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The History of the Thirty Years\' War

F >> Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A. >> The History of the Thirty Years\' War



The History of the Thirty Years' War
by Friedrich Schiller, Translated by the Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.

[Johann Cristoph Friedrich von Schiller: German Writer -- 1759-1805.]





[This is Volume I. Hopefully the rest will follow.]





The History of the Thirty Years' War
by Frederick Schiller



Translated from the German by the Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.





Preface



The present is the only collected edition of the principal works of Schiller
which is accessible to English readers. Detached poems or dramas have been
translated at various times, and sometimes by men of eminence,
since the first publication of the original works;
and in several instances these versions have been incorporated,
after some revision or necessary correction, into the following collection;
but on the other hand a large proportion of the contents have been
specially translated for this edition, in which category are
the historical works which occupy this volume and a portion of the next.

Schiller was not less efficiently qualified by nature for an historian
than for a dramatist. He was formed to excel in all departments
of literature, and the admirable lucidity of style and soundness
and impartiality of judgment displayed in his historical writings
will not easily by surpassed, and will always recommend them
as popular expositions of the periods of which they treat.

Since the first publication of this edition many corrections and improvements
have been made, with a view to rendering it as acceptable as possible
to English readers.






Contents

History of the Thirty Years' War



Book I.

Introduction. -- General effects of the Reformation. -- Revolt of Matthias. --
The Emperor cedes Austria and Hungary to him. -- Matthias acknowledged
King of Bohemia. -- The Elector of Cologne abjures the Catholic Religion. --
Consequences. -- The Elector Palatine. -- Dispute respecting the Succession
of Juliers. -- Designs of Henry IV. of France. -- Formation of the Union. --
The League. -- Death of the Emperor Rodolph. -- Matthias succeeds him. --
Troubles in Bohemia. -- Civil War. -- Ferdinand extirpates
the Protestant Religion from Styria. -- The Elector Palatine, Frederick V.,
is chosen King by the Bohemians. -- He accepts the Crown of Bohemia. --
Bethlen Gabor, Prince of Transylvania, invades Austria. -- The Duke of Bavaria
and the Princes of the League embrace the cause of Ferdinand. -- The Union arm
for Frederick. -- The Battle of Prague and total subjection of Bohemia.


Book II.

State of the Empire. -- Of Europe. -- Mansfeld. -- Christian,
Duke of Brunswick. -- Wallenstein raises an Imperial Army at his own expense.
-- The King of Denmark defeated. -- Death of Mansfeld. -- Edict of Restitution
in 1628. -- Diet at Ratisbon. -- Negociations. -- Wallenstein deprived
of the Command. -- Gustavus Adolphus. -- Swedish Army. -- Gustavus Adolphus
takes his leave of the States at Stockholm. -- Invasion by the Swedes. --
Their progress in Germany. -- Count Tilly takes the Command
of the Imperial Troops. -- Treaty with France. -- Congress at Leipzig. --
Siege and cruel fate of Magdeburg. -- Firmness of the Landgrave of Cassel. --
Junction of the Saxons with the Swedes. -- Battle of Leipzig. --
Consequences of that Victory.


Book III.

Situation of Gustavus Adolphus after the Battle of Leipzig. --
Progress of Gustavus Adolphus. -- The French invade Lorraine. --
Frankfort taken. -- Capitulation of Mentz. -- Tilly ordered by Maximilian
to protect Bavaria. -- Gustavus Adolphus passes the Lech. --
Defeat and Death of Tilly. -- Gustavus takes Munich. -- The Saxon Army
invades Bohemia, and takes Prague. -- Distress of the Emperor. --
Secret Triumph of Wallenstein. -- He offers to Join Gustavus Adolphus. --
Wallenstein re-assumes the Command. -- Junction of Wallenstein
with the Bavarians. -- Gustavus Adolphus defends Nuremberg. --
Attacks Wallenstein's Intrenchments. -- Enters Saxony. --
Goes to the succour of the Elector of Saxony. -- Marches against Wallenstein.
-- Battle of Lutzen. -- Death of Gustavus Adolphus. -- Situation of Germany
after the Battle of Lutzen.


Book IV.

Closer Alliance between France and Sweden. -- Oxenstiern takes
the Direction of Affairs. -- Death of the Elector Palatine. --
Revolt of the Swedish Officers. -- Duke Bernhard takes Ratisbon. --
Wallenstein enters Silesia. -- Forms Treasonable Designs. --
Forsaken by the Army. -- Retires to Egra. -- His associates put to death. --
Wallenstein's death. -- His Character.


