imperial delegates in the name of Spain, at the Diet held at Luebeck, in
1627. It appears that Spain stood in need of a friendly commercial navy
in order to carry on her colonial trade, as well as of a friendly
maritime power with which to meet the Netherlands. This idea was in
accord with Duke Wallenstein's project to gain empire over the Baltic by
means of an imperial navy, thus to surround the imperial crown with a
new lustre, and the more surely to hold within bounds the recalcitrant
inland princes. It was not from pure ill will or haughtiness that
Wallenstein so terrified Stralsund, the town which he besieged so long
and mercilessly, nor from pure love of well-sounding titles, that he
styled himself "General and Admiral of the Baltic and North Seas."
The two imperial delegates, who appeared before the Hanseatic Diet at
Luebeck deigned to speak the quaint formal language that was traditional
with the Hansa League. They were begging for a favour, and so deemed it
wise to assume no masterful tones. The emperor's word was said to be
addressed "to the honourable councillors and other members of the worthy
city of Luebeck, regarding it as the head of the most ancient Hansa
League." The ambassadors put before the assembled Hanseatic deputies,
that the Holy Roman Empire, in its entirety, and the venerable German
Hansa towns in particular, had suffered grievously from the restraint on
free navigation which had been imposed on them by foreign potentates;
and that the German nation had thus the bread taken out of their very
mouths. Therefore it was the emperor's earnest and ardent desire to
befriend the towns, and to restore the nation to its former reputation
and grandeur. A most useful alliance would be proposed to them, and this
proposal did not come from a foreign power, but was put forward under
the emperor's patronage and protection. The facts were these,--Spain had
for some time past declared itself willing to enter into an agreement,
that all the merchandise, whether exported from or imported into the
Spanish dominions, should only pertain to the natives of the German
Empire or to Spanish subjects.
The emperor through his ambassadors admitted that this proposal had at
first sight seemed to him somewhat grave, and requiring consideration,
but those competent to judge had demonstrated to him, that such direct
importation of Spanish and Indian wares into Germany would benefit, not
alone the Hansa towns, but the whole of Germany, and would serve to
compensate for the privations and sacrifices imposed by the most unhappy
war.
The emperor went on to add, that he had ever noted in Luebeck a very true
and German frankness and fidelity, and that he did not doubt that Luebeck
would carefully consider this proposal, in concert with the sister
towns, in order that, after the compact had been duly concluded between
the emperor and the King of Spain, it might be openly confirmed with the
help and advice of the Hansa towns.
This was the smooth speaking in which the Hansa's imperial masters chose
to indulge when it suited their imperial purpose. But decrepit, weakened
though the Hansa was, it was not easy to catch it napping. Our wary
merchants felt convinced there was some ulterior motive at the bottom of
this sudden graciousness, and considered the imperial proposal very
carefully and thoroughly. What could it mean, that of a sudden these
jealous Spaniards were willing to share the monopoly of their whole
colonial trade with the Hansa towns? Our cities feared the Spaniards,
even when they came laden with gifts. When we recall, said these
traders, the incessant and endless annoyances which our merchants have
endured during two centuries while doing business with Spain and
Portugal, the arrogant demands, the petty frauds and meanness of the
Spanish consuls in the Hanseatic towns, we must confess that this
previous knowledge of the character of our would-be allies does not lead
us to trust their new, gracious, and friendly offers. They remembered,
further, how a certain consul, called De Roy, was never named in their
minutes, other than as the "arch enemy of the Hansa towns." They
recalled, too, the project of a maritime commercial company (an
_Amirantazgo_), proposed some time back by Spain between the Low Germans
and Netherlands, which had revealed to the acute Hanseatics that Spain
was deficient in ships and in capital, and that its real purpose was to
obtain a fleet for itself on terms as cheap as possible. No, decidedly,
the Spanish offers were not to be thought of.
Moreover, the Hanseatics very naturally feared an inevitable breach with
their Scandinavian neighbours if they accepted. They foresaw, too, that
their adhesion to the plan would give the emperor a sort of right to
interfere in their commerce and internal arrangements. They had a
wholesome fear, not without cause, of being placed under the most
Catholic protectorate of Spain, and, looking ahead, thought they beheld,
hidden beneath these velvet offers, the claws of the terrible,
abominable Inquisition.
