Volume I—A To Elba (continued 15)

F. Kohlrausch, History of Germany, chapter 14.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1347-1493.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1468. Invasion by George Podiebrad of Bohemia. The crusade against him.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1458-1471.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1471-1491. Hungarian invasion and capture of Vienna. Treaty of Presburg. Succession to the throne of Hungary secured.

"George, King of Bohemia, expired in 1471; and the claims of the Emperor and King of Hungary being equally disregarded, the crown was conferred on Uladislaus, son of Casimir IV. King of Poland, and grandson of Albert II. To this election Frederic long persisted in withholding his assent; but at length he determined to crush the claim of Matthias by formally investing Uladislaus with the kingdom and electorate of Bohemia, and the office of imperial cup-bearer. In revenge for this affront, Matthias marched into Austria: took possession of the fortresses of the Danube; and compelled the Emperor to purchase a cessation of hostilities by undertaking to pay an hundred thousand golden florins, one-half of which was disbursed by the Austrian states at the appointed time. But as the King of Hungary still delayed to yield up the captured fortresses, Frederic refused all further payment; and the war was again renewed. Matthias invaded and ravaged Austria; and though he experienced formidable resistance from several towns, his arms were crowned with success, and he became master of Vienna and Neustadt. Driven from his capital the terrified Emperor was reduced to the utmost distress, and wandered from town to town and from convent to convent, endeavouring to arouse the German States against the Hungarians. Yet even in this exigency his good fortune did not wholly forsake him; and he availed himself of a Diet at Frankfort to procure the election of his son Maximilian as King of the Romans. To this Diet, however, the King of Bohemia received no summons, and therefore protested against the validity of the election. A full apology and admission of his right easily satisfied Uladislaus, and he consented to remit the fine which the Golden Bull had fixed as the penalty of the omission. The death of Matthias Corvinus in 1490, left the throne of Hungary vacant, and the Hungarians, influenced by their widowed queen, conferred the crown upon the King of Bohemia, without listening to the pretensions of Maximilian. That valorous prince, however, sword in hand, recovered his Austrian dominions; and the rival kings concluded a severe contest by the treaty of Presburg, by which Hungary was for the present secured to Uladislaus; but on his death without heirs was to vest in the descendants of the Emperor."

Sir R. Comyn, The History of the Western Empire, chapter 28 (volume 2).

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1471-1487, and 1487-1526.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1477-1495. Marriage of Maximilian with Mary of Burgundy. His splendid dominion. His joyous character. His vigorous powers. His ambitions and aims.

"Maximilian, who was as active and enterprising as his father was indolent and timid, married at eighteen years of age, the only daughter of Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy."

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1477

"She brought him Flanders, Franche-Comte, and all the Low Countries. Louis XI., who disputed some of those territories, and who, on the death of the duke, had seized Burgundy, Picardy, Ponthieu, and Artois, as fiefs of France, which could not be possessed by a woman, was defeated by Maximilian at Guinegaste; and Charles VIII., who renewed the same claims, was obliged to conclude a disadvantageous peace." Maximilian succeeded to the imperial throne on the death of his father in 1493.

W. Russell, History of Modern Europe, letter 49 (volume 1).

"Between the Alps and the Bohemian frontier, the mark Austria was first founded round and about the castles of Krems and Melk. Since then, beginning first in the valley towards Bavaria and Hungary, and coming to the House of Hapsburg, it had extended across the whole of the northern slope of the Alps until where the Slavish, Italian, and German tongues part, and over to Alsace; thus becoming an archduchy from a mark. On all sides the Archdukes had claims; on the German side to Switzerland, on the Italian to the Venetian possessions, and on the Slavish to Bohemia and Hungary. To such a pitch of greatness had Maximilian by his marriage with Maria of Burgundy brought the heritage received from Charles the Bold. True to the Netherlanders' greeting, in the inscription over their gates, 'Thou art our Duke, fight our battle for us,' war was from the first his handicraft. He adopted Charles the Bold's hostile attitude towards France; he saved the greater part of his inheritance from the schemes of Louis XI. Day and night it was his whole thought, to conquer it entirely. {204} But after Maria of Burgundy's premature death, revolution followed revolution, and his father Frederick being too old to protect himself, it came about that in the year 1488 he was ousted from Austria by the Hungarians, whilst his son was kept a prisoner in Bruges by the citizens, and they had even to fear the estrangement of the Tyrol. Yet they did not lose courage. At this very time the father denoted with the vowels, A. E. I. O. U. ('Alles Erdreich ist Oesterreich unterthan'—All the earth is subject to Austria), the extent of his hopes. In the same year, his son negotiated for a Spanish alliance. Their real strength lay in the imperial dignity of Maximilian, which they had from the German Empire. As soon as it began to bestir itself, Maximilian was set at liberty; as soon as it supported him in the persons of only a few princes of the Empire, he became lord in his Netherlands. … Since then his plans were directed against Hungary and Burgundy. In Hungary he could gain nothing except securing the succession to his house. But never, frequently as he concluded peace, did he give up His intentions upon Burgundy. … Now that he had allied himself with a Sforza, and had joined the Liga, now that his father was dead, and the Empire was pledged to follow him across the mountains, and now, too, that the Italian complications were threatening Charles, he took fresh hope, and in this hope he summoned a Diet at Worms. Maximilian was a prince of whom, although many portraits have been drawn, yet there is scarcely one that resembles another, so easily and entirely did he suit himself to circumstances. … His soul is full of motion, of joy in things, and of plans. There is scarcely anything that he is not capable of doing. In his mines he is a good screener, in his armoury the best plater, capable of instructing others in new inventions. With musket in hand, he defends his best marksman, George Purkhard; with heavy cannon, which he has shown how to cast, and has placed on wheels, he comes as a rule nearest the mark. He commands seven captains in their seven several tongues; he himself chooses and mixes his food and medicines. In the open country, he feels himself happiest. … What really distinguishes his public life is that presentiment of the future greatness of his dynasty which he has inherited of his father, and the restless striving to attain all that devolved upon him from the House of Burgundy. All his policy and all his schemes were concentrated, not upon his Empire, for the real needs of which he evinced little real care, and not immediately upon the welfare of his hereditary lands, but upon the realization of that sole idea. Of it all his letters and speeches are full. … In March, 1495, Maximilian came to the Diet at Worms. … At this Reichstag the King gained two momentous prospects. In Wurtemberg there had sprung of two lines two counts of quite opposite characters. … With the elder, Maximilian now entered into a compact. Wurtemberg was to be raised to a dukedom—an elevation which excluded the female line from the succession—and, in the event of the stock failing, was to be a 'widow's portion' of the realm to the use of the Imperial Chamber. Now as the sole hopes of this family centred in a weakling of a boy, this arrangement held out to Maximilian and his successors the prospect of acquiring a splendid country. Yet this was the smaller of his two successes. The greater was the espousal of his children, Philip and Margaret, with the two children of Ferdinand the Catholic, Juana and Juan, which was here settled. This opened to his house still greater expectations,—it brought him at once into the most intimate alliance with the Kings of Spain. These matters might possibly, however, have been arranged elsewhere. What Maximilian really wanted in the Reichstag at Worms was the assistance of the Empire against the French with its world-renowned and much-envied soldiery. For at this time in all the wars of Europe, German auxiliaries were decisive. … If Maximilian had united the whole of this power in his hand, neither Europe nor Asia would have been able to withstand him. But God disposed that it should rather be employed in the cause of freedom than oppression. What an Empire was that which in spite of its vast strength allowed its Emperor to be expelled from his heritage, and did not for a long time take steps to bring him back again? If we examine the constitution of the Empire, not as we should picture it to ourselves in Henry III. 's time, but as it had at length become—the legal independence of the several estates, the emptiness of the imperial dignity, the electiveness of a head, that afterwards exercised certain rights over the electors,—we are led to inquire not so much into the causes of its disintegration, for this concerns us little, as into the way in which it was held together. What welded it together, and preserved it, would (leaving tradition and the Pope out of the question) appear, before all else, to have been the rights of individuals, the unions of neighbours, and the social regulations which universally obtained. Such were those rights and privileges that not only protected the citizen, his guild, and his quarter of the town against his neighbours and more powerful men than himself, but which also endowed him with an inner independence. … Next, the unions of neighbours. These were not only leagues of cities and peasantries, expanded from ancient fraternities—for who can tell the origin of the Hansa, or the earliest treaty between Uri and Schwyz?—into large associations, or of knights, who strengthened a really insignificant power by confederations of neighbours, but also of the princes, who were bound together by joint inheritances, mutual expectancies, and the ties of blood, which in some cases were very close. This ramification, dependent upon a supreme power and confirmed by it, bound neighbour to neighbour; and, whilst securing to each his privilege and his liberty, blended together all countries of Germany in legal bonds of union. But it is only in the social regulations that the unity was really perceivable. Only as long as the Empire was an actual reality, could the supreme power of the Electors, each with his own special rights, be maintained; only so long could dukes and princes, bishops and abbots hold their neighbours in due respect, and through court offices or hereditary services, through fiefs and the dignity of their independent position give their vassals a peculiar position to the whole. Only so long could the cities enjoying immediateness under the Empire, carefully divided into free and imperial cities, be not merely protected, but also assured of a participation in the government of the whole. Under this sanctified and traditional system of suzerainty and vassalage all were happy and contented, and bore a love to it such as is cherished towards a native town or a father's house. For some time past, the House of Austria had enjoyed the foremost position. It also had a union, and, moreover, a great faction on its side. The union was the Suabian League. Old Suabia was divided into three leagues—the league of the peasantry (the origin of Switzerland); the league of the knights in the Black Forest, on the Kocher, the Neckar, and the Danube; and the league of the cities. The peasantry were from the first hostile to Austria. The Emperor Frederick brought it to pass that the cities and knights, that had from time out of mind lived in feud, bound themselves together with several princes, and formed, under his protection, the league of the land of Suabia. But the party was scattered throughout the whole Empire."

