THE BEGINNING OF THE THIRTY YEARS’ WAR
Character of the Bohemian Revolution--Help sent by Savoy
and the Silesians--Accession of Ferdinand of Styria--Revolt
in Austria--Ferdinand elected Emperor, deposed as King of
Bohemia--Acceptance by Frederick, Elector Palatine, of the Crown
of Bohemia--Alienation of England and the Lutheran Princes from
Frederick--Bavaria, Spain, and Saxony support Ferdinand--Battle of
the White Mountain--Settlement of Bohemia and Silesia--Conquest
of the Palatinate--The Electorate transferred to Bavaria--The war
spreads to the north--Interference of England and Denmark--Wallenstein
raises an army for the Emperor--His character and views--Campaigns
of 1626–1627--Defeat of Denmark--Peace of Lübeck--Edict of
Restitution--New questions raised by the success of Wallenstein and
the issue of the Edict.
[Sidenote: =Character of the Bohemian Revolution.=]
It is probable that when count Thurn and his companions threw the
regents out of the window at Prague, they only intended to snap the
cord which bound Bohemia and the House of Austria together, and
pictured to themselves as the result of their rash act an independent
Protestant Bohemia, ruled by themselves and their brother nobles
under the nominal sovereignty of a puppet king of their own choosing.
At first it seemed as if they were right. Germany was inclined to
let king and rebellious subjects fight out the battle by themselves.
John George of Saxony and Maximilian of Bavaria refused to interfere.
Spain promised aid but did not send it. Matthias and Ferdinand had
but fourteen thousand men under Bucquoi, a Spanish general who had
served with distinction in the Netherlands, upon whom to rely. Behind
that army lay an empty treasury and a discontented people. If the
Bohemian revolution had had in it anything of the spirit of calm
and disinterested patriotism, capable of making all sacrifices, and
determined to face all consequences, which was characteristic of the
Swiss and the Dutch revolutions, the knell of the House of Austria must
have sounded. But it was not so. The unconquerable spirit was with
Ferdinand. A mean desire to make other people bear the burdens, while
they enjoyed the fruits, of successful rebellion marked the conduct
of the Bohemian leaders. A body of directors, thirty in number, was
formed under the guidance of Ruppa, the ablest and most honourable
of the insurgents. A diet was held to carry on the affairs of the
country while Thurn took command of the army. Orders were given to
raise troops, but the question at once arose who was to pay for them?
The first suggestion was that the towns should have that honour, but
the towns not unnaturally refused the heroic rôle of self-sacrifice
so thoughtfully proposed to them by the nobles. Fresh taxes were
then voted, but no one even attempted to raise them. On the news of
the advance of Bucquoi towards Budweis, a Catholic town which still
remained true to the Emperor, a panic seized the directors and the
diet. A general levy of the male population was ordered, the raising
of the taxes already voted was proposed, but rather than face so
disagreeable a question the members of the diet slunk quietly home. It
was like schoolboys playing at rebellion. Some of the levies made their
appearance in the camp of Thurn, but there were no arms to put into
their hands, no officers to train them, no money to pay them. It is not
thus that successful revolutions are made. The Bohemian nobles were but
a faction, fighting for licence and for power under the sacred names of
liberty, of patriotism, and of religion. They must have met the fitting
reward of their selfishness and their arrogance at the hands of Bucquoi
and his fourteen thousand half-starved and badly paid troops, had it
not been for the timely interference of other powers.
Charles Emmanuel of Savoy had not abandoned his enmity to the
Austro-Spanish House because he had been obliged to make his
peace with Spain after the death of Henry IV. [Sidenote:
=Interference of Charles Emmanuel of Savoy.=] Of a restless and
ambitious nature, but by no means devoid of natural prudence, no sooner
did he hear of the revolution in Bohemia than he determined to do all
in his power to assist it, provided he could do so secretly. With this
object he opened negotiations with Frederick V., Elector
Palatine. Frederick had succeeded to the electorate on the death of his
father in 1610. Young, handsome, enthusiastic, he was readily attracted
by the difficulties of an undertaking, without having sufficient mental
power to surmount them. In politics he was a pupil of Christian of
Anhalt, in religion a zealous Calvinist, and he looked upon himself,
and was looked upon by others, as the natural leader of the German
Calvinists, and the determined foe of the House of Austria and the
Counter-Reformation. His political opinions had lately become of more
importance to the world, through his marriage with the beautiful
Elizabeth, the daughter of James I. of England. It was known
that James was bent upon an alliance with Spain, and desired nothing
less than to be mixed up in an European war. Still it was equally
certain that he had by no means resigned the position of ally and
defender of Protestantism, which he had inherited from his predecessor;
and that there was a large and influential party in England, who looked
upon the marriage with the Elector as a guarantee of a more decided
Protestant policy.
Frederick had been the first German prince to congratulate the
Bohemians on their rebellion, and offer them assistance. In July 1618
he sent a confidential agent to Prague to report upon the state of
affairs, and to assure the directors of the support of the Protestant
Union, should Spain or Bavaria send help to the Emperor. It was at this
juncture that Charles Emmanuel appeared upon the scene, and offered
through the Elector Palatine to send Mansfeld with two thousand men at
once to the assistance of the Bohemians, if it could be made to appear
that the troops were sent by the Elector himself. Frederick at once
agreed. [Sidenote: =Mansfeld sent to assist the Bohemians.=] The
real truth was known only to the Elector Palatine, Christian of Anhalt,
and the margrave of Anspach, and when Mansfeld arrived at the scene of
war in September 1618, and formed the siege of Pilsen, all the world
believed that he was acting on behalf of Frederick, and many concluded
that the Elector would not have dared to take so serious a step, unless
he had reason to reckon on the support of England. The relief was
well-timed, but the arrangement was not very creditable to any of the
parties concerned, for Mansfeld, though an able soldier, was one of
that class of military adventurers ever bred in times of war to be the
bane and scourge of the helpless and inoffensive people. To put such a
man in command, at the beginning of a national struggle, was to stamp
it at once as a war of brutality and plunder. [Sidenote: =Further
assistance sent from Silesia.=] His arrival, however, at Pilsen
changed the face of affairs. The Silesians hearing the action, as they
thought, of the Elector Palatine resolved to interfere, and sent three
thousand men to the assistance of the Bohemians. Bucquoi in the face of
these reinforcements, not only checked his advance on Prague, but was
soon obliged to fall back to Budweis, where he was besieged by Thurn.
