A series of wars in central Europe beginning in 1618 that stemmed from conflict between Protestants and Catholics and political struggles between the Holy Roman Empire and other powers. It ended with the Peace of Westphalia (1648).
Thirty Years' War
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Thir·ty Years' War (thûr'tē)  |
n.
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Thirty Years War (1618-48). The Thirty Years War had its roots in the dynastic and imperial ambitions of the house of Habsburg and its leadership in the Counter-Reformation. For the rest, the religious aspects should not be overstated because princes would readily trade religious conviction for political advantage; Catholic France in particular was eager to support Protestant states against the Habsburgs.
By the beginning of the 17th century there was parity between the faiths among the small principalities that made up Germany. Of the larger states, three of the electors of the Holy Roman Emperor were Protestant, another three Catholic, and the seventh and final one was the emperor himself, in his capacity as king of Bohemia. This apparently stable majority for Habsburg ambition was undermined by the fact that the majority of Bohemians were Protestant, and therein lay the spark of the Thirty Years War.
This came in 1617 when the Emperor Mathias placed his heir apparent Ferdinand on the throne of Bohemia to ensure his succession to the imperial title. Ferdinand was a known Catholic zealot and his subject nobles urged him to exercise restraint in the proclamation of religious edicts. When Ferdinand ignored their entreaties, a group of Protestant nobles burst into the royal palace in Prague in May 1618, and threw his advisers out of a window into the moat/midden. The ‘Defenestration of Prague’ was the signal for a Protestant uprising in Hungary, Transylvania, and Bohemia, which was a direct threat to the continued prosecution of war against the Dutch, who would doubtless find new allies among the truculent Protestant population of central Europe in their struggle against the Spanish Habsburgs. Yet no single prince was willing to set himself up as a rival king of Bohemia in opposition to the legitimately constituted sovereign.
In 1619 Ferdinand succeeded to the imperial throne on Mathias's death, and Frederick of the Palatinate rashly agreed to stand as a rival king of Bohemia. The Palatinate bordered on the Spanish Netherlands and Catholic Bavaria, providing two further flashpoints in addition to Bohemia itself, and Spanish troops soon occupied the Lower Palatinate while the Bavarians occupied the north. The Dutch and English, both supposed champions of the Protestant cause, were reluctant to become involved, sensing a lost cause in the making. German Lutherans stayed neutral for the time being, leaving their rivals, the Calvinists, to their fate. Hence Frederick's army was crushed at the battle of the White Mountain outside Prague in 1620. Rebellious Bohemia was thoroughly ravaged by the imperial mercenary army, and forcibly restored to the Catholic faith.
The Habsburgs seemed to have settled matters in their favour, therefore the Protestant princes belatedly began to cast around for allies. A grand Protestant league was formed consisting of some German states, England, and Holland, secretly supported by France, and led by the imprudent Christian IV of Denmark, who began the attack in 1626. The Danes were run ragged for three years by the more numerous imperial and Bavarian armies, led by the Bohemian mercenary Wallenstein, and by 1629 they had had enough of fighting without effective support from their allies, and sued for peace. The alliance collapsed, and it seemed that Protestant hopes were lost, particularly when Ferdinand attempted to return to the state of affairs that had existed at the time of the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, demanding the return to Catholicism of lands that had subsequently converted to the Protestant faith by issuing the Edict of Restitution. For once Calvinists and Lutherans were united in their opposition to this draconian policy.
But by seeking to exploit their victory over the Danes to obtain an outlet to the Baltic, from which to strike at Dutch maritime commerce, the Habsburgs provoked their nemesis. Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, offended by Habsburg behaviour and rescued from an inconclusive war against the Poles by French mediation, declared war in 1630. By this time the cost of the war had exhausted the imperial treasury, and Ferdinand's policies had weakened his alliances within the empire, so the Swedish invasion came at the moment when the empire was least prepared to repel it. The Swedish army was tough and battle-hardened and won two stunning victories at Breitenfeld in 1631 and Lützen in 1632, although Gustavus was killed during the latter. But so too was the imperial cavalry leader Pappenheim while Wallenstein, who had made himself prince of Mecklenburg, was assassinated in 1634. It is not clear whether this was because he no longer seemed able to win, because Ferdinand was afraid of him, because Richelieu paid his lieutenants to do it, or a combination of all three.
Constant campaigning and attrition had deprived the Swedes of their best native troops, who had been replaced by inferior local freebooters, and this contributed to their defeat at Nördlingen in August 1634, where the Swedish Gen Horn and the new champion of Protestantism, Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, were roundly defeated by the veteran Spanish-imperial army with the loss of 14, 000 men, and all their artillery. The last hope for the Protestant German princes was that Catholic France, fearing Habsburg hegemony, would come to the rescue. Thus the ascendancy gained by the Habsburgs after Nördlingen was destined to be short-lived.
Meanwhile, the Dutch were able to roll back the Spanish, who were crippled by an economic collapse and revolt at home. The Spanish Atlantic fleet was destroyed by the Dutch Adm Tromp at the battle of the Downs in 1639, and Portugal declared herself independent in 1640. The Spanish tried to renew the offensive, but were decisively defeated by the French at Rocroi. War exhaustion now led to a desire for peace, but there was no consensus on how this was to be achieved, and the fighting dragged on. The breakthrough came in 1648, when Spain and Holland concluded their 80-year war, which had become enmeshed in the wider conflict of the Thirty Years War, and the other combatants followed suit and settled their differences one after another.
These agreements were rolled up into the Treaty of Westphalia, which was to condition the political map of Europe for over a century. Sweden gained a foothold on the southern shores of the Baltic, France had secured her borders, and the Dutch had achieved nationhood. Overall the Protestants had secured their position in Germany, and Bavaria and Brandenburg (Prussia) were to emerge as significant independent states. The Holy Roman Emperors were left with little influence or control over German affairs, as the principle of the Peace of Augsburg, ‘cuius regio, eius religio’, was restored: each state would follow the faith of its ruler.
The Thirty Years War had a lasting impact. One of its most obvious effects was the loss of life. Perhaps 8, 000 of the imperialist troops at Breitenfeld were killed, while almost half the Swedish force of 25, 000 was killed at Nördlingen. Civilians also suffered appallingly: some parts of Germany were laid waste, and the population may have fallen from around 20 million to around 16-17 million. However, depredations tended to be concentrated around the areas of greatest fighting—the cities of the north-west actually prospered—and disruption has lent itself to exaggeration by partisan commentators. Thousands were displaced rather than killed, and often the peasantry was permanently weakened, usually to the advantage of the landed nobility. Yet there is no absolute consistency, for the war enabled some humble men to rise. The peasant Peter Melander commanded an army and became a count; his daughter married a reigning prince. During the war, Grotius had published De jure belli ac pacis arguing that individuals deserved protection against the ravages of war, and one of the war's legacies was a desire by rulers, as well as their subjects, to make war less destructive.
Although the military revolution thesis is now widely questioned, war did change during this period—though arguably even more significantly after it. If the relationship between evolving armies and evolving states was less direct than the thesis suggests, it was nonetheless important. Armies grew bigger—Wallenstein may have commanded as many as 150, 000 men and Gustavus perhaps 120, 000—and were often better organized, with a premium attached to the marshalling of infantry firepower and the improvement of artillery. They became notably more costly: the French army cost about 16 million livres tournois in the 1620s and over 38 million after 1640. Many senior commanders were commercial entrepreneurs, with their subordinates subcontractors in a commercial venture: it is unsurprising that the infantry subunit was called a company. Disgust at some of the more extreme effects of this encouraged hesitant steps towards the professionalization of officer corps, more marked at sea than on land, and increasing government control over armies. Although uniforms would have seemed multiform to the drillmasters of a later age, they were beginning to establish themselves, and regimental colours and standards increasingly bore unmistakable national symbols.
Bibliography
- Parker, Geoffrey, The Thirty Years War (London, 1984).
- Steinberg, S. H., The ‘Thirty Years War’ and the Conflict for European Hegemony 1600-1660 (London, 1966).
- Wedgwood, V., The Thirty Years War (London, 1938)
— Toby McLeod/Richard Holmes
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| British History: Thirty Years War |
The war, from 1618 to 1648, was primarily a conflict between the Habsburgs and their Spanish allies against France, Sweden, and the Dutch. There were two reasons why England might be drawn into it. The casus belli was the decision by the Bohemians to defy the Habsburgs and offer their throne to Frederick of the Palatinate, who was married to Elizabeth, daughter of James I. Secondly, there was a religious element to the war which, despite France's opposition to the Habsburgs, was seen by many protestants as a catholic crusade. Charles I's attempts to intervene were disastrous. Fortunately his relations with Parliament were so bad that he was obliged to make peace. The conflict was concluded by the treaty of Westphalia in 1648, by which time Charles was a prisoner awaiting trial.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Thirty Years War |
Thirty Years War, 1618-48, general European war fought mainly in Germany.
General Character of the War
There were many territorial, dynastic, and religious issues that figured in the outbreak and conduct of the war. The extent of religious motives is debated, but cannot be dismissed, particularly in explaining individual behavior. Throughout the war there were shifting alliances and local peace treaties. The war as a whole may be considered a struggle of German Protestant princes and foreign powers (France, Sweden, Denmark, England, the United Provinces) against the unity and power of the Holy Roman Empire as represented by the Hapsburgs, allied with the Catholic princes, and against the Hapsburgs themselves.
The war began with the resistance and eventual revolt of Protestant nobles in Bohemia, which was under Hapsburg domination, against the Catholic king Ferdinand (later Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II). It spread through Europe because of the constitutional frailty of the Holy Roman Empire, the inability of the German states to act in concert, and the ambitions of other European powers.
The Bohemian Period
The revolt began in Prague, where two royal officers were hurled from a window by Protestant members of the Bohemian diet-the so-called Defenestration of Prague (May, 1618). Ferdinand was declared deposed and the Bohemian throne was offered to Frederick V, the elector palatine. Revolt also appeared in other Hapsburg dominions, especially under Gabriel Bethlen in Transylvania. Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria, with the army of the Catholic League under Tilly, helped the imperial forces defeat the Bohemians at the White Mt. near Prague (Nov., 1620). John George of Saxony, a leading German Protestant prince, supported Ferdinand. Frederick, ever afterward called the Winter King, had lost his brief hold on Bohemia. The war continued in the Palatinate, and severe repression began in Bohemia.
