Saxony

SAXONY. - I. GEOGRAPHY. - An ancient state of Germany; although it has no natural borders, it can be said to be bounded by the Elster and the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge) as far as the Vogtland and the Lusatian hills, and toward the N. as far as the German lowland plain.

Over an area of about 15,000 sq km lives a population of 5,200,000 inhabitants, with a density of slightly less than 350 inhabitants per sq km (1938), therefore one of the highest on the European continent. The country finds itself in a curious position as regards its population because of the almost paradoxical conditions of its economic prosperity. To account for this situation one must consider the ease of access and above all the riches of the subsoil, which have, since the 11th century, attracted into this region abundant masses of workers, especially in the cities, where the concentration has gone on increasing over the centuries and with constant growth.

Geologically and morphologically, the conditions of S. can be summarized by recalling the prevalence of ancient crystalline rocks, with the presence, among the Mesozoic, of Cretaceous ones; in the Ore Mountains great granitic massifs of gneiss and mica schists with the presence of argentiferous galena and cassiterite. The last episode in the history of the soil was the northern glacial invasion which pushed forward, at the moment of its greatest extent, and then blocked, in the phase of the retreat of the ice, the drainage of the waters, causing the accumulation of thick alluvia later imperfectly shaped into broad terraces. Along the Elbe, to the SE. of Dresden and at the border with Bohemia, is Saxon Switzerland with its sandstone mountains, whose prismatic and permeable rocks show an eroded plateau fragmented by torrential courses with erosion pillars, vertical walls, niches and narrow valleys. The greater part of the territory of S. concerns, from the hydrographic point of view, the river Elbe, its tributaries (the Mulde and the Saale) and the Elster.

To the presence of fossil coals, iron, copper, lead and tin which have made the subsoil rich in minerals, is due the grandiose industrial development of the country. Moreover the ease of exchanges due to the presence of waterways and a dense railway network enormously helps commerce: industry and commerce here typical because of the conspicuous position occupied by domestic labor and the preponderance of textiles over metallurgy. Domestic work is made possible by the development of electrification and S. is, among all the German states, the one in which industry demands the smallest quantity of power from coal. But the manufactures are extremely varied and include all the transformations of wood, all those of steel up to precision mechanics, glassmaking, the chemical industries. After the census of 1925 the active population of S. amounted to 1 million 600 thousand persons, of whom 28% were employed in textiles and clothing, 15% in metallurgy and 23% in commerce. S. is a country that possesses numerous cities, very close to one another. Leipzig (720,000 inhabitants) is a first-rate commercial center, famous for its fair, which has been held for over 5 centuries, its book market, its ancient University. Dresden (640,000 inhabitants), a great artistic center with museums and picture galleries; here the boulevards, which follow the lines of the ancient fortifications, surround a regularly built city where palaces, theaters and gardens extend almost to the banks of the Elbe.

Gastone Imbrighi

II. CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY

The Saxons (from sahs = stone knife or short sword, their preferred weapon), unknown to Tacitus and Pliny, are mentioned for the first time by Claudius Ptolemy (c. 150 AD), who places them north of the Elbe.

The name of S. had in the Middle Ages a wider extension than today: it designated, that is, the vast regions of north-eastern Germany, whose inhabitants Charlemagne had subjugated in a bloody war lasting more than thirty years (772-804), during which the Saxons, repeatedly rising up under their heroic leader Widukind, were finally defeated, incorporated into the Carolingian Empire, deported en masse and replaced with Frankish colonists, and the Irminsul (Eresburg) was thrown down, the symbol of their tenacious idolatry. Once subjugated, the Saxons converted to the Christian faith and were set on the path to rapid civilization through the work of the monarchy and of the Frankish monks. For them the bishoprics of Osnabrück, Verden, Bremen, Paderborn, Minden, Halberstadt, Hildesheim and Münster were created. The abbey of Corvey and that of Fulda are centres of this irradiation, which soon spread among the still pagan Wends.

