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The "satisfaction" of France.

Elsass

405

Pinerolo was likewise recognised, the provisions of the Treaty of Cherasco between France and Savoy (1631) remaining practically unaltered; but Savoy retained its existing territorial rights and limits. Duke Charles

of Lorraine was left out of the Congress, and out of the Treaty.

The claims of France upon Elsass were not so easily settled. The French Government had repeatedly declared that it made war upon the House of Austria, and not upon the Empire; and it was clear from the outset that the House of Austria would have to defray the main cost of the French "satisfaction." This view of the case, which commended itself to Bavaria and the Spiritual Electors hardly less than to the Protestant Princes, throughout governed the diplomatic action of France in this matter; and she began by simply demanding the cession to her of the Austrian possessions and rights in Elsass. But when the French Government and its agents, with Servien at their head, entered into these far-reaching negotiations, they were quite uninformed as to the actual extent and character of these rights, and as to the relations to the Empire of the component parts of Elsass. Moreover, unhappily for the integrity of that Empire and for the future peace of Europe, it did not suit the purposes of the House of Austria - desirous of averting any French designs upon other territories in its possession - to dispel the ignorance of the French negotiators.

As a matter of fact, although so late as the middle of the seventeenth century Elsass had lost neither its unity of race, nor a certain cohesion of life and culture, its two historic divisions of Upper and Lower (southern and northern) Elsass had followed quite distinct lines of political growth. Of the two landgravates into which the ancient duchy had been administratively divided, that of Upper Elsass had, from the days of its landgrave the great Emperor Rudolf I, fallen more and more under the control of the House of Habsburg, to which nearly four-fifths of the land were now feudally subject. In Lower Elsass, on the other hand, the Austrian rights were virtually restricted to those of the Landvogt, who since the reign of Ferdinand I exercised a certain administrative authority in a district comprising, besides some forty villages in Lower Elsass, the so-called "ten free Imperial towns of Elsass in both its divisions (Hagenau, Colmar, Schlettstadt, etc.). The nobility of Lower Elsass retained their independence, and its Diets their activity, while the dignity of "landgrave" had here become merely titular (with a domain or two attached to it) and, so far back as the fourteenth century, had been acquired by purchase by the Bishop of Strassburg. The see had no other formal connexion with Lower Elsass; nor was there any tie of the kind between the latter and the free city of Strassburg, which, like the see, was immediate to the Empire.

Yet, when in 1645 Mazarin instructed the French plenipotentiaries to demand, in addition to the fortresses of Breisach and Philippsburg, "Upper and Lower Elsass" (the Sundgau being treated as part of the

406

The Austrian rights in Elsass

[1645-8 former), there can be no doubt that he and they supposed the whole of Elsass and its Estates to be in one way or another subject to the House of Austria. Being, however, apprised by their Bavarian friends that the case was not quite so simple, they thought it expedient to raise their terms by throwing in a demand for the whole Breisgau (on the right bank of the Rhine), which by November, 1645, Mazarin reduced to a claim on the fortress of Breisach only.

In these terms the Emperor acquiesced, secretly instructing Trautmansdorff to this effect in March, 1646; and though some further haggling followed on both sides, a settlement on the subject was now to all intents and purposes assured. The Austrian proposals brought forward in April, and substantially agreed to in the Preliminary Treaty signed in September following, were embodied in the final instrument of peace. Breisach to which Bernard of Weimar had so tenaciously clung was made over to France. But as to the cession of the "landgravate of Upper and Lower Elsass," or of the "landgravate of both Elsasses" (for both terms had been in use) which, together with the Landvogtei over the ten towns and their dependencies, was to pass in full sovereignty to France, certain ominous obscurities remained. In the first place, while the King of France undertook to respect the liberties and the immediacy to the Empire, not only of the Bishops of Strassburg and Basel, but also of all the other immediate Estates in both Upper and Lower Elsass, including the ten free towns, he did so on condition. (Ita tamen) that the rights of his sovereignty should not suffer from this reservation. The clause gave rise to much alarm at the time, and was afterwards deliberately misinterpreted; but its chief purpose was, beyond all reasonable doubt, simply to secure to the Crown of France the measure of rights which the House of Austria had formerly possessed in Elsass. In the second place, the expression landgraviatus inferioris Alsatia implied a measure of rights which the House of Austria could not transfer, because, as has been seen, it had never possessed them. No "landgravate of Elsass"— a term first imported by Austria into the negotiations had ever existed; and the "landgravate of Lower Elsass" implied a title to which Austria had not a shadow of a claim. Thus in Lower Elsass Austria had nothing to surrender beyond the Hagenau Landvogtei, which in no wise involved the surrender of the ten free Imperial towns, though these were in certain respects subject to her authority. For the misleading phraseology, by which, as conferring upon France rights in Lower Elsass that Austria had never possessed, Louis XIV afterwards sought to justify his notorious "Reunions," Austria, and not France, was in the first instance responsible.

