Germany from the Earliest Period, Volume 4Menzel, Wolfgang
History
Germany from the Earliest Period, Volume 4
Menzel, Wolfgang
Germany -- History
Austria was now, owing to the intrigues of the duke of Brunswick and
the credulity of Frederick William, left unprotected. As early as
June, old Marshal Lukner invaded Flanders, but, being arrested on
suspicion, was replaced by Dumouriez, who continued the war in the
Netherlands and defeated the stadtholder, Albert, duke of Saxon-
Tescheu (son-in-law to Maria Theresa, in consideration of which he had
been endowed with the principality of Teschen and the stadtholdership
at Brussels), at Jemappes, and the whole of the Netherlands fell into
the hands of the Jacobins, who, on the 14th of November, entered
Brussels, where they proclaimed liberty and equality. A few days later
(19th of November) the national convention at Paris proclaimed liberty
and equality to all nations, promised their aid to all those who
asserted their liberty, and threatened to compel those who chose to
remain in slavery to accept of liberty. As a preliminary, however, the
Netherlands, after being declared free, were ransacked of every
description of movable property, of which Pache, a native of Freiburg
in Switzerland, at that time the French minister of war, received a
large share. The fluctuations of the war, however, speedily recalled
the Jacobins. Another French army under Custines, which had marched to
the Upper Rhine, gained time to take a firm footing in Mayence.
[Footnote 1: To the archbishopric of Cologne belonged the bishopric of
Strasburg, to the archbishopric of Treves, the bishoprics of Metz,
Toul, Verdun, Nancy, St. Diez. Würtemberg, Baden, Darmstadt, Nassau,
Pfalz-Zweibrücken, Leiningen, Salm-Salm, Hohenlohe-Bartenstein,
Löwenstein, Wertheim, the Teutonic order, the knights of St. John, the
immediate nobility of the empire, the bishop of Basel, etc., had,
moreover, feudal rights within the French territory. The arch-
chancellor, elector of Mayence, made the patriotic proposal to the
imperial diet that the empire should, now that France had, by the
violation of the conditions of peace, infringed the old and shameful
treaties by which Germany had been deprived of her provinces, seize
the opportunity also on her part to refuse to recognize those
treaties, and to regain what she had lost. This sensible proposal,
however, found no one capable of carrying it into effect.]
[Footnote 2: His sons were the emperor Francis II., Ferdinand,
grandduke of Tuscany, the archduke Charles, celebrated for his
military talents, Joseph, palatine of Hungary, Antony, grand-master of
the Teutonic order, who died at Vienna, A.D. 1835, John, a general (he
lived for many years in Styria), the present imperial vicar-general of
Germany, and Rayner, viceroy of Milan.--_Trans_.]
[Footnote 3: Gentz, who afterward wrote so many manifestoes for
Austria, practically remarks that this celebrated manifesto was in
perfect conformity with the intent and that the only fault committed
was the non-fulfillment of the threats therein contained.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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