Book V.

Battle of Nordlingen. -- France enters into an Alliance against Austria. --
Treaty of Prague. -- Saxony joins the Emperor. -- Battle of Wistock gained
by the Swedes. -- Battle of Rheinfeld gained by Bernhard, Duke of Weimar. --
He takes Brisach. -- His death. -- Death of Ferdinand II. --
Ferdinand III. succeeds him. -- Celebrated Retreat of Banner in Pomerania. --
His Successes. -- Death. -- Torstensohn takes the Command. --
Death of Richelieu and Louis XIII. -- Swedish Victory at Jankowitz. --
French defeated at Freyburg. -- Battle of Nordlingen gained by Turenne
and Conde. -- Wrangel takes the Command of the Swedish Army. --
Melander made Commander of the Emperor's Army. -- The Elector of Bavaria
breaks the Armistice. -- He adopts the same Policy towards the Emperor
as France towards the Swedes. -- The Weimerian Cavalry go over to the Swedes.
-- Conquest of New Prague by Koenigsmark, and Termination of
the Thirty Years' War.






History of the Thirty Years' War in Germany.






Book I.




From the beginning of the religious wars in Germany, to the peace of Munster,
scarcely any thing great or remarkable occurred in the political world
of Europe in which the Reformation had not an important share.
All the events of this period, if they did not originate in,
soon became mixed up with, the question of religion,
and no state was either too great or too little to feel directly
or indirectly more or less of its influence.

Against the reformed doctrine and its adherents, the House of Austria
directed, almost exclusively, the whole of its immense political power.
In France, the Reformation had enkindled a civil war which,
under four stormy reigns, shook the kingdom to its foundations,
brought foreign armies into the heart of the country,
and for half a century rendered it the scene of the most mournful disorders.
It was the Reformation, too, that rendered the Spanish yoke intolerable
to the Flemings, and awakened in them both the desire and the courage
to throw off its fetters, while it also principally furnished them
with the means of their emancipation. And as to England, all the evils
with which Philip the Second threatened Elizabeth, were mainly intended
in revenge for her having taken his Protestant subjects under her protection,
and placing herself at the head of a religious party which it was his aim
and endeavour to extirpate. In Germany, the schisms in the church
produced also a lasting political schism, which made that country
for more than a century the theatre of confusion, but at the same time
threw up a firm barrier against political oppression. It was, too,
the Reformation principally that first drew the northern powers,
Denmark and Sweden, into the political system of Europe; and while on
the one hand the Protestant League was strengthened by their adhesion,
it on the other was indispensable to their interests. States which hitherto
scarcely concerned themselves with one another's existence,
acquired through the Reformation an attractive centre of interest,
and began to be united by new political sympathies. And as through
its influence new relations sprang up between citizen and citizen,
and between rulers and subjects, so also entire states were forced by it
into new relative positions. Thus, by a strange course of events,
religious disputes were the means of cementing a closer union
among the nations of Europe.

Fearful indeed, and destructive, was the first movement in which this
general political sympathy announced itself; a desolating war of thirty years,
which, from the interior of Bohemia to the mouth of the Scheldt,
and from the banks of the Po to the coasts of the Baltic,
devastated whole countries, destroyed harvests, and reduced towns and villages
to ashes; which opened a grave for many thousand combatants,
and for half a century smothered the glimmering sparks of civilization
in Germany, and threw back the improving manners of the country
into their pristine barbarity and wildness. Yet out of this fearful war
Europe came forth free and independent. In it she first learned
to recognize herself as a community of nations; and this intercommunion
of states, which originated in the thirty years' war, may alone be sufficient
to reconcile the philosopher to its horrors. The hand of industry
has slowly but gradually effaced the traces of its ravages,
while its beneficent influence still survives; and this general sympathy
among the states of Europe, which grew out of the troubles in Bohemia,
is our guarantee for the continuance of that peace which was the result
of the war. As the sparks of destruction found their way
from the interior of Bohemia, Moravia, and Austria, to kindle Germany,
France, and the half of Europe, so also will the torch of civilization
make a path for itself from the latter to enlighten the former countries.

