Page images
PDF
EPUB

weakness, as well as the exceptional strength, of Great Britain, among European countries, made it seem desirable to adopt the principle of unrestricted commercial intercourse, not merely in the tentative fashion in which it had been put in operation by Huskisson, but in the thoroughgoing fashion in which it at last commended itself to the minds of Peel and Gladstone. The "Manchester men" saw clearly where their interest lay; and the fashionable political economy was ready to demonstrate that in pursuing their own interest they were conferring the benefit of cheap clothing on all the most poverty-stricken råces of mankind. It seemed probable, in the 'forties and early 'fifties, that other countries would take a similar view of their own interests and would follow the example which Great Britain had set. That they have not done so, is partly due to the fact that none of them had such a direct, or such a widely diffused, interest in increased commercial intercourse as existed in Great Britain; but their reluctance has been partly the result of the criticism to which the free-trade doctrine has been subjected. The principles expressed in the writings of Friedrich List have taken such firm hold, both in America and in Germany, that these countries have preferred to follow on the lines by which Great Britain successfully built up her industrial prosperity in the 17th and 18th century, rather than on those by which they have seen her striving to maintain it since 1846.

transformed, from a mere principle of criticism, till it comes to | obliged to import a considerable amount of corn. The exceptiona! be regarded as the harbinger of a possible Utopia. It was in this fashion that it was put forward by French economists and proved attractive to some leading American statesmen in the 18th century. Turgot regarded the colonial systems of the European countries as at once unfair to their dependencies and dangerous to the peace of the world. "It will be a wise and happy thing for the nation which shall be the first to modify its policy according to the new conditions, and be content to regard its colonies as if they were allied provinces and not subjects of the mother country." It will be a wise and happy thing for the nation which is the first to be convinced that the secret of "success, so far as commercial policy is concerned, consists in employing all its land in the manner most profitable for the proprietary, all the hands in the manner most advantageous to the workman personally, that is to say, in the manner in which each would employ them, if we could let him be simply directed by his own interest, and that all the rest of the mercantile policy is vanity and vexation of spirit. When the entire separation of America shall have forced the whole world to recognize this truth and purged the European nations of commercial jealousy there will be one great cause of war less in the world." Pitt, under the influence of Adam Smith, was prepared to admit the United States to the benefit of trade with the West Indian Colonies; and Jefferson, accepting the principles of his French teachers, would (in contradistinction to Alexander Hamilton) have been willing to see his country reFree trade was attractive as an ideal, because it appeared nounce the attempt to develop manufactures of her own. It to offer the greatest production of goods to the world as a whole, seemed as if a long step might be taken towards realizing the free-and the largest share of material goods to each consumer; it is trade ideal for the Anglo-Saxon race; but British shipowners cosmopolitan, and it treats consumption, and the interest of the insisted on the retention of their privileges, and the propitious consumer, as such, as the end to be considered. Hence it lics moment passed away with the failure of the negotiations of open to objections which are partly political and partly economic. 1783. Free trade ceased to be regarded as a gospel, even in As cosmopolitan, free-trade doctrine is apt to be indifferent France, till the ideal was revived in the writings of Bastiat, to national tradition and aspiration. In so far indeed as and helped to mould the enthusiasm of Richard Cobden. patriotism is a mere aesthetic sentiment, it may be tolerated, Through his zealous advocacy, the doctrine secured converts in but in so far as it implies a genuine wish and intention to preserve almost every part of the world; though it was only in Great and defend the national habits and character to the exclusion Britain that a great majority of the citizens became so far of alien elements, the cosmopolitan mind will condemn it as satisfied with it that they adopted it as the foundation of the narrow and mischievous. In the first half of the 19th century economic policy of the country. there were many men who believed that national ambitions and jealousies of every kind were essentially dynastic, and that if monarchies were abolished there would be fewer occasions of war, so that the expenses of the business of government would be enormously curtailed. For Cobden and his contemporaries it was natural to regard the national administrative institutions as maintained for the benefit of the "classes" and without much advantage to the " masses." But in point of fact, modern times have shown the existence in democracies of a patriotic sentiment which is both exclusive and aggressive; and the burden of armaments has steadily increased. It was by means of a civil war that the United States attained to a consciousness of national life; while such later symptoms as the recent interpretations of the Monroe doctrine, or the war with Spain, have proved that the citizens of that democratic country cannot be regarded as destitute of self-aggrandizing national ambition.

