THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR
[Sidenote: The Thirty Years' War really a series of wars.]
178. The last great conflict caused by the differences between the
Catholics and Protestants was fought out in Germany during the first
half of the seventeenth century. It is generally known as the Thirty
Years' War (1618-1648), but there was in reality a series of wars; and
although the fighting was done upon German territory, Sweden, France,
and Spain played quite as important a part as Germany.
[Sidenote: Weaknesses of the Peace of Augsburg.]
Just before the abdication of Charles V, the Lutheran princes had forced
the emperor to acknowledge their right to their own religion and to the
church property which they had appropriated. The religious Peace of
Augsburg had, however, as we have seen,[328] two great weaknesses. In
the first place, only those Protestants who held the Lutheran faith were
to be tolerated. The Calvinists, who were increasing in numbers, were
not included in the peace. In the second place, the peace did not put a
stop to the seizure of church property by the Protestant princes.
[Sidenote: Spread of Protestantism.]
During the last years of Ferdinand I's reign and that of his successor
there was little trouble. Protestantism, however, made rapid progress
and invaded Bavaria, the Austrian possessions, and above all, Bohemia,
where the doctrines of Huss had never died out. So it looked for a time
as if even the German Hapsburgs were to see large portions of their
territory falling away from the old Church. But the Catholics had in the
Jesuits a band of active and efficient missionaries. They not only
preached and founded schools, but also succeeded in gaining the
confidence of some of the German princes, whose chief advisers they
became. Conditions were very favorable, at the opening of the
seventeenth century, for a renewal of the religious struggle.
[Sidenote: Formation of the Protestant Union and the Catholic League.]
The Lutheran town of Donauwörth permitted the existence of a monastery
within its limits. In 1607 a Protestant mob attacked the monks as they
were passing in procession through the streets. Duke Maximilian of
Bavaria, an ardent Catholic, on the border of whose possessions the town
lay, gladly undertook to punish this outrage. His army entered
Donauwörth, reëstablished the Catholic worship, and drove out the
Lutheran pastor. This event led to the formation of the Protestant Union
under the leadership of Frederick, elector of the Palatinate. The Union
included by no means all the Protestant princes; for example, the
Lutheran elector of Saxony refused to have anything to do with the
Calvinistic Frederick. The next year the Catholics, on their part,
formed the Catholic League under a far more efficient head, namely,
Maximilian of Bavaria.[329]
[Sidenote: Bohemia revolts from the Hapsburg rule, 1618.]
[Sidenote: Frederick, elector of the Palatinate, chosen king of
Bohemia.]
These were the preliminaries of the Thirty Years' War. Hostilities began
in Bohemia, which had been added to the Hapsburg possessions through the
marriage of Ferdinand I. The Protestants were so strong in that country
that they had forced the emperor in 1609 to grant them privileges
greater even than those enjoyed by the Huguenots in France. The
government, however, failed to observe this agreement, and the
destruction of two Protestant churches resulted in a revolution at
Prague in 1618. Three representatives of the emperor were seized by the
irritated Bohemian leaders and thrown out of the window of the palace.
After this emphatic protest against the oppressive measures of the
government, Bohemia endeavored to establish itself once more as an
independent kingdom. It renounced the rule of the Hapsburgs and chose
Frederick, the elector of the Palatinate, as its new king. He appeared
to the Bohemians to possess a double advantage; in the first place, he
was the head of the Protestant Union, and in the second, he was the
son-in-law of the king of England, James I, to whom they looked for
help.
[Sidenote: Failure of the Bohemian revolt.]
[Sidenote: Battle on the White Hill, 1620.]
The Bohemian venture proved a most disastrous one for Germany and for
Protestantism. The new emperor, Ferdinand II (1619-1637), who was at
once an uncompromising Catholic and a person of considerable ability,
appealed to the League for assistance. Frederick, the new king of
Bohemia, showed himself entirely unequal to the occasion. He and his
English wife, the Princess Elizabeth, made a bad impression on the
Bohemians, and they failed to gain the support of the neighboring
Lutheran elector of Saxony. A single battle, which the army of the
League under Maximilian won in 1620, put to flight the poor "winter
king," as he was derisively called on account of his reign of a single
season. The emperor and the duke of Bavaria set vigorously to work to
suppress Protestantism within their borders. The emperor arbitrarily
granted the eastern portion of the Palatinate to Maximilian and gave him
the title of Elector, without consulting the diet.