On the 21st of November Pilsen surrendered to Mansfeld, and by the end
of the year Budweis with its beleaguered garrison was all that was left
to the Emperor of his Bohemian kingdom and army.
[Sidenote: =Death of Matthias. Accession of Ferdinand, 1619.=]
The year 1619 opened still more darkly for the House of Austria. The
worn-out Emperor sank at last into his grave on the 20th of March, and
men felt that with the accession of Ferdinand the time for compromise
had passed. If they wanted to win the day, they must strike quickly
before he could rally to his aid the unwieldy forces of the Empire
and of Spain. Negotiations which had been begun at Eger were at once
stopped. The diets of Silesia Moravia and Lusatia openly joined the
Bohemian cause, and arranged with Bohemia the contingent which they
should each provide for the common army, and the proportion of votes
which they were to have in the election of a new Bohemian king.
[Sidenote: =Revolt in Austria.=] The estates of Upper and Lower
Austria, who were mainly Protestant, adopted the cause of the Bohemians
as their own, voted men for the war, seized and administered the
archducal estates, and summoned Thurn and the Bohemian army to their
aid. Nothing loth Thurn, leaving Hohenlohe to watch Bucquoi, swooped
down upon Vienna hoping to end the war and secure the success of the
revolution by a brilliant _coup de main_. On June 2d, Ferdinand,
defenceless, harassed, hopeless, had consented to give audience to
a deputation of the estates, who were to urge upon him, as the only
chance of deliverance, the recognition of the Bohemian revolution,
and the establishment in Austria of a separately organised Protestant
government. None knew better than Ferdinand himself that if he refused
those terms the gates of Vienna would be opened to Thurn and his army.
That very night might find him a prisoner in the hands of his greatest
foe. Yet at this crisis of his life, and of the fate of Europe, he
never faltered. ‘If it be God’s will,’ he said, ‘let me perish in the
struggle.’ He was ready to perish, not an inch would he yield. The
deputation became excited. They pressed round him clamorously. Eagerly
they urged, imperiously they demanded the acceptance of their terms.
One deputy had actually, it is said, his hand upon the archduke’s
person, when suddenly there rang through the hall a trumpet blast,
and the streets were alive with the confused noise which heralds the
arrival of soldiers. It was a regiment of loyal cavalry, the vanguard
of reinforcements ordered up from the country by Ferdinand.
The crisis was over. The deputation dispersed abashed and afraid for
their own safety. The very next day Thurn arrived before the gates
of the city, and found them shut, and the walls manned. He had not
resources for a siege, and retired back again across the frontier as
quick as he had come. He was only just in time, Bucquoi had at last
received reinforcements from the Spanish Netherlands, and leaving part
of his army to watch Hohenlohe at Budweis suddenly fell upon Mansfeld,
who was marching to join Hohenlohe at Zablat, and completely destroyed
his army. The siege of Budweis was at once raised, and Bucquoi advanced
into south Bohemia driving Hohenlohe before him, until he was suddenly
recalled to defend Pressburg and Vienna from the advance of Bethlen
Gabor, Prince of Transylvania, who had just declared for the Bohemians.
Among those who distinguished themselves at the battle of Zablat was a
Bohemian noble, who commanded one of the Walloon regiments of cavalry,
count Albert von Waldstein.
[Sidenote: =Ferdinand elected Emperor, 1619.=]
Hardly had Ferdinand escaped from the attack of his enemies at Vienna,
than he had to betake himself to Frankfort to support his interests at
the approaching imperial election. At first sight there seemed little
doubt of his success, as he was certain of the three ecclesiastical
votes, which, with his own vote as king of Bohemia, would give him the
majority. But the elector of Saxony took a formal objection to the
exercise by Ferdinand of the Bohemian vote, until the settlement of the
Bohemian question had made it clear that the Crown was rightfully his,
and all felt that it would not be safe to proceed to an election until
so formidable a legal point had been decided. The way therefore was
still open to the Calvinist representatives, the Elector Palatine and
the margrave of Brandenburg, by clever management to avoid the election
of Ferdinand, if they could not actually secure that of their own
nominee. If they had at once supported with their whole strength the
policy of John George, they would have at least postponed the election
of Ferdinand indefinitely, and united the Protestant interest. But the
Elector Palatine, led by Christian of Anhalt, could not bring himself
to play second fiddle to the elector of Saxony. They wished themselves
to be emperor-makers. Christian of Anhalt had gone a weary journey to
Turin to try and make terms with Charles Emmanuel of Savoy. Maximilian
of Bavaria was sounded, but gave a definite refusal, and so it happened
that when the electoral diet met on the 20th of July, the Calvinists
were without a candidate and without a policy. John George, nettled at
seeing his own policy contemptuously set aside and nothing put in its
place, shrank from intrusting the institutions of the Empire to such
rash and incapable hands. He instructed his representative to withdraw
his objection to the vote of Ferdinand for Bohemia, and to record his
own vote in his favour. Frederick and the elector of Brandenburg,
seeing that a majority was now obtained irrespective of Ferdinand’s
own vote, made a virtue of necessity. On the 28th of August Ferdinand
was unanimously elected, and all that Christian and Frederick had
achieved by their notable policy was to attach John George firmly to
the Emperor’s side.