It is not difficult to account for the conversion of Great Britain to this doctrine; in the special circumstances of the first half of the 19th century it was to the interest of the most vigorous factors in the economic life of the country to secure the greatest possible freedom for commercial intercourse. Great Britain had, through her shipping, access to all the markets of the world; she had obtained such a lead in the application of machinery to manufactures that she had a practical monopoly in textile manufactures and in the hardware trades; by removing every restriction, she could push her advantage to its farthest extent, and not only undersell native manufactures in other lands, but secure food, and the raw materials for her manufactures, on the cheapest possible terms. Free trade thus seemed to offer the means of placing an increasing distance between Britain and her rivals, and of rendering the industrial monopoly which she had attained impregnable. The capitalist employer had superseded the landowner as the mainstay of the resources and revenue of the realm, and insisted that the prosperity of manufactures was the primary interest of the community as a whole. The expectation, that a thoroughgoing policy of free trade would not only favour an increase of employment, but also the cheapening of food, could only have been roused in a country which was 1" Mémoire," 6 April 1776, in Œuvres, viii. 460. Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 275. See also the articles on JEFFERSON and HAMILTON, ALEXANDER.

2

One incidental effect of the failure to secure free trade was that the African slave trade, with West Indies as a depot for supplying the American market, ceased to be remunerative, and the opposition to the abolition of the trade was very much weaker than it would otherwise have been; see Hochstetter, "Die wirtschaftlichen und politischen Motive für die Abschaffung des britischen Sklavenhandels," in Schmoller, Staats und Sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungen, xxv. i. 37.

J. Welsford, Cobden's Foreign Teacher," in National Review (December 1905).

In Germany the growth of militarism and nationalism have gone on side by side under constitutional government, and certainly in harmony with predominant public opinion. Neither of these communities is willing to sink its individual conception of progress in those of the world at large; each is jealous of the intrusion of alien elements which cannot be reconciled with its own political and social system. And a similar recrudescence of patriotic feeling has been observable in other countries, such as Norway and Hungary: the growth of national sentiment is shown, not only in the attempts to revive and popularize the use of a national language, but still more decidedly in the deter mination to have a real control over the economic life of the country. It is here that the new patriotism comes into direct conflict with the political principles of free trade as advocated by Bastiat and Cobden; for them the important point was that countries, by becoming dependent on one another, would be prevented from engaging in hostilities. The new nations are Compatriot Club Lectures (1905), p. 306.

determined that they will not allow other countries to have such control over their economic condition, as to be able to exercise a powerful influence on their political life. Each is determined to be the master in his own house, and each has rejected free trade because of the cosmopolitanism which it involves.

is some reason, however, for raising the question whether free trade has been equally successful, not only in its economic, but in its social results, in all the large political communities where it has been introduced. In a region like the United States of America, it is probably seen at its best; there is an immense Economically, free trade lays stress on consumption as the variety of different products throughout that great zone of the chief criterion of prosperity. It is, of course, true that goods are continent, so that the mutual co-operation of the various parts produced with the object of being consumed, and it is plausible is most beneficial, while the standard of habit and comfort is so to insist on taking this test; but it is also true that consumption far uniform3 throughout the whole region, and the facilities for and production are mutually interdependent, and that in some the change of employment are so many, that there is little inways production is the more important of the two. Consumption jurious competition between different districts. In the British looks to the present, and the disposal of actual goods; production empire the conditions are reversed; but though the great selflooks to the future, and the conditions under which goods can governing colonies have withdrawn from the circle, in the hope continue to be regularly provided and thus become available for of building up their own economic life in their own way, free consumption in the long run. As regards the prosperity of the trade is still maintained over a very large part of the British community in the future it is important that goods should be empire. Throughout this area, there are very varied physical consumed in such a fashion as to secure that they shall be replaced conditions; there is also an extraordinary variety of races, each or increased before they are used up; it is the amount of pro- with its own habits, and own standard of comfort; and in these duction rather than the amount of consumption that demands circumstances it may be doubted whether the free competition, consideration, and gives indication of growth or of decadence. involved in free trade, is really altogether wholesome. Within In these circumstances there is much to be said for looking at this sphere the ideal of Bastiat and his followers is being realized, the economic life of a country from the point of view which free- England, as a great manufacturing country, has more than held traders have abandoned or ignorc. It is not on the possibilities her own; India and Ireland are supplied with manufactured of consumption in the present, but on the prospects of production goods by England, and in each case the population is forced to in the future, that the continued wealth of the community depends; look to the soil for its means of support, and for purchasing and this principle is the only one which conforms to the modern power. In each case the preference for tillage, as an occupation, conception of the essential requirements of sociological science has rendered it comparatively easy to keep the people on the in its wider aspect (see SOCIOLOGY). This is most obviously true land; but there is some reason to believe that the law of diminishin regard to countries of which the resources are very imperfectly ing returns is already making itself felt, at all events in India, developed. If their policy is directed to securing the greatest and is forcing the people into deeper poverty. It may be doubtful possible comfort for each consumer in the present, it is certain in the case of Ireland how far the superiority of England in inthat progress will be slow; the planting of industries for which dustrial pursuits has prevented the development of manufactures; the country has an advantage may be a tedious process; and the progress in the last decades of the 18th century was too shortin order to stimulate national efficiency temporary protection-lived to be conclusive; but there is at least a strong impression involving what is otherwise unnecessary immediate cost to the consumer-may seem to be abundantly justified. Such a free trader as John Stuart Mill himself admits that a case may be made out for treating "infant industries" as exceptions; and if this exception be admitted it is likely to establish a pre-out. cedent. After all, the various countries of the world are all in different stages of development; some are old and some are new; and even the old countries differ greatly in the progress they have made in distinct arts. The introduction of machinery has everywhere changed the conditions of production, so that some countries have lost and others have gained a special advantage. Most of the countries of the world are convinced that the wisest economy is to attend to the husbanding of their resources of every kind, and to direct their policy not merely with a view to consumption in the present, but rather with regard to the possibilities of increased production in the future.

