Württemberg

“ It is now mainly important as the chief military depot in Württemberg. The royal palace, one of the finest in Germany, stands in a beautiful park and contains a portrait gallery and the burial vault of the rulers of Württemberg. The industries include the manufacture of organs and pianos, of cotton, woollen and linen goods, of chemicals, iron and wire goods, and brewing and brick-making. ”

“ Kingdom of Württemberg and Bavaria.♦ The next war led to the Peace of Pressburg, in which the Electors of Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden appear as allies of France, and by which those of Bavaria and Württemberg{221} are acknowledged as Kings. ♦They divide the western lands of Austria.♦ Austria was now wholly cut off from south-western Germany. Württemberg and Baden divided her Swabian possessions, while Tyrol, Trent, Brixen, together with the free city of Augsburg, fell to the lot of Bavaria. ♦Grand Duchy of Würzburg.♦ Austria received Salzburg ”

“ The largest towns in the kingdom are Stuttgart (with Cannstadt) , Ulm, Heilbronn, Esslingen, Reutlingen, Ludwigsburg, Göppingen, Gmünd, Tübingen, Tuttlingen and Ravensburg.
Agriculture.—Württemberg is essentially an agricultural state, and of its 4,821,760 acres, 44.9% are agricultural land and gardens, l.l% vineyards, 17.9% meadows and pastures, and 30.8% forest. It possesses rich meadowlands, cornfields, orchards, gardens, and hills covered with vines. The chief agricultural products are oats, spelt, rye, wheat, barley, hops. ”

“ Politically, there is no such place as "Germany." There are the twenty-five States, Prussia, Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, etc., which make up the "German Empire," but there is no such political entity as "Germany."
These twenty-five States have votes in the Bundesrat, a body which may be said to correspond remotely to our United States Senate. But each State has a different number of votes. Prussia has seventeen, Bavaria six, Württemberg and Saxony four each, Baden and Hesse three each, Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Brunswick two each, and the rest one each. Prussia controls Brunswick. ”

“ Ulrich was a ruffian who deserved no consideration, but his vices did not abrogate the rights of his heirs, and it was utterly repugnant to German custom and sentiment for the Emperor to confer a fief upon himself. No territory, however, was so convenient for the extension of Austria's influence as Württemberg; with it in Habsburg hands, Zevenbergen thought that Charles and his brother would dominate Germany, and so Württemberg passed into Habsburg possession, with Zevenbergen as its governor. ”

“ Her rank, her reckless charities, and her exuberant eloquence produced a great effect on the simple country folk; and when, in 1809, it was decided to found a colony of the “elect” in order to wait for “the coming of the Lord,” many wretched peasants sold or distributed all they possessed and followed the baroness and Fontaines into Württemberg, where the settlement was established at Catharinenplaisir and the château of Bönnigheim, only to be dispersed (May 1) by an unsympathetic government. ”

“ The two other German states whose elevation to kingdoms had symbolized a similar ambition, Saxony and Württemberg, were henceforth relegated to a position of third-rate importance; Saxony depended for her very existence on the rivalry of her more powerful neighbours: Württemberg protested in vain against the dictatorship of the great powers to which she was forced to submit. Finally, the electorate of Hanover, partly out of compliment to the king of Great Britain, partly because with the abolition of the Holy Empire the title elector had fallen obsolete, was elevated to a kingdom. ”

“ This league triumphed over the count of Württemberg at Reutlingen in 1377, and the emperor having removed his ban, it assumed a permanent character, set up an arbitration court, and was rapidly extended over the Rhineland, Bavaria and Franconia. In 1382 an alliance was made at Ehingen with the archduke of Austria, and through his mediation with the three chief knightly associations of Swabia. ”

“ Political extravagances have also decreased rather than increased in the army, owing to the consciousness of a gloriously ended war.
"In Southern Germany public opinion is still continually excited, especially in Württemberg; Bavaria sways like a reed. Prince Hohenlohe Schillingsfürst [10] may become President of the Ministry in place of Pfordten; his appointment [50] would be a sign in favour of Prussia. Baden's attitude is the most correct; there they would prefer the supremacy of Prussia to that of Bavaria and Württemberg. ”

