The Thirty Years War
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64. Ibid., pp. 296–7; see also Truchis de Varennes, Un diplomate Franc-Comtois. Dôle, 1932.
65. F. de Dohna, Mémoires, p. 35.
66. Le Clerc, III, p. 96.
67. Meiern, Acta Pacis, I, p. 9.
68. Bougeant, III, pp. 25–6.
69. Meiern, Acta Pacis, II, p. 75.
70. Chéruel, II, pp. 122–3.
71. Ibid., p. 754; Fiedler, p. 327.
72. See H. Egloffstein, Bayerns Friedenspolitik. Leipzig, 1878, p. 43 and passim.
73. Paul Gantzer, Torstenssons Einfall und Feldzug in Böhmen, 1645. Mitteilungen des Vereins für die Geschichte der Deutschen in Böhmen, XLIII, p. 3.
74. Tingsten, Johan Baner och Lennart Torstensson, pp. 267–79; see also the excellent plan.
75. Chemnitz, II, V, pp. 40–3; Brefvexling, II, viii, pp. 446–8.
76. Ibid., p. 44.
77. Ibid., II, V, p. 45.
78. Ibid., p. 50.
79. Ibid., p. 101.
80. Brefvexling, II, viii, p. 637.
81. d’Elvert, Die Schweden vor Brünn, pp. 51–75.
82. Meiern, Acta Pacis, I, pp. 389 f.
83. Heilmann, pp. 200–2, 203–8.
84. Chemnitz, II, v, pp. 118–21.
85. Heilmann, p. 270; Chemnitz, II, V, pp. 186–9.
86. Riezler, Schlacht bei Allerheim. Sitzungsberichte der Königlichen Bayerischen. Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1901; Heilmann, pp. 270–90.
87. Lundorp, V, p. 1031; see also K. G. Helbig, Die sächsisch-schwedischen Verhandlungen zu Kötschenbroda und Eilenburg 1645 und 1646. Archiv für Sächsische Geschichte, V, pp. 269–79.
88. Ogier, p. 140.
89. Fiedler, pp. 314–15; Ogier, op. cit., pp. 125–9.
90. Le Clerc, op. cit., pp. 376–7.
91. Correspondencia Diplomatica, I, p. 211; Fiedler, p. 318.
92. Le Clerc, I, p. 468.
93. Le Clerc, II, b. p. 242.
94. Ibid., III, p. 18.
95. Urkunden und Aktenstücke, XXIII, i, p. 86; K. Jacob, Die Erwerbung des Elsass durch Frankreich. Strassburg, 1897, pp. 316–18.
96. Cortreius, Corpus Juris publici.
97. Chéruel, II, pp. 104, 147–9.
98. Cortreius, IV, pp. 167–8, 174.
99. Meiern, Acta Pacis, III, pp. 5–7.
100. Ibid., pp. 3, 22–3; Gärtner, IX, pp. 126–7.
101. Le Clerc, III, p. 171.
102. Meiern, Acta Pacis, III, pp. 24–6; Correspondencia Diplomatica, I, pp. 302, 305, 318, 319.
103. Ibid., p. 29.
104. See Urkunden und Aktenstücke, XXIII, i, pp. 81–9; IV, p. 443, 463.
105. Urkunden und Aktenstücke, IV, pp. 220 f.; Meiern, Acta Pacis, III, pp. 752 f.; Urkunden und Aktenstücke, XXIII, i, p. 101.
106. Ibid., IV, p. 245.
107. Baltische Studien, IV, V, passim; Meiern, Acta Pacis, II, pp. 231–2; Bks. XXIV, XXVI; see also G. Breucker, Die Abtretung Vorpommerns an Schweden. Halle, 1879.
108. Le Clerc, III, pp. 102, 161.
109. Vast, Les Grands Traités du règne de Louis XIV. Paris, 1886, p. 7.
110. See B. Auerbach, La France et la Sainte Empire Germanique. Paris, 1912, pp. 7–36.
111. Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven, IV, p. 245.
112. Meiern, Acta Pacis, III, pp. 587–9.
113. Le Clerc, III, pp. 249, 255.
114. Die Schicksale Heidelbergs, p. 236.
115. Sverges Traktater, VI, i, pp. 209–14.
116. Meiern, Acta Pacis, V, pp. 849–50, 854, 877–83.
117. Meiern, Acta Pacis, II, Bk. XV.
118. Ibid., V, pp. 718–23.
119. Ibid., II, pp. 8–11.
120. W. Friedensburg, Regesten zur deutschen Geschichte aus der Zeit des Pontifikats Innocenz X. Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven, IV, pp. 251, 254.