L. von Ranke, History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations, book 1, chapter 3.

{205}

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1493-1519. The Imperial reign of Maximilian. Formation of the Circle of Austria. The Aulic Council.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1493-1519.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1496-1499. The Swabian War with the Swiss Confederacy and the Graubunden, or Grey Leagues (Grisons). Practical independence of both acquired.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1396-1499.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1496-1526. Extraordinary aggrandizement of the House of Austria by its marriages. The Heritage of Charles V. His cession of the German inheritance to Ferdinand. The division of the House into Spanish and German branches. Acquisition of Hungary and Bohemia.

In 1496, Philip the Fair, son of Maximilian, Archduke and Emperor, by his marriage with Mary of Burgundy, "espoused the Infanta of Spain, daughter of Ferdinand [of Aragon] and Isabella of Castile. They had two sons, Charles and Ferdinand, the former of whom, known in history by the name of Charles V., inherited the Low Countries in right of his father, Philip (1506). On the death of Ferdinand, his maternal grandfather (1516), he became heir to the whole Spanish succession, which comprehended the kingdoms of Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, together with Spanish America. To these vast possessions were added his patrimonial dominions in Austria, which were transmitted to him by his paternal grandfather, the Emperor Maximilian I. About the same time (1519), the Imperial dignity was conferred on this prince by the electors [see GERMANY: A. D. 1519]; so that Europe had not seen, since the time of Charlemagne, a monarchy so powerful as that of Charles V. This Emperor concluded a treaty with his brother Ferdinand; by which he ceded to him all his hereditary possessions in Germany. The two brothers thus became the founders of the two principal branches of the House of Austria, viz., that of Spain, which began with Charles V. (called Charles I. of Spain), and ended with Charles II. (1700); and that of Germany, of which Ferdinand I. was the ancestor, and which became extinct in the male line in the Emperor Charles VI. (1740). These two branches, closely allied to each other, acted in concert for the advancement of their reciprocal interests; moreover they gained each their own separate advantages by the marriage connexions which they formed. Ferdinand I. of the German line married Anne (1521), sister of Louis King of Hungary and Bohemia, who having been slain by the Turks at the battle of Mohacs (1526), these two kingdoms devolved to Ferdinand of the House of Austria. Finally, the marriage which Charles V. contracted with the Infant Isabella, daughter of Emmanuel, King of Portugal, procured Philip II. of Spain, the son of that marriage, the whole Portuguese monarchy, to which he succeeded on the death of Henry, called the Cardinal (1580). So vast an aggrandisement of power alarmed the Sovereigns of Europe."

C. W. Koch, The Revolutions of Europe, period 6.

ALSO IN: W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapters 25 and 27 (volume 1).

W. Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles V., book 1.

See, also, SPAIN: A. D. 1496-1517.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1519. Death of Maximilian. Election of Charles V., "Emperor of the Romans."

See GERMANY: A. D. 1519.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1519-1555. The imperial reign of Charles V. The objects of his policy. His conflict with the Reformation and with France.

"Charles V. did not receive from nature all the gifts nor all the charms she can bestow, nor did experience give him every talent; but he was equal to the part he had to play in the world. He was sufficiently great to keep his many-jewelled diadem. … His ambition was cold and wise. The scope of his ideas, which are not quite easy to divine, was vast enough to control a state composed of divers and distant portions, so as to make it always very difficult to amalgamate his armies, and to supply them with food, or to procure money. Indeed its very existence would have been exposed to permanent danger from powerful coalitions, had Francis I. known how to place its most vulnerable points under a united pressure from the armies of France, of England, of Venice, and of the Ottoman Empire. Charles V. attained his first object when he prevented the French monarch from taking possession of the inheritance of the house of Anjou, at Naples, and of that of the Viscontis at Milan. He was more successful in stopping the march of Solyman into Austria than in checking the spread of the Reformation in Germany. … Charles V. had four objects very much at heart: he wished to be the master in Italy, to check the progress of the Ottoman power in the west of Europe, to conquer the King of France, and to govern the Germanic body by dividing it, and by making the Reformation a religious pretext for oppressing the political defenders of that belief. In three out of four of these objects he succeeded. Germany alone was not conquered: if she was beaten in battle, neither any political triumph nor any religious results ensued. In Germany, Charles V. began his work too late, and acted too slowly; he undertook to subdue it at a time when the abettors of the Reformation had grown strong, when he himself was growing weaker. … Like many other brilliant careers, the career of Charles V. was more successful and more striking at the commencement and the middle than at the end, of its course. At Madrid, at Cambrai, at Nice, he made his rival bow down his head. At Crespy he again forced him to obey his will, but as he had completely made up his mind to have peace, Charles dictated it, in some manner, to his own detriment. {206} At Passau he had to yield to the terms of his enemy—of an enemy whom Charles V. encountered in his old age, and when his powers had decayed. Although it may be said that the extent and the power of the sovereignty which Charles V. left to his successor at his death were not diminished, still his armies were weakened, his finances were exhausted, and the country was weary of the tyranny of the imperial lieutenants. The supremacy of the empire in Germany, for which he had struggled so much, was as little established at the end as at the beginning of his reign; religious unity was solemnly destroyed by the 'Recess' of Augsburg. But that which marks the position of Charles V. as the representative man of his epoch, and as the founder of the policy of modern times, is that, wherever he was victorious, the effect of his success was to crush the last efforts of the spirit of the middle ages, and of the independence of nations. In Italy, in Spain, in Germany, and in the Low Countries, his triumphs were so much gain to the cause of absolute monarchy and so much loss to the liberty derived from the old state of society. Whatever was the character of liberty in the middle ages—whether it were contested or incomplete, or a mockery—it played a greater part than in the four succeeding centuries. Charles V. was assuredly one of those who contributed the most to found and consolidate the political system of modern governments. His history has an aspect of grandeur. Had Francis I. been as sagacious in the closet as he was bold in the field, by a vigorous alliance with England, with Protestant Germany, and with some of the republics of Italy, he might perhaps have balanced and controlled the power of Charles V. But the French monarch did not possess the foresight and the solid understanding necessary to pursue such a policy with success. His rival, therefore, occupies the first place in the historical picture of the epoch. Charles V. had the sentiment of his position and of the part he had to play."

