THE HISTORY or NATIONS GERMANY H??' OF NATIONS - -^oiTcai-iiKiHiEr ^ a, o o ;:d 'J and eci.: g ^ BAYARD* I ^^S^ CO Q OQ 1 i u I cq g ^ ^ >^ ^ S ^ ' S ^ ^ -5 ^ (*, >H a. CO O K cq - t! K^ n> t^ ? *^ ^ tJ Q ^ 5 ^ C5 bj cj g ^^ J?: S **4 P* r^ ^ l:^ h The H.W. ^n npany J THE HISTORY OF NATIONS HQfllY CABOT LODGE, PhD..LlD..roiTOR:IN<;HIEr GERMANY Revised and edited from the work of BAYARD TAYLOR by SIDNEYS. FAY. PhD. Professor of History Dartmouth CoUede Volume xvm Illustrated The H .W. Snow and Son Company C h i c a g o Copyright, 1907, by JOHN D. MORRIS & COMPANY Copyright, 1910 THE H. W. SNOW & SON COMPANY THE HISTORY OF NATIONS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF HENRY CABOT LODGE, PLD., LX.D. Associate Editors and Authors ARCHIBALD HSHRT SAYCE. LL.D.. PirofMaor of Aasyriology, Oxford emty SIR ROBERT K. DOUGLAS, Uni- Professor of Chinese. King's College, Lon- don CHRISTOPHER JOHRSTOIf, M.D.. Ph.D., AaocUte Professor of Oriental History and Archeology, Johns Hopkins University C W. C. OMAR. LL.D., ProfeMor of History. Oxford University THBODOR MOMMSBH. L*t Professor of Ancient History. Uni* ersity of Berlin ASTHUR C. HOWLAHD. Ph.D.. Department of History, University of Penii- sylvsnia JEREMIAH WHIPPLE JENKS, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Political Economy and Pol- itics, Cornell University KAinCHI ASAKAWA, Ph.D., Instructor in the History of Japanese Civilization, Yale University WILFRED HAROLD MUNRO, Ph.D., Professor of European History, Brown University G. MERCER ADAM, Historian and Editof FRED MORROW FLING, Ph.D.. Professor of European History, Uni verilty of Nebraska CBAELBS MXRIVALB. LL.D.. Lata Dwui of Ely. formerly Lecturer in History, Cambrioge University FRAIT9OIS AUGUSTE MARIE MIGNET, Late Member of the French Academy J mOOIHSOK CABOT, Ph.D., Dspaitment of History. WeUesley Collece JAMES WESTFALL THOMPSON, Ph.D., Department of History. University of Chicago mt WILLIAM W. HURTER, F.R.S., L*U Dirctor-Genral of Sutistics in India SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER, LL.D., Professor of Modem History. King's Col- lege, London AMiMi* M nrrrvvvB v n R. W. JOYCE, LL.D., -TTn . ^ ^'ll* Tt . . Commissioner for the Publication of tb of History. Weslsyan Univwsity Ancient Laws of Ireland vi ASSOCIATE EDITORS AND AUTHORS-Continued JUSTIN McCarthy, ll.d.. Author and Historian AUGUSTUS HUNT SHEARER, Ph.D., Instructor in History, Trinity College' Hartford W. HAROLD CLAFLIN, B.A., Department of History, Harvard Uni- versity PAUL LOUIS LEGER, Professor of the Slav Languages, C6llege de France WILLIAM E. LINGLEBACH, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of European History, University of Pennsylvania BAYARD TAYLOR, Former United States Minister to Germany CHARLES DANDLIKER, LL.D., President of Zurich University SIDNEY B. FAY, Ph.D., Professor of History, Dartmouth College ELBERT JAY BENTON, Ph.D., Department of History, Western Reserve University SIR EDWARD S. CREASY, . Late Professor of History, University Col- lege, London ARCHIBALD CARY COOLIDGE, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of History, Harvard University WILLIAM RICHARD MORFILL, M.A., Professor of Russian and other Slavonic Languages, Oxford University CHARLES EDMUND FRYER, Ph.D., Department of History, McGill University E. C. OTTE, Specialist on Scandinavian History EDWARD S. COR WIN, Ph.D., Instructor in History, Princeton Uni- versity J. SCOTT KELTIE, LL.D., President Royal Geographical Society ALBERT GALLOWAY KELLER, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of the Science of So- ciety, Yale University EDWARD JAMES PAYNE, M.A., Fellow of University College, Oxford PHILIP PATTERSON WELLS, Ph.D., Lecturer in History and Librarian of the Law School, Yale University FREDERICK ALBION OBER, Historian, Author and Traveler JAMES WILFORD GARNER, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, University of Illinois JOHN BACH McMASTER, Litt.D., LL.D., Professor of History. University of Penn sylvania JAMES LAMONT PERKINS. Managing Editor The editors and publishers desire to express their appreciation for valuablft advice and suggestions received from the following: Hon. Andrew D. White, LL.D., Alfred Thayer Mahan, D.C.L., LL.D., Hon. Charles Emory Smith, LL.D., Professor Edward Gaylord Bourne, Ph.D., Charles F, Thwing, LL.D., Dr. Emil Reich, William Elliot Griffis, LL.D., Professor John Martin Vincent, Ph.D., LL.D., Melvil Dewey, LL.D., Alston Ellis, LL.D., Professor Charles H. McCarthy, Ph.D., Professor Herman V. Ames, Ph.D., Professor Walter L. Fleming, Ph.D., Professor David Y. Thomas, Ph.D., Mr. Otto Reich and Mr. O. M. Dickerson. vii PREFACE Mr. Taylor was exceptionally well equipped for writing a popu- lar history of Germany. At the time when he wrote (1873) he had already been many years in Germany occupied in his well- known studies of Goethe; he had married a Cxerman lady, had traveled widely, and shared in that German enthusiasm which ac- companied the foundation of the German Empire. He made use in his history of the best results of the German historical scholarship of his day. But in the generation which has passed scientific his- torical research has brought to light a mine of new material ; the economic historians have taught us to lay a new emphasis on that side of historical development; and time has brought more just judgments in regard to disputed religious questions. It has been the aim of the editor to preserve as nearly as possible the original text, and yet bring it completely into line with the best modern scholarship. The necessary changes were so numerous and so varied in character that for the sake of smoothness in the narrative it has seemed better to incorporate all changes directly in the text rather than distract the reader's attention with innumerable footnotes. The responsibility for the last chapter rests wholly with the editor; in brief space he has attempted to sum up the leading features in the development of Germany in the last thirty years. S. <)\^ ffO. ^CL^ . Dartmouth College PAGE 330- 3 lO 17 A. D. 23 31 38 CONTENTS PART I EARLY HISTORY. 330 b. C.-911 a. d. CHAPTER I. The Ancient Germans and their Country. 70 B. c 11. The Wars with Rome. 70 b. c.-q a, d. III. Hermann, the First German Leader. 9-21 a. d. IV. The First Three Centuries of our Era. 21-300 a. d. V. The Migration of the Goths. 300-412 a. d. VI. The Invasion of the Huns. 412-472 a. d. . VII. The Rise and Fall of the Ostrogoths. 472- 570 A. D. 45 VIII. Europe at the End of the Migrations of the Races. 570 a. d. . . . . . -53 IX. The Kingdom of the Franks. 486-638 a. d. . 59 X. The Dynasty of the Mayors of the Palace. 638- 768 A. D. 67 XI. The Reign of Charlemagne. 768-814 a. d. . . 78 XII. The Emperors of the Carolingian Line. 814- 911 A. D. 89 PART II MEDIEVAL HISTORY. 911-1493 XIII. Conrad I and the Saxon Dynasty. 911-973 a. d. 104 XIV. The Decline OF THE Saxon Dynasty. 973-1024 . 116 XV. The Franconian Emperors. 1024-1106 . . 124 XVI. End of the Franconian Dynasty, and Rise of the Hohenstaufens. II 06- 1 1 52 . . . .139 XVII. The Reign of Frederick Barbarossa. 1152-1197 . 147 XVIII. The Reign of Frederick II. and the End of the Hohenstaufen Line, i 197-1268 . . . 158 XIX. The Interregnum. 1256-1273 .... 171 xii CONTENTS CBAFm PAGE XX. From Rudolf of Hapsburg to Lewis of Bavaria 1273-1347 179 XXL The Luxemburg Emperors, Charles IV and Wen- ZEL. 1347-1410 192 XXIL The Reign of Sigismund and the Hussite War 1410-1438 201 XXIIL The Foundation of the Hapsburg Dynasty. 1438- 1439 212 XXIV. The Reign of Maximilian I. 1498-15 19 . . 225 PART HI PERIOD OF REFORMATION. 1493-1701 XXV. The Reformation. 15 17-1546 .... 233 XXVI. Growth of Protestantism. 1546-1600 . . 254 XXVII. Beginning of the Thirty Years' War. 1600-1634 265 XXVIIL End of the Thirty Years' War. 1634-1648 . 288 XXIX. Decline of the Imperial Power. 1648-1701 . 298 PART IV RISE AND GROWTH OF PRUSSIA. 1701-1806 XXX. The War of the Spanish Succession. 1701-1714 311 XXXI. The Rise of Prussia. 1714-1740 . . . 317 XXXII. The Reign of Frederick the Great. 1740-1786 . 326 XXXIII. Maria Theresa and Joseph II. 1740-1790 . . 347 XXXIV. The End of the German Empire. 1790- 1806 . 354 PART V THE NEW EMPIRE. 1806-1910 XXXV. Germany under Napoleon. 1806-1814 . . 371 XXXVI, The War of Liberation ; Reaction. 1814-1848 . 387 XXXVII. The Revolution of 1848 and Its Results. 1848- 1861 398 XXXVIII. The Struggle with Austria ; The North German Confederation. 1861-1870 .... 407 XXXIX. The Franco-Prussian War. 1870-1871 . . 415 XL. The German Em?ire. 1871-1910 , . . 428 Bibuography 453 Index , . . 461 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Imperial Deputies Are Thrown out of the Win- dow OF THE Council Chamber. (Photogravure) Frontispiece FACING PAGE Otto I Views the Body of Thankmar .... io8 Henry IV at Canossa . . . . . . . -134 Preaching the First Crusade . . . . . .138 Meeting of Frederick Barbarossa and Alexander III . 152 Henry the Lion before Henry VI . . . . .156 CoNRADiN Hears His Death Warrant Read . . .170 Charles the Bold ........ 216 Entry of Maximilian into Ghent 218 Maximilian I ........ . 226 Letter of Indulgence ....... 234 Luther at the Diet of Worms ...... 240 Martin Luther 244 The Court of the King of Zion ..... 250 Christian of Brunswick Sacking a Cloister . . . 270 General Tilly Enters the Burning Magdeburg . . 280 Assassination of Wallenstein 286 Frederick, the Great Elector, Receives French Emigres . 300 The Destruction of Heidelberg ..... 304 Frederick the Great at the Bier of General Schwerin (Colored) 334 John Wolfgang von Goethe . . . "j JOHANN ChRISTOPH FrEIDRICH VON ScHILLER j * ' * ^^ Admiral Tegethof on the " Kaiser Max " at Lissa . . 408 Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince von Bismarck "j Count Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke J * * * The Surrender of Sudan ....... 422 Facsimile of the Important Parts of the Preliminary Treaty of Peace, 1871 424 Proclamation of King William as Emperor of Germany . 426 xiii ZIT LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TEXT MAPS Germania Magna Partition of Verdun Central Europe. Circa 980 Central Europe. 1180 Switzerland The Thirty Years' War Germany. 1648 . Northeastern Europe. 1700 Central Europe. 1810 Europe. 1815 The Campaign in Bohemia. 1866 Territories of Germany. 1903 . PAGB 94 117 154 214 269 294 318 378 397 411 450 PART I EARLY HISTORY. 330 B. C.-911 AD. HISTORY OF GERMANY Chapter I THE ANCIENT GERMANS AND THEIR COUNTRY 330-70 B. C. THE original home of our earliest ancestors is still a matter of doubt and uncertainty, hotly debated by men of learn- ing-, historians, philologists, and anthropologists; some would locate the cradle of the human race among the islands of the Malay Peninsula, others along the northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, others in the plains of the Tigris and Euphrates, and others still on the steppes of southern Russia along the foot- hills of the Caucasus Mountains. But though scholars cannot agree as to the earliest home of our ancestors, they are pretty well agreed in dividing the civilized peoples of Europe on a language basis into five great groups, Greek, Roman, Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic. The Greeks and Romans settled down in Greece and Italy ; the Celts pushed along farther north and west until they were brought to a halt by the waters of the Atlantic, and came to live in Spain, in France, and in the British Isles. Next behind them were the Teu- tons, or "Germans" (i. e., "neighbors"), as they were called by the Celts to the west. The Germans filled in all the central part of Europe from the Alps northward to the sea, and spread out over the coasts of Scandinavia. There they were found on the amber-pro- ducing shores of the Baltic Sea by the Greek explorer Pytheas in the year 330 b. c. the first mention in history of the Germans. Beyond the Germans, to the east, came finally the Slavs, who for a long time never formed a united government for themselves, but mingled with other races, and only at the present day are beginning to realize that the Russians are one nation and form a mighty empire ; and even now there are many Slavs in Prussia, Hungary, and the Balkan Peninsula who are not politically united with the main body of the Slavic nation in Russia. For more than two hundred years after that exploring voyage of Pytheas there is no further mention of the Germans in history. 4 GERMANY 113-102 B.C. Only on the shores of the Baltic numerous stone implements, many of them very perfect specimens, prove that extensive settlements were being made. Then finally in the year 113 b. c. a tremendous horde of these Germans of the North forced their way through the Tyrolese Alps and invaded the Roman territory. They numbered several hundred thousand, and brought with them their wives, their children, and all their movable property. They were com- posed of two great tribes, the Cimbrians and Teutons, accompanied by some minor allies, Celtic as well as Germanic. Their statement was that they were driven from their homes on the northern ocean by the inroads of the waves, and they demanded territory for settlement, or, at least, the right to pass the Roman frontier. The consul, Papirius Carbo, collected an army and endeavored to resist their advance ; but he was defeated by them in a battle fought near Noreia, between the Adriatic and the Alps. The terror occasioned by this defeat reached even to Rome. The " barbarians," as they were called, were men of large stature, of astonishing bodily strength, with yellow hair and fierce blue eyes. They wore breastplates of iron and helmets crowned with the heads of wild beasts, and carried white shields which shone in the sun- shine. They first hurled double-headed spears, in battle, but at close quarters fought with short and heavy swords. The women encouraged them with cries and war songs, and seemed no less fierce and courageous than the men. They had also priestesses, clad in white linen, who delivered prophecies and slaughtered human victims upon the altars of their gods. Instead of moving toward Rome, the Cimbrians and Teu- tons marched westward along the foot of the Alps, crossed into Gaul, devastated the country between the Rhone and the Pyrenees, and even obtained temporary possession of part of Spain. Having thus plundered at will for ten years, they retraced their steps and prepared to invade Italy a second time. The celebrated consul, Marius, who was sent against them, found they had divided their forces in order to cross the Alps by two roads. He first attacked the Teutons, two hundred thousand in number, in southern France, at Aix (Aquae Sextiae), and almost exterminated them in the year 102 b. c. A historian of that time relates that the land around Aix was so fertilized as to bear fruit in astounding quantities, and that the people hedged in their vineyards with the bones of the slain. Then Marius led his army across the Alps into Italy, ANCIENT GERMANS 5 102-70 B.C. and in the following year met the Cimbrians at VercelH. They were drawn up in a square, the sides of which were nearly three miles long: in the center their wagons, collected together, formed a fortress for the women and children. But the Roman legions broke the Cimbrian square, and obtained a complete victory. The women, seeing that all was lost, slew their children, and then them- selves; only a few thousand prisoners were made among them Teutoboch, the prince of the Teutons, who had escaped from the slaughter at Aix to figure in the triumph accorded to Marius by the Roman senate. The Roman conquests, which now began to extend northward into the heart of Europe, soon brought the two races into collision again, especially along the Rhine and Danube. From the earliest reports, as well as the later movements of the tribes, we are able to ascertain the probable order of their settlement, though not the exact boundaries of each. The territory which they occupied was almost the same as that which now belongs to the German Empire. The Rhine divided them from the Gauls, except toward its mouth where the Germanic tribes occupied part of Belgium. A line drawn from the Vistula southward to the Danube nearly represents their eastern boundary, while, up to this time, they do not appear to have crossed the Danube on the south. The district between that river and the Alps, now Bavaria and Styria, was occupied by Celtic tribes. Northward they had made some advance into Sweden, and probably also into Norway. They thus occupied nearly all of central Europe north of the Alpine chain. At the time of their first contact with the Romans these Ger- manic tribes had lost even the tradition of their Asiatic origin. They supposed themselves to have originated upon the soil where they dwelt, sprung either from the earth or descended from their gods. According to the most popular legend, the war-god Tuisko, or Tiu, had a son, Mannus (whence the word man is derived), who was the first human parent of the German race. Many cen- turies must have elapsed since their first settlement in Europe, or they could not have so completely changed the forms of their religion and their traditional history. Two or three small tribes are represented, in the earliest Roman accounts, as having crossed the Rhine and settled between the Vosges and that river, from Strasburg to Mayence. From the latter point to Cologne none are mentioned, whence it is conjectured 6 GERMANY 102-70 B.C. that the western bank of the Rhine was here a debatable ground, possessed sometimes by the Celts and sometimes by the Germans. The greater part of Belgium was occupied by the Eburones and Condrusii, Germanic tribes, to whom were afterward added the Aduatuci, formed out of the fragments of the Cimbrians and Teu- tons who escaped the slaughters of Marius. At the mouth of the Rhine dwelt the Batavi, the forefathers of the Dutch, and, like them, reported to be strong, phlegmatic, and stubborn, in the time of Caesar. A little eastward, on the shore of the North Sea, dwelt the Frisii, where they still dwell, in the province of Friesland; and beyond them, about the mouth of the Weser, the Chauci, a kindred tribe. What is now Westphalia was inhabited by the Sicambrians, a brave and warlike people ; the Marsi and Ampsivarii were beyond them, toward the Harz, and south of the latter the Ubii, once a powerful tribe, but in Caesar's time weak and submissive. From the Weser to the Elbe, in the north, was the land of the Cherusci ; south of them the equally fierce and indomitable Chatti, the an- cestors of the modem Hessians; and still farther south, along the headwaters of the River Main, the Marcomanni. A part of what is now Saxony was in the possession of the Hermunduri, who together with their kindred, the Chatti, were called Suevi by the Romans. Northward, toward the mouth of the Elbe, dwelt the Longobardi (Lombards); beyond them, in Holstein, the Saxons; and north of the latter, in Schleswig, the Angles. East of the Elbe were the Semnones, who were guardians of a certain holy place, a grove of the Druids, where various related tribes came for their religious festivals. North of the Semnones dwelt the Vandals, and along the Baltic coast the Rugii, who have left their name in the island of Riigen. Between these and the Vistula were the Burgundiones, with a few smaller tribes. In the extreme northeast, between the Vistula and the point where the city of Konigsberg now stands, was the home of the Goths, south of whom were settled the Slavonic Sarmatians the same who founded, long afterward, the kingdom of Poland. Bohemia was first settled by the Celtic tribe of the Boii, whence its name Boiheim, the home of the Boii is derived. In Caesar's day, however, this tribe had been driven out by the Germanic Mar- comanni, whose neighbors, the Quadi, on the Danube, were also Gennan. Beyond the Danube all was Celtic; the defeated Boii ANCIENT GERMANS 7 102-70 B.C. roccupied Austria; the Vindelici, Bavaria; while the Noric and r^haetian Celts took possession of the Tyrolese Alps. Switzerland was inhabited by the Helvetii, a Celtic tribe which had been driven out of Germany; but the mountainous district between the Rhine, the Lake of Constance, and the Danube, now called the Black Forest, seems to have had no permanent owners. The greater part of Germany was thus in possession of Ger- manic tribes, bound to each other by blood, by their common religion and their habits of life. At this early period their virtues and their vices were strongly marked. They were not savages, for they knew the first necessary arts of civilized life, and they had a fixed social and political organization. The greater part of the territory which they inhabited was still a wilderness. The moun- tain chain which extends through central Germany from the Main to the Elbe was called by the Romans the Hercynian Forest. It was then a wild, savage region, the home of the aurox (a kind of wild cattle), the bear, and the elk. The lower lands to the north- ward of this forest were also thickly wooded and marshy, with open pastures here and there, where the tribes settled in small communities, kept their cattle, and cultivated the soil only enough to supply the needs of life. They made rough roads of communi- cation, which could be traversed by their wagons, and the frontiers of each tribe were usually marked by guardhouses, where all stran- gers were detained until they received permission to enter the territory. At this early period the Germans had no cities, or even villages. Their places of worship, which were either groves of venerable oak trees or the tops of mountains, were often fortified ; and when attacked in the open country they made a temporary defense of their wagons. They lived in log houses, which were surrounded by stockades spacious enough to contain the cattle and horses be- longing to the family. A few fields of rye and barley furnished each homestead with bread and beer, but hunting and fishing were their chief dependence. The women cultivated flax, from which they made a coarse, strong linen ; the men clothed themselves with furs or leather. They were acquainted with the smelting and working of iron, but valued gold and silver only for the sake of ornament. They were fond of bright colors, of poetry and song, and were in the highest degree hospitable. The three principal vices of the Germans were indolence, 8 GERMANY 70 B.C. drunkenness, and gambling^. Although always ready for the toils and dangers of war, they disliked to work at home. When the men assembled at night, and the great ox-homs, filled with mead or beer, were passed from one to the other, they rarely ceased until all were intoxicated; and when the passion for gambling came upon them, they would often stake their dearest possessions, even their own freedom, on a throw of the dice. The women were never present on these occasions: they ruled and regulated their households with undisputed sway. They were considered the equals of the men, and exhibited no less energy and courage. They were supposed to possess the gift of prophecy, and always accompanied the men to battle, where they took care of the wounded, and stimu- lated the warriors by their shouts and songs. They honored the institution of marriage to an extent beyond that exhibited by any other people of the ancient world. The ceremony consisted in the man giving a horse, or a yoke of oxen, to the woman, who gave him arms or armor in return. Those who proved unfaithful to the marriage vow were punished with death. The children of freemen and slaves grew up together, until the former were old enough to carry arms, when they were separated. The slaves were divided into two classes: those who lived under the protection of a freeman and were obliged to perform for him a certain amount of labor, and those who were wholly " chattels," bought and sold at will. Each family had its own laws for the government of its free members, its retainers, and slaves. A number of these families formed " a district," which was generally laid out according to natural boundaries, such as streams or hills. In some tribes, how- ever, the families were united in " hundreds," instead of districts. Each of these managed its own affairs, as a little republic, wherein each freeman had an equal voice; yet to each belonged a leader, who was called " count " or " duke." All the districts of a tribe met together in a " General Assembly of the People," which was always held at the time of new or full moon. The chief priest of the tribe presided, and each freeman present had the right to vote. Here questions of peace or war, violations of right or disputes be- tween the districts, were decided, criminals were tried, young men acknowledged as freemen and warriors, and in case of approaching war a leader chosen by the people. Alliances between the tribes, for the sake of mutual defense or invasion, were not common at ANCIENT GERMANS 9 70 B.C. first ; but the necessity of them was soon forced upon the Germans by, the encroachments of Rome. The gods which they worshiped represented the powers of nature. Their mythology was the same originally as that which the Scandinavians preserved, in a slightly different form, until the tenth century of our era. The chief deity was named Wodan, or Odin, the god of the sky, whose worship was really that of the sun. His son, Donar, or Thunder, with his fiery beard and huge hammer, is the Thor of the Scandinavians. The god of war, Tiu or Tyr, was supposed to have been bom from the earth, and thus became the ancestor of the Germanic tribes. There was also a goddess of the earth, Hertha, who was worshiped with secret and mysterious rites. The people had their religious festivals, at stated seasons, when sacrifices, sometimes of human beings, were laid upon the altars of the gods, in the sacred groves. Even after they be- came Christians, in the eighth century, they retained their habit of celebrating some of these festivals, but changed them into the Christian anniversaries of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide. Thus, from all we can learn respecting them, we may say that the Germans, during the first century before Christ, were fully prepared, by their habits, laws, and their moral development, for a higher civilization. They were still restless, after so many cen- turies of wandering ; they were fierce and fond of war, as a natural consequence of their struggles with the neighboring races ; but they had already acquired a love for the wild land where they dwelt, they had begun to cultivate the soil, they had purified and hallowed the family relation, which is the basis of all good government, and finally, although slavery existed among them, they had established equal rights for free men. If the object of Rome had been civilization, instead of conquest and plunder, the development of the Germans might have com- menced much earlier and produced very different results. Chapter II THE WARS WITH ROME. 70 B.C. -9 A, D. AFTER the destruction of the Teutons and Cimbrians by l\ Marius, more than forty years elapsed before the Romans X JL again came in contact with any German tribe. During this time the Roman dominion over a great part of Gaul was firmly established by Julius Caesar, and in losing their independence the Celts began to lose, also, their original habits and character. They and the Germans had never been very peaceable neighbors, and the possession of the western bank of the Rhine seems to have been, even at that early day, a subject of contention between them. About the year 70 b. c. two Gallic tribes, the ^dui in Bur- gundy and the Arvemi in central France, began a struggle for the supremacy in that part of Gaul. The allies of the latter, the Se- quani, called to their assistance a chief of the German Suevi, whose name, as we have it through Caesar, was Ariovistus. With a force of 15,000 men he joined the Arverni and the Sequani, and defeated the JEdui in several battles. After the complete overthrow of the latter he haughtily demanded as a recompense one-third of the terri- tory of the Sequani. His strength had meanwhile been increased by new accessions from the German side of the Rhine, and the Sequani were obliged to yield. His followers settled in the new territory; in the course of about fourteen years they amounted to 120,000, and Ariovistus felt himself strong enough to demand an- other third of the lands of the Sequani. Southern France was then a Roman province, governed by Julius Caesar. In the year 57 b. c. ambassadors from the princi- pal tribes of eastern Gaul appeared before him and implored his as- sistance against the inroads of the Suevi. It was an opportunity which he immediately seized, in order to bring the remaining Gallic tribes under the sway of Rome. He first sent a summons to Ario- vistus to appear before him, but the haughty German chief an- swered: " When I need Caesar, I shall come to Caesar. If Caesar 10 WARSWITHROME 11 57 B.C needs me, let him seek me. What business has he in my Gaul, which I have acquired in war?" On receiving this answer Caesar marched immediately with his legions into the land of the Sequani, and succeeded in reaching their capital, Vesontio (the modern Besangon), before the enemy. It was then a fortified place, and its possession gave Csesar an important advantage at the start. While his legions were resting there for a few days, before beginning the march against the Suevi, the Gallic and Roman merchants and traders circulated through the Roman camp frightful accounts of the strength and fierceness of the Suevi. They reported that the German barbarians were men of giant size and more than human strength, whose faces were so terrible that the glances of their eyes could not be endured. Very soon numbers of the Roman officers demanded leave of ab- sence, and even the few who were ashamed to take this step lost all courage. The soldiers became so demoralized that many of them declared openly that they would refuse to fight if commanded to do so. In this emergency Csesar showed his genius as a leader of men. He called a large number of soldiers and officers of all grades together, and addressed them in strong words, pointing out their superior military discipline, ridiculing the terrible stories in circu- lation, and sharply censuring them for their insubordination. He concluded by declaring that if the army should refuse to march, he would start the next morning with only the tenth legion, upon the courage and obedience of which he could rely. This speech produced an immediate effect. The tenth legion solemnly thanked Caesar for his confidence in its men and officers, the other legions, one after the other, declared their readiness to follow, and the whole army left Vesontio the very next morning. After a rapid march of seven days Csesar found himself within a short distance of the fortified camp of Ariovistus. The German chief ilow agreed to an interview, and the two leaders met, halfway between the two armies, on the plain of the Rhine. The place is supposed to have been a little to the northward of Basel. Neither Csesar nor Ariovistus would yield to the de- mands of the other, and as the cavalry of their armies began skirmishing, the interview was broken off. For several days in succession the Romans offered battle, but the Suevi refused to leave their strong position. This hesitation seemed remarkable. It GERMANY 57-53 B.C. until it was explained by some prisoners, captured in a skirmish, who stated that the German priestesses had prophesied misfortune to Ariovistus if he should fight before the new moon. Caesar thereupon determined to attack the German camp without delay. The meeting of the two armies was fierce, and the soldiers were soon fighting hand to hand. On each side one wing gave way, but the greater quickness and superior military skill of the Romans enabled them to recover sooner than the enemy. The day ended with the entire defeat of the Suevi, and the flight of the few who escaped across the Rhine. They did not attempt to reconquer their lost territory, and the three small German tribes who had long been settled between the Rhine and the Vosges (in what is now Alsatia) became subject to Roman rule. Two years afterward Caesar, who was engaged in subjugating the Belgae, in northern Gaul, learned that two other German tribes, the Usipetes and Tencteres, who had been driven from their homes by the Suevi, had crossed the Rhine below where Cologne now stands. They numbered 400,000, and the northern Gauls, instead of regarding them as invaders, were inclined to welcome them as allies against Rome, the common enemy. Caesar knew that if they remained, a revolt of the Gauls against his rule would be the con- sequence. He therefore hastened to meet them, got possession of their principal chiefs by treachery, and then attacked their camp between the Meuse and the Rhine. The Germans were defeated, and nearly all their foot-soldiers slaughtered, but the cavalry succeeded in crossing the river, where they were welcomed by the Sicambrians. Then it was that Caesar built his famous wooden bridge across the Rhine, not far from the site of Cologne, although the precise point cannot now be ascertained. He crossed with his army into Westphalia, but the tribes he sought retreated into the great forests to the eastward, where he was unable to pursue them. He con- tented himself for eighteen days with burning their houses and gathering their ripened harvests, when he returned to the other side and destroyed the bridge behind him. From this time Rome claimed the sovereignty of the western bank of the Rhine to its mouth. While Caesar was in Britain, in the year 53 b. c, the newly subjugated Celtic and German tribes which inhabited Belgium rose in open revolt against the Roman rule. The rapidity of Caesar's WARSWITHROME 13 63-15 B.C. return arrested their temporary success, but some of the German tribes to the eastward of the Rhine had already promised to aid them. In order to secure his conquests, the Roman general deter- mined to cross the Rhine again, and intimidate, if not subdue, his dangerous neighbors. He built a second bridge, near the place where the first had been, and crossed with his army. But, as before, the Suevi and Sicambrians drew back among the forest-covered hills along the Weser River, and only the small and peaceful tribe of the Ubii remained in their homes. The latter offered their sub- mission to Caesar, and agreed to furnish him with news of the future movements of their warlike countrymen, in return for his protection. When another revolt of the Celtic Gauls took place, the follow- ing year, German mercenaries, enlisted among the Ubii, fought on the Roman side and took an important part in the decisive battle which gave Vercingetorix, the last chief of the Gauls, into Caesar's hands. He was beheaded, and from that time the Gauls made no further effort to throw off the Roman yoke. They accepted the civil and military organization, the dress and habits, and finally the language and religion of their conquerors. The .small German tribes in Alsatia and Belgium shared the same fate: their territory was divided by the Romans into two provinces, called Upper and Lower Germania. The vast region inhabited by the independent tribes, lying between the Rhine, the Vistula, the North Sea, and the Danube, was thenceforth named Germania Magna. Caesar's renown among the Germans, and probably also his skill in dealing with them, was so great that when he left Gaul to return to Rome he took with him a German legion of 6000 men, which afterward fought on his side against Pompey on the battle- field of Pharsalus. The Roman agents penetrated into the interior of the country, and enlisted a great many of the free Germans, who were tempted by the prospect of good pay and booty. Even the younger sons of the chiefs entered the Roman army for the sake of a better military education. No movement of any consequence took place for more than twenty years after Caesar's last departure from the banks of the Rhine. The Romans, having secured their possession of Gaul, now turned their attention to the subjugation of the Celtic tribes inhabit- ing the Alps and the lowlands south of the Danube, from the Lake of Constance to Vienna. This work had also been begun by Caesar ; 14 GERMANY 15*11 B.C. it was continued by the Emperor Augustus, whose step-sons, Tiber- ius and Drusus, finally overcame the desperate resistance of the native tribes. In the year 15 b. c. the Danube became the boundary between Rome and Germany on the south, as the Rhine already was on the west. The Roman provinces of Rhaeti, Noricum, and Pannonia were formed out of the conquered territory. Augustus now sent Drusus, with a large army, to the Rhine, instructing him to undertake a campaign against the independent German tribes. Drusus built a large fleet on the Rhine, descended that river nearly to its mouth, cut a canal for his vessels to a lake CERMANIA MAGNA which is now the Zuyder Zee, and thus entered the North Sea. It was a bold undertaking, but did not succeed. He reached the mouth of the River Ems with his fleet, when the weather became so tempestuous that he was obliged to return. The next year, 1 1 b. c, he made an expedition into the land of the Sicambrians, during which his situation was often hazardous ; but he succeeded in penetrating rather more than a hundred miles to the eastward of the Rhine, and establishing not far from where the city of Paderborn now stands a fortress called Aliso, which became a base for later operations against the German tribes. He next set about building a series of fortresses, fifty in number, along the western bank of the Rhine. Around the most important of WARSWITHROME 15 11-7 B.C. these towns immediately sprang up and thus were laid the founda- tions of the cities of Strasburg, Mayence, Coblentz, Cologne, and many smaller places. In the year 9 b. c. Drusus marched again into Germany. He defeated the Chatti in several bloody battles, crossed the passes of the Thuringian Forest, and forced his way through the land of the Cherusci (the Harz region) to the Elbe. The legend says that he there encountered a German prophetess, who threatened him with coming evil, whereupon he turned about and retraced his way toward the Rhine. He died, however, during the march, and his dejected army had great difficulty in reaching the safe line of their fortresses. Tiberius succeeded to the command left vacant by the death of his brother, Drusus. Less daring, but of a more cautious and scheming nature, he began by taking possession of the land of the Sicambrians and colonizing a part of the tribe on the west bank of the Rhine. He then gradually extended his power, and in the course of two years brought nearly the whole country between the Rhine and Weser under the rule of Rome. Of the German tribes who still remained independent, there were the Semnones, Saxons, and Angles, east of the Elbe, and the Burgundians, Vandals, and Goths, along the shore of the Baltic, together with one powerful tribe in Bohemia. The latter, the Marcomanni, who seem to have left their original home in Baden and Wiirtemberg on account of the approach of the Romans, now felt that their independence was a second time seriously threatened. Their first measure of defense, therefore, was to strengthen them- selves by alliances with kindred tribes. The chief of the Marcomanni, named Marbod, was a man of unusual capacity and energy. It seems that he was educated as a Roman. This rendered him a more dangerous enemy, though it also made him an object of suspicion, and perhaps jealousy, to the other German chieftains. Nevertheless he succeeded in uniting nearly all the independent tribes east of the Elbe under his command and in organizing a standing army of 70,000 foot and 4000 horse, which, disciplined like the Roman legions, might be considered a match for any equal number. His success created so much anxiety in Rome that Augustus determined to send a force of twelve legions against Marbod. Precisely at this time a great insur- rection broke out in Dalmatia and Pannonia, and when it was sup- 16 GERMANY 7 B.C.-9 A.D. pressed, after a struggle of three years, the Romans found it prudent to offer peace to Marbod, and he to accept it. While Augustus was occupied in putting down the insurrec- tion in Dalmatia and Pannonia, with a prospect, it seemed, of having to fight the Marcomanni afterward, his representative in Germany was Quinctillius Varus. Tiberius, in spite of his later vices as emperor, was prudent and conciliatory in his conquests; but Varus, a man of despotic and relentless character, soon turned the respect of the Germans for the Roman power into the fiercest hatred. He applied, in a more brutal form, the same measures which had been forced upon the Gauls. He overturned, at one blow, all the native forms of law, introduced heavy taxes, which were collected by force, punished with shameful death crimes which the people considered trivial, and decided all matters in Roman courts and in a language which was not yet understood. This violent and reckless policy, which Varus enforced with a hand of iron, produced an effect the reverse of what he anticipated. The German tribes, with hardly an exception, determined to make another effort to regain their independence; but they had been taught wisdom by seventy years of conflict with the Roman power. Up to this time each tribe had acted for itself, without concert with its neighbors. They saw, now, that no single tribe could cope successfully with Rome: it was necessary that all should be united as one people; and they only waited until such a union could be secretly established before rising to throw off the unendurable yoke which Varus had laid upon them. Chapter III HERMANN, THE FIRST GERMAN LEADER. 9-21 A. D. THE Chenisci, who inhabited a part of the land between the Weser and the Elbe, including the Harz Mountains, were the most powerful of the tribes conquered by Tiberius. They had no permanent class of nobles, as none of the early Germans seem to have had, but certain families were dis- tinguished for their abilities and their character, or the services which they had rendered to their people in war. The head of one of these Cheruscan families was Segimar, one of whose sons was named Hermann. The latter entered the Roman service as a youth, distinguished himself by his military talent, was made a Roman knight, and commanded one of the legions which were employed by Augustus in suppressing the great insurrection of the Dalmatians and Pannonians. It seems probable that he visited Rome at the period of its highest power and splendor ; it is certain, at least, that he comprehended the political system by means of which the empire had become so great. When Hermann returned to his people he was a man of twenty- five and already an experienced commander. He is described by the Latin writers as a chief of fine personal presence, great strength, an animated countenance, and bright eyes. He was always self- possessed, quick in action, yet never rash or heedless. He found the Cherusci and all the neighboring tribes filled with hatred of the Roman rule and burning to revenge the injuries they had suffered. His first movement was to organize a secret conspiracy among the tribes which could be called into action as soon as a fortunate op- portunity should arrive. Varus was then (9 a. d) encamped near the Weser, in the land of the Saxons, with an army of 40,000 men, the best of the Roman legions. Hermann was still in the Roman service, and held a command under him. But among the other Germans in the Roman camp was Segestes, a chief of the Cherusci, whose daughter, Thusnelda, Hermann had stolen away from him and married. Thusnelda was afterward celebrated in the German legends as a high-hearted, patriotic woman, who was 17 18 GERMANY 9 A.D. devotedly attached to Hermann; but her father, Segestes, became his bitterest enemy. In engaging the different tribes to unite Hermann had great difficulties to overcome. They were not only jealous of each other, remembering ancient quarrels between themselves, but many fam- ilies in each tribe were disposed to submit to Rome, being either hopeless of succeeding or'tempted by the chance of office and wealth under the Roman government. Hermann's own brother, Flavus, had become, and always remained, a Roman; other members of his family were opposed to his undertaking, and it seems that only his mother and his wife encouraged him with their sympathy. Nevertheless, he formed his plans with as much skill as boldness, while still serving in the army of Varus. He caused messengers to come to Varus, declaring that a dangerous insurrection had broken out in the lands between him and the Rhine. This was in the month of September, and Varus, believing the reports, broke up his camp and set out to suppress the insurrection before the winter. His nearest way led through the wooded, mountainous country along the Weser, which is now called the Teutoburger Forest. According to one account, Hermann was left behind to collect the auxiliary German troops, and then, with them, rejoin his general. It is certain that he remained, and instantly sent his messengers to all the tribes engaged in the conspiracy, whose warriors came to him with all speed. In a few days he had an army probably equal in numbers to that of Varus. In the meantime the season had changed: violent autumn storms burst over the land, and the Romans slowly advanced through the forests and mountain passes in the wind and rain. Hermann knefw the ground and was able to choose the best point of attack. With his army, hastily organized, be burst upon the legions of Varus, who resisted him, the first day, with their accustomed valor. But the attack was renewed the second day, and the endurance of the Roman troops began to give way; they held their ground with difficulty, but exerted themselves to the utmost, for there was now only one mountain ridge to be passed. Beyond it lay the broad plains of Westphalia, with fortresses and military roads, where they had better chances of defense. When the third day dawned the storm was fiercer than ever. The Roman army crossed the summit of the last ridge and saw the securer plains before them. They commenced descending the long slope, but, just as FIRST GERMAN LEADER 19 9-15 A.D. they reached three steep wooded ravines which were still to be traversed, the Germans swept down upon them from the summits like a torrent, with shouts and far-sounding songs of battle. A complete panic seized the exhausted and disheartened Roman troops, and the fight soon became a slaughter. Varus, wounded, threw himself upon his sword; the wooded passes below were occupied in advance by the Germans; hardly enough escaped to carry the news of the terrible defeat to the Roman frontier on the Rhine. Those who escaped death were sacrificed upon the altars of the gods, and the fiercest revenge was visited upon the Roman judges, lawyers, and civil officers who had trampled upon all the hallowed laws and customs of the people. The news of this great German victory reached Rome in the midst of the rejoicings over the suppression of the insurrection in Dalmatia anxi Pannonia, and turned the triumph into mourning. The aged Augustus feared the overthrow of his power. He was unable to comprehend such a sudden and terrible disaster: he let his hair and beard grow for months, as a sig^ of his trouble, and was often heard to cry aloud : " O Varus, Varus, give me back my legions ! " The location of the battlefield where Hermann defeated Varus has been preserved by tradition. The long southern slope of the mountain, near Detmold, now bare, but surrounded by forests, is called to this day the Winfield. Around the summit of the moun- tain there is a ring of huge stones, showing that it was originally consecrated to the worship of the ancient pagan deities. Here a pedestal of granite, in the form of a temple, has been built, and upon it has been placed a colossal statue of Hermann in bronze, ninety feet high, and visible at a distance of fifty miles. Hermann's deeds were afterward celebrated in the songs of his people, as they have been in modem German literature; but the best results of his victory were cast away by the people whom he had liberated. It was now possible to organize into a nation the tribes which had united to overthrow the Romans, and such seems to have been his intention. He sent the head of Varus to Marbod, chief of the Marcomanni, whose power he had secured by carrying out his original design; but he failed to secure the friendship, or even the neutrality, of the rival leader. At home his own family bitterest among them all his father-in-law, Segestes opposed his plans, and the Cherusci were soon divided into two parties, one headed by Hermann and the other headed by Segestes. 20 GERMANY 15-17 A.D. Hermann succeeded in escaping from his father-in-law, by whom he had been captured and imprisoned, and began to form a new union of the tribes. His first design was to release his wife, Thusnelda, from the hands of Segestes, and then destroy the au- thority of the latter, who was the head of the faction friendly to Rome. Meanwhile the Emperor Augustus had died, Tiberius had left Germany to take up the reins of government at Rome, and his nephew, Germanicus, succeeded to thfe command in Germany. Ger- manicus entered Germany in the summer of 15 a. d. with a power- ful army and at once marched to aid Segestes against Hermann. After a few days the Romans reached the scene of the defeat of Varus, and there they halted to bury the thousands of skeletons which lay wasting on the mountain-side. Then they met Segestes, who gave up his own daughter, Thusnelda, to Germanicus as a captive. The loss of his wife roused Hermann to fury. He went hither and thither among the tribes, stirring the hearts of all with his fiery addresses. Germanicus soon perceived that a storm was gathering, and prepared to meet it. He divided his army into two parts, one of which was commanded by Caecina, and built a large fleet which transported one-half of his troops by sea and up the Weser. After joining Caecina, he marched into the Teutoburger Forest. Hermann met him near the scene of his great victory over Varus, and a fierce battle was fought. According to the Romans, neither side obtained any advantage over the other ; but Germanicus, with half the army, fell back upon his fleet and returned to the Rhine by way of the North Sea. Caecina, with the remnant of his four legions, also retreated across the country, pursued by Hermann. In the dark forests and on the marshy plains they were exposed to constant assaults, and were obliged to fight every step of the way. Finally, in a marshy valley, the site of which cannot be discovered, the Germans sud- denly attacked the Romans on all sides. Hermann cried out to his soldiers : " It shall be another day of Varus ! " The songs of the women prophesied triumph, and the Romans were filled with fore- bodings of defeat. They fought desperately, but were forced to yield, and Hermann's words would have been made truth had not the Germans ceased fighting in order to plunder the camp of their enemies. The latter were thus able to cut their way out of the valley and eventually, by forced marches, reached the Rhine. The FIRST GERMAN LEADER 21 17-19 A.D. voyage of Germanicus was also unfortunate: he encountered a violent storm on the coast of Holland, and two of his legions barely escaped destruction. He had nothing to show, as the result of his campaign, except his captive Thusnelda, and her son, who walked behind his triumphal chariot in Rome three years afterward, and never again saw their native land ; and his ally, the traitor Segestes, who ended his contemptible life somewhere in Gaul, under Roman protection. Germanicus was a man of great ambition and of astonishing energy. He was determined not to rest until he had completely subjugated Germany as far as the Elbe. As Julius Caesar had made Gaul Roman, so he was determined to make Germany Roman. He began his preparations for another expedition in 17 a. d., but the Emperor Tiberius, jealous of his increasing renown, recalled him to Rome, saying that it was better to let the German tribes exhaust themselves in their own internal discords than to waste so many of the best legions in subduing them. Germanicus obeyed, returned to Rome, had his grand triumph, and was then sent to the East, where he shortly afterward died, it was supposed by poison. The words of the shrewd emperor were true : two rival powers had been developed in Germany through the resistance to Rome, and they soon came into conflict. Marbod, chief of the Mar- comanni, and many allied tribes, had maintained his position with- out war; but Hermann, now the recognized head of the Cherusci and their confederates, who had destroyed Varus and held Ger- manicus at bay, possessed a popularity, founded on his heroism, which spread far and wide through the German land. Even at that early day the small chiefs in each tribe (corresponding to the later nobility) were opposed to the broad, patriotic union which Hermann had established, because it weakened their power and increased that of the people. They were also jealous of his great authority and influence, and even his uncle, Ingiomar, who had fought bravely against Germanicus, went over to the side of Mar- bod when it became evident that the rivalry of the two chiefs must lead to war. In the year 19 a. d. Hermann and Marbod marched against each other, and a great battle took place. Although neither was vic- torious, the popularity of Hermann drew so many of Marbod's allies to his side that the latter fled to Italy and claimed the protec- StSt GERMANY 19-21 A.D. tion of Tiberius, who assigned to him Ravenna as a residence. He died there nearly twenty years later, at a very advanced age. After the flight of Marbod, Hermann seems to have devoted himself to the creation of a permanent union of the tribes which he had commanded. We may guess, but cannot assert, that his object was to establish a national organization, like that of Rome, and in doing this he must have come into conflict with laws and customs which were considered sacred by the people. But his remaining days were too few for even the beginning of a task which included such an advance in the civilization of the race. We only know that he was waylaid and assassinated by members of his own family, in the year 21 a. d. He was then thirty-seven years old and had been for thirteen years a leader of his people. The best monu- ment to his ability and heroism may be found in the words of a Roman, the historian Tacitus, who says : " He was undoubtedly the liberator of Germany, having dared to grapple with the Roman power, not in its beginnings, like other kings and commanders, but in the maturity of its strength. He was not always victorious in battle, but in war he was never subdued. He still lives in the songs of the Barbarians, not known to the annals of the Greeks, who only admire that which belongs to themselves nor celebated as he de- serves by the Romans, who, in praising the olden times, neglect the events of the later years." Chapter IV THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES OF OUR ERA 21-300 A. D. A FTER the campaigns of Germanicus and the death of Her- L\ mann a long time elasped during which the relation of X JL Germany to the Roman Empire might be called a truce. No serious attempt was made by the unworthy successors of Augus- tus to extend their sway beyond the banks of the Rhine and the Danube; and, as Tiberius had predicted, the German tribes were so weakened by their own civil wars that they were unable to cope with a power such as Rome. Even the Cherusci, Hermann's own people, became so diminished in numbers that before the end of the first century they ceased to exist as a separate tribe: their fragments were divided and incorporated with their neighbors on either side. About the middle of the first century, however, an event is mentioned which shows that the Germans were beginning to ap- preciate and imitate the superior civilization of Rome. The Chauci, dwelling on the shores of the North Sea, built a fleet and sailed along the coast to the mouth of the Rhine, which they entered in the hope of exciting the Batavi and Frisii to rebellion. A few years afterward the Chatti, probably for the sake of plunder, crossed the Rhine and invaded part of Gaul. Both attempts failed entirely; and the only serious movement of the Germans against Rome during the century took place while Vitellius and Vespasian were contending for the possession of the imperial throne. A German prophetess, by the name of Velleda, whose influence seems to have extended over all the tribes, promised them victory: they united, organized their forces, crossed the Rhine, and even laid siege to Mayence, the principal Roman city. The success of Vespasian over his rival left him free to meet this new danger. But in the meantime the Batavi, under their chief, Claudius Civilis, who had been previously fighting on the new emperor's side, joined the Gauls in a general insurrection. 23 24 GERMANY 70 A.D. This was so successful that all northern Gaul, from the Atlantic to the Rhine, threw off the Roman yoke. A convention of the chiefs was held at Rheims, in order to found a Gallic kingdom ; but instead of adopting measures of defense they quarreled about the selection of a ruling family, the future capital of the kingdom, and other matters of small comparative importance. The approach of Cerealis, the Roman general sent by Ves- pasian with a powerful army in the year 70, put an end to the Gallic insurrection. Most of the Gallic tribes submitted without resistance: the Treviri, on the Moselle, were defeated in battle, the cities and fortresses on the western bank of the Rhine were retaken, and the Roman frontier was reestablished. Nevertheless, the German tribes which had been allied with the Gauls among them the Batavi refused to submit, and they were strong enough to fight two bloody battles, in which Cerealis was only saved from defeat by what the Romans considered to be the direct interposition of the gods. The Batavi, although finally subdued in their home in Holland, succeeded in getting possession of the Roman admiral's vessel, by a night attack on his fleet on the Rhine. This trophy they sent by way of the River Lippe, an eastern branch of the Rhine, as a present to the great prophetess, Velleda. The defeat of the German tribes by Cerealis was not followed by a new Roman invasion of their territory. The Rhine remained the boundary, although the Romans crossed the river at various points and built fortresses upon the eastern bank. They appear, in like manner, to have crossed the Danube, and they also gradually acquired possession of the southwestern corner of Germany lying between the headwaters of that river and the Rhine. This region (now occupied by Baden and part of Wiirtemberg) had been de- serted by the Marcomanni when they marched to Bohemia, and it does not appear that any other German tribe attempted to take permanent possession of it. Its first occupants, the Helvetians, were now settled in Switzerland. The enlisting of Germans to serve as soldiers in the Roman army, begun by Julius Caesar, was continued by the emperors. The proofs of their heroism, which the Germans had given in resisting Germanicus, made them desirable as troops; and, since they were accustomed to fight with their neighbors at home, they had no scruples in fighting them under the banner of Rome. Thus one German legion after another was formed, taken to Rome, Spain, FIRST THREE CENTURIES 25 70-166 A.D. Greece, or the East, and its veterans, if they returned home when disabled by age or wounds, carried with them stories of the civiHzed world, of cities, palaces and temples, of agriculture and the arts, of a civil and political system far wiser and stronger than their own. The series of Good Emperors, from Vespasian to Marcus Aurelius (70 to 180 a. d.) formed military colonies of their veteran soldiers, whether German, Gallic, or Roman, in the region originally inhabited by the Marcomanni. They were governed by Roman laws, and they paid a tithe, or tenth part, of their revenues to the empire, whence this district was called the Agri Decumates, or Tithe-Lands. To protect these settled regions the Romans built the famous Limes or broad fortification wall, flanked at intervals by fortresses and watch-towers. Traces of it may still be seen. It ran from Ratisbon on the Danube to the River Main, and thence to a point on the Rhine near Cologne. The Roman frontier remained thus clearly defined for nearly two hundred years. On their side of the line the Romans built fortresses and cities, which they con- nected by good highways, and introduced a better system of agri- culture, established commercial intercourse, not only between their own provinces, but also with the independent tribes, and thus ex- tended the influence of their civilization. For the first time fruit trees were planted on German soil: the rich cloths and ornaments of Italy and the East, the arms and armor, the gold and silver, and the wines of the South soon found a market within the Ger- man territory; while the horses and cattle, furs and down, smoked beef and honey of the Germans, the fish of their streams, and the radishes and asparagus raised on the Rhine were sent to Rome in exchange. Wherever the Romans discovered a healing spring, as at Baden-Baden, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Spa, they built splendid baths; where they found ores or marble in the mountains they es- tablished mines or hewed columns for their temples, and the native tribes were thus taught the unsuspected riches of their own land. For nearly a hundred years after Vespasian's accession to the throne there was no serious interruption to the peaceful intercourse of the two races. During this time we must take it for granted that a gradual change must have been growing up in the habits and ideas of the Germans. It is probable that they then began to col- lect in villages; to use stone as well as wood in building their houses and fortresses; to depend more on agriculture and less on 26 GERMANY 166-180 A.D. hunting and fishing for their subsistence; and to desire the me- chanical skill, the arts of civilization, which the Romans possessed. The extinction of many smaller tribes, also, taught them the ne- cessity of learning to subdue their internal feuds, and assist instead of destroying each other. On the north of them was the sea ; on the east the Sarmatians and other Slavonic tribes, much more savage than tliemselves; in every other direction they were con- fronted by Rome. The complete subjugation of their Celtic neigh- bors in Gaul was always before their eyes. In Hermann's day they were still too ignorant to understand the necessity of his plan of union ; but now that tens of thousands of their people had learned the extent and power of the Roman Empire, and the commercial intercourse of a hundred years had shown them their own de- ficiencies, they reached the point where a new development in their history became possible. Such a development came to disturb the reign of the noble emperor, Marcus Aurelius, in the latter half of the second century. About the year i66 all the German tribes, from the Danube to the Baltic, united in a grand movement against the Roman Empire. The Marcomanni, who still inhabited Bohemia, appear as their leaders, and the Roman writers attach their name to the long and desperate war which ensued. We have no knowledge of the cause of this struggle, the manner in which the union of the Germans was effected, or even the names of their leaders; we only know that their invasion of the Roman territory was several times driven back and several times recommenced; that Marcus Aurelius died in Vienna, in i8o, without having seen the end; and that his son and successor, Commodus, bought a peace instead of winning it by the sword. At one time during the war the Chatti forced their way through the Tithe-Lands and Switzerland, and crossed the Alps ; at another, the Marcomanni and Quadi besieged the city of Aquileia, on the northern shore of the Adriatic. The ancient boundary between the Roman Empire and Ger- many was restored, but at a cost which the former could not pay a second time. For a hundred and fifty years longer the emperors preserved their territory. Rome still ruled, in name, from Spain to the Tigris, from Scotland to the Desert of Sahara, but her power was like a vast, hollow shell. Luxury, vice, taxation, and con- tinual war had eaten out the heart of the empire ; Italy had grown weak and was slowly losing its population, and the same causes FIRST THREE CENTURIES 27 180-251 A.D. were gradually ruining Spain, Gaul, and Britain. During this period the German tribes, notwithstanding their terrible losses in war, had preserved their vigor by the simplicity, activity, and morality of their habits: they had considerably increased in num- bers, and from the time of Marcus Aurelius on they felt themselves secure against any further invasion of their territory. Then commenced a series of internal changes, concerning which, unfortunately, we have no history. We can only guess that their origin dates from the union of all the principal tribes under the lead of the Marcomanni ; but whether they were brought about with or without internal wars ; whether wise and far-seeing chiefs or the sentiment of the people themselves contributed most to their consummation; finally, when these changes began and when they were completed are questions "which can never be accurately settled. When the Germans again appear in history, in the third cen- tury of our era, we are surprised to find that the names of nearly all the tribes with which we are familiar have disappeared, and new names, of much wider significance, have taken their places. Instead of twenty or thirty small divisions, we now find the race consoli- dated into four chief nationalities, with two other inferior though independent branches. We also find that the geographical situation of the latter is no longer the same as that of the smaller tribes out of which they grew. Migrations must have taken place, large tracts of territory must have changed hands, many reigning fami- lies must have been overthrown, and new ones arisen. In short, the change in the organization of the Germans is so complete that it can hardly have been accomplished by peaceable means. Each of the new nationalities has an important part to play in the history of the following centuries, and we will therefore describe them separately. The name of the Alemanni (Allemannen,^ signifying " all men " ) shows that this division was composed of fragments of many tribes. The Alemanni first made their appearance along the Main, and gradually pushed southward over the Tithe-Lands, where the military veterans of Rome had settled, until they oc- cupied the greater part of southwestern Germany, and eastern Switzerland, to the Alps. Their descendants inhabit the same terri- tory to this day. The Franks are believed to have been formed out of the 1 Alle-magnc remains to-day the French name for Germany. 8 GERMANY 251 A.O. Sicambrians in Westphalia, together with a portion of the Chatti and the Batavi in Holland, and other tribes. We first hear of them on the Lx)wer Rhine, but they soon extended their territory over a great part of Belgium and Westphalia. Their chiefs were already called kings, and their authority was hereditary. The Saxons were one of the small, original tribes settled in Holstein. But they soon came to occupy nearly all the territory between the Harz Mountains and the North Sea, from the Elbe westward to the Rhine. The Cherusci, the Chauci, and other tribes named by Tacitus were evidently incorporated with the Saxons, who exhibit the same characteristics. There appears to have been a natural enmity ^no doubt bequeathed from the earlier tribes out of which both grew between them and the Franks. The Goths in their traditions state that they were settled in Sweden before they were found by the Greek navigators on the southern shore of the Baltic, in 330 B. c. It is probable that only a portion of the tribe migrated, and that the present Scandinavian race is descended from the remainder. As the Baltic Goths in- creased in numbers, they gradually ascended the Vistula, pressed eastward along the base of the Carpathians and reached the Black Sea, in the course of the second century after Christ. Thus, at the time when they first came in contact with the Romans, about the beginning of the third century after Christ, the Goths possessed a broad belt of territory, situated north of the lower Danube and Black Sea, and separating the rest of Europe from the wilder Slavonic races who occupied central Russia. The branch called the Thuringians had only a short national existence. It was composed of the Hermunduri, with fragments of other tribes united under one king, and occupied all of central Germany, from the Harz Mountains southward to the Danube. The Burgundians, leaving their original home on the Baltic, between the Oder and the Vistula, crossed the greater part of Germany in a southwestern direction, and first settled in a portion of what is now Franconia, between the Thuringians and the Alemanni. Not long afterward, however, they passed through the latter, and took possession of the country on the west bank of the Rhine, between Strasburg and Mayence. The Goths steadily became more and more troublesome to the Romans on the lower Danube. In 251 the Emperor Decius found his death among the marshes of Dacia while trying to stay the FIRST THREE CENTURIES 29 251-276 A.D. Gothic invasion, and his successor, Gallus, only obtained a tem- porary peace by agreeing to pay an annual sum of money, thus really making Rome a tributary power. But the empire had be- come impoverished, and the payment soon ceased. Thereupon the Goths built fleets and made voyages of plunder, first to Trebizond and the other towns on the Asiatic shore of the Black Sea; then they passed the Hellespont, took and plundered the great city of Nicomedia, Ephesus with its famous temple, the Grecian isles, and even Corinth, Argos, and Athens. In the meantime the Ale- manni had resumed the offensive: they came through the Alps and descended to Lake Garda in northern Italy. The emperor, Claudius II., turned back this double invasion. He defeated and drove back the Alemanni, and then, in the year 270, won a great victory over the Goths, in the neighborhood of Thessalonica. His successor, Aurelian, followed up the advantage, and in the following year made a treaty with the Goths, by which the Danube became the frontier between them and the Romans. The latter gave up to them the province of Dacia, lying north of the river, and withdrew their colonists and military garrisons to the southern side. Both the Franks and Saxons profited by these events. They let their mutual hostility rest for a while, built fleets, and sailed forth in the west on voyages of plunder, like their relatives, the Goths, in the east. The Saxons descended on the coasts of Brit- ain and Gaul; the Franks sailed to Spain, and are said to have even entered the Mediterranean. When Probus became emperor, in the year 276, he found a great part of Gaul overrun and ravaged by them and by the Alemanni, on the Upper Rhine. He succeeded, after a hard struggle, in driving back the German invaders, re- stored the line of stockade from the Rhine to the Danube, and built new fortresses along the frontier. On the other hand, he in- troduced into Germany the cultivation of the vine, which the pre- vious emperors had not permitted, and thus laid the foundation of the famous vineyards of the Rhine and the Moselle. Probus endeavored to weaken the power of the Germans by separating and colonizing them, wherever it was possible. One of his experiments, however, had a very different result from what he expected. He transported a large number of Prankish captives to the shore of the Black Sea; but instead of quietly settling there they got possession of some vessels, soon formed a large fleet, 80 GERMANY 276-300 A.O. sailed into the Mediterranean, plundered the coasts of Asia Minor, Greece, and Sicily, where they even captured the city of Syracuse, and at last, after many losses and marvelous adventures, made their way by sea to their homes on the Lower Rhine. Toward the close of the third century Constantine, during the reign of his father, Constantius, suppressed an insurrection of the Franks, and even for a time drove them from their islands on the coast of Holland. He afterward crossed the Rhine, but found it expedient not to attempt an expedition into the interior. He appears to have had no war with the Alemanni, but he founded the city of Constance, on the lake of the same name, for the purpose of keeping them in check. The boundaries between Germany and Rome still remained the Rhine and the Danube, but on the east they were extended to the Black Sea, and in place of the invasions of Caesar, Drusus, and Germanicus, the empire was obliged to be content when it succeeded in repelling the invasions made upon its own soil. Three hundred years of very slow, but healthy growth on the one side, and of luxury, corruption, and despotism on the other, had thus changed the relative position of the two races. Chapter V THE MIGRATION OF THE GOTHS. 300-412 A. D. ROME, as the representative of the civilization of the world, and, after the year 313, as the political power which left . Christianity free to overthrow the ancient religions, is still the central point of historical interest during the greater part of the fourth century. Until the death of the Emperor Valentinian, in 375, the ancient boundaries of the empire, though frequently broken down, were continually reestablished, and the laws and in- stitutions of the Romans had prevailed so long throughout the great extent of conquered territory that the inhabitants now knew no other. But beyond the Danube had arisen a new power, the inde- pendence of which, after the time of Aurelian, was never disputed by the Roman emperors. The Goths were the first of the Ger- manic tribes to adopt a monarchical form of government and to acquire some degree of civilization. They were numerous and well organized; and Constantine, who was more of a diplomatist than a general, found it better to preserve peace with them for forty years, by presents and payments, than to provoke them to war. From them he secured his best soldiers, and it was principally the valor of his Gothic troops which enabled him to defeat the rival emperor, Licinius, in 325. From that time 40,000 Goths formed the main strength of his army. The important part which these people played in the history of Europe renders it necessary that we should now sketch their rise and growth as a nation. Soon after their arrival upon the shores of the Black Sea they are found to have developed into two distinct nations East Goths and West Goths, separated by the River Dniester. The Ostrogoths, under their aged king, Her- manric, extended, as their name implies, eastward from the Dniester toward the Caspian Sea ; on the north they had no fixed boundary, but they must have reached to the latitude of Moscow. The Visi- goths stretched westward from the Dniester to the Danube, and northward from Hungary to the Baltic Sea. Tlie Vandals were 31 82 GERMANY 300-360 A.D. for some generations allied with the latter, but war having arisen between them, the Emperor Constantine interposed. He succeeded in effecting a separation of the two, and in settling the Vandals in Hungary, where they remained for forty years under the protection of the Roman Empire. From the time of their first encounter with the Romans, in Dacia, during the third century, the Goths appear to have made rapid advances in their political organization and the arts of civ- ilized life. They were the first of the Germanic nations who ac- cepted Christianity. On one of their piratical expeditions to the shores of Asia Minor they brought away as captive a Christian boy. They named him Ulfilas, and by that name he is still known to the world. He devoted his life to the overthrow of their pagan faith, and succeeded. From the Greek, Latin, and Runic characters of the Goths he constructed an alphabet for his adopted people, and then translated the Bible into their language. It is interesting to note that he felt war to be a great check to civilization among the Goths, and therefore in his translation of the Old Testament he omitted the Book of Kings, because it tells so much of war and bloodshed. A part of his translation of the New Testament escaped destruc- tion, and is now preserved in the library at Upsala, in Sweden. It is the only specimen in existence of the Gothic language of that early day. From it we learn how rich and refined was that lan- guage, and how many of the elements of the German and Eng- lish tongues it contained. The following are the opening words of the Lord's Prayer, as Ulfilas wrote them between the years 350 and 370 of our era : Gothic Atta unsara, thu in himinam, veihnai namo thein. guintai English. Father our, thou in heaven, be hallowed name thine, come Gebman. Vater unser, du im Himmel, geweiht werde Name dein. komme Gothic Thiudinassus Theins. vairthai vilja theins, sve in hitnina, jah ana airthai. Encush. Kingdom thine, be done will thine, as in heaven also on earth. German. Herrschaft dein. werde Willedein, wie im Himmel, audi auf Erden. Ulfilas was bom in 311, became a bishop of the Christian Church, spent his whole life in teaching the Goths, and died in Con- stantinople in the year 381. There was no evidence that he or any other of the Christian missionaries of his time was persecuted, or even seriously hindered in the good work, by the Goths ; the latter seem to have adopted the new faith readily, and the Arian creed THE GOTHS d3 360-378 A.D. which Ulfilas taught, although rejected by the Church of Rome, was held by their descendants for nearly five hundred years. Somewhere between 360 and 370 the long" peace between the Romans and the Goths was disturbed by the sudden appearance on the scene of an entirely new race the Huns. They came from the steppes of Mongolia, and belonged to the Tartar family ; but in the course of their wanderings, before reaching Europe, the Huns had not only lost all the traditions of their former history, but even their religious faith. As they came out of the unknown East, crossed the Volga, and fell upon the Goths, their very appearance struck terror into the Gothic nation, who were so much further advanced in civilization. These new invading Huns were short, clumsy fig- ures, with broad and hideously ugly faces, flat noses, oblique eyes, and long black hair, and were clothed in skins which they wore until they dropped in rags from their bodies. But they were marvelous horsemen, and very skillful in using the bow and lance. The men were on their horses' backs from morning till night, while the women and children followed their march in rude carts. They came in such immense numbers, and showed so much savage daring and bravery, that several smaller tribes, allied with the Ostrogoths, or subject to them, went over immediately to the Huns. The kingdom of the Ostrogoths, almost without offering resist- ance, fell to pieces. The king, Hermanric, now more than a hun- dred years old, threw himself upon his sword, at their approach; his successor, Vitimer, gave battle, but lost the victory and his life at the same time. The great body of the people retreated westward before the Huns, who, following them, reached the Dnieper. Here Athanaric, king of the Visigoths, was posted with a large army, to dispute their passage ; but the Huns succeeded in finding a fording- place which was left unguarded, turned his flank, and defeated him with great slaughter. Nothing now remained but for both branches of the Gothic people, united in misfortune, to retreat to the Danube. Athanaric took refuge among the mountains of Translyvania, and Bishop Ulfilas was dispatched to Constantinople to ask the assistance of the Emperor Valens, who was entreated to permit that the Goths, meanwhile, might cross the Danube and find a refuge on Roman territory. Valens yielded to the entreaty, but attached very hard conditions to his permission : the Goths were allowed to cross unarmed, after giving up their wives and children as hostages. In their fear of the Huns they were obliged to accept these conditions. S4 GERMANY 378-394 A.D. and hundreds of thousands thronged across the Danube. They soon exhausted the supplies of the region, and then began to suffer famine, of which the Roman officers and traders took advantage, demanding their children as slaves, in return for the cats and dogs which they gave to the Goths as food. This treatment brought about its own revenge. Driven to desperation by hunger and the outrages inflicted upon them, the Goths secretly procured arms, rose, and made themselves masters of the country. The Roman governor marched against them, but their chief, Fridigern, defeated him and utterly destroyed his army. The news of this event induced large numbers of Gothic soldiers to desert from the imperial army and join their countrymen. Fridi- gern, thus strengthened, commenced a war of revenge: he crossed the Balkans, laid waste Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, and set- tled his own people in the most fertile parts of the plundered provinces. But he was unable to take the fortified Roman cities, like Adrianople. Meanwhile, by 378, the Emperor Valens had raised a large army and marched against Fridigern. Without waiting for rein- forcements which were on their way from Rome, Valens unwisely decided to risk an open battle with the Goths before the walls of Adrianople. In this fatal battle of Adrianople the Roman army was not merely defeated, but literally annihilated, and the emperor himself perished in an attempt at flight. His nephew, Gratian, succeeded to the throne, but associated with him Theodosius, a young Spaniard of great ability, as Emperor of the East. While Gratian marched to Gaul, to stay the increasing inroads of the Franks, Theodosius was left to deal with the Goths, who were begin- ning to cultivate the fields of Thrace, as if they meant to stay there. He was obliged to confirm them in the possession of the greater part of the country. They were called allies of the empire, were obliged to furnish a certain number of soldiers, but retained their own kings, and were governed by their own laws. For several years the relations between the two powers continued peaceful and friendly. In Italy, Valentinian II. succeeded his brother Gratian. His chief minister was a Frank, named Arbogast, who, learning that he was to be dismissed from his place, had the young Valentinian assas- sinated, and set up a new emperor, Eugene, in his stead. This act brought him into direct conflict with Theodosius. Arbogast called THEGOTHS 86 394-408 A.D. Upon his countrymen, the Franks, who sent a large body of troops to his assistance, while Theodosius strengthened his army with 20,000 Grothic soldiers. Then, for the first time, Frank and Goth West-German and East-German faced each other as enemies. The Gothic auxiliaries of Theodosius were commanded by two leaders, Alaric and Stilicho, already distinguished among their people, and destined to play a remarkable part in the history of Europe. The battle between the two armies was fought near Aquileia, in the year 394. The sham emperor, Eugene, was captured and beheaded, Arbogast threw himself upon his sword, and Theodosius was master of the West. The emperor, however, lived but a few months to enjoy his. single rule. He died at Milan, in 395, after having divided the government of the empire between his two sons, Honorius, the elder, was sent to Rome, with the Gothic chieftain, Stilicho, as his minister and guardian; while the boy Arcadius, at Constantinople, was intrusted to the care of a Gaul, named Rufinus. Alaric, perhaps a personal enemy of the latter, perhaps jealous of the elevation of Stilicho to such an important place, refused to submit to the new government. He collected a large body of his countrymen and set out on a campaign of plunder through Greece. Every ancient city, except Thebes, fell into his hands, and only Athens was allowed to buy her exemption from pillage. The Gaul, Rufinus, took no steps to arrest this devastation; wherefore, it is said, he was murdered at the instigation of Stilicho, who then sent a fleet against Alaric. This undertaking was not entirely successful, and the government of Constantinople finally purchased peace by making Alaric the imperial legate in Illyria. In the year 402 he was sent to Italy, as the representative of the Em- peror Arcadius, to overthrow the power of his former fellow-chief- tain, Stilicho, who ruled in the name of Honorius. His approach, with a large army, threw the whole country into terror. Honorius shut himself up within the walls of Ravenna, while Stilicho called the legions from Gaul, and even from Britain, to his support. A great battle was fought between the rivals at Pollentia, in which Alaric was worsted ; he and his Visigothic followers were glad to be allowed to return to Illyria with all the booty they had gathered in Italy. Five years afterward, when Stilicho was busy endeavoring to keep the Franks and Alemanni out of Gaul, and to drive back the 36 GERMANY 408-410 A.D. incursions of mixed German and Celtic bands which began to descend from the Alps, Alaric again made his appearance, demand- ing the payment of certain sums which he claimed were due to him. Stilicho, having need of his military strength elsewhere, satisfied Alaric's claim by the payment of 4CXXd pounds of gold; but the Romans felt themselves bitterly humiliated, and Honorius, listening to the rivals of Stilicho, gave his consent to the assassination of the latter and his whole family, including the emperor's own sister, Serena, whom Stilicho had married. When the news of this atrocious act reached Alaric, he turned and marched back to Italy. There was now no skillful commander to oppose him ; the cowardly Honorius took refuge in Ravenna, and the Visigoths advanced without resistance to the gates of Rome. The walls, built by Aurelian, were too strong to be taken by assault, but all supplies were cut off, and the final surrender of the city be- came only a question of time. When a deputation of Romans represented to Alaric that the people still numbered half a million, he answered: "The thicker the grass, the better the mowing!" They were finally obliged to yield to his demands, and pay a ransom consisting of 5000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, many thousands of silk robes, and a large quantity of spices a total value of something more than three millions of dollars. In addition to this, 40,000 slaves, mostly of Germanic blood, escaped to his camp and became free. Alaric only withdrew into northern Italy, where he soon found a new cause of dispute with the government of Honorius, in Ra- venna. He seems to have been a man of great military genius, but little capacity for civil rule; of much energy and ambition, but little judgment. The result of his quarrel with Honorius was that he marched again to Rome, proclaimed Attalus. the governor of the city, emperor, and then demanded entrance for himself and his troops, as an ally. The demand could not be refused; Rome was opened to the Visigoths, who participated in the festivals which ac- companied the coronation of Attains. It was nothing but a farce, and seems to have been partly intended as such by Alaric, who pub- licly deposed the new emperor shortly afterward. There were further negotiations with Honorius, which came to nothing; then Alaric advanced upon Rome the third time, not now as an ally, but as an avowed enemy. The city could make no resist- ance, and on August 24, 410, Alaric and his followers entered THEGOTHS S7 410-412 A.D. it as conquerors. This event, so famous in history, has been greatly misrepresented. Later researches show that, although the citizens were despoiled of their wealth, the buildings and monuments were spared. The people were subjected to violence and outrage for the space of six days, after which Alaric marched out of Rome with his army, leaving the city, in its external appearance, very much as he found it. He directed his course toward southern Italy, with the inten- tion, it was generally believed, of conquering Sicily and then cross- ing into Africa. The plan was defeated by his death, in 411, at Cosenza, a town on the banks of the Busento, in Calabria. His soldiers turned the river from its course, dug a grave in its bed, and there laid the body of Alaric, with all the gems and gold he had gathered. Then the Busento was restored to its channel, and the slaves who had performed the work were slain, in order that Alaric's place of burial might never be known. His brother-in-law, Ataulf (Adolph), was his successor. He was also the brother-in-law of Honorius, having married the latter's sister, Placidia, after she was taken captive by Alaric. He was therefore strengthened by the conquests of the one and by his family connection with the other. The Visigoths, who had gradually gathered together under Alaric, seem to have had enough of march- ing to and fro, and they acquiesced in an arrangement made between Ataulf and Honorius, according to which the former led them out of Italy in 412, and established them in southern Gaul. They took possession of all the region lying between the Loire and the Pyre- nees, with Toulouse as their capital. Thus, in the space of forty years, the Visigoths left their home on the Black Sea, between the Danube and the Dniester, passed through the whole breadth of the Roman Empire, from Constanti- nople to the Bay of Biscay, after having traversed both the Grecian and Italian peninsulas, and settled themselves again in what seemed to be a permanent home. During this extraordinary migration they maintained their independence as a people, they preserved their laws, customs, and their own rulers; and, although frequently at enmity with the empire, they were never made to yield it allegiance. But the impetus given to this branch of the Germanic race by the invasion of the Huns did not affect it alone. Before the Visigoths reached the shores of the Atlantic all central Europe was in move- ment. Chapter VI THE INVASION OF THE HUNS. 412-472 A. D. THE westward movement of the Huns was followed, soon afterward, by an advance of the Slavonic tribes on the north, who first took possession of the territory on the Baltic relinquished by the Goths, and then gradually pressed onward toward the Elbe. The Huns themselves, temporarily settled in the fertile region north of the Danube, pushed the Vandals westward toward Bohemia, and the latter, in their turn, pressed upon the Marcomanni. Thus, at the opening of the fifth century, all the tribes from the Baltic to the Alps, along the eastern frontier of Germany, were partly or wholly forced to fall back. This gave rise to a union of many of them, including the Vandals, Alans, Suevi, and Burgiindians, under a chief named Radagast. Number- ing half a million, they crossed the Alps into northern Italy and demanded territory for new homes. Stilicho, exhausted by his struggle with Alaric, whose retreat from Italy he had just purchased, could only meet this new enemy by summoning his legions from Gaul and Britain. He met Rada- gast at Fiesole (near Florence), and so crippled the strength of the invasion that Italy was saved. The German tribes recrossed the Alps and entered Gaul the following year. Here they gave up their temporary union, and each tribe selected its own territory. The Alans pushed forward, crossed the Pyrenees, and finally settled in Portugal ; the Vandals followed and took possession of all southern Spain, giving their name to (V)-Andalusia; the Suevi, after fight- ing, but not conquering, the native Basque tribes of the Pyrenees, selected what is now the province of Galicia ; while the Burgundians stretched from the Rhine through western Switzerland, and south- ward nearly to the mouth of the Rhone. The greater part of Gaul was thus already lost to the Roman power. The withdrawal of the legions from Britain by Stilicho left the population unprotected. The Britons had become greatly demoral- ized during the long decay of the empire, were unable to resist the 38 THE HUNS 89 429-449 A.D. invasions of the Picts and Scots, and in this emergency summoned the Saxons and Angles to their aid. Two chiefs of the latter, Hen- gist and Horsa, accepted the invitation, landed in England in 449, and received lands in Kent. They were followed by such numbers of their German countrymen, who were feeling the pressure in their rear of the advancing Huns, that they soon conquered the Britons in southern and eastern England, and took the land for themselves and their families. They brought with them their speech and their ancient pagan religion, and for a time overthrew the rude form of Christianity which had prevailed among the Britons since the days of Constantine. Only Ireland, the Scottish Highlands, Wales, and Cornwall resisted the Saxon rule, as, across the Channel, in Brittany, a remnant of the Celtic Gauls resisted the sway of the Franks. From the year 449 until the landing of William the Conqueror, in 1066, nearly all England and the Lowlands of Scotland were in the hands of the Saxon race. Ataulf, the king of the Visigoths, was murdered soon after establishing his people in southern France. Wallia, his successor, crossed the Pyrenees, drove the Vandals out of northern Spain, and made the Ebro River the boundary between them and his Visigoths. Fifteen years afterward, in 429, the Vandals, under their famous king, Geiseric or Genseric, were invited by the Roman governor of Africa to assist him in a revolt against the empire. They crossed the Straits of Gibraltar in a body, took possession of all the Roman provinces as far eastward as Tunis, and made Carthage the capital of their new kingdom. The Visigoths immediately occupied the remainder of Spain, which they held for nearly three hundred years afterward. Thus, although the name and state of an emperor of the West were kept up in Rome until the year 476, the empire never really existed after the invasion of Alaric. The dominion over Italy, Gaul, and Spain, claimed by the emperors of the East, at Constanti- nople, was acknowledged in documents, but (except for a short time, under Justinian) was never practically exercised. Rome had been the supreme power of the known world for so many centuries that a superstitious influence still clung to the very name, and the ambi- tion of the Germanic kings seems to have been, not to destroy the empire, but to conquer and make it their own. The rude tribes which in the time of Julius Caesar were buried among the mountains and forests of the country between the Rhine, 40 GERMANY 428-449 A.D. the Danube, and the Baltic Sea, were now, five hundred years later, scattered over all Europe, and beginning to establish new nations on the foundations laid by Rome. As soon as they cross the old boundaries of Germany they come into the light of history, and we are able to follow their wars and migrations ; but we know scarcely anything, during this period, of the tribes which remained within those boundaries. We can only infer that the Marcomanni settled between the Danube and the Alps, in what is now Bavaria ; that early in the fifth century the Thuringians established a kingdom including nearly all central Germany; and that the Slavonic tribes, pressing westward through Prussia, were checked by the valor of the Saxons, along the line of the Elbe, since only scattered bands of them were found beyond that river at a later day. The first impulse to all these great migrations came, as we have seen, from the Huns. These people, as yet unconquered, were so dreaded by the emperors of the East that their peace was purchased, like that of the Goths a hundred years before, by large annual pay- ments. For fifty years they seemed satisfied to rest in their new home, making occasional raids across the Danube, and gradually bringing under their sway the fragments of Germanic tribes already settled in Hungary or left behind by the Goths. In 428 Attila and his brother Bleda became kings of the Huns, but the latter's death, in 445, left Attila sole ruler. His name was already famous, far and wide, for his strength, energy, and intelligence. His capital was established near Tokay, in Hungary, where he lived in a great castle of wood, surrounded with moats and palisades. He was a man of short stature, with broad head, neck and shoulders, and fierce, restless eyes. He scorned the luxury which was prevalent at the time, wore only plain woolen garments, and ate and drank from wooden dishes and cups. His personal power and influence were so great that the Huns looked upon him as a demigod, while all the neighboring Germanic tribes, including a large portion of the Ostrogoths, enlisted under his banner. Toward the close of the year 449 Attila made preparations for a grand war of conquest. He already possessed unbounded influ- ence over the Huns, and supernatural sig^s of his coming career were soon supplied. A peasant dug up a jeweled sword, which, it is said, had long before been given to a race of kings by the god of war. This was brought to Attila, and thenceforth worn by him. He was called " The Scourge of God," and the people believed that THEHUNS 41 449-451 A.D. wherever the hoofs of his horse had trodden no grass ever grew again. Tlie fear of his power, or the hope of plunder, drew large numbers of the German tribes to his side, and the army with which he set out for the conquest, first of Gaul and then of Europe, is esti- mated at from 500,000 to 700,000 warriors. With this he passed through the heart of Germany, much of which he had already made tributary, and reached the Rhine, Here Gunther, the king of the Burgundians, opposed him with a force of 10,000 men, and was speedily crushed. Even a portion of the Franks, who were then quarreling among themselves, joined him, and now Gaul, divided between Franks, Romans, and Visigoths, was open to his advance. The minister and counselor of Valentinian III., the grandson of Theodosius and emperor of the West, was Aetius, the son of a Gothic father and a Roman mother. As soon as Attila's design became known he hastened to Gaul, collected the troops still in Roman service, and procured the alliance of Theodoric and the Visigoths. The Alans, under their king, Sangipan, were also per- suaded to unite their forces; the independent Celts in Brittany and a large proportion of the Franks and Burgundians, all of whom were threatened by the invasion of the Huns, hastened to the side of Aetius, so that the army commanded by himself and Theodoric became nearly if not quite equal in numbers to that of Attila. The latter, by this time, had marched into the heart of Gaul, laying waste the country through which he passed, and meeting no resistance until he reached the walled and fortified city of Orleans. This was in the year 451. Orleans, besieged and hard pressed, was about to surrender, when Aetius approached with his army. Attila was obliged to raise the siege at once, and retreat in order to select a better posi- tion for the impending battle. He finally halted on the broad plains of the province of Champagne, near the present city of Chalons, where his immense body of armed horsemen would have ample space to move. Aetius and Theodoric followed and pitched theif camp opposite to him, on the other side of a small hill which rose from the plain. That night Attila ordered his priests to consult their pagan oracles, and ascertain the fate of the morrow's struggle. The answer was : " Death to the enemy's leader, destruction to the Huns ! " but the hope of seeing Aetius fall prevailed on Attila to risk his own defeat. The next day witnessed one of the greatest battles of history. 42 GERMANY 451-452 A.D. Aetius commanded the right and Theodoric the left wing of their army, placing between them the Alans and other tribes, of whose fidelity they were not quite sure. Attila, however, took the center with his Huns, and formed his wings of the Germans and Ostro- goths. The battle began at dawn, and raged through the whole day. Both armies endeavored to take and hold the hill between them, and the hundreds of thousands rolled back and forth, as the victory inclined to one side or the other. A brook in the plain ran red with the blood of the fallen. At last Theodoric broke Attila's cen- ter, but was slain in the attack. The Visigoths immediately lifted his son, Thorismond, on a shield, proclaimed him king, and renewed the fight. The Huns were driven back to the fortress of wagons, where their wives, children, and treasures were collected, when a terrible storm of rain and thunder put an end to the battle. Between 200,000 and 300,000 dead lay upon the plain. All night the lamentations of the Hunnish women filled the air. Attila had an immense funeral pile constructed of saddles, whereon he meant to burn himself and his family, in case Aetius should renew the fight the next day. But the army of the latter was too exhausted to move, and the Huns were allowed to commence their retreat from Gaul. Enraged at his terrible defeat, Attila destroyed everything in his way, leaving a broad track of blood and ashes from Gaul through the heart of Germany, back to Hungary. By the following year, 452, Attila had collected another army, and now directed his march toward Italy. This new invasion was so unexpected that the passes of the Alps were left undefended, and the Huns reached the rich and populous city of Aquileia, on the northern shore of the Adriatic, without meeting any opposition. After a siege of three montlis they took and razed it to the ground so completely that it was never rebuilt, and from that day to this only a few piles of shapeless stones remain to mark the spot where it stood. The inhabitants who escaped took refuge upon the low marshy islands, separated from the mainland by the lagoons, and there formed the settlement which, two or three hundred years later, became known to the world as Venice. Attila marched onward to the Po, destroying everything in his way. Here he was met by a deputation, at the head of which was Leo, the Bishop (or Pope) of Rome, sent by Valentinian HI. Leo so worked upon the superstitious mind of the savage monarch that the latter gave up his purpose of taking Rome and returned to Hun- THE HUNS 48 452-472 A.D. gary with his army, which was suffering from disease and want. The next year he died suddenly, in his wooden palace at Tokay. The tradition states that his body was enclosed in three coffins, of iron, silver, and gold, and buried secretly, like that of Alaric, so that no man might know his resting place. He had a great many wives, and left so many sons behind him that their quarrels for the succes- sion to the throne divided the Huns into numerous parties and quite destroyed their power as a people. The alliance between Aetius and the Visigoths ceased immedi- ately after the great battle, Valentinian HI., suspicious of the fame of Aetius, recalled him to Rome, the year after Attila's death, and assassinated him with his own hand. The treacherous emperor was himself slain, shortly afterward, by Maximus, who succeeded him, and forced his widow, the Empress Eudoxia, to accept him as her husband. Out of revenge, Eudoxia sent a messenger to Gei- seric, the old king of the Vandals, at Carthage, summoning him to Rome. The Vandals had already built a large fleet and pillaged the shores of Sicily and other Mediterranean islands. In 455 Geiseric landed at the mouth of the Tiber with a powerful force, and marched upon Rome. The city was not strong enough to offer any resistr ance ; it was taken, and during two weeks surrendered ta such devas- tation and outrage that the word vandalism has ever since been used to express savage and wanton destruction. The churches were plundered of all their vessels and ornaments, the old palace of the Caesars was laid waste, priceless works of art destroyed, and those of the inhabitants who escaped with their lives were left almost as beggars. When " the old king of the sea," as Geiseric was called, returned to Africa, he not only left Rome ruined, but the Western Empire practically overthrown. For seventeen years afterward Ricimer, a chief of the Suevi, who had been commander of the Roman auxil- iaries in Gaul, was the real ruler of its crumbling fragments. He set up, set aside, or slew five or six so-called emperors at his own will, and finally died in 472, only four years before the boy, Romulus Augustulus, was compelled to throw off the purple and retire into obscurity as " the last emperor of Rome." In 455, the year when Geiseric and his Vandals plundered Rome, the Germanic tribes along the Danube took advantage of the dissensions following Attila's death and threw off their allegiance to the Huns. They all united under a king named Ardaric, gave 44 GERMANY 455-472 A.D. battle, and were so successful that the whole tribe of the Huns was forced to retreat eastward into southern Russia. From this time they do not appear again in history, although it is probable that the Magyars, who came later into the same region from which they were driven, brought the remnants of the tribe with them. During the fourth and fifth centuries the great historic achieve- ments of the German race, as we have now traced them, were per- formed outside of the German territory. While from Thrace to the Atlantic Ocean, from the Scottish Highlands to Africa, the new nationalities overran the decayed Roman Empire, constantly chang- ing their seats of power, we have no intelligence of what was hap- pening within Germany herself. Both branches of the Goths, the Vandals, and a part of the Franks had become Christians; but the Alemanni, Saxons, and Thuringinians were still heathens, although they had by this time adopted many of the arts of civilized life. They had no educated class corresponding to the Christian priest- hood in the East, Italy, and Gaul, and even in Britain ; and thus no chronicle of their history has survived. Chapter VII THE RISE AND FALL OF THE OSTROGOTHS 472-570 A. D. j4 FTER the death of Ricimer, in 472, Italy, weakened by LJL invasion and internal dissension, was an easy prey to the JL ^ first strong hand which might claim possession. Such a hand was soon found in a chief named Odoacer (or Odovakar). He commanded a large force composed of the smaller German tribes from the banks of the Danube who had thrown off the yoke of the Huns. Many of these troops had served the last half dozen Roman emperors whom Ricimer had set up or thrown down, and they now claimed one-third of the Italian territory for themselves and their families. When this was refused, Odoacer, at their head, took the boy Romulus Augustulus prisoner, banished him, and pro- claimed himself king of Italy, in 476, making Ravenna his capital. The dynasty at Constantinople still called its dominion " The Roman Empire," and claimed authority over all the West. But it had not the means to make its claim acknowledged, and in this emergency the Emperor Zeno turned to Theodoric, the young king of the Ostrogoths, who had been brought up at his court, in Con- stantinople. He was the successor of three brothers, who, after the dispersion of the Huns, had united some of the smaller German tribes with the Ostrogoths and restored the former power and influ- ence of the race. Theodoric (who must not be confounded with his namesake, the Visigoth king who fell in conquering Attila) was a man of great natural ability, which had been well developed by his education in Constantinople. He accepted the appointment of general and gov- ernor from the emperor, yet the preparations he made for the expe- dition to Italy show that he intended to remain and establisih his own kingdom there. It was not a military march, but the migra- tion of a people, which he headed. The Ostrogoths and their allies took with them their wives and children, their herds and household goods; they moved so slowly, up the Danube and across the Alps, 46 46 GERMANY 476-496 now halting to rest and recruit, now fighting a passage through some hostile tribe, that several years elapsed before they reached Italy. Odoacer had reigned fourteen years, with more justice and discretion than was common in those times, and was able to raise a large force, in 489, to meet the advance of Theodoric. After three severe battles had been fought, he was forced to take shelter within the strong walls of Ravenna; but he ag^in sallied forth and attacked the Ostrogoths with such bravery that he came near defeating them. Finally, in 493, after a siege of three years, he capitulated, and was soon afterward treacherously murdered, by order of Theodoric, at a banquet to which the latter had invited him. Having the power in his own hands, Theodoric now threw off his assumed subjection to the Eastern Empire, put on the Roman purple and proclaimed himself king. All Italy, including Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, fell at once into his hands; and, having left a portion of the Ostrogoths behind him, on the Danube, he also claimed all the region between, in order to preserve a communica- tion with them. He was soon so strongly settled in his new realm that he had nothing to fear from the Emperor Zeno and his suc- cessors. The latter did not venture to show any direct signs of hostility toward him, but remained quiet ; while, on his part, beyond seizing a portion of Pannonia, he refrained from interfering with their rule in the East. In the West, however, the case was different. Five years before Theodoric's arrival in Italy the last relic of Roman power disappeared forever from Gaul. A general named Syagrius had succeeded to the command, after the murder of Aetius, and had formed the central provinces into a Roman state, which was so com- pletely cut off from all connection with the empire that it became practically independent. The Franks, who now held all northern Gaul and Belgium, were by this time so strong and well organized that their king, Clovis (or Chlodoweg), boldly challenged Syagrius to battle. The challenge was accepted: a battle was fought near Soissons, in the year 486, the Romans were cut to pieces, and the River Loire became the southern boundary of the Prankish king- dom and the city of Paris its capital. The territory between the Loire and the Pyrenees still belonged to the Visigoths. While Theodoric was engaged in giving peace, order, and a new prosperity to the war-worn and desolated lands of Italy, his Frankish THE OSTROGOTHS 47 496-526 rival, Clovis, defeated the Alemanni near Strasburg in 496. It was immediately after this battle that Clovis, in accordance, it is said, with a vow made during the battle, adopted the Christian religion of his wife and allowed himself to be baptized by the Archbishop of Rheims. His example was followed by his Frankish chieftains, and thus began that close union between the Frankish kings and the Roman Catholic Church which was to last for centuries. For Clo- vis and the Franks adopted the orthodox or Roman Catholic form of Christianity, and not the Arian form, which had been adopted by almost all the other Germans who had become Christians. We must return to Clovis and the history of his dynasty in a later chapter, and will now only briefly mention those incidents of his reign which brought him into conflict with Theodoric. In the year 5CX) Clovis defeated the Burgnndians and for a time rendered them tributary to him. He then turned to the Visi- goths and made the fact of their being Arian Christians a pretext for declaring war against them. Their king was Alaric II., who had married the daughter of Theodoric. A battle was fought in 507 ; the two kings met, and, fighting hand to hand, Alaric II. was slain by Clovis. The latter soon afterward took and plundered Toulouse, the Visigoth capital, and added to the Frankish kingdom all of southern Gaul except a strip of land along the Mediterranean from the Rhone to the Pyrenees, known as Septimania or Gothia. His power and fame were so great that the Emperor Anastasius, to keep up the pretense of retaining his power in Gaul, appointed Clovis Roman consul, and sent him a royal diadem and purple man- tle. So much respect was still attached to the name of the empire that Clovis accepted the title, and was solemnly invested by a Chris- tian bishop with the crown and mantle. In the year 511 he died, having founded the Frankish Kingdom. The power of Theodoric was not again assailed. As king of the Ostrogoths he ruled over Italy and the islands, and the lands between the Adriatic and the Danube; as guardian of the young Visigothic king, Amalaric, son of Alaric II., his sway extended over southern France and all of Spain. He was peaceful, prudent, and wise, and his reign, by contrast with the convulsions which preceded it, was called " a golden age " by his Italian subjects. Although he and his people were Germanic in blood and Arians in faith, while the Italians were Roman and Athanasian, he guarded the interests and subdued the prejudices of both, and the respect which his abili- 48 GERMANY 626-534 ties inspired preserved peace between them. The murder of Odo- acer is a lasting stain upon his memory ; the execution of the philos- opher Boethius is another, scarcely less dark; but, with the excep- tion of these two acts, his reign was marked by wisdom, justice, and tolerance. The surname of " The Great " was given to him by his contemporaries, not so much to distinguish him from the Theodoric of the Visigoths, as on account of his eminent qualities as a ruler. From the year 5CX) to 526, when he died, he was the most powerful and important monarch of the civilized world. During Theodoric's life Ravenna was the capital of Italy. Rome had lost her ancient renown, but her bishops, who were now called Popes, were the rulers of the Church of the West, and she thus became a religious capital. The ancient enmity of the Arians and Athanasians had only growln stronger by time, and Theodoric, although he became popular with the masses of the people, was always hated by the priests. When he died a splendid mausoleum was built for his body at Ravenna and still remains standing. It is a circular tower, resting on an arched base with ten sides, and surmounted by a dome, which is formed of a single stone, thirty-six feet in diameter and four feet in thickness. The sarcophagus in which he was laid was afterward broken open, by the order of the Pope of Rome, and his ashes were scattered to the winds, as those of a heretic. When Theodoric died the enmities of race and sect which he had suppressed with a strong hand broke out afresh. He left behind him a grandson, Athalaric, only ten years old, to whose mother, Amalasunta, was intrusted the regency, during his minority. His other grandson, Amalaric, was king of the Visigoths, and suf- ficiently occupied in building up his power in Spain. In Italy the hostility to Amalasunta's regency was chiefly religious; but the Eastern emperor, on the one side, and the Franks on the other, were actuated by political considerations. The former, Justinian, the last of the great emperors, determined to recover Italy for the empire ; the latter only waited an opportunity to get possession of the whole of Gaul. Amalasunta was persuaded to sign a treaty, by which the territory of Provence was given back to the Burgundians. The latter were immediately assailed by the sons of Clovis, and in the year 534 the kingdom of Burgundy, after having stood for 125 years, was absorbed into the Prankish Kingdom. While these changes were taking place in the West, Justinian THE OSTROGOTHS 49 534-552 had not been idle in the East. He was fortunate in having two great generals, Belisarius and Narses, who had already restored the lost prestige of the imperial army. His first movement was to recover northern Africa from the Vandals, who had now been settled there for a hundred years, and had begun to consider themselves the inheritors of the Carthaginian power. Belisarius, with a fleet and a powerful army, was sent against them. Here, again, the differ- ence of religious doctrine between the Vandals and the Romans whom they had subjected made his task easy. The last Vandal king, Gelimer, was defeated and besieged in Pappua, a fortress on the northern coast of Africa west of Carthage. After the siege had lasted all winter, Belisarius sent an officer, Pharas, to demand sur- render. Gelimer refused, but added: " If you will do me a favor, Pharas, send me a loaf of bread, a sponge, and a harp." Pharas, astonished, asked the reason of this request and Gelimer answered : " I demand bread, because I have seen none since I have been be- sieged here ; a sponge, to cool my eyes, which are weary with weep- ing, and a harp, to sing the story of my misfortunes." Soon after- ward he surrendered, and in 534 all northern Africa was restored to Justinian. The Vandals disappeared from history, as a race, but some of their descendants, with light hair, blue eyes and fair skins, still live among the valleys of the Atlas Mountains, where they are called Berbers, and keep themselves distinct from the Arab population. Amalasunta, in the meantime, had been murdered by a relative whom she had chosen to assist her in the government. This gave Justinian a pretext for interfering, and Belisarius was next sent with his army to Italy. The Ostrogoths chose a new king, Vitiges, and the struggle which followed was long and desperate. Rome and Milan were taken and ravaged; in the latter city 300,000 persons are said to have been slaughtered. Belisarius finally obtained pos- session of Ravenna, the Gothic capital, took Vitiges prisoner and sent him to Constantinople. The Goths immediately elected another king, Totila, who carried on the struggle for eleven years longer. Visigoths, Franks, Burgundians, and even Alemanni, whose alli- ance was sought by both sides, flocked to Italy in the hope of secur- ing booty, and laid waste the regions which Belisarius and Totila had spared. When Belisarius was recalled to Constantinople, Narses took his place, and continued the war with the diminishing remnant of 50 GERMANY 552-565 the Ostrogoths. Finally, in the year 552, in a great battle among the Apennines, Totila was slain, and the struggle seemed to be at an end. But the Ostrogoths proclaimed the young Prince Teias as their king, and marched southward under his leadership, to make a last fight for their existence as a nation. Narses followed, and not far from Cumae, on a mountain opposite Vesuvius, he cut off their communication with the sea, and forced them to retreat to a higher position, where there was neither water for themselves nor food for their animals. Then they took the bridles off their horses and turned them loose, formed themselves into a solid square of men, with Teias at their head, and for two whole days fought with the valor and the desperation of men who know that their cause is lost, but nevertheless will not yield. Although Teias was slain, they still stood ; and on the third morning Narses allowed the survivors, about one thousand in number, to march away, with the promise that they would leave Italy. Thus gloriously came to an end, after enduring sixty years, the Gothic power in Italy, and thus, like a meteor, brightest before it is quenched, the Gothic name fades from history. The Visigoths retained their supremacy in Spain until 711, when Roderick, their last king, was slain by the Saracens ; but the Ostrogoths, after this campaign of Narses, are never heard of again as a people. Between Hermann and Charlemagne there is no leader so great as Theodoric ; but his empire died with him. He became the hero of the earliest German songs ; his name and character were celebrated among tribes who had forgotten his history, and his tomb is one of the few monu- ments left to us from these ages of battle, migration, and change. The Ostrogoths were scattered and their traces lost. Some, no doubt, remained in Italy, and became mixed with the native popula- tion ; others joined the people which were nearest to them in blood and habits ; and some took refuge among the fastnesses of the Alps. It is supposed that the Tyrolese, for instance, may be among their descendants. The apparent success of Justinian in bringing Italy again under the sway of the Eastern Empire was also only a flash before its final extinction. The Ostrogoths were avenged by one of their kindred races. Narses remained in Ravenna as vicegerent of the empire; his government was stern and harsh, but he restored order to the country, and his authority became so great as to excite the jealousy of Justinian. After the latter's death, in 565, it became evident THE OSTROGOTHS 51 565-570 that a plot was formed at Constantinople to treat Narses as his great contemporary, Belisarius, had been treated. He determined to resist, and, in order to make his position stronger, is said to have summoned the Longobards (Long-Beards) to his aid. This tribe, in the time of Caesar, occupied a part of northern Germany, near the mouth of the Elbe. About the end of the fourth century we find them on the north bank of the Danube, between Bohemia and Hungary. The history of their wanderings during the intervening period is unknown. During the reign of Theodoric they overcame their Germanic neighbors, the Heruli, to whom they had been partially subject; then followed a fierce struggle with the Gepidae, another Germanic tribe, which terminated in the year 560, with the defeat and destruction of the latter. Their king, Kuni- mund, fell by the hand of Alboin, king of the Longobards, who had a drinking-cup made of his skull. The Longobards, though vic- torious, found themselves surrounded by new neighbors who were much worse than the old. The Avars, who are supposed to have been a branch of the Huns, pressed and harassed them on the east ; the Slavonic tribes of the north descended into Bohemia, and they found themselves alone between races who were savages in com- parison with their own. The invitation of Narses was followed by a movement similar to that of the Ostrogoths under Theodoric. Alboin marched with all his people, their herds, and household goods. The passes of the Alps were purposely left undefended at their approach, and in 568, accompanied by the fragments of many other Germanic tribes who gave up their homes on the Danube, they entered Italy and took immediate possession of all the northern provinces. The city of Pavia, which was strongly fortified, held out against them for four years, and then, on account of its strength and gallant resist- ance, was chosen by Alboin for his capital. Italy then became the kingdom of the Longobards, and the permanent home of their race, whose name still exists in the province of Lombardy. Only Ravenna, Naples, and Genoa were still held by the Eastern emperors, constituting what was called the Exarchy. Rome was also nominally subject to Constantinople, although the Popes were beginning to assume the government of the city. The young republic of Venice, already organized, was safe on its islands in the Adriatic. The migrations of the races, which were really commenced 52 GERMANY 570 by the Goths when they moved from the Baltic to the Black Sea, terminated with the settlement of the Longobards in Italy. They therefore occupied two centuries, and form a gjand and stirring period of transition between the Roman Empire and the Europe of the Middle Ages. With the exception of the invasion of the Huns, and the slow and rather uneventful encroachment of the Slavonic race, these great movements were carried out by the kindred tribes who inhabited the forests of " Germania Magna," in the time of Caesar. Chapter VIII EUROPE AT THE END OF THE MIGRATIONS OF THE RACES. 570 A. D. THUS far we have been following the history of the Ger- manic races, in their conflict with Rome, until their com- plete and final triumph at the end of six hundred years after they first met Julius Caesar. Within the limits of Germany itself there was, as we have seen, no united nationality. Even the consolidation of the smaller tribes under the names of Goths, Franks, Saxons, and Alemanni, during the third century, was only the begin- ning of a new political development which was not continued upon German soil. With the exception of Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Ireland, Wales, the Scottish Highlands, and the Byzantine territory in Turkey, Greece, and Italy, all Europe was under Germanic rule at the end of the migrations of the races, in the year 570. The Longobards, even after the death of Alboin, still prospered greatly, and under the wise rule of Queen Theodolind were per- suaded to become Christians. They then gave up their nomadic habits, scattered themselves over the country, learned agriculture and the mechanic arts, and gradually became amalgamated with the native Romans. Their descendants form a large portion of the population of northern Italy at this day. The Franks, at this time, were firmly established in Gaul, under the dynasty founded by Clovis. They owned nearly all the terri- tory west of the Rhine, part of western Switzerland, and the valley of the Rhone, to the Mediterranean. Only the small strip of terri- tory on the southeast, between the Pyrenees and the upper waters of the Garonne, known as Septimania, still belonged to the Visi- goths. The connection of the Visigoths with the other German races gradually ceased. They conquered the Suevi, driving them into the mountains of Galicia, subdued the Alans in Portugal, and during a reign of two centuries more impressed their traces indeli- bly upon the Spanish people. Their history, from this time on, belongs to Spain. Their near relations, the Vandals, as we have 3 64 GERMANY 570 already seen, had ceased to exist. Like the Ostrogoths, they were never named again as a separate people. The Saxons had made themselves such thorough masters of England and the Lowlands of Scotland that the native Romanized Celtic population was driven into Wales and Cornwall. This na- tive population had become Christian under the empire, and looked with horror upon the paganism of the Saxons. During the early part of the sixth century they made a bold but brief effort to expel the invaders, under the lead of the half-fabulous King Arthur of the Round Table. The Angles and Saxons, however, not only triumphed, but planted their language, laws, and character so firmly upon English soil that the England of the later centuries grew from the basis they laid, and the name of Anglo-Saxon has become the designation of the English race all over the world. Along the northern coast of Germany the Frisii and the Saxons who remained behind had formed two kingdoms and asserted a fierce independence. The territory of the latter extended to the Harz Mountains, where it met that of the Thuringians, who still held central Germany, southward to the Danube. Beyond that river the new nation of the Bavarians was permanently settled, and had already risen to such importance that Theodolind, the daughter of its king, Garibald, was selected for his queen by the Longobard king, Autharis. East of the Elbe, through Prussia, nearly the whole country was occupied by various Slavonic tribes. One of these, the Czechs, had taken possession of Bohemia, where they soon afterward estab- lished an independent kingdom. Beyond them the Avars occupied Hungary, now and then making invasions into German territory, or even to the borders of Italy. Denmark and Sweden, owing to their remoteness from the great theater of action, were scarcely affected by the political changes we have described. Finally, the Alemanni, though defeated and held back by the Franks, maintained their independence in the southwestern part of Germany and in eastern Switzerland, where their descendants are living at this day. Each of all these new nationalities included rem- nants of the smaller original tribes, which had lost their independ- ence in the general struggle, and which soon became more or less mixed (except in England) with the former inhabitants of the conquered soil. Nearly all Europe was thus portioned among men of German END OF MIGRATIONS 65 570 blood, very few of whom ever again migrated from the soil whereon they are now settled. It was their custom to demand one-third in some few instances two-thirds of the conquered territory for their own people. In this manner, Frank and Gaul, Longobard and Roman, Visigoth and Spaniard, found themselves side by side, and reciprocally influenced each other's speech and habits of life. It must not be supposed, however, that the new nations lost their former character and took on that of the Germanic conquerors. Almost the reverse of this took place. It must be remembered that the Gauls, for instance, far outnumbered the Franks ; that each con- quest was achieved by a few thousand men, most of them warriors, while each of the original Roman provinces had hundreds of thou- sands of inhabitants. There must have been at least ten of the ruled to one of the ruling race. The latter, moreover, were greatly inferior to the former in all the arts of civilization. In the homes, the dress and ornaments, the social intercourse, and all the minor features of life, they found their new neighbors above them, and they were quick to learn the use of unaccustomed comforts or luxuries. All the cities and small towns were Roman in their architecture, in their municipal organi- zation, and in the character of their trade and intercourse; and the conquerors found it easier to accept this old-established order than to change it. Another circumstance contributed to Latinize the German races outside of Germany. After the invention of a Gothic alphabet by Bishop Ulfilas, and his translation of the Bible, we hear no more of a written German language until the eighth century. There was at least none that was accessible to the people, and the Latin contin- ued to be the language of government and religion. The priests were nearly all Romans, and their interest was to prevent the use of written Germanic tongues. Such learning as remained to the world was of course only to be acquired through a knowledge of Latin and Greek. All the influences which surrounded the conquering races tended, therefore, to eradicate or change their original German characteristics. After a few centuries their descendants, in almost every instance, lost sight of their origin, and even looked with con- tempt upon rival people of the same blood. The Franks and Bur- gundians of the present day speak of themselves as "Latin races " ; the blond and the blue-eyed Lombards of northern Italy, not long 56 GERMANY S70 since, hated " the Germans," as the Christian of the Middle Ages hated the Jew; and the full-blooded English or American Saxon often considers the German as a foreigner with whom he has nothing in common. By the year 570 almost all the races outside of Germany, ex- cept the Saxons and Angles, had accepted Christianity. Within Germany, although the Christian missionaries were at work ainong the Alemanni, the Bavarians, and along the Rhine, the great body of the people still held to their old pagan worship. The influence of the true faith was no doubt weakened by the bitter enmity which still existed between the Athanasian and Arian sects, although the latter ceased to be powerful after the downfall of the Ostrogoths. But the Christianity which prevailed among the Franks, Burgundians, and Longobards was not pure or intelligent enough to save them from the vices which the Roman Empire left behind it. Many of their kings and nobles were polygamists, and the early history of their dynasties is a chronicle of falsehood, cruelty, and murder. In each of the races the primitive habit of electing chiefs by the people had long since given way to an hereditary monarchy, but in other respects their political organization remained much the same. The Franks introduced into Gaul the old German division of the land into provinces, hundreds, and communities, but the king now claimed the right of appointing a count for the first, a cente- narius, or centurion, for the second, and an elder, or head-man, for the third. The people still held their public assemblies and settled their local matters ; they were all equal before the law, and the free- men paid no taxes. The right of declaring war, making peace, and other questions of national importance were decided by a general assembly of the people, at which the king presided. The political system was therefore more republican than monarchical, but it grad- ually lost the former character as the power of the kings increased. The nobles had no fixed place and no special rights during the migrations of the tribes. Among the Franks they were partly formed out of the civil officers, and soon included both Romans and Gauls among their number. In Germany their hereditary succes- sion was already secured, and they maintained their ascendency over the common people by keeping pace with the knowledge of the arts of those times, while the latter remained, for the most part, in a state of ignorance. The cities, inhabited by Romans and Romanized Gauls, retained END OF MIGRATIONS 57 570 their old system of government, but paid a tax or tribute. Those portions of other Germanic races which had become subject to the Franks were also allowed to keep their own peculiar laws and forms of local government, which were now, for the first time, recorded in the Latin language. They were obliged to furnish a certain number of men capable of bearing arms, but it does not appear that they paid any tribute to the Franks. Slavery still existed in the two forms which we find among the ancient Germans chattels who were bought and sold, and depend- ents who were bound to give labor or tribute in return for the pro- tection of a freeman. The Romans in Gaul were placed upon the latter footing by the Franks. The children born of marriages be- tween them and the free took the lower and not the higher position that is, they were dependents. The laws in regard to crime were very rigid and severe, but not bloody. The body of the freeman, like his life, was considered inviolate, so there was no corporal punishment, and death was only inflicted in a few extreme cases. The worst crimes could be atoned for by the sacrifice of money or property. For the murder of a freeman the penalty was 200 shillings (at that time the value of 100 oxen), two-thirds of which were given to the family of the murdered person, while one-third was divided between the judge and the state. This penalty was increased threefold for the murder of a count or a soldier in the field, and more than fourfold for that of a bishop. In some of the codes the payment was fixed even for the murder of a duke or king. The slaying of a dependent or a Roman only cost half as much as that of a free Frank, while a slave was only valued at 35 shillings, or seventeen and a half oxen; the theft of a falcon trained for hunting, or a stallion, cost 10 shillings more. Slander, insult, and false-witness were punished in the same way. If anyone falsely accused another of murder he was con- demned to pay the injured person the penalty fixed for the crime of murder, and the same rule was applied to all minor accusations. The charge of witchcraft, if not proved according to the supersti- tious ideas of the people, was followed by the penalty of 180 shill- ings. Whoever called another a hare, i. e., a coward, was fined 6 shillings ; but if he called him a fox, i. e., a thief or liar, the fine was only 3 shillings. As the Germanic races became Christian, the power and privi- leges of the priesthood were manifested in the changes made in 58 GERMANY 570 these laws. Not only was it enacted that the theft of property- belonging to the church must be paid back ninefold, but the slaves of the priests were valued at double the amount fixed for the slaves of laymen. The churches became sacred, and no criminal could be seized at the foot of the altar. Those who neglected to attend wor- ship on Sunday, three times in succession, were punished by the loss of one-third of their property. If this neglect was repeated a second time, they were made slaves, and could be sold as such by the church. The laws of the still pagan Thuringians and Saxons, in Ger- many, did not differ materially from those of the Christian Franks. Justice was administered in assemblies of the people, and, in order to secure the largest expression of the public will, a heavy fine was imposed for the failure to attend. The latter feature is still retained in some of the old cantons of Switzerland. The transition was now complete. Although the art, taste, and refinement of the Roman Empire were lost, its civilizing influ- ence in law and civil organization survived, and slowly subdued the Germanic races which inherited its territory. But many character- istics of their early barbarism still clung to the latter, and a long period elapsed before we can properly call them a civilized people. Chapter IX THE KINGDOM OF THE FRANKS. 486-638 A. D. OF all the German tribes, the most important in history are the Franks, who first become prominent in history under their great leader Clovis. In fact, the history of Germany, from the middle of the sixth to the middle of the ninth centui-y, is that of France also. Clovis was the grandson of a petty king, whose name was Meroveus, whence he and his successors are called, in history, the Merovingian dynasty. He appears to have been a born conqueror, neither very just nor very wise in his actions, but brave, determined, and ready to use any means, good or bad, in order to attain his end. Clovis extinguished the last remnant of Roman rule in Gaul, in the year 486, by the defeat of Syagrius and the Romans in the battle of Soissons. He was then only twenty years old, having succeeded to the throne at the age of fifteen. Shortly afterward he married the daughter of one of the Burgundian kings. She was a Christian, and endeavored, but for many years without effect, to induce him to give up his pagan faith. Finally, in a war with the Alemanni, in 496, he promised to become a Christian provided the God of the Christians would give him victory. The decisive battle was long and bloody, but it ended in the complete rout of the Ale- manni, and afterward all of them who were living to the west of the Rhine became tributary to the Franks. Clovis and 3000 of his followers were soon afterward baptized in the cathedral at Rheims, by the Bishop Remigius. When the king advanced to the baptismal font the bishop said to him : " Bow thy head, Sicambrian ! worship what thou hast persecuted, persecute what thou hast worshiped ! " Although nearly all the German Christians at this time were Arians, Clovis selected the Athanasian faith of Rome, and thereby secured the support of the Roman priest- hood in France, which was of great service to him in his ambitious designs. This difference of faith also gave him a pretext to march against the Burgundians, in 500, and the Visigoths, in 507; both wars were considered holy by the church. 69. 