§ 5. Death of Ferdinand II.
Amidst these scenes of failure and misfortune the man whose policy had been mainly responsible for the miseries of his country closed his eyes for ever. On February 15, 1637, Ferdinand II. died at Vienna. Shortly before his death the King of Hungary had been elected King of the Romans, and he now, by his father's death, became the Emperor Ferdinand III.
§ 6. Ferdinand III.
The new Emperor had no vices. He did not even care, as his father did, for hunting and music. When the battle of Nördlingen was won under his command he was praying in his tent whilst his soldiers were fighting. He sometimes took upon himself to give military orders, but the handwriting in which they were conveyed was such an abominable scrawl that they only served to enable his generals to excuse their defeats by the impossibility of reading their instructions. His great passion was for keeping strict accounts. Even the Jesuits, it is said, found out that, devoted as he was to his religion, he had a sharp eye for his expenditure. One day they complained that some tolls bequeathed to them by his father had not been made over to them, and represented the value of the legacy as a mere trifle of 500 florins a year. The Emperor at once gave them an order upon the treasury for the yearly payment of the sum named, and took possession of the tolls for the maintenance of the fortifications of Vienna. The income thus obtained is said to have been no less than 12,000 florins a year.
§ 7. Campaign of 1637.
Such a man was not likely to rescue the Empire from its miseries. The first year of his reign, however, was marked by a gleam of good fortune. Baner lost all that he had gained at Wittstock, and was driven back to the shores of the Baltic. On the western frontier the imperialists were equally successful. Würtemberg accepted the Peace of Prague, and submitted to the Emperor. A more general peace was talked of. But till Alsace was secured to one side or the other no peace was possible.
[Section III.]—The Struggle for Alsace.
§ 1. The capture of Breisach.
The year 1638 was to decide the question. Bernhard was looking to the Austrian lands in Alsace and the Breisgau as a compensation for his lost duchy of Franconia. In February he was besieging Rheinfelden. Driven off by the imperialists on the 26th, he re-appeared unexpectedly on March 3, taking the enemy by surprise. They had not even sufficient powder with them to load their guns, and the victory of Rheinfelden was the result. On the 24th Rheinfelden itself surrendered. Freiburg followed its example on April 22, and Bernhard proceeded to undertake the siege of Breisach, the great fortress which domineered over the whole valley of the Upper Rhine. Small as his force was, he succeeded, by a series of rapid movements, in beating off every attempt to introduce supplies, and on December 19 he entered the place in triumph.