J. Van Praet, Essays on the Political History of the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries, pages 190-194.

See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 1519 to 1152-1561, and FRANCE: A. D. 1520-1523, to 1547-1559.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1525-1527. Successful Contest for the Hungarian and Bohemian Crowns.

In Hungary, "under King Matthias the house of Zapolya, so called from a Slavonic village near Poschega, whence it originated, rose to peculiar eminence. To this house, in particular, King Wladislas had owed his accession to the throne; whence, however, it thought itself entitled to claim a share in the sovereign power, and even a sort of prospective right to the throne. Its members were the wealthiest of all the magnates; they possessed seventy-two castles. … It is said that a prophecy early promised the crown to the young John Zapolya. Possessed of all the power conferred by his rich inheritance, Count of Zips, and Woiwode of Transylvania, he soon collected a strong party around him. It was he who mainly persuaded the Hungarians, in the year 1505, to exclude all foreigners from the throne by a formal decree; which, though they were not always able to maintain in force, they could never be induced absolutely to revoke. In the year 1514 the Woiwode succeeded in putting down an exceedingly formidable insurrection of the peasants with his own forces; a service which the lesser nobility prized the more highly, because it enabled them to reduce the peasantry to a still harder state of servitude. His wish was, on the death of Wladislas, to become Gubernator of the kingdom, to marry the deceased king's daughter Anne, and then to await the course of events. But he was here encountered by the policy of Maximilian. Anne was married to the Archduke Ferdinand; Zapolya was excluded from the administration of the kingdom; even the vacant Palatinate was refused him and given to his old rival Stephen Bathory. He was highly incensed. … But it was not till the year 1525 that Zapolya got the upper hand at the Rakosch. … No one entertained a doubt that he aimed at the throne. … But before anything was accomplished—on the contrary, just as these party conflicts had thrown the country into the utmost confusion, the mighty enemy, Soliman, appeared on the frontiers of Hungary, determined to put an end to the anarchy. … In his prison at Madrid, Francis I. had found means to entreat the assistance of Soliman; urging that it well beseemed a great emperor to succour the oppressed. Plans were laid at Constantinople, according to which the two sovereigns were to attack Spain with a combined fleet, and to send armies to invade Hungary and the north of Italy. Soliman, without any formal treaty, was by his position an ally of the Ligue, as the king of Hungary was, of the emperor. On the 23d of April, 1526, Soliman, after visiting the groves of his forefathers and of the old Moslem martyrs, marched out of Constantinople with a mighty host, consisting of about a hundred thousand men, and incessantly strengthened by fresh recruits on its road. … What power had Hungary, in the condition we have just described, of resisting such an attack? … The young king took the field with a following of not more than three thousand men. … He proceeded to the fatal plain of Mohaez, fully resolved with his small band to await in the open field the overwhelming force of the enemy. … Personal valour could avail nothing. The Hungarians were immediately thrown into disorder, their best men fell, the others took to flight. The young king was compelled to flee. It was not even granted him to die in the field of battle; a far more miserable end a waited him. Mounted behind a Silesian soldier, who served him as a guide, he had already been carried across the dark waters that divide the plain; his horse was already climbing the bank, when he slipped, fell back, and buried himself and his rider in the morass. This rendered the defeat decisive. … Soliman had gained one of those victories which decide the fate of nations during long epochs. … That two thrones, the succession to which was not entirely free from doubt, had thus been left vacant, was an event that necessarily caused a great agitation throughout Christendom. It was still a question whether such a European power as Austria would continue to exist;—a question which it is only necessary to state, in order to be aware of its vast importance to the fate of mankind at large, and of Germany in particular. … The claims of Ferdinand to both crowns, unquestionable as they might be in reference to the treaties with the reigning houses, were opposed in the nations themselves, by the right of ejection and the authority of considerable rivals. {207} In Hungary, as soon as the Turks had retired, John Zapolya appeared with the fine army which he had kept back from the conflict; the fall of the king was at the same time the fall of his adversaries. … Even in Tokay, however, John Zapolya was saluted as king. Meanwhile, the dukes of Bavaria conceived the design of getting possession of the throne of Bohemia. … Nor was it in the two kingdoms alone that these pretenders had a considerable party. The state of politics in Europe was such as to insure them powerful supporters abroad. In the first place, Francis I. was intimately connected with Zapolya: in a short time a delegate from the pope was at his side, and the Germans in Rome maintained that Clement assisted the faction of the Woiwode with money. Zapolya sent an agent to Venice with a direct request to be admitted a member of the Ligue of Cognac. In Bohemia, too, the French had long had devoted partisans. … The consequences that must have resulted, had this scheme succeeded, are so incalculable, that it is not too much to say they would have completely changed the political history of Europe. The power of Bavaria would have outweighed that of Austria in both German and Slavonian countries, and Zapolya, thus supported, would have been able to maintain his station; the Ligue, and with it high ultra-montane opinions would have held the ascendency in eastern Europe. Never was there a project more pregnant with danger to the growing power of the house of Austria. Ferdinand behaved with all the prudence and energy which that house has so often displayed in difficult emergencies. For the present, the all-important object was the crown of Bohemia. … All his measures were taken with such skill and prudence, that on the day of election, though the Bavarian agent had, up to the last moment, not the slightest doubt of the success of his negotiations, an overwhelming majority in the three estates elected Ferdinand to the throne of Bohemia. This took place on the 23d October, 1526. … On his brother's birth-day, the 24th of February, 1527, Ferdinand was crowned at Prague. …. The affairs of Hungary were not so easily or so peacefully settled. … At first, when Zapolya came forward, full armed and powerful out of the general desolation, he had the uncontested superiority. The capital of the kingdom sought his protection, after which he marched to Stuhlweissenburg, where his partisans bore down all attempts at opposition: he was elected and crowned (11th of November, 1526); in Croatia, too, he was acknowledged king at a diet; he filled all the numerous places, temporal and spiritual, left vacant by the disaster of Mohaez, with his friends. … [But] the Germans advanced without interruption; and as soon as it appeared possible that Ferdinand might be successful, Zapolya's followers began to desert him. … Never did the German troops display more bravery and constancy. They had often neither meat nor bread, and were obliged to live on such fruits as they found in the gardens: the inhabitants were wavering and uncertain—they submitted, and then revolted again to the enemy; Zapolya's troops, aided by their knowledge of the ground, made several very formidable attacks by night; but the Germans evinced, in the moment of danger, the skill and determination of a Roman legion: they showed, too, a noble constancy under difficulties and privations. At Tokay they defeated Zapolya and compelled him to quit Hungary. … On the 3rd November, 1527, Ferdinand was crowned in Stuhlweissenburg: only five of the magnates of the kingdom adhered to Zapolya. The victory appeared complete. Ferdinand, however, distinctly felt that this appearance was delusive. … In Bohemia, too, his power was far from secure. His Bavarian neighbours had not relinquished the hope of driving him from the throne at the first general turn of affairs. The Ottomans, meanwhile, acting upon the persuasion that every land in which the head of their chief had rested belonged of right to them, were preparing to return to Hungary; either to take possession of it themselves, or at first, as was their custom, to bestow it on a native ruler—Zapolya, who now eagerly sought an alliance with them—as their vassal."

