Maximilian I of Austria

“ Never after did German or Austrian dispute the independence of the Swiss. The unfortunate consequences brought by success upon the natives are not only true, but profoundly worthy of note.
Fortunately danger and trouble soon appeared from abroad. This united all the cantons anew, and was therefore salutary.
Maximilian I of Austria was Emperor of Germany. He had received from France the country of Lower Burgundy, and, to hold it more securely, incorporated it with the German empire as a single circle. He wished to make Switzerland, also, such a German imperial circle. ”

“ Bodies were established for executive, financial and judicial purposes, the Austrian lands constituted one of the imperial circles which were established in 1512, and in 1518 representatives of the various diets (Landtage) met at Innsbruck, a proceeding which marks the beginning of an organic unity in the Austrian lands. In these ways Maximilian proved himself a capable and energetic ruler, although his plans for making Austria into a kingdom, or an electorate, were abortive.
At the close of the middle ages the area of Austria had increased Austria at the close of the middle ages. ”

“ In refusing to agree to the offer of the imperial crown to Frederick William IV., Maximilian had the support of his parliament. In withholding his assent to the new German constitution, by which Austria was excluded from the Confederation, he ran indeed counter to the sentiment of his people; but by this time the back of the revolution was broken, and in the events which led to the humiliation of Prussia at Olmütz in 1851, and the restoration of the old diet of the Confederation, Bavaria was safe in casting in her lot with Austria (see Germany: History) . ”

“ 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 ”

“ The remembrance of the evil service which Maximilian had rendered him with the Emperor, at the Diet at Ratisbon, was deeply engraved on the implacable mind of the duke, and the Elector's late attempts to prevent his reinstatement were no secret to him. The moment of revenging this affront had now arrived, and Maximilian was doomed to pay dearly for his folly in provoking the most revengeful of men. Wallenstein maintained that Bohemia ought not to be left exposed, and that Austria could not be better protected than by allowing the Swedish army to waste its strength before the Bavarian fortress. ”

“ Now the ambitious Austrian prince, the weak tool of intriguing politicians, the upholder of religious and political retrogression, disappears; and where he had stood posterity will henceforth see only the noble son of the Hapsburgs, the well-bred gentleman who, aware of his failure, was ready to stand by it and to pay the extreme penalty of his errors.
Before the figure of Maximilian of Austria, from the time when he took command of his little army and resolved to stand for better or worse by those who had remained faithful to his fallen fortunes, all true-hearted men must bow with respect. ”

“ The ecclesiastical organization of Austria was imperfect, so long as there was no archbishopric within its borders, and its clergy owed allegiance to foreign prelates. The work of unification which was so successfully accomplished by Maximilian was aided by two events, the progress of the Turks in south-eastern Europe, and the loss of most of the Habsburg possessions on the Rhine. The first tended to draw the separate states together for purposes of defence, and the second turned the attention of the Habsburgs to the possibilities of expansion in eastern Europe. ”

“ He proposed that his consent should be necessary before any soldiers for foreign service were recruited in the empire; but the estates were unwilling to strengthen the imperial authority, the Protestant princes regarded the suggestion as an attempt to prevent them from assisting their coreligionists in France and the Netherlands, and nothing was done in this direction, although some assistance was voted for the defence of Austria. ”

“ He secured from Venice very valuable accessions of territory, and then, recalling his ecclesiastical denunciations, united with Venice to drive the barbarians, as he affectionately called his French and German allies, out of Italy. Maximilian returned to Austria as in a funeral march, ventured to summon another diet, told them how shamefully he had been treated by France, Venice and the pope, and again implored them to do something to help him. Perseverance is surely the most efficient of virtues. Incredible as it may seem, the emperor now obtained some little success. ”

“ One has only to compare the incessant activity in foreign policy of Maximilian, or Ferdinand I of Austria, with that of Wladislav II and Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia, in order to see how utterly inferior Magyar political strategy was to that of the House of Habsburg. Maximilian's great wars with Venice, France, and Switzerland, his incessant diplomatic campaigns with the Curia of Rome, with the princes of Germany, with Venice, are all discussed in other parts of this work. It will be sufficient here to limit our attention to Maximilian's eastern policy. ”

“ He never ceased to call the kings of France and Spain to gentleness and toleration. ... 'I have no power,' said the emperor, 'over consciences, and may constrain no man's faith.' The princes unanimously elected the son of Maximilian as King of the Romans, and Max received another gratification: he was elected king by the gallant nation of the Poles. Thus the house of Austria was again powerfully strengthened. Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, and Germany, united under one ruler, formed a power which could meet Turkey and Russia. The Turks and the Russians were pressing forward. ”

“ The Holy Roman Empire came to a sort of climax in the reign of the Emperor Charles V. He was one of the most extraordinary monarchs that Europe has ever seen. For a time he had the air of being the greatest monarch since Charlemagne.
His greatness was not of his own making. It was largely the creation of his grandfather, the Emperor Maximilian I (1459- 1519) . Some families have fought, others have intrigued their way to world power; the Habsburgs married their way. Maximilian began his career with Austria, Styria, part of Alsace and other districts, the original Habsburg patrimony ”

“ 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 emperor Maximilian died on the 19th of January, 1519, leaving his hereditary states of Austria to his grandson Charles, already sovereign of all Spain, of the Two Sicilies, of the Low Countries, and of the county of Burgundy. Charles and Francis both presented themselves as candidates for the imperial crown; the electors gave it to the former, on the 28th of June, 1519; he was from that period named Charles V. Italy, indeed the whole of Europe, was endangered by the immeasurable growth of this young monarch’s power. ”

