaty of Verdun until the accession of Charles V.--nearly 700 years--was lost beyond recovery: it had pa.s.sed into the hands of France, where Louis XIV. was just commencing his long and brilliant reign. Spain, after a hundred years of supremacy, was in a rapid decline; the new Republic of Holland was mistress of the seas, and Sweden was the great power of Northern Europe. In England, Charles I.

had lost his throne, and Cromwell was at work, laying the foundation of a broader and firmer power than either the Tudors or the Stuarts had ever built. Poland was still a large and strong kingdom, and Russia was only beginning to attract the notice of other nations. The Italian Republics had seen their best days: even the power of Venice was slowly crumbling to pieces. The coast of America, from Maine to Virginia, was dotted with little English, Dutch and Swedish settlements, only a few of which had safely pa.s.sed through their first struggle for existence.

[Sidenote: 1657. ELECTION OF LEOPOLD I.]

The history of Germany, during the remainder of the seventeenth century, furnishes few events upon which the intelligent and patriotic German of to-day can look back with any satisfaction. Austria was the princ.i.p.al power, through her territory and population, as well as the Imperial dignity, which was thenceforth accorded to her as a matter of habit. The provision of religious liberty had not been extended to her people, who were now forcibly made Catholic; the former legislative a.s.semblies, even the privileges of the n.o.bles, had been suppressed, and the rule of the Hapsburgs was as absolute a despotism as that of Louis XIV. When Ferdinand III. died, in 1657, the "Great Monarch," as the French call him, made an attempt to be elected his successor: he purchased the votes of the Archbishops of Mayence, Treves and Cologne, and might have carried the day but for the determined resistance of the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony. Even had he been successful, it is doubtful whether his influence over the most of the German Princes would have been greater than it was in reality.

Ferdinand's son, Leopold I., a stupid, weak-minded youth of eighteen, was chosen Emperor in 1658. Like his ancestor, Frederick III., whom he most resembled, his reign was as long as it was useless. Until the year 1705 he was the imaginary ruler of an imaginary Empire: Vienna was a faint reflection of Madrid, as every other little capital was of Paris.

The Hapsburgs and the Bourbons being absolute, all the ruling princes, even the best of them, introduced the same system into their territories, and the partic.i.p.ation of the other cla.s.ses of the people in the government ceased. The cities followed this example, and their Burgomasters and Councillors became a sort of aristocracy, more or less arbitrary in character. The condition of the people, therefore, depended entirely on the princes, priests, or other officials who governed them: one State or city might be orderly and prosperous, while another was oppressed and checked in its growth. A few of the rulers were wise and humane: Ernest the Pious of Gotha was a father to his land, during his long reign; in Hesse, Brunswick and Anhalt learning was encouraged, and Frederick William of Brandenburg set his face against the corrupting influences of France. These small States were exceptions, yet they kept alive what of hope and strength and character was left to Germany, and were the seeds of her regeneration in the present century.

[Sidenote: 1660.]

Throughout the greater part of the country the people relapsed into ignorance and brutality, and the higher cla.s.ses a.s.sumed the stiff, formal, artificial manners which nearly all Europe borrowed from the court of Louis XIV. Public buildings, churches and schools were allowed to stand as ruins, while the petty sovereign built his stately palace, laid out his park in the style of Versailles, and held his splendid and ridiculous festivals. Although Saxony had been impoverished and almost depopulated, the Elector, John George II., squandered all the revenues of the land on banquets, hunting-parties, fireworks and collections of curiosities, until his treasury was hopelessly bankrupt. Another prince made his Italian singing-master prime minister, and others again surrendered their lives and the happiness of their people to influences which were still more disastrous.

The one historical character among the German rulers of this time is Frederick William of Brandenburg, who is generally called "The Great Elector." In bravery, energy and administrative ability, he was the first worthy successor of Frederick of Hohenzollern. No sooner had peace been declared than he set to work to restore order to his wasted and disturbed territory: he imitated Sweden in organizing a standing army, small at first, but admirably disciplined; he introduced a regular system of taxation, of police and of justice, and encouraged trade and industry in all possible ways. In a few years a war between Sweden and Poland gave him the opportunity of interfering, in the hope of obtaining the remainder of Pomerania. He first marched to Konigsberg, the capital of the Duchy of Prussia, which belonged to Brandenburg, but under the sovereignty of Poland. Allying himself first with the Swedes, he partic.i.p.ated in a great victory at Warsaw in July, 1656, and then found it to his advantage to go over to the side of John Casimir, king of Poland, who offered him the independence of Prussia. This was his only gain from the war; for, by the peace of 1660, he was forced to give up Western Pomerania, which he had in the mean time conquered from Sweden.

