The Thirty Years' War Summary

Hey there students, I'm going to talk to you a little bit about the 30 Years War, which is the last major war... of the Protestant Reformation and kind of wraps the whole thing up. Now, when was the Thirty Years'War, first of all? It was from 1618 to 1648. And, what do you know? Thirty years. That's why we call it the Thirty Years'War. Just a little tip. If you will remember 1648, then you can also remember when the war began. And 1648's really one of those years that you should know in the context of Western civilization or European history because it's a turning point. point because it's the end of the Protestant Reformation, so to speak. Now, where did it begin? The Thirty Years'War began in the Holy Roman Empire, and most of it was fought in the Holy Roman Empire. As far as a little background, the Reformation, it happened, okay? This is really a war of the Reformation. You've got to understand that Martin Luther lived in the Holy Roman Empire. This is something that is a consequence of the Reformation. that and sort of wraps things up. Now in 1555, all the powers that be of the Holy Roman Empire, they got together at Augsburg and they established the Peace of Augsburg after fighting amongst themselves for about 30 years. And they established the principle of Cius Regno, Eius Religio. Basically, they had the choice, whoever reigns his religion. And if they wanted to be Lutheran, they could be Lutheran. If they wanted to be Catholic, they could be Catholic. Now note... they could not be Calvinist. And this is going to be a point of contention because Calvinists really aren't going to care whether their religion is illegal or not. The Thirty Years'War is divided into four phases. First of all, the Bohemian phase. Second, the Danish phase. And keep in mind that in these early phases, this is a local and religious conflict. But it's going to expand into the Swedish phase and the French phase. Now these phases become increasingly continental and political. So, Bohemian, Danish, Swedish, and French. These are the four phases of the Thirty Years'War. Students come up with various mnemonic devices. One time, a student showed me a mnemonic device, and it's something I couldn't share with you, but it worked for them, so okay. So, first of all, the Bohemian phase. Now, where is Bohemia? Bohemia is in the modern-day Czech Republic. And this was an area that had a lot of Protestants, and it had a Catholic ruler. So what do you do when you have a Catholic ruler and a Protestant majority? Even though the Peace of Augsburg said, alright, whoever reigns, his religion, it's not that simple when you rule over people who are of a different religion than you are. So what had happened is the Habsburg rulers had granted Protestants toleration through a letter of majesty that had been... issued by one of the Habsburg rulers. Now then Ferdinand II, who was a very devout Catholic, had been educated by the Jesuits, he took over and he revoked this letter of majesty, which ticked off the Protestants, leading to the defenestration of Prague. Defenestration, basically a really fancy word for throwing somebody out of a window. The emperor sent some messengers to talk to the Protestants and all that kind of stuff. The Protestants weren't having it. They threw these messengers out the window. They defenestrated them. And these guys fell about 70 feet. Now, this is like several stories, okay? Like technically in this place, I think it was only like a third or fourth story window. But if you think about that, I mean, these people are falling, you know, modern day about five, six, maybe seven stories. stories, this should kill you. Didn't kill them. Now, there were competing views about this. There were Catholics who said, well, they'd been saved by the intercession of the Virgin Mary and the angels and all of that kind of stuff. And then the Protestants said, that's nonsense. There was really just a big pile of manure at the bottom that they fell into, and that's what saved them. So regardless, though, these guys survived a pretty amazing fall. And Ferdinand II is thinking, hey, these Protestants better recognize they can't just send my messengers out of windows into big piles of crap or the arms of the angels or whatever they fell into. And Ferdinand confronted the Bohemians, the Battle of White Mountain, which was a decisive Catholic victory. So this is something that could have been just a local conflict, and there you go. And at this point, if we were to think of this as a ball game, the Catholics would have one point on the board, the Protestants, zero. Then there's the Danish phase. Now keep in mind, Denmark is immediately north of modern Germany, the Holy Roman Empire, back then. And the King of Denmark actually ruled some places in the Holy Roman Empire, and he was a