All this was effected by religion. Religion alone could have
rendered possible all that was accomplished, but it was far from being
the SOLE motive of the war. Had not private advantages and state interests
been closely connected with it, vain and powerless would have been
the arguments of theologians; and the cry of the people would never have met
with princes so willing to espouse their cause, nor the new doctrines
have found such numerous, brave, and persevering champions. The Reformation
is undoubtedly owing in a great measure to the invincible power of truth,
or of opinions which were held as such. The abuses in the old church,
the absurdity of many of its dogmas, the extravagance of its requisitions,
necessarily revolted the tempers of men, already half-won with the promise
of a better light, and favourably disposed them towards the new doctrines.
The charm of independence, the rich plunder of monastic institutions,
made the Reformation attractive in the eyes of princes,
and tended not a little to strengthen their inward convictions. Nothing,
however, but political considerations could have driven them to espouse it.
Had not Charles the Fifth, in the intoxication of success,
made an attempt on the independence of the German States, a Protestant league
would scarcely have rushed to arms in defence of freedom of belief;
but for the ambition of the Guises, the Calvinists in France
would never have beheld a Conde or a Coligny at their head.
Without the exaction of the tenth and the twentieth penny, the See of Rome
had never lost the United Netherlands. Princes fought in self-defence
or for aggrandizement, while religious enthusiasm recruited their armies,
and opened to them the treasures of their subjects. Of the multitude
who flocked to their standards, such as were not lured by the hope of plunder
imagined they were fighting for the truth, while in fact
they were shedding their blood for the personal objects of their princes.

And well was it for the people that, on this occasion, their interests
coincided with those of their princes. To this coincidence alone
were they indebted for their deliverance from popery. Well was it also
for the rulers, that the subject contended too for his own cause,
while he was fighting their battles. Fortunately at this date
no European sovereign was so absolute as to be able, in the pursuit
of his political designs, to dispense with the goodwill of his subjects.
Yet how difficult was it to gain and to set to work this goodwill!
The most impressive arguments drawn from reasons of state
fall powerless on the ear of the subject, who seldom understands,
and still more rarely is interested in them. In such circumstances,
the only course open to a prudent prince is to connect the interests
of the cabinet with some one that sits nearer to the people's heart,
if such exists, or if not, to create it.

In such a position stood the greater part of those princes who embraced
the cause of the Reformation. By a strange concatenation of events,
the divisions of the Church were associated with two circumstances,
without which, in all probability, they would have had
a very different conclusion. These were, the increasing power
of the House of Austria, which threatened the liberties of Europe,
and its active zeal for the old religion. The first aroused the princes,
while the second armed the people.

The abolition of a foreign jurisdiction within their own territories,
the supremacy in ecclesiastical matters, the stopping of the treasure
which had so long flowed to Rome, the rich plunder of religious foundations,
were tempting advantages to every sovereign. Why, then, it may be asked,
did they not operate with equal force upon the princes of the House
of Austria? What prevented this house, particularly in its German branch,
from yielding to the pressing demands of so many of its subjects, and,
after the example of other princes, enriching itself at the expense
of a defenceless clergy? It is difficult to credit that a belief
in the infallibility of the Romish Church had any greater influence
on the pious adherence of this house, than the opposite conviction had
on the revolt of the Protestant princes. In fact, several circumstances
combined to make the Austrian princes zealous supporters of popery.
Spain and Italy, from which Austria derived its principal strength,
were still devoted to the See of Rome with that blind obedience which,
ever since the days of the Gothic dynasty, had been
the peculiar characteristic of the Spaniard. The slightest approximation,
in a Spanish prince, to the obnoxious tenets of Luther and Calvin,
would have alienated for ever the affections of his subjects,
and a defection from the Pope would have cost him the kingdom.
A Spanish prince had no alternative but orthodoxy or abdication.
The same restraint was imposed upon Austria by her Italian dominions,
which she was obliged to treat, if possible, with even greater indulgence;
impatient as they naturally were of a foreign yoke, and possessing also
ready means of shaking it off. In regard to the latter provinces, moreover,
the rival pretensions of France, and the neighbourhood of the Pope,
were motives sufficient to prevent the Emperor from declaring in favour
of a party which strove to annihilate the papal see, and also to induce him
to show the most active zeal in behalf of the old religion.
These general considerations, which must have been equally weighty
with every Spanish monarch, were, in the particular case of Charles V.,
still further enforced by peculiar and personal motives.
In Italy this monarch had a formidable rival in the King of France,
under whose protection that country might throw itself the instant
that Charles should incur the slightest suspicion of heresy.
Distrust on the part of the Roman Catholics, and a rupture with the church,
would have been fatal also to many of his most cherished designs.
Moreover, when Charles was first called upon to make his election
between the two parties, the new doctrine had not yet attained
to a full and commanding influence, and there still subsisted a prospect
of its reconciliation with the old. In his son and successor,
Philip the Second, a monastic education combined with
a gloomy and despotic disposition to generate an unmitigated hostility
to all innovations in religion; a feeling which the thought that
his most formidable political opponents were also the enemies of his faith
was not calculated to weaken. As his European possessions,
scattered as they were over so many countries, were on all sides exposed
to the seductions of foreign opinions, the progress of the Reformation
in other quarters could not well be a matter of indifference to him.
His immediate interests, therefore, urged him to attach himself devotedly to
the old church, in order to close up the sources of the heretical contagion.
Thus, circumstances naturally placed this prince at the head of the league
which the Roman Catholics formed against the Reformers.
The principles which had actuated the long and active reigns
of Charles V. and Philip the Second, remained a law for their successors;
and the more the breach in the church widened, the firmer became
the attachment of the Spaniards to Roman Catholicism.

