THIRTY
G49
THIRTY
war8, they were ready therefore for internal disorders.
Soon there appeared leaders of abihty who gatliered
hoth nobles and burghers under their banners and
retained thrni in their service by indulging their
evil instincts. On the other hand, the people of Ger-
many, who had been long unaccustomed to war and
were not trained to bear public burdens, chafed under
the hardships now imposed upon them. This dis-
content, combined with the ease with which troops
were equipped, aided in prolonging the war.
II. The Bohemi.\n Revolt. — At the beginning of the seventeenth century the regions ruled by the German Habsbin'gs included Upper and Lower Aus- tria, Bohemia together with Moravia and Silesia, the lesser part of Hungary which had not been conquered by the Turks, StjTia, Carinthia, Carniola, the Tyrol, and the provinces bordering on Germany. This terri- tory, however, was divided among three branches of the family, the main line, the Stj-rian, and that of Tyrol-Vorarlberg. Although the main line of the German Habsbiu"gs held by far the larger part of these landed possessions yet its territories fiid not form a compact whole, but were only a number of loosely connected countries, each having its own provincial estates, which were largely composed of nobles and which maintained an incessant opposition to the dynasty, and therefore largely desired religious free- ildiu. that is the right to become Protestant and to introduce Protestantism into their domains. The struggle of the nobility against the dynasty reached its height dining the last decade of the reign of Ru- dolph II (157()-16r2). Even at that time the nobil- ity maintained relations with the active Protestant party in the empire. In 1004 the Hungarian nobles revolted with the aid of the ruler of Transylvania, and in 1607 they rebelled again and became the allies of the Turks. On 25 June, 160S, Rudolph was obliged to transfer the government of Hungary, Austria, and Moravia to his more compliant brother Matthias; he (lid not, however, give up his rights as King of Kcihemia, and in 1609 was able to pacify an outbreak of the Bohemian nobility only by granting the Imperial Charter {Maj(>:lnlsbricf) which gave religious liberty not only to the nobles and their dependents in Hiihemia but also to lho.s(? living on the crown lands. Tills concession greatly strengthened the power of the nobles.
After Rudolph's death Cardinal Kle.sl sought , as the councillor of Matthias (1612-19), to avoid above all any new crisis, so as to gain time to reorganize the resources of the ruling dynasty. Matthias, like Ru- dolph, had no son and the royal family clio.se as his successor Ferdinand, the head of the Slyrian branch of the Ilabsburgs, who had restored ('utholicism in StjTia. In 1617 the dynasty persuaded the Bohemi- ans to accept Ferdinand as their future king, and in 1618 they prevailed upon the Hungarians (o elect him king. Before this (Ma}', 101 S) the Bohemian nobles had revolted anew under the leaih'rship of Count von Thurn on accoimt of the alleged infringe- ment of the charter granted by Rudolph. The dy- nasty was not yet ready for war. When Matthias died (March, 1619) the Hungarians and the inhabi- tants of Moravia joined the revolt, and in ,Iune Thurn advanced on Vienna with an army to persuade the Austrians also to join. However, the determined altitude of Ferdinand prevented the insurrection and Thurn withdrew. Ferdinand was now able to go to Frankfort, where his election as eini)eror (2S .\ugust) secured the imi)erial dignity for his family. Two days before this the Bohemians had elecle<l the leader of the Protestants, Frederick of the Palatinate, as rival King of Bohemia.
The inhabitants of Lower Austria now joined the revolt . Bethlen Gabor, Prince of Transylvania, made an alliance with its leaders, and in conjunction with them once more threatened Vienna at the close of
Marshal Turen.ve
Philippe do Champaigne, tlie Pii
thek. Munich
1619. Thenceforth, however, discipline steadily de-
clined in the Bohemian army, and the leaders dis-
agreed. The expected aid wjis never received from
the Protestant party, excepting that a few of the less
important nobles of the empire joined the insurrec-
tionary forces. On the other hand, in October, 1619,
Ferdinand obtained the help of Alaximilian of Ba-
varia, who had the largest army in the empire, and of
the Protestant Elector of Saxony. Spain and Poland
also sent troops. MaximiUan so greatly terrified the
Protestant party, which since 1608 had formed the
Union, that it was broken up. He then advanced
into Bohemia supported by Austrian troops and
decisively defeated the Bohemians in the battle of
the White Mountain, near Prague. The Elector
Frederick, called
the "Winter King"
on account of the
brief duration of
his rule, fled. Fer-
dinand took posses-
sion of his prov-
inces and restoret:
order there. Tlu
war with Tran.syl-
vania, however, waf
carried on with iti-
terruptions unfi
1626.
III. The W.^n
IN THE P.\L.\TINATE
AND THE War with Denmark . — T h e emperor placed Frederick, the Elec- tor Palatine, under the ban of the emijire on 22 Jan- uary, 1621; the latter refused to beg for pardon. Reconciliation was made more difficult by the demand of Maximilian of Bavaria of that part of the Palatine lands called the ITpper Palatinate, as recompense for the expenses of the war; he also desired, in accordance with a traditional claim of the Ba\-arian ruling fam- ily, the electoral dignity belonging to the Palatinate; this the emperor gave him with hesitation and under certain conditions (21-2.') February, 162:i). Maxi- milian gained for himself the dcsinvl land by trans- planting the war to the terrilory of the P.-ilatinate. Spanish troops had established themselves in these districts as early as 1620, and aimed at rcl.-iining pos- session of the Palatinate for the piu'pose of establish- ing communication between the Ilali:in possessions of Spain and its territories in Burgundy and the Nether- lands. In carrying out this scheme the Spaniards in the .same year (1620) had .seizeil the Valtellina and the territory of the Rha^tian League. Before this, in 1617, when Ferdinand became the head of the Ger- man-Hab.sburg dynasty, Spain had expressed its desires for the reversion of the Austrian possessions in Alsace.
None of the victors desired to continue the war. The emperor was fully occupied with the restoration of his power in his hereditary pos.sessions and with the war against Transylvania. The Spaniards had only a small military force, as was shown by the spiritless manner in which they recommenced war with the Netherlands in 1621. Maximilian, it is true, desired to obtain pos.ses.sion of his conquests; but he had no confidence in the Spaniards, and found it very difficult to bear the burdens of war, as he received no outside aid of imi)ortance. On the other hand, the Coimt Palatine received no active help either from the Protestant estates of the empire or from abroad, but by the beginning of 1(i22. sevend adventurous par- tisans of hi.s — lOrnest of Mansfeld, Christian of Bruns- wick (called "mad Christian"), and Margrave George