[Sidenote: England and France unable to assist the Protestants.]
179. Matters were becoming serious for the Protestant party, and England
might have intervened had it not been that James I believed that he
could by his personal influence restore peace to Europe and induce the
emperor and Maximilian of Bavaria to give back the Palatinate to the
"winter king." Even France might have taken a hand, for although
Richelieu, then at the head of affairs, had no love for the Protestants,
he was still more bitterly opposed to the Hapsburgs. However, his hands
were tied for the moment, for he was just undertaking to deprive the
Huguenots of their strong towns.
[Sidenote: Christian IV of Denmark invades Germany, but is defeated.]
[Sidenote: Wallenstein.]
A diversion came, nevertheless, from without. Christian IV, king of
Denmark, invaded northern Germany in 1625 with a view of relieving his
fellow Protestants. In addition to the army of the League which was
dispatched against him, a new army was organized by the notorious
commander, Wallenstein. The emperor was poor and gladly accepted the
offer of this ambitious Bohemian nobleman[330] to collect an army which
should support itself upon the proceeds of the war, to wit, confiscation
and robbery. Christian met with two serious defeats in northern Germany;
even his peninsula was invaded by the imperial forces, and in 1629 he
agreed to retire from the conflict.
[Sidenote: The Edict of Restitution, 1629.]
[Sidenote: Dismissal of Wallenstein.]
[Sidenote: Appearance of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, 1594-1632.]
The emperor was encouraged by the successes of the Catholic armies to
issue that same year an Edict of Restitution. In this he ordered the
Protestants throughout Germany to give back all the church possessions
which they had seized since the religious Peace of Augsburg (1555).
These included two archbishoprics (Magdeburg and Bremen), nine
bishoprics, about one hundred and twenty monasteries, and other church
foundations. Moreover, he decreed that only the Lutherans might enjoy
the practice of their religion; the other "sects" were to be broken up.
As Wallenstein was preparing to execute this decree in his usual
merciless fashion, the war took a new turn. The League had become
jealous of a general who threatened to become too powerful, and it
accordingly joined in the complaints, which came from every side, of the
terrible extortions and incredible cruelty practiced by Wallenstein's
troops. The emperor consented, therefore, to dismiss this most competent
commander and lose a large part of his army. Just as the Catholics were
thus weakened, a new enemy arrived upon the scene who was far more
dangerous than any they had yet had to face, Gustavus Adolphus, king of
Sweden.[331]
[Sidenote: The kingdom of Sweden.]
[Sidenote: Gustavus Vasa, 1523-1560.]
180. We have had no occasion hitherto to speak of the Scandinavian
kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, which the northern German
peoples had established about Charlemagne's time; but from now on they
begin to take part in the affairs of central Europe. The Union of Calmar
(1397) had brought these three kingdoms, previously separate, under a
single ruler. About the time that the Protestant revolt began in Germany
the union was broken by the withdrawal of Sweden. Gustavus Vasa, a
Swedish noble, led the movement and was subsequently chosen king of
Sweden (1523). In the same year Protestantism was introduced. Vasa
confiscated the church lands, got the better of the aristocracy, and
started Sweden on its way toward national greatness. Under his successor
the eastern shores of the Baltic were conquered and the Russians cut off
from the sea.
[Sidenote: Motives of Gustavus Adolphus in invading Germany, 1630.]
Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632) was induced to invade Germany for two
reasons. In the first place, he was a sincere and enthusiastic
Protestant and by far the most generous and attractive figure of his
time. He was genuinely afflicted by the misfortunes of his Protestant
brethren and anxious to devote himself to their welfare. Secondly, he
dreamed of extending his domains so that one day the Baltic might
perhaps become a Swedish lake. He undoubtedly hoped by his invasion not
only to free his co-religionists from the oppression of the emperor and
of the League, but to gain a strip of territory for Sweden.
