Thirty+Years'+War

timeline: The Second Defenestration of Prague was central to the start of the Thirty Years' War in 1618. Some members of the Bohemian aristocracy rebelled following the 1617 election of Ferdinan... ||  || to 1618 Nov 21 || [|Siege of Pilsen] On September 19, 1618, Mansfeld's army reached the outskirts of the city. The defenders blocked two city gates and the third one was reinforced with additional guards. The Protestant army... ||  || The Battle of Sablat or Záblatí occurred on June 10, 1619, during the Bohemian period of the Thirty Years' War. The battle was fought between the Roman Catholic army of Karel Bonaventura ... ||  || The Battle of White Mountain, 8 November 1620 (Bílá hora is the name of White Mountain in Czech) was an early battle in the Thirty Years' War in which an army of 15,000 Bohemians and merc... ||  || During the era of peace up to 1620, Tilly created (the Bavarian army, the flower of the army of the League, and the first standing army in the empire that was paid and fed, not by plunder... ||   || The Battle of Wimpfen was a battle in the Bohemian Revolt period of the Thirty Years' War on May 6, 1622 near Wimpfen. The forces of the Holy Roman Empire and Catholic League under Marsha... ||   || The Battle of Höchst was fought on June 20, 1622, between the combined army led by Johan Tzerclaes, Count of Tilly, and Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba against Protestant forces led by Chris... ||   || The Battle of Fleurus of August 29, 1622 was fought between a Spanish army, and the Protestant Powers of the Holy Roman Empire in the Thirty Years' War. The bloody struggle left the Prote... ||  || The Battle of Stadtlohn was fought on August 6, 1623 between Roman Catholic and Protestant forces during the Thirty Years' War. The Catholics were led by Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly,... ||  || The Battle of Dessau Bridge (German: Schlacht bei Dessau) was a battle of the Thirty Years' War near Dessau on April 25, 1626. The Imperial Roman Catholic forces of Albrecht von Wallenste... ||  || The Battle of Lutter (Lutter am Barenberge) took place during the Thirty Years' War, on 27 August 1626, between the forces of the Protestant Christian IV of Denmark and those of the Catho... ||  || The Battle of Stralsund was a battle of the Thirty Years' War, fought starting July 5, 1628, between the Holy Roman Empire and an alliance of the Swedes, Scots, and the inhabitants of Str... ||  || Christian IV of Denmark, encouraged by his successes at Stralsund, assembled another army off the German coast on the Island of Usedom. This landed at the mouth of the Oder and progressed... ||  || to 1631 May || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Sack of Magdeburg] <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Sack of Magdeburg (German: Magdeburgs Opfergang or German: Magdeburger Hochzeit) refers to the siege and subsequent plundering of Magdeburg by the army of the Holy Roman Empire during... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Battle of Werben was a battle of the Thirty Years' War, fought on July 22, 1631, between the Swedish Empire and the Holy Roman Empire. The Swedes had 16,000 soldiers and were led by G... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Battle of Breitenfeld (German: Schlacht bei Breitenfeld; Swedish: Slaget vid Breitenfeld) or First Battle of Breitenfeld (sometimes First Breitenfeld), was fought at the crossroads v... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Siege of Nuremberg or Siege of Nürnberg was a battle campaign that took place in 1632 about the Imperial Free City of Nürnberg (Nuremberg) during the Thirty Years' War. In 1632, ra... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Battle of Rain (also called the Battle of the River Lech or Battle of Lech) was fought on April 15, 1632, as part of the Thirty Years' War. The forces involved in this conflict were 4... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Battle of Lützen (1632) was one of the most decisive battles of the Thirty Years' War. It was a Protestant victory, but cost the life of one of the most important leaders of the Prote... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">In December Wallenstein retired with his army to Bohemia, around Pilsen. Vienna soon definitely convinced itself of his treachery, a secret court found him guilty, and the Emperor sought ... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">to 1634 Sep 7 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Nördlingen (1634)] <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Battle of Nördlingen (Spanish: Batalla de Nördlingen; German: Schlacht bei Nördlingen; Swedish: Slaget vid Nördlingen) was fought on 27 August (Julian calendar) or 6 September (Gregor... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Battle of Les Avins or Battle of Avein was fought on May 20, 1635 during the Thirty Years' War between a French and a Spanish army. The battle was fought in the Belgian village of ... ||   || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">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 w... ||   || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Battle of Wittstock was fought on 24 September (Julian calendar) or 4 October (Gregorian calendar) 1636, between a Protestant Swedish army and an alliance of the Holy Roman Empire and... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">to 1638 Mar 3 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Rheinfelden] <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Battle of Rheinfelden was in fact two battles fought in 1638 to the north and south of the present-day town of Rheinfelden between a mercenary army led by Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar and ... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">Battle of Breisach was fought on August 18 — December 17, 1638 as part of Thirty Years' War. It ended when a garrison of the Holy Roman Empire surrended to the French, commanded by Bernar... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">to 1640 Sep 20 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|The Siege of Turin] <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The 1640 siege of Turin was a major action in two distinct wars: the Franco-Spanish War (1635) and the Piedmontese Civil War. Thomas of Savoy and his supporters had seized the city of Tur... