13
A dangerous coincidence of political and military factors threatened to merge Europe’s conflicts into a common struggle after 1628. The imperial advance to the Baltic alarmed Sweden, which considered allying itself with Denmark and it emboldened Poland to offer support to Ferdinand. The latter negotiated with Spain for assistance to create an imperial navy that might challenge Sweden and attack the Dutch. Denmark’s defeat released imperial troops to help Spain in the Netherlands and Italy, as well as assist Poland against Sweden. France intervened in Italy, while Britain helped the Huguenots in their final rebellion. The fusion of these different struggles came to rest on seven great sieges: La Rochelle, Danzig, Stralsund, Magdeburg, Casale, Mantua and s’Hertzogenbosch. The fate of each city determined whether one or more powers would be free to intervene elsewhere. The character of La Rochelle, Stralsund and Magdeburg as Protestant strongholds sharpened the confessional edge of the conflicts. Ferdinand further heightened religious tension by demanding the return of all church land in the Edict of Restitution in 1629. The feverish pace of events appeared to confirm the arrival of the long-prophesied Armageddon.
Yet, all parties drew back from the brink. Intervention remained limited and short-lived. More significantly, it was not intended to provoke general war, but resolve separate issues and deter others from interfering. While some diplomats lobbied for new alliances, others worked hard to settle disputes and to prevent fresh hostilities. Those who race ahead to examine Swedish involvement in Germany after 1630 overlook the real chances for peace in these years and the genuine attempts to find a general solution to the Empire’s problems.
THE BALTIC
The Polish War
Though they ran in parallel, each conflict had separate roots. The Baltic struggle provides a logical place to start because it overlapped with Denmark’s defeat. Gustavus Adolphus was determined to conquer Livonia, a region vulnerable to attack from Sweden’s bridgehead in Estonia. The Ottoman attack on southern Poland in 1620–1 provided him with an opportunity to launch the largest Swedish amphibious operation to date as 12,000 troops landed on the Livonian coast, while 4,000 more crossed from Estonia to attack Riga.1
The city fell in September 1621 after a five-week siege, but the invasion set a pattern that Gustavus was unable to break. Command of the sea enabled him to pick his point of attack, but once ashore, he only had a short time to achieve his objective before sickness and autumn rains made further operations impossible. The area was sparsely populated and the great distances between settlements often proved a greater hindrance than the outnumbered Poles. The Swedes had to land in force, because disease rapidly depleted their ranks, and additional men were needed to garrison captured towns. The better-mounted Poles easily evaded the Swedish cavalry whose small horses could not catch them. These conditions encouraged Gustavus to seek a truce each autumn to secure his gains over the winter while he collected reinforcements in Sweden. When the Poles refused, they often recovered much of the lost ground, raiding deep into Swedish-held territory and picking off isolated garrisons. These successes were not enough to evict the Swedes, but were usually sufficient to disrupt Gustavus’s plans for the coming campaign.
Sigismund III accepted a truce in August 1622, but negotiations to convert this into peace foundered on his refusal to renounce the Swedish crown. It took a while before Gustavus believed Denmark’s preparations for war were not directed against him. However, once he was convinced Christian would attack Germany, he encouraged Danish intervention to ensure his rival remained mired in the Empire’s problems. Negotiations were held with Britain and the Dutch in the hope of persuading them to fund a renewed Polish war as a ‘diversion’. The Dutch envoy travelled to Sweden only to discover Gustavus had already gone to Livonia in July. When he finally found the Swedish monarch, he was treated to a lengthy harangue in Latin from Chancellor Oxenstierna outlining the evils of the Polish Vasas. British efforts failed to overcome Gustavus’s distrust of the Danes and so Sweden remained outside the Hague alliance.
Gustavus’s victory at Wallhof in January 1626 finally completed his conquest of Livonia and allowed him to occupy Courland to the south. He decided against pressing into sparsely populated Lithuania, switching to Polish Prussia further down the coast. This richer, more densely inhabited province was easier to reach by sea and better-able to sustain the invaders. Gustavus’s prime target was Danzig, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth’s largest port and one of Europe’s richest mercantile cities. The largely German-speaking burghers preferred their current privileged place in the Commonwealth to an accommodation with Sweden. Since Danzig was too difficult to attack directly, Gustavus concentrated on conquering the boggy, fertile Vistula delta to the east, as well as the lagoon separating the city from the Baltic in order to control trade entering or leaving the Commonwealth. Ignoring his brother-in-law Georg Wilhelm of Brandenburg’s protests, he consolidated his hold by occupying the ducal Prussian port of Pillau further east.2
Initially distracted by Tartar raids, Sigismund III sent his best general, Hetman Koniecpolski, to reinforce the few troops in Polish Prussia, while the Hanseatic League helped their fellow-member Danzig to recruit German mercenaries. Koniecpolski’s inability to defeat Gustavus at Dirschau in August 1627 signalled the beginning of a long war of attrition, as the Swedes could not take Danzig, while the Poles were unable to recover the delta.
The Baltic Design
The Swedish advance along the southern Baltic shore coincided with the Imperialists’ arrival in Pomerania in November 1627. Wallenstein negotiated the duchy’s occupation with Duke Bogislav XIV to find additional food for his army. However, possession of the western end of the Baltic coast offered a chance to strike at the Danish islands onto which Christian had retreated. For this, ships were needed and it seemed as if Spain would provide them. Known as Wallenstein’s ‘Baltic Design’, this Austro-Spanish naval cooperation attracted considerable interest in the nineteenth century when it was seen as a precursor to imperial Germany’s naval and colonial policies.3
The plan actually originated in Spain as part of Olivares’ bid to strangle Dutch trade through the Almirantazago licence system outlined in Chapter 11. Spain wanted the emperor to persuade the Hanseatic League to back the project. Discussions rapidly established that Wallenstein would seize and garrison the necessary ports, while Spain would provide naval experts, materials and most of the money. Talks were widened to include Sigismund III after January 1626. The Habsburgs maintained a gunboat flotilla on the Danube, but had no expertise in organizing a high seas fleet, whereas the Poles had a small coastal defence force that scored a minor victory in the Danzig lagoon against the Swedes in November 1627. The first proper sea-going Polish warship was launched in 1622 and by 1628 Sigismund had twelve ships and another fifteen fitting out.4
Discussions then stalled as one party lost interest, just as another warmed to the project. The location of the naval base proved an important area of disagreement. Spain originally envisaged Emden or some other North Sea port to support a blockade of the Dutch coast, whereas Ferdinand and Sigismund favoured the Baltic. Polish participation remained a low priority, because Sigismund’s objective of invading Sweden to recover his crown was not only of little interest to either Habsburg branch, but appeared downright fantastical. A Baltic base posed considerable problems for Spain, not least in sending a fleet through the Danish-controlled Sound. Olivares was reluctant to extend Spanish commitments and insisted that any Baltic action be done in the emperor’s name, even if Spain provided the money and materials. The chances of agreement temporarily receded as the emperor expected Olivares to provide assistance without having to help Spain in turn against the Dutch. However, by February 1628 Olivares was prepared to send 28 ships, provided Ferdinand placed the Dutch under the imperial ban. Having not paid subsidies since 1621, Spain resumed financial assistance to Ferdinand in 1626, sending 2.49 million fl. by 1629, most of which was delivered in 1628 as negotiations on the navy intensified. Gabriel de Roy, a naval and commercial expert, was sent with 200,000 talers to start buying ships and recruiting crews.
Ferdinand felt that the provision of bases in Mecklenburg and Pomerania was already sufficient and refused to declare war on the Dutch. Attention increasingly focused on the Hanseatic League members, who were to be enticed to provide 24 ships by offering them preferential treatment under the Spanish licence scheme. Wallenstein would buy or build another 24 ships using de Roy’s money. The fleet would operate in the emperor’s name and Wallenstein was duly named Captain General of the Oceanic and Baltic Seas in February 1628.
Stralsund and Magdeburg
Despite their hostility toward Denmark, the Hanseatic League remained suspicious of the emperor and his motives. Any prospect of winning them over was wrecked by Wallenstein’s dealings with the Hanseatic cities of Stralsund and Magdeburg. Stralsund is generally viewed in isolation as the last Protestant stronghold defying Catholic tyranny until rescued by Sweden. However, its epic siege needs to be placed in the wider context of Hanseatic diplomacy and Wallenstein’s parallel blockade of Magdeburg.
