Europe had expected that the struggle between Catholic and
Protestant would be renewed in 1621, when the truce between Spain
and the northern provinces of the Netherlands came to an end.
But it began in the Empire several years earlier and gradually
most of Europe became involved.
Since Charles V, backed by the power of Spain, had been unable
either to strengthen his authority at the expense of the territorial
princes or to wipe out Protestantism, it was natural that his
immediate successors preferred to leave the constitutional and
religious issues alone. Ferdinand I (1556-1564) and Maximilian
II (1564-1576) devoted most of their energy to fighting the Turks,
while Rudolf II (1576-1612) preferred to dabble in astrology and
to search for the philosopher's stone to turn base metals into
gold. During their reigns, however, the Catholic revival was gathering
momentum, and it remained only for Ferdinand II (1619-1637 ) to
put the new Catholic fervor into action.
The red-haired, red-faced, good-natured Ferdinand was not a great
man, but he possessed more virtues than most kings. He was both
a devoted husband and father and a conscientious ruler interested
in the welfare of his people. It was said with exaggeration no
doubt that when he was Duke of Styria, he knew the names of all
his subjects and that he provided free legal service for the poorest
of their number. Above all else, however, he was a Habsburg: he
was dedicated to the twofold task of re- storing the authority
of the emperor in the Empire and of re-establishing Catholicism
in central Europe.
In his desire to restore the authority of the emperor, he could
count on the support of Spain. Spain was only awaiting the end
of a twelve-year truce made in 1609 to renew its efforts to reconquer
the rebellious provinces in the Netherlands. Because of Dutch
naval strength, the Spanish would have to send their troops to
the Netherlands by way of Italy, the Al- pine passes, and the
Rhine River Valley. A strong emperor meant greater imperial authority
in the Rhineland and with it more ease in moving troops. Indeed,
Ferdinand had already promised Alsace to his Spanish cousins in
return for supporting his candidacy to the imperial throne, and
he was to promise more in return for military assistance.
Ferdinand could rely on the forces of the Catholic Reformation
in his efforts to roll back the tide of Protestantism. The Catholic
revival had already recouped a few losses in southern Germany,
and Ferdinand himself had stamped out Protestantism in his duchies.
Unfortunately, his allies were at cross purposes. The Spanish
emphasized the need to increase imperial authority because it
was essential to their reconquest of the Netherlands, but the
German Catholic princes were only willing to help Ferdinand against
the Protestants and strongly opposed any increase in imperial
power that might curb their own independence.
More serious still was the interest of foreign powers in Germany.
Would France permit Spain to take Alsace, the rest of the Rhineland,
and the Netherlands, thereby drawing a tight net around its borders?
Would Denmark and Sweden sit quietly by while the Habsburgs extended
their power to the Baltic Sea and suppressed their fellow Lutherans?
Or would they intervene to maintain their security and, perhaps,
to add to their lands in northern Germany? Germany was in central
Europe, and the German problem could not be settled without the
intervention of surrounding states. It was not enough for Ferdinand
to win the allies necessary to defeat the German Protestant princes.
He ought to have been less ambitious or else prepared to fight
both France and the leading Protestant states. lt was not, however,
left to him to decide to break the peace. The first step was taken
by his rebellious subjects in Bohemia. Gradually and inevitably,
the struggle spread to the rest of Germany and then to Europe.
The majority of the inhabitants of Bohemia were Lutheran, Calvinist,
or members of one of the Hussite sects, although the Catholic
minority supported by the Habsburgs was growing in strength. In
addition, the Bohemian nobles were opposed to the encroachment
by Habsburg officials on their power. This dissatisfaction with
the religious and political policies of the Habsburgs, taken with
the certainty that Ferdinand would push them further when he came
to power, led to the revolt. On May 23, 1618, a year before Ferdinand
was named emperor, the Bohemian leaders unceremoniously threw
two imperial officials out of a window in the palace at Prague.