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">In spring 1642, cardinal Richelieu concentrated his forces to besiege the city of Perpignan in the province of Roussillon, leaving the rest of his armies in a defensive position. In Fland... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Second Battle of Breitenfeld, also known as the First Battle of Leipzig (October 23, 1642), took place at Breitenfeld (4 miles north-east of Leipzig), Germany, during the Thirty Years... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Battle of Tuttlingen was fought in Tuttlingen on November 24, 1643. Those involved in the conflict were the French forces led by Marshal Josias Rantzau and the armies of the Holy Roma... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The naval Battle of Colberger Heide (or Colberg Heath) took place on 1 July 1644 during the Danish-Swedish War (part of the Thirty Years War), off northern Germany. It was a slight victor... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">This took place on 13 October 1644 north-west of the island of Fehmarn, now part of Germany, in the Baltic Sea. A combined Swedish-Dutch fleet defeated a Danish fleet and took 1000 prison... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">Field Marshal Lennart Torstenson had unexpectedly marched into Jutland in September 1643. While engaged in operations there, an Imperial army under the command of Count Matthias Gallas ve... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Battle of Jankau or Jankov, one of the bloodiest of the Thirty Years' War, was fought on 24 February 1645 in southern Bohemia, some 50 km southeast of Prague, between the army of Swed... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Battle of Herbsthausen, or the Battle of Mergentheim, was fought on May 2, 1645.The battle was between French forces led by Marshal Turenne and the Bavarian army led by Franz von Merc... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The second Battle of Nördlingen (or Battle of Allerheim) was fought on August 3, 1645 southeast of Nördlingen near the village of Alerheim. France and its Protestant German allies defeate... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Battle of Zusmarshausen was fought on May 7, 1648 between the Holy Roman Empire and Sweden and France (led by Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne and Louis II de Bourbon, ... ||   || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">to 1648 Oct 24 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|The Peace of Westphalia is Achieved through the Treaties of Osnabrück and Münster] <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The term Peace of Westphalia refers to the two peace treaties of Osnabrück and Münster, signed on May 15 and October 24, 1648, respectively, and written in French, that ended both the Thi... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">to 1648 Nov || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Prague] <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">Prior to invading Bavaria, Wrangel had dispatched a small column under Königsmarck to invade Bohemia once more. Passing through the Upper Palatinate into Bohemia, destroying all in his... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Battle of Lens (20 August 1648) was a French victory under Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé against the Spanish army under Archduke Leopold in the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). I... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Battle of Arras, fought on August 25, 1654, was a victory of a French army under Turenne against a Spanish army commanded by Don Fernidand de Salis and Condé. Cyrano de Bergerac, w... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">With a little further sacrifice of pride on the part of Spain peace might, perhaps, have been made after the deaths of Louis XIII and Richelieu had placed Anne of Austria in power as Rege... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Battle of the Dunes, fought on 14 June (Gregorian calendar), 1658, is also known as the Battle of Dunkirk. It was a victory of the French army, under Turenne, against the Spanish army... ||  || <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">The Treaty of the Pyrenees is the last major diplomatic achievement by Cardinal Mazarin. Combined with the Peace of Westphalia, it allowed Louis XIV remarkable stability and diplomatic ad... ||  || Causes: The **Thirty** **Years** **War** (1618-48) was the most destructive conflict in Europe before the twentieth-century world **war**s. There are several explanations of what caused the **war**, but these rarely discuss the merits of alternative interpretations, nor do they make their own underlying assumptions explicit. Anglophone scholarship generally fits the **war** into a wider struggle against Spanish Habsburg hegemony, whereas older German writing saw it as a conflict beginning in the Holy Roman Empire but fusing with **war**s elsewhere. Others place greater emphasis on structural **causes**, interpreting the **war** as the culmination of a ‘General Crisis of the seventeenth century’ attributed to social, economic or environmental factors. More recently, there has been a return to the view that it was a religious **war**, or that it was a ‘state-building **war**’ related to the transition from medieval to modern political organisation. This article reviews these approaches and investigates how they work as historical explanations, before suggesting an alternative. It identifies the difficulty in defining the **war** as a chief obstacle to explaining its **causes**. While related to other European conflicts, the **Thirty** **Years** **War** was primarily a struggle over the political and religious order within the Empire. It was neither inevitable, nor the result of irreconcilable religious antagonism. Rather, it stemmed from a coincidence of tension within the Empire with a political and dynastic crisis within the Habsburg monarchy that undermined confidence in the emperor's ability to resolve long-standing constitutional problems. Effect: the result was that Germany suffered more from warfare in the terrible years between 1618 and 1648 than it ever did before or after until the twentieth century. Several German cities were besieged and sacked nine or ten times over, and soldiers from all nations, who often