III. THE ANCIENT DUCHY OF SAXONY

With the partition of Verdun (843), Saxony became part of the Kingdom of Louis the German; around 850 it was erected into a duchy and given to Liudolf for the defense of the Limen Saxoniae. Otto the Illustrious (880-912), second son of Liudolf, imposed his power also on Thuringia; Henry the Fowler, his son, was made king of Germany in 919. His house held the German crown and the Holy Roman Empire until 1024. Henry extended the borders of his Duchy as far as the Oder; he founded churches and monasteries, fortified cities and strengthened the eastern frontiers with castles (the castle of Meissen), to make them a starting point also for the spread of Christianity.

His son Otto I the Great (936-73) founded the Benedictine abbey of St. Maurice in 937 and, with the consent of Pope John XII, established Magdeburg as an archdiocese, detaching it from Mainz (962). In 960 he granted the Duchy of S. to Hermann Billung with limited powers. The new dynasty moved the border even further eastward at the expense of the Slavic populations, subjecting the newly acquired lands to the archbishop of Magdeburg.

S. became a center of opposition of the German princes against the Emperors of the Salian House. Henry III and especially Henry IV built numerous castles in vain around Goslar and on the Harz, to keep watch over the indomitable region, and resided there for a long time the better to hold it in subjection. With the rebellious Duke Magnus the Billung family died out (1106).

Lothair of Supplinburg enfeoffed his son-in-law Henry the Proud of Bavaria with the Duchy (1137), followed, after the interlude of Albert the Bear, Margrave of Brandenburg, by his son Henry the Lion, who expanded the territory toward the Slavs, conquering Holstein, Mecklenburg and Further Pomerania; he founded bishoprics and cities there, among them Lübeck, spread Christianity there and governed with justice and equity. Struck by the imperial ban of Barbarossa (1180), he was deprived of the Duchy, which, dismembered (part of it passed to the archbishop of Cologne), reduced to only the territories beyond the Elbe, was given to Bernard of Anhalt, Count of Ascania, son of Albert the Bear. The new duke, heir to the territory of Wittenberg, acquired Lauenburg. His nephews, John and Albert, divided the country (1260); the former received S.-Lauenburg (when the line died out in 1689, the country was incorporated into the Principality of Hanover) and the latter S.-Wittenberg.

The brothers disputed the electoral dignity: the Golden Bull (1356) assigned it to the Wittenberg line, which died out with Albert III in 1422.

IV. THE ELECTORAL PRINCIPALITY OF SAXONY

On 6 January 1423 the Emperor Sigismund gave the country in fief to Frederick the Warlike, Margrave of Meissen and Landgrave of Thuringia, conferring upon him also the electoral dignity in recompense for his assistance in the war against the Hussites. He was the first of the Wettins, who held electoral Saxony until November 1918. After him, with his nephews Ernest and Albert, the dynasty was divided forever into two branches (Partition of Leipzig, 26 August 1485): the Ernestine line, which reigned with the electoral title at Wittenberg until 1547, and the Albertine line, which obtained the electorate in 1547 and was to be the stock of the royal house of Saxony.

V. SAXONY IN THE AGE OF THE "REFORMATION" AND THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR

Rapid was the decline of the elder line. Frederick III the Wise (1486-1525), son of Ernest, was one of the most powerful princes of the Empire; he protected Luther, and the country thus became the cradle and stronghold of Protestantism. When he died in 1525, while the Peasants' War was devastating the region, he was succeeded by his brother John the Steadfast (1525-32), a fervent champion of the Lutheran "reformation," founder and head, together with Philip of Hesse the Bigamous, of the Schmalkaldic League. His son John Frederick the Magnanimous (1532-1547), defeated and taken prisoner at Mühlberg (1547) by Charles V, lost the electoral title and almost all his territories (Capitulation of Wittenberg), which were assigned to his cunning cousin Maurice of the Albertine line. From the lands remaining to him or recovered shortly thereafter (1554) issued the Duchies of Saxe-Gotha, Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Coburg, Saxe-Meiningen and Saxe-Altenburg.