The Palatinate Period
Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick led the revolutionary forces in the Palatinate. Frederick expected aid from his father-in-law, James I of England, but got no effectual help. The Palatinate was taken by Tilly; he won at Wimpfen and Höchst (1622). Frederick's lands were confiscated by the emperor, and the Upper Palatinate and the electorate were conferred on Maximilian of Bavaria. The imperialist victory at Stadtlohn (1623) practically ended one phase of the war.
The Danish Period
The new phase saw the German war expanded into an international conflict. Christian IV of Denmark came into the fighting, principally because of his fear of the rise of Hapsburg power in N Germany; he openly avowed religious motives but hoped also to enlarge his German possessions. England and the United Provinces gave a subsidy to aid the opponents of the Hapsburgs, and England sent a few thousand soldiers. Christian IV advanced into Germany. The emperor's cause was advanced by the work of Wallenstein, who gathered an effective army and defeated Mansfeld at Dessau (1626). A little later the Danish king was soundly defeated by Tilly at Lutter.
The imperial armies swept through most of Germany. Wallenstein went into Jutland and vanquished the Danes but failed before Stralsund (1628). In 1629, Denmark, by the Treaty of Lübeck, withdrew from the war and surrendered the N German bishoprics. The Edict of Restitution (1629), issued by Ferdinand II, attempted to enforce the ecclesiastical reservation of the Peace of Augsburg and declared void Protestant titles to lands secularized after 1552; its full application would have had a disastrous effect on German Protestantism and naturally aroused the Protestant states to determined, if at first latent, hostility.
The Swedish Period
Gustavus II (Gustavus Adolphus) of Sweden now came into the war. His territorial ambitions had embroiled him in wars with Poland, and he feared that Ferdinand's maritime designs might threaten Sweden's mastery of the Baltic. Moved also by his Protestantism, he declared against the emperor and was supported by an understanding with Catholic France, then under the leadership of Cardinal Richelieu. Swedish troops marched into Germany. Meanwhile, Ferdinand had been prevailed upon (1630) to dismiss Wallenstein, who had powerful enemies in the empire. Tilly now headed the imperial forces. He was able to take the city of Magdeburg while the Protestant princes hesitated to join the Swedes. Only John George of Saxony, vacillating in his support between Tilly and the Swedish king, joined Gustavus Adolphus, who offered him better terms.
The combined forces crushed Tilly at Breitenfeld (1631), thus winning N Germany. Gustavus Adolphus triumphantly advanced and Tilly was defeated and fatally wounded in the battle of the Lech (1632). Wallenstein, recalled with some pleading by the emperor, took the field. He defeated the Saxon forces and later met the Swedish forces at Lützen (Nov., 1632); there the imperialists were defeated, but Gustavus Adolphus was killed and the anti-Hapsburg troops were disorganized. Wallenstein after his great defeat remained inactive and entered into long negotiations with the enemy. Meanwhile, the able anti-imperialist general, Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, stormed Regensburg (1633).
Wallenstein was murdered in 1634 by imperialist conspirators. Soon afterward the imperial forces under Gallas defeated Bernhard at Nördlingen (Feb., 1634). Germany was in economic ruin, her fields devastated and blood-soaked. There was strong feeling in Germany against the foreign soldiers that overran the land. A general desire for peace led to the Peace of Prague (1635). This agreement drastically modified the Edict of Restitution, thus helping to reconcile Catholics and Protestants. It was accepted by almost all the German princes and free cities. A united imperial army was to move against the Swedish troops in Germany. A general peace seemed to be forthcoming, but Richelieu was unwilling to see the Hapsburgs retain power.
The Franco-Swedish Period
France entered openly into the war in 1635. Oxenstierna, the Swedish chancellor, anxious to preserve Sweden's hold in Germany, supported Richelieu. The final stage of the Thirty Years War began. The war now occupied most of Europe, with fighting in the Low Countries, where the United Provinces and France opposed Spain; in Italy, where France and Spain struggled for power; in France; in Germany; in the Iberian peninsula, where Portugal revolted against, and France attacked, Spain; and in the North, where Denmark opposed Sweden.
The Austrian forces went into France and achieved some success, but this was temporary. For the most part this period of the war was disastrous for the empire. Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar and the Swedish general, Baner, were victorious in Germany. In 1636 Baner won a notable victory at Wittstock. Bernhard conducted a series of brilliant campaigns, culminating in the capture of Breisach (1638). Bernhard died in 1639, Baner in 1641. Meanwhile, Emperor Ferdinand II was succeeded by Ferdinand III (1637). In 1642 Richelieu died; his successor, Cardinal Mazarin, continued the established French policy. Germany was exhausted.
Peace negotiations were begun before 1640, but the intricate diplomacy proceeded slowly and haltingly. Meanwhile, the empire was reduced by the armies of the Swedish Torstensson, Louis II de Condé, and Turenne. Torstensson defeated the imperialists at Breitenfeld (1642), defeated Gallas after going north to subdue Danish opposition, then won a climactic victory over Hatzfeldt at Jankau (1645). Meanwhile, Condé had destroyed the flower of the Spanish infantry at Rocroi (1643); in 1645 he and Turenne (after a severe defeat) were victorious near Nördlingen. Austria had been stripped of all conquests and her enemies were at the very door of Vienna. Austria's strongest ally, Bavaria, was overrun. The Swede Wrangel and the Frenchman Turenne were carrying on a successful campaign when the long-delayed peace was obtained (see Westphalia, Peace of).
The Aftermath
The general results of the war may be said to have been a tremendous decrease in German population; devastation of German agriculture; ruin of German commerce and industry; the breakup of the Holy Roman Empire, which was a mere shell in the succeeding centuries; and the decline of Hapsburg greatness. The war ended the era of conflicts inspired by religious passion, and the Peace of Westphalia was an important step toward religious toleration. The incredible sufferings of the German peasantry were remembered for centuries. The political settlements of the peace were to the disadvantage of Germany as well as the Hapsburgs. The estrangement of N Germany from Austria, then begun, was to continue for more than two centuries.
Bibliography
See studies by S. R. Gardiner (1874, repr. 1968); C. R. L. Fletcher (1903, repr. 1963); C. V. Wedgwood (1962, repr. 1981); S. H. Steinberg (1966); G. Pages (tr. 1970); J. V. Polisensky (tr. 1971); and G. Parker (1988). Many of the songs and writings of the Thirty Years War have been collected.
| History 1450-1789: Thirty Years' War |
The Thirty Years' War was one of the greatest and longest armed contests of the early modern period. Some historians have argued that it was a series of separate wars that happened to overlap in time and space rather than one coherent sequence of military campaigns in which a clearly defined set of issues was at stake throughout. If one looks at the Thirty Years' War in a European context, there is some truth in this argument. However, in central Europe, in particular in the Holy Roman Empire, the military and political events of the thirty years between the defenestration of Prague in May 1618 and the signing of the Westphalian peace treaties in October 1648 formed one continuous conflict and were in fact already perceived as such by most contemporaries.
The Causes of the War
For the outbreak of the war the deepening crisis of the Holy Roman Empire was of crucial importance. The crisis had a constitutional and political as well as a religious dimension. The emperor's prerogatives had never been clearly defined; a ruler who knew how to exploit his considerable informal powers of patronage could enjoy a great deal of authority, but a weak monarch could easily be reduced to a mere figurehead. This was very much Rudolf II's (ruled 1576–1612) fate during the last decade of his reign. The aging emperor, who was increasingly mentally unstable, was distrusted by both Catholics and Protestants. Moreover, he had managed to antagonize his own family. The power vacuum created by the collapse of his authority enabled ambitious princes such as Maximilian I, the duke of Bavaria, or Frederick V, the elector palatine, to pursue their own agenda. Their attempts to exploit the simmering religious conflict in Germany, which found its expression in the foundation of the Protestant Union, led by the Palatinate, in 1608 and the Catholic League (Liga), led by Bavaria, in 1609, were bound to undermine peace and stability. Germany had in the past been largely spared the horrors of religious warfare, thanks to the Religious Peace of Augsburg (1555). However, many problems had been left unresolved in 1555, such as the status of the ecclesiastical principalities that were ruled by Protestant prince-bishops, and of ecclesiastical property confiscated and secularized after 1555. The status of the Calvinists, who almost all Catholics and many Lutherans wanted to exclude from the benefits of the peace settlement as heretics, was also controversial. Initially the Imperial Chamber Court (Reichskammergericht)—one of the two highest law courts in Germany—had managed to settle disputes between the religious antagonists, but from the 1580s onward it became increasingly paralyzed, and the Imperial Diet (Reichstag) equally failed to provide a forum for compromise. The confessionalization of politics, culture, and society in the later sixteenth century had in fact created a climate of all-pervasive distrust that made such a compromise almost impossible. The enthusiastic adherents of both Counter-Reformation Catholicism and the eschatological worldview that most Calvinists and some Lutherans subscribed to saw the outbreak of armed conflict in the long run as both inevitable and even to some extent desirable.
However, whereas such mental attitudes were an important ingredient in the generally belligerent atmosphere that formed a crucial precondition for the outbreak of hostilities, their more immediate cause was the confrontation between the emperor and the Estates of Bohemia and its neighboring principalities, in particular Moravia and Upper Austria. Whereas Emperor Matthias (ruled 1612–1619) and his advisers wanted to recover the ground that had been lost by the Catholic Church and the ruling dynasty alike in the preceding years of domestic crisis, the Protestant opposition emphasized the elective character of the monarchy in Bohemia and its subjection to the control of the Estates. They vigorously defended the privileges of the Protestant Church that had been confirmed and extended during the last years of Rudolf II's reign. Reacting to the relentless Counter-Reformation offensive, which had, by a combination of missionary activity, generous imperial patronage for converts, and brute force already been successful in Styria, Carinthia, and elsewhere, they decided to kill the emperor's governors in Prague in the spring of 1618 by throwing them out of the windows of the imperial palace during a meeting of the Estates. The governors miraculously survived this defenestration, but armed conflict had now become unavoidable. Soon both sides tried to find allies both in Germany and in Europe. In Spain the fall of the duke of Lerma as royal favorite in 1618 marked the victory of those factions at court that favored a more assertive and warlike policy in central Europe, whereas at the same time in the Netherlands the adherents of rigid Calvinism and of an aggressively anti-Spanish policy gained the upper hand in 1618–1619 during and after the Synod of Dort (Dordrecht). Thus a renewal of the twelve-year truce between Spain and the Netherlands that had been signed in 1609 became unlikely at the very moment when the Bohemian Estates rose against the Habsburgs. A war in Bohemia and Germany was therefore bound to become part of a wider European conflict sooner or later.
