The Thirty Years' War

Though the Thirty Year’s War started out as a religious war, it was inevitable that it would end in a mess of politics.

“In 1618, a local Bohemian conflict on the use of churches in rural regions culminated in the Defenestration of Prague. Two Catholic aristocrats were thrown out of a window of the (Protestant) Bohemian chancellery.” (source) This act on May 23, 1618 “launched the Thirty Years’ War.” (Bonney 13)

The Thirty Years’ War is sometimes known as the “last of the religious wars” even though it would not be the end of these struggles. It was a Protestant rebellion against the authority of the Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperors, who were Catholic. Soon, politics became involved as well and it wasn’t just a battle for faith anymore. (source, Wedgwood 1)

“This ‘30 Years’ War’ is considered one of the most devastating wars of all time. One third of the people of Europe died during those 3 decades, either from the use of weapons, famine or epidemics. One third of Europe was devastated and remained so for another generation.” (source) Most of the war was fought on German soil, and therefore much of the country was destroyed. (source)

All attempts at making peace had failed, but finally the Peace of Westphalia was successful and settled on October 24, 1648. It said that all German states could determine their own religions. “The chief participants in the negotiations were the allies Sweden and France; their opponents, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire; and the various parts of the empire (which had been riven by the war) together with the newly independent Netherlands.” (source) “It marked the end of the Holy Roman Empire as an effective institution and inaugurated the modern European state system.” (source)

“The chief results of the Thirty Years’ War were: the foundation and recognition of a unified Austria under the rule of the German Habsburgs; the revival, in a certain doubtful sense though, of the Holy Roman Empire; the establishment of Sweden on German soil; the permanent weakening of Denmark; the renunciation by Holland of all efforts to drive Spain out of southern Netherlands; [and] an enormous increase of the power of France.” (source)


Works Cited

Bonney, Richard. The Thirty Years' War 1618-1648. Great Britain: Osprey Publishing. 2002.

Wedgwood, C.V. & Grafton, Anthony. The Thirty Years War. Broadway, New York: The New York Review of Books. 2005.