The Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648

§ 3. The Spanish fleet in the Downs.

In 1639 a great Spanish fleet on its way to the Netherlands was strong enough to escape the French, who were watching to intercept it. It sailed up the English Channel with the not distant goal of the Flemish ports almost in view. But the huge galleons were ill-manned and ill-found. They were still less able to resist the lighter, well-equipped vessels of the Dutch fleet, which was waiting to intercept them, than the Armada had been able to resist Drake and Raleigh fifty-one years before. The Spanish commander sought refuge in the Downs, under the protection of the neutral flag of England.

§ 4. Destruction of the fleet.

The French ambassador pleaded hard with the king of England to allow the Dutch to follow up their success. The Spanish ambassador pleaded hard with him for protection to those who had taken refuge on his shores. Charles saw in the occurrence an opportunity to make a bargain with one side or the other. He offered to abandon the Spaniards if the French would agree to restore his nephew, Charles Lewis, the son of his sister Elizabeth, to his inheritance in the Palatinate. He offered to protect the Spaniards if Spain would pay him the large sum which he would want for the armaments needed to bid defiance to France. Richelieu had no intention of completing the bargain offered to him. He deluded Charles with negotiations, whilst the Dutch admiral treated the English neutrality with scorn. He dashed amongst the tall Spanish ships as they lay anchored in the Downs: some he sank, some he set on fire. Eleven of the galleons were soon destroyed. The remainder took advantage of a thick fog, slipped across the Straits, and placed themselves in safety under the guns of Dunkirk. Never again did such a fleet as this venture to leave the Spanish coast for the harbours of Flanders. The injury to Spain went far beyond the actual loss. Coming, as the blow did, within a few months after the surrender of Breisach, it all but severed the connexion for military purposes between Brussels and Madrid.

§ 5. France and England.

Charles at first took no umbrage at the insult. He still hoped that Richelieu would forward his nephew's interests, and he even expected that Charles Lewis would be placed by the King of France in command of the army which had been under Bernhard's orders. But Richelieu was in no mood to place a German at the head of these well-trained veterans, and the proposal was definitively rejected. The King of England, dissatisfied at this repulse, inclined once more to the side of Spain. But Richelieu found a way to prevent Spain from securing even what assistance it was in the power of a king so unpopular as Charles to render. It was easy to enter into communication with Charles's domestic enemies. His troubles, indeed, were mostly of his own making, and he would doubtless have lost his throne whether Richelieu had stirred the fire or not. But the French minister contributed all that was in his power to make the confusion greater, and encouraged, as far as possible, the resistance which had already broken out in Scotland, and which was threatening to break out in England.

§ 6. Insurrection in Catalonia.

The failure of 1636 had been fully redeemed. No longer attacking any one of the masses of which the Spanish monarchy was composed, Richelieu placed his hands upon the lines of communication between them. He made his presence felt not at Madrid, at Brussels, at Milan, or at Naples, but in Alsace, in the Mediterranean, in the English Channel. The effect was as complete as is the effect of snapping the wire of a telegraph. At once the Peninsula startled Europe by showing signs of dissolution. In 1639 the Catalonians had manfully defended Roussillon against a French invasion. In 1640 they were prepared to fight with equal vigour. But the Spanish Government, in its desperate straits, was not content to leave them to combat in their own way, after the irregular fashion which befitted mountaineers. Orders were issued commanding all men capable of fighting to arm themselves for the war, all women to bear food and supplies for the army on their backs. A royal edict followed, threatening those who showed themselves remiss with imprisonment and the confiscation of their goods.

§ 7. Break-up of the Spanish monarchy.

The cord which bound the hearts of Spaniards to their king was a strong one; but it snapped at last. It was not by threats that Richelieu had defended France in 1636. The old traditions of provincial independence were strong in Catalonia, and the Catalans were soon in full revolt. Who were they, to be driven to the combat by menaces, as the Persian slaves had been driven on at Thermopylæ by the blows of their masters' officers?

§ 8. Independence of Portugal.

