agitation. The ideas of Luther created universal discussion. Discussion
led to animosities. All Germany was in a ferment; and the agitation was
not confined to those States which accepted the Reformation, but to
Catholic States also. The Catholic princes resolved to crush the
Reformation, first in their own dominions, and afterwards in the other
States of Germany. Hence, a bloody persecution of the Protestants took
place in all Catholic States. Their sufferings were unendurable. For a
while they submitted to the cruel lash, but at last they resolved to
defend the right of worshipping God according to their consciences. They
armed themselves, for death seemed preferable to religious despotism.
For more than fifty years after the death of Luther, Germany was the
scene of commotions ending in a fiery persecution. At that time Germany
was in advance of the rest of Europe in wealth and intelligence; the
Protestants especially were kindled to an enthusiasm, pertaining to
theological questions, which we in these times can but feebly realize;
and the Germans were doubtless the most earnest and religious people in
Europe. In those days there was neither religious indifference nor
scepticism nor rationalism. The faith of the people was simple, and they
were resolved to maintain it at any cost. But there were religious
parties and asperities, even among the Protestants. The Lutherans would
not unite with the Calvinists, and the Calvinists would not accede to
the demands of the Lutherans.
After a series of struggles with the Catholics, the Lutherans succeeded,
by the treaty of Augsburg (1555), in securing toleration; and this
toleration lasted during the reigns of Ferdinand I. and Maximilian II.
Indeed, Germany enjoyed tranquillity until the reign of Matthias, in
1612. This usurping emperor, who had delivered Germany from the Turks,
abolished in his dominions the Protestant religion, so far as edicts and
persecution could deprive the Protestants of their religious liberties.
Matthias died in 1619, and was succeeded by Ferdinand II., a bigoted
prince, who had been educated by the Jesuits. This emperor was an
inveterate enemy of the Protestants. He forbade their meetings, deprived
them even of civil privileges, pulled down their churches and schools,
erected scaffolds in every village, appointed only Catholic magistrates,
and inflicted unsparing cruelties on all who seceded from the
Catholic church.
It was under this Austrian emperor, seventy-three years from the death
of Luther, that the first act of the bloody tragedy which I am to
describe was opened by an insurrection in Bohemia, one of the hereditary
possessions of the House of Austria.
In this kingdom, isolated from the rest of Germany, separated on every
side from adjoining States by high mountains of volcanic origin, peopled
with the descendants of the ancient Sclavonians, who were characterized
by impulse and impetuosity, the reformed doctrines had taken a powerful
hold of the affections and convictions of the people. The followers of
John Huss and Jerome of Prague were something like the Lollards of
England, in their spirit and sincerity. But they were persecuted by
their Catholic rulers with a rigor and cruelty never seen among the
Lollards; for Ferdinand II. was the hereditary king of Bohemia as well
as emperor of Germany.
At last his tyranny and cruelties became unendurable, and in a violent
burst of passionate indignation his deputies were thrown out of the
windows of the chamber of the Council of Regency at Prague. This act of
violence was the signal of a general revolt, not in Bohemia merely, but
in Silesia, Moravia, Hungary, and Austria. The celebrated Count
Mansfeld, a soldier of fortune, with only four thousand troops, dared to
defy the whole imperial power; and for a while he was successful. The
Bohemians renounced their allegiance to Ferdinand, and chose for their
king Frederick V.,--Elector Palatine of the Rhine, son-in-law of James
I. of England, and head of the Protestant party in Germany. He unwisely
abandoned his electoral palace at Heidelberg, to grasp the royal sceptre
at Prague. But he was no match for the Austrian emperor, who, summoning
from every quarter the allies and adherents of imperial power, and
making peace with other enemies, poured into Bohemia such overwhelming
forces under Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, that his authority was
established more firmly than before. The battle of Prague (1620) decided
the fate of Bohemia, and the Elector Palatine became a fugitive, and his
possessions were given to the Duke of Bavaria.
Then followed a persecution which has had no parallel since the
slaughter of the Albigenses and the massacre of St. Bartholomew. The
unhappy kingdom of Bohemia was abandoned to inquisitions and executions;
all liberties were suppressed, the nobles were decimated, ministers and
teachers were burned or beheaded, and Protestants of every rank, age,
and condition were prohibited from acting as guardians to children, or
making wills, or contracting marriages with Catholics, or holding any
office of trust and emolument. They were outlawed as felons, and
disfranchised as infidels. The halls of justice were deserted, the Muses
accompanied the learned in their melancholy flight, and all that
remained of Bohemian gallantry and heroism forsook the land. Strange to
say, the land of Huss and Jerome became henceforth the strongest hold of
Austrian despotism and papal superstition.
