Part 10

“It is a tribute of justice to sound policy, as well as to humanity, to finish this picture by introducing the reflections of the native historian, who, being a Catholic and a subject of the house of Austria, cannot be suspected of exaggeration or partiality. The records of history scarcely furnish a similar example of such a change as Bohemia underwent during the reign of Ferdinand II. In 1620, the monks, and a few of the nobility only excepted, the whole country was entirely Protestant; at the death of Ferdinand it was, in appearance at least, Catholic. Till the battle of the White Mountain the states enjoyed more exclusive privileges than the parliament of England; they enacted laws, imposed taxes, contracted alliances, declared war and peace, and chose or confirmed their kings; but all these they now lost. Previous to that period the Bohemians were considered as a warlike nation, and had often won military fame; the annals of history recorded, ‘The Bohemians took the field; the Bohemians stormed the fortifications; the Bohemians gained the victory;’ but they are now blended with other people, they are no longer distinguished as a nation in the field of battle, and no historian has consigned their posterity to glory. Till this fatal period the Bohemians were daring, undaunted, enterprising, emulous of fame; now they have lost all their courage, their national pride, their enterprising spirit. They fled before the Swedes like sheep, or suffered themselves to be trampled under foot. Their courage lay buried on the White Mountain. Individuals still possessed personal valour, military ardour, and a thirst of glory, but, blended with other nations, they resembled the waters of the Moldau which join those of the Elbe. These united streams bear ships, overflow lands, and overturn rocks; yet the Elbe only is mentioned, and the Moldau forgotten. The Bohemian language, which was used in all the courts of justice, and was in high estimation among the nobles, fell into contempt; the German was introduced, became the general language among the nobles and citizens, and was used by the monks in their sermons; the inhabitants of the towns began to be ashamed of their native tongue, which was confined to the villages, and called the language of peasants. The arts and sciences, so highly cultivated and esteemed under Rodolph, sank beyond recovery. During the period which immediately followed the banishment of the Protestants, Bohemia scarcely produced one man who became eminent in any branch of learning. The Caroline university was under the direction of the Jesuits, or suppressed; by order of the pope all promotions were stopped, and no academical honours conferred. A few patriots, both among the clergy and laity, murmured openly, though ineffectually; others sighed in secret over the downfall of literature. The greater part of the schools were conducted by Jesuits and other monkish orders, and nothing taught therein but bad Latin. It cannot be denied, that several of the Jesuits were men of great learning and science; but their system was, to keep the people in ignorance; agreeably to this principle, they gave their scholars only the rind, and kept to themselves the pulp of literature. With this view they travelled from town to town as missionaries, and went from house to house, examining all books, which the landlord was compelled, under pain of eternal damnation, to produce. The greater part they confiscated and burnt, so that a Bohemian and a rare book are synonymous terms. They thus endeavoured to extinguish the ancient literature of the country, laboured to persuade the students that, before the introduction of their order into Bohemia, nothing but ignorance prevailed, and carefully concealed the learned labours, and even the names of our ancestors. Such was their despotism, that the collections and writings of the patriotic Balbinus, on the literature of the ancient Bohemians, could not be published till after the extinction of their order. In a word, from this period the history of Bohemia ceases, and the history of every nation in Bohemia begins.”

We must content ourselves with giving only so much of the atrocities of the Thirty Years’ War. Nothing less than a detail of all its events would truly fill out the programme suggested by the title of our little book. It was in this war that was first invented the terrible system of provisioning an army at the expense of the country invaded or defended, which was acted out so terrifically by Tilly and Wallenstein, and served to increase a hundredfold all the former horrors of war.

The picturesque pages of Schiller can be consulted for these details. We extract only his account of the sack of Magdeburg.

“Two gates were now opened by the storming party for the main body, and Tilly marched in with part of his infantry. Immediately occupying the principal streets, he drove the citizens with pointed cannon into their dwellings, there to await their destiny. They were not long held in suspense; a word from Tilly decided the fate of Magdeburg.

“Even a more humane general would in vain have recommended mercy to such soldiers; but Tilly never made the attempt. Left by their general’s silence masters of the lives of all the citizens, the soldiery broke into the houses to satiate their most brutal appetites. The prayers of innocence excited some compassion in the hearts of the Germans, but none in the rude breasts of Pappenheim’s Walloons. Scarcely had the savage cruelty commenced, when the other gates were thrown open, and the cavalry, with the fearful hordes of the Croats, poured in upon the devoted inhabitants.

