The Thirty Years War

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN

THE KAZAKH ECONOMIC UNIVERSITY NAMED AFTER T.RYSKULOV

 

 

 

 

 

Faculty of International Educational programs

 

 

Department “SED”

 

 

COURSE WORK

 

on discipline:

«History of international relations»

 

on a theme:

The Thirty Years War

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prepared by:

student of 2course

specialty “5В020200 -  IR”

Demeev R.N.

 

Checked by:

 senior teacher

Umarov I. M.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ALMATY 2013

 

Content

	Introduction	3
1	Prerequisites of beginning war
	The political situation in Europe on the eve of war	4
	Policy of the leading states of Europe	7
2	Periods of Thirty Years War 2.1 The Bohemian Revolt (1618–1621)	9
	2.2. Danish intervention (1625–1629)	12
	2.3. Swedish intervention (1630–1635)	13
	2.4. French intervention (1635–1648)	15
3	The end and consequences of the Thirty Years War
	3.1. The results of the war	17
	2.4. Peace of Westphalia	19
	Conclusion	22
	References	25
	Appendix	26

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

 

The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) was a series of wars principally fought in Central Europe, involving most of the countries of Europe. It was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, and one of the longest continuous wars in modern history.

The origins of the conflict and goals of the participants were complex and no single cause can accurately be described as the main reason for the fighting. Initially, it was fought largely as a religious war between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire, although disputes over internal politics and the balance of power within the Empire played a significant part. Gradually, it developed into a more general conflict involving most of the great powers of the time. In this general phase the war became less specifically religious and more a continuation of the Bourbon–Habsburg rivalry for European political pre-eminence, leading in turn to further warfare between France and the Habsburg powers.

A major consequence of the Thirty Years' War was the devastation of entire regions, denuded by the foraging armies (bellum se ipsum alet). Famine and disease significantly decreased the population of the German states, Bohemia, the Low Countries, and Italy; most of the combatant powers were bankrupted. While the regiments within each army were not strictly mercenary, in that they were not units for hire that changed sides from battle to battle, some individual soldiers that made up the regiments were mercenaries. The problem of discipline was made more difficult by the ad hoc nature of 17th-century military financing; armies were expected to be largely self-funding, by means of loot taken or tribute extorted from the settlements where they operated. This encouraged a form of lawlessness that imposed severe hardship on inhabitants of the occupied territory [1, p.10].

The Thirty Years' War was ended with the treaties of Osnabrück and Münster, part of the wider Peace of Westphalia. Some of the quarrels that provoked the war went unresolved for a much longer time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Prerequisites of beginning war

 

1. The political situation in Europe on the eve of war

 

The Peace of Augsburg (1555), signed by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, confirmed the result of the 1526 Diet of Speyer, ending the war between German Lutherans and Catholics, and establishing that:

• Rulers of the 224 German states could choose the religion (Lutheranism or Catholicism) of their realms according to their consciences, and compel their subjects to follow that faith (the principle of cuius regio, eius religio).
• Lutherans living in a prince-bishopric (a state ruled by a Catholic bishop) could continue to practice their faith.
• Lutherans could keep the territory they had captured from the Catholic Church since the Peace of Passau in 1552.
• Those prince-bishops who had converted to Lutheranism were required to give up their territories (the principle called reservatum ecclesiasticum).

Although the Peace of Augsburg created a temporary end to hostilities, it did not resolve the underlying religious conflict, which was made yet more complex by the spread of Calvinism throughout Germany in the years that followed. This added a third major faith to the region, but its position was not recognized in any way by the Augsburg terms, to which only Catholicism and Lutheranism were parties.

The rulers of the nation’s neighboring the Holy Roman Empire also contributed to the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War:

• Spain was interested in the German states because it held the territories of the Spanish Netherlands in the western part of the Empire and states within Italy which were connected by land through the Spanish Road. The Dutch revolted against the Spanish domination during the 1560s, leading to a protracted war of independence that led to a truce only in 1609.
• France was nearly surrounded by territory controlled by the two Habsburg states (Spain and the Holy Roman Empire), and was eager to exert its power against the weaker German states; this dynastic concern overtook religious ones and led to Catholic France's participation on the otherwise Protestant side of the war.
• Sweden and Denmark were interested in gaining control over northern German states bordering the Baltic Sea.