The whole project was therefore allowed to remain a project. To the
imperial spokesmen were presented respectively four thousand and two
thousand dollars, and the Diet resolved to place the proposal _ad
referendum_. This meant that it was shelved once and for ever.
Nor did the Diet have cause to regret its decision, for soon after the
King of Denmark, at that moment trying to ingratiate himself with them,
sent for their perusal letters which he had intercepted. These
communications were from the emperor, authorizing Count Tilly to secure
the cities of Luebeck, Hamburg, Bremen, Stade, &c. So much for the
sincerity of this monarch's vaunted friendship.
And now the war storm long brewing broke over Northern Europe. Germany
was to pay heavily for her want of religious unity, or at least the want
of mutual forbearance among her people. At first the Hansa towns had
hoped that as usual their claims for neutrality would be regarded, but
Tilly refused to listen to this, probably owing to his secret
instructions from the emperor. All the northern towns had to suffer the
full horrors of the war-curse, and they suffered hardly less at the
hands of their friends than at those of their enemies. Both proved
equally merciless. In order to escape having a military occupation
within its walls, Rostock had once to pay 100,000 dollars, and another
time 150,000 dollars, Wismar was taxed to the sum of 200,000 dollars;
and Hamburg a sum yet higher. Magdeburg's fate was even more sad; it was
besieged by the imperial army, pillaged, and given to the flames.
Imperial authority had never appeared so redoubtable to these free
cities, or so injurious to their religious liberties and their political
integrity. Wallenstein and Count Schwarzenberg even went the length of
demanding the Hansa's ships, in order to use them for pursuing the foes
of their imperial master upon the high seas, and it is easy to
understand how, in presence of an armed force of a hundred thousand men,
it was vain for the Hanseatic Diet to object that their deputies had
received no instructions which could warrant them in acceding to such a
proposal.
The ports of Rostock, Warnemunde, and the town of Wismar were all
occupied by the Imperialists, who were also engaged in besieging
Stralsund.
The history of this siege and the heroism displayed by this city are
among the most notable features in the Thirty Years' War. Wallenstein
had rightly judged it as most important for his purpose from its
geographical position, and had determined it should be his. As Schiller
says in his play _Wallenstein's Lager_, he had sworn--
"Ruehmt sich mit seinem gottlosen Mund
Er muesse haben die Stadt Stralsund,
Und waer' sie mit Ketten an den Himmel geschlossen."
This town which, thanks to some succour from outside, succeeded in
wearing out the enemy, proved what bravery can do even under the most
unfavourable conditions. At the same time the episode throws a fierce
light on the low condition into which the League had fallen. In vain did
the city of Stralsund appeal to the Diet and to the sister cities for
help. It was only after long reflection and many debates that it was
decided to advance to this unlucky friend the meagre sum of fifteen
thousand dollars, and this at interest of 5 per cent.
[Illustration: RATH-HAUS, MUENSTER.]
These merchants, once princely and noble, at least in their dealings
among themselves, had sunk to shopkeepers even in the domestic circle.
The fact is, that defeat and terror had paralysed and prostrated them.
Instead of making such a firm resistance as they would have done in the
past, they had now recourse only to the feeble weapons of tears and
entreaties in order to procure some gentler treatment for those of their
members who had fallen into the enemy's hands. Most frequently, too,
these humiliating steps proved quite futile, and were answered according
to the temperaments of the generals-in-chief--brusquely and rudely by
Tilly, politely and cunningly by Duke Wallenstein.
Meanwhile matters went from bad to worse for the Hansa towns and for
Germany. Even when the empire achieved victories, the people had grown
too impoverished and too enervated to profit by them. The story of this
long-confused conflict of thirty years' duration is one of the saddest
and most depressing in European history.
When in 1648 the peace of Westphalia was at last concluded, it nominally
restored calm to the whole northern world, including the Hansa towns.