This is one of those instances where persecution proved successful. It
is a hackneyed saying that "the blood of martyrs is the seed of the
Church;" and it is true that lofty virtues have been generally developed
by self-sacrifice and martyrdom, and that only through great tribulation
have permanent blessings been secured. The Hollanders, by inundating
their fields and fighting literally to the "last ditch," preserved their
liberties and secured ultimate prosperity. The fires of Smithfield did
not destroy the reformed religion in England in the time of Mary, and
the jails and judicial murders of later and better times did not prevent
the progress of popular rights, or the extension of Puritanism in the
wilds of the American continent. But in the history of society the
instances are unfortunately numerous when bigotry and despotism have
kindled their infernal fires and erected their bloody scaffolds, not to
purify the Church and nourish the principles of Christian progress, but
to destroy what is good as well as what is evil. What availed the
struggles of the Waldenses in the Middle Ages? Who came to the rescue of
Savonarola when he attempted to reform the lives of degenerate
Florentines? What beneficial effects resulted ultimately from the
Inquisition in Spain? How was the revocation of the edict of Nantes
overruled for the good of the Huguenots of France?
And yet the unfortunate suppression of religious liberty in Bohemia, and
the sufferings of those who came to her rescue, especially the
misfortunes of the Elector Palatine, arrayed the Protestant princes of
Germany against the Emperor, and created general indignation throughout
Europe. Austria became more than ever a hated and dreaded power, not
merely to the States of Sweden, Denmark, Holland, and England, but to
Catholic France herself, then ruled by that able and ambitious statesman
Cardinal Richelieu, before whose tomb in an after age the czar Peter
bowed in earnest homage from the recollection and admiration of his
transcendent labors in behalf of absolutism. Even Richelieu, a prince of
the Church and the persecutor of the Huguenots, was alarmed at the
encroachments of Austria, and intrigued with Protestant princes to
undermine her dangerous ascendency.
Then opened the second act of the bloody drama of the seventeenth
century, when the allied Protestant princes of Germany, assisted by the
English and the Dutch, rallied under the leadership of Christian, King
of Denmark, and resolved to recover what they had lost; while Bethlen
Gabor, a Transylvanian prince, at the head of an army of robbers,
invaded Hungary and Austria. The Emperor, straitened in his finances,
was in no condition to meet this powerful confederacy, although the
illustrious Tilly was the commander of his forces.
But the demon of despotism, who never sleeps, raised up to his
assistance a great military genius. This was Wallenstein, Duke of
Friedland, the richest noble in Bohemia. The person whom he most
resembled, in that age of struggle and contending forces, when despotism
sought unscrupulous agents, was Thomas Wentworth, Earl of
Strafford,--the right hand of Charles I., in his warfare against the
liberties of England. Like Stratford, he was an apostate from the
principles in which he had been educated; like him, he had arisen from a
comparatively humble station; like him, his talents were as commanding
as his ambition,--devoted first to his own exaltation; and, secondly, to
the cause of absolutism, with which he sympathized with all the
intensity that a proud and domineering spirit may be supposed to feel
for the struggles of inexperienced democracy. Like the English
statesman, the German general was a Jesuit in the use of tools, jealous
of his authority, liberal in his rewards, and fearful in his vengeance.
Though greedy of admiration and fond of display, he surrounded himself
with mystery and gloom. Like Strafford, he was commanding in his person,
dignified, reserved, and sullen; with an eye piercing and melancholy, a
brow lowering with thought and care, and a lip compressed into
determination and twisted into a smile of ironical disdain.
This nobleman had fought with distinction as a colonel at the battle of
Prague, when Bohemian liberties had been prostrated, and had signally
distinguished himself in his infamous crusade against his own
countrymen. He offered, at his own expense, to raise and equip an army
of fifty thousand men in the service of the Emperor; but demanded as a
condition, that he should have the appointment of all his officers, and
the privilege of enriching himself and army from the spoils and
confiscations of conquered territories. These terms were extraordinary
and humiliating to an absolute sovereign, yet, at the crisis in which
Ferdinand was placed, they were too tempting to be refused.