Equally alarming was the news which reached Madrid from the other side of the Peninsula. Ever since the days of Philip II. Portugal had formed an integral part of the Spanish monarchy. In December 1640 Portugal renounced its allegiance, and reappeared amongst European States under a sovereign of the House of Braganza.

§ 9. Failure of Soissons in France.

Everything prospered in Richelieu's hands. In 1641 a fresh attempt was made by the partizans of Spain to raise France against him. The Count of Soissons, a prince of the blood, placed himself at the head of an imperialist army to attack his native country. He succeeded in defeating the French forces sent to oppose him not far from Sedan. But a chance shot passing through the brain of Soissons made the victory a barren one. His troops, without the support of his name, could not hope to rouse the country against Richelieu. They had become mere invaders, and they were far too few to think of conquering France.

§ 10. Richelieu's last days.

Equal success attended the French arms in Germany. In 1641 Guebriant, with his German and Swedish army, defeated the imperialists at Wolfenbüttel, in the north. In 1642 he defeated them again at Kempten, in the south. In the same year Roussillon submitted to France. Nor was Richelieu less fortunate at home. The conspiracy of a young courtier, the last of the efforts of the aristocracy to shake off the heavy rule of the Cardinal, was detected, and expiated on the scaffold. Richelieu did not long survive his latest triumph. He died on December 4, 1642.

Section V. —Aims and Character of Richelieu

§ 1. Richelieu's domestic policy.

Unlike Lewis XIV. and Napoleon, Richelieu counts amongst those few French statesmen whose fortune mounted with their lives. It is not difficult to discover the cause. As in Gustavus, love of action was tempered by extreme prudence and caution. But in Richelieu these ingredients of character were mingled in different proportions. The love of action was far less impetuous. The caution was far stronger. No man had a keener eye to distinguish the conditions of success, or was more ready to throw aside the dearest schemes when he believed them to be accompanied by insuperable difficulties. Braver heart never was. There was the highest courage in the constancy with which he, an invalid tottering for years on the brink of the grave, and supported by a king whose health was as feeble as his own, faced the whole might of the aristocracy of France. If he was harsh and unpitying it was to the enemies of the nation, to the nobles who trod under their feet the peasant and the serf, and who counted the possession of power merely as the high-road to the advancement of their private fortunes. The establishment of a strong monarchical power was, as France was then constituted, the only chance for industry and commerce to lift up their heads, for the peaceable arts of life to develop themselves in security, for the intellect of man to have free course, and for the poor to be protected from oppression.

§ 2. His designs only partially accomplished.

All this was in Richelieu's heart; and some little of this he accomplished. The work of many generations was in this man's brain. Yet he never attempted to do more than the work of his own. As Bacon sketched out the lines within which science was to move in the days of Newton and of Faraday, so Richelieu sketched out the lines within which French statesmanship was to move in the days of Colbert and of Turgot, or in those of the great Revolution itself.

§ 3. The people nothing in France.

"All things for the people, nothing by the people." This maxim attributed to Napoleon embodied as well the policy of Richelieu. In it are embalmed the strength and weakness of French statesmanship. The late growth of the royal power and the long continuance of aristocratic oppression threw the people helpless and speechless into the arms of the monarchy. They were happy if some one should prove strong enough to take up their cause without putting them to the trouble or the risk of thinking and speaking for themselves. It is no blame to Richelieu if, being a Frenchman of the seventeenth century, he worked under the only conditions which Frenchmen of the seventeenth century would admit. We can well fancy that he would think with scorn and contempt of the English Revolution, which was accomplishing itself under his eyes. Yet in the England of the Civil War, men were learning not merely to be governed well, but to know what good government was. It was a greater thing for a nation to learn to choose good and to refuse evil, even if the progress was slow, than to be led blindfold with far more rapid steps.

§ 4. His foreign policy.

Richelieu's foreign policy was guided by the same deep calculation as his home policy. If at home he saw that France was greater than any faction, he had not arrived at the far higher notion that Europe was greater than France, excepting so far as he saw in the system of intolerance supported by Spain an evil to be combated for the sake of others who were not Frenchmen. But there is no sign that he really cared for the prosperity of other nations when it was not coincident with the prosperity of France. As it is for the present generation a matter of complete indifference whether Breisach was to be garrisoned by Frenchmen or imperialists, it would be needless for us, if we regarded Richelieu's motives alone, to trouble ourselves much with the later years of the Thirty Years' War.