[Sidenote: Destruction of Magdeburg, 1631.]
[Sidenote: Gustavus Adolphus victorious at Breitenfeld, 1631.]
Gustavus was not received with much cordiality at first by the
Protestant princes of the north; but they were brought to their senses
by the awful destruction of Magdeburg by the troops of the League under
General Tilly. Magdeburg was the most important town of northern
Germany. When it finally succumbed after an obstinate and difficult
siege, twenty thousand of its inhabitants were killed and the town
burned to the ground. Although Tilly's reputation for cruelty is quite
equal to that of Wallenstein, he was probably not responsible for the
fire. After Gustavus Adolphus had met Tilly near Leipsic and
victoriously routed the army of the League, the Protestant princes began
to look with more favor on the foreigner. Gustavus then moved westward
and took up his winter quarters on the Rhine.
[Sidenote: Wallenstein recalled.]
[Sidenote: Gustavus Adolphus killed at Lützen, 1632.]
The next spring he entered Bavaria and once more defeated Tilly (who was
mortally wounded in the battle), and forced Munich to surrender. There
seemed now to be no reason why he should not continue his way to Vienna.
At this juncture the emperor recalled Wallenstein, who collected a new
army over which the emperor gave him absolute command. After some delay
Gustavus met Wallenstein on the field of Lützen, in November, 1632,
where, after a fierce struggle, the Swedes gained the victory. But they
lost their leader and Protestantism its hero, for the Swedish king
ventured too far into the lines of the enemy and was surrounded and
killed.
[Sidenote: Murder of Wallenstein.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Nördlingen, 1634.]
The Swedes did not, however, retire from Germany, but continued to
participate in the war, which now degenerated into a series of raids by
leaders whose soldiers depopulated the land by their unspeakable
atrocities. Wallenstein roused the suspicions of the Catholics by
entering into mysterious negotiations with Richelieu and with the German
Protestants. This treasonable correspondence quickly reached the ears of
the emperor. Wallenstein, who had long been detested by even the
Catholics, was deserted by his soldiers and murdered (in 1634), to the
great relief of all parties. In the same year the imperial army won the
important battle of Nördlingen, one of the most bloody and at the same
time decisive engagements of the war. Shortly after, the elector of
Saxony withdrew from his alliance with the Swedes and made peace with
the emperor. It looked as if the war were about to come to an end, for
many others among the German princes were quite ready to lay down their
arms.[332]
[Sidenote: Richelieu renews the struggle of France against the
Hapsburgs.]
181. Just at this critical moment Richelieu decided that it would be to
the interest of France to renew the old struggle with the Hapsburgs by
sending troops against the emperor. France was still shut in, as she had
been since the time of Charles V, by the Hapsburg lands. Except on the
side toward the ocean her boundaries were in the main artificial ones,
and not those established by great rivers and mountains. She therefore
longed to weaken her enemy and strengthen herself by winning Roussillon
on the south, and so make the crest of the Pyrenees the line of
demarcation between France and Spain. She dreamed, too, of extending her
sway toward the Rhine by adding the county of Burgundy (i.e.,
Franche-Comté) and a number of fortified towns which would afford
protection against the Spanish Netherlands.
[Sidenote: Richelieu checks Spanish aggression in Italy.]
Richelieu had been by no means indifferent to the Thirty Years' War. He
had encouraged the Swedish king to intervene, and had supplied him with
funds if not with troops. Moreover, he himself had checked Spanish
progress in northern Italy. In 1624 Spanish troops had invaded the
valley of the Adda, a Protestant region, with the evident purpose of
conquest. This appeared a most serious aggression to Richelieu, for if
the Spanish won the valley of the Adda, the last barrier between the
Hapsburg possessions in Italy and in Germany would be removed. French
troops were dispatched to drive out the Spaniards, but it was in the
interest of France rather than in that of the oppressed Calvinists, for
whom Richelieu could hardly have harbored a deep affection. A few years
later it became a question whether a Spanish or a French candidate
should obtain the vacant duchy of Mantua, and Richelieu led another
French army in person to see that Spain was again discomfited. It was,
then, not strange that he should decide to deal a blow at the emperor
when the war appeared to be coming to a close that was tolerably
satisfactory from the standpoint of the Hapsburgs.