But the League to all intents and purposes was at an end. The peace
could restore neither its power, nor its union, and the confederation
which seemed to have sunk in deep sleep during the war, awoke from its
long repose only to find itself deprived of nearly all its members, and
powerless to continue any longer its enfeebled existence.
VIII.
THE SURVIVORS.
Although the peace of Westphalia found the Hansa hopelessly broken, yet
it was not until after this event that the various members fully
realized their condition. Until then they had anticipated a
resuscitation with the advent of political calm. When the Hanseatic
deputies had assembled at the Diet of 1628, the last of which an
official record exists, they had voted to postpone to a more convenient
season all proposals that were brought forward for consideration. This
Diet revealed the confusion into which the Hanseatic accounts had
fallen. Still even on this occasion various cities pleaded for
re-admission into the union. It throws a sad light upon the character of
the delegates to read that those of Brunswick, reporting to that city
the history of this Diet, should lay great and detailed stress upon the
fact that they had not been regaled with the customary wine of honour
and the wonted supply of cakes!
All that was achieved on this occasion was that the cities of Luebeck,
Bremen, and Hamburg, were charged with the protection of the Hanseatic
interests, in the name of all the other cities, so far as such interests
could at present be said to be at stake.
Yet another Diet was summoned in February, 1630, at Luebeck. On this
occasion there occurred what of late had not been unusual, namely, that
no Hanseatic delegates appeared, with the exception of those of Bremen
and Luebeck.
It is a picturesque historical invention, but, unfortunately, like most
picturesque legends, quite untrue, that on this occasion all the members
of the most ancient German Hansa put in an appearance, and in Luebeck's
Hansa Saal decreed, in all solemnity, its own dissolution; that, in
short, the Hansa was present at its own funeral. As the Hansa never had
an actual foundation day, so it had no day of dissolution. As its growth
had been gradual, the result of time and circumstance, so was its decay.
It had been built up imperceptibly, it passed away almost as
imperceptibly.
After the Diet of 1630, and again in 1641, the three cities above
named--Luebeck, Bremen, and Hamburg--made still closer their friendly
alliance, erecting a species of new Hansa upon the ruins of the old.
With great modifications this compact survived down to our own times,
and was not dissolved until forcibly rent asunder, as disturbing to
Prussian ambition and to Prussian ideas of protective trade. For these
cities kept up a species of free trade, while all the rest of Germany
was protective, and to this day, though despoiled and shorn of their
honour, the cities call themselves proudly the Hanseatic towns. In those
days their main endeavour was to save as much as possible from the
general wreck, and to try and keep alive the spirit of the League, of
which most ambitiously they retained the name. They believed, indeed
the other cities believed too, that with the restoration of peace they
could establish themselves upon the old foundations.
[Illustration: RATH-HAUS, LUEBECK.]
This vain, daring hope, so common to all who suffer from incurable
disease, did not quit them till the conclusion of the peace so ardently
desired. This peace inaugurated a state of things incompatible with the
commercial tendencies of the Hanseatics, and showed indisputably the
futility of their hopes.
Yet with that doggedness or obtuseness which prevents a man from knowing
when he is beaten, and which was at all times both the strength and
weakness of the Hansa, even after facts had been made plain to them,
they still refused absolutely to accept them. They still hoped against
hope, to shape the course of events, and as usual Luebeck the energetic
was to the front in these endeavours.
After the peace of Westphalia, this city tried repeatedly to organize a
Hanseatic Diet in the old style. It was not until 1669 that a number of
cities could be found willing to send deputies sufficient to qualify the
assembly with the name of a Diet. But many of these deputies came only
to announce that their towns would not in future pay contributions to
the League, putting forward as their reason either that the war had
impoverished them too much, or that the changed manner and course of
trade made them doubt as to the continued utility of their union.
The discussions on this occasion were most animated. It was a stormy
sitting, but it produced no real result. Too many different and
absolutely conflicting opinions were advanced. The only conclusion that
was arrived at was the choice of a certain Dr. Brauer, of Luebeck, to
fill the honoured post of Hanseatic Syndic.
