The Thirty Years' War in Germany, which began in Bohemia and lasted a whole generation in Europe, had one specific feature compared to other wars. The “first violin” in this war (a couple of years after its start) were not the Germans, although they, of course, took part in it. The most populous provinces of the Roman Empire became the battleground for the armies of Spain, Denmark, Sweden and France. How and for what reason did the Germans endure this?
1618 - Ferdinand of Styria (1578-1637) was the heir to the Habsburg throne. Ferdinand was a staunch Catholic raised by the Jesuits. He was extremely radical towards the Protestants among his servants. In fact, this man could become such a powerful emperor of the Roman Empire, which has not been since the time of Charles V. However, the Protestant rulers did not strive for this.
He could even surpass the great Charles as emperor. In the Austrian and Bohemian lands, which were ruled directly by the Habsburgs, Ferdinand had real power. As soon as he became king of Bohemia in 1617, he abolished the conditions of religious tolerance and tolerance that his cousin Rudolph II had bestowed on Protestants in 1609. The inhabitants of Bohemia were in the same position as the Dutch in the 1560s, foreign to their king in language, customs and religion.
As in the Netherlands, rebellion broke out in Bohemia. 1617, May 23 - Hundreds of armed representatives of the nobility of Bohemia literally cornered two of the most hated Catholic advisers Ferdinand in one of the rooms of the Gradshin castle in Prague and threw them down from a window from more than 50 meters in height. The victims survived: perhaps (according to the Catholic point of view), they were saved by angels or (as the Protestants believed) they simply fell on the straw. As a result of the incident, the rebels were brought to justice. They declared their goal to be the preservation of the former privileges of Bohemia and the salvation of Ferdinand from the Jesuits. But they actually violated the laws of the Habsburgs.
The crisis spread rapidly from Bohemia to the edges of the empire. The elderly Emperor Matthias, who died in 1619, gave German Protestant rulers the chance to join the uprising against Habsburg rule. Seven electors had the exclusive right to choose the heir to Matthias: three Catholic archbishops - Mainz, Trier and Cologne, three Protestant rulers - Saxony, Brandenburg and Palatinate - and the king of Bohemia.
If the Protestants had stripped Ferdinand of the right to vote, they could have revoked his candidacy as Emperor of the Roman Empire. But only Frederick V of the Palatinate (1596-1632) expressed his desire for this, but was forced to yield. 1619, August 28 - in Frankfurt, all but one vote were cast for Emperor Ferdinand II. A few hours after the elections, Ferdinand learned that as a result of the riot in Prague he had been dethroned, and in his place was Frederick of the Palatinate!
Frederick received the crown of Bohemia. The war was now imminent. Emperor Ferdinand was preparing to crush the rebels and punish the German upstart, who dared to claim the lands of the Habsburgs.
The uprising in Bohemia was very weak at first. The rebels did not have a hero-leader such as John Huss (c. 1369–1415), who had led a rebellion in Bohemia two centuries earlier. Members of the Bohemian nobility did not trust each other. The Bohemian government hesitated in deciding whether to introduce a special tax or create an army.
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Lacking their own candidate to replace Ferdinand, the rebels turned to the German elector from the Palatinate. But Frederick was not the best choice. An inexperienced young man of 23 years old, he did not have the slightest idea about the religion he was going to defend, and also could not collect enough money and people. To defeat the Habsburgs, the inhabitants of Bohemia turned to other princes who could help Frederick. However, only a few went to meet them, Frederick's friends, for example, his stepfather, King James I of England, also remained neutral.
The main hope of the rebels was based on the weakness of Ferdinand II. The emperor did not have his own army, and it is unlikely that he could create one. The Austrian lands of the Habsburgs and for the most part nobility and townspeople supported the rebels. But Ferdinand was able to buy troops from three allies. Maximilian (1573–1651), Duke of Bavaria and the most influential of the Catholic rulers, sent his army to Bohemia in response to a promise that the emperor would grant him the right to elect Frederick and part of the Palatinate lands.
King Philip III of Spain also sent an army to help his cousin in exchange for the lands of the Palatinate. More surprisingly, the Lutheran Elector of Saxony also helped conquer Bohemia, targeting the Habsburg Lusatia. The result of these preparations was a lightning-fast military campaign (1620-1622), during which the rebels were defeated.
The Bavarian army was easily able to defeat Bohemia at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620. From the Alps to the Oder, the rebels surrendered and surrendered to the mercy of Ferdinand. The Bavarian and Spanish armies further conquered the Palatinate. Foolish Frederick was nicknamed "the king of one winter": by 1622 he had lost not only the crown of Bohemia, but all his Germanic lands.