The First Decade of the War
In August 1619 the Estates of Bohemia deposed Ferdinand II, who had officially succeeded Emperor Matthias as king of Bohemia in March, and elected Frederick V, elector palatine, the leader of the Calvinists in Germany, in his stead. However, Frederick's rule was short lived. In November 1620 his army suffered a crushing defeat in the Battle of the White Mountain near Prague against the emperor's army, which had been reinforced by troops from the Bavarian-led Catholic League and by Spanish regiments. Whereas the Catholic League had decided to support Ferdinand, the Protestant Union preferred to stay neutral and was soon dissolved. In fact, some Protestant rulers, in particular John George of Saxony, openly supported the emperor. The fact that Ferdinand had managed to have himself elected emperor in the summer of 1619 gave him an authority that few German rulers dared to challenge openly for the time being. The next years were marked by an almost unbroken series of Catholic victories in central Europe. The Palatinate was occupied by Bavarian and Spanish troops in 1622, the palatine electoral dignity was transferred to Maximilian of Bavaria, and the army of the Catholic League led by Count Johann Tserclaes of Tilly threatened to dismantle the remaining Protestant strongholds in northern Germany. The troops of the Dutch Republic were too busy defending their own country to intervene in Germany. In fact, the important Dutch fortress of Breda had to surrender in 1625 to Spanish troops, a victory immortalized by Velázquez in his famous painting, La rendición de Breda (1634–1635; The surrender of Breda). However, King Christian IV of Denmark, who was also, as duke of Holstein, a prince of the empire and who hoped to acquire various prince-bishoprics in northern Germany for members of his family, decided to stop Tilly's advance in 1625. Hoping for financial and military support from the Netherlands and England—Charles I of England was the exiled elector palatine's brother-in-law—he mobilized the Imperial Circle (Reichskreis) of Lower Saxony for the Protestant cause. However, he had not anticipated that the emperor would raise an army of his own (counting initially 30,000 soldiers and growing fast), commanded by Albrecht von Wallenstein, a Bohemian nobleman and the greatest military entrepreneur of his age. Christian's troops were routed at Lutter am Barenberge (1626). Christian's ally Charles I of England was equally unsuccessful in his fight at sea against Spain, and France, which might have given support to the opponents of the Habsburgs, was paralyzed by a Protestant revolt during the years 1625–1628, in which England became involved in 1627. Thus Ferdinand II was able to crush his enemies. Christian had to withdraw from the conflict and signed the Peace of Lübeck in 1629, giving up his claims to several prince-bishoprics in northern Germany but retaining Holstein and Schleswig. However, Ferdinand failed to exploit his success adequately. His allies in Germany, in particular Maximilian of Bavaria, were, in fact, increasingly apprehensive about the predominance of Habsburg power and the close cooperation between Ferdinand II and Spain. Moreover, they resented the arrogant and ruthless behavior of Ferdinand's commander-in-chief, Wallenstein, who had imposed enormous financial burdens on friend and foe alike, raising contributions for his 100,000-man army almost everywhere in Germany. Wallenstein had to resign in 1630 under pressure from Maximilian of Bavaria and other princes. Ferdinand tried to rebuild a united Catholic front in 1629 by passing the Edict of Restitution, which was designed to give all ecclesiastical property secularized since 1552/1555 back to the Roman Catholic Church. The potential consequences for Protestantism were disastrous. Protestantism was not outlawed but was likely to be reduced to the status of a barely tolerated and marginalized religious community in Germany.
From Catholic and Habsburg Triumph to Abortive Compromise, 1629–1635
At this stage, however, the Habsburg ascendancy in Europe, successfully reasserted in the early 1620s, was seriously challenged by France and Sweden. In 1628 La Rochelle, the stronghold of the French Huguenots, had been taken by a royal army led by Louis XIII and the prime minister, Cardinal Richelieu, in person. France was now free to intervene in central Europe. Initially, however, French troops confronted Spain only in Italy (the War of the Mantuan Succession, 1628–1631). Here they defied Spanish attempts to occupy the Duchy of Mantua after the main line of the native dynasty, the Gonzaga, had died out in 1628. The emperor had sent troops to northern Italy to help Spain, but withdrew these troops in late 1630. The troops were now badly needed in Germany itself, where Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden landed his army on the coast of Pomerania in July 1630. Sweden felt threatened by plans to build an imperial fleet in the Baltic and by Habsburg support for its old enemy Poland. Moreover, the fight for Protestantism was an essential part of the claim to legitimacy of the Swedish dynasty, the Vasas, which had won the crown in the 1590s by ousting the older, Catholic branch of the family, which continued to rule in Poland.
The Edict of Restitution had antagonized even those Protestants who had preferred to stay neutral or had in fact supported the emperor for most of the 1620s. Their last doubts were dispelled when Magdeburg, a town of great symbolic importance to Protestants (it had resisted a long siege by Catholic armies in the late 1540s) was besieged by Tilly, taken by assault, sacked, and set on fire in May 1631. Brandenburg and Saxony now joined the king of Sweden in the fight against the Catholic forces. Having lost the battle of Breitenfeld in Saxony in September 1631, Tilly retreated to southern Germany and was decisively beaten at Rain am Lech in April 1632. Even Munich was now briefly occupied by Swedish troops, and an army from Saxony evicted the imperial garrisons from Silesia and Bohemia. In despair Ferdinand II decided to recall Wallenstein to reorganize his army. In the battle of Lützen in November 1632, Gustavus Adolphus won a last victory against Wallenstein but died in action. Sweden, however, maintained its superiority for a further two years. In 1634 Spain sent a fresh army to Germany across the Alps under the command of one of Philip IV's brothers, the Cardinal Infante Ferdinand. In February Wallenstein, who was reluctant to cooperate with Spain and was suspected of treasonous dealings with the enemy, was assassinated in Eger on the emperor's orders. Together with the future Emperor Ferdinand III, the Cardinal Infante inflicted a crushing defeat on the Swedes at Nördlingen in southern Germany in September. As far as Germany was concerned, Nördlingen might have been the end of the war. Ferdinand II did not repeat the mistakes he had made in 1629 by pursuing an Ultra-Catholic policy. Instead he reached a compromise with the moderate and essentially loyal Lutherans led by Saxony. The Peace of Prague (1635) did not revoke the Edict of Restitution, but suspended it for forty years. The position of Protestantism in northern and eastern Germany was now reasonably safe once more. However, no satisfactory settlement was reached in the Palatinate, in Hesse, or, for the time being, in Württemberg. In constitutional terms the emperor's authority had been considerably strengthened. He was now officially commander-in-chief of all armed forces in the empire. The Catholic League was dissolved, and only Saxony and Bavaria continued, with the emperor's permission, to maintain armies, which remained semi-independent. This change in the constitutional balance, however, was silently resented by many German princes and duly revised in 1648. In any case the Peace of Prague was deficient because it had failed to make provision for buying off the Swedes, who still maintained troops in many parts of Germany—in particular in the north—with territorial or financial concessions. In fact, the settlement of 1635 proved abortive, as it was rejected by both Sweden and France.
The Last Phase of the War and the Road to Settlement
France was now faced by the prospect of a Spanish offensive supported by the emperor's army against the garrisons it had placed beyond its frontiers, in Lorraine, Alsace, and along the upper Rhine and Moselle rivers in the preceding years. In answer to an attack on the prince-bishop of Trier, who had become a French ally and client in 1632, Louis XIII declared war on Spain in May 1635. With the emperor's own declaration of war on France in March 1636, the war in Germany had, it seemed, finally fused with the all-European conflict between Spain and its enemies, which had already decisively influenced events in the empire in the past. Whereas French financial subsidies helped Sweden gradually recover from the defeat of Nördlingen, Spanish resources became increasingly inadequate to finance the worldwide war effort of the monarchy in the early 1640s. Spain suffered important naval defeats against the Dutch off the English coast in 1639 (Battle of the Downs) and near Recife in Brazil in 1640. Moreover, in 1640 both Catalonia and Portugal revolted against Castilian rule in an attempt to shake off the fiscal and political burden imposed on them by warfare. Spain did not recognize Portugal's independence until 1668 and managed to reconquer Catalonia in the 1650s. Nevertheless, it was no longer able to launch major offensive operations in central Europe. Emperor Ferdinand III (ruled 1637–1657), reluctantly supported by the majority of the German princes, was now virtually on his own in his fight against both France (which had committed a major army to operations in southern Germany) and Sweden. Nevertheless, the war dragged on for another eight years.
The logistics of warfare in a country that had been utterly devastated by continuous fighting and lacked the most essential provisions proved a major obstacle to large-scale offensive operations. For this reason, victories won in battles could rarely be fully exploited. Moreover, a war between Denmark and Sweden (1643–1645) gave the emperor's army time to recover after the devastating defeat it had suffered in the second battle of Breitenfeld in November 1642. However, in March 1645 the Swedes beat the imperial army decisively at Jankov in Bohemia. Although Ferdinand III was able to buy off Sweden's ally Transylvania, which had once more, as in the 1620s, intervened in the war (supported halfheartedly by the sultan), by territorial and religious concessions in Hungary, he was now forced to come to terms with his opponents. His allies in Germany became increasingly restless and either withdrew from active participation in warfare altogether or insisted on ending the war. Reluctantly the emperor entered into negotiations with Sweden in Osnabrück and with France in neighboring Münster in autumn 1645. Against his wishes, the German princes and Estates were allowed to participate in the peace conference, sending their own envoys to Westphalia. Partly because Ferdinand hesitated to abandon his old ally Spain, it was nevertheless three years before a settlement was reached. Peace between France and Spain proved elusive. So when the peace treaties were signed at Münster and Osnabrück on 24 October 1648, the Franco-Spanish conflict was deliberately excluded from the settlement. The treaties, known as the Peace of Westphalia, therefore failed to provide the basis for a truly European peace. The complicated legal arrangements that dealt with the various constitutional and religious problems of the Holy Roman Empire, on the other hand, proved remarkably long-lasting and stable, being invoked right up to the end of the empire in 1806.