60 GERMANY 507-534 His conquest of the Visigoths was prevented, as we have seen, by the interposition of Theodoric. He was so successful that when he died, in 511, all the race to the west of the Rhine was united under his single sway. He was succeeded by four sons, of whom the eldest, Theuderic, reigned in Paris; the others chose Metz, Orleans, and Soissons for their capitals. Theuderic was a man of so much energy and prudence that he was able to control his broth- ers, and unite the four governments in such a way that the kingdom was saved from dismemberment. The mother of Clovis was a runaway queen of Thuringia, whose son, Hermanf ried, now ruled over that kingdom, after having deposed his two brothers. The relationship gave Theuderic a ground for interfering, and the result was a war between the Franks and the Thuringians. Theuderic collected a large army, marched into Germany in 530, procured the services of 9000 Saxons as allies, and met the Thuringians on the River Unstrut, not far from where the city of Halle now stands. Hermanfried was taken prisoner, carried to France, and treacherously thrown from a tower, after receiving great professions of friendship from his nephew, Theu- deric. His family fled to Italy, and the kingdom of Thuringia, embracing nearly all central Germany, was added to that of the Franks. The northern part, however, was given to the Saxons as a reward for their assistance. Four years afterward the brothers of Theuderic conquered the kingdom of Burgimdy and annexed it to their territory. About the same time the Franks living eastward of the Rhine entered into a union with their more powerful brethren. Since both the Ale- manni and the Bavarians were already tributary to the latter, the dominion of the united Franks now extended from the Atlantic nearly to the River Elbe, and from the mouth of the Rhine to the Mediterranean, with Friesland and the kingdom of the Saxons between it and the North Sea. While Theuderic lived his brothers observed a tolerably peace- ful conduct toward one another, but his death was followed by a season of war and murder. History gives us no record of another dynasty so steeped in crime as that of the Merovingians ; within the compass of a few years we find a father murdering his son, a brother his brother, and a wife her husband. We can only account for the fact that the whole land was not constantly convulsed by civil war by supposing that the people retained enough of power in their na- THEFRANKS 61 534-568 tional assemblies to refuse taking part in the fratricidal quarrels. It is not necessary, therefore, to recount all the details of the bloody family history. Their effect upon the people must have been in the highest degree demoralizing, yet the latter possessed enough of prudence or perhaps of a clannish spirit, in the midst of a much larger Roman and Gallic population to hold the Prankish king- dom together, while its rulers were doing their best to split it to pieces. The result of all the quarreling and murdering was that in 558 Clotar, the youngest son of Clovis, became the sole monarch. After forty-seven years of divided rule the kingly power was again in a single hand, and there seemed to be a chance for peace and progress. But Clotar died within three years, and, like his father, left four sons to divide his power. The first thing they did was to fight; then, being perhaps rather equally matched, they agreed to portion the kingdom. Charibert reigned in Paris, Guntram in Orleans, Chilperic in Soissons, and Sigbert in Metz, but the exact boundaries between their territories are uncertain. About this time the Avars, coming from Hungary, had invaded Thuringia, and were inciting the people to rebellion against the Franks. Sigbert immediately marched against them, drove them back, and established his authority over the Thuringians. On returning home he found that his brother Chilperic had taken pos- session of his capital and many smaller towns. Chilperic was forced to retreat, lost his own kingdom in turn, and only received it again through the generosity of Sigbert the first and only instance of such a virtue in the Merovingian line of kings. Sigbert seems to have inherited the abilities, without the vices, of his grandfather Clovis. When the Avars made a second invasion into Germany he was not only defeated, but taken prisoner by them. Neverthe- less, he immediately acquired such influence over their khan, or chieftain, that he persuaded the latter to set him free, to make a treaty of peace and friendship, and to return with his Avars to Hungary. In the year 568 Charibert died in Paris, leaving no heirs. A new strife instantly broke out among the three remaining brothers; but it was for a time suspended, owing to the approach of a com- mon danger. The Longobards, now masters of northern Italy, crossed the Alps and began to overrun Switzerland, which the Franks possessed, through their victories over the Burgundians 6 GERMANY S68-584 and the Alemanni. Sigbert and Guntram united their forces, and repelled the invasion with much slaughter. Then broke out in France a series of family wars, darker and bloodier than any which had gone before. The strife between the sons of Clotar and their children and grandchildren desolated France for forty years, and became all the more terrible because the women of the family entered into it with the men. All these Christian kings, like their father, were polygamists, with the ex- ception of Sigbert; he had but one wife, Brunhilde, the daughter of a king of the Visigoths, a stately, handsome, intelligent woman, but proud and ambitious. Either the power and popularity or the rich marriage-portion which Sigbert acquired with Brunhilde induced his brother, Chil- peric, to ask the hand of her sister, the Princess Galsunta of Spain. It was granted to him on condition that he would put away all his wives and live with her alone. He accepted the condition, and was married to Galsunta. One of the women sent away was Frede- gunde, who soon found means to recover her former influence over Chilperic's mind. It was not long before Galstmta was found dead in her bed, and within a week Fredegunde, the murderess, became queen in her stead. Brunhilde called upon Sigbert to revenge her sister's death, and then began that terrible history of crime and hatred which was celebrated, centuries afterward, in the famous " Nibelungenlied/' or " Lay of the Nibelungs." In the year 575 Sigbert gained a complete victory over Chil- peric, and was lifted upon a shield by the warriors of the latter, who hailed him as their king. In that instant he was stabbed in the back, and died upon the field of his triumph. Chilperic re- sumed his sway, and soon took Brunhilde prisoner, while her young son, Childebert, escaped to Germany. But his own son, Merwig, espoused Brunhilde's cause, secretly released her from prison, and then married her. A war next arose between father and son, in which the former was successful. He cut off Merwig's long hair and shut him up in a monastery ; but for some unexplained reason he allowed Brunhilde to go free. In the meantime Fredegunde had borne three sons, who all died soon after their birth. She accused her own stepson of having caused their deaths by witchcraft, and he and his mother, one of Chilperic's former wives, were put to death. Both Chilperic and his brother Guntram, who reigned at THE FRANKS 68 584-597 Orleans, were without male heirs. At this juncture the German chiefs and nobles demanded to have Childebert, the young son of Sigbert and Brunhilde, who had taken refuge among them, recog- nized as the heir to the Prankish throne. Chilperic consented, on condition that Childebert, with such forces as he could command, would march with him against Guntram, who had despoiled him of a great deal of his territory. The treaty was made, in spite of the opposition of Brunhilde, whose sister's murder was not yet avenged, and the civil wars were renewed. Both sides gained or lost alternately, without any decided result, until the assassination of Chilperic, by an unknown hand, in 584. A few months before his death Fredegunde had borne him another son, Clotar, who lived, and was at once presented by his mother as Childebert's rival to the throne. The struggle between the two widowed queens, Brunhilde and Fredegunde, was for a while delayed by the appearance of a new claimant, Gundobald, who had been a fugitive in Constantinople for many years, and declared that he was Chilperic's brother. He obtained the support of many Austrasian (German) princes, and was for a time so successful that Fredegunde was forced to take refuge with Guntram at Orleans. The latter also summoned Childebert to his capital, and persuaded him to make a truce with Fredegunde and her adherents, in order that both might act against their common rival. Gundobald and his followers were soon de- stroyed ; Guntram died in 593, and Childebert was at once accepted as his successor. His kingdom included that of Charibert, whose capital was Paris, and that of his father, Sigbert, embracing all Prankish Germany. But the nobles and people, accustomed to con- spiracy, treachery, and crime, could no longer be depended upon, as formerly. They were beginning to return to their former system of living upon war and pillage, instead of the honest arts of peace. Fredegunde still held the kingdom of Chilperic for her son Qotar. After strengthening herself by secret intrigues with the Prankish nobles, she raised an army, put herself at its head, and marched against Childebert, who was defeated and soon afterward poisoned, after having reigned only three years. His realm was divided between his two young sons, one receiving Burgimdy and the other Germany, under the guardianship of their grandmother Brunhilde. Fredegunde followed up her success, took Paris and Orleans from the heirs of Childebert, and died in 597, leaving her 64 GERMANY 597-622 son Clotar, then in his fourteenth year, as king of more than half of France. He was crowned as Clotar II. Death placed Brunhilde's rival out of the reach of her re- venge, but she herself might have secured the whole kingdom of the Franks for her two grandsons had she not quarreled with one and stirred up war between them. Finding that her cause was des- perate, Brunhilde procured the assistance of Clotar II, for herself and her favorite grandson, Theuderic. The fortune of war now turned, and before long the other grandson, Theudebert, was taken prisoner. By his brother's order he was formally deposed from his kingly authority, and then executed; the brains of his infant son were dashed out against a stone. It was not long before this crime was avenged. A quarrel in regard to the division of the spoils arose between Theuderic and Clotar II. The former died in the beginning of the war which fol- lowed, leaving four young sons to the care of their great-grand- mother, the queen Brunhilde. Clotar II. immediately marched against her, but, knowing her ability and energy, he obtained a promise from the nobles of Burgundy and Germany who were unfriendly to Brunhilde that they would come over to his side at the critical moment. The aged queen had called her people to arms, and, like her rival, Fredegunde, put herself at their head; but when the armies met, on the River Aisne in Champagne, the traitors in her own camp joined Clotar II. and the struggle was ended without a battle. Brunhilde, then eighty years old, was taken prisoner, cruelly tortured for three days, and then tied by her gray hair to the tail of a wild horse and dragged to death. The four sons of Theuderic were put to death at the same time, and thus, in the year 613, Clotar II. became king of all the Franks. A priest named Fredegar, who wrote his biography, says of him : " He was a most patient man, learned and pious, and kind and sympathizing toward everyone! " Clotar II. possessed, at least, energy enough to preserve a sway which was based on a long succession of the worst crimes that disgrace humanity. In 622, six years before his death, he made his oldest son, Dagobert, a boy of sixteen, king of the German half of his realm, but was obliged, immediately afterward, to assist him against the Saxons. He entered their territory, seized the people, massacred all who proved to be taller than his own two- handed sword, and then returned to France without having sub- I THEFRANKS 66 622-638 dued the spirit or received the allegiance of the bold race. Nothing of importance occurred during the remainder of his reign ; he died in 628, leaving his kingdom to his two sons, Dagobert and Chari- bert. The former easily possessed himself of the lion's share, giv- ing his younger brother only a small strip of territory along the River Loire. Charibert, however, drove the last remnant of the Visigoths into Spain, and added the country between the Garonne and the Pyrenees to his little kingdom. The name of Aquitaine was given to this region, and Charibert's descendants became its dukes, subject to the kings of the Franks. Dagobert had been carefully educated by Pippin of Landen, the royal steward of Clotar II., and by Arnulf, the Bishop of Metz. He had no quality of greatness, but he promised to be, at least, a good and just sovereign. He became at once popular with the masses, who began to long for peace, and for the restoration of rights which had been partly lost during the civil wars. The nobles, however, who had drawn the greatest advantage from those wars, during which their support was purchased by one side or the other, grew dissatisfied. They cunningly aroused in Dagobert the love of luxury and the sensual vices which had ruined his ancestors, and thus postponed the reign of law and justice to which the people were looking forward. In fact, that system of freedom and equality which the Ger- manic races had so long possessed was already shaken to its very base. During the long and bloody feuds of the Merovingian kings many changes had been made in the details of government, all tending to increase the power of the nobles, the civil officers, and the dignitaries of the church. Wealth the bribes paid for their support had accumulated in the hands of these classes, while the farmers, mechanics, and tradesmen, plundered in turn by both par- ties, had constantly grown poorer. Although the external signs of civilization had increased, the race had already lost much of its moral character and some of the best features of its political system. There are few chronicles which inform us of the affairs of Germany during this period. The Avars, after their treaty of peace with Sigbert, directed their incursions against the Bavarians, but without gaining any permanent advantage. On the other hand, the Slavonic tribes, especially the Bohemians, united under the rule of a renegade Frank, whose name was Samo, and who acquired a part of Thuringia, after defeating the Prankish army which was 66 GERMANY 638 sent against him. The Saxons and Thuringians then took the war into their own hands, and drove back Samo and his Slavonic hordes. By this victory the Saxons released themselves from the payment of an annual tribute to the Prankish kings, and the Thuringians be- came strong enough to organize themselves again as a people and elect their own duke. The Franks endeavored to suppress this new organization, but they were defeated by the duke, Radulf, nearly on the same spot where, just one hundred years before, Theuderic, the son of Clovis, had crushed the Thuringian kingdom. From that time Thuringia was placed on the same footing as Bavaria, trib- utary to the Franks, but locally independent. King Dagobert, weak, swayed by whatever influence was near- est, and voluptuous rather than cruel, died in 638, before he had time to do much evil. He was the last of the Merovingian line who exercised any actual power. The dynasty existed for a century longer, but its monarchs were mere puppets in the hands of stronger men. Its history, from the beginning, is well illustrated by a tradition current among the people concerning the mother of Clovis. They relate that soon after her marriage she had a vision, in which she gave birth to a lion (Clovis), whose descendants were wolves and bears, and their descendants, in turn, frisky dogs. Before the death of Dagobert in fact, during the life of Clotar II. a new power had grown up within the kingdom of the Franks which gradually pushed the Merovingian dynasty out of its place. The history of this power, after 638, becomes the history of the realm, and we now turn from the bloody kings to trace its origin, rise, and final triumph. Chapter X THE DYNASTY OF THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE 638-768 A.D. WE have mentioned Pippin of Landen as the royal steward of Clotar II. His office gave birth to the new power which grew up beside the Merovingian rule and finally suppressed it. In the chronicles of the time the officer is called the Majordomus of the king, a word which may be translated " Mayor of the Palace " or " Steward of the Royal Household " ; but in reality it embraced much more extended and important powers than the title would imply. In their conquests the Franks as we have already stated usually claimed at least one-third of the territory which fell into their hands. A part of this was por- tioned out among the chief men and the soldiers; a part was set aside as the king's share, and still another part became the common property of the people. The latter, therefore, fell into the habit of electing a steward to guard and superintend this property in their interest, and as the kings became involved in their family feuds the charge of the royal estates was intrusted to the hands of the same steward. The latter estates soon became, by conquest, so extensive and important that the king gave the use of many of them for a term of years, or for life, to private individuals, in return for military services. Such an estate came to be called a fief or feod, whence the term " feudal system," which, gradually modified by time, grew from this basis. The importance of the royal steward in the king- dom is thus explained. The office, at first, had probably a mere business character. After the time of Clovis the civil wars by which the estates of the king and the people became subject to constant change gave the steward a political power, which in- creased with each generation. He stood between the monarch and his subjects, with the best opportunity for acquiring an ascendency over the minds of both. At first he was only elected for a year, and his reelection depended on the honesty and ability with which 67 68 GERMANY 638-670 he had dischargfed his duties. During the convulsions of the dynasty he, in common with king and nobles, gained what rights the people lost ; he began to retain his office for a longer time, then for life, and finally demanded that it should be hereditary in his family. The royal stewards of Burgundy and Germany played an im- portant part in the last struggle between Clotar II. and Brunhilde. When the successful king, in 622, found that the increasing differ- ence of language and habits between the eastern and western por- tions of his realm required a separation of the government, and made his young son, Dagobert, ruler over the German half, he was compelled to recognize Pippin of Landen as his mayor of the palace, and to trust Dagobert entirely to his hands. The dividing line be- tween " Austrasia " and " Neustria," as the eastern and western parts of the Prankish kingdom were called, was drawn along the chain of the Vosges through the forest of Ardennes, and termi- nated near the mouth of the Schelde almost the same line which divides the German and French languages at this day. Pippin was a Frank, born in the Netherlands, a man of energy and intelligence, but of little principle. He had, nevertheless, shrewdness enough to see the necessity of maintaining the unity and peace of the kingdom, and he endeavored, in conjunction with Bishop Arnulf of Metz, to make a good king of Dagobert. They made him, indeed, amiable and well-meaning, but they could not overcome the instability of his character. After Clotar II.'s death, in 628, Dagobert passed the remaining ten years of his life in France, under the control of others, and the actual government of Germany was exercised by Pippin. The period of transition between the power of the kingfs, grad- ually sinking, and the power of the mayors of the palace, steadily rising, lasted about fifty years. The latter power, however, was not allowed to increase without frequent struggles, partly from the jealousy of the nobility and priesthood, partly from the resistance of the people to the extinction of their remaining rights. But, after the devastation left behind by the fratricidal wars of the Merovin- gians, all parties felt the necessity of a strong and well-regulated government, and the long experience of the mayors gave them the advantage. Grimoald, the son of Pippin, and his successor as mayor in Germany, made an attempt to usurp the royal power, but failed. MAYORS OF THE PALACE 69 670-687 This event led the Franks, in 670 when the whole kingdom was again united under Childeric II. to decree that the mayors of the palace should be elected annually by the people, as in the beginning. But when Childeric II., like most of his predecessors, was mur- dered, the deposed mayor regained his power, forced the people to accept him, and attempted to extend his government over Germany. In spite of a fierce resistance, headed by Pippin of Heristal, the grandson of Pippin of Landen, Grimoald partly maintained his au- thority until the year 681, when he was murdered in his turn. Pippin of Heristal was also the grandson of Arnulf, Bishop of Metz, whose son, Anchises, had married Begga, the daughter of Pippin of Landen. He was of Roman blood by his father's, and Prankish by his mother's side. As soon as his authority was secured, as Majordomus of Germany, he invaded France, and a desperate struggle for the stewardship of the whole kingdom en- sued. It was ended in 687 by the battle of Testri, in which Pippin was victorious. He used his success with a moderation very rare in those days; he did honor to the Prankish king, Theuderic III., who had fallen into his hands, spared the lives and possessions of all who had fought against him, on their promise not to take up arms against his authority, and even continued many of the chief officials of the Franks in their former places. From this date the Merovingian monarch became a shadow. Pippin paid him all external signs of allegiance, kept up the cere- monies of his court, supplied him with ample revenues, and gov- erned the kingdom in his name; but the actual power was concen- trated in his own hands. France, Switzerland, and the greater part of Germany were subjected to his government, although there were still elements of discontent within the realm, and of trouble outside of its borders. The dependent dukedoms of Aquitaine, Bur- gundy, Alemannia, Bavaria, and Thuringia were restless under the yoke; the Saxons and Frisians on the north were hostile and de- fiant, and the Slavonic races all along the eastern frontier had not yet given up their invasions. Pippin, like all the French rulers after him, until the Revolution of 1789, perceived the advantage of having the Church on his side. Moreover, he was the grandson of a bishop, which circumstance although it did not prevent him from taking two wives enabled him better to understand the power of the ecclesiastical system of Rome. In the early part of the seventh century several Christian 70 GERMANY 687-714 missionaries, principally Irish, had begun their labors among the Alemanni and the Bavarians, but the greater part of these people, with all the Thuringians, Saxons, and Frisians, were still wor- shipers of the old pagan gods. Pippin saw that through the church these Germans might be civilized and become accustomed to authority and obedience. He therefore lent his aid to the monks, and all the southern part of Germany became Christian in a few years. Force was employed, as well as persuasion ; but at that time the end was considered to sanction any means. Pippin's rule (we cannot call it reign) was characterized by the greatest activity, patience, and prudence. From year to year the kingdom of the Franks became better organized and stronger in all its features of government. Brittany, Burgundy, and Aquitaine were kept quiet ; the northern part of Holland was conquered and immediately given into the charge of a band of Anglo-Saxon monks ; and Germany, although restless and dissatisfied, was held more firmly than ever. Pippin of Heristal, while he was simply called Majordomus, exercised a wider power than any monarch of his time. When he died, in the year 714, the kingdom was for a while convulsed by feuds which threatened to repeat the bloody annals of the Merovingians. His heirs were Theudowald, his grandson by his wife Plektrude, and Karl and Hildebrand, his sons by his wife Alpheid. He chose the former as his 'successor, and Plektrude, in order to suppress any opposition to this arrangement, imprisoned her stepson Karl. But the Burgundians immediately revolted, elected one of their chiefs, Raginfried, to the office of royal steward, and defeated the Franks in a battle in which Theudowald was slain. Karl, having escaped from prison, put himself at the head of affairs, supported by a majority of the German Franks. He was a man of strong personal influence, and inspired his followers with enthusiasm and faith ; but his chances seemed very desperate. His stepmother, Plektrude, opposed him; the Burgundians and French Franks, led by Raginfried, were marching against him, and Radbod, Duke of Friesland, invaded the territory which he was bound by his office to defend. Karl had the choice of three enemies, and he took the one which seemed most dangerous. He attacked Radbod, but was forced to fall back, and this repulse emboldened the Saxons to make a foray into the land of the Hessians, as the old Germanic tribe of MAYORS OF THE PALACE 71 714-719 the Chatti were now called. Radbod advanced to Cologne, which was held by Plektrude and her followers ; at the same time Ragin- fried approached from the west, and the city was thus besieged by two separate armies, hostile to each other, yet both having the same end in view. Between the two, Karl managed to escape, and retreated to the forest of Ardennes, where he set about reconstruct- ing his shattered army. Cologne was too strong to be assailed, and Plektrude, who pos- sessed large treasures, soon succeeded in buying off Radbod and Raginfried. The latter, on his return to France, came into col- lision with Karl, who, though repelled at first, finally drove him in confusion to the walls of Paris. Karl then suddenly wheeled about and marched against Cologne, which fell into his hands : Plektrude, leaving her wealth as his booty, fled to Bavaria. This victory secured to Karl the stewardship over Germany, but a king was wanting to make the forms of royalty complete. The direct Mero- vingian line had run out, and Raginfried had been obliged to take a monk, an offshoot of the family, and place him on the throne, under the name of Chilperic II. Karl, after a little search, dis- covered another Merovingian, whom he installed in the German half of the kingdom, as Clotar III. That done, he attacked the invading Saxons, defeated and drove them beyond the Weser River. He was now free to meet the rebellious Franks of France, who in the meantime had strengthened themselves by offering to Duke Eudo of Aquitaine the acknowledgment of his independent sovereignty in return for his support. A decisive battle was fought in the year 719, and Karl was again victorious. The nominal king, Chilperic II., Raginfried, and Duke Eudo fled into the south of France. Karl began negotiations with the latter for the delivery of the fugitive king; but just at this time his own puppet, Clotar III., happened to die, and, as there was no other Merovingian left, the pretense upon which his stewardship was based obliged him to recognize Chilperic II. Raginfried resigned his office, and Karl was at last nominal steward, and actual monarch, of the kingdom of the Franks. His first movement was to deliver Germany from its invaders, and reestablished the dependency of its native dukes. The death of the fierce Radbod enabled him to reconquer western Friesland ; the Saxons were then driven back and firmly held within their original boundaries, and finally the Alemanni and Bavarians were compelled 72 GERMANY 719-731 to make a formal acknowledgment of the Prankish rule. As re- gards Thuringia, which seems to have remained a dukedom, the chronicles of the time give us little information. It is probable, however, that the invasions of the Saxons on the north and the Slavonic tribes on the east gave the people of central Germany no opportunity to resist the authority of the Franks. The work of conversion, encouraged by Pippin of Heristal as a political measure, was still continued by the zeal of the Irish and Anglo-Saxon mis- sionaries, and in the beginning of the eighth century it received a powerful impulse from a new apostle, a man of singular ability and courage. He was a Saxon of England, bom in Devonshire in the year 680, and Winifred by name. Educated in a monastery at a time when the struggle between Christianity and the old Germanic faith was at its height, he resolved to devote his life to missionary labors. He first went to Friesland, during the reign of Radbod, and spent three years in a vain attempt to convert the people. Then he visited Rome, offered his services to the Pope, and was commissioned to undertake the work of Christianizing central Germany. On reach- ing the field of his labors he manifested such zeal and intelligence that he soon became the leader and director of the missionary en- terprise. It is related that at Geismar, in the land of the Hessians, he cut down with his own hands an aged oak tree sacred to the god Thor. This and other similar acts inspired the people with such awe that they began to believe that their old gods were either dead or helpless, and they submissively accepted the new faith with- out understanding its character, or following it otherwise than in observing the external forms of worship. On a second visit to Rome, Winifred was appointed by the Pope Archbishop of Mayence, and ordered to take, thenceforth, the name of Boniface (Benefactor), by which he is known in history. He was confirmed in this office by Karl, to whom he had rendered valuable political services by the conversion of the Thuringians, and who had a genuine respect for his lofty and unselfish character. The spot where he built the first Christian church in central Ger- many, about twelve miles from Gotha, at the foot of the Thuringian Mountains, is now marked by a colossal candlestick of granite, sur- mounted by a golden flame. After Karl had been for several years actively employed in regulating the affairs of his great realm, and especially, with the aid MAYORS OF THE PALACE 73 731-732 of Bishop Boniface, in establishing an authority in Germany equal to that he possessed in France, he had every prospect of a powerful and peaceful rule. But suddenly a new danger threatened not only the Franks, but all Europe. The Saracens, crossing from Africa, defeated the Visigoths and slew Roderick, their king, in the year 711. Gradually possessing themselves of all Spain, they next col- lected a tremendous army, and in 731, under the command of Ab- derrahman, viceroy of the caliph of Damascus, set out for the con- quest of France. Thus the new Christian faith of Europe, still engaged in quelling the strength of the ancient paganism in Ger- many, was suddenly called upon to meet, in the heart of France itself, the newer faith of Mohammed, which had determined to subdue the world. Not only France, but the Eastern Empire, Italy, and England looked to Karl in this emergency. The Saracens crossed the Pyre- nees with 350,000 warriors, accompanied by their wives and chil- dren, as if they were sure of victory and meant to possess the land. Karl called the military strength of the whole broad kingdom into the field, collected an army nearly equal in numbers, and, finally, in October, 732, the two hosts stood face to face, near the city of Poitiers. It was a struggle almost as grand, and fraught with as important consequences to the world, as that of Aetius and Attila, nearly three hundred years before. Six days were spent in prepa- rations, and on the seventh the battle began. The Saracens attacked with that daring and impetuosity which had gained them so many victories ; but, as the old chronicle says, " the Franks, with their strong hearts and powerful bodies, stood like a wall, and hewed down the Arabs with iron hands." When night fell 200,000 dead and wounded lay upon the field. Karl made preparations for re- suming the battle on the following morning, but he found no en- emy. The Saracens had retired during the night, leaving their camps and stores behind them, and their leader, Abderrahman, among the slain. This was the first great check the cause of Islam received, after a series of victories more wonderful than those of Rome. From that day the people bestowed upon Karl the surname of Martel, the Hammer, and as Charles Martel he is best known in history. He was not able to follow up his advantage immediately, for the possibility of his defeat by the Saracens had emboldened his enemies at home and abroad to rise against his authority. The 74 GERMANY 732-741 Frisians, under Poppo, their new duke, made another invasion ; the Saxons followed their example; the Burgundians attempted a rebellion, and the sons of Duke Eudo of Aquitaine, imitating the example of their ancestors, the Merovingian kings, began to quarrel about the succession. While Karl Martel, as we must now call him, was engaged in suppressing all these troubles, the Saracens, with the aid of the malcontent Burgundians, occupied all the terri- tory bordering the Mediterranean, on both sides of the Rhone. Karl was not free to march against them until 737, when he made his appearance with a large army, retook Avignon, Aries, and Nismes, and left the Saracens in possession only of Narbonnc, which was too strongly fortified to be taken by assault. Karl Martel was recalled to the opposite end of the kingdom by a fresh invasion of the Saxons. When this had been reptlled and the northern frontier in Germany strengthened against the hos- tile race, the Burgundian nobles in Provence sought a fresh alliance with the Saracens, and compelled him to return instantly from the Weser to the shores of the Mediterranean. He suppressed the re- bellion, but was obliged to leave the Saracens in possession of a part of the coast, between the Rhone and the Pyrenees. During his stay in the south of France the Pope, Gregory II., entreated him to come to Italy and relieve Rome from the oppression of Luitprand, king of the Longobards. He did not accept the invitation, however, but it appears that, as mediator, he assisted in concluding a treaty between the Pope and king, which arranged their differences for a time. Worn out by his life of marches and battles, Karl Martel be- came prematurely old, and died in 741, at the age of fifty, after a reign of twenty-seven years. He inherited the activity, the ability, and also the easy principles of his father, Pippin of Heristal. But his authority was greatly increased, and he used it to lessen the remnant of their original freedom which the people still retained. The free Germanic Franks were accustomed to meet every year, in the month of March (as on the Champ de Mars, or March-field, at Paris), and discuss all national matters. In the time of Clovis the royal dependents were added to the free citizens and allowed an equal voice, which threw an additional power into the hands of the monarch. Karl Martel convoked the national assembly, declared war or made peace, without asking the people's consent ; while, by adding the priesthood and the nobles, with their dependents, to the MAYORS OF THE PALACE 75 741-747 number of those entitled to vote, he broke down the ancient power of the state and laid the foundation of a more absolute system. Shortly before his death Karl Martel summoned a council of the princes and nobles of his realm and obtained their consent that his eldest son, Karloman, should succeed him as Majordomus in Germany, and his second son. Pippin, surnamed the Short, as Majordomus in France and Burgundy. The Merovingian throne had already been vacant for four years, but the monarch had be- come so insignificant that this circumstance was scarcely noticed. On his death-bed, however, Karl Martel was persuaded by Swan- hilde, one of his wives, to bequeath a part of his dominions to her son, Grifo. This gave rise to great discontent among the people, and furnished the subject dukes of Bavaria, Alemannia, and Aqui- taine with another opportunity for endeavoring to regain their lost independence. Karloman and Pippin, in order to strengthen their cause, sought for a descendant of the Merovingian line, and, having found him, they proclaimed him king, under the name of Childeric III. This step secured to them the allegiance of the Franks, but the con- flict with the refractory dukedoms lasted several years. Battles were fought on the Loire, on the Lech, in Bavaria, and then again on the Saxon frontier; finally Aquitaine was subdued, Alemannia lost its duke and became a Frankish province, and Bavaria agreed to a truce. In this struggle Karloman and Pippin received important support from Boniface, a part of whose aim it was to bring all the Christian communities to acknowledge the Pope of Rome as the sole head of the church. They gave him their support in return, and thus the Franks were drawn into closer relations with the ecclesiastical power. In the year 747 Karloman resigned his power, went to Rome, and was made a monk by Pope Zacharias. Soon afterward Grifo, the son of Karl Martel and Swanhilde, made a second attempt to conquer his rights, with the aid of the Saxons. Pippin the Short allied himself with the Wends, a Slavonic race settled in Prussia, and ravaged the Saxon land, forcing a part of the inhabitants, at the point of the sword, to be baptized as Christians. Grifo fled to Bavaria, where the duke, Tassilo, espoused his cause, but Pippin the Short followed close upon his heels with so strong a force that resistance was no longer possible. A treaty was made whereby Grifo was consigned to private life, the hereditary rights of the 76 GERMANY 747-754 Bavarian dukes recognized by the Franks, and the sovereignty of the Franks accepted by the Bavarians. Pippin the Short had found, through his own experience as well as that of his ancestors, that the pretense of a Merovingian king only worked confusion in the realm of the Franks, since it furnished to the subordinate races and principalities a constant pretext for revolt. When, therefore, Pope Zacharias found him- self threatened by Aistulf, the successor of Luitprand as king of the Longobards, and sent an embassy to Pippin the Short, appealing for his assistance, the latter returned to him this question : " Does the kingdom belong to him who exercises the power, without the name, or to him who bears the name, without possessing the power?" The answer was what he expected; a general assembly was called together in 752, Pippin was anointed king by the Arch- bishop Boniface, then lifted on a shield, according to the ancient custom, and accepted by the nobles and people. The shadowy Merovingian king, Childeric III., was shorn of his long hair, the sig^ of royalty, and sent into a monastery, where he disappeared from the world. Pippin now possessed sole and unlimited sway over the kingdom of the Franks, and named himself " king by the Grace of God," an example which has been followed by most monarchs down to our day. On the other hand, the decision of Zacharias was a great step gained by the Papal power, which thenceforth began to exalt its prerogatives over those of the rulers of nations. Pippin's first duty, as king, was to repel a new invasion of the Saxons. His power was so much increased by his title that he was able, at once, to lead against them such a force that they were compelled to pay a tribute of three hundred horses annually, and to allow Christian missionaries to reside among them. The latter condition was undoubtedly the suggestion of Boniface, who de- termined to carry the cross to the North Sea, and complete the con- version of Germany. He himself undertook a mission to Fries- land, where he had failed as a young monk, and there, in 755, at the age of seventy-five, he was slain by the fierce pagans. He died like a martyr, refusing to defend himself, and was enrolled among the number of saints. In the year 754 Pope Stephen II., the successor of Zacharias, appeared in France as a personal supplicant for the aid of King Pippin. Aistulf, the Longobard king, who had driven the Byzan- MAYORS OF THE PALACE 77 754-768 tines out of the Exarchy of Ravenna, was marchingf against Rome, which still nominally belonged to the Eastern Empire. To make his entreaty more acceptable, the Pope bestowed on Pippin the title of " Patrician of Rome," and solemnly crowned him and his young sons, Karl and Karloman, in the chapel of St. Denis, near Paris. At the same time he issued a ban of excommunication against all persons who should support a monarch belonging to any other than the reigning dynasty. Pippin first endeavored to negotiate with Aistulf, but failing therein, he marched into Italy, defeated the Longobards in several battles, and besieged the king in Pavia, his capital. Aistulf was compelled to promise that he would give up the Exarchy and leave the Pope in peace ; but no sooner had Pippin returned to France than he violated all his promises. On the renewed appeals of the Pope, Pippin came to Italy a second time, again defeated the Longobards, and forced Aistulf not only to fulfill his former promises, but also to pay the expenses of the second war. He remained in Italy until the conditions were fulfilled, and his son Karl (Charlemagne), then fourteen years old, spent some time in Rome. The Byzantine emperor demanded that the cities of the Ex- archy should be given back to him, but Pippin transferred them to the Pope, who already exercised a temporal power in Rome. They were held by the latter, for some time afterward, in the name of the Eastern Empire. The worldly sovereignty of the Popes grew gradually from this basis, but was not yet recognized, or even claimed. Pippin, nevertheless, greatly strengthened the influence of the church by gifts of land, by increasing the privileges of the priesthood, and by allowing the ecclesiastical synods, in many cases, to interfere in matters of civil government. The only other events of his reign were another expedition aguinst the unsubdued Saxons and the expulsion of the Saracens from the territory they held between Narbonne and the Pyrenees. He died in 768, king instead of merely majordomus, leaving to his sons, Karl and Karloman, a greater, stronger, and better organized dominion than Europe had seen since the downfall of the Roman Empire. Chapter XI THE REIGN OF CHARLEMAGNE. 768-814 A. D. WHEN King Pippin the Short felt that his end was near he called an assembly of dukes, nobles and priests, which was held at St. Denis, for the purpose of install- ing his sons, Karl and Karloman, as his successors. As he had observed how rapidly the French and German halves of his empire were separating themselves from each other, in language, habits, and national character, he determined to change the former bound- ary between " Austrasia " and " Neustria," which ran nearly north and south, and to substitute an arbitrary line running east and west. This division was accepted by the assembly, but its unpractical char- acter was manifested as soon as Karl and Karloman began to reign. There was nothing but trouble for three years, at the end of which time the latter died, leaving Karl, in 771, sole monarch of the Prankish Empire. This great man, who, looking backwards, saw not his equal in history until he beheld Julius Caesar, now began his splendid single reign of forty-three years. We must henceforth call him Charle- magne, the French form of the Latin Carolus Magnus, Karl the Great, since by that name he is known in all English history. He was at this time twenty-nine years old, and in the pride of perfect strength and manly beauty. He was nearly seven feet high, ad- mirably proportioned, and so developed by toil, the chase, and war- like exercises that few men of his time equaled him in muscular strength. His face was noble and commanding, his hair blond or light brown, and his eyes a clear, sparkling blue. He performed the severest duties of his office with a quiet dignity which height- ened the impression of his intellectual power; he was terrible and inflexible in crushing all who attempted to interfere with his work ; but at the chase, the banquet, or in the circle of his family and friends no one was more frank, joyous, and kindly than he. His dynasty is called in history, after him, the Carolingian, al- though Pippin of Landen was its founder. The name of Charle- magne is extended backwards over the mayors of the palace, his T8 CHARLEMAGNE 79 771-774 ancestors, and after him over a century of successors who gradually faded out like the Merovingian line. He stands alone, midway be- tween the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages, as the one supreme historical landmark. The task of his life was to extend, secure, regulate, and develop the power of a great empire, much of which was still in a state of semibarbarism. He was no imitator of the Roman emperors; his genius, as a statesman, lay in his ability to understand that new forms of government and a new development of civilization had become necessary. Like all strong and far-see- ing rulers, he was despotic, and often fiercely cruel. Those who interfered with his plans even the members of his own family were relentlessly sacrificed. On the other hand, although he strengthened the power of the nobility, he never neglected the pro- tection of the people ; half his days were devoted to war, yet he en- couraged learning, literature, and the arts, and while he crushed the independence of the races, he gave them a higher civilization in its stead. Charlemagne first marched against the turbulent Saxons, but before they were reduced to order he was called to Italy by the appeal of Pope Adrian for help against the Longobards. The king of the latter, Desiderius, was the father of Hermingarde, Charle- magne's second wife, whom he had repudiated and sent home soon after his accession to the throne. Karloman's widow had also claimed the protection of Desiderius, and she, with her sons, was living at the latter's court. But these ties had no weight with Charlemagne; he collected a large army at Geneva, crossed the Alps by the pass of St. Bernard, conquered all northern Italy, and besieged Desiderius in Pavia. He then marched to Rome, where Pope Adrian received him as a liberator. A procession of the clergy and people went forth to welcome him, chanting : " Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord ! " He took part in the ceremonies of Easter, 774, which were celebrated with great pomp in the Cathedral of St. Peter. Over the grave of the apostle the Pope and the Prankish king swore mutual devotion and fidelity. A few days later Charles solemnly ratified the donation of land that Pippin had made to the church, and caused a document to be drawn up in three copies to commemorate the occasion. The wording of this deed has come down to us in a changed form, indeed, for a later clause was added by some churchly scribe to make Charles's gift seem to include most of northern Italy. The extravagance of 80 GERMANY 774-777 the claim has led men to doubt the genuineness of the whole docu- ment, but recent investigation has pointed out where the interpola- tion begins, and how, originally written on the margin of the manu- script, it afterward crept into the text of the famous " Donation of Charlemagne." In May Pavia fell into Charlemagne's hands. Desiderius was sent into a monastery, the widow and children of Karloman disap- peared, and the kingdom of the Longobards, or Lombards, as they are called henceforth, was annexed to the empire of the Franks. The Lombard power was declared at an end, and Charlemagne took the title of " King of the Lombards and Patrician of the Romans," thus inaugurating a new era in the history of Italy. The people were allowed to retain both their laws and their dukes, or local rulers, but in spite of these privileges they soon rose in revolt against their conqueror. Charlemagne had returned to finish his work with the Saxons, when in 776 this revolt called him back to Italy, The movement was temporarily suppressed, and he hastened to Germany to resume his interrupted task. The Saxons were the only remaining German people who resisted both the Prankish rule and the introduction of Christianity. They held all of what is now Westphalia, Hanover, and Brunswick, to the River Elbe, and were still strong, in spite of their constant and wasting wars. During his first campaign, in 'j'j2, Charle- magne had overrun Westphalia, taken possession of the fortified camp of the Saxons, and destroyed the " Irminpillar," which seems to have been a monument erected to commemorate the defeat of Varus by Hermann. The people submitted, and promised alle- giance; but the following year, aroused by the appeals of their duke or chieftain, Wittekind, they rebelled in a body. The Frisians joined them, the priests and missionaries were slaughtered or ex- pelled, and all the former Saxon territory, nearly to the Rhine, was retaken by Wittekind. Charlemagne collected a large army and renewed the war in 775. He pressed forward as far as the River Weser, when, care- lessly dividing his forces, one-half of them were cut to pieces, and he was obliged to retreat. His second expedition to Italy, at this time, was made with all possible haste, and a new army was ready on his return. Westphalia was now wasted with fire and sword, and the people generally submitted, although they were compelled to be baptized as Christians. In May, yj^y Charlemagne held an CHARLEMAGNE 81 777-782 assembly of the people at Paderborn; nearly all the Saxon nobles attended and swore fealty to him, while many of them submitted to the rite of baptism. At this assembly suddenly appeared a deputation of Saracen princes from Spain, who sought Charlemagne's help against the tyranny of the caliph of Cordova. He was induced by religious or ambitious motives to consent, neglecting for the time the great work he had undertaken toward reducing the Saxons to submission. In the summer of 778 he crossed the Pyrenees, took the cities of Pampeluna and Saragossa, and delivered all Spain north of the Ebro River from the hands of the Saracen caliph. This territory was attached to the Prankish kingdom as the Spanish Mark, or " border district " ; it was inhabited both by Saracens and Franks, who dwelt side by side and became more or less united in language, habits, and manners. As he was returning to France Charlemagne was attacked by a large force of the native Basques, in the pass of Roncesvalles, in the Pyrenees. His warriors, taken by surprise in the narrow ravine and crushed by rocks rolled down upon them from above, could make little resistance, and the rear column, with all the plunder gathered in Spain, fell into the enemy's hands. Here was slain the famous paladin, Roland, the Count of Brittany, who be- came the theme of poets down to the time of Ariosto. Charle- magne was so infuriated by his defeat that he hanged the Duke of Aquitaine, on the charge of treachery, because his territory in- cluded a part of the lands of the Basques. Upon the heels of this disaster came the news that the Saxons had again risen, under the lead of Wittekind, destroyed their churches, murdered the priests, and carried fire and sword to the very walls of Cologne and Coblentz. Charlemagne sent his best troops, by forced marches, in advance of his coming, but he was not able to take the field until the following spring. During 779 and a part of 780, after much labor and many battles, he seemed to have subdued the stubborn race, most of whom accepted Christian baptism for the third time. Charlemagne thereupon went to Italy once more, in order to restore order among the Lombards, whose local chiefs were becoming restless in his absence. His two young sons. Pippin and Ludwig, were crowned by Pope Adrian as kings of Lombardy (which then embraced the greater part of northern and central Italy) and Aquitaine. 8S GERMANY 782-787 After his return to Germany he convoked a parliament, or popu- lar assembly, at Paderborn, in 782, partly in order to give the Saxons a stronger impression of the power of the empire. The people seemed quiet, and he was deceived by their bearing; for, after he had left them to return to the Rhine, they rose again, headed by Wittekind, who had been for some years a fugitive in Denmark. Three of Charlemagne's chief officials, who immediately hastened to the scene of trouble with such troops as they could collect, met Wittekind in the Teutoburger Forest, not far from the field where Varus and his legions were destroyed. A similar fate awaited them; the Prankish army was so completely cut to pieces that but few escaped to tell the tale. Charlemagne marched immediately into the Saxon land. The rebels dispersed at his approach and Wittekind again became a fugitive. The Saxon nobles humbly renewed their submission and tried to throw the whole responsibility of the rebellion upon Witte- kind. Charlemange was not satisfied; he had been mortified in his pride as a monarch, and for once he cast aside his usual modera- tion and prudence. He demanded that 4500 Saxons, no doubt the most prominent among the people, should be given up to him as hostages. When he once had them in his power he had them all massacred at Verden as a punishment to the Saxons for their past faithlessness and as a lesson to them for the future. This deed of blood, instead of intimidating the Saxons, provoked them to fury. They arose as one man, and in 783 defeated Charlemagne near Detmold. He retreated to Paderborn, received reinforcements, and was enabled to venture a second battle, in which he was vic- torious. He remained for two years longer in Thuringia and Saxony, during whicb time he undertook a winter campaign, for which the people were not prepared. By the summer of 785 the Saxons, finding their homes destroyed and themselves rapidly diminishing in numbers, yielded to the mercy of the conqueror. Wittekind, who, the legend says, had stolen in disguise into Charle- magne's camp, was so impressed by the bearing of the king and the pomp of the religious services that he also submitted and received baptism. Charlemagne was now free to make another journey to Italy, where he suppressed some fresh troubles among the Lombards, and forced Aragis, the Duke of Benevento, to render his submission. Then, for the first time, he turned his attention to the Bavarians, CHARLEMAGNE 88 787-796 whose duke, Tassilo, had preserved an armed neutrality during the previous wars, but was suspected of secretly conspiring with the Lombards, Byzantines, and even the Avars, for help to enable him to throw off the Prankish yoke. At a general diet of the whole empire, held in Worms in 787, Tassilo did not appear, and Charle- magne made this a pretext for invading Bavaria. Three armies, in Italy, Suabia, and Thuringia, were set in mo- tion at the same time, and resistance appeared so hopeless that Tassilo surrendered at once. Charlemagne pardoned him at first, under stipulations of stricter dependence, but he was convicted of conspiracy at a diet held the following year, when he and his sons were found guilty and sent into a monastery. His dynasty came to an end, and Bavaria was portioned out among a number of Prankish counts, the people, nevertheless, being allowed to retain their own political institutions. The incorporation of Bavaria with the Prankish Empire brought a new task to Charlemagne. The Avars, who had gradually extended their rule westward nearly to the Adriatic, were strong and dangerous neighbors. In 791 he entered their territory and laid it waste, as far as the River Raab ; then, having lost all his horses on the march, he was obliged to return. At home a new trouble awaited him. His son. Pippin, whom he had installed as king of Lombardy, was discovered to be at the head of a conspiracy to usurp his own throne. Pippin was terribly flogged, and then sent into a monastery for the rest of his days; his fellow-conspirators were executed. When Charlemagne applied his system of military conscrip- tion to the Saxons, to recruit his army before renewing the war with the Avars, they rose once more in rebellion, slew his agents, burned the churches, and drove out the priests. Charlemagne was thus obliged to subdue them and to fight the Avars at the same time. The double war lasted until 796, when the residence of the Avar khan, with the intrenched " ring " or fort, containing all the treasures amassed by the tribe during the raids of two hundred years, was cap- tured. All the country as far eastward as the rivers Theiss and Raab was wasted and almost depopulated. The remnant of the Avars ac- knowledged themselves Prankish subjects, but for greater security Charlemagne established Bavarian colonies in the fertile land along the Danube. The latter formed a province, called the East Mark, which became famous later as the duchy of Austria. 84 GERMANY 796-800 The Saxons were subjected or seemed to be about the same time. Many of the people retreated into Holstein, which was then called North Albingia; but Charlemagne allied himself with a branch of the Slavonic Wends, defeated them there, and took pos- session of their territory. He built fortresses at Halle, Magdeburg, and Biichen, near Hamburg, colonized ten thousand Saxons among the Franks, and replaced them by an equal number of the latter. Then he established Christianity for the fifth time, by ordering that all who failed to present themselves for baptism should be put to death. The indomitable spirit of the people still led to occasional outbreaks, but these became weaker and weaker, and finally ceased as the new faith struck deeper root. In the year 799 Pope Leo HI. suddenly appeared in Charle- magne's camp at Paderborn, a fugitive from a conspiracy of the Roman nobles, by which his life was threatened. He was received with all possible honors, and after some time spent in secret coun- cils was sent back to Rome with a strong escort. In the autumn of the following year Charlemagne followed him. A civil and ecclesiastical assembly was held at Rome, which investigated the awful charges against the Pope and pronounced him innocent. Meanwhile Christmas Day had come, and Charlemagne attended the service in St. Peter's. After the mass he knelt to pray at the tomb of the apostle. As he arose from his knees the Pope stepped forward and placed a crown upon his head, while the great throng assembled there burst forth into a cry: " Life and victory to Carolo Augusto, crowned by God, the great, the peace-bringing Emperor of the Romans! " By this step the Pope rendered himself forever independent of his nominal subjection to the Byzantine emperors. For Charle- magne, the new dignity, gave his rule its full and final authority. The people, in whose traditions the grandeur of the old Roman Em- pire was still kept alive, now beheld it renewed in their ruler and themselves. Charlemagne stood at the head of an empire which was to include all Christendom, and to imitate, in its civil organization, the spiritual rule of the church. On the one side were kingdoms, duchies, countships, and the communities of the people, all subject to him ; on the other side, bishoprics, monasteries and their dependen- cies, churches and individual souls, subject to the Pope. The latter acknowledged the emperor as his temporal sovereign ; the emperor acknowledged the Pope as his spiritual sovereign. The idea was CHARLEMAGNE 86 800-806 grand, and at that time did not seem impossible to fulfill ; but the further course of history shows how hostile the two principles may become when they both want the same power. The Greek emperors at Constantinople were not strong enough to protest against this bestowal of a dignity which th^y claimed for themselves. A long series of negotiations followed, the result of which was that the Emperor Nicephorus acknowledged Charle- magne's title. The latter, immediately after his coronation in Rome, drew up a new oath of allegiance, which he required to be taken by the whole male population of the empire. About this time he entered into friendly relations with the famous caliph, Haroun Al Raschid of Bagdad (of the " Arabian Nights "). They sent embassies bearing magnificent presents to each other's courts, and at Charlemagne's request Haroun took the holy places in Pal- estine under his special protection, and allowed the Christians to visit them. With the Saracens in Spain, however, the emperor had constant trouble. They made repeated incursions across the Ebro into the Spanish Mark, and ravaged the shores of Majorca, Minorca, and Corsica, which belonged to the Prankish Empire. Moreover, the ex- tension of his frontier on the east brought Charlemagne into colli- sion with the Slavonic tribes in the territory now belonging to Prussia beyond the Elbe, Saxony and Bohemia. He easily defeated them, but could not check their plundering and roving propensities. In the year 808 Holstein as far as the Elbe was invaded by the Danish king, Gottfried, who, after returning home with much booty, commenced the construction of that line of defense along the Eider River, called the Dannewerk, which exists to this day. Charlemagne had before this conquered and annexed Fries- land. His empire thus included all France, Switzerland, and Ger- many, stretching eastward along the Danube to Presburg, with Spain to the Ebro, and Italy to the Garigllano River, the later boundary between Rome and Naples. There were no wars serious enough to call him into the field during the latter years of his reign, and he devoted his time to the encouragement of learning and the arts. He established schools, fostered new branches of in- dustry, and sought to build up the higher civilization which follows peace and order. He was very fond of the German language, and by his orders a complete collection was made of the songs and poetical legends of the people. Forsaking Paris, which had been 86 GERMANY 808-813 the Prankish capital for nearly three centuries, he removed his court to Aix-la-Chapelle and Ingelheim, near the Rhine, founded the city of Frank fort-on-the-Main, and converted, before he died, all that war-wasted region into a peaceful and populous country. No ruler before Charlemagne, and none for at least four cen- turies after him, did so much to increase and perpetuate the learning of his time. During his meals someone always read aloud to him out of old chronicles or theological works. He spoke Latin fluently and had a good knowledge of Greek. In order to become a good writer, he carried his tablets about with him., slept with them under his pillow, and even in the middle of the night would rise from his bed, take the wax tablets and practice forming his letters. But he never, says his friend and biographer, Einhard, really learned to write well. He began too late in life and was too occupied with wars. But his very eflFort shows the deep interest which this mon- arch took in learning. Under his influence writing was very much improved; the old Merovingian scrawls which are the despair of the historian gave way to the beautiful, clear Carolingian minuscule which was practiced in all the schools he founded. The men whom he assembled at his court were the most intelligent of that age. His chaplain and chief counselor was Alcuin, an English monk, and a man of great learning. His secretary, Einhard (or Eginhard), wrote a history of the emperor's life and times. Among his other friends were Paul the Deacon, a learned Lombard, and the chron- icler, Bishop Turpin. These men formed, with Charlemagne, a literary society, which held regular meetings to discuss matters of science, politics, and literature. Under Charlemagne the political institutions of the Merovin- gian kings, as well as those which existed among the German races, were materially changed. As far as possible he set aside the dukes, each of whom, up to that time, was the head of a tribe or division of the people, and broke up their half-independent states into dis- tricts, governed by counts. These districts were divided into " hundreds," as in the old Germanic times, each in charge of a noble, who every week acted as judge in smaller civil or criminal cases. The counts, in conjunction with from seven to twelve mag- istrates, held monthly courts wherein cases which concerned life, freedom, or landed property were decided. They were also obliged to furnish a certain number of soldiers when called upon. The same obligation rested upon the archbishops, bishops, and abbots CHARLEMAGNE 87 813 of the monasteries, all of whom, together with the counts, were called vassals of the empire. The freemen, in case of war, were compelled to serve as horse- men or foot soldiers, according to their wealth, either three or five of the very poorest furnishing one well-equipped man. The soldiers were not only not paid, but each was obliged to bear his own ex- penses ; so the burden fell very heavily upon this class of the people. In order to escape it, large numbers of the poorer freemen volun- tarily became dependents of the nobility or clergy, who in return equipped and supported them. The national assemblies were still annually held, but the people, in becoming dependents, gradually lost their ancient authority, and their votes ceased to control the course of events. The only part they played in the assemblies was to bring tribute to the emperor, to whom they paid no taxes, and whose court was kept up partly from their offerings and partly from the revenues of the " domains " or crown lands. Thus, while Charlemagne introduced throughout his whole empire a unity of government and an order unknown before, while he anticipated Prussia in making all his people liable, at any time, to military service, on the other hand he was slowly and unconsciously changing the free Germans into a race of lords and serfs. It is not likely, either, that the people themselves saw the tendency of his government. Their respect and love for him in- creased as the comparative peace of the empire allowed him to turn to interests which more immediately concerned their lives. In his ordinary habits he was as simple as they. His daughters spun and wove the flax for his plain linen garments; personally he looked after his orchards and vegetable gardens, set the schools an example by his own diligence, and stimulated teachers and pupils by his personal visits to the school ; he treated high and low with equal frankness and heartiness, and even in his old age surpassed all around him in feats of strength or endurance. There seemed to be no serfdom in bowing to a man so magnificently endowed by nature and so favored by fortune. One event came to embitter his last days. The Scandinavian Goths, now known as Norsemen, were beginning to build their " sea- dragons " and sally forth on voyages of plunder and conquest. They laid waste the shores of Holland and northern France, and the legend says that Charlemagne burst into tears of rage and shame on perceiving his inability to subdue them or prevent their 88 GERMANY 813-814 incursions. One of his last acts was to order the construction of a fleet at Boulogne, but when it was ready the Norse Vikings sud- denly appeared in the Mediterranean and ravaged the southern coast of France. Charlemagne began too late to make the Germans either a naval or a commercial people; his attempt to unite the Main and Danube by a canal also failed, but the very design shows his wise foresight and his energy. Toward the end of the year 813, feeling his death approaching, he called an imperial diet together at Aix-la-Chapelle, to recognize his son Ludwig (or Lewis) as his successor. After this was done he conducted Ludwig to the cathedral, made him vow to be just and God-fearing in his rule, and then bade him take the imperial crown from the altar and set it upon his head. On January 28, 814, Charlemagne died, and was buried in the cathedral at Aix. Over his grave was placed an arch with this inscription: " Under this monument rests the body of Charles, the great and orthodox emperor, who gloriously enlarged the Prankish kingdom and reigned happily for 47 years. He died at the age of 70 in the year of our Lord 814, in the Seventh Indiction, on the 28th of January." The grave has several times been opened since the last time in 1906 in the presence of a distinguished gathering. His skeleton was found to be in a good state of preservation, and its length corresponded almost exactly with the description of the emperor's unusual size as given by Einhard. Chapter XII THE EMPERORS OF THE CAROLINGIAN LINE 814-91 1 A. D. THE last act of Charlemagne's life in ordering the manner of his son's coronation which was imitated, a thousand years afterward, by Napoleon, who, in the presence of the Pope, Pius VH., himself set the crown upon his own head showed that he designed keeping the imperial power independent of that of the church. But his son, Ludwig (or Lewis), was already a submissive and willing dependent of Rome. During his reign as King of Aquitaine he had covered the land with monasteries, he was the pupil of monks, and his own inclination was for a monas- tic life. But at Charlemagne's death he was the only legitimate heir to the throne. Being therefore obliged to wear the imperial purple, he exercised his sovereignty chiefly in the interest of the church. His first act was to send to the Pope the treasures amassed by his father; his next, to surround himself with prelates and priests, who soon learned to control his policy. He was called " Lewis the Pious," but in those days, when so many worldly qualities were necessary to the ruler of the empire, the title was hardly one of praise. He appears to have been of a kindly nature, and many of his acts show that he meant to be just ; the weakness of his character, however, too often made his good intentions of no avail. It was a great misfortune for Germany that Lewis's piety took the form of hostility to all learning except of a theological nature. So far as he was able, he undid the great work of education com- menced by Charlemagne. The schools were given entirely into the hands of the priests, and the character of the instruction was changed. He inflicted an irreparable loss on all after ages by de- stroying the collection of songs, ballads, and legends of the Ger- man people which Charlemagne had taken such pains to gather and preserve. It is not believed that a single copy escaped destruc- tion, although some scholars suppose that a fragment of the " Song of Hildebrand," written in the eighth century, may have formed part of the collection. In the year 816 Lewis was visited in Rheims M 90 GERMANY 816-823 by the Pope, Stephen IV., who again crowned him emperor in the cathedral, and thus restored the spiritual authority which Charle- magne had tried to set aside. Lewis's attempts to release the estates belonging to the bishops, monasteries, and priesthood from the payment of taxes, and the obligation to furnish soldiers in case of war, created so much dissatisfaction among the nobles and people that, at a diet held the following year, he was summoned to divide the government of the empire among his three sons. He resisted at first, but was finally forced to consent: his eldest son, Lothar, was crowned co-Emperor of the Franks; his second son, usually known as Ludwig " the German " to distinguish him from his father, was crowned King of Bavaria ; and his third son. Pippin, as King of Aquitaine. In this division no notice was taken of Bernard, King of Lom- bardy, also a grandson of Charlemagne. The latter at once entered into a conspiracy with certain Prankish nobles, to have his rights recognized; but while preparing for war he was induced, under promises of his personal safety, to visit the emperor's court. There, after having revealed the names of his fellow-conspirators, he was treacherously arrested, and his eyes put out, in consequence of which treatment he died. The Empress Irmingarde died soon afterward, and Lewis was so overcome both by grief for her loss and remorse for having caused the death of his nephew that he was with great difficulty restrained from abdicating and retiring into a monastery. It was not in the interest of the priesthood to lose so powerful a friend, and they finally persuaded him to marry again. His second wife was Judith, daughter of Welf, a Bavarian count, to whom he was united in 819. Although this gave him another son, Karl, afterward known as Karl (Charles) the Bald, he appears to have found very little peace of mind. At a diet held in 822, at Attigny, in France, he appeared publicly in the sackcloth and ashes of a repentant sinner, and made open confession of his misdeeds. This act showed his sincerity as a man, but in those days it must have greatly diminished the reverence which the people felt for him as their emperor. The next year his son Lothar, who, after Bernard's death, became also King of Lombardy, visited Rome and was recrowned by the Pope. Lothar made him- self very popular by seeking out and correcting abuses in the administration of the laws. CAROLINGIAN LINE 91 823*838 During the first fifteen years of the reign of Lewis the Pious the boundaries of the empire were constantly disturbed by invasions of the Danes, the Slavonic tribes in Prussia, and the Saracens in Spain, while the Basques and Bretons became turbulent within the realm. All these revolts or invasions were suppressed; the eastern frontier was not only held, but extended, and the military power of the Prankish Empire was everywhere recognized and feared. The Saxons and Frisians, vv^ho had been treated with great mildness by Lewis, gave no further trouble; in fact, the whole population of the empire became peaceable and orderly in proportion as the higher civilization encouraged by Charlemagne was developed among them. The remainder of Lewis's reign might have been untroubled but for a family difficulty. The Empress Judith demanded that her son, Charles, should also have a kingdom, like his three stepbrothers. An imperial diet was therefore called together at Worms, in 829, and in spite of fierce opposition a new kingdom was formed out of parts of Burgundy, Switzerland, and Suabia. The three sons, Lothar, Pippin, and Ludwig, acquiesced at first ; but when a Span- ish count, Bernard, was appointed regent during the minority of Charles, the two former began secretly to conspire against their father. They took him captive in France, and endeavored, but in vain, to force him to retire into a monastery. The sympathies of the people were with him, and by their help he was able, the follow- ing year, to regain his authority and force his sons to submit. Lewis, however, manifested his preference for his youngest son, Charles, so openly that in 833 his three other sons united against him, and a war ensued which lasted nearly five years. Finally, when the two armies stood face to face, on a plain near Colmar, in Alsatia, and a bloody battle between father and sons seemed imminent, the Pope, Gregory IV., suddenly made his ap- pearance. He offered his services as a mediator, went to and fro, and at last treacherously carried all the emperor's chief supporters over to the camp of the sons. Lewis, then sixty years old and broken in strength and spirit, was forced to surrender. The people gave the name o " The Field of Lies " to the scene of this event. The old emperor was compelled by his sons to give up his sword, to appear as a penitent in church, and to undergo such other degradations that the sympathies of the people were again aroused in his favor. They rallied to his support from all sides; 92 GERMANY 838-841 his authority was restored, Lothar, the leader of the rebellion, fled to Italy, Pippin had died shortly before, and Ludwig proffered his submission. The old man now had a prospect of quiet ; but the machinations of the Empress Judith on behalf of her son, Charles, disturbed his last years. He died, in 840, on an island in the Rhine, near Ingelheim. The death of Lewis the Pious was the signal for a succession of fratricidal wars. His youngest son, Charles the Bald, first united his interests with those of his eldest stepbrother, Lothar, but he soon went over to the side of Ludwig the German, while Lothar allied himself with the sons of Pippin, in Aquitaine. A terrific battle was fought at Fontenay, in central France, in the summer of 841. Lothar was defeated, and Ludwig and Charles then de- termined to divide the empire between them. The following winter they came together, with their nobles and armies, near Strasburg, and vowed to keep faith with each other thenceforth. The language of France and Germany, even among the descendants of the original Franks, was no longer the same, and the oath which was drawn up for the occasion was pronounced by Charles in German to the army of Ludwig, and by Ludwig in French to the army of Charles. The text of it has been preserved, and it is a very interesting illus- tration of the two languages as they were spoken a thousand years ago. We will quote the opening phrases, for the interest of com- paring them with modem French and German : Ludwig. (French). Pro Deo amur et (pro) Christian poblo ct nostro Charles (German), In Codes minna ind (in thes) Christianes folches ind unser English. In God's love and (that of the) Christian folk and our Ludwig. comun salvament, dist di Charles, bedhero gehaltnissi, fon thesemo dage English, mutual preservation, from this day m avant, in quant framordcs, so fram so forth, as long as Ludwig. Deus savir et podir me dunat, etc Charles, mir God gewiczi ind mahd furgibit, etc English, to me God knowledge and might gives, etc It is very easy to see, from this slight specimen, how much the language of the Franks had been modified by the Gallic-Latin, and how much of the original tongue (taking the Gothic Bible of Ulfilas as an evidence of its character) has been retained in German and English. About the same time there was written in the Low German, or Saxon dialect, a Gospel narrative in verse, called the CAROLINGIAN LINE 9S 841-843 " Heliand " (" Saviour "), many lines of which are almost identical with early English ; as the following : Slogun cald isarn they drove cold iron hardo mit hamuron hard with hammers thuru is hendi enti thuru is fuoti, through his hands and through his feet; is hloud ran an ertha. his blood ran on earth. This separation of the languages is a sign of the difference in national character which now split asunder the great empire of Charlemagne. Lothar, after the solemn alliance between Charles the Bald and Ludwig the German, resorted to desperate measures. He offered to give the Saxons their old laws and even to allow them to return to their pagan faith if they would support his claims; he invited the Norsemen to Belgium and northern France; and, by retreating toward Italy when his brothers approached him in force, and then returning when an opportunity favored, he dis- turbed and wasted the best portions of the empire. Finally the bishops intervened, and after a long time spent in negotiations the three rival brothers met in 843, and agreed to the famous " Parti- tion of Verdun " (so called from Verdun, near Metz, where it was signed), by which the realm of Charlemagne was divided among them. Lothar, as the eldest, received Italy, together with a long, narrow strip of territory extending to the North Sea, including part of Burgundy, Switzerland, eastern Belgium, and Holland. All west of this, embracing the greater part of France, was given to Charles the Bald; all east, with a strip of territory west of the Rhine, from Basle to Mayence, " for the sake of its wine," as the document stated, became the kingdom of Ludwig the German, who now ruled over a real German population, speaking a language uninfluenced to any great extent by the Latin. He also received eastern Switzerland and Bavaria to the Alps. This division was almost as arbitrary and unnatural as that which Pippin the Short attempted to make. Neither Charles's nor Ludwig's shares included all the French or German territory; while Lothar's was a long, 94 GERMANY 843 narrow slice cut out of both, and attached to Italy, where a new race and language were already developed out of the mixture of Romans, Goths, and Lombards. In fact, it became necessary to invent a name for the northern part of Lothar's dominions, and that portion between Burgundy and Holland was called, after him, Lotharingia. As Lothringen in German, and Lorraine in French, the name still remains in existence. Each of the three monarchs received unrestricted sway over his realm. They agreed, however, upon a common line of policy. VEROUN in the interest of the dynasty, and admitted the right of inheritance to each other's sovereignty, in the absence of direct heirs. The Treaty of Verdun, therefore, marks the beginning of Germany and France as distinct nationalities ; and now, after following the Germanic races over the greater part of Europe for so many cen- turies, we come back to recommence their history on the soil where we first found them. In fact, the word Deutsch, " German," signi- fying " of the people," now first came into general use, to designate the language and the races Franks, Alemanni, Bavarians, Thurin- gians, Saxons, etc. under Ludwig's rule. There was, as yet, no political unity among these races; they were reciprocally jealous, CAROLINGIAN LINE 96 843-869 and often hostile; but by contrast with the inhabitants of France and Italy they felt their blood-relationship as never before, and a national spirit grew up, of a narrower but more natural character than that which Charlemagne endeavored to establish. Internal struggles awaited both the Roman emperor, Lothar, and the Frankish king, Charles the Bald. The former was obliged to suppress revolts in Provence and Italy; the latter, in Brittany and Aquitaine, while the Spanish Mark, beyond the Pyrenees, passed out of his hands. Ludwig the German inherited a long peace at home, but a succession of wars with the Wends and Bohemians along his eastern frontier. The Norsemen came down upon his coasts, destroyed Hamburg, and sailed up the Elbe with six hun- dred vessels, burning and plundering wherever they went. The necessity of keeping an army almost constantly in the field gave the clergy and nobility an opportunity of exacting better terms for their support; the independent dukedoms, suppressed by Charlemagne, were gradually reestablished, and thus Ludwig diminished his own power while protecting his territory from invasion. The Emperor Lothar soon discovered that he had made a bad bargain. His long and narrow empire was most difficult to govern, and in 855, weary with his annoyances and his endless marches to and fro, he abdicated and retired into a monastery, where he died within a week. His lands were divided among his three sons, and when the one to whom Lorraine had been given died, in 869, Lud- wig the German and Charles the Bald, by the Treaty of Mersen, divided his territory, the line running between Verdun and Metz, then along the Vosges, and terminating at the Rhine near Basel almost precisely the same boundary as that which France was forced to accept in 187 1. It made the Rhine a German river. But the conditions of the oath taken by the two kings in 842 were not observed by either. Charles the Bald was a tyrannical and unpopular sovereign, and when he failed to prevent the Norse- men from ravaging all western France the nobles determined to set him aside and invite Ludwig to take his place. The latter con- sented, marched into France with a large army, and was hailed as king; but when his army returned home, and he trusted to the prom- ised support of the Frankish nobles, he found that Charles had re- purchased their allegiance, and there was no course left to him but to retreat across the Rhine. The trouble was settled by a meeting of the two kings, which took place at Coblentz in 860. 96 GERMANY 889-880 Ludwig the German had also, like his father, serious trouble with his sons, Karlmann and Ludwig. He had made the former Duke of Carinthia, but ere long discovered that he had entered into a conspiracy with Rastitz, king of the Moravian Slavonians. Karlmann was summoned to Regensburg (Ratisbon), which was then Ludwig's capital, and was finally obliged to lead an army against his secret ally, Rastitz, who was conquered. A new war with Zwentebold, King of Bohemia, who was assisted by the Sorbs, Wends, and other Slavonic tribes along the Elbe, broke out soon afterward. Karlmann led his father's forces against the enemy, and after a struggle of four years forced Bohemia, in 873, to be- come tributary to Germany. In 875 the Emperor Ludwig II. (Lothar's son), who ruled in Italy, died without heirs. Charles the Bald and Ludwig the German immediately called their troops into the field and com- menced the march to Italy, in order to divide the inheritance or fight for its sole possession. Ludwig sent his sons, but their uncle, Charles the Bald, was before them. He was acknowledged by the Lombard nobles at Pavia, and crowned in Rome by the Pope, before it could be prevented. Ludwig determined upon an instant inva- sion of France, but in the midst of the preparations he died at Frankfort, in 876. He was seventy-one years old; as a child he had sat on the knees of Charlemagne; as an independent king of Germany he had reigned thirty-six years, and with him the intelli- gence, prudence, and power which had distinguished the Carolingian line came to an end. Again the kingdom was divided among three sons, Karlmann, Ludwig the Younger, and Karl the Fat; and again there were civil wars. Charles the Bald made haste to invade Germany before the brothers were in a condition to oppose him; but he was met by Lud-wig the Younger and terribly defeated near Andernach on the Rhine. The next year he died, leaving one son, Lewis the Stammerer, to succeed him. The brothers, in accordance with a treaty made before their father's death, thus divided Germany: Karlmann took Bavaria, Carinthia, the provinces on the Danube, and the half-sovereignty over Bohemia and Moravia ; Ludwig the Younger became king over all northern and central Germany, leaving Suabia (formerly Ale- mannia) for Karl the Fat. Kallmann's first act was to take pos- session of Italy, which acknowledged his rule, He was soon after- CAROLINGIAN LINE 97 880-887 ward struck with apoplexy, and died in 880, Karl the Fat had already crossed the Alps; he forced the Lombard nobles to accept him, and was crowned emperor at Rome, as Karl IIL, in 881. Meanwhile the Germans had recognized Ludwig the Younger as Karlmann's heir, and had given to Arnulf, the latter's illegitimate son, the duchy of Carinthia. Ludwig the Younger died, childless, in 882, and thus Ger- many and Italy became one empire under Karl the Fat. He was a true descendant of Lewis the Pious ; sickly by nature and sunk in the affairs of his own conscience, he had no time left for affairs of his country, nor for warding off from his lands the terrible and ever ad- vancing Norsemen. By this time Friesland and Holland were suf- fering from the invasions of the Norsemen, who had built a strong camp on the bank of the Meuse, and were beginning to threaten Germany. Karl marched against them, but after a siege of some weeks he shamefully purchased a truce by giving them territory in Holland, and large sums in gold and silver, and by marrying a princess of the Carolingian blood to Gottfried, their chieftain. They then sailed down the Meuse with two hundred vessels laden with plunder. All classes of the Germans were filled with rage and shame at this disgrace. The dukes and princes who were building up their local governments profited by the state of affairs to strengthen their power. Karl was called to Italy to defend the Pope against the Saracens, and when he returned to Germany in 884 he found a Count Hugo almost independent in Lorraine, the Norsemen in possession of the Rhine nearly as far as Cologne, and Arnulf of Carinthia engaged in a fierce war with Zwentebold, King of Bo- hemia. Karl turned his forces against the last of these, subdued him, and then, with the help of the Frisians, expelled the Norsemen. The two crowned grandsons of Charles the Bald, Ludwig and Karl- mann, died about this time, and the only remaining son, Charles (afterward called the Simple), was still a young child. The Frank- ish nobles therefore offered the throne to Karl the Fat, who accepted it and thus united again under one crown, for a short time, all the lands over which Charlemagne had ruled. But his was the last case of a universal Christian empire. Once more he proved himself shamefully unworthy of the power confided to his hands. He suffered Paris to sustain a nine months* siege by the Norsemen before he marched to its assistance, 98 GERMANY 887-893 and then, instead of meeting the foemen in open field, he paid them a heavy ransom for the city and allowed them to spend the follow- ing winter in Burgundy, and plunder the land at their will. The result was a general conspiracy against his rule, in Germany as well as in France. At the head of it was Bishop Luitward, Karl's chancellor and confidential friend, who, being detected, fled to Amulf in Carinthia, and instigated the latter to rise in rebellion. Arnulf was everywhere victorious: Karl the Fat, deserted by his army and the dependent German nobles, was forced, in 887, to resign the throne and retire to an estate in Suabia, where he died the following year. Duke Arnulf, the grandson of Ludwig the German, though not born in wedlock, was now raised to the throne by the German nobles as their king. This election betokens, in the words of Ranke, " the first independent action of the German secular world." That is, it was primarily the nobles, anxious to have a warrior at their head, and not the bishops and clergy, who in this instance decided who should be ruler in Germany. Being accepted at Ratisbon and afterward at Frankfort by the representatives of the people, he was able to keep them united under his rule, while the rest of the former Frankish Empire began to fall to pieces. As early as 879 a new kingdom, called Burgundy, or Arelat, from its capital Aries, was formed between the Rhone and the Alps ; Berengar, the Lom- bard Duke of Friuli, in Italy, usurped the inheritance of the Carolingian line there; Duke Conrad, a nephew of Lewis the Pious, established the kingdom of Upper Burgundy, embracing a part of eastern France, with western Switzerland; and Count Odo of Paris, who gallantly defended the city against the Norsemen, was chosen king of France by a large party of the nobles. King Arnulf,' who seems to have possessed as much wisdom as bravery, did not interfere with the pretensions of these new rulers, so long as they forbore to trespass on his German territory, and he thereby secured the friendship of all. He devoted himself to the liberation of Germany from the repeated invasions of the Danes and Norsemen on the north and the Bohemians on the east. The former had entrenched themselves strongly among the marshes ^ near Louvain, where Amulf's best troops, which were cavalry, could not reach them. He set an example to his army by dismount- ing and advancing on foot to the attack; the Germans followed with such impetuosity that the Norse camp was taken and nearly CAROLINGIAN LINE 99 893-894 all its defenders slaughtered. From that day Germany was free from invasion by the Norsemen. Amulf next marched against his old enemy, Zwentebold (or Swatopluk) of Bohemia. This king and his people had recently been converted to Christianity by the missionary Methodius, but it had made no change in their predatory habits. They were the more easily conquered by Amulf, because the Magyars, a branch of the Finnish race who had pressed into Hungary from the east, attacked them at the same time. The Magyars were called " Hungarians " by the Germans of that day as they are at present because they had taken possession of the territory which had been occupied by the Huns more than four centuries before; but they were a dis- tinct race, resembling the Huns only in their fierceness and daring. They were believed to be cannibals, who drank the blood and de- voured the hearts of their slain enemies ; and the panic they created throughout Germany was as great as that which went before Attila and his barbarian hordes. After the subjection of the Bohemians Amulf was summoned to Italy, in the year 894, where he assisted Berengar, King of Lombardy, to maintain his power against a rival. He then marched against Rudolf, King of Upper Burgundy, who had been conspir- ing against him, and ravaged his land. By this time, it appears, his personal ambition was excited by his successes; he determined to become emperor, and desirous of securing the favor of the Pope he granted the most extraordinary privileges to the church in Germany, He ordered that all civil officers should execute the orders of the clerical tribunals ; that excommunication should affect the civil rights of those on whom it fell; that matters of dispute between clergy and laymen should be decided by the bishops, with- out calling witnesses with other decrees of the same character, which practically set the church above the civil authorities. The Popes by this time had embraced the idea of becoming temporal sovereigns, and the dissensions among the rulers of the Carolingian line already enabled them to secure a power of which the former Bishops of Rome had never dreamed. In the early part of the ninth century the so-called " Isidorian Decretals " (because they bore the name of Bishop Isidor, of Seville) came to light. They were forged documents, purporting to be decrees of the ancient councils of the church, which claimed for the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) the office of Vicar of Christ and Vicegerent of 100 GERMANY 894-911 God Upon earth, with supreme power not only over all bishops, priests, and individual souls, but also over all civil authorities. The political policy of the Papal chair was influenced by these documents, and several centuries elapsed before their fictitious character was discovered. Amulf, after these concessions to the church, went to Italy in 895. He found the Pope, Formosus, in the power of a Lom- bard prince, whom the Pope had been compelled, against his will, to crown as emperor. Arnulf took Rome by force of arms, liberated the Pope, and in return was crowned Roman emperor. He fell dangerously ill immediately afterward, and it was believed that he had been poisoned. Amulf returned to Germany as emperor, but weak and broken in body and in mind. He never recovered from the effects of his illness, but lingered for three years longer, seeing his empire becom- ing more and more weak and disorderly. He died in 899, leaving one son, Ludwig, only seven years old. This son, known in history as " Ludwig the Child," was the last of the Carolingian line in Ger- many. In France the same line, now represented by Charles the Simple, was also approaching its end. At a diet held at Forcheim (near Nuremberg) Ludwig the Child was accepted as king of Germany, and solemnly crowned. On account of his tender years he was placed in charge of Arch bishop Hatto of Mayence, who was appointed, with Duke Otto of Saxony, to govern temporarily in his stead. An insurrection in Lorraine was suppressed; but now a more formidable danger approached from the east. The Hungarians (as we will henceforth call the Magyars) invaded northern Italy in 899 and ravaged part of Bavaria on their return to the Danube. Like the Huns, they destroyed everything in their way, leaving a wilderness behind. The Bavarians, with little assistance from the rest of Germany, fought the Hungarians until 907, when their duke, Luitpold, was slain in battle, and his son Arnulf purchased peace by a heavy tribute. Then the Hungarians invaded Thuringia, whose duke, Burkhard, also fell fighting against them, after which they plun- dered a part of Saxony. Finally, in 910, the whole strength of Germany was called into the field; Ludwig, eighteen years old, took command, met the Hungarians on the banks of the Inn, and was utterly defeated. He fled from the field, and was forced, thenceforth, to pay tribute to Hungary. He died in 911, and Ger- many was left without a hereditary ruler. PART II MEDIAEVAL HISTORY. 911-1493 Chapter XIII CONRAD I. AND THE SAXON DYNASTY 91 1-973- A. D. WHEN Ludwig the Child died the state of affairs in Ger- many had greatly changed. The direct dependence of the nobility and clergy upon the emperor, established by the political system of Charlemagne, was almost at an end; the country was covered with petty sovereignties, which stood between the chief ruler and the people. The feudal estates which were given to the bishops, abbots, nobles, and others who had rendered special service to the empire, were originally only granted for a term of years or for life, and afterward were to come back to the royal hands. In return for such grants the feudal lords were obliged to answer for the loyalty of their retainers, the people dwelling upon their lands, and in case of war to follow the emperor's banner with their proportion of fighting men. So long as the wars were with external foes, with opportunities for both glory and plunder, the service was willingly performed; but when they came as a consequence of family quarrels, and every portion of the empire was liable to be wasted in its turn, the em- peror's " vassals," both spiritual and temporal, began to grow restive. Their military service subjected them to the chance of los- ing their estate, and they therefore demanded to have absolute possession of the lands. The next and natural step was to have the possession, and the privileges connected with it, made hereditary in their families; and these claims were very generally secured, throughout Germany, during the reign of Karl the Fat. Only in Saxony and Friesland, and among the Alps, were the common peo- ple proprietors of the soil. The nobles, or large landowners, for their common defense against the exercise of the imperial power, united under the rule of counts or dukes, by whom the former division of the popula- tion into separate tribes or nations was continued. The emperors, also, found this division convenient, but they always claimed the right to set aside the smaller rulers, or to change the boundaries of their states, for reasons of policy. 103 104 GERMANY 911-918 Charles the Simple, of the Carolingian line, reigned in France in 911, and was therefore, according to Ihe family compact, the heir to Ludwig the Child. Moreover, the Pope, Stephen IV., had threatened with the ban of the church all those who should give allegiance to an emperor who was not of Carolingian blood. Nev- ertheless, the German princes and nobles were now independent enough to defy both tradition and Papal authority. They held a diet at Forchheim, and decided to elect their own king. They would have chosen Otto, duke of the Saxons, a man of great valor, prudence, and nobility of character, but he felt himself to be too old for the duties of the royal office, and he asked the diet to confer it on Conrad, the head of the greatest family in Franconia. Conrad was then almost unanimously chosen king of Germany, and was immediately crowned by Archbishop Hatto of Mayence. Conrad was a brave, gay, generous monarch, who soon rose into high favor with the people. He allied himself firmly with the church, and in return received its steady support. A synod held in 916, at which a Papal legate was present, spoke a threefold curse against all who should break their oath of fealty to the king, and declared treasonable undertakings to be punishable with lifelong imprisonment in a monastery. But in spite of this ecclesiastical support all Conrad's efforts to establish a strong monarchy and check the dangerous power of the great feudal lords proved a failure. His difficulty lay in the jealousy of other princes, who tried to strengthen themselves by restricting his authority. He first lost the greater part of Lorraine, and then, on attempting to divide Thuringia and Saxony, which were united under Henry, the son of Duke Otto, his army was literally cut to pieces. A Saxon song of victory, written at the time, says : " The lower world was too small to receive the throngs of the enemies slain." Arnulf of Bavaria and the Counts Berthold and Erchanger of Suabia defeated the Hungarians in a great battle near the River Inn, in 913, and felt themselves strong enough to defy Conrad. He succeeded in defeating and deposing them; but Arnulf fled to the Hungarians and incited them to a new invasion of Germany. They came in two bodies, one of which marched through Bavaria and Suabia to the Rhine, the other through Thuringia and Saxony to Bremen, plundering, burning, and slaying on their way. Then Conrad, wounded in repelling a new invasion of the Hungarians, looked forward to death as a release from his trouble. Feeling his SAXON DYNASTY 105 918-921 end approaching, he summoned his brother Eberhard, gave him the royal crown and scepter, and bade him carry them to Duke Henry of Saxony, the most troublesome of all his enemies during life, declaring that the latter was the only man with power and intelligence enough to rule Germany. In the words of a contem- porary annalist: "This king [Conrad] was so bent on the good of his fatherland that he sacrificed to it his personal enmity truly a rare virtue." Henry w^as already popular, as the son of Otto, and it was probably quite as much their respect for his character as for Con- rad's last request which led many of the German nobles to ac- company Eberhard and join him in offering the crown. They found Henry out hunting in a pleasant valley near the Harz, and he was thenceforth generally called " Henry the Fowler " by the people. He at once accepted the trust confided to his hands; a diet of the Franks and Saxons was held at Fritzlar the next year, 919, and he was there lifted upon the shield and hailed as king. But when Archbishop Hatto proposed to anoint him king with the usual religious ceremonies, he declined, asserting that he did not con- sider himself worthy to be more than a king of the people. Both he and his wife Mathilde were descendants of Wittekind, the foe and almost the conqueror of Charlemagne. Neither Suabia nor Bavaria was represented at the diet of Fritzlar. This meant resistance to Henry's authority, and he ac- cordingly marched at once into southern Germany. Burkhard, Duke of Suabia, gave in his submission without delay; but Arnulf of Bavaria made preparations for resistance. The two armies came together near Ratisbon; all was ready for battle, when King Henry summoned Arnulf to meet him alone, between their camps. At this interview he spoke with so much wisdom and persuasion that Arnulf finally yielded, and Henry's rights were established without the shedding of blood. In the meantime Lorraine, under its duke, Giselbert, had re- volted, and Charles the Simple, by unexpectedly crossing the fron- tier, gained possession of Alsatia as far as the Rhine. Henry marched against him, but, as in the case of Arnulf, asked for a personal interview before engaging in battle. The two kings met on an island in the Rhine, near Bonn: the French army was en- camped on the western, and the German army on the eastern, bank of the river, awaiting the result. Charles the Simple was soon 106 GERMANY 921-928 brought to terms by his shrewd, intelligent rival, and on Novem- ber 7, 921, a treaty was signed by which the former boundary between France and Germany was reaffirmed. Soon afterward Giselbert of Lorraine was sent as a prisoner to Henry, but the latter, pleased with his character, set him free, gave him his daugh- ter in marriage, and thus secured his allegiance to the German throne. In this manner, within five or six years after he was chosen king, Henry had accomplished his difficult task. Chiefly by peace- ful means, by a combination of energy, patience, and forbearance, he had subdued the elements of disorder in Germany, and united both princes and people under his rule. He was now called upon to encounter the Hungarians, who, in 924, again invaded both northern and southern Germany. The walled and fortified cities, such as Ratisbon, Augsburg, and Constance, were safe from their attacks, but in the open field they were so powerful that Henry found himself unable to cope with them. His troops only dared to engage in skirmishes with the smaller roving bands, in one of which, by g^eat good fortune, they captured one of the Hungarian chiefs, or princes. A large amount of treasure was offered for this prince's ransom, but Henry shrewdly refused it, and asked for a truce of nine years instead. The Hungarians finally agreed to this, on condition that an annual tribute should be paid to them during the time. This was the bravest and wisest act of King Henry's life. He took upon himself the disgrace of the tribute, and then at once set about organizing his people and developing their strength. The truce of nine years was not too long for the work upon which he entered. He began by forcing the people to observe a stricter mil- itary discipline, by teaching his Saxon foot soldiers to fight on horseback, and by strengthening the defenses along his eastern frontier. Hamburg, Magdeburg, and Halle were at this time the most eastern German towns, and beyond or between them, espe- cially toward the south, there were no strong points which could resist invasion. Henry carefully surveyed the ground and began the erection of a series of fortified enclosures. Every ninth man of the district was called upon to serve as garrison soldier, while the remaining eight cultivated the land. One-third of the harvests was stored in these fortresses, wherein, also, the people were re- quired to hold their markets and their festivals. Thus Quedlin* SAXON DYNASTY 107 928-936 burg, Merseburg, Meissen, and other towns soon arose within the fortified limits. From these achievements Henry is often called, in German history, " the Founder of Cities." Having somewhat accustomed the people to this new form of military service, and constantly exercised the nobles and their men-at-arms in sham fights and tournaments (which he is said to have first instituted), Henry now tested them in actual war. The Slavonic tribes east of the Elbe had become the natural and hered- itary enemies of the Germans, and an attack upon them hardly re- quired a pretext. The present province of Brandenburg, the basis of the Prussian kingdom, was conquered by Henry in 928; and then, after a successful invasion of Bohemia, he gradually extended his annexation to the Oder. Most of the Slavonic population were slaughtered without mercy, and the Saxons and Thuringians, spreading eastward, took possession of their vacant lands. Finally, in 932, Henry conquered Lusatia (now eastern Saxony) ; Bohemia was already tributary, and his whole eastern frontier was thereby advanced from the Baltic at Stettin to the Danube at Vienna. By this time the nine years' truce with the Hungarians was at an end, and when the ambassadors of the latter came to the German court to receive their tribute they were sent back with empty hands. A tradition states that Henry ordered an old, mangy dog to be given to them instead of the usual gold and silver. A declaration of war followed, as he had anticipated; but the Hun- garians seem to have surprised him by the rapidity of their move- ments. Contrary to their previous custom, they undertook a winter campaign, overrunning Thuringia and Saxony in such immense numbers that the king did not immediately venture to oppose them. He waited until their forces were divided, in the search for plunder, then fell upon a part and defeated them. Shortly afterward he moved against their main army, and on March 15, 933, after a bloody battle (which is believed to have been fought in the vicinity of Merseburg), was again conqueror. The Hungarians fled, leaving their camp, treasures, and accumulated plunder in Henry's hands. They were never again dangerous to northern Germany. After this came a war with the Danish king, Gorm, who had crossed the Eider and taken Holstein. Henry brought it to an end, and added Schleswig to his dominion rather by diplomacy than by arms. After his long and indefatigable exertions the empire en- 108 GERMANY 936 joyed peace; its boundaries were extended and secured; all the minor rulers submitted to his sway, and his influence over the peo- ple was unbounded. But he was not destined to enjoy the fruits of his achievements. A stroke of apoplexy warned him to set his house in order ; so, in the spring of 936, he called together a diet at Erfurt, which accepted his second son, Otto, as his successor. Al- though he left two other sons, no proj>osition was made to divide Germany among them. The civil wars of the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties, during nearly four hundred years, compelled the adoption of a different system of succession ; and the reigning dukes and counts were now so strong that they bowed reluctantly even to the authority of a single monarch. Henry died on July 20, 936, not yet sixty years old. His son and successor. Otto, was twenty-four a stern, proud man, but brave, firm, generous, and intelligent. He was married to Edith, the daughter of Athelstan, the Saxon king of England. A few weeks after his father's death he was crowned with great splen- dor in the cathedral of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle. All the dukes and bishops of the realm were present, and the new emperor was received with universal acclamation. At the banquet which followed the dukes of Lorraine, Franconia, Suabia and Bavaria served as chamberlain, steward, cup-bearer and marshal. It was the first national event, of a spontaneous character, which took place in Germany, and now, for the first time, a German kingdom seemed to be a reality. The history of Otto's reign fulfilled, at least to the people of his day, the promise of his coronation. Like his father, his inheri- tance was to include wars with internal and external foes; he met and carried them to an end with an energy equal to that of Henry I., but without the same prudence and patience. He made Germany the first power of the civilized world, yet he failed to unite the discordant elements of which it was composed, and therefore was not able to lay the foundation of a distinct nation, such as was even then slowly growing up in France. He was first called upon to repel invasions of the Bohemians and the Wends in Prussia. He intrusted the subjection of the latter to a Saxon count, Hermann Billung, and marched himself against the former. Both wars lasted for some time, but they were finally successful. The Hungarians, also, whose new inroad reached even to the banks of the Loire, were twice defeated and so SAXON DYNASTY 109 936-939 discouraged that they never afterward attempted to invade either Thuringia or Saxony. Worse troubles, however, were brewing within the realm. Eberhard, duke of the Franks (the same who had carried his brother Conrad's crown to Otto's father), had taken into his own hands the punishment of a Saxon noble, instead of referring the case to the king. The latter compelled Eberhard to pay a fine of a hundred pounds of silver, and ordered that the Prankish freemen who assisted him should carry dogs in their arms to the royal castle a form of punishment which was then considered very disgraceful. After the order had been carried into effect Otto received the cul- prits kindly and gave them rich presents, but they went home brooding revenge. Eberhard allied himself with Thankmar, Otto's own half- brother by a mother from whom Henry I. had been divorced before marrying Mathilde. Giselbert, Duke of Lorraine, Otto's brother- in-law, joined the conspiracy, and even many of the Saxon nobles, who were offended because the command of the army sent against the Wends had been given to Count Hermann, followed his exam- ple. Otto's position was very critical, and if there had been more harmony of action among the conspirators he might have lost his throne. In the struggle which ensued Thankmar was slain and Duke Eberhard forced to surrender. But the latter was not yet subdued. During the rebellion he had taken Otto's younger brother, Henry, prisoner ; he secured the latter's confidence, tempted him with the prospect of being chosen king in case Otto was over- thrown, and then sent him as his intercessor to the conqueror. Thus, while Otto supposed the movement had been crushed, Eberhard, Giselbert of Lorraine, and Henry, who had meantime joined the latter, were secretly preparing a new rebellion. As soon as Otto discovered the fact he collected an army and hastened to the Rhine. He had crossed the river with only a small part of his troops, the remainder being still encamped upon the eastern bank, when Giselbert and Henry suddenly appeared with a great force. Otto at first gave himself up for lost, but, determined at least to fall gallantly, he and his followers fought with such desperation that they won a signal victory. Giselbert retreated to Lorraine, whither Otto was prevented from following him by new troubles among the Saxons and the subject Wends between the Elbe and Oder. The rebellious princes now sought the help of the King of 110 GERMANY 939 France, Louis IV. (called " d'Outre-mer," or " from beyond sea," because he had been an exile in England). He marched into Alsatia with a French army, while Duke Eberhard and the Arch- bishop of Mayence added their forces to those of Giselbert and Henry. All the territory west of the Rhine fell into their hands, and the danger seemed so great that many of the smaller German princes began to waver in their fidelity to Otto. He, however, has- tened to Alsatia, defeated the French, and laid siege to the fortress of Breisach (halfway between Strasburg and Basle), although Giselbert was then advancing into Westphalia. A small band who remained true to him met the latter and forced him back upon the Rhine ; and there, in a battle fought near Andemach, Eberhard was slain and Giselbert drowned in attempting to flee. This was the turning-point in Otto's fortunes. The French retreated, all the supports of the rebellion fell away from it, and in a short time the king's authority was restored throughout the whole of Germany. These events occurred during the year 939. The following year Otto marched to Paris, which, however, was too strongly fortified to be taken. An irregular war between the two kingdoms lasted for some time longer, and was finally terminated by a personal interview between Otto and Louis IV., at which the ancient boundaries were reaffirmed, Lorraine remaining German. Henry, pardoned for the second time, was unable to maintain himself as Duke of Lorraine, to which position Otto had appointed him. Enraged at being set aside, he united with the Archbishop of Mayence in a conspiracy against his brother's life. It was ar- ranged that the murder should be committed during the Easter services in Quedlinburg. The plot was discovered, the accomplices tried and executed, and Henry thrown into prison. During the celebration of the Christmas mass in the cathedral at Frankfort the same year he suddenly appeared before Otto, and, throwing himself upon his knees, prayed for pardon. Otto was magnanimous enough to grant it, and afterward to forget as well as forgive. He bestowed new favors on Henry, who never again became unfaithful. During this time the Saxon counts Gero and Hermann had held the Wends and other Slavonic tribes at bay, and gradually filled the conquered territory beyond the Elbe with fortified posts, around which German colonists rapidly clustered. Following the example of Charlemagne, the people were forcibly converted to Christianity, and new churches and monasteries were founded. The SAXON DYNASTY 111 939-951 Bohemians were made tributary, the Hungarians repelled, and in driving back an invasion of the king of Denmark, Harold Blue- tooth, Otto marched to the extremity of the peninsula of Jutland and there hurled his spear into the sea, as a sign that he had taken possession of the land. He now ruled a wider and apparently a more united realm than his father. The power of the independent dukes was so weakened that they felt themselves subjected to his favor; he was everywhere respected and feared, although he never became popular with the masses of the people. He lacked the easy, familiar ways with them which distinguished his father and Charlemagne; his manner was cold and haughty, and he surrounded himself with pomp and cere- mony. He married his eldest son, Ludolf, to the daughter of the Duke of Suabia, whom the former soon succeeded in his rule; he gave Lorraine to his son-in-law, Conrad, and Bavaria to his brother Henry, while he retained the Franks, Thuringians, and Saxons under his own personal rule. Germany might have grown into a united nation if the good qualities of his line could have been trans- mitted, without its inordinate ambition. While thus laying, as he supposed, the permanent basis of his power. Otto was called upon by the King of France, who, having married the widow of Giselbert of Lorraine, was now his brother- in-law, for help against Duke Hugo, a powerful pretender to the French throne. In 946 he marched at the head of an army of 32,000 men to assist King Louis; but although he reached Nor- mandy, he did not succeed in his object, and several years elapsed before Hugo was brought to submission. In the year 951 Otto's attention was directea to Italy, which, since the fall of the Carolingian empire, had been ravaged in turn by Saracens, Greeks, Normans, and even Hungarians. The Papal power had become almost a shadow, and the title of Roman em- peror was practically extinct. Berengar of Friuli, a rough, brutal prince, called himself King of Italy, and demanded the hand of Adelheid, the sister of Conrad, King of Burgundy, who had secured his throne with Otto's aid. On her refusal to accept Berengar, she was imprisoned and treated with great indignity, but finally suc- ceeded in sending a messenger to Germany, imploring Otto's in- tervention. His wife, Edith of England, being dead, he saw, in Adelheid's appeal, an opportunity to acquire an ascendency in Italy, and resolved to claim her hand for himself. lit GERMANY QK4.AIUC Accompanied by his brother, Henry of Bavaria, his son, Ludolf of Suabia, and his son-in-law, Conrad of Lorraine, with their troops, Otto crossed the Alps, defeated Berengar, took possession of Verona, Pavia, Milan, and other cities of northern Italy, and as- sumed the title of King of Lombardy. He then applied for Adel- heid's hand, which was not refused, and the two were married with great pomp at Pavia. Ludolf, incensed at his father for having taken a second wife, returned immediately to Germany, and there stirred up such disorder that Otto relinquished his intention of visiting Rome, and followed him. After much negotiation Beren- gar was allowed to remain king of Lombardy, on condition of giving up all the Adriatic shore, from near Venice to Istria, which was then annexed to Bavaria. Duke Henry, therefore, profited most by the Italian cam- paign, and this excited the jealousy of Ludolf and Conrad, who beg^n to conspire both against him and against Otto's authority. The trouble increased until it became an open rebellion, which con- vulsed Germany for nearly four years. If Otto had been personally popular, it might have been soon suppressed ; but the petty princes and the people inclined to one side or the other, according to the prospects of success, and the kingdom, finally, seemed on the point of falling to pieces. In this crisis there came what appeared to be a new misfortune, but which, most unexpectedly, put an end to the wasting strife. The Hungarians again broke into Germany, and Ludolf and Conrad granted them permission -to pass through their territory to reach and ravage their father's lands. This alliance with an hereditary and barbarous enemy turned the whole people to Otto's side; the long rebellion came rapidly to an end, and all troubles were settled by a diet held at the close of 954. The next year the Hungarians came again in greater numbers than ever, and, crossing Bavaria, laid siege to Augsburg. But Otto now marched against them with all the military strength of Germany, and on August 10, 955, met them in a decisive battle. Conrad of Lorraine led the attack and decided the fate of the day ; but in the moment of victory, having lifted his visor to breathe more freely, a Hungarian arrow pierced his neck and he fell dead. Nearly all the enemy were slaughtered or drowned in the River Lech. Only a few scattered fugitives returned to Hungary to tell the tale, and from that day no new invasion was ever undertaken against Germany. On the contrary, the Bavarians pressed east- SAXON DYNASTY 118 955-962 ward and spread themselves along the Danube and among the Styrian Alps, while the Bohemians took possession of Moravia, so that the boundary lines between the three races then became very nearly what they are at the present day. Soon afterward Otto lost his brother, Henry of Bavaria, and, two years later his son Ludolf, who died in Italy while endeavor- ing to make himself King of the Lombards. A new disturbance in Saxony was suppressed, and with it there was an end of civil war in Germany during Otto's reign. We have already stated that he was proud and ambitious: the crown of a Roman Emperor, which still seemed the highest title on earth, had probably always hovered before his mind, and now the opportunity of attaining it came. The Pope, John XIL, who found himself in danger of being driven from Rome by Berengar, the Lombard, sent a pressing call for help to Otto, who entered upon his second journey to Italy in 961. He first called a diet together at Worms, and procured the acceptance of his son Otto, then only six years old, as his successor. The child was solemnly crowned at Aix-Ia-Chapelle ; the Arch- bishop Bruno of Cologne was appointed his guardian and vicegerent of the realm during Otto's absence, and the latter was left free to carry out his designs beyond the Alps. He was received with re- joicing by the Lombards, and the Iron Crown of the kingdom was placed on his head by the Archbishop of Milan. He then advanced to Rome and was crowned emperor in St. Peter's by the Pope on February 2, 962. The " Holy Roman Empire of the Ger- man nation " which was thus founded by Otto I. was to con- tinue for 844 years, until finally swept away by Napoleon. Within this period it was only for short intervals that the imperial throne was to be vacant, although in the sixteenth century the Pope's in- fluence in the choice and coronation amounted to nothing. This close relation of Pope and emperor established by Otto I. and John XIL, though it seemed splendid and harmonious at first, soon proved far otherwise. In fact, this renewal of the Empire was the source of centuries of loss and suffering to Germany. It was a sham and a delusion a will-o'-the wisp which led rulers and peo- ple aside from the true path of civilization and left them flound- ering in quagmires of war. Otto had hardly returned to Lombardy before the Pope, who began to see that he had crowned his own master, conspired against 114 GERMANY 962-966 him. The Pope feared that Otto, in winning over Italian bishops by rich donations, was playing a far too important role in Italy and was in danger of eclipsing the Papal power. Therefore he treacherously called on the Byzantine emperor for aid, incited the Hungarians, and even entered into correspondence with the Sara- cens in Corsica. All Italy became so turbulent that three years elapsed before the Emperor Otto succeeded in restoring order. He took Rome by force of arms, deposed the Pope and set up another, of his own appointment, banished Berengar, and compelled the uni- versal recognition of his own sovereignty. Then, with the rem- nants of an army which had almost been destroyed by war and pestilence, he returned to Germany in 965. A grand festival was held at Cologne to celebrate his new honors and victories. His mother, the aged Queen Mathilde, Lothar, reigning King of France, and all the dukes and princes of Germany were present, and the people came in multitudes from far and wide. The internal peace of the empire had not been dis- turbed during Otto's absence, and his journey of inspection was a series of peaceful and splendid pageants. An insurrection having broken out among the Lombards the following year, he sent Duke Burkhard of Suabia to suppress it in his name; but it soon became evident that his own presence was necessary. He thereupon took a last farewell of his old mother, and returned to Italy in the autumn of 966. Lombardy was soon brought to order, and the rebellious nobles banished to Germany. As Otto approached Rome the people re- stored the Pope he had appointed, whom they had in the meantime deposed; they were also compelled to give up the leaders of the revolt, who were tried and executed. Otto claimed the right of appointing the civil governor of Rome, who should rule in his name. He gave back to the Pope the territory which the latter had received from Pippin the Short two hundred years before, but nearly all of which had been taken from the church by the Lom- bards. In return the Pope agreed to govern this territory as a part, or province, of the empire, and to crown Otto's son as emperor, in advance of his accession to the throne. These new successes seem to have quite turned Otto's mind from the duty he owed to the German people ; henceforth he strove only to increase the power and splendor of his house. His next step was to demand the hand of the Princess Theophania, a daugh- SAXON DYNASTY 116 966-97S ter of one of the Byzantine emperors, for his son Otto. The East- ern court neither consented nor refused; ambassadors were sent back and forth until the emperor became weary of the delay. Fol- lowing the suggestion of his offended pride, Otto undertook a cam- paign against southern Italy, parts of which still acknowledged the Byzantine rule. The war lasted for several years, without any positive result; but the hand of Theophania was finally promised to young Otto, and she reached Rome in the beginning of the year 972. Her beauty, grace, and intelligence at once won the hearts of Otto's followers, who had been up to that time opposed to the marriage. Although her betrothed husband was only seventeen, and she was a year younger, the nuptials were celebrated in April, and the emperor then immediately returned to Germany with his court and army. All that Otto could show to balance his six years' neglect of his own land and people was the title of " the Great," which the Italians bestowed upon him, and a princess of Constantinople, who spoke Greek and looked upon the Germans as barbarians, for his daughter-in-law. His return was celebrated by a grand festival held at Quedlinburg, at Easter, 973. All the dukes and reigning counts of the empire were present, the kings of Bohemia and Po- land, ambassadors from Constantinople, Bulgaria, Russia, Den- mark, and Hungary, and from the caliph of Cordova in Spain. Even Charlemagne never enjoyed such a triumph ; but in the midst of the festivities Otto's first friend and supporter, Hermann Billung, whom he had made Duke of Saxony, suddenly died. The emperor became impressed with the idea that his own end was near: he retired to Memleben in Thuringia, where his father died, and on May 6, 973, was stricken with apoplexy, at the age of sixty-one. He died seated in his chair and surrounded by his princely guests, and was buried in Magdeburg, by the side of his first wife, Edith of England. Otto completed the work which Henry commenced, and left Germany the first power in Europe. Had his mind been as clear and impartial, his plans as broad and intelligent, as Charlemagne's, he might have laid the basis of a permanent empire; but in an evil hour he called the phantom of the scepter of the world from the grave of Roman power, and, believing that he held it, turned the ages that were to follow him into the path of war, disunion, and misery. Chapter XIV THE DECLINE OF THE SAXON DYNASTY. 9731024 OTTO II., already crowned as king and emperor, began his reign as one authorized " by the grace of God." Although only eighteen years old, and both physically and intel- lectually immature, his succession was immediately acknowledged by the rulers of the smaller German states. He was short and stout, and of such a ruddy complexion that the people gave him the name of " Otto the Red." He had been carefully educated, and possessed excellent qualities of heart and mind, but he had not been tried by adversity, like his father and grandfather, and failed to inherit either the patience or the energy of either. At first his mother, the widowed Empress Adelheid, conducted the govern- ment of the empire, and with such prudence that all were satisfied. Soon, however, the Empress Theophania became jealous of her mother-in-law's influence, and the latter was compelled to retire to her former home in Burgundy. The first internal trouble came from Henry II., Duke of Ba- varia, the son of Otto the Great's rebellious brother, and cousin of Otto II. He was ambitious to convert Bavaria into an independent kingdom : in fact he had himself crowned king at Ratisbon, but in 976 he was defeated, taken prisoner, and banished to Holland by the emperor. Bavaria was united to Suabia, and the eastern provinces on the Danube were erected into a separate principality, which was the beginning of Austria as a new German power. At the same time Otto II. was forced to carry on new wars with Bohemia and Denmark, in both of which he maintained the frontiers established by his father. But Lothar, King of France, used the opportunity to get possession of Lorraine and even to take Aix-la-Chapelle, Charlemagne's capital, in the summer of 978. The German people were so enraged at this treacherous invasion that Otto II. had no difficulty in raising an army of sixty thousand men, with which he marched to Paris in the autumn of the same 116 SAXON DYNASTY 117 978-982 year. The city was so well fortified and defended that he found it prudent to raise the siege as winter approached; but first, on the heights of Montmartre, his army chanted a Te Deum as a warning to the enemy within the walls. The strife was prolonged until 980, when it was settled by a personal interview of the emperor and the King of France, at which Lorraine was restored to Germany. In 981 Otto II. went to Italy. His mother, Adelheid, came to Pavia to meet him, and a complete reconciliation took place be- tween them. Then he advanced to Rome, quieted the dissensions in the government of the city, and received as his guests Conrad, King of Burgundy, and Hugh Capet, destined to be the ancestor of a long line of French kings. At this time both the Byzantine Greeks and the Saracens were ravaging southern Italy, and it was Otto II. 's duty, as Roman emperor, to drive them from the land. The two bitterly hostile races became allies in order to resist him, and the war was carried on fiercely until the summer of 982 with- out any result; then, on July 13, on the coast of Calabria, the imperial army was literally cut to pieces by the Saracens. The emperor escaped capture by riding into the Mediterranean and swimming to a ship which lay near. When he was taken on board 118 GERMANY 982-991 he found it to be a Greek vessel ; but whether he was recognized or not (for the accounts vary), he prevailed upon the captain to set him ashore at Rossano, where the Empress Theophania was await- ing his return from battle. This was a severe blow, but it aroused the national spirit of Germany. Otto II., having returned to northern Italy, summoned a general diet of the empire to meet at Verona in the summer of 983. All the subject dukes and princes attended, even the kings of Burgundy and Bohemia. Here for the first time the Lombard Italians appeared on equal footing with the Saxons, Franks, and Bavarians, acknowledged the authority of the empire, and elected Otto II.'s son, another Otto, only three years old, as his successor. Preparations were made for a grand war against the Saracens and the Eastern Empire, but before they were completed Otto II. died, at the age of twenty-eight, after a rule of ten years. His body was taken to Rome and buried in St. Peter's in an antique sarcophagus, over which was placed a vase of porphyry. That vase serves to-day as a christening font in St. Peter's. The sarcophagus is now a watering trough in the palace of the Quirinal. The news of his death reached Aix-la-Chapelle at the very time when his infant son was crowned king as Otto III., in accord- ance with the decree of the Diet of Verona. A dispute now arose as to the guardianship of the child, between the widowed Empress Theophania and Henry II. of Bavaria, who at once returned from his exile in Holland. The latter aimed at usurping the imperial throne, but he was incautious enough to betray his design too soon, and met with such opposition that he was lucky in being allowed to retain his former place as Duke of Bavaria. The Empress Theophania reigned in Germany in her son's name, while Adelheid, widow of Otto the Great, reigned in Italy. The former, however, had the assistance of Willigis, Archbishop of Mayence, a man of great wisdom and integrity. He was the son of a poor Saxon wheelwright, and chose for his coat-of-arms as an archbishop a wheel, with the words : " Willigis, forget not thine origin." When Theophania died, in 991, her place was taken by Otto III.'s grand- mother, Adelheid, who chose the dukes of Saxony, Suabia, Bavaria, and Tuscany as her councilors. During this time the Wends in Prussia again arose, and after a long and wasting war, in which the German settlements beyond the Elbe received little help from the imperial government, the SAXON DYNASTY 119 991-999 latter were either conquered or driven back. The relations between Germany and France were also actually those of war, although there were no open hostilities. The struggle for the throne of France between Duke Charles, the last of the Carolingian line, and Hugh Capet, which ended in the triumph of the latter, broke the last link of blood and tradition connecting the two countries. They had been jealous relatives hitherto ; now they became strangers, and it is not long before history records them as enemies. When Otto III. was sixteen years old, in 996, he took the im- perial government in his own hands. His education had been more Greek than German; he was ashamed of his Saxon blood, and named himself, in his edicts, " a Greek by birth and a Roman by right of rule." He was a strange, unsteady, fantastic character, whose leading idea was to surround himself with the absurd cere- monies of the Byzantine court, and to make Rome the capital of his empire. His reign was a farce, compared with that of his grandfather, the great Otto, and yet it was the natural consequence of the latter's perverted ambition. Otto ni.'s first act was to march to Rome in order to be crowned as emperor by the Pope, John XV., in exchange for as- sisting him against Crescentius, a Roman noble who had usurped the civil government. But the Pope died before his arrival, and Otto thereupon appointed his own cousin, Bruno, a young man of twenty-four, who took the Papal chair as Gregory V. The new- made Pope, of course, crowned him as Roman emperor a few days afterward. The people in those days were accustomed to submit to any authority, spiritual or political, which was strong enough to support its own claims, but this bargain was a little too plain and bare-faced; and Otto had hardly returned to Germany before the Roman, Crescentius, drove away Gregory V. and set up a new Pope of his own appointment. The Wends, in Prussia were giving trouble and the Scandi- navians and Danes ravaged all the northern coast of Germany; but the boy-emperor, without giving a thought to his immediate duty, hastened back to Italy in 997, took Crescentius prisoner and be- headed him, barbarously mutilated the rival Pope, and reinstated Gregory V. When the latter died, in 999, Otto made his own teacher, Gerbert of Rheims, Pope, under the name of Sylvester II. In spite of the reverence of the common people for the Papal office, they always believed Pope Sylvester to be a magician and in league 10 GERMANY 999-1002 with the (fevil. He was the most learned man of his day, and in his knowledge of natural science was far in advance of his time; but such accomplishments were then very rare in Italy, and unheard-of in a Pope. Otto III. remained three years longer in Italy, dividing his time between pompous festivals and visits to religious anchorites. In the year looo he was recalled to Germany. His father's sister, Mathilde, who had governed the country as well as she was able during his absence, was dead, and there were difficulties, not of a political nature (for to such he paid no attention), but in the organization of the church, which he was anxious to settle. The Poles were converted to Christianity by this time, and their spiritual head was the Archbishop of Magdeburg ; but now they demanded a separate and national diocese. This Otto granted to their duke, or king, Boleslav, with such other independent rights, that the author- ity of the German Empire soon ceased to be acknowledged by the Poles. Otto made a pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Adalbert of Prague, who was slain by the Prussian pagans, then visited Aix-la- Chapelle, where, following a half-delirious fancy, he descended into the vault where lay the body of Charlemagne, in the hope of hear- ing a voice or receiving a sign which might direct him how to restore the Roman Empire.^ The new Pope, Sylvester II., after Otto III.'s departure from Rome, found himself in as difficult a position as his predecessor, Gregory V. He was also obliged to call the emperor to his aid, and the latter returned to Italy in looi. He established his court in a palace on the Aventine Hill, in Rome, and maintained his au- thority for a little while, in spite of a fierce popular revolt. Then, becoming restless, yet not knowing what to do, he wandered up and down Italy, paid a mysterious visit to Venice by night, and finally returned to Rome, to find the gates barred against him. He began a siege, but before anything was accomplished he died in I002, as was generally believed, of poison. The nobles and the im- perial guards who accompanied him took charge of .his body, cut their way through a population in rebellion against his rule, and * This visit of Otto III. to the tomb of Charlemag^ne made a great impres- sion on the writers of the time; they made up and circulated the wildest stories and details about the event, which have persisted even to our own day. But no historian believes any longer that Charles sat upright on a golden throne, that his finger-nails had burst through his gloves, or that Otto repaired his great predecessor's nose with a point of gold. SAXON DYNASTY 121 1002-1006 carried him over the Alps to Germany, where he was buried in Aix-la-Chapelle. The next year Pope Sylvester II. died, and Rome fell into the hands of the counts of Tusculum, who tried to make the Papacy a hereditary dignity in their family. One of them, a boy of seven- teen, became Pope as John XVI., and during the following thirty years four other boys held the office of head of the Christian Church, crowned emperors, and blessed or excommunicated at their will. This was the end of the grand political and spiritual empire which Charlemagne had planned, two centuries before b. fantastic, visionary youth as emperor, and a weak, ignorant boy as Pope! At Otto III.'s death there were three claimants to the throne, belonging to the Saxon dynasty; but his nearest relative, Henry, third Duke of Bavaria, and great-grandson of King Henry I. the Fowler, was finally elected. Suabia, Saxony, and Lorraine did not immediately acquiesce in the choice, but they soon found it ex- pedient to submit. Henry's authority was thus established within Germany; but on its frontiers and in Italy, which was now consid- ered a genuine part of " the Roman Empire," the usual troubles awaited him. He was a man of weak constitution and only average intellect, but well-meaning, conscientious, and probably as just as it was possible for him to be, under the circumstances. His life as emperor, was " a battle and a march " ; but its heaviest burdens were inherited from his predecessors. He was obliged to correct twenty years of misrule, or rather no rule, and he courageously gave the remainder of his life to the task. The Polish duke, Boleslav, sought to unite Bohemia and all the Slavonic territory eastward of the Elbe under his own sway. This brought him into direct collision with -the claims of Germany, and the question was not settled until after three long and bloody wars. Finally, in 1018, a treaty was made between Henry II. and Boleslav, by which Bohemia remained tributary to the German Empire, and the province of Meissen (in the present kingdom of Saxony) became an appanage of Poland. By this time the Wends had secured possession of northern Prussia, between the Elbe and the Oder, thrown off the German rule, and returned to their ancient pagan faith. In Italy, Arduin of Ivrea succeeded in inciting the Lombards to revolt, and proclaimed himself king of an independent Italian nation. Henry II. crossed the Alps in 1006 and took Pavia, whose IfUt GERMANY 1006-1024 inhabitants rose against him. In the struggle which followed the city was burned to the ground. After Henry's return to Ger- many Arduin recovered his influence and power, became practically king, and pressed the Pope, Benedict VIII., so hard that the latter went personally to Henry II. (as Leo III. had gone to Charle- magne) and implored his assistance. In the autumn of 1013 Henry went with the Pope to Italy, entered Pavia without resistance, re- stored the Papal authority in Rome, and was crowned emperor in February, 10 14. He returned immediately afterward to Ger- many ; and Italy, after Arduin's death, the following year, remained comparatively quiet. Even before the wars with Poland came to an end, in 1018, other troubles broke out in the west. There were disturbances along the frontier in Flanders, rebellions in Luxemburg and Lor- raine, and finally a quarrel with Burgundy, the king of which, Rudolf III., was Henry II.'s uncle, and had chosen him as his heir. This inheritance gave Germany the eastern part of France nearly to the Mediterranean and the greater portion of Switzerland. But the Burg^ndian nobles refused to be thus transferred, and did not give their consent until after Henry's armies had twice invaded their country. Finally, in 1020, when there was temporary peace throughout the empire, the cathedral at Bamberg, which the emperor had taken great pride in building, was consecrated with splendid ceremonies. The Pope came across the Alps to be present, and he employed the opportunity to persuade Henry to return to Italy and free the south- em part of the peninsula from the Byzantine Greeks, who had ad- vanced as far as Capua and threatened Rome. The emperor consented. In 102 1 he marched into southern Italy with a large army, expelled the Greeks from the greater portion of their con- quered territory, and then, having lost his best troops by pestilence, returned home. He there continued to travel to and fro, settling difficulties and observing the condition of the people. After long struggles the power of the empire seemed to be again secured ; but when he began to strengthen it by the arts of peace his own strength was exhausted. He died near Gottingen, in the summer of 1024, and was buried in the cathedral of Bamberg. With him expired the dynasty of the Saxon emperors, less pitifully, however, than either the Merovingian or Carolingian line. When Otto the Great, toward the close of his reign, neglected SAXON DYNASTY 123 1024 Grermany and occupied himself with estabHshing his dominion in Italy, he prepared the way for the rapid decline of the imperial power at home in the hands of his successors. The reigning dukes, counts, and even the petty feudal lords no longer watched and held subordinate, soon became practically independent. Except in Fries- land, Saxony, and the Alps, the people had no voice in political matters, and thus the growth of a general national sentiment, such as had been fostered by Charlemagne and Henry L, was again destroyed. In proportion as the smaller states were governed as if they were separate lands, their populations became separated in feeling and interest. Henry II. tried to be an emperor of Germany : he visited Italy rather on account of what he believed to be the duties of his office than from natural inclination to reign there ; but he was not able to restore the same authority at home as Otto the Great had exercised. Henry II. was a pious man, and favored the Catholic Church in all practicable ways. He made numerous and rich grants of land to churches and monasteries, but always with the reservation of his own rights as sovereign. After his death he was made a saint by order of the Pope, but he failed to live, either as saint or emperor, in the traditions of the people. Chapter XV THE FRANCONIAN EMPERORS. 