9781950423415 by A History of The Thirty Years War

Author:A History of The Thirty Years War
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0000000000000
Published: 2020-08-19T23:59:14+00:00

THREE

To The Rescue

‘They will see the beginning of a revolution’. This was how Frederick V, the dispossessed Elector Palatine, had described the gathering forces of the Hague Alliance, as 1625 turned to 1626.³⁸ The revolution which Frederick had envisioned involved the gradual accumulation of forces hostile to the Habsburgs, as all rivals put their differences aside and combined against the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain’s dangerous designs. He imagined the Swedish and Danish Kings putting aside their old wars and pooling their resources in the Baltic; he hoped for the King of France to fight against the Spanish and Austrians in the name of Protestant Germans; he believed that these Protestant Germans could do nothing other than join his cause, after having seen the extent of their Emperor’s unconstitutional behaviour, and his wanton ambitions. Frederick had hoped for these things to take place ever since he had entered his exile in The Hague, and he had been disappointed as many times as he had hoped.

This time though, the anti-Habsburg camp appeared to possess the advantage in every respect. His years of pressuring the British to fight in Europe paid off, and King Charles declared against Spain and the Emperor in mid-1625. The Dutch, brought low by their defeats to the Spanish, had formalised their agreements with both France and Britain in the preceding years, and seemed poised to fight for as long as was required. Finally, and most significantly, the King of Denmark, having acquired the solid alliance he had for so long sought, was now firmly set against the Emperor, and was loud in his determination to defend the Lower Saxon Circle, that region just below Denmark, against Habsburg aggression. The unification of the anti-Habsburg camp into the Hague Alliance in December 1625 must be seen as the high point of Frederick’s fortunes, as well as of his pressure campaign. For so long he had engaged in the apparently futile task to restore justice to the Palatine and peace to Germany on his own terms, and now this task seemed to have borne fruit. Alas, while Frederick’s diplomatic triumph was impressive on paper, it was far less solid in reality.

The German princes, save those that inhabited the Lower Saxon Circle, were hesitant to declare against the Emperor. Saxony had not been willing to turn against Ferdinand, even while its Elector John George had regretted the unconstitutional manner with which the Emperor stripped Frederick of his Electorate, and loathed the spectacle of Ferdinand betraying his promises, and expelling the Protestants from Bohemia after all. As reluctant as John George was to take these objections to their logical conclusion, he was constrained nonetheless to remain on the Emperor’s side, for one key reason above all others: like the newly established Elector of Bavaria, John George had gained from choosing the Emperor’s side. Lusatia, that province of the Kingdom of Bohemia, had been hastily transferred to him as the revolt had been crushed. Any restitution of the status quo would

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