[Sidenote: =Deposition of Ferdinand as king of Bohemia by the
revolutionary party. Election of Frederick Elector Palatine.=]
The evil consequences of this suicidal step were quickly seen. Ten
days before Ferdinand was elected at Frankfort he had been solemnly
deposed at Prague. On the 27th of August the Elector Palatine was
elected king of Bohemia in his place, and was called upon to decide
whether or not he would accept the Crown. The decision was a momentous
one. No longer could the question be treated merely as one between the
House of Austria and one of its dependencies, if the struggle against
Ferdinand was to be headed by the leader of the Calvinists and an
elector of the Empire. German interests of the greatest magnitude were
involved. In such a quarrel the welfare of Germany was no less at stake
than that of Austria or of Bohemia. [Sidenote: =Importance of the
crisis.=] If Frederick and the Calvinists successfully established
themselves in Bohemia, the balance of power at present existing among
the princes of the Empire and the two divisions of the Protestant
world would be rudely shaken, and the traditional leadership of the
German Protestants would pass from Dresden to Heidelberg. Men were not
prepared to see Christian of Anhalt the dictator of Germany, or Geneva
victorious over Rome and Wittenberg alike. On the other hand, was it
likely that Maximilian of Bavaria and the ecclesiastical princes would
stand tamely by while the champion of their religion was dispossessed
of his territories and his power scattered to the winds? Nor did the
danger end there. Spain had already sent money and troops to the aid
of Ferdinand,--would she be deterred by the prospect of the English
marriage alliance, so strenuously urged upon her by James I.,
from throwing her whole weight into the struggle, when it once became
clear that the war was a war of religion as much as a war of politics?
Would the Pope hesitate to preach a crusade against the aggression of
Frederick, and prepare a second St. Bartholomew for the Calvinists of
Germany? And if the Catholic powers banded themselves together against
the Elector, and determined to risk all rather than suffer the tide
of the Counter-Reformation to be forced back, could James I.
himself be so deaf to natural affection, so unmindful of the traditions
of England, so careless of English opinion, as to refuse to draw the
sword to save his son-in-law and Protestantism from ruin at the hands
of Spain and the Pope? Sober men asked themselves these questions.
Before their frightened eyes rose the spectre of a religious war which
should desolate not merely Germany but Europe. They applied themselves
earnestly but unavailingly to make Frederick understand the gravity
of the situation. His own mother and councillors, the ambassador of
France, even the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, urged him to decline the
tempting offer. Only Christian of Anhalt and his followers shut their
eyes to the inevitable and forced him on. [Sidenote: =Acceptance
of the Crown of Bohemia by Frederick.=] Frederick himself wished
to delay his answer until he could find out from England if his
father-in-law would support him, but delay would not suit the Bohemians
or Christian of Anhalt. Urged on by his own vanity and his leader’s
ambition, he plunged blindly into the abyss which opened out before
him. On the 25th of September 1619, he formally notified his acceptance
to the Bohemian diet, and on the 4th of November was crowned with great
state in the cathedral of Prague.
[Sidenote: =Alienation of England and the Lutheran Princes.=]
The evil consequences which had been threatened at once made their
appearance. James I. had never approved of the Bohemian revolution,
but he had endeavoured to make use of it in order to mediate
between Catholics and Protestants in Germany and establish peace.
His son-in-law’s rash act destroyed at once what little chance of
success James might have had. But there was worse still behind. It
was bad enough that Frederick should have dared to act on his own
responsibility, before James had had sufficient time to decide from
a study of the Bohemian constitution whether the Bohemian revolution
was legally justifiable or not. It was worse still that he should have
taken a step which might alarm the susceptibilities of Spain, and
endanger the success of the negotiations for a marriage between the
prince of Wales and the infanta Maria of Spain, upon which James had
set his whole heart. James at once repudiated all complicity with his
son-in-law’s conduct, and was fretfully indignant with him for having
by it injured his own pet scheme for Europe. If all hope of assistance
from England was gone, still less chance was there of aid from Savoy,
or from the Lutheran princes of Germany. The Protestant Union only
agreed to defend the Elector’s hereditary dominions, in case they
were attacked while he was occupied in Bohemia. Frederick had to face
the coming struggle with his own resources. Even Bethlen Gabor, the
drunken but able prince of Transylvania, who had taken advantage of
Ferdinand’s weakness to advance to the gates of Vienna, pillaging as
he went, deserted the cause of the Bohemians when he found he could
obtain no money from them. On the 17th of January 1620 he made a treaty
with the Emperor, by which he was secured in the sovereignty over the
larger part of Christian Hungary. Ferdinand on the other hand had no
difficulty in obtaining allies, when once it had been recognised how
great a menace to German institutions was implied in the action of the
Elector Palatine. [Sidenote: =Alliance between Ferdinand, the League,
Spain and the Pope.=] Maximilian of Bavaria took the lead. Stipulating
as his reward the electoral hat which was to be torn from the head of
Frederick, and the right of occupying upper Austria as security for
his expenses, he placed his army and the resources of the League at
Ferdinand’s disposal. In March 1620, under his auspices, a meeting of
the League was arranged with the elector of Saxony at Mülhausen, and
an agreement arrived at by which the League undertook not to attempt
to recover the lands of the Protestant bishops and administrators in
north Germany, as long as they continued loyal to the Emperor. This
arrangement, though no solution of the question of the ecclesiastical
lands, secured at any rate for the time the neutrality of Saxony and
the Lutheran princes. The Pope sent money to swell the resources of the
League, and Philip of Spain agreed to march troops from the Netherlands
to attack the Palatinate.
