Description of the Thirty Years' War. Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). Events of the Thirty Years' War
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND YOUTH OF THE REPUBLIC OF CRIMEA
RVEI "CRIMEAN HUMANITARIAN UNIVERSITY" (YALTA)
YEVPATORIA INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AND LAW
(in the discipline history of the Slavic peoples)
on the topic "Thirty Years' War"
Is done by a student:
Ismailov S.N.
Evpatoria, 2014
Introduction
The balance of power in Europe
The brewing of war
periodization of the war. Warring parties
The course of the war
1 Czech period 1618-1625
2 Danish period 1625-1629
3 Swedish period 1630-1635
Peace of Westphalia
Effects
Bibliography
Introduction
The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) is one of the first pan-European military conflicts, affecting to one degree or another almost all European countries (including Russia), with the exception of Switzerland and Turkey. The war began as a religious clash between Protestants and Catholics in Germany, but then escalated into a struggle against Habsburg hegemony in Europe.
conflict war germany westphalian
1. The balance of power in Europe
Since the time of Charles V, the leading role in Europe belonged to the House of Austria - the Habsburg dynasty. At the beginning of the 17th century, the Spanish branch of the house, in addition to Spain, also owned Portugal, the Southern Netherlands, the states of Southern Italy and, in addition to these lands, had at its disposal a huge Spanish-Portuguese colonial empire. The German branch - the Austrian Habsburgs - secured the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor, were the kings of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia. The hegemony of the Habsburgs tried in every possible way to weaken other major European powers.
In Europe, there were several explosive regions where the interests of the warring parties intersected. The greatest number of contradictions accumulated in the Holy Roman Empire, which, in addition to the traditional struggle between the emperor and the German princes, was split along religious lines. Another knot of contradictions, the Baltic Sea, was also directly related to the Empire. Protestant Sweden (and also, to some extent, Denmark) sought to turn it into its own inland lake and fortify itself on its south coast, while Catholic Poland actively resisted the Swedish-Danish expansion. Other European countries advocated the freedom of Baltic trade.
The third disputed region was the fragmented Italy, over which France and Spain fought. Spain had its opponents - the Republic of the United Provinces (Holland), which defended its independence in the war of 1568-1648, and England, which challenged Spanish dominance at sea and encroached on the colonial possessions of the Habsburgs.
2. The brewing of war
The Peace of Augsburg (1555) ended for a while the open rivalry between Lutherans and Catholics in Germany. According to the terms of the peace, the German princes could choose the religion (Lutheranism or Catholicism) for their principalities at their own discretion, according to the principle "Who rules, that is the faith."
At the same time, the Catholic Church wanted to win back the lost influence. Censorship and the Inquisition intensified, the Jesuit order strengthened. The Vatican in every possible way pushed the remaining Catholic rulers to eradicate Protestantism in their possessions. The Habsburgs were ardent Catholics, but their imperial status obliged them to adhere to the principles of religious tolerance. Therefore, they gave way to the main place in the Counter-Reformation to the Bavarian rulers. Religious tension grew.
For an organized rebuff to the growing pressure, the Protestant princes of South and West Germany united in the Evangelical Union, created in 1608. In response, the Catholics united in the Catholic League (1609). Both alliances were immediately supported by foreign states. Under these conditions, the activities of the all-imperial bodies - the Reichstag and the Judicial Chamber - were paralyzed.
In 1617, both branches of the Habsburg dynasty entered into a secret agreement - the Treaty of Oñate, which settled the existing differences. Under its terms, Spain was promised lands in Alsace and northern Italy, which would provide a land connection between the Spanish Netherlands and the Italian possessions of the Habsburgs. In return, the Spanish king Philip III renounced his claims to the crown of the empire and agreed to support the candidacy of Ferdinand of Styria. The reigning emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and King Matthew of Bohemia had no direct heirs, and in 1617 he forced the Czech Sejm to recognize as his successor his nephew Ferdinand of Styria, an ardent Catholic and a pupil of the Jesuits. He was extremely unpopular in the predominantly Protestant Czech Republic, which was the reason for the uprising, which escalated into a long conflict.
3. Periodization of the war. Warring parties
The Thirty Years' War is traditionally divided into four periods: Czech, Danish, Swedish and Franco-Swedish. Outside of Germany, there were several separate conflicts: the War of Spain with Holland, the War of the Mantuan Succession, the Russian-Polish War, the Polish-Swedish War, etc.
On the side of the Habsburgs were: Austria, most of the Catholic principalities of Germany, Spain, united with Portugal, the Holy See, Poland. On the side of the anti-Habsburg coalition - France, Sweden, Denmark, the Protestant principalities of Germany, the Czech Republic, Transylvania, Venice, Savoy, the Republic of the United Provinces, supported by England, Scotland and Russia. In general, the war turned out to be a clash of traditional conservative forces with growing nation-states.
The Habsburg block was more monolithic, the Austrian and Spanish houses kept in touch with each other, often conducting joint fighting. Wealthier Spain provided financial support to the emperor. There were major contradictions in the camp of their opponents, but they all receded into the background before the threat of a common enemy.
The Ottoman Empire (the traditional enemy of the Habsburgs) in the first half of the 17th century was occupied with wars with Persia, in which the Turks suffered several serious defeats. The Commonwealth was not affected by the Thirty Years' War, but the Polish king Sigismund III sent an elite and cruel detachment of fox mercenaries to help the allied Habsburgs. In 1619, they defeated the army of the Transylvanian prince George I Rakoczi at the Battle of Humenny, after which Transylvania turned to the Ottoman sultan for military assistance. The Turks in the Battle of Khotyn were stopped by the army of the Commonwealth.
4. The course of the war
1 Czech period 1618-1625
Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia
On May 1618, opposition nobles, led by Count Turn, threw out of the windows of the Czech Chancellery into the ditch of the royal governors Slavata, Martinitsa and their secretary Fabricius (“Second Prague Defenestration”). After the death of Emperor Matthew, the leader of the Evangelical Union, Frederick V, Elector of the Palatinate, was chosen as king of Bohemia.
"Prague Defenestration"
In the autumn of the same year, 15,000 imperial soldiers, led by Count Buqua and Dampier, entered Bohemia. The Czech directory formed an army led by Count Thurn, in response to the requests of the Czechs, the Evangelical Union sent 20,000 soldiers under the command of Mansfeld. Dampier was defeated, and Bukua had to retreat to Ceska Budejovice.
Thanks to the support of the Protestant part of the Austrian nobility, in 1619 Count Thurn approached Vienna, but met with stubborn resistance. At this time Bukua defeated Mansfeld near Ceske Budějovice (Battle of Sablat on June 10, 1619), and Turn had to retreat to the rescue. At the end of 1619, the Transylvanian prince Bethlen Gabor with strong army also moved against Vienna, but the Hungarian magnate Druget Gomonai hit him in the rear and forced him to retreat from Vienna. On the territory of the Czech Republic, protracted battles were fought with varying success.
Meanwhile, the Habsburgs made some diplomatic progress. August 28, 1619 Ferdinand was elected emperor. After that, he managed to get military support from Bavaria and Saxony. For this, the Elector of Saxony was promised Silesia and Lusatia, and the Duke of Bavaria was promised the possessions of the Elector of the Palatinate and his electoral rank. In 1620, Spain sent a 25,000-strong army under the command of Ambrosio Spinola to help the emperor.
Under the command of General Tilly, the army of the Catholic League pacified upper Austria while the Imperial troops restored order in lower Austria. Then, having united, they moved to the Czech Republic, bypassing the army of Frederick V, who was trying to fight a defensive battle on distant lines. The battle took place near Prague (Battle of the White Mountain) on November 8, 1620. The Protestant army suffered a crushing defeat. As a result, the Czech Republic remained in the power of the Habsburgs for another 300 years.
The defeat caused the collapse of the Evangelical Union and the loss of Frederick V of all his possessions and title. Frederick V was expelled from the Holy Roman Empire. He tried to enlist the support of the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. Bohemia fell, Bavaria gained the Upper Palatinate, and Spain captured the Palatinate, securing a springboard for another war with the Netherlands. The first phase of the war in eastern Europe finally came to an end when Gabor Bethlen signed peace with the emperor in January 1622, gaining vast territories in eastern Hungary for himself.
Some historians distinguish a separate period of the Thirty Years' War 1621-1625 as the Palatinate period. The end of operations in the east meant the release of the imperial armies for operations in the west, namely in the Palatinate. The Protestants received small reinforcements in the person of Duke Christian of Brunswick and Margrave Georg-Friedrich of Baden-Durlach. April 27, 1622 Mansfeld defeated Tilly at Wiesloch. On May 6, 1622, Tilly and González de Cordoba, who came from the Netherlands with Spanish troops, defeated George Friedrich at Wimpfen. Mannheim and Heidelberg fell in 1622, and Frankenthal in 1623. The Palatinate was in the hands of the emperor. At the Battle of Stadtlon on August 6, 1623, the last Protestant forces were defeated. August 27, 1623 George Friedrich concluded a peace treaty with Ferdinand.
The first period of the war ended with a convincing victory for the Habsburgs. This served as an impetus for closer rallying of the anti-Habsburg coalition. June 10, 1624 France and Holland signed the Treaty of Compiègne. It was joined by England (June 15), Sweden and Denmark (July 9), Savoy and Venice (July 11).
