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thirty summer war (1618-1648) - the first military conflict in the history of Europe, affecting to one degree or another almost all European countries (including Russia), with the exception of Switzerland. The war started as religious clash between Protestants and Catholics in Germany, but then escalated into a struggle against the hegemony of the Habsburgs in Europe. The last significant religious war in Europe, gave rise to the Westphalian system international relations.

Scheme (course, periods) of the war:

1. Czech period 1618-1625

2. Danish period 1625-1629

3. Swedish period 1630-1635

4. Franco-Swedish period 1635-1648

5. Other conflicts at the same time

6. Peace of Westphalia. (Internet)

Causes of the war

one). internal reasons. Strengthening of the Counter-Reformation in Germany (note: Reformation - it is religious, broad political movement aimed at reform catholic church in the 16th century).

2). 1608 - 1609 - Creation of two military-political unions (camps): the Evangelical Union and the Catholic League. Bottom line: the threat of a military conflict between two opposing camps in Germany and the threat of interference in Germany's affairs by other states (external threat)

3). The struggle took place under religious banners, but the interests were not religious, but material, political calculations, class ambitions

4). External causes. The resumption of confrontation between the coalitions: the Spanish-Austrian Habsburgs and France. Both powers claimed hegemony in Europe

5). England pursued a controversial policy on the eve of the war and collaborated with the anti-Habsburg coalition

6). Russia, Poland, the Ottomans did not take part in the war, but they had an impact. Russia contributed to the success of the Protestants by holding down the forces of Poland. The Ottomans fought with Persia (Iran) and did not fight on two fronts, they were for France.

7). 1618 - an uprising in Czech Prague of Protestant subjects against Emperor Ferdinand II (1619 - 1637) due to the dominance of foreign officials in the government of Prague, appointed by the Habsburgs - this is the impetus for war.

Stage number 1. Bohemian period of the war (1618 - 1623)

1. Czech troops began to fight with the Habsburgs. The Czech Republic refused the Czech crown to the Habsburgs. The Czech forces and the Protestant mercenaries from Germany were divided - this is their weakness, and the Catholics (the Catholic League of Germany) achieved unity.

2. 1620 - the defeat of the Czech troops by the combined forces of the Catholic League and the imperial army

3. The result of the battle: - Jesuits flooded the Czech Republic, - only Catholic worship, - everything else is prohibited, - the national shrines of the Czechs were desecrated, - the Inquisition expelled all Protestants from the Czech Republic, - torture and execution of the participants in the uprising, - a blow was dealt to craft, trade, - confiscation of lands and their transfer to German Catholics - the emergence of new magnates - the Czech Republic is deprived of all its former privileges.

Stage number 2. Danish war period (1625 - 1629)

1. The Danish king Christian IV feared for the fate of his possessions, which included secularized Catholic church lands, and also, in case of victories, wanted to annex more conquered lands. He secures cash subsidies from England and Holland and recruits a mercenary army. North German princes join Christian 4

2. By 1630 - Emperor Ferdinand 2 creates a huge army of mercenaries (up to 100 thousand people) through extortion and devastation of cities and villages

3. After the battles with Danish king F2 emerges victorious and Christian 4 asks for peace

4. 1629 - conclusion of peace in Lübeck. Outcome: Denmark retained its territories, but no longer interferes in German affairs F2

5. The result of the entire war: - F2 dealt a powerful blow to the Protestants, - disposed strong army, - through his vassal (Wallenstein) began to build a fleet in the North (Baltic) to control by sea, - Protestant dissatisfaction imperial policy and the results of the war - strife in the Habsburg camp - a sharp violation of the political balance in Germany.

Stage number 3. Swedish period of the war (1630 - 1635)

1. 1630 - The Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus lands in Pomerania with support from France. The army is homogeneous from personally free peasants-countrymen + mercenaries with high moral and combat qualities. Used firearms and light cannons and cavalry

2. 1631 - the battle near Leipzig is a turning point in the war. Opened the way to Central and Southern Germany

3. Ferdinand II recruits an army. The Swedish army becomes mercenary and robs everyone in its path, combat-ready units died in the first battles

4. 1632 - the second battle near Leipzig. The Swedes won, but their king Gustavus Adolf died, F2 goes to the Czech Republic

5. 1634 - the Swedish army loses its former power, military discipline and is defeated by F2

6. 1635 - conclusion of peace. North German Protestants joined the world. Political situation favorable to the Habsburgs. Tactics of negotiating F2 with the enemy - designed for a split within the enemy.