L. Von Ranke, History of the Reformation in Germany, book 4, chapter 4 (volume 2).

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1564-1618. The tolerance of Maximilian II. The bigotry and tyranny of Rodolph and Ferdinand II. Prelude to the Thirty Years War.

"There is no period connected with these religious wars that deserves more to be studied than these reigns of Ferdinand I., Maximilian [the Second], and those of his successors who preceded the thirty years' war. We have no sovereign who exhibited that exercise of moderation and good sense which a philosopher would require, but Maximilian; and he was immediately followed by princes of a different complexion. … Nothing could be more complete than the difficulty of toleration at the time when Maximilian reigned; and if a mild policy could be attended with favourable effects in his age and nation, there can be little fear of the experiment at any other period. No party or person in the state was then disposed to tolerate his neighbour from any sense of the justice of such forbearance, but from motives of temporal policy alone. The Lutherans, it will be seen, could not bear that the Calvinists should have the same religious privileges with themselves. The Calvinists were equally opinionated and unjust; and Maximilian himself was probably tolerant and wise, chiefly because he was in his real opinions a Lutheran, and in outward profession, as the head of the empire, a Roman Catholic. For twelve years, the whole of his reign, he preserved the religious peace of the community, without destroying the religious freedom of the human mind. He supported the Roman Catholics, as the predominant party, in all their rights, possessions, and privileges; but he protected the Protestants in every exercise of their religion which was then practicable. In other words, he was as tolerant and just as the temper of society then admitted, and more so than the state of things would have suggested. … The merit of Maximilian was but too apparent the moment that his son Rodolph was called upon to supply his place. … He had always left the education of his son and successor too much to the discretion of his bigoted consort. Rodolph, his son, was therefore as ignorant and furious on his part as were the Protestants on theirs; he had immediate recourse to the usual expedients—force, and the execution of the laws to the very letter. … After Rodolph comes Matthias, and, unhappily for all Europe, Bohemia and the empire fell afterwards under the management of Ferdinand II. Of the different Austrian princes, it is the reign of Ferdinand II. that is more particularly to be considered. Such was the arbitrary nature of his government over his subjects in Bohemia, that they revolted. They elected for their king the young Elector Palatine, hoping thus to extricate themselves from the bigotry and tyranny of Ferdinand. This crown so offered was accepted; and, in the event, the cause of the Bohemians became the cause of the Reformation in Germany, and the Elector Palatine the hero of that cause. It is this which gives the great interest to this reign of Ferdinand II., to these concerns of his subjects in Bohemia, and to the character of this Elector Palatine. For all these events and circumstances led to the thirty years' war."

W. Smyth, Lectures on Modern History, volume I, lecture 13.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1611-1618, and GERMANY: A. D. 1618-1620.

{208}

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1567-1660. Struggles of the Hapsburg House in Hungary and Transylvania to establish rights of sovereignty. Wars with the Turks.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1567-1604, and 1606-1660.

—————AUSTRIA: End—————

Seventeenth Century: Second Half.

Contemporaneous Events.

A.D.

1651. Invasion of England by Charles II. and the Scots; Cromwell's victory at Worcester; complete conquest of Scotland.

1652. Victorious naval war of the English with the Dutch. End of the Fronde. Institution of the Liberum Veto in Poland.

1653. Expulsion of "the Rump" by Cromwell, and establishment of the Protectorate in England. Adoption of the Instrument of Government. Return of Mazarin to power in France. The Cromwellian settlement of Ireland.

1654. Incorporation of Scotland with the English Commonwealth, under Cromwell. Peace between the English and Dutch. Conquest of Nova Scotia, by the New England colonists.

1655. Alliance of England and France against Spain. English conquest of Jamaica.

1656. Beginning of the persecution of the Quakers in Massachusetts.

1658. Capture of Dunkirk from the Spaniards and possession given by the French to the English. Death of Cromwell and succession of his son Richard as Protector.

1659. Meeting of a new Parliament in England; its dissolution; resuscitation and re-expulsion of the Rump, and formation of a provisional government by the Army.

1660. March of the English army under Monk from Scotland to London. Call of a new Parliament by Monk, and restoration of the monarchy, in the person of Charles II.

1661. Restoration of the Church of England and ejection of 2,000 nonconformist ministers. Personal assumption of government by Louis XIV. in France. Beginning of the ministry of Colbert.

1662. Sale of Dunkirk to France by Charles II. Restoration of episcopacy in Scotland and persecution of the Covenanters.

1664. Seizure of New Netherland (henceforth New York) by the English from the Dutch and grant of the province to the duke of York. Grant of New Jersey to Berkeley and Carteret.

1665. Outbreak of the great Plague in London. Formal declarations of war between the English and the Dutch.

1666. The great fire in London. Tremendous naval battles between Dutch and English and defeat of the former.

1667. Ravages by a Dutch fleet in the Thames. Peace treaties of Breda, between England, Holland, France and Denmark. War of Louis XIV., called the War of the Queen's Rights, in the Spanish Netherlands.

1668. Triple alliance of England, Holland and Sweden against France.

1669. First exploring journey of La Salle from the St. Lawrence to the West.

1670. Treaty of the king of England with Louis XIV. of France, betraying his allies, the Dutch, and engaging to profess himself a Catholic.

1672. Alliance of England and France against the Dutch. Restoration of the Stadtholdership in Holland to the Prince of Orange, and murder of the De Witts.

1673. Recovery of New Netherland by the Dutch from the English.

1674. Treaty of Westminster, restoring peace between the Dutch and English and ceding New Netherland to the latter.

1675. War with the Indians in New England, known as King Philip's War.

1678. Pretended Popish Plot in England. Treaties of Nimeguen.

1679. Passage of the Habeas Corpus Act in England. Oppression of Scotland and persecution of the Covenanters. Defeat of Claverhouse at Drumclog. Defeat of Covenanters at Bothwell Bridge.

1680. First naming of the Whig and Tory parties in England.

1681. Merciless despotism of the duke of York in Scotland. Beginning of "dragonnade" persecution of Protestants in France. Grant of Pennsylvania by Charles II. to William Penn.

1682. Exploration of the Mississippi to its mouth by La Salle.

1683. The Rye-house Plot, and execution of Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney, in England. Great invasion of Hungary and Austria by the Turks; their siege of Vienna, and the deliverance of the city by John Sobieski, king of Poland. Establishment of a penny post in London.

1685. Death of Charles II., king of England, and accession of his brother James II., an avowed Catholic. Rebellion of the duke of Monmouth. Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. of France.

