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(1543-1592), a prince of very marked Calvinist sympathies and |
of some military experience. Just before this time much unrest
in the north-west of Germany had been caused by the settlement
there of a number of refugees from the Netherlands. Spreading
their advanced religious views, these settlers were partly
responsible for two serious outbreaks of disorder. At Aix-la-
Chapelle the Protestants, not being allowed freedom of worship,
took possession of the city in 1581. The matter came before the
diet, which was opened at Augsburg in July 1582, but the case
was left undecided; afterwards, however, the Reichshofrat
declared against the insurgents, although it was not until 1598
that Protestant worship was abolished and the Roman Catholic
governing body was restored. At Cologne the archbishop,
Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, married and announced his
intention of retaining his spiritual office. Had this proceeding
passed unchallenged, the Protestants, among whom Gebhard
now counted himself, would have had a majority in the electoral
college. The Roman Catholics, however, secured the deposition
of Gebhard and the election in his stead of Ernest, bishop of
Liége, and war broke out in 1583. Except John Casimir, the
Protestant princes showed no eagerness to assist Gebhard, who
in a short time was driven from his see, and afterwards took up
his residence in Strassburg, where also he instigated a rebellion
on a small scale. Thus these quarrels terminated in victories
for the Roman Catholics, who were successful about this time
in restoring their faith in the bishoprics of Würzburg, Salzburg,
Bamberg, Paderborn, Minden and Osnabrück. Another dispute
also ended in a similar way. This was the claim made by the
administrator of the archbishopric of Magdeburg, a Hohenzollern
prince, Joachim Frederick, afterwards elector of Brandenburg,
to sit and vote in the imperial diet; it was not admitted, and
the administrator retired from Augsburg, a similar fate befalling
a similar claim made by several other administrators some
years later.

The Protestant griev ances.

The war between them and the Empire, which was renewed in 1593, lasted almost without interruption until November 1606, when peace was made, the tribute long paid by the emperor to the sultan being abandoned. This peace was concluded not by Rudolph, but by his brother, the archduke Matthias, who owing to the emperor's mental incapacity had just been declared by his kinsman the head of the house of Habsburg. Rudolph resented this indignity very greatly, and until his death in January 1612 the relations between the brothers were very strained, but this mainly concerns the history of Hungary and of Bohemia, which were sensibly affected by the fraternal discord.

The

CounterReforma. tion.

By this time however, there were signs of substantial progress on the part of the great Catholic reaction, which was to have important consequences for Germany. This was due mainly to the persistent zeal of the Jesuits. For a long time the Protestants had absorbed the intellectual strength of the country, but now many able scholars and divines among the Jesuits could hold their own with their antagonists. These devoted missionaries of the church gave their attention mainly to the young, and during the reign of Rudolph II. they were fortunate enough to make a deep impression upon two princes, each of whom was destined to play a great part in the events of his time. These princes were Maximilian, duke of Bavaria, and Ferdinand, archduke of Styria, the former a member of the house of Wittelsbach, and the latter of the house of Habsburg. Maximilian became prominent in 1607 by executing an imperial mandate against the free city of Donauwörth, where a religious riot had taken place, and afterwards treating it as his.own. Rendered suspicious by this arbitrary act, the Protestant princes in 1608 formed a confederation known as the Evangelical Union, and in response the Roman Catholics, under the guidance of Maximilian, united in a similar confederation afterwards called the Catholic League. This was founded at Munich in July 1609. As the Union was headed by the elector palatine of the Rhine, Frederick IV., who was a Calvinist, many Lutherans, among them the elector of Saxony, were by no means enthusiastic in its support. It acquired, however, immense importance through its alliance with Henry IV. of France, who, like Henry II., wished to profit by the quarrels in Germany, and who interfered in the disputed succession to the duchies of Cleves and Jülich. War seemed about to break out between the two confederations and their foreign allies over this question, but after the murder of the French king in May 1610 the Union did not venture to fight. Ferdinand was even more vigorous than Maximilian in defence of his religion. On assuming the government of Styria he set to work to extirpate Protestantism, which had made considerable progress in the Austrian arch-duchies. Soon afterwards he was selected by the Habsburgs as the heir of the childless emperor Matthias, and on coming to Vienna after the death of that sovereign in March 1619 he found himself in the midst of hopeless confusion. The Bohemians refused to acknowledge him as their king and elected in his stead Frederick V., the elector palatine of the Rhine, a son-inAustrians were hardly less disaffected. As Ferdinand II., however, he succeeded in obtaining the imperial crown in August 1619, and from that time he was dominated by a fixed resolve to secure the triumph of his church throughout the Empire, a resolve which cost Germany the Thirty Years' War. He began with Bohemia. Although supported by Spain he could not obtain from this quarter an army sufficiently strong to crush the Bohemians, and for some time he remained powerless and inactive in Vienna. Then at the beginning of 1620 he came to terms with Maximilian of Bavaria, who, after carefully securing his own interests, placed the army of the League, commanded by the celebrated Tilly, at his disposal. Conditionally the Union promised assistance to Frederick, but he wasted several months and vaguely hoped that the English king would help him out of his embarrassments. Meanwhile Tilly advanced into Bohemia, and in November 1620 Frederick's army was utterly routed at