Wallenstein fulfilled his promises, and raised in an incredibly short
time an immense army, composed of outlaws and robbers and adventurers
from all nations. He advanced rapidly against the allied Protestant
forces, levying enormous contributions wherever he appeared; as
imperious to friends as to foes, mistrusted and feared by both, yet
supremely indifferent to praise or censure; resting on the power of
brute force and his ability to enrich his soldiers. Possessing a fine
military genius, unbounded means, and unscrupulous rapacity, and
assisted by such generals as Tilly, Pappenheim, and Piccolomini,
seconded by Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, he soon reduced his enemies to
despair. The King of Denmark was unequal to the contest, and sued for
peace. The Elector Frederic again became a fugitive, the Duke of
Brunswick was killed, and the intrepid Mansfeld died. The Electors of
Saxony and Brandenburg, the natural defenders of Protestantism and the
leading princes of the league, were awed into an abject neutrality. The
old protectors of Lutheranism were timid and despairing. The monarchs of
Europe trembled. Germany lay prostrate and bleeding. Christendom stood
aghast at the greatness of the calamities which afflicted Germany and
threatened neighboring nations.
But the Emperor at Vienna was overjoyed, and swelled with arrogance and
triumph. He divided among the members of his imperial house the rich
benefices of the Church, and bestowed upon his victorious general the
revenues of provinces. He now resolved to pursue the King of Denmark
into his remotest territories, to dethrone the King of Sweden, to give
away the crown of Poland, to aid the Spaniards in the recovery of the
United Provinces, to exterminate the Protestant religion, to subvert the
liberties of the German nations, and reign as a terrible incarnation of
imperial tyranny. He would even revive the dreams of Charlemagne and
Charles V., and make Vienna the centre of that power which once emanated
from Borne. He would ally himself more strongly with the Pope, and
extend the double tyranny of priests and kings over the whole continent
of Europe. Fines, imprisonments, tortures, banishments, and executions
were now added to the desolations which one hundred and fifty thousand
soldiers inflicted on villages and cities that had been for generations
increasing in wealth and prosperity.
In that dark hour of calamity and fears, Providence raised up a greater
hero than Wallenstein, a noble protector and intrepid deliverer, even
Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden; and the third act of the political
tragedy opens with his brilliant career.
Carlyle has somewhere said: "Is not every genius an impossibility until
he appear?" This is singularly true of Gustavus Adolphus. It was the
last thing for contemporaries to conjecture that the deliverer of
Germany, and the great hero of the Thirty Years' War, would have arisen
in the ice-bound regions of northern Europe. No great character had
arisen in Sweden of exalted fame, neither king nor poet, nor
philosopher, nor even singer. The little kingdom, to all appearance, was
rich only in mines of iron and hills of snow. It was not till the middle
of the sixteenth century that Sweden was even delivered from base
dependence on Denmark.
But Gustavus before he was thirty-five years of age had made his
countrymen a nation of soldiers; had freed his kingdom from Danish,
Russian, and Polish enemies; had made great improvements in the art of
war, having introduced a new system of tactics never materially improved
except by Frederic II.; had reduced strategy to a science; had raised
the importance of the infantry, had increased the strictness of military
discipline, had trained up a band of able generals, and inspired his
soldiers with unbounded enthusiasm.
And he had raised in the camp a new tone of moral feeling. Not even
Cromwell equalled him in divesting war of its customary atrocities, and
keeping alive the spirit of religion. The worship of God formed one of
the most important duties of the Swedish army wherever located. "Twice
every day the roll of the drum assembled the soldiers to prayer. The
usual vices of soldiers, like profanity and drunkenness and gambling,
were uniformly punished. Death was inflicted on any soldier who
assaulted a citizen in his house. Even a certificate was required of the
chief citizens of any place where troops were quartered, that their
conduct had been orderly. He never allowed, under any provocation, a
city to be taken by assault,--a striking contrast to the imperial
generals."
