Late yesterday, we had heavy snows again. I think of it as a last gift of winter. Last night, we had multiple sleet storms. Everything crunched this morning. However, we are still on tap to get nice weather and even some warm weather (highs in the 60s) by the middle of next week. We'll see. :-)
Today, we'll take a look at the Thirty Year's War that so thoroughly devastated Central Europe, its causes and tie it back to the eventual resolutions we discussed yesterday in the Peace of Westphalia. Hopefully, it won't be too boring, and I promise tomorrow will be nice and light. :-)
Surprising to me, the war was almost entirely fought in Germany. It began officially in 1618, but got a running start in 1606 in a city relatively near us, Donauwörth, when the Lutheran majority tried to prevent the Catholics from having a march. Riots broke out, and the leader of Bavaria interceded on the Catholics behalf. This caused the Calvinists to band together since they were the least likely to be recognized; and as a response, the Catholics also banded together, thus, bringing the issue to the forefront for the Holy Roman Empire.
Then, the successor to the Empire in 1617, Ferdinand II of Austria and a Catholic Hapsburg, wanted to resolidify the Empire as a Catholic nation. Although Ferdinand inherited the Kingdom of Bohemia (an area that we think of today as Prague and the eastern part of the Czech Republic) as part of the crown title, the region of Bohemia, which was heavily Protestant, was very unhappy with the change. There was a revolt by the Protestants who were afraid they would not able to practice their faith in the now Catholic controlled region. This was a reversal of the 1555 agreement called the Peace of Augsburg. Many Protestants who had been promised freedoms of religion from that treaty were now facing conversion back to Catholicism or expulsion from their homes. Sweden and Denmark, both Lutheran nations and seeing political opportunity, joined in to help out their fellow brethren in faith. (In reality Denmark wanted territories of the northern German states that were along the Baltic Sea.) Soon, religious tensions boiled over across Germany.
As with many wars, though, the fighting did eventually turn away from the original issues and reverted back to the older political issues of who had supreme eminence in Europe - think of it as the Hatfields and the McCoys but change the names to Habsburgs and Bourbons. Ferdinand called on his cousin, Philip IV, of Spain to help out. He was more than happy to help, seeing a chance to get the Spanish Netherlands. With the coming of the Spanish, it seemed to start a downward spiral with all the people going a little crazy. Each army seemed to have secret allies and plans to broaden borders in the name of religion. In the end, the conflict that would have likely lasted no more than 2 - 3 years was suddenly spinning out of control. As mentioned before, Sweden and Denmark had also had their go in the war. Eventually, France, which was ruled by a Bourbon and which was surrounded by Hapsburg leaders, decided to take up the cause and also expand their territories. Ironically, France was heavily Catholic, but because of their fear of Hapsburg domination for all of Europe, they entered the war on the side of the Protestants.
After much fighting in Germany (although some battles did occur between France and Spain and also crossed briefly over the German border into France and at times into Denmark), peace finally came in 1648 with the signing of the Westphalia documents. In the end, Europe as a whole was poorer, having spent much of the royal fortunes on the war, and the populations, particularly in Germany, were decimated along with the German countryside. In some regions of southern Germany, the populations had declined by 75%. For Germany as a whole, half of all males had perished. Resources had been so overstripped by the invading armies that citizens that survived the fighting soon died of starvation and disease. Over 2000 castles had been destroyed as well as 33% of all the towns in Germany. Political power shifted to France and the Holy Roman Empire and Spain would never recover their previous political strength.
Although war was not completely eradicated in Europe, war on this scale would not be seen again until the great World Wars of the 20th century.
The word for today is war: der Krieg (kreeg).
The question for tomorrow is "If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?"
Auf Wiedersehen,
Frau Spitzer
