Part 137
=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.
=Thrace.= Anciently the name of an extensive country bounded on the north by the Danube, on the east by the Euxine, on the south by the Ægean and Macedonia, and on the west by Macedonia and Illyria. War and robbery were the only honorable occupations of the Thracians. They lived to steal, either from each other or from neighboring peoples. When not fighting or plundering, they spent their days in savage idleness, or in quarreling over their cups. Courageous, or rather ferocious, after the fashion of barbarous peoples, they yet lacked the steady valor and endurance of disciplined troops; at all times, their warfare displayed more fierceness and impetuosity than fortitude. In 513 B.C., Darius, king of Persia, marched through Thrace on his way to punish the European Scythians, and on his return left Megabazus with 80,000 men to subdue the country. In this he partially succeeded, but new disturbances and complications arose between the Persians and Greeks, which resulted (480 B.C.) in the famous expedition of Xerxes. The consequence of the expulsion of the Persians from Europe was the resumption of liberty and the revival of prosperity among the Greek colonies in Thrace. Shortly before the Peloponnesian war, a native Thracian state--the Odrysian--had attained to great power and eminence under a ruler named Sitalces, who joined the Athenian alliance, but could not, in spite of his resources, prevent the triumph of Sparta in the north as well as in the south. The rise of the Macedonian kingdom, under Philip II. (359 B.C.), destroyed the independence of a great part of Thrace. Under the government of Lysimachus, the subjugation of Thrace became complete. On the fall of the Macedonian kingdom (168 B.C.) it passed into the hands of the Romans, and subsequently shared the vicissitudes of the Roman empire. In 334 a colony of Sarmatians, and in 376 another of Goths, was planted in Thrace. In 395 it was overrun by Alaric, and in 447 by Attila. In 1353, Amurath obtained possession of all its fortresses, except Constantinople, and it has ever since remained in the possession of the Turks.
=Thrasimenus Lacus.= See TRASIMENUS LACUS.
=Throw, To.= To force anything from one place to another; thus, artillerists say, to throw a shot or shell, or so many shells were thrown.
=Thrust.= Hostile attack with any pointed weapon, as in fencing. When one party makes a push with his sword to wound his adversary with the point, it is called a thrust.
=Thud.= The sound of a bullet on hitting the intended object.
=Thug.= One of an association of robbers and murderers in India, who practiced murder not by open assault, but by stealthy approaches, and from religious motives. They have been nearly exterminated by the British government.
=Thumb-stall.= See IMPLEMENTS.
=Thunderbolt.= In heraldry, a bearing borrowed from classical mythology, which may be described as a twisted bar in pale inflamed at each end surmounting two jagged darts in saltire between two wings displayed with streams of fire.
=Thundering Legion.= During a contest with the invading Marcomanni, the prayers of some Christians in a Roman legion are said to have been followed by a storm of thunder, lightning, and rain, which tended greatly to discomfit the enemy; and hence the legion received the name in 174.
=Thurii=, or =Thurium=. A Greek city in the south of Italy, on the north shore of the Tarentine Gulf, was founded in 452 B.C., by a body of Sybarite exiles, near the spot where their ancient city had stood till it was destroyed by the Crotonians fifty-eight years before. The rise of a new colony re-awakened the anger of the Crotonians, and after five years they expelled the Sybarites. These after an unsuccessful appeal to Sparta for assistance, applied to the Athenians, who resolved to send out a colony along with the persecuted Sybarites. The leaders of this colony were Lampon and Xenocritus. A war subsequently occurred between Thurii and Tarentum, but was terminated by a compromise. In 390 B.C. the city received a severe blow from a total defeat of their army by the Lucanians. From this period it began to decline, and was at length obliged to submit to the Roman power, in order to escape the continued attacks of the Lucanians.
=Thuringia.= An early Gothic kingdom in Central Germany, was overrun by Attila and the Huns, 451; the last king, Hermanfried, was defeated and slain by Thierry, king of the Franks, who annexed it to his dominions, 530. It was after various changes and many conflicts, absorbed in Saxony in the 15th century. In 1815 it was surrendered to Prussia.
=Thyatira.= In Asia Minor; was the place assigned for the battle at which the rebel Procopius was defeated by the army of the emperor Valens in 366.
=Thymbra.= In Asia Minor, where Cyrus the Great defeated the confederate army aiding Crœsus, and obtained supremacy in Asia, 548.