Protestant. So he's thinking like, okay, let me get involved here and try to help my fellow Protestants. So the Lutheran King of Denmark... comes into the Holy Roman Empire, and then he is just straight up owned by this guy Wallenstein, who is a mercenary that is working for the Habsburgs. HRE, hold it down! I'm sorry, I was watching that video, that little POP thing my students get me to watch all kinds of crazy stuff. I was watching that at the time when I made this, so just bear with me. Pope Squad! All right, all right, enough of that. All right, so this guy, he is just sending the Protestants back. The Danes go back to Denmark. Wallenstein actually follows them and they're having a hard time in their own place. So the Danish phase really is yet another occurrence of the Catholics just owning the Protestants. So Catholics 2, Protestants 0. Keep in mind, so far, this has been a local war within the Holy Roman Empire, and really it's neighboring Danes. But that's about to change. The Swedish phase. This is when Sweden is going to become directly involved. And Gustavus Adolphus, if you only remember one person from the Thirty Years'War, Gustavus Adolphus is who you need to remember. He was the Lutheran king of Sweden. And his involvement really makes a difference. here, getting involved in a war that's being dominated by Catholics, and he comes in as a Protestant military mastermind. All right, and Gustavus Adolphus is riding 30, if you want to think of it that way. Catholics are going to catch him riding 30 or something like that. Going to catch me riding 30. And Gustavus Adolphus is often referred to as the father of modern warfare. The reason for this being is that he was one of the first people to use most of the mobile artillery on the battlefield. These are cannons that you can move during a battle. Before his time, cannons were so big that you would not be able to move them during a battle. You could place them, and then they were pretty much going to stay where they were. But Gustavus Adolphus of the Battle of Bretonfield confronts the Catholics, and it's not going so well for him at first, but Gustavus Adolphus is able to turn and watch this mobile artillery on this map. You're going to see that he moves his cannons to go where he needs them in the battlefield at that time. So this is why he has this reputation as the father of modern warfare. And while Gustavus Adolphus is fighting as the Protestant leader, he's receiving support from the French. So it's important to note this relationship. In this Swedish phase of the war, I think of it as SSFF. Swedish swords. French funds. And the Swedes are doing the fighting. The French are doing the funding. Now, say what? Okay, the Pope's confused here because remember that France is a Catholic country. And why is France helping the Protestants? Don't they know what... religion they are and that sort of thing? Did they forget? Well, actually, they didn't. Remember this concept of politique that was championed by people such as Henry IV of Navarre and Cardinal Richelieu. Now, Cardinal Richelieu was a churchman, but he's also the first minister of France, and he's got more important things to worry about than religion. He is concerned about the balance of power, and this is a theme that comes up over and over again in European history, and when people thinking about whose side to get on in a conflict, they've got to think about what is going to be to their advantage and what is going to create a balance of power so that no one European entity is going to dominate the rest. And so when you look at this map here, you see that the house of Habsburg controlled at the time the Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Spain, and also islands in the Mediterranean. Mediterranean and southern Italy. They had lands in Switzerland. They controlled the Netherlands. The Habsburgs were very, very powerful. And the French, they're thinking, okay, we're kind of surrounded. If you look at this map, it's like, whoa, I mean, the French are there and there are Habsburgs here and Habsburgs there. Here a Habsburg, there a Habsburg. Everywhere a Habsburg. That's a problem. So what happens here is the French are helping the Swedes. Well, they are until Gustavus Adolphus. has to go and die in battle, actually led a cavalry charge. This guy was very hands-on like Alexander the Great, but, you know, even the best leaders, the most hands-on leaders, they die. So Gustavus Adolphus'death is going to lead to the... decline of Sweden's active leadership. And that's going to be a turning point in the war because the Swedes are going to pull back militarily, but they're still willing to help somebody else. And while they were there, they put a point on the board for the Protestants. And so we are moving toward the end of the war, which is going to be a