inevitably from bad to worse. This, which had been a civil war
at the first, did not continue such for long; or rather it
united presently all the dreadfulness of a civil war and a
foreign. It was not long before the hosts which trampled the
German soil had in large part ceased to be German; every
region of Europe sending of its children, and, as it would
seem, of those whom it must have been gladdest to be rid of,
to swell the ranks of the destroyers. ... From all quarters
they came trooping, not singly, but in whole battalions. ...
All armies draw after them a train of camp-followers; they are
a plague which in the very nature of things is inevitable. But
never perhaps did this evil rise to so enormous a height as
now. Toward the close of this War an Imperial army of 40,000
men was found to be attended by the ugly accompaniment of
140,000 of these. The conflict had in fact by this time lasted
so long that the soldiery had become as a distinct nation,
camping in the midst of another; and the march of an army like
the migration of some wild nomade horde, moving with wives and
children through the land. And not with these only. There were
others too in its train, as may easily be supposed. ... It is
a thought to make one shudder, the passage of one of these
armies with its foul retinue through some fair and smiling and
well-ordered region--what it found, and what it must have left
it, and what its doings there will have been. Bear in mind
that there was seldom in these armies any attempt whatever at
a regular commissariat; rations being never issued except to
the actual soldiers, and most irregularly to them; that the
soldier's pay too was almost always enormously in arrear, so
that he could not purchase even if he would. ... It was indeed
the bitterest irony of all, that this War, which claimed at the
outset to be waged for the highest religious objects, for the
glory of God and for the highest interests of His Church,
should be signalized ere long by a more shameless treading
under foot of all laws human and divine, disgraced by worse
and wickeder outrages against God, and against man, the image
of God, than probably any war which modern Christendom has
seen. The three master sins of our fallen nature, hate, lust,
and covetousness, were all rampant to the full. ... Soon it
became evident that there was no safety in almost any
remoteness from that which might be the scene of warfare at
the actual moment. When all in their immediate neighbourhood
was wasted, armed bands variously disguised, as merchants, as
gipsies, as travellers, or sometimes as women, would penetrate
far into the land. ... Nor was the condition of the larger
towns much better. ... It did not need actual siege or capture
to make them acquainted with the miseries of the time. With no
draught-cattle to bring firewood in, there was no help for it
but that abandoned houses, by degrees whole streets, and
sometimes the greater part of a town, should be pulled down to
prevent those of its inhabitants who remained from perishing
by cold, the city thus living upon and gradually consuming
itself. ... Under conditions like these, it is not wonderful
that the fields were left nearly or altogether untilled; for
who would sow what he could never hope to reap? ... What
wonder that famine, thus invited, should before long have
arrived? ... Persons were found dead in the fields with grass
in their mouths; while the tanners' and knackers' yards were
beset for the putrid carcasses of beasts; the multitudes,
fierce with hunger, hardly enduring to wait till the skin had
been stript away. The bodies of malefactors, broken on the
wheel, were secretly removed to serve for food; or men climbed
up the gibbets, and tore down the bodies which were suspended
there, and devoured them. This, indeed, was a supply which was
not likely to fail. ... Prisoners in Alsace were killed that
they might be eaten. Children were enticed from home. ...
Putting all together, it is not too much to say that the
crowning horrors of Samaria, of Jerusalem, of Saguntum, found
their parallels, and often worse than their parallels, in
Christian Germany only two centuries ago. I had thought at one
time that there were isolated examples of these horrors, one
here, one there, just enough to warrant the assertion that
such things were done; but my conviction now is that they were
very frequent indeed, and in almost every part of the land.
... Districts which had for centuries been in the occupation
of civilized men were repossessed by forests. ... When Peace
was at length proclaimed, and Germany had leisure to take an
inventory of her losses, it was not altogether impossible to
make a rude and rough estimate. ... The statistics, so far as
they were got together, tell a terrible tale. ... Of the
population it was found that three-fourths, in some parts a
far larger proportion, had perished; or, not having perished,
were not less effectually lost to their native land, having
fled to Switzerland, to Holland, and to other countries, never
to return from them again. Thus in one group of twenty
villages which had not exceptionally suffered, 85 per cent.,
or more than four-fifths of the inhabitants, had disappeared.
... Of the houses, three-fourths were destroyed. ... Careful
German writers assure us that there are districts which at
this present day [1872] have just attained the population, the
agricultural wealth, the productive powers which they had when
the War commenced."
_R. C. Trench,
Gustavus Adolphus in Germany, and other
Lectures on the Thirty Years' War,
lectures 3 and 5._
See, also, BOHEMIA: A. D. 1621-1648.
GERMANY: A. D. 1648.
The Peace of Westphalia.
Cession of Alsace to France.
Separation of Switzerland from the Empire.
Loosening of the constitutional bonds of the Empire.