Vain honour truly, a very sinecure. For our poor old League, already in
its death throes, did not survive this Diet. After eighteen sittings had
been held it was made manifest that no accord could be arrived at, and
the city of Luebeck even doubted if it were worth while to draw up an
official report of the proceedings. Respect for ancient usages, however,
prevailed, and the minutes were therefore drawn up in all due form. But
they had no fact to record, except that the assembly had not been able
to arrive at a unanimous opinion on any one point put forward.
Speaking of this final moment, the eminent historian of the League,
Sartorius, writes--
"The constituent elements of the League had been united together in
silence, and it was also without noise that they were decomposed. No one
could be astonished at this end, which for some time past have been
foreseen by any intelligent person."
"_Sic transit gloria mundi_" might have been written on its tomb. Its
glory had been great and real indeed.
No less a person than the eminent philosopher, Leibnitz, in 1670,
advised the imperial authorities, of course without result, to revive
German trade by the re-establishment of the Hanseatic towns. The
profound indifference of the empire was a fact too great to be overcome.
The Emperor Charles VI. even went the length of formally forbidding his
subjects to trade with the two Indies by way of England and Holland. At
no single princely court of the whole realm was there to be found a
sound view of commerce and commercial requirements. In the midst of such
apathy and ignorance it was a real piece of good fortune for Germany
that, at any rate, the three cities of Luebeck, Bremen, and Hamburg, were
allowed to keep their independence.
It was in these cities, then, gradually as trade revived and the
disastrous effects of the Thirty Years' War were somewhat overcome, that
wealth concentrated itself. Here too was still to be found commercial
knowledge, activity, and enterprise, while the old name of Hansa was
discovered to have sufficient power left to conjure with. That German
industry still found foreign outlet, that it still survived, and proved
profitable, was henceforward due solely to the three remaining Hansa
towns.
The empire, meanwhile, whenever it did not harry them by attempts at
futile restrictions or by foolish criticism of their policy, ignored
them entirely. This was always for the cities the happiest course,
allowing them free room to act as they, with their commercial knowledge
and insight, thought fittest.
But as time went on, and the political state of Germany grew more and
more abject, it naturally came about that the Germans grew less and less
respected and feared in the foreign markets, the foreign people with
whom they had to deal knowing full well that there was no real power to
back them. They had to see all other strangers preferred before them and
the name of German become a by-word. Indeed they would be scornfully
asked what was meant by German, seeing there was no land really so
styled, and that the country which once bore that name was split up into
a vast number of small principalities. No wonder that this condition of
things did not help on German trade. No wonder that under these
circumstances the foreign policy of the new League, or rather of the
union of the three towns, for league it could not be called, was a
policy of weakness, almost of cringing, far different indeed from that
of their predecessors, who had played with thrones and deposed kings.
Where once they commanded they had now to plead or flatter, and if these
methods failed they were driven to observe the _mores mundi_, to use
their own phrase, and let fly silver balls, unlike the heavy balls used
in olden times, that is to say, they had to bribe.
After the French Revolution and the European disorders of that time, the
Hansa towns by common accord of Russia and France were declared to be
perpetually neutral, a gift of doubtful value. The cities were soon made
to feel what was meant by owing their existence to aliens.
A little later Napoleon the Great was frequently on the point of giving
away the Hansa cities, even before he had appropriated them to himself.
In 1806 he offered them as compensation for Sicily, and, according to
Lord Yarmouth, would have given them to Hanover if thereby he could have
procured the peace with England. Sometime after they were destined by
him to serve as the footstool of the throne he designed for his brother
Louis in North Germany.
While he was making up his mind they were held by his soldiers, and
these days of French occupation were spoken of to their dying days by
the burghers in accents of terror. At last, in 1810, quite suddenly and
without previous warning, "without due regard and courtesy," as was
pleaded afterwards at the Congress of Vienna, Napoleon incorporated the
Hansa towns with the empire.
It was well for them that this period was of short duration, for trade
was in those days a matter of no small difficulty. Napoleon's mania
regarding the continental system had reached its culminating point.
