Samuel Gardiner - The Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648

§ 7. The Elector of Saxony wishes for peace.

Would the princes of Germany come to the help of the Directors? John George of Saxony told them that he deeply sympathized with them, but that rebellion was a serious matter. To one who asked him what he meant to do, he replied, 'Help to put out the fire.'

§ 8. The Elector Palatine holds out hopes of assistance.

There was more help for them at Heidelberg than at Dresden. Frederick IV. had died in 1610, and his son, the young Frederick V., looked up to Christian of Anhalt as the first statesman of his age. By his marriage with Elizabeth, the daughter of James I. of England, he had contracted an alliance which gave him the appearance rather than the reality of strength. He offered every encouragement to the Bohemians, but for the time held back from giving them actual assistance.

§ 1. Outbreak of war.

The Directors were thus thrown on their own resources. Ferdinand had secured his election as king of Hungary, and, returning to Vienna, had taken up the reins of government in the name of Matthias. He had got together an army of 14,000 men, under the command of Bucquoi, an officer from the great school of military art in the Netherlands, and on August 13, the Bohemian frontier was invaded. War could hardly be avoided by either side. Budweis and Pilsen, two Catholic towns in Bohemia, naturally clung to their sovereign, and as soon as the Directors ordered an attack upon Budweis, the troops of Matthias prepared to advance to its succour.

§ 2. The Bohemians vote men, but object to paying taxes.

The Directors took alarm, and proposed to the Diet that new taxes should be raised and not merely voted, and that, in addition to the army of regular soldiers, there should be a general levy of a large portion of the population. To the levy the Diet consented without difficulty. But before the day fixed for discussing the proposed taxes arrived, the majority of the members deliberately returned to their homes, and no new taxes were to be had.

§ 3. They are not likely to prosper.

This day, August 30, may fairly be taken as the date of the political suicide of the Bohemian aristocracy. In almost every country in Europe order was maintained by concentrating the chief powers of the State in the hands of a single governor, whether he were called king, duke, or elector. To this rule there were exceptions in Venice, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, and by-and-by there would be an exception on a grander scale in England. But the peoples who formed these exceptions had proved themselves worthy of the distinction, and there would be no room in the world for men who had got rid of their king without being able to establish order upon another basis.

§ 4. Help from Savoy.

Still there were too many governments in Europe hostile to the House of Austria to allow the Bohemians to fall at once. Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, had just brought a war with Spain to a close, but he had not become any better disposed towards his late adversary. He accordingly entered into an agreement with the leaders of the Union, by which 2,000 men who had been raised for his service were to be placed at the disposal of the Bohemian Directors.

§ 5. Mansfeld.

The commander of these troops was Count Ernest of Mansfeld, an illegitimate son of a famous general in the service of Spain. He had changed his religion and deserted his king. He now put himself forward as a champion of Protestantism. He was brave, active, and versatile, and was possessed of those gifts which win the confidence of professional soldiers. But he was already notorious for the readiness with which he allowed his soldiers to support themselves on the most unbridled pillage. An adventurer himself, he was just the man to lead an army of adventurers.

§ 6. A forced loan.

Soon after his arrival in Bohemia, Mansfeld was employed in the siege of Pilsen, whilst Thurn was occupied with holding Bucquoi in check. The failure in obtaining additional taxes had led the Directors to adopt the simple expedient of levying a forced loan from the few rich.

§ 7. Success of the Bohemians.

For a time this desperate expedient was successful. The help offered to Ferdinand by Spain was not great, and it was long in coming. The prudent Maximilian refused to ruin himself by engaging in an apparently hopeless cause. At last the Silesians, who had hesitated long, threw in their lot with their neighbours, and sent their troops to their help early in November. Bucquoi was in full retreat to Budweis. On the 21st Pilsen surrendered to Mansfeld. Further warfare was stopped as winter came on – a terrible winter for the unhappy dwellers in Southern Bohemia. Starving armies are not particular in their methods of supplying their wants. Plunder, devastation and reckless atrocities of every kind fell to the lot of the doomed peasants, Bucquoi's Hungarians being conspicuous for barbarity.

§ 8. Scheme of Christian of Anhalt.

Meanwhile, Christian of Anhalt was luring on the young Elector Palatine to more active intervention. The Bohemian leaders had already begun to talk of placing the crown on Frederick's head. Frederick, anxious and undecided, consented on the one hand, at the Emperor's invitation, to join the Duke of Bavaria and the Electors of Mentz and Saxony in mediating an arrangement, whilst, on the other hand, he gave his assent to an embassy to Turin, the object of which was to dazzle the Duke of Savoy with the prospect of obtaining the imperial crown after the death of Matthias, and to urge him to join in an attack upon the German dominions of the House of Austria.

§ 9. Coolness of the Union.

The path on which Frederick was entering was the more evidently unsafe, as the Union, which met at Heilbronn in September, had shown great coolness in the Bohemian cause. Christian of Anhalt had not ventured even to hint at the projects which he entertained. If he was afterwards deserted by the Union he could not say that its members as a body had engaged to support him.

1619

§ 10. The Duke of Savoy gives hopes.

The Duke of Savoy, on the other hand, at least talked as if the Austrian territories were at his feet. In August 1618 he had given his consent to the proposed elevation of Frederick to the Bohemian throne. In February 1619 he explained that he wished to have Bohemia for himself. Frederick might be compensated with the Austrian lands in Alsace and Swabia. He might, perhaps, have the Archduchy of Austria too, or become King of Hungary. If he wished to fall upon the bishops' lands, let him do it quickly, before the Pope had time to interfere. This sort of talk, wild as it was, delighted the little circle of Frederick's confidants. The Margrave of Anspach, who, as general of the army of the Union, was admitted into the secret, was beyond measure pleased: 'We have now,' he said, 'the means of upsetting the world.'

§ 11. Conservative feeling alienated.

For the present, these negotiations were veiled in secresy. They engendered a confident levity, which was certain to shock that conservative, peace-loving feeling which the Bohemians had already done much to alienate.

§ 1. The Bohemians look for aid from foreign powers.

If the assistance of the Union was thus likely to do more harm than good to the Bohemians, their hopes of aid from other powers were still more delusive. The Dutch, indeed, sent something, and would willingly have sent more, but they had too many difficulties at home to be very profuse in their offers. James of England told his son-in-law plainly that he would have nothing to do with any encroachment upon the rights of others, and he had undertaken at the instigation of Spain a formal mediation between the Bohemians and their king – a mediation which had been offered him merely in order to keep his hands tied whilst others were arming.