Ferdinand

After the death of Augustus of Saxony in February 1586 there was another brief alliance between the Protestant parties, although on this occasion the lead was taken not by the Saxon, but by the Palatine prince. Less strict in his adherence to the tenets of Lutheranism than Augustus, the new elector of Saxony, Christian I., fell under the influence of John Casimir. The result was that Protestant princes, including the three temporal electors, united in placing their grievances before the emperor; obtaining no redress they met at Torgau in 1591 and offered help to Henry IV. of France, a proceeding which was diametrically opposed to the past policy of Saxony. But this alliance, like its forerunner, was of very short duration. Christian I. died in 1591, and under Christian II. electoral Saxony re-established a rigid Lutheranism at home and pursued a policy of moderation and neutrality abroad. A short time afterwards the militant party among the Protestants suffered a heavy loss by the death of their leader, John Casimir, whose policy, however, was continued by his nephew and pupil, the elector Frederick IV. But neither desertion nor death was able to crush entirely the militant Protestants, among whom Christian, prince of Anhalt (1568-law of the English king James I., and the Hungarians and the 1630), was rapidly becoming the most prominent figure. They made themselves very troublesome at the diet of Regensburg in 1593, and also at the diet held in the same city four years later, putting forward various demands for greater religious freedom and seeking to hinder, or delay, the payment of the grant for the Turkish war. Moreover, in 1598 they put forward the theory that the vote of a majority in the diet was not binding upon the minority; they took up the same position at Regensburg in 1603, when they raised strong objections to the decisions of the Reichshofral and afterwards withdrew from the diet in a body. Thus, under Maximilian of Bavaria and Christian of Anhalt respectively the two great parties were gaining a better idea of their own needs and of each other's aims and were watching vigilantly the position in the duchies of Cleves, Jülich and Berg, where a dispute over the succession was impending. While wars and rumours of wars were disturbing the peace in the west of Germany the Turks were again harassing the east.

The con

gress in Bohemia,

the battle of the White Hill, near Prague, and the unfortunate | elector had just time to escape from the kingdom he had rashly undertaken to govern. Ferdinand drove to the uttermost the advantages of his victory. The Union being destroyed and the Bohemian revolution crushed, attention was turned to the hereditary lands of the elector palatine. The Spanish troops and the army of the League invaded the Rhenish Palatinate, which was defended by Frederick's remaining adherents, Christian of Brunswick and Count Ernst von Mansfeld, but after several battles it passed completely into the possession of the imperialists. Having been placed under the imperial ban Frederick became an exile from his inheritance, and the electorate which he was declared to have forfeited was conferred on Maximilian.