[Sidenote: 1667. WAR WITH LOUIS XIV.]

Louis XIV. of France was by this time aware that his kingdom had nothing to fear from any of its neighbors, and might easily be enlarged at their expense. In 1667, he began his wars of conquest, by laying claim to Brabant, and instantly sending Turenne and Conde over the frontier. A number of fortresses, unprepared for resistance, fell into their hands; but Holland, England and Sweden formed an alliance against France, and the war terminated in 1668 by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Louis's next step was to ally himself with England and Sweden against Holland, on the ground that a Republic, by furnishing a place of refuge for political fugitives, was dangerous to monarchies. In 1672 he entered Holland with an army of 118,000 men, took Geldern, Utrecht and other strongly-fortified places, and would soon have made himself master of the country, if its inhabitants had not shown themselves capable of the sublimest courage and self-sacrifice. They were victorious over France and England on the sea, and defended themselves stubbornly on the land.

Even the German Archbishop of Cologne and Bishop of Munster furnished troops to Louis XIV. and the Emperor Leopold promised to remain neutral.

Then Frederick William of Brandenburg allied himself with Holland, and so wrought upon the Emperor by representing the danger to Germany from the success of France, that the latter sent an army under General Montecuccoli to the Rhine. But the Austrian troops remained inactive; Louis XIV. purchased the support of the Archbishops of Mayence and Treves; Westphalia was invaded by the French, and in 1673 Frederick William was forced to sign a treaty of neutrality.

About this time Holland was strengthened by the alliance of Spain, and the Emperor Leopold, alarmed at the continual invasions of German territory on the Upper Rhine, ordered Montecuccoli to make war in earnest. In 1674 the Diet formally declared war against France, and Frederick William marched with 16,000 men to the Palatinate, which Marshal Turenne had ravaged with fire and sword. The French were driven back and even out of Alsatia for a time; but they returned the following year, and were successful until the month of July, when Turenne found his death on the soil which he had turned into a desert. Before this happened, Frederick William had been recalled in all haste to Brandenburg, where the Swedes, instigated by France, were wasting the land with a barbarity equal to Turenne's. His march was so swift that he found the enemy scattered: dividing and driving them before him, on the 18th of June, 1675, at Fehrbellin, with only 7,000 men, he attacked the main Swedish army, numbering more than double that number. For three hours the battle raged with the greatest fury; Frederick William fought at the head of his troops, who more than once cut him out from the ranks of the enemy, and the result was a splendid victory. The fame of this achievement rang through all Europe, and Brandenburg was thenceforth mentioned with the respect due to an independent power.

[Sidenote: 1677.]

Frederick William continued the war for two years longer, gradually acquiring possession of all Swedish Pomerania, including Stettin and the other cities on the coast. He even built a small fleet, and undertook to dispute the supremacy of Sweden on the Baltic. During this time the war with France was continued on the Upper Rhine, with varying fortunes.

Though repulsed and held in check after Turenne's death, the French burned five cities and several hundred villages west of the Rhine, and in 1677 captured Freiburg in Baden. But Louis XIV. began to be tired of the war, especially as Holland proved to be unconquerable. Negotiations for peace were commenced in 1678, and on the 5th of February, 1679, the "Peace of Nymwegen" was concluded with Holland, Spain and the German Empire--except Brandenburg! Leopold I. openly declared that he did not mean to have a Vandal kingdom in the North.