This deliberate rejection of the doctrine of free trade between nations, both in its political and economic aspects, has not interfered, however, with the steady progress of free commercial intercourse within the boundaries of a single though composite political community. "Internal free trade," though the name was not then current in this sense, was one of the burning questions in England in the 17th century; it was perhaps as important a factor as puritanism in the fall of Charles I. Internal free trade was secured in France in the 18th century; thanks to Hamilton, it was embodied in the constitution of the United States; it was introduced into Germany by Bismarck; and was firmly established in the Dominion of Canada and the Commonwealth of Australia. It became in consequence, where practicable, a part of the modern federal idea as usually interpreted. There are thus great areas, externally self-protecting, where free trade, as between internal divisions, has been introduced with little, if any, political difficulty, and with considerable economic advantage. These cases are sometimes quoted as justifying the expectation that the same principle is likely to be adopted sooner or later in regard to external trading relations. There J. S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy, book v. chapter x. § 1. F. S. Oliver, Alexander Hamilton, 142,

in many quarters that the industries of Ireland might have flourished if they had had better opportunities allowed them. In the case of India we know that the hereditary artistic skill, which had been built up in bygone generations, has been stamped It seems possible that the modern unrest in India, and the discontent in Ireland, may be connected with the economic conditions in these countries, on which free trade has been imposed without their consent. So far the population which subsists on the cheaper food, and has the lower standard of life, has been the sufferer; but the mischief might operate in another fashion. The self-governing colonies at all events feel that competition in the same market between races with different standards of comfort has infinite possibilities of mischief. It is easy to conjure up conditions under which the standard of comfort of wage-earners in England would be seriously threatened.

Since the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica was published it has become clear that the free-trade doctrines of Bastiat and Cobden have not been gaining ground in the world at large, and at the opening of the 20th century it could hardly be said with confidence that the question was " finally settled" so far as England was concerned. As to whether the interests of Great Britain still demanded that she should continue on the line she adopted in the exceptional conditions of the middle of the 19th century, expert opinion was conspicuously divided; but there remained no longer the old enthusiasm for free trade as

The standard is, of course, lower among the negroes and mean whites in the South than in the North and West.

'F. Beauclerk, "Free Trade in India," in Economic Review (July 1907), xvii. 284.