They fell seventy feet, but escaped with their lives, either because
of the intercession of the Virgin Mary, as Catholic propagandists
confidently asserted, or because they landed in a dung hill, as
Protestants claimed. In any case, civil war was now inevitable
and a European conflict almost certain.
The rebels quickly seized control of Bohemia, won assistance from
Transylvania, elected as king the Calvinist Elector Frederick
of the Palatinate, and marched on Vienna. Ferdinand had neither
money nor troops, but he had to regain Bohemia. That wealthy country
furnished half the imperial revenue, and its king held one of
the seven electoral votes that determined who would be emperor.
Since three votes already belonged to Protestant princes, the
loss of Bohemia might mean the choice of a Protestant instead
of a Catholic Habsburg in an imperial election.
Ferdinand turned to Maximilian (1597-1651) of Bavaria and Spain
for assistance. Maximilian was an able prince who had consolidated
his hold over his duchy and had organized a Catholic League. Furthermore,
he had the rare good fortune to have an army under an able, loyal
commander. To him, Ferdinand promised the upper Palatinate and
Frederick's title of elector. To Spain, he offered the control
of Frederick's Rhineland possessions. With these allies, Ferdinand
quickly reconquered Bohemia. Catholicism and imperial authority
were ruthlessly restored.
The once elective monarchy was made an hereditary Habsburg dominion.
By 1623, Ferdinand and his Catholic allies had also occupied Frederick's
hereditary lands. Southern Germany was theirs, but the Protestant
princes in northern Germany had become alarmed, and foreign. powers
determined to intervene before the Habsburgs could consolidate
their position. France took steps to cut the Spanish supply route
through the Alps, and the Danes, financed in part by the English,
the Dutch, and the French, marched into Germany with 30,000 men.
However, Ferdinand had come to realize that he could not achieve
his objectives if he had to depend solely on allies. He therefore
accepted the offer of a Bohemian nobleman named Albrecht von Wallenstein
(1583- 1634) to raise an imperial army. Born a Lutheran, Wallenstein
had become a Catholic to qualify for imperial favor. Certainly
religion was not the motivating force in this tall, thin, forbidding
man. It was to the stars that he turned for guidance when he doubted
the conclusions reached by his own brilliant but undisciplined
mind. He was born under the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter.
The great astronomer Kepler informed him when he cast his horoscope
that be had "a restless, exacting mind, impatient of old
methods and forever striving for the new and the untried, secretive,
melancholy, suspicious, contemptuous of his fellow men and their
conventions. He would be avaricious, deceitful, greedy for power,
loving no one and by no one beloved, changeable in his humours,
quarrelsome, friendless and cruel." Seldom have the stars
spoken more truly.
The first step the wily Wallenstein took toward greatness was
to marry a wealthy widow who conveniently died soon thereafter,
leaving him her estates and the freedom to espouse the daughter
of one of Ferdinand's councillors. To wealth and influence he
added a businessman's instinct for organization and profit. He
managed his estates so well that he came to control a quarter
of the land in Bohemia and was able to offer to raise, quarter,
and provision 50,000 men at his own expense, leaving to Ferdinand
only the responsibility of their pay. The emperor recognized the
danger of giving too much power to this powerful subject but the
alternative was continued dependence on the Spanish and Bavarians.
He therefore accepted Wallenstein's offer and was rewarded with
quick victories by the Bavarian and imperial forces over the Danes.
Much of northern Germany was occupied, and the ascendant Wallenstein
was given Mecklenburg as a reward for his services, the former
ruler of this Baltic duchy having made the mistake of siding with
the Danes. Internal developments caused France and England to
withdraw, and by the end of 1626 it looked as though the war might
come to an end.
