Those were also the years in which another big problem arose: a more truly religious problem. Because, in the Austrian territories, the ideas of reform quickly gained ground: not to mention that the union with Bohemia, already the scene of the bloody Hussite rebellions, a field of fierce religious struggles, and now won over to Protestant doctrines, had to strengthen a lot, in the state Habsburg, the number and power of the adversaries of the church of Rome. A very difficult situation, since an internal conflict between the supporters of the two faiths could have been fatal, at that moment when the fight against the Turks had begun. Hence Ferdinand’s efforts to avoid the struggle and instead to unite the various Christian faiths; hence his attempt to have Protestants participate in the Council of Trent, proposing to them to abolish ecclesiastical celibacy and to grant the administration of the Eucharistic sacrament under both kinds. At the same time, he was fighting for a greater spiritualization of the papacy and of the clergy in general. But the Roman curia rejected those attempts of rapprochement that the emperor made with the so-called “Libello di reform” of 1562; and the council of Trent, which was held shortly before the emperor’s death, closed, leaving the gap between Catholics and Protestants deeper than ever. emperor advanced with the so-called “Libellus of reform” of 1562; and the council of Trent, which was held shortly before the emperor’s death, closed, leaving the gap between Catholics and Protestants deeper than ever. emperor advanced with the so-called “Libellus of reform” of 1562; and the council of Trent, which was held shortly before the emperor’s death, closed, leaving the gap between Catholics and Protestants deeper than ever.
Meanwhile, the reformed doctrines continued to gain ground. In neighboring Hungary itself, Calvinism acquired ever greater authority and strength; and if in southern Germany the government of Albert V Duke of Bavaria began the work of Catholic restoration and began the counter-offensive against the reform, in the Austrian lands the government of Maximilian II (1564-1576) allowed Protestantism the maximum freedom of movement and maximum diffusion. This prince, the only one among the Habsburgs who saw Protestantism with a benevolent or at least not adverse eye, had been recommended by his father to the electors only on the promise of remaining faithful to the Catholic religion. And he faithfully kept his promise, as far as his person was concerned: but, with the “religious recesses” of 1568, it gave freedom of religious worship to the Protestants of upper and lower Austria; and he created a council of convents to control them and fight their serious decline. Conversely, to the evangelical states of Bohemia he granted the so-called defenders, with the task of collecting the complaints of their co-religionists, an office that had historical importance 40 years later, on the eve of the Thirty Years War. In Bohemia, the triumph of Protestantism also meant the revival of German penetration, as Germanism began to heal from the wounds it suffered in the Hussitic wars. with the task of collecting the complaints of their co-religionists, the so-called defenders, an office that had historical importance 40 years later, on the eve of the Thirty Years War. In Bohemia, the triumph of Protestantism also meant the revival of German penetration, as Germanism began to heal from the wounds it suffered in the Hussitic wars. with the task of collecting the complaints of their co-religionists, the so-called defenders, an office that had historical importance 40 years later, on the eve of the Thirty Years War. In Bohemia, the triumph of Protestantism also meant the revival of German penetration, as Germanism began to heal from the wounds it suffered in the Hussitic wars.
But the situation had to change considerably under Rudolf II (1576-1612), the man whom the papal nuncio called “completely Catholic and pious”. Transporting his court from Vienna to Prague, he found himself in the center of the region most permeated with Reformed doctrines. Under him, the Counter-Reformation also began in Austria, especially by the Jesuits. Little by little, on the contrary, the central problem of state life became the religious one: all the more so, as foreign policy languished, which Rodolfo was unable to do. Thus, the conflict between the Reformed and the Catholics, which Ferdinand and Maximilian had tried by every means to avoid, was preparing itself. An imprudent attempt by the emperor to force Catholicism to penetrate Hungary, then predominantly Calvinist, there too it produced a lively ferment, which, mixed with the Protestant movement in Bohemia and in the two archduchies of Austria, endangered not only the government of Rudolf II, but the entire Habsburg dynasty. Therefore, the archdukes of all branches unanimously decided to recognize Rodolfo’s brother, Mattia, as head of the house. He forced the emperor to surrender to him with the treaty of Lieben (1608) Hungary, upper and lower Austria