Stage number 4. Franco-Swedish war period (1635 - 1648)

1. Great attrition of the parties due to many years of war in people and finances. The nature of the war: maneuverability, small battles, skirmishes, several times large battles

2. Early 1640s - success with the French

3. 1642 - the Swedes won the battle of Breitenfeld, went into Germany, France - captured Alsace

4. 1646 - the Swedes defeated F2 in South Bohemia

5. Ferdinand III (1637 - 1657) understands that the war is lost and seeks peace negotiations + partisan movement inside Germany against the emperor. In peace negotiations, a senseless war continues.

Stage number 5. Peace of Westphalia (total)

1. This local war at the beginning, involved many states at the end, lasted 30 years, became the First All-European War

2. 1648 - the conclusion of peace in the cities of Münster (Westphalia) between the emperor F3 and France, in Osnabrück (Westphalia) between Sweden and Germany

3. Results of the war:

a). Sweden:

The lands of Eastern Pomerania (Germany) and part of the coastal cities withdrew

Swedish kings became imperial princes

Withdrawn some secularized church lands

Got a big cash payment

Control of the rivers of Northern Germany

b). France:

Received Alsace, part of the territory of Germany, departed 10 imperial cities, confirmed the rights to three Lorraine bishoprics

in). Republic of the United Provinces:

Received recognition of its independence from all powers

Sovereignty issues resolved

G). Swiss Union:

Recognition of their sovereignty

Territory expansion

e). Spain:

She continued to fight with France, peace was concluded only in 1659.

4. Pinned political fragmentation Germany

5. There are several religions in Germany: Lutherans, Catholics, Calvinism

6. The ruin of Germany and the countries that were part of the Habsburg empire

7. The population decreased several times, many villages disappeared, the lands were overgrown with forests, mines were abandoned, Germany slowed down in its development

8. This is the boundary of two periods in history.

The events of May 1618 in Prague served as the immediate cause for the war. Openly trampling on the religious and political rights of the Czechs, guaranteed in the 16th century and confirmed in early XVII centuries, with a special imperial "Letter of Majesty", the Habsburg authorities persecuted Protestants and supporters of the country's national independence.

The response was mass unrest, during which especially active role played by the noble opposition. An armed mob broke into the old royal palace of Prague Castle and threw two members of the Habsburg-appointed government and their secretary out of a window. All three miraculously survived after falling from an 18-meter height into the moat. This act of "defenestration" was perceived in the Czech Republic as a sign of its political break with Austria. The uprising of "subjects" against the power of Ferdinand was the impetus for war.

First (Czech) period of the war (1618-1624).

The new government, elected by the Czech Sejm, strengthened the country's military forces, expelled the Jesuits from it, negotiated with Moravia and other nearby lands on the creation general federation similar to the Dutch United Provinces.

Czech troops, on the one hand, and their allies from the Transylvanian principality, on the other, moved to Vienna and inflicted a number of defeats on the Habsburg army.

Declaring its refusal to recognize Ferdinand's rights to the Czech crown, the Sejm elected the head of the Evangelical Union, Elector-Calvinist Frederick of the Palatinate, as king. The noble leaders of the Czech uprising counted on the German Protestants to provide them with military assistance. They were afraid to rely on the armament of the people.

Calculations on the power of Frederick of the Palatinate turned out to be false: he had neither large funds, nor the troops that had yet to be recruited from mercenaries. Meanwhile, a stream of money from the pope and the Catholic League poured into the emperor's treasury for similar purposes, Spanish troops were recruited to help Austria, and the Polish king promised assistance to Ferdinand.

In this situation, the Catholic League succeeded in forcing Frederick of the Palatinate to agree that hostilities would not affect the German territory and limited to the Czech Republic. As a result, the mercenaries recruited by the Protestants in Germany and the Czech forces were separated. The Catholics, by contrast, achieved unity of action.