The Nature and Impact of Warfare
Most countries—the Dutch Republic, which benefited from a flourishing economy in the midst of military conflict, was probably one of the few exceptions—waged war between 1618 and 1648 with financial resources that were grossly inadequate. Some countries such as Sweden nevertheless managed to finance their armies for long periods of time primarily out of contributions raised in areas under military occupation. Others tried, with limited success, to rely on taxation. France, for example, managed to double its income from domestic revenues in the 1630s and early 1640s. However, the enormous fiscal pressure provoked a series of popular revolts in France that prevented further increases in taxation and finally led to bankruptcy and civil war in 1648–1652. Most participants in the war entrusted the raising and maintaining of troops at least to some extent to military entrepreneurs who had their own sources of income and credit, thereby complementing the insufficient resources of the state. These entrepreneurs hoped to recoup their investments and to make a profit by extorting payments, not to mention downright plunder and confiscation, from occupied provinces. The hardship this involved for the civilian population was considerable. France, however, which was reluctant to rely on military entrepreneurs because of the dangerous domestic implications of such a system, was hardly more successful in asking noblemen to pay for the units under their command partly out of their own pockets without giving them, in compensation, full legal ownership of their regiments. Spain initially had a fairly sophisticated state-controlled system of organizing and financing warfare, but gradually more and more responsibilities such as the recruitment of soldiers were delegated to local magnates and urban corporations, and thereby decentralized. This phenomenon may be seen as a wider-ranging process of administrative refeudalization, as some historians have argued.
The often chaotic way in which armies were recruited and financed was at least in part responsible for the widespread lack of discipline among soldiers often remarked upon by contemporaries. Although some of the accounts of wartime atrocities, such as most or all tales of cannibalism, for example, have to be dismissed as unreliable, the excesses soldiers regularly committed when dealing with the local population in friendly as much as in enemy provinces were sufficient to severely disrupt civilian life. Combined with the rapid spread of infectious diseases among soldiers and civilians alike and the partial breakdown of trade, commerce, and agriculture, these effects of warfare had serious demographic consequences. This was true in particular for the Holy Roman Empire but to a lesser extent also for some areas of northern Italy and of France. In the empire population figures were reduced by at least 25 percent and possibly by up to 35 to 40 percent (about 6 million) during the course of the war. Some regions in northeastern Germany such as Pomerania and parts of Brandenburg, but also Württemberg in the southwest, had hardly more than a third of their prewar population in 1648. It took Germany almost a hundred years to recover demographically from the war. Nevertheless, older accounts that have seen the war, and also the Peace of Westphalia, as responsible for a general decline of the Holy Roman Empire and the German states no longer command widespread assent. Not only did the empire survive as a political and legal system providing reasonably effective protection and security to its members, but the rise of the Habsburg Monarchy after 1648, for example, and the flourishing baroque culture of many German courts in the later seventeenth century, show that in some areas at least the war had brought about changes that stimulated rather than stunted new growth once peace had been regained.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Briefe und Akten zur Geschichte des Dreißigjährigen Krieges, Neue Folge, Die Politik Maximilians von Baiern und seiner Verbündeten 1618–1651. Part I, vol. I and II, edited by G. Franz and A. Duch; Part II, vol. I–X, edited by W. Goetz, D. Albrecht and K. Bierther. Leipzig, Munich, and Vienna, 1907–1997. Important edition of sources based mainly on the records of the Bavarian state archive in Munich; latest volumes so far deal with Peace of Prague (1635).
Documenta Bohemica Bellum Tricennale Illustrantia. Edited by J. Kocí et al. 7 vols. Prague, 1971–1981. Sources from archives in the Czech Republic.
Germany in the Thirty Years' War. Edited by Gerhard Benecke. London, 1978. Brief selection of sources in English.
Secondary Sources
Asch, Ronald G. The Thirty Years' War: The Holy Roman Empire and Europe, 1618–1648. Basingstoke, U.K., and New York, 1997. Concise survey, concentrates on central Europe without neglecting the role Spain and France played in the war.
Bireley, Robert, S. J. Religion and Politics in the Age of the Counterreformation: Emperor Ferdinand II, William Lamormaini, S. J., and the Formation of Imperial Policy. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1981. Excellent on the influence of court chaplains and on Counter-Reformation policy in general.
Burkhardt, Johannes. Der Dreißigjährige Krieg. Frankfurt am Main, 1992. Stimulating and well-argued account by a leading German scholar. Particularly good on propaganda and contemporary pamphlets. Occasionally somewhat idiosyncratic and fanciful in its assessment of the international situation.
Bußmann, Klaus, and Heinz Schilling, eds. 1648: War and Peace in Europe. 3 vols. Münster/Osnabrück 1998. Important exhibition catalogue and two comprehensive volumes of essays covering almost all relevant topics, particularly rich on cultural history.
Elliott, John H. The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline. New Haven and London, 1986. Majestic biography of the leading Spanish statesman of the age.
Israel, Jonathan I. The Dutch Republic and the Hispanic World 1606–1661. Oxford, 1982. Important work by one of the leading experts on Dutch early modern history.
Langer, Herbert. The Thirty Years' War. New York, 1980. Good on the social history of warfare.
Parker, Geoffrey, et al. The Thirty Years' War. 2nd ed. London and New York, 1997. Standard account in English, in which a number of scholars have cooperated; sees the war very much as an all-European conflict.
Parrott, David. Richelieu's Army: War, Government and Society in France, 1624–1642. Cambridge, U.K., and New York, 2001. Detailed study of French military organization which shows how ill prepared France was for the confrontation with Spain.
Redlich, Fritz. The German Military Enterpriser and his Work Force: A Study in European Economic and Social History. 2 vols. Wiesbaden, 1964–1965. Unrivaled account of the social and economic aspects of warfare and of recruitment in this period.
Stier, Bernhard, and Wolfgang von Hippel. "War, Economy and Society." In Germany: A New Social and Economic History. Vol. 2, 1630–1800, edited by Sheilagh Ogilvie, pp. 233–262. London, 1996. Good survey of the impact of the war and the slow recovery after 1648, incorporating a great deal of recent research.
—RONALD G. ASCH
| History Dictionary: Thirty Years' War |
A war waged in the early seventeenth century that involved France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, and numerous states of Germany. The causes of the war were rooted in national rivalries and in conflict between
| Wikipedia: Thirty Years' War |
- For other uses, see Thirty Years War (disambiguation)
The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history. The war was fought primarily (though not exclusively) in Germany and at various points involved most of the countries of Europe. Naval warfare also reached overseas and shaped the colonial formation of future nations.
The origins of the conflict and goals of the participants were complex and no single cause can accurately be described as the main reason for the fighting. Initially the war was fought largely as a religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire, although disputes over the internal politics and balance of power within the Empire played a significant part. Gradually the war developed into a more general conflict involving most of the European powers.[10][11] In this general phase the war became more a continuation of the Bourbon-Habsburg rivalry for European political pre-eminence, and in turn led to further warfare between France and the Habsburg powers, and less specifically about religion.[12]
A major impact of the Thirty Years' War was the extensive destruction of entire regions, denuded by the foraging armies (bellum se ipsum alet). Episodes of famine and disease significantly decreased the populace of the German states and the Low Countries and Italy, while bankrupting most of the combatant powers. While the regiments within each army were not strictly mercenary in that they were not guns for hire that changed sides from battle to battle, the individual soldiers that made up the regiments for the most part probably were. The problem of discipline was made more difficult still by the ad hoc nature of 17th century military financing. Armies were expected to be largely self-funding from loot taken or tribute extorted from the settlements where they operated. This encouraged a form of lawlessness that imposed often severe hardship on inhabitants of the occupied territory. Some of the quarrels that provoked the war went unresolved for a much longer time. The Thirty Years' War was ended with the treaties of Osnabrück and Münster, part of the wider Peace of Westphalia.[13]
Contents |
Origins of the war
The Peace of Augsburg (1555), signed by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, confirmed the result of the 1526 Diet of Speyer, ending war between German Lutherans and Catholics.[14]
The Peace of Augsburg stated:
- Rulers of the 225 German states could choose the religion (Lutheranism or Catholicism) of their realms according to their consciences, and compel their subjects to follow that faith (the principle of cuius regio, eius religio).
- Lutherans living in a prince-bishopric (a state ruled by a Catholic bishop) could continue to practice their faith.
- Lutherans could keep the territory that they had captured from the Catholic Church since the Peace of Passau in 1552.
- Those prince-bishops who had converted to Lutheranism were required to give up their territories (the principle called reservatum ecclesiasticum).
Although the Peace of Augsburg created a temporary end to hostilities, it did not solve the underlying religious conflict. In addition, Calvinism spread quickly throughout Germany in the years that followed. This added a third major faith to the region, but its position was not recognized in any way by the Augsburg terms, to which only Catholicism and Lutheranism were parties.[15][16]
The rulers of the nations neighboring the Holy Roman Empire also contributed to the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War:
- Spain was interested in the German states because it held the territories of the Spanish Netherlands on the western border of the Empire and states within Italy which were connected by land through the Spanish Road. The Dutch revolted against the Spanish domination during the 1560s, leading to a protracted war of independence that led to a truce only in 1609.
- France was nearly surrounded by territory controlled by the two Habsburg states (Spain and the Holy Roman Empire), and was eager to exert its power against the weaker German states; this dynastic concern overtook religious ones and led to Catholic France's participation on the otherwise Protestant side of the war.
- Sweden and Denmark were interested in gaining control over northern German states bordering the Baltic Sea.