Commerce was carried on either by submitting to grave sacrifices owing
to the blockade, or by smuggling on a colossal scale. Neither method
brought with it prosperity or calm.
Then dawned the memorable year of 1813, and with it came the first check
in Napoleon's victorious path. The citizens of the three Hansa towns
were among the first in Germany to put on armour and draw the sword for
the liberation of themselves and of their suffering fellow-countrymen.
Great oppression, happily for mankind and progress, often produces a
strong recoil. Enthusiasm knew no bounds; German courage, which seemed
dead, was revived.
Alas! it was a false hope. Reaction once more got the upper hand after
Germany was liberated from Napoleon's yoke, and it is a question whether
the yoke of the native rulers was not even heavier to bear than that of
the foreign usurper. It was certainly less liberal.
[Illustration: RATH-HAUS, BREMEN
(_From a print in the British Museum_).]
The three Hansa towns, however, fortunately for them, managed to
secure their independence, though not without a struggle. There were not
lacking neighbours who gazed at them with covetous eyes, nor others who
would have looked the other way had some power appropriated them.
At the Congress of Vienna Luebeck was all but given away to Denmark. But
this was more than the Hanseatic delegates present in the assembly could
stand. Accustomed of old to lift up their voices boldly, and not to fear
crowned or anointed heads, they fiercely denounced this project as a
deed of darkness, and appealed so strongly to the consciences of those
present, reminding them of the everlasting shame attending a broken word
or promise, that they actually succeeded in bringing them round to their
point of view. The project was abandoned.
Thus the towns remained virtually free, while nominally attached to
Germany, and continued, as of old, as willing, as they were able, to
serve their country with the talents that had been entrusted to their
keeping. Their flag again appeared on all the seas, their commerce
extended in all lands, they even succeeded in concluding favourable
trade alliances in virtue of the old Hanseatic firm of "the Merchants of
the German Empire."
But, as ever before, they were not backed by the nation or by any real
power at home, and now that they were only three towns they could not
act as in the days of old, when their number extended across Europe.
But since the many hundred little states of which Germany consisted have
been all absorbed by Prussia, and incorporated under the collective
name of Germany, even the three Hansa towns, the last to resist and to
stand out for their autonomy, have had to succumb to the iron hand of
Prince Bismarck and the Prussian spiked helmet. Hamburg still keeps up a
semblance of independence, but it is but a shadow, and even that shadow
is rapidly vanishing from its grasp. Military, protectionist Germany
does not care to have in its confines a town where free trade and
burgher independence are inherited possessions. The name of Hansa towns,
the title of Hanseatic League, is but a proud memory, one, however, to
which modern Germany may well look back with satisfaction, and from the
story of the "common German Hansa" it can still, if it chooses, learn
many a useful lesson.
NOTE.
Since writing the foregoing, the event, long anticipated as
inevitable, has taken place, and the last two cities to
uphold the name and traditions of the Hanseatic League,
Hamburg and Bremen, have been incorporated into the German
Zoll Verein, thus finally surrendering their old historical
privileges as free ports. Luebeck took this step some
twenty-two years ago, Hamburg and Bremen not till October,
1888--so long had they resisted Prince Bismarck's more or
less gentle suasions to enter his Protection League. But
they foresaw what the end must be; that his motto was that
of the Erl King in Goethe's famous ballad:
"Und bist Du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt."
("And if thou be not willing, I shall use force.")
Still they, and Hamburg in particular, held out nobly,
jealous, and rightly jealous, of the curtailment of those
privileges which distinguished them from the other cities
of the German Empire. It was after the foundation of this
empire that the claim of the two cities to remain free ports
was conceded and ratified in the Imperial Constitution of
April, 1871, though the privilege, in the case of Hamburg,
was restricted to the city and port, and withdrawn from the
rest of the State, which extends to the mouth of the Elbe
and embraces about one hundred and sixty square miles, while
the free-port territory was reduced to twenty-eight square
miles. This was the first serious interference with the
city's liberty, and others followed, perhaps rather of a
petty, annoying, than of a seriously aggressive, character,
but enough to show the direction in which the wind was
blowing.