Aspirations toward national unity had ap peared before this among the people of Germany, but they ran counter to the spirit of feudal anarchy, and to the family policy of the Haps burgs, who became by their marriage alliances more and more involved in general European affairs and less interested in those of Germany. The emperors could not be made, therefore, the leaders of a national movement, which sought rather to realize itself, first through the Diet, and then in alliance with the Lutheran Reforma tion. (See REFORMATION.) Upon this conflict, and upon the religious differences which grew out of the work of Martin Luther and John Calvin, the politics of the Empire turned for 150 years. These tendencies developed fully under Maximilian I. (1493-1519), during whose reign an active agitation was carried on in the Diet for reform (see AULIC COUNCIL; IMPERIAL CHAMBER ) , while Luther's bold challenge in 1517 set into play giant forces of change which were destined to shape German history for all future. At the same time, the marriages of Maximilian drew the Hapsburgs more than ever into interests outside of Germany. The first of these marriages, with Mary, heiress of Charles the Bold of Burgundy (1477), added to the Hapsburg possessions the great Burgundian territories in the Low Countries; the second, with the daughter of Ludovico it Moro, Duke of Milan (1494), threw the Imperial house into the stormy politics of Italy. The marriage of the son of the Emperor, the Archduke Philip, with Joanna of Spain made that country, then at the summit of its prosperity and power, likewise a Hapsburg possession in the person of Maxi milian's grandson, Charles I. of Spain, who was elected Emperor in 1519 as Charles V. (1519 56). The energies of Charles were mainly di rected to the prosecution of the war against France. The Austrian possessions of the House of Hapsburg were' bestowed on his brother Fer dinand (from whom the present German-Mag yar-Slav monarchy of Austria-Hungary may be said to date), the control of affairs in Germany was left largely in the hands of the Imperial chambers, the pressing need for reform received little attention, and the spread of the Reforma tion was allowed to continue unchecked. Luther, it is true, was placed under the ban of the Empire in 1521; but at Speier, in 1526, the Reformers gained a notable triumph, and it was not until the Augsburg, in 1530, that the Protestants and the Emperor came to an open breach. Danger from the French King and from the Turks, however, prevented Charles from tak ing action against the recusant princes, and for some ten years after 1531 the Schmalkaldic League (q.v.) of Protestant princes exercised a preponderating influence in German affairs. Only in 1546 did the Emperor find an opportunity for turning on the Protestants; the power of the Schmalkaldic League was broken in the battle of Mfililberg (1547), and the Protestant leaders, John Frederick, Elector of Saxony, and Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, were made prisoners. Charles was now supreme in Germany, and it seemed for a moment as if he would succeed in winning back the Protestants into the Catholic fold. (See under INTERIM, section on Augsburg In terim.) But jealousy of his growing power caused Maurice of Saxony, Albert, Duke of Meck lenburg, the Margrave of Brandenburg, and Wil liam, the son of Philip of Hesse, to league against him in alliance with the French King, Henry II., who in 1552 wrested from the Empire the bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun. The Treaty of Passau (q.v.), concluded in the same y(nr, confirmed by the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, granted to the Lutheran States the right to establish the Protestant worship. Broken by the uniform ill success of his policy, Charles laid down the government of the Netherlands in 1555, and in the following year abdicated the Spanish and Imperial thrones, being succeeded in the Empire by his brother, Ferdinand I. (1556-64). The reigns of Ferdinand and Maximilian 11. (1564-76) witnessed the very rapid growth of the Counter-Reformation (q.v.). Profiting by the dissensions prevailing among the Protest ants, Roman Catholicism, issuing in renewed vigor from the Council of Trent (1545-63), bold ly challenged the progress of the Reformed reli gion. Rudolph II. (1576.1612) was under the influence of the Jesuits, and lent himself to the aggressive policy of the Catholic party. In 1608 the Evangelical Union was organized under the leadership of the Elector Palatine, and this was followed by the foundation of the Catholic League in the following year. Matthias (1612-19) was
less bigoted than his predecessor, but weak, and let himself be guided by the extreme faction of the Catholic party. The election of his cousin Ferdinand, a bitter enemy of the Protestants, to he King of Bohemia, in 1617, was the signal for the outbreak of a struggle that had long been seen to be inevitable. See THIRTY YEARS' WAR.
The Thirty Years' War (1618-48), which was terminated in the reign of Ferdinand III. (1637 57), left the rural districts of Germany almost depopulated, its trade and industries crippled, the people burdened with taxes, and the Imperial power weakened by the concessions made in the Peace of Westphalia to the autonomy of the in dividual States. Austria came to be regarded by the German nationalists as a foreign power, and the recognition of the Lutherans and Calvinists as factors in the Empire broke down the reli gious unity on which the medieval Empire rest ed. Already, under Henry IV., France had adopted an anti-Hapsburg policy, rightly regard ing that house, with its vast, possessions, as the chief rival of France in European affairs. Riche lieu (q.v.) carried on this policy vigorously during the Thirty Years' War, in assisting the Swedes and the Protestant princes against the Imperialists, and the French arms had a great share in forcing the Catholic powers to terms of peace. When the growth of the power of France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries threatened the balance of power in Europe, the Hapsburgs were naturally drawn into the coali tion against France. (See Louis XIV.; SUCES sioN WAns, section on the War of the Spanish Succession.) The Imperialist forces under Prince Eugene of Savoy shared in the victories which put an end to the aggressions of Louis XIV., but the Empire derived no substantial advan tage, except in the limitation that was put upon the growth of French predominance. The emper ors during this period were Leopold I. (1658 1705), Joseph I. (1705-11), and Charles VI. (1711-40).
The rise of Prussia now becomes one of the most striking features in German affairs. Since the time of the Great Elector, Frederick William (1640-88), the Margraviate of Brandenburg had been acquiring increased importance as a lead ing power among the Protestant German States. In 1701 the Elector Frederick assumed the title of King of Prussia, and was so recognized. Thus, while still a vassal of the Emperor, he took rank by virtue of his royal title with the other independent sovereigns of Europe. Prussia, by reason of its rapidly increasing power, its Prot estantism, and the energy infused into its ad ministration, came to be the exponent of the German national spirit and of the enmity to Hapsburg domination. Frederick the Great (1740-86) was the mighty representative of this idea. The long effort of the Emperor Charles VI. to secure the guaranty of the European States for the Pragmatic Sanction (q.v.). which was intended to secure the unquestioned succession of his daughter Maria Theresa in the Hapsburg dominions, did not prevent an active contest which involved Europe in war (1740-48). (See under SUCCESSION WARS, the section on the War of the Austrian Succession.) Austria was stripped of the greater part of Silesia by Freder ick the Great. After an interregnum. Charles Albert. Elector of Bavaria, was raised to the Imperial throne as Charles VII. in 1742. He died in 1745 in the midst of his unsuccessful war with Austria, and the husband of Maria Theresa, Francis Stephen, of the House of Lorraine. was elected his successor, assuming the title of Francis I. The peace which followed the War of the Austrian Succession was of brief duration. In 1756 Maria Theresa renewed the struggle with Prussia in order to recover Silesia. The historical hostility between England and France.
and between Austria and Prussia, developed into a general European war, in which, by a sudden change of alliances, Austria and France, with Russia, were ranged against England and Prus sia. (See SEVEN YEARS' Was.) Prussia came out of this bloody struggle with enhanced pres tige, a recognized military power of the first rank in Europe. The well-meant but injudi ciously applied reforms of the Emperor Joseph II. (1765-90) did not strengthen the incongruous Austrian State, and his attempts to restore the declining Imperial authority in Germany were frustrated by Prussia.