A General History for Colleges and High Schools (Myers)/Chapter 53
CHAPTER LIII.
THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.
(1618–1648.)
Nature and Causes of the War.—The long and calamitous Thirty Years' War was the last great combat between Protestantism and Catholicism in Europe. It started as a struggle between the Protestant and Catholic princes of Germany, but gradually involved almost all the states of the continent, degenerating at last into a shameful and heartless struggle for power and territory.
The real cause of the war was the enmity existing between the German Protestants and Catholics. Each party by its encroachments gave the other occasion for complaint. The Protestants at length formed for their mutual protection a league called the Evangelical Union (1608). In opposition to the Union, the Catholics formed a confederation known as the Holy League (1609). All Germany was thus prepared to burst into the flames of a religious war.
The Bohemian Period of the War (1618–1623).–The flames that were to desolate Germany for a generation were first kindled in Bohemia, where were still smouldering embers of the Hussite wars, which two centuries before had desolated that land (see p. 505). A church which the Protestants maintained they had a right to build was torn down by the Catholics, and another was closed. The Protestants rose in revolt against their Catholic king, Ferdinand, elected a new Protestant king,[1] and drove out the Jesuits. The Thirty Years' War had begun (1618). Almost an exact century had passed since Luther posted his theses on the door of the court church at Wittenberg. It is estimated that at this time more than nine-tenths of the population of the empire were Protestants. The war had scarcely opened when, the Imperial office falling vacant, the Bohemian king, Ferdinand, was elected emperor. With the power and influence he now wielded, it was not a difficult matter for him to quell the Protestant insurrection in his royal dominions. The leaders of the revolt were executed, and the reformed faith in Bohemia was almost uprooted.
The Danish Period (1625–1629).—The situation of affairs at this moment in Germany filled all the Protestant rulers of the North with the greatest alarm. Christian IV., king of Denmark, supported by England and Holland, threw himself into the struggle as the champion of German Protestantism. He now becomes the central figure on the side of the reformers. On the side of the Catholics are two noted commanders,—Tilly, the leader of the forces of the Holy League, and Wallenstein, the commander of the Imperial army. What is known as the Danish period of the war now begins (1625).
The war, in the main, proved disastrous to the Protestant allies, and Christian IV. was constrained to conclude a treaty of peace with the emperor (Peace of Liibeck, 1629), and retire from the struggle.
By what is known as the Edict of Restitution (1629), the Emperor Ferdinand now restored to the Catholics all the ecclesiastical lands and offices in North Germany of which possession had been taken by the Protestants in violation of the terms of the Peace of Augsburg. This decree gave back to the Catholic Church two archbishoprics, twelve bishoprics, besides many monasteries and other ecclesiastical property.
The Swedish Period (1630–1635); Gustavus Adolphus, Wallenstein, and Tilly.—At this moment of seeming triumph, Ferdinand was constrained by rising discontent and jealousies to dismiss from his service his most efficient general, Wallenstein, who had made almost all classes, save his soldiers, his bitter enemies. In his retirement, Wallenstein maintained a court of fabulous magnificence. Wherever he went he was followed by an imperial train of attendants and equipages. He was reserved and silent, but his eye was upon everything going on in Germany, and indeed in Europe. He was watching for a favorable moment for revenge, and the retrieving of his fortunes.
The opportunity which Wallenstein, inspired by faith in his star, was so confidently awaiting was not long delayed. Only a few months before his dismissal from the Imperial service, Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, with a veteran and enthusiastic army of 16,000 Swedes, had appeared in Northern Germany as the champion of the dispirited and leaderless Protestants. The Protestant princes, however, through fear of the emperor, as well as from lack of confidence in the disinterestedness of the motives of Gustavus, were shamefully backward in rallying to the support of their deliverer. But through an alliance formed just now with France, the Swedish king received a large annual subsidy from that country, which, with the help he was receiving from England, made him a formidable antagonist.
