Albert I of Saxony

“ No man living possesses a larger collection of gemsbock beards, which constitute the hunter's trophy of this form of the chase. They number nearly three thousand, and the only person whose score at all approximates the emperor's is his intimate friend and crony, the aged King Albert of Saxony. Both monarchs are now old men, with hair, whiskers and moustache, of a snowy white, but neither their years, nor their sorrows, which have contributed so much towards aging them prematurely, have been permitted until now to interfere with their chamois-hunting expeditions in the Styrian Alps. ”

“ On his brother succeeding to the throne he became commander-in-chief of the Saxon army, and was in 1888 made a Prussian field marshal by the emperor William I. He married in 1859 the infanta Maria, sister of King Louis of Portugal, and King Albert’s marriage being childless, succeeded on his death in 1902 to the throne of Saxony. ”

“ Among the various allies whom able Maurice of Saxony had induced to join him against the Emperor, was one Albert of Brandenburg, who, having been Grand Master of the Teutonic Order of Knights, then the rulers of a considerable portion of the country now called Prussia, was so deeply moved by the doctrines of Luther, that for conscience sake he was obliged to play false to his brother knights, and seize on their territory as an independent state for himself. ”

“ When Charles left Germany a few weeks later, Albert renewed his depredations in Franconia. These soon became so serious that a league was formed to crush him, and Maurice of Saxony led an army against his former comrade. The rival forces met at Sievershausen on the 9th of July 1553, and after a combat of unusual ferocity Albert was put to flight. Henry II., duke of Brunswick, then took command of the troops of the league, and after Albert had been placed under the imperial ban in December 1553 he was defeated by Duke Henry, and compelled to fly to France. ”

“ They went about, first, to subdue the castle, which was by nature very strongly fenced, and could not be won by any other means than by famine: whereupon all the passages were stopped, that no victuals should be carried in. Besieged by Sigismund.⁠But the emperor opened the passages by dint of sword, and when he had given unto those who were besieged all things necessary, having sent for aid out of the empire, he determined, shortly after, to besiege the city. There were, in the emperor's camp, the dukes of Saxony, the marquis of Brandenburg and his son-in-law, Albert of Austria. ”

“ After Adolph’s death Albert was again chosen German king, and was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle in August 1298. Like his father Rudolph, the new king made it the principal object of his reign to increase the power of his house, Albert I. but he failed in his attempts to add Bohemia and Thuringia to the hereditary lands of the Habsburgs, and he was equally unsuccessful in his endeavour to seize the countries of Holland and Zealand as vacant fiefs of the Empire. ”

“ In 1288 he suppressed a rising of the people of Vienna, and he made the fullest use of the ducal power in asserting his real or supposed rights. At this time the principle of primogeniture was unknown in the house of Habsburg, and for many years the duchies were ruled in common by two, or even three, members of the family. After Albert became German king, his two elder sons, Rudolph and Frederick, were successively associated with him in the government, and after his death in 1308, his four younger sons shared at one time or another in the administration of Austria and Styria. ”

“ With him expired the dynasty of the Saxon Emperors, less pitifully, however, than either the Merovingian or Carolingian line.
When Otto the Great, towards the close of his reign, neglected Germany and occupied himself with establishing his dominion in Italy, he prepared the way for the rapid decline of the Imperial power at home, in the hands of his successors. The reigning Dukes, Counts, and even the petty feudal lords, no longer watched and held subordinate, soon became practically independent: except in Friesland, Saxony and the Alps, the people had no voice in political matters ”

“ The mind of Alfred was fashioned in another mould; accident had made him a king, and he resolved to become a man, to think and act worthy of a being who bore on his brow God's image—to be something more than the mere heir to a hollow crown and the lands of Wessex; so he threw aside his sword, which he knew a thousand arms could wield as well as his own, and took up his pen. He was the first Saxon king who attempted to conquer his enemies without killing them—who offered them bread instead of the sword. ”