Thus ended the first stage of the Thirty Years' War, although some desultory fighting continued between the League and Danish its opponents. The second began in 1625 with the Inter- formation, after much fruitless negotiation, of a ference la Protestant combination, which had the support of the war. England, although its leading member was Christian IV., king of Denmark, who as duke of Holstein was a prince of the Empire, and who like other Lutherans was alarmed at the emperor's successes. It was in this war that Europe first became familiar with the great name of Wallenstein. Unable himself to raise and equip a strong army, and restive at his dependence on the League, Ferdinand gladly accepted Wallenstein's offer to put an army into the field at no cost to himself. After Wallenstein had beaten Mansfeld at the bridge of Dessau in April 1626, and Tilly had defeated Christian of Denmark at Lutter in the succeeding August, the two generals united their forces. Denmark was invaded, and Wallenstein. now duke of Friedland, was authorized to govern the conquered duchies of Mecklenburg and Pomerania; but his ambitious scheme of securing the whole of the south coast of the Baltic was thwarted by the resistance of the city of Stralsund, which for five months he vainly tried to take. Denmark, however, was compelled to conclude peace at Lübeck in May 1629. Intoxicated by success, Ferdinand had issued two months before the famous Edict of Restitution. This ordered the restoration of all ecclesiastical lands which had come into the possession of the Protestants since the peace of Passau in 1552, and, as several archbishoprics and bishoprics had become Protestant, it struck a tremendous blow at the emperor's foes and stirred among them intense and universal opposition. A little later, yielding to Maximilian and his colleagues in the League, Ferdinand dismissed Wallenstein, whose movements had aroused their resentment, from his service. A more inauspicious moment could not have been chosen for these two serious steps, because in the summer of 1630 Gustavus Adolphus left Sweden at the head of a strong army for the purpose of sustaining the Protestant cause in Germany. At first this great king was coldly received by the Protestants, who were ignorant of his designs and did not want a stranger to profit by the internal disputes of their country. A mistake at the outset would probably have been fatal to him, but he saw the dangers of his position and moved so warily that in less than a year he had obtained the alliance of the elector of Saxony, a consequence of the terrible sack of Magdeburg by the imperialists in May 1631 and of the devastation of the electorate by Tilly. He had also obtained on his own terms the assistance of France, and was ready to enter upon his short but brilliant campaign.

Dismissal of Wallenstein.

Having captured Frankfort-on-Oder and forced the hesitating elector of Brandenburg, George William, to grant him some assist

The cam

paign of

ance, Gustavus Adolphus added the Saxon army to his own, and in September 1631 he met Tilly, at the head Gustavus of nearly the whole force of the League, at Breitenfeld, Adolphus. near Leipzig, where he gained a victory which placed North Germany entirely at his feet. So utterly had he shattered the emperor's power that he could doubtless have marched straight to Vienna; he preferred, however, to proceed through central into southern Germany, while his Saxon ally, the elector John George, recovered Silesia and Lusatia and invaded Bohemia. I

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Würzburg and Frankfort were among the cities which opened their gates to the Swedish king as the deliverer of the Protestants; several princes sought his alliance, and, making the captured city of Mainz his headquarters, he was busily engaged for some months in resting and strengthening his army and in negotiating about the future conduct of the war. Early in 1632 he led his troops into Bavaria. In April he defeated Tilly at the crossing of the Lech, the imperialist general being mortally wounded during this fight, and then he took possession of Augsburg and of Munich. Before these events Ferdinand had realized how serious had been his mistake in dismissing Wallenstein, and after some delay his agents persuaded the great general to emerge from his retirement. The conditions, however, upon which Wallenstein consented to come to the emperor's aid were remarkably onerous, but Ferdinand had perforce to assent to them. He obtained sole command of the imperial armies, with the power of concluding treaties and of granting pardons, and he doubtless insisted on the withdrawal of the Edict of Restitution, although this is not absolutely certain; in brief, the only limits to his power were the limits to the strength of his army. Having quickly assembled this, he drove the Saxons from Bohemia, and then marched towards Franconia, with the intention of crossing swords with his only serious rival, Gustavus Adolphus, who had left Munich when he heard that this foe had taken the field. The Swedes and their allies occupied Nuremberg, while the imperialists fortified a great camp and blockaded the city. Gustavus made an attempt to storm these fortifications, but he failed to make any impression on them; he failed also in inducing Wallenstein to accept battle, and he was forced to abandon Nuremberg and to march to the protection of Saxony. Wallenstein followed, and the two armies faced each other at Lützen on the 16th of November 1632. Here the imperialists were beaten, but the victory was even more disastrous to the Protestant cause than a defeat, for the Swedish king was among the slain.

