One word must be spent on poor Albert, Casimir's son, [1522-1557]
already mentioned. This poor Albert, whom they call ALCIBIADES, made a
great noise in that epoch; being what some define as the "Failure of
a Fritz;" who has really features of him we are to call "Friedrich the
Great," but who burnt away his splendid qualities as a mere temporary
shine for the able editors, and never came to anything.
A high and gallant young fellow, left fatherless in childhood; perhaps
he came too early into power:--he came, at any rate, in very volcanic
times, when Germany was all in convulsion; the Old Religion and the New
having at length broken out into open battle, with huge results to
be hoped and feared; and the largest game going on, in sight of an
adventurous youth. How Albert staked in it; how he played to immense
heights of sudden gain, and finally to utter bankruptcy, I cannot
explain here: some German delineator of human destinies, "Artist" worth
the name, if there were any, might find in him a fine subject.
He was ward of his Uncle George; and the probable fact is, no guardian
could have been more faithful. Nevertheless, on approaching the years
of majority, of majority but not discretion, he saw good to quarrel with
his Uncle; claimed this and that, which was not granted: quarrel lasting
for years. Nay matters ran so high at last, it was like to come to war
between them, had not George been wiser. The young fellow actually sent
a cartel to his Uncle; challenged him to mortal combat,--at which George
only wagged his old beard, we suppose, and said nothing. Neighbors
interposed, the Diet itself interposed; and the matter was got quenched
again. Leaving Albert, let us hope, a repentant young man. We said he
was full of fire, too much of it wildfire.
His profession was Arms; he shone much in war; went slashing and
fighting through those Schmalkaldic broils, and others of his time; a
distinguished captain; cutting his way towards something high, he saw
not well what. He had great comradeship with Moritz of Saxony in the
wars: two sworn brothers they, and comrades in arms:--it is the same
dexterous Moritz, who, himself a Protestant, managed to get his too
Protestant Cousin's Electorate of Saxony into his hand, by luck of the
game; the Moritz, too, from whom Albert by and by got his last defeat,
giving Moritz his death in return. That was the finale of their
comradeship. All things end, and nothing ceases changing till it end.
He was by position originally on the Kaiser's side; had attained great
eminence, and done high feats of arms and generalship in his service.
But being a Protestant by creed, he changed after that Schmalkaldic
downfall (rout of Muhlberg, 24th April, 1547), which brought Moritz an
Electorate, and nearly cost Moritz's too Protestant Cousin his life as
well as lands. [Account of it in De Wette, _Lebensgeschichte der Herzoge
zu Sachsen_(Weimar, 1770), pp. 32-35.] The victorious Kaiser growing
now very high in his ways, there arose complaints against him from all
sides, very loud from the Protestant side; and Moritz and Albert took to
arms, with loud manifestos and the other phenomena.
This was early in 1552, five years after Muhlberg Rout or Battle. The
there victorious Kaiser was now suddenly almost ruined; chased like a
partridge into the Innspruck Mountains,--could have been caught, only
Moritz would not; "had no cage to hold so big a bird," he said. So the
Treaty of Passau was made, and the Kaiser came much down from his lofty
ways. Famed TREATY OF PASSAU (22d August, 1552), which was the finale of
these broils, and hushed them up for a Fourscore years to come. That was
a memorable year in German Reformation History.
Albert, meanwhile, had been busy in the interior of the country; blazing
aloft in Frankenland, his native quarter, with a success that astonished
all men. For seven months he was virtually King of Germany; ransomed
Bamberg, ransomed Wurzburg, Nurnberg (places he had a grudge at);
ransomed all manner of towns and places,--especially rich Bishops and
their towns, with VERBUM DIABOLI sticking in them,--at enormous sums.