and even Moravia; so that Rodolfo had to resign himself to the sole possession of Bohemia and Silesia. In Bohemia and then also in Silesia, the emperor had to issue a “letter of majesty” to the Protestant states which allowed lords, nobles and cities, full freedom in the exercise of their worship, with the right to erect Protestant churches and schools on their own funds or even on land owned by the royal family; and reaffirmed the faculty, already granted by Maximilian, to appoint defenders. The emperor’s attempt to call Archduke Leopold of the Styrian branch to his aid in Prague was unsuccessful; Leopold, nominated bishop of Passau and Strasbourg and destined by Rudolf as his successor in the Empire, gathered an army of mercenaries in Passau, with whom he appeared in Bohemia to protect the emperor. But this move only precipitated events: Rodolfo’s “winter” was overthrown; Matthias was crowned king of Bohemia and then, Rudolph died, emperor (1612-1620). The emperor’s attempt to call Archduke Leopold of the Styrian branch to his aid in Prague was unsuccessful; Leopold, nominated bishop of Passau and Strasbourg and destined by Rudolf as his successor in the Empire, gathered an army of mercenaries in Passau, with whom he appeared in Bohemia to protect the emperor. But this move only precipitated events: Rodolfo’s “winter” was overthrown; Matthias was crowned king of Bohemia and then, Rudolph died, emperor (1612-1620). The emperor’s attempt to call Archduke Leopold of the Styrian branch to his aid in Prague was unsuccessful; Leopold, nominated bishop of Passau and Strasbourg and destined by Rudolf as his successor in the Empire, gathered an army of mercenaries in Passau, with whom he appeared in Bohemia to protect the emperor. But this move only precipitated events: Rodolfo’s “winter” was overthrown; Matthias was crowned king of Bohemia and then, Rudolph died, emperor (1612-1620). But this move only precipitated events: Rodolfo’s “winter” was overthrown; Matthias was crowned king of Bohemia and then, Rudolph died, emperor (1612-1620). But this move only precipitated events: Rodolfo’s “winter” was overthrown; Matthias was crowned king of Bohemia and then, Rudolph died, emperor (1612-1620).
At this time, the religious conflict was by now so intensified in the Empire, that two real and proper armies held the field: the Protestant union and the Catholic league. In Transylvania Gabriele Bethlen (1606-1626) had freed himself from any imperial sovereignty, fully recognizing it to the Turks. In this dangerous situation, Mattia summoned the states of all his possessions to the general diet of Linz, which could be called the first Austrian parliament (1614). But neither in Linz nor in Prague, where the states reunited in 1615, were they able to take any resolution against the Turkish danger. The emperor, married to Archduchess Anna of the Tyrolean branch, had remained childless and aimed to ensure the succession of his cousin Ferdinand II of the Styrian branch that he had, with harshness and cruelty, Catholicism was restored in the Austrian provinces. Even in Bohemia, the Catholic party was unleashed against the Protestants. But here the intervention of the defenders of the Protestant states, who complained that the littera maiestatis of Rudolf II, led to serious acts of violence against the Austrian magistrates present, the general judge of Bohemia, Slavata, and the burgrave of Karlstein, Martinitz, with their secretary Fabrizio Platter, who were, on May 23, 1618, thrown down by a Prague castle window. Here, then, a revolutionary government was established, the “Directory of Bohemian States”, composed of thirty members, which declared the House of Habsburg dismissed and began to deal with some foreign princes, especially with Duke Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy and with King James I of England, for the conferral of the crown of St. Wenceslaus. It finally made an agreement with the Elector Palatine, Frederick V, son-in-law of the King of England, an important figure in the field of German Protestants, but lacking the personal qualities necessary for such an arduous task as the one that awaited him in Bohemia. Emperor Matthias died at this time. His successor Ferdinand II (1619-1637) ran to Frankfurt to gird himself with the imperial crown and to summon the army of the League against Bohemia. But the Bohemian Protestant states, under the leadership of Count Thurn, had already invaded Lower Austria and had communicated with the Protestant nobles. These, refusing to pay homage to Ferdinand, retired to the town of Horn, subject to the Puchheim barons, from which they took the name of “Confederates of Horn”. As Thurn was preparing to siege Vienna, the Protestant nobles of Austria broke into the imperial castle, violently demanding from the emperor complete freedom for the exercise of their religion. Ferdinand owed his salvation to the arrival of a company of cuirassiers “Dampierre”, who drove out the rioters, and Thurn had to withdraw from Vienna, to stand up to the army of the Catholic League.