The attempts of the Estates of the Empire at Münster and Osnabrück, and of the Estates in Elsass itself, to get rid of the ominous Ita tamen clause were skilfully eluded by Servien, who professed himself quite ready to accept the alternative suggestion that France should hold both

1645-8]

Elsass settlement.

General amnesty

407

Upper and Lower Elsass as fiefs of the Empire. But the Emperor, who had no desire for such a vassal, would not hear of this solution. Nothing was gained by the agitation except that the city of Strassburg was expressly. named among the Estates to be left untouched in their liberties, though Servien declared that there had never been any intention of including it in the French "satisfaction." Neither with regard to Elsass at large, nor most certainly with regard to Strassburg, is there any evidence that either Servien or the French Government had at this time deliberately formed any ulterior design.

An article of the Treaty obliged the King of France to maintain Catholic worship in Elsass wherever it had been carried on under the Austrian Government, and to restore its exercise where it had been interrupted in the course of the War. A compensation of three million livres was granted by France to Archduke Ferdinand Charles, who had held the position of Governor of the "Anterior" Austrian possessions; and a part of his debts was taken over by her. Though France had not insisted on the cession of Philippsburg, she was allowed the right of maintaining a garrison in the fortress, while the town was left to the Bishop of Speier.

The Peace provided for a general and unlimited amnesty in the Empire which was to go back to the Bohemian troubles - i.e. to the year 1618- and to extend to all Princes and other Estates, immediate or mediate, and their subjects, possessions, and public and private rights. But the particular changes and settlements in the Empire expressly mentioned in the Treaties were held to override any general provision; and on this head the exceptions were in part of very great significance.

Foremost among the Princes of the Empire whose interests had been impaired by the Swedish" satisfaction "stood the Elector of Brandenburg. Regarding the sees of Brandenburg and Havelberg, together with that of Camin (a dependency of Eastern Pomerania) as permanently appropriated by his House, he now demanded certain Silesian principalities, without any serious expectation of inducing the House of Austria to hand them over to him, together with the secularisation, in favour of his dynasty, of the archbishopric of Magdeburg, and the bishoprics of Halberstadt, Hildesheim, Osnabrück, and Minden. His vigorous diplomacy actually secured to him the first and the last named of these bishoprics, and the archbishopric of Magdeburg, as hereditary possessions. Magdeburg was, however, not to pass to his House as an hereditary duchy until the determination of Prince Augustus of Saxony's life tenure. The much-vexed administrator Prince Christian William was granted an increase of the pecuniary consideration allowed to him in the Peace of Prague.

The Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, in compensation for the transfer of the lucrative port of Wismar, obtained possession of the sees of

408

Brunswick-Lüneburg. Hesse-Cassel [1645-8

Schwerin and Ratzeburg; certain actual or contingent equivalents being granted to his kinsman of the Güstrow branch.

The interests of another north-German House had been prejudiced by these arrangements and the absorption by Sweden of the archbishopric of Bremen. This was the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg, which under Duke George, up to his death in 1641, had played so prominent a part in the latter part of the War. But the BrunswickLüneburg Dukes, who had in 1642 at Goslar prematurely concluded a separate peace in their own interests, were now obliged to give up Hildesheim to its Catholic Bishop, the Elector of Cologne, and to see Minden transferred to Brandenburg. Of the three sees on which the Princes of the ambitious House of Brunswick had set their hopes, only a moiety of one was assigned to them. For it was settled that at Osnabrück the present Catholic Bishop should be succeeded by the Brunswick-Lüneburg Duke Ernest Augustus, and that after him the see should be alternately held by a Catholic and a Protestant, in the latter case preferentially by a Brunswick-Lüneburg Prince. By another abnormal arrangement the Bishop, Chapter, and Estates of Osnabrück were made liable for the payment of 80,000 dollars to the former occupant of the territory, Count Gustaf Gustafsson, of Vasaborg, an illegitimate son of the great King. On the other hand, a still outstanding claim of the heirs of Tilly upon the principality of Calenburg (Hanover) was now quashed.