The Holy Roman Empire was a fragmented collection of largely independent states. The position of the Holy Roman Emperor was mainly titular, but the emperors, from the House of Habsburg, also directly ruled a large portion of Imperial territory (the Archduchy of Austria and the Kingdom of Bohemia) as well as the Kingdom of Hungary. The Austrian domain was thus a major European power in its own right, ruling over some eight million subjects. The House of Habsburg, under a second King, also ruled Spain, including the Spanish Netherlands, south Italy, the Philippines and most of the Americas. The Empire also contained several regional powers, such as the Duchy of Bavaria, the Electorate of Saxony, the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the Electorate of the Palatinate, Landgraviate of Hesse, the Archbishopric of Trier and the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg (containing from 500,000 to one million inhabitants). A vast number of minor independent duchies, free cities, abbeys, prince-bishoprics, and petty lordships (whose authority sometimes extended to no more than a single village) rounded out the Empire. Apart from Austria and perhaps Bavaria, none of those entities was capable of national-level politics; alliances between family-related states were common, due partly to the frequent practice of splitting a lord's inheritance among the various sons.

Religious tensions remained strong throughout the second half of the 16th century. The Peace of Augsburg began to unravel, as some converted bishops refused to give up their bishoprics, and as certain Habsburg and other Catholic rulers of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain sought to restore the power of Catholicism in the region. This was evident from the Cologne War (1583–88), a conflict initiated when the prince-archbishop of the city, Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, converted to Calvinism. As he was an imperial elector, this could have produced a Protestant majority in the College that elected the Holy Roman Emperor – a position that had always been held by a Catholic.

In the Cologne War, Spanish troops expelled the former prince-archbishop and replaced him with Ernst of Bavaria, a Roman Catholic. After this success, the Catholics regained peace, and the principle of cuius regio, eius religio began to be exerted more strictly in Bavaria, Würzburg and other states. This forced Lutheran residents to choose between conversion or exile. Lutherans also witnessed the defection of the lords of the Palatinate (1560), Nassau (1578), Hesse-Kassel (1603) and Brandenburg (1613) to the new Calvinist faith. Thus, at the beginning of the 17th century, the Rhine lands and those south to the Danube were largely Catholic, while Lutherans predominated in the north, and Calvinists dominated in certain other areas, such as west-central Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. However, minorities of each creed existed almost everywhere. In some lordships and cities, the number of Calvinists, Catholics, and Lutherans were approximately equal.

Much to the consternation of their Spanish ruling cousins, the Habsburg emperors who followed Charles V (especially Ferdinand I and Maximilian II, but also Rudolf II, and his successor Matthias) were content for the princes of the Empire to choose their own religious policies. These rulers avoided religious wars within the empire by allowing the different Christian faiths to spread without coercion. This angered those who sought religious uniformity. Meanwhile, Sweden and Denmark, both Lutheran kingdoms, sought to assist the Protestant cause in the Empire, and wanted to gain political and economic influence there as well.

Religious tensions broke into violence in the German free city of Donauwörth in 1606. There, the Lutheran majority barred the Catholic residents of the  Swabian town from holding an annual Markus procession, which provoked a riot. This prompted foreign intervention by Duke Maximilian of Bavaria (1573–1651) on behalf of the Catholics. After the violence ceased, Calvinists in Germany (who remained a minority) felt the most threatened. They banded together and formed the League of Evangelical Union in 1608, under the leadership of the Elector Palatine Frederick IV (1583–1610), (whose son, Frederick V, married Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of James I of England). The establishment of the League prompted the Catholics into banding together to form the Catholic League in 1609, under the leadership of Duke Maximilian.

Tensions escalated further in 1609, with the War of the Jülich succession, which began when John William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, the ruler of the strategically important United Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, died childless. There were two rival claimants to the duchy. The first was Duchess Anna of Prussia, daughter of Duke John William's eldest sister, Marie Eleonore of Cleves. Anna was married to John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg. The second was Wolfgang William, Count Palatine of Neuburg, who was the son of Duke John William's second eldest sister, Anna of Cleves. Duchess Anna of Prussia claimed Jülich-Cleves-Berg as the heir to the senior line, while Wolfgang William, Count Palatine of Neuburg claimed Jülich-Cleves-Berg as Duke John William's eldest male heir. Both claimants were Protestants. In 1610, to prevent war between the rival claimants, the forces of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor occupied Jülich-Cleves-Berg until the dispute was decided by the Aulic Council (Reichshofrat). However, several Protestant princes feared the Emperor, a devout Catholic, intended to keep Jülich-Cleves-Berg for himself to prevent the United Duchies falling into Protestant hands. Representatives of Henry IV of France and the Dutch Republic gathered forces to invade Jülich-Cleves-Berg, but these plans were cut short by the assassination of Henry IV. Hoping to gain an advantage in the dispute, Wolfgang William converted to Catholicism; John Sigismund, on the other hand, converted to Calvinism (although Anna of Prussia stayed Lutheran). The dispute was settled in 1614 with the Treaty of Xanten, by which the United Duchies were dismantled: Jülich and Berg were awarded to Wolfgang William, while John Sigismund gained Cleves, Mark, and Ravensberg.