121. Chemnitz, II, iii, pp. 29, 79; IV, p. 166.
122. Ibid, II, vi, p. 200.
123. Chéruel, III, p. 2; Detlev von Ahlefeldts Memoiren, ed. L. Bobé. Copenhagen, 1896, pp. 54–5.
124. Le Clerc, III, pp. 189–90, 345, 348.
125. Czerny, pp. 91, 95.
126. Lundorp, VI, pp. 186–91; Brefvexling, II, viii, p. 728.
127. Relazioni dagli Ambasciatori, Spagna, II, pp. 128, 131, 141.
128. Abreu y Bertodano, VII, pp. 97 f.
129. Lonchay and Cuvelier, III, p. 615; Correspondencia Diplomatica, I, pp. 65–6.
130. Le Clerc, III, pp. 14, 21; Correspondencia Diplomatica, I, pp. 281, 285–6.
131. Ibid., III, pp. 49, 83.
132. Ibid., III, p. 373.
133. Ibid., p. 387; IV, pp. 86 f.
134. Chanut, I, p. 25.
135. Abreu y Bertodano, VII, p. 111.
136. Lonchay and Cuvelier, III, pp. 625–6, 629.
137. Chéruel, op. cit., II, pp. 419, 431, 439.
138. Chemnitz, IV, iv, p. 34; Chéruel, I, p. 710; Gonzenbach, II, p. 45.
139. Heinrich Almann, Turenne und Reinhold von Rosen. Historische Zeitschrift, XXXVI, pp. 368—409; Walther, Strassburger Chronik, p. 40; Gonzenbach, II, pp. 66–71.
140. Brefvexling, II, viii, pp. 736–7.
141. Chéruel, III, pp. 63–5.
142. Riezler, Die Meuterei Johanns von Werth, Historische Zeitschrift, LXXXII, pp. 40 ff.; Pufendorf, XIX, p. 34.
143. Ogier, p. 192.
144. See W. Hofmann, Peter Melander Reichsgraf zu Holzappel. Munich, 1882.
145. Aitzema, III, pp. 259 ff.
146. See Chéruel, II, pp. 359–64.
147. Ibid., II, pp. 536–45, 568–71; III, pp. 63–5, 103.
148. Chéruel, p. 119.
149. Ibid., p. 142.
150. Steckzén, Arriärgardesstriden vid Zusmarshausen. Historisk Tidskrift, 1921, p. 136.
151. Dudik, Die Schweden in Böhmen, Vienna, 1879, p. 397.
152. Chéruel, III, p. 191.
153. Ibid., pp. 181, 198–9; Canovas, Estudios, pp. 488–98.
154. They called an armistice on November 2nd, and news of the peace was confirmed on November 9th; Dudik, Die Schweden in Böhmen, p. 342; Pufendorf, XX, p. 65.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE PEACE AND AFTER
Je crois qu’il se faudra contenter que chacun demeure avec ses prétentions et explique le traité comme il l’entend.
SERVIEN, January 1649
1.
After thirty years, peace had come to Germany. At Prague the clanging of church bells drowned the last thunders of the cannon, beacons of joy flamed to the night sky on the hills along the Main,[1] but at Olmütz in Moravia where the Swedish army had lived for eight years the dazed soldiers were sunk in gloom, and in the fields about the town the camp women collected in desolate groups. ‘I was born in war,’ said one, ‘I have no home, no country and no friends, war is all my wealth and now whither shall I go?’[2] Leaving Olmütz, the trail of baggage wagons and stragglers stretched for three miles along the road, while the burghers, as many as were left, gathered together in their long dismantled church to sing their thanksgiving.
‘At Thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of Thy thunder they hasted away.
‘They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which Thou hast founded for them.
‘Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.’[3]
But for two years after the peace it was still doubtful whether the soldiers might not turn again to cover the earth, and the articles settled at Münster and Osnabrück established no better peace in Germany than those signed in Prague thirteen years before.