The wavering, jealous, and unworthy conduct of the Protestant princes now led to a most terrible disaster. At this moment Tilly was besieging the city of Magdeburg, which had dared to resist the Edict of Restitution (see p. 583). Gustavus was prevented from giving relief to the place by the hindrances thrown in his way by the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony, both of whom should have given him every assistance. In a short time the city was obliged to surrender, and was given up to sack and pillage. Everything was burned, save two churches and a few hovels. 30,000 of the inhabitants perished miserably.
The cruel fate of Magdeburg excited the alarm of the Protestant princes. The Elector of Saxony now at once united his forces with those of the Swedish king. Tilly was defeated with great loss in the celebrated battle of Leipsic (1631), and Gustavus, emboldened by his success, pushed southward into the very heart of Germany. Attempting to dispute his march, Tilly's army was again defeated, and he himself received a fatal wound. In the death of Tilly, Ferdinand lost his most trustworthy general (1632).
The Imperial cause appeared desperate. There was but one man in Germany who could turn the tide of victory that was running so
To this proud subject of his, fresh from his dalliances with his enemies, the emperor now appealed for help. Wallenstein agreed to raise an army, provided his control of it should be absolute. Ferdinand was constrained to grant all that his old general demanded. Wallenstein now raised his standard, to which rallied the adventurers not only of Germany, but of all Europe as well. The array was a vast and heterogeneous host, bound together by no bonds of patriotism, loyalty, or convictions, but by the spell and prestige of the name of Wallenstein.
With an army of 40,000 men obedient to his commands, Wallenstein, after numerous marches and counter-marches, attacked the Swedes in a terrible battle on the memorable field of Lützen, in Saxony. The Swedes won the day, but lost their leader and sovereign (1632).
Notwithstanding the death of their great king and commander, the Swedes did not withdraw from the war. Hence the struggle went on, the advantage being for the most part with the Protestant allies. Ferdinand, at just this time, was embarrassed by the suspicious movements of his general Wallenstein. Becoming convinced that he was meditating the betrayal of the Imperial cause, the emperor caused him to be assassinated (1634). This event marks very nearly the end of the Swedish period of the war.
The Swedish-French Period (1635–1648).—Had it not been for the selfish and ambitious interference of France, the woeful war which had now desolated Germany for half a century might here have come to an end, for both sides were weary of it and ready for negotiations of peace. But Richelieu was not willing that the war should end until the House of Austria was thoroughly crippled. Accordingly he encouraged Oxenstiern, the Swedish chancellor, to persevere in carrying on the war, promising him the aid of the French armies.
The war thus lost in large part its original character of a contest between the Catholic and the Protestant princes of Germany, and became a political struggle between the House of Austria and the House of Bourbon, in which the former was fighting for existence, the latter for national aggrandizement.
The Treaty of Westphalia (1648).—And so the miserable war dragged on. The earlier actors in the drama at length passed from the scene, but their parts were carried on by others. The year 1643, which marks the death of Richelieu, heard the first whisperings of peace. Everybody was inexpressibly weary of the war, and longed for the cessation of its horrors, yet each one wanted peace on terms advantageous to himself. The arrangement of the articles of peace was a matter of immense difficulty; for the affairs and boundaries of the states of Central Europe were in almost hopeless confusion. After five years of memorable discussion and negotiation, the articles of the celebrated Treaty of Westphalia, as it was called, were signed by the different European powers.
The chief articles of this important treaty may be made to fall under two heads: ( 1 ) those relating to territorial boundaries, and (2) those respecting religion.
As to the first, these cut short in three directions the actual or nominal limits of the Holy Roman Empire. Switzerland and the tinted Netherlands were severed from it; for though both of these countries had been for a long time practically independent of the empire, this independence had never been acknowledged in any formal way. The claim of France to the three cities of Metz, Toul, and Verdun in Lorraine, which places she had held for about a century, was confirmed, and a great part of Alsace was given to her. Thus on the west, on the southwest, and on the northwest, the empire suffered loss.