had to sustain themselves by plunder, gave no quarter to defenceless civilians. With the plague and disease adding to the toll of outright butchery, some parts of Germany lost more than half of their populations, although others went relatively unscathed. Most horrifying was the loss of life in the final 4 years, when the carnage continued unabated even while peace negotiators had already arrived at board areas of agreement and were dickering over subsidiary clauses. Nor did the Peace of Westphalia, which finally ended the Thirty Years’ War in 1648, do much to vindicate anyone’s death, even though it did establish some abiding landmarks in European history. Above all, from the international perspective, the Peace of Westphalia marked the emergence of France as the predominant power on the continental European scene, replacing Spain. France would hold this position for the next two centuries, The greatest loser in the conflict were the Austrian Habsburgs, who were force to surrender all the territory they had gained in Germany and to abandon their hopes of using the office of Holy Roman emperor to dominate central Europe. Otherwise, something very close to German status quo of 1618 was re-established, with Protestant principalities in the north balancing Catholic ones in the south and Germany so hopelessly divided that it could play no united role in European history until the nineteenth century.
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1618 May 23 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Second Defenstration of Prague]
 * 1618 Sep 19
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1619 Jun 10 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Sablat]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1620 Nov 8 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of White Mountain]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1622 Apr 26 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Wiesloch]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1622 May 6 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Wimpfen]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1622 Jun 20 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Höchst]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1622 Aug 29 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Fleurus]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1623 Aug 6 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Stadtlohn]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1626 Apr 25 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Dessau Bridge]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1626 Aug 27 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Lutter am Berenberge]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1628 Jul 5 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Stralsund]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1628 Aug 12 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Wolgast]
 * 1630 Nov
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1631 Jul 22 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Werben]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1631 Sep 17 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Breitenfeld]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1632 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|The Siege of Nürnberg]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1632 Apr 15 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Rain]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1632 Nov 16 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Lützen]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1634 Feb 25 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Wallenstein Assassinated in Cheb]
 * 1634 Sep 6
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1635 May 20 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Les Avins]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1635 May 30 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|The Peace of Prague (1635)]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1636 Oct 4 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Wittstock]
 * 1638 Feb 28
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1638 Dec 17 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|The Siege of Breisach Ends in a French Victory]
 * 1640 May 22
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1642 May 26 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Honnecourt]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1642 Oct 23 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Second Battle of Breitenfeld]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1643 Nov 24 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Tuttlingen]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1644 Jul 1 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Colberger Heide]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1644 Oct 13 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Naval Battle of Fehmarn]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1644 Nov 23 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Jüterbog]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1645 Feb 24 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Jankau]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1645 May 2 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Mergentheim]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1645 Aug 3 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Second Battle of Nördlingen]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1648 May 7 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Zusmarshausen]
 * 1648 May 15
 * 1648 Jul
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1648 Aug 20 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Lens]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1654 Aug 25 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Arras]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1656 Jul 16 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Battle of Valenciennes]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1658 Jun 14 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Second Battle of the Dunes]
 * <span style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1659 Nov 7 || <span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Treaty of the Pyrenees]