A History of Germany from the Earliest Times to the Present Day

by Bayard Taylor

Ferdinand was elected, and properly crowned in the Cathedral at Frankfort, as Ferdinand II. The Bohemians, who were entitled to one of the seven chief voices 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" cowardly 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 former scattered in all directions; Frederick V. left Prague never to return, and Spanish, Italian and Hungarian troops overran Bohemia.

Ferdinand II. acted as might have been expected from his despotic and bigoted nature. The 8,000 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 historian says, "the quiet of a sepulchre settled over Bohemia." The Protestant faith was practically obliterated from all the Austrian realm, with the exception of a few scattered congregations in Hungary and Transylvania.

1621.

There is hardly anywhere, in the history of the world, such an instance of savage despotism. A large majority of the population of Austria, Bohemia and Styria were Protestants; they were rapidly growing in intelligence, in social order and material prosperity; but the will of one man was allowed to destroy the progress of a hundred years, to crush both the faith and freedom of the people, plunder them of their best earnings and make them ignorant slaves for 200 years longer. The property which was seized by Ferdinand II., 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 the most of his followers had fallen, without leaving his name to history. The Austrian peasants rivalled the Swiss of three centuries before in their bravery and self-sacrifice: had they been successful (as they might have been, with small help from their Protestant brethren), they would have changed the course of German history, and have become renowned among the heroes of the world.

The fate of Austria, from that day to this, was now sealed. Both parties—the Catholics, headed by Ferdinand II., 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 priests!" He afterwards gave himself that name, but the soldiers generally called him "Mad Christian."

1621. PRINCE CHRISTIAN OF BRUNSWICK.

Against these two, and George Frederick of Baden, who joined them, Ferdinand II. sent Maximilian of Bavaria, to whom he promised the Palatinate as a reward, and Tilly, a general already famous both for his military talent and his inhumanity. The latter, who had been educated by the Jesuits for a priest, was 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 Christian. 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 Alsatia, 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 1815, when a part of it came back to the University by way of Paris.

1623.

Frederick V., who had fled from the country, entered into negotiations 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 supported 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 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.