stalemate. The fourth phase is the largest, the bloodiest. and the most continental. This is the French phase. And we're going to flip it over. As far as what the roles were in the Swedish phase, just go ahead and flip it over. What's going to happen here is now the Swedes are funding the French while the French fight. Swedish swords, French fists. Flip it over. So now as we're wrapping up, let's go ahead and view the four phases again. First of all, remember you've got the Bohemian and the Danish phases, which are largely local religious conflicts, followed by the Swedish and French phases. which become increasingly continental and political in scope. And by the French phase, okay, so the French are fighting on the side of the Protestants, or the Catholics winning, the Protestants winning, who's on whose side, who's winning, all of that. You really don't... don't know. And by 1648, which is when this war ends, remember 1618 to 1648, this is starting to get old, all right? The whole war thing can be an adventure at first, maybe, and let's see how many people we can hang in this tree over here. But after a while, it gets old, especially after 30 years. Okay, why are we fighting? Who's winning? What's going on? And they get together and kind of realize, all right, let's go ahead and make peace. And this war is kind of inconclusive. It's not like you can say... this side won, this side lost. Now there are going to be consequences of the war that certainly it's going to weaken the Habsburgs. It's going to strengthen France, but there's not really a winner. They get together at Westphalia in 1648 and sign the Peace of Westphalia, which first of all weakens the Holy Roman Emperor. The Holy Roman Emperor now has no control over the princes of the empire, which is going to lead Voltaire later on to say the Holy Roman Empire is is neither holy nor Roman nor an empire. And then the Spanish, Habsburgs, who had had control over the Dutch Netherlands, the Dutch Netherlands are now going to be independent. The Spanish will hold on to part of it, but then part of it's going to be independent, so that weakens the Habsburgs. Then Brandenburg is going to gain territory. This is going to lead to the rise of Brandenburg-Prussia, which is going to be the foundation for a unified German state later on. So the 30- Years War is really starting this process that's going to lead a few hundred years later to the unification of Germany. Then Alsace is going to go to France and that's something that's going to be a point of contention between France and Germany as late as World War I. Then there's Switzerland that's going to become an independent confederation, which Switzerland is still independent today and is kind of known for being independent and neutral and all that kind of stuff. So the Swiss get their independence from the 30 years. War. And then, just in general, the Holy Roman Empire as an institution is weaker than it was before the Thirty Years'War. And the balance of power is going to tip a little more toward France, a little bit away from the Habsburgs. So keep in mind that France is now an ascendant power, and then the Holy Roman Empire is a declining power. That's important to note here. And then Calvinism is accepted. Remember, Calvinism was a bit of a problem here in the sense that there were lots of Calvinists in the Holy Roman Empire, but then they weren't allowed to practice their religion. And speaking of the rise of Prussia Brandenburg, the rulers of Prussia Brandenburg were Calvinist, even though most of the people of Brandenburg were Lutheran. So this is something where now you have three religions that are acceptable, the Catholic religion, the Lutheran religion, and the Calvinist religion. And then... Then, on top of everything else, freedom of private worship. If somebody's not getting in the way or causing a lot of trouble, then let's just leave them alone. We don't want to fight over religion anymore, alright? Killing people because of what religion they are is stupid, alright? Europeans are finally starting to realize that after centuries of killing each other because of religion. So this is something that is a big turning point for Europe, is that they agree. that, you know, that wasn't such a good idea. So this is the last major religious war in Europe on a continent that had had dozens of religious wars over the centuries. And it is also the end of violence accompanying the Protestant Reformation. So we can kind of bring the Reformation to a close as far as something that causes contention and that sort of thing. So that about wraps us up. If you like what you heard, if this helped you, subscribe. Visit my website, TomRitchie.net. I'm on Twitter, Instagram. Instagram, Facebook, like, dislike, all of that. Comment, please. Let me hear from you. I'll be back soon. Until next time.

