Part 69

1648. The second Civil War in England. Cromwell's victory at Preston. Treaty of Newport with the king. Grand Army Remonstrance, and Pride's Purge of Parliament. Last campaigns of the Thirty Years War. Peace of Westphalia; cession of Alsace to France.

1649. Trial and execution of King Charles I., of England, and establishment of the Common-wealth. Campaign of Cromwell in Ireland. First civil war of the Fronde in France.

1650. Charles II. in Scotland. War between the English and the Scotch. Victory of Cromwell at Dunbar. The new Fronde in France, in alliance with Spain.

End "Contemporaneous Events"-----

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1618-1648. The Thirty Years War. The Peace of Westphalia.

"The thirty years' war made Germany the centre-point of European politics. … No one at its commencement could have foreseen the duration and extent. But the train of war was everywhere laid, and required only the match to set it going; more than one war was joined to it, and swallowed up in it; and the melancholy truth, that war feeds itself, was never more clearly displayed. … Though the war, which first broke out in Bohemia, concerned only the house of Austria, yet by its originating in religious disputes, by its peculiar character as a religious war, and by the measures adopted both by the insurgents and the emperor, it acquired such an extent, that even the quelling of the insurrection was insufficient to put a stop to it. … Though the Bohemian war was apparently terminated, yet the flame had communicated to Germany and Hungary, and new fuel was added by the act of proscription promulgated against the elector Frederic and his adherents. From this the war derived that revolutionary character, which was henceforward peculiar to it; it was a step that could not but lead to further results, for the question of the relations between the emperor and his states, was in a fair way of being practically considered. New and bolder projects were also formed in Vienna and Madrid, where it was resolved to renew the war with the Netherlands. Under the present circumstances, the suppression of the Protestant religion and the overthrow of German and Dutch liberty appeared inseparable; while the success of the imperial arms, supported as they were by the league and the co-operation of the Spaniards, gave just grounds for hope. … By the carrying of the war into Lower Saxony, the principal scat of the Protestant religion in Germany (the states of which had appointed Christian IV. of Denmark, as duke of Holstein, head of their confederacy), the northern states had already, though without any beneficial result, been involved in the strife, and the Danish war had broken out. But the elevation of Albert of Wallenstein to the dignity of duke of Friedland and imperial general over the army raised by himself, was of considerably more importance, as it affected the whole course and character of the war. From this time the war was completely and truly revolutionary. The peculiar situation of the general, the manner of the formation as well as the maintenance of his army, could not fail to make it such. … The distinguished success of the imperial arms in the north of Germany unveiled the daring schemes of Wallenstein. He did not come forward as conqueror alone, but, by the investiture of Mecklenburg as a state of the empire, as a ruling prince. … But the elevation and conduct of this novus homo, exasperated and annoyed the Catholic no less than the Protestant states, especially the league and its chief; all implored peace, and Wallenstein's discharge. Thus, at the diet of the electors at Augsburg, the emperor was reduced to the alternative of resigning him or his allies: He chose the former. Wallenstein was dismissed, the majority of his army disbanded, and Tilly nominated commander-in-chief of the forces of the emperor and the league. … On the side of the emperor sufficient care was taken to prolong the war. The refusal to restore the unfortunate Frederic, and even the sale of his upper Palatine to Bavaria, must with justice have excited the apprehensions of the other princes. But when the Jesuits finally succeeded, not only in extorting the edict of restitution, but also in causing it to be enforced in the most odious manner, the Catholic states themselves saw with regret that peace could no longer exist. … The greater the success that attended the house of Austria, the more actively foreign policy laboured to counteract it. England had taken an interest in the fate of Frederic V. from the first, though this interest was evinced by little beyond fruitless negotiations. Denmark became engaged in the quarrel mostly through the influence of this power and Holland. Richelieu, from the time he became prime minister of France, had exerted himself in opposing Austria and Spain. He found employment for Spain in the contests respecting Veltelin, and for Austria soon after, by the war of Mantua. Willingly would he have detached the German league from the interest of the emperor; and though he failed in this, he procured the fall of Wallenstein. … Much more important, however, was Richelieu's influence on the war, by the essential share he had in gaining Gustavus Adolphus' active participation in it. … The nineteen years of his [Gustavus Adolphus'] reign which had already elapsed, together with the Polish war, which lasted nearly that time, had taught the world but little of the real worth of this great and talented hero. The decisive superiority of Protestantism in Germany, under his guidance, soon created a more just knowledge, and at the same time showed the advantages which must result to a victorious supporter of that cause. … The battle at Leipzig was decisive for Gustavus Adolphus and his party, almost beyond expectation. The league fell asunder; and in a short time he was master of the countries from the Baltic to Bavaria, and from the Rhine to Bohemia. … But the misfortunes and death of Tilly brought Wallenstein again on the stage as absolute commander-in-chief, bent on plans not a whit less extensive than those he had before formed. No period of the war gave promise of such great and rapid successes or reverses as the present, for both leaders were determined to effect them; but the victory of Lutzen, while it cost Gustavus his life, prepared the fall of Wallenstein. {209} … Though the fall of Gustavus Adolphus frustrated his own private views, it did not those of his party. … The school of Gustavus produced a number of men, great in the cabinet and in the field; yet it was hard, even for an Oxensteirn, to preserve the importance of Sweden unimpaired; and it was but partially done by the alliance of· Heilbronn. … If the forces of Sweden overrun almost every part of Germany in the following months, under the guidance of the pupils of the king, Bernard of Weimar and Gustavus Horn, we must apparently attribute it to Wallenstein's intentional inactivity in Bohemia. The distrust of him increased in Vienna the more, as he took but little trouble to diminish it; and though his fall was not sufficient to atone for treachery, if proved, it was for his equivocal character and imprudence. His death probably saved Germany from a catastrophe. … A great change took place upon the death of Wallenstein; as a prince of the blood, Ferdinand, king of Hungary and Bohemia, obtained the command. Thus an end was put to plans of revolutions from this quarter. But in the same year the battle of Nordlingen gave to the imperial arms a sudden preponderance, such as it had never before acquired. The separate peace of Saxony with the emperor at Prague, and soon after an alliance, were its consequences; Sweden driven back to Pomerania, seemed unable of herself, during the two following years, to maintain her ground in Germany: the victory of Wittstock turned the scale in her favour. … The war was prolonged and greatly extended by the active share taken in it by France: first against Spain, and soon against Austria. … The German war, after the treaty with Bernhard of Weimar, was mainly carried on by France, by the arming of Germans against Germans. But the pupil of Gustavus Adolphus preferred to fight for himself rather than others, and his early death was almost as much coveted by France as by Austria. The success of the Swedish arms revived under Baner. … At the general diet, which was at last convened, the emperor yielded to a general amnesty, or at least what was so designated. But when at the meeting of the ambassadors of the leading powers at Hamburg, the preliminaries were signed, and the time and place of the congress of peace fixed, it was deferred after Richelieu's death, (who was succeeded by Mazarin), by the war, which both parties continued, in the hope of securing better conditions by victory. A new war broke out in the north between Sweden and Denmark, and when at last the congress of peace was opened at Munster and Osnabruck, the negotiations dragged on for three years. … The German peace was negotiated at Munster between the emperor and France, and at Osnabruck between the emperor and Sweden; but both treaties, according to express agreement, Oct. 24, 1648, were to be considered as one, under the title of the Westphalian."