“Here commenced a scene of horrors for which history has no language—poetry no pencil; neither innocent childhood nor helpless old age, neither youth, sex, rank, nor beauty, could disarm the fury of the conquerors. Wives were abused in the arms of their husbands, daughters at the feet of their parents, and the defenceless sex exposed to the double sacrifice of virtue and life. No situation, however obscure, or however sacred, escaped the rapacity of the enemy. In a single church fifty-three women were found beheaded. The Croats amused themselves with throwing the children into the flames; Pappenheim’s Walloons with stabbing infants at the mother’s breast. Some officers of the league, horror-struck at the dreadful scene, ventured to remind Tilly that he had it in his power to stop the carnage. “Return in an hour,” was his answer; “I will see what I can do; the soldier must have some reward for his danger and toils.” These horrors lasted with unabated fury, till at last the smoke and flames proved a check to the plunderers. To augment the confusion and to divert the resistance of the inhabitants, the imperialists had, in the commencement of the assault, fired the town in several places. The wind rising rapidly, spread the flames, till the blaze became universal. Fearful indeed was the tumult amid clouds of smoke, heaps of dead bodies, the clash of swords, the crash of falling ruins, and streams of blood. The atmosphere glowed; and the intolerable heat forced at last even the murderers to take refuge in their camp. In less than twelve hours that strong, populous, and flourishing city, one of the finest in Germany, was reduced to ashes, with the exception of two churches and a few houses. The Administrator, Christian William, after receiving several wounds, was taken prisoner with three of the burgomasters. Most of the officers and magistrates had already met an enviable death. The avarice of the officers had saved four hundred of the richest citizens, in the hope of extorting from them an exorbitant ransom. But this humanity was confined to the officers of the league, whom the ruthless barbarity of the imperialists caused to be regarded as guardian angels.

“Scarcely had the fury of the flames abated, when the Imperialists returned to renew the pillage amid the ruins and ashes of the town. Many were suffocated by the smoke; many found rich booty in the cellars, where the citizens had concealed their more valuable effects. On the 13th of May Tilly himself appeared in the town, after the streets had been cleared of ashes and dead bodies. Horrible and revolting to humanity, was the scene that presented itself. The living crawling from under the dead, children wandering about with heart-rending cries, calling for their parents; and infants still suckling the breasts of their lifeless mothers. More than six thousand bodies were thrown into the Elbe to clean the streets; a much greater number had been consumed by the flames. The whole number of the slain was reckoned at not less than thirty thousand.

“The entrance of the general, which took place on the 14th, put a stop to the plunder, and saved the few who had hitherto contrived to escape. About a thousand people were taken out of the cathedral, where they had remained three days and two nights, without food, and in momentary fear of death. Tilly promised them quarter, and commanded bread to be distributed among them. The next day a solemn mass was performed in the cathedral, and a Te Deum sung amidst the discharge of artillery. The imperial general rode through the streets, that he might be able, as an eyewitness, to inform his master that no such conquest had been made since the destruction of Troy and Jerusalem. Nor was this an exaggeration, whether we consider the greatness, importance, and prosperity of the city razed, or the fury of its ravagers.”[5]

We have been led somewhat out of chronological order, in order to give a unity of impression with respect to the wrongs of Bohemia.

We now turn to Italy, among the stationary nations the mother country of constitutional liberty. And here we shall take for our guide the wise, the just, the liberal Sismondi, whose larger work upon the Republics of Italy ought to be translated into English, and studied by every American. We cannot take time and space here to introduce the history of the influence of the House of Austria upon Italy, by even a succinct account of the origin of the imperial claims there. It may be maintained, with some justice, that owing to previous circumstances of situation, the Constitution of the kingdom of Italy, its prosperity, and even its freedom, grew together, under the earlier German Emperors. “But,” says Sismondi, “the war of investitures, which lasted more than sixty years, having accomplished the dissolution of every tie between the different members of the kingdom of Italy, the peace of Constance, in 1183, by the establishment of a legal liberty, brought to a close the first and most noble struggle which the nations of modern Europe have ever maintained against despotism.” “By this peace, the emperor renounced all the regal privileges which he had hitherto claimed in the interior of towns. He acknowledged the right of the confederate cities to levy armies, to enclose themselves within fortifications, and to exercise, by their commissioners, within their own walls, both civil and criminal jurisdiction. The consuls of towns acquired, _by the simple nomination of the people_, all the prerogatives of imperial vicars. The cities of Lombardy were further authorised to _strengthen their confederation_ for the defence of these just rights. On the other side, they engaged to maintain certain rights of the Emperor, which were defined at the same time; and in order to avoid all disputes, it was agreed that these rights might always be bought off by the annual sum of 2000 marks of silver.”

There were, it is true, some struggles afterwards, with regard to these same rights, but the result of these struggles was, in the end, the greater independence of Italy; and it was in consequence of domestic troubles, of the ambition of the Popes within Italy, that the French were first called thither. When Rodolph of Hapsburgh became Emperor, he sacrificed imperial rights in Italy, which, on the whole, were more favourable to its freedom than the influence of the house of Anjou, which replaced them. But he did it without knowing it, and because his sole object at the moment was to gain from Pope Gregory X. a recognition of his title to the Empire. When he afterwards discovered what he had ignorantly done, he made some movements to resume them, but he was obliged, by Nicholas III., to acknowledge his own diplomas, and from that period, 1278, the republics as well as the principalities, situated in the whole extent of what is now called the States of the Church, held of the Holy See, and not of the Emperor.

