GERMANY 



3502 



GERMANY 



so was in practice a state within a 

 state imperium in imperio. 



The long reign of Frederick III 

 came to an end with the close of 

 the Middle Ages. The central 

 authority was feebler than ever, 

 while the Hohenzollems in Bran- 

 denburg, the Wittelbachs in the 

 Palatinate and in Bavaria, and 

 other rulers were making their 

 states much larger and stronger. 



The Renaissance and Reformation 

 The Renaissance and the Refor- 

 mation, the movements that mark 

 the end of the Middle Ages, had 

 profound results in Germany. 

 Maximilian, who became king in 

 1493, was a prince of the Renais- 

 sance type. Of his many activities, 

 one was an attempt to improve 

 the government of Germany as 

 a whole. He divided the land into 

 circles, each responsible for the 

 maintenance of order within its 

 own area, and this arrangement 

 lasted, but in the larger sense his 

 plans ended in failure, the vested 

 interests being too strong for him. 



Maxmilian's failure compelled 

 his successors to rely more, when 

 force was needed, upon Austria, 

 where their rule was effective, 

 rather than upon the princes of 

 Germany, who had axes of their own 

 to grind, when troubles with foreign 

 nations, especially France, arose. 

 To make this "separatist spirit 

 more pronounced came the Refor- 

 mation, with the cleavage of 

 opinion that made Germany the 

 most divided of all European 

 states. Charles V was the most 

 powerful ruler that Germany had 

 seen since Charlemagne, but that 

 was because he ruled over Spain 

 and Spanish America, and was in 

 close alliance with his brother 

 Ferdinand, who owed to him the 

 archduchy of Austria. The support 

 which the princes gave him, both in 

 his wars with France and in his 

 efforts to settle the religious diffi- 

 culties, was fitful indeed. The 

 treachery of one of them, Maurice 

 of Saxony, was sufficient to make 

 this powerful potentate a prisoner. 



The formation of a definite 

 party, the Protestants, among 

 princes and people, was followed 

 by an outbreak of the peasantry, 

 not in the main a religious move- 

 ment. Many attempts were made 

 to end the general unrest that 

 continued after the peasants had 

 been crushed, and a certain amount 

 of success attended the religious 

 peace of Augsburg, 1555. This 

 adopted the principle that the 

 religion of the prince must be the 

 religion of the land. Numerically, 

 towards the end of the 17th century, 

 the Protestants were superior to 

 the Roman Catholics. Not only 

 were the former dominant in most 



of the north, but they had a strong 

 following in the rich cities of the 

 south-west. Its two sections, how- 

 ever, were as bitterly opposed to 

 each other as they were to the 

 Roman Catholics. The Calvinists 

 had no share in the benefits of the 

 peace of Augsburg. 



The Thirty Years' War was the 

 inevitable outcome of the religious 

 troubles. Charles V, and after him 

 his brother Ferdinand and the 

 latter's son Maxmilian II, had 

 made efforts to compose the 

 religious and allied differences, but 

 after a time the rulers began to dis- 

 play a less conciliatory spirit 

 towards the Protestants. The 

 counter - reformation began its 

 work, and the Roman Church won 

 back much that it had lost. 



But something must be put 

 down to a more material cause. 

 One of the questions of the day 

 concerned the ownership of the 

 extensive lands that had belonged 

 to the Church. Many of them had 

 been seized by the Protestants, 

 and about their possession strife 

 was continuous, for the Roman 

 Catholics demanded restoration. 

 At length the year 1552 was 

 selected as the dividing line ; all 

 that was then in Protestant hands 

 was to remain so, all seized after 

 then was to be returned. 

 Edict of Restitution 



Just after the Thirty Years' War 

 began Ferdinand II became 

 emperor. This selection was the 

 result of a family conclave. Young 

 and vigorous, he was a contrast to 

 his predecessors, Rudolph II and 

 Matthias, while his training had 

 made him anxious to crush rather 

 than conciliate the Protestants. 

 In 1629, flushed with victory, 

 which, however, was only tem- 

 porary, he issued the edict of 

 restitution. This was intended to 

 recover for the Church lands which 

 she had lost through their rulers 

 becoming Protestants, for a num- 

 ber of prelates had adopted the 

 newer faith and, retaining every- 

 thing, had simply been trans- 

 formed from ecclesiastical into 

 secular rulers. 



The war lasted until 1648, by 

 which time Germany had become 

 a battlefield for nearly all the 

 nations of Europe. It had been 

 stripped bare by foreign soldiers ; 

 many towns. had been plundered, 

 and numberless villages had been 

 destroyed ; the population had been 

 reduced probably by one half. 



Between the peace of Westphalia 

 of 1648 and the Napoleonic up- 

 heaval Germany was less of a 

 united state than ever. The treaty 

 granted toleration to the Calvinists 

 equally with Roman Catholics and 

 Lutherans, and so made peace on 



this matter possible. But in 

 another direction its results were 

 less beneficial. The princes were 

 free from now to form alliances 

 with foreign powers, their states, 

 especially the larger ones, thus 

 becoming to all intents and pur- 

 poses independent. The history 

 of Germany becomes more than 

 ever that of its parts. 



The Wars with France 



Internally, the cardinal fact of 

 German history during the 17th 

 and 18th centuries was the rise of 

 Prussia ; externally it was the 

 series of wars against France. The 

 latter began with the reign of Louis 

 XIV, whose policy of enlarging 

 France was made easier by the 

 existence of Germany as a loose 

 confederation of states. He per- 

 suaded or bribed some, of the 

 princes to fight for him, the visible 

 results of his earlier wars being the 

 acquisition of Alsace and Lorraine. 

 The emperor did what he could 

 in their defence, but he had two 

 frontiers to protect, while the only 

 force he could get came from his 

 own Austria and from such princes 

 as chose to help him. 



This was even truer of the wars 

 that opened with the accession of 

 William III to the English throne 

 in 1688 and ended with the treaty 

 of Utrecht in 1 71 4. France secured 

 help from Bavaria, while the re- 

 sistance to her policy came mainly 

 from Austria and Britain. 



The dominant figure in 18th cen- 

 tury Germany is Frederick the 

 Great. Steadily Prussia had 

 emerged from the mark state of 

 Brandenburg to one of the powers 

 of Europe. In 1648, or soon after- 

 wards, all Pomerania had been 

 added, there were other acquisitions, 

 and a century later Silesia was 

 seized. Germany was divided into 

 two armed camps, one supporting 

 Prussia and the other Austria, and 

 the contest between the two, 

 ended temporarily in 1748, was 

 fought out again in the Seven 

 Years' War. Later there was some 

 trouble about the succession to 

 Bavaria, where the ruling family 

 became extinct in 1777. This, 

 however, passed to another branch 

 of the Wittelsbach family, thus 

 uniting the Palatinate withBavaria. 

 The Revolutionary Wars 



In 1789 the French Revolution 

 began, and soon Austria, Prussia, 

 and most of the other German 

 states were drawn into the war 

 against France. In the same period 

 the two chief German countries 

 were with Russia making an end, 

 in their own interests, of Poland. 

 In 1795 Prussia was compelled to 

 give up her possessions on the left 

 bank of the Rhine to Fiance, and 

 to withdraw from the war, but it 