On November 8, 1620, approaching Prague, the combined forces of the imperial army and the Catholic League defeated the Czech army, which was significantly inferior to them, in the battle of the White Mountain. It fought steadfastly, but without success. Bohemia, Moravia and other areas of the kingdom were occupied by the winners.

Terror began on an unprecedented scale. Torture and executions of participants in the uprising were particularly sophisticated. The country was invaded by the Jesuits. Any worship, except for the Catholic, was forbidden, the national shrines of the Czechs, associated with Hussite movement, were desecrated. The Inquisition expelled tens of thousands of Protestants of all denominations from the country. Craft, trade and Czech culture suffered a heavy blow.

The rampant counter-reformation was accompanied by mass confiscations of the lands of the executed and refugees, whose property passed to local and German Catholics. New fortunes were formed, new magnates appeared. In total, during the years of the Thirty Years' War in the Czech Republic, the owners of three-quarters of the lands changed. In 1627, the so-called Funeral Diet in Prague secured the loss of Czech national independence: the "Charter of Majesty" was canceled, the Czech Republic was deprived of all previous privileges.

The consequences of the Battle of Belogorsk affected the change in the political and military situation not only in the Czech Republic, but throughout Central Europe in favor of the Habsburgs and their allies. The possessions of Frederick of the Palatinate were occupied on both sides by the armies of the Spaniards and the Catholic League. He fled Germany himself. The emperor announced that he was depriving him of the dignity of the Elector - from now on it passes from the Count of the Palatinate to Maximilian of Bavaria, the head of the league.

Meanwhile, the troops of the league, under the leadership of the great military leader Tilly, plundering entire regions along the way, moved north, supporting and asserting the Catholic order. This caused particular alarm in Denmark, England and the Republic of the United Provinces, who saw Tilly's successes as a direct threat to their interests. The first stage of the war was over, its expansion was brewing.

Second (Danish) period of the war (1625-1629).

The Danish king Christian IV became a new participant in the war. Fearing for the fate of his possessions, which included secularized church lands, but also hoping to increase them in case of victories, he secured large cash subsidies from England and Holland, recruited an army and sent it against Tilly in the interfluve of the Elbe and Weser. The troops of the North German princes, who shared the sentiments of Christian IV, joined the Danes.

To fight new opponents, Emperor Ferdinand II needed large military forces and large financial resources, but he had neither one nor the other. The emperor could not rely only on the troops of the Catholic League: Maximilian of Bavaria, to whom they obeyed, well understood what real power they provided, and was increasingly inclined to pursue an independent policy. The energetic, flexible diplomacy of Cardinal Richelieu, who led French foreign policy and set as his goal, first of all, to bring discord into the Habsburg coalition, secretly pushed him to this.

The situation was saved by Albrecht Wallenstein, an experienced military leader who commanded large detachments of mercenaries on imperial service. The richest magnate, a German Catholic Czech nobleman, he bought up so many estates, mines and forests during the confiscation of land after the Battle of Belogorsk that he owned almost the entire northeastern part of the Czech Republic.

Wallenstein proposed to Ferdinand II a simple and cynical system for creating and maintaining a huge army: it should live off high but strictly established contributions from the population. The larger the army, the less will be able to resist its demands.

Wallenstein intended to make the robbery of the population a law. The Emperor accepted his offer. For the initial expenses for the formation of the army, Ferdinand provided Wallenstein with several of his own districts, in the future the army was to be fed from the conquered territories.

Wallenstein, who later proved himself to be an outstanding commander, had outstanding organizational skills. Per short term he created a 30,000th army of mercenaries, which by 1630 had grown to 100,000 people. Soldiers and officers of any nationality were recruited into the army, among them were Protestants.

They were paid a lot and, most importantly, regularly, which was rare, but they were kept in strict discipline and paid great attention to professional military training. In his possessions, Wallenstein established manufacturing production weapons, including artillery, and various equipment for the army. In necessary cases, he mobilized thousands of craftsmen for urgent work; warehouses and arsenals with large reserves were prepared in different parts of the country. Wallenstein quickly and repeatedly blocked his expenses due to huge military booty and gigantic indemnities mercilessly levied from cities and villages.

Having devastated one territory, he moved with his army to another.