Duke George the Bearded (1500-39), son of Albert, a resolute and learned opponent of Luther, had opposed the spread of the Lutheran "reformation"; but his brother Henry the Pious (1539-41) had introduced it. The latter's son, Maurice (1541-53), although a Protestant, had allied himself with the Emperor for political interests, but in the second Schmalkaldic War (1552), ceding to Henry II of France the Lorraine bishoprics of Metz, Toul and Verdun, he marched against him, forcing him to flee and extorting from him the Peace of Passau (1552). More than two hundred religious houses were suppressed by him. He was the founder of the Academy, later University, of Jena: Saxony thus came to have four universities: Erfurt (1392), Leipzig (1409), Wittenberg (1502) and Jena (1548-58).

Augustus, brother and successor of Maurice (1553-86), expanded the borders of Saxony and gave it prosperity. He remained at the Emperor's side, but his religious policy was conducted in strict Lutheran observance; at the Diet of Augsburg of 1555 he worked effectively for the recognition of Protestantism; he secularized the bishoprics of Naumburg, Meissen and Merseburg. During the brief reign of his son Christian (1586-91) the chancellor Nicholas Crell promoted crypto-Calvinism. But upon the prince's death Crell was overthrown and beheaded (1601); and under Christian II (1591-1611) Lutheran orthodoxy triumphed, while the Reformed church was bloodily persecuted.

Also because of the conflict with crypto-Calvinism, Saxony in its foreign policy drew closer to Austria, keeping away from the Evangelical Union. The brother and successor John George I (1611-56) refused the Bohemian crown (1618); against the "Winter King" he supported the Emperor Ferdinand II, obtaining as security for war expenses the two Lusatias (1623). Saxony was devastated by the Thirty Years' War as no other region was. The humiliation of the Protestants, the Edict of Restitution (1629) and the invasion of Tilly induced the Elector to join Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden, who, with the victory of Breitenfeld (1631), freed the country from the armies of the League. When the King of Sweden died at Lützen (1632), in Saxon territory, the prince's relations with the victorious Swedish generals loosened, and he concluded with the Emperor the separate Peace of Prague (1635); the two Lusatias were confirmed to him as a hereditary fief with the stipulation that the Catholic religion be tolerated there. Because of his alliance with the Empire, Saxony was devastated for a decade by Swedish troops.

VI. THE PERSONAL UNION WITH POLAND (1697-1763)

With the Peace of Westphalia (1648), Saxony's influence also declined. John George II (1656-80) kept a sumptuous court at Dresden, oppressing the country with heavy taxes; John III (1680-91) organized a standing army (1682) with which he contributed effectively to the liberation of Vienna from the Turks (1683), while the younger sons of John George I had founded secondary lines: Saxe-Zeitz, Saxe-Merseburg and Saxe-Weissenberg, which soon died out (1718, 1738, 1746), their territories returning to the elder line.

John George IV (1691-94) was succeeded by his brother Frederick Augustus I (1694-1733), who converted to Catholicism (1697), passing the direction of the Protestant states to the Elector of Brandenburg; Saxony, the motherland of the "reformation," was from then until 1918 governed by a Catholic dynasty which nevertheless managed to obtain toleration for Catholicism. With his conversion Frederick Augustus aimed at the Polish crown; when John Sobieski died, with the Emperor's help he was in fact crowned at Kraków King of Poland, under the name Augustus II (15 September 1697).

With the personal union between Saxony and Poland (1697-1763) the two countries were dragged into the Northern War (1700-21). Deposed by Charles XII of Sweden, Augustus II was restored to the throne after the Russian victory of Poltava (1709) by Peter the Great, whose ally he was. He limited the power of the Estates, reorganized the administration, surrounded himself with great splendor; the cities of Leipzig and Dresden then became the center of a brilliant Franco-German culture. With his son Frederick Augustus II (1733-63), elected King of Poland under the name Augustus III, the policy conducted by the all-powerful Count Henry Brühl was ruinous for Saxony. In the War of the Austrian Succession (First and Second Silesian War) he was first against Maria Theresa and then at her side; defeated, he had to pay Prussia a war indemnity of one million thalers (Peace of Dresden, 1745). The Elector died seven months after his return from Poland (5 October 1763), where he had taken refuge. With him the personal union with Poland ceased, which had brought no advantage, but only wars and ruin.