It was at the period when the Austrian family was first growing in power, by preying on those parts of Europe nearer at hand, that, from a variety of concurring causes, the Republics of Italy became the paramount power in the Peninsula. Sismondi has given a beautiful picture of its aspect at this time in his Italian Republics, Chap. V. We make a single extract:

“The cities, surrounded with thick walls, terraced, and guarded by towers, were, for the most part, paved with broad flagstones; while the inhabitants of Paris could not stir out of their houses without plunging into the mud. Stone bridges of an elegant and bold architecture were thrown over rivers; aqueducts carried pure water to the fountains. The palaces of the podestas and signorie united strength with majesty. The most admirable of those of Florence, the Palazzo Vecchio, was built in 1298. The Loggia in the same city, the church of Santa Croce, that of Santa Maria del Fiore, with its dome, so admired by Michæl Angelo, were begun by the architect Arnolfo, scholar of Nicolas di Pisa, between the years 1254 and 1300. The prodigies of this first born of the fine arts multiplied in Italy: a pure taste, boldness, and grandeur struck the eye in all the public monuments, and finally reached even private dwellings; while the princes of France, England, and Germany, in building their castles, seemed to think only of shelter and defence. Sculpture in marble and bronze soon followed the progress of architecture: in 1300, Andrea de Pisa, son of the architect Nicolas, cast the admirable bronze gates of the Baptistery at Florence: about the same time, Cimabue and Giotti revived the art of painting, Casella music, and Dante gave to Italy his divine poem, unequalled in succeeding generations. History was written honestly, with scrupulous research and with a graceful simplicity, by Giovanni Villani, and his school; the study of morals and philosophy began; and Italy, ennobled by freedom, enlightened nations till then sunk in darkness.

“The arts of necessity and luxury had been cultivated with not less success than the fine arts; in every street, warehouses and shops displayed the wealth that Italy and Flanders only knew how to produce. It excited the astonishment and cupidity of the French or German adventurer, who came to find employment in Italy, and who had no other exchange to make than his blood, against the rich stuffs and brilliant arms which he coveted. The Tuscan and Lombard merchants, however, trafficked in the barbarous regions of the West, to carry there the produce of their industry. Attracted by the franchises of the fairs of Champagne and Lyons, they went thither, as well to barter their goods, as to lend their capital at interest to the nobles, habitually loaded with debt; though at the risk of finding themselves suddenly arrested, their wealth confiscated, by order of the king of France, and their lives, too, sometimes endangered by sanctioned robbers, under the pretext of repressing usury. Industry, the employment of a superabundant capital, the application of mechanism and science to the production of wealth, secured the Italians a sort of monopoly through Europe; they alone offered for sale what all the rich desired to buy; and notwithstanding the various oppressions of the barbarian kings, notwithstanding the losses occasioned by their own often repeated revolutions, their wealth was rapidly renewed. The workmen, the interest of capital, and the profit of trade, rose simultaneously, while every one gained much and spent little; manners were still simple, _luxury was unknown_, and the future was not forestalled by accumulated debt.”

We might go on farther to speak of Pisa and Genoa. “It is difficult to comprehend how two simple cities could put to sea such prodigious fleets as those of Pisa and Genoa.” But we merely wish to point attention towards what Italy was, when left to develop its genius, unrestrained by foreign influence. We pass from this period of prosperity over two hundred years, to the time when Maximilian entered into the league of Cambray. In 1301, Boniface VIII. called Charles of Valois to intervene in the affairs of Tuscany; and the same year the Papal Court was transferred into France. In 1313, the emperor Henry VII. invaded Italy, to intervene in the affairs of Lombardy. In 1327, Louis IV. followed, for the same purpose; and later, Charles IV., his successor. This foreign influence was against republicanism, in favour of the aristocratical families who wished to tyrannise in their respective states. When Charles VIII. of France invaded Italy, in 1492, there was no longer to be found, throughout the peninsula, “that power of a people, whose every individual will tends to the public weal; whose efforts are all combined for the public benefit and the common safety. The princes of that country could appeal only to order and the obedience of the subject, not to the enthusiasm of the citizen, for the protection of Italian independence.”