Wallenstein's army advancing north, together with Tilly's army, inflicted a series of crushing defeats on the Danes and the troops of the Protestant princes. Wallenstein occupied Pomerania and Mecklenburg, became the master in Northern Germany and failed only at the siege of the Hanseatic city of Stralsund, which was helped by the Swedes.

Having invaded Jutland with Tilly and threatening Copenhagen, he forced the Danish king who fled to the islands to ask for peace. The peace was concluded in 1629 in Lübeck on terms quite favorable to Christian IV due to the intervention of Wallenstein, who was already making new, far-reaching plans.

Without losing anything territorially, Denmark pledged not to interfere in German affairs. Everything seemed to return to the situation of 1625, but in fact the difference was great: the emperor dealt another powerful blow to the Protestants, now he had a strong army, Wallenstein was entrenched in the north, having received the whole principality as a reward - the Duchy of Mecklenburg.

Wallenstein also got a new title - "General of the Baltic and Oceanic Seas." Behind him stood whole program: Wallenstein began the feverish construction of his own fleet, apparently deciding to intervene in the struggle for dominance over the Baltic and the northern sea routes. This caused a sharp reaction in all northern countries.

Wallenstein's successes were also accompanied by outbursts of jealousy in the Habsburg camp. During the passage of his army through the princely lands, he did not consider whether they were Catholics or Protestants. He was credited with a desire to become something like the German Richelieu, intending to deprive the princes of their freedoms in favor of central government emperor.

On the other hand, the emperor himself began to fear the excessive strengthening of his commander, who had troops loyal to him and who was increasingly independent in political matters. Under pressure from Maximilian of Bavaria and other leaders of the Catholic League, who were dissatisfied with the rise of Wallenstein and did not trust him, the emperor agreed to dismiss him and disband the army subordinate to him. Wallenstein was forced to return to privacy on their estates.

One of biggest impact The defeat of the Protestants in the second stage of the war was the adoption by the emperor in 1629, shortly before the Peace of Lübeck, the Restorative Edict.

It provided for the restoration (restitution) of the rights of the Catholic Church to all secularized property seized by the Protestants since 1552, when Emperor Charles V was defeated in the war with the princes. In accordance with the edict, the lands of two archbishoprics, twelve bishoprics, a number of abbeys and monasteries were to be taken away from the owners and returned to the churches.

Taking advantage of military victories, the emperor and the Catholic Church wanted to turn back time. The edict caused general indignation among the Protestants, but also worried some Catholic princes, who were afraid that the emperor was beginning to reshape the established order of the Empire too energetically.

Growing deep dissatisfaction with the results of the war and imperial policy among the Protestants, strife in the Habsburg camp, and finally, serious fears of a number of European powers in connection with a sharp violation of the political balance in Germany in favor of the Habsburgs - all these were symptoms of the unreliability of the position of the emperor and the forces supporting him, which, seemed to be at the pinnacle of success. The events of 1630-1631 again decisively changed the situation in Germany.

Third (Swedish) period of the war (1630-1635).

In the summer of 1630, having imposed a truce on Poland, secured large subsidies from France for the war in Germany and the promise of diplomatic support, the ambitious and courageous commander, the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus, landed in Pomerania with his army.

His army was unusual in Germany, where both belligerents used mercenary troops and both had already mastered Wallenstein's methods of keeping them well.

The army of Gustavus Adolphus was small, but uniformly national in its main core and distinguished by high combat and moral qualities. Its core consisted of personally free peasants-countrymen, holders of state lands, obliged military service. Hardened in battles with Poland, this army used the talented innovations of Gustavus Adolf, not yet known in Germany: more wide application firearms, light field artillery from rapid-fire cannons, non-bulky, flexible infantry battle formations. Gustav-Adolf gave her maneuverability importance, not forgetting the cavalry, whose organization he also improved.

The Swedes came to Germany under the slogans of getting rid of tyranny, defending the freedoms of German Protestants, fighting attempts to enforce the Restitution Edict; their army, then not yet expanded by mercenaries, did not plunder at first, which caused the joyful astonishment of the population, which gave it the warmest welcome everywhere. All this ensured at first major successes of Gustavus Adolphus, whose entry into the war meant its further expansion, the final escalation of regional conflicts into European war on the territory of Germany.

The actions of the Swedes in the first year were constrained by the maneuvering of the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony, who remembered the defeat of Denmark and were afraid to openly support Gustavus Adolphus, which made it difficult for him to move through their possessions.