§ 5. His support of rising causes.

But it is not always by purity of motive only that the world's progress advances. Richelieu, in order to make France strong, needed help, and he had to look about for help where the greatest amount of strength was to be found. An ordinary man would have looked to the physical strength of armies, as Wallenstein did, or to the ideal strength of established institutions, as Ferdinand did. Richelieu knew better. He saw that for him who knows how to use it there is no lever in the world like that of a rising cause, for a rising cause embodies the growing dissatisfaction of men with a long-established evil, which they have learned to detest, but which they have not yet learned to overthrow.

§ 6. And of those causes which were in themselves good.

In England Richelieu was on the side of Parliamentary opposition to the crown. In Germany he was on the side of the opposition of the princes against the Emperor. In Italy he was on the side of the independence of the states against Spain. In the Peninsula he was on the side of the provinces against the monarchy. There is not the slightest reason to suppose that he cared one atom for any of those causes except so far as they might promote his own ends. Yet in every case he selected those causes by which the real wants of the several countries were best expressed.

§ 7. Contrast between Richelieu and later French politicians.

It is this which distinguishes Richelieu from those who in later times have measured the foreign policy of France by French interests alone. They have taken up any cause which promised to weaken a powerful neighbour, without considering what the cause was worth. They favoured Italian division in 1860, and German division in 1870. Richelieu had a clearer insight into the nature of things than that. There can be no doubt that he would far rather have attacked Spain and Austria through the instrumentality of the League than through the instrumentality of Gustavus and the Protestants; but he saw that the future was with Gustavus and not with the League. He sacrificed his wishes to his policy. He coquetted with the League, but he supported Gustavus.

§ 8. He has no exorbitant aims.

When once Richelieu had gained his point, he was contented with his success. He never aspired to more than he could accomplish: never struck, excepting for a purpose: never domineered through the mere insolence of power. He took good care to get Alsace into his hands, and to make himself master of the passes of the Alps by the possession of Pignerol; but he never dreamed of founding, like Napoleon, a French Confederation of the Rhine, or a French kingdom of Italy. His interference with his neighbours was as little obtrusive as possible.

1643

§ 9. Death of Lewis XIII.

Richelieu was quickly followed to the grave by the sovereign in whose name he had accomplished so much. Lewis XIII. died on the 14th of May, 1643.

Section VI. —More French Victories

1643

§ 1. Rule of Mazarin.

His son and successor, Lewis XIV., was a mere child. His widow, Anne of Austria, claimed the regency, and forgot that she was the sister of the King of Spain and the sister-in-law of the Emperor, in the thought that she was the widow of one king of France and the mother of another. Her minister was Cardinal Mazarin, an Italian, who had commended himself to Richelieu by his capacity for business and his complete independence of French party feeling. If he was noted rather for cleverness than for strength of character, he was at least anxious to carry out the policy of his predecessor, and to maintain the predominance of the crown over aristocratic factions; and for some time Richelieu's policy seemed to carry success with it through the impetus which he had given it. On May 19 a victory came to establish the new authority of the queen-regent, the first of a long series of French victories, which was unbroken till the days of Marlborough and Blenheim.

§ 2. The Spaniards attack Rocroy.

The Spaniards had crossed the frontier of the Netherlands, and were besieging Rocroy. The command of the French forces was held by the duke of Enghien, better known to the world by the title which he afterwards inherited from his father, as the Prince of Condé. Next to Gaston, Duke of Orleans, the late king's brother, he and his father stood first in succession to the throne, and had, for this reason, attached themselves to Richelieu when he was opposed by the great bulk of the aristocracy. Those who placed him at the head of the army probably expected that a prince so young and so inexperienced would content himself with giving his name to the campaign, and would leave the direction of the troops to older heads.

§ 3. Gassion and Enghien.