The

death of

The Swedes, whose leader was now the chancellor Oxenstjerna, were stunned by this catastrophe, but in a desultory fashion they maintained the struggle, and in April 1633 a new league was formed at Heilbronn between them and league of the representatives of four of the German circles, Heilbronn while by a new agreement France continued to furnish and the monetary aid. Of this alliance Sweden was the pre- Wallen. dominant member, but the German allies had a certain stela. voice in the direction of affairs, the military command being divided between the Swedish general Horn and Bernhard, duke of Saxe-Weimar. About this time some discontent arose in the allied army, and to allay this Bernhard was granted the bishoprics of Würzburg and of Bamberg, with the title of duke of Franconia, but on the strange condition that he should hold the duchy as the vassal of Sweden, not as a vassal of the Empire. The war, thus revived, was waged principally in the valleys of the Danube and the Rhine, the Swedes, seizing Alsace while Bernhard captured Regensburg. Meanwhile Wallenstein was again arousing the suspicions of his nominal allies. Instead of attacking the enemy with his accustomed vigour, he withdrew into Bohemia and was engaged in lengthy negotiations with the Saxon soldier and diplomatist, Hans Georg von Arnim (15811641), his object being doubtless to come to terms with Saxony and Brandenburg either with or without the emperor's consent. His prime object was, however, to secure for himself a great territorial position, possibly that of king of Bohemia, and it is obvious that his aims and ambitions were diametrically opposed to the ends desired by Ferdinand and by his Spanish and Bavarian allies. At length he set his troops in motion. Having gained some successes in the north-east of Germany he marched to succour the hardly pressed elector of Bavaria; then suddenly abandoning this purpose he led his troops back to Bohemia and left Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar in possession of the Danube valley. It is not surprising that a cry, louder than ever, now arose for his dismissal. Ferdinand did as he was required. In January 1634 he declared Wallenstein deposed from his command, but he was still at the head of an army when he was

murdered in the following month at Eger. Commanded now by | and then came the welcome news of the conclusion of the treaty the king of Hungary, afterwards the emperor Ferdinand III., of Westphalia. the imperialists retook Regensburg and captured Donauwörth; then, aided by some Spanish troops, they gained a victory at Nördlingen in September 1634, the results of which were as decisive and as satisfactory for them as the results of Breitenfeld had been for their foes two years before.

France

war.

The demoralization of the Swedes and their allies, which was a consequence of the defeat at Nördlingen, was the opportunity of France. Having by clever diplomacy placed gartakes part risons in several places in Alsace and the Palatinate, In the the king of France, or rather Cardinal Richelieu, now entered the field as a principal, made a definite alliance with Sweden at Compiègne in April 1635, and in the following month declared war and put four armies in motion. But the thoughts of many had already turned in the direction of peace, and in this manner John George of Saxony took the lead, signing in May 1635 the important treaty of Prague with the emperor. The vexed and difficult question of the ownership of the ecclesiastical lands was settled by fixing November 1627 as the deciding date; those who were in possession then were to retain them for forty years, during which time it was hoped a satisfactory arrangement would be reached. The Saxon elector gained some additions of territory and promised to assist Ferdinand to recover any lands which had been taken from him by the Swedes, or by other foes. For this purpose a united army was to serve under an imperial general, and all leagues were to be dissolved. In spite of the diplomatic efforts of Sweden the treaty of Prague was accepted almost at once by the elector of Brandenburg, the duke of Württemberg and other princes, and also by several of the most important of the free cities. It was only, in fact, the failure of Saxony and Sweden to come to terms which prevented a general peace in Germany. The Thirty Years' War now took a different form. Its original objects were almost forgotten and it was continued mainly to further the ambitions of France, thus being a renewal of the great fight between the houses of Habsburg and of Bourbon, and to secure for Sweden some recompense for the efforts which she had put forward.

Weimar.

While the signatories of the peace of Prague were making ready to assist the emperor the only Germans on the other side were found in the army under Bernhard of SaxeBernhard Weimar. The final stage of the war opened with conof Saxe- siderable Swedish successes in the north of Germany, especially the signal victory gained by them over the imperialists and the Saxons at Wittstock in October 1636.. At the same time good fortune was attending the operations of the French in the Rhineland, where they were aided by Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, a satisfactory financial arrangement between these parties having been reached in the autumn of 1635. The year 1638 was an especially fortunate one for France and her allies. Bernhard's capture of Rheinfelden and of Breisach gave them possession of the surrounding districts, but dissensions arose concerning the division of the spoil; these, however, were stopped by the death of Bernhard in July 1639, when France took his army into her pay. Thus the war continued, but the desire for peace was growing stronger, and this was reflected in the proceedings of the diet which met at Regensburg in 1640. Under Count Torstenssen the Swedes defeated the imperialists at Breitenfeld in 1642; three years later they gained another victory at Jankau and advanced almost to Vienna, and then the last decisive move of the war was made by the great French general, Turenne. Having been successful in the Rhineland, where he had captured Philippsburg and Worms, Turenne joined his forces to those of Sweden under Wrangel and advanced into Bavaria. Ravaging theland, they compelled the elector Maximilian to sign a truce and to withdraw his troops from the imperial army. When, however, the allied army had retired Maximilian repented of his action. Again he joined the emperor, but his punishment was swift and sure, as Turenne and Wrangel again marched into the electorate and defeated the Bavarians at Zusmarshausen, near Augsburg, in May 1648. A few minor operations followed,