Taking advantage of this, Tilly, at the head of the league troops, besieged the city of Magdeburg, which had gone over to the Swedes, took it by storm and subjected it to wild robberies and destruction. The brutal soldiery killed almost 30 thousand citizens, not sparing women and children.

Having forced both Electors to join him, Gustavus Adolf, despite the low effectiveness of the help of the Saxon troops, moved his army against Tilly and in September 1631 inflicted a crushing defeat on him at the village of Breitenfeld near Leipzig.

It has become turning point in the war - the Swedes opened the way to Central and Southern Germany. Making swift transitions, Gustavus Adolf moved to the Rhine, spent the winter period, when hostilities ceased, in Mainz, and in the spring of 1632, he was already near Augsburg, where he defeated the emperor's troops on the Lech River. Tilly was mortally wounded in this battle. In May 1632, Gustavus Adolf entered Munich, the capital of Bavaria, the emperor's main ally. The victories strengthened the Swedish king in his rapidly expanding plans to create a great power.

Frightened, Ferdinand II turned to Wallenstein. Having stipulated for himself unlimited powers, including the right to collect any indemnity in the conquered territory and to independently conclude truces and peace with opponents, he agreed to become the commander-in-chief of all the armed forces of the Empire and quickly recruited a large army.

By this time, Germany was already so devastated by the war that both Wallenstein, who tried to use the military innovations of the Swedes in his army, and Gustavus Adolf began to increasingly resort to the tactics of maneuvering and waiting, which led to the loss of combat capability and even the death of part of the enemy’s troops from lack of supplies.

The nature of the Swedish army has changed: having lost part of its original composition in battles, it has grown greatly due to professional mercenaries, of whom there were many in the country at that time and who often moved from one army to another, no longer paying attention to their religious banners. The Swedes now plundered and looted in the same way as all other troops.

In an effort to force Saxony - the largest ally of the Swedes in Germany - to break the alliance with Gustavus Adolf, Wallenstein invaded her lands and began to devastate them methodically.

Responding to the desperate calls of the Elector of Saxony for help, Gustavus Adolf led his troops into Saxony. In November 1632, near the city of Lützen, again near Leipzig, the second largest battle took place: the Swedes won and forced Wallenstein to withdraw to Bohemia, but Gustavus Adolf died in the battle.

His army was henceforth subject to the policy of the Swedish Chancellor Oxenstierna, who was strongly influenced by Richelieu. The death of Gustavus Adolphus hastened the fall of the Swedish hegemony that had actually been established in Germany. As had already happened more than once, the princes, fearing any great-power plans, began to lean towards the idea of ​​reconciliation with the Habsburgs if they refused to carry out a counter-reformation in foreign possessions.

These sentiments were used by Wallenstein. In 1633, he negotiated with Sweden, France, Saxony, far from always informing the emperor about their progress and about his diplomatic plans.

Suspecting him of treason, Ferdinand II, set against Wallenstein by a fanatical court camarilla, removed him from command at the beginning of 1634, and in February, in the fortress of Eger, Wallenstein was killed by conspiring officers loyal to the imperial power, who considered him a traitor to the state.

In the autumn of 1634, the Swedish army, having lost its former discipline, suffered a severe defeat from the imperial troops at Nördlingen.

Detachments of imperial soldiers and Spanish troops, having forced the Swedes out of southern Germany, began to devastate the lands of the Protestant princes in the western part of the country, which strengthened their intention to achieve a truce with Ferdinand.

At the same time, peace negotiations between the emperor and the Saxon elector were under way. He was imprisoned in Prague in the spring of 1635. The emperor, having made concessions, refused to carry out the Restorative Edict in Saxony for 40 years, until further negotiations, and this principle was to be extended to other principalities if they joined the Peace of Prague.

The new tactics of the Habsburgs, designed to split the opponents, bore fruit - North German Protestants joined the world. The general political situation again turned out to be favorable for the Habsburgs, and since all other reserves in the fight against them were exhausted, France decided to enter the war itself.

Fourth (Franco-Swedish) period of the war (1635-1648).

Resuming the alliance with Sweden, France made diplomatic efforts to intensify the struggle on all fronts, where it was possible to confront both the Austrian and Spanish Habsburgs.