A. E. Murray, History of the Commercial and Financial Relations between England and Ireland, 294.

For the tariff reform movement in English politics see the article (Grundriss der allgemeinen Volkswirtschaftslehre, ii. 641) and A. on CHAMBERLAIN, J. Among continental writers G. Schmoller Wagner (Preface to M. Schwab's Chamberlains Handels politik) pronounce in favour of a change, as Fuchs did by anticipation, Schulze-Gaevernitz (Britischer Imperialismus und englischer Frei handel), Aubry (Étude critique de la politique commerciale de l'Angleterre à l'égard de ses colonies), and Blondel (La politique Protectionniste en Angleterre un nouveau danger pour la France) are against it.

the harbinger of an Utopia. The old principles of the bourgeois | after its destruction by fire in 1484 and restored in 1893, was manufacturers had been taken up by the proletariat and shaped to suit themselves. Socialism, like free trade, is cosmopolitan in its aims, and is indifferent to patriotism and hostile to militarism. Socialism, like free trade, insists on material welfare as the primary object to be aimed at in any policy, and, like free trade, socialism tests welfare by reference to possibilities of consumption. In one respect there is a difference; throughout Cobden's attack on the governing classes there are signs of his jealousy of the superior status of the landed gentry, but socialism has a somewhat wider range of view and demands "equality of opportunity" with the capitalist as well.

founded in the 12th century. Of the original church a magnificent German Romanesque doorway, known as the Golden Gate (Goldene Pforte), survives. The church contains numerous monuments, among others one to Prince Maurice of Saxony. Adjoining the cathedral is the mausoleum (Begräbniskapelle), built in 1594 in the Italian Renaissance style, in which are buried the remains of Henry the Pious and his successors down to John George IV., who died in 1694. Of the other four Protestant churches the most noteworthy is the Peterskirche which, with its three towers, is a conspicuous object on the highest point of the town. Among the other public buildings are the old town-hall, dating from the 15th century, the antiquarian museum, and the natural history museum. There are a classical and modern, a commercial and an agricultural school, and numerous charitable institutions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Reference has already been made to the principal works which deal critically with the free-trade policy. Professor Fawcett's Free Trade is a good exposition of free-trade principles; so also is Professor Bastable's Commerce of Nations. Among authors who have restated the principles with special reference to the revived controversy on the subject may be men- Freiberg owes its origin to the discovery of its silver mines tioned Professor W. Smart, The Return to Protection, being a Re (c. 1163). The town, with the castle of Freudenstein, was built statement of the Case for Free Trade (2nd ed., 1906), and A. C. Pigou, by Otto the Rich, margrave of Meissen, in 1175, and its name, Protective and Preferential Import Duties (1906). (W. Cu.) FREGELLAE, an ancient town of Latium adiectum, situated which first appears in 1221, is derived from the extensive mining on the Via Latina, 11 m. W. N. W. of Aquinum, near the left branch franchises granted to it about that time. In all the partitions of of the Liris. It is said to have belonged in early times to the the territories of the Saxon house of Wettin, from the latter part Opici or Oscans, and later to the Volscians. It was apparently of the 13th century onward, Freiberg always remained common destroyed by the Samnites a little before 330 B.C., in which year property, and it was not till 1485 (the mines not till 1537) that the people of Fabrateria Vetus (mod. Ceccano) besought the help it was definitively assigned to the Albertine line. The Reformaof Rome against them, and in 328 B.C. a Latin colony was estabtion was introduced into Freiberg in 1536 by Henry the Pious, lished there. The place was taken in 320 B.C. by the Samnites, who resided here. The town suffered severely during the Thirty but re-established by the Romans in 313 B.C. It continued hence-Years' War, and again during the French occupation from 1806 forward to be faithful to Rome; by breaking the bridges over the to 1814, during which time it had to support an army of 700,000 Liris it interposed an obstacle to the advance of Hannibal on men and find forage for 200,000 horses. Rome in 212 B.C., and it was a native of Fregellae who headed the deputation of the non-revolting colonies in 209 B.C. It appears to have been a very important and flourishing place owing to its command of the crossing of the Liris, and to its position in a fertile territory, and it was here that, after the rejection of the proposals of M. Fulvius Flaccus for the extension of Roman burgess-rights in 125 B.C., a revolt against Rome broke out. It was captured by treachery in the same year and destroyed; but its place was taken in the following year by the colony of Fabrateria Nova, 3 m. to the S.E. on the opposite bank of the Liris, while a post station Fregellanum (mod. Ceprano) is mentioned in the itineraries; Fregellae itself, however, continued to exist as a village even under the empire. The site is clearly traceable about m. E. of Ceprano, but the remains of the city are scanty.