The German line of the House of Austria was apparently more unfettered;
but, in reality, though free from many of these restraints,
it was yet confined by others. The possession of the imperial throne --
a dignity it was impossible for a Protestant to hold,
(for with what consistency could an apostate from the Romish Church
wear the crown of a Roman emperor?) bound the successors of Ferdinand I.
to the See of Rome. Ferdinand himself was, from conscientious motives,
heartily attached to it. Besides, the German princes of the House of Austria
were not powerful enough to dispense with the support of Spain, which,
however, they would have forfeited by the least show of leaning towards
the new doctrines. The imperial dignity, also, required them to preserve
the existing political system of Germany, with which the maintenance
of their own authority was closely bound up, but which it was the aim
of the Protestant League to destroy. If to these grounds we add
the indifference of the Protestants to the Emperor's necessities
and to the common dangers of the empire, their encroachments on
the temporalities of the church, and their aggressive violence
when they became conscious of their own power, we can easily conceive
how so many concurring motives must have determined the emperors
to the side of popery, and how their own interests came to be
intimately interwoven with those of the Roman Church. As its fate seemed
to depend altogether on the part taken by Austria, the princes of this house
came to be regarded by all Europe as the pillars of popery. The hatred,
therefore, which the Protestants bore against the latter,
was turned exclusively upon Austria; and the cause became gradually confounded
with its protector.

But this irreconcileable enemy of the Reformation -- the House of Austria --
by its ambitious projects and the overwhelming force which it could bring
to their support, endangered, in no small degree, the freedom of Europe,
and more especially of the German States. This circumstance could not fail
to rouse the latter from their security, and to render them vigilant
in self-defence. Their ordinary resources were quite insufficient
to resist so formidable a power. Extraordinary exertions were required
from their subjects; and when even these proved far from adequate,
they had recourse to foreign assistance; and, by means of a common league,
they endeavoured to oppose a power which, singly, they were unable
to withstand.

But the strong political inducements which the German princes had
to resist the pretensions of the House of Austria, naturally did not extend
to their subjects. It is only immediate advantages or immediate evils
that set the people in action, and for these a sound policy cannot wait.
Ill then would it have fared with these princes, if by good fortune
another effectual motive had not offered itself, which roused the passions
of the people, and kindled in them an enthusiasm which might be directed
against the political danger, as having with it a common cause of alarm.

This motive was their avowed hatred of the religion which Austria protected,
and their enthusiastic attachment to a doctrine which that House
was endeavouring to extirpate by fire and sword. Their attachment was ardent,
their hatred invincible. Religious fanaticism anticipates
even the remotest dangers. Enthusiasm never calculates its sacrifices.
What the most pressing danger of the state could not gain from the citizens,
was effected by religious zeal. For the state, or for the prince,
few would have drawn the sword; but for religion, the merchant, the artist,
the peasant, all cheerfully flew to arms. For the state, or for the prince,
even the smallest additional impost would have been avoided; but for religion
the people readily staked at once life, fortune, and all earthly hopes.
It trebled the contributions which flowed into the exchequer of the princes,
and the armies which marched to the field; and, in the ardent excitement
produced in all minds by the peril to which their faith was exposed,
the subject felt not the pressure of those burdens and privations under which,
in cooler moments, he would have sunk exhausted. The terrors of
the Spanish Inquisition, and the massacre of St. Bartholomew's, procured for
the Prince of Orange, the Admiral Coligny, the British Queen Elizabeth,
and the Protestant princes of Germany, supplies of men and money
from their subjects, to a degree which at present is inconceivable.