1686. Consolidation of New England under a royal governor-general. League of Augsburg against Louis XIV. of France.

1688. Declaration of Indulgence by James II. of England, and imprisonment and trial of the seven bishops for refusing to publish it. Invitation to William and Mary of Orange to accept the English crown. Arrival in England of the Prince of Orange and flight of James.

1689. Completion of the English Revolution. Settlement of the crown on William and Mary. Passage of the Toleration Act and the Bill of Rights. Landing of James II. in Ireland and war in that island; siege and successful defense of Londonderry.

1690. The first congress of the American colonies. Battle of the Boyne in Ireland.

1692. The Salem Witchcraft madness in Massachusetts. Massacre of Glencoe in Scotland.

1695. Passage of the first of the Penal Laws, oppressing Catholics in Ireland.

1697. Peace of Ryswick. Cession of Strasburg and restoration of Acadia to France.

1699. Peace of Carlowitz, between Turkey, Russia, Poland, Venice, and the Emperor.

1700. Prussia raised in rank to a kingdom. First campaigns of Charles XII. of Sweden.

—————Subject: Start————

Seventeenth Century: First Half.

Contemporaneous Events.

A.D. 1602. Chartering of Dutch East India Company. First acting of Shakespeare's "Hamlet."

1603. Death of Queen Elizabeth of England and accession of James I.

1600. Gunpowder plot of English Catholics. Publication of Bacon's "Advancement of Learning," and part 1 of Cervantes' "Don Quixote."

1606. Charter granted to the London and Plymouth companies, for American colonization. Organization of the Independent church of Brownists at Scrooby, England.

1607. Settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. Migration of Scrooby Independents to Holland.

1609. Settlement of the exiled Pilgrims of Scrooby at Leyden. Construction of the telescope by Galileo and discovery of Jupiter's moons.

1610. Assassination of Henry IV. of France and accession of Louis XIII.

1611. Publication in England of the King James or Authorized version of the Bible.

1614. Last meeting of the States General of France before the Revolution.

1610. Appearance at Frankfort-on-the-Main of the first known weekly newspaper.

1616. Opening of war between Sweden and Poland. Death of Shakespeare and Cervantes.

1618. Rising of Protestants in Bohemia, beginning the Thirty Years War.

1619. Trial and execution of John of Barneveldt. Introduction of slavery in Virginia.

1620. Decisive defeat of the Protestants of Bohemia in the battle of the White Mountain. Rising of the French Huguenots at Rochelle. Migration of the Pilgrims from Leyden to America.

1621. Formation of the Dutch West India Company. The first Thanksgiving Day in New England.

1622. Appearance of the first known printed newspaper in England "The Weekly Newes."

1624. Beginning of Richelieu's ministry, in France.

1625. Death of James I., of England, and accession of Charles I.; beginning of the English struggle between King and Parliament. Engagement of Wallenstein and his army in the service of the Emperor against the Protestants.

1627. Alliance of England with the French Huguenots. Siege of Rochelle by Richelieu.

1628. Passage by the English Parliament of the act called the Petition of Right. Assassination of the duke of Buckingham. Surrender of Rochelle to Richelieu. Publication of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood.

1629. Tumult in the English Parliament, dissolution by the king and arrest of Eliot and others.

1630. Appearance in Germany of Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, as the champion of Protestantism. Settlement of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, in New England, and founding of Boston. The Day of the Dupes in France.

1631. Siege, capture and sack of Magdeburg by the imperial general, Tilly. Defeat of Tilly on the Breitenfeld, at Leipzig, by Gustavus Adolphus.

1632. Defeat and death of Tilly. Victory and death of Gustavus Adolphus at Lützen. Patent to Lord Baltimore by James I., of England, granting him the territory in America called Maryland. First Jesuit mission to Canada.

1634. Assassination of Wallenstein. Levy of Ship-money in England.

1635. First settlements in the Connecticut valley.

1636. Banishment of Roger Williams from Massachusetts, and his founding of Providence.

1637. The Pequot War in New England. Introduction of Laud's Service-book in Scotland; tumult in St. Giles' church.

1638. Banishment of Anne Hutchinson from Massachusetts. Rising in Scotland against the Service-book; organization of the Tables; signing of the National Covenant.

1639. The First Bishops' War of the Scotch with King Charles I.

1640. Meeting of the Long Parliament in England. Recovery of independence by Portugal.

1641. Impeachment and execution of Strafford and adoption of the Grand Remonstrance by the English Parliament. Catholic rising in Ireland and alleged massacres of Protestants.

1642. King Charles' attempt, in England, to arrest the Five Members, and opening of the Civil War at Edgehill. Conspiracy of Cinq Mars in France. Death of Cardinal Richelieu.

1643. Meeting of the Westminster Assembly of Divines. Subscription of the Solemn League and Covenant between the Scotch and English nations. Siege of Gloucester and first battle of Newbury. Death of Louis XIII. of France and accession of Louis XIV.

1644. Battles of Marston Moor and the second Newbury, in the English civil war.

1645. Oliver Cromwell placed second in command of the English Parliamentary army. His victory at Naseby. Exploits of Montrose in Scotland.

1646. Adoption of Presbyterianism by the English Parliament. Surrender of King Charles to the Scottish army.

1647. Surrender of King Charles by the Scots to the English, and his seizure by the Army.

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.

"The death of the Emperor Joseph I., who expired April 17, 1711, at the age of thirty-two, changed the whole character of the War of the Spanish Succession. As Joseph left no male heirs, the hereditary dominions of the House of Austria devolved to his brother, the Archduke Charles; and though that prince had not been elected King of the Romans, and had therefore to become a candidate for the imperial crown, yet there could be little doubt that he would attain that dignity. Hence, if Charles should also become sovereign of Spain and the Indies, the vast empire of Charles V. would be again united in one person; and that very evil of an almost universal monarchy would be established, the prevention of which had been the chief cause for taking up arms against Philip V. … After an interregnum of half a year, during which the affairs of the Empire had been conducted by the Elector Palatine and the Elector of Saxony, as imperial vicars for South and North Germany, the Archduke Charles was unanimously named Emperor by the Electoral College (Oct. 12th). … Charles … received the imperial crown at Frankfort, December 22d, with the title of Charles VI."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 5, chapter 6 (volume 3).

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1713-1714. Ending of the War of the Spanish Succession. The Peace of Utrecht and the Treaty of Rastadt. Acquisition of the Spanish Netherlands, Naples and Milan.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1713-1719. Continued differences with Spain. The Triple Alliance. The Quadruple Alliance.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1714. The Desertion of the Catalans.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1714.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1714-1718. Recovery of Belgrade and final expulsion of the Turks from Hungary.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1699-1718.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738. The question of the Succession. The Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VI., and its guarantee by the Powers.

