Westphalia

“ The kingdom of Westphalia, which was formed by Napoleon for his brother Jerome after the Treaty of Tilsit, was an entirely new creation, not an enlargement of a former German state like Bavaria and Würtemberg. It consisted of the Electorate of Hesse-Cassel, the Prussian territories on the left of the Elbe, including the bishoprics of Paderborn and Hildesheim, the Old Mark of Brandenburg, etc., the Duchy of Brunswick, a portion of Hanover, and other scattered districts. ”

“ Sweden and France as guarantors of the peace acquired the right of interference in the affairs of the empire, and the former gained a voice in its councils. For many years Germany thus became the principal theatre of European diplomacy and war. But if the treaty of Westphalia pronounced the dissolution of the old order in the empire, it facilitated the growth of new powers in its component parts, especially Austria, Bavaria and Brandenburg. ”

“ Brandenburg laid the foundations of her dominion in Westphalia by obtaining the counties of Mark and Ravensberg in 1614 (confirmed 1666) , to which the bishopric of Minden was added by the peace of Westphalia in 1648 and Tecklenburg in 1707. By the settlement of 1803 the church lands were secularized, and Prussia received the bishopric of Paderborn and the eastern part of Münster, while the electoral duchy of Westphalia was given to Hesse-Darmstadt. ”

“ Among the many schemes which the Imperial brain is supposed to be continually engendering, it is far from impossible that one may be the reconstruction of the kingdom of Westphalia, or at least of some Rhenish kingdom with the concurrence of Prussia, by concluding a bargain of partition with her. ”

“ Westphalia is the centre of the steel and iron works; throughout Germany there are 26,000 m. of railway line (chiefly State railways) , 57,000 m. of telegraph line, while excellent roads, canals, and navigable rivers facilitate communication; 65 per cent. of the people are Protestants; education is compulsory and more highly developed than in any other European country; the energies of the increasing population have in recent years found scope for their action in their growing colonial possessions ”

“ Mineral resources give great prosperity. There are large coal-fields in the north, and it produces more iron-ore than any other province of Prussia except Silesia. It also is rich in copper, zinc, sulphur and salt. The leading manufactures are linen-weaving and iron-working. Westphalia was the name of the western part of the duchy of Saxony. It was divided when Henry the Lion's Saxon domains were distributed by Emperor Maximilian, the archbishops of Cologne receiving a part, with the title of dukes of Westphalia. ”

“ From the tenth century until the peace of Westphalia, these territories belonged to the German empire, being ruled by sovereign dukes and princes. In 1648 portions of both provinces were ceded to France, and a few years later, in times of peace, Strasburg was ruthlessly seized and appropriated by the arch-despot and militarist, Louis XIV. By the treaty of Ryswick, that of Westphalia was ratified, and thenceforward Alsace and Lorraine remained radically and passionately French. ”

“ Germany, by this time, would have been a desert, covered with the unburied bodies of many different sects, slaughtered by one another, had not the Peace of Westphalia happily procured a liberty of conscience. ”

“ While passing judgment in secret, they often openly dealt blows as unexpected and terrible as they were fatal. Therefore, the most innocent and the most daring trembled at the very name of the Free Judges of the Terre-Rouge, an institution which adopted Westphalia as the special, or rather as the central, region of its authority; the Council of Ten exercised their power in Venice and the states of the republic ”

“ Its culmination. Peace of Westphalia.The political combinations which had thus occurred as Protestantism rapidly acquired temporal power gave rise, as might have been anticipated, to wars. The peace of Augsburg, 1555, furnished the Reformers the substantial advantages they sought—freedom from Italian ecclesiastical authority, the right of all Germans to judge for themselves in matters of religion, equality in civil privileges for them and the Catholics. ”

“ The Pope (at that time Innocent X.) declared the Treaty of Westphalia null and void, and issued a bull against its observance. The parties to the treaty, however, did not allow this bull to be published in Germany. The Catholics in all parts of the country (except Austria, Styria and the Tyrol) had suffered almost as severely as the Protestants, and would have welcomed the return of peace upon any terms which simply left their faith free. ”

“ It was not, indeed, till the settlement of Westphalia in 1648, after the Thirty Years’ War, that this territorial division of Christendom became stereotyped, but the process had been going on for a hundred years previously; in some states, as in England and Scotland, it had long been completed; in others, as in South Germany, Bohemia and Poland, it was defeated by the political and missionary efforts of the Jesuits and other agents of the counter-Reformation. ”

“ You know, so many freebooters rove about everywhere, and Westphalia especially is swarming with Swedes and Hessians. If such a troop of soldiers knew beforehand that the Electoral Prince was coming that way, they would certainly lie in wait for him and fall upon him, either for purposes of plunder or in order to carry him off and extort a high ransom for him. ”

“ The territorial power of the archbishops was already great when, in 1180, on the partition of the Saxon duchy, the duchy of Westphalia was assigned to them. In the 11th century they became ex-officio arch-chancellors of Italy (see Archchancellor) , and by the Golden Bull of 1356 they were finally placed among the electors (Kurfürsten) of the Empire. ”