The league of Cambray, (we here translate rather freely from Sismondi’s larger work), was the first enterprise in which all the civilised states of Europe joined, after the crusades. For the first time, the sovereigns of nations made an agreement to partition between themselves an independent state; reviving, by means of pedantic erudition, superannuated pretensions; and claiming imprescriptable rights of legitimacy. The crusades had united Europe on the foundation of religious zeal and enthusiasm;—in the league of Cambray was developed a new principle of union, the personal and momentary interest of the strong to despoil the weak. To this event we must assign the origin of the international law (du droit public), which, for the last three hundred and fifty years, has governed Europe. It commenced by the most crying injustice; and the diplomatic science which was, as it were, born with the sixteenth century, has served ever since to give pretexts to rapacity and bad faith.

The league of Cambray was an agreement between the Pope, Louis XII., and Maximilian I., to divide all the _terra firma_ of the Venetian states. Pope Julius II. had the best foundation for his claims, which were for a restitution to the States of the Church of what the Venetians had taken from them by violence and treachery, in the preceding century. As he could not obtain it from themselves, however, he consented to receive it from the hands of Louis XII. and Maximilian, who combined to despoil the republic. The claims of Louis XII. were made for provinces, which, when he had subjugated Milan, he had himself ceded to the Venetians as the price of their assistance to him, but which he now claimed on the score of the imprescriptable right of the Visconti family, of which he had become heir. Maximilian, on his side, regarded himself as the legitimate successor, not only of the most powerful German monarchs, but of the Roman emperors; and claimed all the powers which had been exercised by Frederic Barbarossa, Otho the Great, and even by Trajan and Augustus.

It is difficult to do justice to the absurdity of these claims. As to imprescriptible rights, says Sismondi: “Venice, which presented itself as the most ancient state of Christendom, as the only legitimate daughter of the Roman republic could plead rights anterior to those of all the sovereigns.” “The only basis of international law (du droit public), which can sustain profound examination, is that of national compact. The interest of nations requires the preservation of their repose; and to guarantee this repose, it may, in some instances, admit legitimacy, not as a right, but as a presumption of the national will. It may also admit prescription, not as a right, but as a presumption of the mutual satisfaction of all parties. It may admit treaties as the only means of disarming popular hatred, and of saving the vanquished from the rage of the vanquisher; but then it must admit also the violation of these same treaties, as the only and the necessary remedy, when cruel and dishonorable conditions have been imposed by the abuse of force. In this case the violation can even become just; for neither the government which has stipulated has the right to bind the nation to a shameful and ruinous thing, nor has the present generation a right, for its own advantage, to bind posterity to their ruin. National interest, which leaves a hope to the vanquished, on whom a dishonouring treaty has been imposed, teaches the vanquishers, for their own sake, not to abuse victory.” “But with whatever fallacious arguments the potentates who despoiled Venice coloured their pretensions, cupidity, jealousy, and envy, were the true motives which armed them. With less than three millions of subjects, upon a territory of less extent than a sixth part of France, of Spain, or of Germany, Venice ranked with the greatest empires. It had sustained in turn, the attacks of Muselmen, French, and Spaniards, without giving any signs of weakness; the richest commerce animated the capital; numerous manufactories flourished in all the surrounding cities; the fields prospered by an industrious agriculture; immense water-works had been achieved, which enriched the soil; and the people were happy. The subjects of the neighbouring monarchs, comparing their own poverty with so much strength, opulence, and security, were tempted to ask in what consisted the difference; and to answer to themselves, that, in Venice were seen neither the senseless luxury of a voluptuous court; nor the depradations of courtier-ministers and their subalterns; nor the petulant ignorance, and ruinous intrigues, of their young favourites. Venice, without pretending to give lessons, without being near perfection, was yet a living satire upon other governments; and the latter, by instinct and without being able to render an account of their motives, had long desired to destroy it.”

To give all an interest in the destruction of the only state sufficiently strong to maintain the independence of Italy, Louis and Maximilian agreed to divide between themselves all the _terra firma_ of the Venetians; to abandon to Ferdinand all the fortresses in Apulia; to the pope, the lordships in Romagna, and to the houses of Este and Gonzaga, the small districts near the Po.”

The war began, January 1509, by the Pope’s excommunicating the Doge and the Republic, and France commencing hostilities. In the war, there was nothing so terrible to the Venetians as the action of the German army of Maximilian. “No sooner did the Germans enter the Venetian cities, than they plunged into the most brutal debauchery; offending public decency, and exercising their cruelty and rapacity on all those who came within their reach.” At the siege of Padua, after great efforts on the part of Maximilian, the incredible valour of the Venetians, who had driven into the city most of their forces, induced him to raise the siege. “But these barbarians, who came to dispute with the Italians the sovereignty of their country, did not need success to prove their ferocity. After having taken from the poor peasant, or the captive, all that he possessed, they put him _to the torture_ to discover hidden treasure, or to extort ransom from the compassion of friends.—In this abuse of brute force, the Germans showed themselves the most savage, &c.”

And Maximilian personally made himself responsible for these horrors.