“ Tidings of this Saxon victory flew as if upon wings throughout England, and everywhere infused new spirit into the hearts of the people, new hope of recovering their country from the invading foe. To Alfred the news brought a heart-tide of joy. The time for action was at hand. Recruits came to him daily; fresh life was in his people; trusty messengers from Ethelingay sought the thanes throughout the land, and bade them, with their followers, to join the king at Egbert, on the eastern border of Selwood forest, in the seventh week after Easter. ”

“ On the 18th the Prussians were in Dresden; on the 19th, in Leipzig; by the 20th, all Saxony except the fortress of Königstein was in their hands. The king and army of Saxony, on the approach of the Prussians, had left the country by the railroads to Bohemia to form a junction with the Austrians. The Saxon army consisted of 23,000 men and 60 cannon. Everyone had expected Austria to occupy a country of such strategic value as Saxony before the Prussians could touch it. The Austrian army consisted of seven corps, 180,000 infantry, 24,000 cavalry, 762 guns. ”

“ The German Empire does not require two such leaders."
His first scheme of revenge on the house of Austria had indeed failed; but the purpose itself remained unalterable; the choice of means alone was changed. What he had failed in effecting with the King of Sweden, he hoped to obtain with less difficulty and more advantage from the Elector of Saxony. Him he was as certain of being able to bend to his views as he had always been doubtful of Gustavus Adolphus. ”

“ On the contrary, the Prince had evidently persuaded himself that his daughter’s marriage would be very popular in Germany—more popular than it happened to be just then in England. Like most men of high, strong, narrow character, Prince Albert never allowed himself to perceive what at the moment he did not wish to see.
This view is entirely borne out by the letters which Prince Albert wrote then and later to the Prince of Prussia. Even when addressing one who was far older than himself, and already in the position of a ruler, he always assumed the attitude of mentor rather than of adviser ”

“ In the crisis of 1851 Saxony was on the side of Austria, and he supported the restoration of the diet of the confederation. In 1854 he took part in the Bamberg conferences, in which the smaller German states claimed the right to direct their own policy independent of that of Austria or of Prussia, and he was the leading supporter of the idea of the Trias, i.e. that the smaller states should form a closer union among themselves against the preponderance of the great monarchies. ”

“ Such alterations bear, in my mind, no resemblance to an infraction of one of those great and leading and master stipulations in which all the Powers of Europe are deeply interested. Supposing that some arrangement were made between Austria and Prussia for the extinction of Saxony, and that the Great Powers were to ask how they, only two of the parties to the Treaty of Vienna, could agree to extinguish Saxony, what answer would it be—that some little bit of territory had before been exchanged between some of the minor princes, and that then we made no protest? ”

“ Article VI According to His Majesty the Emperor of Austria's wish, His Majesty the King of Prussia declares himself prepared, at the upcoming changes in Germany, to continue to let the present territorial expansion of the Kingdom of Saxony exist in its current extent, however he does reserve Saxony's contribution to the war treasury and the future accession of the Kingdom of Saxony to the North German Confederation, to be concluded by a separate peace treaty with His Majesty the King of Saxony. ”

“ Yet Albert died half conscious that his ambition had been ill-directed. All projects and all warlike preparations, declared the dying hero, were of no effect so long as Germany as a whole had no sound peace, no good law or law-courts, and no general currency. But with Albert's death in 1486 the power of Brandenburg, based purely on his individuality, ceased to excite any alarm among the princes of the north. ”

“ The electors were displeased and chose Albert of Austria to succeed him, who conquered and killed his adversary at Göllheim, near Worms (1298) . The ten years reign of the new king of the Romans showed that he was very ambitious for his family, which he wished to establish on the throne of Bohemia, where the Slavonic dynasty had lately died out, and also in Thuringia and Meissen, where he lost a battle. He was also bent upon extending his rights, even unjustly—in Alsace and Switzerland—and it proved an unfortunate venture for him. ”