This war did not end in 1622, because not all issues were resolved. One of the reasons for the continuation of the conflict was the emergence of free armies, ruled by landsknechts. Among their leaders, Ernst von Mansfeld (1580-1626) was the most memorable. From birth a Catholic, Mansfeld fought against Spain even before converting to Calvinism, and after giving his army to Frederick and Bohemia, he later often passed from one side to the other.
After Mansfeld fully supplied his army with everything necessary, plundering the territories through which he passed, he decided to move to new lands. After Frederick's defeat in 1622, Mansfeld sent his army to North-West Germany, where he met the troops of Maximilian of Bavaria. His soldiers did not obey the captain and mercilessly plundered the population of Germany. Maximilian benefited from the war: he received a significant portion of Frederick's lands and his place in the electorate; besides, he received a good sum of money from the emperor.
Swedish infantry during the Thirty Years War
So Maximilian was not too eager for peace. Some Protestant rulers, who remained neutral in 1618-1619, now began to invade the imperial borders. In 1625, King Christian IV of Denmark, whose Holsten lands were part of the empire, entered the war as a protector of Protestants in northern Germany. Christian was eager to prevent the Catholic takeover of the empire, but he also hoped to gain his own, as did Maximilian. He had a good army, but he could not find allies for himself. The Protestant rulers of Saxony and Brandenburg did not want war, and they decided to join the Protestants. In 1626, Maximilian's troops defeated Christian and pushed his army back to Denmark.
So, Emperor Ferdinand II gained the most from the war. The surrender of the rebels in Bohemia gave him a chance to crush Protestantism and rebuild the country's governing scheme. Having received the title of Elector of the Palatinate, Ferdinand gained real power. By 1626, he had done what was unattainable in 1618 - he created the sovereign Catholic state of the Habsburgs.
On the whole, Ferdinand's military goals did not fully coincide with the aspirations of his ally Maximilian. The emperor needed a more flexible tool than the Bavarian army, although he was a debtor to Maximilian and could not independently support the army. This situation explained his amazing affection for Albrecht von Wallenstein (1583-1634). A Bohemian Protestant from birth, Wallenstein joined the Hapsburgs during the Bohemian Revolution and was able to stay afloat.
Of all those who took part in the Thirty Years War, Wallenstein was the most mysterious. A tall, menacing figure, he personified all the most unpleasant human features that can be imagined. He was greedy, evil, petty and superstitious. Seeking the highest recognition, Wallenstein did not put a limit to his ambitions. His enemies were afraid of him and did not trust him; it is difficult for modern scientists to imagine who this person really was.
1625 - he joined the imperial army. Wallenstein quickly became friends with the Bavarian general, but he still preferred to campaign on his own. He drove Mansfeld out of the empire and captured most of Denmark and the German Baltic coast. By 1628, he was in command of 125,000 soldiers. The emperor made him Duke of Mecklenburg, granting him one of the newly conquered Baltic lands. Rulers who remained neutral, such as the Elector of Brandenburg, were too weak to stop Wallenstein from capturing their territories. Even Maximilian begged Ferdinand to protect his domain.
1629 - The Emperor felt it was time to sign his Restitution Edict, perhaps the fullest expression of autocratic power. Ferdinand's Edict outlawed Calvinism in the Holy Roman Empire and forced adherents of Lutheranism to return all church property that they had confiscated since 1552. 16 bishoprics, 28 cities and about 150 monasteries in Central and North Germany were converted to the Roman religion.
Ferdinand acted independently, without appealing to the imperial parliament. Catholic princes were just as intimidated by the edict as Protestant ones, because the emperor trampled upon their constitutional freedoms and established his unlimited power. Wallenstein's soldiers soon captured Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Bremen and Augsburg, which for many years were considered truly Protestant, and by force established Catholicism there. It seemed that there was no obstacle that, with the help of Wallenstein's army, Ferdinand completely abolished the Augsburg formula of 1555 and established Catholicism on his territory of the empire.
The turning point came in 1630 when Gustav-Adolphus came with his army to Germany. He announced that he had come to defend German Protestantism and the freedom of the people from Ferdinand, but in reality, like many, he tried to extract the maximum income from this. The Swedish king faced the same obstacles as the previous leader of the Protestant movement, King Christian of Denmark: he was an outsider without German support.
Fortunately for Gustav-Adolphus, Ferdinand played into his hands. Feeling secure and in control of Germany, Ferdinand convened parliament in 1630 to declare his son his successor to the throne and help the Spanish Habsburgs oppose Holland and France. The emperor's plans were ambitious, and he underestimated the hostility of the German princes. The princes refused both of his offers, even after he tried to please them.