Sweden was given cities and territories in Northern Germany which gave her control of a long strip of the Baltic shore, a most valuable possession. But these lands were not given to the Swedish king in full sovereignty; they still remained a part of the Germanic body, and the king of Sweden as to them became a prince of the empire.
The changes within the empire were many, and some of them important. Brandenburg especially received considerable additions of territory.
The articles respecting religion were even more important than those which established the metes and bounds of the different states. Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists were all put upon the same footing. The Protestants were to retain all the benefices and Church property of which they had possession in 1624. Every prince was to have the right to make his religion the religion of his people, and to banish all who refused to adopt the established creed: but such non-conformists were to have three years in which to emigrate.
The different states of the empire were left almost independent of the emperor. They were given the right to form alliances with one another and with foreign princes; but not, of course, against the empire or emperor. This provision made Germany nothing more than a lax confederation, and postponed to a distant future the nationalization of the German states.
Effects of the War upon Germany.—It is simply impossible to picture the wretched condition in which the Thirty Years' War left Germany. When the struggle began, the population of the country was 30,000,000; when it ended, 12,000,000. Many of the once large and flourishing cities were reduced to " mere shells."
Two or three hundred ill-clad persons constituted the population of Berlin. The duchy of Würternburg, which had half a million of inhabitants at the commencement of the war, at its close had barely 50,000. On every hand were the charred remains of the hovels of the peasants and the palaces of the nobility. The lines of commerce were broken, and some trades and industries were swept quite out of existence.
The effects upon the fine arts, upon science, learning, and morals were even more lamentable. Painting, sculpture, and architecture were driven out of the land. The cities which had been the home of all these arts lay in ruins. Education was entirely neglected. For the lifetime of a generation, men had been engaged in the business of war, and had allowed their children to grow up in absolute ignorance. Moral law was forgotten. Vice, nourished by the licentious atmosphere of the camp, reigned supreme. " In character, in intelligence, and in morality, the German people were set back two hundred years."
To all these evils were added those of political disunion and weakness. The title of emperor still continued to be borne by a member of the House of Austria, but it was only an empty name. By the Peace of Westphalia, the Germanic body lost even that little cohesion which had begun to manifest itself between its different parts, and became simply a loose assemblage of virtually independent states, of which there were now over two hundred. Thus weakened, Germany lost her independence as a nation, while the subjects of the numerous petty states became the slaves of their ambitious and tyrannical rulers. Worse than all, the over-whelming calamities that for the lifetime of a generation had been poured out upon the unfortunate land, had extinguished the last spark of German patriotism. Every sentiment of pride and hope in race and country seemed to have become extinct.
Conclusion.—The treaty of Westphalia is a prominent landmark in universal history. It stands at the dividing line of two great epochs. It marks the end of the Reformation Era and the beginning of that of the Political Revolution. Henceforth men will fight for constitutions, not creeds. We shall not often see one nation attacking another, or one party in a nation assaulting another party, on account of a difference in religious opinion. [2]
But in setting the Peace of Westphalia to mark the end of the religious wars occasioned by the Reformation, we do not mean to convey the idea that men had come to embrace the beneficent doctrine of religious toleration. As a matter of fact, no real toleration had yet been reached—nothing save the semblance of toleration. The long conflict of a century and more, and the vicissitudes of fortune, which to-day gave one party the power of the persecutor and to-morrow made the same sect the victims of persecution, had simply forced all to the practical conclusion that they must tolerate one another,—that one sect must not attempt to put another down by force. But it required the broadening and liberalizing lessons of another full century to bring men to see that the thing they must do is the very thing they ought to do,—to make men tolerant not only in outward conduct, but in spirit.
With this single word of caution, we now pass to the study of the Era of the Political Revolution, the period marked by the struggle between despotic and liberal principles of government. And first, we shall give a sketch of absolute monarchy as it exhibited itself in France under the autocrat Louis XIV.