[Sidenote: =The war national and religious.=]
The campaign of 1620 opened, therefore, under very different
circumstances from those of 1619. The war had already become a German
war. With the certainty of the intervention of Spain and the Pope,
with the possibility of that of England, it threatened to assume an
European character. With the League on the one side and the Union on
the other, it was a war of creeds. [Sidenote: =Importance of Bavaria.
Policy of Maximilian.=] From a military as well as a political point
of view, the accession of Maximilian of Bavaria to the cause of the
Emperor made all the difference. Weak in health, and unpleasing in
appearance, he concealed under an insignificant exterior an iron
will and a faultless judgment. He alone among his contemporaries
in Germany had the statesman’s faculty of knowing exactly what was
possible. He never struck except to succeed. He never ventured without
being sure of his ground. Succeeding to an impoverished exchequer,
and a territory disjointed in extent and divided in religion, he had
set before himself as the objects of his policy, the supremacy of
Catholicism, the consolidation of his dominions, and the acquisition
of the electoral dignity. By thrift and good management he had amassed
considerable treasure, and had carefully trained a powerful army, which
he had intrusted to the command of the Walloon Tilly, who had the
reputation of being the greatest general of the day. His opportunity
was now come, and he threw himself zealously into the war of ambition
and religion with the proud consciousness that he was the real leader
of the Catholic cause and the saviour of the House of Austria. In
June the toils began to close round the ill-fated Frederick. Philip
III., convinced through Gondomar’s diplomacy that James I. would not
break his neutrality even though the Palatinate was invaded, sent the
necessary orders to Spinola, and by August the Spanish army was at
Mainz. At the end of June, Tilly crossed the frontier into Austria,
effected a junction with Bucquoi, and advanced slowly into Bohemia,
capturing the towns as he went, and driving the enemy back upon Prague.
On November 8th, he came in sight of the city, and found Christian
of Anhalt and the Bohemian army drawn up on the White Mountain just
outside the walls. [Sidenote: =Battle of the White Mountain, 1620.=]
Regardless of Bucquoi’s desire for delay, Tilly insisted on an
immediate attack. Frederick was inside the city when the attack began.
Hurrying out to put himself at the head of his troops, he found he was
already too late. The army was flying in panic from the face of Tilly’s
veterans. Frederick himself was hurried away in the crowd. His own
dominions were already in the possession of the Spaniards. An outcast
and a fugitive, he fled for his life through Germany, and rested not
till he found an asylum with Maurice of Nassau at the Hague. He will
only be a winter-king, the Jesuits had sneeringly said, when the
summer comes he will melt away. The prophecy was fulfilled almost to
the letter, save that it was not the heat of summer but the floods of
autumn which swept him to his destruction.
The victory of the White Mountain marks the end of the attempt of
Protestantism to establish its supremacy in Bohemia. Ferdinand at
once sent for the Royal Charter and tore it up with his own hands.
[Sidenote: =Suppression of Protestantism in Bohemia.=] The leaders
of the revolution were executed, and their lands confiscated. Frederick
was placed under the ban of the Empire, and his lands and titles
declared to be forfeited. The Protestant clergy were for the most part
banished, and a heavy war indemnity exacted from the rebels whose lives
and possessions were spared. A new race of landowners, Catholic and
German, became the possessors of the confiscated lands, and by their
means Catholic worship was gradually restored throughout the country
districts. Jesuit colleges were planted in the chief towns to complete
by persuasion what force had begun, and before another generation had
passed away Bohemia was definitely ranged among the Catholic countries
of Europe. Only Silesia and Lusatia succeeded in retaining something
of their old rights and much of their old religion. The war against
these allies of Bohemia had fallen to the lot of John George of Saxony,
and when the battle of the White Mountain had made it plain that they
must treat for peace, they did not find the Lutheran leader a hard
taskmaster. [Sidenote: =Toleration granted to Silesia, 1621.=] On
his own responsibility, he concluded peace with the Silesian estates by
an instrument known as the Accord on January 21st, 1621, by which they
recognised Ferdinand as their duly elected and crowned king and supreme
duke, and agreed to pay a fine of 300,000 florins on condition that
their political and religious liberties were respected. Ferdinand when
he heard of this was naturally very angry at the mention of the words
‘elected king,’ but found it prudent to accept the treaty rather than
affront the elector of Saxony.
[Sidenote: =Continued success of Ferdinand and Maximilian,
1621–1622.=]
By the beginning of 1621, Ferdinand and Maximilian found their policy
completely crowned with success. The Bohemian revolution was crushed,
the lower Palatinate was in the hands of the Spaniards, Frederick
had been declared to have forfeited his electoral dignity, the
Counter-Reformation was victorious in Austria, Moravia, and Bohemia.
In April 1621 the Protestant Union itself was dissolved. Yet there
were rocks ahead which would require very careful seamanship to avoid.
The Spanish court was indignant at the idea of the transference of the
Palatine Electorate to Bavaria. James of England was so moved by the
seizure of his son-in-law’s hereditary dominions, that he authorised
the enlistment of Englishmen under Vere to defend the lower Palatinate
against Spinola, and made its restoration to Frederick the central
point of the long negotiations he was carrying on with Spain for a
family alliance. The truce of Antwerp between the Spaniards and the
Dutch had just come to an end by lapse of time, and Maurice of Nassau
was minded to place his unrivalled military talents in the scale
against the House of Austria. The German princes of the Rhineland were
frightened at the success of the League, and were looking out for
allies even beyond the limits of Germany. But at present no one stirred
except the margrave of Baden-Durlach and Christian of Brunswick, both
of whom held large estates which had been secularised since the peace
of Augsburg, and were consequently in danger from the success of the
Counter-Reformation. Christian, besides being Protestant bishop of
Halberstadt, was a military adventurer of the knight-errant pattern.