That's why we call it the Thirty Years'War. Just a little tip. If you will remember 1648, then you can also remember when the war began.

And 1648's really one of those years that you should know in the context of Western civilization or European history because it's a turning point. point because it's the end of the Protestant Reformation, so to speak. Now, where did it begin?

The Thirty Years'War began in the Holy Roman Empire, and most of it was fought in the Holy Roman Empire. As far as a little background, the Reformation, it happened, okay? This is really a war of the Reformation.

You've got to understand that Martin Luther lived in the Holy Roman Empire. This is something that is a consequence of the Reformation. that and sort of wraps things up. Now in 1555, all the powers that be of the Holy Roman Empire, they got together at Augsburg and they established the Peace of Augsburg after fighting amongst themselves for about 30 years.

And they established the principle of Cius Regno, Eius Religio. Basically, they had the choice, whoever reigns his religion. And if they wanted to be Lutheran, they could be Lutheran. If they wanted to be Catholic, they could be Catholic. Now note...

they could not be Calvinist. And this is going to be a point of contention because Calvinists really aren't going to care whether their religion is illegal or not. The Thirty Years'War is divided into four phases. First of all, the Bohemian phase. Second, the Danish phase.

And keep in mind that in these early phases, this is a local and religious conflict. But it's going to expand into the Swedish phase and the French phase. Now these phases become increasingly continental and political. So, Bohemian, Danish, Swedish, and French. These are the four phases of the Thirty Years'War.

Students come up with various mnemonic devices. One time, a student showed me a mnemonic device, and it's something I couldn't share with you, but it worked for them, so okay. So, first of all, the Bohemian phase.

Now, where is Bohemia? Bohemia is in the modern-day Czech Republic. And this was an area that had a lot of Protestants, and it had a Catholic ruler. So what do you do when you have a Catholic ruler and a Protestant majority?

Even though the Peace of Augsburg said, alright, whoever reigns, his religion, it's not that simple when you rule over people who are of a different religion than you are. So what had happened is the Habsburg rulers had granted Protestants toleration through a letter of majesty that had been... issued by one of the Habsburg rulers.

Now then Ferdinand II, who was a very devout Catholic, had been educated by the Jesuits, he took over and he revoked this letter of majesty, which ticked off the Protestants, leading to the defenestration of Prague. Defenestration, basically a really fancy word for throwing somebody out of a window. The emperor sent some messengers to talk to the Protestants and all that kind of stuff. The Protestants weren't having it. They threw these messengers out the window.

They defenestrated them. And these guys fell about 70 feet. Now, this is like several stories, okay? Like technically in this place, I think it was only like a third or fourth story window.

But if you think about that, I mean, these people are falling, you know, modern day about five, six, maybe seven stories. stories, this should kill you. Didn't kill them. Now, there were competing views about this.

There were Catholics who said, well, they'd been saved by the intercession of the Virgin Mary and the angels and all of that kind of stuff. And then the Protestants said, that's nonsense. There was really just a big pile of manure at the bottom that they fell into, and that's what saved them. So regardless, though, these guys survived a pretty amazing fall. And Ferdinand II is thinking, hey, these Protestants better recognize they can't just send my messengers out of windows into big piles of crap or the arms of the angels or whatever they fell into.

And Ferdinand confronted the Bohemians, the Battle of White Mountain, which was a decisive Catholic victory. So this is something that could have been just a local conflict, and there you go. And at this point, if we were to think of this as a ball game, the Catholics would have one point on the board, the Protestants, zero.

Then there's the Danish phase. Now keep in mind, Denmark is immediately north of modern Germany, the Holy Roman Empire, back then. And the King of Denmark actually ruled some places in the Holy Roman Empire, and he was a Protestant.

So he's thinking like, okay, let me get involved here and try to help my fellow Protestants. So the Lutheran King of Denmark... comes into the Holy Roman Empire, and then he is just straight up owned by this guy Wallenstein, who is a mercenary that is working for the Habsburgs. HRE, hold it down!

