Society and Politics in Germany by G. Benecke

Author:G. Benecke [Benecke, G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Reference
ISBN: 9781135031572
Google: 97MtGs3uO9gC
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-05-13T15:55:49+00:00

IX

Lippe during the Thirty Years’ War

The war from the outside is dangerous to us, yet the dissensions at home take precedence.

Henrich Grote to Levin von Donop, 18 November 16351

THERE was of course literally no Thirty Years’ War, and no disarming simplification of German history in the first half of the seventeenth century is possible. The imperial constitution was not in abeyance, but between 1614 and 1645 no imperial assembly and no ad hoc gathering of territories was as fully representative as any during the previous or following years. The federal system was run by factions that were mutually hostile and excluded each other at the conference table. Federal bodies of arbitration were captured as Ferdinand II, following in the footsteps of his ancestor Charles V, abandoned the path of equity and justice to destroy a revolutionary minority, abandoning himself and the majority of territories to the consequences of war.

When Charles V broke the Smalkaldic League in 1547, he enjoyed the military services of Maurice of Saxony, who emerged with the electoral title of his elder cousins as his reward. Maurice then rounded on the Emperor and put an end to the civil war in 1552. When Ferdinand II broke the Union in 1620, he enjoyed the military services of Maximilian of Bavaria who also emerged with the electoral title of his elder cousins as his reward. But Maximilian did not round on his cousin the Emperor, and this civil war became only a part of a general European war. In 1547 the Habsburg lands had not been threatened by revolutionary Calvinists. In 1618–19 it was no longer only a question of teaching German Protestant militants a lesson, a matter which the League could cope with, but of retrieving Bohemia for the Habsburgs. The jealousies of junior and senior branches of Wettin and Wittelsbach were given full outlet by the events of 1547 and 1620. In both cases the Habsburg supporter won. But in 1620 this was not enough to stop the war.

As federal concord cracked, small territories were buffeted this way and that, as armies dictated their own terms from campaigning season to billet. In 1547 Lippe was caught arming in support of the Hessians by Charles V's forces and accordingly fined. To the end of that war the county remained unwillingly imperialist and more willingly neutral. In 1618 the county was neutral and it remained so. It provided troops for no one and thus hospitality to all who could command it. In 1623 the first imperialist troop occupation took place in Lippe. In the 1630s the Swedes mounted raids into the county as it remained in the imperialist zone of influence and occupation. Only one garrison was stationed in the county for any length of time—an imperialist force in Lemgo. It did not prevent the comital administration from paying monthly tribute to both sides. After 1648 Lippe paid its share towards the demobilization of both sides.

What was the trouble? Did politicians lose their power to the troops who then

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