CHAPTER XXXIV.

GERMANY UNDER MARIA THERESA AND JOSEPH II.

(1740—1790.)

1750. MARIA THERESA.

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 no male ruler so prudent, 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 difference 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, and her ideas of justice were limited by her religious bigotry. In other respects she was wise and liberal: she effected a complete reorganization of the government, establishing special departments of justice, industry and commerce; she sought to develop the resources 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. Nevertheless, she was always jealous of the assumptions of Rome, and prevented, as far as she was able, the immediate dependence of the Catholic clergy upon the Pope.

1765.

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, in Silesia, at which the Polish question was discussed. The latter returned the visit, at Neustadt in Moravia, the following year, and the terms of the partition of Poland appear to have been then agreed upon between them. 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 Germany 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 Karl Theodore of the Palatinate. The latter was persuaded by Joseph II. to give up about half of Bavaria to Austria, and Austrian troops immediately took possession of the territory. This proceeding 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 Karl of Zweibrücken (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 II. persisted in his plans until both France and Russia intervened. The matter was finally settled in May, 1779, by giving Bavaria to the Elector Karl Theodore, and annexing a strip of territory along the river Inn, containing about 900 square miles and 139,000 inhabitants, to Austria.