f their own and united in leagues, which later
developed into the great Hanseatic League, more powerful than
neighboring kings.[17] The anarchy spread to Italy. Bands of "Free
Companies" roamed from place to place, plundering, fighting battles,
storming walled cities, and at last the Pope sent thoroughly
frightened word to Germany that the lords must elect an emperor to
keep order or he would appoint one himself.

The Church had learned its lesson, that without a strong civil
government it could not exist. And perhaps the government had at least
partly seen what later ages learned more fully, that without religion
_it_ could not exist. Church and state were gentler to each other
after that. They realized that, whatever their quarrels, they must
stand or fall together.

So, in 1273, it was the Pope's insistence that led to the selection of
another emperor, Rudolph of Hapsburg. He was one of the lesser nobles,
elected by the great dukes so that he should be too feeble to
interfere with them. But he did interfere, and overthrew Ottocar of
Bohemia, the strongest of them all, and restored some measure of law
and tranquillity to distracted Germany. His son he managed to
establish as Duke of Austria, and eventually the empire became
hereditary in the family; so that the Hapsburgs remained rulers of
Germany until Napoleon, that upsetter of so many comfortable
sinecures, drove them out. Of Austria they are emperors even to this
day.[18]

THE TARTARS

As though poor, dishevelled Germany had not troubles sufficient of her
own, she suffered also in this century from the last of the great
Asiatic invasions. About the year 1200 a remarkable military leader,
Genghis Khan, appeared among the Tartars, a Mongol race of Northern
Asia.[19] He organized their wild tribes and started them on a bloody
career of rapine and conquest.

He became emperor of China; his hordes spread over India and Persia.
In 1226 they entered Russia, and after an heroic struggle the Russian
duchies and republics were forced into submission to the Tartar
yoke.[20] For nearly two centuries Russia became part, not of Europe,
but of Asia, and her civilization received an oriental tinge which it
has scarce yet outgrown.

The huge Tartar invasion penetrated even to Silesia in Eastern
Germany, where the Asiatics defeated a German army at Liegnitz (1241).
But so great was the invader's loss that they retreated, nor did their
leaders ever again seek to penetrate