2 Danish period 1625-1629
Christian IV, King of Denmark (1577-1648), a Lutheran, fearing for his own sovereignty in the event of the defeat of the Protestants, sent his army to their aid. Christian led a mercenary army of 20,000 soldiers.
To fight him, Ferdinand II invited the Czech nobleman Albrecht von Wallenstein. Wallenstein suggested that the emperor recruit a large army and not spend money on its maintenance, but feed it by plundering the occupied territories. Wallenstein's army became a formidable force, and at various times its strength ranged from 30,000 to 100,000 soldiers. Christian, who previously had no idea of the existence of Wallenstein, was now forced to hastily retreat before the combined forces of Tilly and Wallenstein. Denmark's allies were unable to come to the rescue. There was a civil war in France and England, Sweden was at war with Poland, the Netherlands fought off the Spaniards, and Brandenburg and Saxony tried to maintain a fragile peace at all costs. Wallenstein defeated Mansfeld at Dessau (1626), and Tilly defeated the Danes at the Battle of Lutter (1626).
Albrecht von Wallenstein
Wallenstein's army occupied Mecklenburg and Pomerania. The commander received the title of admiral, which testified to the emperor's big plans for the Baltic. However, without a fleet, Wallenstein could not capture the capital of Denmark on the island of Zeeland. Wallenstein organized the siege of Stralsund, a large free port with military shipyards, but failed.
This led to the signing of a peace treaty in Lübeck in 1629.
Another period of the war ended, but the Catholic League sought to return the Catholic possessions lost in the Peace of Augsburg. Under her pressure, the emperor issued the Restitution Edict (1629). According to it, 2 archbishoprics, 12 bishoprics and hundreds of monasteries were to be returned to the Catholics. Mansfeld and Bethlen Gabor, the first of the Protestant military leaders, died the same year. Only the port of Stralsund, abandoned by all the allies (except Sweden), held out against Wallenstein and the emperor.
3 Swedish period 1630-1635
Both Catholic and Protestant princes, as well as very many of the emperor's entourage, believed that Wallenstein wanted to seize power in Germany himself. In 1630, Ferdinand II dismissed Wallenstein. However, when the Swedish offensive began, I had to call him again.
Sweden was the last major state capable of changing the balance of power. Gustav II Adolf, King of Sweden, like Christian IV, sought to stop the Catholic expansion, as well as to establish his control over the Baltic coast of northern Germany. Like Christian IV, he was generously subsidized by Cardinal Richelieu, first minister of Louis XIII, King of France.
Prior to this, Sweden was kept from the war by the war with Poland in the struggle for the Baltic coast. By 1630, Sweden ended the war and enlisted the support of Russia (Smolensk War).
The Swedish army was armed with advanced weapon and artillery. It did not have mercenaries, and at first it did not rob the population. This fact has had a positive effect. In 1629, Sweden sent 6 thousand soldiers under the command of Alexander Leslie to help Stralsund. In early 1630, Leslie captured the island of Rügen, as a result, control was established over the Straits of Stralsund. And on July 4, 1630, Gustav II Adolf, King of Sweden, landed on the continent, at the mouth of the Oder.
Victory of Gustav II at the Battle of Breitenfeld (1631)
Ferdinand II had been dependent on the Catholic League ever since he disbanded Wallenstein's army. At the Battle of Breitenfeld (1631), Gustavus Adolphus defeated the Catholic League under the command of Tilly. A year later, they met again, and again the Swedes won, and General Tilly died (1632). With the death of Tilly, Ferdinand II turned his attention back to Wallenstein.
Wallenstein and Gustav Adolf clashed at the fierce Battle of Lützen (1632), where the Swedes narrowly won, but Gustav Adolf died. In March 1633 Sweden and the German Protestant principalities formed the Heilbronn League; the entirety of military and political power in Germany passed to an elected council headed by the Swedish Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna. But the lack of a single authoritative commander began to affect the Protestant troops, and in 1634 the previously invincible Swedes suffered a serious defeat at the Battle of Nördlingen (1634).
Ferdinand II's suspicions again got the better of him when Wallenstein began to conduct his own negotiations with the Protestant princes, the leaders of the Catholic League and the Swedes (1633). In addition, he forced his officers to take a personal oath to him. On suspicion of treason, Wallenstein was removed from command, a decree was issued on the confiscation of all his estates. On February 25, 1634, Wallenstein was killed by soldiers of his own guard at Eger Castle.
After that, the princes and the emperor began negotiations that ended the Swedish period of the war with the Peace of Prague (1635). Its terms provided for:
Annulment of the "Edict of Restitution" and the return of possessions to the framework of the Peace of Augsburg.
The unification of the army of the emperor and the armies of the German states into one army of the "Holy Roman Empire".
The ban on the formation of coalitions between princes.
Legalization of Calvinism.
This peace, however, could not suit France, as the Habsburgs, as a result, became stronger.
4 Franco-Swedish period 1635-1648
Having exhausted all diplomatic reserves, France entered the war itself (on May 21, 1635, war was declared on Spain). With her intervention, the conflict finally lost its religious overtones, since the French were Catholics. France involved in the conflict its allies in Italy - the Duchy of Savoy, the Duchy of Mantua and the Venetian Republic. She managed to prevent a new war between Sweden and the Republic of both peoples (Poland), which concluded the Stumsdorf Truce, which allowed Sweden to transfer significant reinforcements from behind the Vistula to Germany. The French attacked Lombardy and the Spanish Netherlands. In response, in 1636, the Spanish-Bavarian army under the command of Prince Ferdinand of Spain crossed the Somme and entered Compiègne, while the imperial general Matthias Galas tried to capture Burgundy.
In the summer of 1636, the Saxons and other states that had signed the Peace of Prague turned their troops against the Swedes. Together with the imperial forces, they pushed the Swedish commander Baner to the north, but were defeated at the Battle of Wittstock.
In 1638, in East Germany, Spanish troops under the command of the Bavarian general Gottfried von Gehlein attacked the superior forces of the Swedish army. Having avoided defeat, the Swedes spent a hard winter in Pomerania.
The last period of the war proceeded in conditions of exhaustion of both opposing camps, caused by colossal tension and overexpenditure of financial resources. Maneuvering actions and small battles prevailed.
In 1642, Cardinal Richelieu died, and a year later, King Louis XIII of France also died. Five-year-old Louis XIV became king. His regent, Cardinal Mazarin, began peace negotiations. In 1643, the French finally stopped the Spanish invasion at the Battle of Rocroix. In 1645 Swedish marshal Lennart Torstensson defeated the Imperials at the Battle of Jankow near Prague, and Prince Condé defeated the Bavarian army at the Battle of Nördlingen. The last prominent Catholic military leader, Count Franz von Mercy, died in this battle.
In 1648, the Swedes (Marshal Carl Gustav Wrangel) and the French (Turenne and Condé) defeated the Imperial-Bavarian army at the Battle of Zusmarhausen and Lans. Only the imperial territories and Austria proper remained in the hands of the Habsburgs.
5. Peace of Westphalia
As early as 1638, the Pope and the Danish king called for an end to the war. Two years later, the idea was supported by the German Reichstag, which met for the first time after a long break. On December 25, 1641, a preliminary peace treaty was signed, according to which the emperor, who also represented Spain, and, on the other hand, Sweden and France, declared their readiness to convene a congress in the Westphalian cities of Münster and Osnabrück to conclude a general peace. In Munster, negotiations were held between France and the emperor. In Osnabrück - between the emperor and Sweden.
A fierce struggle has already unfolded around the question of who has the right to participate in the work of the congress. France and Sweden managed to overcome the resistance of the emperor and obtain an invitation to the subjects of the empire. As a result, the congress turned out to be the most representative meeting in the history of Europe: it was attended by delegations from 140 subjects of the empire and 38 other participants. Emperor Ferdinand III was ready to make large territorial concessions (more than he had to give in the end), but France demanded a concession that he had not originally thought of. The emperor had to refuse to support Spain and not even interfere in the affairs of Burgundy, which was formally part of the empire. National interests took precedence over dynastic ones. The emperor signed all the conditions in fact separately, without the Spanish cousin.
The peace treaty concluded on October 24, 1648 simultaneously in Münster and Osnabrück went down in history under the name of Westphalia. A separate treaty, signed a little earlier, ended the war between Spain and the United Provinces. The United Provinces, as well as Switzerland, were recognized as independent states. Only the war between Spain and France remained unsettled, which lasted until 1659.
Under the terms of the peace, France received South Alsace and the Lorraine bishoprics of Metz, Toul and Verdun, Sweden - the island of Rügen, Western Pomerania and the Duchy of Bremen, plus an indemnity of 5 million thalers. Saxony - Lusatia, Brandenburg - Eastern Pomerania, the Archbishopric of Magdeburg and the Bishopric of Minden. Bavaria - Upper Palatinate, Bavarian Duke became Elector.
6. Consequences
The Thirty Years' War was the first war that affected all sections of the population. In Western history, it has remained one of the most difficult European conflicts among the predecessors of the World Wars of the 20th century. The greatest damage was inflicted on Germany, where, according to some estimates, 5 million people died. Many regions of the country were devastated and remained deserted for a long time. A crushing blow was dealt to the productive forces of Germany. The Swedes burned and destroyed almost all metallurgical and foundry plants and ore mines in Germany, as well as a third of German cities. Villages were especially easy prey for marauding armies. The demographic losses of the war were made up in Germany only 100 years later.
