into north-western Germany; thus the war continued to spread.
Two events of the years 1624-29 increased animosities and, finally, in 1630, gave the struggle an international character.
(a) The historical development of the German Hapsburgs had led to so close a connexion between their dynastic power in their own dominions and the imperial authority that the recovery of the former immediately filled Ferdinand with the ambition to restore the latter. When he drove the Elector Palatine out of Bohemia he had also outlawed him as a prince of the empire. Now that the territories in the empire occupied by Maximilian of Bavaria were growing in extent and the war was becoming more general throughout Germany, Ferdinand could hardly avoid assuming its direction. He had not the necessary funds for such an undertaking, because of the persistently blundering economic administration of Austria. But, he accepted Wallenstein's offer to maintain an army for him. Wallenstein was ambitious to be invested, as the head of an army, with extraordinary powers both military and diplomatic. He was a genius as an organizer and a remarkable man, but a condottiere rather than a statesman. Nevertheless the emperor placed him (1625) at the head of an army. Wallenstein did not act in conjunction with Maximilian's troops; moreover, he showed little respect either for the historically established relation between emperor and princes, or for the position of the latter in the empire. He quartered his troops in the territories of the princes, levied heavy contributions from their subjects and treated these sovereigns themselves with arrogance, while at the same time he was not a general who rapidly achieved decisive results. The blind jealousy that had animated the princes against Charles V was now directed against Ferdinand. Once more the complaint resounded that the emperor was placing on them "the yoke of brutal servitude," was making himself "monarch" of the empire, and an autocrat.
(b) Maximilian followed up the victory of the Bavarian and imperial forces by restoring Catholicism in the Upper Palatinate. The Catholics demanded the restitution of the small territories in southern Germany of which they had been despoiled since 1550, despite the Reservatum ecclesiasticum. Furthermore, overestimating their success in the field, they sought to regain the dioceses in northern Germany that had passed under Protestant administration. The emperor was impelled by his political interests to enforce the claims for restitution in the south, since this would greatly weaken the Würtemberg dynasty, which was an obstacle to the extension of the Hapsburg power in Swabia. In addition he also authorized the reclamation of the bishoprics of northern Germany in the district of the Elbe and at the mouth of the Weser, in order to place them in the hands of an Austrian archduke. Accordingly he issued the Edict of Restitution of 1629. The Calvinistic party of the Palatinate had been totally defeated, and now Lutheranism was in danger of being confined to a comparatively narrow territory split up into detached districts by Catholic ecclesiastical principalities. On this account all the Protestant states of the empire were filled with distrust and resentment, although ill-prepared to take up arms in self-defence.
Cardinal Richelieu had, meanwhile, overthrown the Huguenots in France and had laid plans to strengthen the French power in Europe by the occupation of desirable positions in upper Italy as well as in Lorraine and on German soil. He saw a menace to his schemes in the growth of the imperial power in the empire and in Ferdinand's interference in the War of the Mantuan Succession. He reminded the princes that Framoe had formerly protected their liberties, impressed them with its peace-loving character, and urged them, especially Maximilian of Bavaria, to refuse to elect the emperor's son King of the Romans and to demand the dismissal of Wallenstein (1629-30). While he thus sought to deprive the emperor of his commander-in-chief and his main army, Richelieu also used every means to induce Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, to invade the empire. The appearance of Wallenstein on the Baltic coast and the invasion of the ecclesiastical principalities on the Elbe by the Catholics disturbed the ambitious King of Sweden. He was the ablest of all the princes who, in the first half of the seventeenth century, sustained the authority of the sovereign against the encroachments of the petty nobility in central and eastern Europe. After a speedily won success in Sweden itself, he set about the task of conquering all the territories on the Baltic in which the princes still suffered the inferior nobles to do as they pleased, thereby securing also for Sweden the control of this sea and a place as one of the great powers. If the Hapsburgs should accomplish their plans for the restoration of Catholicism the schemes of Gustavus Adolphus would be completely frustrated. For, in order to control all the lands on the Baltic and to sever permanently the German provinces of this region from the empire, he must unite them in an organic political system and civilization; this would be impossible unless all
 | An image should appear at this position in the text. To use the entire page scan as a placeholder, edit this page and replace "{{missing image}}" with "{{raw image|Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/573}}". Otherwise, if you are able to provide the image then please do so. For guidance, see Wikisource:Image guidelines and Help:Adding images. |  |
The Cathedral, Augsburg
See article Augsburg
of them were separated in religion from the greater part of the rest of Europe by professing Lutheranism. In the summer of 1630 the king landed in Pomerania; in August the emperor sacrificed Wallenstein to the princes.
The success of Richelieu's intrigues and of the invasion of Gustavus Adolphus appeared more alarming at first than the outcome warranted. They did not cause the dynastic power of the Hapsburgs to totter. Gustavus Adolphus was killed at Lützen (1632); his finest troops, the mainstay of his strength, were annihilated at Nördlingen (1634). Thereafter the Swedes could achieve only ephemeral successes by means of a few bold but spasmodic excursions from the coast into the interior of the empire. Years passed before Richelieu was able to replace the army of Gustavus Adolphus by French troops. During the Swedish invasion he had occupied (1630-34) the whole of Lorraine and the region between the Moselle and the Upper Rhine. After the battle of Nördlingen he openly declared war against the emperor (1635), but he did not venture far beyond the Rhine. Within the empire the first successes of the Swedes led to a reconciliation between Maximilian and the emperor, while the continued occupation of German soil by the Swedes and the French declaration of war after Richelieu's assurances of peace influenced most of the other princes to ally themselves again with the emperor, Saxony leading the way. There was a burst of patriotic indignation, such as had not been known for a long time; men were again ready to sacrifice their interests to those of the empire. In the Peace of Prague (1635) emperor and princes