[Sidenote: Richelieu's intervention prolongs the war.]
Richelieu declared war against Spain in May, 1635. He had already
concluded an alliance with the chief enemies of the house of Austria.
Sweden agreed not to negotiate for peace until France was ready for it.
The United Provinces joined France, as did some of the German princes.
So the war was renewed, and French, Swedish, Spanish, and German
soldiers ravaged an already exhausted country for a decade longer. The
dearth of provisions was so great that the armies had to move quickly
from place to place in order to avoid starvation. After a serious defeat
by the Swedes, the emperor (Ferdinand III, 1637-1657) sent a Dominican
monk to expostulate with Cardinal Richelieu for his crime in aiding the
German and Swedish heretics against the unimpeachably orthodox Austria.
[Sidenote: France succeeds Spain in the military supremacy of western
Europe.]
The cardinal had, however, just died (December, 1642), well content with
the results of his diplomacy. The French were in possession of
Roussillon and of Artois, Lorraine, and Alsace. The military exploits of
the French generals, especially Turenne and Condé, during the opening
years of the reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715) showed that a new period had
begun in which the military and political supremacy of Spain was to give
way to that of France.
[Sidenote: Close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648.]
182. The participants in the war were now so numerous and their objects
so various and conflicting, that it is not strange that it required some
years to arrange the conditions of peace even when every one was ready
for it. It was agreed (1644) that France and the empire should negotiate
at Münster, and the emperor and the Swedes at Osnabrück,--both of which
towns lie in Westphalia. For four years the representatives of the
several powers worked upon the difficult problem of satisfying every
one, but at last the treaties of Westphalia were signed late in 1648.
Their provisions continued to be the basis of the international law of
Europe down to the French Revolution.
[Sidenote: Provisions of the treaties of Westphalia.]
The religious troubles in Germany were settled by extending the
toleration of the Peace of Augsburg so as to include the Calvinists as
well as the Lutherans. The Protestant princes were, regardless of the
Edict of Restitution, to retain the lands which they had in their
possession in the year 1624, and each ruler was still to have the right
to determine the religion of his state. The dissolution of the German
empire was practically acknowledged by permitting the individual states
to make treaties among themselves and with foreign powers; this was
equivalent to recognizing the practical independence which they had, as
a matter of fact, already long enjoyed. A part of Pomerania and the
districts at the mouth of the Oder, the Elbe, and the Weser were ceded
to Sweden. This territory did not, however, cease to form a part of the
empire, for Sweden was thereafter to have three votes in the German
diet.
As for France, it was definitely given the three bishoprics of Metz,
Verdun, and Toul, which Henry II had bargained for when he allied
himself with the Protestants a century earlier.[333] The emperor also
ceded to France all his rights in Alsace, although the city of Strasburg
was to remain with the empire. Lastly, the independence both of the
United Netherlands and of Switzerland was acknowledged.[334]
[Sidenote: Disastrous results of the war in Germany.]
The accounts of the misery and depopulation of Germany caused by the
Thirty Years' War are well-nigh incredible. Thousands of villages were
wiped out altogether; in some regions the population was reduced by one
half, in others to a third, or even less, of what it had been at the
opening of the conflict. The flourishing city of Augsburg was left with
but sixteen thousand souls instead of eighty thousand. The people were
fearfully barbarized by privation and suffering and by the atrocities
of the soldiers of all the various nations. Until the end of the
eighteenth century Germany was too exhausted and impoverished to make
any considerable contribution to the culture of Europe. Only one hopeful
circumstance may be noted as we leave this dreary subject. After the
Peace of Westphalia the elector of Brandenburg was the most powerful of
the German princes next to the emperor. As king of Prussia he was
destined to create another European power, and at last to humble the
house of Hapsburg and create a new German empire in which Austria should
have no part.
General Reading.--The most complete and scholarly account of the
Thirty Years' War to be had in English is GINDELY, _History of the
Thirty Years' War_ (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2 vols., $3.50).