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Updated: June 9, 2025
To him more than to any other man it was due that Germany had not as yet been plunged into a civil war. He was hardly gone, when the forces of discord broke loose. Charles in fact found the Schmalkaldic League a thorn in his side, and had for some time been resolved on its extinction should a favourable opportunity occur.
The Schmalkaldic War, although marked by a series of imperial successes and temporarily closed by a triumphant truce in 1548, was soon renewed, and the Peace of Passau of 1552 was a general compromise, representing rather the weariness of war and the jealousies of the various powers of Germany than any permanent political of religious equilibrium.
Luther recognised in this result the evident hand of God, in that, contrary to all expectation, nothing was destroyed and peace was happily restored. God would bring the work to an end. Meanwhile the Schmalkaldic allies clung tenaciously to their league, and were intent on still further strengthening their position and preparing themselves for all emergencies.
The main dispute was on the further question, how far this recognition should extend; whether only to the Schmalkaldic allies, the immediate parties to the present agreement, or to such other States of the Empire as might go over to the new doctrine from the old Church which still remained the established Church of the Emperor and the Empire in general and, perhaps further, to Protestant subjects of Catholic princes of the Empire.
By this decision Joachim held fast, with a stout, weighty grasp; nothing spasmodic in his way of handling the matter, and yet a heartiness which is agreeable to see. He could not join in the Schmalkaldic War; seeing, it is probable, small chance for such a War, of many chiefs and little counsel; nor was he willing yet to part from the Kaiser Karl V., who was otherwise very good to him.
Between the Diets of Worms and Ratisbon he entered in 1541, with all his old severity, and with a violence even beyond his wont, into a bitter correspondence which had just then begun between Duke Henry of Brunswick Wolfenbuttel, a zealous Catholic, and morally of ill repute with friend and foe, on the one side, and John Frederick and the Landgrave Philip, the heads of the Schmalkaldic League, on the other.
The Schmalkaldic War went to water, as the Germans phrase it: Kur-Sachsen, that is, Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous, Son of Johann "V. D. M. I. AE.," and Nephew of Friedrich the Wise, had his sorrowfully valid reasons for the War; large force too, plenty of zealous copartners, Philip of Hessen and others; but no generalship, or not enough, for such a business.
Schmalkaldic War; Thirty-Years War; Louis XIV.'s Wars, which brought Alsace and the other fine cuttings; late Polish-Election War, and its Lorraine; Austrian-Succession War: many are the wars kindled on poor Teutschland by neighbor France; and large is the sum of woes to Europe and to it, chargeable to that score. Which appears even yet not to be completed? Perhaps not, even yet.
Luther saw in the fate of Zwingli another judgment of God against the spirit of Munzer, and in the whole course of the war a solemn warning for the members of the Schmalkaldic League not to boast of any human alliance, and to do their utmost to preserve peace.
On the continent, the two leading Powers, France and the Empire, were in a chronic state of antagonism only occasionally veiled: while the Pope was in permanent opposition to England. This situation was complicated by the Schmalkaldic League of Protestant German Princes.
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