s aid in Bohemia. The rebels elected as king one of
the German electors, a son-in-law of the King of England, and head of
the Protestant league. Slowly, unwillingly, the various German states,
and the surrounding countries also, found themselves dragged into the
struggle. At first Emperor Ferdinand was successful, Bohemia was
completely subdued and made Catholic, as Austria had been. A great
general and shrewd contriver, Wallenstein, rose to the Emperor's aid and
laid Germany prostrate at his feet. For a moment the Hapsburgs seemed as
all-powerful as in the proudest days of Charles V. But his own
coreligionists turned against Ferdinand. The princes of the Catholic
league grew frightened; he was indeed crushing Protestantism, but he was
trampling on their rights as well. They fell away from his alliance.
Richelieu, also dreading the Hapsburg aggrandizement, brought France to
take part in the war. Sweden's hero-king Gustavus Adolphus invaded
Germany to defend the Protestant faith. He won splendid victories, but
at last fell in his supreme battle at Luetzen, from which Wallenstein's
troops fled defeated (1632).[8]

The war had now lasted fourteen years. The Emperor could raise no more
armies. His one able general, Wallenstein, was slain as a traitor.
Germany was exhausted. Yet because no one power would consent to the
others' proposed terms of peace, the war dragged on and on, in such
feeble fashion as it could. Its misery fell almost wholly upon the
unhappy peasantry. The armies of both sides lived upon the country; what
they could not devour they destroyed, lest it be of use to the enemy.
Germany became a desert, and its people starved amid their desolated
homes. The troops, brutalized by long familiarity with suffering,
tortured their captives to extort money or sometimes, it would seem, for
the mere pleasure of the sport.

The Emperor Ferdinand died in the midst of the hideous ruin he had
wrought. The Swedes, who had long abandoned the high principles of
Gustavus, demanded territory as the price of peace. So did France. At
last in 1648 the Peace of Westphalia was arranged. By it France became
the foremost state of Europe; Sweden became one of the great powers;
England, engrossed in her own civil war, could pull no chestnuts from
the fire; but the German empire fell practically to pieces. Switzerland
and Holland were formally declared outside of it. Each little prince got
what increase of power he wanted, and the autho