1024-1106 ON September 4, 1024, the German nobles, clergy, and people came together on the banks of the Rhine, near Mayence, to elect a new emperor. There were fifty or sixty thousand persons in all, forming two great camps. There were two prominent candidates for the throne, but neither of them belonged to the established reigning houses, the members of which seemed to be so jealous of one another that they mutually destroyed their own chances. The two who were brought forward were cousins, both named Conrad, both from Franconia (the land of the Frankish Germans), and both great-grandsons of Duke Conrad, Otto the Great's son-in-law, who fell so gallantly in the great battle of the Lech against the Hungarians, in 955. For five days the claims of the two were canvassed by the electors. The elder Conrad had married Gisela, the widow of Duke Ernest of Suabia, which gave him a somewhat higher place among the princes; and therefore after the cousins had agreed that either would accept the other's election as valid and final, the votes turned to his side. The people, who were present merely as spectators (for they had now no longer any part in the election), hailed the new monarch with shouts of joy, and he was immediately crowned king of Germany in the cathedral of Mayence. Conrad who was Conrad II. in the list of German emperors rested his authority mainly upon his own experience, ability, and knowledge of statesmanship. But his queen, Gisela, was a woman of unusual intelligence and energy, and she faithfully assisted him in his duties. He was a man of stately and commanding appear- ance, and seemed so well fitted for his new dignity that when he made the usual journey through Germany neither dukes nor people hesitated to give him their allegiance. Even the nobles of Lorraine, who were dissatisfied with his election, found it prudent to yield without serious opposition. The death of Henry II., nevertheless, was the signal for three 1S4 FRANCONIAN EMPERORS 15 1024-1027 threatening movements against the empire. In Italy the Lom- bards rose, and, in their hatred of what they now considered to be a foreign rule (quite forgetting their own German origin), they razed to the ground the imperial palace at Pavia: in Burgundy King Rudolf declared that he would resist Conrad's claim to the sovereignty of the country, which, being himself childless, he had promised to Henry II. ; and in Poland, Boleslav, who now called himself king, declared that his former treaties with Germany were no longer binding upon him. But Conrad II. was favored by fortune. The Polish king died, and the power which he had built up for his kingdom, like that of the Goths, reached from the Baltic to the Danube, from the Elbe to central Russia was again shattered by the quarrels of his sons. In Burgundy, Duke Rudolf was without heirs, and finally found himself compelled to recognize the German sovereign as his successor. With Canute, who was then king of Denmark and England, Conrad II. made a treaty of peace and friendship, restoring Schleswig to the Danish crown and readopting the River Eider as the boundary. In the spring of 1026 Conrad went to Italy. Pavia shut her gates against him, but those of Milan were opened, and the Lom- bard bishops and nobles came to ofifer him homage. He was crowned with the Iron Crown, and during the course of the year all the cities in northern Italy even Pavia, which promised to re- build the imperial palace acknowledged his sway. In March, 1027, he went to Rome and was crowned emperor by the Pope, John XIX., one of the young counts of Tusculum, who had suc- ceeded to the Papacy as a boy of twelve ! King Canute and Rudolf of Burgundy were present at the ceremony, and Conrad betrothed his son Henrv to the Danish princess Gunhilde, daughter of the former. After the coronation the emperor paid a rapid visit to south- ern Italy, where the Normans had secured a foothold ten years before, and, by defending the country against the Greeks and Saracens, were rapidly making themselves its rulers. He found it easier to accept them as vassals than to drive them out, but in so doing he added a new and turbulent element to those which already distracted Italy. However, there was now external quiet, at least, and he went back to Germany. Here his stepson, Ernest II. of Suabia, who claimed the crown of Burgundy, had already risen in rebellion against him. 126 GERMANY 1027-1034 He was not supported, even by his own people, and the emperor imprisoned him in a strong fortress until the Empress Gisela, by her prayers, procured his liberation. Conrad offered to give him back his dukedom provided he would capture and deliver up his intimate friend, Count Werner of Kyburg, who was supposed to exercise an evil influence over him. Ernest refused, sought his friend, and the two, after living for some time as outlaws in the Black Forest, at last fell in a conflict with the imperial troops. The sympathies of the people were turned to the young duke by his hard fate and tragic death, and during the Middle Ages the narra- tive poem of " Ernest of Suabia " was sung everywhere throughout Germany. Future generations forgot that he had been a rebel against the emperor, and only remembered his unswerving devotion to his friend. Conrad II. next undertook a campaign against Poland, which was wholly unsuccessful : he was driven back to the Elbe with great losses. Before he could renew the war he was called upon to assist Count Albert of Austria (as the Bavarian East-Mark along the Danube must henceforth be called) in a war against Stephen, the first Christian king of Hungary. The result was a treaty of peace which left him free to march once more against Poland and re- conquer the provinces which Henry II. had granted to Boleslav. The remaining task of his reign, the attachment of Burgundy to the German Empire, was also accomplished without any great diffi- culty. King Rudolf, before his death in 1032, sent his crown and scepter to Conrad II., in fulfillment of a promise made when they met at Rome six years before. Although Count Odo of Cham- pagne, Rudolf's nearest relative, disputed the succession, and all southern Burgundy espoused his cause, he was unable to resist the emperor. Conrad was crowned king of Burgundy at Payerne, in Switzerland, and two years later received the homage of nearly all the clergy and nobles of the country in Lyons. At that time Burgundy comprised the whole valley of the Rhone, from its cradle in the Alps to the Mediterranean, the half of Switzerland, the cities of Dijon and Besanqon and the territory surrounding them. All this now became, and for some centuries remained, a part of the German Empire. Its relation to the latter, however, resembled that of the Lombard kingdom in Italy : its sub- jection was acknowledged, it was obliged to furnish troops in special emergencies, but it preserved its own institutions and laws, FRANCONIAN EMPERORS 187 1034-1039 and repelled any closer political union. The continual intercourse of its people with those of France slowly obliterated the original differences between them and increased the hostility of the Bur- gundians to the German sway. But the rulers of that day were not wise enough to see very far in advance, and the sovereignty of Burgundy was temporarily a gain to the German power. Early in 1037 Conrad was called again to Italy by complaints of the despotic rule of the local governors, especially of the Arch- bishop Heribert of Milan. It was he who first organized in Milan a city militia into which all classes of the population were enrolled. He, too, first gave the Milanese their caroccio, a chariot with a mast, to which were fixed a crucifix and a standard; this was to be a rallying-point in desperate battles, and to typify civic liberty. Heri- bert now organized a far-reaching conspiracy, the aim of which was to free Italy entirely from the German yoke. He incited the people of Milan to support his plans, and became in a short time the leader of a serious revolt. The emperor deposed him, prevailed upon the Pope, Benedict IX., to place him under the ban of the church, and besieged Milan with all his forces; but in vain. The bishop defied both emperor and Pope: the city was too strongly fortified to be taken, and out of this resistance grew the idea of independence which was afterward developed in the Italian re- publics, until the latter weakened, wasted, and finally destroyed the authority of the German (or " Roman ") emperors in Italy. Con- rad was obliged to return home without having conquered Arch- bishop Heribert and the Milanese. In the spring of 1039 he died suddenly at Utrecht, aged sixty, and was buried in the cathedral at Speyer, which he had begun to build. He was a very shrewd and intelligent ruler, who planned better than he was able to perform. He certainly greatly increased the imperial power during his life by recognizing the hereditary rights of the smaller princes and replacing the chief reigning dukes, whenever circumstances rendered it possible, by members of his own family. As the selection of the bishops and archbishops remained in his hands, the clergy were of course his immediate de- pendents. It was their interest, as well as that of the common people, among whom knowledge and the arts were beginning to take root, that peace should be preserved among the different German states, and this could only be done by making the em- peror's authority paramount. Nevertheless, Conrad II. was never 18 GERMANY 1039-1046 popular. A historian of that time says : " No one sighed when his sudden death was announced." His son, Henry HI., already crowned King of Germany as a boy, now mounted the throne. He was twenty-three years old, distinguished for bodily as well as mental qualities, and was ap- parently far more competent to rule than many of his predecessors had been. Germany was quiet, and he encountered no opposition. But although the condition of Germany and, indeed, of the greater part of Europe was now more settled and peaceful than it had been for a long time, the consequences of the previous wars and disturbances were very severely felt. The land had been visited both by pestilence and famine, and there was much suffering ; there was also corruption in the church and in civil government. When things seemed to be at their worst a change for the better was instituted in a most unexpected quarter and in a very singular manner. In the monastery of Cluny, in Burgundy, the monks, under the leadership of their abbot, Odilo, determined to introduce a sterner, a more pious, and Christian spirit into the life of the age. They began to preach what they called the treuga Dei, the "truce of God," according to which, from every Wednesday evening until the next Monday morning, all feuds or fights were for- bidden throughout the land. Several hundred monasteries in France and Burgundy joined the " Congregation of Cluny " ; the church accepted the idea of the " truce of God," and the worldly rulers were called upon to enforce it. Henry HI. saw in this new movement an agent which might be used to his own advantage no less than for the general good, and he favored it as far as lay in his power. He summoned a diet of the German princes, urged the measure upon them in an eloquent speech, and set the example by proclaiming a full and free pardon to all who had been his enemies. The change was too sudden to be acceptable to many of the princes, but they obeyed as far as convenient, and the German people, al- most for the first time in their history, enjoyed a general peace and security. The " Congregation of Quny '* preached also against the uni- versal simony, by which clerical dignities were bought and sold. Many of the priests, abbots, and bishops, and even some of the Popes, had bought their appointments, and the power of the church was thus often exercised by the most unworthy hands. Henry HI., FRANCONIAN EMPERORS 129 1046 who saw the necessity of a reform, sought out the most pious, pure, and intelligent priests and made them abbots and bishops, refusing all payments or presents. He then undertook to raise the Papal power out of the deplorable condition into which it had fallen. There were then three rival Popes in Rome, each of whom officially excommunicated and cursed the others and their followers. In the summer of 1046 Henry HI. crossed the Alps with a magnificent retinue. The quarrels between the nobles and the people in the cities of Lombardy were compromised at his approach, and he found order and submission everywhere. He called a synod, which was held at Sutri, an old Etruscan town, thirty miles north of Rome, and there, with the consent of the bishops, deposed all three of the Popes, appointing the Bishop of Bamberg to the vacant office. The latter took the Papal chair under the name of Clement H., and the very same day crowned Henry HI. as Roman Emperor. To the Roman people this seemed no less a bargain than the case of Otto HI., and they grew more than ever impatient of the rule of both emperor and Pope. Their republican instincts, although repressed by a fierce and powerful nobility, were kept alive by the examples of Venice and Milan, and they dreamed as ardently of a free Rome in the twelfth century as in the nineteenth. Up to this time the Roman clergy and people had taken part, so far as the mere forms were concerned, in the election of the Popes. They were now compelled (of course very unwillingly) to give up this ancient right, and allow the emperor to choose the candidate, who was then sure to be elected by bishops of imperial appointment. In fact, during the nine remaining years of Henry III.'s reign he selected three other Popes, Clement II. and his first two successors having all died suddenly, probably from poison, after very short reigns. But this was the end of absolute German authority and Roman submission ; within thirty years the Christian world beheld a spectacle of a totally opposite character. Henry III. visited southern Italy, confirmed the Normans in their rule, as his father had done, and then returned to Germany: He had reached the climax of his power, and the very means he had taken to secure it now involved him in troubles which gradually weakened his influence in Germany. He was generous, but im- provident and reckless; he bestowed principalities on personal friends, regardless of hereditary claims or the wishes of the people, and gave away large sums of money, which were raised by im- 180 GERMANY 10W-1054 posing hard terms upon the tenants of the crown lands. A new war with Hungary, and the combined revolt of Godfrey of Lor- raine, Baldwin of Flanders, and Dietrich of Holland against him, diminished his military resources ; and even his success, at the end of four weary years, did not add to his renown. Leo IX., the third Pope of his appointment, was called upon to assist him by hurling the ban of the church against the rebellious princes. He also called to his assistance Danish and English fleets, which assailed Holland and Flanders, while he subdued Godfrey of Lorraine. The latter soon afterward married the widowed Countess Beatrix of Tus- cany, and thus became ruler of nearly all Italy between the Po and the Tiber. By the year 105 1 all the German states except Saxony were governed by relatives or personal friends of the emperor. In order to counteract the power of Bernhard, duke of the Saxons, of whom he was jealous, he made another friend, Adalbert, Archbishop of Bremen, with authority over priests and churches in northern Ger- many, Denmark, Scandinavia, and even Iceland. He also built a stately palace at Goslar, at the foot of the Harz Mountains, and made it as often as possible his residence, in order to watch the Saxons. Both these measures, however, increased his unpopularity with the German people. Leo IX., in 1053, marched against the Normans who were threatening the southern border of the Roman territory, but was defeated and taken prisoner. The victors treated him with all pos- sible reverence, and he soon saw the policy of making friends of such a bold and warlike people. A treaty of peace was concluded, wherein the Normans acknowledged themselves dependents of the Papal power : no notice was taken of the fact that they had already acknowledged that of the German-Roman emperors. This event, and the increasing authority of his old enemy, Godfrey, in Tus- cany, led Henry III. to visit Italy again in 1054. Although he held the diet of Lombardy and a grand review on the Roncalian plains near Piacenza, he accomplished nothing by his journey : he did not even visit Rome. Leo IX. died the same year, and Henry appointed a new Pope, Victor II., who, like his predecessor, became an in- strument in the hands of Hildebrand of Savona, a monk of Cluny, who was even then, although few suspected it, the real head and ruler of the Christian world. The emperor discovered that a plot had been formed to as- FRANCONIAN EMPERORS 181 1054-1062 sassinate him on his way to Germany. This danger over, he had an interview with King Henry of France, which became so violent that he challenged the latter to single combat. Henry avoided the issue by marching away during the following night. The emperor retired to his palace at Goslar, in October, 1056, where he received a visit from Pope Victor II. He was broken in health and hopes, and the news of a defeat of his army by the Slavonians in Prussia is supposed to have hastened his end. He died during the month, not yet forty years old, leaving a boy of six as his successor. The child, Henry IV., had already been crowned King of Germany, and his mother, the Empress Agnes, was chosen regent during his minority. The Bishop of Augsburg was her adviser, and her first acts were those of prudence and reconciliation. Peace was concluded with Godfrey of Lorraine and Baldwin of Flanders, minor troubles in the states were quieted, and the empire enjoyed the promise of peace. But the empress, who was a woman of a weak, yielding nature, was soon led to make appointments which created fresh troubles. The reigning princes used the opportunity to make themselves more independent, and their mutual jealousy and hostility increased in proportion as they became stronger. The nobles and people of Rome renewed their attempt to have a share in the choice of a Pope ; and, although the appointment was finally left to the empress, the Pope of her selection, Nicholas H., instead of being subservient to the interests of the German Empire, allied himself with the Normans and with the republican party in the cities of Lombardy. At home the troubles of the Empress Agnes increased year by year. A conspiracy to murder young Henry IV. was fortunately discovered; then a second, at the head of which was Archbishop Hanno of Cologne, was formed, to take him from his mother's care and give him into stronger hands. In 1062, when Henry IV. was twelve years old, Hanno visited the empress at Kaiserswerth, on the Rhine. After a splendid banquet he invited the young king to look at his vessel, which lay near the palace; but no sooner had the latter stepped upon the deck than the conspirators seized their oars and pushed into the stream. Henry boldly sprang into the water; Count Ekbert of Brunswick sprang after him, and both, after nearly drowning in their struggle, were taken on board. The empress stood on the shore, crying for help, and her people sought to inter- cept the vessel, but in vain : the plot was successful. A meeting of 182 GERMANY 1082-1073 reigning princes soon afterward appointed Archbishop Hanno guardian of the young king. He was a hard, stern master, and Henry IV. became his enemy for life. Within a year Hanno was obHged to yield his place to Adalbert, Archbishop of Bremen, who was as much too indulgent as the former had been too rigid. The jealousy of the other priests and princes was now turned against Adalbert, and his position be- came so difficult that, in 1065, when Henry IV. was only fifteen years old, he presented him to an imperial diet, held at Worms, and there invested him with the sword, the token of manhood. Thenceforth Henry reigned in his own name, although Adalbert's guardianship was not given up until a year later. Then he was driven away by a union of the other bishops and the reigning princes, and his rival, Hanno, was forced, as chief counselor, upon the angry and unwilling king. The next year Henry was married to the Italian princess, Bertha, to whom his father had betrothed him as a child. Before three years had elapsed he demanded to be divorced from her ; but, although the Archbishop of Mayence and the imperial diet were persuaded to consent, the Pope, Alexander II., following the ad- vice of his Chancellor, Hildebrand of Savona, refused his sanction. Henry finally decided to take back his wife, whose beauty, patience, and forgiving nature compelled him to love her at last. About the same time his father's enemy and his own, Godfrey of Lorraine and Tuscany, died ; another enemy, Otto, Duke of Bavaria, fell into his hands, and was deposed; and there only remained Magnus, Duke of the Saxons, who seemed hostile to his authority. The events of Henry's youth and the character of his education made him impa- tient and distrustful: he inherited the pride and arbitrary will of his father and grandfather, without their prudence, and he sur- rounded himself with wild and reckless princes of his own age, whose counsels too often influenced his poHcy. No Franconian emperor could be popular with the fierce, inde- pendent Saxons. When it was rumored that Henry IV. had sought an alliance with the Danish king, Swen, against them, when he called upon them, at the same time, to march against Poland, their suspicions were aroused, and the whole population rose in op- position. To the number of sixty thousand, headed by Otto, the deposed Duke of Bavaria (who was a Saxon noble), they marched to the Harzburg, the imperial castle near Goslar. Henry rejected FRANCONIAN EMPERORS 188 1073-1074 their conditions, his castle was besieged, and he escaped with diffi- culty, accompanied only by a few followers. He endeavored to per- suade the other German princes to support him, but they refused. They even entered into a conspiracy to dethrone him; the bishops favored the plan, and his cause seemed nearly hopeless. In this emergency the cities along the Rhine, which were very weary of priestly rule, and now saw a chance to strengthen them- selves by assisting the emperor, openly befriended him. They were able, however, to give him but little military support, and in Feb- ruary, 1074, he was compelled to conclude a treaty with the Saxons, which granted them almost everything they demanded, even to the demolition of the fortresses he had built on their territory. But in the flush of victory they also tore down the imperial palace at Goslar, the church, and the sepulcher wherein Henry HI. was buried. This placed them in the wrong, and Henry IV. marched into Saxony with an immense army which he had called together for the pur- pose of invading Hungary. The Saxons armed themselves to resist, but they were attacked when unprepared, defeated after a terrible battle, and their land laid waste with fire and sword. Thus were again verified, a thousand years later, the words of Tiberius that it was not necessary to attempt the conquest of the Germans, for, if left alone, they would destroy themselves. The power of Henry IV. seemed now to be assured; but the lowest humiliation which ever befell a monarch was in store for him. The monk of Cluny, Hildebrand of Savona, who had inspired the policy of four Popes during twenty-four years, became Pope him- self in 1073, under the name of Gregory VII. He was a man of iron will and inexhaustible energy, wise and far-seeing beyond any of his contemporaries, and unquestionably sincere in his aims. He remodeled the Papal office, gave it a new character and importance, and left his own indelible mark on the Church of Rome from that day to this. For the first five hundred years after Christ the Pope had been merely the Bishop of Rome; for the second five hundred years he had been the nominal head of the church, but subordinate to the political rulers and dependent upon them. Gregory VII. determined to make the office a spiritual power, above all other powers, with sole and final authority over the bishops, priests, and other servants of the church. It was to be a religious empire, exist- ing by divine right, independent of the fate of nations or the will of kings. 184 GERMANY 1074-1076 He relied mainly upon two measures to accomplish this change the suppression of simony and the celibacy of the priesthood. He determined that the priests should belong wholly to the church ; that the human ties of wife and children should be denied to them. This measure had been proposed before, but never carried into effect on account of the opposition of the married bishops and priests ; but the increase of the monastic orders and their greater influence at this time favored Gregory's design. Even after celibacy was proclaimed as a law of the church, in 1074, it encountered the most violent opposition, and the law was not universally obeyed by the priests until two or three centuries later. In 1075 Gregory promulgated a law against simony, in which he not only prohibited the sale of all offices of the church, but claimed that the bishops could only receive the ring and crozier, the symbols of their authority, from the hands of the Pope. The same year he sent messengers to Henry IV., calling upon him to enforce this law in Germany, under penalty of excommunication. The surprise and anger of the king may easily be imagined : it was a language which no Pope had ever before used toward the imperial power. In- deed, when we consider that Gregory at this time was quarreling with the Normans, the Lombard cities, and the King of France, and that a party in Rome was becoming hostile to his rule, the act seems almost that of a madman. Henry IV. called a synod, which met at Worms. The bishops, at his request, unanimously declared that Gregory VII. was deposed from the Papacy, and a message was sent to the people of Rome ordering them to drive him from the city. But just at that time Gregory had put down a conspiracy of the nobles to assassinate him by calling the people to his aid, and he was temporarily popular with the latter. He answered Henry IV. with the ban of excommunica- tion which would have been harmless enough but for the deep- seated discontent of the Germans with the king's rule. The Saxons, whom he had treated with the greatest harshness and indignity, since their subjection, immediately regarded the Papal ban as a justification for throwing ofl their allegiance to the emperor. The other German states showed a cold and distrustful temper, and their princes failed to come together when Henry called a national diet. In the meantime the ambassadors of Gregory were busy, and the petty courts were filled with secret intrigues for dethroning the king and electing a new one. THE EXCOMMUNICATED GERMAN EMPEROR, HENRY IV, STANDS BAREFOOTED IN THE SNOW BEFORE THE CASTLE GATES AT CANOSSA, BEGGING ADMITTANCE FROM GREGORY VII Paintine by O. Friedrich FRANCONIAN EMPERORS 135 1076 In October, 1076, finally, a convention of princes was held on the Rhine, near Mayence. Henry was not allowed to be present, but he sent messengers, offering to yield to their demands if they would only guard the dignity of the crown. The princes rejected all his offers, and finally adjourned to meet in Augsburg early in 1077, when the Pope was asked to be present. As soon as Henry IV. learned that Gregory had accepted the invitation he was seized with a panic as unkingly as his former violence. Accompanied only by a small retinue, he hastened to Burgundy, crossed Mont Cenis in the dead of winter, encountering many sufferings and dangers on the way, and entered Italy with the intention of meeting Pope Gregory and persuading him to remove the ban of the church. He believed that the Pope would not refuse, for the moral sentiment of Europe would have utterly condemned any Pope who should have steadily refused absolution to a sinner ready to make the fullest atonement for the wrongs he had committed. The whole teaching of the church was that grace was obtainable for him who sought it by the proper means. The high priest of all Christendom could not afford to be wanting in mercy. Henry also wished to prevent Gregory VII. from coming to Augsburg, where he would have extended his influence over the German clergy. And finally Henry clearly saw that he must have the ban removed in order to withdraw from his vassals in Germany their reason for breaking their alle- giance. To chastise successfully his German rebel vassals he must first make peace with the Pope; hence his sudden and often misrep- resented journey to Italy in the winter snows of 1076. At the news of his arrival in Lombardy, the bishops and nobles from all the cities flocked to his support, and demanded only that he should lead them against the Pope. The movement was so threat- ening that Gregory himself, already on his way to Germany, halted, and retired for a time to the castle of Canossa (in the Apennines, not far from Parma), which belonged to his devoted friend, the Countess Matilda of Tuscany. Thither Henry humbly bent his steps, and, presenting himself before the gate barefoot and clad only in a shirt of sackcloth, asked to be admitted and pardoned as a repentant sinner. Gregory, so unexpectedly triumphant, prolonged the satisfaction which he enjoyed in the king's humiliation : for three days the latter waited at the gate in snow and rain before he was re- ceived. Then, after promising to obey the Pope, he received the kiss of peace, and the two took communion together in the castle chapel. 136 GERMANY 1076-1100 But the kiss of peace at Canossa did not for long preserve friendly relations between Pope and emperor. Henry gave protec- tion to some of Gregory's Lombard enemies, and Gregory on his side continued to urge the Saxons to revolt against the emperor's authority. Finally the German princes, encouraged by the Pope, proclaimed Rudolf of Suabia king in Henry's place. The latter, supported by the Lombards, hastened back to Germany. A terrible war ensued, which lasted for more than two years, and was charac- terized by barbarities on both sides, Gregory a second time excom- municated the king, but without political effect. The war terminated in 1080 by the death of Rudolf in battle, and Henry's authority became gradually established throughout Germany. His first movement now was against the Pope. He crossed the Alps with a large army, was crowned King of Lombardy, and then marched toward Rome. Gregory's only friend was the Coun- tess Matilda of Tuscany, who resisted Henry's advances until the cities of Pisa and Lucca espoused his cause. Then he laid siege to Rome, and a long war began, during which the ancient city suffered more than it had endured for centuries. The end of the struggle was a devastation worse than that inflicted by Geiseric. When Henry finally gained possession of the city, and the Pope was be- sieged in the castle of St. Angelo, the latter released Robert Guis- card, chief of the Normans in southern Italy, from the ban of excom- munication which he had pronounced against him, and called him to his aid. A Norman army, numbering thirty-six thousand men, mostly Saracens, approached Rome, and Henry was compelled to retreat. The Pope was released, but his allies burned all the city between the Lateran and the Coliseum, slaughtered thousands of the inhabitants, carried away thousands as slaves, and left a desert of blood and ruin behind them. Gregory VH. did not remain in Rome after their departure: he accompanied them to Salerno, and there died in 1085. His last words were : " I have loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore I die in exile." Henry IV. immediately appointed a new Pope, Clement III., by whom he was crowned emperor in St. Peter's. After Gregory's death the Normans and the French selected another Pope, Urban II., and until both died, fifteen years afterward, they and their partisans never ceased fighting. The Emperor Henry, however, who returned to Germany immediately after his coronation, took little part in this quarrel. The last twenty years of his reign were FRANCONIAN EMPERORS 1S7 1100-1106 full of trouble and misfortune. His eldest son, Conrad, who had lived mostly in Lombardy, was in 1092 persuaded to claim the crown of Italy, was acknowledged by the hostile Pope, and allied himself with his father's enemies. For a time he was very successful, but the movement gradually failed, and he ended his days in prison in iioi. Henry's hopes were now turned to his younger son, Henry, who was of a cold, calculating, treacherous disposition. The politi- cal and religious foes of the emperor were still actively scheming for his overthrow, and they succeeded in making the young Henry their instrument, as they had made his brother Conrad. During the long struggles of his reign the emperor's strongest and most faithful supporter had been Frederick of Hohenstaufen, a Suabian count to whom he had given his daughter in marriage, and whom he finally made Duke of Suabia. The latter died in 1104, and most of the German princes, with the young Henry at their head, arose in rebellion. For nearly a year the country was again desolated by a furious civil war; but the cities along the Rhine, which were rapidly increasing in wealth and population, took the emperor's side, as before, and enabled him to keep the field against his son. At last, in December, 1105, their armies lay face to face near the River Moselle, and an interview took place between the two. Father and son embraced each other; tears were shed, repentance offered, and pardon given; then both set out together for Mayence, where it was agreed that a national diet should settle all difficulties. On the way, however, the treacherous son persuaded his father to rest in the castle of Bockelheim, there instantly shut the gates upon him and held him prisoner until he compelled him to abdicate. But after this act the emperor succeeded in making his escape : the people rallied to his support, and he was still unconquered when death came to end his many troubles, in Liege, in August, 1106. He was perhaps the most signally unfortunate of all the German emperors. The errors of his education, the follies and passions of his youth, the one fatal weakness of his manhood, were gradually corrected by experience; but he could not undo their consequences. After he had become comparatively wise and energetic the internal dissensions of Germany and the conflict between the Catholic Church and the imperial power had grown too strong to be suppressed by his hand. When he might have done right, he lacked either the knowledge or the will ; when he finally tried to do right, he had lost the power. 1S8 GERMANY 1106 During the latter years of his reign occurred a great historical event, the consequences of which were most important to Europe, though not immediately so to Germany. Peter the Hermit preached a crusade to the Holy Land for the purpose of conquering Jerusalem from the Saracens. The " Congregation of Cluny " had prepared the way for this movement; one of the two Popes, Urban H., en- couraged it, and finally Godfrey of Bouillon (of the ducal family of Lorraine) put himself at its head. The soldiers of this, the first crusade, came chiefly from France, Burgundy, and Italy. Although many of them passed through Germany on their way to the East, they made few recruits among the people; but the success of the undertaking, the capture of Jerusalem by Godfrey in 1099, and the religious enthusiasm which it created, tended greatly to strengthen the Papal power, and also that faction in the church which was hos- tile to Henry IV. X .1 Chapter XVI END OF THE FRANCONIAN DYNASTY, AND RISE OF THE HOHENSTAUFENS. 1106-1152 HENRY V. showed his true character immediately after his accession to the throne. Although he had been previously supported by the Papal party, he was no sooner acknowl- edged King of Germany than he imitated his father in opposing the claims of the church. The new Pope, Paschal II., had recognized the bishops whom Henry IV. had appointed, but at the same time he issued a manifesto declaring that all future appointments must come from him. Henry V. answered this with a letter of defiance, and continued to select his own bishops and abbots, which the Pope, not being able to resist, was obliged to suffer. During the disturbed fifty years of Henry IV.'s reign Burgundy and Italy had become practically independent of Germany ; Hungary and Poland had thrown off their dependent condition, and even the Wends beyond the Elbe were no longer loyal to the empire. Within the German states the imperial power was already so much weakened by the establishment of hereditary dukes and counts not related to the ruling family that the king (or emperor) exercised very little direct authority over the people. The crown lands had been mostly either given away in exchange for assistance, or lost during the civil wars : the feudal system was firmly fastened upon the country, and only a few free cities like those in Italy kept alive the ancient spirit of liberty and political equality. Under such a system a monarch could accomplish little, unless he was both wiser and stronger than the reigning princes under him; there was no general national sentiment to which he could appeal. Henry V. was cold, stern, heartless, and unprincipled ; but he inspired a whole- some fear among his princely " vassals," and kept them in better order than his father had done. After giving the first years of his reign to the settlement of troubles on the frontiers of the empire, Henry V. prepared, in 11 10, for a journey to Italy. So many followers came to him that when 139 140 GERMANY 1110-1114 he had crossed the Alps and mustered them on the plains of Pia- cenza there were thirty thousand knights present. With such a force no resistance was possible. The Lombard cities acknowledged him; Countess Matilda of Tuscany followed their example; and the Pope met him in a friendly spirit. The latter was willing to crown Henry as emperor, but still claimed the right of investing the bishops. This Henry positively refused to grant, and, after much deliberation, the Pope finally proposed an arrangement ab- solutely revolutionary in its character and amounting to a com- plete separation of church and state. The church was to surrender to the crown all the landed possessions and rights of the empire which had come into the hands of the clergy since the time of Charlemagne. Whole counties were thus to be surrendered, and priests were no longer to be princes, no longer to hold feudal estates, nor to exercise temporal powers of government. On the contrary, the clergy were to content themselves with tithes and pious offerings. The king, in return, was to relinquish the right of investiture; things temporal were to be wholly separated from things spiritual. Although the change would be attended with some difficulty in Germany, Henry consented, and the long quarrel between Pope and emperor was apparently settled. On February 12, mi, the king entered Rome at the head of a magnificent procession, and was met at the gate of St. Peter's by the Pope, who walked with him hand in hand to the plat- form before the high altar. But when the latter read aloud the agreement, the bishops and other clergy raised their voices in angry dissent. They had no mind to lose their great estates and were wild with excitement; they even declared Paschal guilty of heresy. The debate lasted so long that one of the German knights cried out : " Why so many words? Our king means to be crowned emperor, like Karl the Great f " The Pope refused the act of coronation, and was immediately made prisoner. The people of Rome rose in arms, and a terrible fight ensued. Henry narrowly escaped death in the streets, and was compelled to encamp outside the city. At the end of two months the resistance both of Pope and people was crushed ; Henry was crowned emperor, and Paschal 11. gave up his claim for the investiture of the bishops. Henry V. returned immediately to Germany, defeated the re- bellious Thuringians and Saxons in 1 113, and the following year was married to Matilda, daughter of Henry I. of England. This THE HOHENSTAUFENS 141 1114-1122 was the climax of his power and splendor. It was soon followed by troubles with Friesland, Cologne, Thuringia, and Saxony, and in the course of two years his authority was set at naught over nearly all northern Germany. Only Suabia, under his nephew, Frederick of Hohenstaufen, and Duke Welf II. of Bavaria, re- mained faithful to him. He was obliged to leave Germany in this state and hasten to Italy in 1116, on account of the death of the Countess Matilda, who had bequeathed Tuscany to the church, although she had previously acknowledged the imperial sovereignty. Henry claimed and se- cured possession of her territory; he then visited Rome, the Pope leaving the city to avoid meeting him. The latter died soon after- ward, and for a time a new Pope, of the emperor's own appoint- ment, was installed in the Vatican. The Papal party, which now included all the French bishops, immediately elected another, who excommunicated Henry V. ; but the act was of no consequence, and was in fact overlooked by Calixtus II., who succeeded to the Papal chair in 11 18. The same year Henry returned to Germany and succeeded, chiefly through the aid of Frederick of Hohenstaufen, in establish-, ing his authority. The quarrel with the Papal power concerning the investiture of the bishops was still unsettled; the new Pope, Calixtus IL, who was a Burgundian and a relative of the emperor, remained in France, where his claims were supported. After long delays and many preliminary negotiations, a diet was held at Worms in September, 1122, when the question was finally settled. The election and appointment of the bishops and their investiture with the ring and crozier were given to the Pope, but the elections were required to be made in the emperor's presence ; then the emperor was to confer upon them their temporal powers and their feudal estates by a special investiture with the scepter ; this imperial ceremony was to precede the final consecration of the bishop by the Pope. This arrangement is known as the Concordat of Worms. Although in every sense a compromise, the advantage nevertheless lay with the Papacy; the spiritual principalities in Germany were greatly eman- cipated frcTi the authority of the crown; the emperor's right of approving by his presence the nominee of the church was very differ- ent from having the nomination of the candidate in his own hand. The Concordat of Worms was hailed at the time as a fortunate set- tlement of a strife which had lasted for fifty years. In the Rhine 142 GERMANY 1122-1125 meadows near Worms the document was finally signed. The Papal legate extended to the emperor the kiss of peace and administered to him the holy sacrament of communion. The ban was thereby loosed and Henry V. was received back into the arms of the church. The troubles in northern Germany, however, were not subdued by this final peace with Rome. Henry V. died at Utrecht, in Holland, in May, 1125, leaving no children, which the people be- lieved to be a punishment for his unnatural treatment of his father. He was buried in the magnificent newly constructed cathedral of Speyer, one of the first of the great triumphs of church archi- tecture in Germany. There was no one to mourn his death, for even his efforts to increase the imperial authority, and thereby to create a national sentiment among the Germans, were neutralized by his coldness, haughtiness, and want of principle as a man. The people were forced by the necessities of their situation to support their own reigning princes, in the hope of regaining from the latter some of their lost political rights. Another circumstance tended to prevent the German emperors from acquiring any fixed power. They had no capital city, such as France already possessed in Paris. After the coronation the mon- arch immediately commenced his " royal ride," visiting all portions of the country, and receiving, personally, the allegiance of the whole people. Then during his reign he was constantly migrating from one castle to another, either to settle local difficulties, to collect the income of his scattered estates, or for his own pleasure. There was thus no central point to which the Germans could look as the seat of the imperial rule. The emperor was a Frank, a Saxon, a Bavarian, or Suabian, by turns, but never permanently a German with a na- tional capital grander than any of the petty courts. Henry V. left all his estates and treasures to his nephew, Fred- erick of Hohenstaufen, but not the crown jewels and insignia, which were to be bestowed by the national diet upon his successor. Frederick and his brother Conrad, Duke of Franconia, were the natural heirs to the crown; but, as the Hohenstaufen family had stood faithfully by Henry IV. and V. in their conflicts with the Pope, it was unpopular with the priests and reigning princes. At the diet the Archbishop of Mayence nominated Lothar of Saxony, who was chosen after a very stormy session. His first acts were to beg the Pope to confirm his election, and then to give up his right to have the bishops and abbots elected in his presence. He next THE HOHENSTAUFENS 143 1125-1138 demanded of Frederick of Hohenstaufen the royal estates which the latter had inherited from Henry V. Being defeated in the war which followed, he strengthened his party by marrying his only daughter, Gertrude, to Henry the Proud, Duke of Bavaria (grand- son of Duke Welf, Henry IV.'s friend, whence this family was called the Welfs or Guelphs). By this marriage Henry the Proud became also Duke of Saxony ; but a part of the dukedom, called the North Mark, was separated and given to a Saxon noble, a friend of Lothar, named Albert the Bear. Lothar was called to Italy in 1132 by Innocent II., one of two Popes who, in consequence of a division in the College of Cardinals, had been chosen at the same time. The emperor was crowned in the Lateran, in June, 1133, while the other Pope, Anaclete IL, was reigning in the Vatican. He acquired the territory of the Countess Matilda of Tuscany, but only on condition of paying four hundred pounds of silver annually to the church. The former state of affairs was thus suddenly reversed: the emperor acknowledged himself a dependent of the temporal Papal power. When he returned to Germany the same year Lothar succeeded in subduing the resist- ance of the Hohenstaufens, and then bound the reigning princes of Germany, by solemn oath, to keep the peace for the term of twelve years. This truce enabled him to return to Italy for the purpose of assisting Pope Innocent, who had been expelled from Rome. Inno- cent's rival, Anaclete II., was supported by the Norman king, Roger II. of Sicily, who, in the summer of 1137, was driven out of south- ern Italy by Lothar's army. But quarrels broke out with the Pisans, who were his allies, and with Pope Innocent, for whose cause he was fighting, and Lothar finally set out for Germany, without even visiting Rome. At Trient, in the Tyrol, he was seized with a mortal sickness, and died on the Brenner Pass of the Alps, in a shepherd's hut. His body was taken to Saxony and buried in the chapel of a monastery which he had founded there. A national diet was called to meet in May, 11 38, and elect a successor. Lothar's son-in-law, Henry the Proud, Duke of Ba- varia, Saxony, and Tuscany (which the emperor had transferred to him), seemed to have the greatest right to the throne ; but he was already so important that the jealousy of the other reigning princes was excited against him. Their policy was to choose a weak rather than a strong ruler one who would not interfere with the author- 144 GERMANY 1138-1142 ity in their own lands. Conrad of Hohenstaufen took advantage of this jealousy ; he courted the favor of the princes and the bishops, and was chosen and crowned by the latter, three months before the time fixed for the meeting of the diet. The movement, though in violation of all law, succeeded perfectly : a new diet was called, for form's sake, and all the German princes, except Henry the Proud, acquiesced in Conrad's election as Conrad III. In order to maintain his place the new king was compelled to break the power of his rival. He therefore declared that Henry the Proud should not be allowed to govern two lands at the same time, and gave all Saxony to Albert the Bear. When Henry rose in resistance Conrad proclaimed that he had forfeited Bavaria, which he gave to Leopold of Austria. In this emergency Henry the Proud called upon the Saxons to help him, and had raised a con- siderable force when he suddenly died, toward the end of the year 1 139. His brother, Welf, continued the struggle in Bavaria, in the interest of his young son, Henry, afterward called " the Lion." He attempted to raise the siege of the town of Weinsberg, which was beleaguered by Conrad's army, but failed. The tradition re- lates that when the town was forced to surrender the women sent a deputation to Conrad, begging to be allowed to leave with such goods as they could carry on their backs. When this was granted and the gates were opened, they came out, carrying their husbands, sons, or brothers as their dearest possessions. I In this struggle, for the first time the names of Welf and Wai- blinger (from the little town of Waiblingen, in Wurtemberg, which belonged to the Hohenstaufens) were first used as party cries in battle. In the Italian language they became " Guelph " and " Ghi- belline," and for hundreds of years they retained an intense and powerful significance. The term Welf (Guelph) very soon came to mean the party of the Pope, and Waiblinger (Ghibelline) that of the German emperor. The end of this first conflict was that, in 1 142, young Henry the Lion (great-grandson of Duke Welf of Bavaria) was allowed to be Duke of Saxony. From him descended the later dukes of Brunswick and Hanover, who retained the family name of Welf, or Guelph, which, through George I., is also that of the royal family of England at this day. Albert the Bear was obliged to be satisfied with the North Mark, which was extended to the eastward of the Elbe and made an independent principality. He called himself Markgraf (border count) of Brandenburg, and thus THE HOHENSTAUFENS 145 1142-1149 laid the basis of a new state, which, in the course of centuries, de- veloped into Prussia. About this time the Christian monarchy in Jerusalem began to be threatened with overthrow by the Saracens, and the Pope, Eugene III., responded to the appeals for help from the Holy Land by call- ing for a second crusade. He not only promised forgiveness of all sins, but released the volunteers from payment of their debts and whatever obligations they might have contracted under oath. France was the first to answer the call ; then Bernard of Clairvaux visited Germany and made passionate appeals to the people. The first effect of his speeches was the plunder and murder of the Jews in the cities along the Rhine; then the slow German blood was roused to enthusiasm for the rescue of the Holy Land, and the impulse became so great that King Conrad was compelled to join in the movement. His nephew, the red-bearded Frederick of Sua- bia, also put the cross on his mantle ; nearly all the German princes and many of the common people, except the Saxons, followed the example. In May, 1147, the crusaders assembled at Ratisbon. There were present seventy thousand, horsemen in armor, without counting the foot soldiers and followers. All the robber bands and notorious criminals of Germany joined the army. Conrad led the march down the Danube, through Austria and Thrace, to Constantinople. Louis VII., King of France, followed him, with a nearly equal force, leaving the German states through which he passed in a famished condition. The two armies, united at Constantinople, advanced through Asia Minor, but were so reduced by battles, disease, and hardships on the way that the few who reached Palestine were too weak to reconquer the ground lost by the King of Jerusalem. During the year 1149 the German princes returned from the East with their few surviving followers. The loss of so many rob- bers and robber knights was nevertheless a great gain to the coun- try: the people enjoyed more peace and security than they had known for a long time. Duke Welf of Bavaria (brother of Henry the Proud) was the first to reach Germany. Conrad, fearing that he would make trouble, sent after him the young Duke of Suabia, Frederick Red-Beard (Barbarossa) of Hohenstaufen. It was not long, in fact, before the war-cries of " Guelph ! " and " Ghibelline ! " were again heard ; but Welf, as well as his nephew, Henry the Lion of Saxony, was defeated. During the crusade the latter had carried 146 GERMANY 1149-1152 on a war against the Wends and other Slavonic tribes in Prussia, the chief result of which was the foundation of the city of Liibeck. Conrad III. now determined to pay his delayed visit to Rome, and be crowned emperor. Immediately after his return from the East he had received a pressing invitation from the Roman senate to come, to recognize the new order of things in the ancient city, and make it the permanent capital of the united German and Italian Empire. Arnold of Brescia, who for years had been advocating the separation of the Papacy from all temporal power, and the reestab- lishment of the Catholic Church upon the democratic basis of the early Christian Church, had compelled the Pope, Eugene III., to accept his doctrine. Rome was practically a republic, and Arnold's reform, although fiercely opposed by the bishops, abbots, and all priests holding civil power, made more and more headway among the people. At a national diet, held at Wiirzburg in 1151, it was decided that Conrad should go to Rome, and the Pope was officially informed of his intention. But before the preparations for the journey were completed Conrad died, in February, 1152, at Bam- berg. He was buried there in the cathedral built by Henry II. Chapter XVII THE REIGN OF FREDERICK BARBAROSSA. 1152-1197 CONRAD left only an infant son at his death, and the Ger- man princes, who were learning a little wisdom by this time, determined not to renew the unfortunate experiences of Henry IV.'s minority. The next heir to the throne was Frederick of Suabia, who was now thirty-one years old, handsome, popular, and already renowned as a warrior. He was elected immediately, without opposition, and solemnly crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle. When he made his " royal ride " through Germany, according to custom, the people hailed him with acclamations, hoping for peace and a settled authority after so many civil wars. His mother was a Welf princess, whence there seemed a possibility of terminating the rivalry between Welf and Waiblinger in his election. The Italians always called him " Barbarossa," on account of his red beard, and by this name he is best known in history. Since the accession of Otto the Great no German monarch had been crowned under such favorable auspices, and none had possessed so many of the qualities of a great ruler. He was shrewd, clear-sighted, intelligent, and of an iron will ; he enjoyed the exercise of power, and the aim of his life was to extend and secure it. On the other hand, he was despotic, merciless in his revenge, and some- times led by the violence of his passions to commit deeds which darkened his name and interfered with his plans of empire. Frederick I. first assured to the German princes the rights which they already possessed as German princes, coupled with the declaration that he meant to exact the full and strict perform- ance of their duties to him as king. On his first royal journey he arbitrated between Swen and Canute, rival claimants to the throne of Denmark, conferred on the Duke of Bohemia the title of king, and took measures to settle the quarrel between Henry the Lion of Saxony and Henry of Austria, for the possession of Bavaria. In all these matters he showed the will, the decision, and the imposing 147 148 GERMANY 1152-1156 personal bearing of one who felt that he was born to rule ; and had he remained in Germany he might have consolidated the states into one nation. But the phantom of a Roman Empire beckoned him to Italy. The invitation held out to Conrad was not renewed, for Pope Eugene III. was dead, and his successor, Adrian IV. (an Eng- lishman, by the name of Breakspeare), rejected Arnold of Brescia's doctrines. It was in Frederick's power to secure the success of either side; but his first aim was the imperial crown, and he could only g^in it without delay by assisting the Pope. In 1 1 54 Frederick, accompanied by Henry the Lion and many other princes, and a large army, crossed the Brenner Pass, in the Tyrol, and descended into Italy. According to old custom the first camp was pitched on the Roncalian Fields, near Piacenza, and the royal shield was set up as a sign that the chief ruler was present and ready to act as judge in all political troubles. Many complaints were brought to him against the city of Milan, which had become a haughty and despotic republic, and began to oppress Lodi, Como, and other neighboring cities. Frederick saw plainly the trouble which this independent movement in Lombardy would give to him or his successors ; but after losing two months and many troops in besieging and destroying Tortona, one of the towns friendly to Milan, he was not strong enough to attack the latter city ; so, having been crowned King of Lombardy at Pavia, he marched, in 1155, toward Rome. At Viterbo he met Pope Adrian IV., and negotiations com- menced in regard to his coronation as emperor, which, it seems, was not to be had for nothing. Adrian's first demand was the sup- pression of the Roman republic, which had driven him from the city. Frederick answered by capturing Arnold of Brescia, who was then in Tuscany, and delivering him into the Pope's hands. The Pope then demanded that Frederick should hold his stirrup when he mounted his mule. This humiliation, second only to that which Henry IV. endured at Canossa, was accepted by the proud Hohenstaufen, in his ambitious haste to be crowned ; but even then Rome had to be first taken from the republicans. By some means an entrance was forced into the part of the city on the right bank of the Tiber; Frederick was crowned in all haste and immediately retreated, but not before he and his escort were furiously attacked in the streets by the Roman people. Henry the Lion, by his bravery and presence of mind, saved the new emperor from being slain. FREDERICK BARBAROSSA 149 1156 Arnold of Brescia was afterward, without the knowledge either of the Pope or of the new emperor, taken from prison by a personal enemy and hanged. His body was burned and his ashes thrown into the Tiber. Meanwhile the hostility of the Roman people and the heats of summer and the fevers they brought decided Frederick to leave Italy and return to Germany. The glory of his coming was already exhausted. He fought his way through Spoleto; Verona shut its gates upon him, and one robber castle in the Alps held the whole army at bay until it was taken by Otto of Wittelsbach. The un- natural composition of the later Roman Empire was again dem- onstrated. If during the four centuries which had elapsed since Charlemagne's succession to power the German rule was the curse of Italy, Italy (or the fancied necessity of ruling Italy) was no less a curse to Germany. The strength of the German people for hun- dreds of years was exhausted in endeavoring to keep up a high- sounding sovereignty, which they could not truly possess, and in the best interests of the two countries ought certainly not to have possessed. On returning to Germany Frederick found enough to do. He restored the internal peace and security of the country with a strong hand, executing the robber knights, tearing down their castles, and even obliging fourteen reigning princes, among whom was the Archbishop of Mayence, to undergo what was considered the shame- ful punishment of carrying dogs in their arms before the imperial palace. By his second marriage with Beatrix, Princess of Bur- gundy, he established anew the German authority over that large and rich kingdom ; while at a diet held in 1 1 56 he gave Bavaria to Henry the Lion, and pacified Henry of Austria by making his terri- tory an independent dukedom. This was the second phase in the growth of Austria. Henry the Lion, however, was more a Saxon than a Bavarian. Although he first raised Munich from an insignificant cluster of peasants' huts to the dignity of a city, his energies were chiefly directed toward extending his sway from the Elbe eastward along the Baltic. He conquered Mecklenburg and colonized the country with Saxons, made Liibeck an important commercial center, and slowly Germanized the former territory of the Wends. Albert the Bear, Count of Brandenburg, followed a similar policy, and both were encouraged by the emperor, who was quite willing to see his 150 GERMANY 1156-1160 own sway thus extended. A rhyme current among the common people at the time says: "Henry the Lion and Albert the Bear, Thereto Frederick with the red hair. Three lords are they, Who could change the world to their way." The grand imperial character of Frederick, rather than what he had actually accomplished, had already given him a great reputa- tion throughout Europe. Pope Adrian IV. endeavored to imitate Gregory VII.'s language to Henry IV., in treating with him, but soon found that he was deserted by the German bishops, and thought it prudent to apologize. His manner, nevertheless, and the increas- ing independence of Milan, called Frederick across the Alps with an army of one hundred thousand men in 1158. Milan then sur- rounded with strong walls, nine miles in circuit, was besieged and at the end of a month forced to surrender, to rebuild Lodi, and to pay a fine of nine thousand pounds of silver. Afterward the emperor pitched his camp on the Roncalian fields, with a splendor before un- known. Ambassadors from England, France, Hungary, and Con- stantinople were present, and the imperial power, almost for the first time, was thus recognized as the first in the civilized world. Just at this time the old Roman law was being revived ; eager students were poring over the Code of Justinian, which set forth in the strongest terms the absolute power of emperors. Frederick made use of this renaissance of law to find out exactly what were his imperial rights. Four doctors of the University of Bologna were selected, who discovered so many ancient imperial rights which had fallen into disuse that the emperor's treasury was enriched to the amount of thirty thousand pounds of silver annually by their enforcement. When this system came to be practically applied, Milan and other Lombard cities which claimed the right to elect their own magistrates, and would have lost it under the new order of things, determined to resist. A war ensued. Tlie little city of Crema was the first to be besieged. One detail alone will suffice to show the horror of the siege and the spirit manifested on each side. Frederick I. caused one of his besieging towers, the advance of which had been checked by the defenders, to be literally covered with the persons of hostages and captives from Crema, who were thus exposed to the missiles of their own friends. But this cruel FREDERICK BARBAROSSA 161 1160-1166 maneuver failed at first, for patriotism and civic pride proved superior to all tenderer feelings. Finally, after a gallant defense of seven months Crema had to yield to the emperor's overwhelming forces and was razed to the ground. Next came the turn of Milan. In the meantime the Pope, Adrian IV., had died, after threatening the emperor with excom- munication. The College of Cardinals was divided, each party electing its own Pope. Of these, Victor IV. was recognized by Frederick, who claimed the right to decide between them, while most of the Italian cities, with France and England, were in favor of Alexander III. The latter immediately excommunicated the emperor, who, without paying any regard to the act, prepared to take his revenge on Milan. In March, 1162, after a long siege, he forced the city to surrender. The magistrates appeared before him in sackcloth, barefoot, with ashes upon their heads and ropes around their necks, and begged him, with tears, to be merciful; but there was no mercy in his heart. He gave the inhabitants eight days to leave the city, then leveled it completely to the earth, and sowed salt upon the ruins as a token that it should never be rebuilt. The rival cities of Pavia, Lodi, and Como rejoiced over this barbarity, and all the towns of northern Italy hastened to submit to all the emperor's claims, even that they should be governed by magistrates of his appointment. In spite of this apparent submission he had no sooner returned to Germany than the cities of Lombardy began to form a union against him. They were instigated and secretly assisted by Venice, which was already growing powerful through her independence. The Pope whom Frederick had supported was also dead, and he determined to set up a new one instead of recognizing Alexander III. He went to Italy with a small escort, in 1 163, but was compelled to go back without accomplishing anything but a second destruc- tion of Tortona, which had been rebuilt. In Germany new dis- turbances had broken out, but his personal influence was so great that he subdued them temporarily; he also prevailed upon the Ger- man bishops to recognize Paschal III., the Pope whom he had appointed. He then set about raising a new army, and finally, in 1 166, made his fourth journey to Italy. This was even more unfortunate than the third journey had been. The Lombard cities, feeling strong through their union, had not only rebuilt Milan and Tortona, but had constructed a new 16 GERMANY 11W-1178 fortified town, which they named, aft.er the Pope, Alessandria. Frederick did not dare to attack them, but marched on to Ancona, which he besieged for seven months, finally accepting a ransom instead of surrender. He then took the part of Rome west of the Tiber and installed his Pope in the Vatican. Soon afterward, in the summer of 1167, a terrible pestilence broke out, which carried off thousands of his best soldiers in a few weeks. His army was so reduced by death that he stole through Lombardy almost as a fugitive, remained hidden among the Alps for months, and finally crossed Mont Cenis with only thirty followers, himself disguised as a common soldier. Having reached Germany in safety, Frederick's personal influ- ence at once gave him the power and popularity which he had for- ever lost in Italy. He found Henry the Lion, who, in addition to Bavaria, now governed nearly all the territory from the Rhine to the Vistula north of the Harz Mountains, at enmity with Albert the Bear and a number of smaller reigning princes. As emperor he settled the questions in dispute, deciding in favor of Henry the Lion, although the increasing power of the latter excited his appre- hensions. Henry was too cautious to make the emperor his enemy, but in order to avoid another march to Italy, he set out upon a pil- grimage to Jerusalem. Frederick, however, did not succeed in raising a fresh army to revenge his disgrace until 11 74, when he made his fifth journey to Italy. He first besieged the new city of Alessandria, but in vain ; then, driven to desperation by his failure, he called for help upon Henry the Lion, who had now returned from the Holy Land. The two met at Chiavenna, in the Italian Alps; but Henry steadfastly refused to aid the emperor, although the latter conquered his own pride so far as to kneel before him. Bitterly disappointed and humiliated, Frederick appealed to all the German states for aid, but he did not receive fresh troops until the spring of 11 76. He then marched upon Milan, but was met by the united forces of Lombardy at Legnano, near Como. The latter fought with such desperation that the imperial army was completely routed, and its camp equipage and stores taken, with many thousands of prisoners, who were treated with the same bar- barity which the emperor himself had introduced anew into warfare. He fell from his horse during the fight, and had been for some days reported to be dead, when he suddenly appeared before the Empress Beatrix, at Pavia, having escaped in disguise. U D S? :^ s = FREDERICK BARBAROSSA 168 1176-1184 His military strength was now so broken that he was compelled to seek a reconciliation with Pope Alexander III. Envoys went back and forth between the two, the Lombard cities, and the King of Sicily ; conferences were held at various places, but months passed and no agreement was reached. Then the Pope, having received Frederick's submission to all his demands, proposed an armistice^ which was solemnly concluded in Venice, in August, 1177. There the emperor was released from the Papal excommunication. In front of the portals of St. Mark's Cathedral, where three red slabs of marble now mark the spot, Frederick I. sank at Alexander's feet, but the latter caught and lifted him in his arms, and there was once more peace between the two rival powers. The other Pope, whose claims Frederick had supported up to that time, was left to shift for himself. Before the armistice ceased, in 1183, a treaty was con- cluded at Constance, by which the Italian cities recognized the emperor as chief ruler, but secured for themselves the right of independent government. Thus twenty years had been wasted, the best blood of Germany squandered, the worst barbarities of war renewed, and Frederick, after enduring shame and humiliation, had not attained one of his haughty personal aims. Yet he was as proud in his bearing as ever ; his court lost none of its splendor, and his influence over the German princes and people was undiminished. He reached Germany again in 11 78, full of wrath against Henry the Lion. It was easy to find a pretext for proceeding against him, for the Archbishop of Cologne, the Bishop of Halber- stadt, and many nobles had already made complaints. Henry, in fact, was much like Frederick in his nature, but his despotic stern- ness and pride were more directly exercised upon the people. He raised an army and boldly resisted the imperial power. Again Westphalia, Thuringia, and Saxony were wasted by civil war, and the struggle was prolonged until 1181, when Henry was forced to surrender unconditionally. He was banished to England for three years, his duchy of Bavaria was given to Otto of Wittelsbach, and the greater part of Saxony, from the Rhine to the Baltic, was cut up and divided among the reigning bishops and smaller princes. Only the province of Brunswick was left to Henry the Lion of all his possessions. This was Frederick's policy for diminishing the power of the separate states : the more they were increased in num- ber the greater would be the dependence of each on the emperor. The ruin of Henry the Lion fully restored Frederick's author- 154 GERMANY 1184-1186 ity over all Germany. In May, 1184, he gave a grand tournament and festival at Mayence, which surpassed in pomp everything that had before been seen by the people. The flower of knighthood, foreign as well as German, was present : princes, bishops, and lords, scholars and minstrels, seventy thousand knights, and probably hun- dreds of thousands of the soldiers and common people were gathered together. The emperor, still handsome and towering in manly strength, in spite of his sixty-three years, rode in the lists with his t?n ^ CENTRAL EUROPE iiao five sons, the eldest of whom, Henry, had already been crowned King of Germany, as his successor. For many years afterward the wandering minstrels sang the glories of this festival, which they compared to those given by the half-fabulous King Arthur. Immediately afterward, Frederick made his sixth journey to Italy, without an army, but accompanied by a magnificent retinue. The temporary union of the cities against him was at an end, and their former jealousies of each other had broken out more fiercely than ever ; so that, instead of meeting him in a hostile spirit, each endeavored to gain his favor, to the damage of the others. It was easy for him to turn this state of affairs to his own personal advan- FREDERICK BARBAROSSA 156 1186-1190 tage. The Pope, now Urban III., endeavored to make him give up Tuscany to the church, and opposed his design of marrying his son Henry to Constance, daughter of the King of Sicily, since all south- ern Italy would thus fall to the Hohenstaufen family. Another excommunication was threatened and would probably have been hurled upon the emperor's head if the Pope had not died before pronouncing it. The marriage of Henry and Constance took place in 1 1 86. The next year all Europe was shaken by the news that Jerusa- lem had been taken by Sultan Saladin. A call for a new crusade was made from Rome, and the Christian kings and peoples of Europe responded to it. Richard of the Lion-Heart of England; Philip Augustus of France; and first of all Frederick Barbarossa, Roman Emperor, put the cross on their mantles and prepared to march to the Holy Land. Frederick left his son Henry VI. behind him, as king, but he was still suspicious of Henry the Lion, and demanded that he should either join the crusade or retire again to England, for three years longer. Henry the Lion chose the latter alternative. The German crusaders, numbering about thirty thousand, met at Ratisbon in May, 1189, and marched overland to Constanti- nople. Then they took the same route through Asia Minor which had been followed by the second crusade, defeating the sultan and taking the city of Iconium by the way, and after threading the wild passes of the Taurus, reached the borders of Syria. While on the march the emperor received the false message that his son Henry was dead. The tears ran down his beard, no longer red, but silver-white ; then, turning to the army, he cried : " My son is dead, but Christ lives! Forward!" On June 10, 1190, either while attempting to ford or to bathe in the little River Caly- cadnus, not far from Tarsus, he was drowned. The stream, fed by the melted snows of the Taurus, was ice-cold, and one ac- count states that he was not drowned, but died in consequence of the sudden chill. A few of his followers carried his body to Palestine, where it was placed in the Christian church at Tyre. Notwithstanding the heroism of the English Richard at Ascalon, the crusade failed, since the German army was broken up after Frederick's death, most of the knights returning directly home. The most that can be said for Frederick Barbarossa as a ruler is that no other emperor before or after his time maintained so complete an authority over the German princes. The influence 156 GERMANY 1190-1192 of his personal presence seems to have been very great. The im- perial power became splendid and effective in his hands, and al- though he did nothing to improve the condition of the people beyond establishing order and security, they gradually came to consider him as the representative of a grand national Idea. When he went away to the mysterious East, and never returned, the most of them refused to believe that he was dead. By degrees the legend took root among them that he slumbered in a vault under- neath the Kyffliauser one of his castles on the summit of a moun- tain near the Harz and would come forth at the appointed time to make Germany united and free. Nothing in his character, or in the proud and selfish aims of his life, justifies this sentiment which the people attached to his name; but the legend became a symbol of their hopes and prayers through centuries of oppression and desolating war, and the name of " Barbarossa " is sacred to every patriotic heart in Germany even at this day. Henry the Lion hastened back to Germany at once, and at- tempted to regain possession of Saxony. Barbarossa's son, Henry VI., took the field against him, and the interminable strife between Welf and Waiblinger was renewed for a time. The king was twenty-five years old, tall and stately like his father, but even more stern and despotic than he. He was impatient to proceed to Italy, both to be crowned emperor and to secure the Norman kingdom of Sicily as his wife's inheritance; therefore, making a temporary truce with Henry the Lion, he hastened to Rome and was there crowned in 1191. His attempt to conquer Naples, which was held by the Norman prince, Tancred, completely failed, and a deadly pestilence in his army compelled him to return to Germany before the close of the same year. The fight with Henry the Lion was immediately renewed, and during the whole of 1192 northern Germany was ravaged worse than before. In December of that year King Richard the Lion-hearted, returning home overland from Palestine, was taken prisoner by Duke Leopold of Austria, whom he had offended dur- ing the crusade, and was delivered to the emperor. As King Richard was the brother-in-law of Henry the Lion, he was held partly as a hostage and partly for the purpose of gaining an enor- mous ransom for his liberation. His mother came from England, and the sum of 150,000 silver marks which the emperor demanded was paid by her exertions. Still Richard was kept prisoner at FREDERICK BARBAROSSA 167 1192-1197 Trifels, a lonely castle among the Vosges Mountains. The legend relates that his minstrel, Blondel, discovered his place of imprison- ment by singing the king's favorite song under the windows of all the castles near the Rhine until the song was answered by the well- known voice from within. The German princes, finally, felt that they were disgraced by the emperor's conduct, and they compelled him to liberate Richard, in February, 1194. The same year a reconciliation was effected with Henry the Lion. The latter devoted himself to the improvement of the people of his little state of Brunswick. He instituted reforms in their laws, encouraged their education, collected books and works of art, and made himself so honored and beloved before his death, in August, 1 195, that he was mourned as a benefactor by those who had once hated him as a tyrant. He was sixty-six years old, three years younger than his rival, Barbarossa, whom he fully equaled in energy and ability. Although defeated in his struggle, he laid the basis of a better civil order, a higher and firmer civilization, throughout the north of Germany. Henry VI., enriched by King Richard's ransom, went to Italy, puchased the assistance of Genoa and Pisa, and easily conquered the Sicilian kingdom. He treated the family of Tancred (who was now dead) with shocking barbarity, tortured and executed his enemies with a cruelty worthy of Nero, and made himself heartily feared and hated. Then he hastened back to Germany, to have the imperial dignity made hereditary in his family. Even here he was on the point of succeeding, in spite of the strong opposition of the Saxon princes, when a Norman insurrection recalled him to Sicily. He demanded the provinces of Macedonia and Epirus from the Greek emperor, encouraged the project of a new crusade, with the design of conquering Constantinople, and evidently dreamed of making himself ruler of the whole Christian world, when death cut him off, in 1197, in his thirty-second year. His widow, Constance of Sicily, was left with a son, Frederick, then only three years old. Chapter XVIII THE REIGN OF FREDERICK II. AND THE END OF THE HOHENSTAUFEN LINE. 1 197-1268 A STORY was long current among the German people that shortly before Henry VI. 's death the spirit of Theodoric the Great, in giant form, on a black war-steed, rode along the Rhine, presaging trouble to the empire. This legend no doubt originated after the trouble came, and was simply a poetical image of what had already happened. The German princes were de- termined to have no child again as their hereditary emperor; but only one son of Frederick Barbarossa still lived Philip of Suabia. The bitter hostility between Welf (Guelph) and Waiblinger (Ghibelline) still existed, and although Philip was chosen by a diet held in Thuringia, the opposite party, secretly assisted by the Pope and by Richard the Lion-hearted of England (who had certainly no reason to be friendly to the Hohenstaufens) met at Aix-la- Chapelle and elected Otto, son of Henry the Lion. Just at this crisis Innocent III. became Pope. He was as haughty, inflexible, and ambitious as Gregory VII., whom he took for his model. Under him the Inquisition was established. So completely had the relation of the two powers been changed by the humiliation of Henry IV. and Barbarossa that the Pope now claimed the right to decide between the rival monarchs. Of course he gave his voice for Otto, and excommunicated Philip. The effect of this policy, however, was to awaken the jealousy of the German bishops as well as the princes, even the former found the Papal interference a little too arbitrary, and Philip, instead of being injured, actually derived advantage from it. In the war which followed Otto lost so much ground that in 1207 he was obliged to flee to England, where he was assisted by King John ; but he would probably have again failed, when an unexpected crime made him successful. Philip was murdered in 1208 by Otto of Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria, on account of some personal grievance. As he left no children, and Frederick, the son of Henry VI., FREDERICKII 169 1208-1212 was still a boy of fourteen, Otto found no difficulty in persuading the German princes to accept him as king. His first act was to proceed against Philip's murderer and his accomplice, the Bishop of Bamberg. Both fled, but Otto of Wittelsbach was overtaken near Ratisbon and instantly slain. In 1209 King Otto collected a magnificent retinue at Augsburg and set out for Italy in order to be crowned emperor at Rome. As the enemy of the Hohenstauf- ens he felt sure of a welcome; but Innocent III., whom he met at Viterbo, required a great many special concessions to the Papal power before he would consent to bestow the crown. Even after the ceremony was over, he inhospitably hinted to the new emperor. Otto IV., that he should leave Rome as soon as possible. The gates of the city were shut upon the latter, and his army was left without supplies. The jurists of Bologna soon convinced Otto that some of his concessions to the Pope were illegal and need not be observed. He therefore took possession of Tuscany, which he had agreed to surrender to the Pope, and afterward marched against southern Italy, where the young Frederick of Hohenstaufen was already acknowledged as King of Sicily. This grandson of Frederick Barbarossa had been carefully educated under the guardianship of Innocent III., after the death of Constance in 1198, and threatened to become a dangerous rival for the imperial crown. Otto's invasion so exasperated the Pope that he excommunicated him, and called upon the German princes to recognize Frederick in his stead. As Otto had never been personally popular in Germany, the Waiblinger, or Hohenstaufen, party, responded to Innocent's proclamation. Suabia and Bavaria and the Archbishop of Mayence pronounced for Frederick, while Saxony, Lorraine, and the northern bishops re- mained true to Otto. The latter hastened back to Germany in 12 12, regained some of his lost ground, and attempted to strengthen his cause by marrying Beatrix, the daughter of Philip. But she died four days after the marriage, and in the meantime Frederick, supplied with money by the Pope, had crossed the Alps. The young king, who had been educated wholly in Sicily, and who all his life was an Italian rather than a German, was now eighteen years old. He resembled his grandfather, Frederick Bar- barossa, in person, was perhaps his equal in strength and deci- sion of character, but far surpassed him or any of his imperial predecessors in knowledge and refinement. He spoke six languages 160 GERMANY 1212-1226 with fluency; he was a poet and minstrel; he loved the arts of peace no less than those of war; yet he was a statesman and a leader of men. On his way to Germany he found the Lombard cities, except Pavia, so hostile to him that he was obliged to cross the Alps by secret and dangerous paths, and when he finally reached the city of Constance, with only sixty followers. Otto IV. was close at hand with a large army. But Constance opened its gates to the young Hohenstaufen ; Suabia, the home of his fathers, rose in his support ; and the emperor, without even venturing a battle, retreated to Saxony. For nearly three years the two rivals watched each other with- out engaging in open hostilities. The stately bearing of Frederick, which he inherited from Barbarossa, the charm and refinement of his manners, and the generosity he exhibited toward all who were friendly to his claims gradually increased the number of his sup- porters. In 121 5 Otto joined King John of England and the Count of Flanders in a war against Philip Augustus of France, and was so signally defeated that his influence in Germany speedily came to an end. Lorraine and Holland declared for Frederick, who was crowned in Aix-la-Chapelle with great pomp the same year. Otto died near Brunswick three years afterward, poor and unhonored. Pope Innocent III. died in 1216, and Frederick appears to have considered that the assistance which he had received from him was personal and not Papal; for he not only laid claim to the Tuscan possessions, but neglected his promise to engage in a new crusade for the recovery of Jerusalem, and even attempted to control the choice of bishops. At the same time he took measures to secure the coronation of his infant son, Henry, as his successor. His journey to Rome was made in the year 1220. The new Pope, Honorius III., a man of a mild and yielding nature, nevertheless only crowned him on condition that he would observe the violated claims of the church, and especially that he would strictly suppress all heresy in the empire. When he had been crowned emperor as Frederick II., he fixed himself in southern Italy and Sicily for some years, quite neglecting his German rule, but wisely infiproving the condition of his favorite kingdom. He was signally successful in controlling the Saracens, whose language he spoke, whom he converted into subjects, and who afterward became his best soldiers. The Pope, however, became very impatient at the non-fulfill- ment of Frederick's promises, and the latter was compelled, in FREDERICKII 161 1226-1228 1226, to summon a diet of all the German and Italian princes to meet at Verona, in order to make preparations for a new crusade. But the cities of Lombardy, fearing that the army to be raised would be used against them, adopted all possible measures against the meeting of the diet, took possession of the passes of the Adige, and prevented the emperor's son, the young King Henry of Ger- many, and his followers, from entering Italy. Angry and humili- ated, Frederick was compelled to return to Sicily. The next year, 1227, Honorius died, and the cardinals elected as his successor Gregory IX., a man more than eighty years old, but of a remark- able nature. He immediately threatened the emperor with ex- communication in case the crusade for the recovery of Jerusalem was not at once undertaken, and the latter was compelled to obey. He hastily collected an army and fleet and departed from Naples, but returned at the end of three days, alleging a serious illness as the cause of his sudden change of plan. He was instantly excommunicated by Gregory IX., and he replied by a proclamation addressed to all kings and princes a document breathing defiance and hate against the Pope and his claims. Nevertheless, in order to keep his word in regard to the crusade, he went to the East with a large force in 1228, and ob- tained, by a treaty with the Sultan of Egypt, the possession of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Mount Carmel for ten years. His second wife, the Empress lolanthe, was the daughter of Guy of Lusignan, the last King of Jerusalem; and therefore when Frederick visited the Holy City he claimed the right, as Guy's heir, of setting the crown of Jerusalem upon his own head. The entire crusade, which was not marked by any deeds of arms, occupied only eight months. Although he had fulfilled his agreement with Rome, the Pope declared that a crusade undertaken by an excommunicated emperor was a sin, and did all he could to prevent Frederick's success in Palestine. But when the latter returned to Italy he found that the Roman people, a majority of whom were on his side, had driven Gregory IX. from the city. It was therefore comparatively easy for him to come to an agreement, whereby the Pope released him from the ban in return for being reinstated in Rome. This was only a truce, however, not a lasting peace ; between two such im- perious natures peace was impossible. The agreement, nevertheless, gave Frederick some years of quiet, which he employed in regu- 162 GERMANY 1228-1230 lating the affairs of his southern Italian kingdom. He abolished, as far as possible, the feudal system introduced by the Normans, and laid the foundation of a representative form of government. His court at Palermo became the resort of learned men and poets, where Arabic, Provencal, Italian, and German poetry was recited, where songs were sung, where the fine arts were encouraged, and the rude and warlike pastimes of former rulers gave way to the spirit of a purer civilization. Although, as we have said, his nature was almost wholly Italian, no emperor after Charlemagne so fos- tered the growth of a German literature as Frederick II. But this constitutes his only real service to Germany. While he was enjoying the peaceful and prosperous development of Naples and Sicily, his great empire in the north was practically taking care of itself, for the boy king, Henry, governed chiefly by allowing the reigning bishops, dukes, and princes to do very much as they pleased. There was a season of peace with France, Hungary, and Poland; and Denmark, which was then the only dangerous neighbor, was repelled without the imperial assistance. Frederick II., in his first rivalry with Otto, had shamefully purchased Denmark's favor by giving up all the territory between the Elbe and the Oder. But when Henry, Count of Schwerin, returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and found the Danish king, Waldemar, in posses- sion of his territory, he organized a revolt in order to recover his rights, and succeeded in taking Waldemar and his son prisoners. Frederick II. now supported him, and the Pope, as a matter of course, supported Denmark. A great battle was fought in Holstein, and the Danes were so signally defeated that they were forced to give up all the German territory except the island of Riigen and a little strip of the Pomeranian coast, besides paying forty-five thousand silver marks for the ransom of Waldemar and his son. About this time, in consequence of the demand of Pope Inno- cent III. that all heresy should be treated as a crime and suppressed by force, a new element of conflict with Rome was introduced into Germany. Among other acts of violence, the Stedinger, a tribe of free farmers of Saxon blood, who inhabited the low country near the mouth of the Weser, were literally exterminated by order of the Archbishop of Bremen, to whom they had refused the payment of tithes. In 1230 Gregory IX. wrote to King Henry, urging him to crush out heresy in Germany : " Where is the zeal of Moses, who destroyed 23,000 idolaters in one day? Where is the zeal of FREDERICKII 163 1230-1235 Elijah, who slew 450 prophets with the sword, by the brook Kishon? Against this evil the strongest means must be used : there is need of steel and fire." Conrad of Marburg was appointed inquisitor for Germany by Gregory. The German princes resented this at- tempt to introduce the Inquisition into Germany. At a diet at Frankfort, in 1234, they decreed that heresy cases should be tried only in their own secular courts, and according to regular judicial procedure. The death of Conrad of Marburg by assassination in 1233 may be said to have marked the end of the Inquisition in Germany. In 1232 Frederick II., in order that he might seem to fulfill his neglected duties as German emperor, summoned a general diet to m^eet at Ravenna, but it was prevented by the Lombard cities, as the Diet of Verona had been prevented six years before. Befriended by Venice, however, Frederick marched to Aquileia, and there met his son. King Henry, after a separation of twelve years. Their respective ages were thirty-seven and twenty-one. There was little personal sympathy or affection between them, and they only came together to quarrel. Frederick refused to sanction most of Henry's measures ; he demanded, among other things, that the latter should rebuild the strongholds of the robber knights of Hohenlohe, which had been razed to the ground. This seemed to Henry an outrage as well as a humiliation, and he returned home with rebellion in his heart. After proclaiming himself independent king, he entered into an alliance with the cities of Lombardy and even sought the aid of the Pope. Early in 1235, after an absence of fifteen years, Frederick II. returned to Germany. The revolt, which had seemed so threat- ening, fell to pieces at his approach. He was again master of the empire without striking a blow. Henry had no course but to surrender without conditions. He was deposed, imprisoned, and finally sent with his family to southern Italy, where he died seven years afterward. The same summer the emperor, whose wife, lolanthe, had died some years before, was married^t Worms to Isabella, sister of King Henry III. of England. The ceremony was attended with festivals of oriental splendor; the attendants of the new empress were Saracens, and she was obliged to live after the manner of Eastern women. Immense numbers of the nobles and people flocked to Worms, and soon afterward to May- ence, where a diet was held. Here, for the first time, the decrees 164 GERMANY 1235-1237 of the diet were publicly read in the German language. Frederick also, as the head of the Waiblinger party, effected a reconciliation with Otto of Brunswick, the head of the Welfs, whereby the rivalry of a hundred years came to an end in Germany; but in Italy the struggle between the Ghibellines and the Guelphs was continued long after the Hohenstaufen line became extinct. In the autumn of 1236 Frederick conquered and deposed Frederick the Quarrelsome, Duke of Austria, and made Vienna a free imperial city. A diet was held there, at which his second son, Conrad, then nine years old, was accepted as King of Germany. This choice was confirmed by another diet, held the following year at Speyer. The emperor now left Germany, never to return. This brief visit, of a little more than a year, was the only interruption in his thirty years of absence; but it revived his great personal influence over princes and people, it was marked by the full recog- nition of his authority, and it contributed, in combination with his struggle against the power of Rome which followed, to impress upon his reign a more splendid and successful character than his acts deserve. Although the remainder of his history belongs to Italy, it was not without importance for the later fortunes of Ger- many, and must therefore be briefly stated. On returning to Italy, Frederick found himself involved in new difficulties with the independent cities. He was supported by his son-in-law, Ezzelin, and a large army from Naples and Sicily, composed chiefly of Saracens. With this force he won such a victory at Cortenuovo that even Milan offered to yield, under hard conditions. Then Frederick II. made the same mistake as his grand- father, Barbarossa, in similar circumstances. He demanded a com- plete and unconditional surrender, which so aroused the fear and excited the hate of the Lombards that they united in a new and desperate resistance, which he was unable to crush. Gregory IX., who claimed for the church the Island of Sardinia, which Frederick had given as a kingdom to his son Enzio, hurled a new excommuni- cation against the emperor, and the fiercest of all the quarrels be- tween the two powers now began to rage. The Pope, in a proclamation, asserted of Frederick: "This pestilential king declares that the world has been deceived by three impostors, Moses, Mohammed, and Christ, the two former of whom died honorably, but the last shamefully, upon the cross. Further- more, he has dared to assert, but falsely, that all those are fools FREDERICK II 165 1237-1241 who believe that Almighty God, the Creator of heaven and earth, was born of a virgin. This heresy he bases on the assertion that no one can be born without the previous union of man and woman, and that there is no need to believe anything at all that cannot be proved by reason and by natural means." He further styled the emperor "that beast of Revelations which came out of the sea; her feet are those of a bear, her teeth those of a lion, and in her members she resembles a leopard; she only opens her mouth to blaspheme the name of the Lord, to attack the Divine Tabernacle and the Saints who inhabit the heavens. Formerly she laid secret ambushes for the church, but now she destroys everything with her claws and iron teeth, and, assisted by the heretics, arises against Christ, in order to drive His name out of the world." Frederick, in an answer which was sent to all the kings and princes of Chris- tendom, wrote: "The Apostolic and Athanasian creeds are mine; Moses I consider a friend of God, and Mohammed an arch-im- postor." He enumerated the wrongs he had received at the hands of the Pope, and pointed out to all other rulers the dangers which will threaten them if he himself, the emperor, should fall a vic- tim to the Papal tyranny : " Run for water for the protection of your own house when that of your neighbor burns; for certainly the Pope will think it easy to cast down other princes if he once crushes the head of the empire." And Frederick 11. closed his letter, no less venomous than that of his Papal antagonist, by de- scribing the Pope as " that horse in Revelations, from which, as it is written, issued another horse, and he that sat upon him took away the peace of the world, so that the living destroyed each other," and named him further " the second Balaam, the great dragon, yea, even the Antichrist." Gregory IX. endeavored, but in vain, to set up a rival em- peror, but the princes and even the archbishops were opposed to him, Frederick, who was not idle meanwhile, entered the States of the Church, took several cities, and advanced toward Rome. Then the Pope offered to call together a council in Rome to settle all matters in dispute. But those who were summoned to attend were Frederick's enemies, whereupon he issued a proclamation declaring the council void, and warning the bishops and priests against com- ing to it. Most of them, however, met at Nice in 1241, and em- barked for Rome on a Genoese fleet of sixty vessels ; but Frederick's son, Enzio, intercepted them with a Pisan and Sicilian fleet, 166 GERMANY 1241-1249 captured lOO cardinals, bishops, and abbots, lOO civil deputies, and 4000 men, and carried them to Naples. The council, therefore, could not be held, and Pope Gregory died soon afterward, almost a himdred years old. After quarreling for nearly two years the cardinals finally elected a new Pope, Innocent IV. He had been a friend of the emperor, but the latter exclaimed on hearing of his election : " I fear that I have lost a friend among the cardinals, and found an enemy in the chair of St. Peter; no Pope can be a Ghibelline!" His words were true. After fruitless negotiations Innocent IV. went to Lyons and there called together a council of the church which declared that Frederick had forfeited his crowns and dig- nities, that he was cast out by God, and should be thenceforth ac- cursed. Frederick answered this declaration with a bold statement of the corruptions of the clergy, and the dangers arising from the temporal power of the Popes, which, he asserted, should be sup- pressed for the sake of Christianity, the early purity of which had been lost. King Louis IX. of France endeavored to bring about a suspension of the struggle, which was now beginning to disturb all Europe; but the Pope angfrily refused. In 1246 Innocent persuaded Henry Raspe, Landgrave of Thuringia, to claim the crown of Germany, and supported him with all the influence and wealth of the church. He was defeated and wounded in the first battle, and soon afterward died, leaving Frederick's son, Conrad, still King of Germany. In Italy the civil war raged with the greatest bitterness and with horrible barbarities on both sides. Frederick exhibited such extraordinary courage and determination that his enemies, encouraged by the church, finally resorted to the basest means of overcoming him. A plot formed for his assassination was discovered in time and the conspirators ex- ecuted ; then an attempt was made to poison him, in which his chancellor and intimate friend, Peter de Vinea his companion for thirty years seems to have been implicated. Peter had recom- mended a certain physician, who brought to the emperor a poisoned medicine. Something in the man's manner excited Frederick's mistrust, and he ordered him to swallow a part of the medicine. When the latter refused it was given to a condemned criminal, who immediately died. The physician was executed and Peter de Vinea sent to prison, where he committed suicide by dashing his head against the walls of his cell. FREDERICKII 167 1249-1250 In the same year, 1249, Frederick's favorite son, Enzio, King of Sardinia, who even surpassed his father in personal beauty, in accompHshments, in poetic talent, and heroic courage, was taken prisoner by the Bolognese. All the father's offers of ransom were rejected, all his menaces defied : Enzio was condemned to perpetual imprisonment and languished twenty-two years in a dungeon, until liberated by death. Frederick was almost broken-hearted, but his courage never flagged. He was encompassed by enemies, he scarcely knew whom to trust, yet he did not yield the least of his claims. And fortune, at last, seemed inclined to turn to his side: a new rival king, William of Holland, whom the Pope had set up against him in Germany, failed to maintain himself; the city of Piacenza, in Lombardy, espoused his cause; the Romans, tired of Innocent IV.'s absence, began to talk of electing another Pope in his stead; and even Innocent himself was growing un- popular in France. Then, while he still defiantly faced the world, and had faith in his final triumph, his body refused to support his fiery spirt. He died in the arms of his youngest son, Manfred, on December 13, 1250, fifty-six years old. He was buried at Palermo; and when his tomb there was opened, in the year 1783, his corpse was found to have scarcely undergone any decay. His head, which lay on a leather cushion, bore a crown, and he wore his coronation robes. The imperial orb was there, but, contrary to usage, was surmounted by no cross. A cross sewn on to his cloak, however, served as a reminder that the mighty monarch had once been on a crusade. Frederick II. was unquestionably one of the greatest men who ever bore the title of German (or Roman) emperor, yet all the benefits his reign conferred upon Germany were wholly of an in- direct character, and were more than balanced by the positive injury occasioned by his neglect. There were strong contradictions in his nature which make it difficult to judge him fairly as a ruler. As a man of great learning and intelligence his ideas were liberal; as a monarch he was violent and despotic. He wore out his life trying to crush the republican cities of Italy ; he was jealous of the growth of the free cities of Germany, yet granted them a representation in the diet; and in Sicily, where his sway was undisputed, he was wise, just, and tolerant. In his struggle with the Popes he was far in advance of his age, and herein, although unsuccessful, he was not subdued; in reality, he was one of the most powerful forerunners 168 GERMANY 1250-1256 of the Reformation. There are few figures in European history so bright, so brave, so full of heroic and romantic interest Frederick's son and successor, Conrad IV., inherited the opposition to Pope Innocent IV. The latter threatened with ex- communication all who should support Conrad, and forbade the priests to administer the sacraments of the church to his followers. The Papal proclamations were so fierce that they incited the Bishop of Ratisbon to plot the king's murder, in which he came very near being successful. WilHam of Holland, whom the people called " the Priests' King," was not supported by any of the leading German princes, but the gold of Rome purchased him enough of troops to meet Conrad in the field, and he was temporarily success- ful. The hostility of the Pope seems scarcely to have affected Conrad's position in Germany; but both rulers and people were growing indifferent to the imperial power, the seat of which had been so long transferred to Italy. They therefore took little part in the struggle between William and Conrad, and the latter's de- feat was by no means a gain to the former. The two rivals, in fact, were near their end. Conrad IV. went to Italy and took possession of the kingdom of his father, which his stepbrother, Manfred, governed in his name. He made an earnest attempt to be reconciled with the Pope, but Innocent IV. was implacable. He then collected an army of twenty thousand men, and was about to lead it to Germany against William of Hol- land, when he suddenly died, in 1254, in the twenty-seventh year of his age. It was generally believed that he had been poisoned. William of Holland, since there was no one to dispute his claim, obtained a partial recognition of his sovereignty in Germany ; but, having undertaken to subdue the free farmers in Friesland, he was defeated. While attempting to escape, his heavy war horse broke through the ice and the farmers surrounded and slew him. This was in 1256, two years after Conrad's death. Innocent IV. had expended no less than 400,000 silver marks a very large sum in those days in supporting him and Henry Raspe against the Hohenstaufens. Conrad IV. left behind him, in Suabia, a son Conrad, who was only two years old at his father's death. In order to distinguish him from the latter, the Italians gave him the name of Conradino (Little Conrad), and as Conradin he is known in German history. He was educated under the charge of his mother. Queen Elizabeth, FREDERICK II 169 1256-1267 and his uncle, Lewis XL, Duke of Bavaria. When he was ten years old the Archbishop of Mayence called a diet, at which it was agreed that he should be crowned King of Germany, but the ceremony was prevented by the furious opposition of the Pope. Conradin made such progress in his studies and exhibited so much fondness for literature and the arts that the followers of the Hohenstaufens saw in him another Frederick 11. One of his poems is still in existence, and testifies to the grace and refinement of his youthful mind. After Conrad IV.'s death the Pope claimed the kingdom of Naples and Sicily, as being forfeited to the church, but found it prudent to allow Manfred to govern in his name. The latter sub- mitted at first, but only until his authority was firmly established; then he declared war, defeated the Papal troops, drove them back to Rome, and was crowned king in 1258. The news of his suc- cess so agitated the Pope that he died shortly afterward. His successor. Urban IV., a Frenchman, who imitated his policy, found Manfred too strongly established to be defeated without foreign aid. He therefore offered the crown of southern Italy to Charles of Anjou, the brother of King Louis IX. of France. Physically and intellectually there could be no greater contrast than between him and Manfred. Charles of Anjou was awkward and ugly, savage, ignorant, and bigoted; Manfred was a model of manly beauty, a scholar and poet, a patron of learning, a builder of roads, bridges, and harbors, a just and noble ruler. Charles of Anjou, after being crowned King of Naples and Sicily by the Pope, and having secured secret advantages by bribery and intrigue, marched against Manfred in 1266. They met at Benevento, where, after a long and bloody battle, Manfred was slain, and the kingdom submitted to the usurper. By the Pope's order Manfred's body was taken from the chapel where it had been buried and thrown into a trench ; his widow and children were imprisoned for life by Charles of Anjou. The boy Conradin determined to avenge his uncle's death and recover his own Italian inheritance. His mother sought to dis- suade him from the attempt, but Ludwig of Bavaria offered to support him, and his dearest friend, Frederick of Baden, a youth of nineteen, insisted on sharing his fortunes. Toward the end of 1267 he crossed the Alps and reached Verona with a force of io,cx)0 men. Here he was obliged to wait three months for further support, and during this time more than two-thirds of his Ger- 170 GERMANY 1256-1273 man soldiers returned home. But a reaction against the Guelphs (the Papal party) had set in; several Lombard cities and the republic of Pisa declared in Conradin's favor, and finally the Romans, at his approach, expelled Pope Urban IV. A revolt against Charles of Anjou broke out in Naples and Sicily, and when Conradin entered Rome, in July, 1268, his success seemed almost assured. After a most enthusiastic reception by the Roman people he continued his march southward, with a considerable force. On August 22 he met Charles of Anjou in battle at Tagliacozzo, and was at first victorious. But his troops, having halted to plunder the enemy's camp, were suddenly attacked and at last completely routed. Conradin and his friend, Frederick of Baden, fled to Rome, and thence to the little port of Astura, on the coast, in order to embark for Sicily ; but here they were arrested by Frangipani, the governor of the place, who had been specially favored by the Emperor Frederick II., and now sold his grandson to Charles of Anjou for a large sum of money. Conradin having been carried to Naples, a court of distinguished jurists was called to try him for high treason. With one exception, they pronounced him guiltless of any crime; yet Charles, nevertheless, ordered him to be executed. On October 29, 1268, the last Hohenstaufen, a youth of sixteen, and his friend Frederick, were led to the scaffold. Charles watched the scene from a window of his palace; the people, gloomy and mutinous, were overawed by his guards. Conradin advanced to the edge of the platform and threw his glove among the crowd, asking that it might be carried to someone who would avenge his death. A knight who was present took it afterward to Peter of Aragon, who had married King Manfred's eldest daughter. Then, with the exclamation : " Oh, mother, what sor- row I have prepared for thee ! " Conradin knelt and received the fatal blow. After him Frederick of Baden and thirteen others were executed. The tyranny and inhuman cruelty of Charles of Anjou pro- voked a conspiracy which, in the year 1282, gave rise to the massacre called " the Sicilian Vespers." In one night all the French officials and soldiers in Sicily were slaughtered, and Peter of Aragon. the heir of the Hohenstaufens, became king of the island. But in Germany the proud race existed no more, except in history, legend, and song. Chapter XIX THE INTERREGNUM. 1256-1273 THE end of the Hohenstaufen dynasty marks an important phase in the history of Germany. From this time the character of the empire is radically changed. Although still called " Roman " in official documents, the term is henceforth an empty form, and even the word " empire " loses much of its former significance. The Italian republics were now practically independent, and the various dukedoms, bishoprics, principalities, and countships into which Germany was divided were fast render- ing it difficult to effect any unity of feeling or action among the people. The empire which Charlemagne designed, which Otto the Great nearly established, and which Barbarossa might have founded but for the fatal ambition of governing Italy, had become impossible. Germany was, in reality, a loose confederation of differently organized and governed states, which continued to make use of the form of an empire as a convenience rather than a political necessity. The events which followed the death of Conrad IV. illustrate the corrupt condition of both church and state at that time. The money which Pope Innocent IV. so freely expended in favor of the anti-kings, Henry Raspe and William of Holland, had already taught the electors the advantage of selling their votes; so, when William was slain by the farmers of Friesland, and no German prince seemed to care much for the title of emperor (since each already had independent power over his own territory), the high dignity, so recently possessed by Frederick II., was put up at auc- tion. Two bidders made their appearance, Richard of Cornwall, brother of Henry III. of England, and King Alphonso of Castile, surnamed " the Wise." The Archbishop of Cologne was the busi- ness agent of the former: he received 12,000 silver marks for him- self, and eight or nine thousand apiece for the dukes of Bavaria, the Archbishop of Mayence, and several other electors. The Arch- bishop of Treves, in the name of King Alphonso, offered the King ITl 17 GERMANY 1256-1273 of Bohemia, the dukes of Saxony, and the Margrave of Branden- burg 20,000 marks each. Of course both purchasers were elected, and each was proclaimed King of Germany almost at the same time. Alphonso never even visited his realm ; Richard of Cornwall came to Aix-la-Chapelle, was formally crowned, and returned now and then, whenever the produce of his tin mines in Cornwall enabled him to pay for an enthusiastic reception by the people. He never attempted, however, to govern Germany, for he probably had intelli- gence enough to see that any such attempt would be disregarded. This period (1256- 1273) was afterward called by the people " the evil time when there was no emperor " and in spite of the two kings, who had fairly paid for their titles, it is known in Ger- man history as " the Interregnum." It was a period of change and confusion, when each prince endeavored to become an absolute ruler, and the knights, in imitating them, became robbers; when the free cities, encouraged by the example of Italy, united in self- defense, and the masses of the people, although ground to the dust, began to dream again of the rights which their ancestors had possessed a thousand years before. First of all, the great change wrought in Europe by the cru- sades was beginning to be felt by all classes of society. The at- tempt to retain possession of Palestine, which lasted nearly two hundred years, from the march of the first crusade in 1096 to the fall of Acre in 1291, cost Europe, it is estimated, six millions of lives and an immense amount of treasure. The Catholic Church favored the undertaking in every possible way, since each crusade instantly and greatly strengthened its power; yet the result was the reverse of what the church hoped for, in the end. The bravery, intelligence, and refined manners of the Saracens made a great im- pression on the Christian knights, and they soon began to imitate those whom they had at first despised. New branches of learning, especially astronomy, mathematics, and medicine, were brought to Europe from the East; more luxurious habits of life, giving rise to finer arts of industry, followed; and commerce, compelled to supply the crusaders and Christian colonists at such a distance, was rapidly developed to an extent unknown since the fall of the Roman Empire. As men gained new ideas from these changes they became more independent in thought and speech. The priests and monks ceased to monopolize all knowledge, and their despotism over the INTERREGNUM 178 1256-1273 human mind met with resistance. Then, first, the charge of " heresy " began to be heard ; and although during the thirteenth and a part of the fourteenth centuries the Pope of Rome was un- doubtedly the highest power in Europe, the influences were already at work which afterward separated the strongest races of the world from the Catholic Church. On the one hand, new orders of monks were created, and monasteries increased everywhere; on the other hand, independent Christian sects began to spring up, like the Albigenses in France and the Waldenses in Savoy, and could not be wholly suppressed, even with fire and sword. The orders of knighthood which possessed a religious character were also established during the crusades. First, the Knights of St. John, whose badge was a black mantle with a white cross, formed a society to guard pilgrims to the Holy Land and take care of the sick. Then followed the Knights Templars, distinguished by a red cross on a white mantle. Both these orders originated among the Italian chivalry, and they included few German members. During the third crusade, however (which was headed by Bar- barossa), the German (or Teutonic) Order of Knights was formed, chiefly by the aid of the merchants of Bremen and Lubeck. They adopted the black cross on a white mantle as their badge, took the monkish vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience, like the Templars and the Knights of St. John, and devoted their lives to war with the heathen. The second Grand Master of this order, Hermann of Salza, accompanied Frederick 11. to Jerusalem, and his character was so highly estimated by the latter that he made him a prince of the German Empire. Inasmuch as the German Order really owed its existence to the support of the merchants of the northern coast, Hermann of Salza sought for a field of labor wherein the knights might fulfill their vows and at the same time achieve some advantage for their benefactors. As early as 1199 the Bremen merchants had founded Riga, taken possession of the eastern shore of the Baltic, and es- tablished German colonies there. The native Finnish or Lithuanian inhabitants were either exterminated or forcibly converted to Chris- tianity, and an order, called the " Brothers of the Sword," was established for the defense of the colonies. This new German territory was separated from the rest of the empire by the country between the mouths of the Vistula and the Memel, claimed by Poland, and inhabited by the Borussii, or Prussians, a tribe which 174 GERMANY 1286-1273 seems to have been of mixed Slavonic and Lithuanian blood. Her- mann of Salza obtained from Poland the permission to possess this country for the German Order, and he gradually conquered or converted the native Prussians. In the meantime the Brothers of the Sword were so hard pressed by a revolt of the Livonians that they united themselves with the German Order, and thenceforth formed a branch of it. The result of this union was that the whole coast of the Baltic, from Holstein to the Gulf of Finland, was secured to Germany, and became civilized and Christian. During the thirty-five years of Frederick II.'s reign and the seventeen succeeding years of the Interregnum, Germany was in a condition which allowed the strong to make themselves stronger, yet left the weaker classes without any protection. The reigning dukes and archbishops were, of course, satisfied with this state of affairs; the independent counts and barons with large possessions maintained their power by temporary alliances ; the inferior nobles, left to themselves, became robbers of land, and highwaymen. With the introduction of new arts and the wider extension of commerce the cities of Germany had risen in wealth and power and were be- ginning to develop an intelligent middle class, standing between the farmers, who had sunk almost into the condition of serfs, and the lesser nobles, most of whom were equally poor and proud. Up- ward of sixty cities were free municipalities, belonging to the empire on the same terms as the dukedoms; that is, they contributed a certain proportion of men and money, and were bound to obey the decrees of the imperial diets. As soon, therefore, as there was no superior authority to main- tain order and security in the land, a large number of the knights became freebooters, plundering and laying waste whenever oppor- tunity offered, attacking the caravans of traveling merchants, and accumulating the ill-gotten wealth in their strong castles. Many an aristocratic family of the present day owes its inheritance to that age of robbery and murder. The people had few secured rights and no actual freedom in Germany, with the exception of Friesland, some parts of Saxony, and the Alpine districts. In this condition of things the free cities soon found it ad- visable to assist each other. Bremen, Hamburg, and Liibeck first formed a union, chiefly for commercial purposes, in 1241, and this was the foundation of the famous Hanseatic League. Immediately after the death of Conrad IV., Mayence, Speyer, Worms, Strassburg INTERREGNUM 176 1256-1273 and Basel formed the " Union of Rhenish Cities," for the preserva- tion of peace and the mutual protection of their citizens. Many other cities, and even a number of reigning princes and bishops, soon became members of this league, which for a time exercised considerable power. These cities of the Rhine had agencies in England and other countries, carried on commerce on the high seas, and owned no less than six hundred armed vessels, with which they guarded the Rhine from the land pirates whose castles overlooked its course. During this age of civil and religious despotism the German cities possessed and preserved the only free institutions to be found. They owed this privilege to the heroic resistance of the republican cities of Italy to the Hohenstaufens, which not only set them an example, but fought in their stead. Sure of the loyalty of the German cities, the emperors were not so jealous of their growth; but some of the rights which they conferred were reluctantly given, and probably in return for men or money during the wars in Italy. The decree which changed a vassal or dependent into a freeman, after a year's residence in a city, helped greatly to build up a strong and intelligent middle class. The merchants, professional men, and higher artisans gradually formed a patrician society, out of which the governing officers were selected, while the mechanics, for greater protection, organzied themselves into separate guilds, or orders. Each of the latter was very watchful of the character and reputation of its members, and thus exercised a strong moral in- fluence. The farmers only had no such protection; very few of them were not dependent vassals of some nobleman or priest. The cities in the thirteenth century began to exhibit a stately architectural character. The building of splendid cathedrals and monasteries, which began two centuries before, now gave employ- ment to such a large number of architects and stone-cutters that they formed a free corporation, under the name of " Brother-build- ers," with especial rights and privileges, all over Germany. Their labors were supported by the power of the church, the wealth of the merchants, and the toil of the vassals, and masterpieces of Gothic architecture arose under their hands. The grand cathedrals of Strassburg, Freiburg, and Cologne, with many others, yet remain as monuments of their genius and skill. But the private dwellings also now began to display the wealth and taste of their owners. They were usually built very high, with pointed gables facing the 176 GERMANY 1256-1273 Street, and adorned with sculptured designs; frequently the upper stories projected over the lower, forming a shelter for the open shops in the first story. As the cities were walled for defense, the space within the walls was too valuable to be given to wide squares and streets: hence there was usually one open market-place, which also served for all public ceremonies ; and the streets were dark and narrow. The universities now beg^n to exercise some influence. Those of Bologna and Padua were frequented by throngs of students, who attended the schools of law, while the University of Salerno, under the patronage of Manfred, became a distinguished school of medi- cine. The Arabic University of Cordova in Spain also attracted many students from all the Christian lands of Europe. Works on all branches of knowledge were greatly multiplied, so that the copy- ing of them became a new profession. For the first time there were written forms of law for the instruction of the people. In the northern part of Germany appeared a work called " The Saxon's Looking-Glass " (Sachsenspiegel), which was soon accepted as a legal authority by the people. But it was too liberal for the priests, and under their influence another work, " The Suabian's Looking- Glass," was written and circulated in southern Germany. The former book declares that the emperor has his power from God; the latter that he has it from the Pope. The Saxon is told that no man can justly hold another man as property, and that the people were made vassals through force and wrong ; the Suabian is taught that obedience to rulers is his chief duty. From these two works, which are still in existence, we learn how complicated was the political organization of Germany. The whole free population was divided into seven classes, each having its own privileges and rules of government. First, there was the emperor; secondly, the spiritual princes, as they were called (arch- bishops, reigning bishops, etc.) ; thirdly, the temporal princes, some of whom were partly or wholly " vassals " of the spiritual authority ; and fourthly, the counts and barons, who possessed territory, either independently, or as feudal holdings of the second and third classes. These four classes constituted the higher nobility. Seven princes, who had especially wide lands and exercised great power, had come to be known as " electors," because they alone had the right of electing the emperor. There were three spiritual the archbishops of Mayence, Treves, and Cologne; and four temporal the Count INTERREGNUM 177 1256-1273 Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg, and the King of Bohemia. The fifth class embraced the free citizens from among whom magistrates were chosen, and who were allowed to possess certain privileges of the nobles. The sixth and seventh classes were formed out of the remaining freemen, according to their circumstances and occupations. The serfs and dependents had no place in this system of government, so that a large majority of the German people pos- sessed no other recognized right than that of being ruled and pun- ished. In fact, the whole political system was so complicated and unpractical that we can only wonder how Germany endured it for centuries afterward. At the end of the Hohenstaufen dynasty there were ii6 priestly rulers, lOO ruling dukes, princes, counts, and barons, and more than 60 independent cities in Germany. The larger duke- doms had been cut up into smaller states, many of which exist, either as states or provinces, to this day. Styria and Tyrol were separated from Bavaria; the principalities of Westphalia, Anhalt, Holstein, Jiilich, Berg, Cleves, Pomerania, and Mecklenburg were formed out of Saxony; Suabia was divided into Wiirtemberg and Baden, the Palatinate of the Rhine detached from Franconia and Hesse from Thuringia. Each of the principal German races was distinguished by two colors the Franks red and white, the Sua- bians red and yellow, the Bavarians blue and white, and the Saxons black and white. The Saxon black, the Frank red, and the Suabian gold were set together as the imperial colors. The chief service of the Hohenstaufens to Germany lay in their direct and generous encouragement of art, learning, and lit- erature. They took up the work commenced by Charlemagne, and so disastrously thwarted by his son Lewis the Pious, and in the course of a hundred years they developed what might be called a golden age of architecture and epic poetry, so strongly does it con- trast with the four centuries before and the three succeeding it. The immediate connection between Germany and Italy, where most of Roman culture had survived and the higher forms of civi- lization were first restored, was in this single respect a great advan- tage to the former country. We cannot ascertain how many of the nobler characteristics of knighthood in that age sprang from the religious spirit which prompted the crusades, and how many orig- inated from intercourse with the refined and high-spirited Sar- 178 GERMANY 1256-1273 acens ; both elements undoubtedly tended to revive the almost for- gotten love of poetry in the German race. When the knights of Provence and Italy became as proud of their songs as of their feats of arms ; when minstrels accompanied the court of Frederick II. and the emperor himself wrote poems in rivalry with them; when the Duke of Austria and the Landgrave Hermann of Thuringia invited the best poets of the time to visit them and received them as distinguished guests, and when wander- ing minstrels and story-tellers repeated their works in a simpler form to the people everywhere, it was not long before a new liter- ature was created. Walter von der Vogelweide, who accompanied Frederick II. to Jerusalem, wrote not only songs of love and poems in praise of nature, but satires against the Pope and the priesthood. Godfrey of Strasburg produced an epic poem describing the times of King Arthur of the Round Table, and Wolfram of Eschenbach, in his " Parsifal," celebrated the search for the Holy Grail ; while inferior poets related the histories of Alexander the Great, the Siege of Troy, or Charlemagne's knight, Roland. Among the people arose the story of Reynard the Fox and a multitude of fables ; and finally, during the thirteenth century, was produced the celebrated Nibelungenlied, or Song of the Nibelungen, wherein traditions of Siegfried of the Netherlands, Theodoric the Ostrogoth, and Attila with his Huns are mixed together in a powerful story of love, rivalry, and revenge. Most of these poems are written in a Suabian dialect, which is now called the " Middle or Medieval High-German." Among the historical writers were Bishop Otto of Freising, whose chronicles of the time are very valuable, and Saxo Gram- maticus, in whose history of Denmark Shakespeare found the ma- terial for his play of " Hamlet." Albertus Magnus, the Bishop of Ratisbon, was so distinguished as a mathematician and man of science that the people believed him to be a sorcerer. There was, in short, a general intellectual awakening throughout Germany, and, although afterward discouraged by many of the 276 smaller powers, it was favored by others and could not be suppressed. Besides, greater changes were approaching. A hundred years after Fred- erick II.'s death gunpowder was discovered, and the common soldier became the equal of the knight. In another hundred years Guten- berg invented printing, and then followed, rapidly, the discovery of America and the Reformation. Chapter XX FROM RUDOLF OF HAPSBURG TO LEWIS OF BAVARIA 1273-1347 RICHARD of Cornwall died in 1272, and the German princes seemed to be in no haste to elect a successor. The - Pope, Gregory X,, finally demanded an election, for the greater convenience of having to deal with one head instead of a multitude; and the Archbishop of Mayence called a diet together at Frankfort the following year. He proposed, as candidate, Count Rudolf of Hapsburg, a petty ruler in Switzerland, who had also possessions in Alsatia. Up to his time the family had been insignificant; but, as a zealous partisan of Frederick IL, in whose excommunication he had shared, as a crusader against the heathen Prussians, and finally, in his maturer years, as a man of great pru- dence, moderation, and firmness, he had made the name of Haps- burg generally and quite favorably known. His brother-in-law, Count Frederick of Hohenzollem, the burgrave, or governor, of the city of Nuremberg (and the founder of the present House of the Hohenzollerns), advocated Rudolf's election among the mem- bers of the diet. The chief considerations in his favor were his personal character, his lack of power, and the circumstance of his possessing six marriageable daughters. There were also private stipulations which secured him the support of the priesthood, and so he was elected King of Germany. Rudolf was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle. At the close of the ceremony it was discovered that the imperial scepter was missing, whereupon he took a crucifix from the altar and held it forth to the princes who came to swear allegiance to his rule. He was at this time fifty-five years of age, extremely tall and lank, with a haggard face and large aquiline nose. Although he was always called " emperor " by the people, he never received, or even desired, the imperial crown of Rome. He was in the habit of saying that Rome was the den of the lion, into which led the tracks of many other animals, but none was seen leading out of it again. 179 180 GERMANY 1273-1278 It was easy for him, therefore, to conclude a peace with the Pope. He met Gregory X. at Lausanne, and there formally re- nounced all claim to the rights held by the Hohenstaufens in Italy. He even recognized Charles of Anjou as king of Sicily and Naples, and betrothed one of his daughters to the latter's son. The Church of Rome received possession of all the territory it had claimed in central Italy, and the Lombard and Tuscan republics were left for a while undisturbed. He further promised to undertake a new crusade for the recovery of Jerusalem, and was then solemnly recognized by Gregory X. as rightful king of Germany. But, although Rudolf had so readily given up all for which the Hohenstaufens had struggled in Italy, he at once claimed their estates in Germany as belonging to the crown. This brought him into conflict with Counts Ulric and Eberhard II. of Wurtemberg, who were also allied with King Ottokar II. of Bohemia in opposi- tion to his authority. The latter had obtained possession of Aus- tria through marriage and of all Styria and Carinthia to the Adriatic by purchase. He was ambitious and defiant: some his- torians suppose that he hoped to make himself Emperor of Germany, others that his object was to establish a powerful Slavonic nation. Rudolf did not delay long in declaring him outlawed, and in calling upon the other princes for an army to lead against him. The call was received with indifference ; no one feared the new emperor, and hence no one obeyed. Gathering together such troops as his son-in-law, Lewis of the Bavarian Palatinate, could furnish, Rudolf marched into Austria, after he had restored order in Wiirtemberg. A revolt of the Aus- trian and Styrian nobles against Bohemian rule followed this move- ment : the country was gradually reconquered, and Vienna, after a siege of five weeks, fell into Rudolf's hands. Ottokar II. then found it advisable to make peace with the man whom he had styled "a poor count," by giving up his claim to Austria, Styria, and Carinthia, and paying homage to the Emperor of Germany. In October, 1276, the treaty was concluded. Ottokar appeared in all the splendor he could command, and was received by Rudolf in a costume not very different from that of a common soldier. " The Bohemian king has often laughed at my gray coat," he said ; " but now my coat shall laugh at him." Ottokar was enraged at what he considered an insulting humiliation, and secretly plotted revenge. For nearly two years he intrigued with the states of northern HAPSBURG AND BAVARIA 181 1278-1284 Germany and the Poles, collected a large army under the pretext of conquering Hungary, and suddenly declared war against Rudolf. The emperor was supported only by the Count of Tyrol, by Frederick of Hohenzollem, and a few bishops, but he procured the alliance of the Hungarians, and then marched against Ottokar with a much inferior force. Nevertheless, he was completely victorious in the battle which took place, on the River March, in August, 1278. Ottokar was killed and his Saxon and Bavarian allies scattered. Rudolf used his victory with a moderation which secured him new advantages. He married one of his daughters to Wenzel, Otto- kar's son, and allowed him the crown of Bohemia and Moravia ; he gave Carinthia to the Count of Tyrol, and Austria and Styria to his own sons, Rudolf and Albert. Toward the other German princes he was so conciliatory and forbearing that they found no cause for further opposition. Thus the influence of the House of Hapsburg was permanently founded, and curiously enough, when we con- sider the later history of Germany chiefly by the help of the founder of the House of Hohenzollern. After spending five years in Austria and securing the results of his victory, Rudolf returned to the interior of Germany. A diet held at Augsburg in 1282 confirmed his sons in their new sov- ereignties, and his authority as German emperor was henceforth never seriously opposed. He exerted all his influence over the princes in endeavoring to settle the numberless disputes which arose out of the law by which the territory and rule of the father were divided among many sons or, in case there were no direct heirs, which gave more than one relative an equal claim. He proclaimed a national peace, or cessation of quarrels between the states, and thereby accomplished some good, although the order was only par- tially obeyed. At a diet which he held in Erfurt he urged the strongest measures for the suppression of knightly robbery. Sixty castles of the noble highwaymen were razed to the ground, and more than thirty of the titled vagabonds expiated their crimes on the scaffold. In all the measures which he undertook for the general welfare of the country he succeeded as far as was possible at such a time. In his schemes of personal ambition, however, the emperor was not so successful. His attempt to make his eldest son Duke of Suabia failed completely. Then in order to establish a right to 182 GERMANY 1284-1291 Burgundy, he married, at the age of sixty-six, the sister of Count Robert, a girl of only fourteen. Although he gained some few- advantages in western Switzerland, he was resisted by the city of Berne, and all he accomplished in the end was the stirring up of a new hostility to Germany, and a new friendship for France, throughout the whole of Burgundy. On the eastern frontier, how- ever, the empire was enlarged by the voluntary annexation of Silesia to Bohemia, in exchange for protection against the claims of Poland. In 1290 Rudolf's eldest son, of the same name, died, and at a diet held the following year the emperor endeavored to procure the election of his son Albert as his successor. A majority of the bishops and princes decided to postpone the question, and Rudolf left the city, deeply mortified. He soon afterward fell ill, and, being warned by the physician that his case was serious, he ex- claimed : " Well, then, now for Speyer ! " the old burial-place of the German emperors. But before reaching there he died, in July, 1 29 1, aged seventy-three years. Rudolf of Hapsburg was very popular among the common people on account of his frank, straightforward manner and the simplicity of his habits. He was a complete master of his own passions, and in this respect contrasted remarkably with the rash and impetuous Hohenstaufens. He never showed impatience or irritation, but was always good-humored, full of jests and shrewd sayings, and accessible to all classes. When supplies were short he would pull up a turnip, peel and eat it in the presence of his sol- diers, to show that he fared no better than they ; he would refuse a drink of water unless there was enough for all ; and it is related that once, on a cold day, he went into the shop of a baker in Mayence to warm himself, and was greatly amused when the good housewife insisted on turning him out as a suspicious character. Neverthe- less, he could not overcome the fascination which the Hohenstaufen name still exercised over the people. The idea of Barbarossa's re- turn had already taken root among them, and more than one im- postor, who claimed to be the dead emperor, found enough of fol- lowers to disturb Rudolf's reign. An imperial authority like that of Otto the Great or Bar- barossa had not been restored ; yet Rudolf's death left the empire in a more orderly condition, and the many small rulers were more willing to continue the forms of government. But the Archbishop HAPSBURG AND BAVARIA 183 1291-1298 Gerard of Mayence, who had bargained secretly with Count Adolf of Nassau, easily persuaded the electors that it was impolitic to pre- serve the power in one family, and he thus secured their votes for Adolf, who was crowned shortly afterward. The latter was even poorer than Rudolf of Hapsburg had been, but without either his wisdom or honesty. He was forced to part with so many imperial privileges to secure his election that his first policy seems to have been to secure money and estates for himself. He sold to the Vis- count of Milan the viceroyalty over Lombardy, which he claimed as still being a German right, and received from Edward I. of England one hundred thousand pounds sterling as the price of his alliance in a war against Philip IV. of France. Instead, however, of keeping his part of the bargain, he used some of the money to purchase Thuringia of the Landgrave Albert, who was carrying on an un- natural quarrel with his two sons, Frederick and Dietzmann, and thus disposed of their inheritance. Albert (surnamed the Degen- erate) also disposed of the countship of Meissen in the same way, and when the people resisted the transfer their lands were terribly devastated by Adolf of Nassau. This course was a direct inter- ference with the rights of reigning families, a violation of the law of inheritance, and it excited great hostility to Adolf's rule among the other princes. The rapacity of the new emperor, in fact, was the cause of his speedy downfall. In order to secure the support of the bishops he had promised them the tolls on vessels sailing up and down the Rhine, while the abolition of the same tolls was promised to the free cities on that river. The Archbishop of Mayence sent word to him that he had other emperors in his pocket, but Adolf paid little heed to his remonstrances. Albert of Hapsburg, son of Ru- dolf, turned the general dissatisfaction to his own advantage. He won his brother-in-law, Wenzel II. of Bohemia, to his side, and purchased the alliance of Philip the Fair of France by yielding to him the possession of portions of Burgundy and Flanders. After private negotiations with the German princes, both spiritual and temporal, the Archbishop of Mayence called a diet together in that city, in June, 1298. Adolf was declared to have forfeited the crown, and Albert was elected in his stead by all the electors except those of Treves and the Palatinate. Within ten days after the election the rivals met in battle : both had foreseen the struggle, and had made hasty preparations to meet 184 GERMANY 1298-1308 it. Adolf fought with desperation, even after being wounded, and finally came face to face with Albert on the field. " Here you must yield the empire to me ! " he cried, drawing his sword. " That rests with God," was Albert's answer, and he struck Adolf dead. After this victory the German princes nevertheless required that Albert should be again elected before being crowned, since they feared that this precedent of choosing a rival monarch might lead to trouble in the future. Albert of Hapsburg was a hard, cold man, with all of his father's will and energy, yet without his moderation and shrewd- ness. He was haughty and repellent in his manner, and from first to last made no friends. He was one-eyed, on account of a singu- lar cure which had been practiced upon him. Having become very ill, his physicians suspected that he was poisoned; they thereupon hung him up by the heels and took one eye out of its socket, so that the poison might thus escape from his head ! The single aim of his life was to increase the imperial power and secure it to his own family. Whether his measures conduced to the welfare of Ger- many or not was a question which he did not consider, and there- fore whatever good he accomplished was simply accidental, and not the result of any defined policy. Albert's stubborn and selfish attempts to increase the power of his house all failed ; their only result was a wider and keener spirit of hostility to his rule. He claimed Thuringia and Meissen, al- leging that Adolf of Nassau had purchased those lands, not for himself, but for the empire; he endeavored to get possession of Holland, whose line of ruling counts had become extinct ; and after the death of Wenzel H. of Bohemia, in 1307, he married his son, Rudolf, to the latter's widow. But Counts Frederick and Dietz- mann of Thuringia defeated his army; the people of Holland elected a descendant of their counts on the female side, and the emperor's son, Rudolf, died in Bohemia, apparently poisoned, be- fore two years were out. Then the Swiss cantons of Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden, which had been governed by civil officers ap- pointed by the emperors, rose in revolt against him and drove his goveniors from their Alpine valleys. In November, 1307, that famous league was formed by which the three cantons maintained their independence and laid the first corner-stone of the republic of Switzerland. .The following May, 1308, Albert was in Baden raising troops HAPSBURG AND BAVARIA 1308-1310 185 for a new campaign in Thuringia. His nephew, John, a youth of nineteen, who had vainly endeavored to have his right to a part of the Hapsburg territory in Switzerland confirmed by the emperor, was with him, accompanied by four knights with whom he had conspired. While crossing a river they managed to get into the same boat with the emperor, leaving the rest of his retinue upon the other bank; then, when they had landed, they fell upon him, murdered him, and fled. A peasant woman who was near lifted Albert upon her lap and he died in her arms. His widow, the Empress Elizabeth, took a horrible revenge upon the families of the conspirators, whose relatives and even their servants, to the number of one thousand, were executed. One of the knights who was captured was broken upon the wheel. John, called in history " John Parricida," was never heard of afterward, although one tradition affirms that he fled to Rome, confessed his deed to the Pope, and passed the rest of his life, under another name, in a monastery. The German electors were in no hurry to choose a new em-" peror. They were only agreed as to who should not be elected that is, no member of a powerful family ; but it was not so easy to pick out an acceptable candidate from among the many inferior princes. The church decided the question. Peter, Archbishop of Mayence, intrigued with Baldwin, Archbishop of Treves, in favor of the latter's brother, Count Henry of Luxemburg. A diet was held at the " King's Seat," on the hill of Reuse, near Coblentz, where the blast of a hunting-horn could be heard in four electorates at the same time, and Henry was chosen king. He was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle on January 6, 1309, as Henry VH. His first aim was to restore peace and order to Germany. He was obliged to reestablish the Rhine dues in the interest of the archbishops who had supported him, but he endeavored to recom- pense the cities by granting them other privileges. At a diet held in Speyer he released the three Swiss cantons from their allegiance to the House of Hapsburg, gave Austria to the sons of the murdered Albert, and had the bodies of the latter and his rival, Adolf of Nassau, buried in the cathedral side by side. Soon afterward the Bohemians, dissatisfied with Henry of Carinthia (who had become their king after the death of Albert's son, Rudolf), offered the hand of Wenzel H.'s youngest daughter, Elizabeth, to Henry's son, John. Although the latter was only fourteen, and his bride twenty- 186 GERMANY 1310-1314 two years of age, Henry gave his consent to the marriage, and John became king of Bohemia. In 13 ID the new emperor called a diet at Frankfort in order to enforce a universal truce among the German states. He outlawed Count Eberhard of Wiirtemberg, and took away his power to create disturbance ; and then, Germany being quiet, he turned his attention to Italy, which was in a deplorable state of confusion from the continual wars of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. In Lombardy noble families had usurped the control of the former republican cities, and governed with greater tyranny than even the Hohenstau- fens. Henry's object was to put an end to their civil wars, insti- tute a new order, and be crowned Roman emperor. Toward the close of 13 10 Henry VII. crossed Mont Cenis with an army of several thousand men, and was welcomed with great pomp in Milan, where he was crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy. The poet Dante hailed him as a savior of Italy, and all parties formed the most extravagant expectations of the ad- vantage they would derive from his coming. The emperor seems to have tried to act with entire impartiality, and consequently both parties were disappointed. The Guelphs first rose against him, and instead of peace a new war ensued. He was not able to march to Rome until 13 12, and by that time the city was again divided into two hostile parties. With the help of the powerful Colonna fam- ily he gained possession of the southern bank of the Tiber, and was crowned emperor in the Lateran Church by a cardinal, since there was no Pope in Rome : the Orsini family, who were hostile to him, held possession of the other part of the city, including St. Peter's and the Vatican. There were now indications that all Italy would be convulsed with a repetition of the old struggle. The Guelphs rallied around King Robert of Naples as their head, while King Frederick of Sicily and the republic of Pisa declared for the emperor. France and the Pope were about to add new elements to the quarrel, when in August, 13 13, Henry VII. died of poison, believed to have been administered to him by a monk in the sacramental wine. He was a man of many noble personal qualities, and from whom much was hoped, both in Germany and Italy ; but his reign was too short for the attainment of any lasting results. When the electors came together at Frankfort, in 13 14, it was found that their votes were divided between two candidates. HAPSBURG AND BAVARIA 187 1314-1324 Henry VII. 