Chapter IV: , VII (88)

"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.]

{1487}

"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._

{1488}

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)._

{1490}

"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)._

{1491}

"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._