See H. Gerlach, Kleine Chronik von Freiberg (2nd ed., Freiberg, 1898): H. Ermisch, Das Freiberger Stadtrecht (Leipzig, 1889); diplom. Sax. reg. (3 vols., Leipzig, 1883-1891); Freibergs Berg- und Ermisch and O. Posse, Urkundenbuch der Stadt Freiberg, in Codex Hüllenwesen, published by the Bergmännischer Verein (Freiberg, 1883); Ledebur, Über die Bedeutung der Freiberger Bergakademie (ib. 1903); Steche, Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler der Amtshauptmannschaft Freiberg (Dresden, 1884).

FREIBURG, a town of Germany in Prussian Silesia, on the Polsnitz, 35 m. S.W. of Breslau, on the railway to Halbstadt. Pop. (1905) 9917. It has an Evangelical and Roman Catholic church, and its industries include watch-making, linen-weaving and distilling. In the neighbourhood are the old and modern castles of the Fürstenstein family, whence the town is sometimes distinguished as Freiburg unter dem Fürstenstein. At Freiburg, on the 22nd of July 1762, the Prussians defended themselves successfully against the superior forces of the Austrians.

See G. Colasanti, Fregellae, storia e topografia (1906). (T. As.) FREIBERG, or FREYBERG, a town of Germany in the kingdom of Saxony, on the Münzbach, near its confluence with the Mulde, 19 m. S.W. of Dresden on the railway to Chemnitz, with a branch to Nossen. Pop. (1905) 30,896. Its situation, on the rugged northern slope of the Erzgebirge, is somewhat bleak and uninvit-between Basel and Mannheim, 40 m. N. of the former city. ing, but the town is generally well built and makes a prosperous impression. A part of its ancient walls still remains; the other portions have been converted into public walks and gardens. Freiberg is the seat of the general administration of the mines throughout the kingdom, and its celebrated mining academy (Bergakademie), founded in 1765, is frequented by students from all parts of the world. Connected with it are extensive collections of minerals and models, a library of 50,000 volumes, and laboratories for chemistry, metallurgy and assaying. Among its distinguished scholars it reckons Abraham Gottlob Werner (1750-1817), who was also a professor there, and Alexander von Humboldt. Freiberg has extensive manufactures of gold and silver lace, woollen cloths, linen and cotton goods, iron, copper and brass wares, gunpowder and white-lead. It has also several large breweries. In the immediate vicinity are its famous silver and lead mines, thirty in number, and of which the principal ones passed into the property of the state in 1886. The castle of Freudenstein or Freistein, as rebuilt by the elector Augustus in 1572, is situated in one of the suburbs and is now used as a military magazine. In its grounds a monument was erected to Werner in 1851. The cathedral, rebuilt in late Gothic style

FREIBURG IM BREISGAU, an archiepiscopal see and city of Germany in the grand duchy of Baden, 12 m. E. of the Rhine, beautifully situated on the Dreisam at the foot of the Schlossberg, one of the heights of the Black Forest range, on the railway Pop. (1905) 76,285. The town is for the most part well built, having several wide and handsome streets and a number of spacious squares. It is kept clean and cool by the waters of the river, which flow through the streets in open channels; and its old fortifications have been replaced by public walks, and, what is more unusual, by vineyards. It possesses a famous university, the Ludovica Albertina, founded by Albert VI., archduke of Austria, in 1457, and attended by about 2000 students. The library contains upwards of 250,000 volumes and 600 MSS., and among the other auxiliary establishments are an anatomical hall and museum and botanical gardens. The Freiburg minster is considered one of the finest of all the Gothic churches of Germany, being remarkable alike for the symmetry of its proportions, for the taste of its decorations, and for the fact that it may more correctly be said to be finished than almost any other building of the kind. The period of its erection probably lies for the most part between 1122 and 1252; but the choir was not built till 1513. The tower, which rises above the western entrance, is 386 ft. in height, and it presents a skilful transition from a square base into an octagonal superstructure, which in its turn is surmounted by a pyramidal spire of the most