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of West

The preliminary negotiations for peace were begun at Hamburg and Cologne before the death of the emperor Ferdinand II. in 1637. By a treaty signed at Hamburg in December 1641 it was agreed that peace conferences should meet The peace at Münster and at Osnabrück in March 1642, the phalia. emperor treating with France in the former, and with Sweden in the latter city. The Roman Catholic princes of the Empire were to be represented at Münster and the Protestants at Osnabrück. Actually the conferences did not meet until 1645, when the elector of Brandenburg had made, and the elector of Saxony was about to make, a truce with Sweden, these two countries being withdrawn from the ravages of the war. In three years the many controversial questions were discussed and settled, and in October 1648 the treaty of Westphalia was signed and the Thirty Years' War was at an end.

Effects of

War.

The Thirty Years' War settled once for all the principle that men should not be persecuted for their religious faith. It is true that the peace of Westphalia formally recognized only the three creeds, Catholicism, Lutheranism and the Thirty Calvinism, but so much suffering had been caused Years' by the interference of the state with individual conviction, that toleration in the largest sense, so far as law was concerned, was virtually conceded. This was the sole advantage gained from the war by the Protestants. The Catholics insisted at first on keeping all the ecclesiastical lands which had been taken from them before the Edict of Restitution in 1629. The Protestants responded by demanding that they should lose nothing which they had held before 1618, when the war began. A compromise was at last effected by both parties agreeing to the date 1624, an arrangement which secured to the Catholics their gains in Bohemia and the other territories of the house of Habsburg. The restoration of the elector palatine to part of his lands, and his reinstatement in the electoral office, were important concessions; but on the other hand, the duke of Bavaria kept the Upper Palatinate, the elector palatine becoming the eighth and junior member of the electoral college.

The country suffered enormous territorial losses by the war. Up to this time the possession of Metz, Toul and Verdun by France had never been officially recognized; now Loss of these bishoprics were formally conceded to her. She territory. also received as much of Alsace as belonged to Austria. To the Swedes were granted Western Pomerania, with Stettin, and the archbishopric of Bremen and the bishopric of Verden. These acquisitions, which surpassed the advantages Gustavus Adolphus had hoped to win, gave Sweden the command both of the Baltic and of the North Sea. In virtue of her German possessions Sweden became a member of the Empire; but France obtained absolute control of her new territories. There was a further diminution of Germany by the recognition of the independence of Switzerland and the United Provinces. Both had long been virtually free; they now for the first time took the position of distinct nations.

mation

constitu

In the political constitution of Germany the peace of Westphalia did not so much make changes as sanction those already effected. The whole tendency of the Reformation had been to relax the bonds which united the various The Refor elements of the state to each other and to their head. and the It divided the nation into two hostile parties, and the political emperor was not able to assume towards them a tion. perfectly impartial position. His imperial crown imposed upon him the necessity of associating himself with the Roman Catholics; so that the Protestants had a new and powerful reason for looking upon him with jealousy, and trying to diminish his authority. The Roman Catholics, while maintaining their religion, were willing enough to co-operate with them for this object; and Germany often saw the strange spectacle of princes rallying round the emperor for the defence of the church, and at the same time striking deadly blows at his political influence. The diet was a scene of perpetual quarrelling between the two factions, and their differences made it impossible for the imperial

