[Sidenote: January 1546]
A final religious conference held at Ratisbon demonstrated more clearly than ever the hopelessness of conciliation. Whereas a semi-Lutheran doctrine of justification was adopted, the Protestants prepared two long memoirs rejecting the authority of the council recently convened at Trent. And then, in the summer, war broke out. At this moment the forces of the Schmalkaldic League were superior to those of its enemies. But for poor leadership and lack of unity in command they would probably have won.
Towards the last of August and early in September the Protestant troops bombarded the imperial army at Ingolstadt, but failed to follow this up by a decisive {128} attack, as was urged by General Schärtlin of Augsburg. Lack of equipment was partly responsible for this failure. When the emperor advanced, the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse retired each to his own land. Another futile attempt of the League was a raid on the Tyrol, possibly influenced by the desire to strike at the Council of Trent, certainly by no sound military policy. The effect of these indecisive counsels was that Charles had little trouble in reducing the South German rebels, Augsburg, Ulm, Nuremberg, and Württemberg. The Elector Palatine hastened to come to terms by temporarily abandoning his religion. [Sidenote: February, 1547] A counter-reformation was also effected in Cologne. Augsburg bought the emperor's pardon by material concessions.
[Sidenote: October 1546]
In the meantime Duke Maurice of Albertine Saxony, having made a bargain with the emperor, attacked his second cousin the Elector. Though Maurice was not obliged to abjure his faith, his act was naturally regarded as one of signal treachery and he was henceforth known by the nickname "Judas." Maurice conquered most of his cousin's lands, except the forts of Wittenberg and Gotha. Charles's Spanish army under Alva now turned northward, forced a passage of the Elbe and routed the troops of John Frederic at the battle of Mülberg, near Torgau, on April 24, 1547. John Frederic was captured wounded, and kept in durance several years. Wittenberg capitulated on May 19, and just a month later Philip of Hesse surrendered at Halle. He also was kept a prisoner for some years. Peace was made by the mediation of Brandenburg. The electoral vote of Saxony was given to Maurice, and with it the best part of John Frederic's lands, including Wittenberg. No change of religion was required. The net result of the war was to {129} increase the imperial power, but to put a very slight check upon the expansion of Protestantism.
And yet it was for precisely this end that Charles chiefly valued his authority. Immediately, acting independently of the pope, he made another effort to restore the confessional unity of Germany. The Diet of Augsburg [Sidenote: 1547-8] accepted under pressure from him a decree called the Interim because it was to be valid only until the final decisions of a general council. Though intended to apply only to Protestant states—the Catholics had, instead, a formula reformationis—the Interim [Sidenote: The Interim, June 30, 1548], drawn up by Romanist divines, was naturally Catholic in tenor. The episcopal constitution was restored, along with the canon of the mass, the doctrine of the seven sacraments, and the worship of saints. On some doctrinal points vagueness was studied. The only concessions made to the Reformation were the pro tempore recognition of the marriage of the clergy and the giving of the cup to the laity. Various other details of practical reform were demanded. The Interim was intensely unpopular with both parties. The pope objected to it and German Catholics, especially in Bavaria, strongly opposed it. The South German Protestant states accepted it only under pressure. Maurice of Saxony adopted it in a modified form, known as the Leipzig Interim, in December 1548. The assistance rendered him by Melanchthon caused a fierce attack on the theologian by his fellow-Lutherans. In enforcing the Interim Maurice found his own profit, for when Magdeburg won the nickname of "our Lord God's pulpit" by refusing to accept it, Maurice was entrusted with the execution of the imperial ban, and captured the city on November 9, 1551.
Germany now fell into a confused condition, every state for itself. The emperor found his own {130} difficulties in trying to make his son Philip successor to his Brother Ferdinand. His two former Protestant allies, Maurice and John von Küstrin, made an alliance with France and with other North German princes and forced the emperor to conclude the Convention of Passau. [Sidenote: 1552] This guaranteed afresh the religious freedom of the Lutherans until the next Diet and forced the liberation of John Frederic and Philip of Hesse. Charles did not loyally accept the conditions of this agreement, but induced Albert, Margrave of Brandenburg-Culmbach, to attack the confederate princes in the rear. After Albert had laid waste a portion of North Germany he was defeated by Maurice at the battle of Sievershausen. [Sidenote: July 9, 1553] Mortally wounded, the brilliant but utterly unscrupulous victor died, at the age of thirty-two, soon after the battle. As the conflict had by this time resolved itself into a duel between him and Charles, the emperor was now at last able to put through, at the Diet of Augsburg, a settlement of the religious question.
[Sidenote: Religious Peace of Augsburg, September 25, 1555]
The principles of the Religious Peace were as follows:
(1) A truce between states recognizing the Augsburg Confession and Catholic states until union was possible. All other confessions were to be barred—a provision aimed chiefly at Calvinists.