THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.—CONTINUED.
This war is usually divided into five periods: 1. War in Bohemia; 2. War
in the Palatinate; 3. Danish war; 4. Swedish war; 5. Franco-Swedish war.
After their king had been made Emperor of Germany, the Bohemians, in an
effort to make sure of their deliverance from the rule of Ferdinand,
chose for their king Frederick V., Elector Palatine, who being the head
of the Evangelical Union, was considered the chief of the Reformation
party in Germany.
He was elected August 26th, 1619. He was not fortunate in securing the
friendship and support of his own subjects. His conduct was so
unbecoming his profession that it was no wonder God did not prosper him
as a public leader. Frederick V. was son-in-law of James I. of England,
and it was hoped by his election to secure the favor of the Protestants
of England and Scotland.
The Emperor Ferdinand II. now placed Maximilian of Germany and the
ferocious General Tilly at the head of the army of the Catholic League,
to attack the city of Prague.
[Illustration:
GERMAN EMPIRE, NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM.
]
On November 8th, 1620, the armies met at White Mountain, near the city,
and the Protestant army, composed of Germans, Hungarians and Bohemians,
lacking first of all a good leader, but also lacking unity in action,
courage and goodwill, were defeated in less than an hour by the superior
numbers of the Imperial army.
Frederick, their king, was dining at leisure at Prague, while his army
was being sacrificed. He availed himself of the short armistice of eight
hours granted him by the Duke of Bavaria, to make a flight by night, in
such haste that even his crown was left behind him.
The battle of White Mountain settled the matter so far as Bohemia was
concerned, and Prague surrendered the next day. The Estates did the same
homage as had been done by Silesia and Moravia, but the Emperor had
another matter to settle with Prague. Tilly, with seven thousand men,
principally Spaniards, entered the city. Twenty-seven Protestant chiefs
were instantly executed, others were less publicly killed, and many more
imprisoned or punished.
All the Protestant churches were confiscated and handed over to the
Jesuits, who now came back in full force. The soldiers drove the country
people into the mass, so that a baron of Oppersheim gloried in having
converted, without a sermon, more people than the Apostle Peter, who
through his Pentecostal sermon, had seen three thousand souls converted.
The Emperor, with his own hands, tore up the Letter of Majesty by which
the Emperor Rudolph had granted religious liberty to the Bohemians.
Thirty thousand families left Bohemia during the next two years, and
Maximilian was made Elector Palatine, in place of Frederick V.
This is a very abbreviated history of the first division of that great
war which laid low the country of John Huss.
The second period may be said to extend from 1621 to 1624, and is
usually spoken of as the war in the Palatinate. The war was now carried
into that portion of Germany. It was in vain that each Protestant prince
determined to defend his possessions against the oppressor. Tilly
vanquished them one after another till Ferdinand's scepter was over
every State. The Imperial soldiers ranged over the country, taking
everything of value, also appropriating to Rome every Protestant church
and school, so that the Protestants could readily see that their
extermination had been determined. Ferdinand had taken a vow to the
Virgin, both at Loretto and at Rome, to enforce her worship at the peril
of his life, declaring that he preferred to rule over a wilderness
rather than a nation of heretics. Now, strengthened by his many
successes, it was plain to all Germany that he meant to soon fulfill
that wicked vow. The executions and massacres of that time were without
parallel since the Christian era.
Ferdinand not only revenged himself on all Protestants, but he deeply
humbled the Catholic princes by the exercise of despotic power over
their people. All European statesmen became alarmed at the
aggrandizement, as they called it, of the Hapsburgs. Richelieu, the
great cardinal of France, was glad enough to see Protestantism punished,
as he had no idea of letting Austria overshadow France. Holland was
afraid for Protestantism within her own borders, the slow nature of
James I. of England began to arouse itself, and he planned to reinstate
his son-in-law, Frederick, in the Palatinate, when broken and oppressed
Germany turned to the princes of Scandinavia for succor.
Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, was busy with his wars in Poland. He
would gladly have sent part of his well-disciplined army to the
assistance of the German princes, but they preferred the king of
Denmark, Christian IV., brother-in-law to the Elector Palatine.
He began the third period of the war by entering into an alliance with
England and Holland, and declaring war against the empire, marched to
the help of the Protestant princes, Dukes of Brunswick, Mansfield and
others.
Christian IV. took the field in March, 1625, with sixty thousand troops,
and entered Germany, determined to cover himself with glory and to
reestablish Protestantism.
Tilly had been bad enough in ravaging conquered territory, but now
Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland, appears on the scene. He had
distinguished himself in the battle of White Mountain, and in the war
against the Turks had received most valuable grants of land, and large
revenues from the Emperor. Wallenstein was now put in command of the
Imperial forces. He was a pervert from Protestantism to Rome, and such
are always the most bigoted and intolerant. He had expelled the
Hungarian troops from Moravia, and had accepted as pay the confiscated
estates of his unfortunate countrymen.
He agreed to raise and support his own army for the Emperor at his own
expense. The banditti of all Europe came to him for the promised loot,
and, with an army of over one hundred thousand men, he took the field
against Protestantism, already a divided, cowed, broken body of people.
Not since the Crusades had there been such a war of devastation.