Brühl's anti-Prussian policy involved Saxony in the Seven Years' War (Third Silesian War). Frederick the Great fell suddenly upon Saxony, forcing the Saxon army to capitulate at Lilienstein through the battle of Pirna (5 October 1756). Grave were its sufferings, its losses in soldiers and the war indemnity (one hundred million thalers). After the Peace of Hubertusburg (1763) the Prussian occupation came to an end.

Frederick Christian (6 Oct. 1763 – 17 Dec. 1763) initiated a radical work of recovery, continued by Prince Xavier as administrator (1763-68) on behalf of his nephew Frederick Augustus III (1768-1827), the minor son of Frederick Christian. The new sovereign regulated the administration, restored the finances by increasing the revenues and the credit of the State, and caused industry and commerce to flourish again. In foreign policy he allied himself closely with Prussia, taking part, as the son of Maria Antonia of Bavaria, in the War of the Bavarian Succession (1778-1779), against Austria. By renouncing his claims he obtained in the Peace of Teschen (1779) a substantial compensation in money and the high feudal sovereignty over Schönburg. He entered (1785) the League of Princes concluded by Frederick II against the Emperor Joseph II. In 1791 he declined the offer of the Polish crown. He took only a small part in the war against France (1792); four years later he concluded a pact of neutrality with the Directory. He was with Prussia in the Fourth Coalition; defeated at Jena along with the Prussians (1806), he made the Peace of Posen with Napoleon (11 Dec. 1806) and entered the Confederation of the Rhine. He was proclaimed king (20 Dec. 1806) under the name of Frederick Augustus I.

VII. THE KINGDOM OF SAXONY (1806-1918)

In the Peace of Tilsit (1807) Frederick Augustus I obtained the Duchy of Warsaw, which in 1809 was enlarged with Cracow and western Galicia. Twenty-one thousand Saxons served with Napoleon in the Russian campaign (1812); only six thousand returned.

From the spring to the autumn of 1813, Saxony became a theater of war. Its king was, against the will of the people, a faithful and devoted ally of Napoleon until after the Battle of Leipzig (16-19 Oct. 1813). The allies treated him as a prisoner of war and his kingdom as conquered territory. Saxony was first governed by a Russian general (Prince Repnin), and then by two Prussian ministers; it was about to be incorporated into Prussia in compensation for former Prussian Polish territories, which Russia wished to annex; but at the Congress of Vienna Talleyrand, in the name of the principle of legitimacy, and Austria and England in the name of the balance of power, opposed the Russo-Prussian agreement. Prussia received only the northern half of it: the lands that had constituted the true nucleus of the electorate (20,235 sq km out of 35,000 and 864,404 inhabitants out of 2,000,000), that is, the present-day province of Saxony; the king signed, in the form of a peace treaty with Prussia, the Pact of Partition (18 May 1815). This violent separation of lands governed for centuries by the Wettins aroused lively opposition among the people. Saxony, thus mutilated, entered the German Confederation (8 June 1815).

Anthony (1827-36), brother of Frederick Augustus, after the riots of Dresden and Leipzig (Sept. 1830), which were a reflection of the French Revolution of July, chose as regent his nephew Frederick Augustus II and granted (4 Sept. 1831) the Constitution with a Diet (Landtag) of two Chambers.

VIII. THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY OF SAXONY

Saxony joined the Zollverein (1834) with great benefit to its commerce.

