Part 6 (1/2)

The Queen of Sweden had joined her husband in Germany. On the 27th of October, 1632, he took leave of her. As he pa.s.sed through the country, the people fell on their knees, kissing his garments, calling him Deliverer. He exclaimed, ”I pray that the wrath of the Almighty may not be visited upon me, on account of this idolatry toward a weak and sinful mortal.”

Before the great conflict began he made an address to his Swedes, and then the whole army united in singing Luther's grand hymn, ”A tower of strength is our Lord!”

For hours the battle raged furiously, and while the issue was trembling in the balance, the sight of the riderless horse of the Swedish King, covered with blood and wildly galloping to and fro, told the awful story. The terrified animal had carried him with a shattered arm right into the enemy's ranks, where he was instantly shot.

While Wallenstein was retreating to Leipzig, the body of this most royal of kings was lying under a heap of dead, so mutilated by the hoofs of horses as to be almost unrecognizable.

The Protestant cause had lost its soul and inspiration. But, in falling, the heroic king had so broken the enemy that there was a long pause in hostilities. And the wily general retired again to Prague, there to evolve new plans for his own aggrandizement.

At this crisis a new champion arose. It was not to be expected that Richelieu, who had been putting down Protestantism with an iron hand in France, would feel sympathy for the Protestant cause in Germany! But that wary primate and minister was not going to stand on a little matter of religion, when he saw an advantage to be gained for France!

He had long ago determined how this conflict should end. He did not intend to permit Imperial Germany under Ferdinand to rise to ascendancy in Europe.

With the weight of France thrown into the scale when the Imperial cause was already so shattered by Gustavus, it was easy to see how it must end.

Wallenstein secretly opened negotiations from Prague with the French amba.s.sador, and steadily disregarded the Emperor's orders to return to his command. The project was that he should go over to the Protestant side in return for the crown of Bohemia.

A general whom the traitor trusted, in turn betrayed him to the Emperor. Six soldiers, under the pretense of bearing dispatches, entered his room.

”Are _you_ the traitor who is going to deliver your Emperor's troops to the enemy?” shouted one of the men.

Wallenstein realized that his hour had come. He said not a word, but stretched out his arms and silently received his death-blow.

With an invading French army in Germany, under the famous Marshals Turenne and Conde, looking about for choice bits of territory for France, a religious war had become a political one. It lasted until 1648, when the ”Peace of Westphalia” concluded the most desolating struggle in the history of wars.

And what had been gained? The very principle for which it was undertaken was surrendered. Entire religious freedom was granted to Protestants (excepting in Austria); four great states were lost to the empire; a population of seventeen millions was reduced to four millions, with Imperial authority abridged and broken.

France took Alsace, and Sweden Pomerania. Holland and Switzerland were recognized as independent States. The supreme power was invested in the Reichstag, and the several German princes were made almost independent. The empire, as a unity, had been reduced to a shadow.

The devastation which had been wrought by those thirty terrible years cannot be described. Its details are too awful to be dwelt upon.

Famine had converted men into wild beasts, who formed themselves into bands, and preyed on those they caught.

Such a band was attacked near Worms and was found cooking in a great caldron human legs and arms!

The spirit of the people was broken. Germany had been set back two hundred years. And for what? Not to accomplish any high purpose, not even from mistaken Christian zeal, but simply to carry out the despotic resolve of the Catholic Church to rule the minds and consciences of all men through its Popes and priesthood. It was the old battle commenced six centuries before. Had Henry not gone to Canossa in 1073, there had been no Thirty Years' War in 1618!

[1] For a comprehensive understanding of this period see Chart of Civilization in Six Centuries, ”Who, When, and What.”

CHAPTER XI.

For seven hundred years, from the treaty of Verdun (843), to Charles V.

(1520), Germany had held the leading position in Europe as the head of the ”Holy Roman Empire.” The reality had been gradually departing from that alluring t.i.tle; and now, with the Peace of Westphalia, it was gone.

With a large body of its people accorded full rights, while they were engaged in open war upon the Roman Church, the last link binding Germany to Rome was broken. The Holy Roman Empire was now the German Empire.

And, in very fact, it was no empire at all, but a loose confederacy of miniature kingdoms, administered without any regard to each other, and in great measure independent of Imperial authority.

Great changes had taken place throughout Europe. Louis XIV. was King of France. In England Charles I. had lost his throne and his head, and Cromwell was laying the foundations of a power more enduring than that of Tudor or Stuart. Spain was rapidly declining, and the new Republic of Holland ascending in the scale. Sweden was supreme in the North, and Russia just beginning to be recognized as a power in Europe.