's son, King John of Bohemia, was only seventeen years old, and the friends of his house, not believing that he could be elected, united on Duke Lewis of Bavaria, a descendant of Otto of Wittelsbach. On the other hand, the friends of the House of Haps- burg, with the combined influence of France and the Pope on their side, proposed Frederick of Austria, the son of the Emperor Albert. There was a division of the diet, and both candidates were elected ; but Lewis had four of the seven chief electors on his side; he reached Aix-la-Chapelle first and was there crowned, and thus he was considered to have the best right to the imperial dignity. Lewis of Bavaria and Frederick of Austria had been bosom- friends until a short time previous, but they were now rivals and deadly enemies. For eight long years a civil war devastated Ger- many. On Frederick's side were Austria, Hungary, the Palatinate of the Rhine, and the Archbishop of Cologne, with the German nobles as a class; on Lewis's side were Bavaria, Bohemia, Thur- ingia, the cities, and the middle class. Frederick's brother, Leo- pold, in attempting to subjugate the Swiss cantons, the freedom of which had been confirmed by Lewis, suffered a crushing defeat in the famous battle of Morgarten, fought in 13 15. The Austrian force in this battle was 9000, the Swiss 1300; the latter lost 15 men, the former 1500 soldiers and 640 knights. From that day the freedom of the Swiss was secured. The Pope, John XXII., declared that he only had the right of deciding between the two rival sovereigns, and used all the means in his power to assist Frederick. The war was prolonged until 1322, when, in a battle fought at Muhldorf, near Salzburg, the struggle was decided. After a combat of ten hours the Bavarians g^ve way, and Lewis narrowly escaped capture ; then the Austrians, mistaking a part of the latter's army for the troops of Leopold, which were expected on the field, were themselves surrounded, and Frederick, with 1400 knights, taken prisoner. Lewis saluted Fred- erick with the words : " We are glad to see you, cousin ! " and then imprisoned him in a strong castle. There was now a truce in Germany, but no real peace. Lewis felt himself strong enough to send some troops to the relief of Lord Visconti of Milan, who was hard pressed by a Neapolitan army, in the interest of the Pope. For this act John XXII. not only excommunicated and cursed him officially, but extended the Papal interdict over Germany. The latter measure was one which 188 GERMANY 1324-1328 had formerly occasioned the greatest dismay among the people, but it had now lost much of its power. The " Interdict " prohibited all priestly offices in the lands to which it was applied. The churches were closed, the bells were silent, no honors were paid to the dead, and it was even ordered that the marriage ceremony should be performed in the churchyards. But the German people refused to submit to the interdict; the few priests who attempted to obey the Pope were either driven away or compelled to perform their religious duties as usual. The next event in the struggle was a conspiracy of Leopold of Austria with Charles IV. of France, favored by the Pope, to over- throw Lewis. But the other German princes who were concerned in it quietly withdrew when the time came for action, and the plot failed. Then Lewis, tired of his trials, sent his prisoner Fred- erick to Leopold as a mediator, the former promising to return and give himself up if he should not succeed. Leopold was implacable, and Frederick kept his word, although the Pope offered to relieve him of his promise, and threatened him with excommunication for not breaking it. Lewis was generous enough to receive him as a friend, to give him his full liberty and dignity, and even to divide his royal rule privately with him. The latter arrangement was so unpractical that it was not openly proclaimed, but the good under- standing between the two contributed to the peace of Germany. Leopold died in 1326, and Lewis enjoyed an undisputed authority. In 1327 the emperor felt himself strong enough to undertake an expedition to Italy, his object being to relieve Lombardy from the aggressions of Naples, and to be crowned emperor in Rome in spite of the Pope. In this he was tolerably successful. He de- feated the Guelphs and was crowned in Milan the same year, then marched to Rome and was crowned emperor early in 1328, under the auspices of the Colonna family, by two excommunicated bishops. Lewis, however, soon became as unpopular as any of his prede- cessors, and from the same cause the imposition of heavy taxes upon the people in order to keep up his imperial state. He re- mained two years longer in Italy, encountering as much hate as friendship, and was then recalled to Germany by the death of Frederick of Austria. The Papal excommunication which the Hohenstaufen emper- ors had borne so easily seems to have weighed sorely upon Lewis's mind. His was a weak, vacillating nature, capable of only a lim- HAPSBURG AND BAVARIA 189 1328-1338 ited amount of endurance. He began to fear that his soul was in peril, and made the most desperate efforts to be reconciled with the Pope. The latter, however, demanded his immediate abdica- tion as a preliminary to any further negotiation, and was supported in this demand by the King of France, who was very ambitious of obtaining the crown of Germany with the help of the church. King John of Bohemia acted as a go-between, but he was also secretly pledged to France, and an agreement was nearly concluded, of a character so cowardly and disgraceful to Lewis that when some hint of it became known there arose such an angry excitement in Germany that the emperor did not dare to move further in the matter. John XXII. died about this time (1334) and was succeeded by Benedict XIL, a man of a milder and more conciliatory nature, with whom Lewis immediately commenced fresh negotiations. He offered to abdicate, to swear allegiance to the Pope, to undergo any humiliation which the latter might impose upon him. Benedict was quite willing to be reconciled to him on these conditions, but the arrangement was prevented by Philip VI. of France, who hoped, like his father, to acquire the crown of Germany. As soon as this became evident Lewis adopted a totally different course. In the summer of 1338 he called a diet at Frankfort (which was after- ward adjourned to Reuse, near Coblentz), and laid the matter be- fore the bishops, princes, and free cities, which were now repre- sented. The diet unanimously declared that the emperor had exhausted all proper means of reconciliation, and the Pope alone was responsi- ble for the continuance of the struggle. The excommunication and interdict were pronounced null and void, and severe punishments were decreed for the priests who should heed them in any way. As it was evident that France had created the difficulty, an alliance was concluded with England, whose king, Edward III., appeared before the diet at Coblentz and procured the acknowledgment of his claim to the crown of France. Lewis, as emperor, sat upon the royal seat at Reuse, and all the German princes v/ith the excep- tion of King John of Bohemia, who had gone over to France made the solemn declaration that the king and emperor whom they had elected, or should henceforth elect, derived his dignity and power from God, and did not require the sanction of the Pope. They also bound themselves to defend the rights and liberties of 190 GERMANY 1338-1347 the empire against any assailant whatever. These were brave words, but we shall presently see how much they were worth. The alliance with England was made for seven years. Lewis was to furnish German troops for Edward III.'s army in return for English gold. For a year he was faithful to the contract ; then the old superstitious fear came over him, and he listened to the secret counsels of Philip VI. of France, who offered to mediate with the Pope in his behalf. But after Lewis had been induced to break his word with England, Philip, having gained what he wanted, prevented his reconciliation with the Pope. This miserable weak- ness on the emperor's part quite destroyed his authority in Ger- many. At the same time he was imitating every one of his imperial predecessors in trying to strengthen the power of his family. He gave Brandenburg to his eldest son, Lewis, married his second son, Henry, to Margaret of Tyrol, whom he arbitrarily divorced from her first husband, a son of John of Bohemia, and claimed the sovereignty of Holland as his wife's inheritance. Lewis of Bavaria had now become unpopular, and when an- other Pope, Clement VI., in April, 1346, hurled against him a new excommunication, expressed in the most horrible terms, the arch- bishops justified themselves for openly opposing the emperor's rule. They united with the Pope in selecting Karl, the son of John of Bo- hemia (who fell by the sword of the Black Prince the same summer, at the famous battle of Crecy), and proclaiming him emperor, in- stead of Lewis. All the cities and the temporal princes, except those of Bohemia and Saxony, stood faithfully by Lewis, and Karl could gain no advantage over him. He went to France, then to Italy, and finally betook himself to Bohemia, where he was a rival monarch only in name. In October, 1347, Lewis, who was then residing in Munich, his favorite capital, was stricken with apoplexy while hunting and fell dead from his horse. He was sixty-three years old, and had reigned thirty-three years. In German history he is always called " Lewis of Bavaria." During the last ten years of his reign many parts of Germany suffered severely from famine, and a pestilence called " the black death " carried off thousands of persons in every city. These misfortunes probably confirmed him in his supersti- tion, and partly account for his shameful and degrading policy. The only service which his long rule rendered to Germany sprang from the circumstance that, having been supported by the free I HAPSBURG AND BAVARIA 191 1347 cities in his war with Frederick of Austria, he was compelled to protect them against the aggressions of the princes afterward, and in various ways to increase their rights and privileges. There were now 150 such cities, and from this time forward they consti- tuted a separate power in the empire. They encouraged learning and literature, favored peace and security of travel for the sake of their commerce, organized and protected the mechanic arts, and thus, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, contributed more to the progress of Germany than all her spiritual and temporal rulers. Chapter XXI THE LUXEMBURG EMPERORS, CHARLES IV. AND WENZEL. 1347-1410 A LTHOUGH the German princes were nearly unanimous in /\ the determination that no member of the House of Wittels- JL JL back (Bavaria) should again be emperor, they were by no means willing to accept Karl of Luxemburg. Some of them took up Gunther of Schwarzburg, a gallant and popular prince, who seemed to have a good prospect of success. In this emergency Karl supported the pretensions of an adventurer, known as " the False Waldemar," to Brandenburg, against Lewis of Bavaria, and thus compelled the latter to treat with him. Soon afterward Gunther of Schwarzburg died, poisoned, it was generally believed, by a physician whom Karl had bribed, and by the end of 1348 the latter was emperor of Germany, as Karl or Charles IV. At this time he was thirty-three years old. He had been edu- cated in France and Italy, and was an accomplished scholar: he both spoke and wrote the Bohemian, German, French, Italian, and Latin languages. He was a thorough diplomatist, resembling in this respect Rudolf of Hapsburg, from whom he differed in his love of pomp and state, and in the care he took to keep himself always well supplied with money, which he well knew how and when to use. He had first secured the influence of the Pope by promising to disregard the declarations of the diet of 1338 at Reuse, and by relinquishing all claims to Italy. Then he won the free cities to his side by offers of more extended privileges ; and the German princes, for form's sake, elected him a second time, thus acknowledging the Papal authority which they had so boldly defied ten years before. One of the first acts of Charles was to found, in Prague which city he selected as his capital ^the first German university, which he endowed so liberally and organized so thoroughly that in a few years it was attended by six or seven thousand students. For several years afterward he occupied himself in establishing order throughout Germany, and meanwhile negotiated with the Pope in 193 LUXEMBURG EMPERORS 193 1348-1356 regard to his coronation as Roman emperor. In spite of his com- plete submission to the latter, there were many difficulties to be overcome, arising out of the influence of France over the Papacy, which was still established at Avignon. Charles arrested Rienzi, " the last Tribune of Rome," and kept him for a time imprisoned in Prague ; but when the latter was sent back to Rome as senator by Pope Innocent VI., in 1354, Charles was allowed to commence his Italian journey. He was crowned Roman emperor on April 5, 1355' by a cardinal sent from Avignon for that purpose. In compliance with his promise to Pope Innocent, he remained in Rome only a single day. Instead of attempting to settle the disorders which convulsed Italy, Charles turned his journey to good account by selling all the remaining imperial rights and privileges to the republics and petty rulers for hard cash. The poet Petrarch had looked forward to his coming as Dante had to that of his grandfather, Henry VII., but satirized him bitterly when he returned to Bohemia with his money. He left Italy ridiculed and despised, but reached Germany with greatly increased power. His next measure was to call a diet for the purpose of permanently settling the relation of the German princes to the empire, and the forms to be observed in electing an emperor. All had learned, several centuries too late to he of much service, the necessity of some established order in these [matters, and they came to a final agreement at Metz, on Christmas ^Day, 1356. Then was promulgated the decree known as the " Golden |BulI," which remained a law in Germany until the empire came to |an end, just 450 years afterward. It commences with these words: Every kingdom which is not united within itself will go to ruin: for its princes are the kindred of robbers, wherefore God removes the light of their minds from their office, they become blind leaders of the blind, and their darkened thoughts are the source of many ^misdeeds." The Golden Bull confirms the custom of having seven chief electors the archbishops of Mayence, Treves, and Cologne, the first of whom is arch-chancellor; the king of Bohemia, arch- fcupbearer; the count palatine of the Rhine, arch-steward; the duke fof Saxony, arch-marshal, arid the margrave of Brandenburg, arch- chamberlain. The last four princes receive full authority over their rterritories, and there is no appeal, even to the emperor, from their ^decisions. Their rule is transmitted to the eldest son; they have the 194 GERMANY 1356-1376 right to coin money, to work mines, and to impose all taxes which formerly belonged to the empire. These are its principal features. The claims of the Pope to authority over the emperor are not mentioned; the position of the other independent princes is left very much as it was, and the cities are prohibited from forming unions without the imperial consent. The only effect of this so-called " constitution " was to strengthen immensely the power of the four favored princes, and to encourage all the other rulers to imitate them. It introduced a certain order, and therefore was better than the previous absence of all law upon the subject. The remaining events of Charles IV.'s life are of no great historical importance. In 1363 his son, Wenzel, only two years old, was crowned at Prague as king of Bohemia, and soon afterward the emperor was called upon by the Pope, Urban V., who found that his residence in Avignon was becoming more and more a state of captivity, to assist him in returning to Rome. In 1365, therefore, Charles set out, with a considerable force, entered southern France, crowned himself king of Burgundy at Aries which was a hollow and ridiculous farce and in 1368 reached Rome, whither Pope Urban had gone in advance. Here his wife was formally crowned as Roman empress, and he humiliated himself by walking from the Castle of St. Angelo to St. Peter's, leading the Pope's mule by the bridle an act which drew upon him the contempt of the Roman people. He had few or no privileges to sell, so he met every evidence of hostility with a proclamation of amnesty, and returned to Germany with the intention of violating his own Golden Bull, by having his son Wenzel proclaimed his successor. His departure marks the end of German interference in Italy. For ten years longer Charles IV. continued to strengthen his family by marriage, by granting to the cities the right of union in return for their support, and by purchasing the influence of such princes as were accessible to bribes. He was so cool and calcu- lating, and pursued his policy with so much patience and skill, that the most of his plans succeeded. His son Wenzel was elected his successor by a diet held at Frankfort in January, 1376, each of the chief electors receiving one hundred thousand florins for his vote, and this choice was confirmed by the Pope. To his second son, Sigismund, he gave Brandenburg, which he had obtained partly by intrigue and partly by purchase, and to his third son, John, the LUXEMBURG EMPERORS 195 1376-1378 province of Lusatia, adjoining Silesia. His health had been grad- ually failing-, and in November, 1378, he died in Prague, sixty-three years old. His tastes were always Bohemian rather than German ; he preferred Prague to any other residence, and whatever good he intentionally did was conferred on his own immediate subjects. More than a century afterward the Emperor Maximilian of Haps- burg very justly said of him: "Charles was a genuine father to Bohemia, but only a step-father to the rest of Germany." During the latter years of his reign two very different move- ments, independent of the imperial will, or in spite of it, had been started in southern and northern Germany. In Wurtemberg the cities united and carried on a fierce war with Count Eberhard, sur- named the Greiner (Whiner). The struggle lasted for more than ten years, and out of it grew various leagues of the knights for the protection of their rights against the more powerful princes. In the north of Germany the commercial cities, headed by Liibeck, Hamburg, and Bremen, formed a league which soon became cele- brated under the name of " The Hansa," which gradually drew the cities of the Rhine to unite with it, and before the end of the cen- tury developed into a great commercial, naval, and military power. The Hanseatic League had its agencies in every commercial city, from Novgorod m Russia to Lisbon ; its vessels filled the Baltic and the North Sea, and almost the entire commerce of northern Europe was in its hands. When, in 1361, King Waldemar 111. of |Denmark took possession of the Island of Gothland, which the cities pad colonized, they fitted out a great fleet, besieged Copenhagen, finally drove Waldemar from his kingdom, and forced the Danes |to accept their conditions. Shortly afterward they defeated King iHakon of Norway. Their influence over Sweden was already se- icured, and thus they became an independent political power. [Charles IV. visited Liibeck a few years before his death, in the hope if making himself head of the Hanseatic League ; but the merchants lyvtre as good diplomatists as he, and he obtained no recognition [whatever. Had not the cities been so widely scattered along the last, and each more or less jealous of the others, they might have laid the foundation of a strong North German nation; but their bond of union was not firm enough for that. The German Order, by this time, also possessed an independ- ent realm, the capital of which was established at Marienburg, not far from Dantzic. The distance from the rest of the empire of the 196 GERMANY 1378-1386 territory it had conquered in eastern Prussia, and the circumstance that it had also acknowledged itself a dependency of the Papal power, enabled its Grand Masters to say openly : " If the empire claims authority over us, we belong to the Pope ; if the Pope claims any such authority, we belong to the emperor." In fact, although the Order had now been established for a hundred and fifty years, it had never been directly assisted by the imperial power; yet it had changed a great tract of wilderness inhabited by Slavonic bar- barians into a rich and prosperous land, with fifty-five cities, thou- sands of villages, and an entire population of more than two millions, mostly German colonists. It adopted a fixed code of laws, main- tained order and security throughout its territory, encouraged science and letters, and made the scholar and minstrel as welcome at its stately court in Marienburg. as they had been at that of Frederick II. in Palermo. There could be no more remarkable contrast than between the weakness, selfishness, and despotic tendencies of the German em- perors and electors during the fourteenth century, and the strong and orderly development of the Hanseatic League and the German Order in the north, or of the handful of free Swiss in the south. King Wenzel was only seventeen years old when his father died, but he had been well educated and already possessed some ex- perience in governing. In fact, Charles IV.'s anxiety to secure the succession to the throne in his own family led him to force Wenzel's mind to a premature activity, and thus ruined him for life. He had enjoyed no real childhood and youth, and he soon became hard, cynical, willful, without morality, and even without ambitions. In the beginning of his reign, nevertheless, he made an earnest attempt to heal the divisions of the Roman Church, and to establish peace between Count Eberhard the Whiner and the united cities of Suabia. In the latter quarrel Leopold of Austria also took part. He had been appointed governor of several of the free cities by Wenzel, and he seized the occasion to attempt to restore the au- thority of the Hapsburg over the Swiss cantons. The latter now numbered eight, the three original cantons having been joined by Lucerne, Zurich, Glarus, Zug, and Berne. They had been invited to make common cause with the Suabian cities, more than fifty of which were united in the struggle to maintain their rights ; but the Swiss, although in sympathy with the cities, declined to march be- LUXEMBURG EMPERORS 197 1386-1396 yond their own territory. Leopold decided to subjugate each sep- arately. In 1386, with an army of 4000 Austrian and Suabian knights, he invaded the cantons. The Swiss collected 1300 farm- ers, fishers, and herdsmen, armed with halberds and battle-axes, and met Leopold at Sempach on July 9. The 4000 knights dismounted and advanced m close ranks, presenting a wall of steel, defended by rows of leveled spears, to the Swiss in their leathern jackets. It seemed impossible to break their solid front, or even to reach them with the Swiss weapons. Then Arnold of Winkelried is said to have stepped forth and said to his countrymen : " Dear brothers, I will open a road for you : take care of my wnfe and children!" and gathering together as many spears as he could grasp, he thrust them into his own breast. The Swiss sprang into the gap, and the knights began to fall on all sides, from their tremendous blows. Many were smothered in the press, trampled under foot in their heavy armor. Duke Leopold and nearly seven hundred of his followers perished, and the rest were scattered in all directions. It was one of the most astonishing victories in history. Two years afterward the Swiss were again splendidly victorious at Nafels, and from that time they were an independent nation. The Suabian cities were so encouraged by these defeats of the party of the nobles that in 1388 they united in a common war against the Duke of Bavaria, Count Eberhard of Wiirtemberg, and the Count Palatine Rupert. After a short but very fierce and wasting struggle, they were defeated at Doffingen and Worms, deprived of the privileges for which they had fought, and compelled to accept a truce of six years. In 1389 a diet was held, which pro- hibited them from forming any further union, and thus completely reestablished the power of the reigning princes. Wenzel endeav- ored to enforce an internal peace throughout the whole empire, but could not succeed : what was law for the cities was not allowed to be equally law for the princes. It seems probable from many features of the struggle that the former designed imitating the Swiss cantons, and founding a Suabian republic if they had been successful; but the entire governing class of Germany, from the emperor down to the knightly highwayman, was against them, and they must have been crushed in any case, sooner or later. For eight or nine years after these events Wenzel remained in Prague, where his reign was distinguished only by an almost 198 GERMANY 1396-1400 insane barbarity. He always had an executioner at his right hand, and whoever refused to submit to his orders was instantly beheaded. He kept a pack of bloodhounds, which were sometimes let loose even upon his own guests : on one occasion his wife, the Empress Elizabeth, was nearly torn to pieces by them. He ordered the con- fessor of the latter, a priest named John of Nepomuck, to be thrown into the Moldau River for refusing to tell him what the empress had confessed. By this act he made John of Nepomuck the patron saint of Bohemia. Someone once wrote upon the door of his pal- ace the words : " Venceslaus, alter Nero " (Wenzel, a second Nero) ; whereupon he wrote the line below: " 5't non fui adhuc, ero" (If I have not been one hitherto, I will be now). In short, Wenzel was so little of an emperor and so much of a brutal madman that a conspiracy, at the head of which were his cousin, Jodocus of Moravia, and Duke Albert of Austria, was formed against him. He was taken prisoner and conveyed to Austria, where he was held in close confinement until his brother Sigismund, aided by a diet of the other German princes, procured his release. In return for this service, and probably, also, to save himself the trouble of governing, he appointed Sigismund vicar of the empire. In 1398 he called a diet at Frankfort, and again en- deavored, but without much success, to enforce a general peace. The schism in the Roman Church, which lasted for forty years, the rival Popes in Rome and Avignon excommunicating and making war upon each other, had at this time become a scandal to Christendom, and the Papal authority had sunk so low that the temporal rulers now ventured to interfere. Wenzel went to Rheims, where he had an interview with Charles VI. of France, in order to settle the quar- rel. It was agreed that the former should compel Bonifacius IX. in Rome, and the latter Benedict XIII. in Avignon, to abdicate, so that the church might have an opportunity to unite on a single Pope ; but neither monarch succeeded in carrying out the plan. On the contrary, Bonifacius IX. went secretly to work to de- pose Wenzel. He gained the support of the four electors of the Rhine, who, headed by the Archbishop of Mayence, came together in 1400, proclaimed that Wenzel had forfeited his imperial dignity, and elected the Count Palatine Rupert, a member of the house of Wittelsbach (Bavaria), in his place. The city of Aix-la-Chapelle shut its gates upon the latter, and he was crowned in Cologne. A majority of the smaller German princes, as well as of the free cities, LUXEMBURG EMPERORS 199 1400-1410 refused to acknowledge him ; but, on the other hand, none of them made any movement in Wenzel's favor, and so there were, prac- tically, two separate heads to the empire. Rupert imagined that his coronation in Rome would secure his authority in Germany. He therefore collected an army, entered into an alliance with the republic of Florence against Milan, and marched to Italy in 1401. Near Brescia he met the army of the Lombards, commanded by the Milanese general, Barbiano, and was so signally defeated that he was compelled to return to Germany. In the meantime Wenzel had come to a temporary understanding with Jodocus of Moravia and the Hapsburg dukes of Austria, and his prospects improved as Rupert's diminished. It was not long, however, before he quarreled with his brother Sigismund, and was imprisoned by the latter. Then ensued a state of general con- fusion, the cause of which is easy to understand, but the features of which it is not easy to make clear. A number of reigning princes and cities held a convention at Marbach in 1405, and formed a temporary union, the object of which was evidently to create a third power in the empire. Both Rupert and Wenzel at first endeavored to break up this new league, and then, failing in the attempt, both intrigued for its support. The Archbishop of Mayence and the Margrave of Baden, who stood at its head, were secretly allied with France; the smaller princes were ambitious to gain for themselves a power equal to that of the seven electors, and the cities hoped to recover some of their lost rights. The League of Marbach, as it is called in history, had as little unity or harmony as the empire itself. All Germany was given up to anarchy, and seemed on the point of falling to pieces. So much had the famous Golden Bull of Charles IV, accomplished in fifty years ! On the eastern shore of the Baltic, also, the march of German civilization received an almost fatal check. The two strongest neighbors of the German Order, the Poles and Lithuanians, were now united under one crown, and they defeated the army of the Order, 60,000 strong, under the walls of Wilna, in 1389. After an unsatisfactory peace of some years, hostilities were again re- sumed, and both sides prepared for a desperate and final struggle. Each raised an army of more than 100,000 men, among whom, on the Polish side, there were 40,000 Russians and Tartars. The de- cisive battle was fought at Tannenberg in July, 1410, and the 200 GERMANY 1410 German Order, after losing 40,000 men, retreated from the field. It was compelled to give up a portion of its territory to Poland and pay a heavy tribute. From that day its power was broken, and the Slavonic races encroached more and more upon the Germans along the Baltic. During this same period Holland was rapidly becoming estranged from the German Empire, and France had obtained pos- session of the greater part of Flanders. Luxemburg and part of Lorraine were incorporated with Burgundy, which was rising in power and importance, and had become practically independent of Germany. There was now no one to guard the ancient boundaries, and probably nothing but the war between England and France prevented the latter kingdom from greatly increasing her territory at the expense of the empire. Although Rupert of the Palatine acquired but a limited au- thority in southern Germany, he is generally classed among the German emperors, perhaps because Wenzel's power, after the year 1400, was no greater than his own. The confusion and uncertainty in regard to the imperial dignity lasted until 1410, when Rupert de- termined to make war upon the Archbishop of Mayence ^who had procured his election, and since the League of Marbach was his chief enemy as the first step toward establishing his authority. In the midst of his preparations he died, on May 18, 1410. Chapter XXII THE REIGN OF SIGISMUND AND THE HUSSITE WAR 1410-1438 IN 14 10, the year of Rupert's death, Europe was shocked by the spectacle of three emperors in Germany, and three Popes of the Church of Rome, all claiming to rule at the same time. The diet was divided between Sigismund and Jodocus of Moravia, both of whom were declared elected, while Wenzel insisted that he was still emperor. A council held at Pisa about the same time deposed Pope Gregory XII. in Rome and Pope Benedict XIII. in Avignon, and elected a third, who took the name of Alexander V. But neither of the former obeyed the decrees of the council. Gregory XII. betook himself to Rimini, Alexander, soon succeeded by John XXIII., reigned in Rome, and the three spiritual rivals began a renewed war of proclamations and interdictions. The political rivalry in Germany did not last long. Jodocus of Moravia, of whom an old historian says : " He was considered a great man, but there v/as nothing great about him except his beard," died soon after his partial election, Wenzel was persuaded to give up his opposition, and Sigismund was generally recognized as the sole emperor. In addition to the Mark of Brandenburg, which he had received from his father, Charles IV., he had ob- tained the crown of Hungary through his wife, and claimed also the kingdoms of Bosnia and Dalmatia. He had fought the Turks on the lower Danube, had visited Constantinople, and was already distinguished for his courage and knightly bearing. Unlike his brother Wenzel, who had the black hair and high cheekbones of a Bohemian, he was blond-haired, blue-eyed, and strikingly hand- some. He spoke several languages, was witty in speech, cheerful in demeanor, and popular with all classes, but, unfortunately, both fickle and profligate. Moreover, he was one of the vainest men that ever wore a crown. Before Sigismund entered upon his reign the actions of the Roman clergy had given rise to a new and powerful religious move- ment in Bohemia. As early as 1360 independent preachers had 201 202 GERMANY 1360-1410 arisen among the people there, advocating the pure truths of the Gospel, and exhorting their hearers to turn their backs on the pride and luxury which prevailed, to live simply and righteously, and do good to their fellow-men. Although persecuted by the priests, they found many followers, and their example soon began to be more widely felt, especially as Wickliffe, in England, was preaching a similar doctrine at the same time. The latter's translation of the Bible was finished in 1383, and portions of it, together with his other writings in favor of a reformation of the Christian Church, were carried to Prague soon afterward. The great leader of the movement in Bohemia was John Huss, who was born in 1369, studied at the University of Prague, became a teacher there, and at the same time a defender of Wickliffe's doctrines, in 1398, and four years afterward, in spite of the fierce opposition of the clergy, was made rector of the university. With him was associated Jerome (Hieronymus), a young Bohemian nobleman, who had studied at Oxford, and was also inspired by Wickliffe's writings. The learning and lofty personal character of both g^ve them an influence in Prague, which gradually extended over all Bohemia. Huss preached with the greatest earnestness and eloquence against the doctrine of absolution, the revering of saints and images, the trade in offices and indulgences, and the idea of a purgatory from which souls could be freed by masses celebrated on their behalf. He advocated a return to the simplicity of the early Christian Church, especially in the use of the sacrament (com- munion). The form of administering the sacrament had been changed, the laymen receiving only bread, while the priests partook of both bread and wine. Huss, and the sect which took his name, demanded that it should be administered to all " in both forms." The first consequence of the preaching of Huss was a division between the Bohemians and Germans, in the University of Prague. The Germans took the part of Rome, but the Bohemians secured the support of King Wenzel through his queen, who was a fol- lower of Huss, and maintained their ascendency. Thereupon the German professors and students, numbering five thousand, left Prague in a body, in 1409, and migrated to Leipzig, where they founded a new university. These matters were reported to the Roman Pope, who immediately excommunicated Huss and his fol- lowers. Soon afterward the Pope (John XXHI.), desiring to subdue the king of Naples, offered pardons and indulgences to REIGN OF SIGISMUND 203 1410-1414 all who would take up arms on his side. Huss and Jerome preached against this proposition, and the latter publicly burned the Pope's bull in the streets of Prague. The conflict now became so fierce that Wenzel banished both from the city, many of Huss's friends among the clergy fell away from him, and he offered to submit his doctrines to a general council of the church. Such a council, in fact, was then demanded by all Christen- dom. The intelligent classes in all countries felt that the demorali- zation caused by the mismanagement of the clergy and the scandalous quarrels of three rival Popes could no longer be endured. The council at Pisa, in 1409, had only made matters worse by adding another Pope to the two at Rome and Avignon; for, although it claimed the highest spiritual authority on earth, it was not obeyed. The Chancellor of the University of Paris called upon the Emperor Sigismund to move in favor of a new council; all the Christian powers of Europe promised their support, and finally one of the Popes, John XXIII., being driven from Rome, was persuaded to agree, so that a grand ecumenical council, with authority over the Papacy, was summoned to meet in the city of Constance in the autumn of the year 1414. It was one of the most imposing assemblies ever held in Eu- rope. Pope John XXIII. personally appeared, accompanied by 600 Italians; the other two Popes sent ambassadors to represent their interests. The patriarchs of Jerusalem, Constantinople, and Aquileia, the grand masters of the knightly orders, 33 cardinals, 20 archbishops, 200 bishops and many thousand priests and monks were present. Then came the Emperor Sigismund, the representa- tives of all Christian powers, including the Byzantine emperor, and even an envoy from the Turkish sultan, with 1600 princes and their followers. The entire concourse of strangers at Constance was computed at 150,000, and thirty different languages were heard at the same time. A writer of the day thus describes the characteris- tics of the four principal races : " The Germans are impetuous, but have much endurance; the French are boastful and arrogant; the English prompt and sagacious; and the Italians subtle and in- triguing." Gamblers, mountebanks, and dramatic performers were also on hand; great tournaments, races, and banquets were con- stantly held ; yet, although the council lasted four years, there was no disturbance of the public order, no increase in the cost of living, and no epidemic diseases in the crowded camps. 204 GERMANY 1414-1415 The professed objects of the council were a reformation of the church, its reorganization under a single head, and the sup- pression of heresy. The members were divided into four " na- tions " the German, including the Bohemians, Hungarians, Poles, Russians, and Greeks; the French, including Normans, Spaniards, and Portuguese; the English, including Irish, Scotch, Danes, Nor- wegians, and Swedes; and the Italian, embracing all the different states from the Alps to Sicily. E^ch of these nations held its own separate convention, and cast a single vote, so that no measure could be carried unless three of the four nations were in favor of it. Germany and England advocated the reformation of the church as the first and most important question; France and Italy cared only to have the quarrel of the Popes settled, and finally persuaded England to join them. Thus the reformation was postponed, and that was practically the end of it. As soon as it became evident that all three of the Popes would be deposed by the council, John XXIII. fled from Constance in disguise, with the assistance of the Hapsburg duke, Frederick of Austria. Both were captured ; the Pope was imprisoned at Heidel- berg, and Frederick was declared to have forfeited his lands. Al- though Austria was afterward restored to him, all the Hapsburg territory lying between Zurich, the Rhine, and the Lake of Constance was given to Switzerland, and has remained Swiss ever since. A second Pope, Gregory XII., now voluntarily abdicated, but the third, Benedict XIII., refused to follow the example, and main- tained a sort of Papal authority in Spain until his death. The council elected a member of the family of Colonna, in Rome, who took the name of Martin V. The four nations took up the question of suppressing heresy. Huss, to whom the emperor had sent a safe conduct for the journey to and from Constance, and who was escorted by three Bohemian knights, was favorably received by the people on the way. He reached Constance in November, 14 14, and was soon afterward before any examination ^arrested and thrown into a dungeon so foul that he became seriously ill. Sigismund insisted that he should be released, but the cardinals and bishops were so embittered against him that they defied the emperor's authority. All that the latter could (or did) do for him was to procure for him a trial, which began on June 7, 141 5. On July 6 the council assembled in the cathedral of Con- REIGN OF SIGISMUND 205 1415-1418 Stance. After mass had been celebrated, Huss, who had stead- fastly refused to recant, was led before the congregation of priests and princes, and clothed as a priest, to make his condemnation more solemn. A bishop read the charges against him, and then each article of the priestly dress was stripped from him. The same day Huss was publicly burned to death. On arriving at the stake he knelt and prayed so fervently that the common people began to doubt whether he really was a heretic. Being again offered a chance to retract, he declared in a loud voice that he would seal by his death the truth of all he had taught. After the torch had been applied to the pile, he was heard to cry out, three times, from the midst of the flames: "Jesus Christ, son of the Living God, have mercy upon me ! " Then his voice failed, and in a short time nothing was left of his body except a handful of ashes, which were thrown into the Rhine. Huss's friend Jerome, who came to Constance on the express promise of the council that he should not be imprisoned before a fair hearing, was thrown into a dungeon as soon as he arrived, and so broken down by sickness and cruelty that in September, 141 5, he promised to give up his doctrines. But he soon recovered from this weakness, declared anew the truth of all he had taught, and defended himself before the council in a speech of remarkable power and eloquence. He was condemned and burned at the stake on May 30, 14 16. The fate of Huss and Jerome created an instant and fierce excitement among the Bohemians. An address, defending them against the charge of heresy and protesting against the injustice and barbarity of the council, was signed by four or five hundred nobles and forwarded to Constance. The only result was that the council decreed that no safe conduct could be allowed to protect a heretic, that the University of Prague must be reorganized, and the strongest measures applied to suppress the Hussite doctrines in Bohemia. This was a defiance which the Bohemians coura- geously accepted. Men of all classed united in proclaiming that the doctrines of Huss should be freely taught and that no interdict of the church should be enforced. The university, and even Wen- zel's queen, Sophia, favored this movement, which soon became so powerful that all priests who refused to administer the sacrament " in both forms " were driven from their churches. The council sat at Constance until May, 1418, when it was 206 GERMANY 1418-1419 dissolved by Pope Martin V. without having accomplished any- thing whatever tending to a permanent reformation of the church. The only political event of importance during this time was a busi- ness transaction of Sigismund's, the results of which, reaching to our day, have decided the fate of Germany. In 141 1 the emperor was in great need of ready money, and borrowed one hundred thou- sand florins of Frederick of Hohenzollern, the Burgrave (Burg- graf, "Count of the Castle") of Nuremberg, a direct descendant of the Hohenzollern who had helped Rudolf of Hapsburg to the imperial crown. Sigismund gave his creditor a mortgage on the territory of Brandenburg, which had fallen into a state of great disorder. Frederick at once removed thither, and in his own pri- vate interests undertook to govern the country. He showed so much ability, and was so successful in quelling the robber knights and establishing order, that in 141 5 Sigism.und offered to sell him the sovereignty of Brandenburg (which made him, at the same time, an elector of the empire) for the additional sum of 300,000 gold florins. Frederick accepted the terms, and settled permanently in the little state which afterward became tlie nucleus of the king- dom of Prussia, of which his own lineal descendants are now the rulers. When the Council of Constance was dissolved Sigismund hastened to Hungary to carry on a new war with the Turks, who were already extending their conquests along the Danube. The Hussites in Bohemia employed this opportunity to organize them- selves for resistance; 40,000 of them, in July, 1419, assembled on a mountain to which they gave the name of " Tabor," and chose as their leader a nobleman who was surnamed Ziska, " the one- eyed." The excitement soon rose to such a pitch that several monasteries were stormed and plundered. King Wenzel arrested some of the ringleaders, but this only inflamed the spirit of the people. They formed a procession in Prague, marched through the city, carrying the sacramental cup at their head, and took forcible possession of several churches. When they halted before the city hall to demand the release of their imprisoned brethren, stones were thrown at them from the windows, whereupon they broke into the building and hurled the burgomaster and six other of!icials upon the upheld spears of those below. The news of this event so excited Wenzel that he was stricken with apoplexy and died two weeks afterward. REIGN OF SIGISMUND 207 1419-1420 The Hussites were already divided into two parties, one mod- erate in its demands, called the " Calixtines," from the Latin calix, a chalice, which was their symbol, because they believed that the cup of wine at communion should be given to the laity as well as the bread; it was the custom in the Catholic Church for the clergy, only, to take the communion in " two kinds." The other party, more radical and fanatic, called the " Taborites," proclaimed their separation from the Church of Rome and a new system of brotherly equality through which they expected to establish the millennium upon earth. The exigencies of their situation obliged these two parties to unite in common defense against the forces of the church and the empire during the sixteen years of war which followed; but they always remained separated in their religious views, and mutually intolerant. Ziska, who called himself " John Ziska of the Chalice, commander in the hope of God of the Taborites," had been a friend and was an ardent follower of Huss. He was an old man, bald-headed, short, broad-shouldered, with a deep furrow across his brow, an enormous aquiline nose, and a short red mustache. In his genius for military operations he ranks among the great commanders of the world. His quickness, energy, and inventive talent were marvelous, but at the same time he knew neither tol- erance nor mercy. Ziska's first policy was to arm the Bohemians. He introduced among them the " thunder-guns " small field-pieces which had been used at the battle of Agincourt, between England and France, three years before; he shod the farmer's flails with iron, and taught them to crack helmets and armor with iron maces; and he invented a system of constructing temporary fortresses by bind- ing strong wagons together with iron chains, Sigismund does not seem to have been aware of the formidable character of the movement until the end of hJs war with the Turks, some months afterward, and he then persuaded the Pope to summon all Chris- tendom to a crusade against Bohemia. During the year 1420 a force of 100,000 soldiers was collected, and Sigismund marched at their head to Prague. The Hussites met him with the demand for the acceptance of the following articles: i. The Word of God to be freely preached; 2. The sacrament to be administered in both forms; 3. The clergy to possess no property or tem- poral authority ; 4. All sins to be punished by the proper authorities. Sigismund was ready to accept these articles as the price of their 208 GERMANY 1420-1422 submission, but the Papal legate forbade the agreement, and war followed. On November i, 1420, the "crusaders " were totally defeated by Ziska, and all Bohemia was soon relieved of their presence. The dispute between the moderates and the radicals broke out again; the idea of a community of property began to prevail among the Taborites, and most of the Bohemian nobles refused to act with them. Ziska left Prague with his troops and for a time devoted himself to the task of suppressing all opposition through the country with fire and sword. He burned no less than 550 convents and monasteries, slaying the priests and monks who refused to accept the new doctrines: but he proceeded with equal severity against a new sect called the Adamites, who were endeavor- ing to restore Paradise by living without clothes. While besieging the town of Raby an arrow destroyed his remaining eye; yet he continued to plan battles and sieges as before. The very name of the blind warrior became a terror throughout Germany. In September, 1421, a second crusade of 200,000 men, com- manded by five German electors, entered Bohemia from the west. It had been planned that the Emperor Sigismund, assisted by Duke Albert of Austria, to whom he had given his daughter in marriage, and who was now also supported by many of the Bohemian nobles, should invade the country from the east at exactly the same time. The Hussites were thus to be crushed between the upper and the nether millstones. But the blind Ziska, nothing daunted, led his wagons, his flail-men, and mace-wielders against the electors, whose troops began to flee before them. No battle was fought; the 200,000 crusaders were scattered in all directions and lost heavily during their retreat. Then Ziska wheeled about and marched against Sigismund, who was late in making his appearance. The two armies met on January 8, 1422, and the Hussite victory was so complete that the emperor narrowly escaped falling into their hands. It is hardly to be wondered that they should consider them- selves to be the chosen people of God after such astonishing successes. At this juncture Prince Witold of Lithuania, supported by King Jagello of Poland, offered to accept the four articles of the Hussites, provided they would give him the crown of Bohemia. The moderates were all in his favor, and even Ziska left the Tabor- ites when, true to their republican principles, they refused to ac- REIGN OF SIGISMUND 209 1422-1430 cept Witold's proposition. The separation between the two parties of the Hussites was now complete. Witold sent his nephew, Koribut, who swore to maintain the four articles, and was installed at Prague as " Vicegerent of Bohemia." Thereupon Sigismund made such representations to King Jagello of Poland that Koribut was soon recalled by his uncle. About the same time a third cru- sade was arranged, and Frederick of Brandenburg (the Hohen- zollern) selected to command it; but the plan failed from lack of support. . The dissensions among the Hussites became fiercer than ever Ziska was at one time on the point of attacking Prague, but the leaders of the moderate party succeeded in coming to an un- derstanding with him, and he entered the city in triumph. In October, 1425, while marching against Duke Albert of Austria, who had invaded Moravia, he fell a victim to the plague. Even after death he continued to terrify the German soldiers, who be- lieved that his skin had been made into a drum and still called the Hussites to battle. A majority of the Taborites elected a priest, called Procopius the Great, as their comm.ander in Ziska's stead; the others, who thenceforth styled themselves " Orphans," united under another priest, Procopius the Little. The approach of another imperial army, in 1426, compelled them to forget their differences, and the result was a splendid victory over their enemies. Procopius the Great then invaded Austria and Silesia, which he laid waste without mercy. The Pope called a fourth crusade, which met the same fate as the former ones : the united armies of the Archbishop of Treves, the Elector Frederick of Brandenburg, and the Duke of Saxony, 200,000 strong, were utterly defeated and fled in disorder, leaving an enormous quantity of stores and munitions of war in the hands of the Bohemians. Procopius, who was almost the equal of Ziska as a military leader, made several unsuccessful attempts to unite the Hussites in one religious body. In order to prevent their dissensions from be- coming dangerous to the common cause, he kept the soldiers of all sects under his command, and undertook fierce invasions into Ba- varia, Saxony, and Brandenburg, which made the Hussite name a terror to all Germany. During these expeditions one hundred towns were destroyed, more than fifteen hundred villages burned, tens of thousands of the inhabitants slain, and such quantities of plunder collected that it was impossible to transport the whole of it to Bd- 10 GERMANY 1430-1433 hernia. Frederick of Brandenburg and several other princes were compelled to pay heavy tributes to the Hussites: the empire was thoroughly humiliated, the people weary of slaughter, yet the Pope refused even to call a council for the discussion of the difficulty. As for the Emperor Sigismund, he had grown tired of the quarrel long before. Leaving the other German states to fight Bohemia, he withdrew to Hungary and for some years found enough to do in repelling the inroads of the Turks. It was not until the beginning of the year 143 1, when there was peace along the Danube, that he took any measures for putting an end to the Hussite war. Pope Martin V. was dead, and his successor, Eugene IV., reluctantly consented to call a council to meet at Basel. First, however, he insisted on a fifth crusade, which was proclaimed for the complete extermination of the Hussites. The German princes made a last and desperate effort: an army of 130,000 men, 40,000 of whom were cavalry, was brought together, under the command of Frederick of Brandenburg, while Albert of Austria was to sup- port it by invading Bohemia from the south. Procopius and his dauntless Hussites met the crusaders on August 14, 143 1, at a place called Thauss, and won another of their marvelous victories. The imperial army was literally cut to pieces 8000 wagons, filled with provisions and munitions of war, and 150 cannons were left upon the field. The Hussites marched northward to the Baltic and eastward into Hungary, burning, slaying, and plundering as they went. Even the Pope now yielded, and the Hussites were invited to attend the council at Basel, with the most solemn stipulations in regard to personal safety and a fair discussion of their demands. Sigismund in the meantime had gone to Italy and been crowned emperor in Rome, on condition of showing himself publicly as a personal servant of the Pope. He spent nearly two years in Italy, leading an idle and immoral life, and went back to Germany when his money was exhausted. In 1433, finally, three hundred Hussites, headed by Procopius, appeared in Basel. They demanded nothing more than the ac- ceptance of the four articles upon which they had united in 1420; but after seven weeks of talk, during which the council agreed upon nothing and promised nothing, they marched away, after stating that any further negotiation must be carried on in Prague. This course compelled the council to act, an embassy was appointed, which prdcceddd to Prague, and on November 30, the same year. REIGN OF SIGISMUND 211 1433-1438 concluded a treaty with the Hussites. The four demands were granted, but each with a condition attached which gave the church a chance to regain its lost power. For this reason the Taborites and ** Orphans " refused to accept the compact ; the moderate party united with the nobles and undertook to suppress the former by force. A fierce internal war followed, but it was of short duration. In 1434 the Taborites were defeated, their fortified mountain taken, PrOcopius the Great and the Little were both slain, and the members of the sect dispersed. The Bohemian Reformation was never again dangerous to the Church of Rome. The Emperor Sigismund, after proclaiming a general amnesty, entered Prague in 1436. He made some attempt to restore order and prosperity to the devastated country, but his measures in favor of the church provoked a conspiracy against him, in which his second wife, the Empress Barbara, was implicated. Being warned by his son-in-law, Duke Albert of Austria, he left Prague for Hun- gary. On reaching Znaim, the capital of Moravia, he felt the ap- proach of death, whereupon, after naming Albert his successor, he had himself clothed in his imperial robes and seated in a chair, so that, after a worthless life, he was able to die in great state, on December 9, 1437. With him expired the Luxemburg dynasty. Chapter XXIII THE FOUNDATION OF THE HAPSBURG DYNASTY 1438-1439 THE German electors seemed to be acting- contrary to their usual policy, when, on March 18, 1438, they unani- mously voted for Albert of Austria, who became em- peror as Albert H. With him begins the unbroken line of Haps- burg rulers, which kept sole possesssion of the imperial office until Francis H. gave up the title of emperor of Germany, in 1806. Al- bert n. was duke of Austria, and, as the heir of Sigismund, he was also king of Hungary and Bohemia ; consequently the power of his house was much greater than that of any other German prince ; but the electors were influenced by the consideration that his territories lay mostly outside of Germany proper, that they were in a condition which would demand all his time and energy, and therefore the other states and principalities would probably be left to themselves, as they had been under Sigismund. Nothing is more evident in the history of Germany, from first to last, than the opposition of the ruling princes to any close political union of a national character ; but it was seldom so selfish and shamelessly manifested as in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The events of Albert H.'s short reign are not important. Be- fore anything could be accomplished he died in Hungary, in Octo- ber, 1439. The electors again met, and in February, 1440, unanimously chose Albert's cousin, Frederick of Styria and Carinthia, who, after waiting three months before he could make up his mind, finally accepted, and was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle as Frederick HI. His indolence, eccentricity, and pedantic stiffness seemed to promise just such a wooden figure-head as the princes required : it is diffi- cult to imagine any other reason for the selection. He was a loyal servant of the Papal power, and his secretary, i^neas Sylvius (who afterward became Pope as Pius II.), influenced him wholly in the 919 HAPSBURG DYNASTY 213 1440-1444 interest of the Church of Rome at a time when a majority of the German princes, and even many of the bishops, were endeavoring to effect a reformation. The council at Basel had not adjourned after concluding the compact of Prague with the Hussites. The desire for a correction of the abuses which had so weakened the spiritual authority of the church was strong enough to compel the members to discuss plans of reform. Their course was so distasteful to Pope Eugene IV. that he threatened to excommunicate the council, which, in return, de- posed him and elected Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, who took the name of Pope Felix V. The prospect of a new schism disturbed the Christian world ; many of the reigning princes refused to recog- nize Eugene unless he would grant entire freedom to Germany in religious matters, and he would have probably been obliged to yield but for the help extended to him by Frederick III., under the influ- ence of ^neas Sylvius. The latter succeeded in destroying the work of reform in its very beginning. By the Concordat of Vienna, in 1448, Frederick neutralized the action of the council and restored the Papal authority in its most despotic form. Felix V. was forced to abdicate, and the council of Basel which had meanwhile adjourned to Lausanne was finally dissolved, after a session of seventeen years. In his political course, during this time, Frederick III. was equally weak and unsuccessful. After making a temporary ar- rangement with Hungary and Bohemia, he determined to re- conquer the former Hapsburg possessions from the Swiss. A quarrel between Zurich and the other cantons seemed to favor his plan; but not being able to obtain any troops in Germany, he ap- plied to Charles VII. of France for 5000 of the latter's mercenaries. As Charles, with the help of Joan D'Arc, the Maid of Orleans, had just victoriously concluded his war with England, he had plenty of men to spare ; so, instead of 5000, he sent 30,000, under the com- mand of the Dauphin. This force marched into Switzerland, and was met, on August 26, 1444, at St. Jacob, near Basel, by an army of 1600 devoted Swiss, every man of whom fell, after a battle which lasted ten hours. The French were so crippled and discouraged that they turned back and for months afterward laid waste Baden and Alsatia ; so that only German territory suffered by this transaction. The Suabian cities, inspired by the heroic attitude of the Swiss, 214 GERMANY 1444-1453 now made another attempt to protect themselves against the en- croachment of the reigning princes upon their ancient rights. For two years a fierce war was waged between them and the latter, who were headed by the Hohenzollern count, Albert Achilles of Bran- denburg. The struggle came to an end in 1450, and so greatly to the disadvantage of the cities that the people of Schaffhausen an- nexed themselves and their territory to Switzerland. The following year, as there was a temporary peace, Frederick III. undertook a journey to Italy, with an escort of 3000 men. His object was to be crowned emperor at Rome, and the Pope could not refuse the re- quest of such an obedient servant, especially after the latter had kissed his foot and appeared publicly as his groom. He was the first German emperor who amused the Roman people by playing such a part. During the year he spent in Italy he avoided Milan, and made no attempt to claim, or even to sell, any of the former imperial rights. Disturbances in Hungary and Bohemia hastened his return to Germany. Both countries demanded that he should give up the boy Ladislas, son of Albert II., whom he still kept with him. In Bohemia George Podiebrad, a Hussite nobleman, was at the head of the government; in Hungary the ruler was John Hunyadi, one HAPSBURG DYNASTY 15 1453-1466 of the most heroic and illustrious characters in Hungarian annals. The emperor was compelled to give up Austria at once to Ladislas, who, at the age of sixteen, was also chosen king of Hungary and Bohemia. But he died soon afterward, in 1457, and then Matthias Corvinus, the son of Hunyadi, was elected king by the Hungarians, and George Podiebrad by the Bohemians. Even Austria, which Frederick attempted to retain, passed partly into the hands of his brother Albert, The German princes looked on well pleased, and saw the power of the Hapsburg house diminished ; only its old ally, the House of Hohenzollern, still exhibited an active friendship for Frederick HI. The condition of the empire at this time was most deplorable. While France, England, and Spain were increasing their power by better political organization, Germany was weakened by an almost unbroken series of internal wars. The 340 independent dukes, bishops, counts, abbots, barons, and cities fought or made peace, leagued themselves together or separated, just as they pleased. So wanton became the spirit of destruction that Albert Achilles of Brandenburg openly declared : " Conflagration is the ornament of war," and the people described one of his campaigns by saying: " They can read at night in Franconia," Frederick HI. called a number of national diets, but as he never attended any, the smaller rulers soon followed his example. Although the Turks began to ravage the borders of Styria and Carinthia, and carried away thou- sands of the inhabitants as slaves, he spent his time in Austria, quarreling with his brother Albert, and intriguing alternately with the Hungarians and Bohemians, in the attempt to secure for him- self the crowns worn by Matthias Corvinus and George Podiebrad. Along the Baltic shore the growth of the German element was checked and almost destroyed. After its crushing defeat at Tan- nenberg the Teutonic Order not only lost its power, but its liberal and intelligent character. It began to impose heavy taxes on the cities, and to rule with greater harshness the population under its sway. The result was a combined revolt of the cities and the country nobility, who compelled the Order to grant them a consti- tution, guaranteeing the rights for which they contended. They purchased Frederick III.'s consent to this measure for 54,000 gold florins. Soon afterward, however, the Order paid the emperor 80,000 gold florins to withdraw his consent. Then the cities and nobles, exasperated at this treachery, rose again, and called the 216 GERMANY 1466-1473 Poles to their help. The Order appealed to the empire, but received no assistance. It was defeated and its territory overrun; West Prussia was annexed to Poland, which held it for three centuries afterward, and East Prussia, detached completely from the empire, was left as a little German island surrounded by Slavonic races. By the Peace of Thorn, in 1466, East Prussia still remained in the hands of the Teutonic knights, but they had to pay homage to the King of Poland as feudal overlord. The responsibility for this serious loss to Germany, as well as for the internal anarchy and barbarity which prevailed, rests directly upon the electors who se- lected Frederick III. precisely because they knew his character, and who never attempted to depose him, during his long and miser- able reign of fifty-three years. Germany was also seriously threatened on the west, not by France, but by the sudden growth of a new power which was equally dangerous to France. This was the duchy of Burgundy, which in the course of a hundred years had grown to the dimensions of a kingdom, and was now strong enough to throw off the dependency of the territories it embraced, to France on the one side and to the German Empire on the other. The foundation of its growth was laid in 1363, when King John of France made his fourth son, called Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and the latter, by marry- ing the Countess Margaret of Flanders, extended his territory to the mouth of the Rhine. His successors extended the sway of Burgundy, by purchase, inheritance, or force of arms, over all Belgium and Holland, so that it then reached from the Rhine to the North Sea. The Burgundian court was one of the most splen- did in Europe, and became the rival of Italy in wealth, architecture, and the fine arts. In 1467 Charles the Bold became Duke of Burgundy. He was rash, vindictive, and almost insanely ambitious. The great purpose of his life seems to have been to extend his territory to the Alps and the Mediterranean, to gain possession of Lorraine and Alsatia, and thus to found a kingdom of Burgundy, almost corre- sponding to that given to Lothar by the Treaty of Verdun, in 843. He first acquired additional territory in Belgium, then took a mort- gage on all the possessions of the Hapsburgs in Alsatia and Baden by making a loan to Sigismund of Tyrol. Frederick III. not only permitted these transactions, but met Charles at Treves in 1473 to arrange a marriage between the latter.'s only daughter, Mary of CHARLES THE BOLD (Born 1433. Died 1690) Painting by Roger Van der Weyden Berlin Museum HAPSBURG DYNASTY ^17 1473-1476 Burgundy, and his own son, Maximilian. During the visit, which lasted two months, Charles the Bold displayed so much pomp and splendor that the emperor, unable to make an equal show, finally left without saying good-by. The interests of Germany did not move him, but when his personal vanity was touched he was capable of action. For a short time Frederick exhibited a little energy and intelli- gence. In order to secure the alliance of the Swiss, who were equally threatened by the designs of Charles the Bold, he concluded the Perpetual Peace with them, relinquishing forever the claims of the House of Hapsburg to authority over any part of their terri- tory. The cities of Alsatia and Baden advanced money to Sigis- mund of Tyrol to pay his debt, and when Charles the Bold never- theless refused to give up Alsatia and part of Lorraine, which he had seized in the meantime, war was declared against him. Louis XL of France, equally jealous of Burgundy, favored the movement, but took no active part in it. Although Charles was driven out of Alsatia and failed to take the city of Neuss after a siege of ten months, he succeeded in negotiating a peace by offering a truce of nine years to Louis XL and promising his daughter's hand to Frederick's son, Maximilian. In this treaty the emperor, who had persuaded Switzerland and Lorraine to become his allies, infamously gave them up to Charles the Bold's revenge. The latter instantly seized the whole of Lorraine, transferred his capital from Brussels to Nancy, and, considering his future kingdom secured, prepared first to punish the Swiss. He collected a magnificent army of 50,000 men, crossed the Jura, and appeared before the town of Granson, on the Lake of Neufchatel. The place surrendered on condition that the citizens should be allowed to leave unharmed; but Charles seized them, hanged a number, and threw the rest into the lake. By this time the Swiss army, number- ing 18,000, appeared before Granson. Before beginning the battle they fell upon their knees and prayed fervently ; whereupon Charles cried out : " See, they are begging for mercy, but none of them shall escape ! " For several hours the fight raged fiercely ; then the horns of the mountaineers the "bulls of Uri and the cows of Unter- walden," as the Swiss called them were heard in the. distance, as they hastened to join their brethren. A panic seized the Burgun- dians, and after a short and desperate struggle they fled, leaving all their camp equipage, 420 cannon, and such enormous treasures 218 GERMANY 1476-1485 in the hands of the Swiss that the soldiers divided the money by hatfuls. This splendid victory occurred on May 3, 1476. Charles made every effort to retrieve his fortunes. He called fresh troops into the field, reorganized his army, and on June 22 again met the Swiss near the little town and lake of Morat. The battle fought there resulted in a more crushing defeat than that of Gran- son: 15,000 Burgimdians were left dead upon the field. The aid which the Swiss had begged the German Empire to give them had not been granted, but it was not needed. Charles the Bold seems to have become partially insane after this overthrow of his ambitious plans. He refused the proffered mediation of Frederick HI. and the Pope, and endeavored to resume the war. In the meantime Duke Rene of Lorraine had recovered his land, and when Charles marched to retake Nancy the Swiss allied themselves with the former. A final battle was fought before the walls of Nancy in January, 1477. After the defeat and flight of the Burgundians the body of Charles was found on the field, so covered with blood and mud as scarcely to be recognized. Up to this time the German Empire had always claimed that its jurisdiction extended over Switzerland, but henceforth no effort was ever made to enforce it. The little communities of free people who had defied and humiliated Austria, and now, within a few months, crushed the splendid and haughty House of Burgimdy, were left alone, an eyesore to the neighboring princes, but a hope to their people. The Hapsburg dynasty, nevertheless, profited by the fall of Charles the Bold. Mary of Burgundy gave her hand to Maximilian in 1477, and he established his court in Flanders. He was both handsome and intellectually endowed, and was reputed to be the most accomplished knight of his day. Louis XI. of France attempted to gain possession of those provinces of Burgimdy which had French population, but was signally defeated by Maximilian in 1479. Three years afterward, however, when Mary of Burgundy was killed by a fall from her horse, the cities of Bruges and .Ghent, instigated by France, claimed the guardianship of her two children, Philip and Margaret, the latter of whom was sent to Paris to be educated as the bride of the Dauphin. A war ensued which lasted until 1485, when Maximilian was reluctantly accepted as regent of Flanders. While these events were taking place, Frederick III. was in- ENTRY OF THE CROWN PRINCE MAXIMILIAN OF CKRMANY INTO GHENT TO ESPOUSE MARY OF BURGUNDY Painting by A. Schramm HAPSBURG DYNASTY 19 1485-1491 volved in a quarrel with Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, who easily succeeded in driving him from Vienna and then from Austria. Still the German princes looked carelessly on, and the weak old emperor wandered from one to the other, everywhere received as an unwelcome guest. In i486 he called a diet at Frank- fort, and endeavored, but in vain, to procure a union of the forces of the empire against Hungary. All that was accomplished was Maximilian's election as King of Germany. Immediately after being crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle he made a formal demand on Matthias Corvinus for the surrender of Austria. Before any fur- ther steps could be taken he was recalled to Flanders by a new rebellion, which lasted for three years. Frederick III., deserted on all sides, and seeing the Hapsburg possessions along the frontiers of Austria and Tyrol threatened by Bavaria, finally appealed to the Suabian cities for help. He suc- ceeded in establishing a new Suabian League, which was composed of twenty-two free cities, the Count of Wiirtemberg, and a number of independent nobles. A force was raised, with which he first marched to the relief of Maximilian, who had been taken and imprisoned at Bruges and was threatened with death. The under- taking was successful. Maximilian was released, and in 1489 his authority was established over all the Netherlands. The next step was to rescue Austria from the Hungarians. An interview between Frederick III. and Matthias Corvinus was arranged, but before it could take place the latter died, in April, 1490. Maximilian, with the troops of the Suabian League, retook Vienna, and even advanced into Hungary, the crown of which country he claimed for himself, but was forced to conclude peace at Presburg the following year, without obtaining it. Austria, how- ever, was completely restored to the House of Hapsburg. Before the year 1491 came to an end Maximilian suffered a new humiliation. The last Duke of Brittany (in western France) had died, leaving, like Charles the Bold of Burgundy, a single daughter, Anna, as his only heir. Maximilian, who had been a widower since 1482, applied for her hand, which she promised to him : the marriage ceremony was even performed by proxy. But Charles VIII. of France, although betrothed to Maximilian's young daughter, Margaret, now fourteen years old, saw in this new alli- ance a great danger for his kingdom ; so he prevented Anna from leaving Brittany, married her himself, and sent Margaret home to ftStO GERMANY 1491-1493 Austria. Maximilian entered into an alliance with Henry VII. of England, secured the support of the Suabian League, and made war upon France. The Netherlands, nevertheless, refused to aid him; whereupon Henry VII. withdrew from the alliance, and the matter was settled by a treaty of peace in 1493, which left the duchy of Burgundy in the hands of France. Frederick III. had already given up the government of Ger- many (that is, what little he exercised) to his son. He settled at Linz and devoted his days to religion and alchemy. He had a habit of thrusting back his right foot and closing the doors behind him with it; but one day, kicking out too violently, he so injured his leg that the physicians were obliged to amputate it. This acci- dent hastened his death, which took place in August, 1493. He was seventy-eight years old, and had reigned fifty-three years, wretch- edly enough but of this fact he was not aware. He evidently considered himself a great and successful monarch. All his books were stamped with the vowels, A. E. I. O. U. which was a mys- tery to everyone, until the meaning was discovered after his death. The letters are the initials of the words, " Alles Erdreich 1st Oester- reich Unterthan " " All earth is subject to Austria." Two events occurred during Frederick's reign, one of which illustrated the declining influence of the Roman Church, while the other, unnoticed in the confusion of civil war, was destined to be the chief weapon for the overthrow of the priestly power. The first of these was the fall of the Eastern Empire, when Sultan Mohammed II. conquered Constantinople in 1453. The other event was a simple invention, which is chiefly remark- able for not having been made long before. The great use of cards for gambling first led to the employment of wooden blocks, upon which the figures were cut and then printed in colors. Wood engraving of a rude kind gradually came into use, and as early as the year 1420 Lawrence Coster, of Harlem, in Holland, produced entire books, each page of which was engraved upon a single block. But John Gutenberg, of Mayence, about the year 1436, originated the plan of casting movable types and setting them together to form words. His chief difficulty was in discovering a proper metal of which to cast them and a kind of ink which would give a clear impression. Paper made of linen had already been in use in Ger- many for about 130 years. HAPSBURG DYNASTY 221 1493 Gutenberg was poor, and therefore took a man named Fust, who had considerable means, as his partner. They completed the first printing-press in 1440, but several more years elapsed before the invention achieved any result. Finally there was a quarrel be- tween the two. There is a record of a lawsuit in 1455, ^^^t suing for the recovery of the various sums he had advanced from time to time to be used in aiding the progress of the invention, for making tools, and for vellum, paper, and ink. Fust won the suit, Guten- berg withdrew, and Fust took his own assistant, Peter Schoeffer, as partner in the former's place, and continued the business. Schoeffer discovered the right combination of metal for the types, as well as an excellent ink. Gutenberg soon set up another office, which he is said to have directed until his death in 1468. It is difficult, however, to specify the books which were printed by Gutenberg, as he made no effort to assert any claim to his inven- tion. Gutenberg's process has, of course, been much improved, but the fundamental principles of his typemaking and that of the present day are practically the same. In 1457 appeared the first printed book, a Latin psalter; in 1 46 1 the Latin Bible, and two years afterward a German Bible. These Bibles are masterpieces of the printer's art: they were sold at from thirty to sixty gold florins a copy, which was one- tenth the cost of a manuscript Bible at that time. The art was at first kept a profound secret, and the people supposed that the books were produced by magic, as they were multiplied so rapidly and sold so cheaply ; but when Mayence was taken by Adolf of Nassau, in 1462, during one of the civil wars, the invention became known to the world, and printing-presses were soon established in Holland, Italy, and England. The rapid growth of this art, by multiplying books and pamphlets, opened the world of letters to the people. They were now equal to the nobles and the churchmen, and the civil classes in the cities soon came to be a power in the land. The clergy, and especially the monks, would have suppressed the art if they had been able. It took away from the latter the profitable business of copying manuscript works, and it placed within the reach of the people the knowledge of which the former had pre- served the monopoly. Germany, more than any other country in Europe, was aroused to the greatest heights of intellectual activity. GERMANY From the time of Gutenberg dates the development of the revolt against the authority of the nobles and of the church. By the simple invention of movable types the darkness of centuries began to recede from the world; a mighty and irresistible change was sweeping over the minds and habits of men. But the rulers of that day, great or little, were the last persons to suspect that any such change was taking place. PART III PERIOD OF REFORMATION. 1493-1701 Chapter XXIV THE REIGN OF MAXIMILIAN I. 1498-15 19 y4 S Maximilian had been elected in i486, he began to exer- L\ cise the full imperial power, without any further formali- X JL ties, after his father's death. For the first time since the death of Henry VII., in 13 13, the Germans had a popular emperor. They were at last weary of the prevailing disorder and insecurity, and partly conscious that the power of the empire had declined, while that of France, Spain, and even Poland had greatly increased. Therefore they brought themselves to submit to the authority of an emperor who was in every respect stronger than any of the electors by whom he had been chosen. Maximilian had all the qualities of a great ruler except pru- dence and foresight. He was tall, finely-formed, with remarkably handsome features, clear blue eyes, and blond hair falling in ring- lets upon his shoulders; he possessed great muscular strength, his body was developed by constant exercise, and he was one of the boldest, bravest, and most skillful knights of his day. While his bearing was stately and dignified, his habits were simple. He often marched on foot, carrying his lance, at the head of his troops, and was able to forge his armor and temper his sword, as well as wear them. Yet he was also well educated, possessed a taste for literature and the arts, and became something of a poet in his later years. Unlike his avaricious predecessors, he was generous even to prodigality; but, inheriting his father's eccentricity of character, he was whimsical, very liable to act from impulse instead of re- flection, and was headstrong and impatient. If he had been as wise as he was honest and well-meaning, he might have regener- ated Germany. The commencement of his reign was signalized by two threat- ening events. The Turks were renewing their invasions and boldly advancing into Carinthia, between Vienna and the Adriatic ; Charles . VIII. of France had made himself master of Naples and was 9i6 t6 GERMANY 1495-1496 apparently bent on conquering and annexing all of Italy. Max- imilian had just married Blanca Maria Sforza, niece of the reign- ing Duke of Milan, which city, with others in Lombardy, and even the Pope forgetting their old enmity to the German Empire demanded his assistance. He called a diet, which met at Worms in 1495 ; but many of the princes, both spiritual and temporal, had learned a little wisdom, and they were unwilling to interfere in matters outside of the empire until something had been done to remedy its internal condition. Berthold, Archbishop of Mayence, Frederick the Wise of Saxony, John Cicero of Brandenburg, and Eberhard of the Beard, first Duke of Wiirtemberg, with many of the free cities, insisted so strongly on the restoration of order, security, and the establishment of laws which should guarantee peace, that the emperor was forced to comply. For fourteen weeks the question was discussed with the greatest earnestness : the oppo- sition of many princes and nearly all the nobles was overcome, and the Perpetual National Peace (Landfrieden) was proclaimed. By this measure the right to use force was prohibited to all ; the feuds which had desolated the land for a thousand years were ordered to be suppressed; and all disputes were referred to an imperial court, permanently established at Frankfort and composed of sixteen councilors. It was also agreed that the diet should meet annually, and remain in session for one month, in order to insure the uninter- rupted enforcement of its decrees, A proposition to appoint an imperial council of state of twenty members, which should have power, in certain cases, to act in the emperor's name, was rejected by Maximilian, as an assault upon his personal rights. Although the decree of Perpetual Peace could not be carried into effect immediately, it was not a dead letter, as all former decrees of the kind had been. Maximilian bound himself, in the most solemn manner, to respect the new arrangements, and there were now several honest and intelligent princes to assist him. One difficulty was the collection of a government tax, called " the com- mon penny," to support the expenses of the imperial court. Such a tax had been for the first time imposed during the war with the Hussites, but very little of it was then paid. Even now, when the object of it was of such importance to the whole people, several years elapsed before the court could be permanently established. The annual sessions of the diet, also, were much less effective than had been anticipated. Princes, priests, and cities were so accus- MAXIMILIAN I (Born 1459. r)ied 1519) Painting by Ambrogio de Predis Imperial Gallery of Paintings, Vienna REIGN OF MAXIMILIAN 27 1496-1508 tomed to selfish indq)endence that they could not yet work together for the general good. Before the diet at Worms adjourned it agreed to furnish the emperor with 9000 men, to be employed in Italy against the French and afterward against the Turks on the Austrian frontier. Charles VIII. retreated from Italy on hearing of this measure, yet not rapidly enough to avoid being defeated, near Parma, by the com- bined Germans and Milanese. In 1496 Sigismund of Tyrol died, and all the Hapsburg lands came into Maximilian's possession. The same year he married his son Philip, then eighteen years old, and accepted as regent by the Netherlands, to Joanna, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile. The other heirs to the Span- ish throne died soon afterward, and when Isabella followed them, in 1504, she appointed Philip and Joanna her successors. The pride and influence of the House of Hapsburg were greatly in- creased by this marriage, but its consequences were most disastrous to Germany. The next years of Maximilian's reigti were disturbed, and, on the whole, unfortunate for the empire. An attempt to apply the decrees of the Diet of Worms to Switzerland brought on a war, which, after occasioning the destruction of 2000 villages and castles and the loss of 20,000 lives, resulted in the emperor formally ac- knowledging the independence of Switzerland in a treaty concluded at Basel in 1499. Then Louis XII. of France captured Milan, interfered secretly in a war concerning the succession, which broke out in Bavaria, and bribed various German princes to act in his interest, when Maximilian called upon the diet to assist him in making war upon France. After having with much difficulty ob- tained 12,000 men, the emperor marched to Italy, intending to replace the Sforza family in Milan and then be crowned by Pope Julius II. in Rome. But the Venetians stopped him at the outset of the expedition, and he was forced to return ingloriously to Germany. Maximilian's next step was another example of his want of judgment in political matters. In order to revenge himself upon Venice, he gave up his hostility to France, and in 1508 became a party to the League of Cambray, uniting with France, Spain, and the Pope in a determined effort to destroy the Venetian republic. The war, which was bloody and barbarous, even for those times, lasted three years. Venice lost, at the outset, Trieste, Verona, 228 GERMANY 1506-1512 Padua, and the Romagna, and seemed on the verge of ruin, when Maximilian suddenly left Italy with his army, offended, it is said, at the refusal of the French knights to fight side by side with his German troops. The Venetians then recovered so much of their lost ground that they secured the alliance of the Pope, and finally of Spain. A new alliance, called " the Holy Leagfue," was now formed against France ; and Maximilian, after continuing to support Louis XII. a while longer, finally united with Henry VII. of England in joining it. But Louis XII., who was a far better diplomatist than any of his enemies, succeeded, after he had suffered many inevitable losses, in dissolving this powerful combination. He married the sister of Henry of England, yielded Navarre and Naples to Spain, promised money to the Swiss, and held out to Maximilian the pros- pect of a marriage which would give Milan to the Hapsburgs. Thus the greater part of Europe was for years convulsed with war chiefly because instead of a prudent and intelligent national power in Germany there was an unsteady and excitable family leader, whose first interest was the advantage of his house. After such sacrifices of blood and treasure, such disturbance to the devel- opment of industry, art, and knowledge among the people, the same confusion prevailed as before. Before the war came to an end another general diet met at Cologne, in 15 12, to complete the organization commenced in 1495. Private feuds and acts of retaliation had not yet been suppressed, and the imperial council was working under great disadvantages, both from the want of money and the difficulty of enforcing obedi- ence to its decisions. The emperor demanded the creation of a permanent military force, which should be at the service of the empire; but this was almost unanimously refused. In other re- spects the diet showed itself both willing and earnest to complete the work of peace and order. The whole empire was divided into ten administrative districts (or "Circles"), each of which was placed under the jurisdiction of a judicial chief and board of coun- cilors, whose duty it was to see that the decrees of the diet and the judgments of the imperial court were obeyed. This division of Germany into districts had the external ap- pearance of an orderly political arrangement ; but the states, great and little, had been too long accustomed to having their own way. The fact that an independent baron, like Franz von Sickingen, could REIGN OF MAXIMILIAN 229 1512-1514 still disturb a large extent of territory for a number of years, shows the weakness of the new national power. Moreover, nothing- seems to have been done, or even attempted, by the diet to protect the agricultural population from the absolute despotism of the landed nobility. In Alsatia, as early as 1493, there was a general revolt of the peasants. Their banner bore a peasant's shoe, and their league was known therefore as the " Bundschuh." The rising was suppressed, but not until much blood had been shed. It excited a spirit of resistance throughout all southern Germany. In 15 14 Duke Ulric of Wiirtemberg undertook to replenish his treasury by using false weights and measures, and provoked the common people to rise against him. They formed a society, to which they gave the name of " Poor Konrad," which became so threatening that, although it was finally crushed by violence, it compelled the reform of many flagrant evils and showed even the most arrogant rulers that there were bounds to tyranny. But although the feudal system was still in force, the obliga- tion to render military service formerly belonging to it was nearly at an end. The use of cannon and of a rude kind of musket had become general in war ; heavy armor for man and horse was becom- ing not only useless, but dangerous ; and the courage of the soldier, not his bodily strength or his knightly accomplishments, constituted his value in the field. The Swiss had set the example of furnish- ing good troops to whoever would pay for them, and a similar class, calling themselves Landsknechte (servants of the country), arose in Germany. The robber knights by this time were nearly extinct : when Frederick of Hohenzollern began to use artillery against their castles it was evident that their days of plunder were over. The reign of Maximilian, therefore, marks an important turning- point in German history. It is, at the same time, the end of the stormy and struggling life of the Middle Ages and the beginning of a new and fiercer struggle between men and their oppressors. Maximilian, in fact, is called in Germany " the Last of the Knights." The strength of Germany lay chiefly in the cities, which, in spite of the narrow policy toward the country, and their jealousy of each other, had at least kept alive and encouraged all forms of art and industry, and created a class of learned men outside of the church. While the knighthood of the Hohenstaufen period had sunk into corruption and semi-barbarism, and the people had grown more dangerous through their ignorance and subjection, the cities t80 GERMANY 1514 had gradually become centers of wealth and intelligence. They were adorned with splendid works of architecture; they supported the early poets, painters, and sculptors ; and, when compelled to act in concert against the usurpations of the emperor or the inferior nilers, whatever privileges they maintained or received were in favor of the middle-class, and therefore an indirect gain to the whole people. The cities, moreover, exercised an influence over the country population by their markets, fairs, and festivals. The most of them were as large and as handsomely built as at present, but in times of peace the life within their walls was much gayer and more brilliant. Pope Pius II., when he was secretary to Frederick III. as .<^neas Sylvius, wrote of them as follows : " One may veritably say that no people in Europe live in cleaner or more cheerful cities than the Germans; their appearance is as new as if they had only been built yesterday. By their commerce they amass great wealth : there is no banquet at which they do not drink from silver cups, no dame who does not wear golden ornaments. Moreover, the citizens are also soldiers, and each one has a sort of arsenal in his own house. The boys in this country can ride before they can talk, and sit firmly in the saddle when the horses are at full speed: the men move in their armor without feeling its weight. Verily, you Germans might be masters of the world, as formerly, but for your multitude of rulers, which every wise man has always considered an evil ! " During the fifteenth century a remarkable institution, called " the Vehm " or, by the people, " the Holy Vehm " exercised a g^eat authority throughout northern Germany. Its members claimed that it was founded by Charlemagne to assist in establish- ing Christianity among the Saxons ; but it is not mentioned before the twelfth century, and the probability is that it sprang up from the effort of the people to preserve their old democratic organization in a secret form, after it had been overthrown by the reigning princes. The object of the Vehm was to enforce impartial justice among all classes, and for this purpose it held open courts for the settlement of quarrels and minor offenses, while graver crimes were tried at night, in places known only to the members. The latter were sworn to secrecy, and also to implicit obedience to the judg- ments of the courts or the orders of the chiefs, who were called " Free Counts." The headquarters of the Vehm were in West- phalia, but its branches spread over a great part of Germany, and REIGN OF MAXIMILIAN ftSl 1514-1518 it became so powerful during the reign of Frederick III. that it even dared to cite him to appear before its tribunal. In all probability the dread of the power of the Vehm was one of the causes which induced both Maximilian and the princes to reorganize the empire. In proportion as order and justice began to prevail in Germany, the need of such a secret institution grew less; but about another century elapsed before its courts ceased to be held. After that it continued to exist in Westphalia as an order for mutual assistance, something like that of the Freemasons, In this form it lingered until 1838, when the last "Free Count" died. Among the other changes introduced during Maximilian's reign were the establishment of a police system and the invention of a postal system by Franz of Taxis. The latter obtained a monop- oly of the post routes throughout Germany, and his family, which afterward became that of Thurn and Taxis, received an enormous revenue from this source from that time down to the present day. Maximilian himself devoted a great deal of time and study to the improvement of artillery, and many new forms of cannon which were designed by him are still preserved in Vienna. Although the people of Germany did not share to any great extent in the passion for travel and adventure which followed the discovery of America in 1492 and the circumnavigation of Africa in 1498, they were directly affected by the changes which took place in the commerce of the world. The supremacy of Venice in the south and of the Hanseatic League in the north of Europe began slowly to decline, while the powers which undertook to colonize the new lands England, Spain, and Portugal rose in commercial importance. The last years of Maximilian promised new splendors to the House of Hapsburg. In 15 15 his younger grandson, Ferdinand, married the daughter of Ladislas, King of Bohemia and Hungary, whose only son died shortly afterward, leaving Ferdinand heir to the double crown. In 15 16 the emperor's elder grandson, Charles, became king of Spain, Sicily and Naples, in addition to Burgundy and Flanders, which he held as the great-grandson of Charles the Bold. At a diet held at Augsburg, in 15 18, Maximilian made great exertions to have Charles elected his successor, but failed on account of the opposition of Pope Leo X. and Francis I. of France, whose agents were present with heavy bribes in their pockets. ftSft GERMANY 1618-1519 Disappointed and depressed, the emperor left Augsburg and went to Innsbruck, but the latter city refused to entertain him until some money which he had borrowed of it should be refunded. His strength had been failing for years before, and he always traveled with a coffin among his baggage. He now felt his end approach- ing, took up his abode in the little town of Wels, and devoted his remaining days to religious exercises. There he died on January II, 1519, in the sixtieth year of his age. Chapter XXV THE REFORMATION. 15 17-1546 WHEN the Emperor Maximilian died a greater man than he or any of his predecessors on the imperial throne had already begun a far greater work than was ever accom- plished by any political ruler. Out of the ranks of the poor, op- pressed German people arose the chosen leader who became power- ful above all princes, who resisted the first monarch of the world, and defeated the Church of Rome after her undisturbed reign of a thousand years. We must therefore leave the succession of the House of Hapsburg until we have traced the life of Martin Luther up to the time of Maximilian's death. The Reformation, which was now so near at hand, already existed in the feelings and hopes of a large class of the people. The persecutions of the Albigenses in France, the Waldenses in Savoy, and the followers of Wycliffe in England, the burning of Huss and Jerome, and the long ravages of the Hussite wars had made all Europe familiar with the leading doctrine of each of these sects that the Bible was the highest authority, the only source of Christian truth. Earnest, thinking men in all countries were thus led to examine the Bible for themselves, and the great dissemination of the study of the ancient languages during the fifteenth century helped very much to increase the knowledge of the sacred volume. Then came the art of printing, as a most providential aid, making the Book accessible to all who were able to read it. Martin Luther, the son of a poor miner, was born in the little Saxon town of Eisleben, not far from the Harz Mountain, on No- vember 10, 1483. Luther's parents for several generations had been peasants of an honest, sturdy sort, simple in mind and strong in body. From them he inherited many of his best characteristics. He was essentially a man of the common people. He understood them, and later was able to make them understand him by his use of popular phrases and metaphors drawn from homely every-day experience. It was vnth true pride that he later declared, " I am a peasant's son; my father, my grandfather, and my great-grand- 233 234f GERMANY 1500-1505 father were all peasants." Luther was strong and robust in body ; he took a keen pleasure in nature, in outdoor life, and in healthful amusements. His fearless courage stands in striking contrast with the cowardice of his contemporary, Erasmus, who was ready to sacrifice principles for the sake of peace. But Luther also inherited the superstitious nature common to the German peasantry. He believed in a very real hell and an active devil. The boy Martin first attended a monkish school at Magdeburg. At fourteen he was sent to a boarding-school at Eisenach in Thuringia and became what is called a " wandering scholar " that is, to gain his means of sup- port he went about with his lute on his arm singing from door to door for alms, or sometimes chanting in the churches. As a boy he was so earnest, studious and obedient, and gave such intellectual promise, that his parents stinted themselves in order to save enough from their scanty earnings to secure him a good education. At the same time their circumstances gradually improved, and in 1501 they were able to send him to the University of Erfurt. Four years afterward he was graduated with honor, taking the degree of M. A., and delivered a course of lectures upon Aristotle. Luther's father desired that he should study jurisprudence, but his thoughts were already turned toward religion. A copy of the Bible in the library of the university excited in him such a spiritual struggle that he became seriously ill. It is said that a few weeks later he was caught out in a terrific thunder-storm; as the lightning flashed before his eyes he uttered a hasty vow that if his life were spared he would become a monk. He immediately repented of his vow, well knowing the disappointment and anger it would cause his father. But to Luther's mind a vow once made was a solemn thing and must be kept. Accordingly, in 1505, he entered the Augfustinian monastery at Erfurt. There he prayed, fasted, and followed the most rigid discipline of the order, in the hope of obtaining peace of mind, but in vain. He would shut him- self up in a cell and passed through such mental struggles that once he was found senseless on the floor. But gradually he found peace of mind in the doctrine of " Justification by Faith." It was this zealous study of the Bible and its precise meaning which gave him henceforth not only a firm faith, but a peace and cheerfulness which was never afterward disturbed by trials or dangers. The Elector of Saxony, Frederick the Wise, had founded a new university at Wittenberg, and sought to obtain competent pro- T~ i ^ ^ 5 - O.S 5 - 3 S H 3 e f i 8 g ^ ^ li' THE REFORMATION 2S5 1505-1517 fessors for it. The vicar-general of the Augustinian Order, to whom Luther's zeal and ability were known, recommended him for one of the places, and in 1508 he began to lecture in Wittenberg, first on Greek philosophy and then on theology. His success was so marked that in 15 10 he was sent by the Order on a special mission to Rome, where the laxness of the church made a profound impression upon his mind. He returned to Germany, feeling as he never had felt before the truth of the words, " the just shall live by faith," and realizing also the necessity of a reformation in the church. In 1 5 12 he was made doctor of theology, and from that time forward his teachings, which were based upon his own knowledge of the Bible, began to bear abundant fruit. In the year 15 17 the Pope, Leo X., famous both for his lux- urious habits and his love of art, in order to raise funds to continue the reconstruction of the great church of St. Peter, arranged for an extensive sale of so-called indulgences, both for the living and the dead. In order to understand the indulgence it must be borne in mind that according to the Catholic Church the priest had the right to forgive the sin of a truly contrite sinner who had duly confessed his evil deeds. This absolution freed the sinner from the deadly guilt which would otherwise have dragged him down to hell, but it did not free him from the penalities which God, or His representative, the priest, might choose to impose upon him. Serious penances had earlier been imposed by the church for wrong- doing, but in Luther's time the sinner who had been absolved was chiefly afraid of the sufferings reserved for him in purgatory. It was there that his soul would be purified and prepared for heaven. The indulgence was a pardon through which the contrite sinner escaped a part, or all, of the punishment which remained even after he had been absolved. The pardons did not therefore forgive the guilt of the sinner, for that had necessarily to be removed before the indulgence was granted ; it only removed or mitigated the penal- ties which even the forgiven sinner would, without the indulgence, have expected to undergo in purgatory.^ ^ It is a common mistake of Protestants to suppose that men also pur- chased pardons in advance for the crimes they intended to commit. The Catholic Church never sanctioned this in the slightest degree. A person pro- posing to commit sin could not possibly be contrite in the eyes of the church, and even if he secured an indulgence, it would, according to the theologians, be quite worthless. It is possible, however, that unscrupulous agents of the church without any sanction may have occasionally sold indulgences to persons about to commit sin, and pretended that they would be efficacious. 286 GERMANY 1517-1518 These indulgences were made to cover nearly all forms of crime and were graduated in price. The right of selling them was granted out to agents, who received their pay by reserving a part of the profits for their own pockets. Albert, Archbishop of Mayence, bought the right of selling indulgences in Germany, and appointed as his agent a Dominican monk of the name of Tetzel. The latter began traveling through the country like a peddler, pub- licly offering for sale the pardon of the Catholic Church for all varieties of crime. Unfortunately Tetzel, like many of the other agents, was very eager for his own profits, and made reckless claims for the indulgences, to which .no thoughtful churchman or even layman could listen without disapproval. He gave people to un- derstand that as soon as their money chinked in his money-box the souls of their friends would be let out of purgatory. It shocked thoughtful people; it made them begin to dislike the whole indul- gence system and call them " false pardons " ; it made them begin to wonder whether there was anything in the Bible which really gave the church this power of remitting the punishment for sins. In other districts Tetzel only stirred up the abhorrence of the people, and in- creased their burning desire to have such enormities suppressed. Only one man, however, dared to come out openly and con- demn the Papal indulgences. This was Dr. Martin Luther, who on October 31, 15 17, nailed upon the door of the church at Wittenberg a series of ninety-five theses, or theological declara- tions, the truth of which he offered to prove against all adversaries. The substance of them was that the pardon of sins came only from God, and could only be purchased by true repentance : that to offer indulgences for sale, as Tetzel was doing, was an unchristian act, contrary to the genuine doctrines of the church; and that it could not, therefore, have been sanctioned by the Pope. Luther's object, at this time, was not to separate from the Church of Rome, but to reform and purify it. The ninety-five theses, which were written in Latin, were im- mediately translated, printed, and circulated throughout Germany. They were followed by replies, in which the action of the Pope was defended ; Luther was styled a heretic, and threatened with the fate of Huss. He defended himself in pamphlets, which were eagerly read by the people; and his followers increased so rapidly that Leo. X., who had summoned him to Rome for trial, finally agreed that he should present himself before the Papal legate, Cardinal THE REFORMATION 287 1518-1519 Cajetanus, at Augsburg. The latter simply demanded that Luther should retract what he had preached and written, as being contrary to the Papal bulls ; whereupon Luther, for the first time, was com- pelled to declare that " the command of the Pope can only be respected as the voice of God when it is not in conflict with the Holy Scriptures." The vicar-general of the Augustinians was still Luther's friend, and, fearing that he was not safe in Augsburg, he had him let out of the city at daybreak, through a small door in the wall, and then supplied with a horse. Luther reached Wittenberg again in safety. He discovered that he had become a famous man. All Germany was talking about him and the ninety-five theses. The reason of this popularity was that Luther had had the courage to put into words what a great many people had already begun to think but had not definitely formulated for themselves. Luther had put their thoughts into words for them and they were ready to support him, even with arms, if need be. Thus Frederick the Wise of Saxony, though summoned to deliver Luther up, refused to do so unless he could be assured that Luther would have a fair hearing. About the same time Leo X. declared that the practices assailed by Luther were doctrines of the church, and must be accepted as such. Fred- erick began to waver; but the young Philip Melanchthon, Justus Jonas, and other distinguished men connected with the university exerted their influence, and the elector finally refused the demand. The Emperor Maximilian, now near his end, sent a letter to the Pope, begging him to arrange the difficulty, and Leo X. commis- sioned his nuncio, a Saxon nobleman named Karl von Miltitz, to meet Luther. The meeting took place at Altenburg in 15 19. The nuncio, who afterward reported that he would not undertake to remove Luther from Germany with the help of ten thousand sol- diers, for he had found ten men for him where one was for the Pope, was a mild and conciliatory man. He prayed Luther to pause, for he was destroying the peace of the church, and succeeded by his persuasions in inducing him to promise to keep silence, pro- vided his antagonists remained silent also. This was merely a truce, and it was soon broken. Dr. Eck, a German theologian noted for his devotion to the Pope and his great skill in debate, challenged Luther's friend and follower, Carlstadt, to a public discussion in Leipzig; it was not long before Luther himself felt compelled to take part in it. The discussion turned upon 238 GERMANY 1519 the powers of the Pope. Luther, who had been reading church history, declared that the Pope had not enjoyed his supremacy for more than four hundred years. This statement was not quite ac- curate, but, neverthelesss, he had hit upon an argument against the customs of the Roman Catholic Church which has ever since been constantly urged by Protestants. They assert that the me- diaeval church and the Papacy developed slowly, and that the Apostles in the time of Christ knew nothing of masses, indulgences, purgatory, and the supremacy of a Pope at Rome. Eck was quick to point out that Luther's views resembled those of Wycliffe and Huss, which had been condemned as heretical by the Council of Constance. Luther was forced to admit that the council had con- demned some thoroughly Christian teachings. It led him to the conviction that even a general council might err, and, " that we are all good Hussites; yes, Paul and St. Augustine were good Hus- sites." Luther's encounter with a disputant of European reputa- tion, and the startling admissions which he was compelled to make, first made him realize that he was becoming the leader in an attack upon the church. He began to see that a great change and up- heaval were unavoidable. The struggle by this time had affected all Germany, the middle class and smaller nobles being mostly on Luther's side, while the priests and reigning princes, with a few exceptions, were against him. In order to defend himself from misrepresentation and justify his course, he published two pam- phlets, one called " An Appeal to the Emperor and Christian Nobles of Germany," and the other, " Concerning the Babylonian Captivity of the Church." * These were scattered by the new printing presses and read by thousands and tens of thousands, all over the country. Pope Leo X. immediately issued a bull, ordering all Luther's writings to be burned, excommunicating those who should believe in them, and summoning Luther to Rome. This only increased the popular excitement in Luther's favor, and on December lo, 1520, *The gist of these was as follows: "To His Imperial Majesty and the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, Martin Luther wishes grace, etc. The Romanists have raised round themselves walls to protect themselves from re- form. One is their doctrine that there are two separate estates ; the one spiritual, vis., Pope, bishops, priests and monks; the other secular, vis., princes, nobles, artisans, and peasants. And they lay it down that the secular power has no power over the spiritual, but that the spiritual is above the secular; whereas in tntth, all Christians are spiritual and there is no difference among them. The secular power is of God, to punish the wicked and protect the good, and so has rule over the whole body of Christians, without exception, Pope, bishops, monks, THE REFORMATION 239 1519-1520 he took the step which made impossible any reconciliation between himself and the Papal power. Accompanied by the professors and students of the university, he had a fire kindled outside of one of the gates of Wittenberg, placed therein the books of Canon Law and various writings in defense of the Pope, and then cast the Papal bull into the flames, with the words: "As thou hast tormented the Lord and His saints, so may eternal flame torment and consume thee ! " This was the boldest declaration of war ever hurled at such an overwhelming authority. The knight Ulric von Hutten, a distinguished scholar who had been crowned as poet by the Emperor Maximilian, openly declared for Luther ; the rebel- lious Baron Franz von Sickingen offered him his castle as a safe place of refuge. Frederick the Wise was now his steadfast friend, and, although the dangers which beset him increased every day, his own faith in the righteousness of his cause only became firmer and purer. By this time the question of electing a successor to Maximilian had been settled. When the diet came together at Frankfort, in June, 1 5 19, two prominent candidates presented themselves King Francis L of France, and King Charles of Spain, Naples, Sicily, and the Spanish possessions in the newly discovered America. The former of these had no other right to the crown than could be pur- chased by the wagonloads of money which he sent to Germany; the latter was the grandson of Maximilian, and also represented, in his own person, Austria, the Netherlands, and the county of Bur- gundy. Again the old jealousy of so much power arose among the electors, and they gave their votes to Frederick the Wise, of Sax- ony. He, however, shrank from the burden of the imperial rule at such a time, and declined to accept. Then Charles of Spain, who had ruined the prospects of Francis L by distributing 850,000 gold florins among the members of the diet, was' elected without any further difficulty. The following year he was crowned at Aix-la- nuns, and all. For St Paul says, ' Let every soul [and I reckon the Pope one] be subject to the higher power.' . . . Let the power of the Pope be reduced within clear limits. Let there be fewer cardinals and let them not keep the best things for themselves. Let the national churches be more independent of Rome. Let there be fewer pilgrimages to Italy. Let there be fewer convents. Let priests marry. Let us inquire into the position of the Hussites, and if Huss was in the right, let us join with him in resisting Rome. . . . Enough for this time! I know right well I have sung in a high strain. Well, I know another little song about Rome and her people I Do their ears itch? I will sing it also, and in the highest notes." 240 GERMANY 1520-1521 Chapelle, and became Charles V. in the list of German emperors. Although he reigned thirty-six years, he always remained a for- eigner. He never even learned to speak tlie German language fluently, his tastes and habits were Flemish, and his election at such a crisis in the history of Germany was a crime from the effects of which the country did not recover for three hundred years. Luther wrote to the new emperor immediately after the elec- tion, begging that he might not be condemned unheard, and was so earnestly supported by Frederick the Wise, who had voted for Charles at the diet, that the latter sent Luther a formal invitation to appear before him at Worms, where a new diet had been called to take measures for improving the administration of the empire, and to raise a military force to drive the French out of Lombardy, which Francis I. had seized. Luther considered this opportunity " a call from God." He set out for Wittenberg, and wherever he passed the people flocked together in great numbers to see him and hear him speak. On approaching Worms one of his friends tried to persuade him to turn back, but he answered : " Though there were as many devils in the city as tiles on the housetops, yet would I go ! " He entered Worms in an open wagon, in his monk's dress, stared at by an immense concourse of people. The same evening he received visits from a number of princes and noblemen. On April 17, 1521, Luther was conducted by the marshal of the empire to the city hall, where the diet was in session. As he was passing through the outer hall the famous knight and general, George von Frundsberg, clapped him upon the shoulder, with the words: "Monk, monk! thou art in a strait, the like of which myself and many leaders, in the most desperate battles, have never known. But if thy thoughts are just, and thou art sure of thy cause, go on in God's name, and be of good cheer. He will not forsake thee ! " Charles V. is reported to have said, when Luther entered the great hall: "That monk will never make a heretic of me!" After having acknowledged all his writings, Luther was called upon to retract them. He appeared to be somewhat embar- rassed and undecided, either confused by the splendor of the im- perial court, or shaken by the overwhelming responsibility resting upon him. He therefore asked a little time for further consider- ation, and was allowed twenty-four hours. He was taken back to his inn. Without in the streets there was much noise and the II r S T3 as o O CJ S " n THE REFORMATION J841 1521 quarrels of soldiers and opposing parties. Within, in his room, Luther opened his Bible before him and was heard to pray long and earnestly. People did not know what to make of his request for more time. Some thought he would retract. But, in the din and bustle about him, Luther wrote a letter to one of his friends. " I write to you from the midst of the tumult. I confessed myself the author of my books, and said I would reply to-morrow touching my recantation. With Christ's help, I shall never retract one tittle." When he reappeared before the diet the next day he was calm and firm. In a plain, yet most earnest address, delivered first in German, and then in Latin, so that all might understand, he ex- plained the grounds of his belief, and closed with the solemn words : " Unless, therefore, I should be confuted by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures and by clear and convincing reasons, I cannot and will not retract, because there is neither wisdom nor safety in acting against conscience. Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise: God help me ! Amen." Charles V., without allowing the matter to be discussed by the diet, immediately issued the Edict of Worms, which proclaimed Luther a heretic and an outlaw. As soon as the remaining twenty- one days of his safe conduct had expired everyone was forbidden to give him food, drink, or shelter; on the contrary, they were or- dered to seize him and hand him over to the emperor's officers ; and no one was to " buy, sell, read, preserve, copy, or print, any books of the aforesaid Martin Luther, since they are foul, noxious, sus- pected, and published by a notorious and stiff-necked heretic." Charles was urged by many of the partisans of Rome not even to respect his promise of a safe conduct for twenty-one days, but he answered : " I do not mean to blush, like Sigismund," Luther's sincerity and courage confirmed the faith of his princely friends. Frederick the Wise and the Landgrave Philip of Hesse walked by his side when he left the diet, and Duke Eric of Brunswick sent him a jug of beer. His followers among the nobility greatly in- creased in numbers and enthusiasm. It was certain, however, that he would be in serious danger as soon as the twenty-one days had expired, and the emperor should proceed to enforce the Edict of Worms. A plot, kept secret from all his friends, was formed for his safety, and successfully carried out during his return from Worms to Wittenberg. Luther traveled 242 GERMANY 1521-1522 in an open wagon, with only one companion. On entering the Thuringian Forest he sent his escort in advance, and was soon after- ward, in a lonely glen, seized by four knights in armor and with closed visors, placed upon a horse and carried away. The news spread like wild-fire over Germany that he had been murdered, and for nearly a year he was lost to the world. His writings were only read the more : the Papal bull and the Edict of Worms were alike disregarded. Charles V. went back to Spain immediately after the Diet of Worms, after having transferred the German possessions of the House of Hapsburg to his younger brother, Ferdinand. The business of suppressing Luther's doctrines fell chiefly to the arch- bishops of Mayence and Cologne, and to the Papal legate. Luther, meanwhile, was in security in a castle called the Wart- burg, on the summit of a mountain near Eisenach. He was dressed in a knightly fashion, wore a helmet, breastplate and sword, allowed his beard to grow, and went by the name of " Squire George." But in the privacy of his own chamber all the furniture of which is preserved to this day, as when he lived in it he worked zealously upon a translation of the New Testament into German. In the spring of 1522 he was disturbed in his labors by the report of new doctrines which were being preached in Wittenberg. His friend Carlstadt had joined a fanatical sect called the Anabaptists. These misguided enthusiasts mistook their own excited imaginations for messages from heaven. They wanted no priests, for they were themselves prophets, no Bible, for they were themselves inspired, and they went about preaching violent changes, and exciting the crowds who heard them to violent deeds. They advocated the abolition of the mass, the destruction of pictures and statues, and proclaimed the coming of God's kingdom upon the earth. The experience of the Bohemians showed Luther the neces- sity of union in his great work of reforming the Christian church. From his retreat at the Wartburg he saw at once how all this de- lusion and madness would injure the cause of the Reformation. Already, moreover, his enemies were triumphantly pointing to the excesses of the Anabaptists as the natural result of his doctrines. There was no time to be lost ; in spite of the remonstrance of the Elector Frederick, he left the Wartburg, and rode alone, as a man- at-arms, to Wittenberg, where even Melanchthon did not recognize him on his arrival. He began preaching, with so much power and eloquence that in a few days the new sect lost all the ground it had THE REFORMATION 48 1522-1525 gained, and its followers were expelled from the city. The neces- sity of arranging another and simpler form of divine worship was made evident by these occurrences ; and after the publication of the New Testament in German, in September, 1522, Luther and Melancthon united in framing a new service for Lutheran churches. The Reformation made such progress that by 1523, not only Saxony, Hesse, and Brunswick had practically embraced it, but also the cities of Frankfort, Strassburg, Nuremburg, and Magdeburg, the Augustinian Order of monks, a part of the Franciscans, and quite a large number of priests. Now, however, a new and most serious trouble arose, partly from the preaching of the Anabaptists, headed by their so-called prophet, Thomas Miinzer, and partly provoked by the oppressions which the common people had so long endured. In the summer of 1524 the peasants of Wiirtemberg and Baden united, armed themselves, and issued the manifesto containing Twelve Articles. They demanded the right to choose their own priests; the restriction of tithes to their harvests; the abolition of feudal serfdom; the use of the forests; the regulation of the privilege of the nobles to hunt and fish; and protection in certain other points against the arbitrary power of the landed nobility. They seemed to take it for granted that Luther would support them ; but he, dread- ing a civil war and desirous to keep the religious reformation free from any political movement, published a pamphlet condemning their revolt. At the same time he used his influence on their behalf with the reigning priests and princes. The excitement, however, was too great to be subdued by admonitions of patience and forbearance. A dreadful war broke out in 1525: the army of 30,000 peasants ravaged a great part of southern Germany, destroying castles and convents, and venting their rage in the most shocking barbarities, which were afterward inflicted upon themselves when they were finally defeated by the Count of Waldburg. The movement extended through middle Germany even to Westphalia, and threatened to become general: some parts of Thuringia were held for a short time by the peasants, and suffered terrible ravages. Another army of 8000 headed by Thomas Miinzer was cut to pieces near Miihlhausen, in Saxony, and by the end of the year 1525 the rebellion was completely sup- pressed. In this short time some of the most interesting monu- ments of the Middle Ages, among them the grand castle of the 044 GERMANY 1S25-1530 Hohenstaufens, in Suabia, had been leveled to the earth; whole provinces were laid waste ; thousands of men, women, and children were put to the sword, and a serious check was given to the prog- ress of the Reformation through all southern Germany. The stand which Luther had taken against the rebellion pre- served the friendship of those princes who were well-disposed toward him, but he took no part in the measures of defense against the imperial and Papal power which they were soon compelled to adopt. He devoted himself to the completion of his translation of the Bible, in which he was faithfully assisted by Melanchthon and others. In this great work he accomplished even more than a service to Christianity; he created the modern German language. Before his time there had been no tongue which was known and accepted throughout the whole empire. The poets and minstrels of the Middle Ages wrote in Suabian; other popular works were in Low Saxon, Franconian, or Alsatian. The dialect of Holland and Flanders had so changed that it was hardly understood in Germany ; that of Brandenburg and the Baltic provinces had no literature as yet, and the learned or scientific works of the time were written in Latin. No one before Luther saw that the simplest and most expres- sive qualities of the German language must be sought for in the mouths of the people. With all his scholarship, he never used the theological style of writing, but endeavored to express himself so that he could be clearly understood by all men. In translating the Old Testament he took extraordinary pains to find words and phrases as simple and strong as those of the Hebrew writers. He frequented the market-place, the merry-making, the house of birth, marriage, or death, to learn how the common people expressed themselves in all the circumstances of life. He enlisted his friends in the same service, begging them to note down for him any pecu- liar, characteristic phrase ; " for," said he, " I cannot use the words heard in castles and courts." Not a sentence of the Bible was translated until he had found the best and clearest German expres- sion for it. He wrote, in 1530: "I have exerted myself, in translating, to give pure and clear German. And it has verily hap- pened, that we have sought and questioned a fortnight, three, four weeks, for a single word, and yet it was not always found. In Job, we so labored, Philip Melanchthon, Aurogallus, and I, that in four days we sometimes barely finished three lines." MARTIN LCTHEK (Horn 1483. Died 1546) Painting by Lucas Cranach in the Ufiszi, Florence (The picture is supposed to be the identical one suhniitted to TTis Holiness Leo X, who desired to see the features of the intrepid monk.) THE REFORMATION 46 1521-1530 Pope Leo X. died in 1521, and was succeeded by Adrian VI., the last German to wear the Papal crown. He admitted many of the corruptions of the Catholic Church, and seemed inclined to re- form them, but he lived only two years, and his successor was Clement VII., a nephew of Leo. The latter induced Ferdinand of Austria, the dukes of Bavaria, and several bishops to unite in a league for suppressing the spread of Luther's doctrines. There- upon the electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, Philip of Hesse, the dukes of Brunswick and Mecklenburg, the counts of Mansfeld and Anhalt, and the city of Magdeburg formed a counter-alliance at Torgau, in 1526. At the diet held in Speyer the same year the party of the Reformation was so strong that no decree against it could be passed. It was agreed in a decree of the diet that " each state should, as regards the Edict of Worms, so live, rule, and bear itself as it could answer to God and the emperor." This meant that the Catholic and Lutheran princes could each do as they liked in regard to the religion of their respective territories. From this decree of the Diet of Speyer came the division of Germany into Catholic and Protestant states. The organization of the Lutheran Church which was by this time adopted in Saxony soon spread over all northern Germany. Its principal features were the abolition of the monastic orders and of priestly celibacy; divine service in the language of the country; the distribution of the Bible, in German, to all persons; the com- munion, in both forms, for laymen; and the instruction of the people and their children in the truths of Christianity. The former possessions of the church were given up to the state, and Luther, against Melanchthon's advice, even insisted on uniting the episcopal authority with the political, in the person of the reigning prince. He set the example of giving up priestly celibacy, by marrying, in 1525, Catharine von Bora, a nun of a noble family. This step created a great sensation ; even many of Luther's friends condemned his course ; but he declared that he was right, and he was rewarded by twenty-one years of unalloyed domestic happiness. The Emperor Charles V., during all these events, was absent from Germany. His first war with France was brought to a con- clusion by the battle of Pavia, in February, 1525, when Francis I. was captured and was sent as a prisoner to Madrid. But having purchased his freedom, the following year, by promising to give up his claims to Italy, Burgundy, and Flanders, he no sooner returned 246 GERMANY 1S25-15S0 to France than he declared his promise was made under com- pulsion, and therefore not binding. He not only refused to keep his promise and give up the territories, but allied himself with Pope Clement VII., who was jealous of the emperor's increasing power in Italy, and began again the war against his life-long rival, Charles V. The old knight George von Frundsberg and the Con- stable de Bourbon a member of the royal family of France who had gone over to Charles V.'s side then united their forces, which were principally German, and marched upon Rome. The city was taken by storm in 1527, terribly ravaged, and the Pope made pris- oner. Charles V. pretended not to have known of, or authorized, this movement ; he liberated the Pope, who promised, in return, to call a council for the reformation of the church. The war con- tinued, however, Venice, Genoa, and England being also involved until 1 529, when it was terminated by the Peace of Cambray. Charles V. and the Pope then came to an understanding, in virtue of which the former was crowned King of Lombardy and Emperor of Rome in Bologna in 1530, and bound himself to extir- pate the doctrines of Luther in Germany. In Austria, Bavaria, and Wiirtemberg, in fact, the persecution had already commenced: many persons had been hanged or burned at the stake for professing the new doctrines. Ferdinand of Austria, who had meanwhile succeeded to the crowns of Bohemia and Hungary, was compelled to call a diet at Speyer in 1529, to take measures against the Turks, then victorious in Transylvania and a great part of Hungary; a majority of Catholics was present, and they passed a decree re- peating the outlawry of Luther and his doctrines by the Diet of Worms. Seven reigning princes, headed by Saxony, Brandenburg and Hesse, and fifteen imperial cities claimed that the majority had no right to abrogate the edict of the former Diet of Speyer, for that had passed unanimously, and all had solemnly pledged themselves to support that agreement. They therefore appealed in protest to the emperor and a future council against the tyranny of the majority. Those who signed this appeal were called " Protestants." Thus or- iginated the name which came to be generally applied to all Chris- tians who do not accept the rule and teachings of the Roman Cath- olic Church. The history of the Reformation in Switzerland cannot be here given. It will be enough to say that Zwingli, who was born in the canton of St. Gall in 1484, resembled Luther in his character. THE REFORMATION 247 1525-1530 in his earnest devotion to study, and in the circumstance that his ideas of religious reform were derived from an intimate study of the Bible. But Zwingli and Luther differed utterly in their con- ception of the Lord's Supper. Luther believed in the " real pres- ence " of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine; he believed in the absolute literalness of the words, " This is my body," and de- clared that at every celebration of the Eucharist " the actual body of Christ was bitten with the teeth." Zwingli's great contribution to the religious thought of the Reformation was that he took the words " This is my body " in a metaphorical sense, as meaning, that the bread and wine were merely symbols or tokens of Christ's body : he thought it a debasement of the Most High, who sitteth in heaven at the right hand of God, to think that at the bidding of men He must so often descend to earth. Thus were formed two Prot- estant parties, and it became ever more difficult for them to unite against the Catholic Church. To Philip of Hesse this theological difference seemed " madness and raving," and to try to reach a settlement he arranged for a conference between the two reformers at Marburg in 1529. It was his passionate desire that both branches of the Protestants should become united, in order to be so much the stronger to meet the dangers which all felt were coming. But Luther, who labored and prayed to prevent the struggle from be- coming political, and who had opposed even the league of the Prot- estant princes at Torgau in 1526, was with difficulty induced to meet Zwingli. He was still busy with his translation of the Bible, with the preparation of a catechism for the people, a collection of hymns to be used in worship, and other works necessary to the complete organization of the Protestant Church. When the meeting finally took place, Melanchthon, Jonas, and many other distinguished men were present: both Luther and Zwingli fully and freely compared their doctrines, but, although they were united on many essential points, they could not agree in regard to the nature of the Eucharist. Luther, as he sat at a table opposite Zwingli, drew from his pocket a piece of chalk and wrote on the table, " This is my body," and positively refused to accept any except the literal meaning of the words. He even refused to make common cause with the Swiss Protestants. This was one of several instances wherein the great reformer injured his cause through his lack of wisdom and tolerance; in small things, as in great, he was inflexible. 248 GERMANY 1530-1531 So matters stood in the beginning of 1530, when Charles V. returned to Germany, after an absence of nine years. He estab- lished his court at Innsbruck, and summoned a diet to meet at Augsburg, in April, but it was not opened until the 20th of June. Melanchthon, with many other Protestant professors and clergy- men, was present. Luther, being under the ban of the empire, remained in Coburg, where he wrote his grand hymn, " Our Lord, He is a Tower of Strength." The Lutheran princes and cities united in signing a Confession of Faith, which had been very care- fully drawn up by Melanchthon, and the emperor was obliged to consent that it should be read before the diet. He ordered, how- ever, that the reading should take place, not in the great hall where the sessions were held, but in the bishop's chapel, and at a very early hour in the morning. The object of this arrangement was to prevent any but the members of the diet from hearing the docu- ment. But the weather was intensely warm, and it was necessary to open the windows. The Saxon chancellor, Dr. Bayer, read the confession in such a loud, clear voice that a thousand or more per- sons, gathered on the outside of the chapel, were able to hear every word. The principles asserted were: That men are justified by faith alone; that an assembly of true believers constitutes the church; that it is not necessary that forms and ceremonies should be everywhere the same ; that preaching, the sacraments, and infant baptism are necessary ; that Christ is really present in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, which should be administered to the congre- gation in both forms; that monastic vows, fastings, pilgrimages, and the invocation of saints are useless, and that priests must be allowed to marry. After the confession had been read many per- sons were heard to exclaim : " It is reasonable that the abuses of the church should be corrected; the Lutherans are right, for our spiritual lords have carried it with too high a hand." The general impression was favorable to the Protestants, and the princes who had signed the confession determined that they would maintain it at all hazards. This " Augsburg Confession," as it was thenceforth called, was the foundation of the Lutheran Church throughout Germany. The Zwinglians were not present at Augsburg and did not accept the Augsburg Confession. They drew up a statement of their own. The emperor ordered a refutation of the Protestant doctrines THE REFORMATION 249 1531-1532 to be prepared by the Catholic theologians who were present, but refused to furnish a copy to the Protestants, and prohibited them from making any reply. The statement of the Catholics admitted that a number of Melanchthon's articles were perfectly orthodox, but rejected altogether the part of the Augsburg Confession which dealt with the practical reforms introduced by the Protestants. Charles declared the Catholic refutation to be convincing and un- answerable, and commanded the Protestants to accept it. They were to cease troubling the Catholics and to give back all the monas- teries and church property which they had seized. As to the abuses which the Protestants complained of, he promised they would be corrected by himself and the Pope in a council which should meet within a year. This he hoped would be able to settle all differences and reform the church according to the views of the Catholics. But the council was not held for many years, and meanwhile the breach became more and more permanent between Rome and more than half of Germany. Charles V. procured the election of his brother Ferdinand to the crown of Germany, although Bavaria united with the Protestant princes in voting against him. The imperial courts in the ten districts were now composed entirely of Catholics, and they were ordered to enforce the suppres- sion of Protestant worship. Thereupon the Protestant princes and delegates from the cities met at the little town of Schmalkalden, in Thuringia, and on March 29, 1531, they bound themselves to unite, for the space of six years, in resisting the imperial decree. Even Luther, much as he dreaded a religious war, could not oppose this movement. The League of Schmalkalden, as it is called, rep- resented so much military strength that King Ferdinand became alarmed and strongly advised a more conciliatory course toward the Protestants. Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of Turkey, who had conquered all Hungary, was marching upon Vienna with an immense army, and openly boasted that he would subdue Germany. It thus became impossible for Charles V. either to suppress the Protestants at this time or to repel the Turkish invasion with- out their help. He was compelled to call a new diet, which met at Nuremberg, and in August, 1532, concluded the Religious Peace; both parties agreed to refrain from all hostilities until a general council of the church should be called. Thereupon the Protestants loyally contributed their share of troops to the imperial army. The ftSO GERMANY 1532-1534 army soon amounted to 80,000 men and was commanded by the famous General Sebastian Schertlin, himself a Protestant. The Turks were defeated everywhere, the siege of Vienna was raised, and the whole of Hungary might have been reconquered but for Ferdinand's unpopularity among the Catholic princes. Other cities and smaller principalities joined the League of Schmalkalden, the power of which increased from year to year. The Religious Peace of Nuremberg greatly favored the spread of the Reformation, although it was not very strictly observed by either side. In 1534 Wiirtemberg, which was then held by Fer- dinand of Austria, was conquered by Philip of Hesse, who rein- stated the exiled duke, Ulric. The latter became a Protestant, and thus Wiirtemberg was added to the League. Charles V. would certainly have interfered in this case, but he had left Germany for another nine years' absence, and was just then engaged in a war with Tunis. The reigning princes of Brandenburg and Ducal Saxony (Thuringia), who had been enemies of the Reformation, died and were succeeded by Protestant sons: in 1537 the League of Schmalkalden was renewed for ten years more, and the so-called " holy alliances " which were attempted against it by Bavaria and the archbishops of Mayence and Salzburg were of no avail. The Protestant faith continued to spread, not only in Germany, but also in Denmark, Sweden, Holland, and England. The first of these countries even became a member of the Schmalkalden League in 1538. Out of the " Freedom of the Gospel," which was the first watchword of the reformers, smaller sects continued to arise, not- withstanding they met with almost as much opposition from the Protestants as the Catholics. The Anabaptists obtained possession of the city of Miinster in 1534, and held it for more than a year, under the government of a Dutch tailor, named John of Leyden, who had himself crowned King of Zion, introduced polygamy, and cut off the heads of all who resisted his decrees. When the Bishop of Miinster finally took the city, John of Leyden and two of his associates were tortured to death, and their bodies suspended in iron cages over the door of the cathedral. About the same time Simon Menno, a native of Friesland, founded a quiet and peaceful sect which was named after him, the Mennonite, and which still exists, both in Germany and the United States. While, therefore, Charles V. was carrying on his wars, alter- z .5 2^ THE REFORMATION 251 1534-1544 nately with the Barbary States and with Francis I. of France, the foundations of the Protestant Church, in spite of all divisions and disturbances, were permanently laid in Germany. Although he had been brilliantly successful in Tunis in 1535, he failed so com- pletely before Algiers in 1541 that Francis I. was emboldened to make another attempt, in alliance with Turkey, Denmark, and Sweden. So formidable was the danger that the emperor was again compelled to seek the assistance of the German Protestants, and even of England. He returned to Germany for the second time and called a diet to meet in Speyer, which renewed the Reli- gious Peace of Nuremberg, with the assurance that Protestants should have equal rights before the imperial courts and that they would be left free until the meeting of a free council of the church. Having obtained an army of 40,000 men by these concessions, Charles V. marched into France, captured a number of fortresses, and had reached Soissons on his way to Paris when Francis I. acknowledged himself defeated and begged for peace. In the Treaty of Crespy, in 1544, he gave up his claim to Lombardy, Naples, Flanders, and Artois, the emperor gave him a part of Burgundy, and both united in a league against the Turks and Prot- estants, the allies of one and the other. In order, however, to preserve some appearance of fidelity to his solemn pledges, the emperor finally prevailed upon the Pope, Paul III., to order an ecumenical council. It was just 130 years since the Catholic Church had promised to reform itself. The delay had given rise to the Protestant Reformation, which was now so powerful that only a just and conciliatory course on the part of Rome could settle the difficulty. Instead of this, the council was summoned to meet at Trent, in the Italian part of the Tyrol ; the Pope reserved the gov- ernment of it for himself, and the Protestants, although invited to attend, were thus expected to acknowledge his authority. They unanimously declared, therefore, that they would not be bound by its decrees. Even Luther, who had ardently hoped to see all Chris- tians again united under a purer organization of the church, saw that a reconciliation was impossible. The publication of the complete translation of the Bible in 1534 was not the end of Luther's labors. His leadership in the great work of reformation was acknowledged by all, and he was consulted by princes and clergymen, by scholars and jurists, even 252 GERMANY 1544-1546 by the common people. He never relaxed in his efforts to preserve peace, not only among the Protestant princes, who could not yet overcome their old habit of asserting an independent authority, but also between Protestants and Catholics. Yet he could hardly help feeling that with such a form of government, and such an emperor as Germany then possessed, peace was impossible; he only prayed that it might last while he lived. Luther's powerful constitution gradually broke down under the weight of his labors and anxieties. He became subject to attacks of bodily suffering, followed by great depression of mind. Nevertheless, the consciousness of having in a great measure per- formed the work which he had been called upon to do kept up his faith, and he was accustomed to declare that he had been made ** a chosen weapon of Grod, known in heaven and hell, as well as upon earth." In January, 1546, he was summoned to Eisleben, the place of his birth, by the counts of Mansfeld, who begged him to act as arbitrator between them in a question of inheritance. Although much exhausted by the fatigues of the winter journey, he settled the dispute, and preached four times to the people. His last letter to his wife, written on February 14, is full of courage, cheerfulness, and tenderness. Two days afterward his strength began to fail. His friend, Dr. Jonas, was in Eisleben at the time, and Luther forced himself to sit at the table with him and with his own two sons ; but it was noticed that he spoke only of the future life, and with an unusual earnestness and solemnity. The same evening it became evident to all that his end was rapidly approaching: he grew weaker from hour to hour, and occasionally repeated passages from the Bible in German and Latin. After midnight he seemed to revive a little: Dr. Jonas, the Countess of Mansfeld, the pastor of the church at Eisleben, and his sons stood near his bed. Then Jonas said: " Beloved Father, do you acknowledge Christ, the Son of God, our Redeemer?" Luther answered "Yes," in a strong and clear voice; then, folding his hands, he drew one deep sigh and died, between two and three o'clock on the morning of February 17. After solemn services in the church at Eisleben the body was removed on its way to Wittenberg. In eveiy village through which the procession passed the bells were tolled, and the people flocked together from all the surrounding country. The population of Halle, men and women, came out of the city with loud cries and THE REFORMATION 258 1546 lamentations, and the throng was so great that it was two hours before the coffin could be placed in the church. *' Here," says an eye-witness of the scene, " we endeavored to raise the funeral psalm, " De profundis " [" Out of the depths have I cried unto thee "] ; but so heavy was our grief that the words were rather wept than sung." On February i8, 1546, the remains of the great reformer were given to the earth at Wittenberg, with all the honors which the people, the authorities, and the university could render. Chapter XXVI GROWTH OF PROTESTANTISM. 1546-1600 IUTHER, throughout his life, had always been a respecter of established authority ; he abhorred civil war, and wished / that he might never see Germany torn by religious strifes. His wish was gratified, but only by a narrow margin. In the year following his death the long-feared wars broke out between the Catholics, under the leadership of Charles V., and the Lutherans, who were united in the Schmalkalden League. The period of pros- perity for the Protestants had come to an end. Political events which had so long granted them a respite from an enforcement of the Edict of Worms by an imperial army no longer offered them a shelter. Charles V. had defeated the Turks on land and on sea, and along the northern shores of Africa, where they were estab- lished as pirates. He had made peace with his rival Francis I. of France; Spam was in complete subjection, and Italy under his influence. Now at last, therefore, in 1547, he thought he could carry out the wish of the Pope and put down the Lutheran heretics in Germany. The Council of Trent, which had first met in 1545, and which was composed almost entirely of Spanish and Italian prelates, fol- lowed the instructions of the Pope and declared that the traditions of the Catholic Church were of equal authority with the Bible. This made a reconciliation with the Protestants impossible. In fact, if the spirit of the Protestant faith had not already entered into the lives of the mass of the people, the Reformation might have been lost through the hesitation of some princes and the treachery of others. While the emperor was at last rid of most of his enemies and political embarrassment, the Schmalkalden League was weak- ened by personal quarrels among its members; yet it was still able to raise an army of 40,000 men, which was placed under the com- mand of Sebastian Schertlin. Charles V. at one moment had only a very small force with him at Ratisbon; the troops he had sum- moned from Flanders and Italy had not arrived ; and an energetic 9&i PROTESTANTISM 265 1547 offensive movement by the Protestants might have been successful, and so given the Protestants the advantage at the beginning of the war by capturing or badly defeating the emperor himself. But the two chiefs of the Schmalkalden League, John Fred- erick of Saxony and Philip of Hesse, showed a timidity almost amounting to cowardice in this emergency. In spite of Schertlin's entreaties, they refused to allow him to move, fearing, as they alleged, to invade the neutrality of Bavaria, or to excite Ferdinand of Austria against them. For months they compelled their army to wait, while the emperor was constantly receiving reinforcements, among them 12,000 Italian troops furnished by the Pope. Then, when they were absolutely forced to act, a new and unexpected danger rendered them powerless. Maurice, Duke of Saxony, sud- denly abjured the Protestant faith, declared for Charles V., and took possession of Electoral Saxony, which belonged to his cousin, John Frederick.^ The latter hastened home with his own portion of the army, and defeated and expelled Maurice, it is true, but in doing so gave up the field to the emperor. Duke Ulric of Wiir- temberg first humbly submitted to the latter, then Ulm, Augsburg, Strassburg, and other cities: Schertlin was not left with troops enough to resist, and the imperial and Catholic power was restored throughout southern Germany without a struggle. In the spring of 1547 Charles V. marched into northern Ger- many, surprised and defeated John Frederick of Saxony at Miihl- berg on the Elbe, and took him prisoner. The elector was so enormously stout and heavy that he could only mount his horse by the use of a ladder; so the emperor's Spanish cavalry easily overtook him in his flight. Charles V. now showed himself in his true character: he appointed the fierce Duke of Alba president of a court which tried John Frederick and condemned him to death. The other German princes protested so earnestly against this sen- tence that it was not carried out, but John Frederick was compelled to give up to the traitor Maurice the title of elector and all his elec- toral territory except the small scattered districts west of the Saale the territory embraced in the present duchies of Meiningen, Gotha, Weimar, and Altenburg. He steadfastly refused, however, to sub- 1 In 1485 Saxony had been divided between the elder and younger line. Electoral Saxony, with its capital at Wittenberg, fell to the elder line, to which John Frederick belonged. Ducal Saxony, with its capital at Dresden, fell to the younger line, represented in 1547 by the ambitious and unscrupulous Maurice. ftse GERMANY 1547-1648 mit to the decrees of the Council of Trent, and remained firm in the Protestant faith during the five years of imprisonment which followed. His wife, the Duchess Sibylla, heroically defended Wittenberg against the emperor, but when John Frederick had been despoiled of his territory she could no longer hold the city, which was sur- rendered. Charles V. was urged by Alba and others to burn Luther's body and scatter the ashes, as those of a heretic; but he answered, like a man : " I wage no war against the dead." Herein he showed the better side of his nature, although only for a moment. The fate of Philip of Hesse was even harder than that of the elector; left alone, he was unable to resist and was made to atone bitterly for his long attitude of passive opposition to the emperor's will. Philip, seeing his dangerous position and persuaded by his son-in-law, Maurice of Saxony, promised to beg the emperor's pardon on his knees, to destroy all his fortresses except Cassel, and to pay a fine of 150,000 gold florins, on condition that he should be allowed to retain his princely rights. These were Charles V.'s own conditions; but when Philip, kneeling before him, hap- pened (or seemed) to smile while his application for pardon was being read, the emperor cried out : " Wait, I'll teach you to laugh ! " Breaking his solemn word without scruple, he sent Philip instantly to prison, and the latter was kept for years in close confinement, both in Germany and in Flanders. A frustrated attempt at flight drew down upon him further severities; the man who had been the head of the league of princes, as well as the hope of the Protestant party, was actually threatened with torture in a Flem- ish dungeon. Charles V. was now also master of northern Germany, except the city of Magdeburg, which was strongly fortified, and refused to surrender. He intrusted the siege of the place to Maurice of Saxony, and returned to Bavaria in order to be nearer Italy. He had at last become the arbitrary ruler of nearly all Germany: he had not only violated his word in dealing with the princes, but defied the diet in subjecting them by the aid of foreign soldiers. His court, his commanders, his prelates were Spaniards, who, as they passed through the German states, abused and insulted the people with perfect impunity. The princes were now reaping only what they themselves had sown ; but the mass of the people, who had had no voice in the election who saw their few rights PROTESTANTISM 67 1548-1552 despised and tbeir faith threatened with suppression ^suffered terribly during this time. In May, 1548, the emperor proclaimed what was called the "Augsburg Interim," which allowed to the Protestants the com- munion in both forms and the marriage of priests, but insisted that all the other forms and ceremonies of the Catholic Church should be observed until the council should pronounce its final judgment. This latter body had removed from Trent to Bologna, in spite of the emperor's remonstrance, and it did not meet again at Trent until 1 55 1, after the death of Pope Paul III. There was, in fact, almost as much confusion in the church as in political affairs. A number of intelligent, zealous prelates desired a correction of the former abuses, and they were undoubtedly supported by the em- peror himself ; but the Pope, with the French and Spanish cardinals and bishops, controlled a majority of the votes of the council, and thus postponed its action from year to year. The acceptance of the " Interim " was resisted both by Catho- lics and Protestants. Charles V. used all his arts, persuasion, threats, armed force, and succeeded for a short time in compelling a sort of external observance of its provisions. His ambition now was to have his son Philip chosen by the diet as his successor, not- withstanding that Ferdinand of Austria had been elected king in 1530, and had governed during his brother's long absence from Germany. The Protestant electors, conquered as they were, and abject as many of them had seemed, were not ready to comply; Ferdinand's jealousy was aroused, and the question was in sus- pense when a sudden and startling event changed the whole face of affairs. Maurice of Saxony had been besieging Magdeburg for a year, in the emperor's name. The city was well-provisioned, admirably defended, and the people answered every threat with defiance and ridicule. Maurice grew tired of his inglorious position, sensitive to the name of " Traitor " which was everywhere hurled against him, and indignant at the continued imprisonment of Philip of Hesse. He made a secret treaty with Henry II. of France, to whom he promised Lorraine, including the cities of Toul, Verdun, and Metz, in return for his assistance; and then, in the spring of 1552, before his plans could be divined, marched with all speed against the emperor, who was holding his court in Innsbruck. The latter attempted to escape to Flanders, but Maurice had already 58 GERMANY 1552-1553 seized the mountain passes. Nothing but speedy flight across the Alps, in night and storm, attended only by a few followers, saved Charles V. from capture. The Council of Trent broke up and fled in terror; John Frederick of Saxony and Philip of Hesse were freed from their long confinement, and the Protestant cause gained at one blow all the ground it had lost. Maurice returned to Passau, on the Danube, where Ferdinand of Austria united with him in calling a diet of the German electors. The latter, bishops as well as princes, admitted that the Protestants could be no longer suppressed by force, and agreed to establish a religious peace, independent of any action of the Pope and council. The " Treaty of Passau," as it was called, allowed freedom of wor- ship to all who accepted the Augsburg Confession, and postponed other questions to the decision of a German diet. The emperor at first refused to subscribe to the treaty, but when Maurice began to renew hostilities there was no other course left. The French in Lorraine and the Turks in Hungary were making rapid advances, and it was no time to assert his lost despotism over the empire. With the troops which the princes now agreed to furnish, the emperor marched into France, and in October, 1552, arrived before Metz, which he besieged until the following January. Then, with his army greatly reduced by sickness and hardship, he raised the siege and marched away, to continue the war in other quarters. But it was four years before the quarrel with France came to an end, and during this time the Protestant states of Germany had nothing to fear from the imperial power. The Margrave Albert of Brandenburg, who was on the emperor's side, attempted to carry fire and sword through their territories, in order to pay him- self for his military services. After wasting, plundering, and com- mitting shocking barbarities in Saxony and Franconia he was defeated by Maurice in July, 1553. The latter fell in the moment of victory, giving his life in expiation of his former apostasy. The greater part of Saxony, nevertheless, has remained in the hands of his descendants to this day, while the descendants of John Frederick, although representing the elder line, possess only the little princi- palities of Thuringia, to each of which the Saxon name is prefixed, as in Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Gotha. Charles V., who saw his ambitious plans for the government of the world failing everywhere, and whose bodily strength was fail- ing also, left Germany in disgust, commissioning his brother Fer- PROTESTANTISM 69 1555-1556 dinand to call a diet, in accordance with the stipulations of the Treaty of Passau. The diet met at Augsburg, and, in spite of the violent opposition of the Papal legate, on September 25, 1555, concluded the Treaty of Religious Peace which finally gave rest to Germany, The Protestant princes who followed the Augsburg Confession received religious freedom, perfect equality before the law, and the undisturbed possession of the church property which had fallen into their hands. In other respects their priv- ileges were not equal. By a clause called the " Ecclesiastical Reser- vation," it was ordered that when a Catholic bishop or abbot became Protestant he should give up land and title in order that the church might lose none of its possessions. The rights and con- sciences of the people were so little considered that they were not allowed to change their faith unless the ruling prince changed his. The doctrine was asserted that religion was an affair of the gov- ernment that is, that he to whom belonged the rule possessed the right to choose the people's faith. In accordance with this law the population of the Palatinate of the Rhine was afterward com- pelled to be alternately Catholic and Protestant, four times in succession! But it was provided also that any subject, who did not agree with the faith of his ruling prince and was unwilling to conform to the state church, had the right to emigrate with all his belongings to a territory whose prince believed as he himself did. The Treaty of Augsburg did not include the followers of Zwingli and Calvin, who were getting to be quite numerous in southern and western Germany; they were left without any recog- nized rights. This was one of the elements of weakness in this Religious Peace of Augsburg, for the Calvinists were bound to agitate and cause disturbance until they too were given the same legal recognition as the Lutheran adherents of the Confession of Augsburg. The Pope rejected and condemned this peace, but without the least effect upon the German Catholics, who were no less desirious of peace than the Protestants. Moreover, their hopes of a final triumph over the latter were greatly increased by the zeal and activity of the Jesuits, who had been accepted and commissioned by the Church of Rome fifteen years before, and who were rapidly increasing in numbers, and professed to have made the suppression of Protestant doctrines their chief task. This treaty was the last political act of Charles V.'s reign. One month later, to a day, he formally conferred on his son, Philip (J0 GERMANY 1556-1563 II., at Brussels, the government of the Netherlands, and on January 15, 1556, resigned to him the crowns of Spain and Naples. He then sailed for Spain, where he retired to the mon- astery of St. Just and lived for two years longer as an imperial monk. He was the first monarch of his time and he made Spain the leading nation of the world : his immense energy, his boundless ambition, and his cold, calculating brain reestablished his power again and again, when it seemed on the point of giving way; but he died at last without having accomplished the two chief aims of his life the reunion of all Christendom under the Pope and the union of Germany with the Spanish Empire. The German people, following the leaders who had risen out of their own midst Luther, Melanchthon, Reuchlin, and Zwingli defeated the first of his aims; the ambitious princes, who had found in Charles V. much more of a despot than they had bargained for, defeated the second of the emperor's wishes. The German diet did not meet until March, 1558, when Fer- dinand of Austria was elected and crowned emperor, at Frankfort. Although a Catholic, he had always endeavored to protect the Protestants from the extreme measures which Charles V. attempted to enforce, and he faithfully observed the Treaty of Augsburg. He even allowed the Protestant form of the sacrament and the marriage of priests in Austria, which brought upon him the con- demnation of the Pope. Immediately after the diet a meeting of Protestant princes was held at Frankfort, for the purpose of settling certain differences of opinion which were not only disturbing the Lutherans, but also tending to prevent any unity of action between them and the Swiss Protestants. Melanchthon did his utmost to restore harmony, but without success. He died in 1560, at the age of sixty-four, and Calvin four years afterward, the last of the leaders of the Reformation. On December 4, 1563, the Council of Trent finally adjourned, eighteen years after it first came together. The attempts of a portion of the prelates composing it to reform and purify the Catholic Church had been almost wholly thwarted by the influ- ence of the Popes. It adopted a series of articles, to each one of which was attached an anathema, cursing all who refused to accept it. They contained the doctrines of priestly celibacy, purga- tory, masses for the dead, veneration of saints, pictures, and relics, absolution, fasts, and censorship of books thus making an eternal PROTESTANTISM 61 1583 chasm between Catholicism and Protestantism. At the close of the council the Cardinal of Lorraine cried out : " Accursed be all heretics ! " and all present answered : " Accursed ! accursed ! " until the building rang. In Italy, Spain, and Poland the articles were accepted at once, but the Catholics in France, Germany, and Hungary were dissatisfied with many of the declarations, and the church in those countries was compelled to overlook a great deal of quiet disobedience. At this time, although the Catholics had a majority in the diet (since there were nearly one hundred priestly members), the great majority of the German people had become Protestants. In all northern Germany, except Westphalia, very few Catholic con- gregations were left; even the archbishops of Bremen and Magde- burg, and the bishops of Liibeck, Verden, and Halberstadt, had joined the Reformation. In the priestly territories of Cologne, Treves, Mayence, Worms, and Strasburg the population was di- vided ; the Palatinate of the Rhine, Baden, and Wiirtemberg were almost entirely Protestant, and even in Upper Austria and Styria the Catholics were in a minority. Bavaria was the mainstay of Rome: her princes, of the House of Wittelsbach, were the most zealous and obedient champions of the Pope in all Germany. The Catholic Church, however, had not given up the struggle : she was quietly and shrewdly preparing for one more desperate effort to recover her lost ground, and the Protestants, instead of preceiving the danger and uniting themselves more closely, were quarreling among themselves concerning theological questions upon which they have not yet agreed. There could be no better evidence that the reign of Charles V. had weakened instead of strengthening the German empire than the losses and humiliations which immediately followed. Ferdinand I. gave up half of Hungary to Sultan Suleiman, and purchased the right to rule the other half by an annual payment of 300,cxD0 ducats. About the same time the emperor's lack of power and the selfishness of the Hanseatic cities occasioned a much more important loss. The provinces on the eastern shore of the Baltic, which had been governed by the Order of the Brothers of the Sword after the downfall of the German Order, were overrun and terribly devastated by the Czar Ivan of Russia. The Grand Master of the Order appealed to Liibeck and Hamburg for aid, which was refused; then, in 1559, he called upon the diet of the 262 GERMANY 1563-1567 German Empire and received vague promises of assistance, which had no practical value. Then, driven to desperation, he turned to Poland, Sweden, and Denmark, all of which countries took instant advantage of his necessities. The Baltic provinces were defended against Russia and lost to Germany. The Swedes and Danes took Esthonia, the Poles took Livonia, and only the little province of Courland remained as an independent state, the Grand Master becoming its first duke. Ferdinand I. died in 1564, and was immediately succeeded by his eldest son, Maximilian II. The latter was in the prime of life, already popular for his goodness of heart, his engaging manners, and his moderation and justice. The Protestants cherished great hopes, at first, that he would openly join them; but, although he so favored and protected them in Austria that Vienna almost became a Protestant city, he refused to leave the Catholic Church, and even sent his son Rudolf to be educated in Spain, under the bitter and bigoted influence of Philip II. His daughter was married to Charles IX. of France, and when he heard of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew (in August, 1572) he cried out: "Would to God that my son-in-law had asked counsel of me 1 I would so faithfully have persuaded him as a father, that he certainly would never have done this thing." He also endeavored, but in vain, to soften the persecutions of Philip II.'s reign in the Netherlands. Maximilian II.'s reign of twelve years was quiet and unevent- ful. Only one disturbance of the internal peace occurred, and it is worthy of note as the last feud after so many centuries of free fighting between the princes. An independent knight, William von Grumbach, having been dispossessed of his lands by the Bishop of Wiirzburg, waylaid the latter, who was slain in the fight which occurred. Grumbach fled to France, but soon allied himself with several dissatisfied Franconian knights, and finally persuaded John Frederick of Saxony to espouse his cause. The latter was outlawed by the emperor, yet he obstinately determined to resist, in the hope of wresting the Electorate of Saxony from the younger line and restoring it to his own family. He was besieged by the imperial army in Gotha, in 1567, and taken prisoner. Grumbach was tor- tured and executed, and John Frederick kept in close confinement until his death, twenty-eight years afterward. His sons, however, were allowed to succeed him. The severity with which this breach of the internal peace was punished put an end forever to petty PROTESTANTISM 263 1567-1576 wars in Germany : the measures adopted by the diet of 1495, under Maxmilian L, were at last recognized as binding laws. The revolt of the Netherlands, which broke out immediately after Maxmilian 11. 's accession to the throne, had little, if any, political relation to Germany. Under Charles V. the Netherlands had been quite separated from any connection with the German Empire, and he was free to introduce the Inquisition there and perse- cute the Protestants with all the severity demanded by Rome. Philip II. followed the same policy: the torture, fire, and sword were employed against the people until they arose against the in- tolerable Spanish rule, and entered upon that famous eighty years' struggle which ended in establishing the independence of Holland. At a diet in 1576, where he had declared his policy in religious matters to be simply the enforcement of the Treaty of Augsburg, Maximilian II. suddenly fell dead. According to the custom which they had now followed for nearly a century and a half, of keeping the imperial dignity in the House of Hapsburg, the electors immedi- ately chose his son, Rudolf II., an avowed enemy of the Protes- tants. Unlike his father, his nature was cold, stern, and despotic: he was gloomy, unsocial, and superstitious, and the circumstance that he aided and encouraged the great astronomers, Kepler and Tycho de Brahe, was probably owing to his love for astrology and alchemy. He was subject to sudden and violent attacks of passion, which were followed by periods of complete indifference to his duties. Like Frederick III., a hundred years before, he concerned himself with the affairs of Austria, his direct inheritance, rather than with those of the empire; and thus, although internal wars had been suppressed, he encouraged the dissensions in religion and politics which were gradually bringing on a more dreadful war than Germany had ever known before. One of Rudolf II.'s first measures was to take from the Austrian Protestants the right of worship which his father had allowed them. He closed their churches, removed them from all the offices they held, and, justifying himself by the Treaty of Augsburg that whoever ruled the people should choose their re- ligious faith, did his best to make Austria wholly Catholic. Many Catholic princes and priests, emboldened by his example, declared that the articles promulgated by the Council of Trent abolished the Treaty of Augsburg and gave them the right to put down heresy by force. When the Archbishop of Cologne became a Protestant 264 GERMANY 1576-1600 and married, although the larger part of the population in the archbishopric had been converted to Protestantism, the German Catholics, rightly declared that this was exactly the kind of case which the Ecclesiastical Reservation of 1555 was intended to cover ; they naturally said that the archbishopric should be ** re- served " for a good Catholic. When the Protestant population made some objection these German Catholics called upon Alex- ander of Parma, who came from the Netherlands with a Spanish army, took possession of the territory, and installed a new Catholic archbishop, without resistance on the part of the Protestant majority of Germany. Thus the hate and bitterness on both sides increased from year to year, without culminating in open hostilities. The history of Germany, from the accession of Rudolf II. to the end of the century, is marked by no political event of im- portance. Spain was fully occupied in her hopeless attempt to subdue the Netherlands : in France Henry of Navarre was fighting the Duke of Guise; Hungary and Austria wei'e left to check the advance of the Turkish invasion, and nearly all Germany enjoyed peace for upward of fifty years. During this time population and wealth greatly increased, and life in the cities and at courts became luxurious and more or less immoral. The arts and sciences began to flourish, the people grew in knowledge, yet the spirit out of which the Reformation sprang seemed almost dead. The elements of good and evil were strangely mixed together intelligence and superstition, piety and bigotry, civilization and barbarism, were found side by side. As formerly in her history, it appeared nearly impossible for Germany to grow by a gradual and healthful develop- ment; her condition must be bad enough to bring on a violent convulsion before it could be improved. Such was the state of affairs at the end of the sixteenth century. In spite of the material prosperity of the country, there was a general feeling among the people that evil days were coming; but the most desponding prophet could hardly have predicted worse misfortunes than they were called upon to suffer during the next fifty years. Chapter XXVII BEGINNING OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR 1 600- 1 634 THE beginning- of the seventeenth century found the Protestants in Germany still divided. The followers of Zwingli, it is true, had accepted the Augsburg Confession as the shortest means of acquiring freedom of worship; but the Calvinists, who were now rapidly increasing, were not willing to take this step, nor were the Lutherans any more tolerant toward them than at the beginning. The Dutch, in winning their in- dependence from Spain, gave the Calvinistic, or, as it was called in Germany, the Reformed Church, a new political importance; and it was not long before the Palatinate of the Rhine, Baden, Hesse- Cassel, and Anhalt also joined it. The Protestants were split into two strong and unfriendly sects, at the very time when the Catholics, under the teaching of the Jesuits, were uniting against them. Duke Ferdinand of Styria, a young cousin of Rudolf II., be- gan the struggle. Styria was at that time Protestant, and refused to change its faith at the command of the duke, whereupon he visited every part of the land with an armed force, closed the churches, burned the hymn-books and Bibles, and banished every- one who was not willing to become a Catholic on the spot. He openly declared that it was better to rule over a desert than a land of heretics. Duke Maximilian of Bavaria followed his example. In 1607 he seized the free Protestant city of Donauworth, on the Danube, on account of some quarrel between its inhabitants and a monastery, and held it, in violation of all laws of the empire. A protest made to the diet on account of this act was of no avail, since a majority of the members were Catholics. The Protestants of southern Germany formed a " Union " for mutual protection, in May, 1608, with Frederick IV. of the Palatinate at their head; but, as they were mostly of the Reformed Church, they received little sympathy or support from the Protestant states in the north. Maximilian of Bavaria then established a " Catholic League," 265 266 GERMANY 1608-1614 in opposition, relying on the assistance of Spain, while the " Prot- estant Union " relied on that of Henry IV. of France. Both sides beg^n to arm, and they would soon have proceeded to open hostili- ties, when a dispute of much greater importance diverted their attention to the north of Germany. This was the so-called " Succes- sion of Cleves." Duke John William of Cleves, who governed the former separate dukedoms of Jiilich, Cleves, and Berg, and the countships of Ravensberg and Mark, embracing a large extent of territory on both sides of the Lower Rhine, died in 1609 without leaving a direct heir. He had been a Catholic, but his people were Protestants. John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, and Wolf- gang William of Neuburg, both relatives on the female side, claimed the splendid inheritance; and when it became evident that the Catholic interest meant to secure it, they quickly united their forces and took possession. The emperor then sent the Archduke Leopold of Hapsburg to hold the disputed territories in the name of the emperor as feudal overlord of all Germany until the succession question could be satisfactorily settled before the courts. There- upon the Protestant Union made an instant alliance with Henry IV. of France, who was engaged in organizing an army for its aid, when he fell by the dagger of the assassin, Ravaillac, in 16 10. This dissolved the alliance, and the " Union " and " League," find- ing themselves agreed in opposing the creation of another Austrian state on the Lower Rhine, concluded peace before any serious fight- ing had taken place between them. The two claimants to the succession adopted a similar policy. Wolfgang William became a Catholic, married the sister of Maxi- milian of Bavaria, and so brought the " League " to support him, and the Elector John Sigismund became a Calvinist (which almost excited a rebellion among the Brandenburg Lutherans), in order to get the support of the " Union." The former was assisted by Spanish troops from Flanders, the latter by Dutch troops from Holland, and the war was carried on until 16 14, when it was settled by a division which gave John Sigismund the lion's share Cleves, Mark, and Ravensberg. Meanwhile, the Emperor Rudolf was becoming so old, so whimsical, and so useless that in 1606 the princes of the House of Hapsburg held a meeting, declared him incapable of governing, " on account of occasional imbecilities of mind," and appointed his brother Matthias regent for Austria, Hungary, and Moravia. The THIRTY YEARS' WAR 267 1601-1617 emperor refused to yield, but with the help of the nobility, who were mostly Protestants, Matthias maintained his claim. Matthias was obliged, in return, to grant religious freedom, which so en- couraged the oppressed Protestants in Bohemia that they demanded similar rights from the emperor. In his helpless situation Rudolf gave way to their demand and issued a royal charter {Majestdts- brief) by which freedom of conscience was secured to almost all Protestants and freedom of worship granted on all crown lands; but on private estates and in the towns the consent of the land- owner and the town authorities was necessary to the erection of any church or the establishment of any religious worship. An arrange- ment so one-sided as this, by which the king was obliged to grant freedom of worship while his subjects were not, was thoroughly unpractical. Difficulties at once broke out about its interpretation. Rudolf soon became alarmed at the increase of the heretics, and tried to take back his concession. The Bohemians then called Matthias to their assistance, and in 1611 Rudolf lost his remaining kingdom and his favorite residence of Prague. As he looked upon the city for the last time he cried out : " May the vengeance of God overtake thee, and my curse light on thee and all Bohemia ! " In less than a year, January 20, 161 2, he died. Matthias was elected Emperor of Germany as a matter of course. The House of Hapsburg was now the strongest German power which represented the Church of Rome, and the Catholic majority in the diet secured to it the imperial dignity then and thenceforward. The Protestants, however, voted also for Matthias, for the reason that he had already shown a tolerant policy toward their brethren in Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia. His first meas- ures, as emperor, justified this view of his character. He held a diet at Ratisbon for the purpose of settling the existing differences between the two, but nothing was accomplished. The Protestants, finding that they would be outvoted, withdrew in a body and thus broke up the diet. Matthias next endeavored to dissolve both the " Union " and the " League," in which he was only partially suc- cessful. At the same time his rule in Hungary was menaced by a revolt of the Transylvanian chief, Bethlen Gabor, who was assisted by the Turks. He grew weary of his task, and was easily persuaded by the other princes of his house to adopt his nephew, Duke Fer- dinand of Styria, as his successor, in the year 161 7, having no children of his own. 268 GERMANY 1617*1619 Ferdinand, who had been carefully educated by the Jesuits for the part which he was afterward to play, and whose violent suppression of the Protestant faith in Styria made him acceptable to all the German Catholics, was a man of great energy and force of character. He was stern, bigoted, cruel, yet shrewd, cunning, and apparently conciliatory when he found it necessary to be so, resembling in both respects his predecessor, Charles V. of Spain. In return for being chosen by the Bohemians to succeed Matthias as king, he confirmed them in the religious freedom which they had extorted from Rudolf II., and then joined the emperor in an expe- dition to Hungary, leaving Bohemia to be governed in the interim by a council of ten, seven Catholics and three Protestants. The first thing that happened was the destruction of two or three Protestant churches by Catholic bishops. The Bohemian Protestants appealed immediately to the Emperor Matthias and to their royal charter; they received no satisfaction, but only threats. Thereupon they rose in Prague, stormed the council hall, seized two of the councilors and their secretary and hurled them out of the windows. Although the three men fell a distance of some seventy feet, not one was very seriously injured; they all easily made their escape. It seemed at the time as though a miracle had happened; but it appears that they fell on a soft dungheap. This event happened on May 23, 1618, and after such long chron- icles of violence and slaughter the deed seemed of slight importance. In reality, it was one of the most important and irrevocable acts in German history ; it was the signal for the beginning of the terrible Thirty Years' War. Although the Protestants had only three councilors out of ten, they were largely in the majority in Bohemia. They knew what retaliation the outbreak in Prague would bring upon them, and anticipated it by making the revolution general. They chose Count Thum as their leader, overturned the imperial government, banished the Jesuits from the country, and entered into relations with the Protestant nobles of Austria and the insurgent chief Bethlen Gabor in Hungary. The Emperor Matthias was willing to compromise the difficulty, but Ferdinand, stimulated by the Jesuits, declared for war. He sent two small armies into Bohemia, with a proclamation calling upon the people to submit. The Prot- estants of the north were at last aroused from their lethargy. Count Mansfeld marched with a force of 4000 men to aid the THIRTY YEARS' WAR 269 1619 Bohemians, and 30CX) more came from Silesia; the imperial army was defeated and driven back to the Danube. At this juncture the Emperor Matthias died, on May 20, 16 19. Ferdinand lost not a day in taking the power into his own hands. But Austria threatened revolution, Hungary had made common cause with Bohemia, Count Thurn was marching on Vienna, and he was without an army to support his claims. Count Thurn, however, instead of attacking Vienna, encamped outside the walls and began to negotiate. Ferdinand, hard pressed by the demands of the Austrian Protestants, was on the very point of yielding in fact, a member of a deputation of noblemen had seized him by the coat when trumpets were heard, and a body of 500 cavalry, which had reached the city without being intercepted by the besiegers, appeared before the palace. This enabled him to defend the city, until the defeat of Count Mansfeld by another portion of his army which had entered Bohemia compelled Count Thurn to raise the siege. Then Ferdinand hastened to Frank- fort to look after his election as emperor by the diet, which met on August 28, 1 6 19. It seems surprising that now, knowing his character and de- signs, the three electors who were Protestants should have voted 270 GERMANY 1619-1621 for him. It has been charged, but without any clear evidence, that they were bribed; it is possible that Ferdinand misled them by promises of peace and justice; but it is also very likely that they imagined their own sovereignty depended on sustaining every tra- dition of the empire. The people, of course, had not yet acquired any rights which a prince felt himself called upon to respect. Ferdinand was elected and properly crowned in the cathedral at Frankfort as Ferdinand II. The Bohemians, who were entitled to one of the seven electoral votes in the diet, claimed that the election was not binding upon them, and chose Frederick V. of the Palatinate as their king, in the hope that the Protestant " Union " would rally to their support. It was a fatal choice and a false hope. When Maximilian of Bavaria, at the head of the Catholic " League," took the field for the emperor, the " Union " weakly withdrew. Frederick V. went to Bohemia, was crowned, and idled his time away in fantastic diversions for one winter, while Ferdinand was calling Spain to attack the Palatinate of the Rhine, and borrowing Cossacks from Poland to put down his Protestant subjects in Austria. The emperor assured the Protestant princes that the war should be confined to Bohemia, and one of them, the Elector John George of Saxony, a Lutheran, openly went over to his side in order to defeat Frederick V., a Calvinist. The Bohemians fell back to the walls of Prague before the armies of the emperor and Bavaria, and there, on the White Mountain, a battle of an hour's duration, in November, 1620, decided the fate of the country. The turbulent Bohemian nobles were scattered in all directions; Frederick V. left Prague never to return; and Spanish, Italian, and Hungarian troops occupied the country. Ferdinand II. acted as might have been expected from his despotic and bigoted nature. The 8000 Cossacks which he had borrowed from his brother-in-law. King Sigismund of Poland, had already closed all Protestant churches and suppressed freedom of worship in Austria ; he now applied the same measures to Bohemia, but in a more violent and bloody form. Twenty-seven of the chief Protestant nobles were beheaded at Prague in one day ; thousands of families were stripped of all their property and banished; the Protestant churches were given to the Catholics, the Jesuits took possession of the university and the schools, until finally, as a his- torian says, " the quiet of a sepulcher settled over Bohemia." The Protestant faith was practically obliterated from all the Austrian THIRTY YEARS' WAR 211 1621-1622 realm with the exception of a few scattered congregations in Hun- gary and Transylvania. Thus was the will of one man allowed to destroy the work of a hundred years, to crush both the faith and freedom of a prosperous people, and to plunder them of their best earnings and make them ignorant slaves for two centuries more. The property which was seized by Ferdinand H. in Bohemia alone was estimated at forty millions of florins! And the strength of Germany, which was Protestant, looked on and saw all this happen ! Only the common people of Austria arose against the tyrant, and gallantly struggled for months, at first under the command of a farmer named Stephen Fadinger, and, when he was slain in the moment of victory, under an unknown young hero, who had no other name than " the Student." The latter defeated the Bavarian army, resisted the famous Austrian general, Pappenheim, in many battles, and at last fell, after most of his followers had fallen, with- out leaving his name to history. The fate of Austria from that day to this was now sealed. Both parties the Catholics, headed by Ferdinand H., and the Protestants, without any head next turned to the Palatinate of the Rhine, where a Spanish army, sent from Flanders, was wasting and plundering in the name of the emperor. Count Ernest of Mansfeld and Prince Christian of Brunswick, who had supported Frederick V. in Bohemia, endeavored to save at least the Palatinate for him. They were dashing and eccentric young generals, whose personal reputation attracted all sorts of wild and lawless characters to take service under them. Mansfeld, who had been originally a Catholic, was partly supported by contributions from England and Holland, but he also took what he could get from the country through which he marched. Christian of Brunswick was a fantastic prince who tried to imitate the knights of the Middle Ages, He was a great admirer of the Countess Elizabeth of the Palatinate (sister of Charles I. of England), and always wore her glove on his helmet. In order to obtain money for his troops he plundered the bishoprics in Westphalia and forced the cities and villages to pay him heavy contributions. When he entered the cathedral at Paderborn and saw the silver statues of the Apostles around the altar, he cried out : " What are you doing here ? You were ordered to go forth into the world, but wait a bit I'll send you ! " So he had them melted and coined into dollars, upon which the words were stamped : " Friend of God, foe of the priests ! " He after- 272 GERMANY 1622-1623 ward gave himself that name; but the soldiers generally called him " Mad Christian." Against these two Ferdinand II. send Maximilian of Bavaria and General Tilly. The latter, already famous both for his mili- tary talent and his inhumanity, had been educated by the Jesuits for a priest, but was now in the Bavarian service. He was a small, lean man, with a face almost comical in its ugliness. His nose was like a parrot's beak, his forehead seamed with deep wrinkles, his eyes sunk in their sockets, and his cheek-bones projecting. He usually wore a dress of green satin, with a cocked hat and long red feather, and rode a small, mean-looking gray horse. Early in 1622 the imperial army under Tilly was defeated, or at least checked, by the united forces of Mansfeld and Prince Chris- tian. But in May of the same year the forces of the latter, with those of George Frederick of Baden, were almost cut to pieces by Tilly, at Wimpfen. They retreated into Alsace, where they burned and plundered at will, while Tilly pursued the same course on the eastern side of the Rhine. He took and destroyed the cities of Mannheim and Heidelberg, closed the Protestant churches, banished the clergymen and teachers, and supplied their places with Jesuits. The invaluable library of Heidelberg was sent to Pope Gregory XV. at Rome, and remained there until 181 5, when a part of it came back to the university by way of Paris. Frederick V., who had fled from the country, entered into nego- tiations with the emperor in the hope of retaining the Palatinate. He dissolved his connection with Mansfeld and Prince Christian, who thereupon offered their services to the emperor on condition that he would pay their soldiers! Receiving no answer, they marched through Lorraine and Flanders, laying waste the country as they went, and finally took refuge in Holland. Frederick V.'s humiliation was of no avail ; none of the Protestant princes sup- ported his claim. The emperor gave his land, with the electoral dignity, to Maximilian of Bavaria, and this act, although a direct violation of the laws which the German princes held as sacred, was acquiesced in by them at a diet held at Ratisbon in 1623. John George of Saxony, who saw clearly that it was a fatal blow aimed both at the Protestants and at the rights of the reigning princes, was persuaded to be silent by the promise of having Lusatia added to Saxony. By this time Germany was in a worse condition than she had THIRTY YEARS' WAR 73 1623-162S known for centuries. The power of the Jesuits, represented by Ferdinand II., his councilors and generals, was supreme almost everywhere; the Protestant princes vied with each other in mean- ness, selfishness, and cowardice ; the people were slaughtered, robbed, driven hither and thither by both parties : there seemed to be neither faith nor justice left in the land. The other Protestant nations England, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden looked on with dismay, and even Cardinal Richelieu, who was then practically the ruler of France, was willing to see Ferdinand II.'s power crippled, though the Protestants should gain thereby. England and Holland assisted Mansfeld and Prince Christian with money, and the latter organ- ized new armies, with which they ravaged Friesland and Westphalia. Prince Christian was on his way to Bohemia in order to unite with the Hungarian chief, Bethlen Gabor, when, on August 6, 1623, he met Tilly at a place called Stadtlohn, near Miinster, and after a murderous battle which lasted three days was utterly de- feated. About the same time Mansfeld, needing further support, went to England, where he was received with great honor. Ferdinand II. had in the meantime concluded a peace with Bethlen Gabor, and his authority was firmly established over Aus- tria and Bohemia. Tilly with his Bavarians was victorious in Westphalia; all armed opposition to the emperor's rule was at an end, yet instead of declaring peace established and restoring the former order of the empire, his agents continued their work of sup- pressing religious freedom and civil rights in all the states which had been overrun by the Catholic armies. The whole empire was threatened with the fate of Austria. Then, at last, in 1625, Bruns- wick, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Hamburg, Lubeck, and Bremen formed a union for mutual defense, choosing as their leader King Christian IV. of Denmark, the same monarch who had broken down the power of the Hanseatic League in the Baltic and North seas. Although a Protestant, he was no friend to the north Ger- man states, but he energetically united with them in the hope of being able to enlarge his kingdom at their expense. Christian IV. lost no time in making arrangements with Eng- land and Holland which enabled both Mansfeld and Prince Chris- tion of Brunswick to raise new forces, with which they returned to Germany. Tilly, in order to intercept them, entered the territory of the states which had united, and thus gave Christian IV. a pre- text for declaring war. The latter marched down from Denmark fT4 GERMANY 1625 at once, but found no earnest union among the states, and only 7000 men collected. He soon succeeded, however, in bringing to- gether a force much larger than that commanded by Tilly, and was only hindered in his plan of immediate action by a fall from his horse, which crippled him for six weeks. The city of Hamelin was taken, and Tilly compelled to fall back behind the River Weser, but no other important movements took place during the year 1625. Ferdinand II. was already growing jealous of the increasing power of Bavaria, and determined that the Catholic and imperial cause should not be intrusted to Tilly alone. But he had little money, his own military force had been wasted by the wars in Bohemia, Austria, and Hungary, and there was no other commander of sufficient renown to attract men to his standard. Yet it was necessary that Tilly should be reinforced as soon as possible, or his scheme of crushing the whole of Germany, and laying it, as a fet- tered slave, at the feet of the Catholic Church, might fail, and at the very moment when success seemed sure. In this emergency a new man presented himself. Albert of Waldstein, better known under his historical name of Wallenstein, was bom at Prague in 1 583. He was the son of a poor Protestant nobleman. As a youth he was violent and unruly, until a fall from the third story of a house effected a sudden change in his nature. He became brooding and taciturn, gave up his Protestant faith, and was educated by the Jesuits at Olmiitz. He traveled in Spain, France, and the Netherlands, fought in Italy against Venice, and in Hungary against Bethlen Gabor and the Turks, and rose to the rank of colonel. He married an old and rich widow, and after her death increased his wealth by a second marriage, so that when the Protestants were expelled from Bohemia he was able to purchase some sixty of their confiscated estates at greatly depreciated prices. Adding these to that of Friedland, which he had received from the emperor in return for military services, he possessed a small princi- pality, lived in great splendor, and paid and equipped his own troops. He was first made Count, and then Duke, of Friedland, with the authority of an independent prince of the empire. Wallenstein was superstitious, and his studies in astrology gave him the belief that a much higher destiny awaited him. Here was the opportunity. He offered to raise and command a second army in the emperor's service. Ferdinand II. accepted the offer with joy, and sent word to Wallenstein that he should immediately pro- THIRTY YEARS' WAR 275 1625-1627 ceed to enlist 20,000 men. " My army," the latter answered, " must live by what it can take : 20,000 men are not enough. I must have 50,000, and then I can demand what I want ! " Wallenstein was tall and meager in person. His forehead was high but narrow, his hair black and cut very short, his eyes small, dark, and fiery, and his complexion yellow. His voice was harsh and disagreeable, he never smiled, and spoke only when it was necessary. He usually dressed in scarlet, with a leather jerkin, and wore a long red feather on his hat. There was something cold, mistrustful, and mysterious in his appearance, yet he possessed un- bounded power over his soldiers, whom he governed with severity and rewarded splendidly. There are few more interesting person- ages in German history. Before the end of the year 1625, and within three months after Ferdinand H. had commissioned Wallenstein to raise an army, the new commander marched into Saxony at the head of 30,000 men. No important operations were undertaken dur- ing the winter. Christian IV. and Mansfeld had their separate quarters on the east side of the Elbe, Tilly and Wallenstein on the west side, and the four armies devoured the substance of the lands where they were encamped. In April, 1626, Mansfeld marched lagainst Wallenstein, to prevent him from uniting with Tilly. The [two armies met at the bridge of the Elbe, at Dessau, and fought [desperately. Mansfeld was defeated, driven into Brandenburg, land then took his way through Silesia toward Hungary, with the [intention of forming an alliance with Bethlen Gabon Wallenstein Ifollowed and compelled Gabor to make peace with the emperor. [Mansfeld disbanded his troops and set out for Venice, where he rmeant to embark for England. But he was already worn out by Ithe hardships of his campaigns, and died on the way, in Dalmatia, |in November, 1626, forty-five years of age. A few months after- iward Prince Christian of Brunswick also died, and the Protestant |cause was left without any native German leader. During the same year the cause received a second and severer )low. On August 26 Christian IV. and Tilly fought a bloody and decisive battle at Lutter, a little town on the northern edge of the Harz Mountains. Christian's army was cut to pieces, and he himself barely escaped with his life. There seemed now to be no further hope for the Protestants. Christian IV. retreated to Holstein, the Elector of Brandenburg gave up his connection with ne GERMANY 127-129 the Union of the Saxon states, the dukes of Mecklenburg were powerless, and Maurice of Hesse was compelled by the emperor to abdicate. New measures in Bohemia and Austria foreshadowed the probable fate of Germany: the remaining Protestants in those two countries, including a large majority of the Austrian nobles, were made Catholics by force. In the summer of 1627 Wallenstein again marched northward with an army reorganized and recruited to 40,ocx) men. John George of Saxony, who tried to maintain a selfish and cowardly neutrality, now saw his land overrun, and himself at the mercy of the conqueror. Brandenburg was subjected to the same fate, the two Mecklenburg duchies were seized as the booty of the empire, and Wallenstein, marching on without opposition, plundered and wasted Holstein, Jutland, and Pomerania. In 1628 the emperor bestowed Mecklenburg upon him. He g^ve himself -the title of "Admiral of the Baltic and the Ocean," and drew up a plan for creating a navy out of the vessels of the Hanseatic League, and conquering Holland for the House of Hapsburg. After this should have been accomplished, his next project was to form an alliance with Poland against Denmark and Sweden, the only remaining Protestant powers. While the rich and powerful cities of Hamburg and Lubeck surrendered at his approach, the little Hanseatic town of Stralsund closed its gates against him. The citizens took a solemn oath to defend their religious faith and their political independence to the last drop of their blood. Wallenstein exclaimed: "And if Stral- sund were bound to heaven with chains, I would tear it down I '* and marched against the place. At the first assault he lost 1000 men ; at the second, 2cxx) ; and then the citizens, in turn, made sallies, and inflicted still heavier losses upon him. They were soon rein- forced by 2000 Swedes, and then Wallenstein was forced to raise the siege, after having lost, altogether, 12,000 of his best troops. At this time the Danes appeared with a fleet of two hundred vessels, and took possession of the port of Wolgast, in Mecklenburg. In spite of this temporary reverse, Ferdinand II. considered that his absolute power was established over all Germany. After consulting with the Catholic electors (one of whom, now, was Max- imilian of Bavaria), he issued, on March 6, 1629, an "Edict of Restitution," ordering that all the former territory of the Catho- lic Church which had become Protestant should be restored to THIRTY YEARS' WAR 77 1629-1630 Catholic hands. This required that two archbishoprics, twelve bishoprics, and a great number of monasteries and churches which had ceased to exist nearly a century before, should be again estab- lished ; and then, on the principle that the religion of the ruler should be that of the people, that the Protestant faith should be suppressed in all such territory. The armies were kept in the field to enforce this edict, which was instantly carried into effect in southern Ger- many, and in the most violent and barbarous manner. The estates of 6000 noblemen in Franconia, Wiirtemberg, and Baden were con- fiscated; even the property of reigning princes was seized; but, instead of passing into the hands of the church, much of it was bestowed upon the emperor's family and his followers. The arch- bishoprics of Bremen and Magdeburg were given to his son Leo- pold, a boy of fifteen. Wallenstein, while equally despotic, was much more arrogant and reckless than Ferdinand II. He openly declared that reigning princes and a national diet were no longer necessary in Germany; the emperor must be an absolute ruler, like the kings of France and Spain. At the same time he was carrying out his own political plans without much reference to the imperial authority. Both Catholics and Protestants united in calling for a diet. Ferdinand II. at first refused, but there were such signs of hostility on the part of Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and even France, that he was forced to yield. The diet met on June 5, 1630, at Ratisbon, and Maximilian of Bavaria headed the universal demand for Wallen- stein's removal. The Protestants gave testimony of the merciless system of plunder by which he had ruined their lands ; the Catholics complained of the more than imperial splendors of his court, upon which he squandered uncounted millions of stolen money. He trav- eled with one hundred carriages and more than one thousand horses, kept fifteen cooks for his table, and was waited upon by sixteen pages of noble blood. Jealousy of this pomp and state, and fear of Wal- lenstein's ambitious designs, and not the latter's fiendish inhumanity, induced Ferdinand II. to submit to the entreaties of the diet and remove him. The imperial messengers who were sent to his camp with the order of dismissal approached him in great dread and anxiety, and scarcely dared to mention their business. Wallenstein pointed to a sheet covered with astrological characters and quietly told them that he had known everything in advance ; that the emperor had been 278 GERMANY 1630 misled by the Elector of Bavaria ; but, nevertheless, the order would be obeyed. He entertained them at a magnificent banquet, loaded them with gifts, and then sent them away. With rage and hate in his heart, but with all the external show and splendor of an inde- pendent sovereign, he retired to Prague, well knowing that the day was not far ofif when his services would be again needed. Tilly was appointed commander-in-chief of the imperial armies. At the very moment, however, when Wallenstein was dismissed and his forces divided among several inferior generals, the leader whom the German Protestants could not furnish came to them from abroad. On July 4, 1630, Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, landed on the coast of Pomerania with an army of 16,000 men. As he stepped upon the shore he knelt in the sight of all the soldiers and prayed that God would befriend him. Some of his staff could not restrain their tears; whereupon he said to them: "Weep not, friends, but pray, for prayer is half the victory! " Gustavus Adolphus, who had succeeded to the throne in 161 1 at the age of seventeen, was already distinguished as a military com- mander. He had defeated the Russians in Livonia and banished them from the Baltic; he had fought for three years with King Sigismund of Poland, and taken from him the ports of Elbing, Pillau, and Memel, and he was now burning with zeal to defend the falling Protestant cause in Germany. Cardinal Richelieu, in France, helped him to the opportunity by persuading Sigismund to accept an armistice, and by furnishing Sweden with the means of carrying on a war against Ferdinand H. The latter had assisted Poland, so that a pretext was not wanting ; but when Gustavus laid his plans before his council in Stockholm, a majority of the members advised him to wait for a new cause of offense. Nevertheless, he insisted on immediate action. The representatives of the four orders of the people were convoked in the senate house, where he appeared before them with his little daughter, Christina, in his arms, asked them to swear fealty to her, and then bade them a solemn farewell. All burst into tears when he said : " Perhaps for- ever," but nothing could shake his resolution to undertake the great work. Gustavus Adolphus was at this time thirty-six years old. He was so tall and powerfully built that he almost seemed a giant ; his face was remarkably frank and cheerful in expression, his hair light, his eyes large and gray, and his nose aquiline. Personally, he was THIRTY YEARS' WAR 79 1630-1631 a Striking contrast to the little, haggard and wrinkled Tilly and the dark, silent, and gloomy Wallenstein. Ferdinand II. laughed when he heard of his landing, called him the " Snow King," and said that he would melt away after one winter ; but the common people, who loved and trusted him as soon as they saw him, named him the " Lion of the North." He was no less a statesman than a soldier, and his accomplishments were unusual in a ruler of those days. He was a generous patron of the arts and sciences, spoke four languages with ease and elegance, was learned in theology, a ready orator and best of all he was honest, devout, and conscientious in all his ways. The best blood of the Goths, from whom he was descended, beat in his veins, and the Germans, therefore, could not look upon him as a foreigner ; to them he was a countryman as well as a deliverer. The Protestant princes, however, although in the utmost peril and humiliated to the dust, refused to unite with him. If their course had been cowardly and selfish before, it now became simply infamous. The Duke of Pomerania shut the gates of Stettin upon the Swedish army, until compelled by threats to open them; the electors of Brandenburg and Saxony held themselves aloof, and Gustavus found himself obliged to respect their neutrality, lest they should go over to the emperor's side! Out of all Protestant Ger- many there came to him a few petty princes whose lands had been seized by the Catholics, and who could only offer their swords. His own troops, however, had been seasoned in many battles ; their dis- cipline was perfect, and when the German people found that the slightest act of plunder or violence was severely punished, they were welcomed wherever they marched. Moving slowly, and with as much wisdom as caution, Gustavus relieved Pomerania from the imperial troops by the end of the year. He then took Frankfort-on-the-Oder by storm, and forced the Elec- tor of Brandenburg to give him the use of Spandau as a fortress until he should have relieved Magdeburg, the only German city which had forcibly resisted the " Edict of Restitution," and was now besieged by Tilly and Pappenheim. As the city was hard pressed, Gustavus demanded of John George, Elector of Saxony, permission to march through his territory. It was refused ! Mag- deburg was defended by 2300 soldiers and 5000 armed citizens against an army of 30,000 men for more than a month; then, on May 10, 163 1, it was taken by storm and given up to the barbarous fury of Tilly and his troops. The city sank in blood and fSO GERMANY 1631 ashes: 30,000 of the inhabitants perished by the sword, or in the flames, or crushed under falHng walls, or drowned in the waters of the Elbe. Only 4000, who had taken refuge in the cathedral, were spared. Tilly wrote to the emperor : " Since the fall of Troy and Jerusalem, such a victory has never been seen ; and I am sincerely sorry that the ladies of your imperial family could not have been present as spectators ! " Gustavus Adolphus has been blamed, especially by the admirers and defenders of the Houses of Brandenburg and Saxony, for not having saved Magdeburg. This he might have done had he disre- garded the neutrality asserted by John George; but he had been bitterly disappointed at his reception by the Protestant princes, he could not trust them, and was not strong enough to fight Tilly with possible enemies in his rear. In fact, George William of Branden- burg immediately ordered him to give up Spandau and leave his territory. Then Gustavus did what he should have done at first: he planted his cannon before Berlin and threatened to lay the city in ashes. This brought George William to his senses; he agreed that his fortresses should be used by the Swedes, and contributed thirty thousand dollars a month toward the expenses of the war. So many recruits flocked to the Swedish standard that both Meck- lenburgs were soon cleared of the imperial troops, the banished dukes restored, and an attack by Tilly upon the fortified camp of Gustavus was repulsed with heavy losses. Landgrave William of Hesse-Cassel was the first Protestant prince who voluntarily allied himself with the Swedish king. He was shortly followed by the unwilling but helpless John George of Saxony, whose territory was invaded and wasted by Tilly's army. Ferdinand H. had given this order, meaning that the elector should at least support his troops. Tilly took possession of Halle, Naum- burg, and other cities, plundered and levied heavy contributions, and at last entered Leipzig, after bombarding it for four days. Then John George united his troops with those of Gustavus Adol- phus, who now commanded an army of 35,000 men. Tilly and Pappenheim had an equal force to oppose him. After a good deal of cautious maneuvering, the two armies stood face to face at Breitenfeld, a few miles north of Leipzig, on September 7, 1 63 1. The Swedes were without armor, and Gustavus dis- tributed musketeers among the cavalry and pikemen. Baner, one of his generals, commanded his right, and Marshal Horn his GENERAL TILLY ENTERS THE BURNING MAGDEBURG AFTER IT HAD BEEN GIVEN OVER TO PILLAGE BY HIS VICTORIOUS ARMY Painting by E. Klein THIRTY YEARS' WAR 281 1631-1632 left, where the Saxons were stationed. The army of Tilly was drawn up in a long line, and the troops wore heavy cuirasses and helmets. Pappenheim commanded the left, opposite Gustavus, while Tilly undertook to engage the Saxons. The battle-cry of the Prot- estants was " God with us ! " that of the Catholics " Jesus Maria ! " Gustavus, wearing a white hat and green feather, and mounted on a white horse, rode up and down the lines, encouraging his men. The Saxons gave way before Tilly, and began to fly ; but the Swedes, after repelling seven charges of Pappenheim's cavalry, broke the enemy's right wing, captured the cannon, and turned them against Tilly. The imperial army, thrown into confusion, fled in disorder, pursued by the Swedes, who cut them down until night put an end to the slaughter, Tilly, severely wounded, narrowly escaped death, and reached Halle with only a few hundred men. This splendid victory restored the hopes of the Protestants everywhere. Duke Bernard of Saxe- Weimar had joined Gustavus before the battle. In his zeal for the cause, his honesty and bravery, he resembled the king, whose chief reliance, as a military leader, he soon became. John George of Saxony consented, though with evi- dent reluctance, to march into Bohemia, where the crushed Protes- tants were longing for help, while the Swedish army advanced through central Germany to the Rhine. Tilly gathered together the scattered imperial forces left in the north, followed, and vainly endeavored to check Gustavus. The latter took Wiirzburg, de- feated I7,cxx) men under Charles of Lorraine, who had crossed the Rhine to oppose him, and entered Frankfort in triumph. Here he fixed his winter quarters, and allowed his faithful Swedish troops the rest which they so much needed. Gustavus proclaimed everywhere religious freedom, not retalia- tion for the barbarities inflicted on the Protestants. He soon made himself respected by his enemies, and his influence spread so rapidly that the idea of becoming emperor of Germany was a natural con- sequence of his success. His wife. Queen Eleanor, having joined him, he held a splendid court at Frankfort, and required the German princes whom he had subjected to acknowledge themselves his depen- dents. The winter of 163 1- 1632 was given up to diplomacy rather than war. Richelieu began to be jealous of the increasing power of the Swedish king, and entered into secret negotiations with Maximilian of Bavaria. The latter also corresponded with Gus- tavus Adolphus, who by this time had secured the neutrality of the 282 GERMANY 1632 States along the Rhine, and the support of a large majority of the population of the Palatinate, Baden, and W^iirtemberg. In the eariy spring of 1632, satisfied that no arrangement with Maximilian was possible, Gustavus reorganized his army and set out for Bavaria. The city of Nuremberg received him with the wildest rejoicing: then he advanced upon Donauworth, drove out Maximilian's troops and restored Protestant worship in the churches. Tilly meanwhile had added Maximilian's army to his own, and taken up a strong position on the eastern bank of the River Lech, between Augsburg and the Danube. Gustavus marched against him, cannonaded his position for three days from the opposite bank, and had partly crossed under cover of the smoke before his plan was discovered. On April 15 Tilly was mortally wounded, and his army fled in the greatest confusion. He died a few days afterward, at Ingolstadt, seventy-three years old. The city of Augsburg opened its gates to the conqueror and acknowledged his authority. Then, after attacking Ingolstadt with- out success, Gustavus marched upon Munich, which was unable to resist, but was spared, on condition of paying a heavy contribution. The Bavarians had buried a number of cannon under the floor of the arsenal, and news thereof came to the king's ears. " Let the dead arise ! " he ordered ; and 140 pieces were dug up, one of which contained 30,000 ducats. Maximilian, whose land was completely overrun by the Swedes, would gladly have made peace, but Gustavus plainly told him that he was not to be trusted. While the Protestant cause was so brilliantly victorious in the south, John George of Saxony, who had taken possession of Prague without the least trouble, remained inactive in Bohemia during the winter and spring, apparently as jealous of Gustavus as he was afraid of Ferdinand II. The emperor had long before ceased to laugh at the " Snow King." He was in the greatest strait of his life. He knew that his trampled Austrians would rise at the approach of the Swedish army, and then the Catholic cause would be lost. Before this he had appealed to Wallenstein, who was holding a splendid court at Znaim, in Moravia; but the latter refused, knowing that he could exact better terms for his support by waiting a little longer. The danger, in fact, increased so rapidly that Ferdinand II. was finally compelled to subscribe to an agreement which practically made Wal- lenstein the lord and himself the subject. He gave the duchies of Mecklenburg to Wallenstein, and promised him one of the Hapsburg THIRTY YEARS' WAR 8S 1632 States in Austria ; he gave him the entire disposal of all the territory he should conquer, and agreed to pay the expenses of his army. Moreover, all appointments were left to Wallenstein, and the em- peror pledged himself that neither he nor his son should ever visit the generalissimo's camp. Having thus become absolute master of his movements, Wal- lenstein oflfered a high rate of payment and boundless chances of plunder to all who might enlist under him, and in two or three months stood at the head of an army of 40,000 men, many of whom were demoralized Protestants. He took possession of Prague, which John George vacated at his approach, and then waited quietly until Maximilian should be forced by necessity to give him also the command of the Bavarian forces. This soon came to pass, and then Wallenstein, with 80,000 men, marched against Gustavus Adolphus, who fell back upon Nuremberg, which he surrounded with a forti- fied camp. Instead of attacking him, Wallenstein took possession of the height of Zirndorf, in the neighborhood of the city, and strongly entrenched himself. Here the two commanders lay for nine weeks, watching each other, until Gustavus, whose force amounted to about 35,000, grew impatient of the delay and troubled by the want of supplies. He attacked Wallenstein's camp, but was repulsed with a loss of 2000 men ; then, after waiting two weeks longer, he marched out of Nuremberg, with the intention of invading Bavaria. Maximilian followed him with the Bavarian troops, and Wallenstein, whose army had been greatly diminished by disease and desertion, moved into Franconia. Then, wheeling suddenly, he crossed the Thurin- gian Mountains into Saxony, burning and pillaging as he went, took Leipzig, and threatened Dresden. John George, who was utterly unprepared for such a movement, again called upon Gustavus for help, and the latter, leaving Bavaria, hastened to Saxony by forced marches. On October 27 he reached Erfurt, where he took leave of his wife, with a presentiment that he should never see her again. As he passed on through Weimar to Naumburg, the country people flocked to see him, falling on their knees, kissing his garments, and expressing such other signs of faith and veneration that he ex- claimed : " I pray that the wrath of the Almighty may not be visited upon me on account of this idolatry toward a weak and sinful mortal ! " Wallenstein's force being considerably larger than his 5884 GERMANY 163S own, he halted in Naumburg to await the former's movements. As the season was so far advanced, Wallenstein finally decided to send Pappenheim with 10,000 men into Westphalia, and then go into winter quarters. As soon as Gustavus heard of Pappenheim's de- parture he marched to the attack, and the battle began on the morn- ing of November 16, 1632, at Liitzen, between Naumburg and Leipzig. On both sides the troops had been arranged with great military skill. Wallenstein had 25,000 men and Gustavus 20,000. The latter made a stirring address to his Swedes, and then the whole army united in singing Luther's grand hymn : " Our Lord, He is a Tower of Strength." For several hours the battle raged furiously, without any marked advantage on either side ; then the Swedes broke Wallenstein's left wing and captured the artillery. The imperialists rallied and retook it, throwing the Swedes into some confusion. Gustavus rode forward to rally them and was carried by his horse among the enemy. A shot, fired at close quarters, shattered his left arm, but he refused to leave the field, and shortly afterward a sec- ond shot struck him from his horse. The sight of the steed, covered with blood and wildly galloping to and fro, told the Swedes what had happened ; but instead of being disheartened they fought more furiously than before, under the command of Duke Bernard of Saxe- Weimar. At this juncture Pappenheim, who had been summoned from Halle the day before, arrived on the field. His first impetuous charge drove the Swedes back, but he also fell, mortally wounded, his cavalry began to waver, and the lost ground was regained. Night put an end to the conflict, and before morning Wallenstein retreated to Leipzig, leaving all his artillery and colors on the field. The body of Gustavus Adolphus was found after a long search, buried under a heap of dead, stripped, mutilated by the hoofs of horses, and barely recognizable. The loss to the Protestant cause seemed irreparable, but the heroic king, in falling, had so crippled the power of its most dangerous enemy that its remaining adherents had a little breathing-time left them to arrange for carrying on the struggle. Wallenstein was so weakened that he did not even remain in Saxony, but retired to Bohemia. The Protestant princes felt them- selves powerless without the aid of Sweden, and when the chancellor of the kingdom, Oxenstierna, decided to carry on the war, they could THIRTY YEARS' WAR 86 1632-1633 not do otherwise than accept him as the head of the Protestant Union, in the place of Gustavus Adolphus. A meeting was held at Heilbronn, in the spring of 1633, at which the Suabian, Franconian, and Rhenish princes formally joined the new league. Duke Ber- nard of Saxe-Weimar and the Swedish Marshal Horn were ap- pointed commanders of the army. Electoral Saxony and Branden- burg, as before, hesitated and half drew back, but they finally con- sented to favor the movement without joining it, and each accepted 100,000 thalers a year from France, to pay them for the trouble. Richelieu had an ambassador at Heilbronn, who promised large subsidies to the Protestant side : it was in the interest of France to break the power of the Hapsburgs, and there was also a chance, in the struggle, of gaining another slice of German territory. Hostilities were renewed, and for a considerable time the Protestant armies were successful everywhere. William of Hesse and Duke George of Brunswick defeated the imperialists and held Westphalia. Duke Bernard took Bamberg and moved against Bavaria. Saxony and Silesia were delivered from the enemy, and Marshal Horn took possession of Alsatia. Duke Bernard and Horn were only prevented from overrunning all Bavaria by a mutiny which broke out in their armies, and deprived them of several weeks of valuable time. While these movements were going on Wallenstein remained idle at Prague, in spite of the repeated and pressing entreaties of the emperor that he would take the field. He seems to have considered his personal power secured, and was only in doubt as to the next step which he should take in his ambitious career. Finally, in May, he marched into Silesia, easily out-generaled Arnheim, who commanded the Protestant armies, but declined to follow up his advantage, and concluded an armistice. Secret negotiations then began between Wallenstein, Arnheim, and the French ambassador. The project was that Wallenstein should come over to the Protestant side in return for the crown of Bohemia. Louis XHI. of France promised his aid, but Chancellor Oxenstierna, distrusting Wallenstein, refused to be a party to the plan. There is no positive evidence, indeed, that Wallenstein consented ; it rather seems that he was only court- ing offers from the Protestant side in order to have a choice of advantages, but without binding himself in any way. Ferdinand H., in his desperation, summoned a Spanish army from Italy to his aid. This was a new offense to Wallenstein, since 286 GERMANY 16S3-1634 the new troops were not placed under his command, as they should have been in accordance with the stipulation he had exacted from the emperor upon taking up the command a second time. In the autumn of 1633, however, he felt obliged to make some movement. He entered Silesia, defeated a Protestant army under Count Thum, overran the greater part of Saxony and Brandenburg, and threat- ened Pomerania. In the meantime the Spanish and Austrian troops in Bavaria had been forced to fall back, Duke Bernard had taken Ratisbon, and the road to Vienna was open to him. Ferdinand II. and Maximilian of Bavaria sent messenger after messenger to Wal- lenstein, imploring him to return from the north without delay. He moved with the greatest slowness, evidently enjoying their anxiety and alarm, crossed the northern frontier of- Bavaria, and then, in- stead of marching against Duke Bernard, he turned about and took up his winter quarters at Pilsen, in Bohemia. Here he received an order from the emperor, commanding him to march instantly against Ratisbon, and further, to send 6000 of his best cavalry to the Spanish army. This step compelled him, after a year's hesitation, to act without further delay. He was already charged, at Vienna, with being a traitor to the imperial cause : he now decided to become one, in reality. He first confided his design to his brothers-in-law. Counts Kinsky and Terzky, and to one of his generals, Illo. Then a council of war of all the chief officers of his army was called on January 11, 1634. Wallenstein stated what Ferdinand II. had ordered, and in a cunning speech commented on the latter's ingratitude to the army which had saved him, and ended by declaring that he should instantly resign his com- mand. The officers were thunderstruck. They had boundless faith in Wallenstein's military genius, and they saw themselves deprived of glory, pay, and plunder by his resignation. He skillfully made use of their excitement. At a g^and banquet the next day forty- two of the officers, which included the great majority of them, signed a document pledging their entire fidelity to Wallenstein. General Piccolomini, one of the signers, betrayed all this to the emperor, who, twelve days afterward, appointed General Gallas, another of the signers, commander in Wallenstein's stead. At the same time a secret order was issued for the seizure of Wallenstein, Illo, and Terzky, dead or alive. Both sides were now secretly working against each other, but Wallenstein's former delay told against him. He could not go over to the Protestant side unless THIRTY YEARS' WAR 287 1634 certain important conditions were secured in advance, and while his agents were negotiating with Duke Bernard, his own army, privately worked upon by Gallas and other agents of the emperor, began to desert him. What arrangement was made with Duke Bernard is uncertain; the chief evidence is that he and Wallenstein with the the few thousand troops who still stood by him moved rapidly toward each other, as if to join their forces. On February 24, 1634, Wallenstein reached the town of Eger, near the Bohemian frontier. Only two or three more days were required to consummate his plan of uniting with the Protestant Swedes under Bernard. Then Colonel Butler, an Irishman, and two Scotch officers, Gordon and Leslie, conspired to murder him and his associates no doubt in consequence of instructions received from Vienna. Illo, Terzky, and Kinsky accepted an invitation to a banquet in the citadel the following evening; but Wallenstein, who was unwell, remained in his quarters in the burgomaster's house. Everything had been carefully prepared in advance. At a given signal Gordon and Leslie put out the lights, dragoons en- tered the banquet hall, and the three victims were murdered in cold blood. Then a Captain Devereux, with six soldiers, forced his way into the burgomaster's house, on pretense of bearing im- portant dispatches, cut down Wallenstein's servant, and entered the room where he lay. Wallenstein, seeing that his hour had come, made no resistance, but silently received his death-blow. When Duke Bernard arrived, a day or two afterward, he found Eger defended by the imperialists. Ferdinand IL shed tears when he heard of Wallenstein's death, and ordered 3000 masses to be said for his soul; but at the same time he raised the assassins, Butler and Leslie, to the rank of counts, and rewarded them splen- didly for the deed. Wallenstein's immense estates were divided among the officers who had sworn to support him and had then secretly gone over to the emperor. Chapter XXVIII END OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 1634-1648 THE Austrian army, composed chiefly of Wallenstein's troops and commanded nominally by the emperor's son, the Archduke Ferdinand, but really by General Gallas, marched upon Ratisbon and forced the Swedish garrison to sur- render before Duke Bernard, hastening back from Eger, could reach the place. Then, uniting with the Spanish and Bavarian forces, the archduke took Donauworth and began the siege of the fortified town of Nordlingen, in Wiirtemberg. Duke Bernard effected a junction with Marshal Horn, and with his usual daring determined to attack the imperialists at once. Horn endeavored to dissuade him, but in vain; the battle was fought on Septem- ber 6, 1634, and the Protestants were terribly defeated, losing 12,000 men, besides 6000 prisoners, and nearly all their artillery and baggage wagons. Marshal Horn was among the prisoners, and Duke Bernard barely succeeded in escaping with a few followers. The result of this defeat was that Wurtemberg and the Palat- inate were again ravaged by Catholic armies. Oxenstierna, who was consulting with the Protestant princes in Frankfort, suddenly found himself nearly deserted; only Hesse-Cassel, Wurtemberg, and Baden remained on his side. In this crisis he turned to France, which agreed to assist the Swedes against the emperor, in return for more territory in Lorraine and Alsatia. For the first time Richelieu found it advisable to give up his policy of aiding the Protestants with money, and now openly supported them with French troops. John George of Saxony, who had driven the im- perialists from his land and invaded Bohemia, cunningly took ad- vantage of the emperor's new danger, and made a separate treaty with him, at Prague, in May, 1635. The emperor gave up the " Edict of Restitution " so far as Saxony was concerned, confirmed the elector in the possession of Lusatia, and made a few other ccwi- cessions, none of which favored the Protestants in other lands. 888 END OF THIRTY YEARS' WAR 289 1635-1637 Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Brunswick, Anhalt, and many free cities followed the example of Saxony. The most important, and apparently for the Swedes and south German Protestants most fatal provision of the treaty was that all the states which accepted it should combine to raise an army to enforce it, the said army to be placed at the emperor's disposal. The effect of this was to create a union of the Catholics and German Lutherans against the Swedish Lutherans and German Calvinists a measure which gave Germany many more years of fire and blood. Duke Bernard of Saxe- Weimar and the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel scorned to be parties to such a compact. The Swedes and south Germans were outraged and indignant. John George was openly denounced as a traitor, as, on the Catholic side, the emperor was also denounced, because he had agreed to yield anything whatever to the Protestants. France, only, enjoyed the miseries of the situation. Ferdinand IL was evidently weary of the war, which had now lasted nearly a score of years, and he made an effort to terminate it by offering to Sweden three and a half millions of florins and to Duke Bernard a principality in Franconia, provided they would accept the Treaty of Prague. Both refused. Bernard took com- mand of 12,000 French troops and marched into Alsatia, while the Swedish General Baner defeated the Saxons, who had taken the field against him, in three successive battles. The imperialists, who had meanwhile retaken Alsatia and invaded France, were recalled to Germany by Baner's victories, and Duke Bernard, at the same time, went to Paris to procure additional support. During the years 1636 and 1637 nearly all Germany was wasted by the op- posing armies ; the struggle had become fiercer and more barbarous than ever, and the last resources of many states were so exhausted that famine and disease carried off nearly all of the population whom the sword had spared. Duke Bernard made an agreement with Louis XIII. whereby he received the rank of Marshal of France, and a subsidy of four million livres a year, to pay for a force of 18,000 men, which he undertook to raise in Germany. After the death of Gustavus Adol- phus the hope of the Protestants was centered on him; soldiers flocked to his standard at once, and his fortunes suddenly changed. He entered Alsatia, routed the imperialists, took their commander prisoner, and soon gained possession of all the territory with the exception of the fortress of Breisach, to which he laid siege. 290 GERMANY 1637-1639 On February 15, 1637, the Emperor Ferdinand II. died, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, after having occasioned, by his poHcy, the death of ten milHons of human beings. Yet the responsibiHty of his fatal and terrible reign rests not so much upon himself, personally, as upon the Jesuits, who educated him. He appears to have believed sincerely that it was better to reign over a desert than over a Protestant people. As a man he was cour- ageous, patient, simple in his tastes, and without personal vices. But all the weaknesses and crimes of his worst predecessors added to- gether were scarcely a greater curse to the German people than his devotion to what he considered the true faith. His son, Ferdinand III., was immediately elected to succeed him. The Protestants con- sidered him less subject to the Jesuits and more kindly disposed toward themselves, but they were mistaken; he adopted all the measures of his father, and carried on the war with equal zeal. More than one army was sent to the relief of Breisach, but Duke Bernard defeated them all, and in December, 1638, the strong fortress surrendered to him. His compact with France stipulated that he should possess the greater part of Alsatia as his own inde- pendent principality, after conquering it, relinquishing to France the northern portion, bordering on Lorraine. But now Louis XIII. demanded Breisach, making its surrender to him the condition of further assistance. Bernard refused, gave up the French subsidy, and determined to carry on the war alone. His popularity was so great that his chance of success seemed good ; he was a brave, devout, and noble-minded man, whose strong personal ambition was always controlled by his conscience. The people had entire faith in him, and showed him the same reverence which they had manifested toward Gustavus Adolphus; yet their hope, as before, only pre- ceded their loss. In the midst of his preparations Duke Bernard died suddenly, on July 18, 1639, only thirty-six years old. It was generally believed that he had been poisoned by a secret agent of France, but there is no evidence that this was the case, except that a French army instantly marched into Alsatia and held tlie country. Duke Bernard's successes, nevertheless, had drawn a part of the imperialists from northern Germany, and in 1638 Baner, having recruited his army, marched through Brandenburg and Saxony into the heart of Bohemia, burning and plundering as he went with no less barbarity than Tilly or Wallenstein. Although END OF THIRTY YEARS' WAR 291 1639-1645 repulsed in 1639, near Prague, by the Archduke Leopold (Fer- dinand III.'s brother), he only retired as far as Thuringia, where he was again strengthened by Hessian and French troops. In this condition of affairs Ferdinand III. called a diet, which met at Ratis- bon in the autumn of 1640. A majority of the Protestant members united with the Catholics in their enmity to Sweden and France, but they seemed incapable of taking any measures to put an end to the dreadful war. Month after month went by and nothing was done. Then Baner conceived the bold design of capturing the em- peror and the diet. He made a winter march with such skill and swiftness that he appeared before the walls of Ratisbon at the same moment with the first news of his movement. Nothing but a sudden thaw and the breaking up of the ice in the Danube pre- vented him from being successful. In May, 1641, he died, his army broke up, and the emperor began to recover some of the lost ground. Several of the Protestant princes showed signs of submission, and ambassadors from Austria, France, and Sweden met at Hamburg to decide where and how a peace congress might be held. In 1642 the Swedish army was reorganized under the command of Torstenson, one of the greatest of the many distinguished gen- erals of the time. Although he was a constant sufferer from gout and had to be carried in a litter, he was no less rapid than daring and successful in all his military operations. His first campaign was through Silesia and Bohemia, almost to the gates of Vienna; then, returning through Saxony, toward the close of the year he almost annihilated the army of Piccolomini before the walls of Leipzig, The Elector John George, fighting on the Catholic side, was forced to take refuge in Bohemia. Denmark having declared war against Sweden, Torstenson made a campaign in Holstein and Jutland in 1643, in conjunction with a Swedish fleet on the coast, and soon brought Denmark to terms. The imperialist general, Gallas, followed him, but was easily defeated, and then Torstenson, in turn, followed him back through Bohemia into Austria. In March, 1645, the Swedish army won such a splendid victory near Tabor that Ferdinand III. had scarcely any troops left to oppose their march. Again Torstenson appeared before Vienna, and was about commencing the siege of the city when a pestilence broke out among his troops and compelled him to retire, as before, through Saxony. Worn out with the fatigues 299 GERMANY 1645-1648 of his marches, he died before the end of the year, and the command was given to General Wrangel. During this time the French, under the famous marshals, Turenne and Conde, had not only maintained themselves in Alsatia, but had crossed the Rhine and ravaged Baden, the Palatinate, Wurtemberg, and part of Franconia. Although badly defeated by the Bavarians in the early part of 1645, they were reinforced by the Swedes and Hessians, and before the close of the year won such a victory over the united imperialist forces, not far from Donauworth, that all Bavaria lay open to them. The effect of these French suc- cesses, and of those of the Swedes under Torstenson, was to de- prive Ferdinand III. of nearly his whole military strength. The chief obstacle to peace the power of the Hapsburgs now seemed to be broken down. The wanton and tremendous effort made to crush out Protestantism in Germany, although helped by the selfishness, the cowardice, or the miserable jealousy of so many Protestant princes, had signally failed, owing to the inter- vention of three foreign powers, one of which was Catholic. Yet the peace congress which had been agreed upon in 1643 had ac- complished nothing. It was divided into two bodies: the ambas- sadors of the emperor were to negotiate at Osnabriick with Sweden, as the representative of the Protestant powers, and at Miinster with France, as the representative of the Catholic powers which desired peace. Two more years elapsed before all the ambassadors came together, and then a great deal of time was spent in arranging questions of rank, title, and ceremony, which seem to have been considered much more important than the weal or woe of a whole people. Spain, Holland, Venice, Poland, and Denmark also sent representatives, and about the end of 1645 the congress was suffi- ciently organized to commence its labors. But as the war was still being waged with as much fury as ever, one side waited and then the other for the result of battles and campaigns ; and so two more years were squandered. After the armistice with Maximilian of Bavaria the Swedish general, Wrangel, marched into Bohemia, where he gained so many advantages that Maximilian finally took sides again with the em- peror and drove the Swedes into northern Germany. Then, early in 1648, Wrangel effected a junction with Marshal Turenne, and the combined Swedish and French armies overran all Bavaria, defeated the imperialists in a bloody battle, and stood ready to END OF THIRTY YEARS' WAR 293 1648 invade Austria. At the same time Konigsmark, with another Swedish army, entered Bohemia, stormed and took half the city of Prague, and only waited the approach of Wrangel and Turenne to join them in a combined movement upon Vienna. But before this movement could be executed Ferdinand III. had decided to yield. His ambassadors at Osnabriick and Munster had received instructions, and lost no time in acting upon them. The proclama- tion of peace, after such heartless delays, came suddenly and put an end to thirty years of war. The Peace of Westphalia, as it is called, was concluded on October 24, 1648. Inasmuch as its provisions extended not to Germany alone, but fixed the political relations of Europe for a period of nearly a hundred and fifty years, they must be briefly stated. France and Sweden, as the military powers which were victorious in the end, sought to draw the greatest advantages from the necessities of Germany, but France opposed any settle- ment of the religious questions (in order to keep a chance open for future interference), and Sweden demanded an immediate and final settlement, which was agreed to. France received Lorraine, with the cities of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, which she had held nearly a hundred years, all southern Alsatia with the fortress of Breisach, the right of appointing the governors of ten German cities, and other rights which practically placed nearly the whole of Alsatia in her power. Sweden received the western half of Pomerania, with the cities of Wismar and Stettin, and the coast between Bremen and Hamburg, together with an indemnity of five million thalers. Electoral Saxony received Lusatia and part of the territory of Magdeburg. Brandenburg received the other half of Pomerania, the archbishopric of Magdeburg, the bishoprics of Minden and Halberstadt, and other territory which had belonged to the Catholic Church. Additions were made to the domains of Mecklenburg, Brunswick, and Hesse-Cassel, and the latter was also awarded an indemmity of six hundred thousand thalers. Bavaria received the upper Palatinate (north of the Danube) and the title of elector. Baden, Wurtemberg, and Nassau were restored to their banished rulers. Other petty states were confirmed in the position which they had occupied before the war, and the independence of Switzerland and Holland was acknowledged. In regard to religion the results were much more important to the world. Both Calvinists and Lutherans received entire free- i94t GERMANY 1648 dom of worship and equal civil rights with the Catholics. Ferdinand II.'s " Edict of Restitution " was withdrawn, and the territories which had been secularized up to the year 1624 were not given back to the church. Universal amnesty was decreed for everything which had happened during the war, except for the Austrian Prot- estants, whose possessions were not restored to them. The em- peror retained the authority of deciding questions of war and peace, taxation, defenses, alliances, etc., with the concurrence of the diet. He acknowledged the absolute sovereignty of the several princes in their own states, and conceded to them the right of forming Vu --! alliances among themselves or with foreign powers. A special ar- ticle of the treaty prohibited all persons from writing, speaking, or teaching anything contrary to its provisions. The Pope (at that time Innocent X.) declared the Treaty of Westphalia null and void, and issued a bull against its observance. The parties to the treaty, however, did not allow this bull to be published in Germany. The Catholics in all parts of the country (except Austria, Styria, and the Tyrol) had suffered almost as severely as the Protestants, and would have welcomed the return of peace upon any terms which simply left their faith free. The Peace of 1648, from a religious point of view, yielded even more END OF THIRTY YEARS' WAR 296 1648 to the Protestants than the Religious Peace of Augsburg, granted by Charles V. in 1555. Thirty years of war! The slaughters of Rome's worst em- perors, the persecution of the Christians under Nero and Diocletian, the invasions of the Huns and Magyars, the long struggle of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, left no such desolation behind them. At the beginning of the century the population of the German Empire was about 30,000,000. When the Peace of Westphalia was declared it was scarcely more than 12,000,000! Electoral Saxony, alone, lost 900,000 lives in two years. The population of Augsburg had diminished from 80,000 to 18,000, and out of 500,000 inhabitants Wiirtemberg had but 48,000 left. The city of Berlin contained but 300 citizens, the whole of the Palatinate of the Rhine but 200 farmers. In Hesse-Cassel 17 cities, 47 castles, and 300 villages were entirely destroyed by fire. Thousands of villages, in all parts of the country, had but four or five families left out of hundreds, and landed property sank to about one-twentieth of its former value. Franconia was so depopulated that an assembly held in Nuremberg ordered the Catholic priests to marry, and permitted all other men to have two wives. The horses, cattle, and sheep were exterminated in many districts, the supplies of grain were at an end, even for sowing, and large cultivated tracts had relapsed into a wilderness. Even the orchards and vineyards had been wantonly destroyed wherever the armies had passed. So terrible was the ravage that in a great many localities the same amount of population, cattle, acres of cultivated land, and general prosperity was not restored until two centuries afterward! This settlement of the losses of Germany, however, was but a small part of the suffering endured. Only two commanders, Gus- tavus Adolphus and Duke Bernard of Saxe- Weimar, preserved rigid discipline among their troops, and prevented them from plun- dering the people. All others allowed, or were powerless to prevent, the most savage outrages. During the last ten or twelve years oi the war both Protestants and Catholics vied with each other in deeds of barbarity; the soldiers were nothing but highway robbers, who maimed and tortured the country people to make them give up their last remaining property, and drove hundreds of thousands of them into the woods and mountains to die miserably or live as half- savages. Multitudes of others flocked to the cities for refuge, only to be visited by fire and famine. In the year 1637, when Ferdinand 296 GERMANY 1648 II. died, the want was so great that men devoured each other, and even hunted down human beings Hke deer or hares, in order to feed upon them. Great numbers committed suicide, to avoid a slow death by hunger. On the island of Riigen many poor creatures were found dead, with their mouths full of grass, and in some districts attempts were made to knead earth into bread. Then fol- lowed a pestilence which carried off a large proportion of the sur- vivors. A writer of the time exclaims: "A thousand times ten thousand souls, the spirits of innocent children butchered in this unholy war, cry day and night unto God for vengeance, and cease not : while those who have caused all these miseries live in peace and freedom, and the shout of revelry and the voice of music are heard in their dwellings ! " In character, in intelligence, and in morality the German peo- ple were set back two hundred years. All branches of industry had declined, commerce had almost entirely ceased, literature and the arts were suppressed, and except the astronomical discoveries of Copernicus and Kepler there was no contribution to human knowl- edge. Even the modem High German language, which Luther had made the classic tongue of the land, seemed to be on the point of perishing. Spaniards and Italians on the Catholic, Swedes and French on the Protestant side, flooded the country with foreign words and expressions, the use of which soon became an affectation with the nobility, who did their best to destroy their native language. Wallenstein's letters to the emperor were a curious mixture of German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Latin. The nobles, who in former centuries had maintained a certain amount of independence, were almost as much demoralized as the people, and when every little prince began to imitate Louis XIV. and set up his own Versailles, the nobles in his territory became his courtiers and government officials. As for the mass of the peo- ple, their spirit was broken. For a time they gave up even the longing for rights which they had lost, and taught their children abject obedience in order that they might simply live. Politically, the change was no less disastrous. The ambition of the House of Hapsburg, it is true, had brought its own punish- ment; the imperial dignity was secured to it, but henceforth the head of the " Holy Roman Empire " was not much more than a shadow. Each petty state became, practically, an independent na- tion, with power to establish its own foreign relations, make war END OF THIRTY YEARS' WAR 297 1648 and contract alliances. After the Thirty Years' War Germany was composed of 9 electorates, 24 religious principalities (Catholic), 9 princely abbots, 10 princely abbesses, 24 princes with seat and vote in the diet, 13 princes without seat and vote, 62 counts of the empire, 51 cities of the empire, and about 1000 knights of the empire. These last, however, no longer possessed any political power. But, without them, there were 203 more or less independent, jealous, and conflicting states, united by a bond which was more imaginary than real. In reality the result of the war had been greatly to promote the transference of power from the head (em- peror) to the members (princes), a process which had been steadily going on since the fifteenth century. Each prince pursued his own selfish independent policy without thought for the good of the whole empire. Such decentralization also greatly weakened the empire, so that it could not hold its own in the rival struggle of European powers, and could not regain the proud position which it had held under Charles V. and in the Middle Ages. The empire be- came the joke of Europe. The most eminent lawyer of the age (Pufendorf) declared it to be "an irregular sort of a body, like a monster." Voltaire with much truth said that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. In fact, it continued to decay and decline in power until it met its deserved destruction at the hands of Napoleon. Chapter XXIX DECLINE OF IMPERIAL POWER. 1648-1701 THE Peace of Westphalia coincides with the beginning of great changes throughout Europe. The leading position on the continent which Germany had preserved from the Treaty of Verdun until the accession of Charles V. nearly seven hundred years was lost beyond recovery. It had passed into the hands of France, where Louis XIV. was just commencing his long and brilliant reign. Spain, after a hundred years of su- premacy, was in a rapid decline. The new republic of Holland was mistress of the seas, and Sweden was the great power of northern Europe. In England Charles I. had lost his throne, and Cromwell was at work laying the foundation of a broader and firmer power than either the Tudors or the Stuarts had ever built. Poland was still a large and strong kingdom, and Russia was only beginning to attract the notice of other nations. The Italian republics had seen their best days. Even the power of Venice was slowly crumbling to pieces. The coast of America, from Maine to Virginia, was dotted with little English, Dutch, and Swedish settlements, only a few of which had safely passed through their first struggle for existence. The history of Germany during the remainder of the seven- teenth century furnishes few events upon which the intelligent and patriotic German of to-day can look back with any satisfaction. Austria was the principal power, through her territory and popula- tion, as well as the imperial dignity, which was thenceforth ac- corded to her as a matter of habit. The provision of religious liberty had not been extended to her people, who were now forcibly made Catholic. The former legislative assemblies, even the priv- ileges of the nobles, had been suppressed, and the rule of the Haps- burgs was as absolute a despotism as that of Louis XIV. When Ferdinand III. died, in 1657, the " Great Monarch," as the French call Louis XIV., made an attempt to be elected his successor. He se- cured the votes of the archbishops of Mayence, Treves, and SO8 DECLINE OF IMPERIAL POWER 299 1657-1658 Cologne, and might have carried the day but for the determined resistance of the electors of Brandenburg and Saxony. Even had he been successful, it is doubtful whether his influence over most of the German princes would have been greater than it was in reality. Ferdinand's son, Leopold L, a stupid, weak-minded youth of eighteen, was chosen emperor in 1658. Like his ancestor, Frederick III,, whom he most resembled, his reign was as long as it was use- less. Until the year 1705 he was the imaginary ruler of an imag- inary empire. The Hapsburgs and the Bourbons being absolute, all the ruling princes, even the best of them, introduced the same system into their territories, and the participation of the other classes of the people in the government ceased. The cities followed this example, and their burgomasters and councilors became a sort of aristocracy, more or less arbitrary in character. The condition of the people, therefore, depended entirely on the princes, priests, or other officials who governed them. One state or city might be orderly and prosperous, while another was oppressed and checked in its growth. A few of the rulers were wise and humane. Ernest the Pious of Gotha was a father to his land during his long reign ; in Hesse, Brunswick, and Anhalt learning was encouraged, and Frederick William of Brandenburg set his face against the cor- rupting influences of France. These small states were exceptions, yet they kept alive what of hope and strength and character was left to Germany, and were the seeds of her regeneration in the nineteenth century. Throughout the greater part of the country the people relapsed into ignorance and brutality, and the higher classes assumed the stiff, formal, artificial manners which nearly all Europe borrowed from the court of Louis XIV. Public buildings, churches, and schools were allowed to stand as ruins, while the petty sovereign built his stately palace, laid out his park in the style of Versailles, and held his splendid and ridiculous festivals. Although Saxony had been impoverished and almost depopulated, the elector, John George II., squandered all the revenues of the land on banquets, hunting-parties, fireworks, and collections of curiosities, until his treasury was hopelessly bankrupt. Another prince made his Italian singing master prime minister, and others again surrendered their lives and the happiness of their people to influences which were still more disastrous. The one historical character among the German rulers of this 800 GERMANY 1656-1672 time is Frederick William of Brandenburg, who is generally called "The Great Elector." In bravery, energy, and administrative ability he was the first worthy successor of Frederick of Hohen- zoUern. No sooner had peace been declared than he set to work to restore order to his wasted and disturbed territory. He imitated Sweden in organizing a standing army, small at first, but admirably disciplined; he introduced a regfular system of taxation, of police, and of justice, and encouraged trade and industry in all possible ways. In a few years a war between Sweden and Poland gave him the opportunity of interfering, in the hope of obtaining the re- mainder of Pomerania. He first marched to Konigsberg, the capital of the duchy of Prussia, which belonged to Brandenburg, but was still under the sovereignty of Poland. Allying himself first with the Swedes, he helped win a great victory at Warsaw in July, 1656. He then found it to his advantage to go over to the side of John Casimir, King of Poland, and secured from him as a reward the complete independence of Prussia. He no longer had to pay homage to the King of Poland as his feudal overlord. This was his only gain from the war; for, by the peace in 1660, he was forced to give up western Pomerania, which he had in the mean- time conquered from Sweden. Louis XIV. of France was by this time aware that his king- dom had nothing to fear from any of its neighbors, and might easily be enlarged at their expense. In 1667 he began his wars of conquest by laying claim to Brabant, and instantly sending Turenne and Conde over the frontier. A number of fortresses, unprepared for resistance, fell into their hands. But Holland, England, and Sweden formed an alliance against France, and the war terminated in 1668 by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Louis' next step was to ally himself with England and Sweden against Holland, on the ground that a republic, by furnishing a place of refuge for political fugitives, was dangerous to monarchies. In 1672 he entered Hol- land with an army of 1 18,000 men, took Gelders, Utrecht, and other strongly fortified places, and would soon have made himself master of the country if its inhabitants had not shown themselves capable of the sublimest courage and self-sacrifice. They were victorious over France and England on the sea, and defended themselves stub- bornly on the land. Even the German Archbishop of Cologne and Bishop of Munster furnished troops to Louis XIV. and the Emperor Leopold promised to remain neutral. Then Frederick William of i i DECLINE OF IMPERIAL POWER 301 1672-1679 Brandenburg allied himself with Holland, and so wrought upon the emperor by representing the danger to Germany from the success of France that the latter sent an army under General Montecuccoli to the Rhine. But the Austrian troops remained inactive; Louis XIV. purchased the support of the archbishops of Mayence and Treves; Westphalia was invaded by the French, and in 1673 Fred- erick William was forced to sign a treaty of neutrality. About this time Holland was strengthened by the alliance of Spain, and the Emperor Leopold, alarmed at the continual invasions of German territory on the Upper Rhine, ordered Montecuccoli to make war in earnest. In 1674 the diet formally declared war against France, and Frederick William marched with 16,000 men to the Palatinate, which Marshal Turenne had ravaged with fire and sword. The French were driven back and even out of Alsatia for a time ; but they returned the following year, and were success- ful until the month of July, when Turenne found his death on the soil which he had turned into a desert. Before this happened Fred- erick William had been recalled in all haste to Brandenburg, where the Swedes, instigated by France, were wasting the land with a barbarity equal to Turenne's. His march was so swift that he found the enemy scattered. Dividing and driving them before him, on June 18, 1675, at Fehrbellin, with only 7000 men, he attacked the main Swedish army, numbering more than double that number. For three hours the battle raged with the greatest fury; Frederick William fought at the head of his troops, who more than once cut him out from the ranks of the enemy, and the result was a splendid victory. The fame of this achievement rang through all Europe, and Brandenburg was thenceforth mentioned with the respect due to an independent power. Frederick William continued the war for two years longer, gradually acquiring possession of all Swedish Pomerania, including Stettin and the other cities on the coast. He even built a small fleet, and undertook to dispute the supremacy of Sweden on the Baltic. During this time the war with France was continued on the Upper Rhine, with varying fortunes. Though repulsed and held in check after Turenne's death, the French burned five cities and several hundred villages west of the Rhine, and in 1677 cap- tured Freiburg, in Baden. But Louis XIV. began to be tired of the war, especially as Holland proved to be unconquerable. Negotia- tions for peace were commenced in 1678, and on February 5, 302 GERMANY 1679-1683 1679, the " Peace of Nymwegen " was concluded with Holland, Spain, and the German Empire, but not with Brandenburg! Frederick William at first determined to carry on the war alone, but the French had already laid waste Westphalia, and in 1679 he was forced to accept a peace which required that he should restore nearly the whole of Pomerania to Sweden. Austria, moreover, took possession of several small principalities in Silesia which had fallen to Brandenburg by inheritance. Thus did the Hapsburgs repay the support which the Hohenzollems had faithfully rendered to them for four hundred years. Thenceforth the two houses were enemies, and they were soon to become irreconcilable rivals. Leo- pold I. again betrayed Germany in the Peace of Nymwegen by yielding the city and fortress of Freiburg to France. Louis XIV., nevertheless, was not content with this acquisition. He determined to possess the remaining cities of Alsatia which belonged to Germany. The Catholic Bishop of Strassburg was his secret agent, and three of the magistrates of the city were bribed to assist. In the autumn of 1681, when nearly all the merchants were absent, attending the fair at Frankfort, a powerful French army, which had been secretly collected in Lorraine, suddenly ap- peared before Strassburg. Between force outside and treachery within the walls, the city surrendered. On October 23, Louis XIV. made his triumphant entry, and was hailed by the bishop with the words : " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation ! " The great cathedral, which had long been in the possession of the Protestants, was g^ven up to this bishop, all Protestant functionaries were de- prived of their offices, and the clergymen driven from the city. French names were given to the streets, and the inhabitants were commanded, under heavy penalties, to lay aside their German costume and adopt the fashions of France. No official claim or declaration of war preceded this robbery, but the effect which it produced throughout Germany was comparatively slight. The peo- ple had been long accustomed to violence and outrage, and the des- potic independence of each state suppressed anything like a national sentiment. Leopold I. called upon the princes of the empire to declare war against France, but met with little support. Frederick William positively refused, as he had been shamefully excepted from the Peace of Nymwegen. He gave as a reason, however, the great I I DECLINE OF IMPERIAL POWER 303 1683-1687 danger which menaced Germany from a new, Turkish invasion, and offered to send an army to the support of Austria. The emperor, equally stubborn and jealous, declined this offer, although his own dominions were on the verge of ruin. The Turks had remained quiet during the whole of the Thirty Years' War, when they might easily have conquered Austria. In the early part of Leopold's reign they recommenced their invasions, which were terminated, in 1664, by a truce of twenty years. Before the period came to an end the Hungarians, driven to desperation by Leopold's misrule, especially his persecution of the Protestants, rose in rebellion. The Turks came to an understanding with them, and early in 1683 an army of more than 200,000 men, commanded by the Grand Vizier Kara Mustapha, marched up the Danube, carry- ing everything before it, and encamped around the walls of Vienna. There is good evidence that the sultan, Mohammed IV., was strongly encouraged by Louis XIV. to make this movement. Leo- pold fled at the approach of the Turks, leaving his capital to its fate. For two months Count Stahremberg, with only 7000 armed citizens and 6000 mercenary soldiers under his command, held the fortifications against the overwhelming force of the enemy; then, when further resistance was becoming hopeless, help suddenly ap- peared. An army commanded by Duke Charles of Lorraine, an- other under the Elector of Saxony, and a third, composed of 20,000 Poles, headed by their king, John Sobieski, reached Vienna about the same time. The decisive battle was fought on September 12, 1683, ^^^ ended with the total defeat of the Turks, who fled in wild disorder back into Hungary, leaving their camp, treas- ures, and supplies to the value of ten million dollars in the hands of the conquerors. The deliverance of Vienna was due chiefly to John Sobieski, yet, when Leopold I. returned to the city which he had deserted, he treated the Polish king with coldness and haughtiness, never once thanking him for his generous aid. The war was continued in the interest of Austria by Charles of Lorraine and Max Emanuel of Bavaria, until 1687, when a great victory at Mohacs in Hungary forced the Turks to retreat beyond the Danube. Then Leopold I. took brutal vengeance on the Hungarians, executing so many of their nobles that the event is called " the Shambles of Eperies," from the town where it occurred. The Jesuits were allowed to put down Protestantism in their own way ; the power and national pride 804 GERMANY 1687-1699 of Hungary were trampled under foot, and a diet held at Presburg declared that the crown of the country should thenceforth belong to the House of Hapsburg. In spite of the defeat of the Turks in 1687, they were en- couraged by France to continue the war. Max Emanuel took Bel- g^de in 1688, the Margrave Ludwig of Baden won an important victory, and Prince Eugene of Savoy (a grand-nephew of Cardinal Mazarin, whom Louis XIV. called, in derision, the " little Abbe " and to whom he refused a military command) especially distin- guished himself as a soldier. After ten years of varying fortune the war was brought to an end by the magnificent victory of Prince Eugene at Zenta, in 1697. It was followed by the Treaty of Carlo- witz, in 1699, in which Turkey gave up Transylvania and the Slavonic provinces to Austria, Morea and Dalmatia to Venice, and agreed to a truce of twenty-five years. While the best strength of Germany was engaged in this Turk- ish war, Louis XIV. was busy in carrying out his plans of conquest. He claimed the Palatinate of the Rhine for his brother, the Duke of Orleans, and also attempted to make one of his agents Archbishop of Cologne. In 1686 an alliance was formed between Leopold I., several of the German states, Holland, Spain, and Sweden, to defend themselves against the aggressions of France ; but nothing was ac- complished by the negotiations which followed. Finally, in 1688, two powerful French armies suddenly appeared upon the Rhine: one took possession of the territory of Treves and Cologne, the other marched through the Palatinate into Franconia and Wiirtem- berg. But the demands of Louis XIV. were not acceded to. The preparation for war was so general on the part of the allied coun- tries that it was evident his conquests could not be held; so he determined, at least, to ruin the territory before giving it up. No more wanton and barbarous deed was ever perpetrated. The " Great Monarch," the model of elegance and refinement for all Europe, was guilty of brutality beyond what is recorded of the most savage chieftains. The vines were pulled up by the roots and destroyed ; the fruit trees were cut down, the villages burned to the ground, and 400,000 persons were made beggars, while many more were slain in cold blood. The castle of Heidelberg, one of' the most splendid monuments of the Middle Ages in all Europe, was blown up with gunpowder ; the people of Mannheim were compelled to pull down their own fortifications, after which their city was burned; a Q W * B6 Ci, DECLINE OF IMPERIAL POWER 305 1688-1697 Speyer, with its grand and venerable cathedral, was razed to the ground, and the bodies of the emperors buried there were exhumed and plundered. While this was going on the German princes, with a few exceptions (the "Great Elector" being the prominent one), were copying the fashions of the French court, and even trying to unlearn their native language ! Frederick William of Brandenburg, however, was spared the knowledge of the worst features of this outrage. He died the same year, after a reign of forty-eight years, at the age of sixty- eight. The latter years of his reign were devoted to the internal development of his state. He united the Oder and Elbe by a canal, built roads and bridges, encouraged agriculture and the mechanic arts, and set a personal example of industry and intelligence to his people while he governed them. His possessions were divided and scattered, reaching from Konigsberg to the Rhine, but, taken col- lectively, they were larger than any other German state at the time, except Austria. None of the smaller German rulers before him took such a prominent part in the intercourse with foreign nations. He was thoroughly German in his jealousy of foreign rule; but this did not prevent him from helping to confirm Louis XIV. in his robbery of Strasburg, out of revenge for his own treatment by Leopold I. When personal pride or personal interest was con- cerned the Hohenzollerns were hardly more patriotic than the Haps- burgs. The German Empire raised an army of about 60,000 men to carry on the war with France; but its best commanders, Max Emanuel and Prince Eugene, were fighting the Turks, and the first campaigns were not successful. The other allied powers, Holland, England, and Spain, were equally unfortunate, while France, com- pact and consolidated under one despotic head, easily held out against them. In 1693, finally, the Margrave Ludwig of Baden obtained some victories in southern Germany which forced the French to retreat beyond the Rhine. The seat of war was then gradually transferred to Flanders, and the task of conducting it fell upon the foreign allies. At the same time there were battles in Spain and Savoy, and sea fights in the British Channel. Although the for- tunes of Germany were influenced by these events, they belong prop- erly to the history of other countries. Victory inclined sometimes to one side and sometimes to the other ; the military operations were so extensive that there could be no single decisive battle. a06 GERMANY 1697-1701 All parties became more or less weary and exhausted, and the end of it all was the Treaty of Ryswick, concluded on Septem- ber 20, 1697. By its provisions France retained Strasburg and the greater part of Alsatia, but gave up Freiburg and her other conquests east of the Rhine in Baden. Lorraine was restored to its duke, but on conditions which made it practically a French province. The most shameful clause of the treaty was one which ordered that the districts which had been made Catholic by force during the invasion were to remain so. While Germany was thus a prey to external forces, a number of the reigning families in Europe became extinct, and, by a strange whim of fate, bequeathed their thrones to German princes. This circumstance, however, far from proving beneficial to the Grerman Empire, greatly contributed to estrange her native princes and to render their hereditary provinces dependent upon their new possessions. The House of Oldenburg had long reigned in Denmark and directed its policy against the empire. Schleswig and Holstein were, as provinces subordinate to Denmark, governed by a prince of this house in the Danish interest. In Sweden the Palatine dynasty, raised (1654) to the throne, also pursued an anti-German system for the aggrandizement of the north. The House of Orange was no sooner seated (1688) on the throne of England than the interests of Germany were sacrificed to those of Great Britain. Frederick Augustus, brother to John George IV., elector of Saxony, traveled over the half of Europe during his youth. A giant in size and strength, he took delight in the dangers and pleasures pursued by the French gallants of that period. After escaping all the dangers with which he was threatened by jealous Southerns, he returned to Saxony, where (1694) he succeeded his brother on the electoral throne. Louis XIV. was his model, and, aided by his favorite, Fleming, on whom he had bestowed the title of count, he began to subvert Saxony. The extravagance of his predecessor was economy when compared with his. His household was placed upon an immense footing: palaces, churches, retreats (as, for instance, Moritzburg, the Saxon Versailles, notorious for its wanton fetes) were erected ; the most costly chef-d'amvres were purchased with tons of gold ; the " green vaults," a collection of use- less treasures, was swelled with fresh valuables and curiosities of every description. And for all this his little territory paid. Not I DECLINE OF IMPERIAL POWER 307 1679-1701 a murmur escaped the people until the elector, instead of raising his numerous army as v.sual from volunteers, levied recruits by force, and a revolt ensued (1696). The rebellion was quelled, and the recruits were forced by the infliction of torture to swear fealty to the colors. The ensuing year found the elector at the summit of his am- bition. He was elected, by means of bribing the waiwodes and gaining Russia and the emperor of Germany over to his interests, King of Poland. Russia was at that period under the rule of Peter the Great, who raised her power to a height destined at a future period to endanger Europe. Sweden was at that time Russia's most formidable opponent, and Peter, with the view of paralyzing the influence of that monarchy over Poland, favored the elevation of the Elector of Saxony. The emperor was won over by the recantation of the new sovereign. The reception of the successor of John Frederick, the sturdy opponent to Catholicism, into the bosom of the ancient church was indeed a triumph. He also gained over the Jesuits by favoring their establishment in Poland. The elevation of the House of Saxony, on the other hand, deprived it of its station as the head of the Protestant princes and of all the advantages it had thereby gained since the Reformation, and Brandenburg became henceforward the champion of Protestantism and the first Protestant power in Germany. The frustration of the schemes of Louis XIV. upon Poland and the ignominious retreat of the Prince of Conti, the French competitor for that throne, after the expulsion of his fleet under Jean Bart from the harbor of Dantzic, were the sole advantages gained on this occasion by Germany. Augustus was (1697) elected King of Poland. Still, notwithstanding his knee being kissed in token of homage by the whole of the Polish nobility, and the mag- nificence of his state (his royal robes alone cost a million dollars), he was compelled to swear to some extremely humiliating terms, and to refrain from bringing his consort, who steadily refused to embrace the Catholic faith, into the country. The privileges of the Poles were secured; Saxony was taxed to meet the expenses in- curred by her sovereign and was compelled to furnish Poland with money and troops. The national German diet from this time on was no longer at- tended by the emperor and ruling princes, but only by their official representatives. It was held permanently in Ratisbon, and its mem- 808 GERMANY 1701 bers spent their time mostly in absurd quarrels about forms. When any important question arose messengers were sent to the rulers to ask their advice, and so much time was always lost that the diet was practically useless. The imperial court established by Maximilian I. was now permanently located at Wetzlar, not far from Frankfort, and had become as slow and superannuated as the diet. The em- peror, in fact, had so little concern with the rest of the empire that his title was only honorary ; the revenues it brought him were about 13,000 florins annually. The only change which took place in the political organization of Germany was that in 1692 Ernest Augustus of Hanover (the father of George I. of England) was raised to the dignity of elector, which increased the whole number of electors, temporal and spiritual, to nine. During the latter half of the seventeenth century learning, liter- ature, and the arts received little encouragement in Germany. At the petty courts there was more French spoken than German, and the few authors of the period with the exception of Spener, Francke, and other devout religious writers produced scarcely any works of value. The philosopher Leibnitz stands alone as the one distinguished intellectual man of his age. The upper classes were too French and too demoralized to assist in the better development of Germany, and the lower classes were still too poor, oppressed, and spiritless to think of helping themselves. Only in a few states, chief among them Brunswick, Hesse, Saxe-Gotha, and Saxe-Weimar, were the courts on a moderate scale, the government tolerably hon- est, and the people prosperous. PART IV RISE AND GROWTH OF PRUSSIA. 1701-1806 Chapter XXX THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION. 1701-1714 THE beginning of the new century brought with it new trou- bles for all Europe, Germany included. In the north Charles XII. of Sweden and Peter the Great of Russia were fighting for " the balance of power." In Spain King Charles II. was responsible for a new cause of war, simply because he was the last of the Hapsburgs in a direct line, and had no children! Louis XIV. had married his elder sister and Leopold I. his younger sister, and both claimed the right to succeed him. The former, it is true, had renounced all claim to the throne of Spain when he married, but he put forth his grandson, Duke Philip of Anjou, as the candidate. There were two parties at the court of Madrid the French, at the head of which was Louis XIV.'s ambassador, and the Austrian, directed by Charles II.'s mother and wife. The other nations of Europe were opposed to any division of Spain between the rival claimants, since the possession of even half her territory (which still included Naples, Sicily, Milan, and Flanders, besides her enormous colonies in America) would have made either France or Austria too powerful. Charles II., however, was persuaded to make a will appointing Philip of Anjou his successor, and when he died, in 1700, Louis XIV. immediately sent his grandson over the Pyre- nees and had him proclaimed as King Philip V. of Spain. Leopold I. thereupon declared war against France in the hope of gaining the crown of Spain for his son, the Archduke Charles. England and Holland made alliances with him, and he was sup- ported by most of the German states. The elector, Frederick III. of Brandenburg (son of "the Great Elector"), who was a very proud and ostentatious prince, furnished his assistance on condition that he should be authorized by the emperor to assume the title of king. Since the traditional customs of the German Empire did not permit another king than that of Bohemia among the electors, Frederick was obliged to take the name of his detached duchy of Prussia, instead of Brandenburg. On January 18, 1701, he Sll 312 GERMANY 1701-1703 crowned himself and his wife at Konigsberg, and was thenceforth called King Frederick I. of Prussia. But his capital was still Ber- lin, and thus the names of " Prussia " and " the Prussians " which came from a small tribe of mixed Slavonic blood were gradually transferred to all his other lands and their population, German, and especially Saxon, in character. Prince Eugene of Savoy saw the future with a prophetic glance when he declared : " The emperor, in his own interest, ought to have hanged the ministers who counseled him to make this concession to the Elector of Brandenburg! " The Elector Max Emanuel of Bavaria and his brother, the Archbishop of Cologne, openly espoused the cause of France. Sev- eral smaller princes were also bribed by Louis XIV., but one of them, the Duke of Brunswick, after raising 12,000 men for France, was compelled by the Elector of Hanover to add them to the German army. With such miserable disunion at home, Germany would have gone to pieces and ceased to exist but for the powerful partici- pation of England and Holland in the war. The English Parlia- ment, it is true, granted only 10,000 men at first, but as soon as Louis XIV. recognized the exiled Stuart, Prince James, as the rightful heir to the throne of England, the grant was enlarged to 40,000 soldiers and an equal number of sailors. The value of this aid was greatly increased by the military genius of the English commander, the famous Duke of Marlborough. The war was commenced by Louis XIV., who suddenly took possession of a number of fortified places in Flanders, which Max Emanuel of Bavaria, then governor of the province, had purposely left unguarded. While the recovery of this territory was left tp England and Holland, Prince Eugene undertook to drive the French out of northern Italy. He made a march across the Alps as daring as that of Napoleon, transporting cannon and supplies by paths only known to the chamois hunters. For nearly a year he was entirely successful ; then, having been recalled to Vienna, the French were reinforced and recovered their lost ground. An important result of the campaign, however, was that Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy (ancestor of the present King of Italy), quarreled with the French, with whom he had been allied, and joined the German side. The struggle now became more and more confused, and we cannot undertake to follow all its entangled episodes. France en- couraged a rebellion in Hungary; the Archbishop of Cologne laid waste the Lower Rhine ; Max Emanuel seized Ulm and held it for SPANISH SUCCESSION S13 1703-1706 France; Marshal Villars, in 1703, pressed back Ludwig of Baden (who had up to that time been successful in the Palatinate and Alsatia), marched through the Black Forest and effected a junction with the Bavarian army. His plan was to cross the Alps and descend into Italy in the rear of the German forces which Prince Eugene had left there ; but the Tyrolese rose against him and fought with such desperation that he was obliged to fall back on Bavaria. Marshal Villars and Max Emanuel now commanded a com- bined army of 60,000 men in the very heart of Germany. They had defeated the Austrian commander, and Ludwig of Baden's army was too small to take the field against them. But the Duke of Marlborough had been brilliantly victorious in the Spanish Neth- erlands and on the Lower Rhine, and he was thus able to march on toward the Danube. Prince Eugene hastened from Hungary with such troops as he could collect, and the two, with Ludwig of Baden, were strong enough to engage the French and Bavarians. They met on August 13, 1704, on the plain of the Danube, near the little village of Blenheim. After a long and furious battle the French left 14,000 men upon the field, lost 13,000 prisoners, and fled toward the Rhine in such haste that scarcely one-third of their army reached the river. Marlborough and Eugene were made princes of the German Empire, and all Europe rang with songs celebrating the victory, in which Marlborough's name appeared as " Malbrook." His proposal to follow up the victory with an inva- sion of France was rejected by the emperor, and the war, which might then have been pressed to a termination, continued for ten years longer. In 1705 Leopold I. relieved Germany, by his death, of the dead weight of his incapacity. He was succeeded by his son, Joseph I., who possessed, at least, a little ordinary common sense. He mani- fested it at once by making Prince Eugene his counselor, instead of surrounding him with spies, as his jealous and spiteful father had done. Both sides were preparing for new movements, and the principal event of the year took place in Spain, where the archduke, who had been conveyed to Barcelona by an English fleet, obtained possession of Catalonia and Aragon, and threatened Philip V. with the loss of his crown. The previous year, 1704, the English had taken Gibraltar. In 1706 operations were recommenced on a larger scale, and with results which were very disastrous to the plans of France. 