Under Frederick Augustus II (1837-54), the new system of government did not prove successful. Owing to the influence of the French Revolution of February 1848, the sovereign formed a liberal ministry presided over by Braun (16 March 1848), which found itself faced with a demo-radical diet. Liberal laws were passed on the press, on the right of assembly and association, and an electoral reform. In 1837 steam navigation on the Elbe was inaugurated and, two years later, the first railway line (Leipzig-Dresden); this gave a strong impulse to commercial and industrial development. But following the Dresden revolt (3-9 May 1849), fomented by Bakunin and his companions and put down only with Prussian military intervention, the constitutional gains were suppressed by the minister F. von Beust, who directed foreign policy toward grand designs. Indeed, the Alliance of the Three Kings was concluded with Prussia and Hanover, from which Saxony then broke away to draw closer to Austria; on 17 February 1850 Beust formed with Hanover, Bavaria and Württemberg the league of the "four kings" to neutralize the two great powers, Austria and Prussia.

Beust, having become prime minister (1858), inclined toward a moderate liberalism: he submitted to the Landtag laws on the right to vote and on industrial freedom.

In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 Saxony fought for Austria, to which it had already drawn closer at the beginning of that year over the question of the Elbe duchies, but it was immediately occupied by Prussia. The Saxon troops were defeated along with those of its great ally at Sadowa (3 July 1866), where they formed the left wing of the Austrian deployment. Beust was sent to Paris by Emperor Francis Joseph to solicit the mediation of Napoleon III in the negotiations of Nikolsburg. Only the intervention of Austria, supported by France, could prevent the mutilation of Saxony (Peace of Berlin, 21 Oct. 1866). Saxony entered the North German Confederation as a satellite of Prussia and paid a war indemnity of ten million thalers. Beust resigned and passed into the service of Austria.

IX. SAXONY IN THE NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION AND IN THE GERMAN EMPIRE

The army was reorganized on the Prussian model and, under the command of Crown Prince Albert, fought the Franco-German War of 1870-71 alongside Prussia. In 1873 Albert succeeded his father John, a man of letters and a celebrated Dante scholar (metrical translation of the Divine Comedy). During his reign Saxony made great strides forward: it bought back the railways and promoted industry with protective tariffs. In this eminently industrial country socialist propaganda was so intense that in 1903, of the 23 deputies Saxony had sent to the Reichstag, 22 were socialists: hence Saxony acquired the nickname of the "red kingdom." The second chamber of the Landtag consisted (1908) of 17 deputies conservatives, 36 liberals and 27 socialists: this character of it lasted until Nov. 1918.

X. THE REPUBLICAN SAXONY

King Albert, who died without offspring, was succeeded by his brother George (1902-1904), whose son, Frederick Augustus III (1904-18), was the last Saxon sovereign.

Saxony, a center of the textile, book, iron and steel industries, and of the art of ceramics and porcelain, had reached, before the war of 1914-'18, a high level of material and cultural well-being. During the First World War it contributed effectively to the effort of the German Empire not only with its industrial power, but also with its dense population.

A consequence of the lost war was the revolution. The Workers' and Soldiers' Councils seized power (Nov. 9, 1918), proclaimed the republic and deposed the king, who abdicated (Nov. 13). A provisional socialist government was installed with Lipinski at its head, and a new constitution was prepared on the model of that of the Reich, promulgated on Nov. 1, 1920.

Between 1920 and 1923 the Social Democratic ministry of Buck held power, and was succeeded by the Social-Communist cabinet of Zeigner, which fell almost immediately (Oct. 1923) because of the armed intervention of the Reich. After the coalition cabinet of Heldt, an Old Socialist, Saxony was governed by the coalition ministry of Bunger (German People's Party), which, having resigned, gave way to a ministry of officials under Schieck. During the National Socialist Revolution the cabinet resigned (March 10, 1923); Hitler entrusted the government to von Killinger, as Reich Commissioner, and appointed M. Mutschmann as lieutenant (May 1933).

Saxony was a hotbed of anti-Hitlerism (the plot of July 20, 1944 against Hitler). After the fall of the Nazi regime, the region was occupied by Soviet troops (1945). It is now part of the eastern German zone administered by the Russians.

For art see GERMANIA, VI. Arte.

Angelo Ferrari