He liked fighting for its own sake and loved still better to surround
it with a halo of romance. Fired by a glance from the beautiful eyes
of the queen of Bohemia, and wearing her glove on his helmet, he
posed before the world as the chivalrous protector and avenger of
beauty in misfortune. The new allies of Frederick did not avail him
much. In October 1621, Mansfeld had to abandon the upper Palatinate
and take refuge across the Rhine in Alsace. In the summer of 1622, in
conjunction with the margrave of Baden and Christian of Brunswick, he
advanced to the recovery of the lower Palatinate, but Tilly crushed
the margrave at Wimpfen on the Neckar on May 6th, and Christian at
Höcht on the Main on the 20th of June. Christian and Mansfeld with the
remnants of their armies had to retire across the Rhine into Lorraine,
where they lived at free quarters upon the wretched inhabitants.
On September 16th Heidelberg surrendered to Tilly, and on November
8th Mannheim followed the example of the capital, and by the end of
the year Frankenthal was the only city in his hereditary dominions
which still belonged to the unfortunate Elector. Deprived of his land
and his resources, he was now obliged to deprive himself of his own
remaining army, and formally dismissed from his service Christian of
Brunswick and Mansfeld on finding himself without authority over them
and yet looked upon by Europe as responsible for their crimes. Fortune
had still one more blow in reserve. [Sidenote: =Transference of
the Electorate from Frederick to Maximilian, 1623.=] On February
13th, 1623, Ferdinand, having succeeded in pacifying the opposition
of the elector of Saxony and the Spaniards, solemnly transferred the
electorate to Maximilian of Bavaria for his life at the meeting of
the diet at Regensburg, and gave him the administration of the upper
Palatinate as additional security for the expenses of the war.
[Sidenote: =Extension of the war to Northern Germany, 1623–1624.=]
The transference of the electorate to Maximilian of Bavaria fitly marks
the close of the first act of the great drama of the Thirty Years’
War, namely, that signalised by the Bohemian Revolution, for he was
the person to whom the success achieved was due. His army had won the
victories, his head had directed the policy, his purse had paid the
soldiers--could he only now have enforced a peace upon a reasonable
basis, he would have stood forth before the world as the greatest
statesman in Germany, and the saviour of the House of Austria. The
difficulties in the way were serious. The Dutch, since the expiration
of the truce of Antwerp, had been at open war with the Spaniards, and
at the beginning of 1623, being hard pressed by Spinola, summoned the
brigand bands of Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick to their aid.
Insensibly the war was beginning to affect the north German princes.
Many of them felt that if the Emperor succeeded in crushing the bishop
of Halberstadt, other Protestant bishoprics might prove too tempting
a prey to be resisted, and rallied to the standard of Christian. The
lower Saxon circle, animated by similar fears, actually began to arm.
With these dangers looming in the distance, it was impossible for the
League to lay down its arms. Even the crushing defeat inflicted by
Tilly upon Christian of Brunswick at Stadtlohn in the bishopric of
Münster in August 1623 was not a sufficient guarantee of peace, whilst
Mansfeld was still at large; and so the war simmered on through 1623
and 1624, and the opportunity for a satisfactory peace in which German
interests alone should be consulted passed away never to return.
[Sidenote: =Interference of England, 1624.=]
Ere the first day of 1625 had dawned it was too late. Germany was
already the prey of foreign intervention, but it was as yet the
intervention of foreigners who had distinct interests in Germany. James
of England had at last been forced to acknowledge the hopelessness
of trying to settle the affairs of Europe after his own wishes, by
means of an alliance with Spain. The rash visit of prince Charles and
Buckingham to Madrid in 1623 had at length opened their eyes to the
fact, which all the rest of the world had understood long ago, that
Spain only valued the negotiations for the proposed alliance as a means
of preventing James from drawing his sword in the German quarrel,
and the alliance itself as a stepping-stone to the eventual recovery
of England to the obedience of the Pope. Angry at the discovery, the
prince and the favourite pushed the old and timid king unwillingly into
war. In 1624 English envoys hurried between the courts of Sweden and
Denmark and the princes of the lower Saxon circle, eager to negotiate
a general alliance to win back the Palatinate. James himself received
Mansfeld graciously in London, permitted him to enlist 20,000 men for
the war in the Palatinate, and obtained permission from Louis of France
for the army to march through France to its destination. The English
dockyards resounded with preparations for a great maritime expedition
against the ports of Spain and the treasure ships from the Indies. In
March 1625, James died, and Charles and Buckingham, no longer hampered
by an old man’s caution, threw themselves into the German war with a
lightness of heart and want of foresight worthy of Frederick himself.
Christian IV. of Denmark was the victim who fell into the trap
which was so innocently but unerringly laid. [Sidenote: =Interference
of Denmark, 1625.=] He, like other Lutheran princes, had watched
with nervous anxiety the spread of the war into northern Germany,
and had winced under the blow dealt to the Lutheran cause by the
establishment of Catholicism by Ferdinand and Maximilian in Bohemia and
the upper Palatinate. He was nearly concerned too in the question of
the ecclesiastical lands, for he had secured for one of his sons the
Protestant bishopric of Verden and the succession to that of Bremen.