The older heads, after reconnoitring the Spanish position at Rocroy, advised Enghien not to fight. But there was a certain Gassion among the officers, who had served under Gustavus, and who had seen the solid legions of Tilly break down before the swift blows of the Swedish king at Breitenfeld. Gassion had learned to look upon that close Spanish formation with contempt, and he strove hard to persuade Enghien to give orders for the attack, and, truth to say, he had no very hard task. Enghien was young and sanguine, and whether he had a genius for war or not, he had at least a genius for battles. Already conscious of the skill with which he was to direct the fortunes of many a well-fought field, he heartily adopted the views laid before him by Gassion.

§ 4. Battle of Rocroy.

Rocroy was, so to speak, a second edition of Breitenfeld, a victory gained by vigour and flexibility over solid endurance. Unreasoning obedience once more gave way before disciplined intelligence. The Spanish masses stood with all the strength of a mediæval fortress. There was no manœuvering power in them. The French artillery ploughed its way through the ranks, and the dashing charges of the infantry drove the disaster home. The glories of the Spanish armies, the glories which dated from the days of the Great Captain, were clouded for ever. Yet if victory was lost to Spain, the cherished honour of the Spanish arms was safe. Man by man the warriors fell in the ranks in which they stood, like the English defenders of the banner of Harold at Senlac. Their leader, the Count of Fuentes, an old man worn with years and gout, and unable to stand, was seated in an arm-chair to direct the battle within a square composed of his veteran troops. Death found him at his post. He had fought in the old wars of Philip II. The last of a long heroic race of statesmen and soldiers had bowed his head before the rising genius of France.

§ 5. Extension of the French frontier.

Thionville was then besieged. It surrendered in August. The cautious Richelieu had been contented to announce that he reserved all question of the ownership of his conquests till it should be finally determined by a treaty of peace. After Rocroy, Mazarin had no such scruples. Thionville was formally annexed to France. A medal was struck on which Hope was borne in the hand of Victory, and on which was inscribed the legend, Prima finium propagatic.

§ 6. Enghien and Turenne.

In Germany the campaign of 1643 was less successful. Maximilian of Bavaria had put forth all his resources, and his generals, the dashing John of Werth and the prudent Mercy, of whom it was said that he knew the plans of the enemy as well as if he had sat in their councils, were more than a match for the French commanders. 1644.1644 they were opposed by a soldier of a quality higher than their own. Turenne was sent amongst them, but his forces were too few to enable him to operate with success. Freiburg in the Breisgau was taken before his eyes. Breisach was threatened. Then Enghien came with 10,000 men to assume the command over the head of the modest soldier who had borne the weight of the campaign. Proud of his last year's victory he despised the counsel of Turenne, that it was better to out-manœuvre the enemy than to fight him in an almost inaccessible position.

§ 7. Battle of Freiburg.

The battle fought amongst the vineyards of Freiburg was the bloodiest battle of a bloody war. For three days Enghien led his men to the butchery. At last Mercy, unable to provide food any longer for his troops, effected his retreat. The French reaped the prizes of a victory which they had not gained.

1645

§ 8. Battle of Nördlingen.

On the 3d of August, 1645, a second battle of Nördlingen was fought. It was almost a repetition of the slaughter of Freiburg. As in the year before, Turenne had been left to do the hard work at the opening of the campaign with inferior forces, and had even suffered a check. Once more Enghien came up, gay and dashing, at the head of a reinforcement of picked men. Once more a fearful butchery ensued. But that Mercy was slain early in the fight, the day might have gone hard with the French. As it was, they were able to claim a victory. The old German bands which had served under Bernhard held out to the uttermost and compelled the enemy to retreat. But the success was not lasting. The imperialists received reinforcements, and the French were driven back upon the Rhine.

§ 9. Battle of Jankow.

