with an anxious and comprehensive glance. He knew without requiring to
read the secret letters of the enemy that vast preparations for an
extensive war against the Reformation were already completed. The
movements in the duchies were the first drops of a coming deluge.
The great religious war which was to last a generation of mankind had
already begun; the immediate and apparent pretext being a little
disputed succession to some petty sovereignties, the true cause being
the necessity for each great party--the Protestant Union and the Catholic
League--to secure these border provinces, the possession of which would
be of such inestimable advantage to either. If nothing decisive occurred
in the year 1614, the following year would still be more convenient for
the League. There had been troubles in Turkey. The Grand Vizier had
been murdered. The Sultan was engaged in a war with Persia. There was
no eastern bulwark in Europe to the ever menacing power of the Turk and
of Mahometanism in Europe save Hungary alone. Supported and ruled as
that kingdom was by the House of Austria, the temper of the populations
of Germany had become such as to make it doubtful in the present conflict
of religious opinions between them and their rulers whether the Turk or
the Spaniard would be most odious as an invader. But for the moment,
Spain and the Emperor had their hands free. They were not in danger of
an attack from below the Danube. Moreover, the Spanish fleet had been
achieving considerable successes on the Barbary coast, having seized La
Roche, and one or two important citadels, useful both against the
corsairs and against sudden attacks by sea from the Turk. There were at
least 100,000 men on a war footing ready to take the field at command of
the two branches of the House of Austria, Spanish and German. In the
little war about Montserrat, Savoy was on the point of being crushed,
and Savoy was by position and policy the only possible ally, in the
south, of the Netherlands and of Protestant Germany.