Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

212 DER FUEHRERnot utterly defeated, it was because of two factors which came to heraid: first, the rising British sea-power which distracted and paralyzedSpain; second, the Protestant German princes, who were continuouslyrising up against the Catholic, Habsburg-Spanish emperor, thusimmobilizing at least one of his arms. It is understandable that Franceshould henceforth have placed her hope in this strife between Germanemperor and German princes, and viewed it as the immutable aim of herforeign policy. For two centuries she did her best to tear Germany apart.The split of European civilization into two enraged religious partiesgave France an advantage which her own strength would not have givenher. At the end of the sixteenth century she settled her own religiousconflicts, while Germany was torn by religious wars, culminating in themost terrible conflict of modern times. For thirty years (1618 to 1648)the soldiers of Europe staged on German soil the most frightfulslaughter in modern history, and the German nation nearly bled todeath. For thirty years Swedes from the Arctic regions and Spaniardsfrom the south streamed into Germany to fight battles and massacre thepopulation; German cities, situated but half an hour's journey from oneanother, but worlds apart by reason of religion, fought on opposingsides. Provinces were turned into deserts, covered with heaps of ashes;cities vanished forever from the face of the earth; men died by murder,fire, starvation, and plague; cannibalism was not unknown.When the thirty years' butchery was over, the number of Germans hadfallen from about twelve to four millions. No other modern people hasever experienced anything of the sort. A generation later, the war brokeout anew at the western borders of the country: France tried to snatchthe left bank of the Rhine from Germany, and when this failed, Louvois,the French Minister of War, gave orders to create an artificial desert inthe border province of the Palatinate: 'Brulez le Palatinat' was his order,and the ruins of Heidelberg castle remain a monument to this policy. Acentury and a half later, the armies of Napoleon, emperor of the French,marched across Europe, and Germany was more torn than ever.