In five years Wallenstein and Tilly, who hated each other, but both
under command of the Emperor, had routed the troops of Mansfield, the
strongest of the auxiliaries of the king of Denmark, and had subdued
Silesia, Lower Saxony and Holstein. As early as August, 1626, Christian
IV. was defeated in the battle of Lutter, and was forced back to his own
country for its defence. He was obliged to abandon his allies to the
vengeance of their enemies. By the end of the five years Mansfield and
Brunswick, the leading Protestant princes, were dead, and their troops
destroyed or scattered. Everywhere the Imperialists laid the country
waste.
Wallenstein took possession of Pomerania, and the Imperial forces,
without opposition, marched into Holstein, Schleswig and Jutland,
occupying all Denmark, except the islands. The neutral Protestant
princes had their territories destroyed. This they fully deserved.
The Danish king sued for peace, and his possessions were returned to him
on condition that he would take no further part in the war. This
concession was not from mercy, but because France and Sweden were now
preparing to take arms against the House of Austria.
In the conference at Lubeck, on May 22d, 1629, Wallenstein, with marked
contempt, excluded the Swedish ambassadors while arranging terms with
Denmark.
Wallenstein had been so successful that he had visions of making himself
Emperor, of converting the Baltic Sea into an Austrian lake, and there
having a great fleet to increase his wealth and power. For these reasons
he now set out to take the cities on the Baltic coast. He besieged
Stralsund, a Hanse town. The Hanse towns were the commercial towns of
Germany, associated together for the protection of commercial interests.
Wallenstein now had the title of "Admiral of the Baltic" conferred on
him by the Emperor. The new admiral said, "There are twenty-eight ports
in Pomerania; we must fortify them to keep Sweden from attacking them."
Stralsund represented not alone the Hanseatic League, but the Protestant
faith and liberty of conscience. Wallenstein swore, "I will capture
Stralsund though it were chained to the gates of heaven." He did not
take into the count God and the king of Sweden.
The inhabitants of Stralsund were a deeply religious people. With
Wallenstein besieging their city, and well knowing the destruction of
the country over which they had passed, they took the oath to abide by
the true religion of the Augsburg Confession, to fight for it as well as
for the rights and liberties of the city, and to stand by the Empire as
long as the line of conduct would be justifiable before God, posterity,
and in accordance with their oath to defend the city. This shows their
faith in God; to Him they appealed, and after ten weeks siege,
Wallenstein, at the order of the Emperor, after losing twelve thousand
of his best troops, was forced to abandon the siege.
Wallenstein had threatened to destroy every creature within its walls,
so the women and children had been sent to Sweden, and that country
provided the food from the side of Stralsund opening on the sea.
But the Emperor now considered that his troops were so successful that
he might put into the form of an edict that which they had been
practicing ever since his coronation. He issued what is called the Edict
of Restitution (1629 A. D.), confiscating all Protestant property
obtained from Catholics since the Treaty of Passau. This violated the
Treaty of Augsburg, which had guaranteed that property. This would have
made war in time of peace, now it prolonged a war begun eleven years
before. He further decided "that by the religious peace Catholic princes
were under no further obligations to their Protestant subjects than to
allow them to quit their territories."
Under this edict the Protestant States were ordered to surrender all
church property and all secularized religious foundations to the
Imperial commissioner. The Protestants again quite understood that the
extermination of their religion had been determined. The commissioners
were appointed, and Wallenstein was charged to enforce the edict.
The enforcement began at Augsburg. The bishop was reinstated. He
prohibited all worship of the Protestant form, and erected a gallows in
front of the town hall to show what would happen to those who disobeyed.
Lorenz Forer, one of Wallenstein's captains, said, "Be active, my
friends, if some withstand you, kill and burn them in a fire that shall
make the stars melt, and force the angels of heaven to withdraw their
feet."
A cry of agony and terror ran through all Germany. The Emperor's own
brother wrote: "Your Majesty cannot form any idea of the conduct of the
troops. I have myself waged war for a few years, and I know that it can
seldom be carried on without leaving traces of violence. But to break
windows, to overthrow walls, to commit arson, to cut off noses and ears,
to torment, to commit rape, to murder for amusement's sake, are
disorders which field officers can and ought to oppose. I know there are
people who endeavor to persuade your Majesty that these accusations are
unfounded, but I hope that your Majesty will place at least as much
reliance on me as on such gentlemen who fill their purses with the blood
and toil of poor people. I could name you many officers who, a short
time ago, had scarcely the means to clothe themselves, who to-day
possess three or four hundred thousand florins in specie. Discontent
increases threateningly, and my conscience does not allow me to conceal
from your Majesty the true state of affairs."
The Catholic princes and Duke Maximilian of Bavaria entreated that
Wallenstein should be dismissed. This was done, and he went back to his
duchy in Bohemia. Some few of his worst officers were sent away. But
Tilly and Pappenheim, whose names have ever since been the synonym of
pillage and devastation, were now placed in command.
The princes of Germany began to look with one accord toward Gustavus
Adolphus, king of Sweden. The truce between Poland and Gustavus was
concluded August 26th, 1629, the very year of the Edict of Restitution,
and the Swedish king began to shape affairs in his own kingdom to help
his brethren of the Protestant faith in Germany.
His own door to the sea, the Baltic, even the security of his own State
was threatened, but above all, he saw Protestantism in danger of being
as much extinguished as it had been in Spain and Portugal. It is
possible that he had some hopes of securing territory from Germany,
while the war was on between Poland and Russia on one side and Gustavus
on the other, the Emperor Ferdinand II. had declared Gustavus under the
ban, and, no doubt, he was glad, as a man, to measure swords with the
tyrant of Germany.