In the armies of both opposing sides epidemics broke out, constant companions of wars. The influx of soldiers from abroad, the constant deployment of troops from one front to another, as well as the flight of the civilian population, spread the plague farther and farther from the centers of disease. Information about numerous epidemics was preserved in parish books and tax reports. At first this problem existed only locally, but when the Danish and Imperial armies met in Saxony and Thuringia during 1625 and 1626, the diseases increased and assumed great proportions. Local chronicles mention the so-called "Hungarian disease" and the "major disease", which were identified as typhus. And after the clashes between France and the Habsburgs in Italy, the north of the Italian peninsula was engulfed by bubonic plague. The plague became a significant factor in the war. During the siege of Nuremberg, the armies of both sides were struck by scurvy and typhus. In the last decades of the war, Germany was gripped by incessant outbreaks of dysentery and typhus.
The immediate result of the war was that over 300 small German states received full sovereignty with nominal membership in the Holy Roman Empire. This situation continued until the end of the first empire in 1806.
The war did not lead to the automatic collapse of the Habsburgs, but changed the balance of power in Europe. Hegemony passed to France. The decline of Spain became evident. In addition, Sweden became a great power, significantly strengthening its position in the Baltic.
Adherents of all religions (Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism) gained equal rights in the empire. The main result of the Thirty Years' War was a sharp weakening of the influence of religious factors on the life of European states. Their foreign policy began to be based on economic, dynastic and geopolitical interests.
It is customary to count the modern era in international relations from the Peace of Westphalia.
Bibliography
1. Shtokmor V.V. History of Germany in the Middle Ages M.: 1983
Livantsev K.E. History of the bourgeois state and law Ed. "Drofa" 1992
Lyublinskaya A.D. Germany in the Middle Ages. Absolutism 1630 - 1642 Moscow: Yurait 1995
History of the State and Law of Foreign Countries Parts 1-2 Ed. prof. Krasheninnikova N.A. and prof. Zhidkova O.A. Moscow: INFRA Publishing Group. M-NORMA, 1997
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The Thirty Years' War in Germany, which began in Bohemia and lasted a generation in Europe, had one specific feature in comparison with other wars. The “first violin” in this war (a couple of years after it began) was not the Germans, although they, of course, took part in it. The most populous provinces of the Roman Empire became the battlefield for the armies of Spain, Denmark, Sweden and France. How and for what reason did the Germans manage to survive this?
1618 - Ferdinand of Styria (1578-1637) was heir to the throne of the Habsburgs. 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 aspire to 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 toleration and tolerance that his cousin Rudolf II had granted to Protestants in 1609. The inhabitants of Bohemia were in the same position as the Dutch in the 1560s, alien to their king in language, customs and religion.
As in the Netherlands, an uprising broke out in Bohemia. 1617, May 23 - hundreds of armed representatives of the nobility of Bohemia literally cornered two of Ferdinand's most hated Catholic advisers in one of the rooms of the Gradshin castle in Prague and threw them down from a window from more than 50 meters high. 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 it their goal to preserve the former privileges of Bohemia and save Ferdinand from the Jesuits. But they actually violated the laws of the Habsburgs.
The crisis quickly spread from Bohemia to the edges of the empire. The elderly Emperor Matthias, who died in 1619, gave the Protestant German rulers a chance to join the rebellion against Habsburg rule. Seven electors had the exclusive right to choose the heir of Matthias: three Catholic archbishops - Mainz, Trier and Cologne, three Protestant rulers - Saxony, Brandenburg and the Palatinate - and the king of Bohemia.
If the Protestants had deprived Ferdinand of the right to vote, they could have canceled 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 was cast for Emperor Ferdinand II. A few hours after the election, Ferdinand learned that as a result of a riot in Prague, he was overthrown from the throne, and Frederick of the Palatinate took his place!
Frederick received the crown of Bohemia. War was now inevitable. Emperor Ferdinand was preparing to crush the rebels and punish the German upstart who dared to lay claim to the lands of the Habsburgs.
The uprising in Bohemia was at first very weak. The rebels did not have a heroic leader like John Hass (c. 1369–1415), who had led an uprising in Bohemia two centuries earlier. Members of the nobility of Bohemia did not trust each other. The Bohemian government hesitated in deciding whether to introduce a special tax or create an army.
Lacking their own candidate to replace Ferdinand, the rebels turned to a German elector from the Palatinate. But Frederick was not the best choice. An inexperienced young man of 23 years old, he had no idea about the religion he was going to defend, and also could not raise 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, such as 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 the nobility and the townspeople supported the rebels. But Ferdinand was able to buy an army from three allies. Maximilian (1573–1651), duke of Bavaria and the most powerful 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 lands of the Palatinate.
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, his target being the Habsburg Puddle. The result of these preparations was a lightning military campaign (1620-1622), during which the rebels were defeated.
The army of Bavaria easily defeated Bohemia at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620. From the Alps to the Oder, the rebels capitulated and surrendered to the mercy of Ferdinand. The Bavarian and Spanish armies further conquered the Palatinate. Stupid Frederick was nicknamed "the king of one winter": by 1622 he had lost not only the crown of Bohemia, but also 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, controlled by landsknechts. Among their leaders, Ernst von Mansfeld (1580–1626) was the most memorable. A Catholic from birth, Mansfeld fought against Spain even before converting to Calvinism, and after giving his army to Frederick and Bohemia, he later switched sides frequently.
After Mansfeld fully supplied his army with everything necessary, robbing the territories through which he passed, he decided to move to new lands. After Frederick's defeat in 1622, Mansfeld sent his army to Northwest Germany, where he met with the troops of Maximilian of Bavaria. His soldiers did not obey the captain and ruthlessly robbed 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 had remained neutral in 1618-1619 now began to invade the imperial frontiers. In 1625, King Christian IV of Denmark, whose lands of Holsten were part of the empire, entered the war as a protector of the Protestants in Northern Germany. Christian longed to prevent a 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. 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 drove his army back to Denmark.
So, Emperor Ferdinand II benefited the most from the war. The capitulation of the rebels in Bohemia gave him a chance to crush Protestantism and rebuild the country's scheme of government. Having received the title of Elector of the Palatinate, Ferdinand gained real power. By 1626 he had accomplished what had proved unattainable in 1618—created a sovereign Habsburg Catholic state.
In general, 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 Maximilian's debtor and could not support the army on his own. This situation explained his surprising disposition towards Albrecht von Wallenstein (1583–1634). A Bohemian Protestant from birth, Wallenstein joined the Habsburgs during the revolution in Bohemia and managed to stay afloat.
Of all those who took part in the Thirty Years' War, Wallenstein was the most mysterious. A tall, menacing figure, he embodied every ugly human trait imaginable. He was greedy, mean, petty and superstitious. Achieving the highest recognition, Wallenstein did not set a limit to his ambitions. His enemies were afraid and did not trust him; it is difficult for modern scientists to imagine who this man really was.
1625 - he joined the imperial army. Wallenstein quickly became friends with the Bavarian general, but still he 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 commanded 125,000 soldiers. The emperor made him Duke of Mecklenburg, granting him one of the newly conquered Baltic lands. Neutral rulers, such as the Elector of Brandenburg, were too weak to stop Wallenstein from taking over their territories. Even Maximilian begged Ferdinand to protect his possessions.
1629 - The emperor felt it was time to sign his Edict of Restitution, perhaps the most complete expression of autocratic power. Ferdinand's edict outlawed Calvinism throughout the Holy Roman Empire and forced the 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 Northern Germany were converted to the Roman religion.
Ferdinand acted independently, without recourse to the imperial parliament. The Catholic princes were just as intimidated by the edict as the Protestant ones, because the emperor trampled on 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 to Ferdinand, with the help of Wallenstein's army, completely abolishing the Augsburg formula of 1555 and establishing Catholicism on his territory of the empire.
The turning point came in 1630, when Gustavus 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 make the most of 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 Gustavus Adolphus, Ferdinand played into his hands. Feeling secure and in control of Germany, Ferdinand convened a parliament in 1630 to name his son as successor to the throne and help the Spanish Habsburgs move against Holland and France. The emperor's plans were ambitious, and he underestimated the hostility of the German princes. The princes refused both of his proposals, 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 strengthen his power. Gustavus Adolf, however, had another trump card. The French parliament, led by Cardinal Richelieu, agreed to sponsor his intervention in German affairs. In fact, the Cardinal of France had no reason to help Gustavus Adolphus. Still, he agreed to pay Sweden a million lire a year to maintain an army of 36,000 in Germany, because he wanted to crush the Habsburgs, paralyze the empire, and voice French claims to territory along the Rhine. All that Gustav-Adolf needed was support from the Germans, which would allow him to become almost national hero. It was not an easy task, but as a result he persuaded the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony to join Sweden. Now he could act.
1631 - Gustavus Adolphus defeated 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, Gustavus Adolph systematically occupied previously untouched Catholic regions in Central Germany. The campaign in Bavaria was carefully thought out. The King of Sweden was preparing to behead Habsburg Austria and was increasingly active in seeking to take Ferdinand's place on the throne of the Holy Empire.
Gustavus Adolf's intervention was powerful because he preserved Protestantism in Germany and broke the Habsburg imperial backbone, 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 command of the imperial troops again, and Wallenstein finally gave his consent.