"The opening of the peace negotiations between the Emperor and
his enemies was ... fixed for the 25th of March, 1642, and the
cities of Münster and Osnabrück as the places of the sitting;
but neither in this year nor in the next did it take place. It
was not until the year 1644 that in the former of these
cities" were assembled the following: The Papal Nuncio and the
envoy of the Republic of Venice, acting as mediators, two
imperial ambassadors, two representatives of France, three of
Spain, and the Catholic Electors; later came also the Catholic
Princes. To Osnabrück, Sweden sent two ambassadors and France
three, while the Electors, the German Princes and the imperial
cities were represented. Questions of etiquette, which demanded
prior settlement, occupied months, and serious matters when
reached were dealt with slowly and jealously, with many
interruptions. It was not until the 24th of October, 1648,
that the articles of peace forming the two treaties of Münster
and Osnabrück, and known together as the Peace of Westphalia,
were signed by all the negotiators at Münster.
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The more important of the provisions of the two instruments
were the following "To France was secured the perpetual
possession of the Bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, as
also Moyenvic and Pignerol, with the right to keep a garrison
in Philipsburg, and finally Breisach, Alsace, with its ten
imperial cities, and the Sundgau. The Emperor bound himself to
gain the assent of the Archduke Ferdinand, of Tyrol and Spain,
to this last-named cession. France made good to the Archduke this
loss by the payment of 3,000,000 francs. Although it was not
expressly provided that the connection with the Empire of the
German provinces ceded to France should be dissolved, yet the
separation became, as a matter of fact, a complete one. The
Emperor did not summon the Kings of France to the Diets of the
Empire, and the latter made no demand for such summons. ... In
relation to Italy, the French treaty provided that the peace
concluded in 1631 [see ITALY: A. D. 1627-1631] should remain
in force, except the part relating to Pignerol. ['Pinerolo was
definitely put under the French overlordship.']
_G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
volume 3, page 98._
Switzerland was made independent of the German Empire; but the
Circle of Burgundy [the Spanish Netherlands and Franche-Comté]
was still to form a part of the Empire, and after the close of
the war between France and Spain, in which the Emperor and the
Empire were to take no part, was to be included in the peace.
No aid was to be rendered to the Duke of Lorraine against
France, although the Emperor and the Empire were left free to
mediate for him a peace. Sweden received Hither Pomerania,
including the Island of Rügen, from Further Pomerania the
Island of Wollin and several cities, with their surroundings,
among which were Stettin, as also the expectancy of Further
Pomerania in case of the extinction of the house of
Brandenburg. Furthermore, it received the city of Wismar, in
Mecklenburg, and the Bishoprics of Bremen [secularized and
made a Grand Duchy] and Verden, with reservation of the rights
and immunities of the city of Bremen. Sweden was to hold all
the ceded territory as feudal tenures of the Empire, and be
represented for them in the Imperial Diet. ... Brandenburg
received for its loss of Pomerania the Bishoprics of
Halberstadt, Minden, and Camin, and the expectancy of that of
Magdeburg as soon as this should become vacant by the death of
its Administrator, the Saxon Prince, although the four
bailiwicks separated from it were to remain with Saxony as
provided in the Peace of Prague. ... The house of
Brunswick-Lüneberg was to renounce its right to the
coadjutorship of Magdeburg, Bremen, Halberstadt, and
Ratzeburg, and, in return for this renunciation, was to
alternate with a Catholic prelate in the possession of the
Bishopric of Osnabrück. ... To Duke Maximilian of Bavaria was
conveyed the Electorate, together with the Upper Palatinate,
to be hereditary in his family of the line of William, for
which he, on the other hand, was to surrender to the Emperor
the account of the 13,000,000 florins which he had made for
the execution of the sentence against the Palsgrave Frederic.
To the Palsgrave, Charles Lewis, son of the proscribed Elector
[Frederic, who had died in 1632], was given back the Lower
Palatinate, while a new Electorate, the eighth, was created
for him. ... There were numerous provisions relating to the
restoration of the Dukes of Würtemberg, the Margraves of
Baden, and the Counts of Nassau and those of Hanau to several
parts of the territories which either belonged to them or were
contested. A general amnesty was indeed provided, and everyone
was to be restored to the possession of the lands which he had
held before the war. This general article was, however,
limited by various special provisions, as that in relation to
the Palsgrave, and was not to be applied to Austria at all.