314 GERMANY 1706-1709 Marlborough's great victory at Ramillies, on May 23, gave him the Spanish Netherlands, and enabled the emperor to declare Max Emanuel and the Archbishop of Cologne outlawed. The city of Turin, held by an Austrian garrison, was besieged about the same time by the Duke of Orleans with 38,000 men. Then Prince Eugene hastened across the Alps with an army of 24,000, was rein- forced by 13,000 more under Victor Amadeus of Savoy, and on September 7 attacked the French with such impetuosity that they were literally destroyed. Among the spoils were 211 cannon, 80,000 barrels of powder, and a great amount of money, horses, and provisions. By this victory Prince Eugene also became a hero to the German people, and many of their songs about him are sung at this day. The " Prussian " troops, under Prince Leopold of Dessau, especially distinguished themselves. Their commander was afterward one of Frederick the Great's most famous generals. The first consequence of this victory was an armistice with Louis XIV., so far as Italian territory was concerned. Neverthe- less, a part of the Austrian army was sent to Naples in 1707 to take possession of the country in the name of Spain. The Archduke Charles, after some temporary successes over Philip V., was driven back to Barcelona, and Louis XIV. then offered to treat for peace. Austria and England refused. In 1708 Marlborough and Prince Eugene, again united, won another victory over the French at Oude- narde, and took the stronghold of Lille, which had been considered impregnable. The road to Paris was apparently open to the allies, and Louis XIV. offered to give up his claim, on behalf of Philip V., to Spain, Milan, the Spanish-American colonies, and the Nether- lands, provided Naples and Sicily were left to his grandson. Marl- borough and Prince Eugene required, in addition, that he should expel Philip from Spain, in case Philip refused to conform to the treaty. Louis XIV.'s pride was wounded by this demand, and the negotiations were broken off. With great exertion a new French army was raised, and Mar- shal Villars placed in command. But the two famous commanders, Marlborough and Eugene, achieved such a new and crushing victory in the battle of Malplaquet, fought on September 11, 1709, that France made a third attempt to conclude peace. Louis XIV. now offered to withdraw his claim to the Spanish succession, to restore Alsatia and Strasburg to Germany, and to pay one million livres a month toward defraying the expenses of expelling Philip V. SPANISH SUCCESSION 815 1709-1718 from Spain. It will scarcely be believed that this proposal, so humiliating to the extravagant pride of France, and conceding more than Germany had hoped to obtain, was rejected ! The cause seems to have been a change in the fortunes of the Archduke Charles in Spain. He was again victorious, and in 1710 made his triumphal entry into Madrid. Yet it is difficult to conceive what further ad- vantages Joseph I. expected to secure by prolonging the war. Germany was soon punished for this presumptuous refusal of peace. A court intrigue in England overthrew the Whig ministry and gave the power into the hands of the Tories. Marlborough was at first hampered and hindered in carrying out his plans, and then recalled. While keeping up the outward forms of her alliance with Holland and Germany, England began to negotiate secretly with France, and thus the chief strength of the combination against Louis XIV. was broken. In 171 1 the Emperor Joseph I. died, leaving no direct heirs, and the Archduke Charles became his suc- cessor to the throne. The latter immediately left Spain, was elected emperor and crowned that same year as Charles VI. Although by deserting Spain he had seemed to renounce his pretension to the Spanish crown, there was a general fear that the success of Germany would unite the two countries, as in the time of Charles V., and Hol- land's interest in the war began also to languish. Prince Eugene, even without English aid, was so successful in the early part of 1712 that Paris seemed in danger; but Marshal Villars, by cutting off all his supplies, finally forced him to retreat. During the same year negotiations were carried on between France, England, Holland, Savoy, and Prussia, They resulted in 1 713 in the Peace of Utrecht, by which the Bourbon, Philip V., was recognized as King of Spain and her colonies on condition that the crowns of Spain and France should never be united. England received Gibraltar and the Island of Minorca from Spain, and Acadia, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the Hudson's Bay Terri- tory from France, and the recognition of her Protestant monarchy. Holland obtained the right to garrison a number of strong frontier fortresses in the Netherlands near the French territory, and Prussia received Neufchatel in Switzerland, some territory on the Lower Rhine, and the acknowledgment of Frederick I.'s royal dignity. Charles VI. refused to recognize his rival, Philip V., as King of Spain, and therefore rejected the Treaty of Utrecht. But the other princes of Germany were not eager to prolong the war for the 316 GERMANY 171S-1714 sake of gratifying the Hapsburg pride. Prince Eugene, who was a devoted adherent of Austria, in vain implored them to be united and resolute. " I stand," he wrote, " like a sentinel (a watch!) on the Rhine ; and as mine eye wanders over these fair regions, I think to myself how happy, and beautiful, and undisturbed in the enjoy- ment of nature's gifts they might be, if they possessed courage to use the strength which God hath given them. With an army of 200,000 men I would engage to drive the French out of Germany, and would forfeit my life if I did not obtain a peace which should gladden our hearts for the next twenty years." With such forces as he could collect he carried on the war along the Upper Rhine, but he lost the fortresses of Landau and Freiburg. Louis XIV., however, who was now old and infirm, was very tired of the war, and after these successes he commissioned Marshal Villars to treat for peace with Prince Eugene. The latter was authorized by the emperor to negotiate. The two commanders met at Rastatt, in Baden, and in spite of the unreasonable stubbornness of Charles VL a treaty was finally concluded on March 7, 17 14. Austria received the Spanish Netherlands, Naples, Milan, Mantua, and the Island of Sardinia. Freiburg, Old Breisach, and Kehl were restored to Germany, but France retained Landau, on the west bank of the Rhine, as well as all Alsatia and Strasburg. Thus the recovery of the latter territory, which Joseph I. refused to accept in 17 10, was lost to Germany until the year 1870. By the Treaty of Utrecht Duke Victor Amadeus of Savoy had received Sicily as an independent kingdom. A few years afterward he made an exchange with Austria, giving Sicily for Sardinia. Thus originated the kingdom of Sardinia, which continued to exist until the year i860, when Victor Emmanuel became King of Italy. Chapter XXXI THE RISE OF PRUSSIA. 1714-1740 WHILE the War of the Spanish Succession raged along the Rhine, in Bavaria, and the Netherlands, the north of Germany was convulsed by another and very different struggle. The ambitious designs of Charles XII. of Sweden, who succeeded to the throne in 1697, aroused the jealousy and renewed the old hostility of Denmark, Russia, and Poland, and in 1700 they formed an alliance against Sweden. Denmark began the war the same year by invading Holstein-Gottorp, the duke of which was the brother-in-law of Charles XII. The latter immediately at- tacked Copenhagen, and conquered a peace. A few months after- ward he crushed the power of Peter the Great, in the battle of Narva, and was then free to march against Poland. Augustus the Strong was no match for the young northern hero, who compelled the Polish nobles to depose him and elect Stanislas Lesczinsky in his stead. Charles XII. then marched through Silesia into Saxony, in the year 1706, and from his camp near Leipzig dictated his own terms to Augustus. A year later, having exhausted what resources were left to the people after the outrageous exactions of their own electors, Charles XII. evacuated Saxony with an army of 40,000 men, many of them German recruits, and marched through Poland toward Moscow, which he hoped to capture and so compel the Emperor of Russia to a humiliating peace. But as he advanced into the depths of Russia his troops began to drop away, from starvation and exhaustion. Peter the Great had meanwhile been gathering his forces and at last annihilated the Swedish force at the fatal battle of Pultowa. Charles XII. and a few companions barely escaped capture and fled to Turkey. Peter the Great then took possession of the Baltic provinces, and prepared to found his new capital of St. Petersburg on the Neva. Denmark and Saxony also entered into an alliance with Russia, Augustus the Strong was again placed on the throne of Poland, and the Swedish-German provinces on the Baltic and 317 S18 GERMANY 1714-1720 the North Sea were overrun and ravaged by the Danish and Rus- sian armies. Toward the end of the year 17 14, after peace had been concluded with France, Charles XII. suddenly appeared in Stralsund, having escaped from his long exile in Turkey and trav- eled day and night on horseback across Europe, from the shores of the Black Sea. Then Prussia and Hanover, both eager to en- large their dominions at the expense of Sweden, united against him. He had not sufficient military strength to resist them, and after his death at Frederickshall, in 17 18, Sweden was compelled NORTHEASTERN EUROPr 1700 to make peace on conditions which forever destroyed her supremacy among the northern powers. By the Treaties of Stockholm, made in 17 19 and 1720, Prussia acquired Stettin and all of Pomerania except a strip of the coast with Wismar, Stralsund, and the Island of Riigen, paying two million thalers to Sweden. Hanover acquired the territories of Bremen and Verden, paying one million thalers. Denmark re- ceived Schleswig, and Russia all of her conquests except Finland. The power of Poland, already weakened by the corruptions and RISE OF PRUSSIA 319 1714-1718 dissensions of her nobles, steadily declined after this long and exhausting war. The collective history of the German states for we can hardly say history of " Germany," when there really was no Germany at this time is a continuous succession of wars and diplomatic in- trigues, which break out in one direction before they are settled in another. In 1713 Frederick I. of Prussia died, and was succeeded by his son, Frederick William I. In 17 14 George I., Elector of Hanover, was made King of England, and about the same time the Emperor Charles VI. issued a decree, called the " Pragmatic Sanc- tion," establishing the order of succession to the throne for his dynasty. He was led to this step by the example of Spain, where the failure of the direct line had given rise to thirteen years of European war, and by the circumstance that he himself had neither sons nor brothers. A daughter, Maria Theresa, was born in 171 7, and thus the provision of the Pragmatic Sanction that the crown should descend to female heirs in the absence of male, preserved the succession in his own family, and forestalled the claim of the Elector of Bavaria and other princes who were more or less dis- tantly related to the Hapsburgs. The Pragmatic Sanction was accepted in Austria without diffi- culty, as there was no power to dispute the emperor's will, but it was not recognized by the other states of Germany and other na- tions of Europe until after twenty years of diplomatic negotiations and serious sacrifices on the part of Austria. Prussia received more territory on the Lower Rhine, the duchies of Parma and Piacenza in Italy were given to Spain, and the claims of Augustus III. of Saxony and Poland were so strenuously supported that in 1733 the so-called " War of the Polish Succession " broke out. In the meantime, however, two other wars had occurred, and, although both of them affected Austria rather than the German Empire, they must be briefly described. In 1 7 14 the Emperor Charles VI. formed an alliance with the Venetians against the Turks, who had taken the Morea from Venice. The command was given to Prince Eugene, who marched against his old enemy, determined to win back what remaining Hungarian or Slavonic territory was still held by Turkey. The Grand Vizier Ali opposed him with a powerful force, and after various minor engagements a great battle was fought at Peterwar- dein, in August, 1716. Eugene was completely victorious. The 320 GERMANY 1718 Turics were driven beyond the Save and sheltered themselves be- hind the strong walls of Belgrade. Eugene followed, and, after a siege which is famous in military annals, took Belgrade by storm. The victory is celebrated in a song which the German people are still in the habit of singing. The war ended with the Treaty of Passarowitz, in 1718, by which Turkey was compelled to surrender to Austria the Banat of Temesvar, Servia, including Belgrade, and a part of Wallachia, Bosnia, and Croatia. Before this treaty was concluded a new war had broken out in Italy. Philip V. of Spain, incensed at not being recognized by Charles VI., took possession of Sardinia and Sicily, with the inten- tion of conquering Naples from Austria. England, France, Hol- land, and Austria then formed the " Quadruple Alliance," as it was called, for the purpose of enforcing the Treaty of Utrecht, and Spain was compelled to yield. The power of Prussia, during these years, was steadily increas- ing. Frederick I., it is true, was among the imitators of Louis XIV. : he built stately palaces, and spent a great deal of money on showy court festivals, but he did not completely exhaust the re- sources of the country, like the electors of Saxony and the rulers of many smaller states. On the other hand, he founded the Uni- versity of Halle in 1694, and commissioned the philosopher Leib- nitz to draw up a plan for an Academy of Science, which was estab- lished in Berlin, in 171 1. He was a zealous Protestant, and gave welcome to all who were exiled from other states on account of their faith. As a ruler, however, he was equally careless and despotic, and his government was often intrusted to the hands of unworthy agents. Frederick the Great said of him : " He was great in small matters, and small in great matters." His son, Frederick William I., was a man of an entirely differ- ent nature. He disliked show and ceremony. He hated every- thing French with a heartiness which was often unreasonable, but which was honestly provoked by the enormous, monkey-like affecta- tion of the manners of Versailles by some of his fellow-rulers. While Augustus of Saxony spent six millions of thalers on a single entertainment, he set to work to reduce the expenses of his royal household. While the court of Austria supported forty thousand officials and hangers-on, and half of Vienna was fed from the imperial kitchen, he was employed in examining the smallest de- tails of the receipts and expenditures of his state in order to econ- RISE OF PRUSSIA S21 1718-1740 omize and save. He was miserly, fierce, coarse, and brutal; he aimed at being a German, but he went back almost to the days of Wittekind for his ideas of German culture and character; he was a tyrant of the most savage kind, but, after all has been said against him, it must be acknowledged that without his hard prac- tical sense in matters of government, his rigid, despotic organiza- tion of industry, finance, and the army, Frederick the Great would never have possessed the means to maintain himself in that struggle which made Prussia a great power. Some illustrations of his policy as a ruler and his personal habits must be given in order to show both sides of his character. He had the most unbounded idea of the rights and duties of a king, and the aim of his life, therefore, was to increase his own authority by increasing the wealth, the order, and the strength of Prussia. He was no friend of science, except when it could be shown to have some practical use, but he favored education, and one of his first measures was to establish four hundred schools among the people by the money which he saved from the expenditures of the royal household. His personal economy was so severe that the queen was only allowed to have one waiting woman. At this time the empress of Germany had several hundred attendants, received two hogsheads of Tokay daily for her parrots, and twelve barrels of wine for her baths! Frederick William I. protected the industry of Prussia by imposing heavy duties upon all foreign products ; he even went so far as to prohibit the people from wearing any but Prussian-made cloth, setting them the example himself. He also devoted much attention to agriculture, and when 17,000 Reformers were driven out of Upper Austria by the Archbishop of Salzburg, after an inhuman persecution, he not only furnished them with land, but supported them until they were settled in their new homes. The organization of the Prussian army was intrusted to Prince Leopold of Dessau, who had distinguished himself at Turin under Prince Eugene. Although during the greater part of Frederick William's reign peace was preserved, the military force was steadily increased until it amounted to 84,000 men. The king had a singu- lar mania for giant soldiers. Miserly as he was in other respects, he was ready to go to any expense to procure recruits seven feet high for his bodyguard. He not only purchased such, but allowed his agents to kidnap them, and despotically sent a number of Ger- man mechanics to Peter the Great in exchange for an equal number 322 GERMANY 1718-1740 of Russian grants. For forty-three such tall soldiers he paid $43,000, one of them, who was unusually large, costing $9,000. The expense of keeping these guardsmen was proportionately great, and much 6f the king's time was spent in inspecting them. Some- times he tried to paint their portraits, and if the likeness was not successful, an artist was employed to paint the man's face until it resembled the king's picture ! Frederick William's regular evening recreation was his " To- bacco Parliament," as he called it. Some of his ministers and generals, foreign ambassadors, and even ordinary citizens, were invited to smoke and drink beer with him in a plain room, where he sat upon a three-legged stool, and they upon wooden benches. Each was obliged to smoke, or at least to have a clay pipe in his mouth and appear to smoke. The most important affairs of state were discussed at these meetings, which were conducted with so little formality that no one was allowed to rise when the king entered the room. He was not so amiable upon his walks through the streets of Berlin or Potsdam. He always carried a heavy cane, which he would apply without mercy to the shoulders of any who seemed to be idle, no matter what his rank or station. Even his own household was not exempt from blows; and his son Fred- erick was scarcely treated better than any of his soldiers or workmen. This manner of government was rude, but it was also sys- tematic and vigorous, and the people upon whom it was exercised did not deteriorate in character, as was the case in almost all other parts of Germany. Austria, in spite of the pomp of the emperor's court, was in a state of moral and intellectual decline. Charles VI. was a man of little capacity, an instrument in the hands of the Jesuits, and the people whom he ruled gradually sank deeper in stupidity and ignorance. The strength of the House of Hapsburg was gradually transferred to the Bohemian, Hungarian, and Sla- vonic races which occupied the greater part of its territory. The industry of the country was left without encouragement ; what little education was permitted was in the hands of the priests, and all real progress came to an end. But for this very reason Austria became the ideal of the German nobility, nine-tenths of whom were feudalists and sighed for the return of the Middle Ages. Hundreds of them took service under the emperor, either at court or in the anny, and helped to preserve the external forms of his power. RISE OF PRUSSIA Sft 1718-1740 In most of the other German states the condition of affairs was not much better. Bavaria, the Palatinate, and the three arch- bishops of Mayence, Treves, and Cologne were abject instruments in the hands of France. Hanover was governed by the interests of England, and Saxony by those of Poland. After George I. went to England the government of Hanover was exercised by a council of nobles, who kept up the court ceremonials just as if the elector were present. His portrait was placed in a chair, and they observed the same etiquette toward it as if his real self were there! In Wiirtemberg the duke, Eberhard Ludwig, so oppressed the peo- ple that many of them emigrated to America between the years 1 71 7 and 1720, and settled in Pennsylvania. This was the first considerable German emigration to the New World. In 1733 Germany or rather the Emperor Charles VI. be- came again involved in war. The Pragmatic Sanction was at the bot- tom of it. The endless diplomacy of Charles to insure the recogni- tion of this decree led him into an alliance with Russia to place Au- gustus III. of Saxony on the throne of Poland. Louis XV. of France, who had married the daughter of the Polish king, Stanislas Lesczinsky, took the latter's part. Prussia was induced to join Aus- tria and Russia, but the cautious and economical Frederick William I. withdrew from the alliance as soon as he found that the expense to him would be more than the advantage. The Polish diet was divided. The majority, influenced by France, elected Stanislas, who reached Warsaw in the disguise of a merchant and was crowned in September, 1733. The minority declared for Augustus III., in whose aid a Russian army was even then entering Poland. France, in alliance with Spain and Sardinia, had already de- clared war against Germany. The plan of operations had evidently been prepared in advance, and was everywhere successful. One French army occupied Lorraine, another crossed the Rhine and captured Kehl (opposite Strasburg), and a third, under Marshal Villars, entered Lombardy. Naples and Sicily, powerless to resist, fell into the hands of Spain. Prince Eugene of Savoy, now more than seventy years of age, was sent to the Rhine with such troops as Austria, taken by surprise, was able to furnish. The other German states either sympathized with France or were indifferent to a quarrel which really did not concern them. Frederick William of Prussia finally sent 10,000 well-disciplined soldiers; but even with this aid Prince Eugene was unable to expel the French from 324 GERMANY 1734-1740 Lorraine. In Poland, however, the plans of France utterly failed. In June, 1734, King Stanislas fled in the disguise of a cattle dealer. The following year 10,000 Russians appeared on the Rhine, as allies of Austria, and Louis XV. found it prudent to negotiate for peace. The Treaty of Vienna, concluded in October, 1735, put an end to the War of the Polish Succession. Francis of Lorraine, who was betrothed to Charles VI.'s daughter, Maria Theresa, was made Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Lorraine (now only a portion of the original territory, with Nancy as capital) was given to the ex-King Stanislas of Poland, with the condition that it should revert to France at his death. Spain received Naples and Sicily; Tortona and Novara were added to Sardinia, and Austria was in- duced to consent to all these losses by the recognition of the Prag- matic Sanction and the annexation of the duchies of Parma and Piacenza. Prussia got nothing; and Frederick William I., who had been expecting to add Jiilich and Berg to his possessions on the Lower Rhine, was so exasperated that he entered into secret arrangements with France in order to carry out his end. The enmity of Austria and Prussia was now confirmed, and was destined to be the chief force in German politics until the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 settled the rivalry in favor of Prussia. In 1736 Francis of Lorraine and Maria Theresa were married, and Prince Eugene of Savoy died, worn out with the hardships of his long and victorious career. The next year the Empress Anna of Russia persuaded Charles VI. to unite with her in a war against Turkey, her object being to get possession of Azov. By this unfor- tunate alliance Austria lost all which she had gained by the Treaty of Passorowitz twenty years before. There was no commander like Prince Eugene, her military strength had been weakened by useless and unsuccessful wars, and she was compelled to make peace in 1739 by yielding Belgrade and all her conquests in Servia and Wallachia to Turkey. On May 31, 1740, Frederick William I. died, fifty-two years of age. He left behind him a state containing more that 50,000 square miles, and about 2,500,000 of inhabitants. The revenues of Prussia, which were two and a half millions of thalers on his accession to the throne, had increased to seven and a half mil- lions annually, and there were nine millions in the treasury. Berlin had a population of nearly 100,000, and Stettin, Magdeburg, RISE OF PRUSSIA 85 1740 IMemel, and other cities had been strongly fortified. An army of more than 80,000 men was perfectly organized and disciplined. There was a beginning of a system of instruction for the people, feudalism was almost entirely suppressed, and the charge of witch- craft (which since the fifteenth century had caused the execution of several hundred thousand victims throughout Germany) was expunged from the pages of the law. Although the land was almost wholly Protestant, there was entire religious freedom, and the Catholic subjects could complain of no violation of their rights. On October 24, 1740, Charles VI. died, leaving a dimin- ished realm, a disordered military organization, and a people so demoralized by the combined luxury and oppression of the govern- ment that for more than a century afterward all hope and energy and aspiration seemed to be crushed among them. The outward show and trappings of the empire remained with Austria, and kept alive the political superstitions of that large class of Germans who looked backward instead of forward; but the rude, half -developed strength which cuts loose from the past and busies itself with the practical work of its day and generation was rapidly creating a future for Prussia. Frederick William I. was succeeded by his son, Frederick II., called Frederick the Great. Charles VI. was succeeded by his daugh- ter, the Empress Maria Theresa. The former was twenty-eight, the latter twenty-three, years old. Chapter XXXII THE REIGN OF FREDERICK THE GREAT. 1740-1786 FEW royal princes ever had a more unfortunate childhood and youth than Frederick the Great. His mother, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, a sister of George II. of England, was an amiable, mild-tempered woman, who was devotedly attached to him, but had no power to protect him from the violence of his hard and tyrannical father. As a boy his chief tastes were music and French literature, which he could only indulge by stealth. The king not only called him " idiot ! " and " puppy ! " when he found him occupied with a flute or a French book, but threatened him with personal chastisement. His education was chiefly received from a French tutor, and his taste was formed in the school of ideas which at that time ruled in France, and which was largely formed by Voltaire, whom Frederick during his boyhood greatly admired, and afterward made one of his chief correspondents and intimates. The influence of this is most clearly to be traced throughout his life. His music became almost a passion with him, though it is doubtful whether any of the praises of his proficiency that have come down to us are more than the remains of the flatteries of the time. His compositions which were performed at his concerts, to which leading musicians were often invited, do not give any evidence of the genius claimed for him in this respect; but it is certain that he attained a considerable degree of mechanical skill in playing the flute. In after life his musical taste continued to influence him greatly, and the establishment of the opera at Berlin was chiefly due to him. In 1728, when only sixteen years old, he accompanied his father on a visit to the court of Augustus the Strong, at Dresden, and was for a time led astray by the corrupt society into which he was there thrown. The wish of his mother, that he should marry the Prin- cess Amelia, the daughter of George II., was thwarted by his father's dislike of England. Gradually the tyranny to which he SS6 FREDERICK THE GREAT 827 1740 was subjected by his father became intolerable, and in 1730, while accompanying his father on a journey to southern Germany, he determined to run away. His accomplice was a young officer. Lieutenant von Katte, who had been his bosom friend for two or three years. A letter written by Frederick to the latter fell by accident into the hands of another officer of the same name, who sent it to the king, and the plot was thus discovered just before it was to have been put into execution. The king's rage when he heard that his own son had joined with certain officers to desert from the army knew no bounds. In his opinion military desertion was the worst crime a man could commit. Katte was arrested before he could escape, tried by court-martial, and sentenced to several years' imprisonment, Frederick William annulled the sentence and ordered him to be immediately executed. To make the deed more barbarous, it was done before the window of the cell in which Frederick was con- fined. Frederick himself in prison was carefully watched, allowed no implements except a wooden spoon, lest he might commit suicide. A Bible and hymn-book were the only books permitted to him. The officer who had him in charge could only converse with him by means of a hole bored through the ceiling of his cell. The king insisted that he should be formally tried; but the court-martial, while deciding that " Colonel Fritz " was guilty, as an officer, asserted that it had no authority to condemn the crown prince. The king overruled the decision, and ordered his son to be exe- cuted. This course excited such horror and indignation among the officers that Frederick was pardoned, but not released from imprisonment until his spirit was broken and he had promised to obey his father in all things. For a year he was obliged to work as a clerk in the departments of the government, beginning with the lowest position and rising as he acquired practical knowledge. He did not appear at court until November, 1731, when his sister Wilhelmine was married to the Margrave of Bayreuth. The cere- mony had already commenced when Frederick, dressed in a plain suit of gray, without any order or decorations, was discovered among the servants. The king pulled him forth and presented him to the queen with these words : " Here, Madam, our Fritz is back again ! " In 1732 Frederick was forced to marry the Princess Elizabeth 328 GERMANY 1740 of Brunswick-Bevern, whom he disHked, and with whom he lived but a short time. His father gave him the castle of Rheinsberg, near Potsdam, and there, for the first time, he enjoyed some inde- pendence. His leisure was devoted to philosophical studies, and to correspondence with Voltaire and other distinguished French authors. During the War of the Polish Succession he served for a short time under Prince Eugene of Savoy, but had no opportunity to test or develop his military talent. Until his father's death he seemed to be more of a poet and philosopher than anything else. Only the few who knew him intimately perceived that his mind was occupied with plans of government and conquest. When Frederick William I. died the people rejoiced in the prospect of a just and peaceful rule. Frederick H. declared to his ministers, on receiving their oath of allegiance, that no distinction should be allowed between the interests of the country and the king, since they were identical ; but if any conflict of the two should arise, the interests of the country must have the preference. Then he at once corrected the abuses of the game and recruiting laws, dis- banded his father's bodyguard of giants, abolished torture in crim- inal cases, reformed the laws of marriage, and established a special ministry for commerce and manufactures. When he set out for Konigsberg to receive the allegiance of Prussia proper, his whole court traveled in three carriages. On arriving, he dispensed with the ceremony of coronation, as being unnecessary, and then suc- ceeded in establishing a much closer political union between Prus- sia and Brandenburg, which, in many respects, had been independent of each other up to that time. The death of the Emperor Charles VI. was the signal for a gen- eral disturbance. Maria Theresa, as the events of her reign after- ward proved, was a woman of strong, even heroic, character; stately, handsome, and winning in her personal appearance, and morally irreproachable. No Hapsburg emperor before her inher- ited the crown under such discouraging circumstances, and none could have maintained himself more bravely and firmly than she did. The ministers of Charles VI. flattered themselves that they would now have unlimited sway over the empire, but they were mistaken. Maria Theresa listened to their counsels, but decided for herself. Even her husband, Francis of Lorraine and Tuscany, was unable to influence her judgment. The Elector Charles Albert of Bavaria, whose, grandmother was a Hapsburg, claimed the crown, and was FREDERICK THE GREAT 329 1740-1741 supported by Louis XV. of France, who saw another opportunity of weakening Germany. The reigning archbishops on the Rhine were of course on the side of France. Poland and Saxony, united under Augustus III., at the same time laid claim to some territory along the northern frontier of Austria. Frederick II. saw his opportunity, and was first in the field. His pretext was the right of Brandenburg to four principalities in Silesia, which had been relinquished to Austria under the pressure of circumstances. The real reason was, as he afterward confessed, his determination to strengthen Prussia by the acquisition of more territory. The kingdom was divided into so many portions, sep- arated so widely from each other, that it could not become powerful and permanent unless they were united. He had secretly raised his military force to 100,000 men, and in December, 1740, he marched into Silesia, almost before Austria suspected his purpose. His army was kept under strict discipline; the people were neither plundered nor restricted in their religious worship, and the capital, Breslau, soon opened its gates. Several fortresses were taken dur- ing the winter, and in April, 1741, a decisive battle was fought at Mollwitz. The Austrian army had the advantage of numbers and its victory seemed so certain that Marshal Schwerin persuaded Frederick to leave the field ; then, gathering together the remainder of his troops, he made a last and desperate charge which turned defeat into victory. All lower Silesia was now in the hands of the Prussians. France, Spain, Bavaria, and Saxony immediately united against Austria. A French army crossed the Rhine, joined the Bavarian forces, and marched to Linz, on the Danube, where Charles Albert was proclaimed Archduke of Austria. Maria Theresa and her court fled to Presburg, where the Hungarian nobles were already convened, in the hope of recovering the rights they had lost under Leopold I. She was forced to grant most of their demands, after which she was crowned with the crown of St. Stephen, gal- loped up " the king's hill," and waved her sword toward the four quarters of the earth, with so much grace and spirit that the Hun- garians were quite won to her side. Afterward, when she appeared before the diet in their national costume, with her son Joseph in her arms, and made an eloquent speech, setting forth the dangers which beset her, the nobles drew their sabers and shouted : " We will die for our queen, Maria Theresa ! " S30 GERMANY 1741-1745 While the support of Hungary and Austria was thus secured, the combined German and French force did not advance upon Vienna, but marched to Prague, where Charles Albert was crowned King of Bohemia. This act was followed, in February, 1742, by his coronation in Frankfort as emperor, under the name of Charles VII. Before this took place Austria had been forced to make a secret treaty with Frederick II. The latter, however, declared that the conditions of it had been violated, and in the spring of 1742 suddenly renewed the war with Austria and marched into Bohemia. He was victorious in the first great battle. England then inter- vened, and persuaded Maria Theresa to make peace by yielding to Prussia both upper and lower Silesia and the principality of Glatz. Thus ended the First Silesian War, which added to Prussia a great province and more than a million subjects. The most dangerous enemy of Austria being thus temporarily removed, the fortunes of Maria Theresa speedily changed, espe- cially since England, Holland, and Hanover entered into an alli- ance to support her against France. George II. of England took the field in person, and was victorious over the French in the battle of Dettingen (not far from Frankfort), in June, 1743. After this Saxony joined the Austrian alliance, and the Landgrave of Hesse, who cared nothing for the war, but was willing to make money, sold an equal number of soldiers to France and* to England. Fred- erick II. saw that France would not be able to stand long against such a coalition, and he knew that the success of Austria would probably be followed by an attempt to regain Silesia; therefore, regardless of appearances, he entered into a compact with France and the Emperor Charles VII., and prepared for another war. In the summer of 1744 he marched into Bohemia with an army of 80,000 men, took Prague on September 16, and conquered the greater part of the country. But the Bohemians were hos- tile to him, the Hungarians rose again in defense of Austria, and an army under Charles of Lorraine, which was operating against the French in Alsatia, was recalled to resist his advance. He was forced to retreat in the dead of winter, leaving many cannon behind him, and losing a large number of soldiers on the way. On January 20, 1745, Charles VII. died, and his son. Max Joseph, gave up his pretensions to the imperial crown, on condition of having Bavaria (which Austria had meanwhile conquered) restored to him. France thereupon practically withdrew from the struggle, FREDERICK THE GREAT 331 1745-1746 leaving Prussia in the lurch. Frederick stood alone, with Aus- tria, Saxony, and Poland united against him, and a prospect of England and Russia being added to the number. The tables had turned, and he was very much in the condition of Maria Theresa four years before. In May, 1745, Silesia was invaded with an army of 100,000 Austrians and Saxons. Frederick marched against them with a much smaller force, met them at Hohenfriedberg, and gave battle on June 4. He began with a furious charge of Prussian cavalry at dawn, and by nine o'clock the enemy was utterly routed, leav- ing 66 standards, 5000 dead and wounded, and 7000 prisoners. This victory produced a great effect throughout Europe. England intervened in favor of peace, and Frederick declared that he would only fight until the possession of Silesia was firmly guaranteed to him; but Maria Theresa (who hated Frederick intensely, as she had good reason to do) answered that she would sooner part with the clothes on her body than give up Silesia. Frederick entered Bohemia with 18,000 men, and on Sep- tember 30 was attacked, at a village called Soor, by a force of 40,000. Nevertheless he managed his cavalry so admirably that he gained the victory. Then, learning that the Saxons were pre- paring to invade Prussia in his rear, he garrisoned all the passes leading from Bohemia into Silesia, and marched into Saxony with his main force. The " Old Dessauer," as Prince Leopold was called, took Leipzig, and, pressing forward, won another great victory on December 15, at Kesselsdorf. Frederick, who arrived on the field at the close of the fight, embraced the old veteran in the sight of the army. The next day the Prussians took possession of Dresden. The capital was not damaged, but like the other cities of Saxony, was made to pay a heavy contribution. Peace was concluded with Austria ten days afterward. Prussia was confirmed in the possession of all Silesia and Glatz, and Fred- erick agreed to recognize Francis of Lorraine, Maria Theresa's husband, who had already been crowned emperor at Frankfort, as Francis 1. Thus ended the Second Silesian War. Frederick was first called " the Great " on his return to Berlin, where he was re- ceived with boundless popular rejoicings. The " War of the Austrian Succession," as it was called, lasted three years longer, but its character was changed. The field of operations was shifted to Italy and Flanders. In Flanders, Maurice 332 GERMANY 1746-1757 of Saxony (better known as Marshal de Saxe), one of the many sons of Augustus the Strong, was signally successful. He conquered the greater part of the Austrian Netherlands for France. Mean- while, in 1746, Austria, although she had regained much of her lost ground in northern Italy, formed an alliance with the Empress Elizabeth of Russia, who furnished an army of 40,ocx) men. The money of France was exhausted, and Louis XV. found it best to make peace, which was concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle in October, 1748. He gave up all the conquests which France had made during the war. Austria yielded Parma and Piacenza to Spain, a portion of Lombardy to Sardinia, and again confirmed Frederick the Great in the possession of Silesia. After the Peace of Dresden, in 1745, Prussia enjoyed a rest of nearly eleven years. Frederick's first care was to heal the wounds which his two Silesian wars had made in the population and the prosperity of his people He called himself " the first servant of the state," and no civil officer under him labored half so earnestly and zealously. He was the very embodiment of the German PHicht, or sense of duty. His whole reign was an illustration of a maxim which he sets forth in one of his essays : " The people are not there for the sake of the rulers, but the rulers for the sake of the people." He looked upon his kingdom as a landholder would look upon a large estate which must be carefully managed and cared for so that it should become productive and prosperous. Therefore Frederick insisted that all questions which required settlement, all changes necessary to be made, even the least infractions of the laws, should be referred directly to himself, so that his secretaries had much more to do than his ministers. While he claimed the abso- lute right to govern, he accepted all the responsibility which it brought upon him. He made himself acquainted with every vil- lage and landed estate in his kingdom, watched as far as possible over every official, and personally studied the operation of every reform. He rose at four or five o'clock, and labored at his desk for hours, reading the multitude of reports and letters of complaint or appeal, which came simply addressed " to the King." His even- ings were usually spent in conversation with men of culture and intelligence, and in practice on his beloved flute. His literary tastes, however, remained French all his life. His many works were written in that language, he preferred to speak it, and he sneered at German literature at a time when authors like Lessing, Klopstock, FREDERICK THE GREAT 333 1746-1757 Herder, and Goethe were gradually lifting it to its most glorious height. His rough, practical common sense as a ruler is very well illustrated by his remarks upon the documents sent for his inspec- tion, many of which are still preserved. On the back of the " Peti- tion from the merchant Simon of Stettin, to be allowed to purchase an estate for 40,000 thalers," he wrote : " Forty thousand thalers invested in commerce will yield 8 per cent., in landed property only 4 per cent, ; so this man does not understand his own business." On the " Petition from the city of Frankfort-on-Oder, against the quartering of troops upon them," he wrote : " Why, it cannot be otherwise. Do they think I can put the regiment into my pocket? But the barracks shall be rebuilt." And finally, on the " Petition of the Chamberlain, Baron Miiller, for leave to visit the baths of Aix-la-Chapelle," he wrote : " What would he do there ? He would gamble away the little money he has left, and come back like a beg- gar." The expenses of Frederick's own court were restricted to about one hundred thousand dollars a year, at a time when nearly every petty prince in Germany was spending from five to ten times that sum. In the administration of justice and the establishment of entire religious liberty Prussia rapidly became a model which put to sliame and disturbed most of the other German states. Frederick openly declared : " I mean that every man in my kingdom shall have the right to be saved in his own way," In Silesia, where the Protestants had been persecuted under Austria, the Catholics were now free and contented. This course gave him a great popularity outside of Prussia among the common people, and for the first time in two centuries the hope ot better times began to revive among them. Frederick was as absolute a despot as any of his fellow- rulers of the day; but his was a despotism of intelligence, justice, and conscience, opposed to that of ignorance, bigotry, and selfishness. Agriculture was favored in every possible way. Great tracts of marshy land which had been uninhabited were transformed into fertile and populous regions ; canals, roads, and bridges were built, and new markets for produce established. The cultivation of the potato, up to that time unknown in Germany as an article of food, was forced upon the unwilling farmers. In return for all these advantages the people were heavily taxed, but not to such an extent as to impoverish them, as in Saxony and Austria. The army was 834 GERMANY 1755-1757 not only kept up, but largely increased, for Frederick knew that the peace which Prussia enjoyed could not last long. The clouds of war slowly gathered on the political horizon. The peace of Europe was broken by the quarrel between England and France, in 1755, in regard to the boundaries between Canada and the English colonies. This involved danger to Hanover, over which the kings of England ruled with the title of elector. To protect Hanover against French attacks England now proposed to Maria Theresa an alliance against France. The minister of the empress was at this time Count Kaunitz, who fully shared her hatred of Frederick II., and determined, with her, to use this oppor- tunity to recover Silesia. She therefore refused England's propo- sition, and wrote a flatterjng letter to Madame de Pompadour, the favorite of Louis XV., to prepare the way for an alliance between Austria and France. At the same time secret negotiations were carried on with Elizabeth of Russia, who was mortally offended with Frederick II. on account of some disparaging remarks he had made about her. Louis XV., nevertheless, hesitated until Maria Theresa promised to give him the Austrian Netherlands in return for his assistance. Then the compact between the three great mil- itary powers of the Continent (Austria, Russia, and France) was concluded, and everything was quietly arranged for commencing the war against Prussia in the spring of 1757. So sure were they of success that they agreed beforehand on the manner in which the Prussian Kingdom should be cut up and divided among themselves and the other states. Through his paid agents at the different courts, and especially through the Crown Prince Peter of Russia, who was one of his most enthusiastic admirers, Frederick was well informed of these plans. He saw that the coalition was too powerful to be defeated by diplomacy. His ruin was determined upon, and he could only prevent it by accepting war even again^ overwhelming odds. Eng- land was the only great power which could assist him; Austria's policy left her no alternative. England concluded an alliance with Prussia in January, 1756, but her assistance afterward was fur- nished in the shape of money rather than troops. The small states of Brunswick, Hesse-Cassel, and Saxe-Gotha were persuaded to join Prussia, but they added very little to Frederick's strength, be- cause Bavaria and all the principalities along the Rhine were certain to go with France in a general German war. Thus was accom- H ' K- 5 Re J mined, v I*} 09 Sb- "2' - ' .'^ < 4* . ^ the way f. k.^^ . OS: on act =1 :. : (': I 1."^ , JQh, ? -oli... ix .,v..,,v. .^..v^.- fryrh ^ J^ In. r between the three teO sia, and Fr; ^e. Q< iged for CO ot sr. - So sure nner in Or.,. 5^ 1 -\ ',. *. i L hrough ,1. .'.,.. 1 his pai' '5 b4 courts, and csp' nai the cSlS^ .in ' was too powerful to L. ^-^" ^ ^ , _ 1 u,. the only great {Q\4r w ; icn could assist him; (. _ _ 1 .- ' . . _a _ . ._ _., .1-1 _ . M rje of nr 'S 'her than 5 *'. to g FREDERICK THE GREAT 885 1756-1757 plished the " diplomatic revolution " by which England and Prussia stood arrayed against Austria, France, and Russia in the world- wide struggle known as the Seven Years' War (1756- 1763). Knowing when the combined movement against him was to be made, Frederick boldly determined to anticipate it. Disregard- ing the neutrality of Saxony, he crossed its frontier on August 29, 1756, with an army of nearly 70,000 men. Ten days after- ward he entered Dresden, besieged the Saxon army of 17,000 in their fortified camp on the Elbe, and pushed a column forward into Bohemia. Maria Theresa collected her forces and sent an army of 70,000 in all haste against him. Frederick met them with 20,000 men at Lobositz, on October i, and after hard fighting gained a victory by the use of the bayonet. He wrote to Mar- shal Schwerin : " Never have my Prussians performed such miracles of bravery since I had the honor to command them." The Saxons surrendered soon afterward, and Frederick went into win- ter quarters, secure against any further attack before the spring. This was a severe check to the plans of the allied powers, and they made every effort to retrieve it by their preparations for the campaign of 1757. Sweden was induced to join them, and "the German Empire," through its almost forgotten diet, declared war against Prussia. All together raised an armed force of 430,000 men, while Frederick, with the greatest exertion, could barely raise 200,000. England sent him an utterly useless general, the Duke of Cumberland, but no soldiers. Frederick dispatched a part of his army to meet the Russians and Swedes, marched with the rest into Bohemia, and on May 6 won a decided but very bloody victory before the walls of Pragfue. The old hero, Schwerin, charg- ing at the head of his troops, was slain, and the entire loss of the Prussians was 18,000 killed and wounded. But there was still a large Austrian army in Prague. The city was besieged with the utmost vigor for five weeks, and was on the very point of surren- dering when Frederick heard that another Austrian army, com- manded by Daun, was marching to its rescue. He thereupon raised the siege, hastened onward, and met Daun at Kollin, near the Elbe, on June 18. He had 31,000 men and the Austrians 54,000. He prepared an excellent plan of battle, then deviated from it, and commenced the attack, against the advice of General Zieten, his chief commander. His haste and stubbornness nearly proved his ruin. He tried to retrieve the for- 886 GERMANY 1787 tunes of the day by personally leading his soldiers against the Aus- trian batteries, but in vain ; they were repulsed, with a loss of 14,000 dead and wounded. That evening Frederick was found alone, seated on a log, drawing figures in the sand with his cane. He shed tears on hearing of the slaughter of all his best guardsmen; then, after a long silence, said : " It is a day of sorrow for us, my children, but have patience, for all will yet be well." The defeat at Kollin threw Frederick's plans into confusion. It was now necessary to give up Bohemia, and simply act on the defensive on Prussian soil. Here he was met by the news of fresh disasters. His other army had been defeated by a much superior Russian force, and the useless Duke of Cumberland had surrendered Hanover to the French. But the Russians had retreated, after their victory, instead of advancing, and Frederick's general, Leh- wald, then easily repulsed the Swedes, who had invaded Pomerania. By this time a combined French and German army of 60,000 men, under Marshal Soubise, was approaching from the west, confident of an easy victory and comfortable winter quarters in Berlin. Fred- erick united his scattered and diminished forces. They only amounted to 22,000, and great was the amusement of the French when they learned that he meant to dispute their advance. After some preliminary maneuvering the two armies ap- proached each other, on November 5, at Rossbach, near the Saale, west of Leipzig. When Marshal Soubise saw the Prussian camp he said to his officers : " It is only a breakfast for us ! " and ordered his forces to be spread out so as to cut off the retreat of the enemy. Frederick was at dinner when he received the news of the approaching attack. He immediately broke up his camp and with- drew his army to a range of low hills which concealed his move- ments. The French, supposing that he was retreating, pressed for- ward with music and shouts of triumph; then, suddenly, Seid- litz, in accordance with Frederick's well-conceived plan, burst upon them with his 8000 cavalry, and immediately afterward Frederick's cannon began to play upon their ranks from his commanding po- sition on the hills. The French were thrown into confusion by this surprise. Frederick and his brother. Prince Henry, led the infantry against them, and in an hour and a half from the com- mencement of the battle the French were flying from the field in the wildest panic, leaving everything behind them. Nine generals. FREDERICK THE GREAT 87 1757 320 other officers, and 7000 men were made prisoners, and all the artillery, arms, and stores captured. The Prussian loss was only 91 dead and 274 wounded. The remnant of the French army never halted until it reached the Rhine. All danger from the west was now at an end, and Fred- erick hastened toward Silesia, which had in the meantime been occu- pied by a powerful Austrian army under Charles of Lorraine. By making forced marches, in three weeks Frederick effected a junction near Breslau with his retreating Prussians, and found himself at the head of an army of about 32,000 men. Charles of Lorraine and Marshal Daun had united their forces, taken Breslau, and opposed him with a body of more than 80,000 ; but instead of awaiting his attack, they moved forward to meet him. Near the little town of Leuthen the two came together. Frederick summoned his generals, and addressed them in a stirring speech : " Against all the rules of military science," he said, " I am going to engage an army nearly three times greater than my own. We must beat the enemy, or all together make for ourselves graves before his batteries. This I mean, and thus will I act. Remember that you are Prus- sians. If one among you fears to share the last danger with me, he may resign now, without hearing a word of reproof from me." The king's heroic courage was shared by his officers and soldiers. At dawn, on December 5, the troops sang a sol- emn hymn, after which shouts of " It is again the 5th ! " and " Rossbach ! " rang through the army. Frederick called General Zieten to him and said : " I am going to expose myself more than ordinarily to-day. Should I fall, cover my body with your cloak, and say nothing to anyone. The fight must go on and the enemy must be beaten." With his infantry in a new formation, unknown hitherto, he made a sudden oblique attack on the left flank of the Austrian army, while his cavalry engaged its right flank. Both attacks were so desperate that the Austrians struggled in vain to recover their ground. After several hours of hard fighting they gave way, then broke up and fled in disorder, losing more than 20,000 in killed, wounded, and prisoners. The Prussian loss was about 5000. The cold winter night came down on the battlefield, still covered with wounded and dying and resounding cries of suffering. All at once a Prussian grenadier began to sing a hymn : " Now let all hearts thank God " ; the regiment nearest him pres- ently joined, then the military bands, and soon the entire arm^^ 388 GERMANY 1757-1758 united in the grand choral of thanksgiving. Thus gloriously for Prussia closed the second year of this remarkable war. Frederick immediately took Breslau, with its garrison of 17,000 Austrians, and all of Silesia except the fortress of Schweid- nitz. During the winter Maria Theresa made vigorous prepara- tions for a renewal of the war, and urged Russia and France to make fresh exertions. The reputation which Frederick had gained, however, brought him also some assistance. After the victories of Rossbach and Leuthen there was so much popular enthusiasm for him in England that the government granted him a subsidy of four million thalers annually, and allowed him to appoint a commander for the troops of Hanover and the other allied states. Frederick selected Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, who operated with him with so much skill and energy that by the summer of 1758 he had driven the French from all northern Germany. In the campaign of 1758 Frederick, as usual, resumed his work before the Austrians were ready. He took Schweidnitz, reestablished his rule over Silesia, penetrated into Moravia, and laid siege to Olmiitz. But the Austrian Marshal Laudon cut off his communications with Silesia and forced him to retreat across the frontier, where he established himself in a fortified camp near Landshut. The Russians by this time had conquered the whole of the duchy of Prussia, had invaded Pomerania, which they plun- dered and laid waste, and were approaching the River Oder. On receiving this news Frederick left Marshal Keith in command of his camp, took what troops could be spared and marched against his third enemy, whom he met on August 25, 1758, near the village of Zorndorf, where the Netze flows into the Oder. The battle lasted from nine in the morning until ten at night. Frederick had 32,000 men, mostly new recruits, the Russian General Fermor 50,000. The Prussian lines were repeatedly broken, but as often restored by the bravery of General Seidlitz, who finally won the battle by daring to disobey Frederick's orders. The latter sent word to him that he must answer for his disobedience with his head, but Seidlitz replied : " Tell the king he may have my head when the battle is over, but until then I must use it in his service." When late at night the Russians were defeated, leaving 20,000 dead upon the field for the Prussians gave them no quarter Frederick embraced Seidlitz, crying out: "I owe the victory to you!" The three great powers had been successively repelled, but FREDERICK THE GREAT 339 1758-1759 the Strength of Austria was not yet broken. Marshal Daun marched into Saxony and besieged the fortified camp of Prince Henry, thus obliging Frederick to hasten to his rescue. The lat- ter's confidence in himself had been so exalted by his victories that he and his entire army would have been lost but for the pru- dent watchfulness of Zieten. All except the latter and his hussars wei'e quietly sleeping at Hochkirch, on the night of October 13, when the camp was suddenly attacked by Daun, in overwhelm- ing force. The village was set on fire, the Prussian batteries captured, and a terrible fight ensued. Prince Francis of Brunswick and Marshal Keith were killed and Prince Maurice of Dessau se- verely wounded. The Prussians defended themselves heroically, but at nine o'clock on the morning of the 14th they were com- pelled to retreat, leaving all their artillery and camp equipage be- hind them. This was the last event of the campaign of 1758, and it was a bad omen for the following year. Frederick tried to negotiate for peace, but in vain. The strength of his army was gone ; his victories had been dearly bought with the loss of all his best regiments. Austria and Russia re- inforced their armies and planned this time to unite in Silesia, while the French, who defeated the Duke of Brunswick in April, 1759, regained possession of Hanover. Frederick was obliged to divide his troops and send an army under General Wedel against the Russians, while he, with a very reduced force, attempted to check the Austrians in Silesia. Wedel was defeated, and the junction of his two enemies could no longer be prevented; they marched against him, 70,000 strong, and took up a position at Kunersdorf, opposite Frankfort-on-Oder. Frederick had but 48,- 000 men, after calling together almost the entire military strength of his kingdom, and many of these were raw recruits who had never smelled powder. On August 12, 1759, after the good news arrived that Fer- dinand of Brunswick had defeated the French at Minden, Fred- erick gave battle. At the end of six hours the Russian left wing gave way; then Frederick, against the advice of Seidlitz, ordered a charge upon the right wing, which occupied a very strong position and was supported by the Austrian army. Seidlitz twice refused to make the charge; and then when he yielded, was struck down and severely wounded, after his cavalry had been cut to pieces. Frederick himself led the troops to fresh slaughter, but 340 GERMANY 1759-1760 all in vain. They fell in whole battalions before the terrible artillery fire, until 20,000 lay upon the field. The enemy charged in turn, and the Prussian army was scattered in all direction. For the moment Frederick's hitherto never-failing courage and energy were gone. He passed through the darkest gloom of despair. To his minister at Berlin he sent a despairing dispatch : " Of an army of 48,000 there are not at this moment 3000 left. The consequences of the battle will be worse than the battle itself. I have no more resources, and, not to hide the truth, I consider that all is lost. I shall not survive the ruin of my country. Farewell forever." But he soon plucked up his hopes and spirits at the good news that the Russian and Austrian commanders had fallen out with one another. Soltikov, the Russian refused to advance on Berlin, and fell back upon Silesia to rest his troops. He complained that he and the Russians had done all the fighting and did not receive enough sup- port from Daun and the Austrians. Daun, meanwhile, marched into Saxony, took Dresden, which the Prussians had held up to that time, and made 12,000 prisoners. Thus ended this unfortunate year. Prussia was in such an exhausted condition that it seemed impossible to raise more men or more money to carry on the war. Frederick tried every means to break the alliance of his enemies, or to acquire new allies for himself, even appealing to Spain and Turkey, but without effect. In the spring of 1760 the armies of Austria, "the German Empire," Russia, and Sweden amounted to 280,000, to meet which he was barely able, by making every sac- rifice, to raise 90,000. In Hanover Ferdinand of Brunswick had 75,000, opposed by a French army of 115,000. Silesia was still the bone of contention, and it was planned that the Austrian and Russian armies should unite there, as before. Frederick was equally determined to prevent their junction, and to hold the province for himself. But he first sent Prince Henry and General Fouque to Silesia, while he undertook to regain pos- session of Saxony. He bombarded Dresden furiously, without success, and was then called away by the news that Fouque with 7000 men had been defeated and taken prisoner near Landshut. All Silesia was overrun by the Austrians, except Breslau, which was heroically defended by a small force. Marshal Laudon was in command, and as the Russians had not yet arrived, he effected a junction with Daun, who had followed Frederick from Saxony. On August 15, 1760, they attacked him at Liegnitz with a com- FREDERICK THE GREAT 841 1760 bined force of 95,000 men. Although he had but 35,000, he won such a splendid victory that the Russian army turned back on hearing of it, and in a short time Silesia, except the fortress of Glatz, was restored to Prussia. Nevertheless, while Frederick was engaged in following up his victory, the Austrians and Russians came to an understanding, and moved suddenly upon Berlin the Russians from the Oder, the Austrians and Saxons combined from Lusatia. The city de- fended itself for a few days, but surrendered on October 9. A contribution of 1,700,000 thalers was levied by the conquerors, the Saxons ravaged the royal palace at Charlottenburg, but the Russians and Austrians committed few depredations. Four days afterward the news that Frederick was hastening to the relief of Berlin compelled the enemy to leave. Without attempting to pursue them, Frederick turned and marched back to Silesia, where, on November 3, he met the Austrians, under Daun, at Torgau. This was one of the bloodiest battles of the Seven Years' War. The Prussian army was divided between Frederick and Zieten, the former undertaking to storm the Austrian position in front while the latter attacked their flank. But Frederick, either too impetu- ous or mistaken in the signals, moved too soon, A terrible day's fight followed, and when night came 10,000 of his soldiers, dead or wounded, lay upon the field. He sat all night in the village church, making plans for the morrow; then, in the early dawn, Zieten came and announced that he had been victorious on the Austrian flank, and they were in full retreat. After which, turning to his soldiers, Zieten cried : " Boys, hurrah for our king ! he has won the battle ! " The men answered : " Hurrah for Fritz, our king, and hurrah for Father Zieten, too ! " The Prussian loss was 13,000, the Austrian 20,000, Although Prussia had been defended with such astonishing vigor and courage during the year 1760, the end of the campaign found her greatly weakened. The Austrians held Dresden and Glatz, two important strategic points, Russia and France were far from being exhausted, and every attempt of Frederick to strengthen himself by alliance even with Turkey and with Cos- sack and Tartar chieftains came to nothing. In October, 1760, George H. of England died, there was a change of ministry, and the four millions of thalers which Prussia had received for three years were cut off. The French, under Marshals Broglie and 84S GERMANY 1760-172 Soubise, had been bravely met by Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, but he was not strong enough to prevent them from quartering themselves for the winter in Cassel and Gottingen. Under these discouraging aspects the year 1761 opened. The first events were fortunate. Duke Ferdinand moved against the French in February and drove them back nearly to the Rhine ; the army of " the German Empire " was expelled from Thuring^a by a small detachment of Prussians, and Prince Henry, Frederick's brother, maintained himself in Saxony against the much stronger Austrian army of Marshal Daun. These successes left Frederick free to act with all his remaining forces against the Austrians in Silesia, under Laudon, and their Russian allies who were marching through Poland to unite with them a third time. But their combined force was 140,000 men, his barely 55,000. By the most skillful military tactics, marching rapidly back and forth, threatening first one and then the other, he kept them asunder until the middle of August, when they effected a junction in spite of him. Then he entrenched himself so strongly in a fortified camp near Schweidnitz that they did not dare to attack him immediately. Marshal Laudon and the Russian commander, Buturlin, quarreled, in consequence of which a large part of the Russian army left and marched northward into Pomerania. Then Frederick would have given battle, but on October i, Laudon took Schweidnitz by storm and so strengthened his position thereby that it would have been useless to attack him. Frederick's prospects were darker than ever when the year 1 76 1 came to a close. On December 16 the Swedes and Russians took the important fortress of Colberg, on the Baltic coast. Half Pomerania was in their hands, more than half of Silesia in the hands of the Austrians, Prince Henry was hard pressed in Saxony, and Ferdinand of Brunswick was barely able to hold back the French. On all sides the allied enemies were closing in upon Prus- sia, whose people could no longer furnish soldiers or pay taxes. For more than a year the country had been hanging on the verge of ruin, and while Frederick's true greatness had been illustrated in his unyielding courage, his unshaken energy, his determination never to give up, he was almost powerless to plan any further measures of defense. With four millions of people he had for six years fought powers which embraced eighty millions; but now half his territory was lost to him and the other half utterly exhausted. FREDERICK THE GREAT 343 172-17tt Suddenly, in the darkest hour, light came. In January, 1762, Frederick's bitter enemy, the Empress Elizabeth of Russia, died, and was succeeded by Czar Peter III., who was one of his most devoted admirers. The first thing Peter did was to send back all the Prussian prisoners of war; an armistice was concluded, then a peace, and finally an alliance, by which the Russian troops in Pomerania and Silesia were transferred from the Austrian to the Prussian side. Sweden followed the example of Russia, and made peace, and the campaign of 1762 opened with renewed hopes for Prussia. In July, 1762, Peter III. was dethroned and mur- dered, whereupon his widow and successor, Catherine II., broke off the alliance with Frederick ; but she finally agreed to maintain peace, and Frederick made use of the presence of the Russian troops who wer^ now in his camp to win a decided victory over Daun, on July 21. Austria was discouraged by this new turn of affairs ; the war was conducted with less energy on the part of her generals, while the Prussians were everywhere animated with a fresh spirit. After a siege of several months Frederick took the fortress of Schweid- nitz on October 9; on the 29th of the same month Prince Henry defeated the Austrians at Freiberg, in Saxony, and on November I Ferdinand of Brunswick drove the French out of Cassel. After this Frederick marched upon Dresden, while small detachments were sent into Bohemia and Franconia, where they levied contribu- tions on the cities and villages and kept the country in a state of terror. In the meantime negotiations for peace had been carried on between England and France. The preliminaries were settled at Fontainebleau on November 3, and, although the ministry of George HI. would have willingly seen Prussia destroyed, Fred- erick's popularity was so great in England that the government was forced to stipulate that the French troops should be withdrawn from Germany. The " German Empire," represented by its su- perannuated diet at Ratisbon, became alarmed at its position and concluded an armistice with Prussia; so that, before the year closed, Austria was left alone to carry on the war. Maria Theresa's personal hatred of Frederick, which had been the motive power in the combination against him, had not been gratified by his ruin. She could only purchase peace with him, after all his losses and dangers, by giving up Silesia forever. It was a bitter pill for her S44 GERMANY 1763-1764 to swallow, but there was no alternative; she consented, with rage and humiliation in her heart. On February 15, 1763, peace was signed at Hubertsburg, a little hunting-castle near Leipzig, and the Seven Year's War was over. Frederick was now called " the Great " throughout Europe, and Prussia was henceforth ranked among the " Five Great Powers," the others being England, France, Austria, and Russia. His first duty, as after the Second Silesian War, was to raise the kingdom from its weak and wasted condition. He distributed among the farmers the supplies of grain which had been hoarded up for the army, gave them as many artillery and cavalry horses as could be spared, practiced the most rigid economy in the ex- penses of the government, and bestowed all that could be saved upon the regions which had most suffered. The nobles derived the greatest advantage from this support, for he considered them the main pillar of his state, and took all his officers from their ranks. In order to be prepared for any new emergency, he kept up his army, and finally doubled it, at a great cost ; but as he used only one-sixth of his own income and gave the rest toward sup- porting this burden, the people, although often oppressed by his system of taxation, did not openly complain. Frederick continued to be sole and arbitrary ruler. He was unwilling to grant any participation in the government to the dif- ferent classes of the people, but demanded that everything should be trusted to his own " sense of duty." Since the people did honor and trust him, since every day illustrated his desire to be just toward all, and his own personal devotion to the interests of the kingdom, his policy was accepted. He never reflected that the spirit of complete submission which he was inculcating weak- ened the spirit of the people, and might prove to be the ruin of Prussia if the royal power should fall into base or ignorant hands. In fact, the material development of the country was seriously hindered by his admiration of everything French. He introduced a form of taxation borrowed from France, appointed French offi- cials, who oppressed the people, granted monopolies to manufac- turers, prohibited the exportation of raw material, and in other ways damaged the interests of Prussia by trying to force a rapid growth. Frederick the Great, like all his contemporaries, was a thorough believer in the mercantile system, in the value of high protective tariffs, and in other economic theories, whose falsity FREDERICK THE GREAT 845 1764-1786 was not clearly shown until Adam Smith published his " Wealth of Nations," in 1776. One other event, of a peaceful yet none the less of a violent character, marks Frederick's reign. Within a year after the signing of the Peace of Hubertsburg Augustus III. of Poland died, and Catherine of Russia persuaded the Polish nobles to elect Prince Poniatowsky, her favorite, as his successor. She also made a treaty with Frederick the Great in which they guaranteed each other's possessions and agreed to pursue a common policy toward Poland, especially to keep Poland weak and to prevent the Poles from carrying out any of the much needed reforms in Poland. They also induced Poniatowsky to grant equal rights to the Prot- estant sects. This brought on a civil war in Poland, as the Catho- lics were in a majority. A long series of diplomatic negotiations followed, in which Prussia, Austria, and indirectly France, were involved. Finally, on August 5, 1772, Frederick the Great, Catherine II., and Maria Theresa (the latter most unwillingly) united in taking possession of about one-third of the king- dom of Poland, containing ioo,ocx) square miles and 4,500,000 inhabitants, and dividing it among themselves. Prussia received the territory between Pomerania and the former duchy of Prussia, except only the cities of Dantzig and Thorn, with about 700,000 inhabitants. This united together the eastern and central pos- sessions of Frederick the Great. One could now go from Berlin to Konigsberg without leaving the dominions of the King of Prussia. This was also the region lost to Germany in 1466, when the in- capable Emperor Frederick III. failed to assist the German Order. Its population was still mostly German, and consequently scarcely felt the annexation as a wrong; yet this does not change the character of the act. The last years of Frederick the Great were peaceful. He lived to see the American colonies independent of England, and was one of the first European rulers to make a commercial treaty with the new republic in the West.^ Frederick outlived Voltaire and Maria Theresa and preserved to the last his habits of industry and constant supervision of all affairs. Like his father, he was 1 The story that Frederick had such a great interest in George Washington that he sent him a sword upon which was inscribed, " From the oldest general in the world to the greatest," is a pure myth now completely exploded. See Moncure D. Conway in The Century Magazine, xiv., 945. 346 GERMANY 1786 fond of walking or riding through the parks and streets of Berlin and Potsdam, talking familiarly with the people and now and then using his cane upon an idler. His court was Spartan in its sim- plicity, and nothing prevented the people from coming personally to him with their complaints. On one occasion, in the streets of Potsdam, he met a company of schoolboys, and roughly addressed them with : " Boys, what are you doing here ? Be off to your school ! " One of the boldest answered : " Oh, you are king, are you, and don't know that there is no school to-day ! " Frederick laughed heartily, dropped his uplifted cane, and gave the urchins a piece of money that they might better enjoy their holiday. The windmill at Potsdam, which stood on some ground he wanted for his park, but could not get because the miller would not sell and defied him to take it arbitrarily, stands to this day as a token of his respect for the rights of the poor man. When Frederick died, on August 17, 1786, at the age of seventy-four, he left a kingdom of 6,000,000 inhabitants, an army of more than 200,000 men, and a sum of 72,000,000 thalers in the treasury. But, what was of far more consequence to Germany, he left behind him an example of patriotism, order, economy, and personal duty which was already followed by other German princes, and an example of resistance to foreign inter- ference which restored the pride and revived the hopes of the Ger- man people. Chapter XXXIII MARIA THERESA AND JOSEPH II. 1740-1790 IN the Empress Maria Theresa, Frederick the Great had an enemy whom he was bound to respect. Since the death of Maximilian II., in 1576, Austria had had no male ruler so pru- dent, just, and energetic as this woman. One of her first acts was to imitate the military organization of Prussia. Then she endeavored to restore the finances of the country, which had been sadly shattered by the luxury of her predecessors. Her position during the two Silesian wars and the Seven Years' War was almost the same as that of her opponent. She fought to recover territory part of which had been ceded to Austria and part of which she had held by virtue of unsettled claims. The only dif- ference was that the very existence of Austria did not depend on the result, as was the case with Prussia. Maria Theresa, like all the Hapsburgs after Ferdinand I., had grown up under the influence of the Jesuits. She effected a complete reorganization of the government, establishing special departments of justice, industry, and commerce. She sought to develop the re- sources of the country, abolished torture, introduced a new criminal code in short, she neglected scarcely any important interests of the people, except their education and their religious freedom. Never- theless, she was always jealous of the claims of Rome, and pre- vented, as far as she was able, the immediate dependence of the Catholic clergy upon the Pope. In 1765 her husband, Francis I. (of Lorraine and Tuscany), suddenly died, and was succeeded, as German emperor, by her eldest son, Joseph II., who was then twenty-four years of age. He was an earnest, noble-hearted, aspiring man, who had already taken his mother's enemy, Frederick the Great, as his model for a ruler. Maria Theresa, therefore, kept the government of the Austrian dominions in her own hands, and the title of " emperor ** was not much more than an empty dignity while she lived. In August, 1769, Joseph had an interview with Frederick at Neisse, 34T 6i8 GERMANY 1769-1780 in Silesia, and told him outright that Austria had given up all hopes of ever recovering Silesia. Frederick returned the visit, at Neustadt, in Moravia, the following year. At these meetings the admiration of each for the other was much increased; perhaps also they discussed the proposed partition of Poland, and Joseph showed that he was not averse to the project. Nevertheless, after the treaty had been formally drawn up and laid before Maria Theresa for her signature, she added these words : " Long after I am dead the effects of this violation of all which has hitherto been considered right and holy will be made manifest." Joseph, with all his liberal ideas, had no such scruples of conscience. He was easily controlled by Frederick the Great, who, notwithstanding, never entirely trusted him. In 1777 a new trouble arose which for two years held Ger- many on the brink of internal war. The Elector Max Joseph of Bavaria, the last of the House of Wittelsbach in a direct line, died without leaving brother or son, and the next heir was the Elector Charles Theodore of the Palatinate. The latter was persuaded by Joseph n. to give up about half of Bavaria to Austria, and Austrian troops immediately took possession of the territory. This pro- ceeding created great alarm among the German princes, who looked upon it as the beginning of an attempt to extend the Austrian sway over all the other states. Another heir to Bavaria, Duke Charles of Zweibriicken (a little principality on the French frontier), was brought forward and presented by Frederick the Great, who, in order to support him, sent two armies into the field. Saxony and some of the smaller states took the same side ; even Maria Theresa desired peace, but Joseph H. persisted in his plans until both France and Russia intervened. The matter was finally settled in May, 1779, by giving Bavaria to the Elector Charles Theodore, and annex- ing to Austria a strip of territory along the River Inn containing about 900 square miles and 139,000 inhabitants. Maria Theresa had long been ill of an incurable dropsy, and on November 29, 1780, she died, in the sixty-fourth year of her age. A few days before her death she had herself lowered by ropes and pulleys into the vault where the coffin of Francis I. reposed. On being drawn up again, one of the rof>es parted, where- upon she exclaimed : " He wishes to keep me with him, and I shall soon come ! " She wrote in her prayer-book that in regard to matters of justice, the church, the education of her children, and MARIA THERESA AND JOSEPH 34.9 1780 her obligations toward the different orders of her people, she found little cause for self-reproach ; but that she had been a sinner in making war from motives of pride, envy, and anger, and in her speech had shown too little charity for others. She left Austria in a condition of order and material prosperity such as the country had not known for centuries. When Frederick the Great heard of her death he said to one of his ministers : " Maria Theresa is dead ; now there will be a new order of things ! " He evidently believed that Joseph H. would set about indulging his restless ambition for conquest. But the latter kept the peace, and devoted himself to the interests of Aus- tria, establishing, indeed, a new and most astonishing order of things, but of a totally different nature from what Frederick had expected. Joseph H. was filled with the new ideas of human rights which already agitated Europe. The short but illustrious history of the Corsican republic, the foundation of the new nation of the United States of America, the works of French authors advocating democracy in society and politics, were beginning to exercise a powerful influence in Germany, not so much among the people as among the highly educated classes. Thus at the very moment when Frederick and Maria Theresa were exercising the most absolute form of despotism, and the smaller rulers were doing their best to imitate them, the most radical theories of republi- canism were beginning to be openly discussed, and the great revo- lution which they occasioned was only a few years off. Joseph n. was scarcely less despotic in his habits of govern- ment than Frederick the Great, and he used his power to force new liberties upon a people who were not intelligent enough to understand them. He stands almost alone among monarchs as an example of a revolutionist upon the throne, not only granting far more than was ever demanded of his predecessors, but com- pelling his people to accept rights which they hardly knew how to use. He determined to transform Austria, by a few bold measures, into a state which should embody all the progressive ideas of the day, and be a model for the world. The plan was high and noble, but he failed because he did not perceive that the condition of a people cannot be so totally changed without a wise and gradual preparation for it. He began by reforming the entire civil service of Austria; but, as he took the reform into his own hands and had little prac- 850 GERMANY 1780-1790 tical knowledgfe of the position and duties of the officials, many of the changes operated injuriously. In regard to taxation, industry, and commerce he followed the theories of French writers, which, in many respects, did not apply to the state of things in Austria. He abolished the penalty of death, put an end to serfdom among the peasantry, cut down the privileges of the nobles, and tried, for a short time, the experiment of a free press. His boldest measure was in regard to the church, which he endeavored to make wholly independent of Rome. He openly declared that the priests were " the most dangerous and most useless class in every country." He suppressed seven hundred monasteries and turned them into schools or asylums, granted the Protestants freedom of worship and all rights enjoyed by Catholics, and continued his work in so sweeping a manner that the Pope, Pius VI., hastened to Vienna in 1782, in the greatest alarm, hoping to restore the influence of the church. Joseph II. received him with external politeness, but had him carefully watched and allowed no one to visit him without his own express permission. After a stay of four weeks, during which he did not obtain a single concession of any importance, the Pope returned to Rome. Not content with what he had accomplished, Joseph now went further. He g^ve equal rights to Jews and members of the Greek Church, ordered German hymns to be sung in the Catholic churches and the German Bible to be read, and prohibited pilgrimages and religious processions. These measures gave the priesthood the means of alarming the ignorant people, who were easily persuaded that the emperor intended to abolish the Christian religion. They became suspicious and hostile toward the one man who was defying the church and the nobles in his efforts to help the populace. Only the few who came into direct contact with him were able to appreciate his sincerity and goodness. He was fond of going about alone, dressed so simply that few recognized him, and almost as many stories of his intercourse with the lower classes are told of him in Austria as of Frederick the Great in Prussia. On one occasion he at- tended a poor sick woman whose daughter took him for a physician ; on another he took the plow from the hands of a peasant and plowed a few furrows around the field. Though he was one of the most enlightened men of his age, and sincerely tried to benefit his people, his reforms were too radical, and usually created gjeat oppo- sition among the very classes they were intended to benefit. Fred- MARIA THERESA AND JOSEPH S51 1780-1790 erick said sarcastically of him that he failed in almost everything he undertook because he always took the second step before he had taken the first. If his reign had been longer the Austrian people would have learned to trust him, and many of his reforms might have become permanent ; he was better understood and loved after his death than during his life. One circumstance must be mentioned in explanation of the sudden and sweeping character of Joseph H.'s measures toward the church. The Jesuits, by their intrigues and the demoralizing influence which they exercised, had made themselves hated in all Catholic countries, and were tolerated only in Bavaria and Austria. France, Spain, Naples, and Portugal, one after the other, banished the order, and Pope Clement XIV. was finally induced, in 1773, to dissolve its connection with the Church of Rome. The Jesuits were then compelled to leave Austria, and for a time they found refuge only in Russia and Prussia, where they were employed by the governments as teachers. Their expulsion was the sign of a new life for the schools and universities, and Joseph II. evidently supposed that the Church of Rome itself had made a step in ad- vance. The Archbishop of Mayence and the Bishop of Treves were noted liberals; the latter even favored a reformation in the Catholic Church, and the emperor had reason to believe that he would receive at least a moral support throughout Germany. He neither perceived the thorough demoralization which two centuries of Jesuit rule had produced in Austria nor the settled determina- tion of the Papal power to restore the order as soon as circum- stances would permit. Joseph II.'s last years were disastrous to all his plans. In Flanders, which was still a dependency of Austria, the priests incited the people to revolt; in Hungary the nobles were bitterly hostile to him on account of the abolition of serfdom; and an alliance with Catherine II. of Russia against Turkey, into which he entered in 1788 chiefly, it seems, in the hope of achieving military renown was in every way unfortunate. At the head of an army of 200,000 men he marched against Belgrade, but was repelled by the Turks, and finally returned to Vienna with the seeds of a fatal fever in his frame. Russia made peace with Turkey be- fore the fortunes of war could be retrieved; Flanders declared itself independent of Austria, and a revolution in Hungary was only prevented by his taking back most of the decrees which had 852 GERMANY 1790 been issued for the emancipation of the people. Disappointed and hopeless, Joseph II. succumbed to the fever which hung upon him. He died on February 20, 1790, only forty-nine years of age. He ordered these words to be engraved upon his tombstone: " Here lies a prince whose intentions were pure, but who had the misfortune to see all his plans shattered ! " History has done justice to his character, and the people whom he tried to help learned to appreciate his efforts when it was too late. The condition of Germany, from the end of the Seven Years* War to the close of the eighteenth century, shows a remarkable progress, when we contrast it with the first half of the century. The stem, heroic character of Frederick the Great, the strong, humane aspirations of Joseph II., and the rapid gjowth of demo- cratic ideas all over the world affected at last many of the smaller German states. Their imitation of the pomp and state of Louis XIV., which they had practiced for nearly a hundred years, came to an end. The princes were now possessed with the idea of " an enlightened despotism " that is, while retaining their absolute power, they endeavored to exercise it for the good of the people. There were some dark exceptions to this general change for the better. The rulers of Hesse-Cassel and Wiirtemberg, for example, sold whole regiments of their subjects to England, to be used against the American colonies in the War of Independence. Al- though many of these soldiers remained in the United States, and encouraged, by their satisfaction with their new homes, the later German emigration to America, the princes who sold them covered their own memories with infamy, and deservedly so. There was a remarkable movement about the same time among the Catholic archbishops, who were also temporal rulers, in Ger- many. The dominions of these priestly princes, especially along the Rhine, had been wretchedly governed. There were about 1000 inhabitants, 50 of whom were priests and 260 beggars, to every twenty-two square miles! But by a singular coincidence the chief Catholic archbishops were at this time men of intelligence and humane aspirations, who did their best to remedy the misrule of their predecessors. In the year 1786 the archbishops of Mayence, Treves, Cologne, and Salzburg, came together at Ems and agreed upon a plan for founding a national German-Catholic Qiurch inde- pendent of Rome, The priests, in their ignorance and bigotry, opposed the movement, and even Joseph II., who had planned MARIA THERESA AND JOSEPH 353 1790 the very same thing for Austria, most inconsistently refused to favor it. The plan, therefore, failed. It must be admitted, as an apology for the theory of " an en- lightened despotism," that there was no representative govern- ment in Europe at the time where there was greater justice and order than in Prussia or in Austria under Joseph II. The German Empire had become a mere mockery; its perpetual diet at Ratisbon was little more than a farce. Poland, Holland, and Sweden, where there were legislative assemblies, were in a most unfortunate con- dition. The Swiss republic was far from being republican, and even England, under George III., did not present a fortunate model of parliamentary government. The United States of America were too far off and too little known to exercise much influence. Some of the smaller German states, which were despotisms in the hands of wise and humane rulers, thus played a most beneficent part in protecting, instructing, and elevating the people. Baden, Brunswick, Anhalt-Dessau, Holstein, Saxe-Gotha, and especially Saxe-Weimar, became cradles of science and literature. Charles Augustus, of the last-named state, called Herder, Wieland, Goethe, Schiller, and other illustrious authors to his court, and created such a distinguished circle in letters and the arts that Weimar was named " the German Athens." The works of these great men, who had been preceded by Lessing and Klopstock, gave an im- mense impetus to the intellectual development of Germany. It was the first great advance made by the people since, the days of Luther, and its effect extended gradually to the courts of less in- telligent and humane princes. Frederick Augustus of Saxony refrained from imitating his dissolute and tyrannical ancestors, and his land began to recover from its long sufferings. As for the scores of petty states which contained as was ironically said " twelve subjects and one Jew," and were not much larger than an average Illinois farm, they were mostly despotic and ridiculous ; but they were too weak to impede the general march of progress. Among the greater states, only Bavaria remained in the back- ground. The elector held fast to all his religious prejudices and kept his people in ignorance. Chapter XXXIV THE END OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 1790-1806 THE mantles of both Frederick the Great and Joseph H. fell upon incompetent successors at a time when all Europe was agfitated by the beginning of the French Revolution, and when, therefore, the greatest political wisdom was required of the rulers of Germany. It was a crisis the like of which never before occurred in the history of the world, and proba- bly never will occur again; for, at the time when it came, the people enjoyed fewer rights than they had possessed during the Middle Ages, and the monarchs exercised more power than they had claimed for at least fifteen hundred years before, while general intelligence and the knowledge of human rights were increasing everywhere. The fabrics of society and government were ages behind the demands of the time; a change was inevitable, and because no preparation had been made, it came with violence. Frederick the Great was succeeded by his nephew, Frederick William II., whom, with unaccountable neglect, he had not in- structed in the duties of government. The latter, nevertheless, began with changes which gave him a great popularity. He abol- ished the French system of collecting duties, the monopolies which were burdensome to the people, and lightened the weight of their taxes. But, by unnecessary interference in the affairs of Holland (because his sister was the wife of William V. of Orange), he spent all the surplus which Frederick had left in the Prussian treasury; he was weak, dissolute, and fickle in his character; he introduced the most rigid measures in regard to the press and religious worship, and soon taught the people the difference be- tween a bigoted and narrow-minded and an intelligent and con- scientious king. Joseph II. was succeeded by his brother, Leopold II., who for twenty-five years had been Grand Duke of Tuscany, where he had governed with great mildness and prudence. His policy had been somewhat similar to that of Joseph II., but charactcr- SM END OF THE EMPIRE 355 1790-1792 ized by greater caution and moderation. When he took the crown of Austria, and immediately afterward that of the German Em- pire, he materially changed his plan of government. He was not rigidly oppressive, but he checked the evidence of a freer develop- ment among the people which Joseph II. had fostered. He lim- ited at once the pretensions of Austria, cultivated friendly rela- tions with Prussia, which was then inclined to support the Austrian Netherlands in their revolt, and took steps to conclude peace with Turkey. He succeeded, also, in reconciling the Hungarians to the Hapsburg rule, and might possibly have given a fortunate turn to the destinies of Austria if he had lived long enough. But he died on March i, 1792, after a reign of exactly two years, and was succeeded by his son, Francis H., who was elected Emperor of Grer- many on July 5, in Frankfort. By this time the great changes which had taken place in France began to agitate all Europe. The French National Assembly very soon disregarded the provisions of the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, which had ceded to France only the possessions of Austria in Alsatia, allowing various towns and districts on the west bank of the Upper Rhine to be held by German princes. The entire authority over these scattered possessions was now claimed by France, and neither Prussia, under Frederick William H., nor Austria under Leopold H., resisted the act otherwise than by a protest which had no effect. Although the French queen, Marie Antoinette, was Leopold H.'s sister, his policy was to preserve peace with the revolutionary party which controlled France. Frederick William's minister, Hertzberg, pursued the same policy, but so much against the will of the king, who was determined to defend the cause of absolute monarchy by trying to rescue Louis XVI. from his increasing dangers, that before the close of 1791 Hertz- berg was dismissed from office. Then Frederick William endeav- ored to create a " holy alliance " of Prussia, Austria, Russia, and Sweden against France, but only succeeded far enough to provoke a bitter feeling of hostility to Germany in the French National Assembly. The nobles who had been driven out of France by the Revo- lution were welcomed by the archbishops of Mayence and Treves, and the rulers of smaller states along the Rhine, who allowed them to plot a counter-revolution. An angry diplomatic intercourse be- tween France and Austria followed, and in April, 1792, the former 856 GERMANY 1792-1793 country declared war against " the King of Bohemia and Hungary," as Francis II. was styled by the French Assembly. In fact, war was inevitable; for the monarchs of Europe were simply waiting for a good chance to intervene and crush the republican movement in France, which, on its side, could only establish itself through military successes. Although neither party was prepared for the struggle, the energy and enthusiasm of the new men who governed France gained an advantage, at the start, over the lumbering slow- ness of the German governments. It was not the latter, this time, but their enemy who profited by the example of Frederick the Great. Prussia and Austria, supported by some, but not by all, of the smaller states, raised two armies, one of 110,000 men under the Duke of Brunswick, which was to march through Belgium to Paris, while the other, 50,000 strong, was to take possession of Alsatia. The movement of the former was changed, and then delayed by differences of opinion among the royal and ducal commanders. It started from Mayence and consumed three weeks in marching to the French frontier, only ninety miles distant. Longwy and Verdun were taken without much difficulty, and then the advance ceased. The French under Dumouriez and Kellermann united their forces, held the Germans in check at Valmy, on September 20, 1792, and then compelled them to retrace their steps toward the Rhine. While the Prussians were retreating through storms of rain, their ranks thinned by disease, Dumouriez wheeled upon Flanders, met the Austrian army at Jemappes, and gained such a decided victory that by the end of the year all Belgium, and even the city of Aix-la-Chapelle, fell into the hands of the French. At the same time another French army, under General Custine, marched to the Rhine, took Speyer, Worms, and finally Mayence, which city was made the headquarters of a republican movement intended to influence Germany. These successes were followed, on January 21, 1793, by the execution of Louis XVI., and on October 16 of Marie Antoinette acts which alarmed every reign- ing family in Europe and provoked the most intense enmity toward the French Republic. An immediate alliance called the First Co- alition was made by England, Holland, Prussia, Austria, " the German Empire," Sardinia, Naples, and Spain, against France. Only Catherine II. of Russia declined to join, not because she did not favor the design of crushing France, but because she would END OF THE EMPIRE 867 1793-1795 thus be left free to carry out her plans of aggrandizement at the expense of Turkey and Poland. The greater part of the year 1793 was on the whole favorable to the allied powers. An Austrian victory at Neerwinden, on March 18, compelled the French to evacuate Belgium. In July the Prussians reconquered Mayence and then advanced into Al- satia. A combined English and Spanish fleet took possession of Toulon. But there was no unity of action among the enemies of France; even the German successes were soon neutralized by the mutual jealousy and mistrust of Prussia and Austria, and the war became more and more unpopular. Toward the close of the year the French armies were again victorious in Flanders and along the Rhine. Their generals had discovered that the rapid movements and the rash, impetuous assaults of their new troops were very effec- tual against the old, deliberate, scientific tactics of the Germans. Spain, Holland, and Sardinia proved to be almost useless as allies, and the strength of the coalition was reduced to England, Prussia, and Austria. In 1794 a fresh attempt was made. Prussia furnished 50,000 men, who were paid by England, and were hardly less mercenaries than the troops sold by Hesse-Cassel twenty years before. In June the French under Jourdan were victorious at Fleurus, and Austria decided to give up Belgium. The Prussians gained some advantages in Alsatia, but showed no desire to carry on the war as the hirelings of another country. Frederick William II. and Francis II. were equally suspicious of each other, equally weak and vacillating, divided between their desire of overturning the French republic on the one side and securing new conquests of Polish territory on the other. Thus the war was prosecuted in the most languid and inefficient manner, and by the end of the year the French were masters of all the territory west of the Rhine from Alsatia to the sea. During the following winter they assisted in overturning the former government of Holland, where a new " Batavian Republic " was established. Frederick William II. thereupon determined to withdraw from the coalition, and make a separate peace with France. His minister, Hardenberg, con- cluded a treaty at Basel, on April 5, 1795, by which Cleves and other Prussian territory west of the Lower Rhine were relin- quished to France, and all of Germany north of a line of de- marcation, drawn from the River Main eastward to Silesia, was S58 GERMANY 1793-1795 declared to be in a state of neutrality during the war which France still continued to wage with Austria. One cause of Prussia's change of policy seems to have been her fear that Russia would absorb the whole of Poland. This was probably the intention of Catherine II., for she had vigorously encouraged the war between Germany and France, while declining to take part in it. The Poles themselves, now more divided than ever, soon furnished her with a pretext for interference. They had adopted an hereditary instead of an elective monarchy, together with a constitution similar to that of France; but a portion of the nobility rose in arms against these changes, and were supported by Russia. Then Frederick William II. insisted on being admitted as a partner in the business of interference, and Catherine II. reluctantly consented. In January, 1793, the two powers agreed to divide a large portion of Polish territory between them, Austria taking no active part in the matter. Prussia received the cities of Thorn and Dantzig, the provinces of Posen, Gnesen, and Kalisch and other territory, amounting to more than 20,ocx) square miles, with 1,000,000 inhabitants. The only resistance made to the en- trance of the Russian army into Poland was headed by Kosciusko, one of the heroes of the American War of Independence. Although defeated at Dubienka, where he fought with 4000 men against 16,000, the hopes of the Polish patriots centered upon him, and when they rose in 1794 to prevent the approaching destruction of their country, they made him dictator. Russia was engaged in a war with Turkey, and had not troops enough to quell the insur- rection, so Prussia was called upon to furnish her share. In June, 1794, Frederick William himself marched to Warsaw, where a Russian army arrived about the same time. The city was besieged, but not attacked, owing to quarrels and differences of opinion among the commanders. At the end of three months the king got tired and went back to Berlin; several insignificant battles were fought, in which the Poles had the greater advantage, but nothing decisive happened until the end of October, when the Russian Gen- eral Suvarov arrived, after a forced march from the seat of war on the Danube. He first defeated Kosciusko, who was taken prisoner, and then marched upon Warsaw. On November 4 the suburb of Praga was taken by storm, with terrible slaughter, and three days after- ward Warsaw fell. This was the end of Poland as an independ- END OF THE EMPIRE 869 1795-1796 ent nation. Although Austria had taken no part in the war, she now negotiated for a share in the third and last partition, which had been decided upon by Russia and Prussia, even before the Polish revolt furnished the pretext for it. Catherine II. favored the Austrian claims, and even concluded a secret agreement with Francis II., without consulting Prussia. When this had been made known, in August, 1795, Prussia protested violently against it, but without effect. Russia took more than half the remaining terri- tory, Austria nearly one-quarter, and Prussia received about 20,- 000 square miles more, including the city of Warsaw. After the Treaty of Basel, which secured neutrality to the northern half of Germany, Catherine II., victorious over Turkey and having nothing more to do in Poland, united with England and Austria against France. It was agreed that Russia should send both an army and a fleet, Austria raise 200,000 men, and Eng- land contribute $20,000,000, annually toward the expenses of the war. During the summer of 1795, however, little was done. The French still held everything west of the Rhine, and the Austrians watched them from the opposite bank. The strength of both was nearly equal. Suddenly, in September, the French crossed the river, took Dusseldorf and Mannheim, with immense quantities of military stores, and completely laid waste the country in the neigh- borhood of these two cities, treating the people with the most in- human barbarity. Then the Austrians rallied, repulsed the French in their turn, and before winter recovered possession of nearly all the western bank. In January, 1796, an armistice was declared. Spain and Sar- dinia had already made peace with France, and Austria showed signs of becoming weary of the war. The French Republic, how- ever, found itself greatly strengthened by its military successes. Its minister of war, Carnot, and its ambitious young generals, Bonaparte, Moreau, and Massena, were winning fame and power by the continuance of hostilities, and the system of making the conquered territory pay all the expenses of the war (in some cases much more) was a great advantage to the French national treasury. Thus the war, undertaken by the coalition for the destruction of the French Republic, had only strengthened the latter, which was in the best condition for continuing it at a time when the allies (except, perhaps, England) were discouraged and ready for peace. The campaign of 1796 was most disastrous to Austria. France 860 GERMANY 1796 had an army under Jourdan on the Lower Rhine, another under Moreau who had replaced General Pichegru on the Upper Rhine, and a third under Bonaparte in Italy. Bonaparte led his army from Nice toward Genoa, along the shore of the Mediter- ranean. Then he suddenly marched northward across the Alps where they are lower, defeated the Sardinians and forced them to make peace, and then without fear for his rear and line of com- munication, was ready to face the Austrians. As his army looked down into the rich valley of the Po, clothed in April green, Bona- parte addressed his soldiers : " Soldiers, you are naked, badly fed. I wish to lead you among the most fertile plains of the world. Rich provinces, great towns, will be in your power; there you will find honor and glory and riches. Soldiers of Italy, can you be found lacking in honor, courage, or constancy ? " He promised them he would give them Milan in four weeks, and he kept his word. Plun- der and victory heightened their faith in his splendid military genius. He advanced with irresistible energy, passing the Po and the Adda at Lodi. He overthrew the venerable Venetian republic, and formed new republican states out of the old Italian duchies. The Austrians he drove everywhere before him. By the end of the 3'ear 1796 they held only the strong fortress of Mantua. The French armies on the Rhine were opposed by an Austrian army of equal strength, commanded by the Archduke Charles, a gen- eral of considerable talent, but still governed by the military ideas of a former generation. Instead of attacking, he waited to be at- tacked ; but neither Jourdan nor Moreau allowed him to wait long. The former took possession of the eastern bank of the Lower Rhine. When the archduke marched against him Moreau crossed into Baden and seized the passes of the Black Forest. Then the arch- duke, having compelled Jourdan to fall back, met the latter and was defeated. Jourdan returned a second time, Moreau advanced, and all Baden, Wurtemberg, Franconia, and the greater part of Bavaria fell into the hands of the French. These states not only submitted without resistance, but used every exertion to pay enormous con- tributions to their conquerors. One-fourth of what they gave would have prevented the invasion, and changed the subsequent fate of Germany. Frankfort paid ten millions of florins, Nuremberg three, Bavaria ten, and the other cities and principalities in proportion, besides furnishing enormous quantities of supplies to the French troops. All these countries purchased the neutrality of France by END OF THE EMPIRE 361 1796-1798 allowing free passage to the latter, and agreeing further to pay heavy monthly contributions toward the expenses of the war. Even Saxony, which had not been invaded, joined in this agreement. Toward the end of summer the archduke twice defeated Jour- dan and forced him to retreat across the Rhine. This rendered Mo- reau's position in Bavaria untenable. Closely followed by the Aus- trians, he accomplished without loss that famous retreat through the Black Forest which is considered a greater achievement than many victories in the annals of war. Thus, at the close of the year 1796, all Germany east of the Rhine, plundered, impoverished, and demoralized, was again free from the French. This defeated Bonaparte's plan, which had been to advance from Italy through the Tyrol, effect a junction with Moreau in Bavaria, and then march upon Vienna. Nevertheless, he determined to carry out his portion of it, regardless of the fortunes of the other French armies, and of the contrary orders which the home government sent to him. On February 2, 1797, Mantua surrendered; the Archduke Charles, who had been sent against him, was defeated, and Bonaparte followed with such daring and vigor that by the middle of April he had reached the little town of Leoben, in Styria, only a few days' march from Vienna. Although he had less than 50,000 men, while the archduke still had about 25,000, and the Austrians, Styrians, and Tyrolese, now thoroughly aroused, de- manded weapons and leaders, Francis II., instead of encouraging their patriotism and boldly undertaking a movement which might have cut off Bonaparte, began to negotiate for peace. Of course the conqueror dictated his own terms. The preliminaries were settled at once, an armistice followed, and on October 17, 1797, peace was concluded at Campo Formio. Austria gave Lombardy and Belgium to France, to both of which countries she had a tolerable claim; but she also gave all the territory west of the Rhine, which she had no right to do, even under the constitution of the superannuated " German Empire." On the other hand, Bonaparte gave to Austria Dalmatia, Istria, and nearly all the territory of the Republic of Venice, to which he had not the shadow of a right. He had already conquered and suppressed the Republic of Genoa, so that these two old and illus- trious states vanished from the map of Europe only two years after Poland. Nevertheless, the illusion of a German Empire was kept up, 362 GERMANY 1798-1799 SO far as the form was concerned. A congress of all the states was called to meet at Rastatt, in Baden, and confirm the Treaty of Campo Formio. But France had become arrogant through her astonishing success, and in May, 1798, her ambassadors suddenly demanded a number of new concessions, including the annexation of points east of the Rhine, the leveling of the fortress of Ehren- breitstein, opposite Coblentz, and the possession of the islands at the mouth of the river. At this time Bonaparte was absent on his expedition to Egypt, and only England, chiefly by means of her navy, was carrying on the war with France. The new demands made at the Congress of Rastatt not only prolonged the negotia- tions, but provoked throughout Europe the idea of another coali- tion against the French Republic. The year 1798, however, came to an end without any further action, except such as was secretly plotted at various courts. Early in 1799 the Second Coalition was formed between Eng- land, Russia (where Paul I. had succeeded Catherine II. in 1796), Austria, Naples, and Turkey. Spain and Prussia still adhered to the Treaty of Basel of 1795 and refused to join. An Austrian army under the archduke defeated Jourdan in March, while an- other, supported by Naples, was successful against the French in Italy. Meanwhile the congress continued to sit at Rastatt, in the foolish hope of making peace after war had again begun. The approach of the Austrian troops finally dissolved it; but the two French ambassadors, who left for France on the evening of April 28, were waylaid and murdered near the city by some Austrian hussars. No investigation of this outrage was ever published ; the general belief is that the court of Vienna was responsible for it. The act was as mad as it was infamous, for it stirred the entire French people into fury against Germany. In the spring of 1799 a Russian army commanded by Suvarov arrived in Italy, and in a short time completed the work beg^n by the Austrians. The Roman Republic was overthrown and Pope Pius VII. restored ; all northern Italy, except Genoa, was taken from the French, and then, finding his movements hampered by the jeal- ousy of the Austrian generals, Suvarov crossed the St. Gothard with his army, fighting his way through the terrific gorges of the Alps. To avoid the French General Massena, who had been victorious at Zurich, he was compelled to choose the most lofty and difficult passes, and his march over them was a marvel of daring and en- END OF THE EMPIRE 363 1799-1800 durance. This was the end of his campaign, for the Emperor Paul, suspicious of Austria and becoming more friendly to France, soon afterward recalled him and his troops. During the campaign of this year the English army under the Duke of York had miser- ably failed in the Netherlands, but the archduke, although no im- portant battle was fought, held the French thoroughly in check along the frontier of the Rhine. The end of the year, and of the century, brought a great change in the destinies of France. Bonaparte had returned from Egypt, and on November 9 (the " i8th Brumaire") by a coup d'etat backed by an armed force and supported by his personal popularity and reputation, he overthrew the government of the " Directory," and established the Consulate in the place of the republic, with himself as First Consul for ten years. Being now practically dictator, he took matters into his own hands, and his first measure was to propose peace to the coalition, on the basis of the Treaty of Campo Formio. This was rejected by England and Austria, who stubbornly believed that the fortune of the war was at last turning to their side. In Prussia, Frederick William II. had died in November, 1797, and was succeeded by his son, Fred- erick William III., who -vt^as a man of excellent personal qualities, but without either energy, ambitions, or clear intelligence. Bona- parte's policy was simply to keep Prussia neutral, and he found no difficulty in maintaining the peace which had been concluded at Basel five years before. England chiefly took part in the war by means of her navy, and by contributions of money, so that France, with the best generals in the world and soldiers flushed with victory, was only called upon to meet Austria in the field. At this crisis the Archduke Charles, Austria's single good gen- eral, threw up his command on account of the interference of the court of Vienna with his plans. His place was filled by the Arch- duke John, a boy of nineteen, under whom was an army of 100,000 men, scattered in a long line from the Alps to Frankfort. Moreau easily broke through this barrier, overran Baden and Wiirtem- berg, and was only arrested for a short time by the fortifications of Ulm. While these events were occurring, another Austrian army under Melas besieged Massena in Genoa. Bonaparte collected a new force with such rapidity and secrecy that his plan was not discovered, made a heroic march over the St. Bernard Pass of the Alps in May, and came down upon Italy like an avalanche. Genoa, 364 GERMANY 1800-1803 thousands of whose citizens perished with hunger during the siege, had already surrendered to the Austrians; but when the latter turned to repel Bonaparte they were cut to pieces on the field of Marengo, on June 14, 1800. This magnificent victory gave all northern Italy, as far as the River Mincio, into the hands of the French. Again Bonaparte offered peace to Austria, on the same basis as before. An armistice was concluded, and Francis II. made signs of accepting the offer of peace, but only that he might quietly recruit his armies. When, therefore, the armistice expired, on November 25, Moreau immediately advanced to attack the new Austrian army of nearly 90,000 men which occupied a position along the River Inn, On December 3 the two met at Hohen- linden, and the French, after a bloody struggle, were completely victorious. There was now, apparently, nothing to prevent Moreau from marching upon Vienna, and the Archduke Charles, who had been sent in all haste to take command of the demoralized Austrians, was compelled to ask for an armistice upon terms very humiliating to the Hapsburg pride. After all its haughtiness and incompetency, the court of Vienna gratefully accepted such terms as it could get. Francis II. sent one of his ministers, Coblenzl, who met Joseph Bonaparte at Lune- ville (in Lorraine), and there, on February 9, 1801, peace was concluded. Its chief provisions were those of the Treaty of Campo Formio : all the territory west of the Rhine, from Basel to the sea, was given to France, together with all northern Italy west of the Adige. The Duke of Modena received part of Baden, and the Duke of Tuscany Salzburg. Other temporal princes of Ger- many, who lost part or the whole of their territory by the treaty, were compensated by secularizing the dominions of the ecclesias- tical rulers, and dividing them among the former. Thus the states governed by archbishops, bishops, abbots, or other clerical digni- taries, nearly one hundred in number, were abolished at one blow, and what little was left of the fabric of the old German Empire fell to pieces. The division of all this territory among the other states gave rise to new difficulties and disputes, whicli were not settled for two years longer. The diet appointed a special com- mission to arrange the matter ; but inasmuch as Bonaparte, through his minister, Talleyrand, and Alexander I. of Russia (the Emperor Paul having met with a violent death in 1801), intrigued in every END OF THE EMPIRE 365 1803 possible way to enlarge the smaller German states and prevent the increase of Austria, the final arrangements were made quite as much by the two foreign powers as by the commission of the Ger- man diet. On April 27, 1803, the decree of secularization and partition was issued, changing the map of Germany. Only six free cities were left out of fifty-two Frankfort, Hamburg, Bremen, Lubeck, Nuremberg, and Augsburg. Prussia received three bishoprics (Hildesheim, Munster, and Paderborn) and a number of abbeys and cities, including Erfurt, a total amounting to four times as much as she had lost on the left bank of the Rhine. Baden was increased to double its former size by the remains of the Palat- inate (including Heidelberg and Mannheim), the city of Con- stance, and a number of abbeys and monasteries. A part of Fran- conia, with Wurzburg and Bamberg, was added to Bavaria. Wiir- temberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Nassau were much enlarged, and most of the other states received smaller additions. At the same time the rulers of Baden, Wiirtemberg, Hesse-Cassel, and Salz- burg were dignified by the new title of " electors " when they never would be called upon to elect another German emperor! An impartial study of these events will show that they were caused by the indifference of Prussia to the general interests of Germany, and the utter lack of the commonest political wisdom in Francis H. of Austria and his ministers. The war with France was wantonly undertaken, in the first place; it was then continued with stupid obstinacy after two offers of peace. But except the loss of the left bank of the Rhine, with more than three millions of German inhabitants, Germany, though humiliated, was not yet seriously damaged. The complete overthrow of church authority, the extinction of a multitude of petty states, and the abolition of the special privileges of nearly a thousand " imperial " noble families was an immense gain to the whole country. The influence which Bonaparte exercised in the partition of 1803, though made solely with a view to the political interests of France, produced some very beneficial changes in Germany. In regard to religion, the chief electors were now equally divided, five being Catholic and five Protestant; while the diet of princes, instead of having a Catholic majority of twelve, as heretofore, acquired a Protestant majority of twenty-two. France was now the ruling power on the Continent of Europe. 866 GERMANY 1802-1804 Prussia preserved a timid neutrality, Austria was powerless, the new republics in Holland, Switzerland, and Italy were wholly sub- jected to French influence, Spain, Denmark, and Russia were friendly, and even England, after the overthrow of Pitt's ministry, was persuaded to make peace with Bonaparte in 1802. The same year the latter had himself declared First Consul for life, and be- came absolute master of the destinies of France. A new quarrel with England soon broke out, and this gave him a pretext for sending General Mortier with 12,000 men to seize Hanover and occupy it. Neither the Hanoverians nor any of the Germans seriously tried by force of arms to prevent this unwarranted occu- pation. The French troops overran the country easily in a few days, and plundered to the amount of twenty-six million thalers. Prussia and the other German states quietly looked on and did nothing. In March, 1804, the First Consul sent a force across the Rhine into Baden, seized the Duke d'Enghien, a fugitive Bourbon prince, carried him into France, and there had him shot. This outrage provoked a general cry of indignation throughout Europe, and strengthened the growing feeling that no faith could be placed in a ruler who would thus kidnap a prince from neutral territory and then murder an innocent man. Two months afterward, on May 18, Bonaparte assumed the title of Napoleon, Emperor of the French. The Italian republics were changed into a king- dom of Italy, and that period of arrogfant and selfish personal government commenced which brought monarchs and nations to his feet, and finally made him a fugitive and a prisoner. On August II, 1804, Francis II. imitated him, by taking the title of " Emperor of Austria," in order to preserve his existing rank, whatever changes might afterward come. England, Austria, and Russia were now more than ever de- termined to cripple the increasing power of Napoleon. Much time was spent in endeavoring to persuade Prussia to join the move- ment, but Frederick William III. not only refused, but sent an army to prevent the Russian troops from crossing Prussian terri- tory, on their way to join the Austrians. By the summer of 1805 the Third Coalition, composed of the three powers already named and Sweden, was formed, and a plan adopted for bringing nearly 400,000 soldiers into the field against France. Although the secret had been well kept, it was revealed before the coalition was quite END OF THE EMPIRE 367 1804- 1806 prepared, and Napoleon was ready for the emergency. He had collected an army of 200,000 men at Boulogne for the invasion of England; giving up the latter design, he marched rapidly into southern Germany, procured the alliance of Baden, Wiirtemberg, and Bavaria, with 40,000 more troops, and thus gained the first advantage before the Russian and Austrian armies had united. The fortress of Ulm, held by the Austrian General Mack^ with 25,000 men, surrendered on October 17. The French pressed forward, overcame the opposition of a portion of the allied armies along the Danube, and on November 13 entered Vienna. Francis II. and his family had fled to Presburg. The Archduke Charles hastening from Italy, was in Styria with a small force, and a combined Russian and Austrian army of nearly 100,000 men was in Moravia. Prussia threatened to join the coalition, because the neutrality of her territory had been violated by Ber- nadotte, in marching from Hanover to join Napoleon. The allies, although surprised and disgracefully defeated, were far from ap- preciating the courage and skill of their enemy, and still believed they could overcome him. Napoleon pretended to avoid a battle and thereby drew them on to meet him in the field. On Decem- ber 2 at Austerlitz, the " Battle of the Three Emperors " (as the Germans call it) occurred, and by the close of that day the allies had lost 15,000 killed and wounded, 20,000 prisoners, and 200 cannon. Two days after the battle Francis II. came personally to Na- poleon and begged for an armistice, which was granted. The victorious Emperor of the French took up his quarters in the palace of the Hapsburgs, at Schonbrunn, as a conqueror, and waited for the conclusion of a treaty of peace, which was signed at Presburg on December 26, 1805. Austria was forced to give up Venice to France, Tyrol to Bavaria, and some smaller territory to Baden and Wiirtemberg; to accept the policy of France in Italy, Holland, and Switzerland, and to recognize Bavaria and Wiirtemberg as independent kingdoms of Napoleon's creation. All that she re- ceived in return was the archbishopric of Salzburg. She also agreed to pay fifty millions of francs to France, and to permit the formation of a new confederation of the smaller German states, which should be placed under the protectorship of Napoleon. The latter lost no time in carrying out his plan. By July, 1806, the Rheinbund (Confederation of the Rhine) was entered into by 868 GERMANY 18M seventeen states, which formed, in combination, a third power, independent of either Austria or Prussia. Immediately afterward, on August 6, 1806, Francis II. laid down his title of " Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation," and the political corpse, long since dead, was finally buried. Just a thousand years had elapsed since the time of Charlemagne. The power and influence of the empire had reached their culmination under the Hohenstaufens, but even then the smaller rulers were undermining its foundations. It existed for a few centuries longer as a system which was one-fourth fact and three-fourths tradition. During the Thirty Years* War it practically perished, and the Hapsburgs, after that, only wore the ornaments and trappings it left behind. The German people were never further from being a nation than at the commencement of this century; but most of them still clung to the superstition of an em- pire, until the compulsory act of Francis II. showed them, at last, that there was none. PART V THE NEW EMPIRE. 1806-1910 Chapter XXXV GERMANY UNDER NAPOLEON. 1 806-1814 A FTER the Peace of Presburg there was nothing to prevent L\ Napoleon from carrying out his plan of dividing the JL JL greater part of Europe among the members of his own family and among the marshals of his armies. He gave the king- dom of Naples to his brother Joseph ; appointed his stepson, Eugene Beauharnais, viceroy of Italy, and married him to the daughter of Maximilian I. (formerly elector, now king) of Bavaria; made a kingdom of Holland, and gave it to his brother Louis; gave the duchy of Jiilich, Cleves, and Berg to Murat, and married Stephanie Beauharnais, the niece of the Empress Josephine, to the son of the Grand Duke of Baden. There was no longer any thought of dis- puting his will in any of the smaller German states, the princes were as submissive as he could have desired, and the people had too long been powerless to dream of resistance. The Confederation of the Rhine, therefore, was constructed just as France desired. Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Baden, Hesse- Darmstadt, and Nassau united with twelve small principalities the whole embracing a population of thirteen millions in a confed- eration, which accepted Napoleon as protector and agreed to main- tain an army of 63,000 men, at the disposal of France. This ar- rangement divided the German Empire into three parts, one of which (Austria) had just been conquered, while another (Prussia) had lost all its former prestige by its weak and cowardly policy. Napoleon was now the recognized master of the third portion, the action of which was regulated by a diet held at Frankfort. In order to make the union simpler and more manageable, all the independent countships and baronies within its limits were abolished, and the seventeen states were thus increased by an aggregate territory of about 12,000 square miles. Bavaria took possession, without more ado, of the free cities of Nuremberg and Augsburg. Prussia by this time had agreed with Napoleon to give up Anspach and Bayreuth to Bavaria, and receive Hanover instead. sn 372 GERMANY 1806 This provoked the enmity of England, the only remaining nation which was friendly to Prussia. The French armies were still quar- tered in southern Germany, violating at will not only the laws of the land, but the laws of nations. A bookseller named Palm, in Nuremberg, who had in his possession some pamphlets opposing Napoleon's schemes, was seized by order of the latter, tried by court- martial, and shot. This brutal and despotic act was not at once resented by the German princes, but it aroused the slumbering spirit of the people. The Prussians, especially, began to grow very impatient of their pusillanimous government; but Frederick Wil- liam III. did nothing, until in August, 1806, he discovered that Napoleon was trying to purchase peace with England and Russia by offering Hanover to the former and Prussian Poland to the latter. Then he decided for war, at the very time when he was tompelled to meet the victorious power of France alone! Napoleon, as usual, was on the march before his enemy was even properly organized. He was already in Franconia, and in a few days stood at the head of an army of 200,000 men, part of whom were furnished by the Confederation of the Rhine. Prussia, assisted only by Saxony and Weimar, had 150,000, commanded by Prince Hohenlohe and the Duke of Brunswick, who hardly reached the bases of the Thuringian Mountains when they were met by the French and hurled back. On the tableland near Jena and Auerstadt a double battle was fought on October 14, 1806. At Jena Napoleon simply crushed and scattered to the winds the army of Prince Hohenlohe. At Auerstadt Marshal Davout, after some heavy fighting, defeated the Duke of Brunswick, who was mortally wounded. Then followed a season of panic and cowardice which now seems incredible. The French over- whelmed Prussia, and almost every defense fell without re- sistance as they approached. The strong fortress of Erfurt, with 14,000 men, surrendered the day after the battle of Jena ; the still stronger fortress city of Magdeburg, with 24,000 men, opened its gates before a gun was fired ! Spandau capitulated as soon as asked, on October 24, and Davout entered Berlin the same day. Only General Bliicher, more than sixty years old, cut his way through the French with 10,000 men, and for a time gallantly held them at bay in Lubeck; and the young officers, Gneisenau and Schill, kept the fortress of Colberg, on the Baltic, where they were steadily besieged until the war was over. NAPOLEON 873 1806-1807 When Napoleon entered Berlin in triumph, on November 2'j, he found nearly the whole population completely cowed and ready to acknowledge his authority. Seven ministers of the Prussian Government took the oath of allegiance to him, and agreed at once to give up all of the kingdom west of the Elbe for the sake of peace! Frederick William III., who had fled to Konigsberg, refused to confirm their action, and entered into an alliance with Alexander I. of Russia to continue the war. Napoleon, mean- while, had made peace with Saxony, which, after paying heavy contributions and joining the Confederation of the Rhine, was raised by him to the rank of a kingdom. At the same time he encouraged a revolt in Prussian Poland, got possession of Silesia, and kept Austria neutral by skillful diplomacy. Pressing eastward during the winter, the French army, 140,- 000 strong, met the Russians and Prussians on February 8, 1807, in the murderous battle of Eylau, after which, because its result was undecided, Napoleon concluded a truce of several months. Frederick William appointed a new ministry, with the fearless and patriotic statesmen, Hardenberg and Stein, who formed a fresh alliance with Russia, which was soon joined by England and Sweden. Nevertheless, it was almost impossible to reinforce the Prussian army, and Alexander I. made no great exertions to in- crease the Russian, while Napoleon, with all Prussia in his rear, was constantly receiving fresh troops. Early in June he resumed hostilities, and on the 14th, with a much superior force, so com- pletely defeated the allies in the battle of Friedland that they were driven over the River Memel into Russian territory. The Russians immediately concluded an armistice. Napoleon had a spectacular interview with Alexander I. on a raft in the River Memel, at Tilsit, and acquired such an immediate influence over the enthusiastic, fantastic nature of the czar that he became a friend and practically an ally. The next day there was another interview, at which Frederick William III. was also present; his wife, the beautiful Queen Louise, a woman of noble and heroic character, whom Napoleon had vilely slandered, was persuaded to accompany him, but only subjected herself to new humiliation. Her entreaties that Prussia might be spared were rudely rejected by Napoleon. He caused the patriotic Hardenberg to be dismissed from the Prussian ministry, and gave his successor a completed document, to be signed without discussion. 