_A. H. L. Heeren, A Manual of the History of the Political System of Europe and its Colonies, pages 91-99._

"The Peace of Westphalia has met manifold hostile comments, not only in earlier, but also in later, times. German patriots complained that by it the unity of the Empire was rent; and indeed the connection of the States, which even before was loose, was relaxed to the extreme. This was, however, an evil which could not be avoided, and it had to be accepted in order to prevent the French and Swedes from using their opportunity for the further enslavement of the land. … The religious parties also made objections to the peace. The strict Catholics condemned it as a work of inexcusable and arbitrary injustice. … The dissatisfaction of the Protestants was chiefly with the recognition of the Ecclesiastical Reservation. They complained also that their brethren in the faith were not allowed the free exercise of their religion in Austria. Their hostility was limited to theoretical discussions, which soon ceased when Louis XIV. took advantage of the preponderance which he had won to make outrageous assaults upon Germany, and even the Protestants were compelled to acknowledge the Emperor as the real defender of German independence."

_A. Gindely, History of the Thirty Years' War, volume 2, chapter 10, section 4._

See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 1618-1620, to 1648; FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626; and ITALY: A. D. 1627-1631.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1621. Formal establishment of the right of primogeniture in the Archducal Family.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1636-1637.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1624-1626. Hostile combinations of Richelieu. The Valtelline war in Northern Italy.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1627-1631. War with France over the succession to the Duchy of Mantua.