The occupation of Mecklenburg gave Wallenstein control of Rostock, but he wanted another base for his fleet. Keen to deflect attention from his own residence in Stettin, Bogislav encouraged Wallenstein to use Stralsund instead. The town was part of Pomerania but with a long tradition of defying ducal authority, and Bogislav thought he might as well use imperial billeting as a way of reasserting his jurisdiction. Meanwhile, Wallenstein’s forward base on the Elbe remained insecure as long as Magdeburg refused to admit an imperial garrison.
His approach was the same in both cases. He delegated authority to the general commanding the detachment in the area: Arnim at Stralsund, Wolfgang Mansfeld at Magdeburg. Both placed the cities under loose blockade and demanded heavy contributions to pressure the councils into negotiating. Neither general wanted to harm imperial prestige by using force, and both accepted Hanseatic mediation. Settlements looked likely as the city councils were dominated by rich patricians who favoured compromise. The poorer citizens opposed agreement, fearing they would suffer most if troops were admitted. Pastors stirred up opposition, especially in Magdeburg, a city with a proud tradition of defying Catholicism, playing on the meaning of the city’s name as ‘maiden’s castle’ to emphasize the purity of their cause.5 Internal divisions were heightened by pressure from outsiders on the cities to resist. The Danes and then the Swedes encouraged the Stralsunders to hold out, while Christian Wilhelm, the dispossessed Magdeburg administrator, conspired with his supporters in the city to oppose Wolfgang Mansfeld.
Stralsund was built on a triangular island separated from the mainland by lagoons that dried to marsh in the summer and could only be crossed by five causeways. The open channel to the east provided a sheltered roadstead for shipping between the coast and Rügen, Germany’s largest island. These natural defences were strengthened in the winter of 1627–8 at the insistence of the militant faction led by the radical lawyer Gosen by burning down the suburbs and recruiting 1,000 mercenaries to reinforce the 2,450-strong militia.6 Arnim’s Imperialist army mustered only 8,000 and he offered to accept 150,000 talers in return for dropping his demand to garrison the town. To add weight to his offer, he seized Dänholm island at the south-east entrance to the harbour on 14 February 1628. With imperial guns in range of the city, the council agreed to pay 80,000, handing over the first 30,000. One faction hoped Hanseatic mediation would resolve the situation without further violence, but Gosen’s party vowed to fight to the death and forced the council to blockade Dänholm until it surrendered on 15 April. Reinforced by 6,000 men, Arnim attempted a night assault a month later, only to be repulsed. Efforts were renewed on 23 May and continued for ten days without success.
Stralsund’s resistance proved a welcome diversion for Christian who sent 1,000 Germans and Scots to help the town, including MacKay’s regiment with Monro. The failure of Ferdinand’s talks with the Hanseatic League since December 1627 meant there was still no imperial navy to stop them. The loss of Dänholm reopened the harbour and the Danes sailed in on 7 June. Acceptance of foreign assistance fatally compromised the Stralsunders who were now openly associated with Ferdinand’s enemies.
Danish involvement piqued Swedish interest. Gustavus had sought an accommodation with the town since 1625, appreciating its significance as the nearest German harbour to Sweden. He had welcomed Denmark’s predicament, negotiating secretly with Wallenstein throughout 1627 for an alliance that would let him invade Norway. Wallenstein had acted on his own initiative and received Ferdinand’s retrospective approval only in December, two weeks before Gustavus broke off the talks.
Wallenstein genuinely feared Swedish intervention and regarded the imperial navy plan as purely defensive. To Gustavus, however, Wallenstein’s actions contradicted his good words as he appeared to be doing everything to provoke Sweden. Gustavus made an agreement with Christian to save Stralsund in April 1628. The two monarchs met in Ulvsbäck parsonage on the Halland-Scania frontier the following February. The rapprochement improved Christian’s position in the Lübeck peace talks, but Danish-Swedish differences were too deep to permit a lasting alliance. Gustavus took an immediate dislike to his neighbour who drank too much and insisted on Danish pre-eminence.
The balance was already slipping in the other direction. Swedish reinforcements arrived in Stralsund harbour on 20 June 1628 but refused to land until the town signed a twenty-year pact and accepted Sir Alexander Leslie as governor. Denmark acquiesced on 27 September when it relinquished all claims to protect Stralsund. The Swedes had arrived just in time. Wallenstein appeared on 7 July, bringing the besiegers up to 25,000, and immediately began a fresh assault that lasted three days. The town was subject to an intense bombardment, one shot decapitating fourteen defenders; ‘who doubts of this, he may go and see the reliques of their braines to this day, sticking to the walls’.7
Stralsund remained defiant, obliging Wallenstein to reopen negotiations. The council agreed to pay the remaining 50,000 talers and accept a ducal Pomeranian rather than an imperial garrison.8 Swedish officers prevented the council from carrying out its promise and Wallenstein lifted the siege on 31 July, using the face-saving excuse that Duke Bogislav had requested his withdrawal. Stralsund had succeeded in keeping the Imperialists out, but at the cost of what would prove to be 187 years of Swedish occupation. What Wallenstein had feared now transpired. Gustavus had a German base, but it was unclear what he would do with it.
The outcome emboldened the Hanseatic League to reject the navy plan in September, refusing even to sell ships or stores, and Wallenstein was forced to use the smaller Mecklenburg port of Wismar instead. Even with de Roy’s assistance, it proved difficult to recruit experienced sailors or find the forty ships Wallenstein now deemed necessary. Danish warships caught the fledgling imperial squadron off the Pomeranian coast that spring and inflicted considerable damage. Increasingly desperate, Wallenstein obtained Vienna’s permission to resettle Uskok pirates in Pomerania and proposed paying a Scottish merchant to burn the Swedish fleet.
Imperial Intervention in Poland
Wallenstein also opened negotiations with Sigismund who offered his naval squadron in return for military assistance in the Vistula delta. The Poles had collected 35,000 men, but only a third of them were with Koniecpolski in the delta, as the rest had to be deployed to counter the Ottomans and other Swedish threats. Ferdinand ordered Wallenstein to agree, and Arnim was despatched from Pomerania in May 1629. The campaign was a military success, but a diplomatic failure. The Poles distrusted Arnim who had previously served Sweden and claimed that he had brought only 5,000 men. He arrived in fact with 7–8,000, though still 7,000 short of what had been promised.9 Arnim himself was openly against the intervention, and complained the Poles failed to pay or feed his troops.
Nonetheless, he managed to dodge the Swedish outposts and cross the Vistula to join Koniecpolski on the eastern bank. Gustavus had 23,000 men, but most were blockading Danzig, leaving him only 7,000 near Marienwerder on the Vistula north of Graudenz (Grudziadz). He decided to retreat downstream to his headquarters at Marienburg, setting out early on 27 June 1628 by sending his baggage down the highway while the main force took a side road across Stuhm heath to the east. Though the Poles had wanted imperial infantry, Koniecpolski did not wait for them to catch up as he raced after the Swedes strung out on the march, attacking their rearguard at Honigfelde village. The Swedes broke after initial resistance, fleeing north to the next village of Pulkowitz where they rallied around a detachment under Colonel Hermann Wrangel. The Polish and imperial cavalry caught up, and again outflanked their opponents. An Austrian trooper seized Gustavus’s belt, but the king slipped it over his head and escaped with only the loss of his hat, which was sent by Arnim as a prize to Wallenstein.
The chase continued to Neudorf where the side road rejoined the highway to cross the Bach river. Stuck at this bottleneck, some Swedes were driven into the marshes either side of the road, where they surrendered. A final counter-attack then dislodged their pursuers long enough for the rest to escape, having lost at least 1,000 men and so many horses that the remaining cavalry were mostly dismounted. Only around 3,000 Polish and imperial cavalry had been engaged in the fighting, sustaining 400 casualties. It was the type of action the Poles excelled at and Gustavus had seriously underestimated the risks in starting his retreat.
The victory did nothing to ease the tension between the allies. Arnim claimed the Poles had killed twenty of his men by mistake during the battle. As a Brandenburger, he refused to endorse Sigismund’s plan to move deeper into less-devastated ducal Prussia, and he resigned in protest at the Poles’ failure to supply his soldiers who were reduced to eating grass.