I'm sorry, I was watching that video, that little POP thing my students get me to watch all kinds of crazy stuff. I was watching that at the time when I made this, so just bear with me. Pope Squad! All right, all right, enough of that.

All right, so this guy, he is just sending the Protestants back. The Danes go back to Denmark. Wallenstein actually follows them and they're having a hard time in their own place. So the Danish phase really is yet another occurrence of the Catholics just owning the Protestants.

So Catholics 2, Protestants 0. Keep in mind, so far, this has been a local war within the Holy Roman Empire, and really it's neighboring Danes. But that's about to change. The Swedish phase.

This is when Sweden is going to become directly involved. And Gustavus Adolphus, if you only remember one person from the Thirty Years'War, Gustavus Adolphus is who you need to remember. He was the Lutheran king of Sweden.

And his involvement really makes a difference. here, getting involved in a war that's being dominated by Catholics, and he comes in as a Protestant military mastermind. All right, and Gustavus Adolphus is riding 30, if you want to think of it that way.

Catholics are going to catch him riding 30 or something like that. Going to catch me riding 30. And Gustavus Adolphus is often referred to as the father of modern warfare. The reason for this being is that he was one of the first people to use most of the mobile artillery on the battlefield.

These are cannons that you can move during a battle. Before his time, cannons were so big that you would not be able to move them during a battle. You could place them, and then they were pretty much going to stay where they were.

But Gustavus Adolphus of the Battle of Bretonfield confronts the Catholics, and it's not going so well for him at first, but Gustavus Adolphus is able to turn and watch this mobile artillery on this map. You're going to see that he moves his cannons to go where he needs them in the battlefield at that time. So this is why he has this reputation as the father of modern warfare.

And while Gustavus Adolphus is fighting as the Protestant leader, he's receiving support from the French. So it's important to note this relationship. In this Swedish phase of the war, I think of it as SSFF. Swedish swords.

French funds. And the Swedes are doing the fighting. The French are doing the funding.

Now, say what? Okay, the Pope's confused here because remember that France is a Catholic country. And why is France helping the Protestants? Don't they know what...

religion they are and that sort of thing? Did they forget? Well, actually, they didn't.

Remember this concept of politique that was championed by people such as Henry IV of Navarre and Cardinal Richelieu. Now, Cardinal Richelieu was a churchman, but he's also the first minister of France, and he's got more important things to worry about than religion. He is concerned about the balance of power, and this is a theme that comes up over and over again in European history, and when people thinking about whose side to get on in a conflict, they've got to think about what is going to be to their advantage and what is going to create a balance of power so that no one European entity is going to dominate the rest.

And so when you look at this map here, you see that the house of Habsburg controlled at the time the Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Spain, and also islands in the Mediterranean. Mediterranean and southern Italy. They had lands in Switzerland. They controlled the Netherlands.

The Habsburgs were very, very powerful. And the French, they're thinking, okay, we're kind of surrounded. If you look at this map, it's like, whoa, I mean, the French are there and there are Habsburgs here and Habsburgs there. Here a Habsburg, there a Habsburg.

Everywhere a Habsburg. That's a problem. So what happens here is the French are helping the Swedes. Well, they are until Gustavus Adolphus.

has to go and die in battle, actually led a cavalry charge. This guy was very hands-on like Alexander the Great, but, you know, even the best leaders, the most hands-on leaders, they die. So Gustavus Adolphus'death is going to lead to the... decline of Sweden's active leadership.

And that's going to be a turning point in the war because the Swedes are going to pull back militarily, but they're still willing to help somebody else. And while they were there, they put a point on the board for the Protestants. And so we are moving toward the end of the war, which is going to be a stalemate.

The fourth phase is the largest, the bloodiest. and the most continental. This is the French phase.