Erskine had made it clear during the negotiations that the interests of the Swedish army, as distinct from the Swedish State, must be considered, and the last delays at Münster arose from the joint demand by the allies for military quarters for one year more.[4] This was a mere postponement of the critical hour. The French Government, still at war with Spain, and in control of its own predomina
ntly native army, had no problem to face. Very different was the position of the Swedish authorities, who had to demobilize nearly a hundred thousand men, of whom the most part were Germans without other hope for the future save that which the career of a soldier had offered them. A small minority in the Swedish ranks were Protestant exiles from the Hapsburg lands, Bohemians and Austrians, who were indignant that the government for which they had fought had sacrificed their interests to make the peace. And there were also the bedraggled remnants of the Bernardine army, who had joined the Swedes in the hope of finding better treatment than with Turenne and were dismayed at the prospect of final disbandment.
On the imperial side the situation was only relatively less menacing. Piccolomini was faced with the task of dispersing about two hundred thousand men and women, robbed of their sole means of existence. The re-absorption of so large a mass in the civilian population would have been complicated even had the soldiers and their families been more suitable materials than they were.
Two dangers were imminent: the first that with the armies still in occupation of the country, the discontent of one or more of the signatories of the peace might lead to renewed war while the means were to be had; the second, that the soldiers should take the law into their own hands, mutiny against their generals and continue to live as heretofore on the spoil of the country, no longer as armies but as robber bands. Both dangers were real enough. At Vienna they feared that Swedish and Bavarian troops would join forces against the peacemakers.[5] The appointment of Christina’s cousin, Charles Gustavus, to the chief command did not increase political confidence: the prince was young, ambitious and warlike, and it was galling to him that he should have no more glorious task assigned to him than the demobilizing of an army.
Meanwhile the signal failure of the negotiations in Westphalia to settle certain problems, subjected the whole instrument to dangerous criticism. Neither Catholics nor Protestants were contented with the compromise decision in regard to their relative possessions. Moreover, no arrangement had been made for the execution of this part of the settlement, and any attempt to force it into effect might easily re-awaken the war.
The Papal nuncio introduced another jarring note by denouncing the whole settlement as contrary to the interests of the Church; the Spanish government protested angrily to the Emperor because he had basely deserted them; the freebooter Charles of Lorraine was totally excluded from the treaty and continued to hold the fortress of Hammerstein on German soil, regardless of protests; the Spaniards announced their intention of remaining in Frankenthal; the Duke of Mantua protested because the French government had handed over part of his lands without so much as asking his permission.[6]
Five and a half years after the signing of the peace, in May 1654, the last hostile garrison withdrew from Germany.[6] For the first two years of that period the continuance of war was still highly probable, for the last three years only local dangers threatened the general security.
Peace had been proclaimed at Prague in mid-November 1648. Until the end of December the Swedish and imperial commanders repeatedly conferred together, which led the populace fondly to expect prompt demobilization. By the end of the year the generals had made only one step forward—that of deciding on the exact amount of the interim contribution to be levied on the Emperor’s subjects for the support of the troops until their disbandment.[7] The disbanding itself had not even been discussed, and all arrangements were postponed until a new congress should meet at Nuremberg to consider the execution of the terms and the manner of demobilization.
Great was the dismay throughout Germany when the amount of the interim assessment was made known. At Strasbourg the news damped the rejoicings,[8] and Charles Gustavus nearly shattered the peace itself by sending troops into the bishopric of Liège to extract the money at the sword’s point.[9] But so intense was the longing for an end that the majority of the people spared no effort to raise the gigantic sums demanded, and with the help of Swiss and native bankers covered the whole assessment.[10]
The onus now rested on the generals, Charles Gustavus, Wrangel and Piccolomini, who acquitted themselves of the task with unexpected success. By September 1649 Charles Gustavus was able to celebrate the happy conclusion of the chief points at issue by entertaining his colleagues to a Peace Banquet in Nuremberg, and here it was that Wrangel, gaily firing off his pistol at the ceiling, remarked that he had no further use for ammunition.[11] Charles Gustavus, meanwhile, had reconciled himself to his task and was showing the same genius, courage and discretion in demobilizing as he was later to show in leading armies. By dismissing supernumerary officers and drafting incomplete companies together, he first brought the nominal strength of the army into proportionate relationship with its actual strength. Regiments which he suspected of mutinous intention he broke up and scattered in different districts, so that revolt would not easily spread, and when mutiny in fact occurred he crushed it with merciless thoroughness.
On both sides the rulers attempted to alleviate the situation by drafting some of the men on to the land, a plan which achieved only a very mediocre success in Bavaria, in Hesse, and in the Palatinate.[12] On the whole the discontented soldier preferred to fend for himself. Captains and whole companies deserted, marching off to hire themselves to the French, the Spaniards, the Duke of Savoy, the Venetians, the English, the Prince of Transylvania, even the Tsar of Russia. But there was a glut of soldiers on the market, and late-comers found no welcome. Others merely took to the hills and woods and became robber bands. In one or two districts it was necessary—although apparently not for long—to keep a small armed force against these marauders,[13] and for many years after the war merchants preferred to travel in great companies and well guarded.
