Thetford. A town of England, in Norfolk, 95 miles north-northeast of London. It was taken and sacked by the Danes in 870.
Thin, To. To make less numerous; as, to thin the ranks by a heavy discharge of musketry.
Thionville. A fortified town of France, in the department of the Moselle, situated on the Moselle, which is crossed here by a splendid bridge. This place was a residence of the Merovingian and Carlovingian kings, and was repeatedly besieged during the various wars between Austria and France. It was invested by the Germans in August, 1870, and after bombardment, being in flames, surrendered November 24 following.
Thirty, Battle of (Fr. Combat des Trentes). A name given, in English and French history, to a celebrated engagement which took place at a spot known as Midway Oak, half-way between the castles of Josselin and Ploermel, France, March 27, 1351. The French general Beaumanoir, commanding the former post, being enraged at the depredations committed by Bemborough, the English general, challenged him to fight. Upon this it was agreed that thirty knights of each party should meet and decide the contest. The two chiefs presented themselves at the head of their best soldiers and the battle began in earnest. At the first onset the English were successful; but Bemborough having been killed, the French renewed the struggle with redoubled courage and finally won the victory. This was one of the most heroic exploits of the age, and gained such popularity that more than one hundred years later, when speaking of a hard contest, it was usual to say, “There never was such hard fighting since the battle of the Thirty.”
Thirty Tyrants. A body of thirty magistrates in Athens (404-403 B.C.). They were appointed from the aristocratic party, by the Spartans, victorious in the Peloponnesian war. The “tyrants” were guilty of the most cruel and shameless acts, and after one year were expelled by Thrasybulus.
Thirty Tyrants of Rome. A set of military adventurers who from 253 to 268 attempted to establish their own power in various parts of the empire during the reigns of Valerianus and Gallienus. The number thirty is borrowed from that of the famous Athenian tyrants. The names of only nineteen of these adventurers have come down to us.
Thirty Years’ War. Was not properly one war, but rather an uninterrupted succession of wars (1618-1648) in Germany, in which Austria, the most of the Catholic princes of Germany, and Spain, were engaged on one side throughout, but against different antagonists. This long-continued strife had its origin in the quarrels between the Catholics and Protestants of Germany, and the attempts of the former, who were the more powerful body, to deprive the latter of what liberty of worship they had obtained. The severe measures taken by the emperor, the head of the Catholic party, against the Protestant religion, led also to strictures on their civil rights; and it was to protect their political as well as their religious liberties, that the Protestants formed a union, May 4, 1608, with Frederick IV., the Elector Palatinate, at its head. The rival union of the Catholic powers, under the leadership of the Duke of Bavaria, followed July 11, 1609. In Bohemia, the immense preponderance in numbers (two out of three) and influence of the Protestants, had forced from their Austrian king an edict of toleration (July 11, 1609), which was at first faithfully observed; but during the reign of Matthias, sundry violations of it were made with impunity; and as the influence of Ferdinand of Styria, his successor, began to be felt in more flagrant partiality to the Catholics, the kingdom became a scene of wild excitement; three of the Catholic party were thrown from the window of the Bohemian council-chamber at Prague, and ultimately Ferdinand was deposed, and Frederick V., the Elector Palatinate, chosen in his stead (1619); and Count Thurn, at the head of an insurgent army, repeatedly routed the imperial troops, and actually besieged the emperor in Vienna. The Catholic princes, though as apprehensive as their opponents of the encroaching policy of Austria, crowded to the emperor’s aid; and while the Protestant union and James I. of Great Britain held aloof from Frederick, whose sole allies were Bohemians (under Thurn), Moravians, Hungarians, and a Piedmontese contingent of 3000 (under Count Mansfield), a well-appointed army of 30,000, under Duke Maximilian, advanced to support the Austrians, and totally routed Frederick’s motley array at Weissenberg (November 8, 1620), near Prague, afterwards reducing the Upper, while an army of Spaniards under Spinola ravaged the Lower, Palatinate, and the Saxons (in alliance with the emperor) occupied Lusatia. The Bohemians were now subjected to the most frightful tyranny and persecution; a similar policy, though of a more modern character, was adopted towards the people of the Palatinate,—the Protestant union standing aloof, and subsequently dissolving, through sheer terror. But the indomitable pertinacity and excellent leadership of Count Mansfield and Christian of Brunswick, two famous partisan leaders, who ravaged the territories of the Catholic league, and the forced cession to Bethlem Gabor of large portions of Hungary and Transylvania, did much to equalize the success of the antagonistic parties. Here the war might have ended; but the fearful tyranny of Ferdinand over all the Protestants in his dominions (Hungary excepted) drove them to despair, and the war advanced to its second phase. Christian IV. of Denmark, smarting under some injuries inflicted on him by the emperor, and aided by a British subsidy, came to the aid of his German co-religionists in 1624, and being joined by Mansfield and Christian of Brunswick, advanced into Lower Saxony, while the emperor, hampered by the political jealousy of the