=Tiberias.= A city in Palestine, built by Herod Antipas, and named after the emperor Tiberias in 39. Near it Guy de Lusignan, king of Jerusalem, and the Crusaders, were defeated by Saladin; and Jerusalem fell into his hands, 1187.
=Ticino=, or =Tessin=. A Swiss canton south of the Alps; it was conquered by the Swiss early in the 16th century, and made a separate canton in 1815. It suffered by internal disputes in 1839 and 1841.
=Ticinus= (now _Tessino_). An important river in Northern Italy. It was upon the bank of this river that Hannibal gained his first victory over the Romans by the defeat of P. Scipio, 218 B.C.
=Ticonderoga.= A town in Essex Co., N. Y., 95 miles north by east of Albany. Two or three miles below this village are the ruins of old Fort Ticonderoga, on the west shore of Lake Champlain. The fort was surprised by Col. Ethan Allen in the Revolutionary war.
=Tien Tsin.= A city of China, situated 70 miles southeast from Pekin. A treaty of amity and commerce was signed here between the French and English on the one hand, and the Chinese on the other, in 1858. The violation of this treaty, which was favorable to British interests in China, by the Chinese, was the cause of the subsequent Chinese war.
=Tierce.= A thrust in fencing, delivered at the outside of the body over the arm.
=Tierce=, =Tiercé=. In heraldry, a term of blazon used to indicate that the field is divided by lines into three equal parts. A shield may be tierce in pale, in fess, in bend, in bend sinister, or in pall; all which, with other arrangements in tierce, are common in French heraldry. Tierce in pale, in English heraldry, is an occasional mode of marshaling three coats in one escutcheon under special circumstances.
=Tier-shot.= Grape-shot is sometimes so called.
=Tiflis.= See TEFLIS.
=Tige-arms.= Sometimes called pillar breech-arms. Arms with a stem of steel, screwed into the middle of the breech-pin, around which the charge of powder is placed. The ball enters free and rests upon the top of the pin, which is tempered, and a few blows with a heavy ramrod force the ball to fill the grooves of the rifled arm. This invention was an improvement by Capt. Thouvenin on Delvignes’ plan of having a chamber for the powder smaller than the bore. Capt. Minié’s invention superseded the tige-arms, by means of a bullet which is forced to fill the grooves by the action of the charge itself at the instant of the explosion.
=Tigranocerta= (ruins at _Sert_). The later capital of Armenia, built by Tigranes. It was taken by Lucullus and the Romans, after a great victory over Tigranes, in 69 B.C.
=Tigurini.= A tribe of the Helvetii, who joined the Cimbri in invading the country of the Allobroges in Gaul, where they defeated the consul L. Cassius Longinus, 107 B.C. They formed in the time of Cæsar the most important of the four cantons into which the Helvetii were divided.
=Tilsit.= A town of East Prussia, on the left bank of the Niemen, or Memel, 60 miles northeast from Königsberg. Tilsit will be ever memorable in history for the treaties which were there signed between France and Russia on July 7, and France and Prussia on July 9, 1807. By the former of these Napoleon agreed to restore to the king of Prussia a great portion of his dominions, his Polish acquisitions being joined to Saxony, and his possessions west of the Elbe formed into the nucleus of the new kingdom of Westphalia; Danzig was declared an independent city; the Prussian province of Bialystock was ceded to Russia; the dukes of Oldenberg and Mecklenburg, the czar’s relatives, were reinstated by Napoleon, and in return the Bonapartist kings of Naples and Holland were recognized by the czar, etc. By the latter, the king of Prussia recognized the kings of Holland, Naples, and Westphalia, and the Confederation of the Rhine; agreed to the cessions laid down in the Russian treaty, and to other minor alienations and concessions to Saxony, amounting in all to nearly one-half of his dominions; to the exclusion from his harbors of the commerce of Great Britain, and to the occupation of the Prussian fortresses by the French, till the payment of an enormous ransom. The weighty importance of the alterations effected by this treaty is, however, dwarfed before the startling magnitude of the _secret provisions_ signed between France and Russia. By these were arranged the resignation of the empire of the East to Russia, Roumelia and Constantinople being specially excepted by Napoleon, and the acquisition of the Spanish peninsula by France; the two powers were to make common cause against Great Britain, and were to force the three courts of Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Lisbon to join them; and Napoleon agreed to increase no further the power of the duchy of Warsaw, and to do nothing which might lead to the re-establishment of the Polish monarchy. By a further agreement, not put formally into writing, the mouths of the Cattaro, the Ionian Isles, Sicily, Malta, Egypt, and the papal dominions were to be taken by France; and Greece, Macedonia, Dalmatia, and the Adriatic coasts, as the portion of Turkey; while on the other hand, Russia was to obtain the rest of Turkey, and was allowed to seize Finland. These secret articles are given on most excellent authority, and their correctness is further vouched for by the conduct of France and Russia for the next few years.
