The Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648

Section I. —Oppression of the Protestants

1628

§ 1. Siege of Glückstadt.

It was not at Stralsund only that Wallenstein learned that he could be successfully resisted. Stade had surrendered with its English garrison to Tilly in April, but Glückstadt still held out. In vain Wallenstein came in person to Tilly's aid. The Danish cruisers kept the sea open. Wallenstein was obliged to retire. In January, 1629, the works of the besiegers were destroyed by a sally of the garrison.

1629

§ 2. The Peace of Lübeck.

Wallenstein, the great calculator, saw that peace with Denmark was necessary. The Swedes and the Danes were beginning to act together, and resistance to one nation, if there must be resistance, would be easier than resistance to two. Much to his satisfaction he found Christian not unwilling to listen to the voice of his charming. Just as the eagle eye of Gustavus descried the first feeble beams of light on the horizon, the King of Denmark, weary of misfortune and vexed at the prospect of having to crave help from his old competitor of Sweden, laid down his arms. On May 22, 1629, a treaty of peace was signed at Lübeck. Christian received back the whole of his hereditary possessions. In return he resigned all claim to the bishoprics held by his family in the Empire, and engaged to meddle no further with the territorial arrangements of Lower Saxony.

§ 3. Necessity of healing measures.

If the Peace of Lübeck was really to be a source of strength to Ferdinand it must be accompanied by some such measures as those with which Richelieu was accompanying his victory at Rochelle. It was not enough to have got rid of a foreign enemy. Some means must be found to allay the fears of the Germans themselves, which had found expression in the resistance of Stralsund.

§ 4. Opposite views as to what measures are needed.

That there was much to be done in this direction was openly acknowledged by almost all who had been concerned in the imperialist successes. Maximilian and the League held that it was above all things necessary to restrain the excesses of Wallenstein and his soldiers. Wallenstein held that it was above all things necessary to restrain the excessive demands of Maximilian and the clergy. Ferdinand, the man in whose hands fortune had placed the decision of the great question, probably stood alone in thinking that it was possible to satisfy both the soldiers and the priests without weakening his hold on the Empire.

The first act of Ferdinand after the signature of the treaty was to invest Wallenstein formally with the Duchy of Mecklenburg. Offence was thus given to those who believed that the rights of territorial sovereignty had been unduly invaded, and who were jealous of the right claimed by the Emperor to supersede by his own authority a prince of the Empire in favour of a successful soldier.

§ 5. Ill treatment of the Protestants.

On the other side offence was given still more widely to those who wished to maintain the rights of Protestantism. Without wishing to enter upon a general persecution, Ferdinand was resolved to allow no rights against his church to those who could not conclusively prove to his own satisfaction that those rights were under the guarantee of unassailable law. He had begun in his own hereditary dominions. It is true that in Bohemia and Austria no tortures were inflicted, no martyrs suffered either at the stake or on the scaffold. But it was found that the stern, relentless pressure of daily annoyance was sufficient for the purpose of producing at least external conformity. By 1627 the desired result had been obtained, and Protestantism existed only as a proscribed religion. Then came the turn of the Palatinate. For a time there had been no open persecution. In 1625 Maximilian had written to the governor of Heidelberg not to let any opportunity slip, if he could find an excuse for turning out a Protestant minister from his parish and replacing him by a Catholic priest. In February, 1628, the Jesuits were able to report that they had made 400 converts in Heidelberg itself, and 1,200 in the neighbouring country districts. Then came a further change. In March an agreement was drawn up between Maximilian and Ferdinand. The Emperor received back Upper Austria, and made over to the Elector of Bavaria, in its stead, the Upper Palatinate and that part of the Lower Palatinate which lies on the right bank of the Rhine. Maximilian held that by this transfer he had acquired the full rights of a territorial prince, and that amongst these rights was that of disposing of the religion of his new subjects. In June all noblemen residing in the country were told that they must either change their religion within two months or go into exile. In September the order was extended to the inhabitants generally.

§ 6. The cities of South Germany.