Frederick William at first determined to carry on the war alone, but the French had already laid waste Westphalia, and in 1679 he was forced to accept a peace which required that he should restore nearly the whole of Western Pomerania to Sweden. Austria, moreover, took possession of several small princ.i.p.alities in Silesia, which had fallen to Brandenburg by inheritance. Thus the Hapsburgs repaid the support which the Hohenzollerns had faithfully rendered to them for four hundred years: thenceforth the two houses were enemies, and they were soon to become irreconcilable rivals. Leopold I. again betrayed Germany in the peace of Nymwegen, by yielding the city and fortress of Freiburg to France.

[Sidenote: 1681. THE SEIZURE OF STRASBURG.]

Louis XIV., nevertheless, was not content with this acquisition. He determined to possess the remaining cities of Alsatia which belonged to Germany. The Catholic Bishop of Strasburg was his secret agent, and three of the magistrates of the city were bribed to a.s.sist. In the autumn of 1681, when nearly all the merchants were absent, attending the fair at Frankfort, a powerful French army, which had been secretly collected in Lorraine, suddenly appeared before Strasburg. Between force outside and treachery within the walls, the city surrendered: on the 23d of October Louis XIV. made his triumphant entry, and was hailed by the Bishop with the blasphemous words: "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for his eyes have seen thy Saviour!" The great Cathedral, which had long been in the possession of the Protestants, was given up to this Bishop: all Protestant functionaries were deprived of their offices, and the clergymen driven from the city. French names were given to the streets, and the inhabitants were commanded, under heavy penalties, to lay aside their German costume, and adopt the fashions of France. No official claim or declaration of war preceded this robbery; but the effect which it produced throughout Germany was comparatively slight. The people had been long accustomed to violence and outrage, and the despotic independence of each State suppressed anything like a national sentiment.

Leopold I. called upon the Princes of the Empire to declare war against France, but met with little support. Frederick William positively refused, as he had been shamefully excepted from the Peace of Nymwegen.

He gave as a reason, however, the great danger which menaced Germany from a new Turkish invasion, and offered to send an army to the support of Austria. The Emperor, equally stubborn and jealous, declined this offer, although his own dominions were on the verge of ruin.

[Sidenote: 1683.]

The Turks had remained quiet during the whole of the Thirty Years' War, when they might easily have conquered Austria. In the early part of Leopold's reign they recommenced their invasions, which were terminated, in 1664, by a truce of twenty years. Before the period came to an end, the Hungarians, driven to desperation by Leopold's misrule, especially his persecution of the Protestants, rose in rebellion. The Turks came to an understanding with them, and early in 1683, an army of more than 200,000 men, commanded by the Grand Vizier Kara Mustapha, marched up the Danube, carrying everything before it, and encamped around the walls of Vienna. There is good evidence that the Sultan, Mohammed IV., was strongly encouraged by Louis XIV. to make this movement. Leopold fled at the approach of the Turks, leaving his capital to its fate. For two months Count Stahremberg, with only 7,000 armed citizens and 6,000 mercenary soldiers under his command, held the fortifications against the overwhelming force of the enemy; then, when further resistance was becoming hopeless, help suddenly appeared. An army commanded by Duke Charles of Lorraine, another under the Elector of Saxony, and a third, composed of 20,000 Poles, headed by their king, John Sobieski, reached Vienna about the same time. The decisive battle was fought on the 12th of September, 1683, and ended with the total defeat of the Turks, who fled into Hungary, leaving their camp, treasures and supplies to the value of 10,000,000 dollars in the hands of the conquerors.

The deliverance of Vienna was due chiefly to John Sobieski, yet, when Leopold I. returned to the city which he had deserted, he treated the Polish king with coldness and haughtiness, never once thanking him for his generous aid. The war was continued, in the interest of Austria, by Charles of Lorraine and Max Emanuel of Bavaria, until 1687, when a great victory at Mohacs in Hungary forced the Turks to retreat beyond the Danube. Then Leopold I. took brutal vengeance on the Hungarians, executing so many of their n.o.bles that the event is called "the Shambles of Eperies," from the town where it occurred. The Jesuits were allowed to put down Protestantism in their own way; the power and national pride of Hungary were trampled under foot, and a Diet held at Presburg declared that the crown of the country should thenceforth belong to the house of Hapsburg. This episode of the history of the time, the taking of Strasburg by Louis XIV., the treatment of Frederick William of Brandenburg, and other contemporaneous events, must be borne in mind, since they are connected with much that has taken place in our own day.