chamber to move beyond the region of official routine. Thus | pettiest princeling had his army, his palaces, his multitudes of before the Thirty Years' War the Empire had virtually ceased household officers; and most of them pampered every vulgar to exist, Germany having become a loose confederation of princi- appetite without respect either to morality or to decency. Many palitics and free cities. For a moment the emperor Ferdinand nobles, whose lands had been wasted during the war, flocked to appeared to have touched the ideal of Charles V. in so far, at the little capitals to make their way by contemptible court least, as it related to Germany, but only for a moment. The services. Beneath an outward gloss of refinement these nobles stars in their courses fought against him, and at the time of his were, as a class, coarse and selfish, and they made it their chief death he saw how far beyond his power were the forces with object to promote their own interests by fostering absolutist which even Charles had been unable to contend. The state of tendencies. Among the people there was no public opinion to things which actually existed the peace of Westphalia made discourage despotism; the majority accepted their lot as legal. So nearly complete was the independence of the states inevitable, and tried rather to reproduce than to restrain the vices that each received the right to form alliances with any of the of their rulers. Even the churches offered little opposition to others, or with foreign powers, nominally on condition that their the excesses of persons in authority, and in many instances the alliances should not be injurious to the emperor or to the Empire. clergy, both Protestant and Catholic, acquired an unenviable Any authority which still lawfully belonged to the emperor was notoriety for their readiness to overlook or condone actions transferred to the diet. It alone had now the power of making which outraged the higher sentiments of humanity. In the laws, of concluding treaties in the name of Germany, and of free imperial cities there was more manliness of tone than else. declaring war and re-establishing peace. No one, however, ex- where, but there was little of the generous rivalry pected that it would be of any real service. From 1663 it became among the different classes which had once raised them a permanent body, and was attended only by the representatives to a high level of prosperity. Most of them resigned of the princes and the cities; and from that time it occupied their liberties into the hands of oligarchies, and others allowed itself mainly with trifles, leaving the affairs of each state to be themselves to be annexed by ambitious princes. (A. W. H.*) looked after by its own authorities, and those of the country generally to such fortunes as chance should determine.

Continu

ance

It would not have been strange if so shadowy an Empire had been brought altogether to an end. Some slight bond of connexion was, however, necessary for defence against common dangers; and the Empire had existed so long, of the and so many great associations were connected with empire. it, that it seemed to all parties preferable to any other form of union. Moreover, Sweden, and other states which were now members of the Empire, warmly supported it; and the house of Habsburg, on which it reflected a certain splendour, would not willingly have let it die. An Austrian ruler, even when he spoke only in the name of Austria, derived authority | from the fact that as emperor he represented many of the greatest memories of European history.

National life.

The effect of the Thirty Years' War on the national life was disastrous. It had not been carried on by disciplined armies, but by hordes of adventurers whose sole object was plunder. The cruelties they inflicted on their victims are almost beyond conception. Before the war the population was nearly twenty millions; after it the number was probably about six millions. Whole towns and villages were laid in ashes, and vast districts turned into deserts. Churches and schools were closed by hundreds, and to such straits were the people often reduced that cannibalism is said to have been not uncommon. Industry and trade were so completely paralysed that in 1635 the Hanseatic League was virtually broken up, because the members, once so wealthy, could not meet the necessary expenditure. The population was not only impoverished and reduced in numbers but broken in spirit. It lost confidence in itself, and for a time effected in politics, literature, art and science little that is worthy of serious study.

The cities.

Louis XIV. of France.

Ferdinand III. succeeded to the throne when the fortunes of his house were at a low ebb, and he continued the Thirty Years' War, not in the hope of re-establishing the Ferdinand Roman Catholic religion or of restoring the imperial authority, but of remedying as far as he could the havoc caused by his father's recklessness. After the conclusion of peace nothing happened to make his reign memorable. His son Leopold I. was a man of narrow intellect and Leopold I. feeble will; yet Germany seldom so keenly felt the need of a strong emperor, for she had during two generations to contend with a watchful and grasping rival. For more than a century it had been the policy of France to strengthen herself by fostering the internal dissensions of Germany. This was now easy, and Louis XIV. made unscrupulous use of the advantages his predecessors had helped to gain for him. Germany, as a whole, could not for a long time be induced to resist him. His schemes directly threatened the independence of the princes; but they were too indolent to unite against his ambition. They grudged even the contributions necessary for the maintenance of the frontier fortresses, and many of them stooped to accept the bribes he offered them on condition that they should remain quiet. In his war with the United Provinces and Spain, begun in 1672, he was opposed by the emperor as ruler of Austria, and by Frederick William, the elector of Brandenburg; and in 1675 the latter gained a splendid victory at Fehrbellin over his allies, the Swedes. At the end of the war, in 1678, by the peace of Nijmwegen, Louis took care that Frederick William should be deprived of the fruits of his victory, and Austria had to resign Freiburg im Breisgau to the French. Under the pretence that when France gained the Austrian lands in Alsace she also acquired a right to all places that had ever been united to them, Louis began a series of systematic robberies of German towns and territories. The princes knew well how to profit by the national prostration. Chambers of Reunion" were appointed to give an appearance The local diets, which, as we have seen, formed a real check of legality to these proceedings, which culminated, in 1681, in on petty tyranny, and kept up an intimate relation the seizure of Strassburg. Germans of all states and ranks were between the princes and their subjects, were nearly indignant at so gross a humiliation, but even the loss of Strassburg all destroyed. Those which remained were injurious did not suffice to move the diet. The emperor himself might rather than beneficial, since they often gave an appearance of probably have interfered, but Louis had provided him with lawfulness to the caprices of arbitrary sovereigns. After the ample employment by stirring up against him the Hungarians Thirty Years' War it became fashionable for the heirs of princi-and the Turks. So complete was his hold over the majority of palities to travel, and especially to spend some time at the court of France. Here they readily imbibed the ideas of Louis XIV., and in a short time nearly every petty court in Germany was a feeble imitation of Versailles. Before the Reformation, and even for some time after it, the princes were thorough Germans in sympathies and habits; they now began to be separated by a wide gulf from their people. Instead of studying the general welfare, they wrung from exhausted states the largest possible revenue to support a lavish and ridiculous expenditure. The