Sigismund’s nobles pressed him to negotiate, because the Swedes still held most of the delta. It was clear to Gustavus that he could not win either. Over 35,000 of the 50,000 Swedish conscripts sent to Prussia since 1625 had died or deserted, increasing his reliance on foreign mercenaries. This helped push his war costs to over 5.3 million riksdalers.10
Both sides accepted Anglo-French mediation. With Denmark out of the picture and the situation in Italy deteriorating, Richelieu wanted Sweden to disengage from its Polish struggles and threaten the Empire instead. His envoy, Charnacé, brokered the Truce of Altmark on 26 September 1629 by which Sweden evacuated Courland but retained most of Livonia, and virtually all the Prussian ports except Danzig, Konigsberg and Puck, which gave it annual toll revenues worth half a million riksdalers.
The surviving Imperialists left the delta immediately. Sigismund’s displeasure increased when he discovered he had lost his navy, which was now trapped in Wismar. The eight Polish ships that reached Wismar in 1629 provided the core of the imperial fleet, including the King David, which, at 400 tonnes with 33 guns, was the most powerful.11 The fleet grew to 25 vessels by the end of 1629, but Wallenstein was running out of money, despite levying a kind of ship-money tax on his new Mecklenburg subjects. He had also hired an Italian engineer to dig a canal from Wismar through the Schwerin lakes to the Elbe to allow his ships and merchantmen licensed by Spain to avoid the Danish Sound tolls. The project was overly ambitious, but far-sighted, pre-dating the idea of the Kiel Canal by over 260 years. De Roy resorted to privateering to maintain the fleet, despite Wallenstein’s orders to avoid provoking Sweden. The Peace of Lübeck removed the Danish threat, but the Swedes simply sailed into their place to blockade Wismar. De Roy drove them off, but Wallenstein’s dismissal removed the fleet’s advocate. The unpaid crews deserted and the ships were laid up until the Swedes captured their rotting remains when Wismar surrendered in January 1632.12
THE NETHERLANDS
Spanish Bankruptcy
Spain’s participation in the Baltic Design met constant criticism in Madrid and Brussels from those who considered it a waste of precious resources.13 The capture of Breda (see Chapter 11) proved a pyrrhic victory, costing Spain more than it harmed the Dutch. Taxation doubled between 1621 and 1627, while borrowing soared 500 per cent. Though Philip IV slashed 300,000 ducats of household expenditure, it made little difference when the cost of the Dutch War jumped from 1.5 to 3.5 million ducats, while spending on the Atlantic fleet doubled to 1 million. As Spain’s traditional Genoese creditors grew nervous, the crown swallowed its religious scruples and borrowed from the Portuguese Jews and Conversos for the first time.14 The move fuelled Portuguese resentment of Spanish rule without preventing financial collapse in January 1627, when the government suspended interest payments and issued additional paper juros to cover current expenditure.
These difficulties prevented Spain exploiting the temporary disarray among the Dutch following Maurice of Nassau’s death in April 1625. Opting for continuity, the States General elected his younger brother, Frederick Henry, as the new stadholder. Frederick Henry was associated with the militant Calvinist faction and, like his brother, was committed to the full reunification of both the north and south Netherlands as a Protestant republic. However, as the third of his family to lead the Dutch, he thought more dynastically, notably after the birth of his son in 1626, and sought broader support by ending the Gomarist persecution of the Arminians.15 The arrival of French subsidies after the Treaty of Compiègne in June 1624 added further stability. Worth 1 million fl. a year, these covered 7 per cent of military expenditure, enabling the Republic to add 7,000 men to its army in March 1626. Subsequent increases raised the total to 70,000 by 1629, backed by 50,000 militiamen and a navy of 40,000 tonnes manned by over 8,500 personnel. The fleet was a third larger than in 1621, while command passed to more skilled and daring admirals like Piet Hein, and later Maarten Tromp and Michiel de Ruyter.
Hein had over thirty years’ experience, including the Uskok War and the Bahia expedition of 1624. He led the second Bahia expedition of 1626, sailing up the Capivari river to flush out the Portuguese sugar fleet that was hiding there. His Atlantic cruise the following year netted 55 prizes. He was just the man to score a much-needed major victory. Previous attempts to intercept the Spanish treasure fleet had failed. Even when the Dutch managed to find the convoy in the vast Atlantic, the large Spanish galleons proved formidable opponents. Financed by the Dutch West India Company (WIC), Hein set sail with a new expedition of 31 ships, cruising for four months before spotting the Spanish off Cuba on 8 September 1628. He swiftly overpowered the nine smaller vessels, but the other six escaped to Matanzas Bay, east of Havana. The sun was setting when Hein caught up, but he decided to attack to stop them landing their precious cargo, or burning their ships. The Spanish crews abandoned their ships as the Dutch opened fire. Hein captured over 80,000kg of silver, as well as thousands of animal hides, crates of sugar and bags of costly cochineal and indigo dye. The haul was worth at least 11 million fl., and possibly 6 million more. He returned, dodging severe storms and the Dunkirkers sent to intercept him, as well as English customs officials at Falmouth who demanded a share, to arrive home to a hero’s welcome. WIC shareholders received a 75 per cent dividend; ordinary sailors got 17 months’ wages, while Hein was given 6,000 florins and a gold medal. He did not live long to enjoy his fortune, however, dying in a minor skirmish with Ostend privateers on 18 June 1629.
The real impact of Hein’s success was psychological, wrecking Olivares’ attempts to restore confidence in the Spanish economy after the 1627 bankruptcy. Fearing another attack, the flotas abandoned their regular sailing schedules and began leaving later, during the hurricane season. The consequences were felt in 1631 when the Vera Cruz fleet was wrecked off Yucatán with the loss of another 5 million ducats. The entire New Spain fleet went down a decade later with the equivalent of a third of the Matanzas loot. The crown confiscated a third of the private silver arriving with the Tierra Firma fleet in 1629, which further undermined confidence and encouraged widespread fraud to avoid such seizures in future. Spain entered a deep recession, worsened by the return of the plague, famine and drought. Sickness struck at the heart of the monarchy when the king himself fell seriously ill in August 1627.
Archduchess Isabella was now sixty and weary of the war. General Spinola wanted to retire before a major defeat ruined his reputation, and he feared Madrid would never repay his considerable expenses. News that Olivares had embarked on a new war over Mantua convinced him that the Spanish government had lost grip on reality. The continued struggle seemed pointless, because the earlier victories had already prompted the Dutch to suggest renewing the Truce in 1625. Since Olivares controlled Philip’s correspondence, Spinola took the extraordinary step of travelling to Madrid in January 1628. He presented Olivares with a stark choice: compromise with the Dutch or send massive reinforcements. Olivares was prepared to discuss peace on the terms offered in 1621, but the most he would concede was trade with the East, not West Indies. He remained convinced Spain’s position was improving and haughtily rejected Spinola’s requests, scoffing that the Romans had conquered the world with 100,000 soldiers, whereas Spinola had nearly as many and could not defeat the Dutch.16
Spain’s inability to send reinforcements to the Netherlands placed a premium on imperial assistance. The Brussels government had lobbied the Catholic Liga relentlessly for help. Anholt briefly entered the Spanish Netherlands in pursuit of Mansfeld in 1622, while Duke Christian’s use of Dutch territory as a refuge after Stadtlohn added another reason to intervene. Isabella offered subsidies and reciprocal assistance. Anholt moved the small corps covering Cologne to help the Spanish at Breda in February 1625 on the excuse of executing the ban against Mansfeld who had just arrived in the Dutch camp. Anholt withdrew in June, but Mansfeld’s appearance among the Dutch garrisons on the Lower Rhine alarmed Ferdinand of Cologne, who requested Spanish protection and urged an attack to evict the Dutch from Emden. Isabella sent 2,000 men, but Maximilian of Bavaria refused to allow them across the Rhine and ordered the Liga units not to cooperate to avoid inflaming the situation in the Empire. His brother endorsed this once the crisis passed as Mansfeld crossed Westphalia to join the Danes. The danger returned in 1627 when Count van den Bergh led a Spanish corps into Münster in a futile attempt to save Groenlo (Groll) from attack by Frederick Henry.17 The Liga leadership was now convinced the Dutch would leave them alone provided they did not assist Spain, and Elector Ferdinand worked hard to broker a truce.
The Siege of s’Hertzogenbosch
Frederick Henry’s renewed offensive against the southern Dutch provinces in 1629 disturbed the situation. He wanted a major victory to consolidate his domestic position and the Matanzas loot provided the means. Having sent diversionary forces against Wesel and Lingen to the east, he struck west with 28,000 men and 118 guns to besiege s’Hertzogenbosch (Bois-le-Duc), Brabant’s second city after Antwerp. The place was surrounded by a marsh and three strong outworks, and garrisoned by 4,600 regulars and 2,000 militiamen. The Dutch siege started on 1 May, and by 18 July they had taken the outworks and were only 25 metres from the main wall.