His army more than ever became his personal instrument. On a dark, foggy November day in 1632, the two commanders met near Lützen in Saxony. The armies clashed in a furious battle. Gustavus Adolphus set his horse at a gallop in the mist at the head of the cavalry. And soon his horse returned wounded and without a rider. The 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 Gustavus Adolf on the ground, literally littered with bullets. “Oh,” one of his soldiers exclaimed, “if only God would give me such a commander again to win this glorious battle again! This dispute is as old as the world!”
The old disagreements in fact led to a stalemate by 1632. No army was strong enough to win and weak enough to surrender. Wallenstein, who was still the most intimidating figure in Germany, got a chance to settle all issues through peaceful compromises. Unencumbered 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 served the emperor little, periodically turning to the enemies of Ferdinand: the 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 the post of commander in chief and ordered the new general to capture Wallenstein dead or alive. Wallenstein spent the winter in Pilsner, Bohemia. He hoped that his soldiers would follow him and not the emperor, but they betrayed him. Soon after his flight from Bohemia, Wallenstein was cornered. The final scene was gruesome: an Irish mercenary threw open the door to Wallenstein's bedroom, speared 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 amount of money to Germany. To fill the gap due to the Swedish defeat, the warring parties were now Sweden and Germany against Spain and the emperor.
The war turned into a clash of two dynasties - the Habsburgs and the Bourbons, which was based on religious, ethnic and political reasons. Only a few Germans agreed to continue the war after 1635, most preferred to stay away. 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 aim seemed to be to keep the war going, not to strike decisively at their enemy. It is noted that the French and Swedes rarely invaded Austria and never ravaged the emperor's lands as 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 included making the life of the army as comfortable as possible so that the soldiers would not lose their desire for victory. If we do not take into account the plague epidemics that often raged in military camps, then the life of the military in the middle of the 17th century was much more calm and comfortable than the townspeople. Many German cities 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, so they suffered the most from the war. The total loss in population was staggering, even if one does not take into account the deliberate exaggeration of these figures by contemporaries who reported losses or demanded exemption from taxes. The cities of Germany lost more than one-third of the population, during the war the peasantry decreased by two-fifths. Compared with 1618, the empire in 1648 had 7 or 8 million fewer people. Until the beginning of the 20th century, no European conflict led to such human losses.
Peace negotiations began in 1644, but it took 4 years for the diplomats gathered in Westphalia to finally reach an agreement. After all the controversy, the Treaty of Westphalia in 1644 became the actual confirmation of the Peace of Augsburg. The Holy Roman Empire was again becoming politically fragmented, divided into three hundred autonomous, sovereign principalities, most of which were small and weak.
The emperor - now Ferdinand II's son 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 hope of the Habsburgs to unite 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 Treaty of Augsburg regarding churches. Each prince had the right to establish Catholicism, Lutheranism or Calvinism in the territory of his principality. Compared with the treaty of 1555, significant progress was made in terms of guaranteeing personal freedom of religion for Catholics living in Protestant countries, and vice versa, although in reality the Germans continued to practice 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 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 stratum 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 lands of the Palatinate and its seat in the Electorate. Saxony received Puddle. Brandenburg, given its passive role in the war, annexed Eastern 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 presented with eight seats in the electoral college. The Swiss Confederation and the Dutch Republic were recognized as independent from the Holy Empire. Neither Spain nor Habsburg Austria received territories in 1648, but the Spanish Habsburgs already owned the largest block of land.
And Ferdinand III had to control the political and religious situation in Austria and Bohemia more strictly than his father before the uprising in Bohemia. It was hardly possible to say 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 rise of Napoleon. Religious borders remained until the 20th century.
The Treaty of Westphalia ended the Wars of Religion 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 barbarian wars of the 17th century, came up with a different way of waging war with an army professional enough to avoid looting, and boxed in to avoid bloodshed as much as possible.
For 19th-century scholars, 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. Scholars of the 20th century may not have been so obsessed with the idea of German unification, but they vehemently criticized the Thirty Years' War for the absolutely not rational use of human resources.
One of the historians formulated his thoughts in this way: "Spiritually inhuman, economically and socially destructive, disorderly in its causes and entangled in its actions, ineffectual in the end - this is an outstanding example of senseless conflict in European history." This saying highlights the most negative aspects of the war. It is difficult to find pluses in this conflict.
Modern critics draw parallels, which are not exactly pleasant for us, between the ideological positions and brutality of the middle of the 17th century and our modern style of constant war. That is why 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 to be sure, the analogies between World War II and the Thirty Years' War are a stretch: when everyone eventually got tired of the war, the diplomats in Westphalia were able to negotiate peace.
Aggravation of the struggle between the two camps in Germany at the beginning of the 17th century. At the beginning of the XVII century. the offensive of the counter-reformation forces in Germany intensified. They achieved the greatest success in the northwestern and southern parts countries. The Catholic Church managed to reassert itself in several duchies, counties, former episcopal possessions, in a number of cities. The events of 1607 in the imperial city of Donauwörth received a particularly wide response, which had political consequences. Here there was an open clash between the Protestant majority of the population, excited by the danger of re-Catholicization, and the Catholic minority, led by a fanatical clergy, who defiantly staged church processions. The Catholic emperor disgraced the city and imposed a fine on it, and one of the leaders of the counter-reformation, Maximilian of Bavaria, under the pretext of providing these decisions, occupied Donauwörth with his troops and actually annexed it to the Bavarian possessions.
Indignant Protestants at the Reichstag in 1608 demanded an end to the violations of the peace of Augsburg and to comply in full with its agreements. Catholic princes declared the need to return church property secularized since 1555. Compromise is impossible. Part of the Protestants left the Reichstag. It was dissolved and did not gather for more than thirty years. Both camps were created in 1608-1609. military-political alliances - Evangelical Union and Catholic League. Already the prehistory of the impending war clearly showed what a big role material interests, political calculations, class ambitions played in the struggle, which took place under religious banners. In 1609, after the death of the childless duke of the Rhine regions, a fierce dispute broke out over the possession of these lands, not very large, but rich, also important for the strategic goals of both camps. In 1614, the "inheritance" was divided, and through the mediation of France and England, a considerable share went to the Elector of Brandenburg. Having strengthened his position, he soon doubled his possessions, adding to them the Polish fief - the duchy of Prussia. Having become one of the largest princes, the elector laid a solid foundation for the further rise of the Brandenburg-Prussian state.
International contradictions in Europe at the beginning of the 17th century. The tension of the religious and political situation in Germany was due not only to internal reasons: an important role in its aggravation in the beginning of the 17th century. played complex interrelations and contradictions in the system of European states that had formed by that time, the impact of international relations.
The main conflict in the political life of Western Europe was the renewed confrontation between the coalition of the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs, on the one hand, and France, on the other. England took a contradictory position on the eve and during the Thirty Years' War. She cooperated and competed in trade and politics with the countries of the anti-Habsburg coalition. Russia, Poland and the Ottoman Empire did not directly participate in the Thirty Years' War, but they had an important indirect effect on it. Having stopped the struggle with Sweden for the Baltic for a long time, but continuing to tie down the forces of Poland, the enemy of Sweden and an ally of the Habsburgs, Russia contributed to the success of the Protestants. The Ottoman state, remaining an enemy of the Habsburgs and collaborating with France, was involved in long wars with Iran and did not fight on two fronts. But one of the most active fighters against the Habsburgs was the Transylvanian Principality, which was a vassal of Turkey. In general, there were major contradictions and rivalry between the participants in the anti-Habsburg coalition, but they receded into the background before the threat posed by a common enemy. In preparing for the war, the ability of the Counter-Reformation camp to consolidate its efforts played a large role, ensuring coordination of actions between the two branches of the Habsburg house - the Spanish and the Austrian. In 1617, they concluded a secret treaty, according to which the Spanish Habsburgs received a promise for lands that would form, as it were, a "bridge" between their possessions in Northern Italy and the Netherlands, and in return agreed to support the candidacy of Ferdinand of Styria, a pupil of the Jesuits, for the thrones of the Czech Republic, Hungary, and the empire. Further, more specific plans of action, as well as agreements between Emperor Ferdinand II (1619-1637) and the head of the Catholic League, Maximilian of Bavaria, already belong to the initial phase of the war. Immediate reason May events served to her 1618 in Prague. Openly trampling on the religious and political rights of the Czechs, guaranteed in the 16th century. and confirmed at the beginning of the XVII century. With a special imperial "Letter of Majesty", the Habsburg authorities persecuted Protestants and supporters of the country's national independence. An armed mob broke into the old royal palace of Prague Castle and threw two members of the Habsburg-appointed government and their secretary out of a window. All three miraculously survived after falling from an 18-meter height into the moat. This act of "defenestration" was perceived in the Czech Republic as a sign of its political break with Austria. The uprising of "subjects" against the power of Ferdinand was the impetus for war.