exquisite open work in stone. In the interior of the church are some beautiful stained glass windows, both ancient and modern, the tombstones of several of the dukes of Zähringen, statues of archbishops of Freiburg, and paintings by Holbein and by Hans Baldung (c. 1470-1545), commonly called Grün. Among the other noteworthy buildings of Freiburg are the palaces of the grand duke and the archbishop, the old town-hall, the theatre, the Kaufhaus or merchants' hall, a 16th-century building with a handsome façade, the church of St Martin, with a graceful spire restored 1880-1881, the new town-hall, completed 1901, in Renaissance style, and the Protestant church, formerly the church of the abbey of Thennenbach, removed hither in 1839. In the centre of the fish-market square is a fountain surmounted by a statue of Duke Berthold III. of Zähringen; in the Franziskaner Platz there is a monument to Berthold Schwarz, the traditional discoverer here, in 1259, of gunpowder; the Rotteck Platz takes its name from the monument of Karl Wenzeslaus von Rotteck (1775-1840), the historian, which formerly stood on the site of the Schwarz statue; and in Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse a bronze statue was erected in 1876 to the memory of Herder, who in the early part of the 19th century founded in Freiburg an institute for draughtsmen, engravers and lithographers, and carried on a famous bookselling business. On the Schlossberg above the town there are massive ruins of two castles destroyed by the French in 1744; and about 2 m. to the N.E. stands the castle of Zähringen, the original seat of the famous family of the counts of that name. Situated on the ancient road which runs by the Höllenpass between the valleys of the Danube and the Rhine, Freiburg early acquired commercial importance, and it is still the principal centre of the trade of the Black Forest. It manufactures buttons, chemicals, starch, leather, tobacco, silk thread, paper, and hempen goods, as well as beer and wine.

Freiburg is of uncertain foundation. In 1120 it became a free town, with privileges similar to those of Cologne; but in 1219 it fell into the hands of a branch of the family of Urach. | After it had vainly attempted to throw off the yoke by force of arms, it purchased its freedom in 1366; but, unable to reimburse the creditors who had advanced the money, it was, in 1368, obliged to recognize the supremacy of the house of Hapsburg. In the 17th and 18th centuries it played a considerable part as a fortified town. It was captured by the Swedes in 1632, 1634 and 1638; and in 1644 it was seized by the Bavarians, who shortly after, under General Mercy, defeated in the neighbourhood the French forces under Enghien and Turenne. The French were in possession from 1677 to 1697, and again in 1713-1714 and 1744; and when they left the place in 1748, at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, they dismantled the fortifications. The Baden insurgents gained a victory at Freiburg in 1848, and the revolutionary government took refuge in the town in June 1849, but in the following July the Prussian forces took possession and occupied it until 1851. Since 1821 Freiburg has been the seat of an archbishop with jurisdiction over the sees of Mainz, Rottenberg and Limburg.

See Schreiber, Geschichte und Beschreibung des Münsters zu Freiburg (1820 and 1825); Geschichte der Stadt und Universität Freiburgs (1857-1859); Der Schlossberg bei Freiburg (1860); and Albert, Die Geschichtsschreibung der Stadt Freiburg (1902).

Battles of Freiburg, 3rd, 5th and 10th of August 1644.-During the Thirty Years' War the neighbourhood of Freiburg was the scene of a series of engagements between the French under Louis de Bourbon, duc d'Enghien (afterwards called the great Condé), and Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne, and the Bavarians and Austrians commanded by Franz, Freiherr von Mercy.

At the close of the campaign of 1643 the French "Army of Weimar," having been defeated and driven into Alsace by the Bavarians, had there been reorganized under the command of Turenne, then a young general of thirty-two and newly promoted to the marshalate. In May 1644 he opened the campaign by recrossing the Rhine and raiding the enemy's posts as far as Überlingen on the lake of Constance and Donaueschingen on