Having removed Wallenstein from the post of commander-in-chief of the army, Ferdinand did everything possible to consolidate his power. Gustav-Adolphus, however, had another trump card. The French Parliament, headed by Cardinal Richelieu, agreed to sponsor his intervention in German affairs. In fact, the cardinal of France had no reason to help Gustav-Adolphe. And yet he agreed to pay Sweden a million lire a year to maintain a 36,000-strong army in Germany, because he wanted to crush the Hapsburgs, paralyze the empire and voice French claims to territory along the Rhine. All Gustav-Adolf needed was support from the Germans, which would allow him to become almost a national hero. This was no easy feat, but as a result, he persuaded the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony to join Sweden. Now he could act.
1631 - Gustav-Adolphus defeats the imperial army at Breitenfeld. It was one of the biggest battles of the Thirty Years War, as it destroyed the achievements of the Catholics in 1618–1629. Over the next year, Gustav-Adolf systematically occupied the previously untouched Catholic regions of Central Germany. The campaign in Bavaria was carefully thought out. The king of Sweden was preparing to behead the Habsburgs Austria and acted more and more actively, seeking to take the place of Ferdinand on the throne of the Holy Empire.
Battle of Lützen Death of King Gustav Adolphus November 16, 1632
The intervention of Gustav-Adolphus was powerful, because he kept Protestantism in Germany and broke the imperial core of the Habsburgs, but his personal victories were not so bright. 1632 Wallenstein returned from his retirement. Emperor Ferdinand had already approached the general with a request to take over command of the imperial troops again, and Wallenstein eventually gave his consent.
His army is more than ever his personal tool. On a dark, foggy November day in 1632, the two commanders met at Lützen in Saxony. The armies clashed in a fierce battle. Gustav-Adolphus put his horse into a gallop in the fog, at the head of the cavalry. And soon his horse returned wounded and without a rider. Swedish troops, thinking that they had lost their king, drove Wallenstein's army away from the battlefield. In the dark, they eventually found the body of Gustav-Adolphus on the ground, literally strewn with bullets. “Oh,” exclaimed one of his soldiers, “if God would give me such a commander again to win this glorious battle again! This dispute is as old as the world!"
Old disagreements had in fact led to a stalemate by 1632. No army was strong enough to win or weak enough to surrender. Wallenstein, who was still the most terrifying figure in Germany, was given the chance to resolve all issues peacefully through compromise. Unburdened by passionate religious convictions or loyalty to the Habsburg dynasty, he was willing to make a deal with anyone who paid for his services.
1633 - he did little to serve the emperor, periodically turning to the enemies of Ferdinand: German Protestants who rebelled in Bohemia, the Swedes and the French. But now Wallenstein was too weak for a decisive and dangerous game. 1634, February - Ferdinand removed him from his post of commander-in-chief and ordered the new general to capture Wallenstein, alive or dead. Wallenstein spent the winter in Pilsner, Bohemia. He hoped that his soldiers would follow him and not the emperor, but they betrayed him. Shortly after his escape from Bohemia, Wallenstein was cornered. The final scene was gruesome: an Irish mercenary threw open the door to Wallenstein's bedroom, impaled the unarmed commander, dragged the bleeding body across the carpet, and threw him down the stairs.
By that time, Ferdinand II was convinced that he lacked Wallenstein's military talent. 1634 - the emperor made peace with the German allies of the Swedes - Saxony and Brandenburg. But the end of the war was still far away. 1635 - France, under the rule of Richelieu, sent new people and a considerable sum of money to Germany. To fill the gap following the Swedish defeat, Sweden and Germany were now fighting against Spain and the emperor.
The war escalated into a clash of two dynasties - the Habsburgs and the Bourbons, based on religious, ethnic and political reasons. Only a few Germans agreed to continue the war after 1635, most chose to stay on the sidelines. Nevertheless, their lands continued to be battlefields.
The final part of the war from 1635 to 1648 was the most destructive. The Franco-Swedish army eventually gained the upper hand, but their goal seemed to be to maintain the war, rather than a decisive blow against their enemy. It is noted that the French and Swedes rarely invaded Austria and never ravaged the emperor's lands the way they plundered Bavaria and the territory of Central Germany. Such a war required more talent in looting than in battle.
Each army was accompanied by "sympathizers" - women and children lived in the camp, whose duties were to make the army's life more comfortable so that the soldiers did not lose the desire for victory. If you do not take into account the plague epidemics that often raged in military camps, the life of the military in the middle of the 17th century was much more calm and comfortable than the townspeople. Many cities in Germany became military targets in that era: Marburg was captured 11 times, Magdeburg was besieged 10 times. However, the townspeople had the opportunity to hide behind the walls or outbid the attackers.