The year 1628 was a year of alarm over all Protestant South Germany. There at least Ferdinand was ready to carry out the wishes expressed by the Catholic electors at Mühlhausen the year before. Whilst Maximilian was threatening the Palatinate, imperial commissioners were passing through the other territories and cities, taking account of churches and church property which had come into Protestant possession since the Convention of Passau. To the wishes of the populations not the slightest attention was paid. In Nördlingen, for instance, not a single Catholic was to be found. Every church in the place was none the less marked down for re-delivery to the Catholic clergy. In some places to which the commissioners came, Shylock-like, to claim their pound of flesh, they demanded more even than the strict letter of the law allowed them. Not content with restoring to the Catholic worship churches which had with general consent been in the hands of Protestants for half a century, they proceeded to compel the inhabitants of the towns to attend the mass.

§ 7. The Edict of Restitution.

The success of these outrageous measures in the south encouraged Ferdinand to pursue the same course in the north. There he had to deal not merely with scattered towns, or a few abbeys, but with the great lay bishoprics, many of which were extensive enough to form the domain of a duke or a landgrave. On March 29, 1629, before the Peace of Lübeck was actually signed, he issued the fatal Edict of Restitution. With a stroke of his pen, the two archbishoprics of Magdeburg and Bremen, the twelve bishoprics of Minden, Verden, Halberstadt, Lübeck, Ratzeburg, Misnia, Merseburg, Naumburg, Brandenburg, Havelberg, Lebus, and Camin, with about a hundred and twenty smaller ecclesiastical foundations, were restored to the Catholic clergy.

§ 8. Real weakness of the Emperor.

The wheel had come full circle round since the day when Christian of Anhalt had planned the great uprising to sweep away the Catholic bishops and the House of Austria. The House of Austria was firmer in its seat than ever. The Catholic bishops were triumphant. But in the midst of their triumph the enemies of the Empire were watching them keenly, and judging that both they and the Emperor were all the weaker for this grand vindication of legality.

Section II. —French Intervention in Italy

§ 1. Gustavus and Richelieu.

In the north Gustavus had an eye not likely to be deceived for the joints of Ferdinand's harness. In the west Richelieu was preparing for the day when he too might aid in the overthrow of the Colossus. It is true that his first thought was of Spain and not of Germany. But he could hardly be brought into collision with one branch of the House of Austria without having sooner or later to deal with the other.

§ 2. The Mantuan War.

In Italy, the death of the Duke of Mantua and Montferrat without near heirs had given rise to war. The next heir was a very distant relation, the Duke of Nevers, whose family had long been naturalized in France. To Spain the presence of a dependent of France so near her possessions in the Milanese was in the highest degree undesirable, and she called upon Ferdinand to sequester the territory till another way of disposing it could be found. If in Germany before Ferdinand's election the rights of the Emperors had been but a shadow, those which they possessed in the old kingdom of Italy were but the shadow of a shade. But whatever they were, Ferdinand was the man to put them forth, and whilst Richelieu was engaged at Rochelle, Spanish troops had overrun Mantua, and in conjunction with the Duke of Savoy, ready now to seek his own interests by fighting for Spain, as in earlier days to seek his own interests by fighting against her, were besieging the Duke of Nevers in Casale, the only fortress which remained to him.

§ 3. Italian feeling against the Emperor.

This intervention of the Spaniards in the Emperor's name caused even greater indignation in Italy than their intervention in the Palatinate had caused in Germany. For in Germany the Emperor's name was in 1621 still connected with the ideas of law and order. In Italy it reminded men of nothing but foreign domination, a memory which was none the less vivid when the Emperor used his authority, whatever it might be, to support the real foreign domination of the immediate present, the Spanish domination in Milan. The Italian princes took alarm. Venice and the pope summoned France to their aid, and in March, 1629, Richelieu, taking Lewis with him across the snowy passes of the Alps, reduced the Duke of Savoy to submission, and forced the Spaniards to raise the siege of Casale.

§ 4. Check inflicted on him by Richelieu.

Casale was the Stralsund of Italy. A power which had ventured to clothe itself in the attributes of a national authority, with even less reason than in Germany, had found its limits. Richelieu had the general feeling on his side.

§ 5. The last Huguenot rebellion.