The background of the Dutch Revolt is also necessary to understanding the events leading up to the Thirty Years' War. It was widely known that the Twelve Years' Trucewas set to expire in 1621, and throughout Europe it was recognized that at that time, Spain would attempt to reconquer the Dutch Republic. At that time, forces under Ambrogio Spinola, 1st Marquis of the Balbases, the Genoese commander of the Spanish army, would be able to pass through friendly territories to reach the Dutch Republic; the only hostile state that stood in his way was the Electorate of the Palatinate. (Spinola's preferred route would take him through the Republic of Genoa, the Duchy of Milan, through the Val Telline, around hostile Switzerland bypassing along the north shore of Lake Constance, then through Alsace, the Archbishopric of Strasbourg, then through the Electorate of the Palatinate, and then finally through the Archbishopric of Trier, Jülich and Berg and on to the Dutch Republic). The Palatinate thus assumed a strategic importance in European affairs out of all proportion to its size. This explains why the Protestant James I of England arranged for the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth Stuart to Frederick V, Elector Palatine in 1612, in spite of the social convention that a princess would only marry another royal [2, p. 32].

By 1617, it was apparent that Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, would die without an heir, with his lands going to his nearest male relative, his cousin Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria, heir-apparent and Crown Prince of Bohemia. With the Oñate treaty, Philip III of Spain agreed to this succession.

Ferdinand, having been educated by the Jesuits, was a staunch Catholic who wanted to impose religious uniformity on his lands. This made him highly unpopular in Protestant (primarily Hussite) Bohemia. The population's sentiments notwithstanding, the added insult of the nobility's rejection of Ferdinand, who had been elected Bohemian Crown Prince in 1617, triggered the Thirty Years' War in 1618, when his representatives were thrown out of a window and seriously injured. The so-called Defenestration of Prague provoked open revolt in Bohemia, which had powerful foreign allies. Ferdinand was upset by this calculated insult, but his intolerant policies in his own lands had left him in a weak position. The Habsburg cause in the next few years would seem to suffer unrecoverable reverses. The Protestant cause seemed to wax toward a quick overall victory [3, p.12, p.55].

The war can be divided into four major phases: The Bohemian Revolt, the Danish intervention, intervention and the French intervention.

 

2.  Policy of the leading states of Europe

 

From the time of Charles V leading role in Europe belonged to the House of Austria - the Habsburg dynasty. At the beginning of the XVII century Spanish branch of the house owned except Spain and 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 - have secured the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor, is the king of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Croatia. Hegemony of the Habsburgs did everything to weaken the other major European powers. Among the latter occupied the leading position in France, which was the largest of the nation states.

In Europe, there were several volatile regions, where the interests of the warring parties. The largest 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. It had a direct bearing on the Empire and another bundle of contradictions - the Baltic Sea. Protestant Sweden (and partly Denmark) sought to turn it into your inner lake and consolidate on its southern coast, while Catholic Poland actively resisted the Swedish-Danish expansion. Other European countries were in favor of the freedom of the Baltic trade.

The third disputed region was fragmented Italy, which fought for France with Spain. Spain has had its opponents - the Republic of the United Provinces (the Netherlands), to assert their independence in the war of 1568-1648 years., And England, who disputed the Spanish domination of the sea and encroach on the colonial possessions of the Habsburgs.

Religious Peace of Augsburg (1555) at the time of completing the open competition Lutherans and Catholics in Germany. Under the terms of peace German princes could choose a religion (Catholicism or Lutheranism) for their principalities in its sole discretion, in accordance with the principle of cujus regio, ejus religio (Latin: Whose country, and that faith).