In spite of the defeat of the Turks in 1687, they were encouraged by France to continue the war. Max Emanuel took Belgrade in 1689, the Margrave Ludwig of Baden won an important victory, and Prince Eugene of Savoy (a grandnephew of Cardinal Mazarin, whom Louis XIV. called, in derision, the "Little Abbe," and refused to give a military command) especially distinguished himself as a soldier. After ten years of varying fortune, the war was brought to an end by the magnificent victory of Prince Eugene at Zenta, in 1697. It was followed by the Treaty of Carlowitz, in 1699, in which Turkey gave up Transylvania and the Slavonic provinces to Austria, Morea and Dalmatia to Venice, and agreed to a truce of twenty-five years.

[Sidenote: 1686. RENEWED WAR WITH FRANCE.]

While the best strength of Germany was engaged in this Turkish war, Louis XIV. was busy in carrying out his plans of conquest. He claimed the Palatinate of the Rhine for his brother, the Duke of Orleans, and also attempted to make one of his agents Archbishop of Cologne. In 1686, an alliance was formed between Leopold I., several of the German States, Holland, Spain and Sweden, to defend themselves against the aggressions of France, but nothing was accomplished by the negotiations which followed. Finally, in 1688, two powerful French armies suddenly appeared upon the Rhine: one took possession of the territory of Treves and Cologne, the other marched through the Palatinate into Franconia and Wurtemberg. But the demands of Louis XIV. were not acceded to; the preparation for war was so general on the part of the allied countries that it was evident his conquests could not be held; so he determined, at least, to ruin the territory before giving it up.

No more wanton and barbarous deed was ever perpetrated. The "Great Monarch," the model of elegance and refinement for all Europe, was guilty of brutality beyond what is recorded of the most savage chieftains. The vines were pulled up by the roots and destroyed; the fruit-trees were cut down, the villages burned to the ground, and 400,000 persons were made beggars, besides those who were slain in cold blood. The castle of Heidelberg, one of the most splendid monuments of the Middle Ages in all Europe, was blown up with gunpowder; the people of Mannheim were compelled to pull down their own fortifications, after which their city was burned, Speyer, with its grand and venerable Cathedral, was razed to the ground, and the bodies of the Emperors buried there were exhumed and plundered. While this was going on, the German Princes, with a few exceptions (the "Great Elector" being the prominent one), were copying the fashions of the French Court, and even trying to unlearn their native language!

[Sidenote: 1688.]

Frederick William of Brandenburg, however, was spared the knowledge of the worst features of this outrage. He died the same year, after a reign of forty-eight years, at the age of sixty-eight. The latter years of his reign were devoted to the internal development of his State. He united the Oder and Elbe by a ca.n.a.l, built roads and bridges, encouraged agriculture and the mechanic arts, and set a personal example of industry and intelligence to his people while he governed them. His possessions were divided and scattered, reaching from Konigsberg to the Rhine, but, taken collectively, they were larger than any other German State at the time, except Austria. None of the smaller German rulers before him took such a prominent part in the intercourse with foreign nations. He was thoroughly German, in his jealousy of foreign rule; but this did not prevent him from helping to confirm Louis XIV. in his robbery of Strasburg, out of revenge for his own treatment by Leopold I.

When personal pride or personal interest was concerned, the Hohenzollerns were hardly more patriotic than the Hapsburgs.

The German Empire raised an army of about 60,000 men, to carry on the war with France; but its best commanders, Max Emanuel and Prince Eugene, were fighting the Turks, and the first campaigns were not successful.

The other allied powers, Holland, England and Spain, were equally unfortunate, while France, compact and consolidated under one despotic head, easily held out against them. In 1693, finally, the Margrave Ludwig of Baden obtained some victories in Southern Germany which forced the French to retreat beyond the Rhine. The seat of war was then gradually transferred to Flanders, and the task of conducting it fell upon the foreign allies. At the same time there were battles in Spain and Savoy, and sea-fights in the British Channel. Although the fortunes of Germany were influenced by these events, they belong properly to the history of other countries. Victory inclined sometimes to one side and sometimes to the other; the military operations were so extensive that there could be no single decisive battle.