See ITALY: A. D. 1627-1631.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1660-1664. Renewed war with the Turks. Help from France. Battle and victory of St. Gothard. Twenty years truce.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1660-1664.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1668-1683. Increased oppression and religious persecution in Hungary. Revolt of Tekeli. The Turks again called in. Mustapha's great invasion and siege of Vienna. Deliverance of the city by John Sobieski.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1668-1683.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1672-1714. The wars with Louis XIV. of France: War of the Grand Alliance. Peace of Ryswick.

"The leading principle of the reign [in France] of Louis XIV. … is the principle of war with the dynasty of Charles V.—the elder branch of which reigned in Spain, while the descendants of the younger branch occupied the imperial throne of Germany. … At the death of Mazarin, or to speak more correctly, immediately after the death of Philip IV., … the early ambition of Louis XIV. sought to prevent the junior branch of the Austrian dynasty from succeeding to the inheritance of the elder branch. He had no desire to see reconstituted under the imperial sceptre of Germany the monarchy which Charles V. had at one time wished to transmit entire to his son, but which, worn out and weakened, he subsequently allowed without regret to be divided between his son and his brother. Before making war upon Austria, Louis XIV. cast his eyes upon a portion of the territory belonging to Spain, and the expedition against Holland, begun in 1672 [see NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1672-1674, and 1674-1678], for the purpose of absorbing the Spanish provinces by overwhelming them, opened the series of his vast enterprises. His first great war was, historically speaking, his first great fault. He failed in his object: for at the end of six campaigns, during which the French armies obtained great and deserved success, Holland remained unconquered. {210} Thus was Europe warned that the lust of conquest of a young monarch, who did not himself possess military genius, but who found in his generals the resources and ability in which he was himself deficient, would soon threaten her independence. Condé and Turenne, after having been rebellious subjects under the Regency, were about to become the first and the most illustrious lieutenants of Louis XIV. Europe, however, though warned, was not immediately ready to defend herself. It was from Austria, more directly exposed to the dangers of the great war now commencing, that the first systematic resistance ought to have come. But Austria was not prepared to play such a part; and the Emperor Leopold possessed neither the genius nor the wish for it. He was, in fact, nothing more than the nominal head of Germany. … Such was the state of affairs in Europe when William of Orange first made his appearance on the stage. … The old question of supremacy, which Louis XIV. wished to fight out as a duel with the House of Austria, was now about to change its aspect, and, owing to the presence of an unexpected genius, to bring into the quarrel other powers besides the two original competitors. The foe of Louis XIV. ought by rights to have been born on the banks of the Danube, and not on the shores of the North Sea. In fact, it was Austria that at that moment most needed a man of genius, either on the throne or at the head of affairs. The events of the century would, in this case, doubtless have followed a different course: the war would have been less general, and the maritime nations would not have been involved in it to the same degree. … The treaties of peace would have been signed in some small place in France or Germany, and not in two towns and a village in Holland, such as Nimeguen, Ryswick, and Utrecht. … William of Orange found himself in a position soon to form the Triple Alliance which the very policy of Louis XIV. suggested. For France to attack Holland, when her object was eventually to reach Austria, and keep her out of the Spanish succession, was to make enemies at one and the same time of Spain, of Austria, and of Holland. But if it afterwards required considerable efforts on the part of William of Orange to maintain this alliance, it demanded still more energy to extend it. It formed part of the Stadtholder's ulterior plans to combine the union between himself and the two branches of the Austrian family, with the old Anglo-Swedish Triple Alliance, which had just been dissolved under the strong pressure brought to bear on it by Louis XIV. … Louis XIV., whose finances were exhausted, was very soon anxious to make peace, even on the morrow of his most brilliant victories; whilst William of Orange, beaten and retreating, ardently desired the continuance of the war. … The Peace of Nimeguen was at last signed, and by it were secured to Louis XIV. Franche-Comté, and some important places in the Spanish Low Countries on his northern frontier [see NIMEGUEN, PEACE OF]. This was the culminating point of the reign of Louis XIV. Although the coalition had prevented him from attaining the full object of his designs against the House of Austria, which had been to absorb by conquest so much of the territory belonging to Spain as would secure him against the effect of a will preserving the whole inheritance intact in the family, yet his armies had been constantly successful, and many of his opponents were evidently tired of the struggle. … Some years passed thus, with the appearance of calm. Europe was conquered; and when peace was broken, because, as was said, the Treaty of Nimeguen was not duly executed, the events of the war were for some time neither brilliant or important, for several campaigns began and ended without any considerable result. … At length Louis XIV. entered on the second half of his reign, which differed widely from the first. … During this second period of more than thirty years, which begins after the Treaty of Nimeguen and lasts till the Peace of Utrecht, events succeed