King of the world for a brief season;--must have had some strange
thoughts to himself, had they been recorded for us. A pious man, too;
not in the least like "Alcibiades," except in the sudden changes of
fortune he underwent. His Motto, or old rhymed Prayer, which he would
repeat on getting into the saddle for military work,--a rough rhyme of
his own composing,--is still preserved. Let us give it, with an English
fac-simile, or roughest mechanical pencil-tracing,--by way of glimpse
into the heart of a vanished Time and its Man-at-arms: [Rentsch, p.
644.]
Das Walt der Herr Jesus Christ,
Mit dem Vater, der uber uns ist:
Wer starker ist als dieser Mann,
Der komm und thu' ein Leid mir an.
Guide it the Lord Jesus Christ, [Read "Chris"
or "Chriz," for the rhyme's sake.]
And the Father, who over us is:
He that is stronger than that Man, [Sic.]
Let him do me a hurt when he can.
He was at the Siege of Metz (end of that same 1552), and a principal
figure there. Readers have heard of the Siege of Metz: How Henry II.
of France fished up those "Three Bishoprics" (Metz, Toul, Verdun,
constituent part of Lorraine, a covetable fraction of Teutschland) from
the troubled sea of German things, by aid of Moritz now KUR-SACHSEN, and
of Albert; and would not throw them in again, according to bargain, when
Peace, the PEACE OF PASSAU came. How Kaiser Karl determined to have them
back before the year ended, cost what it might; and Henry II. to keep
them, cost what it might. How Guise defended, with all the Chivalry of
France; and Kaiser Karl besieged, [19th October, 1552, and onwards.]
with an Army of 100,000 men, under Duke Alba for chief captain. Siege
protracted into midwinter; and the "sound of his cannon heard at
Strasburg," which is eighty miles off, "in the winter nights." [Kohler,
_Reichs-Historie,_ p. 453;--and more especially _Munzbelustigungen_
(Nurnberg, 1729-1750), ix. 121-129. The Year of this Volume, and of the
Number in question, is 1737; the MUNZE or Medal "recreated upon" in of
Henri II.]
It had depended upon Albert, who hung in the distance with an army of
his own, whether the Siege could even begin; but he joined the Kaiser,
being reconciled again; and the trenches opened. By the valor of Guise
and his Chivalry,--still more perhaps by the iron frosts and by the
sleety rains of Winter, and the hungers and the hardships of a hundred
thousand men, digging vainly at the ice-bound earth, or trampling
it when sleety into seas of mud, and themselves sinking in it, of
dysentery, famine, toil and despair, as they cannonaded day and
night,--Metz could not be taken. "Impossible!" said the Generals with
one voice, after trying it for a couple of months. "Try it one other ten
days," said the Kaiser with a gloomy fixity; "let us all die, or else
do it!" They tried, with double desperation, another ten days; cannon
booming through the winter midnight far and wide, four score miles
round: "Cannot be done, your Majesty! Cannot,--the winter and the mud,
and Guise and the walls; man's strength cannot do it in this season. We
must march away!" Karl listened in silence; but the tears were seen to
run down his proud face, now not so young as it once was: "Let us march,
then!" he said, in a low voice, after some pause.
Alcibiades covered the retreat to Diedenhof (THIONVILLE they now call
it): outmanoeuvred the French, retreated with success; he had already
captured a grand Due d'Aumale, a Prince of the Guises,--valuable ransom
to be looked for there. It was thought he should have made his bargain
better with the Kaiser, before starting; but he had neglected that.
Albert's course was downward thenceforth; Kaiser Karl's too. The French
keep these "Three Bishoprics (TROIS EVECHES)," and Teutschland laments
the loss of them, to this hour. Kaiser Karl, as some write, never smiled
again;--abdicated, not long after; retired into the Monastery of St.
Just, and there soon died. That is the siege of Metz, where Alcibiades
was helpful. His own bargain with the Kaiser should have been better
made beforehand.