This army under the command of the general Baron of Tilly, reinforced by the imperial troops under Bouquoi, marched from Upper Austria to Bohemia, and, arriving as far as Prague without finding any resistance, dispersed in 1620 at the White Mountain, a hilly dewlap west of Prague, the Protestant army, which was undisciplined and misdirected by Prince Christian of Anhalt. The defeat was complete, so that the palatine elector Frederick, mocked by his own followers and called the Winterkönig in mockery(king of a winter), he had to flee precipitously to Silesia. Ferdinand II, through the new lieutenant in Bohemia, Prince Charles of Liechtenstein, pronounced a bloody judgment. The leaders of the Protestant states, of all nationalities, were executed with the edge of the sword, their assets seized and given to the faithful of the Empire, or sold to Catholics of sure faith. The Counter-Reformation proceeded vigorously, especially in the predominantly Protestant towns on the Germanic borders of Bohemia, and drove out thousands of intelligent and hardworking citizens, who then formed an excellent element of active and industrious population in the neighboring states of Saxony and Brandenburg. However, there is no need to talk about the systematic extermination or oppression of the Czech population, as a consequence of the battle of the White Mountain, since the great mass of the people, that is, the peasants, remained almost extraneous to the whole upheaval. It changed of masters and religion, but remained attached to the ground, while the residents of the city, professing the Protestant religion, had to leave the country. Even the nobility, which was enriched by the conspicuous donations made by the emperor and coming from confiscated assets, was made up in a minimal part of Germans: it was instead a mixture of Italians, Spaniards, Walloons, Scots and Irish, who formed the nucleus of the aristocracy of the monarchy. The Counter-Reformation was thus able to fully succeed in Bohemia, with the help of the Jesuits, who were given the direction of the University of Prague. A systematic Germanization was neither planned nor achieved.
But the Battle of the White Mountain, of so little military significance, had been of enormous political significance. For it, German Austria, under the Habsburgs, not only firmly established its dominance over Bohemia, thus beginning that function of dominant which it was to exercise until the end of the life of the Austrian Empire; but it became the victorious champion of the Catholic counter-reformation in central Europe, and thereby attracted the minor states of southern Germany, which had remained or returned faithful to the Roman religion, into its orbit. The prince of Bismarck had this to say that a different outcome of the battle of the White Mountain would have avoided the European wars from 1864 to 1870: certainly, it attributed to Austria a pre-eminent importance also in the life of the Germanic world, making it the center of religious restoration. And so, on the march east, al Drang nach Osten, which Maximilian and Ferdinand I had tried to implement, as a goal for their dynasty, disinterested instead of the life of Germany, was now added the advance towards Germany itself. The political life of Austria was divided: on the one hand, interference in the Germanic world; on the other, the expansion towards the lower Danube valley. Two different lines of political development, which will cease, limited to the Drang nach Osten, only with the victories of Prussia in 1866. For Austria public policy, please check petsinclude.com.
The following years saw the tormented unfolding of the Thirty Years’ War (v.). The small struggle that began in Bohemia flared up in a formidable conflagration, in which the great European powers subsequently engaged: from Gustavo Adolfo’s Sweden to Richelieu’s France. And this was directly related to the leading position that the Austria of the Habsburgs had assumed after the battle of the White Mountain. The religious question turned into a struggle for dominance over central Europe, that is, without a doubt, over Europe. The last years of this war were sad for the archduchies on the Enns. Until then they had been spared from enemy invasions; but now they had to suffer the horror of devastation. The Swedish general Torstenson, after his victory at Jankau over the imperial troops, commanded by Count Hatzfeld, the Transylvanian prince Giorgio Rákóczy (1629-1648), successor of Gabriel Bethlen, tried to ally. But Rákóczy refused to proceed with the agreed joint invasion of Lower Austria and concluded a separate peace with the emperor, who granted the Hungarians the free exercise of the Protestant faith. Then the Swedes broke into Lower Austria on their own, devastating the regions north of the Danube. Finally in Prague, where it had begun, the great struggle also came to an end. The Swedes, under the command of Count Königsmark, besieged the part of the city at the foot of the royal castle, when the news of the peace of Westphalia concluded in Münster and Osnabrück (October 1648) put an end to all hostilities. Protestantism had, against all attempts to eradicate it, kept steadfast in the Empire; but this had been divided into infinite small sovereignties, united only superficially, and Germany had to suffer the settlement of the Swedes in Pomerania, of the French in Alsace. The Austrian lands remained increasingly detached from the intellectual life of the German nation. But, as for the Ausiria and the Habsburgs, a distinction must be made. As emperor, Ferdinand III came out of the fight won, and the House of Austria was beaten by France in its dreams of European dominance. But, as rulers of Austria, the Habsburgs had undoubtedly increased the European importance of their state, and had given the German hereditary lands (i.e. Austria proper) a position of clear dominance over the acquired lands (such as Bohemia). . The meeting in the same person, that is, in the head of the Habsburgs, of two dignities, the imperial one and that of territorial sovereign in Austria and Bohemia, he made the total fortune of the house varied, and with this he could apparently make the fortune of Austria also vary. This seemed to happen with the Thirty Years War, and again, throughout the rest of the century. XVII, when important changes in European political conditions further diminished the general authority of the House of Habsburg.