More than once the situation was dangerous. Among the Swedish forces there were mutinies at Überlingen, Neumarkt, Langenarch, Meinau and Eger. A serious outbreak at Schweinfurt had to be quelled by Wrangel in person. Several regiments managed to seize the money sent to their commander to pay them off and make away with it whither they listed. In Anhalt in July 1650, a band of mutineers, more dangerous and more successful than any hitherto, had to be outmanoeuvred, surrounded and shot down.[14] A mutiny among the Bavarian troops was stamped out with the same ruthlessness, the Elector bringing up the heavy artillery to mow down the mutineers, and fifteen of the ringleaders being hanged for the assertion of what appeared to them to be their rights.[15]
As late as the summer of 1650 the discovery that imperial troops were being drafted into the Spanish armies brought forth indignant protests from the Swedes and French, and for a few days it seemed at Nuremberg that war was imminent. Demobilization was said to have stopped, there were even reports that the Swedes were recruiting. But the crisis passed, and on July 14th 1650 the negotiators met for the last time at a huge banquet given in their honour, this time by Piccolomini. He had set up a gigantic tent outside the town, decorated with mirrors, candelabra, flowers and symbolic insignia. Outside there was a cardboard fortress crammed with fireworks. After the usual unpleasantness, caused this time by Wrangel and a certain imperial general quarrelling for the superior place, the guests sat down at five in the evening to an enormous meal at which, to the accompaniment of deafening salvos, they drank the health of the peace and of everyone present. When they had finished, Piccolomini himself touched off the fuse which sent the cardboard fortress shooting to heaven in a whirl of rockets. For the populace there was a mild, hollow lion with an olive branch fixed in its harmless paw, from whose jaws issued a continuous stream of wine.[16]
The principal negotiators having left, the conference sat for a year longer to settle various minor points. Even then several problems remained unsolved. The Spaniards did not withdraw from Frankenthal until the Emperor ceded them Besançon in 1653; Charles of Lorraine did not leave Hammerstein until early in 1654, and in May of the same year the Swedish garrison at Vechta had the doubtful honour of being the last to quit Germany. But the evacuation had been continuous ever
since the conference met at Nuremberg in 1649, and by the harvest of 1650 most districts in Germany felt that they could now safely celebrate the return of peace. Remarkable in those pitiful little demonstrations of thanksgiving was the part played by the children, school-children in white with green crowns at Dollstedt singing in procession,[17] schoolchildren speaking a welcome to the long-exiled Elector Charles Lewis on the frontiers of the Palatinate.[18] These were the future, the hope—perhaps in some places the only hope.
2.
This was not the first time that Germany had been subjected to continuous war for over a generation, but a legend surrounds this war which makes it unique in German, if not in European history. Until at least the middle of the nineteenth century no estimate of the loss of life and wealth was too extravagant for belief. The population was supposed to have sunk by three-quarters, the loss in live stock and wealth to have been far greater, agriculture to have been restored to its pristine flourishing condition in some districts only after two centuries, commerce to have perished altogether in innumerable centres; every ill which affected the body politic was readily ascribed to the Thirty Years War, from the vagaries of the imperial constitution to the late development of a German overseas Empire.
The more critical research of the last three generations has revealed two hitherto unnoticed aspects of the problem: the first that Germany in 1618 was already far gone on the road to destruction; the second that contemporary figures are unreliable. Princes seeking to evade financial responsibilities, states claiming damages, citizens asking exemption from taxes—all these naturally painted the condition of their country in the dreariest colours. In the list of damages drawn up for the Swedish government, the number of villages destroyed was represented in some districts as more than the total number of those known to have existed.[19] Journalists and pamphleteers on both sides wrote in a perpetual superlative which defeats its object.
Yet this exaggeration is in itself significant, for at least in official documents, it would not have been possible without some element of truth to bear it out; and if contemporary writers wail in too long-sustained and high a monotone, that is significant, if not of a fact, at least of a mood which must have had root somewhere in actuality. Whether Germany lost three-quarters of her population, or a small percentage, it is certain that never before, and possibly never since, in her history had there been so universal a sense of irretrievable disaster, so widespread a consciousness of the horror of the period which lay behind.