The fate of Germany rested upon Ferdinand's next step. He could
accept Wallenstein's advice and use his great power to create
a more centralized Germany, or he could satisfy the Catholic Reformation's
demand for the restoration of the Church lands seized by the Protestants
since the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. To choose the former course
would alienate Maximilian and other Catholic princes who were
opposed to any increase in imperial power. To choose the latter
would frighten the remaining Protestant princes, some of whom
had thus far been neutral. Ferdinand lacked the strength to take
both courses simultaneously. He hesitated but finally chose Catholicism
and political disunity. By the Edict of Restitution in 1629, he
ordered the restoration of the former ecclesiastical territories
to the Catholics, and to placate Maximilian, he dismissed Wallenstein.
By placing his reliance on Maximilian and the Catholic League,
Ferdinand had condemned Germany to more than two centuries of
political disunity.
The folly of his choice was soon revealed. On July 4, 1630,
Gustavus Adolphus (1611-1632) landed in Germany with a well-trained,
well- disciplined army. The Swedish king was a tall, broad-shouldered
man with a big appetite but simple tastes. From childhood he had
been trained to he a king. When he was six, he began to accompany
the army on campaigns; when be was ten, he began to sit at the
council table and give his opinions; and when he was in his teens,
he received ambassadors unaided. Now thirty-six, Gustavus had
already given evidence of being one of the greatest men of his
age. In his nineteen years as king, be had proved himself to he
as able an administrator as Maximilian of Bavaria and as careful
a military organizer as Wallenstein. He was now about to show
that he was a gifted diplomat, a devout Protestant, and at the
same time one of the greatest field commanders of his age.
His tactics deserve special comment. He abandoned the current
emphasis on mass battle formations in order to achieve greater
mobility and firepower. Cavalry and infantry were deployed in
a series of alternating small squares so that they could turn
easily in any direction. Light artillery was substituted for heavy
artillery because it could be advanced rapidly, fired from the
front lines in battle, and withdraw quickly if necessary. Musketeers
were organized in files five deep. The first file was taught to
fire and step back to reload. Then the second file fired and stepped
back to reload, and then the third and the fourth and the fifth,
by which time the first file was ready to fire again. Thus, continuous
fire emerged from the Swedish lines.
The one important advantage that Gustavus Adolphus lacked was
money, for Sweden was a poor country. When the French offered
financial assistance, he therefore accepted hut was careful never
to let French wishes interfere with his policy. During his brief,
glorious career in Ger- many, he was clearly his own master.
Many considerations led Gustavus Adolphus to enter the war. First,
he dared not permit the Habsburgs to consolidate their hold on
the southern shores of the Baltic Sea. Sooner or later, they were
sure to use the ports of this area as a jumping of place to attack
Sweden. Their ally, the Catholic Sigismund of Poland, had a good
claim to the Swedish throne. All he needed was imperial assistance
to seek to depose Gustavus Adolphus and re-establish Catholicism
in the northern kingdom. But if Sweden seized the southern shores
of the Baltic, no invasion was possible. "It is better,''
the Swedish estates declared when they learned of the situation,
"that we tether our horses to the enemy's fence, than he
to ours.'' Second, the Swedes had long desired to turn the Baltic
into a Swedish lake, and northern Germany would have to become
theirs to make this dream a reality. Already a large part of the
royal revenue came from Baltic commerce. Third, Gustavus Adolphus,
a sincere Lutheran, was genuinely distressed to see the plight
of his coreligionists in Germany.
The Swedish invasion completely altered the situation in the Empire.
After a great victory in the battle of Breitenfeld, Gustavus Adolphus
was free to march where he pleased. Ferdinand had no choice but
to recall Wallenstein. The two generals fought an indecisive battle
at Nuremberg, and Gustavus Adolphus withdrew to the north. Once
more they clashed at Lützen, and this time the Swedes were
victorious, but at the cost of their king's life.