The Republic of the United Provinces continued its liberation war with Spain and achieved a number of successes in major naval battles. Mantua, Savoy, Venice, the Principality of Transylvania supported the Franco-Swedish alliance. Poland took a neutral but friendly position for France. Russia, on favorable terms, supplied Sweden with rye and saltpeter (for the manufacture of gunpowder), hemp and ship timber.

last, most a long period The war was fought in conditions when the exhaustion of the opposing sides was increasingly felt as a result of the huge long-term strain of human and financial resources.

As a result, mobile warfare, small battles prevailed, and only a few times - more major battles.

The battles went on with varying success, but in the early 40s, the growing preponderance of the French and Swedes was determined. Swedes smashed imperial army in the autumn of 1642, again under Breitenfeld, after which they occupied all of Saxony and penetrated into Moravia.

The French captured Alsace, acting in concert with the forces of the Republic of the United Provinces, won a number of victories over the Spaniards in the Southern Netherlands, and dealt them a heavy blow at the Battle of Rocroix in 1643.

Events were complicated by the intensified rivalry between Sweden and Denmark, which led them to war in 1643-1645.

Mazarin, who replaced the deceased Richelieu, made a lot of efforts to end this conflict.

Having significantly strengthened its positions in the Baltic under the terms of peace, Sweden again stepped up the actions of its army in Germany and in the spring of 1646 defeated the imperial and Bavarian troops at Jankov in South Bohemia, and then launched an offensive in the Czech and Austrian lands, threatening both Prague and Vienna.

Emperor Ferdinand III (1637-1657) became increasingly clear that the war was lost. Both sides pushed for peace negotiations not only by the results of hostilities and the growing difficulties of further financing the war, but also by the wide scope partisan movement in Germany against the violence and looting of “our own” and enemy armies.

Soldiers, officers, generals on both sides have lost their taste for the fanatical defense of religious slogans; many of them changed the color of the flag more than once; desertion became a mass phenomenon.

As early as 1638, the pope and the Danish king called for an end to the war. Two years later, the idea of ​​peace negotiations was supported by the German Reichstag in Regensburg, which met for the first time after a long break.

Concrete diplomatic preparations for peace began, however, later. Only in 1644 did a peace congress begin in Münster, where negotiations were held between the emperor and France; in 1645, in another, also Westphalian city - Osnabrück - negotiations opened, at which Swedish-German relations were clarified.

At the same time, the war continued, more and more senseless.

In 1648, the Peace of Westphalia was concluded, according to which Sweden received all of Western Pomerania with the port of Stettin and a small part of Eastern Pomerania, the islands of Rügen and Wolin, as well as the right to the Pomeranian Gulf with all coastal cities. As dukes of Pomeranian, the Swedish kings became imperial princes and were given the opportunity to directly intervene in imperial affairs. The secularized archbishoprics of Bremen and Ferden (on the Weser), the Mecklenburg city of Wismar, and the Mecklenburg city of Wismar also went to Sweden as imperial fiefs. Sweden controlled the mouths of the largest rivers in Northern Germany - the Weser, Elbe and Oder. Sweden became a great European power and realized its goal of dominating the Baltic.

France, which was in a hurry to complete negotiations in connection with the parliamentary opposition that had begun and was ready, having achieved the necessary general political result of the war, to be content with relatively little, made all its acquisitions at the expense of imperial possessions. She received Alsace (except for Strasbourg, which was not legally part of it), Sundgau and Haguenau, confirmed her already hundred-year-old rights to three Lorraine bishoprics - Metz, Toul and Verdun. Under the tutelage of France were 10 imperial cities.

The Republic of the United Provinces has received international recognition of its independence. Under the Treaty of Munster - part of the treaties of the Peace of Westphalia - the issues of its sovereignty, territory, the status of Antwerp and the mouth of the Scheldt were resolved, problems that still remained controversial were outlined.

The Swiss Union received direct recognition of its sovereignty. Significantly increased their territories at the expense of smaller rulers, some large German principalities Elector of Brandenburg, whom France supported in order to create a kind of counterbalance to the emperor in the north, but also - for the future - and Sweden, received under the treaty Eastern Pomerania, the Archbishopric of Magdeburg, the bishoprics of Halberstadt and Minden .
The influence of this principality in Germany increased dramatically.