Having failed to relieve the city directly, van den Bergh crossed the Ijssel with 25,000 men on 22 July in the hope of raising the siege by threatening Amsterdam. The Peace of Lübeck had just freed imperial units and the emperor directed Count Johann VIII of Nassau-Siegen to join Bergh with 17,000 men.18 The Imperialists seized Amersfoort on 13 August 1629, helping Bergh to advance to within 40km of Amsterdam, nearly cutting the Republic in two. Frederick Henry refused to be distracted. The Dutch citizens’ militia mobilized – a largely symbolic gesture – while sailors were disembarked to help bring the land forces up to an unprecedented 128,000 men. The Imperialists were poorly disciplined and the advance ground to a halt. A Dutch raid captured the strategic Rhine crossing at Wesel on 19 August. Fierce fighting at s’Hertzogenbosch culminated in the explosion of a huge mine under the main wall on 10 September. The garrison held out for another week before surrendering after five and a half months of heroic resistance.
Nassau-Siegen’s corps was recalled and retreated to Duisburg. Wallenstein was keen to bring it back, having opposed intervention from the outset. The Dutch sent 12,000 men along the Rhine, capturing most of the remaining Spanish outposts. Spain’s defeat was the most serious setback between the Armada and the battle of Rocroi in 1643.19 It certainly deflated what little optimism remained in the country and prevented reinforcements being sent to Italy, contributing to the defeat there too. Work on the unfinished Fosse Eugeniana canal was abandoned. Many of the smaller garrisons had already been withdrawn from Germany in 1628, and Spain now dismantled Pfaffenmütze and handed over Lingen and six positions in Mark and Ravensberg to the Liga in July 1630, retaining only Düsseldorf, Orsoy, Rheinberg and the enclave of Gelderland between the Rhine, Liège and Jülich. The retreat sharpened the demarcation between the war in the Empire and that in the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, Philip IV overruled Olivares and authorized Isabella to reopen talks on a truce. Frederick Henry was prepared to negotiate, especially as a growing faction around the new pensionary of Holland, Adriaen Pauw, favoured peace. Both sides remained far apart, but at least agreed to make north-west Germany neutral ground: an arrangement the emperor and electors were happy to accept in 1630.20
MANTUA AND LA ROCHELLE
The Mantuan Succession
As Spinola had predicted, Olivares’ decision to intervene in Italy weakened Spain’s resistance in Flanders. The new conflict was a dispute over the Mantuan inheritance, which comprised Mantua itself and its dependency of Monferrato. Neither was very large or rich, but both were strategically located along the river Po, either side of Spain’s duchy of Milan. Emperor Ferdinand in turn despatched an army over the Alps to uphold his jurisdiction over imperial Italy. Despite the involvement of the major powers, the causes were local and dynastic like those of the earlier Jülich crisis. War could have been avoided if either of the last Mantuan dukes had produced a legitimate male heir. The Gonzaga family tried to settle the inheritance question itself. Unfortunately, the best claim was advanced by their French relation, Duke Charles, who controlled the autonomous duchies of Nevers and Rethel in north-east France.
Charles was recklessly brave, impetuous and filled with a sense of his own destiny and Catholic zeal. He served as a volunteer at the siege of Buda in 1602 and founded the aristocratic international Christian Militia in 1616 that was involved in various conspiracies, including an attempt to depose Gustavus Adolphus. Like other French aristocrats, he found it difficult to reconcile his inflated sense of his own lineage with his subordinate status as vassal of the French crown. He was not going to let the opportunity to succeed to a sovereign principality pass by and sent his son to pre-empt the other claimants. The son married the niece of the dying Duke Vincenzo on 23 December 1627 with papal blessing. Vincenzo died just three days later, but the newly-weds had their supporters declare Charles duke before informing either Spain or the emperor. Charles arrived in Mantua on 17 January and sent an envoy to Vienna requesting imperial recognition.21
The coup disconcerted all the major powers, none of whom was looking for a fight in Italy. War followed because Spain and Ferdinand failed to control their officials on the ground, or coordinate a response, creating a rift that Richelieu exploited. Even then, conflict could have been avoided if Charles had compromised. He was distrusted in France, where Richelieu was preoccupied with the Huguenots until October 1628. Neither Spain nor the emperor wanted to fight France, and many believed the dévots would soon oust Richelieu anyway.
Formally, matters rested with Emperor Ferdinand, whose jurisdiction over northern Italy, as part of the Empire, made him the ultimate arbiter of the succession dispute. The Habsburgs had promoted the Gonzaga family to counter French and papal influence. Ferdinand had married Vincenzo’s sister, Eleonora, in 1622, six years after the death of his first wife. Eleonora disliked Charles, but did not want her homeland devastated and so promoted his cause in Vienna. It was precisely this connection that made Richelieu think twice about backing him, since it looked as if Charles would join the Habsburg clientele. Ferdinand was reluctant to recognize him immediately for fear of alienating the rest of the Gonzaga who had served loyally during the Bohemian Revolt. He wanted Charles to compensate the Gonzaga for renouncing their claims and expected him to surrender the strategic fortress of Casale in Monferrato to imperial control. Above all, he wanted to exclude everyone else from the decision so as to assert his superior, imperial jurisdiction.
The earlier struggles over Monferrato made it clear that both Spain and Savoy coveted the territory. Spanish interference was especially unwelcome since it followed long efforts to supplant imperial jurisdiction over northern Italy. Already on 26 January 1628, Cordóva, Spain’s governor in Milan since 1627, had received the emperor’s order not to send troops to Mantua or Monferrato. Two months later, Ferdinand named Johann of Nassau-Siegen as commissar to sequestrate both territories pending a final verdict.22Nassau reached Milan on 17 May, by which time the situation had altered dramatically.
Cordóva had repeatedly warned Madrid of the impending crisis, but had received no instructions because Olivares was busy with the Dutch War. Left to his own devices, he decided to settle Spain’s long-standing tension with Savoy at Mantua’s expense and signed a pact with Duke Carlo Emanuele on 25 December to partition Monferrato, with Casale going to Spain. He wrote to Spain two days later requesting permission to occupy Monferrato in the emperor’s name. Opinion was divided in Madrid, especially following Spinola’s arrival in February, but the government inferred from Cordóva’s letter that he already held Casale and so sanctioned the action.23 In fact, Cordóva did not move until 29 March 1628, because the Army of Lombardy was undermanned. Only 10,000 men could be collected, while Savoy fielded 5,500. They soon overran their respective halves of Monferrato, but stalled before Casale where Charles’s commandant called Cordóva’s bluff when he claimed to have a letter from the emperor summoning the fortress to surrender. Cordóva was obliged to send to Genoa for engineers, artillery and a large loan to begin a formal siege.
The delay allowed Charles to collect 13,500 militia and mercenaries in Casale and Mantua, while another 6,600 under General d’Huxelles were raised on his French estates. Safe behind Mantua’s walls, he rejected Spanish and imperial proposals to surrender Casale in return for recognition. Key figures in France still opposed intervention and the governors of Burgundy and the Dauphiné did their best to frustrate d’Huxelles’ preparations. With his men deserting, d’Huxelles made a dash across the Alps towards Casale in August, but was caught and his army dispersed by Savoyard troops.
The Siege of La Rochelle
Despite his defiance, it was obvious Charles could not last long without assistance. This could only come from France, but Richelieu was fully engaged at La Rochelle, having decided to settle the problem finally with what the pope called ‘the synagogue of Satan’. Control of the islands of Oleron and Ré allowed him to blockade the Rochellais whose plight attracted considerable sympathy in England. The arrival of the French Henrietta Maria as Charles I’s queen intensified criticism of royal policy in general and the duke of Buckingham in particular. Buckingham sought to save his position by swinging behind the growing Franco-phobia, and he invested £70,000 from his own pocket to fit out a naval expedition to demonstrate British resolve and deter Richelieu from besieging La Rochelle. It was a major undertaking: at a time when Britain had only 145 ships over 200 tonnes, Buckingham found 115 vessels with 4,500 sailors and 7,000 soldiers.