Nor amid the toils and dangers of war was Gustavus unmindful of his
duties as a king. He was one of the most enlightened statesmen that had
appeared since Charlemagne and Alfred. He established schools and
colleges, founded libraries, reformed the codes of law, introduced wise
mercantile regulations, rewarded eminent merit, respected the voice of
experience, and developed the industries of the country. What Richelieu
and Colbert did for France, what Burleigh and Cromwell did for England,
Gustavus did for Sweden. His prime minister is illustrious for wisdom
and ability, the celebrated Oxenstiern, through whose labors and genius
the country felt no impoverishment from war. He laid the foundation of
that prosperity which made a little kingdom great.
But all his excellences as a general, a statesman, and a ruler paled
before the exalted virtues of his private life. His urbanity, his
gentleness, his modesty, his meekness, his simplicity, and his love won
all hearts, and have never been exceeded except by Alfred the Great. He
was a Saint Louis on a throne, in marked contrast with the suspicion,
duplicity, roughness, and egotism of Oliver Cromwell,--the only other
great man of the century who equalled Gustavus in the value of public
services and enlightened mind. It is not often that Christian graces and
virtues are developed amid the tumults of war. David lost nothing of his
pious fervor and reliance on God when pursuing the Philistines, nor
Marcus Aurelius when fighting barbarians on the frozen Danube. The
perils and vicissitudes of war, with the momentous interests involved,
made Lincoln shine, amid all his jokes, a firm believer in the
overruling power that Napoleon failed to see. And so of Washington: he
was a better man and firmer Christian from the responsibilities that
were thrust upon him. Not so with Frederic the Great, and the marshals
of Louis XIV., with the exception of Turenne: war seemed rather to
develop their worst qualities. It usually makes a man unscrupulous,
hard, and arrogant. Military life is anything but interesting in the
usual bearing of Prussian officers. In our own Revolutionary war,
generals developed pride and avarice and jealousy. War turned Tilly into
a fiend. How cold and sullen and selfish it made Napoleon! How grasping
and greedy it made Marlborough! How unscrupulous it made Clive and
Hastings! How stubborn and proud it made Wellington! How vain and
pompous it made Scott! How overbearing it made Belle-Isle and Villars!
How reckless and hard it made Ney and Murat! The dangers and miseries of
war develop sternness, hardness, and indifference to suffering. It is
violence; and violence does not naturally produce the peaceful virtues.
It produces courage, indeed, but physical rather than moral,--least of
all, that spiritual courage which makes martyrs and saints. It makes
boon companions, not friends. It gives exaggerated ideas of
self-importance. It exalts the outward and material, not the spiritual
and the real. The very tread of a military veteran is stately, proud,
and conscious,--like that of a procession of cardinals, or of
railway kings.
So that when a man inured to camps and battles shines in the modest
unconsciousness of a Christian gentleman or meditative sage, we feel
unusual reverence for him. We feel that his soul is unpolluted, and that
he is superior to ordinary temptations.
And nothing in war develops the greatness of the higher qualities of
heart and soul but the sacredness of a great cause. This takes a man out
of himself, and binds his soul to God. He learns to feel that he is
merely an instrument of Almighty power. It was the sacredness of a great
cause that shed such a lustre on the character of Washington. How
unimpressible the victories of Charlemagne, disconnected with that work
of civilization which he was sent into the world to reconstruct! How
devoid of interest and grandeur were the battles of Marston Moor and
Worcester, without reference to those principles of religious liberty
which warmed the soul of Cromwell! The conflicts of Bunker Hill and
Princeton were insignificant when compared with the mighty array of
forces at Blenheim or Austerlitz; but when associated with ideas of
American independence, and the extension of American greatness from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, their sublime results are impressed upon the
mind with ever-increasing power. Even French soldiers have seldom been
victorious unless inspired by ideas of liberty or patriotism. It is ever
the majesty of a cause which makes not only great generals but good men.
And it was the greatness of the cause with which Gustavus Adolphus was
identified that gave to his character such moral beauty,--that same
beauty which exalted William the Silent and William of Orange amid the
disasters of their country, and made them eternally popular. After all,
the permanent idols of popular idolatry are not the intellectually
great, but the morally beautiful,--and all the more attractive when
their moral excellence is in strong contrast with the prevailing vices
of contemporaries. It was the moral greatness of Gustavus which has
given to him his truest fame. Great was he as a military genius, but
greater still as a benefactor of oppressed peoples.
