Much has been written about the dark period of European history called the Thirty Years War (1618-48), and Celia Wedgwood’s
work remains as one of the most authoritative and readable in the English language.
Central in the conflict was the politico-
religious condition of Central Europe that had developed in the Reformation and even before. At the religious level, there was the division between Catholic and Lutheran states in the Holy Roman Empire that had emerged by the time of the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, with a surging Calvinism also attracting converts. At the political level there was tension between emperors and their nominally subject princes who were entrenched in the concept of the “German Liberties.” Despite a decline of imperial power that stretched back to the thirteenth
century, there still were Hapsburgs who were willing to seek a restoration of medieval universalistic power over Germany that was fused with the concept of a universalistic Catholic Church. Political and religious interests could cut across each other, and it was possible for a Catholic prince to be hostile to an ambitious emperor even though he shared the same religion, or a Protestant prince might, at least for a time, be allied with a Catholic power.
At the wider level in the European situation, there were numerous potential hostilities linked to the situation in the Empire. Catholic Spain, with Hapsburg rulers closely related and allied to the Austrian-based Hapsburg emperors, was still willing to promulgate the old religion against Protestant Europe. Spain had only signed a truce with the rebellious Protestant states in the Netherlands and could still was a naval rival of England. France, although Catholic, was much concerned about the ‘Spanish preponderance’ that lay on its borders and was prepared to use Protestant allies in attacking Hapsburg power. In Lutheran Scandinavia to the north, both Denmark and Sweden felt empathy with the Lutheran German princes and were willing to advance their control of trade in the Baltic. Even in the Turkish-dominated Balkans and among Italian states such as Venice there were anti-Hapsburg interests that could be drawn into a conflict in Central Europe.
By the early seventeenth century, Central Europe was a powder keg waiting to be ignited. In 1618, the Protestant nobles of Bohemia rose in revolt against the autocratic tendencies of the emperor Ferdinand II and invited the Lutheran prince Frederick of the Palatinate to take the Bohemian throne. The emperor, effectively using a military alliance with the Catholic duke Maximilian of Bavaria defeated Frederick, successfully tightened his control of Bohemia, and pulled in both Spain and the hostility of other Lutheran princes. By the early 1620’s Frederick’s home principality of the Palatinate had been occupied by Spanish armies that were renewing their war with the Netherlands and the Protestant cause in Central Europe was temporarily in abeyance. It remained in abeyance during a fruitless intervention by Christian IV of Denmark and was only revived with the intervention of the formidable military power of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in the 1630’s. Although the Swedish king was killed in battle, Austrian Hapsburg power was checked in the Empire and a kind of deadlock set in. France had remained outside of the conflict during the administration of Cardinal Richelieu, but when France finally became active in the final stages of the conflict, both Spanish and Austrian Hapsburg interests were defeated and settlement was reached with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
The war was a triumph for the enemies of Hapsburg Catholic centralization. The Dutch Republic was formally recognized as being independent and France advanced her boundaries to the upper Rhine. Sweden gained territory on the Baltic that was not lost until the following century. Spain was finished as a significant European power. Not only was Lutheranism vindicated in Germanyy, but German princes were also allowed to adopt Calvinism if they chose. However, a fearsome price was paid. Except for Austria, which developed its own enlarged eastern domain when it regained Hungary from the Ottoman Turks late in the seventeenth century, Germany drifted even further down the pathway of being a collection of small, autonomous but bickering principalities that could be victimized by powerful neighbors, particularly France. Ordinary people suffered horribly. Economic dislocation and the looting of foodstuffs by mercenary armies reduced the population to about half of what it had been in 1618. Survivors lived in a milieu of reduced prosperity and demoralization that lasted into the early nineteenth century.
In her work, Wedgwood not only presents a captivating narration of events but also expertly analyzes both causes and outcomes. One paradoxical outcome of the Thirty Years War was the enhancement of the concept of religious tolerance. By the 1640’s, young rulers like Frederick William of Brandenburg and his contemporaries realized that universalistic concepts of religion, whether Catholic or Protestant could only produce irresolvable conflict. The Thirty Years War was the worst religious conflict in Europe and it was also the last. Future rivalries among rulers were essentially secular in character and they were fought primarily with national armies, not mercenary forces that could slip out of the control of a ruler who employed them, with disastrous consequences.