First (Czech) period of the war (1618-1623). The new government, elected by the Czech Diet, strengthened the country's military forces, expelled the Jesuits from it, negotiated with Moravia and other nearby lands on the creation of a general federation similar to the Dutch United Provinces. Czech troops, on the one hand, and their allies from the Transylvanian principality, on the other, moved to Vienna and inflicted a number of defeats on the Habsburg army. Declaring its refusal to recognize Ferdinand's rights to the Czech crown, the Sejm elected the head of the Evangelical Union, Elector-Calvinist Frederick of the Palatinate, as king. A stream of money from the pope and the Catholic League poured into the emperor's treasury for similar purposes, Spanish troops were recruited to help Austria, and the Polish king promised assistance to Ferdinand. In this situation, the Catholic League succeeded in forcing Frederick of the Palatinate to agree that hostilities would not affect German territory proper and would be limited to Bohemia. As a result, the mercenaries recruited by the Protestants in Germany and the Czech forces were separated. The Catholics, by contrast, achieved unity of action.
On November 8, 1620, approaching Prague, the combined forces of the imperial army and the Catholic League defeated the Czech army, which was significantly inferior to them, in the battle of the White Mountain. Bohemia, Moravia and other areas of the kingdom were occupied by the winners. Terror began on an unprecedented scale. In 1627, the so-called Funeral Diet in Prague confirmed the loss of national independence by the Czech Republic: the "Letter of Majesty" was canceled, the Czech Republic was deprived of all former privileges.
The consequences of the Battle of Belogorsk affected the change in the political and military situation not only in the Czech Republic, but throughout Central Europe in favor of the Habsburgs and their allies. The first stage of the war was over, its expansion was brewing.
Second (Danish) period of the war (1625-1629) . The Danish king Christian IV became a new participant in the war. Fearing for the fate of his possessions, which included secularized church lands, but hoping to increase them in case of victories, he secured large cash subsidies from England and Holland, recruited an army and sent it against Tilly in the area between the Elbe and the Weser. The troops of the North German princes, who shared the sentiments of Christian IV, joined the Danes. To fight new opponents, Emperor Ferdinand II needed large military forces and large financial resources, but he had neither one nor the other. The emperor could not rely only on the troops of the Catholic League: Maximilian of Bavaria, to whom they obeyed, well understood what real power they provided, and was increasingly inclined to pursue an independent policy. The energetic, flexible diplomacy of Cardinal Richelieu, who led French foreign policy and set as his goal, first of all, to bring discord into the Habsburg coalition, secretly pushed him to this. The situation was saved by Albrecht Wallenstein, an experienced military leader who commanded large detachments of mercenaries in the imperial service. The richest magnate, a German Catholic Czech nobleman, he bought up so many estates, mines and forests during the confiscation of land after the Battle of Belogorsk that he owned almost the entire northeastern part of the Czech Republic. Wallenstein proposed to Ferdinand II a simple and cynical system for creating and maintaining a huge army: it should live off high, but strictly established contributions from the population. The larger the army, the less will be able to resist its demands. Wallenstein intended to make the robbery of the population a law. The Emperor accepted his offer. In a short time, he created an army of 30,000 mercenaries, which by 1630 had grown to 100,000 people. Soldiers and officers of any nationality were recruited into the army, among them were Protestants. They were paid a lot and, most importantly, regularly, which was rare, but they were kept in strict discipline and paid great attention to professional military training. In his possessions, Wallenstein established a manufactory production of weapons, including artillery, and various equipment for the army. Wallenstein's army advancing north, together with Tilly's army, inflicted a series of crushing defeats on the Danes and the troops of the Protestant princes. Wallenstein occupied Pomerania and Mecklenburg, became the master in Northern Germany and failed only at the siege of the Hanseatic city of Stralsund, which was helped by the Swedes. Having invaded Jutland together with Tilly and threatening Copenhagen, he forced the Danish king who fled to the islands to ask for peace. The peace was concluded in 1629 in Lübeck on terms quite favorable to Christian IV due to the intervention of Wallenstein, who was already making new, far-reaching plans. Without losing anything territorially, Denmark pledged not to interfere in German affairs. Everything seemed to return to the situation of 1625, but in fact the difference was great; the emperor dealt another powerful blow to the Protestants, now he had a strong army, Wallenstein was entrenched in the north, having received the whole principality as a reward - the duchy of Mecklenburg. Appeared in Wallenstein and a new title - "General of the Baltic and Oceanic Seas." Behind him was a whole program: Wallenstein began the feverish construction of his own fleet, apparently deciding to intervene in the struggle for dominance over the Baltic and the northern sea routes. It caused acute reaction in all northern countries. Wallenstein's successes were also accompanied by outbursts of jealousy in the Habsburg camp. During the passage of his army through the princely lands, he did not consider whether they were Catholics or Protestants. He was credited with wanting to become something like the German Richelieu, intent on depriving the princes of their freedoms in favor of the emperor's central authority. Under pressure from Maximilian of Bavaria and other leaders of the Catholic League, who were dissatisfied with the rise of Wallenstein and did not trust him, the emperor agreed to dismiss him and disband the army subordinate to him. Wallenstein was forced to return to private life on his estates. One of the biggest consequences of the defeat of the Protestants in the second stage of the war was the adoption by the emperor in 1629, shortly before the Peace of Lübeck, the Edict of Restoration. It provided for the restoration (restitution) of the rights of the Catholic Church to all secularized property seized by the Protestants since 1552, when Emperor Charles V was defeated in the war with the princes. Growing deep dissatisfaction with the results of the war and imperial policy among the Protestants, discord in the Habsburg camp, and finally, serious fears of a number of European powers in connection with a sharp violation of the political balance in Germany in favor of the Habsburgs.
Third (Swedish) period of the war (1630-1635). In the summer of 1630, having imposed a truce on Poland, secured large subsidies from France for the war in Germany and a promise of diplomatic support, the ambitious and courageous commander, the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus, landed in Pomerania with his army. His army was unusual in Germany, where both belligerents used mercenary troops and both had already mastered Wallenstein's methods of keeping them well. Army of Gustavus Adolphus was small, but uniformly national in its main core and was distinguished by high fighting and moral qualities. Its core consisted of personally free peasants-countrymen, holders of state lands, obliged military service. Hardened in battles with Poland, this army used the innovations of Gustavus Adolphus, not yet known in Germany: the wider use of firearms, light field artillery from rapid-fire cannons, light, flexible infantry battle formations. Gustavus Adolph attached great importance to her maneuverability, not forgetting the cavalry, whose organization he also improved. The Swedes came to Germany under the slogans of getting rid of tyranny, defending the freedoms of German Protestants, fighting attempts to enforce the Restitution Edict; their army, then not yet expanded by mercenaries, did not plunder at first, which caused the joyful astonishment of the population, which gave it the warmest welcome everywhere. All this ensured at first the major successes of Gustavus Adolf, whose entry into the war meant its further expansion, the final development of regional conflicts into a European war on German territory.
Tilly, at the head of the league troops, besieged the city of Magdeburg, which had gone over to the Swedes, took it by storm and subjected it to wild robberies and destruction. The brutal soldiery killed almost 30 thousand citizens, not sparing women and children. After forcing both Electors to join him, Gustavus Adolf moved his army against Tilly and in September 1631 inflicted a crushing defeat on him at the village of Breitenfeld near Leipzig. This was a turning point in the war - the Swedes opened the way to Central and Southern Germany. Making rapid transitions, Gustavus Adolf moved to the Rhine, spent the winter period, when hostilities ceased, in Mainz, and in the spring of 1632 he was already near Augsburg, where he defeated the emperor's troops on the Lech River. Tilly was mortally wounded in this battle. In May 1632, Gustav-Adolf entered Munich, the capital of Bavaria, the emperor's main ally. Frightened, Ferdinand II turned to Wallenstein. By this time, Germany was already so devastated by the war that both Wallenstein, who tried to use the military innovations of the Swedes in his army, and Gustavus Adolf began to increasingly resort to the tactics of maneuvering and waiting, which led to the loss of combat capability and even the death of part of the enemy’s troops from lack of supplies. The nature of the Swedish army has changed: having lost part of its original composition in battles, it has grown greatly due to professional mercenaries, of whom there were many in the country at that time and who often moved from one army to another, no longer paying attention to their religious banners. The Swedes now plundered and looted in the same way as all other troops. In November 1632, near the city of Lützen, again near Leipzig, the second largest battle took place: the Swedes won and forced Wallenstein to withdraw to Bohemia, but Gustavus Adolf died in the battle. His army was henceforth subject to the policy of the Swedish Chancellor Oxenstierna, who was strongly influenced by Richelieu. These sentiments were used by Wallenstein. In 1633, he led negotiations with Sweden, France, Saxony, far from always informing the emperor about their progress and about his diplomatic plans. Suspecting him of treason, Ferdinand II, set against Wallenstein by a fanatical court camarilla, at the beginning of 1634 removed him from command, and in February in the fortress of Eger Wallenstein was killed by officers-conspirators loyal to the imperial power, who considered him a traitor to the state.
In the autumn of 1634, the Swedish army, which had lost its former discipline, suffered a severe defeat from the imperial troops at Nördlingen. In Prague in the spring of 1635, the Emperor, having made concessions, refused to carry out the Restorative Edict in Saxony for 40 years, until further negotiations, and this principle was to be extended to other principalities if they joined the Peace of Prague. The new tactics of the Habsburgs, designed to split the opponents, bore fruit - North German Protestants joined the world. The general political situation again turned out to be favorable for the Habsburgs, and since all other reserves in the fight against them were exhausted, France decided to enter the war itself.