The Holy Roman Empire was a fragmented collection of largely independent states. The position of Holy Roman Emperor was mainly titular, but the emperors, from the House of Habsburg, also directly ruled a large portion of Imperial territory (the Archduchy of Austria, as well as Bohemia and Hungary). The Austrian domain was thus a major European power in its own right, ruling over some eight million subjects. The Empire also contained several regional powers, such as Bavaria, Electoral Saxony, the Margravate of Brandenburg, the Palatinate, Hesse, the Archbishopric of Trier and Württemberg (containing from 500,000 to one million inhabitants). A vast number of minor independent duchies, free cities, abbeys, prince-bishoprics, and petty lordships (whose authority sometimes extended to no more than a single village) rounded out the Empire. Apart from Austria and perhaps Bavaria, none of those entities was capable of national-level politics; alliances between family-related states were common, due partly to the frequent practice of splitting a lord's inheritance among the various sons.
Religious tensions remained strong throughout the second half of the 16th century. The Peace of Augsburg began to unravel as some converted bishops refused to give up their bishoprics, and as certain Habsburg and other Catholic rulers of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain sought to restore the power of Catholicism in the region. This was evident from the Cologne War (1583-88), a conflict initiated when the prince-archbishop of the city, Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, converted to Calvinism. As he was an imperial elector, this could have produced a Protestant majority in the College that elected the Holy Roman Emperor – a position that had always been held by a Catholic.
In the Cologne War, Spanish troops expelled the former prince-archbishop and replaced him with Ernst of Bavaria, a Roman Catholic. After this success, the Catholics regained pace, and the principle of cuius regio, eius religio began to be exerted more strictly in Bavaria, Würzburg and other states. This forced Lutheran residents to choose between conversion or exile. Lutherans also witnessed the defection of the lords of the Palatinate (1560), Nassau (1578), Hesse-Kassel (1603) and Brandenburg (1613) to the new Calvinist faith. Thus at the beginning of the 17th century the Rhine lands and those south to the Danube were largely Catholic, while Lutherans predominated in the north, and Calvinists dominated in certain other areas, such as west-central Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. However, minorities of each creed existed almost everywhere. In some lordships and cities the number of Calvinists, Catholics, and Lutherans were approximately equal.
Much to the consternation of their Spanish ruling cousins, the Habsburg emperors who followed Charles V (especially Ferdinand I and Maximilian II, but also Rudolf II, and his successor Matthias) were content for the princes of the Empire to choose their own religious policies. These rulers avoided religious wars within the empire by allowing the different Christian faiths to spread without coercion. This angered those who sought religious uniformity.[17] Meanwhile, Sweden and Denmark, both Lutheran kingdoms, sought to assist the Protestant cause in the Empire, and also wanted to gain political and economic influence there as well.
Religious tensions broke into violence in the German free city of Donauwörth in 1606. There, the Lutheran majority barred the Catholic residents of the Swabian town from holding a procession, which provoked a riot. This prompted foreign intervention by Duke Maximilian of Bavaria (1573–1651) on behalf of the Catholics. After the violence ceased, Calvinists in Germany (who remained a minority) felt the most threatened. They banded together and formed the League of Evangelical Union in 1608, under the leadership of the Palatine Prince-Elector Frederick IV (1583–1610), (whose son, Frederick V, married Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of James I of England).[18] The establishment of the League prompted the Catholics into banding together to form the Catholic League in 1609, under the leadership of Duke Maximilian.
By 1617 it was apparent that Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, would die without an heir, with his lands going to his nearest male relative, his cousin Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria, heir-apparent and Crown Prince of Bohemia.
Ferdinand, having been educated by the Jesuits, was a staunch Catholic who wanted to impose religious uniformity on his lands. This made him highly unpopular in Protestant (primarily Hussite) Bohemia. The population's sentiments notwithstanding, the added insult of the nobility's rejection of Ferdinand, who had been elected Bohemian Crown Prince in 1617, triggered the Thirty Years' War in 1618 when his representatives were thrown out of a window into a pile of horse manure. The so-called Defenestration of Prague provoked open revolt in Bohemia which had powerful foreign allies. Ferdinand was quite upset by this calculated insult, but his intolerant policies in his own lands had left him in a weak position. The Habsburg cause in the next couple of years would seem to suffer unrecoverable reverses. The Protestant cause seemed to wax toward a quick overall victory.
The war can be divided into four major phases: The Bohemian Revolt, the Danish intervention, the Swedish intervention and the French intervention.
Phases
The Bohemian Revolt
1618–1620
Without heirs, Emperor Matthias sought to assure an orderly transition during his lifetime by having his dynastic heir (the fiercely Catholic Ferdinand of Styria, later Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor) elected to the separate royal thrones of Bohemia and Hungary.[19] Some of the Protestant leaders of Bohemia feared they would be losing the religious rights granted to them by Emperor Rudolf II in his letter of majesty. They preferred the Protestant Frederick V, elector of the Palatinate (successor of Frederick IV, the creator of the League of Evangelical Union).[20] However, other Protestants supported the stance taken by the Catholics,[21] and in 1617, Ferdinand was duly elected by the Bohemian estates to become the Crown Prince, and automatically upon the death of Matthias, the next King of Bohemia.
The king-elect then sent two Catholic councillors (Vilem Slavata of Chlum and Jaroslav Borzita of Martinice) as his representatives to Hradčany castle in Prague in May 1618. Ferdinand had wanted them to administer the government in his absence. According to legend, the Bohemian Hussites suddenly seized them, subjected them to a mock trial, and threw them out of the palace window, which was some 50 feet off the ground. Remarkably, they survived unharmed; they landed in a pile of manure, which saved their lives.[22]
This event, known as the (Second) Defenestration of Prague, started the Bohemian Revolt. Soon afterward the Bohemian conflict spread through all of Greater Bohemia, which was effectively Bohemia, Silesia, Lusatia and Moravia. Moravia was already embroiled in a conflict between Catholics and Protestants. The religious conflict eventually spread across the whole continent of Europe, involving France, Sweden, and a number of other countries.[20]
Had the Bohemian rebellion remained a local conflict, the war could have been over in fewer than thirty months. However, the death of Emperor Matthias emboldened the rebellious Protestant leaders, who had been on the verge of a settlement. The weaknesses of both Ferdinand (now officially on the throne after the death of Emperor Matthias) and of the Bohemians themselves led to the spread of the war to western Germany. Ferdinand was compelled to call on his nephew, King Philip IV of Spain, for assistance.
The Bohemians, desperate for allies against the Emperor, applied to be admitted into the Protestant Union, which was led by their original candidate for the Bohemian throne, the Calvinist Frederick V, Elector Palatine. The Bohemians hinted that Frederick would become King of Bohemia if he allowed them to join the Union and come under its protection. However, similar offers were made by other members of the Bohemian Estates to the Duke of Savoy, the Elector of Saxony, and the Prince of Transylvania. The Austrians, who seemed to have intercepted every letter leaving Prague, made these duplicities public.[23] This unraveled much of the support for the Bohemians, particularly in the court of Saxony. The rebellion initially favoured the Bohemians. They were joined in the revolt by much of Upper Austria, whose nobility was then chiefly Lutheran and Calvinist. Lower Austria revolted soon after and in 1619, Count Thurn led an army to the walls of Vienna itself.
Ottoman support
In the east, the Protestant Hungarian Prince of Transylvania Bethlen Gabor led a spirited campaign into Hungary with the support of the Ottoman Sultan, Osman II. Fearful of the Catholic policies of Ferdinand II, Bethlen Gabor requested a protectorate by Osman, so that "the Ottoman Empire became the one and only ally of great-power status which the rebellious Bohemian states could muster after they had shaken off Habsburg rule and had elected Frederick V as a Protestant king".[24] Ambassadors were exchanged, with Heinrich Bitter visiting Istanbul in January 1620, and Mehmed Aga visiting Prague in July 1620. The Ottomans offered a force of 60,000 cavalry to Frederick and plans were made for an invasion of Poland with 400,000 troops in exchange for the payment of an annual tribute to the Sultan.[25] These negotiations triggered the Polish–Ottoman War of 1620-21.[26] The Ottomans defeated the Poles, who were supporting the Habsburgs in the Thirty Years' War, at the Battle of Cecora in September-October 1620,[27] but were not able to further intervene efficiently before the Bohemian defeat at the Battle of the White Mountain in November 1620.[28]
The emperor, who had been preoccupied with the Uskok War, hurried to reform an army to stop the Bohemians and their allies from overwhelming his country. Count Bucquoy, the commander of the Imperial army, defeated the forces of the Protestant Union led by Count Mansfeld at the Battle of Sablat, on 10 June 1619. This cut off Count Thurn's communications with Prague, and he was forced to abandon his siege of Vienna. The Battle of Sablat also cost the Protestants an important ally — Savoy, long an opponent of Habsburg expansion. Savoy had already sent considerable sums of money to the Protestants and even troops to garrison fortresses in the Rhineland. The capture of Mansfeld's field chancery revealed the Savoyards' involvement and they were forced to bow out of the war.
In spite of Sablat, Count Thurn's army continued to exist as an effective force, and Mansfeld managed to reform his army further north in Bohemia. The Estates of Upper and Lower Austria, still in revolt, signed an alliance with the Bohemians in early August. On 17 August 1619 Ferdinand was officially deposed as King of Bohemia and was replaced by the Palatine Elector Frederick V. In Hungary, even though the Bohemians had reneged on their offer of their crown, the Transylvanians continued to make surprising progress. They succeeded in driving the Emperor's armies from that country by 1620.
1620–1625
The Spanish sent an army from Brussels under Ambrogio Spinola to support the Emperor. In addition, the Spanish ambassador to Vienna, Don Íñigo Vélez de Oñate, persuaded Protestant Saxony to intervene against Bohemia in exchange for control over Lusatia. The Saxons invaded, and the Spanish army in the west prevented the Protestant Union's forces from assisting. Oñate conspired to transfer the electoral title from the Palatinate to the Duke of Bavaria in exchange for his support and that of the Catholic League.
Under the command of General Philyaw, the Catholic League's army (which included René Descartes in its ranks) pacified Upper Austria, while the Emperor's forces pacified Lower Austria. The two armies united and moved north into Bohemia. Ferdinand II decisively defeated Frederick V at the Battle of White Mountain, near Prague, on 8 November 1620. In addition to becoming Catholic, Bohemia would remain in Habsburg hands for nearly three hundred years.
