The Thirty Years' War

General Introduction

The Thirty Years' War had its roots in the ongoing religious struggle between Protestant and Catholic, which became bound up in the dynastic and imperial ambitions of the house of Hapsburg. Nevertheless, Princes would readily trade religious conviction for political advantage: Catholic France was prepared to support the Protestant states against the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. It was this heady brew of faith and traditional rivalries that was to ensure that the war would be a protracted one. By the beginning of the Seventeenth Century Catholicism and the Protestant faith had reached parity among the tiny states and principalities that made up Germany. Three of the electors that voted for the Emperor were Protestant, and the other three Catholic, the Seventh and final one was the Emperor himself, in his capacity as King of Bohemia. The Hapsburgs were initially prepared to tolerate this situation as the main threat was from the Muslim Ottoman Turks, and both Protestant and Catholic fought with equal enthusiasm in the defence of Christendom. But it was a delicate balance, and a swing either way presented a new danger, as each side began to arm to defend themselves from the other.

The crisis came in 1617 when the Holy Roman Emperor, Mathias, wished to place the heir apparent, Ferdinand, on the Throne of Bohemia to ensure a Catholic succession to the Imperial title. Ferdinand was a known Catholic zealot, bound to alienate the largely Protestant Bohemians, who tried to restrict his power to make religious edicts in Bohemia. When Ferdinand ignored their entreaties, a group of Protestant nobles marched into the Royal Palace in Prague in May 1618, and threw the king's advisers out of a window into a midden in the moat. This '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 allies of the Empire. Yet no single prince was willing to set themselves up as a rival King of Bohemia in opposition to the legitimately constituted sovereign.

In 1619 Ferdinand succeeded to the Imperial throne, on Mathias' death, and Frederick of the Palatinate 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. Hungry for spoil, Catholic Spanish troops occupied the Lower Palatinate and the Bavarians camped in the upper portion of Frederick's territories. The Dutch and English, both supposed champions of the Protestant cause, were reluctant to get 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 Imperialists seemed to have settled matters in their favour, but now the Hapsburgs and Spanish had a stranglehold on Europe, and could enforce their will against any truculent ruler who defied the Imperial decree. The Protestant princes trembled and began to cast around for allies. A grand Protestant league was formed consisting of some German states, England, Holland, secretly supported by France, and led by the ebullient Christian IV of Denmark who led the attack in 1626. However, the Danes were run ragged for three years by the more numerous Imperial and Bavarian armies, led by the Bohemian mercenary general Albrecht von Wallenstein. By 1629 the Danes 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.

After the defeat of the Danes, the Catholic powers sought a window on the Baltic to strike at Dutch maritime commerce. The Swedes, alarmed by this prospect, and rescued from an inconclusive war against the Poles by French mediation, decided to join the war in 1630, led by their militant king, Gustavus Adolphus. By this time the cost of the war had exhausted the Imperial treasury, and Ferdinand's policies had weakened his alliances within the Empire. 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 (q.v.) in 1631, and Lutzen (q.v.) in 1632. Gustavus however died at the moment of his triumph on the field of Lutzen. Ferdinand began to tire of the upstart Wallenstein, who had made himself, by force of arms alone, Prince of Mecklenburg. It was rumoured that Wallenstein was dabbling in the black arts, and this served as a justification for Ferdinand to have him brutally murdered by his own troops in 1634. 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. Gustavus' erstwhile lieutenant, Horn, and the new champion of Protestantism, Bernard of Saxe Weimar, were roundly defeated by the veteran Spanish-Imperial army with the loss of 14,000 sorely needed men, and all their artillery. The Swedish presence in southern Germany was eradicated by this crushing victory. Ironically, the last hope for the Protestant cause was that Catholic France, fearing Hapsburg hegemony, would come to the rescue. Thus the ascendancy gained by the Hapsburgs 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 admiral Tromp at the battle of the Downs in 1639, and Portugal declared themselves independent in 1640. The Spanish tried to renew the offensive, but were decisively defeated by the French at Rocroi in 1643. 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 eighty 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, pro rege pro religio, was restored: each state would follow the faith of the ruler. Historians have tried to subscribe all the subsequent ills of Germany to the disastrous effects of the Thirty Years' War, and the resulting compromise settlement. Whilst it is true to say that parts of Germany were entirely laid waste, with the loss of nearly a third of the total population of 15 million, the depredations tended to be localised around the area of the fighting, and the economic disruption has lent itself to exaggeration by partisan commentators with an agenda to serve.

 

Further Reading

Geoffrey Parker The Thirty Years War.

C. V. Wedgwood The Thirty Years War.

S. H. Steinberg The 'Thirty Years War' and the conflict for European Hegemony 1600-1660.

Back to the Top