The princes.

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the princes that when the Turks, in 1683, surrounded Vienna, and appeared not unlikely to advance into the heart of Germany, they looked on indifferently, and allowed the emperor to be saved by the promptitude and courage of John Sobieski, king of Poland. At last, when, in 1689, on the most frivolous pretext, Louis poured into southern Germany armies which were guilty of shameful outrages, a number of princes came forward and aided the emperor. This time France was sternly opposed by the league of which William III. of England was the moving spirit;

War of

Spanish Succes. sion.

Frederick the Great.

First Sile

and although at the end of the war he kept Strassburg, he had | matic sanction, but as the conditions on which the guarantee had to give up Freiburg, Philipsburg, Breisach, and the places he been granted had not been fulfilled by Charles VI., Frederick had seized because of their former connexion with did not feel bound by it, and revived some old claims Alsace. In the War of the Spanish Succession two of his family on certain Silesian duchies. Maria powerful princes, the elector of Bavaria and the elector Theresa would not abate her rights, but before she of Cologne, joined Louis; but as the states of the could assert them Frederick had entered Silesia and Empire declared war against him in 1702, the other princes, made himself master of it. Meanwhile, the elector of Bavaria more or less loyally, supported the emperor and his allies. had come forward and disputed Maria Theresa's right to the Leopold died during the progress of this war, but it was vigorously succession, and the elector of Saxony had also put in a continued by his son Joseph I. claim to the Austrian lands. Taking advantage of slan war. these disputes, France formed an alliance with the two electors and with the king of Prussia against Austria; and in the war which followed the allies were at first so successful that the elector of Bavaria, through the influence of France, was crowned emperor as Charles VII. (1742-1745). Maria Theresa, a woman of a noble and undaunted spirit, appealed, with her infant son, afterwards Joseph II., in her arms, to the Hungarian diet, and the enthusiastic Magyars responded chivalrously to her call. To be more at freedom she concluded peace with Frederick, and ceded Silesia to him, although greatly against her will. Saxony also was pacified and retired from the struggle. After this Maria Theresa, supported by England, made way so rapidly and so triumphantly that Frederick became alarmed for his new possessions; and in 1742 he once more proclaimed war against her, nominally in aid of the emperor, Charles VII. Ultimately, in 1748, she was able to conclude an honourable peace at Aix-la-Chapelle; but she had been forced, as before, to rid herself of Frederick by confirming him in the sovereignty of the territory he had seized.

Joseph's brother and successor, Charles VI., also went on with it; and such were the blows inflicted on France by the victories of Blenheim, Ramillies and Malplaquet that the war Charles VI. was generally expected to end in her utter discomfiture. But the conclusion of the treaty of Utrecht by England, in 1713, so limited the military power of Charles VI. that he was obliged to resign the claims of Austria to the Spanish throne, and to content himself with the Spanish Netherlands, Milan, Naples and Sardinia. He cared so little for Germany, as distinguished from Austria, that he allowed Louis to compel the diet to cede the imperial fortress of Landau. At a later stage in his reign he was guilty of an act of even grosser selfishness; for after the War of the Polish Succession, in which he supported the claims of Augustus III., elector of Saxony, he yielded Lorraine to Stanislaus Leszczynski, whose claims had been defended by France, and through whom France ultimately secured this beautiful German province. Having no son, Charles drew up in 1713 Pragmatic the pragmatic sanction, which ordained that, in the sanction. event of an Austrian ruler being without male heirs, his hereditary lands and titles should pass to his nearest female relative. The aim of his whole policy was to secure for this measure, which was proclaimed as a fundamental law in 1724, the approval of Europe; and by promises and threats he did at last obtain the guarantee of the states of the Empire and the leading European powers.