[Sidenote: =Alliance of England, Denmark, and part of north Germany
against the Emperor and Spain, 1625.=] So when the offer came from
England to pay him £30,000 a month, in addition to the sending of the
naval expedition against the coasts of Spain, Christian felt that
religion and interest combined to urge him to action. In May 1625, a
treaty was made on those terms between Charles I. of England,
Christian of Denmark, and the lower Saxon circle, and the first
instalment of the English subsidy was duly paid.
Ill-success dogged their well-meant efforts from the first. In the
previous year, Louis had at the last moment found reasons to recall
his verbal permission to Mansfeld to cross the soil of France, and the
troops had been sent instead into the Low Countries, where, unpaid and
unprovided with necessaries, they fell victims to disease. The naval
expedition, which, under Wimbledon’s leadership, arrived at Cadiz in
the October of 1625, achieved nothing but disaster and contempt.
In England quarrels broke out between Charles and his Parliaments,
which effectually prevented the payment of the promised subsidies to
Christian IV. [Sidenote: =Difficulties of Ferdinand.=] Nevertheless the
united forces of Mansfeld, Christian of Brunswick, and Christian of
Denmark, ill provided as they were, far outnumbered the army of Tilly
and the League, and it was clear to Ferdinand and Maximilian that with
discontent seething in Silesia, Bohemia, and Austria, with Bethlen
Gabor again threatening the frontiers of Hungary, and the Danish forces
invading upper Germany, it was absolutely essential to place another
army in the field. Yet where was it to come from? The Emperor could not
stoop to employ a brigand army paid by plunder like that of Mansfeld,
but the resources of Maximilian and the League were strained to the
utmost. Spain, threatened alike by England and France, could spare
nothing, and Ferdinand’s treasury was as usual empty.
[Sidenote: =Wallenstein.=]
It was in this crisis that a man stepped forward to the help of
Ferdinand, who is in some ways the most interesting figure of the
Thirty Years’ War. Albert von Waldstein, or Wallenstein, was the
younger son of an illustrious Bohemian family of Sclavonic blood.
Educated partly by the Moravian Brethren and partly by the Jesuits,
he never surrendered himself dogmatically to either creed, but out of
the mysticism of both constructed for himself a religion, which, not
unlike that of Napoleon afterwards, chiefly expressed itself in an
unfailing belief in his own star. Thus removed somewhat apart from the
controversies of the day, he was able to see more clearly through the
mists which darkened the eyes of ordinary politicians. Statesmanship
as well as interest and tradition led him to devote himself to the
cause of the Emperor, as the one stable element in Germany among the
disintegrating influences of rival religions and personal jealousies.
True patriotism made common cause with ambition to urge him to risk
much to keep the foreigner out of Germany. Common sense allied with
dogmatic indifference made him see more clearly than others, that in
toleration for all creeds lay the only possibility of civil unity. But
statesman and patriot though he was in his conception of the real needs
of Germany and the necessity of resisting foreign interference, his
statesmanship and his patriotism were never allowed to free themselves
from the trammels of an overmastering ambition. In the settlement of
Germany, it was he who was to dictate the terms. In the ousting of
the foreigner and the crushing of the factions, it was he who was to
receive the lion’s share of the spoil. He was an imperialist, but only
on condition of military independence. He was a patriot, but only on
condition of being also a dictator. As long as the stream of his own
policy and personal aggrandisement flowed in the same channel with
that of the Emperor and his allies, all would be well. But should they
diverge, Germany could no more contain a Ferdinand and a Wallenstein,
than France could afterwards contain a Directory and a Napoleon.
[Sidenote: =Character of Wallenstein’s army.=]
Such difficulties were, however, in the womb of the future. For the
present Ferdinand required a disciplined army and a capable general,
and had not the means to provide himself with either. Wallenstein
offered to raise 20,000 men without putting any additional strain on
the treasury of the Empire, provided he might be allowed to support
them by requisitions on the country in which they were quartered. As
with Napoleon, war was to support war, not by the unlicensed waste
and brutal plunder of a Mansfeld, but by orderly and methodical
requisitions couched in the form of law. The Emperor accepted the
conditions, though he well knew that the constitution of the Empire
gave him no authority to levy requisitions. Directly the standard of
Wallenstein was raised men flocked to it from all sides. Soldiers of
fortune, peasants ruined by the war, younger sons who had to make
their own way in the world, adventurers of all religions, and all
nationalities, hastened to serve under a leader who had already carved
for himself by his sword and his wits a colossal fortune out of the
spoils of the Bohemian revolution. In the autumn of 1625, he found
himself at the head of an army of 50,000 men, whose only bond of union
was their allegiance to himself, and he advanced into the dioceses of
Magdeburg and Halberstadt and spent the winter there in training his
forces for the coming struggle.
[Sidenote: =The campaign of 1626.=]
The plan of campaign arranged by the king of Denmark and his allies was
a simple one. Christian himself, with his own troops and those paid
by the English subsidies, was to advance up the Weser against Tilly
and the army of the League, thus securing the bishoprics of Bremen and
Verden, and driving the enemy, as it was hoped, out of Halberstadt back
to the line of the Main. Meanwhile Mansfeld was to operate against
Wallenstein on the Elbe, push him back into Bohemia, and force him
either to let go his hold upon the upper Palatinate, or lay Vienna open
to a combined attack from the army of Mansfeld and that of Bethlen
Gabor, who was again stirring on the side of Hungary. The plan,
however, was better conceived than executed. No subsidies arrived from
England, and Mansfeld had to begin his attack without the co-operation
of Christian. Wallenstein awaited him withdrawn behind the line of the
Elbe, having carefully fortified the bridge of Dessau, which was the
key of his position. On April 25th, Mansfeld dashed himself in vain
against the fortifications of the bridge, and Wallenstein, seizing
the moment when the enemy, thrown into confusion by the repulse, was
retiring in some disorder, took the offensive, and by a brilliant
counter-attack turned the repulse into a complete rout.