Fourth (Franco-Swedish) period of the war (1635-1648) . Resuming the alliance with Sweden, France made diplomatic efforts to intensify the struggle on all fronts, where it was possible to confront both the Austrian and Spanish Habsburgs. The Republic of the United Provinces continued its war of liberation with Spain and achieved a number of successes in major naval battles. Mantua, Savoy, Venice, the Principality of Transylvania supported the Franco-Swedish alliance. Poland took a neutral but friendly position for France. Russia, on favorable terms, supplied Sweden with rye and saltpeter (for the manufacture of gunpowder), hemp and ship timber. The last, longest period of the war was fought in conditions when the exhaustion of the opposing sides was increasingly felt as a result of the huge long-term strain of human and financial resources. As a result, mobile warfare, small battles, prevailed, only a few times larger battles took place. The battles went on with varying success, but in the early 40s, the growing preponderance of the French and Swedes was determined. The Swedes defeated the imperial army in the autumn of 1642 again at Breitenfeld, after which they occupied all of Saxony and penetrated into Moravia, the French took possession of Alsace, acting in concert with the forces of the Republic of the United Provinces, won a number of victories over the Spaniards in the Southern Netherlands, dealt them a heavy blow at the Battle of Rocroix in 1643. Events were complicated by the intensified rivalry between Sweden and Denmark, which led them to war in 1643-1645. Mazarin, who replaced the deceased Richelieu, made a lot of efforts to end this conflict. Having significantly strengthened its positions in the Baltic under the terms of the peace, Sweden again stepped up the actions of its army in Germany and in the spring of 1646 defeated the imperial and Bavarian troops at Jankov in South Bohemia, and then launched an offensive in the Czech and Austrian lands, threatening both Prague and Vienna . It became increasingly clear to Emperor Ferdinand III (1637-1657) that the war was lost. Both sides were pushing for peace negotiations not only by the results of hostilities and the growing difficulties of financing the war, but also by the wide scope of the partisan movement in Germany against the violence and looting of "our" and enemy armies. Soldiers, officers, generals on both sides have lost their taste for the fanatical defense of religious slogans; many of them changed the color of the flag more than once; desertion became a mass phenomenon. As early as 1638, the pope and the Danish king called for an end to the war. Two years later, the idea of peace negotiations was supported by the German Reichstag in Regensburg, which met for the first time after a long break. Concrete diplomatic preparations for peace began, however, later. Only in 1644 did a peace congress begin in Münster, where negotiations were held between the emperor and France; in 1645, in another, also Westphalian city - Osnabrzhe - negotiations were opened, at which Swedish-German relations were clarified. At the same time, the war continued, more and more senseless.
Westphalian peace. The terms of the peace concluded in the above-mentioned cities of Westphalia in 1648 summed up the political result not only of this thirtieth anniversary, but also of the whole era of confrontation between the forces of the reformation and their opponents. The peace was the result of an imposed or forced compromise, which made significant adjustments to the system of European states and to the situation in Germany.
According to the Peace of Westphalia, Sweden - Western Pomerania with the port of Stettin and a small part of Eastern Pomerania, the islands of Rügen and Wolin, as well as the right to the Pomeranian Bay with all coastal cities. The secularized archbishoprics of Bremen and Ferden (on the Weser River), and the Mecklenburg city of Wismar also went to Sweden as imperial fiefs. She received a huge cash payment. Under the control of Sweden were the mouths of the largest rivers in Northern Germany - the Weser, Elbe and Oder. Sweden became a great European power and realized its goal of dominating the Baltic.
France, which was in a hurry to complete negotiations in connection with the parliamentary opposition that had begun and was ready, having achieved the necessary general political result of the war, to be content with relatively little, made all its acquisitions at the expense of imperial possessions. She received Alsace (except for Strasbourg, which was not legally part of it), Sundgau and Haguenau, confirmed her already hundred-year-old rights to three Lorraine bishoprics - Metz, Toul and Verdun. Under the tutelage of France were 10 imperial cities.
The Republic of the United Provinces has received international recognition of its independence. Under the Treaty of Münster - part of the treaties of the Peace of Westphalia - the issues of its sovereignty, territory, the status of Antwerp and the mouth of the Scheldt were resolved, problems that were still controversial were outlined. The Swiss Union received direct recognition of its sovereignty. Significantly increased their territories at the expense of smaller rulers, some large German principalities. The Elector of Brandenburg, whom France supported in order to create a kind of counterbalance to the emperor in the north, but also - for the future - to Sweden, received under the treaty East Pomerania the archbishopric of Magdeburg, the bishoprics of Halberstadt and Minden. The influence of this principality in Germany increased dramatically. Saxony secured the Lusatian lands. Bavaria received the Upper Palatinate, and its duke became the eighth elector, since the former electoral rights were restored from the count palatine of the Rhine.
Peace of Westphalia secured political fragmentation Germany. The German princes achieved the right to conclude alliances among themselves and treaties with foreign states, which effectively ensured their sovereignty, although with the proviso that all these political ties should not be directed against the empire and the emperor. The empire itself, formally remaining a union of states headed by an elected monarch and permanent Reichstags, after the Peace of Westphalia, in fact, turned not into a confederation, but into] a barely connected conglomerate of "imperial officials". Along with Lutheranism and Catholicism, Calvinism also received the status of an officially recognized religion in the empire.
For Spain, the Peace of Westphalia meant the end of only part of her wars: she continued hostilities with France. Peace between them was concluded only in 1659. He gave France new territorial acquisitions: in the south - at the expense of Roussillon; in the northeast, at the expense of the province of Artois in the Spanish Netherlands; in the east, part of Lorraine passed to France.
The Thirty Years' War brought unprecedented ruin to Germany and the countries that were part of the Habsburg empire. The population of many regions of North-East and South-West Germany has halved, in a number of places - by 10 times. In the Czech Republic, out of 2.5 million people in 1618, only 700 thousand remained by the middle of the century. Many cities suffered, hundreds of villages disappeared, huge areas of arable land were overgrown with forests. Many Saxon and Czech mines were disabled for a long time. Trade, industry, culture were severely damaged. The war that swept through Germany slowed down its development for a long time. This left its mark on the entire system of relations between European states in the period after the Peace of Westphalia. Having consolidated a new balance of power in Europe, it became the boundary of two major periods of its history.
400 years ago, in May 1618, indignant Czechs threw two imperial governors and their secretary out of the window of the fortress tower of the Prague Castle (they all survived). This seemingly insignificant incident, later called the Second Prague Defenestration, was the beginning of the Thirty Years' War - the bloodiest, most brutal and devastating military conflict in Europe until the world wars of the 20th century.
How was modern Europe and the current world order born in the darkness of the bloody events of the 17th century? Whose side was Russia on and whom did it feed then? Did the Thirty Years' War give rise to aggressive German militarism? Is there a typological similarity between it and the ongoing ongoing conflicts in Africa and the Middle East? The candidate answered all these questions of Lente.ru historical sciences, Associate Professor, Faculty of History, Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov Arina Lazareva.
The very first world
Lenta.ru: Some historians who study the 18th century consider the Seven Years' War to be the first real world conflict. Is it possible to say the same about the Thirty Years' War of the 17th century?
Arina Lazareva: The epithet "world" for the Seven Years' War is due to the fact that it took place on several continents - as you know, it was not only in the European, but also in the American theater of operations. But it seems to me that the Thirty Years' War can rather be considered the "first world war".
Why?
The myth of the Thirty Years' War as the "First World War" is associated with the involvement of almost all European states in it. But in the early modern times, the world was Eurocentric, and the concept of "peace" embraced, first of all, the states of Europe. In the Thirty Years' War, they were divided into two opposing blocs - the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs and the coalition opposing them. Almost every European country had to take one side or another in this general conflict of the first half of the 17th century.
Why was the Thirty Years' War such a colossal shock for Europe that its consequences are still being felt?
As for the colossal shock and trauma inflicted by the Thirty Years' War on Germany or even on the whole of Europe, here we are partly dealing with the myth-making of German historians of the 19th century. Trying to explain the absence of a national German state, they began to appeal to the "catastrophe" of the Thirty Years' War, which, in their opinion, destroyed the natural development of the German lands and caused an irreparable "trauma", which the Germans began to overcome only in the 19th century. Then this myth was picked up by German historiography of the 20th century, and especially Nazi propaganda, which was very profitable to exploit it.
Painting by Charles Svoboda "Defenestration"
Image: Wikipedia
If we talk about the consequences of the war, which are still being felt, then the Thirty Years' War should rather be viewed in a positive way. Its most important legacy, preserved to this day, is the structural changes in international relations, which have become systematic. After all, it was after the Thirty Years' War that the first system of international relations appeared in Europe - the Westphalian system, which became a kind of prototype for European cooperation and the foundation of the modern world order.
Germany became the main theater of operations of the Thirty Years' War?
Yes, contemporaries have already begun to call the Thirty Years' War "German", or "the war of the Germans", because the main hostilities unfolded in the German principalities. The northeastern lands, the central part of Germany, the west and south - all these areas have been in constant military chaos for 30 years.
The British passing through them spoke very interestingly about the state of the German principalities in the mid-30s of the 17th century. They wrote: “The earth is absolutely deserted. We saw abandoned and devastated villages that were allegedly attacked 18 times over the course of two years. There was not a single person here or in the whole district.” Statistical studies by the German historian Gunther Franz show that some areas (eg Hesse and Bavaria) have lost up to half of the population.
Apocalypse of the German Nation
Is that why in Germany the Thirty Years' War is often called "the apocalypse of German history"?