Prussia.

Germany was now about to be aroused from the torpor into which she had been cast by the Thirty Years' War; but her awakening was due, not to the action of the Empire, Growth of which was more and more seen to be practically dead, but to the rivalry of two great German states, Austria and Prussia. The latter had long been laying the foundations of her power. Brandenburg, the centre of the Prussian kingdom, was, as we have seen, granted in the 15th century by the emperor Sigismund to Frederick, count of Hohenzollern. In his hands, and in those of his prudent successors, it became one of the most flourishing of the North-German principalities. At the time of the Reformation Albert, a member of a subordinate branch of the house of Hohenzollern, happened to be grand master of the Teutonic Order. He became a Protestant, dissolved the order, and received in fief of the king of Poland the duchy of Prussia. In 1611 this duchy fell by inheritance to the elector of Brandenburg, and by the treaty of Wehlau, in 1657, in the time of Frederick William, the Great Elector, it was declared independent | of Poland. By skill, foresight and courage Frederick William managed to add largely to his territories; and in an age of degenerate sovereigns he was looked upon as an almost model ruler. His son, Frederick, aspired to royal dignity, and in 1701, having obtained the emperor's assent, was crowned king of Prussia. The extravagance of Frederick drained the resources of his state, but this was amply atoned for by the rigid economy of Frederick William I., who not only paid off the debts accumulated by his father, but amassed an enormous treasure. He so organized all branches of the public service that they were brought to a point of high efficiency, and his army was one of the largest, best appointed and best trained in Europe (see PRUSSIA: History). He died in 1740, and within six months, when Frederick II. was on the Prussian throne, Maria Theresa claimed, in virtue of the pragmatic sanction, the lands and hereditary titles of her father Charles VI. Frederick II., a young, ambitious and energetic sovereign, longed not only to add to his dominions but to play a great part in European politics. His father had guaranteed the prag

Maria
Theresa.

Charles

VII.

Second Silesian war.

After the death of Charles VII., Francis, grand duke of Tuscany, Maria Theresa's husband, was elected emperor. Francis L (1745-1765), an amiable nonentity, with the instincts Francis I. of a shopkeeper, made no pretence of discharging important imperial duties, and the task of ruling the hereditary possessions of the house of Habsburg fell wholly to the empressqueen. She executed it with discretion and vigour, so that Austria in her hands was known to be one of the most formidable powers in the world. Her rival, Frederick II., was, if possible, still more active. It did not occur to him, any more than to the other German sovereigns of the 18th century, to associate his people with him in the government of the country; he was in every respect a thoroughly absolute sovereign. But he shared the highest ideas of the age respecting the responsibilities of a king, and throughout his long reign acted in the main faithfully as "the first servant of the state." The army he always kept in readiness for war; but he also encouraged peaceful arts, and diffused throughout his kingdom so much of his own alert and aggressive spirit that the Prussians became more intelligent and more wealthy than they had ever before been. He excited the admiration of the youth of Germany, and it was soon the fashion among the petty princes to imitate his methods of government. As a rule, they succeeded only in raising far larger armies than the taxpayers could afford to maintain.

Maria Theresa never gave up the hope of winning back Silesia, and, in order to secure this object, she laid aside the jealousies of her house, and offered to conclude an alliance with France. Frederick had excited the envy of surrounding sovereigns, and had embittered them against him by stinging sarcasms. Not only France, therefore, but Russia, Saxony and ultimately Sweden, willingly came to terms with Austria, and the aim of their union was nothing short of the partition of Prussia. Frederick, gaining knowledge of the plot, turned to The Seven England, which had in the previous war helped Years Austria. At the close of 1755 his offer of an alliance War, was acceded to; and in the following year, hoping 1756 by vigorously taking the initiative to prevent his enemies from united action, he invaded Saxony, and began the Seven Years' War (q.v.), the result of which was to confirm Prussia in the possession of Silesia.

1763.

Prussia now took rank as one of the leading European powers, and by her rise a new element was introduced into the political

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