On the other hand, the peasants had no other option but to run away, because they suffered the most from the war. The overall population loss was staggering, even if one did not take into account the deliberate exaggeration of these figures by contemporaries who reported losses or demanded tax exemptions. The cities of Germany lost more than one third of the population, and during the war the peasantry decreased by two fifths. Compared to 1618, the empire in 1648 had 7 or 8 million fewer inhabitants. Until the beginning of the 20th century, no European conflict led to such human losses.
Peace negotiations began in 1644, but it took four years for the diplomats gathered in Westphalia to finally come to an agreement. After all the disputes, the Peace of Westphalia of 1644 became the actual confirmation of the Augsburg peace. The Holy Roman Empire again became politically fragmented, divided into three hundred autonomous, sovereign principalities, most of which were small and weak.
The emperor - now the son of Ferdinand II Ferdinand III (reigned 1637–1657) - had limited power in his lands. The imperial parliament, in which all sovereign princes were represented, continued to exist de jure. So the Habsburgs' hope of uniting the empire into a single country with the absolute power of the monarch collapsed, this time finally.
The peace treaty also reaffirmed the provisions of the Augsburg Treaty regarding churches. Each prince had the right to establish Catholicism, Lutheranism or Calvinism in the territory of his principality. Compared to the treaty of 1555, significant progress was made in terms of guarantees of personal freedom of religion for Catholics living in Protestant countries, and vice versa, although in reality the Germans continued to profess the religion of their ruler.
Anabaptists and members of other sects were excluded from the provisions of the Treaty of Westphalia and continued to suffer from persecution and persecution. Thousands of their followers emigrated to America in the 18th century, especially to Pennsylvania. After 1648, the northern part of the empire was almost entirely Lutheran, while the southern part was Catholic, with a layer of Calvinists along the Rhine. In no other part of Europe have Protestants and Catholics achieved such a balance.
Almost all the main participants in the Thirty Years' War received part of the land under the Treaty of Westphalia. France got part of Alaska and Lorraine, Sweden - Western Pomerania on the Baltic coast. Bavaria retained part of the Palatinate lands and its place in the Elector's Office. Saxony received Luzhitsa. Brandenburg, given its passive role in the war, annexed East Pomerania and Magdeburg.
Even the son of Frederick V, the future king of Bohemia, was not forgotten: the Palatinate was returned to him (albeit reduced in size) and eight seats in the electorate college were presented. The Swiss Confederation and the Dutch Republic were recognized as independent from the Holy Empire. Neither Spain nor the Austria of the Habsburgs received territories in 1648, but the Spanish Hapsburgs already owned the largest block of land.
And Ferdinand III had to control the political and religious situation in Austria and Bohemia more severely than his father before the uprising in Bohemia. It could hardly be said that everyone received enough under the contract for 30 years of war. But the state in 1648 seemed unusually stable and solid; Germany's political borders were virtually unchanged until the arrival of Napoleon. Religious boundaries were preserved until the 20th century.
The Peace of Westphalia ended the Religious Wars in Central Europe. Even after 1648, the Thirty Years' War in the works of the 17th and 18th centuries. was considered an example of how not to wage wars. According to the authors of those times, the Thirty Years War demonstrated the danger of religious unrest and armies led by mercenaries. Philosophers and rulers, despising the religious barbaric wars of the 17th century, came to a different way of waging war with the army, professional enough to avoid looting, and introduced into such a framework to avoid bloodshed as much as possible.
For the researchers of the 19th century, the Thirty Years War seemed disastrous for the nation for many reasons, including because it slowed down the national unification of Germany for many centuries. Scientists of the 20th century may not have been so obsessed with the idea of German reunification, but they fiercely criticized the Thirty Years War for the absolutely inefficient use of human resources.
One of the historians formulated his thoughts as follows: "Spiritually inhuman, economically and socially destructive, disorderly in its causes and confused in its actions, ineffectual in the end - this is an outstanding example of senseless conflict in European history." This statement underlines the most negative aspects of the war. It is difficult to find pluses in this conflict.
Contemporary critics draw not entirely pleasant parallels for us between ideological positions and the brutality of the mid-17th century and our modern style of constant war. Therefore, Bertolt Brecht chose the Thirty Years War as the period for his anti-war play "Mother Courage and Her Children", written after the end of World War II. But of course, the analogies between World War II and the Thirty Years War are strained: when in the end everyone was tired of the war, diplomats in Westphalia were able to come to the conclusion of peace.
Dunn Richard