It was the most devastating war at that time in the history of Europe. The perception of the war as an apocalypse was completed by a plague epidemic that began in the 1630s, and a severe famine, during which, according to contemporaries, there were even cases of cannibalism. All this is very colorfully captured in journalism - there are absolutely terrible stories, how in Bavaria, during the famine, meat was cut from the corpses of people. For the ideas of the people of the XVII century, war, plague and famine were the embodiment of the horsemen of the Apocalypse. Many writers of the Thirty Years' War actively quoted the "Revelation of John the Theologian", since its language was quite suitable for describing the then state of Central Europe.
The Thirty Years' War was also considered German because it decided the internal affairs of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. The conflict between the emperor and Frederick of the Palatinate was not only a religious conflict - it was a struggle for power, where the question of the place of the emperor, his prerogatives and relations with the ranks of the empire was decided. It was about the so-called "imperial constitution", that is, the internal order of the empire.
Painting by Sebastian Vranks "Marauding Soldiers"
Painting from the workshop of Sebastian Vranks "Scene of the period of the Thirty Years' War near a small town"
It is not surprising that the Thirty Years' War was a real shock for contemporaries, both ideologically and politically.
Was it the first total war in the modern sense?
It seems to me that the Thirty Years' War can be called total, because it affected all the state and public institutions of that time. There were no indifferent people at all. This is precisely due to the causes of the war, which should also be considered quite broadly.
How exactly?
Traditionally, Russian historiography interpreted the Thirty Years' War as a religious war. And at first glance, it seems that the main reason for the war was the question of establishing confessional parity in the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation between Catholics and Protestants. But if we are talking about the religious settlement in the empire, how then to explain the pan-European character of the war? And this involvement of almost all European states in the military confrontation provides the key to a broader understanding of the causes of the war.
These reasons are connected with the central theme of the early modern era - the formation of the so-called "modern" states, that is, states of the modern type. Let's not forget that in the 17th century the states of Europe were still on the way to the idea of sovereignty and its practical implementation. Therefore, the Thirty Years' War was not a conflict of equal states (as it became later), but rather a confrontation between various hierarchies, orders, organizations that were at the crossroads from the Middle Ages to the New Age.
And from the multitude of these confrontations, a new world order was born, the states of the New Age were born. Therefore, in today's historiography, the point of view has already been more or less clearly established that the Thirty Years' War is a state-forming war. That is, it was a war centered on the emergence of a new type of state.
Magdeburg lack of rights
That is, figuratively speaking, the entire modern system of international relations was born in the throes of the Thirty Years' War?
Yes. The most important prerequisite for the Thirty Years' War was the "general crisis" of the 17th century. In fact, this phenomenon was rooted in the previous century. This crisis manifested itself in all spheres - from economic to spiritual - and became the product of many processes that began in the 16th century. The Church Reformation undermined or significantly changed the spiritual foundations of society, and towards the end of the century, a cooling began - the so-called Small ice Age. Then the European dynastic crisis was added to this, caused by the inability of the then political institutions and elites to withstand the challenges of the time.
The Russian “rebellious” 17th century, which began with the Time of Troubles, continued with the Great Schism and ended with the reforms of Peter I, was also part of this “general crisis” in Europe?
Undoubtedly. Russia has always been a part of the European world, albeit a very peculiar one.
What was the reason for the general bitterness, sometimes reaching savagery, and mass violence against the civilian population? How reliable are the numerous testimonies about the horrors and atrocities of that war?
If we talk about the horrors of war, then I do not think that there are exaggerations here. Wars have always been fought extremely fiercely, ideas about the value of human life as such were very vague. We have a huge amount of terrible evidence describing torture, robbery and other abominations of the Thirty Years' War. Interestingly, contemporaries personified even the war itself.
Engraving by Jacques Callot “The Horrors of War. Hanged"
Engraving "Allegory of War" from the work of Georg Philipp Harsdörfer "Women's Dialogues"
They portrayed her as a terrible monster with a wolf's mouth, a lion's body, horse legs, a rat's tail (there were different options). But, as contemporaries wrote, "this monster has the hands of a man." Even in the writings of those contemporaries who did not set out to directly report on the horrors of war, there are very colorful and truly monstrous pictures of military reality. Take, for example, the classic work of that era - the novel by Hans Jakob Grimmelshausen "Simplicissimus".
The story of the massacre in Magdeburg, committed after its capture in 1631, was widely known. The terror against the inhabitants of the city, arranged by the victors, was unprecedented by the standards of that time?
No, the atrocities during the capture of Magdeburg were not much different from the violence against the local population during the capture of Munich by the troops of the Swedish king Gustav II Adolf. Just the sad fate of the inhabitants of Magdeburg had more publicity, especially in Protestant countries.
"Fire, plague and death, and the heart freezes in the body"
What was the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe? They say that between four and ten million people died, about a third of the territory of Germany was abandoned.
The territories of Germany, located along the line from the southwest to the northeast, were most severely affected. However, there were also areas not affected by the war. For example, northern German cities- in particular, Hamburg - on the contrary, they only got rich from military supplies.
It is difficult to reliably say how many people actually died during the Thirty Years' War. There is only one statistical work on this by Günther Franz, whom I mentioned, written in the 30s of the 20th century.
Under Hitler?
Yes, so some of his data is very biased. Franz wanted to show how much the Germans suffered from the aggression of their neighbors. And in this work, he really gives figures about 50 percent of the dead population of Germany.
Painting by Eduard Steinbrueck "Magdeburg Girls"
But here the following should be remembered: people died not so much during hostilities as from epidemics, famine and other hardships caused by the Thirty Years' War. All this fell upon the German lands after the armies, like the three biblical horsemen of the Apocalypse. The classic of German literature of the 17th century, a contemporary of the Thirty Years' War, the poet Andreas Gryphius wrote: “Fire, plague and death, and the heart freezes in the body. Oh, mournful land, where blood flows in streams ... "
The modern German political scientist Herfried Münkler considers the emergence of German militarism to be an important result of the Thirty Years' War. As far as one can understand it, the desire of the Germans to prevent a repetition of its horrors on their soil in the long run led to an increase in their aggressiveness. The result was the Seven Years' War, sparked by Prussian ambitions, and both world wars of the 20th century, unleashed by Germany. How do you like this approach?
From today's perspective, the Thirty Years' War can, of course, be blamed for anything. The vitality of the nineteenth-century myth is sometimes simply amazing. Rather, its offspring was not militarism, more associated with the rise of Prussia in the 18th century, but German nationalism. During the years of the Thirty Years' War, German national feeling became more acute than ever. In the view of the Germans of that time, the whole world around was filled with enemies. Moreover, this was manifested not on a confessional basis (Catholics or Protestants), but on the basis of national identity: the Spaniards, the Swedes and, of course, the French enemies.
During the Thirty Years' War, some formulaic statements and opinions appeared, which later turned into stereotypes. Here, for example, about the Spanish enemies: "real insidious killers who are cunning with the help of their bestial intrigues and intrigues." This penchant for intrigue, attributed to the Spaniards, you see, is still in our minds: if “secrets”, then definitely “of the Madrid court”. But the most hated enemies were the French. As German writers of that time wrote, with the arrival of the French, “vice, debauchery and depravity poured in from all the open gates.”
In the ring of enemies
Was the concept of the German "special path" (the notorious Deutscher Sonderweg), borrowed by Russian Slavophiles in the 19th century, also the result of a rethinking of the experience of the Thirty Years' War?
Yes, it all comes from there. At the same time, the myth of God's chosen people of the German people appeared and the idea that the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation is the last of the four biblical kingdoms, after the fall of which the Kingdom of God will come. Of course, all these images have their specific historical explanations, but this is not the point here. It is important that the national component during the years of the Thirty Years' War rose to new level. Political weakness after the end of the war began to be more and more actively obscured by claims for "past greatness", the possession of "special moral values" and similar attributes.
Is it true that it was precisely as a result of the Thirty Years' War that Brandenburg, the core of the future Prussia, strengthened in the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation?
I wouldn't say so. Brandenburg grew stronger thanks to the far-sighted policy of the great Elector Frederick William I, who pursued a very competent policy, including religious tolerance. The rise of the Prussian kingdom was more facilitated by Frederick the Great, who consolidated the successes of his ancestors, but this happened already in the second half of the 18th century.
Why did the Thirty Years' War last so long?
To understand the duration of the war, one must recognize its European character. One should not, for example, think that France's entry into the Thirty Years' War was based solely on the Franco-German confrontation. After all, Louis XIII officially started the war not with the Holy Roman Emperor, but with Spain. And this happened after the Spanish troops captured the Elector of Trier, who was officially under French protection since 1632. That is, for France, the war against the emperor was only a side theater of military operations in the war against Spain. France had no specific strategic goals in relation to the Habsburgs, she was looking for a long-term security program.
Did France try to resist the hegemony of the Habsburgs, whose possessions she was surrounded on almost all sides?
Yes, this was precisely the strategy of Cardinal Richelieu, who led the foreign policy of France.
Painting by Sebastian Vranks "Soldiers rob a farm during the Thirty Years' War"
But the duration of the war was largely due to the involvement of more and more European actors in it under various pretexts. Constant contradictions regularly arose and aggravated between European states, while the alignment of political forces in Europe was never unambiguous. For example, the same Richelieu, even at the time of the Swedish invasion of the German principalities, seeing the strengthening of Sweden, was thinking about concluding an alliance with the Habsburgs against Stockholm. But this is a completely unique fact!