the Danube. The French then fell back with their booty and prisoners to Breisach, a strong garrison being left in Freiburg. The Bavarian commander, however, revenged himself by besieging Freiburg (June 27th), and Turenne's first attempt to relieve the place failed. During July, as the siege progressed, the French government sent the duc d'Enghien, who was ten years younger still than Turenne, but had just gained his great victory of Rocroy, to take over the command. Enghien brought with him a veteran army, called the " Army of France," Turenne remaining in command of the Army of Weimar. The armies met at Breisach on the 2nd of August, by which date Freiburg had surrendered. At this point most commanders of the time would have decided not to fight, but to manœuvre Mercy away from Freiburg; Enghien, however, was a fighting general, and Mercy's entrenched lines at Freiburg seemed to him a target rather than an obstacle. A few hours after his arrival, therefore, without waiting for the rearmost troops of his columns, he set the combining armies in motion for Krozingen, a village on what was then the main road between Breisach and Freiburg. The total force immediately available numbered only 16,000 combatants. Enghien and Turenne had arranged that the Army of France was to move direct upon Freiburg by Wolfenweiter, while the Army of Weimar was to make its way by hillside tracks to Wittnau and thence to attack the rear of Mercy's lines while Enghien assaulted them in front. Turenne's march (August 3rd, 1644) was slow and painful, as had been anticipated, and late in the afternoon, on passing Wittnau, he encountered the enemy. The Weimarians carried the outer lines of defence without much difficulty, but as they pressed on towards Merzhausen the resistance became more and more serious. Turenne's force was little more than 6000, and these were wearied with a long day of marching and fighting on the steep and wooded hillsides of the Black Forest. Thus the turning movement came to a standstill far short of Uffingen, the village on Mercy's line of retreat that Turenne was to have seized, nor was a flank attack possible against Mercy's main line, from which he was separated by the crest of the Schönberg. Meanwhile, Enghien's army had at the prearranged hour (4 P.M.) attacked Mercy's position on the Ebringen spur. A steep slope, vineyards, low stone walls and abatis had all to be surmounted, under a galling fire from the Bavarian musketeers, before the Army of France found itself, breathless and in disorder, in front of the actual entrenchments of the crest. A first attack failed, as did an attempt to find an unguarded path round the shoulder of the Schönberg. The situation was grave in the extreme, but Enghien resolved on Turenne's account to renew the attack, although only a quarter of his original force was still capable of making an effort. He himself and all the young nobles of his staff dismounted and led the infantry forward again, the prince threw his baton into the enemy's lines for the soldiers to retrieve, and in the end, after a bitter struggle, the Bavarians, whose reserves had been taken away to oppose Turenne in the Merzhausen defile, abandoned the entrenchments and disappeared into the woods of the adjoining spur. Enghien hurriedly re-formed his troops, fearing at every moment to be hurled down the hill by a counterstroke; but none came. The French bivouacked in the rain, Turenne making his way across the mountain to confer with the prince, and meanwhile Mercy quietly drew off his army in the dark to a new set of entrenchments on the ridge on which stood the Loretto Chapel. On the 4th of August the Army of France and the Army of Weimar met at Merzhausen, the rearmost troops of the Army of France came in, and the whole was arranged by the major-generals in the plain facing the Loretto ridge. This position was attacked on the 5th. Enghien had designed his battle even more carefully than before, but as the result of a series of accidents the two French armies attacked prematurely and straight to their front, one brigade after another, and though at one moment Enghien, sword in hand, broke the line of defence with his last intact reserve, a brilliant counterstroke, led by Mercy's brother Kaspar (who was killed), drove out the assailants. It is said that Enghien lost half his men on this day and Mercy one-third of his, so severe was the battle. But the result could.

not be gainsaid; it was for the French a complete and costly failure. T

For three days after this the armies lay in position without fighting, the French well supplied with provisions and comforts from Breisach, the Bavarians suffering somewhat severely from want of food, and especially forage, as all their supplies had to be hauled from Villingen over the rough roads of the Black Forest. Enghien then decided to make use of the Glotter Tal to interrupt altogether this already unsatisfactory line of supply, and thus to force the Bavarians either to attack him at a serious disadvantage, or to retreat across the hills with the loss of their artillery and baggage and the disintegration of their army by famine and desertion. With this object, the Army of Weimar was drawn off on the morning of the 9th of August and marched round by Betzenhausen and Lehen to Langen Denzling. The infantry of the Army of France, then the trains, followed, while Enghien with his own cavalry faced Freiburg and the Loretto position.

Before dawn on the roth the advance guard of Turenne's army was ascending the Glotter Tal. But Mercy had divined his

[blocks in formation]

adversary's plan, and leaving a garrison to hold Freiburg, the Bavarian army had made a night march on the 9/1oth to the Abbey of St Peter, whence on the morning of the 10th Mercy fell back to Graben, his nearest magazine in the mountains. Turenne's advanced guard appeared from the Glotter Tal only to find a stubborn rearguard of cavalry in front of the abbey. A sharp action began, but Mercy hearing the drums and fifes of the French infantry in the Glotter Tal broke it off and continued his retreat in good order. Enghien thus obtained little material result from his manœuvre. Only two guns and such of Mercy's wagons that were unable to keep up fell into the hands of the French. Enghien and Turenne did not continue the chase farther than Graben, and Mercy fell back unmolested to Rothenburg on the Tauber.

