Heart of Europe: A History of the Roman Empire (80 page)

*equivalent to 7 RMs

This summary of the Habsburgs’ deteriorating financial situation underscores the growing importance of aid from the Empire across the second half of the sixteenth century. The 409 RMs voted for 1556–1603 represented well over five times the sums granted during Charles V’s reign. Despite confessional tension, payment rates rose from around 70 per cent at mid-century to 88 per cent during the last quarter. Additional aid worth 7.5 million florins was secured by approaching the Kreise directly during the Long Turkish War. Altogether, the Habsburgs received 31 million florins for the period 1556–1607, equivalent to 600,000 annually, adding considerably to regular revenue.
⁶⁰
The Reichstag was most generous during the Long Turkish War, but more than a quarter of the money was voted when there were no active hostilities against the Ottomans, thereby coming close to the Habsburgs’ demand for permanent funding (
Table 11
).

Only the 1608 Reichstag closed without agreeing fresh assistance, while that voted in 1613 together with late payments from earlier grants added another 2 million florins received across 1608–31.
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Arrears totalled 5.3 million florins by 1619, but the regularity of grants before 1608 gave the Habsburgs better credit as emperors than as territorial rulers. The Reichspfennigmeister was able to raise an additional 3.8 million florins as ‘anticipations’ against future imperial taxes, plus a further 1.9 million in long-term loans at only 5 per cent, or way below the extortionate rates that bankers charged French and Spanish kings.
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Table 11. War Funding Raised during the Long Turkish War, 1593–1606

The problem of arrears should also be set against the fact that several territories voluntarily paid extra contributions, which could be considerable: such payments totalled 553,784 florins during 1592–4.
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Above all, the system demonstrated the strength of the collective political culture. The Reichstag voted money for specific purposes, but its accounting system was restricted to recording how far individual imperial Estates met their obligations and it had no control over actual expenditure. Yet, despite their faults, the Habsburgs honoured their promise to spend the money on defending Hungary from the Ottomans.

It is against this background that the financial problems of the Thirty Years War become clear. The controversy surrounding the Bohemian Revolt dissuaded Ferdinand II from summoning a Reichstag, relying instead on requesting support from the Kreis Assemblies and individual imperial Estates, especially the cities, some of which paid considerable sums: Cologne provided 82,830 florins for 1619–31, equivalent to 110 RMs of its matricular quota.
⁶⁴
In an effort to lend these measures greater legitimacy, the emperor obtained the electors’ agreement to a general levy of 96 RMs annually from 1630 to confront the Swedish invasion. A further 240 RMs were sanctioned this way for 1635–8, before Ferdinand III finally recognized that Reichstag approval was essential if these measures were to stand any chance of acceptance, securing another 240 RMs in 1641. Direct approaches to the Kreis Assemblies covered the gap between 1638 and 1640. The payment rate fell far below what had been achieved in the late sixteenth century, because the emperor was compelled to assign receipts from different
regions directly to units of the imperial army in their vicinity. This eroded the already fragile distinction between official war taxes and the numerous other exactions imposed by commanders. Already in February 1638, the Franconians complained that these additional costs were two to five times what they owed in RMs and asked to offset further war taxes against what they were paying directly to the emperor’s troops. Nonetheless, payments could still be significant. Official demands on the archbishopric of Salzburg totalled 1,137 RMs across 1635–48, of which 1,334,420 florins or 64 per cent was paid. Given that these sums were far above previous taxes and considering the conditions in which they were paid, this was simultaneously a remarkable achievement and a quantitative indication of the immense misery inflicted by the war.
⁶⁵

The real strength of the imperial fiscal system was demonstrated during 1648–54 when it was used to raise the money to disband both sides’ armies as agreed in the Peace of Westphalia. Despite 30 years of terrible war, seven of the ten Kreise had paid 7.8 million florins to Sweden by 1654, as well as maintaining its army in the meantime at a cost of a further 20.5 million. The Bavarian Kreis raised 753,300 florins to pay off the Bavarian elector’s army, while Mainz, Cologne and parts of the Westphalian Kreis raised 1.2 million to pay off Hessen-Kassel’s soldiers, as well as 375,000 to pay Spain in exchange for its return of the Frankenthal fortress in 1652. The emperor was promised 100 RMs to disband his troops, but other than his lands being exempted from the payments to Sweden and Bavaria, he received little, forcing the cost onto his own subjects. Altogether, the official fiscal structure raised about 30.25 million florins in just six years to disband around 170,000 soldiers and bring peace to the Empire after 30 years of devastating warfare.
⁶⁶