Saxony secured the Lusatian lands, Bavaria received the Upper Palatinate, and its duke became the eighth elector.

The Peace of Westphalia sealed the political fragmentation of Germany for two hundred years. The German princes won the right to conclude alliances among themselves and treaties with foreign countries, which actually ensured their sovereignty, although with the proviso that all these political ties should not be directed against the empire and the emperor.

The empire itself, formally remaining a union of states headed by an elected monarch and permanent Reichstags, after the Peace of Westphalia, in fact, turned not into a confederation, but into a barely connected conglomerate of "imperial officials". Along with Lutheranism and Catholicism, Calvinism also received the status of an officially recognized religion in the empire.

The Peace of Westphalia brought to Spain the end of only part of her wars: she continued hostilities with France. Peace between them was concluded only in 1659. He gave France new territorial acquisitions: in the south - at the expense of Roussillon; in the northeast - at the expense of the province of Artois in Spanish Netherlands; in the east, part of Lorraine passed to France.

The Thirty Years' War brought unprecedented ruin to Germany and the countries that were part of the Habsburg empire. The population of many regions of North-East and South-West Germany has halved, in a number of places - by 10 times. In the Czech Republic, out of 2.5 million people in 1618, only 700 thousand remained by the middle of the century.

Many cities suffered, hundreds of villages disappeared, vast areas of arable land were overgrown with forest. Many Saxon and Czech mines were disabled for a long time. Trade, industry, culture were severely damaged. The war that swept through Germany slowed down its development for a long time.

Causes of the Thirty Years' War

Emperor Matthew (1612-1619) was just as incapable a ruler as his brother Rudolph, especially given the tense state of affairs in Germany, when an inevitable and cruel struggle threatened between Protestants and Catholics. The struggle was accelerated by the fact that the childless Matthew appointed his cousin Ferdinand of Styria as his successor in Austria, Hungary and Bohemia. Persistent character and the Catholic jealousy of Ferdinand were well known; Catholics and Jesuits rejoiced that their time had come; Protestants and Hussites (Utraquists) in Bohemia could not expect anything good for themselves. The Bohemian Protestants built two churches for themselves on the monastic lands. The question arose - do they have the right to do so or not? The government decided that it was not, and one church was locked up, another was ruined. defenders, granted to the Protestants by the “Letter of Majesty”, gathered and sent a complaint to Emperor Matthew in Hungary; the emperor refused and forbade the defenders to gather for further meetings. This terribly annoyed the Protestants; they attributed such a decision to the imperial advisers who ruled Bohemia in the absence of Matthew, they were especially angry with two of them, Martinitz and Slavat, distinguished by Catholic zeal.

In the heat of irritation, the Hussite deputies of the state Bohemian ranks armed themselves and, under the leadership of Count Turn, went to Prague Castle, where the board met. Entering the hall, they began to speak in large words with the advisers and soon turned from words to deeds: they seized Martinits, Slavata and secretary Fabricius and threw them out of the window “according to the good old Czech custom,” as one of those present put it (1618). By this act, the Czechs broke with the government. The ranks seized the government into their own hands, expelled the Jesuits from the country and put up an army under the leadership of Turn.

Periods of the Thirty Years' War

Czech period (1618–1625)

The war began in 1619 and began happily for the insurgents; Thurn was joined by Ernst von Mansfeld, the daring leader of the mob squads; the Silesian, Lusatian and Moravian ranks raised the same banner with the Czechs and drove the Jesuits away from them; the imperial army was forced to clear Bohemia; Matthew died, and his successor, Ferdinand II, was besieged in Vienna itself by the troops of Thurn, with whom the Austrian Protestants joined.

In this terrible danger, the steadfastness of the new emperor saved the throne of the Habsburgs; Ferdinand held on tight and held out until bad weather, lack of money and provisions forced Thurn to lift the siege of Vienna.