374 GERMANY 1807-1808 By this Peace of Tilsit (July, 1807) Prussia lost very nearly the half of her territory. Her population was diminished from 9,743,ocx) to 4.938,000. A new " Grand Duchy of Warsaw " was formed by Napoleon out of her Polish acquisitions. The contribu- tions which had been levied and which Prussia was still forced to pay amounted to a total sum of three hundred million thalers, and she was obliged to maintain a French army in her diminished ter- ritory until the last farthing should be paid over. Russia, on the other hand, lost nothing, but received a part of Polish Prussia. A new kingdom of Westphalia was formed out of Brunswick and parts of Prussia and Hanover, and Napoleon's brother, Jerome, was made king. In America Jerome had married an American lady. Miss Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore, but he was now com- pelled to renounce her, and marry the daughter of the new King of Wiirtemberg, although, as a Catholic, he could not do this without a special dispensation from the Pope, and Pius VII. refused to give one. Thus he became a bigamist, according to the laws of the Roman Church. Jerome was a weak and licentious individual and was heartily hated by his two millions of German subjects during his six years' rule in Cassel. Frederick William III. was at last stung by his misfortunes into the adoption of another and manlier policy. He called Stein to the head of his ministry and allowed him to introduce reforms for the purpose of assisting, strengthening, and developing the character of the people. But 150,000 French troops still fed like locusts upon the substance of Prussia, and there was an immense amount of poverty and suffering. The French commanders plun- dered outrageously and acted with shameless brutality. But this was not the end of the degradation. Napoleon, at the climax of his power, having (without exaggeration) the whole Continent of Europe under his feet, demanded that Prussia should join the Confederation of the Rhine, reduce her standing army to 42,000 men, and, in case of necessity, furnish France with troops against Austria. The temporary courage of the king melted away. He signed a treaty on September 8, 1808, without the knowledge of Stein, granting nearly everything Napoleon claimed thus com- pelling the patriotic statesman to resign, and making what was left of Prussia tributary to the designs of France. Napoleon then held a so-called congress at Erfurt, at which all the German rulers except the Emperor of Austria were present, NAPOLEON 375 1806-1809 but the decisions were made by himself, with the connivance of Alexander I. of Russia. The latter received Finland and the Danubian principalities. Napoleon simply carried out his own personal policy. He made his brother Joseph king of Spain, g-ave Naples to his brother-in-law, Murat, and soon afterward annexed the States of the Church, in Italy, to France, abolishing the tem- poral sovereignty of the Pope. Every one of the smaller German states had already joined the Confederation of the Rhine, and the diet by which they were governed abjectly obeyed his will. Princes, nobles, officials, and authors vied with each other in doing homage to him. Even the battles of Jena and Friedland were celebrated by popular festivals in the capitals of the other states. The people of southern Germany, especially, rejoiced over the shame and suf- fering of their brethren in the north. Ninety German authors dedicated books to Napoleon, and the newspapers became con- temptible in their servile praises of his rule. Austria, always energetic at the wrong time and weak when energy was necessary, prepared for war, relying on the help of Prussia and possibly of Russia. Napoleon had been called to Spain, where a part of the people, supported by Wellington, with an English force, in Portugal, was making a gallant resistance to the French rule. A few patriotic and courageous men all over Germany began to consult together concerning the best means for the liberation of the country. The Prussian ex-minister, Baron Stein, the philosopher Fichte, the statesman and poet Arndt, the generals Gneisenau and Schamhorst, the historian Niebuhr, and also the Austrian minister, Count Stadion, used every effort .to increase and extend this movement; but there was no German prince, except the young Duke of Brunswick, ready or willing to act. The Tyrolese, who are still the most Austrian of Austrians, and the most Catholic of Catholics, organized a revolt against the French-Bavarian rule early in 1809. This was the first purely popular movement in Germany which had occurred since the revolt of the Austrian peasants against Ferdinand II. nearly two hundred years before. The Tyrolese leaders were Andreas Hofer, a hunter named Speckbacher, and a monk named Haspinger; their troops were peasants and mountaineers. The plot was so well organized that the Alps were speedily cleared of the enemy, and on April 13 Hofer captured Innsbruck, which he held for Austria. When 876 G E R ]M A N Y 1809 the French and Bavarian troops entered the mountain passes they were picked off by skillful riflemen or crushed by rocks and trees rolled down upon them. The daring of the Tyrolese produced a stirring effect throughout Austria. For the first time the people came forward as volunteers to be enrolled in the army, and the Archduke Charles in a short time had a force of 300,000 men at his disposal. Napoleqn returned from Spain at the first news of the im- pending war. As the Confederation of the Rhine did not dream of disobedience, as Prussia was crippled, and the sentimental friendship of Alexander I. had not yet grown cold, he raised an army of 180,000 men and entered Bavaria by April 9. The archduke was not prepared. His large force had been divided and stationed according to a plan which might have been very successful if Napoleon had been willing to respect it. He lost three battles in succession ; the last, at Eckmiihl on April 22, oblig- ing him to give up Ratisbon and retreat into Bohemia. The second Austrian army, which had been victorious over the Viceroy Eugene in Italy, was instantly recalled, but it was too late ; there were only 30,000 men on the southern bank of the Danube, between the French and Vienna. The movement in Tyrol was imitated in Prussia by Major Schill, one of the defenders of Colberg in 1807. His heroism had given him great popularity, and he was untiring in his efforts to incite the people to revolt. The secret association of patriotic men, already referred to, which was called the Tugendbund, or " League of Virtue," encouraged him so far as it was able; and when he entered Berlin at the head of four squadrons of hussars, imme- diately after the news of Hofer's success, he was received with such enthusiasm that he imagined the moment had come for arous- ing Prussia. Marching out of the city, as if for the usual cavalry exercise, he addressed his troops in a fiery speech, revealed to them his plans and inspired them with equal confidence. With his little band he took Halle, besieged Bernburg, was victorious in a number of small battles against the increasing forces of the French, but at the end of a month was compelled to retreat to Stralsund. The city was stormed, and he fell in resisting the assault; the French captured and shot twelve of his officers. The fame of his exploits helped to fire the German heart ; the courage of the people returned, and they began to grow restless and indignant under their shame. NAPOLEON 377 1809-1810 By May 13 Napoleon had entered Vienna and taken up his quarters in the palace of Schonbrunn. The Archduke Charles was at the same time rapidly approaching with an army of 75,000 men, and Napoleon, who had 90,000, hastened to throw a bridge across the Danube, below the city, in order to meet him before he could be reinforced. On the 21st, however, the archduke began the attack before the whole French army had crossed, and the desperate battle of Aspern followed. After two days of bloody fighting the French fell back upon the Island of Lobau, and their bridge was destroyed. This was Napoleon's first defeat in Germany, but it was dearly purchased: the loss on each side was about 24,000. Napoleon issued flaming bulletins of victory which deceived the German people for a time, meanwhile ordering new troops to be forwarded with all possible haste. He deceived the archduke by a heavy cannonade, rapidly constructed six bridges farther down the river, crossed with his whole army, and July 6 fought the battle of Wagram, which ended with the defeat and retreat of the Austrians. An armistice followed, and the war was concluded on October 14 by the Peace of Vienna. Francis I. was compelled to give up Salzburg and some adjoining territory to Bavaria; Galicia to Russia and the grand duchy of Warsaw ; and Camiola, Croatia, and Dalmatia with Trieste to the kingdom of Italy a total loss of 3,500,000 of population. He further agreed to pay a contribu- tion of eighty-five millions of francs to France, and was persuaded, shortly afterward, to give the hand of his daughter, Maria Louisa, to Napoleon, who had meanwhile divorced himself from Empress Josephine. The Tyrolese, who had been encouraged by promises of help from Vienna, refused to believe that they were betrayed and given up. Hofer continued his struggle with success after the conclusion of peace, until near the close of the year, when the French and Bavarians returned in force, and the movement was crushed. He hid for two months among the mountains, then was betrayed by a monk, captured, and carried in chains to Mantua. Here he was tried by a French court-martial and shot on February 20, 1 8 10. Francis II. might have saved his life, but he made no attempt to do it. Thus, in north and south, Schill and Hofer perished, unsustained by their kings ; yet their deeds remained as an inspiration to the whole German people. During the summer of 1809 the Duke of Brunswick, whose 878 GERMANY 1809-1810 land Napoleon had added to Jerome's kingdom of Westphalia, made a daring attempt to drive the French from northern Germany. He had joined a small Austrian army, sent to operate in Saxony, and when it was recalled after the battle of Eckmiihl he made a desper- ate effort to reconquer Brunswick with a force of only 2000 vol- unteers. The latter dressed in black and wore a skull and cross- bones on their caps. The duke took Halberstadt, reached Brunswick, then cut his way through the German-French forces closing in upon him, and came to the shore of the North Sea, where, it was expected, an English army would land. He and his troops ''''.AN e^AV>^^^ SPAIN i CentralCurope J escaped in small vessels. The English, 40,000 strong, landed on the island of Walcheren (on the coast of Belgium), where they lay idle until driven home by sickness. For three years after the Peace of Vienna Napoleon was all- powerful in Germany. He was married to Maria Louisa on April 2, 1810; his son, the King of Rome, was bom the following March, and Austria, where Metternich was now minister instead of Count Stadion, followed the policy of France. All Germany accepted the " Continental Blockade," which cut off its commerce with England. The standing armies, of Austria and Prussia were reduced to one-fourth of their ordinary strength; the King of I NAPOLEON S79 1810-1812 Prussia, who had lived for two years in Konigsberg, was ordered to return to Berlin, and the French ministers at all the smaller courts became the practical rulers of the states. In 1810 the king- dom of Holland was taken from Louis Bonaparte and annexed to the French Empire; then northern Germany, with Bremen, Ham- burg, and Liibeck, was annexed in like manner, and the same fate was evidently intended for the states of the Confederation of the Rhine, if the despotic selfishness of Napoleon had not put an end to his marvelous success. The King of Prussia was next compelled to suppress the " League of Virtue." Germany was filled with French spies (many of them native Germans), and every expres- sion of patriotic sentiment was reported as treason to France. In the territory of the Confederation of the Rhine there was, however, very little real patriotism among the people. In Austria the people were still kept down by the iro.n rule of the Haps- burgs. Only in the smaller Saxon duchies, and in Prussia, the idea of resistance was fostered, though in spite of Frederick William IIL Indeed, the temporary removal of the king was for a while secretly advocated. Hardenberg and Schamhorst did their ut- most to prepare the people for the struggle which they knew would come. The former introduced new laws, based on the principle of the equality of all citizens before the law, their equal right to development, protection, and official service. Scharnhorst, the son of a peasant, trained the people for military duty, in defiance of France; he kept the number of soldiers at 42,000, in accordance with the treaty, but as fast as they were well-drilled he sent them home and put fresh recruits in their place. In this manner he gradually prepared 150,000 men for the army. Alexander I. of Russia had by this time lost his sentimental friendship for Napoleon. The seizure by the latter of the territory of the Duke of Oldenburg, who was his near relation, greatly offended him. He grew tired of submitting to the Continental Blockade, and in 181 1 adopted commercial laws which amounted to its abandonment. Then Napoleon showed his own overwhelming arrogance; and his course once more illustrated the abject condi- tion of Germany. Every ruler saw that a great war was coming, and had nearly a year's time for decision; but all submitted! Early in 1812 the colossal plan was put into action. Prussia agreed to furnish 20,000 soldiers, Austria 30,000, and the Confederation of the Rhine, which comprised the rest of Germany, was called upon 880 GERMANY 181? for 150,000. France furnished more than 300,000, and this enor- mous military force was set in motion against Russia, which was at the time unable to raise half that number of troops. In May Napoleon and Maria Louisa held a grand court in Dresden, which a crowd of reigning princes attended, and where even Francis I. and Frederick William III. were treated rather as vassals than as equals. This was the climax of Napoleon's success. Regardless of distance, climate, lack of supplies, and all the other impediments to his will, he pushed forward with an army greater than Europe had seen since the days of Attila, but from which only one man, horse, and cannon out of every ten returned. After holding a grand review on the battlefield of Friedland, he crossed the Niemen and entered Russia on June 24, 1812, met the Russians in battle at Smolensk on August 16-17, 3"^ after great losses continued his march toward Moscow through a country which had been purposely laid waste, and where great numbers of his soldiers perished from hunger and fatigue. On September 7 the Russian army of 120,000 men met him on the field of Borodino, where occurred the most desperate battle of all his wars. At the close of the fight 80,000 dead and wounded (about an equal number on each side) lay upon the plain. The Russians retreated, re- pulsed but not conquered, and on September 14 Napoleon entered Moscow. The city was deserted by its inhabitants. All goods and treasures which could be speedily removed had been taken away, and the next evening flames broke out in a number of places. The con- flagration spread so that within a week four-fifths of the city was destroyed. Napoleon was forced to leave the Kremlin and escape through burning streets ; and thus the French army was left without winter quarters and provisions. After offering terms of peace in vain, and losing a month of precious time in waiting, nothing was left for Napoleon but to commence his disastrous retreat. Cut off from the warmer southern route by the Russians on October 24, his army, diminishing day by day, endured all the horrors of the northern winter, and lost so many in the fearful passage of the Beresina and from the constant attacks of the Cossacks, that not more than 30,000 men, famished, frozen, and mostly without arms, crossed the Prus- sian frontier about the middle of December. After reaching Wilna, Napoleon had hurried on alone, in advance. His passage through Germany was like a flight, and he was safe in Paris before NAPOLEON 881 1812-1813 the terrible failure of his campaign was generally known throughout Europe, When Frederick William III. agreed to furnish 20,000 troops to France, his best generals Blucher, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and three hundred officers resigned. The command of the Prus- sian contingent was given to General York, who was sent to Riga during the march to Moscow, and escaped the horrors of the retreat. When the fate of the campaign was decided, he left the French with his remaining 17,000 Prussian soldiers, concluded a treaty of neutrality with the Russian General Diebitsch, called an assembly of the people together in Konigsberg, and boldly ordered that all men capable of bearing arms should be mustered into the army. Frederick William, in Berlin, disavowed this act, but the Prussian people were ready for it. The excitement became so great that the men who had influence with the king were so urgent that he should take a hand of open resistance to France that the hesitating Frederick William at last gave way. His court was removed to Breslau and an alliance was entered into with Alexander I., by which the czar agreed to continue in arms against Napoleon until Prussia should have regained her former possessions or their equiva- lent. Finally, on March 17, 181 3, the King of Prussia issued the famous proclamations " To my People " and " To my Army," in which with stirring words he voiced the growing patriotism and called upon them to choose between victory and ruin. The measures which York had adopted were proclaimed for all Prussia, and the patriotic schemes of Stein and Hardenberg, so long thwarted by the king's weakness, were thus suddenly carried into action. The effect was astonishing, when we consider how little real liberty the people had enjoyed. But they had been educated in patriotic sentiments by another power than the government. For years the works of the great German authors had become familiar to them. Klopstock taught them to be proud of their race and name. Schiller taught them resistance to oppression. Amdt and Korner gave them songs which stirred them more than the sound of drum and trumpet, and thousands of high-hearted young men mingled with them and inspired them with new courage and new hopes. Within five months Prussia had 270,000 soldiers under arms, part of whom were organized to repel the coming armies of Napoleon, while the remainder undertook the siege of the many Prussian fortresses which were still garrisoned by the French. All 88S GERMANY 1813 classes of the people took part in this uprising. The professors followed the students, the educated men stood side by side with the peasants, mothers gave their only sons, and the women sent all their gold and jewels to the treasury and wore ornaments of iron. The young poet, Theodor Korner, not only aroused the people with his fiery songs, but fought in the " free corps " of Liitzow, and finally gave his life for his country. The Turner, or gymnasts, inspired by their teacher Jahn, went as a body into the ranks, and even many women disguised themselves and enlisted as soldiers. With the exception of Mecklenburg and Dessau, the states of the Confederation of the Rhine still held to France. Saxony and Bavaria especially distinguished themselves by their abject fidelity to Napoleon. Austria remained neutral, and whatever influence she exercised was against Prussia. But Sweden, under the Crown Prince Berriadotte (Napoleon's former marshal) joined the move- ment, with the condition of obtaining Norway in case of success. The operations were delayed by the slowness of the Russians and the disagreement, or perhaps jealousy, of the various generals. Napoleon made good use of the time to prepare himself for the com- ing struggle. Although France was already exhausted, he enforced a merciless conscription, taking young boys and old men, until, with the German soldiers still at his disposal, he had a force of nearly 500,000 men. The campaign opened well for Prussia. Hamburg and Liibeck were delivered from the French, and on April 5 the Viceroy Eugene was defeated at Mockern (near Leipzig) with heavy losses. The first great battle was fought at Liitzen, on May 2, on the same field where Gustavus Adolphus fell in 1632. The Russians and Prussians, with 95,000 men, held Napoleon, with 120,000, at bay for a whole day, and then fell back in good order, after a defeat which encouraged instead of dispiriting the people. The greatest loss was the death of Scharnhorst, who did not live to see the glorious fruits of his silent and self-sacrificing labors. Shortly afterward Napoleon occupied Dresden, and it became evident that Saxony would be the principal theater of war. A second battle of two days took place on May 20-21, in which, although the French outnumbered the Germans and Russians two to one, they barely achieved a victory. The courage and patriotism of the people were now beginning to tell, especially as Napoleon's NAPOLEON 383 1813 troops were mostly young, physically weak, and inexperienced. In order to give them rest he offered an armistice on June 4, an act which he afterward declared to have been the greatest mistake of his life. It was prolonged until August 10, and gave the Ger- mans time both to rest and recruit, and to strengthen themselves by an alliance with Austria. Francis I. judged that the time had come to recover what he had lost, especially as England formally joined Prussia and Russia on June 14. A fortnight afterward an agreement was entered into between the two latter powers and Austria, that peace should be offered to Napoleon provided he would give up northern Germany, the Dalmatian provinces, and the grand duchy of Warsaw. He rejected the offer, and so insulted Metternich during an interview in Dresden that the latter became his bitter enemy thenceforth. The end of all the negotiations was that Aus- tria declared war on August 12, and both sides prepared at once for a final and desperate struggle. The Allies now had 800,000 men, divided into three armies, one under Schwarzenberg con- fronting the French center in Saxony, one under Bliicher in Silesia, and a third in the north under Bernadotte. The last of these gen- erals seemed reluctant to act against his former leader, and his participation was of little real service. Napoleon had 550,000 men, less scattered than the Germans, and all under the government of his single will. He was still, therefore, a formidable foe. Just sixteen days after the armistice came to an end the old Bliicher won a victory as splendid as many of Napoleon's. Bliicher was ever active, pursuing, withdrawing, turning day into night and night into day, but always sticking close to the enemy. Each march and countermarch cost him many lives and the soldiers suffered terribly in the rain-sodden, shelterless camps; and, worst of all, some of his subordinates lost faith in him and began to com- plain. But finally he caught Marshal Macdonald on the banks of a stream called the Katzbach, in Silesia, and defeated him with the loss of 12,000 killed and wounded, 18,000 prisoners and 103 cannon. From the circumstance of his having cried out to his men : " Forward ! Forward ! " in the crisis of the battle, Bliicher was thenceforth called " Marshal Forward " by the soldiers. Five days before this the Prussian general, Biilow, was victorious over Oudinot at Grossbeeren, within ten miles of Berlin; and four days afterward the French General Vandamme, with 40,000 men. 884 GERMANY 181S was cut to pieces by the Austrians and Prussians at Kulm on the southern frontier of Saxony. Thus within a month Napoleon lost one-fourth of his whole force, while the fresh hope and enthusiasm of the German people immediately supplied the losses on their side. It is true that Schwarzenberg had been severely repulsed in an attack on Dresden on August 27, but this had been so speedily fol- lowed by Vandamme's defeat that it produced no discouragment. The month of September opened with another Prussian vic- tory. On the 6th Bulow defeated Ney at Dennewitz, taking 15,000 prisoners and 80 cannon. This change of fortune seems to have bewildered Napoleon. Instead of his former promptness and rapidity, he spent a month in Dresden trying to entice Bliicher or Schwarzenberg to give battle. They, meanwhile, were gradually drawing nearer to each other and to Bemadotte, and their final junction was effected without any serious movement to prevent it on Napoleon's part. Blucher's passage of the Elbe on October 3 compelled Napoleon to leave Dresden with his army and take up a new position in Leipzig, where he arrived on the 13th. The Allies instantly closed in upon him. There was a fierce but inde- cisive cavalry fight on the 14th, the 15th was spent in preparations on both sides, and on the i6th the great " Battle of the Nations " began. Napoleon had about 190,000 men, the Allies 300,000. Both were posted along lines many miles in extent, stretching over the open plain, from the north and east around to the south of Leipzig, from which the battle takes its name. Tlie first day's fight really comprised three distinct battles, two of which were won by the French and one by Bliicher. During the afternoon a terrific charge of cavalry under Murat broke the center of the Allies, and Fred- erick William and Alexander I. narrowly escaped capture. Schwar- zenberg, at the head of a body of Cossacks and Austrian hussars, repulsed the charge, and night came without any positive result. Napoleon sent offers of peace, but they were not answered, and the Allies thereby gained a day for reinforcements. On the morn- ing of the 1 8th the battle was resumed. All day long the earth trembled under the discharge of more than a thousand cannon, the flames of nine or ten burning villages heated the air, and from dawn until sunset the immense hosts carried on a number of sepa- rate and desperate battles at different points along the line. Na- poleon had his station on a mound near a windmill. His center NAPOLEON 885 1813 held its position, in spite of terrible losses, but both his wings were driven back. Bernadotte did not appear on the field until four in the afternoon, but about 4000 Saxons and other Germans went over from the French to the Allies during the day, and the de- moralizing effect of this desertion probably influenced Napoleon quite as much as his material losses. He gave orders for an instant retreat, which was commenced on the night of the i8th. His army was reduced to 100,000 men. The Allies had lost, in killed and wounded, about 50,000. All Germany was electrified by this victory; from the Baltic to the Alps the land rang with rejoicings. The people considered that they had won this great battle, and that they had helped in the " liberation " of Germany from French domination. It was, in fact, as crushing a blow for France as Jena had been to Prussia or Austerlitz to Austria. On the morning of October 19 the Allies began a storm upon Leipzig, which was still held by Marshal Macdonald and Prince Poniatowsky, to cover Napoleon's retreat. By noon the city was entered at several gates ; the French, in their haste, blew up the bridge over the Elster River before a great part of their own troops had crossed, and Poniatowsky, with hundreds of others, was drowned in attempting to escape. Among the prisoners was the King of Saxony, who had stood by Napoleon until the last moment. In the afternoon Alexander I. and Frederick William rode proudly into Leipzig, and were received as deliverers by the people. Yet this great victory was not followed up as it might have been. Disunion reigned in the camp of the Allies. Schwarzenberg had taken but few precautions for cutting off his great enemy's retreat; Russia and Prussia wished to pursue Napoleon even to Paris; but England and Austria thought that his punishment had already been sufficient. Metternich, the new Austrian minister, was afraid the balance of power would be overthrown in Europe were Napoleon to be completely ruined. So Napoleon was allowed leisure to continue his march toward France, by way of Naumburg, Erfurt, and Fulda. He lost thousands by desertion and disease, but met with no serious interference until he reached Hanau, near Frankfort. At almost the last moment (October 14) Maximilian I. of Bavaria had deserted France and joined the Allies. One of his generals, Wrede, v/ith about 55,000 Bavarians and Austrians, marched northward, and at Hanau intercepted the French. Na- 386 GERMANY 1813-1814 poleon, not caring to engage in a battle, contented himself with cutting his way through Wrede's army, on October 25. He crossed the Rhine and reached France with less than 7o,0(X) men, without encountering further resistence. Jerome Bonaparte fled from his kingdom of Westphalia im- mediately after the battle of Leipzig. Wurtemberg joined the Allies, the Confederation of the Rhine dissolved, and the artificial structure which Napoleon had created fell to pieces. The Allies were at last able to cross the Rhine and set foot on French soil. They formed three great armies : One, under Biilow, was sent into Holland to overthrow the French rule there; another, under Schwarzenberg, marched through Switzerland into Burgundy, about the end of December, hoping to meet with Wellington somewhere in central France; and the third under Bliicher, which had been delayed longest by the doubt and hesitation of the sovereigns, crossed the Rhine at three points, from Coblentz to Mannheim, on the night of New Year, 1814. The subjection of Germany to France was over. Only the garrisons of a number of fortresses remained, but these were already besieged, and they surrendered one by one in the course of the next few months. Chapter XXXVI THE WAR OF LIBERATION; REACTION. 1814-1848 NAPOLEON'S genius was never more brilliantly mani- fested than during the slow advance of the Allies from the Rhine to Paris, in the 'first three months of the year 1814. He had not expected an invasion before the spring, and was taken by surprise; but with all the courage and intrepidity of his younger years he collected an army of 100,000 men and marched against Bliicher, who had already reached Brienne. In a battle on January 29, he was victorious, but a second on February i compelled him to retreat. Instead of following up this ad- vantage, the three monarchs began to consult. They rejected Bliicher's demand for a union of the armies and an immediate march on Paris, and ordered him to follow the River Marne in four divisions, while Schwarzenberg advanced by a more south- erly route. This was just what Napoleon wanted. He hurled himself upon the divided Prussian forces, and in five successive battles, from February 10 to 14, defeated and drove them back. Then, rapidly turning southward, he defeated a part of Schwarzen- berg's army at Montereau on the i8th, and compelled the latter to retreat. The Allies now offered peace, granting to France the bound- aries of 1792, which included Savoy, Lorraine, and Alsatia. But Napoleon was so elated by his victories that he rejected the offer. His old national pride, so nearly extinguished, flamed up anew. Humble enough shortly before, he now recovered all his assurance and even spoke of returning to the Vistula. This put a check on the indecision and discord among the Allies. At last they allowed Bliicher to have his way and march in a straight line direct on Paris. Battle after battle followed. Napoleon disputed every inch of ground with the most marvelous energy, but even his victories were disasters, for he had no means of replacing the troops he lost. The last fight took place at the gates of Paris, on March 30, 387 888 GERMANY 1814 and the next day at noon the three sovereigns of Russia, Prussia, and Austria made their triumphal entrance into the city. After entering Paris the AlHes compelled Napoleon to sign an act of abdication, at Fontainebleau, on April 1 1 ; and then with great folly they allowed him still to reign as a sovereign prince on the little island of Elba with the title of emperor, with a retinue of officers, and with a standing army of four hundred men. It was this mistake which made necessary the battle of Waterloo a year later. His wife, Maria Louisa, received the duchy of Parma, and the other Bonapartes were allowed to retain the title of prince, with an income of 2,500,000 francs. One million francs was given to the ex-Empress Josephine, who died the same year. No indemnity was exacted from France; not even the works of art stolen from the galleries of Italy and Germany for the adornment of Paris were reclaimed!^ The Count d'Artois (afterward Charles X.) was installed as head of the temporary government, and France was given the boundaries of 1792, which meant an increase of a million inhabitants and a very valuable addition of territory. After enduring ten years of humiliation and outrage, the Allies were as tenderly considerate as if their invasion of France had been a wrong for which they must atone by all possible concessions. In southern Germany, where very little national sentiment existed, the treaty was quietly accepted, but it provoked great in- dignation among the people in the north. Their rejoicings over the downfall of Napoleon, the liberation of Germany, and (as they believed) the foundation of a liberal government for them- selves were disturbed by this manifestation of weakness on the part of their leaders. The European Congress, which was opened on November i, 18 14, at Vienna, was not calculated to restore their confidence. Francis II. and Alexander I. were the lead- ing figures. Other nations were represented by their best states- men; the former ecclesiastical rulers, all the petty princes, and hundreds of the " imperial " nobility whose privileges had been taken away from them attended in the hope of recovering something from the general chaos. A series of splendid entertainments was given to the members of the congress, and it soon became evident 1 One or two exceptions were made : the sword of Frederick the Great and the figure of Victory, with her four great horses, were restored to Prussia as tangible proofs of the liberation. The statue of Victory was mounted again on the Brandenburg gate and still forms a splendid background to the view up the Linden. REACTION 389 1814-1815 to the world that Europe, and especially Germany, was to be re- constructed according to the will of the individual rulers, without reference to principle or people, or the good of Germany as a nation. France was represented in the congress by Talleyrand, who was greatly the superior of the other members in the arts of di- plomacy. Before the winter was over he persuaded Austria and England to join France in an alliance against Russia and Prussia, and another European war would probably have broken out but for the startling news of Napoleon's landing in France on March I, 1815. Then all were compelled to suspend their jealousies and unite against their common foe. On March 25 a new alliance was concluded between Austria, Russia, Prussia, and England. The first three agreed to furnish 150,000 men each, while the last contributed a lesser number of soldiers and five million pounds in money. All the smaller German states joined in the movement, and the people were still so full of courage and patriotic hope that a much larger force than was needed was soon under arms. Napoleon reached Paris on March 20, and instantly com- menced the organization of a new army, while offering peace to all the powers of Europe, on the basis of the Treaty of Paris. This time he received no answer. The terror of his name had passed away, and the allied sovereigns acted with promptness and courage. Though he held France, Napoleon's position was not strong, even there. The land had suffered terribly, and the people desired peace, which they had never enjoyed under his rule. He raised nearly half a million soldiers, but was obliged to use a portion of them in preventing outbreaks among the population; then, selecting the best, he marched toward Belgium with an army of 128,000 in order to meet Wellington and Blucher separately before they could unite. The former had 100,000 men, most of them Dutch and Germans, under his command; the latter, with 115,000, was rapidly approaching from the east. By this time the beginning of June neither the Austrians nor Russians had entered France. On June 16, 181 5, two battles occurred. Napoleon fought Bliicher at Ligny, while Marshal Ney, with 40,000 men, attacked Wellington at Quatre-Bras. Thus neither of the Allies was able to help the other. Blucher defended himself desperately, but his 390 GERMANY 1815 horse was shot under him and the French cavalry almost rode over him as he lay upon the ground. He was rescued with difficulty, and then compelled to fall back. The battle between Ney and Wel- lington was hotly contested; the gallant Duke of Brunswick was slain in a cavalry charge, and the losses on both sides were very great, but neither could claim a decided advantage. Wellington retired to Waterloo the next day, to be nearer Bliicher, and then Napoleon, uniting with Ney, marched against him with 72,000 men, while Grouchy was sent with 36,000 to engage Bliicher. Welling- ton had 68,000 men, so the disproportion in numbers was not very great, but Napoleon was much stronger in cavalry and artillery. The great battle of Waterloo began on the morning of June 18. Wellington was attacked again and again, and the utmost courage and endurance of his soldiers barely enabled them to hold their ground. The charges of the French were met by an equally determined resistence, but the fate of the battle depended on Bliicher's arrival. The latter left a few corps at Wavre, his former position, in order to deceive Grouchy, and pushed forward through rain and across a marshy country to Wellington's relief. At four o'clock in the afternoon Napoleon made a tremendous eflfort to break the English center. The endurance of his enemy began to fail, and there were sig^s of wavering along the English lines when the cry was heard : " The Prussians are coming ! " Billow's corps soon appeared on the French flank, Bliicher's army closed in shortly afterward, and by eight o'clock the French were flying from the field. Even Napoleon himself had to join in the headlong flight toward Paris. As he sprang from his carriage, defending himself with his pistol, he left behind his hat, sword, and field-glass, which fell into Bliicher's hands. The carriage itself Bliicher sent to his wife as a trophy. There were no allied mon- archs on hand to prevent following up the victory closely. Bliicher and Wellington advanced so rapidly that they stood before Paris within ten days, and Napoleon was left without any alternative but instant surrender. The losses at Waterloo, on each side, were about 25,000 killed and wounded. This was the end of Napoleon's interference in the history of Europe. All his offers were rejected, he was deserted by the French, and a fortnight afterward, failing in his plan of escaping to America, he surrendered to the captain of an English frigate off the port of Rochefort. From that moment until his death at REACTION 891 1815 St. Helena on May 5, 1821, he was a prisoner and an exile. A new treaty was made between the allied monarchs and the Bourbon dynasty of France. This time the treasures of art and learning were restored to Italy and Germany, an indemnity of 700,000,000 francs was exacted, Savoy was given back to Sardinia, and a little strip of territory, including the fortresses of Saarbriick, Saarlouis, and Landau, added to Germany. The attempt of Aus- tria and Prussia to acquire Lorraine and Alsatia was defeated by the cunning of Talleyrand and the opposition of Alexander I. of Russia. The jealousies and dissensions in the Congress of Vienna were hastily arranged during the excitement occasioned by Napoleon's return from Elba, and the members patched together, within three months, a new political map of Europe. There was no talk of restoring the lost kingdom of Poland. Prussia's claim to Saxony (which the king, Frederick Augustus, had fairly forfeited) was defeated by Austria and England ; and then, after each of the prin- cipal powers had secured whatever was possible, they combined to regulate the affairs of the helpless smaller states. Holland and Belgium were united, called the kingdom of the Netherlands, and given to the House of Orange. Switzerland, which had joined the Allies against France, was allowed to remain a republic and received some slight increase of territory; and Lorraine and Alsatia were allowed to remain French. Austria received Lombardy and Venetia, Illyria, Dalmatia, the Tyrol, Salzburg, Galicia, and whatever other territory she formerly possessed. Prussia gave up Warsaw to Russia, but kept Posen, recovered Westphalia and the territory on the Lower Rhine, and was enlarged by the annexation of Swedish Pomerania, part of Saxony and the former archbishoprics of Mayence, Treves, and Cologne. East Friesland was taken from Prussia and given to Hanover, which was made a kingdom. Weimar, Oldenburg, and the two Mecklenburgs were made grand duchies, and Bavaria re* ceived a new slice of Franconia, including the cities of Wiirzburg and Bayreuth, as well as all of the former Palatinate lying west of the Rhine. Frankfort, Bremen, Hamburg, and Liibeck were allowed to remain free cities. The other smaller states were favored in various ways, and only Saxony suffered by the loss of nearly half her territory. Fortunately the ecclesiastical rulers were not re- stored and the privileges of the free nobles of the Middle Ages not 89 GERMANY 1815 reestablished. Napoleon, far more justly than Attila, had been " the Scourge of God " to Germany. In crushing rights he had also crushed a thousand abuses, and although the monarchs who ruled the Congress of Vienna were thoroughly reactionary in their senti- ments, they could not help decreeing that what was dead in the political constitution of Germany should remain dead. All the German states, however, felt that some form of union was necessary. The people dreamed of a nation, of a renewal of the old empire in some better and stronger form; but this was mostly a vague desire on their part, without any practical idea as to how it should be accomplished. The German ministers at Vienna were divided in their views ; and Metternich took advantage of their impatience and excitement to propose a scheme of confederation which introduced as few changes as possible into the existing state of affairs. It was so drawn up that while it presented the appear- ance of an organization, it secured the supremacy of Austria, and only united the German states in mutual defense against a foreign foe and in mutual suppression of internal progress. This scheme, hastily prepared, was hastily adopted on June 8, 1815 (before the battle of Waterloo), and controlled the destinies of Germany for nearly fifty years afterward. The new German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) was com- posed of the Austrian Empire, the kingdoms of Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Wiirtemberg, and Hanover, the grand duchies of Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Strelitz, Saxe-Wei- mar and Oldenburg; the electorate of Hesse-Cassel ; the duchies of Brunswick, Nassau, Saxe-Gotha, Coburg, Meiningen and Hild- burghausen, Anhalt-Dessau, Bernburg and Kothen; Denmark, on account of Holstein; the Netherlands, on account of Luxemburg; the four free cities, and eleven small principalities making a total of thirty-nine states. The Act of Confederation assured to them equal rights, independent sovereignty, the peaceful settlement of disputes between them, and representation in a federal diet, which was to be held at Frankfort under the presidency of Austria. All together were required to support a permanent army of 300,000 men for their common defense. One article required each state to introduce a representative form of government. All religions were made equal before the law, the right of emigration was conceded to the people, the navigation of the Rhine was released from taxes, and freedom of the press was permitted. REACTION 893 1815-1818 Of course the carrying of these provisions into effect was left entirely to the rulers of the states. The people were not recognized as possessing any political power. Even the " representative gov- ernment " which was assured did not include the right of suffrage; the king or duke might appoint a legislative body which represented only a class or party, and not the whole population. Moreover, the diet was prohibited from adopting any new measure or making any change in the form of the confederation, except by a unanimous vote. The whole scheme was a remarkable specimen of promise to the ears of the German people and of disappointment to their hearts and minds. The Congress of Vienna was followed by an event of quite an original character. Alexander I. of Russia persuaded Francis II. and Frederick William III, to unite with him in a " Holy Alliance," which all the other monarchs of Europe were invited to join. It was simply a declaration, not a political act. The document set forth that the signers pledged themselves to treat each other with brotherly love, to consider all nations as members of one Christian family, to rule their lands with justice and kindness, and to be ten- der fathers to their subjects. No forms were prescribed and each monarch was left free to choose his own manner of Christian rule. A great noise was made about the Holy Alliance at the time, because it seemed to guarantee peace to Europe, and peace was most wel- come after such terrible wars. All other reigning kings and princes, except George IV. of England, Louis XVIII, of France, and the Pope, added their signatures, but not one of them manifested any more brotherly or fatherly love after the act than before. The new German Confederation having given the separate states a fresh lease of life, after all their convulsions, the rulers set about establishing themselves firmly on their repaired thrones. Only the most intelligent among them felt that the days of despotism, however " enlightened," were over, others avoided the liberal pro- visions of the Act of Confederation, abolished many political re- forms which had been introduced by Napoleon and oppressed the common people even more than his satellites had done. The Elector of Hesse-Cassel made his soldiers wear powdered queues, as in the last century ; the King of Wurtemberg court-martialed and cashiered the general who had gone over with his troops to the German side at the battle of Leipzig; and in Mecklenburg the liberated people were declared serfs. The introduction of a legislative assembly was 394, GERMANY 1817-1819 delayed, and in some states even wholly disregarded. Baden and Bavaria adopted constitutions in 1818, Wiirtemberg and Hesse- Darmstadt in 1819, but in Prussia an imperfect form of representa- tive government for the provinces was not arranged until 1823. Austria, meanwhile, had restored some ancient privileges of the same kind, of little practical value, because not adapted to the con- ditions of the age ; the people were obliged to be content with them, for they received no more. No class of Germans were so bitterly disappointed in the results of their victory and deliverance as the young men, especially the thousands who had fought in the ranks in 181 3 and 181 5. At all the universities the students formed societies which were inspired by two ideas union and freedom. Fiery speeches were made, songs were sung, and free expression was given to their distrust of the governments under which they lived. On October 18, 18 17, they held a grand convention at Wartburg the castle near Eisenach, where Luther had been concealed and this event occa- sioned great alarm among the reactionary class. The students were very hostile to the influence of Russia, and many persons who were suspected of being her secret agents became specially obnoxious to them. One of the latter was the dramatic author, Kotzebue, who was assassinated in March, 18 19, by a young student named Sand. There is not the least evidence that this deed was the result of a widespread conspiracy; but almost every reigning prince thereupon imagined that his life was in danger. A congress of ministers was held at Carlsbad the same summer and the most despotic measures against the so-called " revolution " were adopted. Freedom of the press was abolished; a severe cen- sorship enforced ; the formation of societies among the students and " turners " was prohibited ; the universities were placed under the immediate supervision of government, and even commissioners were appointed to hear what the professors said in their lectures! Many of the best men in Germany, among them the old teacher Jahn and the poet Arndt, were deprived of their situations and placed under a form of espionage. Hundreds of young men, who had perpe- trated no single act of resistance, were thrown into prison for years, others forced to fly from the country, and every manifestation of interest in political subjects became an oflfense. The effort of the German states now was to counteract the popular rights guaranteed by the Confederation by establishing an arbitrary and savage police REACTION 895 1819-1836 system; and there were few parts of the country where the people retained as much genuine liberty as they had enjoyed a hundred years before. The history of Germany during the thirty years of peace which followed is marked by a very few events of importance. It was a season of gradual reaction on the part of the rulers and of increasing impatience and enmity on the part of the people. Instead of becom- ing loving families, as the Holy Alliance designed, the states (except some of the little principalities) were divided into two hostile classes. There was material growth everywhere. The wounds left by war and foreign occupation were gradually healed; there was order, security for all who abstained from politics, and a comfort- able repose for such as were indifferent to the future. But it was a sad and disheartening period for the men who were able to see clearly how Germany, with all the elements of a freer and stronger life existing in her people, was falling behind the political develop- ment of other countries. The Paris July Revolution of 1830, which placed Louis Phi- lippe on the throne of France, was followed by peculiar uprisings in some parts of Germany. But the governments of Prussia and Aus- tria were too strong and their people too well held in check to be affected. In Brunswick, however, the despotic duke, Karl, was deposed ; Saxony and Hesse-Cassel were obliged to accept co-rulers (out of their reigning families), and the English duke, Ernest Augustus, was made viceroy of Hanover. These four states also adopted a constitutional form of government. The German diet, as a matter of course, used what power it possessed to counteract these movements, but its influence was limited by its own laws of action. The hopes and aspirations of the people were kept alive, in spite of the system of repression, and some of the smaller states took advantage of their independence to introduce various measures of reform. As industry, commerce, and travel increased, the existence of so many boundaries, with their custom-houses, taxes, and other hindrances, became an unendurable burden. Bavaria and Wiirtem- berg formed a customs union in 1828, Prussia followed, and by 1836 all of Germany, except Austria, was united in the Zollverein (Tariff Union), which was not only a great material advantage, but helped to inculcate the idea of a closer political union. On the other hand, however, the monarchical reaction against liberal government was 896 GERMANY 1835-1847 Stronger than ever. Ernest Augustus of Hanover arbitrarily over- threw the constitution he had accepted, and Ludwig I. of Bavaria, renouncing all his former professions, made his land a very nest of absolutism. In Prussia such men as Stein, Gneisenau, and William von Humboldt had long lost their influence, while others of less personal renown but of similar political sentiments were subjected to contemptible forms of persecution. In March, 1835, Francis II. of Austria died and was succeeded by his son, Ferdinand I., a man of such weak intellect that he was in some respects idiotic. On June 7, 1840, Frederick William III. of Prussia died and was also succeeded by his son, Fred- erick William IV., a man of great wit and intelligence, who had made himself popular as crown prince, and whose accession the people hailed with joy in the enthusiastic belief that better days were coming. The two dead monarchs, each of whom had reigned forty-three years, left behind them a better memory among their people than they actually deserved. They were both weak, unstable, and narrow-minded, and had they not been controlled by others they would have ruined Germany ; but they were alike of excellent personal character, amiable and very kindly disposed toward their subjects so long as the latter were perfectly obedient and reverential. There was no change in the condition of Austria, for Metter- nich remained the real ruler, as before. In Prussia a few unimpor- tant concessions were made, an amnesty for political offenses was declared, Alexander von Humboldt became the king's chosen asso- ciate, and much was done for science and art; but in their main hope of a liberal reorganization of the government the people were bitterly deceived. Frederick William IV. took no steps toward the adoption of a constitution; he made the censorship and the super- vision of the police more severe; he interfered in the most arbitrary and bigoted manner in the system of religious instruction in the schools; and all his acts showed that his policy was to strengthen his throne by the support of the nobility and the civil service, without regard to the just claims of the people. Thus, in spite of the external quiet and order, the political atmosphere gradually became more sultry and disturbed all over Germany. There were signs of impatience in all quarters. Various local outbreaks occurred and the aspects were so threatening that in February, 1847, Frederick William IV. endeavored to silence the growing opposition by ordering the formation of a legislative REACTION 897 1847-1848 assembly. But the provinces were represented, not the people, and the measure only emboldened the latter to clamor for a direct repre- sentation. Thereupon the king closed the assembly after a short session, and the attempt was probably productive of more harm than good. In most of the other German states the situation was very similar. Everywhere there were elements of opposition, all the more violent and dangerous because they had been kept down with a strong hand for so many years. Chapter XXXVII THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 AND ITS RESULTS 1 848- 1 86 1 THE sudden breaking out of the revolution of February, 1848, in Paris, the flight of Louis Philippe and his family, and the proclamation of the republic acted in Germany like a spark dropped upon powder. All the disappointments of thirty years, the smoldering impatience and sense of outrage, the powerful aspiration for political freedom among the people, broke out in sudden flame. There was instantly an outcry for freedom of speech and of the press, the right of suffrage, and a constitutional form of government in every state. On March 13 the people of Vienna rose, and after a bloody fight with the troops compelled Metternich to give up his office as minister and seek safety in exile. In Berlin, Frederick William IV. yielded to the pressure on March 18, but, either by accident or rashness, a fight was brought on between the soldiers and the people and a number of the latter were slain. Their bodies, lifted on planks, with all the bloody wounds exposed, were carried before the royal palace and the king was compelled to come to the window and look upon them. All the demands of the revolutionary party were thereupon instantly granted. The next day Frederick William rode through the streets, preceded by the ancient imperial banner of black, red, and gold, swore to grant the rights which were demanded and, with the con- currence of the other princes, to put himself at the head of a move- ment for German unity. A proclamation was published which closed with the words : " From this day forward Prussia becomes merged in Germany." The soldiers were removed from Berlin and the popular exciternent gradually subsided. Before these outbreaks occurred the diet at Frankfort had caught the alarm and hastened to take a step which seemed to yield something to the general demand. On March i it invited the separate states to send special delegates to Frankfort, empowered 806 REVOLUTION OF 1848 399 1848 to draw up a new form of union for Germany. Four days after- ward a meeting, which included many of the prominent men of southern Germany, was held at Heidelberg, and it was decided to hold a provisional assembly at Frankfort as a movement preliminary to the greater changes which were anticipated. This proposal re- ceived a hearty response. On March 31 quite a large and respectable body, composed of representatives from all the German states, came together in Frankfort. The demand of the party headed by Hecker of Baden that a republic should be proclaimed was rejected; but the principle of " the sovereignty of the people " was adopted, Schleswig and Holstein, which had risen in revolt against the Danish rule, were declared to be a part of Germany, and a Committee of Fifty was appointed to cooperate with the old diet in calling a national parliament. There was great rejoicing in Germany over these measures. The people were full of hope and confidence. The men who were chosen as candidates and elected by suffrage were almost without exception persons of character and intelligence. When they came together, six hundred in number, and opened the first national par- liament of Germany, in the church of St. Paul in Frankfort, on May 18, 1848, there were few patriots who did not believe in a speedy and complete regeneration of their country. In the mean- time, however, Hecker and Struve, who had organized a great num- ber of republican clubs throughout Baden, rose in arms against the government. After maintaining themselves for two weeks in Frei- burg and the Black Forest, they were defeated and forced to take refuge in Switzerland. Hecker went to America, and Struve, making a second similar attempt shortly afterward, was taken prisoner. The lack of practical political experience among the members soon disturbed the parliament. Most of them were theorists and insisted on carrying out their pet hobbies instead of trying to adopt measures suited to the existing circumstances. With all their hon- esty and genuine patriotism they relied too much on the sudden enthusiasm of the people and undervalued the actual strength of the governing classes, because the latter had so easily yielded to the first surprise. The republican party was in a decided minority, and the remainder soon became divided between the " Small Germans," who favored the union of all the states, except Austria, under a constitutional monarchy, and the " Great Germans," who insisted 400 GERMANY 1848 that Austria should be included. After a great deal of discussion the old federal diet was declared abolished and a provisional central government was appointed. The Archduke John of Austria an amiable, popular, and inoffensive old man was elected " Vicar- General of the Empire." This action was finally accepted by all the states except Austria and Prussia, which delayed to commit themselves until they were strong enough to oppose the whole scheme. The history of 1848 is divided into so many detached episodes that it cannot be given in a connected form. The revolt which broke out in Schleswig-Holstein early in March was supported by enthusiastic German volunteers, and then by a Prussian army, which drove the Danes back into Jutland. Great rejoicing was occasioned by the destruction of the Danish frigate Christian VIII. and the capture of the GeHon, at Eckernforde, by a battery commanded by Duke Ernest II. of Coburg-Gotha. But England and Russia threat- ened armed intervention; Prussia was forced to suspend hostilities and make a truce with Denmark on terms which looked very much like an abandonment of the cause of Schleswig-Holstein. This action was accepted by a majority of the parliament at Frankfort a course which aroused the deepest indignation of the democratic minority and their sympathizers everywhere throughout Germany. On September 18 barricades were thrown up in the streets of Frankfort and an armed mob stormed St. Paul's church, where the parliament was in session, but was driven back by Prussian and Hessian troops. Two members. General Auers- wald and Prince Lichnowsky, were barbarously murdered in at- tempting to escape from the city. This lawless and bloody event did much damage to the national cause; the two leading states, Prussia and Austria, instantly adopted a sterner policy, and there were soon signs of a general reaction against the revolution. The condition of Austria at this time was very critical. The uprising in Vienna had been followed by powerful and successful rebellions in Lombardy, Hungary, and Bohemia, and the empire of the Hapsburgs seemed to be on the point of dissolution. The strug- gle was confused and made more bitter by the hostility of the differ- ent nationalities: the Croatians, at the call of the emperor, rose against the Hungarians, and then the Germans, in the legislative assembly held at Vienna, accused the government of being guided by Slavonic influences. Another furious outbreak occurred. Count REVOLUTION OF 1848 401 184d Latour, the former minister of war, was hanged to a lamp-post and the city was again in the hands of the revolutionists. Kossuth, who had become all-powerful in Hungary, had already raised an army to be employed in conquering the independence of his country, and he now marched rapidly toward Vienna, which the Austrian gen- eral, Windischgratz, was trying to recapture from the revolution- ists. Almost within sight of the city Kossuth was defeated by Jellachich, the Ban of Croatia. The latter joined the Austrians, and after a furious bombardment Vienna was taken by storm. Mes- senhauser, the commander of the insurgents, and Robert Blum, a member of the national parliament, were afterward shot by order of Windischgratz, who crushed out all resistance by the most severe and inhuman measures. Hungary, nevertheless, was already practically independent, and Kossuth stood at the head of the government. The movement was eagerly supported by the people. An army of 100,000 men was raised, including cavalry which could hardly be equalled in Europe. Kossuth was supported by Gorgey and the Polish generals, Bem and Dembinski ; and although the Hungarians at first fell back before Windischgratz, who marched against them in December, they gained a series of splendid victories in the spring of 1849, and their success seemed assured. Austria was forced to call upon Russia for help, and the Emperor Nicholas responded by sending an army of 140,000 men. Kossuth vainly hoped for the intervention of England and France in favor of Hungary. Up to the end of May the patriots were still victorious; then followed defeats in the field and confusion in the councils. The Hungarian government and a large part of the army fell back to Arad, where, on August 11, Kossuth transferred his dictatorship to Gorgey, and the latter, two days afterward, surrendered at Vilagos, wi^h about 25,000 men, to the Russian General Riidiger. This surrender caused Gorgey's name to be execrated in Hun- gary and by all who sympathized with the Hungarian cause through- out the world. It was made, however, with the knowledge of Kos- suth, who had transferred his power to the former for that purpose, while he, with Bem, Dembinski and a few other followers, escaped into Turkey. In fact, further resistance would have been madness, for Haynau, who had succeeded to the command of the Austrian forces, was everywhere successful in front, and the Russians were in the rear. The first judgment of the world upon Gorgey's act 4Mt GERMANY 1848-1849 was therefore unjust. The fortress of Comorn, on the Danube, was the last post occupied by the Hungarians. It surrendered, after an obstinate siege, to Haynau, who then perpetrated such barbarities that his name became infamous in all countries. In Italy the revolution broke out in March, 1848. Marshal Radetzky, the Austrian governor in Milan, was driven out of the city. The Lombards, supported by the Sardinians under their king, Charles Albert, drove the Austrians back to Verona. Venice had also risen, and nearly all northern Italy was thus freed from the Austrian yoke. In the course of the summer, however, Radetzky achieved some successes, and thereupon concluded an armistice with Sardinia, which left him free to undertake the siege of Venice. But in March, 1849, Charles Albert resumed the war, and on the 23d, In the battle of Novara, was so ruinously defeated that he abdicated the throne of Sardinia in favor of his son, Victor Emmanuel. The latter, on leaving the field, shook his sword at the advancing Aus- trians and cried out : " There shall yet be an Italy ! " but he was compelled at the time to make peace on the best terms he could ob- tain. In August Venice also surrendered, after a heroic defense, and Austria was again supreme in Italy, as in Hungary. During this time the national parliament in Frankfort had been struggling against the difficulties of its situation. The demo- cratic movement was almost suppressed and there was an earnest effort to effect a German union ; but this was impossible without the concurrence of either Austria or Prussia, and the rivalry of the two gave rise to constant jealousies and impediments. On Decem- ber 2, 1848, the Viennese ministry persuaded the idiotic Em- peror Ferdinand to abdicate, and placed his nephew, Francis Joseph, a youth of eighteen, upon the throne. Every change of the kind begets new hopes and makes a government temporarily popular ; so this was a gain for Austria. Nevertheless, the " Small German " party finally triumphed in the parliament. On March 28, 1849, Frederick William IV. of Prussia was elected " Hereditary Emperor of Germany." All the small states accepted the choice. But Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Saxony, and Hanover refused, Aus- tria protested, and the king himself, after hesitating for a week, declined. This was a g^eat blow to the hopes of the national party. It was immediately followed by fierce popular outbreaks in Dresden, Wiirtemberg, and Baden. In Baden the grand duke was driven REVOLUTION OF 1848 403 1849-1852 away and a provisional government instituted. Prussia sent troops to suppress the revolt, and a war on a small scale was carried on during the months of June and July, when the republican forces yielded to superior power. This was the end of armed resistance. Tlie governments had recovered from their panic, the French Re- public, under the Prince-President Louis Napoleon, was preparing for monarchy, Italy and Hungary were prostrate, and nothing was left for the earnest and devoted German patriots but to save what rights they could from the wreck of their labors. The parliament gradually dissolved, by tTie recall of some of its members and the withdrawal of others. Only the democratic minority remained and sought to keep up its existence by removing to Stuttgart ; but once there it was soon forcibly dispersed. Prussia next endeavored to create a German union, with a constitution and two representative chambers. Seventeen German states accepted the plan and met at Gotha to consider the matter further, and later removed to Berlin. But unfortunately many of the more important states Hanover, Saxony, Bavaria, and Wurtemberg either from jealousy of Prussia or from fear of Austria, refused to join this Prussian union. Austria, meanwhile, on September i, 1850, de- clared the old diet opened at Frankfort, under her presidency, and twelve states hastened to obey her call. The hostility between the two parties so increased that for a time war seemed to be inevitable. Austrian troops invaded Hesse-Cassel, an army was collected in Bohemia, while Prussia, relying on the help of Russia, was quite unprepared. Then Frederick William IV. yielded. At Olmiitz Prussia submitted to Austria's demand that the Prussian union be formally dissolved. Schwartzenberg, the Austrian minister, said openly that " Prussia must be degraded, then demolished." On May 15, 185 1, the federal diet was restored in Frankfort, with a vague promise that its constitution should be amended. Thus, after an interruption of three years, the old machine was put upon the old track and a strong and united Germany seemed as far off as ever. A dismal period of reaction began. Louis Napo- leon's violent assumption of power in December, 1851, was wel- comed by the German rulers, all of whom greeted the new emperor as " brother." * A congress held in London in May, 1852, con- ^"Mon Frire" is the usual form of address of one sovereign to another. Napoleon III. felt it keenly that he was addressed by Nicholas I. of Russia merely as " My friend," and joined in the Crimean War partly from a desire to avenge what he regarded as an insult 404 GERMANY 1852-1858 firmed Denmark in the possession of Schleswig and Holstein. Aus- tria abolished her legislative assembly in utter disregard of the pro- visions of 1815, upon which the diet was based. Hesse-Cassel, with the consent of Austria, Prussia, and the diet, overthrew the consti- tution which had protected the people for twenty years; and even Prussia, where an arbitrary policy was no longer possible, gradually suppressed the more liberal features of the government. Worse than this, the religious liberty which Germany had so long enjoyed was insidiously assailed. Austria, Bavaria, and Wiirtemberg made " concordats " with the Pope, which gave the control of schools and marriages among the people into the hands of the priests. Placed between the disguised despotism of Napoleon III. and the open and arrogant despotism of Nicholas of Russia, Germany for a time seemed to be destined to a similar fate. The result of the Crimean War, and the liberal policy inaugurated by Alexander II. in Russia, damped the hopes of the German absolutists, but failed to teach them wisdom. Prussia was practically governed by the interests of a class of nobles whose absurd pride was only equaled by their ignorance of the age in which they lived. Not- withstanding all his wit and his talent, Frederick William IV. was utterly blind to his position, and the longer he reigned the more bitterly he made the name of Prussia hated throughout the rest of Germany. But the fruits of the national movement in 1848 and 1849 were not lost. The earnest efforts of those two years, the practical experience of political matters acquired by the liberal party, were an immense gain to the people. In every state there was a strong body of intelligent men who resisted the reaction by all the legal means left them, and who, although discouraged, were still hopeful of success. The increase of general intelligence among the people, the growth of an independent press, the extension of railroads, which made the old system of passports and police supervision im- possible all these were powerful agencies of progress; but only a few rulers of the smaller states saw this truth, and favored the liberal side. By October, 1858, Frederick William IV. had become prac- tically insane and incapable of governing; therefore his brother. Prince William, began to rule in his stead as regent. Prince Will- iam, then sixty years old, had grown up without the least prospect that he would ever wear the crown; his education had been for a REVOLUTION OF 1848 405 1858-1860 military, not a political, career.^ Although he possessed no brilliant intellectual qualities, he was shrewd, clear-sighted, and honest, and after a year's experience of the policy which governed Prussia, he dismissed the feudalist ministry of his brother and established a new and more liberal government. The hopes of the German people instantly revived. Bavaria was compelled to follow the example of Prussia, the reaction against the national movemment of 1848 was interrupted everywhere and the political horizon suddenly began to grow brighter. The desire of the people for a closer national union was so intense that when, in June, 1859, Austria was defeated at Magenta and Solferino, a cry ran through Germany : " The Rhine must be defended on the Mincio ! " and the demand for an alliance with Austria against France became so earnest and general that Prussia would certainly have yielded to it if Napoleon III. had not fore- stalled the movement by concluding an instant peace with Francis Joseph. When, in i860, all Italy rose and the dilapidated thrones of the petty rulers fell to pieces as the people united under Victor Emmanuel, the Germans saw how hasty and mistaken had been their excitement of the year before. The interests of the Italians were identical with theirs, and the success of the former filled them with fresh hope and courage. Austria, after her defeat and the overwhelming success of the 2 Bismarck in his " Reflections and Reminiscences " gives the following in- teresting account of William: " From the moment when the regency began, Prince William felt so keenly the want of a proper business education that he shunned no labor by day or night in order to make good the deficiency. When he was * transacting public affairs,' then he really worked, seriously and conscientiously. He read all papers which were sent in to him, not merely those which attracted him, and studied the treaties and laws so that he might form an independent judgment. He knew no pleasure which would have taken away time from affairs of state. He never read novels or other books which did not concern his duties as ruler. He did not smoke or play cards. When there was a shooting party at Wusterhausen and after dinner they went into the room where Frederick William I. used to collect the Tabakscollegium, in order that the others might be able to smoke in his presence, he had a long Dutch clay pipe handed to him, took a few puffs at it, and then put it down with a wry face. His only recreation was, after a hard day's work, to sit in his box at the theater; but even there I, as minister, was allowed to seek him out for pressing business, and make reports to him in the small room behind the box and receive his signature. A good night's rest was so necessary to him that he would complain of a bad night if he was disturbed twice, and yet I never saw the slightest touch of annoyance when in difficult circumstances I had to wake him up at two or three o'clock to ask for a hasty decision." 406 GERMANY 1860-1861 popular uprising in Italy, seemed to perceive the necessity of con- ceding more to her own subjects. She made some attempts to intro- duce a restricted form of constitutional government, which excited without satisfying the people. Prussia continued to advance slowly in the right direction, regaining her lost influence over the active and intelligent liberal party throughout Germany. On January 2, i86i, Frederick William IV. died, and William I. became king. From this date a new epoch begins. Chapter XXXVIII THE STRUGGLE WITH AUSTRIA; THE NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION. 1 861-1870 THE first important measure which the government of William I. adopted was a thorough reorganization of the army. Since this could not be effected without an in- creased expense for the present and a prospect of still greater bur- dens in the future, the legislative assembly of Prussia refused to grant the appropriation demanded. The plan was to increase the time of service for the reserve forces, to diminish that of the militia, and enforce a sufficient amount of military training upon the whole male population, without regard to class or profession. At the same time a convention of the smaller states was held in Wurzburg, for the purpose of drawing up a new plan of union, in place of the old diet, the provisions of which had been violated so often that its existence was becoming a mere farce. Prussia proposed a closer military union under her own direc- tion, and this was accepted by Baden, Saxe- Weimar and Coburg- Gotha ; the other states were still swayed by the influence of Austria. The political situation became more and more disturbed ; William I. dismissed his liberal ministry and appointed noted reactionists, who carried out his plan for reorganizing the army in defiance of the assembly. Finally, in September, 1862, Baron Otto von Bismarck- Schonhausen, who had been Prussian ambassador in St. Petersburg and Paris, was placed at the head of the government. This remark- able man, who was born in 181 5, in Brandenburg, was already known as a thorough conservative and considered to be one of the most dangerous enemies of the liberal and national party. But he had represented Prussia in the diet at Frankfort in 185 1, he under- stood the policy of Austria and the general political situation better than any other statesman in Germany, and his course, from the first day of receiving power, was as daring as it was skillful. Even Metternich was not so heartily hated by the liberals and constitutionalists as Bismarck, when the latter continued the policy 407 408 GERMANY 1863-1864 already adopted of disregarding the will of the people as expressed by the Prussian assembly.^ Every new election for this body only increased the strength of the opposition, and with it the unpopularity of Prussia among the smaller states. The appropriations for the army were steadfastly refused, yet the government took the money and went on with the work of reorganization, Austria endeavored to profit by the confusion which ensued. After having privately consulted the other rulers Francis Joseph summoned a congress of German princes to meet in Frankfort, in August, 1863, in order to accept an " Act of Reform," which substituted an assembly of dele- gates in place of the old diet, but retained the presidency of Austria. William I., at Bismarck's request, refused to attend, declaring that the first step toward reform must be a parliament elected by the people, and the scheme failed so completely that in another month nothing more was heard of it. Soon afterward Frederick VII. of Denmark died, and his suc- cessor. Christian IX., Prince of Gliicksburg, accepted a constitution which detached Schleswig from Holstein and incorporated it with Denmark. This was in violation of the treaty made in London in 1852, and gave Germany a pretext for interference. On Decem- ber 7, 1863, the diet decided to take armed possession of the duchies. Austria and Prussia united in January, 1864, and sent a combined army of 43,000 men under Prince Frederick Charles and Marshal Gablenz against Denmark. After several slight engage- ments the Danes abandoned the " Dannewerk " the fortified line across the peninsula and took up a strong position at Diippel. Here their entrenchments were stormed and carried by the Prussians on April 18. The Austrians had also been victorious at Oeversee and the Danes were everywhere driven back. England, France, and Russia interfered, an armistice was declared and an attempt made to settle the question. The negotiations, which were carried on in London for that purpose, failed ; hostilities were resumed and by August I Denmark was forced to sue for peace. On October 30 the war was ended by the relinquishment of the duchies to Prussia and Austria, not to Germany. The * Bismarck's energetic policy of supporting the king in the reorganization of the army in spite of the opposition of the constitutionalists and of uniting Ger- many by force, if necessary, was expressed frequently and openly : " It is not Prussia's liberalism that Germany looks to, but her military power." "The unity of Germany is to be brought about, not by speeches nor by votes of majorities, but by blood and iron." ADMIRAL TEfiETHOF. ON THE " KAISER MAX, RAMS THE ITALIAN IRON- CLAD "re d'iTALIA," and sinks her, AT LISSA, 1866 Painting by A, Romako STRUGGLE WITH AUSTRIA 409 1864-1866 Prince of Augustenburg, however, who belonged to the ducal family of Holstein, claimed the territory as being his by right of descent, and took up his residence at Kiel, bringing all the apparatus of a little state government, ready made, along with him. Prussia de- manded the acceptance of her military system, the occupancy of the forts, and the harbor of Kiel for naval purposes. The duke, encouraged by Austria, refused. A diplomatic quarrel ensued, which lasted until August i, 1865, when William I. met Francis Joseph at Gastein, a watering-place in the Austrian Alps, and both agreed on a division of the conquered duchies, Prussia to govern in Schleswig and Austria in Holstein. Thus far the course of the two powers in the matter had made them equally unpopular throughout the rest of Germany. Austria had quite lost her temporary advantage over Prussia in this respect, and she now endeavored to regain it by favoring the claims of the Duke of Augustenburg in Holstein. An angry correspondence fol- lowed, and early in 1866 Austria began to prepare for war, not only at home, but by secretly canvassing for alliances among the smaller states. Neither she nor the German people understood how her policy was aiding the deep-laid plans of Bismarck. When Austria demanded of the diet that the military force of the other states should be called into the field against Prussia on account of the invasion of Holstein by Prussian troops, only Oldenburg, Mecklen- burg, the little Saxon principalities, and the three free cities of the north voted against the measure! All the rest supported Austria. The vote which was taken on June 14, 1866, was the last act of the German diet. Prussia instantly took the ground that it was a declaration of war, and set in motion all the agencies which had been quietly preparing for three or four years. The German people were stunned by the suddenness with which the crisis had been brought upon them. The cause of the trouble was so slight, so needlessly provoked, that the war seemed criminal. It was looked upon as the last desperate resource of the absolutist, Bismarck, who, finding the Prussian assembly still five to one against him, had adopted this measure to recover by " blood and iron " his lost posi- tion. Few believed that Prussia, with nineteen millions of inhab- itants, could be victorious over Austria and her allies, representing fifty millions, unless after a long and terrible struggle. Prussia, however, had secured an ally which, although not fortunate in the war, kept a large Austrian army employed. This 410 GERMANY 1866 was Italy, which eagerly accepted the alliance in April and began to prepare for the struggle. On the other hand, there was every prob- ability that France would interfere in favor of Austria. In this emergency the Prussian government seemed transformed. It stood like a man aroused and fully alive, with every sense quickened and every muscle and sinew ready for action. June 14 brought the declaration of war; on the 15th Saxony, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and Nassau were called upon to remain neutral, and allowed twelve hours to decide. As no answer came, a Prussian army from Hol- stein took possession of Hanover on the 17th, another from the Rhine entered Cassel on the 19th, and on the same day Leipzig and Dresden were occupied by a third. So complete had been the preparations that a temporary railroad bridge was made in advance to take the place of the one between Berlin and Dresden, which it was evident the Saxons would destroy. The King of Hanover, with 18,000 men, marched southward to join the Bavarians, but was so slow in his movements that he did not reach Langensalza (fifteen miles north of Gotha) until June 23. Rejecting an offer from Prussia, a force of about 9000 men was sent to hold him in check. A fierce battle was fought on the 27th, in which the Hanoverians were victorious, but during their delay of a single day Prussia had pushed on new troops with such rapidity that they were immediately afterward compelled to sur- render. The soldiers were sent home and the king, George V., betook himself to Vienna. All Saxony being occupied, the march upon Austria followed. There were three Prussian armies in the field : the first, under Prince Frederick Charles, advanced in a southeastern direction from Sax- ony ; the second, under the crown prince, Frederick William, from Silesia ; and the third, under General Herwarth von Bittenfeld, fol- lowed the course of the Elbe. The entire force was 260,000 men, with 790 pieces of artillery. The Austrian army, now hastening toward the frontier, was about equal in numbers, and commanded by General Benedek. Count Clam-Gallas, with 60,000 men, was sent forward to meet Frederick Charles, but was defeated in four successive small engagements, from June 27 to 29, and forced to fall back upon Benedek's main army, while Frederick Charles and Herwarth, whose armies were united in the last of the four battles, at Gitchin, remained there to await the arrival of the crown prince. The latter's task had been more difficult. On crossing the 1866 STRUGGLE WITH AUSTRIA 411 frontier he was faced by the greater part of Benedek's army, and his first battle, on June 27, at Trautenau, was a defeat. A second bat- tle at the same place the next day resulted in a brilliant victory, after which he advanced, achieving further successes at Nachod and Skalitz, and on June 30 reached Koniginhof, a short distance from Gitchin. King William, Bismarck, Moltke, and Roon arrived at the latter place on July 2, and it was decided to meet Benedek, who, with Clam-Gallas, was awaiting battle near Koniggratz, without further delay. The movement was hastened by indications that Benedek meant to commence the attack before the army of the crown prince could reach the field. On July 3 the great battle of Koniggratz was fought Both in its character and its results it was very much like that of Waterloo. Benedek occupied a strong position on a range of low hills beyond the little River Bistritz, with the village of Sadowa as his center. The army of Frederick Charles formed the Prussian cen- ter and that of Herwarth the right wing ; their position only differed from that of Wellington at Waterloo in the circumstance that they must attack instead of resist, and keep the whole Austrian army engaged until the crown prince, like Bliicher, should arrive from the left and strike Benedek on the right flank. The battle began at 4ia GERMANY 1866 eig^ht in the morning and raged with the greatest fury for six hours. Again and again the Prussians hurled themselves on the Austrian center, only to be repulsed with heavier losses. Herwarth on the right gained a little advantage ; but the Austrian rifled cannon pre- vented a further advance. Violent rains and marshy soil delayed the crown prince, as in Blucher's case at Waterloo. The fate of the day was very doubtful until two o'clock in the afternoon, when the smoke of cannon was seen in the distance, on the Austrian right. The army of the crown prince had arrived ! Then all the Prussian reserves were brought up; an advance was made along the whole line ; the Austrian right and left were broken, the center gave way, and in the midst of a thunder-storm the retreat became a headlong flight. Toward evening, when the sun broke out, the Prussians saw Koniggratz before them. The king and crown prince met on the battlefield and the army struck up the same old choral which the troops of Frederick the Great had sung on the field of Leuthen. The next day the news came that Austria had made over Ve- netia to France. This seemed like a direct bid for alliance, and the need of rapid action was greater than ever. Within two weeks the Prussians had reached the Danube, and Vienna was an easy prey. In the meantime the Bavarians and other allies of Austria had been driven beyond the River Main, Frankfort was in the hands of the Prussians, and a struggle, which could only have ended in the defeat of the former, commenced at Wiirzburg. Then Austria gxive way. An armistice, embracing the preliminaries of peace, was concluded at Nikolsburg on July 2^, and the Seven Weeks' War came to an end. Bismarck showed his true statesmanship in opposing the men who wished to compel Austria to give up territory to Prus- sia. He clearly saw that Prussia's true policy was to avoid wound- ing Austria too severely and so leaving behind her any unnecessary bitterness of feeling or desire for revenge. " We ought," he said, " rather to reserve the possibility of becoming friends again with our adversary of the moment, and in any case to regard the Austrian state as a piece on the European chessboard, and the renewal of friendly relations with her as a move open to us." If Austria were too severely treated, she would have become the ally of France and of all Prussia's enemies. The treaty of peace, which was signed at Prague on August 23, placed Austria in the background and gave the leadership of Germany to Prussia. It was now seen that the possession of Schleswig-Holstein was STRUGGLE WITH AUSTRIA 413 1866-1867 not the main object of the war. Bismarck's real purpose was the establishment or initiation of German national unity under the leadership of the King of Prussia, and this was now partially accom- plished by the formation of a North German Confederation, from which Austria and her southern allies were excluded. But the southern states were left free to treat separately with the new power. Austria was compelled to recognize this new state of things. Thus " blood and iron " had been used, but only to destroy the old con- stitution of Germany and render possible a firmer national union, the guiding influence of which was to be Prussian and Protestant, instead of Austrian and Catholic. An overwhelming revulsion of feeling took place. The proud, conservative, feudal party sank almost out of sight in the enthusi- astic support which the nationals and liberals gave to William I. and Bismarck. It is not likely that the latter had changed in char- acter. Personally, his haughty aristocratic impulses were no doubt as strong as ever ; but, as a statesman, he had learned the great and permanent strength of the opposition, and clearly saw what immense advantages Prussia would acquire by a liberal policy. The German people, in their indescribable relief from the anxieties of the past four years in their gratitude for victory and the dawn of a better future soon came to believe that he had always been on their side. Before the year 1866 came to an end the Prussian assembly accepted all the past acts of the government which it had resisted, and complete harmony was reestablished. The annexation of Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, Schleswig- Holstein and the city of Frankfort added nearly 5,000,000 more to the population of Prussia. The constitution of the " North German Confederation" (Norddeutsche Bund), as the new confederation was called, was submitted to the other states in December and ac- cepted by all on February 9, 1867. Its parliament, elected by the people, met in Berlin immediately afterward to discuss the articles of union, which were formally adopted on April 16, when the new power commenced its existence. It included all the German states except Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt and Baden, and comprised a population of more than thirty millions, united under one military, postal, diplomatic and financial system, like the states of the American Union. The King of Prussia was president of the whole, and Bismarck was made chancellor. About the same time Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, and Baden entered into a secret oflfen- 414 GERMANY 1867-1870 sive and defensive alliance with Prussia, and the policy of their gov- ernments thenceforth was so conciliatory toward the North German Confederation that the people almost instantly forgot the hostility created by the war. In the spring of 1867 Napoleon III. took advantage of the circumstance that Luxemburg was practically detached from Ger- many by the downfall of the old diet and offered to buy it of Hol- land. The agreement was nearly concluded when Bismarck, in the name of the North German Confederation, made such an energetic protest that the negotiations were suspended. A conference of the European powers in London, in May, adjudged Luxemburg to Holland, satisfying neither France nor Germany; but Bismarck's boldness and firmness gave immediate authority to the new confed- eration. The people at last felt that they had a living, acting gov- ernment, not a mere conglomeration of empty forms, as hitherto. Chapter XXXIX THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. 1870-1871 THE experience of the next three years showed how com- pletely the new order of things was accepted by the great majority of the German people. Even in Austria the defeat at Koniggratz and the loss of Venetia were welcomed by the Hungarians and Slavonians, and hardly regretted by the German population, since it was evident that the imperial government must give up its absolutist policy or cease to exist. In fact, the former ministry was immediately dismissed. Count Beust, a Saxon and a Protestant, was called to Vienna, and a series of reforms was in- augurated which did not terminate until the Hungarians had won all they demanded in 1848, and the Germans and Bohemians enjoyed fully as much liberty as the Prussians. The Seven Weeks' War of 1866, in fact, was a phenomenon in history; no nation ever acquired so much fame and influence in so short a time as Prussia. The relation of the king, and especially of the statesman who guided him, Count Bismarck, toward the rest of Germany was suddenly and completely changed. Napoleon III. was compelled to transfer Venetia to Italy, and thus his declaration in 1859 that " Italy should be free, from the Alps to the Adriatic," was made good but not by France. While the rest of Europe accepted the changes in Germany with equanimity, if not with ap- probation, the vain and sensitive people of France felt themselves deeply humiliated. Thus far the policy of Napoleon III. had seemed to preserve the supremacy of France in European politics. He had overawed England, defeated Russia, and treated Italy as a magnanimous patron. But the best strength of Germany was now united under a new constitution, after a war which made the achieve- ments at Magenta, Solferino, and in the Crimea seem tame. The ostentatious designs of France in Mexico came also to a tragic end in 1867, ^^^ ^^^^ disgraceful failure there only served to make the success of Prussia, by contrast, more conspicuous. The opposition to Napoleon III. in the French Assembly made 415 416 GERMANY 1870 use of these facts to increase its power. His own success had been due to good luck rather than to superior abiHty. He was now more than sixty years old, he was afflicted with a painful malady, he had become cautious and wavering in his policy, and he undoubtedly saw how much would be risked in provoking a war with the North German Confederation. But the temper of the French people left him no alternative. He had certainly meant to interfere in 1866 had not the marvelous rapidity of Prussia prevented it. That France had no shadow of right to interfere was all the same to his people. They held him responsible for the creation of a new political Ger- many, which was apparently nearly as strong as France, and that was a thing not to be endured. He yielded to the popular excite- ment and only waited for a pretext which might justify him before the world in declaring war. Such a pretext came in 1870. The Spaniards had expelled their Bourbon queen, Isabella, in 1868, and were looking about for a new monarch from some other royal house. Their choice fell upon Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, a distant relation of William I. of Prussia, but also nearly connected with the Bonaparte family through his wife, who was a daughter of the Grand Duchess Ste- phanie Beauhamais. On July 6 Napoleon's minister, the Due de Gramont, declared to the French Assembly that this choice would never be tolerated by France. The French ambassador to Prus- sia, Benedetti, was forthwith sent to Ems, where King William was taking the waters, to treat with the king directly and ask him to forbid Leopold to accept the Spanish throne. The king very properly replied that he had no control over" Leopold; that his only connection with the affair was that he happened to be the head of the family to which Leopold was distantly related; that Leopold might refuse the offer, but that he would not and could not force him to do so. As the peace of Europe seemed to be threatened seriously. Prince Leopold at once (on July 12) publicly and volun- tarily declined the offer, and all cause of trouble seemed to be re- moved. The French people, however, were insanely bent upon war. They wished to humiliate Prussia. The war party in the chambers, supported by the Parisian populace, demanded guarantees that Prus- sia would not renew the candidacy of Prince Leopold for the Span- ish throne and the other sinister designs which were supposed to lie behind this. The excitement was so great and so urgently fos- FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 417 1870 tered by the Empress Eugenie, the Due de Gramont, and the army that Napoleon III. again yielded. A dispatch was sent to Benedetti, instructing him to secure from King William a formal promise that he would never allow a Hohenzollern at any time in the future to be a candidate for the Spanish throne. With these instructions Benedetti, on July 13, in the Garden at Ems, met King William and tried to satisfy the wishes of the Paris government. But the king adhered to his former position with a firm and courteous refusal. When Benedetti insisted, the king told him he had nothing more to say and turned his back on him. He returned to his lodgings and sent to Bismarck a cipher dispatch of the events at Ems and of how the French had tried to exact from him a humiliating promise. Bismarck, who probably had more to do with this Hohenzollern candidacy than he admits in his " Reflections and Reminiscences," had clearly from the first expected that the outcome would be war with France the war for which he and Roon and Moltke had been so carefully preparing. " On July 12," he says, " I decided to hurry off from Varzin to Ems to discuss with his Majesty about summon- ing the Reichstag for the purpose of the mobilization. As I passed through Wussow my friend Mulert, the old clergyman, stood before the parsonage door and warmly greeted me; my answer from the open carriage was a thrust in carte and tierce in the air, and he clearly understood that I believed I was going to war. As I entered the courtyard of my house at Berlin, and before leaving the carriage, I received telegrams from which it appeared that the king was con- tinuing to treat with Benedetti, even after the French threats and outrages in parliament and in the press, and not referring him with calm reserve to his ministers. During dinner, at which Moltke and Roon were present, the announcement arrived from the embassy in Paris that the Prince of Hohenzollern had renounced his candida- ture in order to prevent the war with which France threatened us. My first idea was to retire from the service, because, after all the insolent challenges which had gone before, I perceived in this ex- torted submission a humiliation of Germany for which I did not desire to be responsible. This impression of a wound to our sense of national honor by the compulsory withdrawal so dominated me that I had already decided to announce my retirement at Ems. I considered this humiliation before France and her swaggering dem- onstrations as worse than that of Olmiitz. . . . " Having decided to resign, in spite of the remonstrances which 418 GERMANY 1870 Roon made against it, I invited him and Moltke to dine with me alone on the 13th, and communicated to them at table my views and projects for doing so. Both were greatly depressed, and reproached me indirectly with selfishly availing myself of my greater facility for withdrawing from service. I maintained the position that I could not offer up my sense of honor to politics, that both of them, being professional soldiers, and consequently without freedom of choice, need not take the same point of view as a responsible foreign minister. During our conversation I was informed that a telegram from Ems, in cipher, if I recollect rightly, of about two hyndred * groups,* was being deciphered. When the copy was handed to me it showed that Abeken had drawn up and signed the telegram at his Majesty's command, and I read it out to my guests,* whose dejection was so great that they turned away from food and drink. On a repeated examination of the document I lingered upon the authorization of his Majesty, which included a command, imme- diately to communicate Benedetti's fresh demand and its rejection both to our ambassadors and to the press. I put a few questions to Moltke as to the extent of his confidence in the state of our prepara- tions, especially as to the time they would still require in order to meet this sudden risk of war. He answered that if there was to be war he expected no advantage to us by deferring its outbreak ; and even if we should not be strong enough at first to protect all the territories on the left bank of the Rhine against French invasion, * The telegram, handed in at Ems on July 13, 1870, at 5 130 p. M., and received in Berlin at 6.09, ran as deciphered : " His Majesty writes to me : ' Count Benedetti spoke to me on the prom- enade, in order to demand from me, finally in a very importunate manner, that I should authorize him to telegraph at once that I bound myself for all future time never again to give my consent if the Hohenzollems should renew their candidature. I refused at last somewhat sternly, as it is neither right nor possi- ble to undertake engagements of this kind cl tout jamais. Naturally I told him that I had as yet received no news, and as he was earlier informed about Paris and Madrid than myself, he could clearly see that my government once more had no hand in the matter.' His Majesty has since received a letter from the prince. His Majesty having told Count Benedetti that he was awaiting news from the prince, has decided, with reference to the above demand, upon the rep- resentation of Count Eulenburg and myself, not to receive Count Benedetti again, but only to let him be informed through an aide-de-camp: That his Majesty had now received from the prince confirmation of the news which Benedetti had already received from Paris, and had nothing further to say to the ambassador. His Majesty leaves it to your Excellency whether Benedetti's fresh demand and its rejection should not be at once communicated both to our ambassadors and to the press." FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 419 1870 our preparations would nevertheless soon overtake those of the French, while at a later period this advantage would be diminished ; he regarded a rapid outbreak as, on the whole, more favorable to us than delay. " In view of the attitude of France our national sense of honor compelled us, in my opinion, to go to war; and if we did not act according to the demands of this feeling we should lose, when on the way to its completion, the entire impetus toward our national development won in 1866, while the German national feeling south of the Main, aroused by our military successes of 1866, and shown by the readiness of the southern states to enter the alliances, would have to grow cold again." Making use of the royal authorization to publish the contents of the telegram, Bismarck, in the presence of his two guests, reduced the dispatch by striking out words, but without adding or altering, to an abbreviated form which had a more decisive sound. When he read this to his two guests, Moltke remarked : " Now it has a differ- ent ring; before it sounded like a parley; now it is like a flourish in answer to a challenge." Bismarck rightly calculated that if he at once communicated this brief form, not only to the newspapers, but also by telegraph to the Prussian embassies, it would be " known in Paris before midnight, and not only on account of its contents, but also on account of the manner of its distribution, will have the effect of a red rag upon the Gallic bull. Fight we must if we do not want to act the part of the vanquished without a battle. Success, however, essentially depends upon the impressions which the orig- ination of the war makes upon us and others ; it is important that we should be the party attacked, and this Gallic overweening and touchiness will make us, if we announce in the face of Europe, so far as we can without the speaking-trumpet of the Reichstag, that we fearlessly meet the public threats of France." This brought about in the two generals a revulsion to a more joyous mood. They suddenly recovered their pleasure in eating and drinking and spoke in a more cheerful vein. Roon said : " Our God of old lives still and will not let us perish in disgrace." Moltke so far relinquished his passive equanimity that, glancing up joyously toward the ceiling and abandoning his usual punctiliousness of speech, he smote his hand upon his breast and said : " If I may but live to lead our armies in such a war, then the devil may come directly afterward and fetch away the * old carcass/ " 420 GERMANY 1870 In Paris the publication of the " Ems telegram " had the effect which Bismarck had anticipated. The war fervor rose to a white heat. The majority of the cabinet, hitherto in favor of peace, were swept away by the popular tide and the clamor from the streets, "On to Berlin! " Napoleon himself yielded to the importunity of his ministers and his wife, and on the evening of the 14th signed the declaration of war. He relied on detaching the southern German states from the Confederation, upon revolts in Hesse and Hanover, and finally upon alliances with Austria and Italy. The French peo- ple were wild with excitement, which took the form of rejoicing. They believed that they were well prepared for the struggle and would easily overwhelm the arrogant Prussians. The minister of war had only a few days before declared in the chamber that the army was " ready for any emergency." There was a general cry that Napoleon I.'s birthday, August 15, must be celebrated in Berlin. But the German people, north and south, rose as one man. For the first time in her history Germany became one com- pact, national power. Bavarian and Hanoverian, Prussian and Hessian, Saxon and Westphalian, joined hands and stood side by side. The temper of the people was solemn, but inflexibly firm. They did not boast of coming victory, but everyone was resolved to die rather than see Germany again overrun by the French. This time there were no alliances. It was simply Germany on one side and France on the other. The greatest military genius, since Napoleon, Moltke, had foreseen the war, no less than Bis- marck, and was equally prepared. The designs of France lay clear, and the only question was to check them in their very commence- ment. In eleven days Germany had 600,000 soldiers, organized in three armies, on the way, and the French had not yet crossed the frontier! Further, there was a German reserve force of 112,000, while France had but 310,000, all told, in the field. By August 2, when King William reached Mayence, three German armies (General Steinmetz on the north with 85,000 men, Prince Frederick Charles in the center with 135,000, and the Crown Prince Frederick William on the south with 200,000, stretched from Treves to Lan- dau, and the line of the Rhine was already safe. On the same day Napoleon III. and his young son accompanied General Frossard, with about 25,000 men, in an attack upon the unfortified frontier town of Saarbriick, which was defended by only 1800 Uhlans (cav- alry). The capture of this little place was telegraphed to Paris and FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 421 1870 received with the wildest rejoicings; but it was the only instance during the war when French troops stood upon German soil unless as prisoners. On August 4 the army of the crown prince crossed the French frontier and defeated Marshal MacMahon's right wing at Weissen- burg. The old castle was stormed and taken by the Bavarians and the French repulsed, after a loss of about looo on each side. Mac- Mahon concentrated his whole force and occupied a strong position near the village of Worth, where he was again attacked on the 6th. The battle lasted thirteen hours and was fiercely contested. The Germans lost io,ooo killed and wounded, the French 8ooo and 9000 prisoners; but when night came MacMahon's defeat turned into a panic. Part of his army fled toward the Vosges Mountains, part toward Strasburg, and nearly all Alsatia was open to the victorious Germans. On the very same day the army of Steinmetz stormed the heights of Spicheren, near Saarbriick, and won a splendid victory. This was followed by an immediate advance across the frontier at Forbach and the capture of a great amount of supplies. Thus in less than three weeks from the declaration of war the attitude of France was changed from the aggressive to the defen- sive, the field of war was transferred to French soil, and all Napo- leon III.'s plans of alliance were rendered vain. Leaving a division of Baden troops to invest Strasburg, the crown prince pressed for- ward with his main army and in a few days reached Nancy, in Lor- raine. The armies of the north and center advanced at the same time, defeated Bazaine on August 14 at Courcelles, and forced him to fall back upon Metz. He thereupon determined, after garrisoning the forts of Metz, to retreat still further, in order to unite with General Trochu, who was organizing a new army at Chalons, and with the remnants of MacMahon's forces. Moltke detected his plans at once, and the army of Frederick Charles was thereupon hurried across the Moselle to get into his rear and prevent the junction. The struggle between the two commenced on the i6th, near the village of Mars-la-Tour, where Bazaine, with 180,000 men, endeav- ored to force his way past Frederick Charles, who had but 120,000, the other two German armies being still in the rear. For six hours the latter held his position under a murderous fire, until three corps arrived to reinforce him. Bazaine claimed a victory, although he lost the southern and shorter road to Verdun ; but Moltke none the 4t GERMANY 1870 less gained his object. The losses were about I7,cxx) killed and wounded on each side. After a single day of rest the struggle was resumed on the i8th, when the still bloodier and more desperate battle of Gravelotte was fought The Germans now had about 2CX),ooo soldiers together, while Bazaine had i8o,ocx), with a great advantage in his position on a high plateau just west of Metz. In this battle the former situation of the combatants was changed. The Germans, who had marched past Metz, faced eastward, the French westward a cir- cumstance which made defeat more disastrous to either side. The strife began in the morning and continued until darkness put an end to it. The French right wing yielded after a succession of heroic assaults, but the center and left wing resisted gallantly until the very close of the battle. It was a hard-won victory, adding 20,000 killed and wounded to the German losses, but it cut off Bazaine's retreat and forced him to take shelter behind the fortifi- cations of Metz, the siege of which, by Prince Frederick Charles with 200,000 men, immediately commenced, while the rest of the German army marched on to attack MacMahon and Trochu at Chalons. There could be no question as to the bravery of the French troops in these two battles. In Paris the government and people persisted in considering them victories, until the imprisonment of Bazaine's army proved that their result was defeat. Then a wild cry of rage rang through the land. France had been betrayed, and by whom, if not by the German residents in Paris and other cities ? ; The latter, more than 100,000 in number, including women audi children, were expelled from the country. The French people, not] the government, were responsible for this act. The latter was barely able to protect the Germans from worse violence. MacMahon had in the meantime organized a new army of] 125,000 men in the camp at Chalons, where, it was supposed, he^ would dispute the advance on Paris. This was his plan, in fact, and he was with difficulty persuaded by Marshal Palikao, the min-j ister of war, to give it up and undertake a rapid march up the Meuse, along the Belgian frontier, to relieve Bazaine in Metz. On August 23 the crown prince, who had already passed beyond i Verdun on his way to Chalons, received intelligence that the' French had left the latter place. Detachments of Uhlans, sent out in all haste to reconnoiter, soon brought the astonishing news FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 423 1870 that MacMahon was marching rapidly northward. General Moltke detected his plan, which could only be thwarted by the most vigorous movement on the part of the German forces. The front of the advance was instantly changed, reformed on the right flank, and all pushed northward by forced marches. MacMahon had the outer and longer line, so that, in spite of the rapidity of his movements, he was met by the extreme right wing of the German army on August 28, at Stenay on the Meuse. Being here held in check, fresh divisions were hurried against him, several small engagements followed, and on the 31st he was defeated at Beaumont by the Crown Prince of Saxony. The German right was thereupon pushed beyond the Meuse and occu- pied the passes of the forest of Ardennes, leading into Belgium. Meanwhile the German left, under Frederick William, was rapidly driving back the French right and cutting off the road to Paris. Nothing was left to MacMahon but to concentrate his forces and retire upon the small fortified city of Sedan. Napoleon III., who had left Metz before the battle of Mars-la-Tour, and did not dare to return to Paris at such a time, was with him. The Germans, now numbering 200,000, lost no time in plant- ing batteries on all the heights which surround the valley of the Meuse at Sedan, like the rim of an irregular basin. MacMahon had 112,000 men, and his only chance of success was to break through the wider ring which enclosed him at some point where it was weak. The battle began at five o'clock on the morning of September i. The principal struggle was for the possession of the villages of Bazeilles and Illy and the heights of Daigny. Mac- Mahon was severely wounded soon after the fight began ; the com- mand was then given to General Ducrot and afterward to General Wimpffen, who knew neither the ground nor the plan of operations. The German artillery fire was fearful, and the French infantry could not stand before it, while their cavalry was almost annihilated during the afternoon in a succession of charges on the Prussian infantry. By three o'clock it was evident that the French army was de- feated. Driven back from every strong point which was held in the morning, hurled together in a demoralized mass, nothing was left but surrender. General Lauriston appeared with a white flag on the walls of Sedan, and the terrible fire of the German artillery ceased. Napoleon III. wrote to King William : " Not having been 44 GERMANY 1870 able to die at the head of my troops, I lay my sword at your Majesty's feet," and retired to the castle of Bellevue, outside of the city. Early the next morning he had an interview with Bis- marck at the little village of Donchery, and then formally surren- dered to the king at Bellevue. During the battle 25,000 French soldiers had been taken pris- oners. The remaining 83,000, including 4000 officers, surrendered on September 2; 400 cannon, 70 mitrailleuses, and iioo horses also fell into the hands of the Germans. Never before in hi'story had such a host been taken captive. The news of this overwhelm- ing victory electrified the world. Germany rang with rejoicings, and her emigranted sons in America and Australia joined in the jubilee. The people said: "It will be another Seven Weeks* War," and this hope might possibly have been fulfilled but for the sudden political change in France. On the 4th (two days after the surrender) a revolution broke out in Paris, the Empress Eugenie and the members of her government fled, and a republic was de- clared. The French, blaming Napoleon alone for their tremendous national humiliation, believed that they could yet recover their lost ground ; and when one of their prominent leaders, the states- man Jules Favre, declared that " not one foot of soil, not one stone of a fortress " should be yielded to Germany, the popular enthusi- asm knew no bounds. But it was too late. The great superiority of the military organization of Prussia had been manifested against the regular troops of France, and it could not be expected that new armies of volunteers, however brave and devoted, would be more success- ful. The army of the crown prince marched on toward Paris without opposition, and on September 17 came in sight of the city, which was defended by an outer circle of jxnverful detached fortresses, constructed during the reign of Louis Philippe. Gen- eral Trochu was made military governor, with 70,000 men the last remnant of the regular army under his command. He had barely time to garrison and strengthen the forts when the city was surrounded and the siege commenced. For two months thereafter the interest of the war is centered upon sieges. The fortified city of Toul, in Lorraine, surrendered on September 23, Strasburg, after a six weeks* siege, on the 28th, and thus the two lines of railway communication between Germany and Paris were secured. All the German reserves were EXPLANATION OF THE DOCUMENT Left. Important parts of the preliminary treaty of peace signed at Versailles on February 26, 18/ 1, are the end of Article I., wherein the transfer of Alsace-Lorraine, including the fortress of Metz, besides Marie- aux-chcnes and Vionville to Germany, and the retention of the fortress of Bclfort by France (conceded to Thiers), is especially mentioned ; and the beginning of Article II., zvherein France agrees to the payment of 5 milliards of francs ($1,000,000,000) in place of the 6 milliards as originally insisted on by Germany. The writing is by the hand of some Government clerk. The last page of the voluminous preliminary treaty of peace contains, in addition to the last paragraph of the convention, the signatures of Bismarck (including his seal), Thiers and Favre; and, underneath, the acknozvledgnient of accession to the empire by the south German states, written in the hand of Count Bray: Bavaria (Count von Bray-Steinburg), Wiirtemberg (Baron von Waechter and Mitt- nacht), and Baden (Jolly). Right. As the most important articles, concerning Alsace-Lorraine, Metz, Belfort and the ivar indemnity, are not mentioned in the Frankfort treaty of peace, but are only found in the preliminaries of Versailles (see above), the beginning and the end of the definitive peace protocol remain of most interest. WORDING OF THE ORIGINAL ENGLISH TRANSLATION Left. Introduction of the Preliminaries Article I. Article I. (La fronticre telle qu'elle vient d'etre (The boundary as described hereto- decrite, se trouve marquee en vert sur fore is indicated in green on two identi- deux excmplaires conformes de la carte cat maps of the District of Alsace, which du territoire formant le Gouvernement are the publications of the geographic general d'Alsace, publice a Berlin, en and statistical department of the Gen- septembre, 1870, par la division geogra- eral Staff, Berlin, 1870, and a print of phique et sfatistique de I'ctat-major which is herexvith attached to each copy general, et dont un exemplaire sera of the treaty of peace.) joint a chacune des deux expeditions du By mutual consent the above depicted present traite.) boundary has suffered the following Toutefois le trace indique a subi les changes in the department heretofore modifications suivantes de I' accord des knozcn by the r.ante of Moselle: the vil- deux parties contractantes: Dans I'an- lages Marie-aux-chcnes, near Saint Pri- cien department de la Moselle, les vil- vat-la-Montagne, and Vionville, tvest of lages de Marie-aux-chenes. prcs de St. RezonviUe, are transferred to Germany. Privat-la-Montagne, et de Vionville, a On the other hand the city and fortress I'ovcst de Reconville, seront cedes a of Belfort, including a territory the di- I'Allemagne. Par contre la ville et les mensions of which will be definitely fortifications de Belfort resteront a la agreed to later on, remain with France. France avec un rayon qui sera determine ultcrieitrement. Article II. Article II. La France paiera a Sa Majeste I'Em- France will pay to his majesty, the pereur d'Allemagne la somme de cinq Emt>eror of Germany, the sum of 5 milliards de francs. milliards of francs. (Le paicmcnt d'au moins un milliard (Payment of at least one milliard of de francs aura lieu dans le courant de francs to be made zvithin the first year, I'annee 1871, et celui de tout le reste and the remainder of the debt within a de la dctte dans ttn espace dc trots annccs a partir dc la ratification des prcscntcs. Article III. L'czacuation des territoircs franqais occupes par tes troupes allemandes com- menccra. . . . period of three years from the day of ratification. Article III. The ez-acuation of French territory occupied by German troops begins . . . En foi de quot ics soussignes ont revctu le present traite preliminaire de leurs signatures et de leurs sceaux. Fait a I 'crsaillcs le 26 fevrier, 1871. V. Bismarck. A. Thiers, Jules Favre. Les Royaumes de Baviere et de IVurt- temberg et le Grand Duche de Bade ayant pris part a la guerre actuellc comme allies de la Prusse et faisant panic maintenant de I'Fmpire gcrman- ique, les soussignes adherent a la pre- sente convention au nom de leurs sou- verains respectifs. Versailles, le 26 fevrier, 1871. etc. de Bray-Steinburg Br. dc Waechter Mittnacht. Jolly. Right To attest the above the undersigned have signed, ar.d attached their seals to this preliminary treaty. Dated at I'ersailles, Feb. 26, 1871. V. Bismarck. A(dolphe) Thiers. Jules Favre. As the Kingdoms of Bavaria and Wiirtembcrg and the duchy of Baden participated in the present tear as con- federates of Prussia, and at present are a part of the German Empire, the un- dersigned joined the above convention in the name of their respective sov- ereigns. Versailles, February 26, 1871. Count von Bray-Steinburg Baron von Waechter Mittnacht Jolly Le Prince Othon de Bismarck- Schoenhausen, Chancelier de I'Empire germanique, le Comte Harry d'Aruim, Envoye extraordinaire et Ministre pleni- potcntiaire de Sa Majeste I'Empereur d'Allcntagne, prcs du St. Siege: slipulant au nom dc Sa Majeste I'Em- pereur d'Allemagne, d'un cote, dc I'autre Monsieur Jules Favre, Ministre des af- faires ctragcres de la Rcpublique fran- (oisc. Monsieur August in Thomas Joseph Pouyer-Qucrtier, Ministre des finances de la Rcpublique fran^aise. et Monsieur Marc Thomas Eugene de Goulard. Mcm- bre de I'Assemblce nationalc, stipulant a-i nom de la Rcpublique franqaise (s'etant. . . . Prince Otto von Bismarck-Schiiii- hausen. Chancellor of the German Em- pire, Count Harry von Arnim, Minister plenipotentiary and Envoy extraordinary of his Majesty the Emperor of Germany, at the Holy See stipulate on one hand, on the other Mr. Jules Favre, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Re- public, Mr. Augustin Thomas Joseph Pouyer-Quertier, Minister of Finance of the French Republic, and Mr. Marc Thomas Eugene de Goulard. Member of the National Assembly, stipulate in the name of the French Republic (. . . . . . on the part of the first, and on the part of the other through the National Assembly and the Execulix'C head of the French Republic) are to be exchanged at Frankfort tvithin the period of ten days or sooner if possible. To attest this the plenipotentiaries haz'C signed and placed the impress of their coat of arms beside it. Pone at Frankfort O/M., May 10, 1871, V. Bismarck Jules Favre Arnim Pouyer-Quertier E(u'ghie)dc Goulard ' 1 lie fiiistiikc of the copyist in writing plutot is corrected by lite erasure plus tot. AFTER THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENT IN THE CENTRAL BUREAU OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AT BERLIN . . . d'un cote, et de I'autre par r.tssemblee nationale et par le Chef du Potivoir execulif de la Rcpublique frant^aisc) scront echangccs a Francfort dans le dclai de dix jours ou plus tot * si faire se pent. En foi de quoi les Plcnipotentiaires respectifs font signe et y ont appose le cachet dc leurs armes. Fait (i Francfort le 10 mat, 1871. V. Bismarck Jules Favre. Arnim Pouyer-Quertier. E. de Goulard. FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 425 1870-1871 called into the field, until finally more than 8cxd,ooo soldiers stood upon French soil. After two or three attempts to break through the lines, Bazaine surrendered Metz on October 28. It was another event without a parallel in military history. Three marshals of France, 6000 officers, 145,000 unwounded soldiers, 73 eagles, 854 pieces of artillery, and 400,000 chassepot rifles were surrendered to Prince Frederick Charles ! After these successes the capture of Paris became only a question of time. Although the republican leader, Gambetta, escaped from the city in a balloon, and by his fiery eloquence aroused the people of central and southern France, every plan for raising the siege of Paris failed. The French volunteers were formed into three armies that of the North, under Faidherbe; of the Loire, under Aurelles de Paladine (afterward under Chanzy and Bour- baki) ; and of the East, under Keratry. Besides, a great many companies of franctireurs, or independent sharpshooters, were organized to interrupt the German communications, and they gave much more trouble than the larger armies. About the end of November a desperate attempt was made to raise the siege of Paris. General Paladine marched from Orleans with 150,000 men, while Trochu tried to break the lines of the besiegers on the eastern side. The latter was repelled, after a bloody fight; the former was attacked at Beaune la Roland by Prince Frederick Charles, with only half the number of troops, and most signally defeated. The Germans then carried on the winter campaign with the greatest vigor, both in the northern provinces and along the Loire, and Trochu, with his 400,000 men, made no further serious effort to save Paris. Frederick Charles took Orleans on December 5, advanced to Tours, and finally, in a six days' battle, early in January, 1871, at Le Mans, literally cut the army of the Loire to pieces. The French lost 60,000 in killed, wounded, and prisoners. Faidherbe was defeated in the north a week afterward, and the only resistance left was in Burgundy, where Garibaldi (who hastened to France after the republic was proclaimed) had been successful in two or three small engagements, and was now replaced by Bourbaki. The object of the latter was to relieve the fortress of Belfort, then be- sieged by General Werder, who with 43,000 men awaited his coming in a strong position among the mountains. Notwithstand- ing Bourbaki had more than 100,000 men, he was forced to retreat 426 GERMANY 1871 after a fight of three days, and then General Manteuffel, who had been sent in all haste to strengthen Werder, followed him so closely that on February i, all retreat being cut off, his whole army oi 83,000 men crossed the Swiss frontier, and after suffering terribly among the snowy passes of the Jura, were disarmed, fed, and clothed by the Swiss government and people. Bourbaki attempted to commit suicide, but only inflicted a severe wound, from which he afterward recovered. This retreat into Switzerland was almost the last event of the Seven Months' War, as it might be called, and it was as remarkable as the surrenders of Sedan and Metz. All power of defense was now broken. France was completely at the mercy of her con- querors. On January 28, after long negotiations between Bis- marck and Jules Favre, the forts around Paris capitulated and Trochu's army became prisoners of war. The city was not occu- pied, but, for the sake of the half-starved population, provisions were allowed to enter. The armistice, originally declared for three weeks, was prolonged until March i, when the preliminaries of peace were agreed upon and hostilities came to an end. By the final treaty of peace, which was concluded at Frank- fort on May 10, 1871, France gave up Alsatia and eastern Lor- raine, including Metz and Thionville to Germany. The terri- tory thus transferred comprised three French departments and contained about 5500 square miles and 1,580,000 inhabitants.^ P' ranee also agreed to pay an indemnity of five thousand millions of francs, in installments ; certain of her departments were occupied by German troops, and only evacuated by degrees, as the payments were made. France was allowed to retain Belfort and its territory on account of the heroic defense which its garrison had sustained. Thus ended this astonishing war, during which 17 great battles and 156 minor engagements had been fought, 22 fortified places taken, 385,000 soldiers (including 11,360 officers) made prison- ers, and 7200 cannon and 600,000 stand of arms acquired by Germany. There is no such crushing defeat of a strong nation recorded in history. Even before the capitulation of Paris the natural political re- This territory of Alsace-Lorraine was not annexed to Prussia, but to the newly formed German Empire. It became an "imperial territory" (Reichs' land) and was put directly under the management of the central government. It has no vote in the Upper House (Bundesrath), but sends fifteen elected representatives to the Lower House {Reichstag). FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 427 1871 suit of the victory was secured to Germany. The cooperation of the three southern states in the war removed the last barrier to a union of all except Austria under the lead of Prussia. That which the great majority of the people desired was also satisfactory to the princes : the " North German Confederation " was enlarged and transformed into the " German Empire " by including Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, and Baden. It was agreed that the young king of Bavaria, Ludwig II., as occupying the most important position among the rulers of the three separate states, should ask King Will- iam to assume the imperial dignity, with the condition that it should be hereditary in his family. The other princes and the free cities united in the call; and on January i8, 1871, in the grand hall of the palace of Versailles, where Richelieu and Louis XIV. and Napoleon I. had plotted their invasions of Germany, the king formally accepted the title of emperor, and the German states were at last united as one compact, indivisible nation. The Emperor William I. concluded his proclamation to the Ger- man people with these words : " May God permit us, and our successors to the imperial crown, to give at all times increase to the German Empire, not by the conquests of war, but by the goods and gifts of peace, in the path of national prosperity, freedom, and morality ! " After the end of the war was assured he left Paris and passed in a swift march of triumph through Germany to Berlin, where the popular enthusiasm was extravagantly exhibited. France had undertaken the war of 1 870-1 871 to undo the work of 1866. The result had been exactly the opposite of what she had hoped and expected. Prussia emerged from the war not weakened or broken, but immeasurably strengthened. She had also accomplished what she had long striven for the union of Germany into a solid, well- knit nation, in which Prussia was the predominant member and from which Austria was excluded. This new German Empire which Bismarck more than any other one man had helped to create, had all the vigor and strength of youth. It was already predominant in the diplomatic world. Bismarck might well have retired from public life with the reputation of the greatest statesman of the nineteenth century. But he was not content. He wished to make sure that the constitution of the new empire would work satisfac- torily, and he wished Germany to stride forward in economic and material well-being until she should be as predominant in the com- mercial world as she already was in the diplomatic Chapter XL THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 1871-1910 THE events of the period from 1866 to 1870 had entirely changed the political face of Germany. Instead of a league of loosely united states, as in the confederation of 181 5, or an incomplete unity, such as had existed after 1866, when Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Hesse, and Baden were still independent states refusing to enter the North German Confederation, there had been formed in consequence of the war of 1870 a single empire, not weak and broken by internal dissension, as had been the old confed- eration, but strong and influential, and raised by virtue of its vic- tories and the genius of its statesmen to the position of leader among the European powers. But the new Germany bore indelible marks of the conditions from which it had sprung and the circumstances that had attended its establishment. The system of universal mili- tary service and the attainment of unity by force of arms gave to the state a military character and increased its interest in military af- fairs. The supremacy of Prussia both politically and territorially, and the fact that her armies had led the way to victory, made it in- evitable that she should force her methods upon Germany, and that Bismarck, who had controlled her destinies since 1862 and become both president of the Prussian ministry and chancellor of the empire, should be the master of the new policy. The empire founded in 1871 is a federal state based in the main on a national foundation, although there are included within its limits Danes, Alsatians, and Poles, who form a restless party of opposition. The constitution, being drawn up largely by Bis- marck, who knew precisely what he wanted and the limitations imposed upon him, creates a powerful military state. As might be expected, the clauses on most subjects are comparatively meager ; but those on the army, the navy, and the revenue are drawn up with a " minuteness befitting the by-laws of a commercial com- pany." The Prussian military system is that which is adopted and made uniform in the other states, of the empire; there is but a 438 THE EMPIRE 429 1871-1910 single army for the empire, and it is under the command of the emperor, who must always be the king of Prussia. He selects the generals, but leaves to the individual states the appointment of the inferior officers and the routine management of the troops. The empire is composed of twenty-five states, exclusive of the imperial provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, of very different size and importance, all the way from the kingdom of Prussia, with a population of 35,000,000 and an area of 134,000 square miles, down to the principality of Schaumburg-Lippe, with less than 50,000 souls and 131 square miles !^ Prussia, owing to her preponder- ating size, has several special privileges which give her still further controlling power in the empire. Amendments to the constitution, although requiring only an ordinary majority in the Reichstag, are 1 The following table shows the different states composing the German Empire, their area and population in 1900, and their representation in each branch of the legislature, which is described later: States of the Empire Kingdom of Prussia Kingdom of Bavaria Kingdom of Saxony Kingdom of Wiirtemberg Grand-Duchy of Baden Grand-Duchy of Hesse Grand-Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin Grand-Duchy of Saxe- Weimar Grand-Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. . Grand-Duchy of Oldenburg Duchy of Brunswick Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen Duchy of Saxe-Altenburg Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha Duchy of Anhalt Principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen Pruicipality of Schwarzburg-Kudolstadt Principality of Waldeck Principality of Reuss Aelterer Linie Principality of Ruess Jungerer Linie. . . . Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe Principality of Lippe Free town of Liibeck Free town of Bremen Free town of Hamburg Reichsland of Alsace-Lorraine Total Area English iq. miles 134,603 29,282 5,787 7,528 5,821 2,965 5,135 1,388 1,131 2,479 1,424 953 511 755 906 363 333 433 319 122 131 469 115 99 158 5,600 208,830 Population Dec. 1,1900 34,472,509 6,176,057 4,202,216 2,169,480 1,867,944 1,119,893 607,770 362,873 102,602 399,180 464,333 250,731 194,914 229,550 316,085 80,898 93,059 57,918 68,396 139,210 43,132 138,952 96,775 224,882 768,349 1,719,470 56,367,178 Number of Members in Bundesratti 17 6 4 4 3 3 2 58 Number of Deputies in Reichstag 236 48 23 17 14 9 6 3 I 3 3 2 I 2 2 I I I I I I I I I 3 15 397 430 GERMANY 1871-1910 defeated in the Bundesrath if fourteen negative votes are thrown against them, and as Prussia has seventeen votes in that body she has an absolute veto on all changes of the constitution. Besides this, it is expressly provided that in the case of all bills relating to the army, the navy, or the system of raising or collecting taxes, the vote of Prussia in the Bundesrath is decisive if cast in favor of maintaining the existing institutions. Prussia has also the cast- ing vote in case of a tie in the Bundesrath, and is given the chair- manship of all the standing committees of that body. The legislature consists of two houses: the Reichstag, or House of Representatives, and the Bundesrath, or Federal Council. The former is an elected chamber, created for the sake of stimu- lating national sentiment and enlisting popular support as against the local and dynastic influences which were the curse of the old confederation, and which still have free play in the Bundesrath. The 397 members of the Reichstag are elected for five years by direct universal suffrage and secret ballot. Voters must be twenty- five years old, and not in active military service, paupers, or other- wise disqualified. The members are chosen in single electoral districts fixed by imperial law. These had originally a hundred thousand inhabitants apiece, but they have not been revised for more than a score of years, and with the growth of the large cities have gradually become very unequal. In the case of Berlin the dis- proportion is enormous, for the city, according to the last census, has nearly two million inhabitants, but is still represented by only six members. The government, however, is not anxious for a redis- tribution of seats, because Berlin elects Radicals and Socialists, who form a troublesome opposition a tendency which is also true of other large centers of population. As in the United States, no dis- trict can be composed of parts of different states, so that every state, however small, elects at least one representative. Of the 397 seats Prussia has 236, and the eleven smaller states one apiece. Universal suffrage was looked upon as an experiment of a somewhat hazardous character, and Bismarck insisted on the non- payment of members of the Reichstag as a safeguard. This has been a bone of contention with the Liberals ever since the Reich- stag having repeatedly passed bills for the payment of its mem- bers, which the Bundesrath has invariably rejected. The absence of remuneration has not been without effect, for it has deterred university professors and other men of small means, usually of THE EMPIRE 4.81 1871-1910 liberal views, from accepting an office which entails the expense of a long residence at Berlin; but it has not fulfilled the predic- tions that were made either by its friends or its foes, for it has not caused a dearth of candidates nor discouraged the presence of men who make politics their occupation. The provision has, however, a meaning one would hardly suspect. In 1885, when the Socialist representatives were paid a salary by their own party, Bismarck, claiming that such a proceeding was illegal, caused the treasury to sue them for the sums of money they had received in this way ; and, strange to say, the imperial court of appeal sustained the suit. The object of withholding pay from the members is, of course, to prevent the power of the poorer classes from becoming too great ; but a much more effectual means to the same end is the habit of holding elections on working days, instead of holding them on Sundays, as is done in France and most of the other Catholic countries. The powers of the Reichstag appear very great on paper. All laws require its consent, and so do the budget, all loans, and all commercial treaties which would involve matters falling within the domain of legislation. It has a right to initiate legislation, to ask the government for reports, and to express its opinion on the management of affairs. In reality, however, its powers are not so great as they seem. The constitution provides, for example, that the budget shall be annual, but the principal revenue laws are per- manent, and cannot be changed without the consent of the Bundes- rath, while the most important appropriation, that for the army, is virtually determined by the law fixing the number of the troops, and this has hitherto been voted for a number of years at a time.^ The chief function of the Reichstag is, in fact, the consideration of bills prepared by the chancellor and the Bundesrath. These it criticises and amends pretty freely; but its activity is rather nega- tive than positive, and although important measures occasionally have been passed at its instigation, it cannot be said to direct the policy of the state either in legislation or administration. The Bundesrath is an extraordinary body partaking of the nature of an upper house, an executive council, a court of appeal, and a permanent assembly of diplomats. It is the most thoroughly native feature of the German Empire, and is really an outgrowth 2 In 1871 for three years ; in 1874, 1880, and 1887 for seven years ; in 1893 for five years ; and in 1899 for three years. 432 GERMANY 1871-1910 of previous conditions. It is composed of delegates appointed by the princes of the states and the senates of the free cities. In the Bundesrath there are 58 seats, of which Prussia has 17, Bavaria 6, and the remaining states from i to 4 apiece. Thus it has usually been easy for Prussia to get enough additional votes to have an absolute majority, and have her own way; but on several notable occasions the other states have combined and defeated her. This happened in 1877, when the seat of the imperial court of appeal was fixed at Leipzig, instead of Berlin, as she desired; and in 1876 on the more important question of the imperial railroad law. At that time Bismarck refrained altogether from introducing into the Bundesrath a bill for the purchase of railroads by the empire, knowing it would be defeated by the opposition of the middle-sized states, although the project was one on which he had set his heart. Again, in 1879, another railroad bill was killed in the Bundesrath by the opposition of Bavaria, Saxony, and Wiirtemberg, and in the same year a conference of the finance ministers of the states refused to consent to the tobacco monopoly. The executive power is in the hands of the emperor (Kaiser), who is always king of Prussia, and of the all-powerful chancellor (Reichskamler), who is usually a Prussian official and president of the Prussian cabinet. There is no imperial cabinet responsible to parliament, like the English cabinet, and composed of heads of departments standing on an equal footing. Instead, there towers above, and alone, the chancellor, who has subordinates, but not colleagues. His unique position is due to the fact that Bismarck created the office for himself and did not wish to be hampered by associates. He had had experience enough of the Prussian cabinet methods, where each of the members was very independent in the management of his own department. Being by nature intolerant of opposition, Bismarck always hated to waste his time and strength in persuading his colleagues and all their friends and advisers that the policy he had decided to adopt was a wise one. The chan- cellor is not responsible criminally for his policy, and Bismarck steadily refused to hold himself responsible politically to anyone but his royal master, so that practically the parliamentary system docs not exist in the German Empire, and the chancellor does not resign on a hostile vote in the Reichstag. If that body will not pass one of his measures, he gets on as well as he can without it; or, if he considers it a matter of vital importance, he causes the THE EMPIRE 488 1871-1910 Reichstag to be dissolved and takes the chance of success from a new election. The powers of the chancellor are wide-reaching-. He pre- sides in the Bundesrath, and is in fact its leading and moving spirit. He also takes an active part in the debates of the Reichstag, ex- plaining and defending his imperial measures and policy. His powers, in the years immediately after the Franco-Prussian War, were greater than those of any other man in the world. The burden soon proved too great for even Bismarck's iron frame to bear. When, therefore, he was granted a leave of absence for rest, an act was passed in 1878 providing for the appointment, by the emperor, of a vice-chancellor, or general substitute. This new official was intended to act only during the interval of the chan- cellor's absence, but with the increasing business of the empire has now become a permanent necessity. Similarly it has become the custom to make as many as possible of the imperial secretaries of state special substitutes for their own departments, with the power of countersigning the acts of the emperor in the chancellor's stead; they also are often appointed Prussian delegates to the Bundesrath, in order that they may speak for their department both in that body and in the Reichstag. They are, nevertheless, subject always to the chancellor's orders; he remains practically the sole head of the government, and the person morally, if not politically, re- sponsible for its whole policy, domestic and foreign. Justice and judicial procedure have been wholly remodeled in the empire. In 1871 there was the greatest confusion and variety in legal practice. Each little state, and often, even, each city, had its own particular code and legal system. When the city had been absorbed in the larger territory, sometimes it had kept its special code, sometimes only part of it ; oftentimes the question was left in uncertainty and confusion. In one district there would be trial by jury in open court; in a neighboring district the older procedure by written pleadings before a judge; and in many dis- tricts, especially in the north along the Baltic, the old feudal juris- diction of the manorial courts still survived. Such complications and confusion could not be allowed to continue in the new empire. Legal commissions were at once appointed to study different sides of the question and draw up new codes which should supersede the old. The commissions worked slowly and carefully, and succeeded fairly well in reconciling and combining the various elements^ 434 GERMANY 1671-1910 Roman Law, Teutonic Law, and the Code Napoleon Into new codes. In 1877 a criminal code was completed and adopted for the empire, in 1897 a commercial code, and in 1900 a very compre- hensive civil code crowned the task of establishing uniformity in law and procedure. Each state retains its local courts, but there is an appeal to the court of the empire (Reichsgericht) , which sits at Leipzig. Since the founding of the empire one of the most interesting, and yet most complex, features of German history has been the development of political parties. They do not, as in England or America, fall into two great divisions, one supporting and the other opposing the government. On the contrary, there are more than a dozen parties which now support, now oppose, the measures of the chancellor, and which have varied much in numbers.^ The four most important parties were already in existence in Prussia before 1870, and were taken over by the new empire from the Prussian kingdom. To understand their origin a glance backward to the " Period of Conflict " in the early sixties is necessary. In the bitter constitutional struggle between Bismarck and the parliamentary party over the reorganization of the Prussian army, the deputies in the Prussian legislature were sharply divided into two parties the Conservatives and the Progressives (or Fort- schrittspartei). The former was the one to which Bismarck himself by birth and training naturally belonged. It was recruited mainly from the lesser nobility and " Junkers," and came largely The following table shows the strength of the various parties in the Reichstag at the more important elections : PARTIES Conservatives Free Conservatives (Reichspartei) National Liberals Liberals (Fortschritt, Freisinnige) . Soenter or Clericals Polcial Democrats Alses Alsace-Lorrainers Anti-Semites Danes and Guelphs Other Parties Total 1896 12 34 56 78 90 12 34 56 78 90 12 123 1897 34 56 67 90 II 12 34 56 78 295 1896 53 21 48 43 103 56 14 10 12 397 1899 58 15 50 35 100 82 16 9 15 397 THE EMPIRE 465 1871-1910 from east of the Elbe. The Conservatives were upholders of mili- tarism, of social class distinctions, and of the strong monarchy which had given to themselves and their relatives most of the military, civil, and diplomatic appointments. But during the " Period of Conflict " they were almost always in a minority. The Progressives, on the other hand, aimed to introduce into Prussia a truly parliamentary government, to have the ministers responsible to the legislature, to have real control over the grant- ing and expending of taxes, and to reduce the monarchical power and influence until it should be no greater in Prussia than in Eng- land. Over the Progressive majority, however, Bismarck had ridden rough-shod, telling them that nothing could be accomplished by speeches and celebrations and songs, but only by " blood and iron." It was in spite of the bitterest Progressive opposition that Bismarck carried out the army reorganization. The wonderful victory over Austria which followed seemed to justify Bismarck's policy and methods, and to disarm criticism. A sudden change took place in public opinion: instead of the tyrannical despiser of popular rights, Bismarck appeared to be a far-sighted statesman, a champion of German unity, and even of liberty and democracy. This feeling was still further increased when he adopted universal manhood suffrage as the basis on which were elected representatives to the legislature of the North German Confederation, and then to its successor, the Reichstag of the empire. These changes, together with the Franco-Prussian War and the union of the south Ger- man states, resulted in splitting each of the old existing parties into two new divisions. A number of the Conservatives, who were less reactionary than their fellows and more in favor of the new federal system, left the party and organized another called the Free Conservatives (or Deutsche Reichspartei). Similarly those Progressives, who were less dogmatic and doctrinaire, and had more confidence in Bismarck than the rest of the Progressives, split off and formed a more moderate party known as the National Liberals. Their members came largely from south Germany and from the smaller German states, and formed a truly national patriotic party. These two new middle parties Free Conserva- tives and National Liberals were the ones which supported Bis- marck in the first years of the empire. Under the head of " irreconcilables " are included several little parties, or rather factions, which almost invariably vote against 486 GERMANY 1871-1910 the government as a means of protestinpf against the wrong which they believe has been done to their country. Such are the Guelphs of Hanover, the Poles, Danes, and Alsace-Lorrainers, who regard the absorption of their country into the empire as a wrongful act. Various efforts have been made alternately by coercion and con- ciliation to break their opposition, to make them feel that they are an important and integral part of the German Empire, but with only partial success. In Alsace-Lorraine a systematic attempt was made to extirpate French from the schools, from official proceedings, and from the railways; it was even forbidden on signs and posters. Fines and imprisonment were used to repress manifestations of French sym- pathy in any form. Journals with French tendencies and journals coming from France were suppressed. But all this failed to make the population German. Manteuffel, who became governor in 1879, tried a more conciliatory policy and endeavored to win the respect of the people, but his successor returned to the repressive methods, and, to prevent agitation by French agents, enforced a careful system of requiring all persons crossing the border to show passports. In the last ten years, however, the Alsace-Lorraine question has been less bitter. Germanization seems to some extent to be succeeding; it is estimated that eighty per cent, of the population now speak German as their mother-tongue. There has been a considerable settlement by German farmers from across the Rhine, and the whole region has shared in the growth of Germany's material prosperity. Strasburg, especially, has grown in wealth and numbers, and with her flourishing new university with German professors has become a center of really German patriotic feeling, which may spread into the rest of the regions won from France in 18701 871. Some French newspapers have openly advocated recognizing as permanent the renunciation of territory, in order to ensure better relations with Germany. And it is probably true that the desire for the reunion of Alsace-Lorraine to France is less strong to-day among the pop- ulation of the province itself than among the nationalists of Paris, who keep continually decorated the statue of Strassburg in the Place de la Concorde. In the Polish provinces the outlook is less hopeful. Before 1848 German liberals regarded the partition of Poland as a great crime and were anxious to make amends for it. Bismarck himself remembered how, in his early boyhood, after the failure of the THEEMPIRE 4S7 1671-1910 Polish Revolution of 1830, Polish refugees were received in every German town with honors and enthusiasm greater than those paid to the men who had fought in the War of German Liberation. But Bismarck never shared this feeling. He saw in the Poles an anti- German and an anti-imperial element; he clearly realized that any reestablishment of Poland must inevitably lead to trouble with Russia, which also has a large Polish element, and that the Poles would never be satisfied until they regained lands which Prussia would never be willing to surrender. He, therefore, adopted toward the Poles an attitude of uncompromising hostility, and steadily pursued a repressive policy. In 1885 and 1886 new Polish settlers in Prussian Poland were expelled; the whole administration of the schools was taken out of the hands of the local authorities and given over to the central government, so as to prevent the instruc- tion from being given in Polish; and finally a law was passed authorizing the Prussian government to spend nearly twenty-five million dollars in purchasing estates from Polish families and settling German colonists on the land. Within ten years some two thousand German peasants were transplanted, but it is doubt- ful whether this has much practical effect, for the Poles have founded a society to protect their own interests, and have often managed to profit by the artificial value given to the property. And though in school the children may have to learn their lessons in German, in their play, at the dinner table, and in their prayers they will still speak Polish. The attempt at colonization by Ger- man settlers has still further increased the bitterness of the Polish peasants, and is partly defeated by the fact that Poles multiply much faster than the Germans and, being more thrifty and frugal, make dangerous competitors for their German neighbors. The coloniza- tion is also partly counteracted by the fact that the large proprietors in purely German districts continue to import Polish laborers to work on their estates. Emperor William H., shortly after his accession, made concessions in the matter of schools, but soon re- turned to Bismarck's policy. Twenty-five million dollars more were voted for colonization purposes, but there seems little likelihood that the Poles, in the immediate future at least, can be compelled to give up their mother-tongue and national traditions. The Socialist party, or Social Democrats, as they call them- selves, were small in numbers at the founding of the empire, but have steadily grown in power since then. They are a product of the 4d8 GERMANY 1871-1910 discontent which has inevitably come with the progress in manufac- turing, with the widening of the gulf between rich and poor, and with the growth of a great protelariat. The teachings of Marx in favor of communism and of Lassalle in favor of equal political rights for all found ready hearers, who, in 1869, united and formed the Social Democratic Workingman's party. Bebel and Liebknecht were its leaders and spokesmen. The Social Democrats opposed the Franco-Prussian War, and expressed sympathy with the Paris Communists, thereby offending German national feeling and ex- posing themselves to taunts of coward and traitor. Though they opposed the warlike methods by which German unity was secured, they accepted the empire and profited by it indirectly. For after 1870 the old customs barriers and many other hindrances to trade were swept away, and the natural development of industry and trade gave a new impulse to business activity and prosperity. The enormous French war indemnity acted as a further stimulus. Prices rose, including the price of labor ; the workingman for the moment felt better off and more self-important. This new capital also led everywhere to the construction of new factories, railroads, and enter- prises of every kind. It is estimated that in the three years be- tween 1 87 1 and 1874 as many factories were built as in all the preceding seventy years! In Prussia, in 1872 alone, in addition to 1800 existing miles of railroad, 700 more were actually laid down and 1200 planned! Soon, however, unscrupulous promoters, taking advantage of the public interest and confidence in business activity, launched upon an unsuspecting public innumerable companies and schemes which were mere swindles; stock-jobbing methods of robbing the public flourished for a time, until the natural result of over-capitalization and unsound finance came in the terrible crash of 1873. Companies failed on every hand; workingmen were not only thrown out of employment, but they found too often that the small savings which they had made were now completely swept away in the bankrupt companies. The result was an increase of discontent among the working class, and as the size of the Social Democratic party is a gauge of the discontent in Germany, they gained nine seats in the Reichstag elections in 1874. They con- trolled several newspapers, had a centralized management and a treasury, and formed a compact party. On account of their attacks on religion, marriage, monarchy, and private property, Bismarck already looked upon them with disfavor, but was not ready to act T H E E M P I R E 489 I871-1910 against them on account of the great struggle he was at the moment waging against the Clerical party. Of a wholly different nature from the preceding parties was the Clerical party, which appeared in the first Reichstag in 1871 with the astonishing large number of sixty-three representatives. These men were neither conservative nor liberal exclusively, but contained both aristocratic and democratic elements nobles from Bavaria and radicals from the manufacturing cities on the Rhine. Their common bond was their Catholic religion, and their common aim was to support the Pope in his new dogmatic pretensions, and try to wan back for him his recently lost temporal power. In the Reichstag, therefore, they took seats neither on the right with the Conservatives nor on the left with the Progressists, but in the center, and have since been known, therefore, as the Centrum, or Clerical party. Their numbers have always remained large; they fought and practically won the Kultiirkampf against Bismarck; and since 1880 they have frequently exercised a controlling and decisive position in the Reichstag by their possession of the bal- ance of power between the various parties. The Catholics had appeared as a political party before the Franco-Prussian War, but had aroused little notice. But the Sylla- bus, the Vatican Council, and the declaration of Papal infallibility gave them new strength, and their increased aggressiveness aroused growing opposition among some of the governments, which feared that the logical outcome of Papal infallibility would be an attempt on the part of the Pope to assume infallibility in politics and to attempt to subordinate the state to the church. The old mediaeval specter again raised its head, of a state within a state, and of spir- itual interference in temporal affairs. Then came the victorious march of the Italian troops into Rome and the Pope's loss of that " Patrimony of St. Peter " which the Papacy had possessed un- disputed for a thousand years and more. The inevitable result of this was that Roman Catholics all over the world felt themselves bound together in a common political cause: each was bound in his own state to use his full influence to procure interference either by diplomacy or by arms for the rescue of the " Prisoner of the Vatican," Thus in Germany the Hanoverian Windthorst in the fall of 1870 had a secret meeting with Bavarian Catholics to adopt a common plan of action. On New Year's Day, 1871, their organ, the Germania, began its regular issue. And in Feb- 440 GERMANY 1871-1910 ruary, while the German army was still encamped before Paris, an address was presented to the King of Prussia at Versailles, urg- ing him to use the influence of the new formed empire to reestablish the temporal power of the Pope. It was, of course, rejected by Bismarck, who saw its impossibility. He was irritated always at any attempt to dictate to him in matters of foreign policy. This irritation increased when the Reichstag met a few weeks later. He found that the Center had more than sixty seats, and refused to vote in favor of the usual address to the crown on account of a clause condemning interference in the affairs of foreign countries a clause designed to prevent any action in favor of the Pope. His dislike of the Center increased still further as he found that Windthorst and many of the Clericals were " particularists," who were either openly opposed to the new empire or who were at least opposed to a strong central governement. Thus Bismarck opposed the Center on political grounds, as a party disloyal and dangerous to the empire, as a " mobilization of the church against the state." " The question at issue," he declared, " is not a struggle of an evangelistic dynasty against the Catholic Church; it is the old struggle a struggle for power as old as the human race, between king and priest, a struggle which is much older than the appearance of our Redeemer in this world, a struggle which has filled German history of the Middle Ages till the destruction of the German Empire." But the question did not long remain a merely political one. It soon spread outside of Prussia, and aroused religious hatreds and bitterness all over Germany in a way which recalled the days of the Reformation. When the Pope tried to make the German bishops and clergy accept the new dogma of Papal infallibility the majority complied, but a certain number refused. These latter were then at once ex- communicated by the Pope; they therefore seceded and formed themselves into a group known as Old Catholics. When the Pope followed up his excommunication by insisting that they be deprived of their functions and salaries, they appealed to the Prussian gov- ernment, which upheld them and continued them in their ofiice. Thus began that most unfortunate conflict between church and state known as the Kulturkampf, or war in behalf of civilization, in which Bismarck championed the state. When Bavarian bishops and priests, who remained on the side of the Pope, attacked the THE EMPIRE 441 I87I-19I0 Old Catholics from their pulpits, the Reichstag passed a law the famous Kanaelparagraph which made it a penal offense for priests to use their pastoral position for political purposes. This was followed in June, 1872, by a law expelling the Jesuits and other kindred orders from the territory of the empire. In December, 1872, when Pius IX. protested against this expulsion, in terms that were construed as insulting to the emperor, Bismarck forbade the allocution to be published in Germany, and recalled his ambassador from the Vatican, thus diplomatically declaring war. Having once entered upon the Kultnrkampf, Bismarck and the Prussian gov- ernment fought with energy. In May, 1873, the Prussian legisla- ture passed the " May Laws," which aimed to limit the disciplinary power of the church over its members, and to place the education and installation of the whole clergy under the control of the gov- ernment. Churches were to be subject to state inspectors ; all clergy were to be appointed and dismissed only with the consent of the state, and candidates had to pass state examinations in philosophy, history, philology, and the German language. Civil marriage was made com- pulsory, so as to cripple the very strong power which the Roman Catholic priests could exercise otherwise. All priests and bishops who disobeyed any of these laws and they were many were suspended from office and their salaries and revenues taken over by the state, until by 1877 eight Prussian bishoprics and more than fourteen hundred curacies were vacant. But Bismarck found he had a more determined and more powerful enemy to deal with than he had supposed an enemy far more dangerous than the Liberals in the " Period of Conflict " a dozen years before. The Catholics dared to do what the Liberals had not ventured on they disobeyed the law, boldly declaring that the laws of the state were not the ultimate source of right, and ought not to be obeyed if contrary to the laws of God. By 1877 Bismarck saw that the situation was becoming unbearable for him. Not only were a large part of the clergy in open opposition, but the people felt that he had gone too far in his attempt to subjugate the church to the state; and they resented being deprived of the religious services of the suspended clergy. In some villages there was no one to baptize, marry, and bury them. This feeling is shown by the fact that in each new election to the Reichstag the Centrum gained instead of losing votes. Bismarck's embarrassment in the Reichstag steadily in- creased, for the National Liberals, who had at first supported him 44t GERMANY 1S71-19I0 and passed the anti-clerical laws, began to vote against some finan- cial measures which he considered essential. It was partly this sense of defeat and mistaken policy which influenced him in April, 1877, to hand in his resignation of all his offices, giving as his pretext ill-health. But Emperor William was unwilling to part with his old friend and refused to accept it. " Never," he wrote on the side of the minute. Instead, he granted to Bismarck an unlimited leave of absence. The chancellor retired to his estate at Varzin for rest, but only for ten months. In February, 1878, he returned, recruited in health and spirits, to guide the affairs of the empire for a dozen years to come. One of the first indications of his new policy was his change of attitude toward the Clericals. In spite of his proud declaration at the beginning of the Kultur- kampf, " We will never go to Canossa," alluding to Henry IV. and Gregory VII. ^he was glad of the accession and friendly at- titude of Leo XIII. Gradually the laws against the Catholics were relaxed or repealed, clerical vacancies were filled, and seques- trated revenues restored. In 1887 religious orders occupied in charitable work were allowed to return to Prussia, but the Jesuits were not officially readmitted until 1904. The Pope on his side used his influence to restore religious peace in Germany and to restrain the clergy from acting in opposition to the government. And it was in fact the support of the Centrum which enabled Bismarck to pass the great tariff which he had been planning during the ten months at Varzin. The year 1878 marks a turning-point in German history. In foreign affairs Bismarck's preeminence in diplomacy was again strikingly emphasized by the way in which he presided at the Con- gress of Berlin, and, acting as "honest broker " among the various claimants for Turkish territory, succeeded in reconciling the ap- parently irreconcilable demands of England and Russia. This year also marks Germany's divergence from Russia and the estab- lishment of the closer relations with Austria and Italy which re- sulted in the Triple Alliance. In the internal history of Germany the year 1878 marks tlie practical end of the KuHurkampf, the be- ginning of the new protective policy and state socialism, the break-up of the power of the National Liberal party, and the passage of the first severe law against the Socialists. The empire began its existence under a tariff so low that Germany was practically a free-trade country. Delbriick, the mm- THE EMPIRE 443 1871-1910 ister of commerce, and the National Liberals were strongly in favor of free-trade and a laissez-faire policy. Bismarck gave the matter small attention at first; he was too occupied with foreign affairs. But commercial matters were gradually forced upon his notice. The great wave of prosperity upon which the empire had sailed at first broke in the collapse and panic of 1873. The newly established industries everywhere found that they had to meet a very serious foreign competition. They began to cry for protec- tion to save themselves from being pushed to the wall by the Eng- lish goods which were flooding the country. In 1876 the crisis in the iron trade became especially acute. Owing to overproduc- tion there had been a great fall in prices in England, so that English goods were dumped in Germany and sold below cost. At the end of this year also even the slight duty on iron in Germany would expire, unless renewed by law. Therefore many of the manu- facturers and a large party in the Reichstag petitioned that at least the existing slight tariff be maintained ; they would have been glad to have a real protective tariff. The free-traders, however, composed mostly of National Liberals, still had a majority, and refused to act on the petition. It had had the one important effect that Bismarck's attention was now drawn to economic matters. He saw that not only the iron trade, but other industries, had their very existence threatened; for while Germany was a dumping ground for low-priced English manufactures, German manufac- tured goods were excluded from America, France, and Russia by high protective tariffs. The building of railways in Russia would bring about an increased importation of Russian corn and threat- ened the prosperity of large proprietors and peasants alike. As he looked over the country and saw the closed factories, ruined owners, and unemployed workingmen who went to swell the num- bers of the discontented Social Democrats, Bismarck gradually be- came convinced that Germany needed a protective tariff. " I had the impression," he said, " that under free trade we were gradu- ally bleeding to death." Two other advantages Bismarck expected from a protective tariff. In the first place it would enable him to ally himself again with the Conservatives and to dispense with the support of the National Liberals in the Reichstag. His alliance with the latter had always been of a temporary nature, for the sake of expediency ; on neither side had distrust and suspicion been wholly absent; 444 GERMANY 1871-1910 and as a reaction set in against liberalism in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the National Liberals were in danger of losing power anyway. Now that they had helped him to establish Ger- man unity, he was ready to abandon them since their free-trade ideas were opposed to his new plans for sustaining and developing the material prosperity of Germany. He also hoped that the in- creased prosperity which a protective tariff would bring would give employment to the discontented suffering working classes, and make them less likely to join the Social Democratic party. He did not intend merely to have them get employment, but he was also planning elaborate measures for old age pensions and working- men's insurance. A second advantage of protection would be that it would in- crease the revenues of the empire and solve the financial question which was growing more and more serious every year. By the constitution (Section 70) it was provided that the proceeds of cus- toms duties and of most indirect taxes should be used to meet im- perial expenses; but if these sources were not sufficient, the deficit should be made up by contributions assessed upon the various states of the empire in proportion to their population. These con- tributions (Matricularbeitrage) had increased and bore heavily upon some of the poorer states. They caused continual friction and unpleasantness between the central government and the separate states, which tended to weaken the empire. The contributions which were raised by direct taxation fell with special hardship on the classes least able to pay; and non-payment of even a very small sum was followed by the disgrace of a distraint and forced sale by the tax-collector. Bismarck stated, perhaps with some ex- aggeration, that every year there were over a million such execu- tions, involving the seizure and sale of household goods on account of arrears in the payment of taxes. Such a state of affairs tended to create discontent and a feeling of hostility to the empire among the lower classes. But an increased revenue from a protective tariff, if eked out by a government monopoly of tobacco, such as was working so successfully in France, would be more than enough to cover all imperial expenses, and might even result in a surplus which could be distributed among the states. Thus, for various reasons, both economic and political, Bis- marck became a protectionist, and early in 1877 introduced into the Reichstag a new tariff. It failed disastrously, because the THE EMPIRE 445 1811-1910 National Liberals voted against it. They opposed it not only on free-trade grounds, but also because it would give the government a large revenue independent of an annual legislative grant, and thus weaken still further the control of the Reichstag over the administration of the empire. Bismarck thereupon went to his ten months of rest and retirement at Varzin. He bided his time. When Bismarck returned in February, 1878, to take up con- trol of affairs again, it soon became clear that he would look for support not to the National Liberals as before, but to the growing Conservative party, who had originally stood by him in the " Period of Conflict," and with whom he was naturally affiliated by birth and education. After 1878 no more measures were introduced to please the National Liberals; three Liberal Prussian ministers were replaced by Conservatives; but still he could not command enough votes to pass a protective tariff. Suddenly two outrages occurred from which he instantly drew political advantage. On May 11, 1878, a young fanatic named Hodel discharged revolver shots at old Emperor William as he was driving in Berlin. Though the emperor was uninjured, the attempt stirred up strong feeling, which was directed against the Social Democrats, as Hodel, though not a regular member of the party, seemed to have been incited to his act by violent speeches heard at Socialist meetings. Bismarck, who had long looked with dislike upon their subversive teachings and methods, took the opportunity to bring in immedi- ately a severe law with which he hoped to crush the party. He succeeded in passing it through the Bundesrath, but it was rejected in the Reichstag, as being too sweeping and too elastic. Only a few days later, on June 2, a second attempt was made on the life of the emperor near his palace by a man named Nobil- ing. The beloved gray-haired octogenarian, who had passed through so many battles unhurt, was picked up unconscious, cov- ered with blood streaming from his head, neck, and arms, and be- lieved to be dying. His first words were to ask that the crown prince be sent for, that he might give into his hands the conduct of affairs. His next thought was to ask after the servant who had been at his side, and wounded with him. But owing to his iron constitution the emperor did not die. The wounds were band- aged, the arm put in a sling, and slowly he recovered from the shock and loss of blood. This second attempt, so wanton and without reason, upon the 446 GERMANY 1871-1910 life of a ruler so universally respected and beloved, aroused a storm of indignation from one end of the empire to the other. When Bismarck heard the news he exclaimed, " Now the Reichstag must be dissolved." In the general election which followed, while the excitement was still hot and the antagonism to the Socialists strong, the National Liberals, who a few weeks before had refused to vote for his anti-Socialist law, lost heavily; their numbers sank from 176 to 135, while the Conservatives gained from 78 to 116, and the Center, with whom he was soon to be reconciled, numbered 87. With the support of the Center and the Conservatives, Bis- marck was now at last able to discard the National Liberals and yet have enough of a majority to pass the anti-Socialist law of 1878 and the protective tariff of 1879.'* The new law against the Socialists forbade the spread of So- cialistic opinions by books, newspapers, or public meetings; the police were given a wide discretionary power to break up meet- ings and suppress newspapers. The Bundesrath could proclaim a state of siege in any city, and when this was done any individual considered dangerous could at once be expelled by the police. The law was to be in force for four years, but was twice extended, and lasted until 1890, It was enforced with great severity, and, ac- cording to statements issued by the Social Democrats in 1890, had resulted in the suppression of 1400 publications, the banish- ment of 900 persons, and the imprisonment of 1500 others. But it by no means crushed the party; in fact, as so often happens, it throve by persecution. Its organ, the Social Democrat, appeared regularly in Switzerland, and at every election they won more seats in the Reichstag. Under the milder treatment which they have re- ceived since 1890 the Social Democrats have been less violent in their denunciations and less anarchistic in their tendency, but they still steadily oppose every government army and navy appropriation, colonial expansion, and all laws in any way restraining personal liberty or fostering social distinctions. Bismarck's new tariff was outlined to the Reichstag in De- * Soon after this a split occurred in the National Liberal party: some und^r the leadership of Bennigsen were willing to accept protection and follow Bis- marck in spite of his change of front; they retained the old name. The rest of the parly seceded, stuck to free trade, opposed reconciliation with the Clericals, and formed a party called the Liberal Union; in 1884 they merged with the Fortshritt, and the new combination has since been known as the Ger- man Frecthinking Party {Frieisinnigepartei) . THEEMPIRE Wl 1871-1910 cember, 1878, after the Socialist law had been disposed of. It provided for a moderate duty of about five per cent, on all imported goods (with the exception of raw material required for German manufactures), a high excise duty on tobacco, beer, brandy, and pe- troleum, and high protective duties on iron, corn, cattle, wood, wine, and sugar. The debate on the bill occupied nearly the whole of the session of 1879, and was a great battle between free trade and protection. In the end, by a coalition of the agrarians and manufacturers, the bill was passed, and its principles have been maintained ever since, though somewhat modified by recent reci- procity treaties. The result of the law has been that in the twenty years from 1879 to 1899 the revenue from tariff and excise has increased from 230,000,000 marks to over 700,000,000, thus more than realizing Bismarck's hopes that the receipts would meet the imperial expenses. In several years there has actually been a sur- plus distributed among the states of the empire. In the decade from 1880 to 1890 Bismarck was largely occupied with other economic measures for the material well-being of the empire. His plans for a government tobacco and brandy monopoly were rejected, and he let them drop. He had also intended to have the empire buy up all the railroads and make them a state monopoly. He saw that they were in the hands of private corpora- tions which aimed to pay large dividends to the stockholders rather than to care for the interests of the public. It was also believed that they injured German trade by their differential rates, often granting lower terms on imported English goods than on exported German goods. Local jealousy prevented his railroad bill from passing the Reichstag. He therefore did the next best thing; he had the kingdom of Prussia buy up nearly all the rail- roads in Prussia and bring them under state management; and many of the smaller states have united their railroads to the Prus- sian system, and have profited thereby. But Saxony and the larger south German states still refuse to have their railways pass under Prussian control. Bismarck was equally solicitous for the care of working men and women in case of sickness, accident, and old age. He first (1881) proposed compulsory insurance against accidents for every- one employed on railways, in mines, and in factories; the admin- istration was to be in the hands of a government office and the premium to be paid by masters, workmen, and the state in three 448 GERMANY I871-1910 equal parts. But the bill met bitter opposition in the Reichstag, which did not wish to impose such a heavy financial burden on the empire. The bill was withdrawn ; in place of it was substituted a bill for compulsory insurance in the case of sickness. This became law in 1883, and recognized the existing friendly and other socie- ties as insuring bodies; these were still to enjoy their corporate existence and separate administration, but were placed under state control. One-third of the premium was paid by the employer and the other two-thirds by the workmen. In 1884 an insurance against accidents was made compulsory. It applied at first only to mines and factories, but was subsequently extended to other trades; the whole burden of compensation was thrown upon the employers, who were compelled to insure themselves against the payments for which they might become liable. Finally, in 1889 came the great- est innovation old age pensions. All persons receiving less than about ten dollars a week are compelled to insure themselves against old age ; half the premium is paid by the workman and half by the employer. The pension begins at the age of seventy, and is aug- mented by an additional grant from the state of about twelve dollars a year. These measures of " state socialism " have on the whole worked well, and have met the approval of both masters and workmen. On March 9, 1888, all Germany was saddened by the death, after a short illness, of their beloved Emperor William. He had almost reached his ninety-first birthday. Like the great Hohen- zollerns before him, he had done much to build up and extend the kingdom of Prussia. But he had done more : he had restored polit- ical unity and order in Germany, which she had really never enjoyed before, even in the days of Frederick Barbarossa. His character and personality had been ever such as to command the sincerest admiration and love of all about him, from Bismarck and Moltke and Roon down to the lowest soldier or railway official. William I. was succeeded by his son, Frederick III., who had already won fame for himself as a general in the wars of 1866 and 1870. When the telegram announcing his father's death was brought to him he was at St. Remo in Italy, already stricken down with the fatal cancer of the throat which carried him off after a sad reign of ninety-nine days. The German specialists had advised an operation, but owing to the advice of the English physician, Sir Morell Mackenzie, it was put off until too late, though it is by no T H E E M P I R E 449 1871-1910 means certain that even a timely operation would have been per- manently successful. Frederick's noble bearing, cheerful, kindly manners, his liberalism and belief in parliamentary government after the English model, and his victories on the field of battle had made him scarcely less loved and honored than his father. He had been the hope and aspiration of the new generation, and it v/as sad indeed to have him thus suddenly cut off. With the accession of his son, William IL, begins a new era in recent German history. His mother was an Englishwoman, a daughter of Queen Victoria, and he had been to school in England. In his youth, too, he had been a great admirer of Bismarck, and though he still remained so, it soon became clear that he intended to be his own master and follow his own will. He knew himself to be possessed of far more than average human ability. He had already been initiated by his grandfather into affairs of state, and he did not intend that the chancellor should overshadow in impor- tance and influence the sovereign. Yet, on the other hand, Bismarck, who had really guided the state for twenty years after he had created it, and had become more tenacious of power, could not be expected at once to surrender the reins completely to such a young man as the new emperor. The split was inevitable, and came in March, 1890. William H. issued a proclamation calling together in Berlin an international congress of workingmen which might con- sider the requirements and wishes of this class. Bismarck had always opposed such international congresses, and openly said so. He wished to deal with the socialist agitation by reenacting the anti- socialist law, which would expire in 1890. Soon afterward the emperor, in order to control the ministers more directly and lessen Bismarck's power, ordered Bismarck to draw up a decree reversing a cabinet order of 1852, which gave the Prussian minister-president the right of being the sole means of communication between the other ministers and the king. To such a lessening of his authority Bismarck could not consent. He refused, and was dismissed from the position he had held so long. Honors were heaped upon him as he retired, but they did little to soften the bitterness of his fall. The remaining eight years of his life were spent in apparent isola- tion at Varzin or Friedrichsruhe ; but his eyes were ever fixed on the politics of Europe, and he did not hesitate to criticise as unwise some of the steps of the young man who had dismissed him. Since Bismarck's fall William H.'s personality has been one 450 GERMANY 1871-1910 of the chief factors in German development. He thoroughly be- lieves in the " divine-right " theory of kingship, and once wrote in the Visitors' Book of the town hall in Munich, " The will of the king is the supreme law." In speaking to a body of recruits in 1891 he told them that " there is now but one enemy for you, and that is my enemy. In these times of socialistic intrigue it may happen that I shall order you to fire upon your brothers or fathers. God save us from it! But in such a case you are bound to obey me without murmur." And he allowed Prince Henry, upon his departure for China in 1897, to declare that his one aim should be " to assert in foreign lands the evangel of your Majesty's hallowed person." Be- lieving seriously, therefore, that he is a " viceregent of God," and surrounded by .a special majesty, he deems it wrong that his person should be caricatured or his ideas ridiculed ; hence the too frequent and often wholly ineffective prosecutions of newspapers for Majes- t'dteheleidigung. Such attacks he considers of a seditious revolu- tionary character ; in fact, the French Revolution itself he has called " an unmitigated crime against God and man." It is not surpris- ing, therefore, that he should summon the nobles of Prussia to sup- port him in the struggle for religion, for morality, and for order against the parties of Umsturs, or Revolution; and in 1895 an T H E E M P I R E 451 I071-19IO amendment to the Criminal Code (nicknamed the Umsturs-Vor- lage) was introduced, making it a crime punishable with three years' imprisonment to attack religion, monarchy, marriage, the family, or property by abusive expressions in such a manner as to endanger the public peace. After heated debates and much opposi- tion the government found it expedient to withdraw the bill. Emperor William is greatly interested in making Germany a colonial power. " Our future lies upon the sea," he has said, and this was the significant motto over the doors of the building at the Paris Exposition of 1900 which contained the interesting exhibit of the North German Lloyd Steamship line, whose vessels run to the four quarters of the world. But though Germany has secured two enormous spheres of influence in Africa, not including Togo- land and Kamerun on the Guinea Coast, a ninety-nine years' lease of Kiaochow from China, and in the Pacific New Guinea, the Samoan, Solomon, Marshall, and some other islands, she can never become a great colonial power, nor have colonies settled with Ger- mans; for before the German Empire had come into existence all good land suitable for colonial purposes habitable by Europeans had been absorbed by other nations which had begun colonial ex- pansion a century and a half earlier. However Germany may try to foster colonies, she must still probably illustrate the truth of the fable of the hare and the tortoise : success must be with the powers that started earlier, though more slowly, in the race for colonial expansion. In February, 1905, new commercial treaties were concluded with Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Italy, Russia, Roumania, Servia, and Switzerland, based on the new German tariff of 1902, and increasing duties on agricultural produce and foreign cattle. This new tariff met with much opposition from industrial interests wherever it affected the cost of raw material. One of the most significant events, important in its bearing to the entire Western world, is Germany's attitude toward the Eastern Question. It is stated that political and commercial advantages dictate the Kaiser's policy of benevolent protection toward the Sultan. Certainly it has seemed Germany's policy to preserve the mutual dissension of the other Continental powers. In March, 1905, it became known that Germany had informed Sultan Mulai Abdul Aziz of Morocco that Germany was not in- cluded in agreements which France had made with Great Britain 45S GERMANY 1671-1910 and Spain, and on a visit to Tangier immediately afterward the German emperor asserted his support of the Sultan's sovereignty in Morocco. A general conference of the interested powers was decided upon to settle the disturbed conditions, and thirteen delegates met at Algeciras early in 1906. A General Act was agreed upon, providing for the establishment and supervision of a Moorish police and a state bank. Similar agreements were also reached as to the mutual rights of the powers and the reforms deemed necessary in Moorish civil institutions. In spite of the evident desire of the emperor to g^in military prestige for Germany, the history of that country is one of peaceful events, during the reign of William II. Curbed by his advisers, as well as the Powers, the emperor has mainly turned his attention towards the development of internal prosperity, and the cementing of diplomatic relations. During the early part of 1906, considerable interest was aroused over the territory reached by the famous Bag- dad railroad, by means of which Germany hoped to gain a seaport, and on May 21, Germany stated, in a semi-official way, its position. For a number of years Germany has been regarded as the home of socialistic movements, and yet, on January 25, 1907, the election returns showed heavy socialistic losses. There was considerable dis- satisfaction shown during 1906 and 1907, with financial conditions, the Imperial debt being $1,000,000,000, but the people resented the in- creasing of their taxes to meet the interest. An important event for Germany's colonies, occurred when, on May 3, 1907, a bill was passed establishing a colonial ministry, a measure that had been up for con- sideration for some years, and on May 18, Herr Dernburg was ap- pointed its head. The court scandal regarding the trial of editor Harden for libel- ing Count von Moltke, excited wide-spread interest, resulting first in the conviction of the editor, but later this decision was set aside by the German Imperial Superior Court at Leipsic, and the prisoner was released, May 23, 1908, In contrast with the bitterness invoked by this famous trial, was the enthusiasm displayed by the Germans over their winning the three first places in the auto races for the Grand Prix at Dieppe, July 7. Morocco affairs during 1908, attracted the attention of all the European nations, and Germany, while replying in a conciliatory spirit to the Franco-Spanish note regarding proposed action by France and Spain, utterly refused to recognize any special privileges to any country THE EMPIRE 452a 1871-1910 whatever. Nothing excited so much controversy, however, not only in Germany, but England as well, as the famous interview purporting to come from the emperor, in which he, in order to prove his friendly spirit to England, stated that during the late Boer war, when his grand- mother, Queen Victoria, almost heartbroken over the course of events, wrote to him for advice, he had gathered figures, and carefully review- ing the situation, planned out for her a campaign that was essentially the same later followed by Lord Roberts. The publication of this interview in the London Daily Telegraph on October 28, 1908, was provocative of such consternation, that diplomats feared for the re- sults. Chancellor von Bulow, on October 31, stepped into the breach, assuming all blame for the publication, and offered his resignation. This was not accepted by the emperor, however, but the Reichstag took up the matter so vigorously that it was with difficulty that the government majority defeated the motion censuring in no measured terms, the emperor for his ill-advised words. In order to pacify his people, the emperor gave his imperial promise, on November 17, that hereafter all foreign affairs will be conducted through his ministers. Emperor William, more than all the reigning rulers, is interested in aeronautics, and Prince Henry of Prussia shares this interest with his brother, and has made a number of trips with Count Zeppelin. During Venezuelan troubles, Germany participated but little in the active movements of the Powers, but on February 3, 1909, signed a treaty with that country by which it obtained "most favored nation" treatment. Morocco troubles were settled during this same month, when Germany signed a treaty with France. The interests of Ger- many were looked after in German Southwest Africa, by a rescript given out by the emperor during the early part of the year, which es- tablished a German imperial monopoly on the trade in diamonds found there. The arrival of the King and Queen of England in Berlin on February 9, was the occasion of much rejoicing and civic celebration. February was noted during the year in question by two other events, the crossing of the Alps by Oscar Erlesloch in a balloon, the "Ber- lin," during which time he remained in the air for thirty hours; and the signing of a patent agreement at Washington, between the United States and Germany. Germany was interested in the Chinese Railroad concessions, and during May, bank representatives from it, England and France, met in Berlin to arrange a settlement of the pending contracts. The em- peror during the latter part of 1909, came out openly in his expression 452b GERMANY 1871-1910 of hope that the Triple Alliance would continue to assist in the mainte- nance of the world's peace. Germany and the United States, after long and serious consideration of their relative tariffs, decided to ex- change the minimum rates, signing an agreement to this effect, Feb- ruary 3, 1910. One of the notable events of the early part of 1910, was the visit of Col. Theodore Roosevelt, formerly President of the United States, to Berlin, during May, when he was accorded the most distinguished honors. BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY No attempt has been made to include in this bibliography more than a representation of the many excellent works on Germany and Germany's history which her own unrivalled scholarship has produced. Many of these, despite their intrinsic value and historic importance, remain accessible only in the original. It is also true that many, on account of their Teuton seriousness of style, are rather unsuited to the needs of the general reader though inestimable to the specialist or student. GENERAL HISTORIES Bryce, James. "Holy Roman Empire." New York and London, 1887. This scholarly classic is a portrayal of the relations of Rome and Germany during the Middle Ages. Its reading should precede the study of the general history of Germany. Dunham, S. A. " A History of the Germanic Empire." 3 vols. London, 1834. Offers a clear and judicious narrative of the mediaeval period. For the modern period the reader must seek another author. Henderson, E. F. " A Short History of Germany." 2 vols. New York, 1901. A brief but excellent treatment exhibiting modem critical scholarship at its best. Henderson's works are all admirable. Home, Charles T. " The Story of Germany." A good one volume account. Janssen, Johannes. " History of the German People." 10 vols. St. Louis, 1900. A work of consummate ability. The author is a Roman Catholic and his views show strong conviction. This history takes high rank, both in scholar- ship and literary quality, and it should be consulted for comparison on all imporant points. The account of the conditions in Germany before Luther is the most complete to be found. Lewis, Charlton T. "A History of Germany from the Earliest Times." New York, 1874. Founded on Miiller's German work. A good brief history. Linder, Theodore. " Geschichte des deutschen Retches votn Ende des vier- gehnten Jahrhunderts bis zur Reformation." Vols. I and II. Braun- schweig, 1875- 1880. A study of the sources, with much new material. A monumental and even- tually a voluminous work, for reference rather than for general perusal. Menzel, Wolfgang. " The History of Germany from the Earliest Period to the Present Time." (Translated from the fourth German edition by Mrs. George Horrocks.) 3 vols. London, 1849. A satisfactory account down to the year 1848. In style very readable. 455 456 BIBLIOGRAPHY Sime, James. "History of Germany." New York, 1875. The details of the history of Germany, considered as a confederation, are too numerous to make the account easily compressible within a small manual ; but this volume is useful and interesting, although very brief. SPECIAL PERIODS Armstrong, Edward. "The Emperor Charles V." Beard, Charles. " Martin Luther." London. Probably the best English account of Luther before his retirement to the Wartburg. Bigelow, Poultney. "History of the German Struggle for Liberty." 4 vols. London, 1905. One of the most important and reliable of modem works. " Bismarck, The Man and the Statesman : Reflections, etc, by Himself." Eng- lish translation. 2 vols. London, 1898. " Letters." The study of the individual vitalizes history. Busch, M. " Bismarck : Some Secret Pages of his History." 3 vols. London, 1898. Carlyle, Thomas. " History of Friedrich II., called Frederick the Great." Should be included in any bibliography of the subject, but rather inadequate as history though acceptable as literature. Comyn, Sir Robert. ^"History of the Western Empire." 2 vols. London, 1851. Coxe, William. "History of the House of Austria." London, 1860-1868. The only complete history of the house of Austria in English. Dahlinger, C. W. " The German Revolution of 1849." 1903. As its sub-title indicates, this is an account of the final struggle in Baden for the maintenance of Germany's first national representative government. Debidour. " //w/o>^ diplomatique de f Europe, 1814-1878." Vols. I and II, Paris, 1891. Contains an account of German diplomacy during the critical period of the nineteenth century. Deniche, H. "Von der deutschen Hansa: eine Historische Skizze." Deventer, M. L. van. " Cinquante Annees de I'Histoire Federate de I'AlUmagne. Etude historique et politique." Brussels, 1870. The best account of the Confederation from 1815 to 1866. Droysen, Joh. Gust. " Das Leben des Feldmarschalls Graf en York von Warten- burg." 3 vols. Berlin, 1851. The life of York offers many sidelights on the Germany of his time. Droysen, Gustav. " Gustav Adolph." 2 vols. Leipsic, 1869. A discussion of the political considerations and situations into which Gustavus Adolphus entered, thus forming an important contribution to the literature of the period. Duncker, Max. " Aus der Zeit Friedrich des Grossen und Friedrich Wilhelms III: Abhandlungen zur preussischen Geschichte." Leipsic, 1876. Essays in historic criticism. Elberstadt. "Der deutsche KapitaUmarkt." Leipsig, 1901. A very thorough survey of the capitalization of the entire German industry and the money market in all its relations to the life of the people. BIBLIOGRAPHY 467 Eltzbacher, O. "Modern Germany." London, 1905. Eugene, Prince of Savoy. " Memoirs." Fisher, Herbert A. L. " Studies in Napoleonic Statesmanship Germany." Oxford, 1903. This is a study in civil and administrative history, being an account of the growth, character and influence of the Napoleonic system in Germany. Frederick the Great. " Works," ("Correspondence," "History of my own Times," etc.) (Translated by Thomas Holcroft.) 12 vols. Freytag, Gustav. " Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit." 5 vols. Leipsic, 1884-1886. " Neue Bilder aus dent Leben des deutschen Volkes." Leipsic, 1862. These volumes of essays or historical pictures are charming in style and well deserve their extraordinary popularity with cultured readers. Gardiner, Samuel R. "The Thirty Years' War." London, 1874. A good summary, giving due emphasis to the important points in the progress of the war and the general results. Giesebreckt, Wilhelm von. " Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit." 5 vols. 1863-1861. Date considered, this remains one of the great modern works on the mediaeval history of Germany. Gindely, Anton, " History of the Thirty Years' War." (Translated by Andrew Ten Brook.) 2 vols. New York. This translation constitutes the most complete and scholarly account to be had in English. Hausser, Ludwig. "Deutsche Geschichte vom Tode Friedrichs des Grossen bis sur Grundung des deutschen Bundes." 4 vols. Berlin, 1863. A valuable history by an able historian specialist for the Revolutionary period. Headlam, J. W. "The Foundation of the German Empire, 1817-1871." Cam- bridge, 1897. Henderson, E. F. "History of Germany in the Middle Ages." New York, 1894. Henderson's works will always be found adequate in their presentation of the facts within their .subject limits. Hozier, H. M. "The Seven Weeks' War." 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1867. One of the best accounts of the antecedents and incidents of the war of 1866, graphic and readable, and well supplied with maps and plans. Junck, Karl. "Der deutsche-fransosische Krieg, 1870 und 187 1." 2 vols. Leipsic, 1876. A very satisfactory account from the Teuton standpoint ; commendable for its historical and political phases. Koser, Reinhold. " Friedrich der Grosse als Kronprins." Stuttgart, 1901. A small classic by perhaps the greatest living authority. Koepp, Friedrich. "Die R'dmer in Deutschland." 1905. A useful little monograph on the Romans in Germany. Lecomte, Ferdinand. " Guerre de la Prusse et de I' Italic contre I'Autriche et la Confederation Germanique en 1866." 2 vols. Paris, 1868. An historical and critical account of the war of 1866, with maps and plans. Lowe, Charles." Prince Bismarck : an Historical Biography." 2 vols. London, 1886. A biography of real excellence. Lowe was Berlin correspondent of the London Times. 468 BIBLIOGRAPHY Malleson, G. B. "The Refounding of the German Empire, 1848-1871." London, 1893. A useful and in every way available book. Marcks, R "Germany and England: Their Relations in the Great Crises of European History, 1500-1900." London, 1900. This is a translation from one of the foremost German historians. Mettemich, Prince. "Memoirs, 1773-1815." (Edited by Prince Mettemich and translated by Mrs. Alexander Napier.) 4 vols. New York and Lon- don, 1880- 1881. Invaluable material for the historian and extremely interesting to the reader of German History. Moltke, H. C. B. von. " The Franco-German War." London, 1893. Translation by A. Forbes. Mueller, Wilhelm. " Political History of Recent Times (1816-1875), with Special Reference to Germany." (Translated by John P. Peters.) New York, 1882. Murdock, Harold. "The Reconstruction of Europe." Boston, 1892. The period of the Second Empire. Ranke, Leopold von. "History of the Reformation in Germany." 3 vols. London, 1845- 1847. Commentaries on the Reformation. A book of permanent value, exhibiting Germany's relations to the rest of Europe during the Lutheran Revolt. " Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg and History of Prussia during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries." 3 vols. London, 1849. This translation by Sir Alexander and Lady Duff Gordon constitutes the most valuable account in English of the history of Brandenburg and Prussia before the Seven Years' War. " Zur deutsche Geschichte vont religions Frieden bis zum dreissinfdhrigen Krieg." Berlin, 1870. Deals with the period from 1552 to 1618 and forms an introduction to the study of the Thirty Years' War. " Denk wiirdig keiten des Staatskanzlers Fiirsten von Hardenherg." 5 vols. Leipsic, 1877. A valuable contribution to the literature of the Napoleonic period. " Ansprung und Beginn der Revolutionskriege, 1791-1792." Berlin, 1878. A remarkable presentation. Raumer, Friedrich von. " Geschichte der Hohenstaufen und ihrer Zeit." 6 vols. Leipsic, 1825. Exhibits German scholarship at its best and improved by an eloquent descriptive style. In treatment it is eloquent and impressive. Richter. " Annalen der deutschen Geschichte in Mittelalter." An incomparable work. Robertson, William. " History of the Reign of Emperor Charles V." 3 vols. London, 1888. Riistow, R. " The War on the Rhine Frontier." Translated from the German by J. G. Needham. 3 vols. London, 1871-1872. A political and military history. Schifer, Arnold. " Geschichte des siebenjdhrigen Krieg." 2 vols. Berlin, 1867- 1874. Important as a diplomatic history. Not entertaining, but valuable to the student. Seeley, J. R. "Life and Times of Stein; or Germany and Prussia in the Napoleonic Age." 3 vols. London and Boston, 1879. BIBLIOGRAPHY 459 Of striking historic value. The work is based on original materials and is judicial in tone. It furnishes a good account of the reform which brought about Prussia's greatness. Seignobos, Charles. " Political History of Europe since 1814." To be consulted for the portion dealing with German affairs. Simon, E. " Emperor William and his Reign." 2 vols. Paris, 1886. Smith, Munroe. " Bismarck and German Unity." New York and London. Stael, Madame de " Germany." 3 vols. London, 1813. The literary genius of its author makes this a work of permanent interest. Stirling-Maxwell, Sir W. " The Cloister Life of the Emperor Charles V." London, 1852. "Don John of Austria." 2 vols. Both works are valuable as historical bibliography. Sybel, Heinrich von. "The Founding of the German Empire." 5 vols. New York, 1890- 1898. This is a translation by Perrin and Bradford of Von Sybel's important and thoroughly modern work. Treitschke, Heinrich von. "Deutsche Geschichte im neunsehnten Jahrhundert." Vols. I to HL Leipsic, 1879-1886. Designed to exhibit the origin and characteristics of the new life of Ger- many and considered the most complete general history of this period. Strongly Prussian. " Zehn Jahre deutscher K'dmffe, 1865-1874. 2te AuH., fortgefiihrt bis sum Jahre iS^g." Berlin, 1879. Essays on the political problems arising between the Danish war and the complete establishment of the empire. Tuttle, Herbert. " History of Prussia to the Accession of Frederick the Great, 1 134-1740." " History of Prussia under Frederick the Great, 1740-1756." 3 vols. The best works in English, unfortunately cut short by the death of the author. Judgments and statements not always unbiased, however. " German Political Leaders." New York and London, 1876. , Descriptive essays offering critical analysis and comparison. Vehse, Dr. E. " Memoirs of the Court, Aristocracy and Diplomacy of Austria." (Translated from the German by Franz Demmler.) 2 vols. London, 1856. A picture of society and public characters in the whole period of Austrian history from Maximilian I to the death of Francis H. Walker, F. "The Protestant Reformation." New York. Whitcomb, Merrick. " Source Book of the German Renaissance." Philadelphia. Zimmem, Helen. "The Hansa Towns." New York, 1891. The Hansa was one of the earliest representatives of the federal spirit. This is an interesting study, but presupposes, of course, some knowledge of the general history of Germany. MISCELLANEOUS Bax, E. B. " German Society at the Close of the Middle Ages." 1894. This is a study of the social side of the Reformation and deals with the underlying causes of the general disintegration of the time. Baring-Gould, S. "Germany, Past and Present." 2 vols. London, 1881. A careful study, including a valuable description of the peasant proprietors and the general characteristics of modem Germany. 460 BIBLIOGRAPHY Battels. " Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur." Leipsig, 1902. The most recent history of German literature. Dawson, W. H. " Bismarck and State Socialism." London, 1890. A portrait of Germany since 1870 in its social and economic aspects. " Germany and the Germans." 2 vols. London, 1894. Excellent in arrangement and substantial in its treatment of the phases of national life selected for discussion. Franckc, Kuno. " History of German Literature as Determined by Social Forces." New York. Lair. " L'impirialisme Altemand." Paris, 1903. Furnishes a review of the extraordinary results of the last twenty years in the industrial and commercial development of Germany. Lotz. " Virkehrsentwicklung in Deutschland, 1800-igoo." Leipsig, 1900. A popular presentation of the growth of railways and the part they play in Germany's industrial development. A brief sketch of the transportation system of the Middle Ages is included. Williams, E. E. " Made in Germany." London, 1896. INDEX INDEX Abderrahman, Saracen viceroy: invades France, 73 Adalbert, Archbishop of Bremen: ap- pointed, 130; his relations with Henry IV of Germany, 132 Adamites, The, 208 Adelheid (Adelaide), Saint: career of, III, 116, 118 Adolf of Nassau, King of Germany: reign of, 183 Adolph : see Ataulf Adrian I, Pope: appeals to Charle- magne, 79 Adrian IV (Nicholas Breakspeare), Pope: policy of, 148, 150; death of, 15 Adrian VI, Pope: pontificate of, 245 Adrianople: battle of (378 a.d.), 34 ^dui : at war with the Arverni, 10 ^neas Sylvius : see Pius II (iEneas Sylvius), Pope Aetius : his campaign against Attila, 41 Agnes, wife of Henry III : regent for her son, 131 Aistulf, King of the Longobards : at war with the Popes, 76 Aix (Aquae Sextias) : battle of (102 B.C.), 4 Aix-Ia-Chapelle : Charlemagne removes court to, 86; taken by Lothar of France, 116; taken by the French, 356 Aix-la-Chapelle, Peaces of: (1668), 300; (1748), 332 Alaric I, Visigothic king: career of, 35 Alaric II, Visigothic king: death of, 47 Albert I, King of Germany : receives Styria, 181 ; accession of, 183 Albert II, King of Germany: his cam- paigns against the Hussites, 208, 210; reign of, 212 Albert, Count of Austria: assisted by Conrad II in his war with Stephen of Hungary, 126 Albert, Duke of Austria: conspiracy of, 198 Albert, Duke of Austria: his quarrels with Frederick III of Germany, 215 Albert the Bear, Count of Branden- burg: career of, 143, 149, 152 Albert, surnamed Alcibiades, Margrave of Brandenburg: defeat of, 258 Albert the Degenerate, Landgrave of Thuringia and Count of Meissen: sells Thuringia and Meissen, 183 Albert, Archbishop of Mayence : con- trols the sale of indulgences in Germany, 236 Albert Achilles, Elector of Branden- burg: wars of, 214 Albertus Magnus, Bishop of Ratisbon : account of, 178 Alboin, King of the Longobards : estab- lishes his kingdom in Italy, 51 Alcuin : at the court of Charlemagne, 86 Alemanni : origin and location of, 27 ; plunder Roman territory, 29; de- feated by the Franks, 47 Alessandria: founded, 152 Alexander II, Pope : opposes Henry IV of Germany, 132 Alexander III, Pope: his quarrel with Frederick Barbarossa, 151, 153 Alexander V, anti-Pope: election of, 201 Alexander I, Emperor of Russia: in- trigues of, 364; his meeting with Napoleon at Tilsit, 373; opposes Napoleon, 379 Alexander II, Emperor of Russia: in- fluence of his policy, 404 AH (Damad Ali), Grand Vizier: cam- paign of, 319 Aliso: founded, 14 Alphonso (X) the Wise, King of Leon and Castile: elected King of Ger- many, 171 Alsace-Lorraine: description of, 426 note 488 464 INDEX Alsatia: occtipied by Marshal Horn, 28s Amadeus VIII, Duke of Savoy: see Felix V (Amadeus VIII of Savoy), Pope Amalaric, Visigothic king: under guardianship of Theodoric, 47; reign of, 48 Amalasunta, mother of Athalaric: re- gency of, 48 Anabaptists: sketch of, 242, 250 Anaclete II, anti-Pope: pontificate of, 143 Anastasius I, Emperor of the East: his relations with Clovis, 47 Ancona: siege of (1166), 152 Andemach: battles of (876 a,d.)} 96; (939 A.D.), no Angles: location of, 6 Anna of Brittany: sketch of, 219 Anna Ivanovna, Empress of Russia: forms alliance with Germany, 324 Aqux Sextiae: see Aix Aquileia: sieges of (180 A.D.). 26; (452 A.D.). 42; battle of (394 A.D.), 35 Aragis, Duke of Benevento: submits to Charlemagne, 82 Arbogast: career of, 34 Arcadius, Emperor of the East: reign of, 35 Ardaric: unites the German tribes, 43 Arduin, King of Lombardy (Marquis of Ivrea) : career of, 121 Arelat: see Burgundy Ariovistus, chief of the Suevi: aids the Sequani, 10; defeated by Julius Caesar, 12 Amdt, Ernst Moritz: his efforts to lib- erate Germany, 375, 381, 394 Amheim, Baron Johann Georg von: in the Thirty Years' War, 285 Arnold of Brescia: doctrines of, 146; death of, 148 Amulf, Holy Roman Emperor: receives duchy of Carinthia, 97; becomes King of Germany, 98; crowned em- peror, 100 Amulf the Bad, Duke of Bavaria: pur- chases peace with the Hungarians, 100; defies Conrad, 104; acknowl- edges Henry I of Germany, 105 Amulf, Bishop of Metz: educates Dago- bert, 65 Arvemi : at war with the iEdui, 10 Aspem: battle of (1809), 377 Ataulf (Adolph), Visigothic king: es- tablishes Visigoths in southern Gaul, 37; death of, 39 Athanaric, Visigothic king: defeated by the Huns, 33 Attila, King of the Huns: career of, 40 Auerstadt: battle of (1806), 372 Auerswald, Hans Adolf Erdmann von: death of, 400 Augsburg: siege of (955 a.d.), 112; submits to the emperor, 255; re- ceives Gustavus Adolphus, 282; taken by Bavaria, 371 Augsburg, Diet of (1530), 248 Augsburg, Religious Peace of (1555), 259 Augsburg Confession, The (1530), 248 Augsburg Interim, The (1548), 257 Augustus (II) the Strong, King of Po- land: reign of, 317 Augustus III, King of Poland: career of, 306, 323; death of, 345 Augustus, Caesar Octavius, Emperor of Rome: condition of Germany under, 14; mourns for the legions of Varus, 19 Aurelian, Emperor of Rome: makes treaty with Goths, 29 Aurelles de Paladine: in the Franco- Prussian War, 425 Aurogallus: assists Luther, 244 Austerlitz: battle of (1805), 367 Austria: founded, 116; made a duchy, 149; Rudolf invested with, 181; under Rudolf II of Germany, 263; under Ferdinand II of Germany, 270; principal power in Germany, 298; reforms of Joseph II in, 349 Autharis, King of the Longobards : mar- ries Theodolina, 54 Avars: harass the Longobards, 51; their relations with Sigbert, 61; their wars with Charlemagne, 83 B Baden: peasant war in, 243; enters the Confederation of the Rhine, 371; becomes part of the empire, 427 Baldwin (V) le Debonnairc, Count of Flanders: revolt of, 130 INDEX 465 Baldwin, Achbishop of Treves: intrigue of, i8s Bale: see Basel Baltic Provinces: lost to Germany, 262; taken by Peter the Great, 317 Bamberg: taken by Bernard of Saxe- Weimar, 285 Baner, Johann : campaigns of, 280, 289 Barbara, wife of Sigismund: conspiracy of, 211 Barbary States: Charles V's war with the, 251 Barbiano, General: at battle of Brescia, 199 Bart, Jean : defeat of, 307 Basel (Bale): battle of (57 b.c), ii; a member of the Union of Rhenish Cities, 17s Basel (Bale), Council of (1431), 210 Basel (Bale), Treaties of: (1499), 227; (1795), 357 Batavia: location of, 6; join Gauls in revolt against Rome, 23; subdued by Cerealis, 24; relation of, to the Franks, 28 Batavian Republic, The: established, 357 Bavaria: incorporated with Prankish kingdom, 83; under Henry the Lion, 144; given to Otto of Wittels- bach, 152; champion of the Popes, 261 ; recognized as a kingdom, 367; becomes part of the empire, 427 Bazaine, Frangois Achille: in the Franco- Prussian War, 421 Beatrix, Countess of Tuscany: marries Godfrey of Lorraine, 130 Beatrix, Princess of Burgundy: wife of Frederick Barbarossa, 149 Beauharnais, Eugene de : made viceroy of Italy, 371 ; campaigns of, 376, 382 Beauharnais, Stephanie de: marriage of, 371 Beaumont: battle of (1870), 423 Beaune la Roland: battle of (1870), 425 Bebel, Ferdinand August: leads the Social Democrats, 438 Belfort: siege of (1871), 425 Belgrade: sieges of (1688), 304; (1717), 320; (1789), 351 Belisarius: career of, 49 Bellevue: surrender at, 424 Bern, Josef: in the Hungarian revolt, 401 Benedek, Ludwig von : campaigns of, 410 Benedetti, Count Vincent: negotiations of, 416 Benedict VHI, Pope: implores the as- sistance of Henry II of Germany, 122 Benedict IX, Pope: bans Archbishop Heribert of Milan, 127 Benedict XII, Pope: his relations with Lewis of Bavaria, 189 Benedict XIII, anti-Pope: at Avignon, 198; deposed, 201; in Spain, 204 Benevento: battle of (1266), 169 Bennigsen, Rudolf von: leads the Na- tional Liberals, 446 note Berbers: origin of, 49 Bercngar (I) of Friuli, King of Italy: usurps power, 98; reign of, 99 Berengar II, King of Italy: demands hand of Adelheid, iii; banished, 114 Berezina: battle of the (1812), 380 Berlin: siege of (1760), 341; Napoleon in, 373; rising in (1848), 398 Bernadotte, Jean Baptiste Jules : see Charles (XIV) John, King of Swe- den Bernard, King of Lombardy: conspiracy of, 90 Bernard, Duke of Saxe-Weimer : joins Gustavus Adolphus, 281 ; takes com- mand of the Protestant forces, 284; his alliance with Louis XIII of France, 289; death of, 290 Bernard, Saint, Abbot of Clauvaux: preaches the second crusade, 145 Bernburg: siege of (1809), 376 Bernhard, Duke of Saxony: power of, 130 Bertha, wife of Henry IV: sketch of, 132 Berthold, Count of Suabia: at the battle of the Inn, 104 Berthold, Archbishop of Mayence: at the Diet of Worms, 226 Bethlen Gabar: revolt of, 267; makes peace with Ferdinand II of Ger- many, 273 Beust, Count Friedrich Ferdinand von: reforms of, 415 466 INDEX Bible: translated into Gothic, 32; trans- lated by Luther, 244. 251 Bismarck (Bismarck-Schonhausen), Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince von: placed at the head of the Prussian government, 407; policy of, 408 note; guides Prussian policy, 412; becomes chancellor, 413; in the negotiations with France, 417 Bleda, brother of Attila: death of, 40 Blenheim: battle of (1704), 313 Bliicher, Gebhard Leberecht von : his campaigns against the French, 372, 383. 384, 387 Blum, Robert: death of, 401 Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus: execution of, 48 Bohemia: first settlers in, 6; becomes tributary to Germany, 96; under Ferdinand II of Germany, 268 Boleslav I, King of Poland : secures in- dependence for his country, 120; his wars with Henry II, 121 ; death of, 125 Bonaparte, Jerome: sketch of, 374; leaves Westphalia, 386 Bonaparte, Joseph: negotiates the Peace of Luneville, 364 ; made King of Na- ples, 371 ; made King of Spain, 375 Bonaparte, Louis: made King of Hol- land, 371 Bonaparte, Napoleon: see Napoleon (I) Bonaparte Boniface (Winifred), Saint: career of, 72 Bonifacius IX, Pope: deposes Wenzel, 198 Bora, Catharine von: marriage, 245 Borodino: battle of (1812), 380 Boii : location of, 6 Bourbaki, Charles Denis Sauter: in the Franco-Prussian War, 425 Brahe, Tycho de: encouraged by Rudolf II of Germany, 263 Brandenburg: conquest of, 107; given to Lewis, 190; secured by Frederick of Hohenzollem, 206 Breisach (Brisach or Alt-Breisach) : sieges of (939 A.D.), no; (1637- 1638), 289 Breitenfeld: battle of (1631), 280 Bremen: a member of the Hanseatic League, 174 Brescia: battle of (1401), 199 Breslau : taken by Frederick the Great, (1740), 329; taken by the Austrians (1757). 337', taken by the Prussians (1757), 338 Broglie, Victor Franqois, Duke of: in the Seven Years' War, 341 Brothers of the Sword, 173, 261 Brunhilde : sketch of, 62 Bruno, Archbishop of Cologne: vice- regent of Germany, 113 Bruno of Carinthia: see Gregory V Brunswick, Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of: campaign of, 372; his ef- forts to liberate Germany, 375, 377; death of, 390 Brunswick, Ferdinand, Duke of: in the Seven Years' War, 338, 342 Biilow, F'iedrich Wilhelm von: his campaign against the French, 383, 390 Bundschuh, The: sketch of, 229 Burgundiones (Burgimdians) : location of, 6; migration of, 28; defeated by Clovis, 47 Burgundy: incorporated in the Prank- ish Kingdom, 48; formation of the kingdom of, 98; attached to the em- pire, 126; independent of Germany, 139; account of, 216 Burkhard, Duke of Suabia: acknowl- edges Henry I, 105; his campaign in Italy, 114 Burkhard, Duke of Thuringia: death of, 100 Buturlin, General: in the Seven Years' War, 342 Ci Caecina: his campaign in Germany, 20 Caesar, Julius: in Gaul, 10 Cajetanus (Cajetan), Tommaso di Vio: his relations with Luther, 236 Calixtines, The: sketch of, 207 Calixtus II, Pope: pontificate of, 141 Calvinists: in Germany, 259, 265, 293 Cambray, League of (1508), 227 Cambray, The Peace of (1529), 246 Campo-Formio, Peace of (1797), 361 Canossa, Castle of: reconciliation of the Pope and emperor at, 135 > For reference* not under C,look OBdcr K. INDEX 467 Canute, King of Denmark and England : his relations with Conrad II of Ger- many, 125 Carlowitz, Treaty of (1699), 304 Carlsbad: meeting at (1819), 394 Carlstadt, Andreas Rudolph: his discus- sion with Eck, 237; joins Anabap- tists, 242 Camot, Lazare Nicolas Marguerite: minister of war, 359 Carthage: made capital of Vandal king- dom, 39 Cassel: taken by the Prussians (1866), 410 Catherine II, Empress of Russia: her relations with Frederick the Great, 343. 345; her alliance with Joseph II of Germany, 351 ; her relations with the First Coalition, 356, 358, 359 Catholic League, The: formed, 265 Celts : location of, 7 Cerealis, Petitius : his campaign in Gaul, 24 Chalons (Chalons-sur-Marne) : battle of (451 A.D.), 41 Chanzy, Antoine Eugene Alfred: in the Franco-Prussian War, 425 Charibert I, Prankish king: reign of, 61 Charibert II, Prankish king: reign of, 65 Charlemagne (Charles (I) the Great), Holy Roman Emperor: crowned at St. Denis, yT, reign of, 78 Charles (II) the Bald, Holy Roman em- peror (I, King of France) : birth of, 90; favored by his father, 91; be- comes King of France, 92; reign of, 95; crowned Holy Roman emperor, 96 Charles IV, Holy Roman emperor (I, King of Bohemia) : proclaimed em- peror, 190; reign of, 192 Charles V, Holy Roman emperor (I, King of Spain) : becomes King of Spain, Sicily and Naples, 231 ; elected emperor, 239; abdicates, 259 Charles VI, Holy Roman emperor: campaigns of, 313; reign of, 315 Charles VII (Charles Albert), Holy Roman emperor: claims the Aus- trian succession, 328; crowned, 330 Charles I, King of Bohemia : see Charles IV, Holy Roman emperor Charles I, King of France : see Charles (II) the Bald, Holy Roman em- peror Charles (III) the Simple, King of France: minority of, 97; reign of, 104; his relations with Henry I, of Germany, 105 Charles (IV) the Fair, King of Prance: conspires against Lewis of Bavaria, 188 Charles (VI) the Well Beloved, King of France: attempts to settle the dispute between the Popes, 198 Charles (VII) the Victorious, King of France: aids Frederick III of Ger- many, 213 Charles VIII, King of Prance : marries Anna of Brittany, 219; his cam- paigns in Italy, 225 Charles IX, King of France: marries daughter of Maximilian II of Ger- many, 262 Charles X, King of France: installed in France, 388 Charles (I) of Anjou, King of Naples and Sicily: accession of, 169 Charles II, King of Spain: death of, 311 Charles XII, King of Sweden : wars of, 317 Charles (XIV) John (Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte), King of Swe- den: campaigns of, 367, 382 Charles, Archduke of Austria: his cam- paigns against the French, 360, 364, 367, 376 Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy: career of, 216 Charles, Duke of Zweibriicken : disputes possession of Bavaria, 348 Charles Albert, King of Sardinia : his campaigns against the Austrians, 402 Charles Augustus, Grand Duke of Saxe- Weimar-Eisenach : court of, 353 Charles Martel : see Karl Martel Charles Theodore, Elector of the Palati- nate: his struggle for Bavaria, 348 Charles: see also Karl Chatti: location of, 6; defeated by Drusus, is; invade Gaul, 23; rela- tion of, to Pranks, 28 468 INDEX Chauci: location of, 6; invade Rhine country, 23; incorporated with Saxons, 28 Cherusci : location of, 6 ; extinction of, 23; incorporated with Saxons, 28 Childebert I, Prankish king: reign of, 62 Childeric II, Prankish king: reign of, 69 Childeric III, Prankish king: reign of, 75 Chilperic I, Prankish king: reign of, 61 Chilperic II, Prankish king: reign of, 71 Chlodoweg: see Govis Christian IV, King of Denmark: forms union against Prederick II of Ger- many, 273 Christian IX, King of Denmark: in the Schleswig-Holstein controversy, 408 Christian, Prince of Brunswick: cam- paigns of, 271, 273 Christianity: accepted by Goths, 32; by Qovis, 47; by Longobards, 53; by Saxons, 80; by Bohemians, 99; by Poles, 120 Cimbrians: invade Roman territory, 4 Clam-Gallas, Eduard, Count: campaigns of, 410 Qaudius II, Emperor of Rome: defeats the Barbarians, 29 Claudius Civilis, Chief of the Batavi: joins Gauls in revolt against Rome, 23 Clement II, Pope: appointed by Henry III of Germany, 129 Clement III. Pope: appointed by Henry IV of Germany, 136 Clement VI, Pope: opposes Lewis of Bavaria, 190 Oement VII, Pope: accession of, 245; his relations with Charles V of Ger- many, 246 Clement XIV, Pope: suppresses the Jesuits, 351 Qericals : description of, 439 Cleves, Succession of: dispute of the, 266 Qotar I, Prankish king: reign of, 61 Ootar II, Prankish king: reign of, 64 Qotar III, Prankish king: reign of, 71 Qovis (Chlodoweg), King of the Pranks: career of, 46, 59 Quny, Congregation of, 128 Coalitions against Prance: Pirst (1792- 1797). 356; second (1799-1801), 362; third (1805), 366 Coblentz : founded, 15 Coblenzl : negotiates the Peace of Lune- ville, 364 Colberg: taken by the Russians (1761), 342; siege of (1807), 372 Cologne: founded, 15; siege of (714 A.D.), 71 Cologne, Diet of (1512), 228 Commodus, Emperor of Rome: buys peace with the Germans, 26 Comorn : siege of (1848), 402 Conde, Louis II of Bourbon, Prince of, called the Great Conde: campaigns of, 292, 300 Confederation, Act of (1815), 392 Confederation of the Rhine: formed, 367, 371 ; dissolution of, 386 Confession of Paith : see Augsburg Con- fession, The Congregation of Cluny, 128 Conrad I, King of Germany: reign of, 104 Conrad II, Holy Roman emperor: elected King of Germany, 124; crowned emperor, 125 ; crowned King of Burgundy, 126; in Italy, 127; death of, 127 Conrad III, Holy Roman emperor: heir of Henry V of Germany, 142; reign of, 144 Conrad IV, King of Germany: acces- sion of, 164; opposed by Henry Raspe, 166; his war with William of Holland. 168 Conrad V, King of Germany: see Con- radin. King of Germany Conrad, King of Burgundy: visits Otto II in Rome, 117 Conrad, Duke of Lorraine: invested with Lorraine, III; rebellion of, 112 Conrad, nephew of Lewis the Pious: establishes kingdom of Upper Bur- gundy, 98 Conrad, son of Henry IV: rebellion of, 137 Conrad of Marburg: sketch of, 163 Conradin (Conrad V), King of Ger- many : career of, 168 Conservatives: description of, 434 Constance: founded, 30 INDEX 469 Constance, Council of (1414), 203 Constance, Treaty of (1183), 153 Constance of Sicily: marries Henry VI of Germany, 155 Constantine, Emperor of Rome : his campaign in Gaul and Germany, 30; interposes in war between Vandals and Visigoths, 32 Constantinople: conquered (1453), 220 Conti, Prince of: defeat of, 307 Continental Blockade, The, 378 Copernicus : sketch of, 296 Cortenuovo: battle of (1237), 164 Corvinus, Matthias, King of Hungary: elected, 215, 219 Courcelles: battle of (1870^, 421 Crema: siege of (1160), igp Crescentius: struggles of, 119 Crespy, Treaty of (1544), 251 Crusades, The: the first, 138; the sec- ond, 14s; the third, 155; the fifth, 161 ; influence of, 172 Cumberland, William Augustus, Duke of: in the War of the Austrian Suc- cession, 335 Custine, Adam Philippe, Court of: his campaigns against the allied powers, 356 D Dagobert I, King of Austrasia: reign of, 64 Dannewerk: construction of, 85 Dante Alighieri: hails Albert I of Ger- many, 186 Daun, Count Leopold Joseph Maria von: campaigns of. 335, 2,Z7^ 339 Davout, Louis Nicolas, Duke of Auer- stadt and Prince of Eckmiihl : his campaign against the allied forces, 372 Decius, Emperor of Rome : death of, 28 DelbriJck, Martin Friedrich Rudolf. policy of, 443 Dembinski, Henryk: in the Hungarian revolt, 401 Dennewitz; battle of (1813), 384 Desiderius, King of the Longobards: his war with Charlemagne, 79 Dcssan: battle of (1626), 275 Detmold: battle of C783 a.d.). 82 Dettingen: battle of (1743), 33 Deutscher Bund: see German Confeder- ation, The Diebitsch Sabalkanski, Count Ivan Ivanovitch: his treaty with York, 381 Dietrich, Count of Holland : revolt of, 130 Dietzmann, Count of Thuringia: his quarrel with his father, 183; defeats Albert I of Germany, 184 Diez, Johann : see Tetzel, Johann Doffingen: battle of (1388), 197 Donation of Charlemagne, The, 80 Donauwoerth : seized by Maximilian of Bavaria, 265 ; taken by Gustavus Adolphus, 282; taken by the imperi- alists, 288; battle of (1645), 292 Dresden : occupied by the Prussians (1745). 331; (1756), 335; taken by Daun (1759), 340; occupied by Napoleon (1813), 382; taken by the Prussians (1866), 410 Dresden, Peace of (1745), 332 Drusus, Nero Claudius: his campaigns against the Germans, 14; death of, IS Dubienka: battle of (1792), 358 Ducrot, Auguste Alexandre: in the Franco-Prussian War, 423 Dumouriez, Charles Francois: his cam- paigns against the allied powers, 356 Diippel: battle of (1864), 408 Diisseldorf: siege of (1795), 359 Eberhard, Duke of the Franks: conspi- racy of, 109; death of, no Eberhard I, Count of Wiirtemberg: re- volt of, 180; outlawed, 186 Eberhard (II) the Whiner, Count of Wiirtemberg: wars of, 195, 197 Eberhard, brother of Conrad I : his mis- sion to Henry of Saxony, 105 Eberhard of the Beard, Duke of Wiirtemberg: at the Diet of Worms, 226 Eberhard Ludwig, Duke of Wiirtem- berg: oppressions of, 323 Eck, Johann von: his discussions with Carlstadt and Luther, 237 470 INDEX Eckemforde: battle of (1848), 400 Eckmuhl: battle of (1809), 37^ Edith, daughter of Athelstan: wife of Otto I, 108 Edward I, King of England: his alli- ance with Adolf of Nassau, 183 Edward III, King of England: his alli- ance with Lewis of Bavaria, 189 Einhard (Eginhard) : at Court of Charlemagne, 86 Ekbert, Count of Brunswick : companion of Henry IV of Germany, 131 Elizabeth, Empress of Russia: forms alliance with Austria, 332 Elizabeth, daughter of Henzel II of Bo- hemia: marries John, son of Henry of Luxemburg, 185 Elizabeth, wife of Albert I of Germany: revenge of, 185 Elizabeth, wife of Conrad IV: guardian of Conradin, 168 Elizabeth of Brunswick-Bevem : wife of Frederick the Great, 328 Enghien, Louis Antoine Henri de Bour- bon-Conde, Duke of: death of, 366 Enzio, King of Sardinia : invested with Sardinia, 164; at war with the Pope, 165; taken prisoner by Bolognese, 167 Erasmus, Desiderius: contemporary of Luther, 234 Erchanger, Count of Suabia: at the bat- tle of the Inn, 104 Erfurt: surrender of (1806), 372 Erfurt, Treaty of (1808), 374 Erfurt, University of: Luther at, 234 Eric, Duke of Brunswick: befriends Luther, 241 Ernest the Pious, Duke of Gotha : policy of, 299 Ernest II, Duke of Suabia: rebellion of, 125 Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover: made elector, 308; made viceroy of Hanover, 395; overthrows the con- stitution, 396 Eudo, Duke of Aquitaine: rebellion of, 71 Eudoxia: summons Geiseric to Rome, 43 Eugene III, Pope: calls the second cru- sade, 145: accepts the doctrines of Arnold of Brescia, 146 Eugene TV, Pope: calls the Council of Basel, 210; deposed, 213 Eugene, Emperor of Rome: proclaimed emperor, 34; captured by Theodo- sius, 35 Eugene of Savoy, Prince: his campaigns against the Turks, 304, 319; his campaigns against the French in Italy, 312; his campaigns in the War of the Austrian Succession, 323 Eugenie, Empress of France: in the Franco-Prussian War, 417, 420 Eylau: battle of (1807), 373 Fadinger, Stephen: leads revolt, 271 Faidherbe, Louis Leon Cesar: in the Franco-Prussian War, 425 Favre, Gabriel Claude Jules : quoted, 424 Fehrbellin: battle of (1675), 301 Felix V (Amadeus VIII of Savoy), Pope : pontificate of, 213 Ferdinand I, Holy Roman emperor: marries Anna of Hungary, 231 ; governs in Germany, 242; forms league to suppress Luther, 245 ; calls second Diet of Speyer, 246; elected to German crown, 249; unites with Maurice of Saxony, 258; crowned emperor, 260; his relations with Suleiman, 261 ; death of, 262 Ferdinand II, Holy Roman emperor: persecutes the Protestants, 265; be- comes King of Bohemia, 267; reign of, 269; death of, 290 Ferdinand III, Holy Roman emperor: commands the imperialists, 288; reign of, 290 Ferdinand I, Emperor of Austria: reign of, 396 Fermor: in the Seven Years* War, 338 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb: his efforts to liberate Germany, 375 Field of Lies, Tlie, 91 Fiesole (Faesul*) : battle of (405 a-d.), 38 Flavus, brother of Hermann : becomes a Roman citizen, 18 INDEX 471 Flenrus: battle of (1794), 357 Fontainebleau, Treaty of (1762), 343 Fontenoy: battle of (841 a.d.), 92 Formosus, Pope : crowns Amulf, 100 Founder of Cities, The: see Henry (I) the Fowler, Holy Roman emperor Fouque, General: in the Seven Years' War, 340 Francis I, Holy Roman emperor: mar- ries Maria Theresa, 324; accession of, 331 Francis H, Holy Roman emperor: see Francis I, Emperor of Austria Francis I, Emperor of Austria : becomes Holy Roman emperor, 355; his relations with Napoleon, 359; re- nounces title and becomes Emperor of Austria, 368 Francis I, King of France : opposes elec- tion of Charles V of Germany, 231, 239; seizes Lombardy, 240; his wars with Charles V of Germany, 245; makes peace with Charles V of Germany, 251 Francis, Prince of Brunswick: death of, 339 Francis, Duke of Lorraine: see Francis I, Holy Roman emperor Francis Joseph I, Emperor of Austria: accession of, 402 Francke, August Hermann: account of, 308 Franco-Prussian War, The, 415 Frangipani : treachery of, 170 Frankfort, Diet of (1848), 399 Frankfort, Treaty of (1871), 426 Frankfort-on-the-Main : founded, 86 Frankfort-on-the-Oder : taken (1631), 279 Franks: origin and location of, 27; cap- ture Syracuse, 30; defeat Romans at Soissons, 46 Franz of Taxis: sketch of, 231 Fredegar (Fredegarius) : his estimate of Clotar n, 64 Fredegunde: sketch of, 62 Frederick (I) Barbarossa, Holy Roman emperor: joins the second crusade, 145; reign of, 147 Frederick II, Holy Roman emperor: claims the throne of Germany, 159; reign of, 160; death of, 167 Frederick (III) of Austria, King of Germany: rival of Lewis of Ba- varia, 189 Frederick III, Holy Roman emperor: reign of, 212; death of, 220 Frederick VII, King of Denmark: death of, 408 Frederick III, Emperor of Germany: reign of, 448 Frederick I, King of Prussia (III, Elec- tor of Brandenburg) : accession of, 311; death of, 319; estimate of, 320 Frederick (II) the Great, King of Prus- sia: reign of, 326 Frederick II, King of Sicily: struggles of, 186 Frederick the Quarrelsome, Duke of Austria : deposed, 164 Frederick with the Empty Pocket, Duke of Austria: forfeits his duchy, 204 Frederick I, Elector of Brandenburg (VI, Burgrave of Nuremberg) : se- cures Brandenburg, 206; his cam- paign against the Hussites, 209 Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg: see Frederick I, King of Prussia Frederick, Count of Hohenzollern and Burgrave of Nuremberg: supports Rudolf of Hapsburg, 179, 181 Frederick (VI) of Hohenzollern, Bur- grave of Nuremberg: see Frederick I, Elector of Brandenburg Frederick V, Elector Palatine: elected King of Bohemia, 270; deposed from the Palatinate, 272 Frederick (III) the Wise, Elector of Saxony: at the Diet of Worms, 226; founds the University of Wit- tenberg, 234; befriends Luther, 237, 240, 241 ; declines election as em- peror, 239 Frederick I, Duke of Suabia: death of, 137 Frederick (II) of Hohenstaufen, Duke of Suabia: his relations with Henry V of Germany, 141; his war with Lothar II of Germany, 143 Frederick, Count of Thuringia: his quarrel with his father, 183; defeats Albert I of Germany, 184 Frederick of Baden: sketch of, 169 Frederick Augustus II, Elector of Sax^ ony: see Augustus III, King of Po- land 472 INDEX Frederick Charles, Prince of Prussia: his campaigns against the Danes, 408; his campaigns against the Aus- trians, 410; his campaigns against the French, 420, 422, 425 Frederick William I, King of Prussia: reign of, 319 Frederick William II, King of Prussia: reign of, 354 Frederick William III, King of Prus- sia : reign of, 363, 366 ; makes an alliance with Alex I of Russia, 373 Frederick William IV, King of Prus- sia : reign of, 396 ; elected hereditary emperor, 402; campaigjns of, 410, 420 Frederick William, The Great Elector of Brandenburg: policy of, 299 Free Conservatives: description of, 435 Freeth inking Party: description of, 446 note Freiburg: taken by the French (1677), 301; battle of (1762), 343 Fridigem, Chief of Goths: defeats the Romans, 34 Friedland: battle of (1807), 373 Friesland: annexed to Prankish king- dom, 85 Frossard, Charles Auguste: in the Franco-Prussian War, 420 Frundsberg, George von: befriends Luther, 240; at siege of Rome, 246 Fust, Johann: his quarrel with Guten- berg, 221 Gablenz, Ludwig Karl Wilhelm, Baron von: campaigns of, 408 Gallas, Matthias von: in the Thirty Years' War, 286, 288, 291 Gallus, Emperor of Rome: pays tribute to Goths, 29 Galsunta: sketch of, 62 Gambetta, L^on : in the Franco- Prussian War, 425 Garibald, King of the Bavarians: his daughter marries Autharis, 54 Garibaldi, Giuseppe: in the Franco- Prussian War, 425 Gastein : conference at, 409 Gauls: revolt against Rome, 23 Geiseric (Genseric), King of the Van>- dals : leads his people into Northern Africa, 39; summoned to Rome by Eudoxia, 43 Gelders: taken by the French, 300 Gelimer, King of the Vandals: defeat of, 49 Genoa: seige of (1800), 363 Genseric : see Geiseric George I, King of England: accession of, 319 George II, King of England : campaigns of, 330; death of, 341 George V, King of Hanover: defeat of, 410 George, Duke of Brunswick: defeats the imperialists, 285 George I, Elector of Hanover: see George I, King of England George Frederick, Margrave of Baden: defeat of, 272 George William, Elector of Branden- burg: his relations with Gustavus Adolphus, 280 Gepidae: destruction of, 51 Gerard, Archbishop of Mayence: in- fluence of, 183 German Confederation, The (1815), 392 German (Teutonic) Order of Knights, 173.. 195, 199, 215 Germania : issued, 439 Germanicus: his campaigns in Germany, 20; death of, 21 Germany, History of: the ancient Ger- mans and their country, 3 ; the wars with Rome, 10; Hermann, the first German leader, 17; the first three centuries of our era, 23; the migra- tion of the Goths, 31 ; the invasion of the Huns, 38; the rise and fall of the Ostrogoths, 45; Europe at the end of the migrations of the races, 53; the kingdom of the Franks, 59; the dynasty of the mayors of the palace, 67; the reigfn of Charle^ magne, 78; the emperors of the Carolingian line, 89; Conrad I and the Saxon dynasty, 103; the decline of the Saxon dynasty, 1 16; the Franconian emperors, 124; end of the Franconian dynasty, and rise of the Hohenstaufens, 139; the reign of Frederick Barbarossa, 147; the INDEX 473 reign of Frederick II and the end of the Hohenstaufen line, 158; the interregnum, 171 ; from Rudolf of Hapsburg to Lewis of Bavaria, 179; the Luxemburg emperors, Charles IV and Wenzel, 192; the reign of Sigismund and the Hussite war, 201 ; the foundation of the Haps- burg dynasty, 212; the reign of Maximilian I, 225; the Reformation, 233; growth of Protestantism, 254; beginning of the Thirty Years' War, 265; end of the Thirty Years' War, 288; decline of imperial power, 298; the War of Spanish Succession, 311; the reign of Frederick the Great, 326; Maria Theresa and Jo- seph II, 347; the end of the German empire, 354; Germany under Napo- leon, 371 ; the War of Liberation, reaction, 387; the Revolution of 1848 and its results, 398; the strug- gle with Austria; the North Ger- man Confederation, 407; the Franco-Prussian War, 415 ; the Ger- man empire, 428 Gero, Count of Saxony: his campaigns against the Wends, no Gertrude, daughter of Lothar II : mar- ries Henry the Proud, 143 Ghibelline: sketch of, 144 Gibraltar: taken by the English (1704), 313 Gisela, daughter of Charles the Simple: sketch of, 124 Giselbert, Duke of Lorraine: revolt of, 105 ; conspiracy of, 109 ; death of, no Gitchin: battle of (1866), 411 Gneisenau, August Wilhelm Anton, Count Neidhardt von: defends Col- berg, 372 ; his efforts to liberate Ger- many, 375 God, Truce of: published, 128 Godfrey, Duke of Lorraine, revolt of, 130; concludes peace with the em- pire, 131 ; death of, 132 Godfrey of Bouillon, King of Jerusa- lem: leads crusade, 138 Godfrey of Strasburg: sketch of, 178 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von: in- fluence of, 233, 353 Golden Bull, The: description of, 193 Good Emperors, The: condition of Ger- many under, 25 Gorgey, Arthur: in the Hungarian re- volt, 401 Gorm, King of Denmark: at war with Henry I, 107 Gotha: siege of (1567), 262 Goths: location of, 6; plunder Roman territory, 29; make treaty with Aurelian, 29; end of power of, 50 Gottfried, King of Denmark: invades Holstein, 85 Gottfried, Chief of the Norsemen: mar- ries a Carolingian princess, 97 Gramont, Antoine Agenor Alfred, Duke de: in the Franco-Prussian War, 416 Granson: battle of (1476), 217 Gravelotte: battle of (1870), 422 Gregory II, Saint, Pope: his relations with Karl Martel, 74 Gregory IV, Pope : mediates in the quar- rel between Lewis the Pious and his sons, 91 Gregory V (Bruno of Carenthia), Pope: account of, 119 Gregory VII, Saint (Hildebrand of Savona), Pope: power of, 130; pontificate of, 133 Gregory IX, Pope: his relations with Frederick II of Germany, 161, 164; urges the crushing of heresy in Ger- many, 162 Gregory X, Pope: demands the election of a German king, 179; his relations with Rudolf of Hapsburg, 180 Gregory XII, Pope: deposed, 201; ab- dication of, 204 Gregory XV, Pope: receives library of Heidelberg, 272 Grifo, son of Karl Martel: career of, 75 Grimoald, mayor of the palace: career of, 68 Grossbeeren: battle of (1813), 383 Grouchy, Marquis Emmanuel de: at the battle of Waterloo, 390 Grumbach, William von: sketch of, 262 Guelph: sketch of, 144 Gundobald: claims Prankish throne, 63 Gunhilde, daughter of Canute: be- trothed to Henry III of Germany, 125 474 INDEX Gunther, King of the Burgundians : de- feated by Attila, 41 Gunther, Count of Schwarzburg: rival of Charles IV, 192 Guntram, Prankish king: reign of, 61 Gustavus (11) Adolphus. King of Swe- den: in the Thirty Years' War, 278; death of, 284 Gutenberg, John: sketch of, 220 H Hakon VI, King of Norway: defeated by Hanseatic League, 195 Halle: taken by Tilly (1631), 280; taken by Schill (1809), 376 Halle, University of: founded, 320 Hamburg: a member of the Hanseatic League, 174; surrenders to Wallen- stein (1628), 276; recovered from French (1813), 382 Hamelin: siege of (1625), 274 Hanau: battle of (1813), 385 Hanno, Archbishop of Cologne: con- spiracy of, 131 Hanover: surrendered to the French, 336, 339; given to Prussia, 371; taken by the Prussians (1866), 410 Hanseatic League (The Hansa) : found- ed, 174; growth of, 19s; decline of, 231 Hardenberg, Prince Karl August von: concludes the Treaty of Basel, 357; his efforts to liberate Germany, 379, 381 Harold Bluetooth, King of Denmark, repelled by Otto I, in Haroun Al Raschid: his relations with Charlemagne, 85 Hatto, Archbishop of Mayence: ap- pointed regent of Germany, 100; conspiracy of, 110 Haynau, Julius Jakob, Baron von: in Hungary, 402 Hecker of Baden: leads political fac- tion, 399 Heidelberg: destroyed by Tilly, 272 Heilbronn: meeting at, 285 Helvetii : location of, 7 Hengist: lands in England, 39 Henry (I) the Fowler, King of Ger- many: at war with Conrad I, 104; accession of, 105 Henry (H), Saint, Holy Roman em- peror: accession of, 121 Henry HI, Holy Roman emperor: be- trothed to Gunhilde, 125; reign of, 128 Henry IV, Holy Roman emperor: ac- cession of, 131 ; minority of, 131 ; reign of, 132; his struggle with the Pope, 134 Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor: re- bellion of, 137; reign of, 139; heirs of, 142 Henry VI, Holy Roman emperor: crowned King of Germany, 154; marries Constance of Sicily, 155; reign of, 156 Henry (VII) of Luxemburg, Holy Ro- man emperor: reign of, 185 Henry of Carinthia, King of Bohemia: deposed, 185 Henry VII, King of England: forms alliance with Maximilian I of Ger- many, 220 Henry I, King of France: his inter- view with Henry III of Germany, 131 Henry II, King of France: his alliance with Maurice of Saxony, 257 Henry (IV) of Navarre, King of France: his alliance with the Prot- estant Union, 266 Henry, King of the Romans: corona- tion of, 160; his rule in Germany, 162; revolt of, 163 Henry I, Duke of Bavaria: conspiracies of, 109, no; invested with Bavaria, hi; death of, 113 Henry II, Duke of Bavaria: revolt of, 116; aims to usurp throne, 118 Henry III, Duke of Bavaria: see Henry (II) Saint, Holy Roman emperor Henry (X) the Proud, Duke of Bava- ria and Saxony: career of, 143 Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony: ca- reer of, 144, 152, 157 Henry, Count of Schwerin: his war with Denmark, 162 Henry, Prince of Prussia: in the Seven Years' War, 336, 339, 342 Henry, son of Lewis of Bavaria: mar- ries Margaret of Tyrol, 190 Henry Raspe, Landgrave of Thuringia: usurps throne of Germany, 166 INDEX 475 Herder, Johann Gottfried von: influ- ence of, 333, 353 Heribert, Archbishop of Milan: career of, 127 Hermanfried, King of Thuringia: his struggles with Theuderic, 60 Hermann (Arminius) : career of, 17 Hermann of Salza: career of, 173 Hermann Billung, Duke of Saxony: his campaign against the Wends, 108; death of, 115 |Hermanric, King of the Ostrogoths: death of, 33 Hermunduri : location of, 6 ; incorpo- rated with Thuringians, 28 Hermingarde, wife of Charlemagne: re- pudiation- of, 79 Hertzberg, Count Ewald Friedrich von: policy of, 355 Heruli: their relations with the Longo- bards, 51 Herward von Bittenfeld: campaigns of, 410 Hieronymus: see Jerome (Hieronymus), Saint Hildebrand of Savona: see Gregory VH, Saint, Pope Hochkirch: battle of (1758), 339 Hodel: his attempt to assassinate the emperor, 445 Hofer, Andreas: leads the Tyrolese re- volt, 375, zyy Hohenf riedberg : battle of (1745), 331 Hohenlinden : battle of ( 1800) , 364 Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, Prince Freder- ick Louis of: defeated at Jena, 372 Holy Alliance, The (1815), 393 Holy League, The (1511), 228 Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation: founded, 1 13; dissolution of, 368 Holy Vehm, The, 230 Honorius \\\, Pope: his relations with Frederick H of Germany, 160 Honorius, Emperor of the West: reign of, 35 Horn, Count Gustaf : campaigns of, 280, 285 Horsa: lands in England, 39 Hubertsburg, Peace of (1763), 344 Hugh Capet, King of France: visits Otto H in Rome, 117; gains the throne of France, 119 Hugo, Duke: claims French throne, iii Humboldt, Alexander von: influence of, 396 Humboldt, William von: influence of, 396 Hungarians: sketch of, 99; incursions of, 100; make a truce with Henry I, 106; defeat of, 107; invade Ger- many, 112 Hunyadi, John: career of, 214 Huns: sketch of, ZZ', invasion of, 38 Huss, John: sketch of, 202 Hussite War, The, 201 Hutten, Ulric von: befriends Luther, 239 I, J Iconium: taken by crusaders, 155 Indulgences : description of, 235 Ingiomar, uncle of Hermann: joins Marbod, 21 Ingoldstadt: resists Gustavus Adolphus, 282 Inn: battle of the (913 a.d.), 104 Innocent II, Pope: pontificate of, 143 Innocent III, Pope: policy of, 158; death of, 160 Innocent IV, Pope: pontificate of, 166 Innocent VI, Pope: sends Rienzi to Rome, 193 Innocent X, Pope: condemns the Treaty of Westphalia, 294 Innsbruck: captured by Hofer (1809), 375 Inquisition: established in Germany, 158; end of, in Germany, 163 Interdict, The: description of, 188 Investiture, The Right of: struggle for, 134. 139; settlement of, 141 lolanthe, daughter of Guy of Lusignan: wife of Frederick II of Germany, 161 Irmingarde, wife of Lewis the Pious: death of, 90 Irminpillar, The: destruction of, 80 Isabella, sister of Henry III of England: marries Frederick II of Germany, 163 Isidorian Decretals: discovery of, 99 Ivan, Emperor of Russia: attacks the Baltic provinces, 261 476 INDEX Jagcllo, King of Poland: supports We- bold of Lithuania, 20S Jellachich (Jellaschich) de Buzin, Jo- seph, Count, Ban of Croatia: de- feats Kossuth, 401 Jemappes: battle of (1792), 356 Jena: battle of (1806), 372 Jerome (Hieronymus), Saint: sketch of, 202 Jerusalem: capture of (1099), 138; taken by Saladin (1187), 155 Jesuits: growth of, in Germany, 259; banished from Bohemia, 268; return to Bohemia, 270; influence of, 273; responsible for policy of Frederick II of Germany, 290; attempt to crush Protestantism in Hungary, 303; banished from France, Spain, Naples and Portugal, 351; expelled from Germany, 441 Jews: in Germany, 350 Jodocus, King of Germany: conspiracy of, 198; elected King of Germany, 201 John XII, Pope: his relations with Otto I, 113; deposed, 114 John XV, Pope: his relations with Otto III, 119 John XVI, Pope: accession of, 121 John XIX, Pope: crowns Conrad II, 125 John XXII, Pope: opposes Lewis of Ba- varia, 187 John XXIII, anti-Pope: pontificate of, 201 ; imprisoned, 204 John, King of Bohemia: becomes King, 185; opposes Lewis of Bavaria, 189; death of, 190 John, King of England: at war with Philip II of France, 160 John (II) Casimir, King of Poland: aided by Frederick William of Brandenburg, 300 John (III) Sobieski, King of Poland: relieves Vienna, 303 John, Archduke of Austria: his cam- paign against the French, 363; his efforts to liberate Germany, 382, 394; elected vicar-general of the em- pire, 400 John, son of (Tharles IV: receives Lu- satia, 194 John Cicero, Margrave of Brandenburg: at the Diet of Worms, 226 John Frederick, Elector of Saxony: sketch of, 25s, 258; death of, 262 John George I, Elector of Saxony: his alliance with the emperor, 270, 272; his lands ravaged by the imperial forces, 276; unites with Gustavus Adolphus, 280, 282; makes a treaty with the emperor, 288 John George II, Elector of Saxony; pol- icy of, 299 John of Leyden: sketch of, 250 John of Nepomuck, Saint: death of, 198 John Parricida, Duke of Austria : sketch of, 185 John Sigismund, Elector of Branden- burg: in the Succession of Cleves dispute, 266 John William, Duke of Qeves: death of, 266 Jonas, Justus: befriends Luther, 237; at the conference at Marburg, 247; at Luther's deathbed, 252 Joseph I, Holy Roman emperor: reign of, 313 Joseph II, Holy Roman emperor: reign of, 347 Jourdan, Count Jean Baptiste: his cam- paigns against the allied powers, 357. 360, 362 Judith, daughter of Welf : marries Lewis the Pious, 90 Julius II, Pope: his relations with the League of Cambray, 227 Justinian I, Emperor of the East; reign of, 48 K Kanzelparagraph, 441 Kara Mustapha, Grand Vizier: besieges Vienna, 303 Karl (III) the Fat, Holy Roman em- peror (II, King of France) : reign of, 96 Kari II, King of France: see Karl (III) the Fat, Holy Roman emperor Karl, Duke of Bnmswick: deposed, 395 Karl: see also Charles Karl Martel, mayor of the palace : reign of, 70 Karlmann, Prankish king: reign of, 96 Karloman, mayor of the palace: career of, 75 > For reference* not under K,look under & INDEX 477 Karloman, son of Pippin I and King of the Franks: crowned at St. Denis, "JT, reign of, 78 Katte, Hans Hermann von: career of, 327 Katzbach: battle of the (1813), 383 Kaunitz, Prince Wenzel Anton von, Count of Rietberg: negotiations of, 334 Kehl: taken by the French, 323 Keith, James Francis Edward: in the Seven Years' War, 338 Kellerman, Frangois Christophe: his campaigns against the allied powers, 356 Kepler, Johann: encouraged by Rudolf kn of Germany, 263 ' Keratry, Count Emile de : in the Fran- '^^ co-Prussian War, 425 Kesselsdorf : battle of (1745), 331 Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb: influence of, 332, 353. 381 Kollin: battle of (1757), 335 Koniggratz: battle of (1866), 411 Konigsmark, Hans Christoph : in the Thirty Years' War, 293 Koribut, nephew of Witold of Lithua- nia : career of, 209 Korner, Karl Theodor: his efforts to liberate Germany, 381 Kosciusko (Kosciuszko), Thaddeus: sketch of, 358 Kossuth, Louis: sketch of, 401 Kotzebue, Augfust von: assassination of, 394 Kulm: battle of (1813), 384 Kulturkatnpf, The, 440 Kunersdorf : battle of (1759), 339 Kunimund, King of the Gepidae: death of, 51 Ladislas the Posthumous, King of Hun- gary and Bohemia : reign of, 215 Landfrieden: see Perpetual National Peace Landshut: battle of (1760), 340 Landsknechte : rise of, 229 Langensalza: battle of (1866), 410 Lasalle, Ferdinand : influence of, 438 Latour, Count Theodore Baillet de: death of, 401 Laudon, Baron Gideon Ernest von : in the Seven Years' War, 338, 340 Lauriston, Alexandre Jacques Bernard Law, Marquis of: in the Franco- Prussian War, 423 Lech: battles of the (955 A.D.). 112; (1632), 282 Legnano: battle of (1176), 152 Lehwald : campaign of, 336 Leibnitz, Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von: sketch of, 308, 320 Leipzig (Leipzic or Leipsic) : battle of (1631), 280; taken by Wallenstein (1632), 283; occupied by the Prus- sians (174s), 331; battle of (1813), 384; taken by the Prussians (1866), 410 Leipzig, University of: founded, 202 Le Mans: battle of (1871), 425 Leo I, Saint, surnamed the Great, Bish- op of Rome: persuades Attila to leave Italy, 42 Leo HI, Pope: his relations with Char- lemagne, 84 Leo IX, Pope : assists Henry III of Ger- many, 130; his relations with the Normans, 130 Leo X, Pope : opposes election of Charles V of Germany, 231 ; his sale of in- dulgences, 235; his relations with Luther, 237, 238; death of, 245 Leo XIII, Pope: pontificate of, 442 Leoben, Treaty of (i797). 361 Leopold I, Holy Roman emperor; reign of, 299 Leopold II, Holy Roman emperor; reign of, 354 Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau : cam- paigns of, 314; organizes the Prus- sian army, 321 Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollem, 416; sketch of, 416 Leopold I, Duke of Austria: takes Richard the Lion-Heart prisoner, 156 Leopold II, Duke of Austria: at battle of Morgarten, 187; conspiracy of, 188; his war with the Swiss, 196 Leopold of Austria: acquires Bavaria, 144 Leopold of Hapsburg, Archduke: in the Succession of Clevcs dispute, 266 Leopold, son of Ferdinand II: receives 478 INDEX Bremen and Magdeburg, 277; de- feats Baner, 291 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim: influence of, 332. 353 Leuthen: battle of (i757). 337 Lewis (I) the Pious, Holy Roman em- peror: crowned King of Aquitaine, 81 ; recognized as emperor, 88 ; reign of, 89 Lewis (IV) of Bavaria, Holy Roman emperor: reign of, 187 Lewis (H) the Stammerer, King of France : reign of, 96 Lewis (H) the Severe, Duke of Bava- ria: guardian of Conradin, 169; supports Rudolf of Hapsburg, 180 Lewis, son of Lewis of Bavaria: re- ceives Brandenburg, 190; treats with Charles IV of Germany, 192 Lewis : see also Louis and Ludwig Leyden, John of: see John of Leyden Liberal Union: description of, 446 note Lichnowsky, Prince Felix Maria An- dreas von : murder of, 400 Liebknecht, Wilhelm: leads the Social Democrats, 438 Liegnitz: battle of (1760), 340 Ligny: battle of (1815), 389 Lille: siege of (1708), 314 Limes : built by Romans, 25 Linz: taken by the French (1741), 329 Lobositz: battle of (1756), 335 Lombards: see Longobardi London, Congress of (1852), 403 Longobardi (Lombards) : location of, 6; summoned to Italy, 51; invade Switzerland, 61 Longwy: siege of (1792), 356 Lorraine, Charles IV, Duke of: defeated by Gustavus Adolphus, 281 ; relieves Vienna, 303 Lorraine, Charles of: campaigns of (1744). 330; (1757), 337 Lothar I, Holy Roman emperor : associ- ated with Lewis the Pious as em- peror, 90; revolt of, 91; defeated by his brothers, 92; agrees to terms of the Partition of Verdun, 93; reign of, 95 Lothar II, Holy Roman emperor: elect- ed King of Germany, 141 ; crowned emperor, 143 Lothar, King of France: takes posses- sion of Lorraine, 116 Louis Phillippe, King of France: acces- sion of, 395 ; flight of, 398 Louis: see also Lewis and Ludwig Louise, Queen of Prussia: at Tilsit, 373 Louvain: battle of (893 a.d.), 98 Lower Lorraine, Charles, Duke of: de- feated by Hugh Capet, 119 Lubeck: founded, 146 Louis (IV) d'Outre-mer, King of France: joins conspiracy against Otto I, no; calls for help against Duke Hugo, in Louis (VII) the Young, King of France: in the second crusade, 145 Louis IX, Saint, King of France: medi- ation of, 166 Louis XI, King of France : opposes Charles the Bold, 217, 218 Louis XII, King of France: campaigns of, 227 Louis XIII, King of France: in the Thirty Years' War, 285, 289 Louis (XIV) the Great, King of France : his position on the Conti- nent, 298; reipi of, 298 Louis XV, King of France: aids Stan- islas Lesczinsky, 323; supports Charles Albert's claims, 329; makes an alliance with Maria Theresa, 334 Louis XVI, King of France: execution of, 356 Lubeck: a member of the Hanseatic League, 174; surrenders to Wallen- stein, 276; recovered from the French, 382 Ludolf, Duke of Suabia: accession o^ in; rebellion of, 112; death of, 113 Ludwig II, Holy Romas emperor: death of, 96 Ludwig the German, Prankish king: crowned King of Bavaria, 90 ; revolt of, 91 ; becomes King of Germany, 92; reign of, 95 Ludwig (III) the Younger, Prankish king: reign of, 96 Ludwig (III) the Child, King of Ger- many: reign of, 100 Ludwig I, King of Bavaria: reign of, 396 Ludwig II, King of Bavaria : mission of, 427 INDEX 479 Ludwig, Margrave of Baden: cam- paigns of, 304, 313 Ludwig: see also Lewis and Louis Luitpold, Duke of Bavaria: death of, 100 Luitprand, King of the Longobards : at war with the Pope, 74 Luitward, Bishop : conspiracy of, 98 Luneville, Peace of (1801), 364 Lusatia : conquest of, 107 Luther, Martin : career of, 233 Lutheran Church, The: organization of, 245 Lutter: battle of (1626), 275 Liitzen: battles of (1632), 284; (1813), 282 M I;- Macdonald, fitienne Jacques Joseph Alexandre, Duke of Tarentum : in the Napoleonic wars, 383, 385 Mac Mahon, Marie Edme Patrick Mau- rice de: in the Franco-Prussian War, 421 Mack von Leiberich, Baron Karl: sur- renders Ulm, 367 Magdeburg: sieges of (i5SO-i55i)j 256; (1631), 279; surrendered to the French (1806), 372 Magenta: battle of (1859), 405 Magnus, Duke of Saxony : his hostility to Henry IV of Germany, 132 Magyars : see Hungarians Majestdtbrief: issued, 267 Malplaquet: battle of (1709), 314 Manfred, King of Sicily: regent, 168; crowned king, 169 Mannheim: destroyed by Tilly (1622), 272; siege of (i795), 359 Mansfeld, Ernest, Count of: campaigns of, 268, 271, 273 Manteuffel, Edwin Hans Karl, Baron of: in the Franco- Prussian War, 426; his policy as governor in Al- sace-Lorraine, 436 Mantua: surrenders to the French, 361 Marbach, League of (1405), 199 Marbod, chief of Marcomanni: unites German tribes, 15; struggles with Hermann, 21 Marburg: conference at, 247 March: battle of the (1278), i8x Marcomanni : location of, 6 ; at war with Romans, 15; lead revolt against Rome, 26; besiege Aquileia, 26 Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome: wars with the Germans, 26 Marengo: battle of (1800), 364 Margaret, daughter of Maximilian: sent to Paris, 218; returns to Austria, 220 Margaret of Tyrol: marries Henry, son of Lewis of Bavaria, 190 Marie Antoinette, Queen of France: execution of, 356 Maria Louisa, Empress of the French: marries Napoleon, 377, 378 Maria Theresa, Holy Roman empress: birth of, 319; marries Francis of Lorraine, 324; reign of, 325, 347 Marienburg: capital of the German Or- der, 19s Marius, Caius : his campaign against the Teutons and Cimbrians, 4 Marlborough, John Churchill, Duke of: campaigns of, 312 Mars-la-Tour : battle of (1870), 421 Martin V (Colonna), Pope: elected by the Council of Constance, 204 Mary of Burgundy: career of, 216, 218 Marx, Karl: influence of, 438 Massena, Andre: his campaign against the allied forces, 359, 362 Matilda, Empress of Germany: marries Henry V of Germany, 140 Matilda, Countess of Tuscany: be^ friends the Pope, 135 ; acknowledges the emperor, 140; death of, 141 Mathilde, sister of Otto HI of Germany: regent of Germany, 120 Matthias, Holy Roman emperor : regent for Austria, Hungary and Moravia, 266; elected emperor, 267 Maurice, Prince of Dessau : at the bat- tle of Hochkirch, 339 Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse: com- pelled to abdicate, 276 Maurice, Duke of Saxony: takes posses- sion of Electoral Saxony, 255; con- spiracy of, 257; death of, 258 Maurice of Saxony: see Saxe, Count Maurice de (Maurice of Saxony) Max Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria : cam- paigns of, 303, 313 480 INDEX Max Joseph, Elector of Bavaria: re- nounces claim to the throne, 330; death of, 348 Maximilian I, Holy Roman emperor: marries Mary of Burgundy, 218; election of, 219; reign of, 225 Maximilian II, Holy Roman emperor: reign of, 262 Maximilian I, King of Bavaria: his daughter marries Eugene Beauhar- nais, 371 ; joins the allies, 385 Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria : perse- cutes the Protestants, 265, 270; cam- paigns of, 272 Maximus: see Petronius Maximus May Laws, The, 441 Mayence : founded, 15 ; a member of the Union of Rhenish Cities, 174; siege of (1793), 356; reconquered by the Prussians (i793). 357 Meissen: founded, 107; becomes an ap- panage of Poland, 121 Melanchthon (Melanthon), Philip: in- fluences Frederick of Saxony in fa- vor of Luther, 237; assists Luther to translate the Bible, 244; opposes the union of state and church, 245; at the Marburg Conference, 247; death of, 260 Melas, Baron Michael von : his cam- paigns against the allied forces, 363 Menno, Simon: founds Mennonite sect, 250 Merovingian Dynasty: founded, 59 Merseburg: battle of (933 a.d.), 107 Mersen, Treaty of (870 a.d.), 95 Merwig, son of Chilperic: revolt of, 62 Messenhauser : death of, 401 Methodius, the Apostle to the Slavs: his work among the Bohemians, 99 Metternich, Prince Clemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar von: follows the policy of France, 378; becomes the enemy of Napoleon, 383; fears to have Napoleon completely over- thrown, 385; proposes the German Confederation, 392; his influence in Austria, 396; exiled, 398 Metz: sieges of (i552-i553). 258; (1870), 422 Milan: sieges of (1158). 150; (1162), 151; taken by the French (1796), 360 Miltitz, Karl von: his meeting with Lu- ther, 237 Minden: battle of (1759), 339 Mockern: battle of (1813), 382 Mohacs: battle of (1687), 303 Mohammed II, Sultan of Turkey: con- quers Constantinople, 220 Mohammed IV, Sultan of Turkey: at- tacks Vienna, 303 Mollwitz: battle of (1741), 329 Moltke, Count Helmuth Karl Bernhard von: prepares for war with France, 417, 420; his campaigns against the French, 423 Montecuccoli, Count Raimondo, Duke of Melfi: campaigns of, 301 Montereau: battle of (1814), 387 Morat: battle of (1476), 218 Moreau, Jean Victor: his campaign against the allied forces, 359, 364 Morgarten: battle of (1315), 187 Moritzburg: erection of, 306 Mortier, fidouard Adolphe Casimir Jo- seph, Duke of Trevise: his cam- paign in Hanover, 366 Moscow : Napoleon in, 380 Miihlberg: battle of (1547), 255 Miihldorf: battle of (1322), 187 Miihlhausen: battle of (1525), 243 Munich: subject to Gustavus Adolphus, 282 Miinster: held by the Anabaptists, 250; negotiations at, 292 Miinzer, Thomas: prophet of the Ana- baptists, 243 Murat, Joachim : receives Jiilich, Cleves, and Berg, 371 ; receives Naples, 375 ; at the battle of Leipzig, 384 N Nachod: battle of (1866), 411 Nafels: battle of (1388), 197 Nancy: battle of (1477), 218 Naples: siege of (1191), 156 Napoleon (I) Bonaparte, Emperor of the French: strengthens the French Republic, 359; establishes the Con- sulate, 363; Germany under, 371; the German War of Liberation, 387 Napoleon III, Emperor of the French: his assumption of power, 403 ; in the Franco- Prussian War, 415 INDEX 481 Narses: career of, 49 Narva: battle of (1700), 317 National Liberals: description of, 435 Nations, Battle of the (1813), 384 Naumburg: taken by Tilly, 280 Neerwinden: battle of (1793), 357 Nepomuck, Saint John of: see John of Nepomuck, Saint Netherlands: revolt of the, 263; made a kingdom, 391 Neuss: siege of (1475), 217 New Testament, The: published in Ger- man, 243 Ney, Michel, Duke of Elchingen, Prince de la Moskowa: in the Napoleonic wars, 384, 389 " Nibelungenlied " : sketch of, 178 Nicephorus I, Byzantine emperor: ac- knowledges Charlemagne's title, 85 Nicholas II, Pope: opposes the empire, 131 Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia: assists Austria, 401 Niebuhr, Barthold Georg: his efforts to liberate Germany, 375 Nikolsburg, Truce of (1866), 412 Nobiling: his attempt to assassinate the emperor, 445 Norcia: battle of (113 B.C.), 4 Norddeutsche Bund (1866), 413 Nordlingen: battle of (1634), 288 Normans: devastate Rome, 136 Norsemen : incursions of, 87 ; in France, 97; driven from Germany, 99 North German Confederation, The (1866), 413 Novara: battle of (1849), 402 Nuremberg: taken by Bavaria, 371 Nuremberg, Diet of (1532), 249 Nymwegen, Peace of (1679), 302 Olmutz: siege of (i7S8), 338 Orleans: sieges of (451 A.D.), 41; (1870), 425 Osnabruck: negotiations at, 292 Ostrogoths : rise and fall of, 45 ; see also Goths Otto (I) the Great, Holy Roman em- peror: reign of, 108 Otto II, Holy Roman emperor: crowned, 113; reign of, 116 Otto III, Holy Roman emperor: acces- sion of, 118; reign of, 119 Otto IV, Holy Roman emperor: his struggles for the throne, 158, 160; crowned emperor, 159 Otto, Duke of Bavaria : his relations with Henry IV of Germany, 132 Otto, Duke of Saxony: appointed regent of Germany, 100; refuses crown of Germany, 104 Otto of Brunswick: reconciled to Fred- erick II of Germany, 164 Otto of Freising, Bishop: sketch of, 178 Otto of Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria: in Italy, 149; acquires Bavaria, 153; murders Philip of Suabia, 158; death of, 159 Otto the Red : see Otto II, Holy Roman emperor Ottokar II, King of Bohemia : revolt of, 180 Oudenarde: battle of (1708), 314 Oudinot, Nicolas Charles, Duke of Reggio: in the Napoleonic wars, 383 Oxenstierna, Count Axel: in the Thirty Years' War, 284 Odilo, Abbot of Cluny : teaching of, 128 Odo, King of France : chosen king, 98 Odo, Count of Champagne: disputes succession of Conrad II in Bur- gundy, 126 Odoacer (Odovakar) : career of, 45 Oeversee: battle of (1864), 408 Old Age Pensions: inaugurated, 448 Old Catholics: description of, 440 Paderborn: battle of (783 a.d.), 82 Palermo: court of Frederick II at, 162 Palikao, Charles Guillam^e Marie Apol- linaire Antoine Cousin-Montauban, Count de : in the Franco-Prussian War, 422 Palm, Johann Philip : sketch of, 372 Pampeluna: captured by Qiarlemagne, 81 Pappenheim, Gottfried Heinrich, Count of: campaigns of, 271, 280, 284 482 INDEX Papptia: siege ot (534 A.D.). 49 Paris: made capital of the Prankish kingdom, 46; sieges of (885-886 A.D.), 97; (978 A.D.), 116; (1814), 387; (1871), 425 Parma: battle of (i49S). 227 Paschal II, Pope: his quarrels with Henry V of Germany, 139, 140; death of, 141 Paschal III, anti-Pope: appointed by Frederick Barbarossa, 151 Passarowitz, Treaty of (1718), 320 Passau, Treaty of (1552), 258 Patterson, Elizabeth: married to Jerome Bonaparte, 374 Paul III, Pope: calls the Council of Trent, 257 Paul I, Emperor of Russia: in the Sec- ond Coalition, 362 Paul the Deacon: at court of Charle- magne, 86 Pavia: sieges of (568-572 a.d.), 51; (754 A.D.), 77, 79; (1006), 121; bat' tie of (1525), 245 Peace of 1648, The: see Westphalia, Peace of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia: his relations with Augusta III of Poland, 307; his cnflicts witft Charles XII of Swederj 317 Peter III, Emperor of Ri.s^ia: his rela- tions with Frederick the Great, 334, Peter, Archbishop o^ Mayence: intrigue of, 185 Peter the Hermit: preaches a crusade, 138 Peterwardein : battle of (1716), 319 Petrarch, Francesco: his relations with Charles IV of Germany, 193 Petronius Maximus, Emperor of Rome: accession of, 43 Philip (II) Augustus, King of France: in the third crusade, 155; defeats John of England and Otto IV of Germany, 160 Philip (IV) the Fair, King of France: his alliance with Albert I of Ger- many, 183; influences Lewis of Ba- varia, 190 Philip VI, King of France: opposes Lewis of Bavaria, 189 Philip (I) the Handsome, King of Cas- tile: France claims guardianship of. 218; marries Joanna of Castile, 227 Philip II, King of Spain: accession of, 259; his relations with Maximilian II of Germany, 262 Philip V, King of Spain: accession of, 3" Philip, Landgrave of Hesse: befriends Luther, 241; arranges for the con- ference at Marburg, 247; fate of, 256, 258 Philip, Duke of Suabia: his struggle for the throne, 158 Piccolomini, Prince Octavio: in the Thirty Years' War, 286 Pippin, King of Aquitaine : crowned, 90 : revolt of, 91 ; death of. 92 Pippin (I) the Short, King of the Franks : reign of, 75 Pippin of Heristal, Mayor of the Palace : career of, 69; rule of, 69 Pippin of Landen, Mayor of the Palace : educates Dagobert, 65 ; career of, 68 Pippin, son of Charlemagfne : crowned King of Lombardy, 81 Pippin, natural son of Charlemagne: conspiracy of, 83 Pisa, Council of (1409), 201 Pius II (iEneas Sylvius), Pope: his in- fluence on Frederick III of Ger- many, 212 ; his estimate of the Ger- man cities, 230 Pius VI, Pope: visits Joseph II in Vienna, 350 Pius VII, Pope: restored, 362; refuses dispensation to Jerome Bonaparte, 374 Pius IX, Pope: his relations with Ger- many, 441 Plantagenet, Richard, Earl of Cornwall : becomes King of Germany, 171 Plektnide, wife of Pippin of Heristal : opposes Karl Martel, 70 Podiebrad, George, King of Bohemia: career of, 214 Poitiers, Battle of (732 A.D.), 73 Poland, Kingdom of : founders of, 6 ; in- dependent of Germany, 139; parti- tions of (1772). 345 ; (1793). 3S8; (179s). 359 Pollentia: battle of (402 a.d.). 35 Pompadour, Antoinette Poisson, Mar- INDEX 483 quise de: Maria Theresa writes to. 334 Poniatowsky, Prince Joseph Antoine: at the battle of Leipzig, 385 PPoppo, Duke of Friesland : opposes Karl Martel, 74 Praga: stormed (1794), 358 Pragmatic Sanction, The (1740), 319 Prague: outbreak in (1618), 268; occu- pied by John George of Saxony (1632), 282; taken by Wallenstein (1632), 283; battle of (1639), 291; taken by Frederick the Great (1744). 330; siege and battle of (1757), 335 Prague, Treaties of (1635), 288; (1866), 412 Prague, University of: founded, 192 Presburg, Treaties of: (1491), 219; C180S), 367 Printing, The invention of, 220 Probus, Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome : policy of, 29 Procopius, Andrew the Great: succeeds Ziska, 209; death of, 211 Procopius the Little: leads the Orphans, 209; death of, 211 Progressives: description of, 434 Protestants : origin of, 246 Protestant Union, The: formed, 265 Prussia: basis of, 145; rise of, 317; in the War of the Austrian Succession, 334 Pufendorf, Samuel von: his estimate of the Holy Roman Empire, 297 Pultowa (Poltava) : battle of (1709), 317 Pytheas: finds the Germans on the Bal- tic Sea, 3 Q. R Quadi: location of, 6; besiege Aquileia, 26 Quadruple Alliance, The: formed (1718), 320 Quatre-Bras: battle of (1815), 389 Quedlinburg: founded, ic6 Raby: siege of (1420), 208 Radagast (Radagaisus or Radagais) : unites German tribes and invades Italy, 38 Radbod, Duke of Friesland: his cam- paig^n against Karl Martel, 70 Radetzky, Joseph Wenzel, Count: in Italy, 402 Radulf, Duke of Thuringia: defeats the Franks, 66 Raginfried, Mayor of the Palace: his campaign against Karl Martel, 70 Ramillies: battle of (1706), 314 Rastatt, Congress of (1798), 362 Rastatt, Treaty of (1714), 316 Rastitz, King of the Moravian Slavo- nians: conspiracy of, 96 Ratisbon : taken by Bernard of Saxe- Weimar, 286 Ratisbon, Diets of: (1630), 277; (1640), 291 Reformation, The, 233 Reformed Church: see Calvinists Religious Peace, Treaties of: (1532), 249, 251; (1555), 259 Remigius, Saint, Archbishop of Rheims: baptizes Clovis, 59 Rene, Duke of Lorraine: recovers his land, 218 Restitution, Edict of: issued (1629), 276; withdrawn, 294 Revolution, The French, 354 Revolution of 1830, The, 395 Revolution of 1848, The, 398 Rheims: convention of chiefs held at, 24 Rheinbund: see Confederation of the Rhine Rhenish Cities, Union of, 175 Richard (I) the Lion-Heart, King of England: in the third crusade, 155; prisoner of Leopold of Austria, 156 Richard of Cornwall : see Plantagenet, Richard, Earl of Cornwall Richelieu, Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal and Duke of: opposes Ferdinand H of Germany, 278, 285, 288; treats with Maximilian of Ba- varia, 281 Ricimer, Chief of the Suevi: career of, 43 Rienzi (Rienzo), Cola di: his relations with Charles IV of Germany, 193 Robert the Wise, King of Naples : strug- gles of, 186 Robert (Roger) II, King of Naples and Sicily: supports the anti-Pope, 143 Robert Guiscard, Chief of the Normans : 484 INDEX aids Gregory VII against Henry IV of Germany, 136 Roderick, King of the Visigoths: death of, 50 Roland, Count of Brittany: death of, 81 Rome: wars with the Germans, 10; de- cline of power, 26; siege of (ca. 408 A.D.), 36; sacked by Goths (410 A.D.), 36; sacked by Vandals (455 A.D.), 43; Popes assume government of, 51; sieges of (962 a.d.), 114; (1084), 136; (1527). 246 Rome, Republic of: overthrown, 362 Romulus Augtistulus, Emperor of Rome: retirement of, 45 Roncesvalles : battle of (778 A.D.), 81 Roon, Count Albrecht Theodor Emil von: in the Franco- Prussian War, 417 Rossbach: battle of (i7S7), 336 Riidiger, General : Gorgey surrenders to, 401 Rudolf (I) of Hapsburg, Holy Roman emperor: reign of, 179 Rudolf II, Holy Roman emperor: edu- cated in Spain, 262; reign of, 263 Rudolf I, King of Burgundy: his war with Arnulf, 99 Rudolf III, King of Burgundy: makes Henry II his heir, 122; his relations with Conrad II of Germany, 125 Rudolf, Duke of Suabia: supplants Henry IV of Germany, 136 Rudolf, son of Albert I of Germany: death of, 184 Rudolf, son of Rudolf (I) of Hapsburg: receives Austria, 181 ; death of, 182 Rufinus : guardian of Arcadius, 35 ; mur- der of, 35 Rupert, King of Germany: defeats the Suabian cities, 197; election of, 198; death of, 200 Ryswick, Treaty of (1697), 306 Saarbruck: battle of (1870), 421 St. Bartholomew, Massacre of (1572), 262 St. Jacob: battle of (1444), 213 Sl John, Knights of, 173 Saladin, Sultan of Eg^t and Syria: takes Jerusalem, 155 Samo : unites Slavonic tribes, 65 Sand, Karl Ludwig: assassinates Kotze- bue, 394 Sangipan, King of the Alans: forms alliance with Aetius, 41 Saracens : invade Europe, 73 Saragossa : captured by Charlemagne, 81 Sardinia, Kingdom of: founded, 316 Saxe, Count Maurice de (Maurice of Saxony) : in the War of the Aus- trian Succession, 331 Saxo Grammaticus, 178 Saxons: location of, 6; g^rowth of, 28; their wars with Charlemagne, 79; accept Christianity, 81 ; their rela- tions with Henry IV of Germany, 132; defeated by Henry V of Ger- many, 140 Saxony: division of, 255 note Schaflfhausen : annexed to Switzerland, 214 Schamhorst, Gerhard Johann David von : his efforts to liberate Germany, 375. 379; death of, 382 Schertlin, Sebastian: campaigns of, 250, 254 Schill, Ferdinand von: defends Colberg, 372; revolt of, 376 Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich von : at Weimar, 353, 381 Schleswig : added to the empire, 107 ; re- stored to Denmark, 125; revolt of, 399, 404; separated from Holstein, 408 Schmalkalden, The League of: sketch of, 249 Schmalkalden League, War of, 254 Schoeffer, Peter: partner of Fust, 221 Schonbrunn : Napoleon at, 367, 377 Schwartzenberg, Felix Ludwig Johann Friedrich, Prince von: ministry of, 403 Schwarzenberg, Karl Philipp, Prince von: campaigns of, 383, 384, 387 Schweidnitz: taken by the Prussians (1578), 338; taken by Landon, (1761), 342; siege of (1762), 343 Schwerin, Count Kurt Christoph: cam- paigns of, 329, 335 Schwyz : secures independence, 184 Sedan: battle of (1870), 423 Segestes: his feud with Hermann, 19; death of, 21 INDEX 485 Seidlitz (Scydlitz), Friedrich Wilhelm von: in the Seven Years' War, 336, 338 Sempach: battle of (1386), 197 Sequani: form alliance with Arvemi, 10 Seven Weeks' War, The, 410, 412 Seven Months' War, The: see Franco- Prussian War Seven Years' War, The, 335 Sforza, Blanca Maria: marries Maximil- ian I of Germany, 226 Sibylla, wife of John Frederick: de- fends Wittenberg, 256 Sicambrians: location of, 6; relations of, to Franks, 28 Sicilian Vespers, The (1282), 170 Sickingen, Franz von : power of, 228 ; befriends Luther, 239 Sigbert, Frankish king: reign of, 61 Sigismund, Holy Roman emperor : re- ceives Brandenburg, 194; appointed vicar of the empire, 198; imprisons Wenzel, 199; reign of, 201 Sigismund III, King of Poland: aids Ferdinand II of Germany, 270 Sigismund of Tyrol, Duke of Austria: his relations with Charles the Bold of Burgundy, 216; death of, 227 Silesian Wars, The: first, 330; second, 331 Skalitz: battle of (1866), 411 Small Germans: sketch of, 399, 402 Smith, Adam : publishes his " Wealth of Nations," 345 Smolensk: battle of (1812), 380 Social Democrats (Socialists) : descrip- tion of, 437 Social Democrat: issued in Switzerland, 446 Soissons: battle of (486 A.D.). 46 Solferino: battle of (1859), 405 Soltikov, Count Peter: in the Seven Years' War, 340 Soor: battle of (1745), 331 Sophia, wife of Wenzel : favors the Hus- sites, 202, 205 Sophia Dorothea of Hanover: mother of Frederick the Great, 326 Soubise, Charles de Rohan, Prince of: in the Seven Years' War, 336, 342 Spandau : occupied by Gustavus Adol- phus (1632), 279; surrender of (1806), 372 Spener, Philipp Jakob: account of, 308 Speyer: a member of the Union of Rhenish Cities, 174; taken by the French (1792), 356 Speyer, Diet of (1529), 246 Spicheren: battle of (1870), 421 Stadion, Count Johann Philipp Karl Jo- seph von : ministry of, 375, 378 Stadtlohn: battle of (1623), 273 Stahremberg, Count Ernest Rudiger: defends Vienna, 303 Stanislas (I) Lesczinsky, King of Po- land: career of, 317, 323 Stanislas (II) Augustus (Poniatow- sky), King of Poland: accession of, 345 Stedinger: extermination of, 162 Stein, Heinrich Friedrich Karl, Baron von: forms alliance with Russia, 373 ; reforms of, 374, 381 Stephen II, Pope: his relations with Pippin the Short, 76 Stephen IV, Pope: visits Lewis the Pious, 90 Stephen I, Saint, King of Hungary: his war with Albert of Austria, 126 Stettin: occupied by Gustavus Adolphus, 279; taken by the Great Elector, 301 Stilicho: career of, 35 Stockholm, Treaties of: (1719 and 1720), 318 Stralsund: seiges of (1628), 276; (1809), 376 Strasburg (Strassburg) : founded, 15 ; battle of (496 A.D.), 47; a member of the Union of Rhenish Cities, 174; embraces the Reformation, 243; submits to the emperor, 255; taken by the French (1681), 302; siege of (1870), 424 Struve, Gustav von : leads insurrection, 399 Styria: bestowed on Albert I of Gen- many, 181 Suabian League: sketch of, 219 Succession of Cleves: dispute of the, 266 Succession, War of the Austrian, 331 Succession, War of the Polish, 319 Succession, War of the Spanish, 311 Suevi : aid the Sequani, 10 ; defeated by Caesar, 12 ; see also Hermunduri and also Chatti 486 INDEX Suleiman the Magnificent. Sultan of Turkey: in Germany, 249 Suvarov (SuvaroflF), Count Alexander! campaigns of, 358, 362 Swatopluk : see Zwentebold Swen, King of Denmark : his relations with Henry IV of Germany, 132 Switzerland, Republic of: founded, 184 Sword, Brothers of the, 173 Syagrius : in Gaul, 46 Sylvester II (Gerbert of Rheims), Pope: account of, 119 S)rracuse: captured by Franks, 30 Tabor: battle of (1645), 291 Taborites, The, 207 Tagliacozzo : battle of ( 1268) , 170 Talleyrand- Per igord, Charles Maurice de, Prince of Benevento: negotia- tions of, 364; at the Congfress of Berlin, 389, 39i Tancred, King of Sicily: defeats Henry VI of Germany, 156 Tannenbcrg: battle of (1410), 199 Tariff Union, The (1836), 395 Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria: espouses the cause of Grifo, 75; opposes Charle- magne, 83 Teias, King of the Ostrogoths : reign of, 50 Templars, Knights, 173 Tencteres: defeated by Caesar, 12 Testri: battle of (687 a.d.), 69 Tetzel (Tezel, Diez, Deze), Johann: sketch of, 236 Teutoboch, Prince of the Teutons: taken prisoner by the Romans, 5 Teutoburger Forest: battles of (9 a.d.), 18; (is a.d.), 20; (782 A.D.), 82 Teutonic (German) Order of Knights, 173. 195. 199, 215 Teutons: invade Roman territory, 4 Thankmar; conspiracy of, 109 Thauss: battle of (1431). 210 Theodolind, Queen of the Longobards: persuades her people to become Christians, 53 Theodoric the Great. King of the Ostro- goths: career of, 45 Theodoric, King of the Visigoths : forms alliance with Aetius, 41 ; death of, 42 Theodosius (I) the Great, Emperor of the East: makes treaty with Goths, 34; death of, 35 Theophania, Byzantine princess: sketch of, 114; regent for Otto III, 118 Theudebert, King of Austrasia: death of, 64 Theuderic I, Prankish king: reign of, 60 Theuderic II, Prankish king: assisted by Clotar II, 64 Theuderic III, Prankish king: captured by Pippin of Heristal, 69 Theudowald, Mayor of the Palace: ca- reer of, 70 Thirty Years' War, The, 265 Thorismond, King of the Visigoths: proclaimed king, 42 Thorn, Peace of (1466), 216 Three Emperors, Battle of the (1805), 367 Thuringia : divided between the Franks and the Saxons, 60; status of, 66; peasant war in, 243 Thurn, Count Heinrich Matthias von: leads revolution in Bohemia, 268; defeated by Wallenstein, 286 Thusnelda : nlarries Hermann, 17 ; taken captive by Romans, 20 Tiberius, Emperor of Rome: his cam- paigfn against Germans, 15; recalls Germanicus, 21 Tilly, Johann, Count of: career of, 272, 282 Tilsit, Peace of (1807), 374 Torgau: battle of (1760), 341 Torgau, Alliance of (1526), 245 Tortona: siege of (nss)), 148; destruc- tion of (1163), 151 Torstenson, Lennart: campaigns of, 291 Tobila, King of the Ostrogoths: reign of, 49 Toul: siege of (1870), 424 Toulon: taken (l793). 357 Toulouse: plundered by Clovis, 47 Trautenau: battles of (1866), 411 Trent, Council of (1545-1563) : called, 251 ; adjourns, 260 Treviri: defeated by Cercalif, 24 Triple Alliance, The (1878), 442 INDEX 487 Trochu, Louis Jule: in the Franco- Prussian War, 421 Truce of God: published, 128 Tugendbung: see Victory, League of Turenne, Henri de La Tour d'Au- vergne, Viscount of: campaigns of, 292, 300 Turpin, Bishop: at Court of Charle- magne, 86 Tyrolese: revolt of, 375, 377 U,V Ubii: location of, 6; submit to Qesar, 13 Ulfilas (Wulfila), Bishop: career of, 32 Ulm: submits to the emperor (1547), 255; seized by the French (1702), 312; taken by the French (1805), 367 Ulric, Count of Wiirtemberg: revolt of, 180 Ulric, Duke of Wiirtemberg : oppressions of, 229; reinstated, 250; submits to the emperor, 255 Union of Rhenish Cities, 175 Unterwalden: secures independence, 184 Upper Burgundy, Kingdom of: estab- lishment of, 98 Urban II, Pope: appointed by the Nor- mans and the French, 136 Urban III, Pope: opposes Frederick Barbarossa, 155 Urban IV, Pope : pontificate of, 169 Urban V, Pope: his relations with Charles IV of Germany, 194 Uri : secures independence, 184 Usipetes: defeated by Caesar, 12 Utrecht: taken by the French, 300 Utrecht, Peace of (1713), 315 Valens, Roman and Byzantine emperor: assists the Goths, 33; death of, 34 Valentinian II, Emperor of the West: reign of, 34 Valmy: battle of (1792), 356 Vandals : location of, 6 ; sketch of, 31 ; settle in northern Africa, 39; sack Rome, 43; destruction of, 49 Vandamme, Dominique Josephe: in the Napoleonic wars, 383 Varus, Publius Quinctillius : policy of, 16; defeat of, 18 Vehm, The Holy, :230 Velleda (Veleda) : prophesies victory of Germans, 23 Venice: founded, 42; struggles of, 227; republic overthrown, 360; siege of (1849), 402 Vercelli: battle of (loi b.c.), 5 Vercingetorix : taken prisoner by Ro- mans, 12 Verden: massacre at, 82 Verdun: siege of (1792), 356 Verdun, Partition of (843 a.d.)i 93 Vespasian, Emperor of Rome: condition of Germany under, 23 Victor II, Pope: appointed by Henry III of Germany, 130 Victor IV, anti-Pope: recognized by Frederick Barbarossa, 151 Victor Amadeus I, King of Sardinia (II, Duke of Savoy) : forms an alli- ance with Germany, 312 Victor Emmanuel I, King of Italy (II of Sardinia) : accession of, to throne of Sardinia, 402; unites all Italy, 405 Vienna: made a free city, 164; sieges of (1276), 180; (1490), 219; (1529- 1532), 250; (1619), 269; (1683), 303; (180s), 367; (1809), yjT, (1848), 401; rising in (1848), 398; taken by the Prussians (1866), 412 Vienna, Concordat of (1448), 213 Vienna, Congress of (1814), 388 Vienna, Treaties of (l735), 324; (1809), 377 Villars, Louis Hector, Duke of: cam- paigns of, 313, 323 Vilna: see Wilna Vinea, Peter de: treachery of, 166 Virtue, League of: description of, 376, 379 Visconti, Galleazzo I, Lord of Milan: assisted by Lewis of Bavaria, 187 Visigoths : their relations with Clovis, 47; see also Goths Vitiges, King of the Ostrogoths: reign of, 49 Vitimer, King of the Ostrogoths: de- feated by Huns, 33 Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet) : hi estimate of the Holy Roman Em- pire, 297; his relations with Fred- erick the Great, 328, 345 488 INDEX W Wagram: battle of (1809), 377 Waiblinger: see Ghibbeline Waldemar (II) the Victorious, King of Denmark: taken prisoner by Henry of Schwerin, 162 Waldemar III, King of Denmark: de- feated by Hanseatic League, 195 Waldemar, The False: pretensions of, 192 Wallenstein (Waldstein), Albert Euse- bius von, Duke of Friedland, Meck- lenburg: career of, 274, 278, 282; death of, 287 Wallia, King of the Visigoths: his cam- paign against the Vandals, 39 Walter von der Vogelweide: sketch of, 178 Warsaw: battle of (1656), 300; siege of (1794). 358 Warsaw, Grand Duchy of: formed, 374 Waterloo: battle of (1815), 390 Wedel, Karl Heinrich: in tiie Seven Years' War, 339 Weinsberg: siege of (1140), 144 Weissenburg: battle of (1870), 421 Welf II, Duke of Bavaria: his relations with Henry V of Germany, 141 Welf VI, Duice of Bavaria: wars of, 144. 145 Welf: see Guelph Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Viscount : his campaigns against the French, 375, 389 Wends: disloyal to the empire, 139 Wenzel, King of Germany: crowned King of Bohemia, 194; reign of, 196; imprisoned by Sigismund, 199; death of, 206 Wenzel II, King of Bohemia: marries daughter of Rudolf of Hapsburg, 181 ; supports Albert I of Germany, 183 Werder, Count August Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Leopold von: in the Franco-Prussian War, 425 Werner, Count of Kyburg: sketch of, 126 Westphalia: early inhabitants of, 6; in- vaded by Caesar, 13; peasant war in, 243 Westphalia, Peace of (1648), 293 White Mountain: battle of the (1620), 270 Wickliffe, John: his influence in Ger- many, 202 Wieland, Christopher Martin: at Weimar, 353 Wilhelmine, Margravine of Bayreuth: marriage of, 327 William of Holland, King of Germany (nominal) : his struggles for the throne, 167, 168 William, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel : unites with Gustavus Adolphus, 280; defeats the imperialists, 285 William I, Emperor of Germany: re- gency of, 404; reign of, 405 William II, Emperor of Germany: ac- cession of, 437; reign of, 449 Willigis, Archbishop of Mayence: aids Theophania, 118 Wilna: battle of (1389), 199 Wimpfen: battle of (1622), 272 Wimpffen, Emanuel Felix de: in the Franco-Prussian War, 423 Windischgratz, Alfred Candidus Fer- dinand, Pnnce of: campaigns of, 401 Windthorst, Ludwig: leads the Clericals, 439 Winfield: battle of (9 A.D.), I9 Winifred : see Boniface Winkelried, Arnold of: at the battle of Senepach, 197 Witold, Prince of Lithuania: seeks alli- ance with the Hussites, 208 Wittekind, Chief of the Saxons: his campaigns against Charlemagne, 80 Wittenberg: defended by Sibylla, 256 Wittenberg, University of: founded, 234 Wolfgang William, Count Palatine of Neuburg: in the Succession of Cleves dispute, 266 Wolfram of Eschenbach : sketch of, 178 Wolgast: taken by the Danes, 276 Worms : a member of the Union of Rhenish Cities, 174; battle of (1388), 197; taken by the French (1792), 356 Worms, Concordat of (1122), 141 Worms, Diets of: (1495), 226; (1521), 240 Worms, Edict of (1521), 241 Worth: battle of (1870), 421 INDEX 489 Wrangel, Count Karl Gustaf: in the Thirty Years' War, 292 Wrede, Prince Karl PhiHpp : at the bat- tle of Hanau, 385 Wulfila : see Ulfilas Wiirtemberg: peasant war in, 243; be- comes a member of the League, 250 Wurzburg: taken by Tilly (1631), 281 X, Y, Z York, Frederick Augustus, Duke of: his campaign in the Netherlands, 363; commands the Prussian contingent. 381 Zacharias, Pope: his relations with Pip- pin the Short, 76 Zeno, Emperor of the West: appoints Theodoric governor of Italy, 45 Zenta: battle of (1697), 304 Zieten, Hans Joachim von: campaigns of, 335, 337, 341 Ziska, John: sketch of, 206 Zollverein: see Tariff Union, The Zorndorf: battle of (1758), 338 Zug: a member of the Swiss republic, 196 Zurich : a member of the Swiss republic, 196; battle of (1799), 362 Zwentebold, King of Bohemia: his war with Ludwig the German, 96; his war with Arnulf, 97 Zwingli, Ulrich or Hudreich: sketch of, 246 P i:rjk^ity^ ^^i'^'ix^^'f - I <; .".T iTft ^J J - iiV5>, 'Uil-i>