Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria

“ Gustavus was now, in the full tide of victory, marching from the Rhine to the Danube, threatening to press his conquests even to Vienna. Ferdinand was compelled to assume the attitude of a suppliant, and to implore his proud general to accept the command of which he had so recently been deprived. Wallenstein exacted terms so humiliating as in reality to divest the emperor of his imperial power. He was to be declared generalissimo of all the forces of the empire, and to be invested with unlimited authority. The emperor pledged himself that neither he nor his son would ever enter the camp. ”

“ Upon a magnificent eminence called the White Mountain, which commanded the city and its most important approaches, the disheartened army of Frederic stopped in its flight, and made its last stand. The enemy were in hot pursuit. The Bohemians in breathless haste began to throw up intrenchments along the ravines, and to plant their batteries on the hills, when the banners of Ferdinand were seen approaching. The emperor was too energetic a warrior to allow his panic-stricken foes time to regain their courage. ”

“ I know the very man you want; and by a strange coincidence he is here on this very spot. He is Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, grandson of Louis Philippe of France, and cousin of every crowned head in Europe. He is a prime favourite of both the Emperor of Austria and the Czar of Russia. ”

“ The League and the Emperor did not want means, but a mind capable of directing them with energy and effect. Even had Count Tilly not lost his old renown, distrust of Bavaria would not have allowed the Emperor to place the fate of Austria in the hands of one who had never concealed his attachment to the Bavarian Elector. The urgent want which Ferdinand felt was for a general possessed of sufficient experience to form and to command an army and willing at the same time to dedicate his services, with blind devotion, to the Austrian monarchy. ”

“ THE old emperor of Austria was said to have very vague ideas about the present war. According to one fairly well authenticated story, he sometimes fancied himself in 1866, and hoped that his troops were killing a great many of those infernal Prussians. But Ferdinand of Bulgaria is no imbecile. He is not a very able man, though certain journalists have extolled his talents; he is merely cunning and ambitious. His subjects do not love him. ”

“ Let them he repeated from mouth to mouth, that all men shall know them who dwell in this unhappy land in which justice is not to be found!
"Firstly! Since the Emperor is not doing his duty towards me, I am not bound by my duty towards him. And therefore I, Taras Barabola, declare before Almighty God and these human witnesses that I can no longer honour and obey this Emperor Ferdinand of Austria. His will in future is nothing to me, I disown and disregard it; and in all things in which hitherto I have acted according to his laws I shall henceforth be guided by my own conscience solely. ”

“ The emperor thus disembarrassed, by important concessions, and by menaces, brought the Protestants of Lower Austria into submission. The masses, overawed by a show of power which they could not resist, yielded; the few who refused to bow in homage to the emperor were punished as guilty of treason.
Ferdinand, by these cautious steps, was now prepared to concentrate his energies upon Bohemia. He first attacked the dependent provinces of Bohemia, one by one, sending an army of twenty-five thousand men to take them unprepared. ”

“ But the Emperor Charles V. was at that time in Italy, all engrossed in the fiercest warfare there. Throughout the German empire the Catholics and the Protestants were engaged in a conflict which absorbed all other thoughts. And the Protestants resolutely refused to assist in repelling the Turks while the sword of Catholic vengeance was suspended over them. From Raab the invading army advanced some hundred miles further to the very walls of Vienna. Ferdinand, conscious of his inability to meet the foe in the open field, was concentrating all his available strength to defend his capital. ”

“ Ferdinand, having thus triumphed over all his foes, and having divided their domains among his own followers, called a meeting of the electors who were devoted to his cause, at Ratisbon, on the 25th of February, 1623, to confirm what he had done. In every portion of the empire, where the arm of the emperor could reach them, the Protestants were receiving heavy blows. They were now thoroughly alarmed and aroused. The Catholics all over Europe were renewing their league ”

“ It was a propitious hour for the Protestants. Charles was sick, dejected and in adversity. The better portion of the Catholics were disgusted with the intolerance of the emperor, intolerance which even the more conscientious popes could not countenance. Ferdinand was fully aware that he could not defend his own kingdom of Hungary from the Turks without the intervention of Protestant arms. He was, therefore, warmly in favor of conciliation.
The world was not yet sufficiently enlightened to comprehend the beauty of a true toleration, entire freedom of conscience and of worship. ”

“ The assassins were abundantly rewarded. The emperor still prosecuted the war with perseverance, which no disasters could check. Gradually the imperial arms gained the ascendency. The Protestant princes became divided and jealous of each other. The emperor succeeded in detaching from the alliance, and negotiating a separate peace with the powerful Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg. He then assembled a diet at Ratisbon on the 15th of September, 1639, and without much difficulty secured the election of his son Ferdinand to succeed him on the imperial throne. ”

“ Ferdinand considered Protestantism and rebellion as synonymous terms. And well he might, for Protestantism has ever been arrayed as firmly against civil as against religious despotism. The doctrines of the reformers, from the days of Luther and Calvin, have always been associated with political liberty. Ferdinand was determined to crush Protestantism. The punishment of the Elector Palatine was to be a signal and an appalling warning to all who in future should think of disputing the imperial sway. The elector himself, having renounced the throne, had escaped beyond the emperor's reach. ”

“ These alarming aggressions on the part of France, already very powerful, excited general consternation throughout Europe. Maximilian, as emperor, was highly incensed, and roused all his energies to check the progress of so dangerous a rival. The Austrian States alone could by no means cope with the kingdom of France. Maximilian sent agents to the pope, to the Dukes of Milan and Florence, and to the King of Arragon, and formed a secret league to expel the French from Italy, and restore Ferdinand to Naples. ”