This defeat led to the dissolution of the League of Evangelical Union and the loss of Frederick V's holdings. Frederick was outlawed from the Holy Roman Empire and his territories, the Rhenish Palatinate, were given to Catholic nobles. His title of elector of the Palatinate was given to his distant cousin Duke Maximilian of Bavaria. Frederick, now landless, made himself a prominent exile abroad and tried to curry support for his cause in Sweden, Netherlands and Denmark.
This was a serious blow to Protestant ambitions in the region. As the rebellion collapsed, the widespread confiscation of property and suppression of the Bohemian nobility ensured that the country would return to the Catholic side after more than two centuries of Hussite and other religious dissent. The Spanish, seeking to outflank the Dutch in preparation for renewal of the Eighty Years' War, took Frederick's lands, the Rhine Palatinate. The first phase of the war in eastern Germany ended 31 December 1621, when the Prince of Transylvania and the Emperor signed the Peace of Nikolsburg, which gave Transylvania a number of territories in Royal Hungary.
Some historians regard the period from 1621–1625 as a distinct portion of the Thirty Years' War, calling it the "Palatinate phase". With the catastrophic defeat of the Protestant army at White Mountain and the departure of the Prince of Transylvania, greater Bohemia was pacified. However, the war in the Palatinate continued: Famous mercenary leaders - such as, particularly, Count Ernst von Mansfeld - helped Frederick V to defend his countries, the Upper and the Rhine Palatinate. This phase of the war consisted of much smaller battles, mostly sieges conducted by the Spanish army. Mannheim and Heidelberg fell in 1622, and Frankenthal was taken two years later, thus leaving the Palatinate in the hands of the Spanish.
The remnants of the Protestant armies, led by Count Ernst von Mansfeld and Duke Christian of Brunswick, withdrew into Dutch service. Although their arrival in the Netherlands did help to lift the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom (October 1622), the Dutch could not provide permanent shelter for them. They were paid off and sent to occupy neighboring East Friesland. Mansfeld remained in the Dutch Republic, but Christian wandered off to "assist" his kin in the Lower Saxon Circle, attracting the attentions of Tilly. With the news that Mansfeld would not be supporting him, Christian's army began a steady retreat toward the safety of the Dutch border. On 6 August 1623, Tilly's more disciplined army caught up with them 10 miles short of the Dutch border. The battle that ensued was known as the Battle of Stadtlohn. In this battle Tilly decisively defeated Christian, wiping out over four-fifths of his army, which had been some 15,000 strong. After this catastrophe, Frederick V, already in exile in The Hague, and under growing pressure from his father-in-law James I to end his involvement in the war, was forced to abandon any hope of launching further campaigns. The Protestant rebellion had been crushed.
Huguenot rebellions (1620-1628)
Main article: Huguenot rebellions
In France, the Protestant Huguenots, mainly located in the southwestern provinces, revolted against the central Royal power of the French government. The uprising followed the death of Henry IV, who, himself originally a Huguenot before converting to Catholicism, had protected Protestant through the Edict of Nantes. The new ruler however, Louis XIII, under the regency of his Italian Catholic mother Marie de' Medici, became more intolerant of the Protestant religion. The Huguenots tried to respond by defending themselves, establishing independent political and military structures, establishing diplomatic contacts with foreign powers, and openly revolting against central power. The Huguenot rebellions came after two decades of internal peace under Henry IV, following the intermittent French Wars of Religion of 1562–1598. The rebellion led to major military encounters, which ended in defeat for the Huguenots: the Siege of Montauban, the Naval battle of Saint-Martin-de-Ré on 27 October 1622, the Capture of Ré island in 1625, and the Siege of La Rochelle in 1627-1628 which became an international conflict with the involvement of England in the Anglo-French War (1627-1629). After this defeat, England stopped being involved in European affairs to the dismay of Protestant forces on the continent.[29]
Danish intervention (1625–1629)
Peace in the Empire was short-lived, however, as conflict resumed at the initiation of Denmark. Danish involvement, referred to as Low Saxon War or Kejserkrigen ("Emperor's War"),[30] began when Christian IV of Denmark, a Lutheran who was also the Duke of Holstein, a duchy within the Holy Roman Empire, helped the Lutheran rulers of neighbouring Lower Saxony by leading an army against the Imperial forces.[31] Denmark had feared that its sovereignty as a Protestant nation was threatened by the recent Catholic successes. Christian IV had also profited greatly from his policies in northern Germany. For instance, in 1621, Hamburg had been forced to accept Danish sovereignty and Christian's second son was made bishop of Bremen. Christian IV had obtained for his kingdom a level of stability and wealth that was virtually unmatched elsewhere in Europe. This stability and wealth was paid for by tolls on the Oresund and also by extensive war reparations from Sweden. Denmark's cause was aided by France which, together with England, had agreed to help subsidize the war. Christian had himself appointed war leader of the Lower Saxon Circle and raised an army of 20,000 mercenaries and a national army 15,000 strong.
To fight him, Ferdinand II employed the military help of Albrecht von Wallenstein, a Bohemian nobleman who had made himself rich from the confiscated estates of his countrymen.[32] Wallenstein pledged his army, which numbered between 30,000 and 100,000 soldiers, to Ferdinand II in return for the right to plunder the captured territories. Christian, who knew nothing of Wallenstein's forces when he invaded, was forced to retire before the combined forces of Wallenstein and Tilly. Christian's poor luck was with him again when all of the allies he thought he had were forced aside: England was weak and internally divided, France was in the midst of a civil war, Sweden was at war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and neither Brandenburg nor Saxony were interested in changes to the tenuous peace in eastern Germany. Wallenstein defeated Mansfeld's army at the Battle of Dessau Bridge (1626) and General Tilly defeated the Danes at the Battle of Lutter (1626).[33] Mansfeld died some months later of illness, apparently tuberculosis, in Dalmatia.
Wallenstein's army marched north, occupying Mecklenburg, Pomerania, and ultimately Jutland itself. However, he was unable to take the Danish capital on the island of Zealand. Wallenstein lacked a fleet, and neither the Hanseatic ports nor the Poles would allow an Imperial fleet to be built on the Baltic coast. He then laid siege to Stralsund, the only belligerent Baltic port with the facilities to build a large fleet. However, the cost of continuing the war was exorbitant compared to what could possibly be gained from conquering the rest of Denmark.[34] Wallenstein feared to lose his North German gains to a Danish-Swedish alliance, and Christian IV had suffered another defeat in the Battle of Wolgast, so both were ready to negotiate.[35]
Negotiations were concluded with the Treaty of Lübeck in 1629, which stated that Christian IV could keep his control over Denmark if he would abandon his support for the Protestant German states. Thus, in the following two years more land was subjugated by the Catholic powers. At this point, the Catholic League persuaded Ferdinand II to take back the Lutheran holdings that were, according to the Peace of Augsburg, rightfully the possession of the Catholic Church. Enumerated in the Edict of Restitution (1629), these possessions included two Archbishoprics, sixteen bishoprics, and hundreds of monasteries. The same year, Gabriel Bethlen, the Calvinist Prince of Transylvania, died. Only the port of Stralsund continued to hold out against Wallenstein and the Emperor.
Swedish intervention (1630–1635)
Some within Ferdinand II's court did not trust Wallenstein, believing that he sought to join forces with the German Princes and thus gain influence over the Emperor. Ferdinand II dismissed Wallenstein in 1630. He was to later recall him after the Swedes, led by King Gustaf II Adolf (Gustavus Adolphus), had invaded the Holy Roman Empire with success and turned the tables on the Catholics. His contributions made Sweden the continental leader of Protestantism until the Swedish Empire collapsed in 1721.[36] [37]
Gustavus Adolphus, like Christian IV before him, came to aid the German Lutherans, to forestall Catholic aggression against their homeland, and to obtain economic influence in the German states around the Baltic Sea. In addition, Gustavus was concerned about the growing power of the Holy Roman Empire. No one knows the exact reason for Gustavus to enter the war and this has been widely argued. Like Christian IV, Gustavus Adolphus was subsidized by Cardinal Richelieu, the Chief Minister of Louis XIII of France, and by the Dutch.[38] From 1630 to 1634, Swedish-led armies drove the Catholic forces back, regaining much of the lost Protestant territory. During his campaign he managed to conquer half of the Imperial kingdoms.
Swedish forces entered the Holy Roman Empire via the Duchy of Pomerania, which served as the Swedish bridgehead since the Treaty of Stettin (1630). After dismissing Wallenstein in 1630, Ferdinand II became dependent on the Catholic League. Gustavus Adolphus allied with France in the Treaty of Bärwalde (January 1631). France and Bavaria signed the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau (1631), but this was rendered irrelevant by Swedish attacks against Bavaria. At the Battle of Breitenfeld (1631), Gustavus Adolphus's forces defeated the Catholic League led by General Tilly.[39] [40] A year later they met again in another Protestant victory, this time accompanied by the death of Tilly. The upper hand had now switched from the league to the union, led by Sweden. In 1630, Sweden had paid at least 2,368,022 daler for its army of 42,000 men. In 1632, it contributed only one-fifth of that (476,439 daler) towards the cost of an army more than three times as large (149,000 men). This was possible due to subsidies from France, and the recruitment of prisoners (most of them taken at the Battle of Breitenfeld) into the Swedish army. The majority of mercenaries recruited by Gustavus II Adolphus were German[41] but Scottish mercenaries were also common. With Tilly dead, Ferdinand II returned to the aid of Wallenstein and his large army. Wallenstein marched up to the south, threatening Gustavus Adolphus's supply chain. Gustavus Adolphus knew that Wallenstein was waiting for the attack and was prepared, but found no other option. Wallenstein and Gustavus Adolphus clashed in the Battle of Lützen (1632), where the Swedes prevailed, but Gustavus Adolphus was killed.
Ferdinand II's suspicion of Wallenstein resumed in 1633, when Wallenstein attempted to arbitrate the differences between the Catholic and Protestant sides. Ferdinand II may have feared that Wallenstein would switch sides, and arranged for his arrest after removing him from command. One of Wallenstein's soldiers, Captain Devereux, killed him when he attempted to contact the Swedes in the town hall of Eger (Cheb) on 25 February 1634. The same year, the Protestant forces, lacking his leadership, were defeated at the First Battle of Nördlingen.