“ Successful in resisting the peasant insurrection (1525) , his fortunes were affected by the Schmalkaldic War. From Hall, when taken by the imperial forces, he fled on his birthday in 1548. Protected by Duke Ulrich of Württemberg, he was appointed (January 1553) provost of the collegiate church of Stuttgart. As organizer of the reformation in Württemberg he did much fruitful work. ”

“ The earlier Dutch forms hukeshovet and hoekshoot are nearer to the English form, and, further, the Dutch for “ox” is os.
HOHENASPERG, an ancient fortress of Germany, in the kingdom of Württemberg, 10 m. N. of Stuttgart, is situated on a conical hill, 1100 ft. high, overlooking the town of Asperg. It was formerly strongly fortified and was long the state prison of the kingdom of Württemberg. Among the many who have been interned here may be mentioned the notorious Jew financier, Joseph Süss-Oppenheimer (1692-1738) and the poet C. F. D. Schubart (1739-1791) . It is now a reformatory. ”

“ A vigorous agitation began in the country for the acceptance of the constitution by the governments. The king of Württemberg was forced to accede to it; and in Saxony, Baden and Rhenish Bavaria armed multitudes kept the sovereigns in terror. Prussia, which, following the example of Austria, had recalled her representatives from Frankfort, sent her troops to put down these risings, and on the 21st of May 1849 the larger number of the deputies to the parliament voluntarily resigned their seats. ”

“ Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and Hesse-Darmstadt; and, after peace had at last been arranged, some of them were forced to submit to a certain loss of territory.
Independence of Austria and Union of Germany.—The war completed the dissolution of the Confederation, and secured the reconstruction of Germany on an entirely new basis. Austria was excluded from Germany, and a new confederation, the North German, was formed of the states north of the Main, under the headship of the king of Prussia. Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, and Frankfort were incorporated with that kingdom. ”

“ The fiction of this independent sovereignty is preserved even in the case of the kings of Bavaria, Saxony and Württemberg, who are technically members of a free confederation of sovereign states, but are not independent, since their relations with foreign Powers are practically controlled by the king of Prussia as German emperor.
The theory of the “divine right” of kings, as at present understood, is of comparatively modern growth. ”

“ The territory is discontinuous; and as it lies partly in Baden, partly in Württemberg, and partly in the Prussian province of Sigmaringen, the head of the family is an hereditary member of the first chamber of Baden and of the chamber of peers in Württemberg and in Prussia. The relations of the principality with Baden are defined by the treaty of May 1825, and its relations with Württemberg by the royal declaration of 1839. The Stammort or ancestral seat of the family is Fürstenberg in the Black Forest, about 13 m. ”

“ Cities and nobles alike, now owing allegiance to none but the emperor, who was seldom able to defend them, were exposed to the aggression of ambitious princes.
In 1331, twenty-two Swabian cities, including Ulm, Augsburg, Reutlingen and Heilbronn, formed a league at the instance of the emperor Louis the Bavarian, who in return for their support promised not to mortgage any of them to a vassal. The count of Württemberg was induced to join in 1340. ”

“ In Protestant Württemberg a religious movement among the people reached a height such as it attained nowhere else. Pietism, chiliasm, separatism, the holding of conventicles, etc., assumed formidable dimensions; solid science, philosophical culture, and then also philosophical and destructive critical tendencies issuing from Tübingen affected the clergy of this state. ”

“ But the overthrow of the concordat in Baden, Württemberg and Darmstadt by the states of the realm after a hard conflict, the humiliation of Austria in 1866, and the growth in so threatening a manner since of the still heretical Prussia, produced in the whole German episcopate a terrible apprehension that its hitherto untouched supremacy in the state would be at an end, and in order to ward off this danger it was driven into agitations and demonstrations partly secret and partly open. ”