Catholic league, was unable to oppose him. But when, by the aid of Wallenstein, a powerful and effective army had been obtained, and the leaguers under Tilly, in co-operation with it, had marched northwards, the rout of the Danes by Tilly at Lutter (August 17, 1626), and of Mansfield by Wallenstein at Dessau (April 1, 11, and 25, 1626), again prostrated the Protestants’ hopes in the dust; yet a gleam of comfort was obtained from the victorious raid of Mansfield through Silesia, Moravia, and Hungary, though his scheme for an insurrection in Hungary failed, and his death soon after, at Zara, freed the emperor from a formidable and irreconcilable enemy. The combined Imperialists and leaguers mean time had overrun North Germany and continental Denmark, and ultimately compelled King Christian to conclude the humiliating peace of Lübeck (May 12, 1629). This second great success seems to have turned Ferdinand’s head, for, not content with still more rigorous treatment of the Protestants, and the promulgation of the Restitution Edict, which seriously offended even the Catholics, he stirred up Poland against Sweden, and insulted Gustavus Adolphus, both personally and in the persons of his ambassadors,—insolent impertinences which he soon saw bitter reason to regret. The Catholic league now forced him to reduce his army, and supplant Wallenstein by Tilly; while France was inciting Gustavus to the willing task of aiding the Protestants in Germany. The war entered its third phase by the landing of the Swedes at Usedom (June, 1630), and their conquest of Pomerania and Mecklenburg. Gustavus, by the exercise of a little wholesome pressure, induced the elector of Brandenburg to aid him; and though unable to save Magdeburg, he marched to join the Saxons, completely routed by Tilly at Breitenfeld (September 17, 1631); victoriously traversed the Main and Rhine valleys; again routed Tilly on the Lech (April 5, 1632), and entered Munich. By the judicious strategy of Wallenstein, he was compelled to return to Saxony, where he gained the great victory of Lützen; but his death, depriving the Protestants of the only man who could force the confederate powers to preserve unity of action, was a severe blow to their cause; though the genius and indefatigable zeal of his chancellor, Oxenstiern, and the brilliant talents of the Swedish generals, preserved the advantages they had gained, till the crushing defeat of Bernard of Weimar at Nordlingen (September 6, 1634) again restored to the emperor a preponderating influence in Germany. Saxony now made peace at Prague (May 30, 1635), obtaining such satisfactory terms for the Lutherans that the treaty was within three months adhered to by all the German princes of that sect, and the Calvinists were left to their fate. Final success now appeared to demand only one more strenuous effort on the part of Austria; but Oxenstiern resolved to preserve to Sweden her German acquisitions, propitiated Richelieu, by resigning to him the direction of the war, and the conflict advanced into its final and most extended phase. The emperor, allied for offense and defense with the Lutherans, was now also assailed through his ally, Spain, who was attacked on her own frontier, in the Netherlands, and in Italy; Bernard of Weimar fighting independently, with the view of obtaining Alsace for himself, opposed the leaguers; while the Swedes under Banér held North Germany, and by frequent flying marches into Silesia and Bohemia distracted their opponents, and prevented them, after successes over Duke Bernard, from proceeding with the invasion of France. The great victory of Banér over the Austrians and Saxons at Wittstock (October 4, 1636) restored to Sweden the victor’s wreath she had lost two years before; and from this time, especially under Torstenson and Konigsmark, the Swedes were always successful, adding a second victory of Breitenfeld (November 2, 1642), one at Yankowitz (February 14, 1645), and numberless ones of less note, to their already long list of successes, carrying devastation and ruin into the hereditary territories, even to the gates of Vienna, defeating the best generals of the empire, till, from a profound feeling of inability to check them, the Austrians hardly dared appear to the north of the Danube. On the Rhine, the leaguers at first had great success,—the Weimar troops, now in French pay, were almost exterminated at Duttlingen (November 24, 1643); but after the Spanish power had been thoroughly broken in the Netherlands by Condé, the French were reinforced on the Rhine, and under Condé and Turenne, rolled back the leaguers through the Palatinate and Bavaria, and revenged at Nordlingen (August 3, 1645) the former defeat of the Swedes. The emperor was now deserted by all his allies except the Duke of Bavaria, whose territories were already mostly in the hands of Turenne and Wrangel; and a combined invasion of Austria from the west and north was on the point of being executed, when, after seven years of diplomatic shuffling, with an eye to the changing fortunes of the contest, the peace of Westphalia put an end to this terrible struggle.
Thistle, Order of the. See [Andrew, St.]
Thomas, St. The principal of the Virgin Islands in the West Indies, belonging to Denmark. In March, 1801, it was taken by the British, but given up at the peace of Amiens; it was again taken in the course of the subsequent war, and restored to Denmark at the peace of Paris in 1814.
Thorn. A fortified town of the kingdom of Prussia, in the province of West Prussia, on the right bank of the Vistula. It is defended by walls, bastions, and two forts. This town was founded by the Teutonic Knights in 1232, and admitted into the Hanseatic League in the beginning of the 14th century. It was taken by Charles XII. of Sweden in 1703, after a siege of four months.