The Dowager Landgravine Amalia Elizabeth of Hesse-Cassel had in the face of difficulties innumerable maintained so close a connexion with both the Swedish and the French Government that their military commanders and diplomatists alike never lost sight of her interests and pretensions. Special mention accordingly was made of them in the first peace propositions of both Powers. Her claims were judiciously spread over a large and varied extent of territory; but in the end Hesse-Cassel acquired the secularised Prince-abbacy of Hersfeld, which had long been under its control, together with other lands and the large sum of 600,000 dollars for the payment of its soldiery, to be contributed by divers spiritual potentates. The compact between Cassel and Darmstadt securing to the former part of the long-disputed Marburg succession was also confirmed in the Peace; so that the "great Landgravine”—a Princess whose extraordinary sagacity and determination deserve enduring remembrance - was now entitled to sing her Nunc Dimittis. She died in 1651.

The Peace of Westphalia failed to effect any final settlement of the Jülich-Cleves-Berg question, which had so nearly antedated by a decade the outbreak of the Great War. A pious hope was expressed that the "interessati," who, besides the "possessing " Princes, were Brandenburg and Neuburg, the Elector of Saxony and the Duke of Zweibrücken, would soon come to terms; but this hope was not fulfilled till 1666, when, by the Treaty of Cleves, Brandenburg was awarded the permanent

1645-8]

Bavaria and the Palatinate

409

possession of Cleves, Mark, and Ravensburg, and Neuburg of Jülich and Berg a settlement which lasted till the expiration of the Neuburg line in 1742. The Donauwörth difficulty, too-another of the causes of the Thirty Years' War-was left over for settlement by the next Diet; and Bavaria remained in possession, compensating the Swabian Circle for the loss of the town's contributions. A third and more important question, which during the course of the War had only gradually fallen into the background, once more became prominent in the peace negotiations and had finally to be settled by a compromise. The voice of England, the one Western Power unrepresented in these negotiations, could no longer be raised on behalf of Charles Lewis, the eldest son of the late Elector Frederick; and the States General could hardly be expected to intervene actively on behalf of a family of which they had long grown weary. On the other hand, Bavaria would leave no stone unturned in order to retain possession of the Electoral dignity and of the Upper Palatinate. If Maximilian had to surrender this acquisition, he would at once claim from Ferdinand III his father's pledge of Upper Austria and a debt of thirteen million dollars; and, if Maximilian lost his Electorship, there would be an end of the Catholic majority among the Temporal Electors. It was accordingly at last agreed that the Upper Palatinate, and the fifth electorate which had been transferred to Maximilian in 1623, should remain with the Bavarian branch of the House of Wittelsbach, while the Lower Palatinate, with a newly-created eighth electorate, was assigned to Charles Lewis and his descendants. As the new Elector Palatine would participate in the general amnesty, the Emperor undertook to avert so far as he could any opposition in the Lower Palatinate to the restoration of Charles Lewis, and even promised him a certain measure of pecuniary relief and support. Unfortunately it neither supplied his economic needs on his return to the desolate remnant of his patrimony, nor brought about a reconciliation between him and his mother, the ex-Queen of Bohemia, who after her Odyssey of woes was never to see Heidelberg again.

Both the Baden-Durlach line, which had been deprived of its territories after the battle of Wimpfen (1622) and the House of Württemberg, of whose domains Ferdinand II had in his last years distributed a large part among his ministers and commanders, had been excluded from the amnesty granted at the Peace of Prague and were now reinstated. This was mainly the work of Varnbüler, who thus signally contributed to the preservation of Protestantism in south-western Germany. Several other Estates of the Empire, which had likewise been excluded from the Prague amnesty, and others which had not been so excluded, endeavoured to secure similar recoveries; and in the end a stop had to be put upon these transactions, which threatened indefinitely to postpone the conclusion of peace. The Elector of Trier, thanks to French support, reëntered into all the rights and possessions which he had forfeited, and