He landed on Ré on 21 July 1627, intending to break Richelieu’s blockade by capturing the island. The 3,000 royalist infantry simply retreated into their new citadel which had just been reprovisioned. The sandy island offered few resources and it became a question of who would run out of food first. Buckingham received 70 supply ships and 1,900 Irish reinforcements in September, but his situation continued to deteriorate. The French used a moonless night to ferry more food to their garrison who displayed fresh chickens impaled on their pikes the next morning to taunt the starving besiegers. Buckingham gambled everything on an assault on 6 November, only to find his soldiers had made their ladders too short and could not get over the wall. The 2,000 survivors were evacuated two days later. Buckingham had been typically overconfident, failing to prepare a back-up plan in case his initial landing failed to take the island. His presence merely compromised the Rochellais, providing Richelieu with an excuse to expand his blockade to a full siege. The cardinal arrived with the king and 15,000 fresh troops to start operations in September, building a 1,500-metre dam and sinking ships to block the harbour.24
The Rochellais remained confident under their determined mayor, Jean Gaiton. Henri de Rohan had raised 5,000 Huguenots in the Languedoc, while Buckingham planned another relief effort. The British fleet arrived on 15 May 1628, but its admiral lacked the resolve to attack the barrier across the harbour. Tension mounted as Europe waited to see whether Cordóva could take Casale before La Rochelle fell to Richelieu. The British returned on 18 September and shelled the barrier without effect. By then it was really too late. The besiegers had risen to over 25,000 men, while famine gripped the defenders, reducing the city’s population from 27,000 to 8,000. The siege was not as smooth as Richelieu’s propaganda claimed, but he overcame significant practical problems and benefited from the general consensus among the Catholic elite that it was time to finish the Huguenots. The Rochellais surrendered unconditionally on 28 October, nearly four weeks after the British had sailed away.25
The fall of La Rochelle transformed the international situation, yet Richelieu hesitated to intervene in Italy after the failure there three years before. Intervention would require a large army and risk war with Spain. All parties made a last effort to persuade Charles de Nevers to accept a compromise, which he rejected since it was obvious Richelieu would lose face if Casale fell. The duke did all the right things to goad the cardinal, opening negotiations with the dévots and writing to say he would be obliged to become a Spanish client unless rescued.
Richelieu gambled, deciding to march from La Rochelle to relieve Casale, and then recross the Alps before the surviving Huguenots could recover. His objective was to save Casale, not secure the duke’s full inheritance. It was still risky, since the French army numbered considerably less than the 40,000 or so he felt necessary for success. The king led 9,400 infantry across the Mont Genèvre pass on 28 February 1629, through snow drifts, to the defile at Susa where 4,000 Spanish and Savoyards blocked the way behind a six-metre high barricade. An assault carried the position at 3 a.m. on 5 March, the French losing more to avalanches than enemy action.26 Savoy made peace two days later, which was confirmed in May when Louis XIII promised to recognize Carlo Emanuele’s possession of his part of Monferrato in return for France’s right to garrison Casale. Discouraged by the lack of support from Madrid and Vienna, Cordóva accepted this arrangement and lifted his siege on 19 March. Three thousand French reinforced the Casale garrison, while others now held Susa to guard the route over the Alps and ensure Savoy’s good behaviour.
Having achieved Richelieu’s objective, Louis XIII led the bulk of the army back over the Alps to deal with the Huguenots holding out in the Languedoc. All 3,000 inhabitants of Privas were killed or expelled after the town fell on 26 May in a deliberate attempt to break resistance. It worked and the Huguenots accepted the Grace of Alais (now called Alès) on 28 June, which confirmed their religious and judicial privileges but abolished what remained of their military and political autonomy. Rohan was permitted to go into exile to Venice. Richelieu capitalized on his success, playing up the king’s heroic role and presenting the Alpine campaign and subsequent suppression of the Huguenots as a magnificent triumph that thwarted the monarchy’s internal and external foes.
Imperial Intervention in Italy
This was all too much for Olivares who feared the world would think the loss of silver at Matanzas had so weakened Spain that it had been forced to acquiesce in Italy. The Council of State repudiated Cordóva’s action and pressed the emperor to join Spain in ejecting the French from Casale and imposing their own settlement in Mantua. The Army of Lombardy was strengthened by calling in favours from Parma and Tuscany, as well as additional Neapolitan recruits, to give 18,000 men by September 1629 when Spinola arrived to replace Cordóva.27
Richelieu’s bargain with Savoy infuriated Duke Charles who used the opportunity of French intervention to open a second front by striking from Mantua at Cremona in the eastern Milanese. Convinced of Charles’s inflexibility, Ferdinand II now believed military intervention was the only way to uphold imperial authority over his Italian vassals. Count Merode had already occupied the Valtellina with an advance party of 5,000 in April 1629. Peace with Denmark allowed Ferdinand to despatch more troops in May and 30,000 under Collalto poured through the valley over the next two months towards Mantua, while the Spanish blockaded Casale. Savoy shifted with the new military balance and rejoined Spain. Though Collalto cooperated with the Spanish forces, diplomatic relations remained strained. Madrid failed to see that its assertiveness in Italy had forced the emperor to intervene to preserve his own authority, rather than because he wished to counter France. Moreover, the diversion of Collalto over the Alps lessened the likelihood of imperial assistance against the Dutch, which still remained Spain’s primary goal.
The arrival of 7,000 Venetian auxiliaries failed to stop the Imperialists overrunning the Mantuan countryside by October, confining Duke Charles and 4,000 French, Swiss and Italians to Mantua itself. The town was surrounded on all sides by lagoons formed by the river Mincio and could only be reached by long, exposed bridges from the west, north and east, or crossings to the Isola del Te to the south. Though imperial troops captured the latter, the high water table flooded their trenches. Assaults across the S. Giorgio bridge from the east were repulsed with heavy losses, while the lagoons placed the siege batteries at too great a distance to be effective. Having boasted he would take the place in two weeks, Collalto was obliged to try to starve Mantua into submission. Spinola had no luck at Casale either and both armies were forced to relax their grip as winter set in.
Imperial intervention placed Richelieu in a difficult position. He would lose face if he abandoned Charles, but the 18,000 men massed on the Savoyard frontier in October had failed to deter the Habsburgs. Another expedition over the Alps would be extremely unpopular with the pro-Spanish dévots, while the French army was only half the size considered necessary for success. Nonetheless, Louis XIII advanced in February 1630 along the road immediately south of the Susa pass, capturing Pinerolo on 31 March and taking Saluzzo. The main Savoyard army was recalled from Casale to meet the French, only to be defeated at Avigliana just west of Turin in July. This success relieved the pressure on Casale, but Richelieu remained far from his objective. Disease carried off two-thirds of the 20,000 French troops by September, obliging them to suspend operations until reinforcements crossed the mountains.
Both Casale and Mantua were subjected to renewed close siege from May. Spurred on by France, Venice sent 17,000 troops to relieve Mantua, but these were routed by Gallas and Aldringen at Villabuona. The defenders’ situation deteriorated rapidly thereafter. The plague had already appeared in Lombardy during 1629. After a lull over the winter, the outbreak grew more virulent with the warmer spring weather, especially in Mantua where the population of over 30,000 was swollen with refugees. By mid-July, only 700 soldiers remained fit for duty. Aware of their weakening condition, Collalto attacked across the bridges on 16 July, supported by additional troops in boats. Charles retreated into the Porto Fortezza citadel, but capitulated two days later.
Mantua was subjected to thorough pillaging. Collalto and Aldringen purloined the duke’s fine art collection, while the booty was said to total 18 million ducats, or twice the annual revenue of the kingdom of Naples. At least 10,000 inhabitants died during the siege and no more than 9,000 remained in the city afterwards. The scale of the tragedy received little public acknowledgement. Charles simply accepted it as divine will and sought asylum in Rome; most contemporaries blamed his inadequate defence or the Venetians’ lacklustre relief efforts, rather than the imperial commanders or their men who did the killing.28 With Mantua
in imperial hands, it seemed merely a matter of time before Casale fell to Spinola.
THE EDICT OF RESTITUTION
Genesis
Imperial intervention in Italy was overtaken by events in Germany, where Ferdinand committed a grave error by issuing the Edict of Restitution in March 1629. Like much of his policy, this measure was intended to facilitate peace, but achieved the opposite. Far from capitalizing on his victory over Denmark, as his critics claimed, Ferdinand regarded the Edict as complementing the Lübeck talks to effect a general settlement of the Empire’s problems. By providing the legal framework to recover ecclesiastical land, the Edict sought to restore harmony in the Empire by resurrecting what Ferdinand considered the true interpretation of the 1555 Peace of Augsburg. The goal was unrealistic and the method ill-advised. Above all, the process of restitution was impossible to detach from other measures to restore Catholicism, as well as the controversial land transfers, contributions and military demands that stirred well-founded suspicions in many Catholics as well as Protestants.