Dissatisfied with any bargain he could now get; dissatisfied with the
Treaty of Passau, with such a finale and hushing-up of the Religious
Controversy, and in general with himself and with the world, Albert
again drew sword; went loose at a high rate upon his Bamberg-Wurzburg
enemies, and, having raised supplies there, upon Moritz and those
Passau-Treatiers. He was beaten at last by Moritz, "Sunday, 9th July,
1553," at a place called Sievershausen in the Hanover Country, where
Moritz himself perished in the action.--Albert fled thereupon to France.
No hope in France. No luck in other small and desperate stakings of his:
the game is done. Albert returns to a Sister he had, to her Husband's
Court in Baden; a broken, bare and bankrupt man;--soon dies there,
childless, leaving the shadow of a name. [Here, chiefly from Kohler
_(Munzbelustigungen,_ iii. 414-416), is the chronology of Albert's
operations:--Seizure of Nurnberg &c., 11th May to 22d June, 1552;
Innspruck (with Treaty of Passau) follows. Then Siege of Metz, October
to December, 1552; Bamberg, Wurzburg and Nurnberg ransomed again, April,
1553; Battle of Sievershausen, 9th July, 1553. Wurzburg &c. explode
against him; Ban of the Empire, 4th May, 1554. To France thereupon;
returns, hoping to negotiate, end of 1556; dies at Pforzheim, at his
Sister's, 8th January, 1557.--See Pauli, iii. 120-138. See also Dr.
Kapp, _Erinnerungen an diejenigen Markgrafen &c._ (a reprint from
the _Archiv fur Geschichte und Alterthumskunde in Ober-Franken,_ Year
1841).]
His death brought huge troubles upon Baireuth and the Family
Possessions. So many neighbors, Bamberg, Wurzburg and the rest, were
eager for retaliation; a new Kaiser greedy for confiscating. Plassenburg
Castle was besieged, bombarded, taken by famine and burnt; much was
burnt and torn to waste. Nay, had it not been for help from Berlin, the
Family had gone to utter ruin in those parts. For this Alcibiades had,
in his turn, been Guardian to Uncle George's Son, the George Friedrich
we once spoke of, still a minor, but well known afterwards; and it was
attempted, by an eager Kaiser Ferdinand, to involve this poor youth in
his Cousin's illegalities, as if Ward and Guardian had been one person.
Baireuth which had been Alcibiades's, Anspach which was the young man's
own, nay Jagerndorf with its Appendages, were at one time all in the
clutches of the hawk,--had not help from Berlin been there. But in the
end, the Law had to be allowed its course; George Friedrich got his own
Territories back (all but some surreptitious nibblings in the Jagerndorf
quarter, to be noticed elsewhere), and also got Baireuth, his poor
Cousin's Inheritance;--sole heir, he now, in Culmbath, the Line of
Casimir being out.
One owns to a kind of love for poor Albert Alcibiades. In certain sordid
times, even a "Failure of a Fritz" is better than some Successes that
are going. A man of some real nobleness, this Albert; though not with
wisdom enough, not with good fortune enough. Could he have continued
to "rule the situation" (as our French friends phrase it); to march the
fanatical Papistries, and Kaiser Karl, clear out of it, home to Spain
and San Justo a little earlier; to wave the coming Jesuitries away, as
with a flaming sword; to forbid beforehand the doleful Thirty-Years War,
and the still dolefuler spiritual atrophy (the flaccid Pedantry, ever
rummaging and rearranging among learned marine-stores, which thinks
itself Wisdom and Insight; the vague maunderings, flutings; indolent,
impotent daydreaming and tobacco-smoking, of poor Modern Germany) which
has followed therefrom,--ACH GOTT, he might have been a "SUCCESS of a
Fritz" three times over! He might have been a German Cromwell; beckoning
his People to fly, eagle-like, straight towards the Sun; instead
of screwing about it in that sad, uncertain, and far too spiral
manner!--But it lay not in him; not in his capabilities or
opportunities, after all: and we but waste time in such speculations.