“ The whole of Bavaria, Württemberg, and the districts along the Rhine had been saturated with French socialistic theories, and here the task of regeneration fell into other hands, and freedom, of a relative kind, had to be extorted by revolutionary means. To these reformers—many of them both devoted and enlightened thinkers—the armies of their own little states necessarily appeared as merely authorized oppressors of the people ”

“ From the emperor Louis the Bavarian it received the same rights and privileges as were enjoyed by the town of Esslingen, and until the middle of the 14th century it was the capital of the county of Württemberg. ”

“ The new constitution has stood the test. The number of states of which the empire consists has remained unaltered;3 occasional disputes have been settled harmoniously in a legal manner. The special rights reserved to Bavaria and The empire and the states. Württemberg have not proved, as was feared, a danger to the stability of the empire. Much apprehension had been caused by the establishment of a permanent committee for foreign affairs in the Bundesrat, over which the Bavarian representative was to preside; but the clause remained a dead letter. ”

“ Its newly acquired lands to the south were given back to Austria; but it made large acquisitions to the north-east. Modern Bavaria consists of a large mass of territory, Bavarian, Swabian, and Frankish, counting within its boundaries the famous cities of Augsburg and Nürnberg and the great bishoprics of Bamberg and Würzburg. ♦Her Rhenish territory.♦ Besides this, Bavaria recovered a considerable part of the ancient Palatinate west of the Rhine, which adds Speyer to the list of Bavarian cities. ♦Württemberg. ”

“ Among instruments of its kind, none is of a more thoroughly practical character. [283]
213. Federal Character of the Empire.—The political system of Germany to-day is the product of centuries of particularistic statecraft, capped, in 1871, by a partial centralization of sovereign organs and powers. The Empire is composed of twenty-five states: the four kingdoms of Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Württemberg; the six grand-duchies of Baden, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Saxe-Weimar, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and Oldenburg ”

“ Almanacks and astrologers predicted the storm with remarkable accuracy; indeed its mutterings had been heard for years, and in 1522 friends of the exiled Ulrich of Württemberg had discussed a plan for his restoration to the duchy by means of a peasant revolt. But the first step in the great movement was not due to Ulrich or to any other extraneous impulse. It was taken in June, 1524, on the estates of Count Siegmund von Lupfen at Stühlingen, some miles to the north-west of Schaffhausen. ”

“ Quickly the insurrection became general all over central and southern Germany. In the absence of the emperor and of his brother, the archduke Ferdinand, the authorities in these parts of the country were unable to check the movement and, aided by many knights, prominent among whom was Götz von Berlichingen, the peasants were everywhere victorious, while another influential recruit, Ulrich, the dispossessed duke of Württemberg, joined them in the hope of recovering his duchy. ”

“ We cross the Donau at Dillingen, at Gunzberg, or I know not where; and by to-morrow's sunset, being rapid travellers, find ourselves at Ludwigsburg,—clear through Canstatt, Stuttgard, and certainly no Katte waiting there! Safe across the intermediate uplands, here are we fairly in the Neckar Country, in the Basin of the Rhine again; and old Duke Eberhard Ludwig of Wurtemberg bidding us kindly welcome, poor old bewildered creature, who has become the talk of Germany in those times. ”

“ Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden were the names of these three cantons. A little later another canton joined the three. These four cantons lie round a lake which is called the Lake of the four Forest Cantons. When Albrecht, Duke of Austria was chosen Emperor he said to himself that now truly he would be lord and master of Switzerland. So he sent two nobles to the Swiss to talk to them, and persuade them to own him as their king.
Some of the people of Switzerland were persuaded to belong to Austria, but all the people of the free cantons replied that they wished to remain free. ”

“ The emperor declined the honor, jocularly remarking—
"There is no method more pleasant to kill an old man, than to marry him to a young bride."
The German empire was then divided into ten districts, or circles, as they were then called, each of which was responsible for the maintenance of peace among its own members. {102} These districts were, Austria, Burgundy, the Upper Rhine, the Lower Rhine, Franconia, Bavaria, Suabia, Westphalia, Upper Saxony and Lower Saxony. The affairs of each district were to be regulated by a court of a few nobles, called a diet. ”