Section 196 The Hanse. — III
There were no bounds to its greed and selfishness1. It did its utmost to crush all growing trade2, navigation, and even manufactures, which in the least interfered with its gains3. It warned away4 all strangers5 from the Baltic; and when it found them there, it seized and destroyed their vessels6. In order to maintain this monopoly, it7 was ready to make8 the greatest sacrifices, to equip fleets, and sustain long and costly campaigns. With Denmark it waged a desperate war; and it also came into collision9 with Sweden and Norway. From10 these contests it came off victorious, and the whole of Scandinavia was compelled to acknowledge its commercial supremacy11. It12 had a rupture also with the Netherlands, whose flag it banished from the Baltic13.
These unbounded pretensions naturally excited a great deal of ill feeling14 against the Hanse, and, in the end, proved fatal15 to it. One after another16, the markets which it had been accustomed to regard as its own private estates, threw off their allegiance, and admitted17 the traders of other nations. Then18 it was that the league began to suffer in another way from its narrow-minded selfishness. As long as it had exclusive command of19 foreign sources of supply, it did not trouble itself to develop the resources of Germany—indeed it rather endeavoured20 to repress them, when it thought that others were likely to profit by them; but when one by one its monopolies exploded21, it found reason to repent that it had neglected to cultivate22 the productive powers of its own country.
These causes, combined23 with the change24 of route to India, led to the gradual decline of this famous confederation25; and at the last general assembly, held at Lübeck in 1630, the deputies from the several cities appeared merely to declare their secession26. In a modified form27, however, the Hanse lingered on28 till the beginning of the present century—the29 shadow of a great name. The Free Cities of Lübeck, Hamburg, Bremen, and Frankfort-on-the-Maine, are now only nominally the representatives of the Hanse.—J. H. Fyfe.
Notes
1 = Its greed and selfishness had no bounds.
2 to crush all growing trade, allen Handel... im Keime zu ersticken; the adj. ‘all’ must be repeated before the two following nouns.
3 which — gains, sobald die Interessen des Bundes im geringsten dadurch beeinträchtigt wurden.
4 = drove away.
5 = foreign ships.
6 their vessels = them. The passage ‘and — vessels’ is best rendered by the Passive Voice. ‘To seize’, here mit Beschlag belegen.
7 = the league.
8 to make a sacrifice, ein Opfer bringen.
9 to come into collision with a person, sich mit einem entzweien.
10 Aus; to come off, hervorgehen; it = the same.
11 dessen kommerzielle Überlegenheit.
12 It is better, for the sake of distinctness, to change the pronoun ‘it’ into ‘the league’.
13 Use the Passive Voice to render ‘whose — Baltic’.
14 a — feeling = great hatred.
15 to prove fatal = to become dangerous.
16 Place ‘one — another’ after ‘threw’, and commence the sentence with ‘The markets’; it = the same; as — estates, als ihre eigenen Gebiete; threw off their allegiance, warfen... das ihnen aufgedrungene Joch von sich.
17 ‘to admit a person’, here einem den Zutritt gestatten.
18 = Upon that.
19 Herrschaft über; sources of supply, Zufuhrquellen.
20 er bemühte sich vielmehr.
21 but — exploded = but when its monopolies (Handelsprivilegien) were one after another taken away (entreißen) from it (ihm, to be placed after ‘monopolies’).
22 to cultivate = the cultivation (Pflege, f.); ‘the — country’ may be briefly rendered by der inländischen Produktionskraft.
23 = in combination.
24 Verlegung, f.; route, Landweg, m.
25 Städtebund, m.
26 der Austritt aus dem Bunde.
27 beschränkt.
28 however, the Hansa lingered on, fristete die Hansa jedoch noch... ein kümmerliches Dasein.
29 = the mere.