Foiled in his attempt to force Wallenstein’s position on the Elbe by
a front attack, Mansfeld now determined to turn it, and by making a
long flank march through discontented Silesia, to effect a junction
with Bethlen Gabor in Hungary, and advance upon Vienna from the east.
The plan was not creditable to Mansfeld’s military genius. A long
flank march, in the presence of a victorious force acting on interior
lines, is one of the most hazardous operations in war; and with an army
of soldiers of fortune dependent on plunder for their support, and
ignorant of discipline, was doomed to certain failure. Wallenstein,
leaving 8000 men to co-operate with Tilly against Christian, contented
himself with moving slowly after Mansfeld on an interior circle
covering Vienna, and finally entrenched himself at Gran on the Danube,
about half-way between Pesth and Pressburg, where he awaited the
combined attack. Mansfeld did not dare to risk another bridge of Dessau
with his attenuated and dispirited force, recruited though it was by
the half barbarous levies of the Transylvanian prince, while Bethlen
himself saw that he could gain more by negotiation than by war. A
truce was quickly made by which Mansfeld was obliged to leave Hungary.
[Sidenote: =Death of Mansfeld, 1626.=] Ill in mind and body, the
indefatigable adventurer attempted to make his way across the mountains
to Italy in the depth of winter, in the hope of stirring up the
Republic of Venice to greater exertions, but as he struggled on through
Bosnia, death overtook him on the 30th of November. Thus suddenly
disappeared from the scene one who by his military talents had been the
chief obstacle to the success of the imperialists, and by his total
want of morality and patriotism had been the greatest foe to the peace
of Germany. His removal unfortunately came too late. The dragon’s teeth
which he had sown produced a crop of military adventurers all over the
soil of Germany as reckless and as able as himself, and already round
the carcase of prostrate Germany were gathering the foreign powers,
who did not scruple to use such auxiliaries for their own selfish
purposes. For the moment the death of Mansfeld made the restoration of
peace between the Emperor and Bethlen Gabor more easy, and on the 28th
of December the treaty of Pressburg was signed by which Bethlen was to
retain the sovereignty over the thirteen counties of Hungary, and the
army of Mansfeld was disbanded.
[Sidenote: =Battle of Lutter.=]
Meanwhile the forces of the League had achieved a still greater success
on the Weser. Christian IV. could not complete his armament
without the English subsidies, but no money came, or could come, from
England, where Charles I. was quarrelling with one Parliament
after another. Tilly accordingly advanced slowly down the Weser and
captured Minden and Göttingen. After the defeat of Mansfeld at Dessau,
he was further reinforced by 8000 men from Wallenstein’s army, and
Christian felt that if he was to assume the offensive at all, there
was no time to be lost. Accordingly in August he hastily advanced into
Thuringia, hoping to throw himself upon Tilly and crush him before
the imperialist forces arrived, but he was too late. The junction
was effected on the 22d of August, and Christian finding himself in
the presence of superior numbers retreated. Tilly at once followed,
overtook the Danish army on the 26th of August at Lutter, just as it
was about to plunge into a narrow defile, and inflicted upon them a
severe defeat. Christian, leaving 8000 men and all his artillery on the
field of battle, and 2000 prisoners in the enemies’ hands, retired into
Holstein and Mecklenberg, while Tilly overran the duchy of Brunswick
and quartered his men for the winter along the lower Elbe, and an
imperialist detachment occupied the mark of Brandenburg.
[Sidenote: =Further successes of Tilly and Wallenstein.=]
In the next year the tide of victory rolled on. Wallenstein, now made
duke of Friedland, marched into Silesia with irresistible forces, and
sent fifty standards to Vienna as evidence of his conquest. Then,
joining hands with Tilly on the lower Elbe, the united armies poured
into Holstein, and overran Denmark until stopped by the sea, and forced
the unfortunate Christian to take refuge in the islands. In February
1628, Ferdinand, following the precedent of the Elector Palatine,
put the dukes of Mecklenberg to the ban for the assistance they had
given to Christian, declared their lands forfeited, and authorised
Wallenstein to occupy and administer them in pledge for the expenses
incurred. Sweeping over the country the imperial general seized upon
the ports of Wismar and Rostock, obliged the duke of Pomerania to put
the long coast line of his duchy under the care of the imperial troops,
and was only checked in his career of conquest in March 1628 by the
marshes and the fortifications of Stralsund. [Sidenote: =Siege of
Stralsund, 1628.=] For five long months the imperialist army lay
before the city, attempting the almost impossible feat of the capture
of a defended city open to the sea by an attack from the land side
only, for none knew better than Wallenstein himself the importance of
the issue. All the southern coast of the Baltic from Dantzig to Lübeck,
except Stralsund, owned his authority. Across the water lay the only
foe he had now to fear. Sovereignty over the Baltic as well as over the
Baltic provinces was necessary to him if he was to be safe from the
attacks of Sweden. To further this policy, he had already obtained from
the Emperor the title of admiral of the Baltic, and he was negotiating
with the Hanse towns to provide him with a fleet, which should make
the title something of a reality. As long as Stralsund afforded to the
enemy an open door into the heart of Germany, the first steps necessary
to gain that sovereignty were not complete. Nor was that all. Hitherto
the opposition to the Emperor in Germany had been led by furious
partisans like Christian of Anhalt, military adventurers like Mansfeld
and Christian of Brunswick, or self-seeking politicians like Christian
of Denmark and the other holders of the ecclesiastical lands. The
German people and the cities of Germany had, as a rule, kept themselves
aloof from the struggle, or extended their sympathies to the Emperor as
the representative of order. But the siege of Stralsund showed that new
forces were coming into play. It was the citizens, not their leaders,
who insisted on fighting to the last gasp. The independent spirit of
civic liberty was determined not to submit to a military dictatorship.