The death of Gustavus Adolphus gave the Catholics new hope, but
the rivalry between Maximilian and Wallenstein weakened their
cause. The Bohemian, who had never forgiven Maximilian and Ferdinand
for his first dismissal, plotted with the Swedes and French. Some
think that be wanted to create a great middle European empire
in which Catholic and Protestant could live in peace. Others see
him as a Czech patriot who sought to re- vive the Bohemian state
with himself as king. More probably he was motivated only by his
selfish, restless ambition. Whatever Wallenstein's plans, Ferdinand
knew that he could not be trusted. He was declared guilty of treason
and was murdered, defenseless in his bedroom, by a disloyal contingent
of his own troops.
Ferdinand was freed from one peril, and in September, 1634, six
months later, he was relieved of another. The imperial forces
defeated the Swedes at Nördlingen. The northern kingdom was
no longer a serious threat, and one by one the German Protestant
princes made peace in return for the abandonment of the Edict
of Restitution. Ferdinand kept the gains he had made before 1627,
and he now had the united support of the German princes. Their
support was an important asset, because nine days before the terms
of the peace were published, France had declared war in order
to check the power of Spain.
The conflict entered a new phase. Spain, Austria, and the other
German states were pitted against the French, the Dutch, and what
was left of the Swedes. Religion had become a secondary issue,
and the old struggle between the Habsburgs and the French, now
ruled by the Bourbons rather than the Valois, held the center
of the stage. There were no decisive battles, with the possible
exception of Rocroi in 1643 where the young Duke of Enghein-later
Prince of Condé-won a victory over the Spanish.
Peace negotiations were begun in 1643, but they proceeded slowly.
Not until 1648 was the Treaty of Westphalia signed by most of
the conflicting powers, France and Spain alone continuing the
struggle. Finally, with the Treaty of Pyrénées in
1659, even this conflict was brought to an end. The Habsburgs
had lost the first round of their struggle with the Bourbons.
The results of the war and the two peace treaties were highly
significant. France replaced Spain as the greatest power in Europe.
With Sweden, France had blocked the Habsburg efforts to strengthen
their authority in the Empire. At Westphalia, the right of the
individual states within the Empire to make war and conclude alliances
was recognized. In theory as well as in fact, the most important
of these states became virtually autonomous, and German unity
was postponed for more than two centuries. The Empire was further
dismembered by the recognition of the independence of Switzerland
and the seven northern provinces of the Netherlands. Two new powers
emerged in northern Germany. Sweden received part of Pomerania
and the bishoprics of Bremen and Verden; Brandenburg-Prussia added
the rest of Pomerania and several secularized bishoprics to its
possessions. In southern Germany, the Bavarian rulers were permitted
to keep the upper Palatinate and the title of elector, but the
Lower Palatinate was restored to Frederick's son and an eighth
electorate was created for him. France received most of Alsace
by the Treaty of Westphalia, and by the Treaty of Pyrénées
parts of Flanders and Artois in the Spanish Netherlands and lands
in the Pyrénées.
The religious settlement at Westphalia confirmed the predominance
of Catholicism in southern Germany and of Protestantism in northern
Germany. The principle accepted by the Peace of Augsburg of 1555
that Catholic and Lutheran princes could determine the religion
practiced in their territory was maintained, and this privilege
was extended to include the Calvinists as well.
The Austrian Habsburgs had failed in their efforts to increase
their authority in the Empire and to eradicate Protestantism,
but they emerged from the war stronger than before. In Bohemia,
they had stamped out Protestantism, broken the power of the old
nobility, and declared the crown hereditary in the male line of
their family. With Bohemia now firmly in their grasp and with
their large group of adjoining territories, they were ready to
expand to the east in the Balkans, to the south in Italy, or to
interfere once more in the Empire.
The real losers in the war were the German people. Over 300,000
had been killed in battle. Millions of civilians had died of malnutrition
and disease, and wandering, undisciplined troops had robbed, burned,
and looted almost at will. Most authorities believe that the population
of the Empire dropped from about 21,000,000 to 13,500,000 between
1618 and 1648. Even if they exaggerate, the Thirty Years War remains
one of the most terrible in history.