The experience of the war rendered continuation of these methods politically impossible, as the imperial Estates were no longer prepared simply to grant money without being able to control its expenditure. Instead, they returned to the methods employed in the 1520s of providing military contingents in lieu of tax. Any cash grants were now geared to supporting collective defence by providing money through a new Imperial Operations Fund (
Reichsoperationskasse
) to pay the general staff, transport and other centrally incurred costs, while the contingents were maintained directly by the territories that fielded them (
Table 12
).
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Table 12. Tax Grants during the Permanent Reichstag, 1663–1742

Voted	Sum	Purpose	Payment
1663	50 RMs	Turkish Aid	troops sent in lieu,1663–4
1669	50 RMs	Hungarian border defence	payments from some Estates
1686	50 RMs	Turkish Aid	largely offset by troops in lieu
1687	50 RMs	Turkish Aid	largely offset by troops in lieu
1707	0.3m fl	Imperial Operations Fund	at least 6.52m fl paid (71.7%)
1708	1.5m fl	Imperial Operations Fund
1710	0.3m fl	Imperial Operations Fund
1712	1m fl	Imperial Operations Fund
1713	6m fl	Imperial Operations Fund
1714	7.5m fl	Imperial Operations Fund	largely offset by troops in lieu
1716	50 RMs	Turkish Aid	1.77m fl paid by 1736 (56.5%)
1732	6 RMs	Repair of Philippsburg and Kehl	0.29m fl paid (79.6%)
1733	3 RMs	Munitions for Philippsburg and Kehl	0.04m fl paid (38%)
1734	30 RMs	Imperial Operations Fund	0.35m paid by Jan. 1735
1735	50 RMs	Imperial Operations Fund	less than 50% paid
1737	50 RMs	Turkish Aid	1.3m fl paid by March 1739 (48.6%)
1740	50 RMs	Turkish Aid	little paid
1742	50 RMs	Gift to Charles VII	1.82m fl paid (68%)

The increasingly complementary distribution of functions across the Empire’s different levels saw growing fiscal activity through the Kreis Assemblies, which raised additional sums, including for their own operations funds. The almost continual warfare between 1672 and 1714 led to these sums becoming virtually permanent additional taxes. Historians are only now grappling with the full scale of this activity, which is recorded in hundreds of account books scattered throughout Germany’s numerous regional archives. The Upper Rhine Assembly voted 1,000 RMs across 1681–1714. Although the value of its Kreis RM declined from 8,900 florins (1681) to 4,100 florins (1704), the amounts were still substantial, especially considering the actual payment rate was about 90 per cent.
⁶⁸
Indeed, payments received centrally
by the Reichspfennigmeister, or the Imperial Operations Fund, give no indication of the true scale of the Empire’s fiscal-military effort, especially as most of the non-payment was often offset by much heavier expenditure incurred directly by the territories. Indeed, official grants became a way of leveraging more money from territorial subjects, since the Reichstag made payment of imperial taxes binding on all inhabitants in 1654.

This is best illustrated by the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14), which also saw the Empire’s largest military effort after 1648. The central funds amounted to 9.1 million florins, of which about three-quarters were paid, including this time also by the Habsburgs, who contributed 32 per cent above their official assessment as a political gesture to encourage support for what was largely a war in their private interest. Additional voluntary contributions from the imperial knights, three Hanseatic cities and some clergy netted a further 3.24 million florins.
⁶⁹
By contrast, Austrian military expenditure averaged 20 million annually. However, total expenditure was 650 million across 1701–14, including the cost of the official contingents and additional auxiliaries provided by the imperial Estates, as well as their other directly incurred war expenditure. Only 90 million of this was covered by subsidies from the emperor’s British and Dutch allies. The remainder was divided roughly one-third for the Habsburgs and two-thirds for the remaining imperial Estates, indicating that the latter bore a disproportionately heavy burden. The Empire’s overall effort exceeded Britain’s military and naval expenditure by about 237.5 million florins.
⁷⁰

This effort was not matched subsequently, though the imperial Estates still provided substantial financial and direct military aid during the wars against France and the Ottomans in the 1730s. No further Turkish Aid was paid after 1740, reflecting the declining significance of the original imperial mission. The Reichstag voted 330 RMs to combat revolutionary France during 1793–9, but the strained circumstances meant that only about 5 million florins, or around a third, of the initial 230 RMs were paid.
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