Together with the Catholic Church wanted to recapture lost influence. Increased censorship and the Inquisition, strengthened the Jesuit Order. The Vatican strongly pushed the remaining Catholic rulers to eradicate Protestantism in his realm. The Habsburgs were fervent Catholics, but their imperial status obligated to adhere to the principles of religious tolerance. So they gave a commanding position in the Counter-Reformation Bavarian rulers. Growing religious tensions.

For organized resistance to increasing pressure Protestant princes of South and West Germany were united in the Evangelical union created in 1608 in response to Catholics united to the Catholic League (1609). Both unions were immediately supported by foreign states. Under these conditions, the activity of empire-wide - the Reichstag and the Chamber - was paralyzed.

In 1617 the two branches of the House of Habsburg signed a secret agreement - a contract Oñate that addressed the existing differences. By its terms, Spain had been promised land in Alsace and Northern Italy, which would provide communication by land with Italian Spanish Dutch possessions of the Habsburgs. Instead, the Spanish King Philip III renounced claims to the crown of the empire, and agreed to support the candidacy of the Styrian Ferdinand. The reigning Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and King of Bohemia Matthias had no direct heirs, and in 1617 he led the Czech Diet recognize his successor, his nephew Ferdinand Styrian, an ardent Catholic and a pupil of the Jesuits. He was extremely unpopular in the predominantly Protestant Czech Republic, which was the reason for an uprising that escalated into a prolonged conflict.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Periods of Thirty Years War.

 

2.1 The Bohemian Revolt (1618–1621)

 

Without heirs, Emperor Matthias sought to assure an orderly transition during his lifetime by having his dynastic heir (the fiercely Catholic Ferdinand of Styria, later Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor) elected to the separate royal thrones of Bohemia and Hungary. Some of the Protestant leaders of Bohemia feared they would be losing the religious rights granted to them by Emperor Rudolf II in his Letter of Majesty (1609). They preferred the Protestant Frederick V, elector of the Palatinate (successor of Frederick IV, the creator of the League of Evangelical Union). However, other Protestants supported the stance taken by the Catholics, and in 1617, Ferdinand was duly elected by the Bohemian Estates to become the Crown Prince, and automatically upon the death of Matthias, the next King of Bohemia.

The king-elect then sent two Catholic councillors (Vilem Slavata of Chlum and Jaroslav Borzita of Martinice) as his representatives to Hradčany castle in Prague in May 1618. Ferdinand had wanted them to administer the government in his absence. On 23 May 1618, an assembly of Protestants seized them and threw them (and also secretary Philip Fabricius) out of the palace window, which was some 21 metres (69 ft) off the ground. Remarkably, although wounded, they survived. This event, known as the (Second) Defenestration of Prague, started the Bohemian Revolt. Soon afterward, the Bohemian conflict spread through all of the Bohemian Crown, including Bohemia proper, Silesia, Upperand Lower Lusatia, and Moravia. Moravia was already embroiled in a conflict between Catholics and Protestants. The religious conflict eventually spread across the whole continent of Europe, involving France, Sweden, and a number of other countries.

Had the Bohemian rebellion remained a local conflict, the war could have been over in fewer than thirty months. However, the death of Emperor Matthias emboldened the rebellious Protestant leaders, who had been on the verge of a settlement. The weaknesses of both Ferdinand (now officially on the throne after the death of Emperor Matthias) and of the Bohemians themselves led to the spread of the war to western Germany. Ferdinand was compelled to call on his nephew, King Philip IV of Spain, for assistance.

The Bohemians, desperate for allies against the Emperor, applied to be admitted into the Protestant Union, which was led by their original candidate for the Bohemian throne, the Calvinist Frederick V, Elector Palatine. The Bohemians hinted Frederick would become King of Bohemia if he allowed them to join the Union and come under its protection. However, similar offers were made by other members of the Bohemian Estates to the Duke of Savoy, the Elector of Saxony, and the Prince of Transylvania. The Austrians, who seemed to have intercepted every letter leaving Prague, made these duplicities public. This unraveled much of the support for the Bohemians, particularly in the court of Saxony. The rebellion initially favored the Bohemians. They were joined in the revolt by much of Upper Austria, whose nobility was then chiefly Lutheran and Calvinist. Austria revolted soon after, and in 1619, Count Thurn led an army to the walls of Vienna itself [4, p.55].