But, with all their exertions, they would have effected little against a power
which was an overmatch for any single adversary, however powerful.
At this period of imperfect policy, accidental circumstances alone
could determine distant states to afford one another a mutual support.
The differences of government, of laws, of language, of manners,
and of character, which hitherto had kept whole nations and countries
as it were insulated, and raised a lasting barrier between them,
rendered one state insensible to the distresses of another,
save where national jealousy could indulge a malicious joy at the reverses
of a rival. This barrier the Reformation destroyed. An interest
more intense and more immediate than national aggrandizement or patriotism,
and entirely independent of private utility, began to animate
whole states and individual citizens; an interest capable of uniting
numerous and distant nations, even while it frequently lost its force
among the subjects of the same government. With the inhabitants of Geneva,
for instance, of England, of Germany, or of Holland, the French Calvinist
possessed a common point of union which he had not with his own countrymen.
Thus, in one important particular, he ceased to be the citizen
of a single state, and to confine his views and sympathies
to his own country alone. The sphere of his views became enlarged.
He began to calculate his own fate from that of other nations of the same
religious profession, and to make their cause his own. Now for the first time
did princes venture to bring the affairs of other countries
before their own councils; for the first time could they hope
for a willing ear to their own necessities, and prompt assistance from others.
Foreign affairs had now become a matter of domestic policy,
and that aid was readily granted to the religious confederate which would have
been denied to the mere neighbour, and still more to the distant stranger.
The inhabitant of the Palatinate leaves his native fields to fight
side by side with his religious associate of France, against the common enemy
of their faith. The Huguenot draws his sword against the country which
persecutes him, and sheds his blood in defence of the liberties of Holland.
Swiss is arrayed against Swiss; German against German, to determine,
on the banks of the Loire and the Seine, the succession of the French crown.
The Dane crosses the Eider, and the Swede the Baltic, to break the chains
which are forged for Germany.

It is difficult to say what would have been the fate of the Reformation,
and the liberties of the Empire, had not the formidable power of Austria
declared against them. This, however, appears certain,
that nothing so completely damped the Austrian hopes of universal monarchy,
as the obstinate war which they had to wage against
the new religious opinions. Under no other circumstances could
the weaker princes have roused their subjects to such extraordinary exertions
against the ambition of Austria, or the States themselves
have united so closely against the common enemy.

The power of Austria never stood higher than after the victory
which Charles V. gained over the Germans at Muehlberg.
With the treaty of Smalcalde the freedom of Germany lay, as it seemed,
prostrate for ever; but it revived under Maurice of Saxony,
once its most formidable enemy. All the fruits of the victory of Muehlberg
were lost again in the congress of Passau, and the diet of Augsburg;
and every scheme for civil and religious oppression terminated in
the concessions of an equitable peace.

The diet of Augsburg divided Germany into two religious
and two political parties, by recognizing the independent rights and existence
of both. Hitherto the Protestants had been looked on as rebels;
they were henceforth to be regarded as brethren -- not indeed
through affection, but necessity. By the Interim*, the Confession of Augsburg
was allowed temporarily to take a sisterly place alongside of
the olden religion, though only as a tolerated neighbour.
To every secular state was conceded the right of establishing the religion
it acknowledged as supreme and exclusive within its own territories,
and of forbidding the open profession of its rival. Subjects were to be free
to quit a country where their own religion was not tolerated.
The doctrines of Luther for the first time received a positive sanction;
and if they were trampled under foot in Bavaria and Austria,
they predominated in Saxony and Thuringia. But the sovereigns alone were
to determine what form of religion should prevail within their territories;
the feelings of subjects who had no representatives in the diet were
little attended to in the pacification. In the ecclesiastical territories,
indeed, where the unreformed religion enjoyed an undisputed supremacy,
the free exercise of their religion was obtained for all who had previously
embraced the Protestant doctrines; but this indulgence rested only
on the personal guarantee of Ferdinand, King of the Romans,
by whose endeavours chiefly this peace was effected; a guarantee, which,
being rejected by the Roman Catholic members of the Diet,
and only inserted in the treaty under their protest,
could not of course have the force of law.

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