each other in complete logical sequence, so that the reign presents itself as one continuous whole, with a regular movement of ascension and decline. … The leading principle of the reign remained the same; it was always the desire to weaken the House of Austria, or to secure an advantageous partition of the Spanish succession. But the Emperor of Germany was protected by the coalition, and the King of Spain, whose death was considered imminent, would not make up his mind to die. … During the first League, when the Prince of Orange was contending against Louis XIV. with the co-operation of the Emperor of Germany, of the King of Spain, and of the Electors on the Rhine, the religious element played only a secondary part in the war. But we shall see this element make its presence more manifest. … Thus the influence of Protestant England made itself more and more felt in the affairs of Europe, in proportion as the government of the Stuarts, from its violence, its unpopularity, and from the opposition offered to it, was approaching its end. … The second coalition was neither more united nor more firm than the first had been: but, after the expulsion of the Stuarts, the germs of dissolution no longer threatened the same dangers. … The British nation now made itself felt in the balance of Europe, and William of Orange was for the first time in his life successful in war at the head of his English troops. … This was the most brilliant epoch of the life of William III. … He was now at the height of his glory, after a period of twenty years from his start in life, and his destiny was accomplished; so that until the Treaty of Ryswick, which in 1698 put an end to his hostilities with France, and brought about his recognition as King of England by Louis XIV., not much more was left for him to gain; and he had the skill to lose nothing. … The negotiations for the Treaty of Ryswick were conducted with less ability and boldness, and concluded on less advantageous terms, than the Truce of Ratisbon or the Peace of Nimeguen. Nevertheless, this treaty, which secured to Louis the possession of Strasbourg, might, particularly as age was now creeping on him, have closed his military career without disgrace, if the eternal question, for the solution of which he had made so many sacrifices, and which had always held the foremost place in his thoughts, had not remained as unsettled and as full of difficulty as on the day when he had mounted the throne. {211} Charles II. of Spain was not dead, and the question of the Spanish succession, which had so actively employed the armies of Louis XIV., and taxed his diplomacy, was as undecided as at the beginning of his reign. Louis XIV. saw two alternatives before him: a partition of the succession between the Emperor and himself (a solution proposed thirty years before as a means to avoid war), or else a will in favour of France, followed of course by a recommencement of general hostilities. … Louis XIV. proposed in succession two schemes, not, as thirty years before, to the Emperor, but to the King of England, whose power and whose genius rendered him the arbiter of all the great affairs of Europe. … In the first of the treaties of partition, Spain and the Low Countries were to be given to the Prince of Bavaria; in the second, to the Archduke Charles. In both, France obtained Naples and Sicily for the Dauphin. … Both these arrangements … suited both France and England as a pacific solution of the question. … But events, as we know, deranged all these calculations, and Charles II., who, by continuing to live, had disappointed so much impatient expectation, by his last will provoked a general war, to be carried on against France by the union of England with the Empire and with Holland—a union which was much strengthened under the new dynasty, and which afterwards embraced the northern states of Germany. … William III. died at the age of fifty-two, on the 9th of March, 1702, at the beginning of the War of Succession. After him, the part he was to have played was divided. Prince Eugene, Marlborough, and Heinsius (the Grand Pensionary) had the conduct of political and especially of military affairs, and acted in concert. The disastrous consequences to France of that war, in which William had no part, are notorious. The battles of Blenheim, of Ramilies, and of Oudenarde brought the allied armies on the soil of France, and placed Louis XIV. on the verge of ruin."

_J. Van Praet, Essays on the Political History of the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries, pages 390-414 and 441-455._

ALSO IN: _H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV:, volume 2, chapters 2 and 4-6._

_T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 5, chapters 5-6 (volume 3)._

See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 1686; and FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690 to 1697.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1683-1687. Merciless suppression of the Hungarian revolt. The crown of Hungary made hereditary in the House of Hapsburg.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1683-1687.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1683-1699. Expulsion of the Turks from Hungary. The Peace of Carlowitz.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1683-1699.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1699-1711. Suppression of the Revolt under Rakoczy in Hungary.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1699-1718.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1700. Interest of the Imperial House in the question of the Spanish Succession.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1698-1700.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1701-1713. The War of the Spanish Succession.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1702, to 1704; ITALY: A. D. 1701-1713; SPAIN: A. D. 1702, to 1707-1710, and NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704, to 1710-1712.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1711. The War of the Spanish Succession. Its Circumstances changed.