"On the death [A. D. 1711] of Joseph, the hopes of the house of Austria and the future destiny of Germany rested on Charles [then, as titular king of Spain, Charles III., ineffectually contesting the Spanish throne with the Bourbon heir, Philip V. afterwards, as Emperor, Charles VI.] who was the only surviving male of his illustrious family. By that event the houses of Austria, Germany and Europe were placed in a new and critical situation. From a principle of mistaken policy the succession to the hereditary dominions had never been established according to an invariable rule; for it was not clearly ascertained whether males of the collateral branches should be preferred to females in lineal descent, an uncertainty which had frequently occasioned many vehement disputes. To obviate this evil, as well as to prevent future disputes, Leopold [father of Joseph and Charles] had arranged the order of succession: to Joseph he assigned Hungary and Bohemia, and the other hereditary dominions; and to Charles the crown of Spain, and all the territories which belonged to the Spanish inheritance. Should Joseph die without issue male, the whole succession was to descend to Charles, and in case of his death, under similar circumstances, the Austrian dominions were to devolve on the daughters of Joseph in preference to those of Charles. This family compact was signed by the two brothers in the presence of Leopold. Joseph died without male issue; but left two daughters." He was succeeded by Charles in accordance with the compact. {212} "On the 2nd of August, 1718, soon after the signature of the Quadruple Alliance, Charles promulgated a new law of succession for the inheritance of the house of Austria, under the name of the Pragmatic Sanction. According to the family compact formed by Leopold, and confirmed by Joseph and Charles, the succession was entailed on the daughters of Joseph in preference to the daughters of Charles, should they both die without issue male. Charles, however, had scarcely ascended the throne, though at that time without children, than he reversed this compact, and settled the right of succession, in default of his male issue, first on his daughters, then on the daughters of Joseph, and afterwards on the queen of Portugal and the other daughters of Leopold. Since the promulgation of that decree, the Empress had borne a son who died in his infancy, and three daughters, Maria Theresa, Maria Anne and Maria Amelia. With a view to insure the succession of these daughters, and to obviate the dangers which might arise from the claims of the Josephine archduchesses, he published the Pragmatic Sanction, and compelled his nieces to renounce their pretensions on their marriages with the electors of Saxony and Bavaria. Aware, however, that the strongest renunciations are disregarded, he obtained from the different states of his extensive dominions the acknowledgement of the Pragmatic Sanction, and made it the great object of his reign, to which he sacrificed every other consideration, to procure the guaranty of the European powers." This guaranty was obtained in treaties with the several powers, as follows: Spain in 1725; Russia, 1726, renewed in 1733; Prussia, 1728; England and Holland, 1731; France, 1738; the Empire, 1732. The inheritance which Charles thus endeavored to secure to his daughter was vast and imposing. "He was by election Emperor of Germany, by hereditary right sovereign of Hungary, Transylvania, Bohemia, Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, the Tyrol, and the Brisgau, and he had recently obtained Naples and Sicily, the Milanese and the Netherlands."

W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 80, 84-85 (volume 3).

"The Pragmatic Sanction, though framed to legalize the accession of Maria Theresa, excludes the present Emperor's daughters and his grandchild by postponing the succession of females to that of males in the family of Charles VI."

J. D. Bourchier, The Heritage of the Hapsburgs (Fortnightly Review, March, 1889).

ALSO IN: H. Tuttle, History of Prussia, 1740-1745, chapter 2.

S. A. Dunham, History of the Germanic Empire, book 3, chapter 3 (volume 3).

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1719. Sardinia ceded to the Duke of Savoy in exchange for Sicily.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725; and ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1731. The second Treaty of Vienna with England and Holland.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1732-1733. Interference in the election of the King of Poland.

See POLAND: A. D. 1732-1733.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1733-1735. The war of the Polish Succession. Cession of Naples and Sicily to Spain, and Lorraine and Bar to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735, and ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1737-1739. Unfortunate war with the Turks, in alliance with Russia. Humiliating peace of Belgrade. Surrender of Belgrade, with Servia, and part of Bosnia.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1725-1739.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740 (October). Treachery among the Guarantors of the Pragmatic Sanction. The inheritance of Marie Theresa disputed.

"The Emperor Charles VI. … died on the 20th of October, 1740. His daughter Maria Theresa, the heiress of his dominions with the title of Queen of Hungary, was but twenty-three years of age, without experience or knowledge of business; and her husband Francis, the titular Duke of Lorraine and reigning Grand Duke of Tuscany, deserved the praise of amiable qualities rather than of commanding talents. Her Ministers were timorous, irresolute, and useless: 'I saw them in despair,' writes Mr. Robinson, the British envoy, 'but that very despair was not capable of rendering them bravely desperate.' The treasury was exhausted, the army dispersed, and no General risen to replace Eugene. The succession of Maria Theresa was, indeed, cheerfully acknowledged by her subjects, and seemed to be secured amongst foreign powers by their guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction; but it soon appeared that such guarantees are mere worthless parchments where there is strong temptation to break and only a feeble army to support them. The principal claimant to the succession was the Elector of Bavaria, who maintained that the will of the Emperor Ferdinand the First devised the Austrian states to his daughter, from whom the Elector descended, on failure of male lineage. It appeared that the original will in the archives at Vienna referred to the failure not of the male but of the legitimate issue of his sons; but this document, though ostentatiously displayed to all the Ministers of state and foreign ambassadors, was very far from inducing the Elector to desist from his pretensions. As to the Great Powers—the Court of France, the old ally of the Bavarian family, and mindful of its injuries from the House of Austria, was eager to exalt the first by the depression of the latter. The Bourbons in Spain followed the direction of the Bourbons in France. The King of Poland and the Empress of Russia were more friendly in their expressions than in their designs. An opposite spirit pervaded England and Holland, where motives of honour and of policy combined to support the rights of Maria Theresa. In Germany itself the Elector of Cologne, the Bavarian's brother, warmly espoused his cause: and 'the remaining Electors,' says Chesterfield, 'like electors with us, thought it a proper opportunity of making the most of their votes,—and all at the expense of the helpless and abandoned House of Austria!' The first blow, however, came from Prussia, where the King Frederick William had died a few months before, and been succeeded by his son Frederick the Second; a Prince surnamed the Great by poets."

Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapter 23 (volume 3).

"The elector of Bavaria acted in a prompt, honest, and consistent manner. He at once lodged a protest against any disposition of the hereditary estates to the prejudice of his own rights; insisted on the will of Ferdinand I.; and demanded the production of the original text. It was promptly produced. But it was found to convey the succession to the heirs of his daughter, the ancestress of the elector, not, as he contended, on the failure of male heirs, but in the absence of more direct heirs born in wedlock. Maria Theresa could, however, trace her descent through nearer male heirs, and had, therefore, a superior title. Charles Albert was in any event only one of several claimants. The King of Spain, a Bourbon, presented himself as the heir of the Hapsburg emperor Charles V. The King of Sardinia alleged an ancient marriage contract, from which he derived a right to the duchy of Milan. Even August of Saxony claimed territory by virtue of an antiquated title, which, it was pretended, the renunciation of his wife could not affect. All these were, however, mere vultures compared to the eagle [Frederick of Prussia] which was soon to descend upon its prey."

H. Tuttle, History of Prussia, 1740-1745, chapter 2.

{213}

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740 (October-November). The War of the Succession. Conduct of Frederick the Great as explained by himself.