He did not venture to do more in Italy. The Duke of Rohan, the brother of that Soubise who had begun the war of Rochelle in 1625, had roused the Huguenots of Languedoc and the Cevennes to a fresh attempt at resistance, half Protestant, half aristocratic. As if the Rochellese had not sufficiently suffered for the mistake of calling in foreign aid, Rohan followed their example, and was foolish enough to ask for help from Spain. But the Spanish troops came not to his aid. Richelieu hurried back from Italy, made peace with England, and pitilessly crushed the rebellion in the south. Once more the victory was attended by the confirmation of the religious liberties of the Huguenots. They might worship as they pleased, but political independence they were not to have.

§ 6. Strength of France.

The French monarchy was stronger for external enterprise than ever. By crushing all resistance, it had no longer to fear occupation for its energies at home, and by its tolerance of religion it had rendered itself capable of accepting the service of all its subjects, and it could offer its alliance to Protestant states without fear of suffering a rebuff.

§ 7. Richelieu and the Imperialists in Italy.

Richelieu was again able to turn his attention to Italy. In the summer of 1629 an imperialist force of 20,000 men descended from the Alps and laid siege to Mantua. Ferdinand, having established peace in Germany, fancied that he could take up again in Italy the work which had been too great for Barbarossa. Spinola came to his aid with an army of equal force, and recommenced the attack upon Casale. In the spring of 1630 Richelieu was once more in Italy. Cardinal as he was, he was placed in command of the army. But instead of marching against the Spaniards, he turned first upon the Duke of Savoy. Seizing Pignerol and Saluces, he gained possession of the Alpine passes. Then, with Piedmont at his feet, he passed on to relieve Casale, and forced the Spanish besiegers to retreat. But Richelieu was prudent as well as daring, and he left Mantua for the present in the hands of Spain and the Emperor.

§ 8. State of Germany.

It was a hard thing to attack the united forces of Spain and the Empire face to face. It might be easier to support their enemies abroad, and to favour dissensions at home. In the Netherlands, the Dutch, encouraged by the diversion of the Italian war, were at last taking the offensive, and entering upon that aggressive warfare which ended by bringing the whole of North Brabant under their authority. In the north, Gustavus had concluded a peace with Poland, and was making preparations for actual intervention in Germany. In all this Richelieu was deeply interested. An ambassador of Lewis was engaged in arranging with Gustavus the terms on which France should assist him in the attack upon the Empire which he already contemplated.

§ 9. Richelieu's expectations.

Not that even Richelieu foresaw the possibility of the magnificent results which were to follow from that enterprise. In 1630, as in 1624 and 1625, he would have preferred that a Protestant power should not be too successful. He would rather conquer with Sweden than not at all. But he would rather conquer with the help of the League than with the help of Sweden. Gustavus might be pushed on to do his best. He would effect a diversion, and that would be enough.

Section III. —Wallenstein deprived of his Command

§ 1. Strong position of Wallenstein.

The long expected breach between the League and the Emperor's general had come at last. Instead of reducing his forces after the Peace of Lübeck, Wallenstein had increased them. He was now at the head of 100,000 men. From a military point of view no one could say it was too much. He had Mantua to defend, the coasts of the North Sea to watch, perhaps France to guard against, and that too with all the princes and peoples of Germany exasperated against him. Some efforts he made to curb the violence of his soldiers. But to restrain the monster he had created was beyond his power. And if his soldiers bore hard upon burgher and peasant, he himself treated the princes with contemptuous scorn. He asked why the electors and the other princes should not be treated as the Bohemian nobles had been treated. The Estates of the Empire had no more right to independence than the Estates of the kingdom. It was time for the Emperor to make himself master of Germany, as the kings of France and Spain were masters of their own dominions. All this made the electors above measure indignant. "A new domination," they told Ferdinand, "has arisen for the complete overthrow of the old and praiseworthy constitution of the Empire."

§ 2. What could he effect?

A reconstruction of that old rotten edifice would have done no harm. But its overthrow by military violence was another matter. A new form of government, to be exercised by a soldier with the help of soldiers, could never be found in justice,

§ 3. His partiality.