... Specially important are the sections which relate to the
settlement of religious grievances. The treaty of Passau and
the Augsburg religious peace were confirmed; the 1st of
January, 1624, was fixed as the time which was to govern
mutual reclamations between the Catholics and Protestants;
both parties were secured the right to all ecclesiastical
foundations, whether in mediate or immediate connection with
the Empire, which they severally held in possession on the
first day of January, 1624; if any such had been taken from
them after this date, restoration was to be made, unless
otherwise specially provided. The Ecclesiastical Reservation
was acknowledged by the Protestants, and Protestant holders of
ecclesiastical property were freely admitted to the Imperial
Diets. The right of reformation was conceded to the Estates,
and permission to emigrate to the subjects; while it was at
the same time provided that, if in 1624 Protestant subjects of
Catholic Princes, or the reverse, enjoyed freedom of religion,
this right should not in the future be diminished. It was
specially granted for Silesia that all the concessions which
had been made before the war to the Dukes of Liegnitz,
Münsterburg, and Oels, and to the city of Breslau, relating to
the free exercise of the Augsburg Confession, should remain in
force. ... Finally, the Reformed--that is, the adherents of
Calvinism--were placed upon the same ground with those of the
Augsburg Confession; and it was provided that if a Lutheran
Estate of the Empire should become a Calvinist, or the
reverse, his subjects should not be forced to change with
their Prince."
_A. Gindely,
History of the Thirty Years' War,'
volume 2, chapter 10._
"The emperor, in his own name, and in behalf of his family and
the 'empire, ceded the full sovereignty of Upper and Lower
Alsace, with the prefecture of Haguenau, or the ten towns
[Haguenau, Schelestadt, Weissemburgh, Colmar, Landau,
Oberenheim, Rosheim, Munster in the Val de St. Gregoire,
Kaiserberg, and Turingheim], and their dependencies. But by
one of those contradictions which are common in treaties, when
both parties wish to preserve their respective claims, another
article was introduced, binding the king of France to leave
the ecclesiastics and immediate nobility of those provinces in
the immediacy which they had hitherto possessed with regard to
the Roman empire, and not to pretend to any sovereignty over
them, but to remain content with such rights as belonged to
the house of Austria. Yet this was again contradicted by a
declaration, that this exception should not derogate from the
supreme sovereignty before yielded to the king of France."
_W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapter 59 (volume 2)._
[Image: Germany at the peace of Westphalia.]
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"Respecting the rights of sovereignty due to the princes and
the relations of the states of the empire with the emperor,
the Peace of Westphalia contained such regulations as must in
the course of time produce a still greater relaxation of those
ties, already partially loosened, which held together the
empire in one entirety. ... At the Peace of Westphalia the
independence of the princes was made completely legal. They
received the entire right of sovereignty over their territory,
together with the power of making war, concluding peace, and
forming alliances among themselves, as well as with foreign
powers, provided such alliances were not to the injury of the
empire. But what a feeble obstacle must this clause have
presented? For henceforward, if a prince of the empire, having
formed an alliance with a foreign power, became hostile to the
emperor, he could immediately avail himself of the pretext
that it was for the benefit of the empire, the maintenance of
his rights, and the liberty of Germany. And in order that the
said pretext might, with some appearance of right, be made
available on every occasion, foreigners established themselves
as the guardians of the empire; and accordingly France and
Sweden took upon themselves the responsibility of legislating
as guarantees, not only for the Germanic constitution, but for
everything else that was concluded in the Peace of Westphalia
at Münster and Osnaburg. Added to this, in reference to the
imperial cities, whose rights had hitherto never been
definitively fixed, it was now declared that they should
always be included under the head of the other states, and
that they should command a decisive voice in the diets;
thenceforth, therefore, their votes and those of the other
states--the electoral and other princes--should be of equal
validity."
_F. Kohlrausch,
History of Germany,
chapter 26._
Peace between Spain and the United Provinces was embodied in a
separate treaty, but negotiated at Münster, and concluded and
signed a few months earlier in the same year. The war between
Spain and France went on.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1646-1648.
GERMANY: A. D. 1648.
Effects of the Peace of Westphalia on the Empire.
It becomes a loose confederacy and purely German.
"It may ... be said of this famous peace, as of the other
so-called 'fundamental law of the Empire,' the Golden Bull,
that it did no more than legalize a condition of things
already in existence, but which by being legalized acquired
new importance. ... While the political situation, to use a
current phrase, had changed within the last two hundred years,
the eyes with which men regarded it had changed still more.
Never by their fiercest enemies in earlier times, not once by
the Popes or Lombard republicans in the heat of their strife
with the Franconian and Swabian Cæsars, had the Emperors been
reproached as mere German kings, or their claim to be the
lawful heirs of Rome denied. The Protestant jurists of the
16th or rather of the 17th century were the first persons who
ventured to scoff at the pretended lordship of the world, and
declare their Empire to be nothing more than a German
monarchy, in dealing with which no superstitious reverence
need prevent its subjects from making the best terms they
could for themselves, and controlling a sovereign whose
religious predilections made him the friend of their enemies.