The same year had opened with splendid expectations on the other side of the theatre of the war. The gouty Swedish general, Torstenson, who had taken up Baner's work in the north, burst suddenly into Bohemia, and on the 6th of March inflicted a crushing defeat on the imperialists at Jankow. He then harried Moravia, and pressed on to lay siege to Vienna, as if to repair the fault which it was the fashion to ascribe to Gustavus. But Vienna was unassailable, and Torstenson, like Turenne, was driven to retreat. He next tried to reduce Brünn. Failing in this he returned to Bohemia, where, worn out with his maladies, he delivered over the command to Wrangel, his appointed successor.

CHAPTER XI.

THE END OF THE WAR

Section I. —Turenne's Strategy

1643

§ 1. Thoughts of peace.

At last the thought entered into men's minds that it was time to put a stop to this purposeless misery and slaughter. It was hopeless to think any longer of shaking the strong grasp of France upon the Rhine; and if Sweden had been foiled in striking to the heart of the Austrian monarchy, she could not be driven from the desolate wilderness which now, by the evil work of men's hands, stretched from the Baltic far away into the interior of Germany. Long ago the disciplined force which Gustavus had brought across the sea had melted away, and a Swedish army was now like other armies – a mere collection of mercenaries, without religion, without pity, and without remorse.

§ 2. Meeting of diplomatists.

Negotiations for peace were spoken of from time to time, and preparations were at last made for a great meeting of diplomatists. In order to prevent the usual quarrel about precedency it was decided that some of the ambassadors should hold their sittings at Osnabrück and others at Münster, an arrangement which was not likely to conduce to a speedy settlement. 1644, 1645. Emperor proved his sincerity by sending his representative early enough to arrive at Münster in July, 1643, whilst the Swedish and French ambassadors only made their appearance in the March and April of the following year, and it was only in June, 1645, that the first formal proposition was handed in.

§ 3. Reluctance of the Emperor to give up all that is asked.

All who were concerned were in fact ready to make peace, but they all wished it made on their own terms. Ferdinand III. was not bound by his father's antecedents. The Edict of Restitution had been no work of his. Long before this he had been ready to give all reasonable satisfaction to the Protestants. He had declared his readiness to include Calvinists as well as Lutherans in the religious peace. He had offered to restore the Lower Palatinate to Frederick's son, and he actually issued a general amnesty to all who were still in arms; but he shrank from the demand that these arrangements of the Empire should be treated of, not in the constitutional assemblies of the Empire, but in a congress of European powers. To do so would be to tear the last veil from the sad truth that the Empire was a mere shadow, and that the states of which it was composed had become practically independent sovereignties. And behind this degradation lay another degradation, hardly less bitter to Ferdinand. The proudest title of the great emperors of old had been that of Increaser of the Empire. Was he to go down to posterity with the title of Diminisher of the Empire? And yet it was beyond his power to loosen the hold of France upon Alsace, or of Sweden upon Pomerania.

§ 4. Especially the Breisgau.

Nor was it only as Emperor that Ferdinand would feel the loss of Alsace deeply. Together with the Breisgau it formed one of territories of the House of Austria, but it was not his own. It was the inheritance of the children of his uncle Leopold, and he was loth to purchase peace for himself by agreeing to the spoliation of his orphan nephews.

§ 5. Aims of the Elector of Bavaria.

Maximilian of Bavaria viewed the question of peace from another point of view. To him Alsace was nothing, and he warmly recommended Ferdinand to surrender it for the sake of peace. If concessions were to be made at all, he preferred making them to Catholic France rather than to the Protestants in the Empire, and he was convinced that if Alsace remained under French rule, the motive which had led France to support the Protestants would lose its chief weight. But besides these general considerations, Maximilian, like Ferdinand, had a special interest of his own. He was resolved, come what might, to retain at least the Upper Palatinate, and he trusted to be seconded in his resolve by the good offices of France.

§ 6. The campaign of 1646.

The position of Maximilian was thus something like that of John George of Saxony in 1632. He and his chief ally were both ready for peace, but his ally stood out for higher terms than he was prepared to demand. And as in 1632 Wallenstein saw in the comparative moderation of the Elector of Saxony only a reason for driving him by force to separate his cause from that of Gustavus, so in 1646 the French government resolved to fall upon Bavaria, and to force the elector to separate his cause from that of Ferdinand.