Maurice of Saxony

“ A few years later the new Elector, Maurice of Saxony, was able in a moment by a sudden expedition to overpower the experienced master of foreign politics. Neither the Emperor nor any other prince maintained a large standing army; even the Imperial power stood on a rotten foundation, and the Emperor Charles was in a difficult position with respect to the German soldiery. However easy was the conscience of the Landsknechte, and however ready they were to sell themselves for money, they were yet not entirely without political tendencies. ”

“ Friendship with Saxony was doubtless attractive to the wiser men of Bohemia, for more than one reason. It was the centre of that resistance to the Hungarian power which they felt to be so vital to European civilisation. It contained a large proportion of men of Slavonic race; and Magdeburg, where Dettmar had been trained, was the great home of such learning and culture as were then to be found in Germany.
But the fierce heathen spirit, which had been strengthened by Boleslav the Cruel, could not be suppressed at once either by his conversion, or by the probably sincerer piety of his son. ”

“ About the middle of the year 1720, there arrived in Paris a young man who was destined to become one of the most remarkable figures of the eighteenth century—Maurice, "Count of Saxony," celebrated in later years as Maréchal de Saxe. A natural son of Augustus II., Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and Aurora von Königsmark, sister of the ill-fated lover of George I.'s uncrowned queen, the future victor of Fontenoy was still at this date only a high-born military adventurer in search of some promising field for the exercise of his talents. From his boyhood Maurice had been a soldier. ”

“ Religion had served him as a pretence for his usurpations; and from the same principle he met with that opposition which overthrew his grandeur, and dashed all his ambitious hopes. Maurice, elector of Saxony, enraged that the landgrave of Hesse, who, by his advice, and on his assurances, had put himself into the emperor’s hands, should be unjustly detained a prisoner, formed a secret conspiracy among the Protestant princes; and, covering his intentions with the most artful disguises, he suddenly marched his forces against Charles, and narrowly missed becoming master of his person. ”

“ He published a small treatise upon the subject at Cologne, in 1531, which obtained him the patronage of the celebrated Maurice, Duke of Saxony. After practising for some years as a physician at Joachimsthal, in Bohemia, he was employed by Maurice as superintendent of the silver mines of Chemnitz. He led a happy life among the miners, making various experiments in alchymy while deep in the bowels of the earth. He acquired a great knowledge of metals, and gradually got rid of his extravagant notions about the philosopher's stone. The miners had no faith in alchymy ”

“ The other chief of the Protestant league, the Landgrave of Hesse, was also forced to submit, and detained in captivity, contrary to the pledged word of the emperor; who, fearless of any further resistance to his supreme authority, convoked a diet at Augsburg in 1548. At that assembly Maurice was invested with Saxony, and the emperor, in the vain hope of enforcing a uniformity of religious practice, published by his own authority a body of doctrine called the "Interim," to be in force till a general council should be assembled. ”

“ At length, in 1545, the Council assembled at Trent and dealt with the chief dogmas at issue. Then, when the decrees did not satisfy the Lutherans, the Emperor combined with the Pope to coerce them. A large contingent of papal troops crossed the Alps in 1547, and were met by the Lutheran forces on the Danube. The Protestant League was divided; some of its members, true to the doctrine of non-resistance, remained away; and one of the Saxon princes, Maurice, invaded Saxony, on a promise that he should succeed to the electorate. ”

“ Maurice’s ally, Albert Alcibiades, prince of Bayreuth, was taken prisoner at Rochlitz; and the duke, driven from electoral Saxony, was unable to prevent his own lands from being overrun. Salvation, however, was at hand. Marching against John Frederick, Charles V., aided by Maurice, gained a decisive victory at Mühlberg in April 1547, after which by the capitulation of Wittenberg John Frederick renounced the electoral dignity in favour of Maurice, who also obtained a large part of his kinsman’s lands. The formal investiture of the new elector took place at Augsburg in February 1548. ”

“ That during this long separation Maurice remained faithful to his absent mistress is very improbable. From the diplomatic correspondence of the time, it would appear that the handsome adventurer had aroused among the fair sex of Saxony, Poland, and Courland a veritable enthusiasm. ”

“ In the meantime the Bohemians had collected their forces, and on Aug. 14, 1431, they advanced towards Domaz̆lic̆e, singing one of their favourite hymns, “Kdoz̆ jste Boz̆i bojovnici”—“Ye [289] who are the soldiers of the Lord.” The Cardinal went up the hill to consult the Duke of Saxony about the arrangements of the battle, when suddenly he observed a strange confusion, and heard loud cries in the camp of the Margrave of Brandenburg. Soon after, Frederick himself came hastily to him, to tell him that his army was in full flight and could not be checked. The panic quickly spread ”

“ Charles’s excuse for crediting the imposture was that, as he was too young to remember the real Waldemar, he trusted in the evidence of the Duke of Saxony and other princes of the Empire, who, after investigating the case, declared their belief in the genuineness of the claim. Encouraged by this evidence, Charles only too gladly seized the opportunity for avenging his brother. He declared war on Louis, removed him from his Margravate, and established Waldemar in his place. Eventually it was proved that the so-called Waldemar was the subject and tool of the Duke of Saxony ”

“ Several preachers had been tortured and killed by the soldiers in the first heat of victory, and, in 1621, the great bulk of the Protestant clergy of Prague were ordered to sell their goods and to migrate to Saxony. Promises had, indeed, been made to the Elector of Saxony that the Lutherans should be gently dealt with. Moderate terms had been offered to the Utraquists, and Tabor had only surrendered on condition of its liberties being secured. ”