Restitution emerged from the general re-imposition of Catholic political and spiritual authority since 1620. The process became progressively controversial as it spread out from the Habsburg and Palatine lands to embrace wide swathes of Franconia and the Rhineland after 1623. The initial targets were the most vulnerable, like the Protestant Franconian knights who were obliged to expel pastors from their estates and resubmit to Bamberg and Würzburg’s Catholic spiritual jurisdiction.29 Troops were used in some cases to recover individual monasteries, but generally the former owners, or rather their heirs, petitioned the imperial courts to authorize restitution. Danish intervention temporarily disrupted this, but it resumed after the battle of Lutter and was placed firmly on the agenda in February 1627 when the bishops of Konstanz and Augsburg opened a raft of cases against Württemberg, the first major Protestant territory to be affected.
Many Catholics believed the time was ripe for decisive action to recover the millions of souls lost to heresy since the Reformation. The near-unbroken run of Catholic victories since 1620 suggested that God was not only on their side, but summoning them to holy war. Events like the apparently miraculous survival of the three defenestrated officials, or the fall of La Rochelle, were interpreted as evidence of divine favour. Crucially, both Duke Maximilian’s Jesuit adviser, Adam Contzen, and Ferdinand’s confessor, William Lamormaini, ardently promoted this interpretation.30 Lamormaini was the more influential, since he had the emperor’s ear. Originally from Luxembourg, he joined the Jesuits aged twenty and rose rapidly at the Habsburg court, becoming rector of Vienna University in 1623 and the emperor’s confessor a year later. He possessed none of Ferdinand’s agreeable qualities and exceeded him in religious fundamentalism, coming close to the Protestant stereotype of the malevolent Jesuit conspirator. Forceful, wilful and austere, he was so jealous of his own status that he persuaded his superior general, Vitelleschi, to channel all Jesuit correspondence to Ferdinand through him. As calls for restitution gathered pace, Vitelleschi promised 2,500 masses a week to encourage Ferdinand to embark on what Lamormaini was proclaiming a ‘glorious enterprise’, oblivious to the fact that Spain’s ill-fated Armada of 1588 had been called the same.
Such a heady atmosphere makes it difficult to distinguish political from religious motives, nor should we attempt to separate what contemporaries regarded as related. Nonetheless, the militants’ goal of promoting Catholicism advanced only because it complemented political ambitions. Moreover, many senior clergy distanced themselves from Lamormaini’s providentialism and urged greater restraint.31 Ferdinand also hesitated and asked the Catholic electors for advice on 3 July 1627. They wanted to recover church property, not eradicate Protestantism. The elector of Mainz composed their response, which concentrated on the monasteries as these were mediate property and therefore less controversial than actual bishoprics. However, Maximilian urged the emperor to state that only adherents of the 1530 version of the Augsburg Confession could enjoy the benefits of the 1555 Peace. This would clearly exclude the Calvinists and was intended to prevent Frederick V recovering the Palatine lands and title. The electors thought Ferdinand would simply issue new guidelines to the imperial courts handling the petitions and accordingly agreed at Mühlhausen in October 1627 to let him devise a suitable text.32
News soon leaked from Vienna once the Reichshofrat began working on the document in January 1628. Protestant envoys requested clarification, but many accepted that restitution was not only likely, but lawful.33 Despite some effort to consult Protestants, it is clear that Jesuit militants exercised disproportionate influence on the final text. The Reichshofrat’s president, Imperial Vice-Chancellor Stralendorf, drew directly on arguments prepared by Paul Laymann, a leading theologian at the Jesuit University of Dillingen. Laymann’s tract ‘The way to peace’ (Pacis compositio) concentrated on legal arguments synthesizing the extreme Catholic interpretation of 1555. The Edict was dated 6 March 1629, but was actually issued on 25 March, the day Laymann’s work hit the stalls at the Frankfurt book fair.34
Consternation in the Empire
Whereas the electors and Protestants had expected guidance that would allow the courts to continue making decisions on a case-by-case basis, Ferdinand conceived the Edict as the definitive verdict. He felt he was responding to the calls from all parties to rule on what constituted the ‘clear letter’ of the 1555 Peace. This was impossible, because the strength of that document lay in its deliberate ambiguity. Ferdinand’s Edict simply stated the extreme Catholic interpretation, excluding Calvinism and demanding the return of all land taken since 1552, including the bishoprics. Like the confiscations from ‘notorious rebels’, the Edict highlighted the controversy surrounding the imperial constitution. Though Ferdinand maintained the fiction that Mühlhausen had represented a judicial hearing, it remained highly contentious whether he possessed the power to make such a sweeping unilateral decision.
As a final verdict, the Edict was supposedly incontestable and all that remained was to implement it by recovering the archbishoprics of Magdeburg and Bremen, 13 north German bishoprics and over 500 monasteries, mainly in Lower Saxony, Württemberg and Franconia. The Reichshofrat duly appointed commissioners for each Kreis, generally selecting a local Catholic prince, assisted by Habsburg officials and army officers. Wallenstein and Tilly were already authorized on 24 March to use force if necessary.
The Edict was not a uniform attack on German Protestants, because the former church lands were unevenly distributed between them. Brandenburg and Saxony stood to lose three bishoprics apiece, but it was unclear whether these were protected by the Peace of Augsburg because their incorporation had been gradual, across the sixteenth century. The main victims were Denmark, which accepted its losses at Lübeck, and the Guelphs and others in northern Germany, as well as Württemberg where Catholics claimed fifty monasteries, representing a third of the duchy’s wealth.35
It was not so much the scale of the potential losses as the fear that they might not be the limit that proved so alarming. Germany appeared to have returned to the dark days of Charles V’s Interim. On reading a copy of the Edict, Magdeburg’s mayor, Johann Dauth, remarked to his travelling companion that they were unlikely to see peace in their lifetime. The Protestant Swiss believed they would be next, thinking the imperial troops heading for Italy that summer had come to impose the Edict on them.36
Many Catholics were also dismayed. Predictably, Lamormaini was enthusiastic, writing to the pope that ‘no Roman pontiff has received such a harvest of joys from Germany since the time of Charlemagne’. Urban’s reply was carefully crafted, congratulating Ferdinand that ‘heresy will have learned that the gates of hell do not prevail against the church… and the arms of powerful Austria’.37 This fell short of a full endorsement which Urban could not give without recognizing the validity of the 1555 Peace. The pope resented that his nuncios were excluded from supervising the restitution, as Ferdinand regarded this as a judicial, not a spiritual matter. Later, no doubt with hindsight, he declared he had never approved it.
More serious was the opposition in Spain and Vienna. Philip IV advised Ferdinand to ‘find a more suitable outlet for his piety and zeal’.38 Spain had long advocated concessions to the German Lutherans to pacify the Empire and win support for an alliance to deter France and others from assisting the Dutch. A concerted effort was made to remove Lamormaini, notably through the Capuchin Quiroga who arrived in Vienna early in 1631 as confessor to Archduke Ferdinand’s wife, the Infanta Maria Anna. Ferdinand’s trusted adviser Eggenberg retired to his estates, while Collalto protested that the controversy was undermining the Mantuan War. The chorus of complaint was joined by senior Habsburg clergy, like Bishop Wolfradt of Vienna and cardinals Pazmany and Dietrichstein.
Implementation
Wallenstein openly opposed the Edict, even writing to Johann Georg of Saxony to say so.39 Imperial troops subjected Magdeburg to 28 weeks of close blockade from 29 March, but this had little to do with the Edict. The city resented the army’s use of the Elbe to carry Bohemian grain, suspecting officers were using this as cover to undercut local merchants. The council appeared to lose control when the more militant burghers seized an imperial grain transport. Pastors like de Spaignart stopped short of openly defying the emperor, but their sermons contributed to the self-righteous, wholly unrealistic expectations gripping the local leadership. The councillors justified their refusal to accept a garrison by declaring that Emperor Otto had exempted their city from all military obligations 700 years ago – a claim that contradicted their parallel bid for imperial city status. Foolishly, given what was coming, they vowed ‘they would rather die, than accept a garrison, and promised they would rather set fire to their houses and burn everything to ashes’.40
Wishing to avoid another Stralsund, Wallenstein displayed uncharacteristic patience and accepted Hanseatic mediation to defuse the situation. The city council was restructured, satisfying popular demands by replacing the co-option of councillors by direct election. Wallenstein dropped demands for a garrison and exempted the city from the Edict in return for 150,000 talers, to which the Hanseatic League contributed a further 50,000.41 The Imperialists demolished their entrenchments, but maintained a loose cavalry cordon around the city monitoring those going in or out. Wallenstein did nothing to promote Ferdinand’s project to install his younger son, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, as archbishop. Eventually, the emperor formed a new, pliant cathedral chapter that deposed the Saxon Prince August and elected the archduke instead in May 1630.
