Ten Minute History The Thirty Years War Short Documentary

1618 and Bohemia, here, is in revolt. At this point, Bohemia formed an important part of the Holy Roman Empire and had, since the Protestant Reformation, moved steadily away from Catholicism. Much of this was thanks to their prior rulers, such as Matthias, who allowed the Protestants greater freedom of worship. This was built upon the previous 1555 piece of Augsburg, which allowed for rulers of territories within the Holy Roman Empire to choose its religious denomination. So long as that denomination was Catholicism or Lutheranism, that is. Matthias didn't have any children and so appointed an heir, Ferdinand of Styria, the Archduke of Austria, who succeeded him as King of Bohemia in 1617. Ferdinand was a devout Catholic and so sent representatives to Bohemia to shut down the Protestant churches and demand the conversion of its nobles. The Bohemians had a clever way of countering this. They threw Ferdinand's representatives out of a third-story window. An event known as the Second Defenestration of Prague, because this was not the first time people had been thrown out of a window for religious reasons. Ferdinand, unsurprisingly, was unhappy that his representatives, who survived, by the way, were treated as such. Bohemia was thus plunged into a civil war, and many of the Holy Roman Empire's Catholic states were dragged into the war as well. Bohemia was aided by these states, notably the Palatinate and Transylvania, and were given financial aid by the Netherlands. It's worth noting that there were other Protestant states within the empire, the most notable being Saxony, who remained neutral because they didn't want any trouble. Spain and its territories, led also by the Habsburgs, joined the war on the side of their German relatives, and things weren't looking good for Bohemia. So the leader of the Bohemian rebels was Heinrich Cern, Bohemia was reaching out to other major Protestant powers, like England, Sweden, and Denmark-Norway, but they were very cautious and didn't approve of Frederick's actions, with the King of Denmark, Christian IV, asking him, In the same year, Ferdinand was made Holy Roman Emperor, and Cern even managed to march on Vienna, but to no avail. 1620 saw the Bohemian revolt crushed at the decisive Battle of the White Mountain, with the imperial forces being led by Johann Sircles, the Count of Tilly. As a result, the Bohemian leadership fled, and Transylvania made peace, which left the Palatinate as the only major resisting state. Resistance continued there until 1622, when it was conquered and the majority of the Protestant forces were pushed out of the empire the next year. Sporadic fighting continued, but was crushed by 1625, thus ending the first phase of the war, called the Bohemian phase. There was, however, now a parallel war running between Spain and the Netherlands, who had resumed the Eighty Years' War. It seemed that this would be the end of the conflict, but King Christian, who also held lands in the empire, was concerned that Protestants would be persecuted severely. He decided to intervene in 1625, marching his army down south to face Tilly and another Habsburg general, Albrecht von Wallenstein, a Catholic Bohemian who made a lot of money by seizing Protestant lands there. This began the second phase of the war, the Danish phase. Christian's intervention went poorly, and he was subject to continuous defeats at the hands of both Tilly and Wallenstein, and he was pushed back into Denmark. Christian had expected his fellow Protestant kings in Sweden and England to back him, but both had failed to do so. Denmark was also backed financially by the French, who, as you'll note, were Catholic, meaning that this war was about more than religion. The French simply wanted to weaken their Habsburg neighbours, but the support had to stop when their own Protestant population, the Huguenots, revolted. In 1629, Christian IV signed the Treaty of Lübeck, which allowed him to keep his territories on the condition that he stay out of the affairs of the empire. The problem still remained that the Protestant domains of Europe were concerned about a powerful Catholic empire neighbouring them. The mantle of defending Protestants fell to the Swedish king Gustav II, better known as Gustavus Adolphus, who, after finishing a war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, decided to intervene. Much like Christian IV, Gustavus also received financial help from the French. Unlike Christian IV, however, Gustavus' intervention was wildly successful. Fortunately for Sweden, Wallenstein had been dismissed by the distrustful Emperor Ferdinand in 1630, leaving Tilly as the best commander available. In 1630, Swedish forces landed here in Pomerania, which was itself Protestant and currently fighting the Emperor. This began the third stage of the war, the Swedish phase. Once there, the Swedish managed to threaten Brandenburg-Prussia into giving them help. Gustavus also attempted to bring Saxony into the war, but its leader, John George I, wanted to remain neutral. Tilly, fearing a Saxon-Swedish alliance, invaded Saxony, forcing John George to join Gustavus out of desperation. Oops. In 1631, a combined Swedish-Saxon force met Tilly at the most famous battle of the war, the Battle of Breitenfeld. Tilly's much larger force was utterly crushed, and both sides met again the next year at the Battle of Reim, which was another Swedish victory and also saw Tilly killed. So the question here is, why did Sweden win where Denmark lost? The answer is complicated, but Sweden had a slightly more efficient way of recruiting and arming soldiers. The normal way was that a noble would be asked to fund his own soldiers, which cost a lot in return for the spoils of war and a chance at everlasting glory. Army upkeep came at the cost of whichever region was hosting them, and was often devastating for the local population there. Sweden's method of raising troops was slightly different. For a start, Sweden being Protestant meant that Gustavus was the head of the Church of Sweden, and he used local churches as centres to determine populations, specifically the taxable and recruitable population. However, there were still incredible