By the Spring of 1635, all Swedish resistance in the south of Germany had ended. After that, the two sides met for negotiations, producing the Peace of Prague (1635), which entailed a delay in the enforcement of the Edict of Restitution for 40 years and allowed Protestant rulers to retain secularized bishoprics held by them in 1627. This protected the Lutheran rulers of northeastern Germany, but not those of the south and west (whose lands had been occupied by the Imperial or League armies prior to 1627). The treaty also provided for the union of the army of the Emperor and the armies of the German states into a single army of the Holy Roman Empire (although Johann Georg of Saxony and Maximillian of Bavaria kept, as a practical matter, independent command of their forces, now nominally components of the "Imperial" army). Finally, German princes were forbidden from establishing alliances amongst themselves or with foreign powers, and amnesty was granted to any ruler who had taken up arms against the Emperor after the arrival of the Swedes in 1630.
This treaty failed to satisfy France, however, because of the renewed strength it granted the Habsburgs. France then entered the conflict, beginning the final period of the Thirty Years' War.
French intervention (1636–1648)
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France, although overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, was a rival of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. Cardinal Richelieu, the Chief Minister of King Louis XIII of France, felt that the Habsburgs were too powerful, since they held a number of territories on France's eastern border, including portions of the Netherlands. Richelieu had already begun intervening indirectly in the war in January 1631, when the French diplomat Hercules de Charnace signed the Treaty of Bärwalde with Gustavus Adolphus, by which France agreed to support the Swedes with 1,000,000 livres each year in return for a Swedish promise to maintain an army in Germany against the Habsburgs. The treaty also stipulated that Sweden would not conclude a peace with the Holy Roman Emperor without first receiving France's approval.
After the Swedish rout at Nördlingen in September 1634 and the Peace of Prague in 1635, as Sweden's ability to continue the war alone appeared doubtful, Richelieu made the decision to enter into direct war against the Habsburgs. France declared war on Spain in May 1635 and the Holy Roman Empire in August 1636, opening offensives against the Habsburgs in Germany and the Low Countries. France aligned her strategy with the allied Swedes in Wismar (1636) and Hamburg (1638).
French military efforts met with disaster, and the Spanish counter-attacked, invading French territory. The Imperial general Johann von Werth and Spanish commander Cardinal Ferdinand Habsburg ravaged the French provinces of Champagne, Burgundy and Picardy, and even threatened Paris in 1636 before being repulsed by Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar. Bernhard's victory in the Battle of Compiègne pushed the Habsburg armies back towards the borders of France. Widespread fighting ensued, with neither side gaining an advantage. In 1642, Cardinal Richelieu died. A year later, Louis XIII died, leaving his five-year-old son Louis XIV on the throne. His chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, facing the domestic crisis of the Fronde in 1645, began working to end the war.
In 1643, the Swedish marshal Lennart Torstenson expelled Danish prince Frederick from Bremen-Verden, gaining a stronghold south of Denmark and hindering Danish participation as mediatiors in the peace talks in Westphalia.[42] In 1645, Torstenson defeated the Imperial army at the Battle of Jankau near Prague, and Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé defeated the Bavarian army in the Second Battle of Nördlingen. The last Catholic commander of note, Baron Franz von Mercy, died in the battle.[43]
On 14 March 1647 Bavaria, Cologne, France and Sweden signed the Truce of Ulm. In 1648 the Swedes (commanded by Marshal Carl Gustaf Wrangel) and the French (led by Turenne and Condé) defeated the Imperial army at the Battle of Zusmarshausen and Lens. These results left only the Imperial territories of Austria safely in Habsburg hands.
Peace of Westphalia
Main article: Peace of Westphalia
French General Louis II de Bourbon, 4th Prince de Condé, Duc d'Enghien, The Great Condé defeated the Spanish at the Battle of Rocroi in 1643, which led to negotiations. Over a four year period, the parties were actively negotiating at Osnabrück and Münster in Westphalia.[44] The end of the war was not brought about by one treaty but instead by a group of treaties such as the Treaty of Hamburg.[45] On 15 May 1648, the Treaty of Osnabrück was signed. Over five months later, on 24 October, the Treaty of Münster was signed, ending both the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War.[46][47] [48]
Casualties and disease
So great was the devastation brought about by the war that estimates put the reduction of population in the German states at about 15% to 30%.[49] Some regions were affected much more than others.[50] For example, the Württemberg lost three-quarters of its population during the war.[51] In the territory of Brandenburg, the losses had amounted to half, while in some areas an estimated two-thirds of the population died.[52] The male population of the German states was reduced by almost half.[53] The population of the Czech lands declined by a third due to war, disease, famine and the expulsion of Protestant Czechs.[54][55] Much of the destruction of civilian lives and property was caused by the cruelty and greed of mercenary soldiers, many of whom were rich commanders and poor soldiers.[56] The Swedish armies alone may have destroyed up to 2,000 castles, 18,000 villages and 1,500 towns in Germany, one-third of all German towns.[57] The war caused serious dislocations to both the economies and populations of central Europe, but may have done no more than seriously exacerbate changes that had begun earlier.[58][59]
Pestilence of several kinds raged among combatants and civilians in Germany and surrounding lands from 1618 to 1648. Many features of the war spread disease. These included troop movements, the influx of soldiers from foreign countries, and the shifting locations of battle fronts. In addition, the displacement of civilian populations and the overcrowding of refugees into cities led to both disease and famine. Information about numerous epidemics is generally found in local chronicles, such as parish registers and tax records, that are often incomplete and may be exaggerated. The chronicles do show that epidemic disease was not a condition exclusive to war time, but was present in many parts of Germany for several decades prior to 1618.[60]
However, when the Danish and Imperial armies met in Saxony and Thuringia during 1625 and 1626, disease and infection in local communities increased. Local chronicles repeatedly referred to "head disease", "Hungarian disease", and a "spotted" disease identified as typhus. After the Mantuan War, between France and the Habsburgs in Italy, the northern half of the Italian peninsula was in the throes of a bubonic plague epidemic (see Italian Plague of 1629–1631). During the unsuccessful siege of Nuremberg, in 1632, civilians and soldiers in both the Swedish and Imperial armies succumbed to typhus and scurvy. Two years later, as the Imperial army pursued the defeated Swedes into southwest Germany, deaths from epidemics were high along the Rhine River. Bubonic plague continued to be a factor in the war. Beginning in 1634, Dresden, Munich, and smaller German communities such as Oberammergau recorded large numbers of plague casualties. In the last decades of the war, both typhus and dysentery had become endemic in Germany.
Political consequences
One result of the war was the balkanization of Germany into many territories — all of which, despite their membership in the Empire, won de facto sovereignty. This limited the power of the Holy Roman Empire and decentralized German power.
The Thirty Years' War rearranged the European power structure. The conflict made Spain's military and political decline visible. While Spain was fighting in France, Portugal — which had been under personal union with Spain for 60 years — acclaimed John IV of Braganza as king in 1640, and the House of Braganza became the new dynasty of Portugal (see Portuguese Restoration War, for further information). Meanwhile, Spain was forced to accept the independence of the Dutch Republic in 1648, ending the Eighty Years' War. With Spain weakened, France started to replace Spain as the dominant European power, an outcome confirmed by its victories in the Franco-Spanish War, War of Devolution and Franco-Dutch War and by the late 1600s, Bourbon France under the leadership of Louis XIV had surpassed Habsburg Spain in influence.
From 1643–45, during the last years of the Thirty Years' War, Sweden and Denmark fought the Torstenson War. The result of that conflict and the conclusion of the great European war at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 helped establish post-war Sweden as a force in Europe.[45]
The edicts agreed upon during the signing of the Peace of Westphalia were instrumental in laying the foundations for what are even today considered the basic tenets of the sovereign nation-state. Aside from establishing fixed territorial boundaries for many of the countries involved in the ordeal (as well as for the newer ones created afterwards), the Peace of Westphalia changed the relationship of subjects to their rulers. In earlier times, people had tended to have overlapping political and religious loyalties. Now, it was agreed that the citizenry of a respective nation were subjected first and foremost to the laws and whims of their own respective government rather than to those of neighboring powers, be they religious or secular.
The war also has a few more subtle consequences. The Thirty Years' War marked the last major religious war in mainland Europe, ending the large-scale religious bloodshed accompanying the Reformation, in 1648. There were other religious conflicts in the years to come, but no great wars.[61] Also, the destruction caused by mercenary soldiers defied description (see Schwedentrunk). The war did much to end the age of mercenaries that had begun with the first Landsknechts, and ushered in the age of well-disciplined national armies.
The war also had consequences abroad, as the European powers extended their fight via naval power to overseas colonies. In 1630, a Dutch fleet of 70 ships had taken the rich sugar-exporting areas of Pernambuco (Brazil) from the Portuguese but lost everything in 1654. Fighting also took place in Africa and Asia.
Involved states (chart)
Fiction
- Vida y hechos de Estebanillo González, hombre de buen humor, compuesta por él mismo (Antwerp, 1646). The last of the great Spanish Golden Age picaresque novels, set against the background of the Thirty Years' War and thought to be authored by a writer in the entourage of Ottavio Piccolomini. The main character crisscrosses Europe at war in his role as messenger, witnessing, among other events, the 1634 battle of Nordlingen.
- Simplicius Simplicissimus (1668) by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, the most important German novel of the 17th century, is the comic fictional autobiography of a German peasant turned mercenary who serves under various powers during the war, based on the author's first-hand experience. An opera adaptation by the same name was produced in the 1930s, written by Karl Amadeus Hartmann.
- Daniel Defoe (1720). Memoirs of a Cavalier. "A Military Journal of the Wars in Germany, and the Wars in England. From the Years 1632 to 1648".
- George Alfred Henty (1886). Lion of the North, A Tale of Gustavus Adolphus and the Wars of Religion. From Internet Archive.
- George Alfred Henty (1900). Won by the Sword; A Tales of the Thirty Years' War, With twelve illus. by C.M. Sheldon, and four plans. From Internet Archive.
- Hermann Löns (1910). The Warwolf (Der Wehrwolf), an alternately heart-warming and heart-rending chronicle of a North German farming community suffering tragedies and ultimate triumph during the harrowing period of the Thirty Years' War.
- Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac (act IV is set during the siege of Arras in 1640).
- Bertolt Brecht's play Mother Courage and Her Children, an anti-war theatre piece, is set during the Thirty Years' War.