“ The long and bloody wars that ensued were closed by the Peace of Westphalia; and then it was found that Central and Northern Europe had cast off the intellectual tyranny of Rome, that individualism had carried its point, and had established the right of every man to think for himself. ”

“ The ruthless policy of extermination of the best element in Bohemian national life is best indicated by the fact that when the peace of Westphalia was concluded, the prosperous kingdom was little better than a desert, with about eight hundred thousand impoverished inhabitants. ”

“ Troubles arose (1622) also in the Prättigau through the attempts of the Habsburgers to force the inhabitants to give up Protestantism. Finally, after the emperor had formally recognized, by the treaty of Westphalia (1648) , the independence of the Swiss Confederation, the rights of the Habsburgers in the Prättigau and the Lower Engadine were bought up (1649 and 1652) . ”

“ A superficial glance was enough to convince any one that the nobility in particular desired by their presence to show their love and affection for our persecuted mother, the church. For years the majority of the Catholic nobles of Westphalia and the Rhine have been animated with a deep religious feeling. ”

“ The treaty of Westphalia which ended this war took comparatively little from the Habsburgs, though they ceded Alsace to France; but the Empire was greatly weakened, and its ruler was more than ever compelled to make his hereditary lands in the east of Europe the base of his authority, finding that he derived more strength from his position as archduke of Austria than from that of emperor. ”

“ France now began to act with energy. In the month of August [1741] two French armies crossed the Rhine, each about 40, 000 strong. The first marched into Westphalia, and frightened George II. into concluding a treaty of neutrality for Hanover, and promising his vote to the Elector of Bavaria. The second advanced through South Germany on Passau, the frontier city of Bavaria and Austria. ”

“ They live and move on "the red soil" of Westphalia, and in their persons the German peasant is for the first time introduced into literature without the sentimentality of the pastoral idyll or the distortion of the opera ballet, undoubtedly conventionalised, but with caste and race individuality. There is a vigorous, fresh naturalness about these characters, which will never grow old. ”

“ In a castle of Westphalia, belonging to the Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh, lived a youth, whom nature had endowed with the most gentle manners. ”

“ The landgrave Philip of Hesse having, meanwhile, entered Westphalia with the troops which had just made the conquest of Würtemberg, Munster was soon so completely invested that nothing, and especially no food supplies, could any longer enter the town. The dearth became more and more severe, and the miserable people were driven to have recourse for sustenance to the most unaccustomed food. ”

“ It was one of the chief emporiums on the early trading route between Westphalia and Lower Saxony. Its code of municipal laws (Schran; jus susatense) , dating from 1144 to 1165, was one of the earliest and best, and served as a model even to Lübeck. ”

“ Friedrich Wilhelm, on this procedure at Salzburg, intimates to his Halberstadt and Minden Catholic gentlemen, That their Establishments must be locked up, and incomings suspended; that they can apply to the Right Reverend Firmian upon it;—and bids his man at Regensburg signify to the Diet that such is the course adopted here. Right Reverend Firmian has to hold his hand; finds both that there shall be Emigration, and that it must go forward on human terms, not inhuman; and that in fact the Treaty of Westphalia will have to guide it, not he henceforth. ”

“ Those of the banks of the Rhine, of Wetteravia and Westphalia, are arranged in the Miocene division; those of Styria, and part of Bohemia, on the contrary, are placed among the recent or Pliocene formations.
"This distribution agrees pretty generally with the nature [Pg 86] of the vegetables contained in them. One important point only leaves me in doubt: this relates to the Lignites of the environs of Frankfort or Wetteravia, the plants of which are pretty generally analogous to those of Œningen or Partschlug in Styria ”

“ Considered in relation to its modern population.—Here it coincides most closely with the kingdom of Hanover, plus parts of the Dutchies of Holstein and Oldenburg, and parts of Altmark? Brunswick? and Westphalia, and minus the Frisian portion of East Friesland, and the Slavonic part of Luneburg.
d. River system.—By extending the Saxons of Westphalia as far as Cleves (which has been done by competent judges) we carry the western limit to the neighbourhood of the Rhine. ”

“ The Electoral Prince will not passively submit to capture, but will resist; a battle will ensue, and then it might easily happen that in the heat of conflict a dagger should pierce the Prince or a ball go through his head. Those Swedes and Hessians are wild, fierce soldiers, and the Prince is in perpetual danger, especially in Westphalia. ”

“ It was impossible to make a stand there, the poor Westphalians were obliged to wheel, and tumbled heels over head down the slope again, not without leaving a number of killed and wounded. The French were close behind and reached the bottom of the gorge almost at the same time. The Westphalians attempted to climb up the opposite side again, and then those who were left behind witnessed a heart-rending spectacle. The German soldiers were so utterly exhausted that their limbs could not carry them up the ascent, gentle as it was. ”