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 food were equally scarce; and it has been contended that the League's abandonment of southern Germany was due to financial straitsj and not to Maurice's attack on John Frederick. The cities were frightened by the loss of their trade; the Protestant lands of the Baltic, the French, and the Swiss showed 110 disposition to intervene. The Leaguers therefore made proposals of peace; but Charles rejected their terms, refusing to regard them as aught but rebellious vassals.

He had reasons for confidence unknown to the enemy. His diplomacy had in fact made victory certain almost before the war began. On October 27, in his camp at Sontheim, he signed the formal transference of the Saxon Electorate from John Frederick to Maurice, and a few days later Maurice and Ferdinand entered upon the conquest of Ernestine Saxony. The partnership was the result of mutual distrust. Maurice would have held aloof, could he have obtained his ends by peaceful means. But he could not hope for the Electorate unless he won it by arms. Ferdinand was preparing for war in Saxony; and if Maurice remained inactive, he might find himself in as evil a plight as John Frederick, and at the mercy of a victorious Habsburg army. His desire to remain neutral was overcome by force of circumstances; and the most favourable view of his conduct is that in self-defence he was driven to attack his still more defenceless cousin.

However this may be, Maurice had experienced great difficulty in inducing his Lutheran Estates to concur in an attack on his cousin's lands. His preachers had declared that Charles was warring on the Gospel, and that whoever abetted him would incur everlasting damnation. To discount these denunciations Maurice produced a declaration from the Emperor that religion should remain untouched where it was established; he represented to his Estates that if he did not execute the ban against John Frederick, Ferdinand would, and that it would be much safer for them politically and theologically that Electoral Saxony should fall into his Protestant hands than into the Catholic hands of Ferdinand. The counterpart of the argument was employed by Ferdinand to secure the co-operation of his Bohemian nobles; it would, he said, be fatal to Bohemia's claims on Saxon lands if Maurice were to execute the ban alone. So each Prince joined to execute the ban ostensibly as a check upon the other, and they agreed on a partition of the spoils. On October 30 Bohemian troops crossed the Saxon frontier and terrified the neighbouring towns. Maurice undertook to defend them on condition that they did him homage, while he promised to protect their religion and to treat the Elector with every respect consistent with his own obligations to the Emperor. Zwickau, Borna, Altenburg, and Torgau all accepted these terms, and the greater part of the Electorate passed into Maurice's possession.

The news of these events reached the armies on the Danube early in November and exercised a decisive influence over the campaign in southern