burdens on the areas of the Holy Roman Empire, which hosted the Swedish army. As for the military side, Gustavus' army focused much more on a doctrine of massed fire and combined use of muskets, cannon and cavalry to shock the enemy. Warfare was naturally moving in this direction, and both the Spanish and Dutch had made use of this first, but Gustavus embraced this new form of warfare to great ends. So back to the war, Gustavus had marched his army through massive swathes of imperial territory by 1632, but had to prevent the reinstated Wallenstein from outmanoeuvring him. The two met at the Battle of Lutzen, which was a Swedish victory, but did see Gustavus Adolphus and his horse killed. In 1634, Wallenstein was also assassinated on the orders of the Emperor, and so both sides had lost some of their most proficient generals. Except for the Spanish and the Dutch, but they were busy. 1634 also saw the tide turn in favour of the Habsburgs at the Battle of Nordlingen. The Swedish army was obliterated by the Spanish, who were commanded by Cardinal Infante Ferdinand, who were now firmly involved in the wider war. The next year saw the signing of the Peace of Prague, which saw Saxony, Brandenburg and the other Protestant states in the Holy Roman Empire make peace, leaving only Sweden against the Emperor and Spain. The Dutch were still fighting as well, but they had their own objectives. France, led by King Louis XIII and under the advice of Cardinal Richelieu, believed that the Peace of Prague made the Habsburgs too powerful, and so decided on direct confrontation. The French declared war on Spain in 1635, and the Holy Roman Empire the next year, which began the French phase of the war. Richelieu had a clever strategy during the war, which was to not only fight head-on, but also to fund rebellions and foreign armies, which would force Spain and the Empire to fight a war on several fronts. Despite this, things went poorly for the French at first, with Infante Ferdinand pushing all the way to the edge of Paris via the Spanish Netherlands. The next four years saw incredibly intense fighting, with major and minor victories on both sides. It also saw Emperor Ferdinand II die in 1637, and he was succeeded by his son Ferdinand III. So with all this fighting and turmoil, what was life like for the people of the Holy Roman Empire? To put it mildly, it was miserable. The war brought horrendous levels of starvation, plunder, disease, poverty, and general misery to the people there. These people needed someone to blame, and they had one specific group in mind. Witches. Persecutions of witches were particularly severe in the Catholic South, but given the widespread destruction of the lands across the entire Empire, nobody was really spared. The persecutions largely ended when the Swedish intervened, because stopping a foreign army was, you know, a bigger priority. The war was still waging fiercely in 1640, and Spain was struggling with Portugal and Catalonia, the latter of which had declared itself a principality under the rule of Louis XIII. Portugal was being helped financially by the French too, and all of this meant that Spain had to withdraw its troops from its possessions in the rest of Europe. Sweden was still fighting in the Holy Roman Empire, and in 1642 won the Second Battle of Breitenfeld, which basically gave it control over all of the North. In this same year, Cardinal Richelieu died, and Louis XIII decided to follow suit the next year, The next year saw an important French victory at Roquois, which ended the idea of Spanish military invincibility, and showed that France was still stable and would probably continue its rise. So by this point, everyone was getting a bit sick and tired of this war, and so delegates began discussing the terms for peace with each other. These peace talks would take many years to come to any sort of agreement, and whilst they were ongoing, Sweden found itself in a new war, this time with Denmark. The Swedish won, and in the end they took all of this territory, but it did serve to distract them somewhat from the war with the Empire. Of course, the Swedish would return quickly, pushing south, and after meeting up with the French, continuously defeated the imperial forces, driving them further south. In 1646, attempts to make peace were stepped up by both sides, because this war had been raging for literally 28 years now, and everyone was a bit tired. The negotiations were held over several years in the cities of Osnabrück and Münster. In January 1648, the Netherlands and Spain signed the Peace of Münster, The Habsburgs' negotiating position was weakened in later 1648, when the French won an immense victory at the Battle of Long. The Swedish also laid siege to Prague at this time, but little came of it. After this, two more peace treaties were concluded. The first was the Treaty of Münster, which made peace between France and the Holy Roman Empire, but not Spain. The second was the Treaty of Osnabrück, which made peace between Sweden and the Holy Roman Empire. Collectively, these are known as the Peace of Westphalia, It also reinstated the Peace of Augsburg, allowing religious toleration of Calvinism, and is largely considered to be the beginning of the modern era of international diplomacy. The reason for this is that individual states were now treated as sovereign, with no difference in the rights of one governed by a duke, a king, or an emperor. This shows just how much the war changed over the decades, from one driven by a desire of Protestant states to protect their fellow believers, to one driven by the geopolitical desires of France and Spain. The legacy of the Thirty Years' War is complex. It saw the rise of Sweden and France, and the decline of the Holy Roman Empire as Europe's central power. This was mostly because it was now entirely decentralized, but also because the population loss within the empire was catastrophic, an important something to remember when discussing the war's military glories. I hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching, and a special thanks to James Bissonette for sponsoring the channel. If you'd like to know more about the Thirty Years' War, there are some book recommendations in the description below.