“ The pretext of rescuing from the enemy a hereditary dominion of Austria would silence the remonstrances of the Elector of Bavaria, and, under the mask of a patriotic zeal for the Emperor's interests, Maximilian might be sacrificed without much difficulty. By giving up the rich country of Bavaria to the Swedes, he hoped to be left unmolested by them in his enterprise against Saxony, while the increasing coldness between Gustavus and the Saxon Court gave him little reason to apprehend any extraordinary zeal for the deliverance of John George. ”

“ While he was driving the Saxons from Bohemia, Gustavus Adolphus had been gaining the victories, already detailed, on the Rhine and the Danube, and carried the war through Franconia and Swabia to the frontiers of Bavaria. Maximilian, defeated on the Lech and deprived by death of Count Tilly, his best support, urgently solicited the Emperor to send with all speed the Duke of Friedland to his assistance from Bohemia, and, by the defence of Bavaria, to avert the danger from Austria itself. ”

“ At one time the Turks were crowding him very hard in Hungary. A special effort was requisite to raise troops to repel them. Maximilian summoned a diet, and appealed to the assembled nobles for supplies of men and money. In Austria proper, Protestantism was now in the decided ascendency. {173} The nobles took advantage of the emperor's wants to reply—
"We are ready to march to the assistance of our sovereign, to repel the Turks from Hungary, if the Jesuits are first expelled from our territories." ”

“ Maximilian thought his interests would be promoted by aiding the Spaniards, and he accordingly sent three thousand men to Trieste, where they embarked, and sailing down the Adriatic, united with the Spanish troops. The French were driven out of Italy. There then ensued, for several years, wars and intrigues in which France, Spain, Italy and Austria were involved; all alike selfish and grasping. Armies were ever moving to and fro, and the people of Europe, by the victories of kings and nobles, were {95} kept in a condition of misery. ”

“ At the time of the death of the emperor Maximilian in 1519 the Habsburg dominions in eastern Germany included the duchies of Upper and Lower Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and the county of Tirol. Maximilian was succeeded as archduke of Austria as well as emperor by Austria under Charles V. and Ferdinand.his grandson Charles of Spain, known in history as the emperor Charles V. To his brother Ferdinand Charles resigned all his Austrian lands, including his claims on Bohemia and Hungary. ”

“ So little was the Empire an individual unit that the policy of her rulers themselves was not imperial. The statesmanship of Maximilian was something smaller than national; it was that of his Archduchy of Austria. The policy of his successor, on the other hand, was determined by something larger than Germany, the consideration of the Spanish and Burgundian states that he also ruled. Maximilian tried in every way to aggrandize his personal power, not that of the German Nation. [Sidenote: Maximilian I, 1493-1519] The Diet of Worms of 1495 tried to remodel the constitution. ”

“ A horde of Turks had penetrated Styria and Carniola, laying every thing waste before them as far as Carniola. Maximilian, sounding the alarm, inspired his countrymen with the same energy which animated his own breast. Fifteen thousand men rallied at the blast of his bugles. Instead of intrusting the command of them to his generals, he placed himself at their head, and made so fierce an onset upon the invaders, that they precipitately fled. Maximilian returned at the head of his troops triumphant to Vienna, where he was received with acclamations such as had seldom resounded in the metropolis. ”

“ He strenuously opposed the unionist plans of the Frankfort parliament, refused to recognize the imperial constitution devised by it, and assisted Austria in restoring the federal diet and in carrying out the federal execution in Hesse and Holstein. Although, however, from 1850 onwards his government tended in the direction of absolutism, he refused to become the tool of the clerical reaction, and even incurred the bitter criticism of the Ultramontanes by inviting a number of celebrated men of learning and science (e.g. Liebig and Sybel) to Munich, regardless of their religious views. ”

“ He was the author of military reforms, which included the establishment of standing troops, called Landsknechte, the improvement of artillery by making cannon portable, and some changes in the equipment of the cavalry. He was continually devising plans for the better government of Austria, and although they ended in failure, he established the unity of the Austrian dominions. ”

“ Maximilian’s own father was an avaricious, undignified old man, not until near his death Archduke of even all Austria, and with anarchy prevailing everywhere under his nominal rule. It was in the time of Maximilian that the Empire became as compact and united a body as could be hoped of anything so unwieldy, that law was at least acknowledged, Faust recht for ever abolished, and the Emperor became once more a real power. ”

“ One more final effort Maximilian made to rouse Germany to combine to drive the Turks out of Europe. Though the benighted masses looked up with much reverence to the pontiff, the princes and the nobles regarded him only as a power, wielding, in addition to the military arm, the potent energies of superstition. A diet was convened. The pope's legate appeared, and sustained the eloquent appeal of the emperor with the paternal commands of the holy father. But the press was now becoming a power in Europe, diffusing intelligence and giving freedom to thought and expression. ”

“ He attempted in vain to secure the election of his grandson Charles as king of the Romans, and in spite of increasing infirmity was eager to lead the imperial troops against the Turks. At the diet of Augsburg in 1518 the emperor heard warnings of the Reformation in the shape of complaints against papal exactions, and a repetition of the complaints preferred at the diet of Mainz in 1517 about the administration of Germany. Leaving the diet, he travelled to Wels in Upper Austria, where he died on the 12th of January 1519. ”