“ The city was held by the revolutionists until the 30th, when it was captured by the emperor after much bloodshed. Ferdinand I abdicated in favor of his young nephew, Francis Joseph. The Frankfort Assembly debated the question, what relation Austria should have to united Germany. A majority decided (March 27, 1849) that a president should be appointed, whose office should descend in his family, and that he should be styled "Emperor of the Germans." The station was offered to Frederick William of Prussia, but he declined it. The new constitution was not accepted by the more important states. ”

“ The emperor was meditating vengeance—the recall of Wallenstein, the reconstruction of the army, the annulling of the edict of toleration, the march of an invading force into the territories of the Duke of Bavaria, and the chastisement of {280} all, Catholics as well as Protestants, who had aided in thwarting his plans—when suddenly a new enemy appeared. Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, reigning over his remote realms on the western shores of the Baltic, though a zealous Protestant, was regarded by Ferdinand as a foe too distant and too feeble to be either respected or feared. ”

“ The Bourbons were everywhere, and Spain, Italy, Austria, and presently France would be filled with them. Their clamour would rise, in a hurricane, and what could those who professed to hold their own crowns as gifts from the Almighty say in answer to them? If the Emperor of Austria ruled by Divine Right, he must believe that Ferdinand did the same. If the Divine Right could be disregarded in one case, it could be disregarded in all, and there were plenty of evilly disposed persons who desired nothing better. ”

“ THE EMPEROR Few monarchs have waded through such deep waters of sorrow as the venerable Emperor of Austria, who was born on August 18, 1830, and succeeded to the throne on the abdication of his uncle, the Emperor Ferdinand, and the renunciation of all rights by his own father. To the good-looking high-spirited lad of eighteen the world probably did not seem difficult to conquer, even though his dual inheritance was torn by inward throes of dissension. ”

“ The Bohemian crown was now electoral; and it was necessary to persuade the electors to choose Ferdinand, one of the most intolerant Catholics who ever swayed a scepter. The crown of Hungary was nominally hereditary. But the turbulent {233} nobles, ever armed, and strong in their fortresses, would accept no monarch whom they did not approve. To secure also the electoral vote for Emperor of Germany, while parties were so divided and so bitterly hostile to each other, required the most adroit application of bribes and menaces. ”

“ Consequently, Charles, nine months after the abdication of the thrones of the Low Countries and of Spain, tried the experiment of abdicating the elective crown of the empire in favor of Ferdinand. It was in many respects such an act as if the President of the United States should abdicate in favor of some one of his own choice. The emperor had, however, {161} a semblance of right to place the scepter in the hands of whom he would during his lifetime. ”

“ On the death of Louis the same strenuous competition for the vacant throne was aroused as before his father’s accession, and this time the Archduke Ferdinand, brother of the reigning Emperor, Charles of Austria, was chosen. Ferdinand became also King of Hungary and Archduke of Austria, thus uniting in the person of a common ruler three kingdoms inhabited by different nationalities. This settled the matter as to the succession for a while, for the throne passed from Ferdinand’s son to his grandson Rudolph. Rudolph was eventually deposed in favour of his brother Matthias. ”

“ It had not yet conquered, but it disturbed all Europe. The representatives of the Powers remained devotedly with the Pope. But the countries which would have sustained them were distracted by political commotions. The King of Naples was threatened on all hands by revolution. Lombardy and Venice were in a state of insurrection. Piedmont was making war on Austria, and all Hungary was in rebellion. The Emperor Ferdinand was compelled twice over by civil commotion to abandon his capital. Unable to face the revolutionary tide, he handed over his tottering throne to a youth of eighteen years. ”

“ In 1657 Leopold I., who had already ruled the Austrian Leopold I. dominions for two years, succeeded his father Ferdinand and was crowned emperor in the following year. His long reign of 48 years was of great importance for Austria, as determining both the internal character and the external policy of the monarchy. The long struggle with France to which the ambitions of Louis XIV. gave rise, and which culminated in the War of Spanish Succession, belongs less to the history of Austria proper than to that of Germany and of Europe. Wars with Turkey. ”

“ Austria proper was left to his eldest son Maximilian, Tirol to the archduke Ferdinand; and Styria with Carinthia and Carniola to the archduke Charles. Under the emperor Maximilian II. (1564-1576) , who was also king of Bohemia and Hungary, a liberal policy preserved peace, but he was unable to free his government from its humiliating position of a tributary to the Turk, and he could do nothing to found religious liberty within his dominions on a permanent basis. The whole of Austria and nearly the whole of Styria were mainly Lutheran ”

“ This deed was followed by the peace of Prague, concluded in 1635, primarily with John George I., elector of Saxony, but soon assented to by other princes; and this treaty, which made extensive concessions to the Protestants, marks the definite failure of Ferdinand to crush Protestantism in the Empire, as he had already done in Austria and Bohemia. It is noteworthy, however, that the emperor refused to allow the inhabitants of his hereditary dominions to share in the benefits of the peace. During these years Ferdinand had also been menaced by the secret or open hostility of France. ”

“ It is known that he interceded with Rudolf for Ferdinand, and he may have approached the emperor. Failing to get action at Vienna, he is said to have formed a plan of a military character which was calculated to force the hands of Austria, Germany, and England, bringing them into the field against Russia, to the end that Ferdinand might be recognized and more firmly seated. The plot was discovered in time, according to those who hold this theory of the incident, and Johann Salvator came under the most severe displeasure of the emperor. ”