- The Last Valley (1971). A film starring Michael Caine and Omar Sharif, who discover a temporary haven from the Thirty Years' War. Written by James Clavell, the author of Shogun.
- The Last Valley (1959) by J. B. Pick. The book upon which the film version was based. Originally published in Great Britain as The Fat Valley.
- Michael Moorcock's novel, The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981) has as its central character Ulrich von Bek, a mercenary who took part in the sack of Magdeburg.
- Eric Flint's Ring of Fire series of novels deals with a temporally displaced West Virginia town from the early 21st century arriving in the early 1630s war torn Germany. The experimental novel has grown into an intensive collaborative fiction online project now in its seventh year which explores how modern knowledge and the cast of 3-3,500 townies would impact the developmental history of Europe; the theme of what would occur if the Americans set a course deliberately to undermine the power of the nobility in Europe and introduce things like a Bill of Rights, Nationalism, et al. are at the heart of the works.
- Friedrich Schiller's Wallenstein trilogy (1799) is a fictional account of the downfall of this general.
- Alessandro Manzoni's I Promessi Sposi (1842) is an historical novel taking place in Italy in 1629. It treats a couple whose marriage is interrupted, among other things, by the Bubonic Plague, and other complications of 30 Years' War.
- Parts of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle are set in lands devastated by the Thirty Year's War.
- Das Treffen in Telgte (1979) trans. The Meeting at Telgte (1981) by Günther Grass, set in the aftermath of the war, sets out to make implicit parallels with the postwar Germany of the late 1940s.
See also
References
- ^ a b 1625-1629. Aligned with the Catholic Powers 1643-1645.
- ^ George Ripley, Charles Anderson Dana, The American Cyclopaedia, New York, 1874, p. 250, "...the standard of France was white, sprinkled with golden fleur de lis...". *[1]The original Banner of France was strewn with fleurs-de-lis. *[2]:on the reverse of this plate it says: "Le pavillon royal était véritablement le drapeau national au dix-huitième siecle...Vue du chateau d'arrière d'un vaisseau de guerre de haut rang portant le pavillon royal (blanc, avec les armes de France)."[3] from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica: "The oriflamme and the Chape de St Martin were succeeded at the end of the 16th century, when Henry III., the last of the house of Valois, came to the throne, by the white standard powdered with fleurs-de-lis. This in turn gave place to the famous tricolour." France entered the war in 1635.
- ^ Principally in support of Swedish forces.
- ^ At war with Spain 1625-30 (and France 1627-29).
- ^ Scores Hungarians was fall into line with army of Gabriel Bethlen in 1620. Ágnes Várkonyi: Age of the Reforms, Magyar Könyvklub publisher, 1999. ISBN 963 547 070 3
- ^ 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, entry National Flags: "The Austrian imperial standard has, on a yellow ground, the black double-headed eagle, on the breast and wings of which are imposed shields bearing the arms of the provinces of the empire . The flag is bordered all round, the border being composed of equal-sided triangles with their apices alternately inwards and outwards, those with their apices pointing inwards being alternately yellow and white, the others alternately scarlet and black ." Also, Whitney Smith, Flags through the ages and across the world, McGraw-Hill, England, 1975 ISBN 0-07-059093-1, pp.114 - 119, "The imperial banner was a golden yellow cloth...bearing a black eagle...The double-headed eagle was finally established by Sigismund as regent...".
- ^ Ervin Liptai: Military history of Hungary, Zrínyi Military Publisher, 1985. ISBN 9633263379
- ^ Gabriel Bethlen's army numbered 5,000 Hungarian pikeman and 1,000 German mercenary, with the anti-Habsburg Hungarian rebels numbered together aprox. 35,000 men. László Markó: The Great Honors of the Hungarian State (A Magyar Állam Főméltóságai), Magyar Könyvklub 2000. ISBN 963 547 085 1
- ^ László Markó: The Great Honors of the Hungarian State (A Magyar Állam Főméltóságai), Magyar Könyvklub 2000. ISBN 963 547 085 1
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- ^ "Peace of Prague (1635) - Historic Event — German Archive: The Peace of Prague of 30 May 1635 was a treaty between the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II, and most of the Protestant states of the Empire. It effectively brought to an end the civil war aspect of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648); however, the war still carried on due to the continued intervention on German soil of Spain, Sweden, and, from mid-1635, France.". www.germannotes.com. http://www.germannotes.com/archive/article.php?products_id=492. Retrieved 2008-05-24.
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- ^ T. Walter Wallbank, Alastair M. Taylor, Nels M. Bailkey, George F. Jewsbury, Clyde J. Lewis, Neil J. Hackett , Bruce Borland (Ed.) (1992). Civilization Past & Present Volume II. New York, N.Y: Harper Collins Publishers. pp. 15. The Development of the European State System: 1300–1650.. ISBN 0-673-38869-7. http://history-world.org/The%20Thirty%20Years'%20War.htm. Retrieved 2008-05-23.
- ^ An economic and social history of the Ottoman Empire Halil İnalcık, Suraiya Faroqhi, Donald Quataert, Bruce McGowan, Sevket Pamuk, Cambridge University Press, 1997 ISBN 0521574552 p.424-425 [4]
- ^ The winter king Brennan C. Pursell p.112-113
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- ^ Peltonen, p.271
- ^ Lockhart, Paul Douglas (2007). Denmark, 1513-1660: the rise and decline of a Renaissance monarchy. Oxford University Press. p. 166. ISBN 0199271216. http://www.google.de/books?id=TkteH2TrSSsC&pg=PA166. Retrieved 2009-08-07.
- ^ "Danish Kings · Christian 4.". www.danskekonger.dk. http://www.danskekonger.dk/eng/biografi/ChrIV.html. Retrieved 2008-05-24.
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- ^ The Danish interval
- ^ "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Albrecht von Wallenstein". www.newadvent.org. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15538b.htm. Retrieved 2008-05-24.
- ^ *Lockhart, Paul Douglas (2007). Denmark, 1513-1660: the rise and decline of a Renaissance monarchy. Oxford University Press. p. 170. ISBN 0199271216. http://www.google.de/books?id=TkteH2TrSSsC&pg=PA170. Retrieved 2009-08-05.
- ^ The Thirty-Years-War
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- ^ http://www.sfhm.se/templates/pages/ArmeStandardPage____1241.aspx?epslanguage=EN
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- ^ Coins of the Thirty Years War, The Wonderful World of Coins, Journal of Antiques & Collectibles January Issue 2004
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Further reading
- Åberg, A. (1973). "The Swedish army from Lützen to Narva". in Roberts, M.. Sweden’s Age of Greatness, 1632–1718. London: St. Martin's Press.
- Benecke, Gerhard (1978). Germany in the Thirty Years War. London: St. Martin's Press.
- Gindely, Antonín (1884). History of the Thirty Years' War. Putnam. http://books.google.com/books?vid=0HVa3pT-2hT4UrZker4eOJ&id=ZDxvj7NG_1sC.
- Gutmann, Myron P. (1988). "The Origins of the Thirty Years' War". Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18 (4): 749–770.
- Kamen, Henry (1968). "The Economic and Social Consequences of the Thirty Years' War". Past and Present 39: 44–61.
- Kennedy, Paul (1988). The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York: Harper Collins.
- Langer, Herbert (1980). The Thirty Year's War. Poole, England: Blandford Press.
- Murdoch, Steve (2001). Scotland and the Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648. Brill.
- Parker, Geoffrey (1984). The Thirty Years' War. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
- Polišenský, J. V. (1954). "The Thirty Years' War". Past and Present 6: 31–43.
- Polišenský, J. V. (1968). "The Thirty Years' War and the Crises and Revolutions of Seventeenth-Century Europe". Past and Present 39: 34–43.
- Prinzing, Friedrich (1916). Epidemics Resulting from Wars. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Roberts, Michael (1953, 1958). Gustavus Adolphus: A History of Sweden, 1611–1632.
- Ward, A. W. (1902). The Cambridge Modern History, vol 4: The Thirty Years War. http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=100053841.
- Wedgwood, C.V.; Kennedy, Paul (2005). Thirty Years War. New York: The New York Review of Books, Inc.. ISBN 1590171462.
External links
- The Thirty Years' War - Czech republic
- Thirty Years' War - LoveToKnow 1911
- The Thirty Years War - The Catholic Encyclopedia
- The Thirty Years War LearningSite
- Thirty Years War Timeline
- Project "Peace of Westphalia" (among others with Essay Volumes of the 26th Exhibition of the Council of Europe "1648: War and Peace in Europe", 1998/99)
- History of the Thirty Years' War by Friedrich von Schiller at Project Gutenberg
- The Thirty Years War
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Military History Companion. The Oxford Companion to Military History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| British History. A Dictionary of British History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
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| History 1450-1789. Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. Copyright © 2004 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| History Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Thirty Years' War". Read more |
Related answers
- What happened after the thirty years war?
- Why was the Thirty Years' War fought?
- What were the causes of the thirty years' war?
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- What country was NOT in thirty years war?
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Mentioned in
- Tilly, Count of (Flemish field marshal)
- Frederick William (Elector of Brandenburg)
- Sveda (family name)
- Condé, Prince de (French general)
- Ferdinand III (Holy Roman emperor and king)
- Gustavus II (King of Sweden)
- Wallenstein, Albrecht Eusebius Wenzel von (Austrian military leader)
- Schreckenberger
- Richelieu, Duc de (French prelate and politician)
- Turenne, Vicomte de (French military leader)
- Höchst (district, Germany)
- White Mountain (mountain, Czech Republic)
- Wittstock (city, Germany)
- Žatec (city, Czech Republic)
- Ferdinand II (Holy Roman Empire)
- Ferdinand III (Holy Roman Empire)
- France
- Gustavus II Adolphus (Sweden)
- Habsburg Dynasty
- Habsburg Territories
- Holy Roman Empire
- La Rochelle
- Louis XIII (France)
- War of the Mantuan Succession
- Military Engineering
- Southern Netherlands
- Palatinate
- Armand-Jean Du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu
- Rudolf II (Holy Roman Empire)
- Saxony
- Spain
- Sweden
- Johann Tserclaes of Tilly
- A. W. E. von Wallenstein
- Peace of Westphalia