“ By virtue of a partition made upon their brother Rudolph’s death in 1365 Albert and his descendants ruled over Austria, while Leopold and his sons took Styria, Carinthia and Tirol, Alsace remaining undivided as heretofore.
Towards the middle of the 15th century the German throne had been occupied for nearly a hundred years by members of the Luxemburg family. The reigning emperor Sigismund, who was also king of Hungary and Bohemia, was without sons, and his daughter Elizabeth was the wife of Albert of Habsburg, the grandson and heir of Duke Albert III., who had died in 1395. ”

“ The Danes had extended and strengthened their positions. They had got possession of many of the towns, and, not content with plundering castles and abbeys, they had seized lands, and were beginning to settle upon them, as if they intended to make Alfred's new kingdom their permanent abode. The forces of the Saxons, on the other hand, were scattered and discouraged. There seemed no hope left to them of making head against their pestiferous invaders. If they were defeated, their cruel conquerors showed no moderation and no mercy in their victory ”

“ The Saxons were not strong enough to dispossess them of their fastness. On the contrary, in a few days, the Danes, having matured their plans, made a desperate sally against the Saxons, and, after a very determined and obstinate conflict, they gained the victory, and drove the Saxons off the ground. Some of the leading Saxon chieftains were killed, and the whole country was thrown into great alarm at the danger which was impending, that the Danes would soon gain the complete and undisputed possession of the whole land.
The Saxons, however, were not yet prepared to give up the struggle. ”

“ But while Franconia and Bavaria were thus deeply offended, Otto’s own Saxons were filled with discontent at his policy. They resented Otto’s desire to reign as king over all Germany, as likely to impair the dominant claims of the ruling Saxon race. They complained that he had favoured the Franks more than the Saxons, and the sluggish nobles of the interior parts of Saxony were disgusted that Otto had overlooked their claims on his attention in favour of Hermann Billung and Gero, to whom he had intrusted the care of his old duchy along with the government of the Wendish marches. ”

“ ART. XXI. No individual settled in the provinces which are under the dominion of his Majesty the King of Saxony, nor any one settled in those which, by the present Treaty., pass under the dominion of the King of Prussia, shall be molested as his person, property, rents, pensions, and revenues of any kind, nor in his rank and dignities ”

“ Several Austrian generals, conspicuous among whom was Marshal Traun, were developing great military ability. The armies of Austria had conquered Bohemia and Bavaria. The French troops, discomfited in many battles, had been compelled to retreat to the western banks of the Rhine, vigorously pursued by Prince Charles. The impotent emperor Charles Albert, upon whom France had placed the imperial crown of Germany, was driven from his hereditary realm, and the heart-broken man, in poverty and powerlessness, was an emperor but in name. ”

“ The Danes were pagans. The Saxons were Christians. In making their attacks upon the dominions of Ethelred, the ruthless invaders were animated by a special hatred of the name of Christ, and they evinced a special hostility toward every edifice, or institution, or observance which bore the Christian name. The Saxons, therefore, in resisting them, felt that they were not only fighting for their own possessions and for their own lives, but that they were defending the kingdom of God, and that he, looking down from his throne in the heavens, regarded them as the champions of his cause ”

“ We did not approve of the destruction of Saxony, still we were not unwilling to see a strong state established in the north of Germany, if it was an independent state: and would therefore at first have allowed the addition of Saxony to the Prussian dominions, if Prussia would have joined with Great Britain and Austria against the Russian projects in Poland. Austria, on the other hand, was quite as much against the Prussian project as the Russian one ”

“ The condition of the early Saxon as it was raised by the wisdom and benevolence of good King Alfred, and as it remained until the end of the reign of the unfortunate Harold, was that of a freeman, a freeman not merely in the sense of being his own master, but "he was a living unit in the State." ”