"This Pragmatic Sanction had been guarantied by France, England, Holland, Sardinia, Saxony, and the Roman empire; nay by the late King Frederic William [of Prussia] also, on condition that the court of Vienna would secure to him the succession of Juliers and Berg. The emperor promised him the eventual succession, and did not fulfil his engagements; by which the King of Prussia, his successor, was freed from this guarantee, to which his father, the late king, had pledged himself, conditionally. … Frederic I., when he erected Prussia into a kingdom, had, by that vain grandeur, planted the scion of ambition in the bosom of his posterity; which, soon or late, must fructify. The monarchy he had left to his descendants was, if I may be permitted the expression, a kind of hermaphrodite, which was rather more an electorate than a kingdom. Fame was to be acquired by determining the nature of this being: and this sensation certainly was one of those which strengthened so many motives, conspiring to engage the king in grand enterprises. If the acquisition of the dutchy of Berg had not even met with almost insurmountable impediments, it was in itself so small that the possession would add little grandeur to the house of Brandenbourg. These reflections occasioned the king to turn his views toward the house of Austria, the succession of which would become matter of litigation, at the death of the emperor, when the throne of the Cæsars should be vacant. That event must be favourable to the distinguished part which the king had to act in Germany, by the various claims of the houses of Saxony and Bavaria to these states; by the number of candidates which might canvass for the Imperial crown; and by the projects of the court of Versailles, which, on such an occasion, must naturally profit by the troubles that the death of Charles VI. could not fail to excite. This accident did not long keep the world in expectation. The emperor ended his days at the palace La Favorite, on the 26th [20th] day of October, 1740. The news arrived at Rheinsberg when the king was ill of a fever. … He immediately resolved to reclaim the principalities of Silesia; the rights of his house to which [long dormant, the claim dating back to a certain covenant of heritage-brotherhood with the duke of Liegnitz, in 1537, which the emperor of that day caused to be annulled by the States of Bohemia] were incontestable: and he prepared, at the same time, to support these pretensions, if necessary, by arms. This project accomplished all his political views; it afforded the means of acquiring reputation, of augmenting the power of the state, and of terminating what related to the litigious succession of the dutchy of Berg. …The state of the court of Vienna, after the death of the emperor, was deplorable. The finances were in disorder; the army was ruined and discouraged by ill success in its wars with the Turks; the ministry disunited, and a youthful unexperienced princess at the head of the government, who was to defend the succession from all claimants. The result was that the government could not appear formidable. It was besides impossible that the king should be destitute of allies. … The war which he might undertake in Silesia was the only offensive war that could be favoured by the situation of his states, for it would be carried on upon his frontiers, and the Oder would always furnish him with a sure communication. … Add to these reasons, an army fit to march, a treasury ready prepared, and, perhaps, the ambition of acquiring renown. Such were the causes of the war which the king declared against Maria Theresa of Austria, queen of Hungary and Bohemia."

Frederick II. (Frederick the Great), History of My Own Times: Posthumous Works (translated by Holcroft), volume 1, chapters 1-2.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740-1741. The War of the Succession: Faithlessness of the King of Prussia. The Macaulay verdict.

"From no quarter did the young queen of Hungary receive stronger assurances of friendship and support than from the King of Prussia. Yet the King of Prussia, the 'Anti-Machiavel,' had already fully determined to commit the great crime of violating his plighted faith, of robbing the ally whom he was bound to defend, and of plunging all Europe into a long, bloody, and desolating war, and all this for no end whatever except that he might extend his dominions and see his name in the gazettes. He determined to assemble a great army with speed and secrecy, to invade Silesia before Maria Theresa should be apprized of his design, and to add that rich province to his kingdom. … Without any declaration of war, without any demand for reparation, in the very act of pouring forth compliments and assurances of good will, Frederic commenced hostilities. Many thousands of his troops were actually in Silesia before the Queen of Hungary knew that he had set up any claim to any part of her territories. At length he sent her a message which could be regarded only as an insult. If she would but let him have Silesia, he would, he said, stand by her against any power which should try to deprive her of her other dominions: as if he was not already bound to stand by her, or as if his new promise could be of more value than the old one. It was the depth of winter. The cold was severe, and the roads deep in mire. But the Prussians pressed on. Resistance was impossible. The Austrian army was then neither numerous nor efficient. The small portion of that army which lay in Silesia was unprepared for hostilities. Glogau was blockaded; Breslau opened its gates; Ohlau was evacuated. A few scattered garrisons still held out; but the whole open country was subjugated: no enemy ventured to encounter the king in the field; and, before the end of January, 1741, he returned to receive the congratulations of his subjects at Berlin. {214} Had the Silesian question been merely a question between Frederic and Maria Theresa it would be impossible to acquit the Prussian king of gross perfidy. But when we consider the effects which his policy produced, and could not fail to produce, on the whole community of civilized nations, we are compelled to pronounce a condemnation still more severe. … The selfish rapacity of the king of Prussia gave the signal to his neighbours. … The evils produced by this wickedness were felt in lands where the name of Prussia was unknown; and, in order that he might rob a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel, and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of North America. Silesia had been occupied without a battle; but the Austrian troops were advancing to the relief of the fortresses which still held out. In the spring Frederic rejoined his army. He had seen little of war, and had never commanded any great body of men in the field. … Frederic's first battle was fought at Molwitz [April 10, 1741], and never did the career of a great commander open in a more inauspicious manner. His army was victorious. Not only, however, did he not establish his title to the character of an able general, but he was so unfortunate as to make it doubtful whether he possessed the vulgar courage of a soldier. The cavalry, which he commanded in person, was put to flight. Unaccustomed to the tumult and carnage of a field of battle, he lost his self-possession, and listened too readily to those who urged him to save himself. His English gray carried him many miles from the field, while Schwerin, though wounded in two places, manfully upheld the day. The skill of the old Field-Marshal and the steadiness of the Prussian battalions prevailed, and the Austrian army was driven from the field with the loss of 8,000 men. The news was carried late at night to a mill in which the king had taken shelter. It gave him a bitter pang. He was successful; but he owed his success to dispositions which others had made, and to the valour of men who had fought while he was flying. So unpromising was the first appearance of the greatest warrior of that age."

Lord Macaulay, Frederic the Great (Essays, volume 4).

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1741 (April-May). The War of the Succession: French responsibility. The Carlyle verdict.

"The battle of Mollwitz went off like a signal shot among the Nations; intimating that they were, one and all, to go battling. Which they did, with a witness; making a terrible thing of it, over all the world, for above seven years to come. … Not that Mollwitz kindled Europe; Europe was already kindled for some two years past;—especially since the late Kaiser died, and his Pragmatic Sanction was superadded to the other troubles afoot. But ever since that image of Jenkins's Ear had at last blazed up in the slow English brain, like a fiery constellation or Sign in the Heavens, symbolic of such injustices and unendurabilities, and had lighted the Spanish-English War [see ENGLAND: A. D. 1739-1741], Europe was slowly but pretty surely taking fire. France 'could not see Spain humbled,' she said: England (in its own dim feeling, and also in the fact of things), could not do at all without considerably humbling Spain. France, endlessly interested in that Spanish-English matter, was already sending out fleets, firing shots,—almost, or altogether, putting her hand in it. 'In which case, will not, must not, Austria help us?' thought England,—and was asking, daily, at Vienna … when the late Kaiser died. … But if not as cause, then as signal, or as signal and cause together (which it properly was), the Battle of Mollwitz gave the finishing stroke and set all in motion. … For directly on the back of Mollwitz, there ensued, first, an explosion of Diplomatic activity, such as was never seen before; Excellencies from the four winds taking wing towards Friedrich; and talking and insinuating, and fencing and fugling, after their sort, in that Silesian camp of his, the centre being there. A universal rookery of Diplomatists, whose loud cackle is now as if gone mad to us; their work wholly fallen putrescent and avoidable, dead to all creatures. And secondly, in the train of that, there ensued a universal European War, the French and the English being chief parties in it; which abounds in battles and feats of arms, spirited but delirious, and cannot be got stilled for seven or eight years to come; and in which Friedrich and his War swim only as an intermittent Episode henceforth. … The first point to be noted is, Where did it originate? To which the answer mainly is … with Monseigneur, the Maréchal de Belleisle principally; with the ambitious cupidities and baseless vanities of the French Court and Nation, as represented by Belleisle. … The English-Spanish War had a basis to stand on in this Universe. The like had the Prussian-Austrian one; so all men now admit. If Friedrich had not business there, what man ever had in an enterprise he ventured on? Friedrich, after such trial and proof as has seldom been, got his claims on Schlesien allowed by the Destinies. … Friedrich had business in this War; and Maria Theresa versus Friedrich had likewise cause to appear in Court, and do her utmost pleading against him. But if we ask, What Belleisle or France and Louis XV. had to do there? the answer is rigorously Nothing. Their own windy vanities, ambitions, sanctioned not by fact and the Almighty Powers, but by Phantasm and the babble of Versailles; transcendent self-conceit, intrinsically insane; pretensions over their fellow-creatures which were without basis anywhere in Nature, except in the French brain; it was this that brought Belleisle and France into a German War. And Belleisle and France having gone into an Anti-Pragmatic War, the unlucky George and his England were dragged into a Pragmatic one,—quitting their own business, on the Spanish Main, and hurrying to Germany,—in terror as at Doomsday, and zeal to save the Keystone of Nature there. That is the notable point in regard to this War: That France is to be called the author of it, who, alone of all the parties, had no business there whatever."

