The Thirty Years War (New York Review Books Classics) by C. V. Wedgewood

Author:C. V. Wedgewood [Wedgewood, C. V.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2016-09-12T23:00:00+00:00

3.

The Treaty of Bärwalde was open to any German ruler who wished to join in throwing off the oppression of the Emperor. This was a direct invitation to the Protestants to take up arms against Ferdinand. Eleven years before, when Bohemia was in revolt, they had had a like opportunity to band themselves against the Emperor. They had lost it. Now in 1630 it was given them again. As in 1619, John George of Saxony stood out for the stability of the constitution against those who sought to overthrow it. He who had once held the balance between Ferdinand and Frederick, now held it between Ferdinand and Gustavus. In 1619 he had had to choose between Protestantism and Catholicism, the one openly, the other surreptitiously attacking the German constitution. But now, in 1630, there was virtually no constitution to defend, and the choice between Catholic and Protestant had lost its meaning. Hapsburg aggression had driven the Papacy and Catholic France, the one into sympathy, the other into alliance with the Protestants, and Europe no longer presented even the approximate outline of a religious cleavage. The political aspect of the conflict had destroyed the spiritual.

The statesman, no less than the fanatic, will always simplify a complex situation in order to see his way more clearly. Thus for Gustavus and Ferdinand, for the great man as for the small man, the issues were much the same as they had been in 1619. To their thinking, religion still dominated the conflict. For John George everything had altered. He saw on one side Ferdinand with his unconstitutional demands, and on the other Gustavus with his menacing foreign power, and crushed between the two, the forgotten interests of Germany as an Empire and as a nation.

The choice between Ferdinand and Gustavus was easier for John George than had been that between Frederick and Ferdinand—for Frederick had at least been a German. Gustavus was a foreigner, an invader, a trespasser on the soil, and in the politics, of the Holy Roman Empire. John George could decide clearly and immediately against Gustavus. But to decide was one thing, to act another.

To understand what happened in Germany in the next two years, it is necessary to see one thing clearly. The real enemy of Gustavus was not Ferdinand, but John George of Saxony, whatever his open policy. Ferdinand was the simplest, the most frank, the most considerate of enemies; he stood fair and square without pretence, extending the whole front of his religious and dynastic policy before the onslaught of the Swedish King. There was no concealment here. But he was fighting for a cause that, with the desertion of the Pope, had ceased to have any reality. He was nothing but the target for Gustavus’s attack. And Gustavus himself, sincere as was his religion, was fighting for the material aggrandizement of Sweden and the Baltic seaboard. His enemies were not the Catholics but all who stood for the solidarity of Germany. Of these the leader was John George.

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