In addition to the archbishopric of Magdeburg, imperial commissioners recovered from Protestant control the archbishopric of Bremen, the bishoprics of Verden, Halberstadt, Minden and Ratzeburg, 2 imperial abbeys and around 150 monasteries, convents and churches, including 50 in Württemberg and 30 in Wolfenbüttel. Swedish intervention halted restitution by autumn 1631, but it encountered serious difficulties long before that. The commissioners were expected to reverse local changes stretching back seventy years or more. Monasteries had often been demolished, or converted to other uses, while ecclesiastical land had been sold or built on. The original occupants were long dead, raising the question of who should receive their possessions now. The result was an unseemly scramble in which the Jesuits distinguished themselves by their rapaciousness. None of the former properties had belonged to them, but they felt uniquely entitled to them thanks to their special contribution to securing the Edict and more recent and active missionary zeal in Germany. Lamormaini’s New Year gift to Ferdinand in 1630 was a list of ninety convents and houses he wanted. This demand started the ‘monasteries controversy’, lasting into the twentieth century as rival orders contested ownership.42
The orders also found themselves at odds with the bishops who had long resented monastic autonomy and wanted to incorporate the recovered property directly into their sees. Such infighting damaged Catholic prestige, as did blatant opportunism such as that of Johann of Nassau-Siegen, himself a convert only since 1613, who spread rumours that his cousins in Dietz had backed the Danes in order to establish grounds to confiscate their property. Such behaviour made it harder for those Catholics who sought amicable compromise with their neighbours.43 Re-Catholicization frequently remained superficial. There were not enough monks, nuns and priests to look after the recovered properties. Protestant pastors were expelled and city councillors replaced, but generally with poorer, less-well qualified candidates.
The Protestant Response
Ferdinand’s interpretation of the Edict as judicial rather than spiritual allowed Protestants to mount legal challenges that frustrated the objective of a clean, simple settlement. For example, Ludwig Friedrich of Württemberg had to relinquish monastic property, but petitioned the Reichskammergericht against claims to recover over a century of taxes the monasteries had paid since secularization. Ferdinand backed the duke of Württemberg’s assertion of political jurisdiction over his lost monasteries, agreeing these were separated only from the Lutheran church, not the duchy. Such wrangling gave the local population a welcome excuse for disobedience as two or more prospective masters disputed lordship.
Ferdinand had badly misplayed his hand. The Edict alienated the moderate Lutherans, while fostering unrealistic expectations among militant Catholics. Having issued such an uncompromising statement, it was difficult to withdraw or modify it without weakening imperial authority. Johann Georg did his best to provide Ferdinand with an honourable way out, by stressing that the Peace of Augsburg was a treaty that could not be altered without mutual consent. Without directly attacking Ferdinand’s judicial authority, the Saxon elector argued each case should be judged on its merits by the courts. He rejected appeals from Württemberg and other victims to link objections to the Edict with protests at Wallenstein’s military contributions. Instead, he argued that pressure should be applied to persuade Catholics to moderate their demands and use less confrontational means to obtain them. This entailed closer cooperation with Brandenburg to present a united front. It was a difficult course to steer as Protestant militants mistook Saxon policy as a step towards a new confessional alliance, and their vocal lobbying made it harder for Johann Georg to convince Catholics of his good intentions.
Talks opened with Brandenburg in October 1629 and led to a joint summit in Annaburg in April 1630, accompanied by theological discussions to bridge Lutheran-Calvinist differences.44 Johann Georg refused to table the issue of the Edict at the electoral congress convened by Ferdinand in July 1630, because it was too divisive. Instead, talks were pursued behind the scenes. The proposal to hold a Protestant convention in September was a device to pressure the Catholics to negotiate. Elector Anselm of Mainz was already receptive and advocated resuming Cardinal Klesl’s old ‘composition’ programme of bilateral talks between Catholic and Protestant delegations. He seized on a Darmstadt suggestion not to challenge the Edict directly, but suspend its implementation for fifty years, leaving ecclesiastical possession as it had been in 1621. This came close to the compromise accepted in the Peace of Prague five years later and had a real chance of success. All three ecclesiastical electors were willing and even Duke Maximilian admitted in private he would accept it. The news alarmed zealots. Vitelleschi assured Lamormaini that 1,000 masses and 4,000 roseries were being offered each week to stiffen Ferdinand’s resolve. Fatally, Maximilian then slammed on the brakes. He had used the issue to force Ferdinand to make concessions over Wallenstein’s dismissal (see page 455 below). Once the emperor agreed, Maximilian withdrew support for the compromise. He later admitted it was a grave error and claimed he had been swayed by his Jesuit confessor to safeguard Catholic interests.45
Three issues stand out from the controversy surrounding restitution. First, the divisions among Catholics indicate the weakness of confessional solidarity and the primacy of politics over religion. Important Catholics opposed the Edict from its inception and not just when it became expedient to do so after Sweden’s victory at Breitenfeld. Religious conviction certainly motivated the Edict’s supporters who clung to its validity even after its political shortcomings became obvious, but it was the unrepresentative, hierarchical structure of imperial government that allowed this minority to put their views into practice.
Secondly, the Edict was a blunder of the first order. It did not precipitate Swedish intervention, since this had little to do with the plight of German Protestants, but it did ensure the door was wide open when Gustavus landed. The controversy wrecked any chance of extending the Peace of Lübeck into a general settlement for the Empire. Most Protestants had expected some form of restitution by 1627 and even accepted Catholics had valid claims in some cases. It is likely that most would have swallowed restitution of some mediate property and the loss of Magdeburg and Halberstadt, given their administrators’ open support for the Danes. By insisting on wholesale restitution without adequate regard to individual circumstances, Ferdinand rendered the entire process untenable and increased the number of embittered German Protestants.
Thirdly, the controversy underscored the vitality of an Empire-wide political culture that continued to bridge confessional divisions. Even those who stood to benefit from the Edict doubted whether it was the proper way to recover their property. The majority favoured the traditional approach of judging each case on its merits, since this gave them the chance to validate their claims against potential rivals, as well as the current owners. Even militants recognized the strength of the constitution, basing the Edict on legal rather than spiritual arguments. Despite overwhelming military superiority, they refrained from wholesale seizure in favour of the judicial process. This also explains why the controversy perplexed the emperor: he genuinely believed he was acting within his constitutional rights. More significant still was the victims’ response. Rather than rising in rebellion as the French grandees and Huguenots had done after 1614, the Empire’s inhabitants lodged legal injunctions and negotiated for a compromise. Even the besieged Stralsunders considered it worthwhile to request assistance from the elector of Mainz.46
THE REGENSBURG ELECTORAL CONGRESS 1630
Wallenstein’s Dismissal
The resilience of imperial political culture suggests we should not write off Ferdinand’s attempt to settle the Empire’s problems by meeting the electors in Regensburg in July–November 1630. The congress has been overshadowed by Gustavus’s landing in Pomerania a few days after it opened, and the discussions in Regensburg are generally presented as governed by events beyond the Empire, marking the end of ‘the German period of the war, and the beginning of the foreign period’.47
There is something in the charge of failure levelled at the emperor and electors who were unable to resolve the underlying constitutional and confessional problems, despite the solution offered by the parallel Mainz-Darmstadt peace initiative. The congress was nonetheless a significant demonstration of the Empire’s collective purpose, attended by over 2,000 people. It opened amid widespread concern that Ferdinand had exceeded his authority. The emperor’s ambitions were outlined in his demands, already circulated to the electors in April. None objected to his intention of extending Lübeck into a general settlement, but they were concerned at how he proposed achieving this. Ferdinand wanted to stabilize the Empire by removing further doubts over the Habsburg succession through the election of his eldest son, Archduke Ferdinand, as king of the Romans. The electors were not prepared to surrender this, their main leverage, while so many other issues remained unresolved.