“ It were juster to fix the blame on the impatience of the King of Saxony, whom it would have beseemed to wait for the old man's death, and not demand his throne; for it was somewhat better to succeed to the dead than to rob the living. Yet, that he might not be thought to make over the honours of his ancient freedom, like a madman, to the possession of another, he would accept the challenge with his own hand. The envoys answered that they knew that their king would shrink from the mockery of fighting a blind man, for such an absurd mode of combat was thought more shameful than honourable. ”

“ The more I see of the people here, the more I like them. The national character of the Germans is integrity, tho' sometimes cloaked under a rough exterior as in Bavaria and Austria; but here in Saxony it is combined with a suavity of manners that is very striking, for the Saxons are the Tuscans of Germany in point of politeness, and they are far more accomplished because they take more pains in cultivating their minds.
A savant in Italy is a man who writes a volume about a coin, filled with hypotheses, when, with all his learning forced into the service, he proves nothing ”

“ France and Austria, hitherto foes, to be allies.
War starts with the French capture of Minorca and the Byng affair, well known. What do the movements of Russian and Austrian troops mean? Frederick asks at Vienna; answer is no answer. We are ready then; Saxony is the key to Bohemia. Frederick marches into Saxony, demands inspection of Dresden Archives, with originals of documents known to him; blockades the Saxons in Pirna, somewhat forcibly requiring not Saxon neutrality, but Saxon alliance. And meanwhile neither France nor Austria is deaf to the cries of Saxon-Polish majesty. ”

“ For though the Franks had long been the greatest power in Germany, yet Germany could not be said to form a single whole as long as the Saxons, the greatest people of Northern Germany, remained independent. The conquest of Saxony brought the Frankish power for the first time in contact with the Danes and the other people of Scandinavia. ♦Boundary of the Eider.♦ The dominions of Charles took in what was then called Saxony beyond the Elbe, that is the modern Holstein, and the Eider was fixed as the northern boundary of the Empire. ”

“ 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. ”

“ His first experience of warfare was in 1849, when he served as a captain in the campaign of Schleswig-Holstein against the Danes. When the war of 1866 broke out, the crown-prince was placed in command of the Saxon forces opposing the Prussian army of Prince Frederick Charles. No attempt was made to defend Saxony ”

“ Unfortunate chief merchants of Leipzig,—with Bruhl and Polish Majesty little likely to indemnify them! Unfortunate Country altogether. An intelligent Saxon, who is vouched for as impartial, bears witness as follows: 'And this I know, that the oppressions and plunderings of the Austrians and Reichsfolk, in Saxony, turned all hearts away from them ”

“ Let every impartial man therefore review the whole of this proceeding and then say whether the King of Saxony, so proverbial for his probity, so adored by his subjects, deserved to be insulted by such an unfeeling letter as that of Castlereagh. No! the King of Saxony better deserves to reign than any King of them all. ”

“ The last Saxon king, the chosen of the people, had not those levies, and could impose not those burdens which made his successors mighty in war; and men began now to think that, after all, there was no fear of this Norman invasion. The summer was gone; the autumn was come; was it likely that William would dare to trust himself in an enemy's country as the winter drew near? The Saxons— unlike their fiercer kindred of Scandinavia, had no pleasure in war;— they fought well in front of a foe, but they loathed the tedious preparations and costly sacrifices which prudence demanded for self- defence. ”

“ Saxony, rich in picturesque beauty; the valley of the Elbe, in many respects finer than the Rhine itself; the proud summit of the Bastey; the rock-crowned fortress of Koenigstein,—are all succeeded by monotonous tracts of dark forest, or still more dreary plains, disfigured, not enlivened by villages of wretched hovels, poor, I have heard, as the dwellings of the Irish peasant. What a contrast, too! the people, the haggard faces and sallow cheeks of the swarthy Bohemian, with the blue eye and ruddy looks of the Saxon! ”

“ On all sides his behests were obeyed, the Saxon troops grudgingly ranging themselves under the French eagles. And while he was tearing Saxony away from the national cause, he was summoned by Austria to halt. The victor met the request with a flash of defiance. After a reproachful talk with Bubna, on May 17th, he wrote two letters to the Emperor Francis. In the more official note he assured him that he desired peace, and that he assented to the opening of a Congress with that aim in view, in which England, Russia, Prussia, and even the Spanish [pg.290] insurgents might take part. ”

“ The rude and homely manner in which the greater part of the Saxon thegns lived— dependent solely for their subsistence on their herds and agricultural produce, and therefore on the labour of their peasants—not only made the distinctions of rank less harsh and visible, but rendered it the interest of the lords to feed and clothe well their dependents. All our records of the customs of the Saxons prove the ample sustenance given to the poor, and a general care of their lives and rights, which, compared with the Frank laws, may be called enlightened and humane. ”

“ The traditions of the Arab, inherited by the Norman, were transmitted to and became the inspiration of the German. The genius of Frederick II. impressed itself indelibly upon the entire Teutonic race. It must not be forgotten that the most formidable revolt against Papal tyranny and corruption broke out in Saxony. The new German Empire owes largely its commanding position in Europe and its exalted rank in the scale of civilization to the talents, the energy, and the transcendent wisdom of the greatest monarch of mediæval times. ”

“ Though Saxon by birth, he became ultra-Prussian in sympathy and temperament. Somewhat deaf, and by no means yielding or facile in temper, he was not cut out for a political career. But politics were his interest; his lectures on history were successful at Leipzig and had still more scope at Berlin. He became the strongest of German Unionists, and with a keen but somewhat narrow mind took an absolute pleasure in attacking every movement or body of people that seemed to him in any way to stand in the path of Germany's advancement, or not to assist in her consolidation. ”