=Tilt.= A thrust, or fight with rapiers; also, an old military game.
=Tilted Steel.= See ORDNANCE, METALS FOR, STEEL.
=Tilter.= One who fights or contests in a tournament.
=Tilting-helmet.= A helmet of large size often worn over another at tilts.
=Tilt-yard.= Formerly a place or yard for tilting.
=Timariot.= A Turkish cavalry soldier who has a certain allowance made him, for which he is not only obliged to arm, clothe, and accoutre himself, but he must likewise provide a certain number of militia-men. The allowance is called _timar_.
=Timars.= Certain revenues, in Turkey, growing out of lands which originally belonged to Christian clergy and nobility, and which the sultans seized when they conquered the countries they inhabited. By this means the sultan is enabled to support the _timariots_.
=Timber.= In heraldry, a rank or row, as of ermine, in a nobleman’s coat; also a crest. This word is also written _timbre_.
=Timber Rafts.= See RAFTS, TIMBER.
=Timbuctoo.= A celebrated city in the interior of Africa, on the slope of a hill about 8 miles south of the Niger. It is said to have been built by Mansa Suleiman, a Mohammedan, about 1214, and was frequently subjugated by the sovereigns of Morocco. Since 1727 it has been partially independent.
=Time.= The measure of duration by which soldiers regulate the cadence of the march. _Common time_, the ordinary time of marching, in which 90 steps, each 28 inches in length, are taken in one minute. See DOUBLE-QUICK, and QUICK TIME.
=Time.= That necessary interval between each motion in the manual exercise, as well as in every movement the army or any body of men may make. In fencing there are three kinds of time: that of the sword, that of the foot, and that of the whole body.
=Time.= A particular period or part of duration, whether past, present, or future.
_Apparent time_, the time of day reckoned by the sun, or so that 12 o’clock at the place is the instant of the transit of the sun’s centre over the meridian.
_Mean solar time_, or _mean time_, time regulated by the average, or mean, instead of the unequal or apparent, motion of the sun; time as indicated by a uniformly-going clock, once rightly adjusted, and differing from apparent time at any instant by a small quantity called the _equation of time_.
_Sidereal time_, time regulated by the transit, over the meridian of a place, of the first point of Aries, or vernal equinox, and chiefly used in astronomical observations.
_Solar time._ See MEAN SOLAR TIME.
=Time of Flight.= See FLIGHT.
=Time Thrust.= In fencing, a thrust given upon any opening which may occur by an inaccurate or wide motion of your adversary, when changing his guard, etc.
=Time-fuze.= See FUZE, TIME-.
=Timing.= In fencing, is the accurate and critical throwing in of a cut or thrust upon any opening that may occur as your adversary changes his position.
=Tin-case Shot.= See CANISTER-SHOT.
=Tinchebrai.= A town of France, department of the Arne, 34 miles northwest from Alençon. Here Robert of Normandy was finally defeated by his brother, Henry I. of England, on September 28, 1106, and Normandy was annexed to the crown of England.
=Tincture.= In heraldry, one of the metals, colors, or furs used in armory.
=Tindal.= An attendant on the army in India.
=Tinker.= A small mortar formerly used on the end of a staff, now superseded by the Coehorn.
=Tippecanoe.= A river of Indiana, United States, which rises in a lake of the same name in the northern part of the State. It is famous for the battle fought on its banks, November 5, 1811, in which the Indians, under Tecumseh’s brother, the Prophet, were defeated by Gen. Harrison.
=Tipperary.= An inland county in the province of Munster, Ireland. Subsequently to the year 1172, Henry II. obtained possession of it after several sanguinary contests. The county suffered greatly during the civil wars of 1641, in the course of which the town of Clonmel, after a gallant resistance, obtained honorable terms from Cromwell, who conducted the siege in person.