Ferdinand’s solution to the Empire’s external threats was also defeated. The electors refused to sanction military assistance to Spain in the Netherlands or Italy, nor would the Catholics consent to the dissolution of the Liga and the amalgamation of its forces with Wallenstein’s imperial army. Instead, the electors demanded Wallenstein’s dismissal before they would consider anything. Several imperial advisers hesitated to take such a step, fearing the general would turn the army against Vienna. Yet the seemingly all-powerful generalissimo proved surprisingly vulnerable.
Unlike Richelieu or Olivares, Wallenstein did not create a network of loyal followers at court. His reluctance to appear at important events, like Archduke Ferdinand’s coronation as king of Bohemia in November 1627, alienated senior figures, notably the archduke himself who had never approved Wallenstein’s generalship and considered himself a potential replacement. His distance from the court created room for misunderstanding, especially as his tendency to act on his own initiative aroused suspicions that he was exceeding his authority. He was poorly placed to counter the rumours that were deliberately fanned by Maximilian, who was being fed secret information by Capuchins at the imperial court.48 Critically, the failure of the Baltic Design disillusioned Ambassador Aytona who swung from supporting Wallenstein to accusing him of always promising but never delivering assistance to Spain.
The criticism was already constructing the later historical image of Wallenstein as haughty, scheming and untrustworthy. A growing number of pamphlets appeared after 1625 drawing parallels with Lucius Aelius Sejanus, who had risen as adviser to the Roman Emperor Tiberius only to fall ignominiously from grace. Criticism of Wallenstein also provided a safe outlet for Protestant resentment, allowing Lutherans to cling to the hope that Ferdinand was really a benign monarch simply misled by evil advisers. Wallenstein’s own vocal objections to both the Edict and the Mantuan War began to shake even Ferdinand’s faith in his general. Finally, it was obvious he had lost his Midas touch. By May 1629 he was no longer able to pay the interest on de Witte’s loans, forcing his banker to sell his own property and borrow at extortionate rates. Wallenstein’s proposal to send troops back into Silesia to collect tax arrears indicated the threat this posed to the Habsburg monarchy.
Ferdinand agreed to dismiss his general on 13 August. He waited two weeks before sending envoys to tell Wallenstein, who had gone to Memmingen in southern Germany to be closer to the Mantuan operations. Matters initially remained unclear, because Ferdinand had not yet named a replacement and still expected Wallenstein to give advice. Wallenstein urged the emperor not to believe his critics and correctly predicted his removal would paralyse the army and prevent an effective response to the still limited Swedish intervention. Disgruntled, he then retired to his palace at Gitschin. The news plunged de Witte into despair. With no hope of recovering his money, he drowned himself in the well of his Prague mansion on 11 September. The financial breakdown coincided with the onset of autumn when supplies grew scarce. The army’s condition had already been deteriorating, from March 1630, when Wallenstein halved what officers could demand in contributions and then stopped further recruitment on Ferdinand’s orders in April.
Army Reform
The question of Wallenstein’s replacement was complicated by Maximilian’s refusal to surrender Liga autonomy. Eventually, it was agreed on 9 November that supreme command rested with the emperor who would delegate it to Tilly, who was now named imperial lieutenant-general. The imperial and Liga armies would remain distinct, but now shared the same commander.49 A real effort was made to address the problem of war finance. Wallenstein’s system was abandoned in favour of a smaller, but more securely funded army. Imperial forces were to be reduced to 40,000, largely by disbanding the units still in Italy, while the Liga army was cut by a third to 20,000. All territories in the Empire were to pay war taxes according to the matricular system to total 96 Roman months a year, with two-thirds going to the Imperialists and the rest to the Liga. Each army was assigned specific regions for its winter quarters. Based on receipts of such taxes under Rudolf II, the emperor could expect 5.7 million fl. from the non-Habsburg parts of the Empire, assuming all territories paid their share. This would represent about a third of the previous burden. However, it was recognized that many territories would default, so Tilly was authorized to levy contributions to cover the shortfall. Elements of the old system thus persisted, and with them resentment of the imperial and Catholic presence. The arrangements also implied revising the constitution, reducing the Kreise to a framework for sustaining a permanent army under the emperor’s exclusive control.
This unsatisfactory arrangement was dictated by imperial politics and had nothing to do with the Swedish threat. Tilly was the compromise candidate intended to balance imperial and Bavarian interests. His position was unenviable, since he answered to two masters with different agendas. Command remained decentralized because imperial units in Italy and the Habsburg hereditary lands remained under their own generals, as did the separate Liga corps in Westphalia that had been commanded by Anholt, but passed on his death in 1630 to Pappenheim. Pappenheim has entered history as a zealot after converting to Catholicism in 1614 and vowing six years later to suffer a wound for every year he had lived a heretic. His promise was kept at White Mountain where he was left for dead, earning the sobriquet ‘Scarred Heinz’ (Schrammheinz). His reputation suffered from his role in repressing the Upper Austrian Rebellion (in 1626) and the destruction of Magdeburg (1631). He was certainly ruthlessly ambitious, but his advocacy of bold action was intended to win the war quickly and he was free of many of the vices displayed by his contemporaries, notably his abstinence from alcohol.50 His desire for an independent command suited Ferdinand of Cologne’s security policy, but made Tilly’s task more difficult.
Peace in Italy
The electors consistently opposed the Mantuan War, which appeared to be going well for Ferdinand. Casale still mounted a spirited defence, but it was obvious it could not hold out much longer. Under papal pressure, Richelieu sent his ‘grey eminence’, Father Joseph, and Brûlart de Leon to Regensburg in August. Alarmed by reports from Italy, the two envoys requested additional instructions from Richelieu, but received only confusing replies. Louis XIII was rumoured to be mortally ill and it was well known that the dévots were plotting to unseat the cardinal. Some see the negotiations as a missed opportunity, arguing that Ferdinand was overconfident and failed to offer satisfactory concessions to France.51 Rumours of Italian principalities promised to Wallenstein and Collalto inaccurately reflected the emperor’s aims. Ferdinand had already decided to compromise and offered generous terms to Father Joseph and Leon who accepted on 13 October. France and the emperor were to withdraw, Casale would be demilitarized, but Louis XIII could keep Susa and Pinerolo. Ferdinand would arbitrate the Mantuan dispute, promising to recognize Duke Charles provided he compensated his Gonzaga relatives and let Savoy retain part of Monferrato. Imperial jurisdiction was upheld, while all parties except Spain made modest gains.
Reinforced to 20,300 men, the French had resumed their advance in Savoy and were only a few kilometres from Casale when a dusty papal envoy, the future Cardinal Mazarin, arrived with news of the peace. The treaty appeared to snatch the fortress just as it was within Richelieu’s grasp. Worse, his representatives had agreed that France would not assist the emperor’s enemies. This standard expression of good faith threatened to constrict Richelieu’s diplomatic options. The dévots urged ratification, eager for the long-awaited Franco-Habsburg rapprochement. To refuse seemed folly, yet acceptance would acknowledge Richelieu’s defeat.
The crisis deepened with the king’s illness and by 30 September he had received the Last Sacrament. It looked likely that Gaston d’Orleans would succeed his brother. The dévots and other anti-cardinalists met in Marie de Medici’s Palais du Luxembourg on the afternoon of Sunday 10 November, and agreed to accept the Regensburg peace. Marie concluded the meeting by informing Richelieu she would have nothing more to do with him. Fearing for his life, he prepared to flee to Le Havre, but received an invitation to meet the king at the royal hunting lodge of Versailles. Arriving on 11 November, he found Louis fully recovered and was assured of continued royal support. It had been the ‘Day of the Dupes’. The next morning, Louis signed warrants for the arrest of Richelieu’s opponents. With his critics imprisoned or dispersed into exile, Richelieu could resume course and repudiated the treaty of Regensburg.
Spinola had suspended operations against Casale on 4 September in view of the Regensburg talks. Plague caught his army, killing him within the month. The failure to contain the Swedish occupation of Pomerania prompted the recall of the imperial troops to Germany, themselves also infected with the epidemic. Ferdinand was obliged to reopen talks on the Regensburg settlement, revising it as the Peace of Cherasco on 19 June 1631 without a promise from France not to aid his enemies. The Mantuan War had cost Spain 10 million escudos and there was no money left to contest the terms of the settlement. Charles de Nevers was installed as duke and promptly allowed France to station 2,400 men in Casale where they remained until 1652. Richelieu bullied Savoy into ceding Pinerolo permanently, holding this until 1696. The Peace of Cherasco still upheld imperial jurisdiction across northern Italy, but at the significant cost of souring relations with Spain.52