T. Carlyle, History of Friedrich II., book 12, chapter 11 (volume 4).

See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 1733.

{215}

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1741 (May-June). Mission of Belleisle. The thickening of the Plot.

"The defeat of Maria Theresa's only army [at Mollwitz] swept away all the doubts and scruples of France. The fiery Belleisle had already set out upon his mission to the various German courts, armed with powers which were reluctantly granted by the cardinal [Fleury, the French minister], and were promptly enlarged by the ambassador to suit his own more ambitious views of the situation. He travelled in oriental state. … The almost royal pomp with which he strode into the presence of princes of the blood, the copious eloquence with which he pleaded his cause, … were only the outward decorations of one of the most iniquitous schemes ever devised by an unscrupulous diplomacy. The scheme, when stripped of all its details, did not indeed at first appear absolutely revolting. It proposed simply to secure the election of Charles Albert of Bavaria as emperor, an honor to which he had a perfect right to aspire. But it was difficult to obtain the votes of certain electors without offering them the prospect of territorial gains, and impossible for Charles Albert to support the imperial dignity without greater revenues than those of Bavaria. It was proposed, therefore, that provinces should be taken from Maria Theresa herself, first to purchase votes against her own husband, and then to swell the income of the successful rival candidate. The three episcopal electors were first visited, and subjected to various forms of persuasion, bribes, flattery, threats,—until the effects of the treatment began to appear; the count palatine was devoted to France; and these four with Bavaria made a majority of one. But that was too small a margin for Belleisle's aspirations, or even for the safety of his project. The four remaining votes belonged to the most powerful of the German states, Prussia, Hanover, Saxony and Bohemia. … Bohemia, if it voted at all, would of course vote for the grand-duke Francis [husband of Maria Theresa]. Saxony and Hanover were already negotiating with Maria Theresa; and it was well understood that Austria could have Frederick's support by paying his price." Austria refused to pay the price, and Frederick signed a treaty with the king of France at Breslau on the 4th of June, 1741. "The essence of it was contained in four secret articles. In these the king of Prussia renounced his claim to Jülich-Berg in behalf of the house of Sulzbach, and agreed to give his vote to the elector of Bavaria for emperor. The king of France engaged to guarantee Prussia in the possession of Lower Silesia, to send within two months an army to the support of Bavaria, and to provoke an immediate rupture between Sweden and Russia."

H. Tuttle, History of Prussia, 1740-1745, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 99 (volume 3).

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1741 (June-September). Maria Theresa and the Hungarians.

"During these anxious summer months Maria Theresa and the Austrian court had resided mainly at Presburg, in Hungary. Here she had been occupied in the solution of domestic as well as international problems. The Magyars, as a manly and chivalrous race, had been touched by the perilous situation of the young queen; but, while ardently protesting their loyalty, insisted not the less on the recognition of their own inalienable rights. These had been inadequately observed in recent years, and in consequence no little disaffection prevailed in Hungary. The magnates resolved, therefore, as they had resolved at the beginning of previous reigns, to demand the restoration of all their rights and privileges. But it does not appear that they wished to take any ungenerous advantage of the sex or the necessities of Maria Theresa. They were argumentative and stubborn, yet not in a bargaining, mercenary spirit. They accepted in June a qualified compliance with their demands; and when on the 25th of that month the queen appeared before the diet to receive the crown of St. Stephen, and, according to custom, waved the great sword of the kingdom toward the four points of the compass, toward the north and the south, the east and the west, challenging all enemies to dispute her right, the assembly was carried away by enthusiasm, and it seemed as if an end had forever been put to constitutional technicalities. Such was, however, not the case. After the excitement caused by the dramatic coronation had in a measure subsided, the old contentions revived, as bitter and vexatious as before. These concerned especially the manner in which the administration of Hungary should be adjusted to meet the new state of things. Should the chief political offices be filled by native Hungarians, as the diet demanded? Could the co-regency of the grand-duke, which was ardently desired by the queen, be accepted by the Magyars? For two months the dispute over these problems raged at Presburg, until finally Maria Theresa herself found a bold, ingenious, and patriotic solution. The news of the Franco-Bavarian alliance and the fall of Passau determined her to throw herself completely upon the gallantry and devotion of the Magyars. It had long been the policy of the court of Vienna not to entrust the Hungarians with arms. … But Maria Theresa had not been robbed, in spite of her experience with France and Prussia, of all her faith in human nature. She took the responsibility of her decision, and the result proved that her insight was correct. On the 11th of September she summoned the members of the diet before her, and, seated on the throne, explained to them the perilous situation of her dominions. The danger, she said, threatened herself, and all that was dear to her. Abandoned by all her allies, she took refuge in the fidelity and the ancient valor of the Hungarians, to whom she entrusted herself, her children, and her empire. Here she broke into tears, and covered, her face with her handkerchief. The diet responded to this appeal by proclaiming the 'insurrection' or the equipment of a large popular force for the defence of the queen. So great was the enthusiasm that it nearly swept away even the original aversion of the Hungarians to the grand-duke Francis, who, to the queen's delight, was finally, though not without some murmurs, accepted as co-regent. … This uprising was organized not an hour too early, for dangers were pressing upon the queen from every side."

H. Tuttle, History of Prussia, 1740-1745, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: Duc de Broglie, Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa, chapter 4 (volume 2).

{216}

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1741 (August-November). The French-Bavarian onset.

"France now began to act with energy. In the month of August [1741] two French armies crossed the Rhine, each about 40, 000 strong. The first marched into Westphalia, and frightened George II. into concluding a treaty of neutrality for Hanover, and promising his vote to the Elector of Bavaria. The second advanced through South Germany on Passau, the frontier city of Bavaria and Austria. As soon as it arrived on German soil, the French officers assumed the blue and white cockade of Bavaria, for it was the cue of France to appear only as an auxiliary, and the nominal command of her army was vested in the Elector. From Passau the French and Bavarians passed into Upper Austria, and on Sept. 11 entered its capital, Linz, where the Elector assumed the title of Archduke. Five days later Saxony joined the allies. Sweden had already declared war on Russia. Spain trumped up an old claim and attacked the Austrian dominions in Italy. It seemed as if Belleisle's schemes were about to be crowned with complete success. Had the allies pushed forward, Vienna must have fallen into their hands. But the French did not wish to be too victorious, lest they should make the Elector too powerful, and so independent of them. Therefore, after six weeks' delay, they turned aside to the conquest of Bohemia."