1. The moral results of this sanguinary fighting were, however, important and perhaps justified the sacrifice of so many valuable soldiers. Enghien's pertinacity had not achieved a decision with the sword, but Mercy had been so severely punished that he was unable to interfere with his opponent's new plan of campaign. This, which was carried out by the united armies and by reinforcements from France, while Turenne's cavalry screened them by bold demonstrations on the Tauber, led to nothing less than the conquest of the Rhine Valley from Basel to Coblenz, a task which was achieved so rapidly that the Army of France and its victorious young leader were free to return to France in two months from the time of their appearance in Turenne's quarters at Breisach. to

FREIDANK (VRIDANC), the name by which a Middle High German didactic poet of the early 13th century is known. It has been disputed whether the word, which is equivalent to "freethought," is to be regarded as the poet's real name or only as a pseudonym; the latter is probably the case. Little is known of Freidank's life. He accompanied Frederick II. on his crusade to the Holy Land, where, in the years 1228-1229, a portion at least of his work was composed; and it is said that on his tomb (if indeed it was not the tomb of another Freidank) at Treviso. there was inscribed, with allusion to the character of his style, "he always spoke and never sang." Wilhelm Grimm originated the hypothesis that Freidank was to be identified with Walther von der Vogelweide; but this is no longer tenable. Freidank's work bears the name of Bescheidenheit, i.e. " practical wisdom," correct judgment," and consists of a collection of proverbs, pithy sayings, and moral and satirical reflections, arranged under general heads. Its popularity till the end of the 16th century is shown by the great number of MSS. extant.

66

Sebastian Brant published the Bescheidenheit in a modified form in 1508. Wilhelm Grimm's edition appeared in 1834 (2nd ed. 1860), H. F. Bezzenberger's in 1872. A later edition is by F. Sandvoss (1877). The old Latin translation, Fridangi Discretio, was printed by C. Lemcke in 1868; and there are two translations into modern German, A. Bacmeister's (1861) and K. Simrock's (1867). See also F. Pfeiffer, Über Freidank (Zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte, 1855), and H. Paul, Über die ursprüngliche Anordnung von Freidanks Be scheidenheit (1870).

FREIENWALDE, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, on the Oder, 28 m. N.E. of Berlin, on the FrankfortAngermünde railway. Pop. (1905) 7995. It has a small palace, built by the Great Elector, an Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, and manufactures of furniture, machinery, &c. The neighbouring forests and its medicinal springs make it a favourite summer resort of the inhabitants of Berlin. A new tower commands a fine view of the Oderbruch (see ODER). Freienwalde, which must be distinguished from the smaller town of the same name in Pomerania, first appears as a town in 1364.

FREIESLEBENITE, a rare mineral consisting of sulphantimonite of silver and lead, (Pb, Ag2) Sb4S11. The monoclinic crystals are prismatic in habit, with deeply striated prism and dome faces. The colour is steel-grey, and the lustre metallic; hardness 2, specific gravity 6.2. It occurs with argentite, chalybite and galena in the silver veins of the Himmelsfürst mine at Freiberg, Saxony, where it has been known since 1720. The species was named after J. K. Freiesleben, who had earlier called it Schilf-Glaserz. Other localities are Hiendelaencina near Guadalajara in Spain, Kapnik-Bánya in Hungary, and Guanajuato in Mexico. A species separated from freieslebenite by V. von Zepharovich in 1871, because of differences in crystalline form, is known as diaphorite (from diapopá, "difference"); it is very similar to freieslebenite in appearance and has perhaps the same chemical composition (or possibly Ag:PbSb.Ss), but is orthorhombic in crystallization. A third mineral also very similar to freieslebenite in appearance is the orthorhombic andorite, AgPbSb,S,, which is mined as a silver ore at Oruro in Bolivia.

FREIGHT, (pronounced like "weight"; derived from the Dutch vracht or vrecht, in Fr. fret, the Eng. "fraught " being the same word, and formerly used for the same thing, but now only as an adjective = "laden "), the lading or cargo of a ship, and the hire paid for their transport (see AFFREIGHTMENT); from the original sense of water-transport of goods the word has also come to be used for land-transit (particularly in America, by railroad), and by analogy for any load or burden.

FREILIGRATH, FERDINAND (1810-1876), German poet, was born at Detmold on the 17th of June 1810. He was educated at the gymnasium of his native town, and in his sixteenth year was sent to Soest, with a view to preparing him for a commercial career. Here he had also time and opportunity to acquire a taste for French and English literature. The years from 1831 to 1836 he spent in a bank at Amsterdam, and 1837 to 1839 in a business house at Barmen. In 1838 his Gedichte appeared and met with such extraordinary success that he gave up the

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »