224 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOR, 



Bohemia, when the emperor died (1619), and to the distress 

 of the whole Protestant party, Ferdinand was chosen to succeed 

 him. The Bohemians elected Count Frederick, Elector Palatine 

 of the Rhine, to be their king, as he was also head of the 

 " Evangelical Union," and in an evil hour for him he accepted 

 the dignity. The Thirty Years' War now began in earnest. 



Frederick's dominions were quickly invaded by a host of 

 Imperialists, whom he was quite unable to withstand ; and, un- 

 assisted by those from whom he had every natural right to 

 expect help, the unfortunate elector had to put up not only with 

 the loss of Bohemia, but of the Rhenish palatinate also, a pro- 

 vince which was his by hereditary descent. 



Shocked, but not stunned, by this blow, the Protestants of 

 Germany saw that they must at once make a stand, or be for 

 ever kept under the yoke. A new union was formed, and King 

 Christian of Denmark was placed at the head of it. Under 

 him were the Dukes of Mecklenburg, Count Mansfeldt, an able 

 commander though an adventurer, the Marquis of Brandenburg, 

 and some of the lesser princes on the western side of the 

 empire. War burst forth instantly. The Danish king was all 

 unready to embark in such a war, and those who relied upon 

 him for leadership and for material help as well, were unable 

 to bring much to the advancement of the cause, except them- 

 selves, their swords, and enormous appetites. On the Imperial 

 side were wealth, the best soldiers in Europe, leaders of 

 consummate ability, and with a belief in the righteousnesa 

 of their cause, which was worth half an army to them. 

 Counts Tilly and Wallenstein the latter was in the course 

 of this campaign made Duke of Friedland commanded for 

 the emperor, and against their skill and the discipline of the 

 troops all Mansfeldt' s bravery was in vain. The Protestant 

 provinces were overrun, fire and sword laid waste the whole 

 of that part of the empire, King Christian was beaten again 

 and again, and finally made peace with the emperor on condi- 

 tion of renouncing for ever all right to interfere in the affairs of 

 Germany, and of leaving his allies in the war to their fate. The 

 Dukes of Mecklenburg were dispossessed, Wallenstein obtained 

 a grant of the duchies for himself, and the Protestant cause in 

 1629 looked blank indeed. 



Help came from a very unexpected quarter. Louis XIII. of 

 Franco came to the throne a minor, and Cardinal Richelieu was 

 appointed to govern in his name. The cardinal had two grand 

 ideas of State policy : one was to humble the nobility of France 

 to a minimum of power, so that the king might be all in all in 

 his kingdom ; the other was not to allow any foreign State to 

 become so powerful as to make it impossible or even dangerous 

 for France to cope with it. With his home policy, which he 

 carried out bloodily and mercilessly, we have not now any con- 

 cern, but his foreign policy led him to see, in what was going 

 on in Germany, the certainty of Austria becoming, if not 

 checked, an overmatch for any other European nation what- 

 ever. The cardinal disliked heretics, not so much as such, but 

 because they were necessarily troublesome people to the Govern- 

 ment. In France, he crushed the Huguenots with a relentless 

 hand, but he did not object to Huguenots in other people's do- 

 minions, especially if, as in the present case, they helped on his 

 policy. If he hated Protestants at all, he hated the Imperial 

 power still more, and he did not scruple to employ and to support 

 the former when they promised to come in conflict with the 

 latter. 



A decree of the Emperor Ferdinand published in 1630, and 

 requiring the Protestants to give up all church property of any 

 kind in their use or possession, was entrusted to Wallenstein to 

 carry out, and that despot did his work so cruelly and shame- 

 fully, that even the Roman Catholics cried out. The deadly rage 

 of the Protestants was once more excited, and, fed by the agents 

 of Richelieu, looked for the " still strong man " with " heart, 

 head, hand," who should concentrate their anger, and then dis- 

 charge it like a shell upon the Imperialists. 



Such a man was Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, the 

 most important, both for position and resources, among all the 

 Protestant princes of Europe. When asked to take the place 

 to which Christian of Denmark had shown himself unequal, and 

 from which many a bold man might have shrunk, he hesitated ; 

 but having accepted the post, he knew no shirking or shrinking 

 from the work. He devoted himself and all his resources to 

 the undertaking, and having captured the important island of 

 Bugen, lauded in Pomerania, June 24th, 1630. 



Jealousy kept asunder those who should have hurried to meet 

 him. The Saxon princes even refused him permission to march 

 his army through their territories a foolish, even criminal act, 

 which caused the strong city of Magdeburg to fall into the 

 hands of Count Tilly, who knew not the meaning of the word 

 mercy, but caused 30,000 of the inhabitants to perish mise- 

 rably, and the entire city, excepting the cathedral, to be 

 razed to the ground. This awful cruelty of the Imperialists 

 taught German Protestants what they had to expect, and the 

 immediate result was to bind the wavering Protestant princes 

 *in a firm bond with Gustavus. The rulers of Pomerania, Bran- 

 denburg (now the kingdom of Prussia), Hesse, and after some 

 delay, Saxony, united to support the King of Sweden, who 

 brought men and ability to fight their battles. At Wittenberg 

 they joined their armies with his, and at Leipsic, on the 7th of 

 September, 1631, battle was joined with the Imperial army under 

 Count Tilly, who was defeated with tremendous loss. The 

 ghosts of Magdeburg sat heavily on his sword, and diverted his 

 talents from their usual successful channel. His valour and 

 his counsel were alike set at nought, and at length, in the early 

 part of 1632, when trying to stop the progress of the victorious 

 Swedes into Bavaria, he was killed by a cannon-shot, from 

 which all the relics he carried about with him, all the saints to 

 whom he paid his homage, could not save him. The Protestant 

 allies occupied the whole country between the Elbe and the 

 Rhine, and after Tilly's death, overran Bavaria. 



Wallenstein, whose boundless ambition, enormous wealth, and 

 intolerable insolence had fixed a great gulf between him and 

 the emperor, was the only man who could save the empire. An 

 appeal was made to him, and he took command of the Imperial 

 armies, unshackled by a single condition. At Nuremberg, 

 where he was entrenched, he had the satisfaction of beating off 

 the army of Gustavus, who, burning under the desire to wipe off 

 the disgrace of even partial defeat, attacked him at Lutzen, on 

 the 16th November, 1632. The battle was one of the most 

 bloody on record. For nine hours it was fought with obstinate 

 fury on both sides, Gustavus Adolphus fell mortally wounded 

 in the middle of it, and the Swedes fought for revenge as well 

 as for victory. Prince Bernhard of Saxe Weimar took the 

 command after the king's death, and the result was that the 

 Imperialists were totally routed, while the field was literally 

 covered with their slain. 



Happily, there remained, in spite of the grievous loss sustained 

 in the death of Gustavus, good men and true among the Swedes, 

 who resolved to carry out the policy of their beloved king. Chan- 

 cellor Oxenstiern, Gustavus' friend and counsellor, was chosen 

 to manage the war, and he gathered up in his strong hand the 

 reins which threatened to float loosely and disordered. He 

 linked the German Protestants in a new union, gave Prince 

 Bernhard, and Gustavus' trusted generals, Banier, Horn, and 

 Torstensohn, the chief commands of the armies, and with 

 Richelieu's help prosecuted the war vigorously. At the end of 

 1634 another event conspired to help him. The Emperor Fer- 

 dinand, jealous of his mighty subject, the Duke of Friedland, 

 and suspicious of his intentions to snatch the crown for him- 

 self, procured his assassination, and the loss of Gustavus was 

 more than counterbalanced. But the King of Hungary, son to 

 the emperor, took Wallenstein's place, and at Nordlingen de- 

 feated the confederates with so severe a loss, that all but the 

 French and Swedes and the Landgraf of Hesse were fain to 

 make peace with the emperor. This was done by the Treaty 

 of Prague, in 1635. 



During the whole of Richelieu's life the war went on, bring- 

 ing out generals like the Great Conde, Turenne, and Torsten- 

 sohn, and winning, on the whole, fresh laurels for the French 

 and Swedish arms ; and when Richelieu and his master died in 

 1643, it was found that Cardinal Mazarin, who governed for the 

 inor Louis XIV., was prepared to carry out their plan for 

 humbling the House of Austria. 



Under the conduct of Conde and Turenne, and the Swedish 

 generals, the Thirty Years' War continued to ruin and deso- 

 late the face of Germany, till in 1648, the Emperor Ferdinand 

 III., weary of continuous defeat, exhausted as to his resources, 

 and unable to cope with the powers against him, sued for peace, 

 and the Peace of Westphalia, which secured civil and religions 

 liberty to the Protestant subjects of the empire, was signed 

 at Munster, and brought the long succession of years of war te 

 u close. 