... It was by these views ... that the states, or rather
France and Sweden acting on their behalf, were guided in the
negotiations of Osnabrück and Münster. By extorting a full
recognition of the sovereignty of all the princes, Catholics
and Protestants alike, in their respective territories, they
bound the Emperor from any direct interference with the
administration, either in particular districts or throughout
the Empire. All affairs of public importance, including the
rights of making war or peace, of levying contributions,
raising troops, building fortresses, passing or interpreting
laws, were henceforth to be left entirely in the hands of the
Diet. ... Both Lutherans and Calvinists were declared free
from all jurisdiction of the Pope or any Catholic prelate.
Thus the last link which bound Germany to Rome was snapped,
the last of the principles by virtue of which the Empire had
existed was abandoned. For the Empire now contained and
recognized as its members persons who formed a visible body at
open war with the Holy Roman Church; and its constitution
admitted schismatics to a full share in all those civil rights
which, according to the doctrines of the early Middle Age,
could be enjoyed by no one who was out of the communion of the
Catholic Church. The Peace of Westphalia was therefore an
abrogation of the sovereignty of Rome, and of the theory of
Church and State with which the name of Rome was associated.
And in this light was it regarded by Pope Innocent X., who
commanded his legate to protest against it, and subsequently
declared it void by the bull 'Zelo domus Dei.' ... The Peace
of Westphalia is an era in imperial history not less clearly
marked than the coronation of Otto the Great, or the death of
Frederick II. As from the days of Maximilian it had borne a
mixed or transitional character, well expressed by the name
Romano-Germanic, so henceforth it is in everything but title
purely and solely a German Empire. Properly, indeed, it was no
longer an empire at all, but a Confederation, and that of the
loosest sort. For it had no common treasury, no efficient
common tribunals, no means of coercing a refractory member;
its states were of different religions, were governed
according to different forms, were administered judicially and
financially without any regard to each other. ... There were
300 petty principalities between the Alps and the Baltic, each
with its own laws, its own courts, ... its little armies, its
separate coinage, its tolls and custom-houses on the frontier,
its crowd of meddlesome and pedantic officials. ... This
vicious system, which paralyzed the trade, the literature, and
the political thought of Germany, had been forming itself for
some time, but did not become fully established until the
Peace of Westphalia, by emancipating the princes from imperial
control, had made them despots in their own territories."
_J. Bryce,
The Holy Roman Empire,
chapter 19._
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GERMANY: A. D. 1648-1705.
After the Peace of Westphalia.
French influence in the Empire.
Creation of the Ninth Elector.
After the Peace of Westphalia, the remainder of the reign of
Ferdinand III. "passed in tranquillity. ... He caused his son
to be elected king of the Romans, under the title of Ferdinand
IV.; but the young prince, already king of Bohemia and
Hungary, preceded him to the tomb, and left the question of
the succession to be decided by a diet. Ferdinand III. died in
1657. ... The interregnum, and, indeed, the century which
followed the death of Ferdinand, showed the alarming
preponderance of the influence gained by France in the affairs
of the empire, and the consequent criminality of the princes
who had first invoked the assistance of that power. Her recent
victories, her character as joint guarantee of the treaty of
Westphalia, and the contiguity of her possessions to the
states of the empire, encouraged her ministers to demand the
imperial crown for the youthful Louis XIV. Still more
extraordinary is the fact that four of the electors were
gained, by that monarch's gold, to espouse his views. ...
Fortunately for Germany and for Europe, the electors of
Treves, Brandenburg, and Saxony, were too patriotic to
sanction this infatuated proposal; they threatened to elect a
native prince of their own authority,--a menace which caused
the rest to co-operate with them; so that, after some
fruitless negotiations, Leopold, son of the late emperor, king
of Bohemia and of Hungary, was raised to the vacant dignity.
His reign was one of great humiliation to his house and to the
empire. Without talents for government, without generosity,
feeble, bigoted, and pusillanimous, he was little qualified to
augment the glory of the country. ... Throughout his long
reign [1657-1705], he had the mortification to witness, on the
part of Louis XIV., a series of the most unprovoked, wanton, and
unprincipled usurpations ever recorded in history. ...
Internally, the reign of Leopold affords some interesting
particulars. ... Not the least is the establishment of a ninth
electoral dignity in favour of Ernest Augustus, Duke of
Brunswick Lunenburg, who then became (1692) the first elector
of Hanover. This was the act of Leopold, in return for
important aid in money and troops from two princes of that
house; but it could not be effected without the concurrence of
the electoral body, who long resisted it. ... The
establishment of a permanent diet, attended, not by the
electors in person, but by their representatives, is one of
the most striking peculiarities of Leopold's reign."
_S. A. Dunham,
History of the Germanic Empire,
book 3, chapter 3 (volume 3)._
See, DIET, THE GERMANIC.
GERMANY: A. D. 1648-1780.
The Austrian incubus.