And we're going to flip it over. As far as what the roles were in the Swedish phase, just go ahead and flip it over. What's going to happen here is now the Swedes are funding the French while the French fight. Swedish swords, French fists. Flip it over.

So now as we're wrapping up, let's go ahead and view the four phases again. First of all, remember you've got the Bohemian and the Danish phases, which are largely local religious conflicts, followed by the Swedish and French phases. which become increasingly continental and political in scope.

And by the French phase, okay, so the French are fighting on the side of the Protestants, or the Catholics winning, the Protestants winning, who's on whose side, who's winning, all of that. You really don't... don't know.

And by 1648, which is when this war ends, remember 1618 to 1648, this is starting to get old, all right? The whole war thing can be an adventure at first, maybe, and let's see how many people we can hang in this tree over here. But after a while, it gets old, especially after 30 years. Okay, why are we fighting?

Who's winning? What's going on? And they get together and kind of realize, all right, let's go ahead and make peace.

And this war is kind of inconclusive. It's not like you can say... this side won, this side lost. Now there are going to be consequences of the war that certainly it's going to weaken the Habsburgs. It's going to strengthen France, but there's not really a winner.

They get together at Westphalia in 1648 and sign the Peace of Westphalia, which first of all weakens the Holy Roman Emperor. The Holy Roman Emperor now has no control over the princes of the empire, which is going to lead Voltaire later on to say the Holy Roman Empire is is neither holy nor Roman nor an empire. And then the Spanish, Habsburgs, who had had control over the Dutch Netherlands, the Dutch Netherlands are now going to be independent. The Spanish will hold on to part of it, but then part of it's going to be independent, so that weakens the Habsburgs.

Then Brandenburg is going to gain territory. This is going to lead to the rise of Brandenburg-Prussia, which is going to be the foundation for a unified German state later on. So the 30- Years War is really starting this process that's going to lead a few hundred years later to the unification of Germany. Then Alsace is going to go to France and that's something that's going to be a point of contention between France and Germany as late as World War I. Then there's Switzerland that's going to become an independent confederation, which Switzerland is still independent today and is kind of known for being independent and neutral and all that kind of stuff. So the Swiss get their independence from the 30 years.

War. And then, just in general, the Holy Roman Empire as an institution is weaker than it was before the Thirty Years'War. And the balance of power is going to tip a little more toward France, a little bit away from the Habsburgs.

So keep in mind that France is now an ascendant power, and then the Holy Roman Empire is a declining power. That's important to note here. And then Calvinism is accepted. Remember, Calvinism was a bit of a problem here in the sense that there were lots of Calvinists in the Holy Roman Empire, but then they weren't allowed to practice their religion.

And speaking of the rise of Prussia Brandenburg, the rulers of Prussia Brandenburg were Calvinist, even though most of the people of Brandenburg were Lutheran. So this is something where now you have three religions that are acceptable, the Catholic religion, the Lutheran religion, and the Calvinist religion. And then... Then, on top of everything else, freedom of private worship.

If somebody's not getting in the way or causing a lot of trouble, then let's just leave them alone. We don't want to fight over religion anymore, alright? Killing people because of what religion they are is stupid, alright?

Europeans are finally starting to realize that after centuries of killing each other because of religion. So this is something that is a big turning point for Europe, is that they agree. that, you know, that wasn't such a good idea. So this is the last major religious war in Europe on a continent that had had dozens of religious wars over the centuries. And it is also the end of violence accompanying the Protestant Reformation.

So we can kind of bring the Reformation to a close as far as something that causes contention and that sort of thing. So that about wraps us up. If you like what you heard, if this helped you, subscribe.

Visit my website, TomRitchie.net. I'm on Twitter, Instagram. Instagram, Facebook, like, dislike, all of that.

Comment, please. Let me hear from you. I'll be back soon. Until next time.

Transcript for:The Thirty Years' War Summary

Transcript for:
The Thirty Years' War Summary