The religious spirit of staunch Protestantism was determined not to
make terms with the victorious Counter-Reformation. When Wallenstein,
foiled and exasperated, drew off his army on August 3d from before the
walls of Stralsund, he at least understood that among the cities of
Germany there were those who would throw themselves into the arms of
the foreigner, and risk all they had, rather than submit to military
government and religious persecution. Nor was Stralsund alone in its
victory. Glückstadt proved to Tilly as difficult a morsel to digest as
Stralsund had been to Wallenstein, and in January 1629 he was forced
to raise the siege. Matters had now reached a deadlock. Christian
could not venture on the mainland and his enemies could not reach him
at sea. [Sidenote: =The peace of Lübeck, 1629.=] Wallenstein saw
the importance of bringing the Danish war to an end before Sweden
appeared on the scene, and opened negotiations for peace. In May the
treaty of Lübeck was signed. Christian surrendered all his claims upon
the ecclesiastical lands in Germany and received back his hereditary
dominions.
[Sidenote: =Causes of the Imperialist success.=]
Ten years had elapsed since the fatal day when the revolted Bohemian
diet elected Frederick, Elector Palatine, to the throne of Bohemia, and
the margrave of Anspach had exultingly cried, ‘Now we have the means of
upsetting the world.’ In those ten years the German world had indeed
been upset but not in the sense of the margrave’s prophecy. It was the
very fact that in their attack upon the House of Austria the Calvinists
were attempting to upset the world of Germany, were attempting to
revolutionise German institutions, and were not in any way representing
the rights of Protestantism, or the independence of the German princes,
that deprived them of support in Germany outside their own body.
Cautious and shrewd rulers like John George of Saxony looked upon them
as the party of anarchy, and upon the Emperor as the representative
of order. The recklessness with which Frederick and his advisers let
Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick loose upon the unoffending people,
and outraged the sacred name of religion with burning homesteads and
tortured peasants, lost them the respect of every right-thinking
man. Men felt that to revolutionise Germany and to plunder Germans
was not the way to defend the cause of Protestantism, and welcomed
the successes of Maximilian and the League in Bohemia, and even in
the Palatinate, as securities for the restoration of order upon the
traditional lines.
[Sidenote: =Change brought about by Wallenstein and his army.=]
But since then a great change had taken place. The advent of
Wallenstein upon the scene, with his personal army and transcendent
military talents, brought new forces into play. Germany found itself
threatened by the rule of the sword. Ferdinand found at his back a
power capable of enforcing his will upon Germany, and, if need be,
of superintending the reconciliation of German Protestantism to the
Church. After the peace of Lübeck, who was to say him nay if he boldly
entered upon a policy of Catholic aggression? The Protestant sympathies
of his Austrian subjects had been drowned in blood. In Bohemia and
Moravia, under their new Catholic landowners, Protestantism was
suppressed, and all Protestants had been banished by the Reforming
Commissions issued under the new constitution in 1627. Silesia had
lately felt the heavy hand of Wallenstein and was in no condition to
rebel. The upper Palatinate and part of the lower, lately made over
to Maximilian, were already being rapidly converted to Catholicism.
Secure then in his own dominions and sure of Maximilian’s support,
what opposition was he likely to receive in Germany? The smaller
princes of north Germany had been for the most part implicated in the
Danish war, and their lands were in the occupation of the armies of
the Emperor and of the League. John George of Saxony, the elector of
Brandenburg, and the duke of Pomerania, were not likely at such a time
to forfeit the protection of the agreement of Mülhausen, which had
been faithfully observed on both sides hitherto. Possibly a few free
cities, such as Magdeburg and Hamburg, might object, and the king of
Sweden across the water might interfere, but no great end was ever
achieved without running some risk. In 1627 the Catholic electors and
the duke of Bavaria had urged upon Ferdinand that the time was now
come to assert the rights of the Church under the peace of Augsburg,
and Ferdinand was too strongly himself in favour of the policy to
say that they were wrong. On March 29th, 1629, he issued the Edict of
Restitution, restoring to the Church all the land secularised since the
peace of Augsburg was signed. [Sidenote: =The Edict of Restitution,
1629.=] At one stroke the archbishoprics of Magdeburg and Bremen,
the bishoprics of Minden, Verden, Halberstadt, Lübeck, Ratzeburg,
Misnia, Merseburg, Naumburg, Brandenburg, Havelberg, Lebus and Camin,
and about one hundred and twenty smaller foundations were taken away
from their Protestant bishops and administrators, and restored to the
Church. Never was greater mistake made. To resume lands in the name of
the law, which had been from fifty to eighty years in the undisputed
possession of Protestant holders, was in itself a straining of the
letter of the law in violation of its spirit, which only intensified
the sense of wrong brought about by the confiscation. In itself it
armed the public opinion of all Germany against the Emperor. It roused
the ardent Protestants to frenzy. But to do it in dependence on mere
brute force was political suicide. Without the armies of Tilly and
Wallenstein the Edict of Restitution was a dead letter, with them it
was a military revolution. By it the Emperor stood out to the world
as the author of a religious and political revolution, the success
of which depended entirely upon military despotism, and was without
any moral basis whatever. Germany would not be revolutionised by such
measures as these.