Why?
Because the Franco-Habsburg antagonism has been the main conflict in Europe since the end of the 15th century. But such thoughts were prompted by Richelieu that the strengthening of Sweden was completely unprofitable for France. However, due to the death of Gustav II Adolf at the battle of Lützen in 1632, the further strengthening of the forces opposing the emperor was again considered an urgent need. Therefore, France in 1633 entered into the Heilbron Union with the Protestant estates of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation.
Russian bread for Swedish victories
This is a difficult question...
France?
To some extent, its authority in the international arena has noticeably strengthened, especially in comparison with Spain. But the Fronde still continued there, greatly weakening the country from the inside, and France reached the peak of its power only in mature years Louis XIV.
Sweden?
If we regard the winner in terms of international prestige and claims to hegemony, then for Sweden the war turned out to be extremely successful. After that, the great-power period of Swedish history reached its climax, and the Baltic Sea until Northern war with Russia, in fact, it really turned into a “Swedish Lake”.
But some historians - for example, Heinz Duchhard - believe that Europe won because thanks to the Thirty Years' War, the European center was strengthened. After all, none of the participants in the war wanted the destruction of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation - everyone needed it as a deterrent. In addition, after the war, new ideas about international relations appeared in Europe, voices advocating for common system European security.
And what happened to the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation? It turns out that it was she who became the losing side?
It cannot be unequivocally said that the Thirty Years' War put an end to its development and viability. On the contrary, the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation was necessary for Europe as an important political body. The fact that after the Thirty Years' War its potential was clearly preserved is proved by the policy of Emperor Leopold I in late XVII century.
The war began in 1618, when the 15-year Troubles ended in Russia. Did it take Moscow State any involvement in the events of the Thirty Years' War?
There are many scientific works dedicated to this issue. The book of the historian Boris Porshnev, who examines the foreign policy of Mikhail Romanov in the context of pan-European international relations during the era of the Thirty Years War, has become a classic. Porshnev believed that the Smolensk War of 1632-1634 was the Russian theater of operations of the Thirty Years' War. It seems to me that this statement has its own logic.
Indeed, divided into two warring blocs, the European states were simply forced to take one side or another. For Russia, the confrontation with Poland turned into an indirect struggle with the Habsburgs, since the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation was fully supported by the Polish kings - first Sigismund III, and then his son Vladislav IV.
Moreover, not long before that, both of them "checked in" with us during the Time of Troubles.
Yes, like many of their subjects. It was on this basis that Moscow actually helped Sweden. Deliveries of cheap Russian bread ensured the successful march of Gustav Adolf through the German lands. At the same time, Russia, despite the requests of Emperor Ferdinand II, categorically refused to sell the bread of the Holy Roman Empire.
However, I would not speak unambiguously about Russia's participation in the Thirty Years' War. Nevertheless, our country, devastated by the Time of Troubles, was then on the periphery of European politics. Although both Mikhail Fedorovich and Alexei Mikhailovich, judging by the reports of the ambassadors and the first Russian handwritten newspaper Vesti-Kuranty, followed European events very closely. After the end of the Thirty Years' War, the documents of the Peace of Westphalia were very quickly translated for Alexei Mikhailovich. By the way, the Russian Tsar was also mentioned in them.
Westphalian Foundation of the Modern World
Now some researchers, and not only the above-mentioned Herfried Münkler, compare the Thirty Years' War with the current protracted conflicts in Africa or the Middle East. They find much in common between them: a combination of religious intolerance and the struggle for power, ruthless terror against the civilian population, the permanent enmity of everyone with everyone. Do you think such analogies are appropriate?
Yes, now in the West, especially in Germany, these comparisons are very popular. Not so long ago, Angela Merkel spoke about "the lessons of the Thirty Years' War" in the context of the Middle East conflicts. Even now people often talk about the erosion of the Westphalian system. But I would not like to delve into modern international political science.
If you really want to find analogies in history, you can always do it. The world is still changing: the reasons may remain similar, but the methods for resolving issues today are much more complicated and, of course, tougher. If desired, the conflicts in the Middle East can also be compared with the long wars of European states (primarily the Holy Roman Empire) with Ottoman Turkey, which were of a civilizational nature.
Yet why is the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War, considered to be the basis of the European political system and the entire modern world order?
The Peace of Westphalia was the first peace treaty regulating the general balance of power in Europe. Even during the signing of the peace, the Italian diplomat Cantorini called the Peace of Westphalia "an epoch-making event for the world." And he turned out to be right: the uniqueness of the Peace of Westphalia lies in its universality and inclusiveness. The Treaty of Münster contains, in the penultimate paragraph, an invitation to all European sovereigns to join in the signing of peace, on the basis of proposals from one of the two peace parties.
In the minds of contemporaries and descendants, the world was considered Christian, universal and eternal - "pax sit christiana, universalis, perpetua". And it was not just a formula of speech, but an attempt to give it a moral justification. On the basis of this thesis, for example, a general amnesty was held, and forgiveness was announced, thanks to which it was possible to create a basis for Christian interaction between states in the future.
The guidelines contained in the Peace of Westphalia were a kind of security partnership for the entire European society, a kind of ersatz of the European security system. Its principles - mutual recognition by states of national state sovereignty, their equality and the principle of inviolability of borders - became the foundation of the current global world order.
What lessons can the modern world learn from the longest and bloodiest European conflict of the 17th century?
It is probably this partnership for the sake of security that we all need to learn today. Look for mutual compromises in order to avoid a war that risks becoming a global catastrophe for the whole world. Our ancestors in the 17th century were able to achieve this. Figuratively speaking, the general bitterness and horror, dirt and bloody chaos of the Thirty Years' War dragged Europe to the very bottom. But she still found the strength to push off from him, be born again and reach a new level of development.
Interviewed by Andrey Mozzhukhin
Thirty Years' War, in short description, is a conflict in the center of Europe between the Catholic and Lutheran (Protestant) princes of Germany. For three decades - from 1618 to 1648. - military clashes alternated with brief, unstable truces, religious fanaticism mixed with political ambitions, the desire to enrich themselves through war and the seizure of foreign territories.
The Reformation movement, which began, let us briefly recall, in the 16th century, divided Germany into two irreconcilable camps - Catholic and Protestant. Supporters of each of them, not having an unconditional advantage within the country, were looking for support from foreign powers. And the prospects for the redistribution of European borders, control over the richest German principalities and the strengthening of international politics in the arena prompted the influential states of that time to intervene in the war, called the Thirty Years' War.
The impetus was the curtailment of the broad religious privileges of the Protestants in Bohemia, where Ferdinand II ascended the throne in 1618, and the destruction of prayer houses in the Czech Republic. The Lutheran community turned to Great Britain and Denmark for help. The nobility and knighthood of Bavaria, Spain and the Pope, in turn, briefly promised all-round assistance to the Catholic princes, and at first the advantage was on their side. The Battle of Belaya Gora near Prague (1620), won by the allies of the Roman emperor in a confrontation that became thirty years old, practically eradicated Protestantism in the Habsburg lands. Not satisfied with a local victory, a year later Ferdinand moved troops against the Lutherans of Bohemia, gaining another advantage in the war.
Britain, weakened by internal political differences, could not openly take the side of the Protestants, but supplied the troops of Denmark and the Dutch Republic with weapons and money. Despite this, by the end of the 1620s. the imperial army took control of almost all of Lutheran Germany and much of Danish territory. AT summary, The act of restitution, signed by Ferdinand II in 1629, approved the complete return of the rebellious German lands to the fold of the Catholic Church. It seemed that the war was over, but the conflict was destined to become thirty years old.
Only the intervention of Sweden, subsidized by the French government, made it possible to revive hope for the victory of the anti-imperial coalition. In short, the victory near the town of Breitenfeld gave rise to a successful advance deep into German territory by forces led by the King of Sweden and the Protestant leader Gustavus Adolphus. By 1654, having received military support from Spain, Ferdinand's army pushed the main Swedish forces beyond the borders of southern Germany. Although the Catholic coalition put pressure on France, surrounded by enemy armies, Spanish from the south and German from the west, she entered into a thirty-year conflict.
After that, Poland also took part in the struggle, Russian empire, and the Thirty Years' War, in short, turned into a purely political conflict. From 1643, the French-Swedish forces won one victory after another, forcing the Habsburgs to agree to an agreement. Given the bloody nature and a lot of destruction for all participants, the final winner of the long-term confrontation was not determined.
The Westphalian Accords of 1648 brought a long-awaited peace to Europe. Calvinism and Lutheranism were recognized as legal religions, and France achieved the status of European arbiter. The independent states of Switzerland and the Netherlands appeared on the map, while Sweden was able to expand its territory (Eastern Pomerania, Bremen, the mouths of the Oder and Elbe rivers). The economically weakened monarchy of Spain was no longer a "thunderstorm of the seas", and neighboring Portugal proclaimed sovereignty back in 1641.
The price paid for stability was enormous, and the German lands suffered the most damage. But the thirty-year conflict ended the period of wars on religious grounds, and the confrontation between Catholics and Protestants ceased to dominate among international issues. The beginning of the Renaissance allowed European countries to acquire religious tolerance, which had a beneficial effect on art and science.
