=292. Decline of the Hanseatic League.=—The League lacked organization. The many towns of which it was composed were so separated by physical distance and by divergence of interests that they could not cooperate efficiently. They were strong enough to crush other towns which sought to enter their field, but they were unequal to the contest with national states; and the political consolidation of the countries of northern and western Europe raised up enemies with whom they could not compete. In nearly twenty years (1476-1494) only one common meeting of delegates was held. Dissensions broke out inside the towns, and they began to quarrel among themselves. Lübeck, in the center, put forth claims opposed to the interests of towns on the edge of the League, on the lower Rhine and in Prussia. Rising commercial towns in the western part of the Netherlands, like Rotterdam and Amsterdam, grew up outside the League and in opposition to it. The turning-point in the decline may be put at 1535, when Denmark and Sweden were strong enough to break the Hansa’s monopoly by opening the passage into the Baltic to the ships of all peoples. Soon other states were carrying the war into the enemy’s country. Sweden threw the larger part of the Russian trade to the Dutch. The English built up a prosperous trade in the Baltic Sea and on the Arctic Ocean at Archangel. They flooded the German market with English cloths, and when the Hansa resisted, Elizabeth expelled the members of the League from England. In 1601 an Englishman could say of the Hansa towns: “Most of their teeth have fallen out, the rest sit but loosely in their head.” Of the great League soon only three towns remained as Hanseatic members, Lübeck, Bremen, and Hamburg. =293. Decline of the commerce of south Germany.=—While the cities of north Germany were losing their hold on a growing commerce, the cities of the South found a large share of their trade taken from them by the discovery of the ocean route to India. The German cities (Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ulm, etc.) fought with desperation to maintain their commerce, and proof exists that they carried on an active commerce with Italy after they ceased to obtain there the Oriental wares, and had to content themselves with Italian products. Even this trade, however, fell to a large extent into the hands of the Italians, who flooded southern Germany and drove native Germans out of business.