Surely it was no common hero who armed himself for the deliverance of
Germany, which prostrate and bleeding held out her arms to be rescued
from political degradation, and for the preservation of liberties dearer
to good men than life itself. All Protestant Europe responded to the
cry; for great interests were now at stake, not in Germany merely, but
in the neighboring nations. It was to deliver his Lutheran brethren in
danger of extermination, and to raise a barrier against the overwhelming
power of Austria, that Gustavus Adolphus lent his armies to the
Protestant princes of Germany. Other motives may have entered into his
mind; his pride had been piqued by the refusal of the Emperor Ferdinand
to acknowledge his title as King; his dignity was wounded by the
contemptuous insolence shown to this ambassadors; his fears were excited
that Austria might seek to deprive him of his throne. The imperial
armies had already conquered Holstein and Jutland,--provinces that
belonged to Sweden. Unless Austria were humbled, Sweden would be ruined.
Gustavus embarked in the war against Austria, as William III. afterwards
did against Louis XIV. Wars to preserve the "balance of power" have not
generally been deemed offensive, when any power has become inordinately
aggrandized. Pitt opposed Napoleon, to rescue Europe from
universal monarchy.
So Gustavus, deeply persuaded of the duties laid upon him, assembled
together the deputies of his kingdom,--the representatives of the three
estates,--and explained to them his intentions and motives. "I know,"
said he, "the dangers I am about to encounter; I know that it is
probable I shall never return; I feel convinced that my life will
terminate on the field of battle. Let no one imagine that I am actuated
by private feelings or fondness for war. My object is to set bounds to
the increasing power of a dangerous empire before all resistance becomes
impossible. Your children will not bless your memory if, instead of
civil and religious freedom, you bequeath to them the superstitions of
monks and the double tyranny of popes and emperors. We must prevent the
subjugation of the Continent before we are reduced to depend upon a
narrow sea as the only safeguard of our liberties; for it is delusion to
suppose that a mighty empire will not be able to raise fleets, if once
firmly established on the shores of the ocean." Then taking his infant
daughter Christiana in his arms, he recommended her to the protection of
the nation, and bade adieu to the several orders of the State. Amid
their tears and sobs, he invoked upon them and his enterprise the
blessing of Almighty God. Then, hastening his preparations, he embarked
his forces for the deliverance of Germany. It was on the 24th of June,
1630, just one hundred years after the confession of Augsburg, that
Gustavus Adolphus landed on the German soil.
If ever the ruler of a nation is to be justified for going to war when
his country is not actually invaded, it was doubtless Gustavus Adolphus.
Had he withheld his aid, the probability is that all Germany would have
succumbed to the Austrian emperor, and have been incorporated with his
empire; and not only Germany, but Denmark and Sweden. The Protestant
religion would have been suppressed in northern Germany, as it was in
France by Louis XIV. There would have been no Protestant country in
Europe, but England, and perhaps Holland. A united German Empire, with
the restoration of the Catholic religion, would have been a most
dangerous power,--much more so than at the present day. Some there are,
doubtless, who would condemn Gustavus for the invasion of Germany, and
think he ought to have stayed at home and let his unfortunate neighbors
take care of themselves the best way they could. Perhaps the peace
societies would take this ground, and the apostles of thrift and
material prosperity. But I confess, when I see a man like the King of
Sweden, with all the temptations of luxury and ease, encountering all
sorts of perils and fatigues,--yea, offering up his life in battle in
order to emancipate suffering humanity,--then every generous impulse and
every dictate of enlightened reason urge me to add my praises with those
of past generations in honor of such exalted heroism.
According to the authors of those times, signs and prodigies appeared,
to warn mankind of the sanguinary struggle which was now to take place.
"In the dead of night, on wild heaths, in solitary valleys, the clang of
arms was heard. Armies were seen encountering each other in the heavens,
marshalled by aërial leaders, while monstrous births, mock suns, and
showers of fire filled the minds of the superstitious with fear and
dread. It would be puerile to believe these statements, yet if the
stupendous framework of external nature ever could exhibit sympathy with
the brief calamities of man, it may well be supposed to have been
displayed when one of the fairest portions of the earth was again to be
ravaged with fire and sword; and when the melancholy lesson, so often
exemplified before, was to receive still further confirmation,--that of
all the evils with which Divine wisdom permits this world to be visited,
none can be compared to those which the wrath of man is so often eager
to inflict upon his fellows."