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 the war as early as 1701. This time Austria was able to employ most of its forces against France, England being again the ally of the empire. The allied powers won brilliant victories, some jointly, some separately (Blenheim, 1704, Ramillies and Turin, 1706, Oudenarde, 1708, Malplaquet, 1709). By straining its powers to the utmost France bettered its position after 1709. During the course of the war Austria changed rulers twice, Joseph I reigning 1705-11, Charles VI, 1711-40. After Charles VI ascended the throne England deserted Austria. By the Treaties of Rastatt and Baden in 1713-14 France retained only Alsace out of all its conquests on the German frontier. Meanwhile Austria, which had once more become embroiled with the Turks, again defeated the latter, and imposed terms at the Peace of Passarowitz in 1718 that were extremely favourable to Austrian trade in the Levant. At the same time a war was raging between Russia and Sweden, and the princes of northern Germany took advantage of it to drive Sweden completely out of Germany (treaty of Stockholm between Sweden and Hanover in 1719; between Sweden and Prussia in 1720).

By the victories over the Turks and by its opposition to Louis XIV the Austrian monarchy became in the fullest sense a great power, while France effected no substantial extension of its frontiers. In this way the plans of Ferdinand II were realized and secured for a long period. But at the same time Ferdinand's successors allowed the imperial power and the reorganization of the empire to decline. In the reign of Leopold I the Diet had, indeed, become a permanent body at Ratisbon from 1663, and the empire took part as a whole in all three periods of the war. The contemporary sovereign princes, however, were interested chiefly in the political development of the separate states. Their policies were based on the centralizing and absolutist principles of the government of Louis XIV. These principles were susceptible of application to the individual principalities, but not to the empire, which, by its very nature, was federal and parliamentary. The empire could never have the same bureaucratic form of administration that the separate principalities had now received, nor could it be organized on a fiscal basis similar to theirs. Consequently Austria, Prussia, which had become a kingdom in 1701, and the other larger German states detached themselves more and more from the empire. Some ruling houses, dissatisfied with the smallness of their territories, which did not admit of extension, were disposed, at the beginning of the new century, to seek new countries. The Elector of Saxony, belonging to the Wettin line, accepted the crown of Poland (1697), while the main branch of the Guelphs ascended the throne of England (1714). The branch of the House of Wittelsbach that ruled Bavaria aspired to the crown of Spain, or at least to the sovereignty of the Spanish Netherlands. When foiled in this they made an alliance with France in 1701; this doomed them to an unfruitful, separatist policy in their territories. Even among the people the conception of imperial unity no longer obtained. It is true that the nation made steady progress towards intellectual unity, as the development of its written language improved. Moreover between 1660 and 1690 the patriotic sentiment of the nation showed itself plainly, but it grew weak again at the very moment that was decisive for a constitutional policy. For the people took but little interest in the aims of the last period of war, the struggle over the Spanish succession while at the same time the entire organic life of a nation was undergoing a vital crisis. Economically the country made but little progress because its resources were too much exhausted and the constant wars permitted no recuperation. Consequently the social organization of the nation, in particular, lost its elasticity; the nobility became arrogant, the middle class decayed, the bureaucracy grew overweening and excluded all others from participation in state affairs. During this period the Germans made no effort to secure national unity. Under these circumstances, notwithstanding the German victories, foreign countries affected in large measure German politics. France continued to be the guaranteeing power. Two other great powers, England and Russia, had considerable influence, the former on Hanover, with which it was connected by a common dynasty, the other on all the German states on the Baltic, especially Prussia.

Catholicism lost its preponderance once more owing both to the renewed decay of political and national life in Germany and to the decline of France. At the beginning of the eighteenth century its progress lay in the field of art, especially in that of architecture. In Vienna and the capitals of the spiritual and temporal lords of southern Germany many architecturally striking buildings were erected; among the great architects and fresco painters of the period were Hildebrand, Prändauer, Fischer of Erlach, Neumann, and the brothers Asam. Protestantism, however, led in learning, as was exemplified by the professors of the University of Halle, Thomasius, Christian Wolff, Francke. Moreover, the close relations of England to Germany now began to make themselves felt, and German Protestantism found in England a powerful and progressive intellectual aid that Sweden had not been able to afford.

.—(1) 1713 to 1763.—Many petty differences were still left unsettled in 1713, many an ambition was as yet unrealized. In Germany as well as in the rest of Europe questions remained to be settled by diplomatic negotiations, but swords were sheathed. The people had an intense desire for peace. The industrial classes longed to emerge from the miserable hand-to-mouth existence which had been theirs for so many years, to rise again to the profitable exercise of trades and commerce, and to accumulate capital for larger undertakings. For several decades to come they were obliged to work without visible results. But the strenuous effort produced the will and the strength necessary to achieve the phenomenal economic progress of the German people in the nineteenth century. The prevailing tendency among the princes and nobility was towards the voluptuous enjoyment of the social and artistic pleasures of life, which they gratified by the erection of magnificent buildings and by gorgeous court ceremonials; examples of the indulgence of such tastes were the rulers of Saxony Augustus II (1694-1733) and Augustus III (1733-63), the latter being also King of Poland; Maximilian II Emanuel of Bavaria (1679-1726); Eberhard Louis (1677-1733) and Charles Eugene (1737-93) of Würtemberg. Men of higher aims were Maximilian III Joseph of Bavaria (1745-77), and, among the bishops, especially those of the Schönborn family. In the interior development of the states the princes sought to complete the reorganization of their territories according to the French absolutist and bureaucratic model, as: the introduction of state officials into local government, the collection of taxes in coin and a money basis for trade, the augmentation of the standing armies, repression of the privileges of the nobility, and the extinction of parliamentary and corporative rights. To perfect such a system both persistent and steady effort was needed; the majority of states fell short in this respect. In Hanover the nobles gradually recovered control of the government; in Austria a perilous state of political inertia set in under Charles I. Frederick William I of Prussia (1713-40) was the only sovereign who carried out the work of economic reconstruction with energy. The ideal state which the statesmen of the age of Louis XIV sought to attain, an ideal impracticable in larger countries, was to a great extent realized in Prussia. Small as was Prussia's territory and backward as it was in civiliza-