Count Tilly. Van Dyck painter, c. 1630

In Frankfurt, Ferdinand II was proclaimed emperor, and at the same time the ranks of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia broke away from the House of Habsburg and elected the head of the Protestant union, Elector Frederick V of the Palatinate, as king. Frederick accepted the crown and hurried to Prague for the coronation. The nature of the main rivals had an important influence on the outcome of the struggle: against the smart and firm Ferdinand II, the empty, unrestrained Frederick V stood. In addition to the emperor, the Catholics also had Maximilian of Bavaria, strong in personal and material means; on the side of the Protestants, Maximilian corresponded to the Elector John George of Saxony, but the correspondence between them was limited to material means alone, for John George bore the not very honorable title of the beer king; there was a rumor that he said that the animals that inhabited his forests were dearer to him than his subjects; finally, John George, as a Lutheran, did not want to have anything to do with the Calvinist Frederick V and leaned on the side of Austria when Ferdinand promised him the land of the puddles (Lusatia). Finally, the Protestants, next to the incapable princes, did not have capable generals, while Maximilian of Bavaria accepted into his service famous general, Dutch Tilly. The fight was uneven.

Frederick V arrived in Prague, but from the very beginning he behaved badly in his affairs, he did not get along with the Czech nobles, not allowing them to participate in the affairs of government, obeying only his Germans; he also pushed away the people from his passion for luxury and fun, also by Calvin iconoclasm: all the images of saints, paintings and relics were taken out of the Prague Cathedral Church. Meanwhile, Ferdinand II concluded an alliance with Maximilian of Bavaria, with Spain, attracted the Elector of Saxony to his side, and brought Austrian officials into obedience.

The troops of the emperor and the Catholic League, under the command of Tilly, appeared near Prague. In November 1620, a battle took place between them and the troops of Frederick at the White Mountain, Tilly won. Despite this misfortune, the Czechs did not have the means to continue the struggle, but their king Frederick completely lost his spirit and fled from Bohemia. Deprived of a leader, unity and direction of movement, the Czechs could not continue the struggle, and in a few months Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia were again subdued under the power of the House of Habsburg.

Bitter was the fate of the vanquished: 30,000 families had to leave the fatherland; instead of them appeared alien to the Slavs and Czech history population. Bohemia was considered to have 30,000 inhabited places; only 11,000 remained after the war; before the war there were over 4 million inhabitants; in 1648 no more than 800,000 remained. A third of the land was confiscated; the Jesuits rushed to the prey: to break the very close connection Bohemia with its past, in order to deal the heaviest blow to the Czech people, they began to destroy books on Czech as heretical; one Jesuit boasted that he had burned over 60,000 volumes. It is clear what fate must have awaited Protestantism in Bohemia; two Lutheran pastors remained in Prague, whom they did not dare to expel, for fear of arousing the indignation of the Saxon elector; but the papal legate of Caraffa insisted that the emperor give the order to expel them. “The matter is going on,” said Caraffa, “not about two pastors, but about freedom of religion; as long as they are tolerated in Prague, not a single Czech will enter the bosom of the Church.” Some Catholics, the king of Spain himself, wanted to moderate the jealousy of the legate, but he did not pay attention to their ideas. “The intolerance of the House of Austria,” said the Protestants, “forced the Czechs to revolt.” “Heresy,” said Caraffa, “ignited a rebellion.” Emperor Ferdinand II expressed himself more strongly. "God himself," he said, "incited the Czechs to rebellion in order to give me the right and the means to destroy the heresy." The Emperor tore up the Letter of Majesty with his own hands.

The means for the destruction of heresy were as follows: Protestants were forbidden to engage in any kind of skill, they were forbidden to marry, make wills, bury their dead, although they had to pay the cost of burial to the Catholic priest; they were not allowed into hospitals; soldiers with sabers in their hands drove them into churches, in the villages the peasants were driven there with dogs and whips; the soldiers were followed by Jesuits and Capuchins, and when a Protestant, in order to save himself from a dog and a whip, announced that he was converting to the Roman Church, he first of all had to declare that this conversion was made voluntarily. The imperial troops allowed themselves terrible cruelties in Bohemia: one officer ordered the killing of 15 women and 24 children; a detachment consisting of Hungarians burned down seven villages, and all living things were exterminated, the soldiers chopped off the hands of babies and pinned them to their hats in the form of trophies.

After the battle of the White Mountain, three Protestant princes continued to fight the league: Duke Christian of Brunswick, Ernst Mansfeld, already known to us, and Margrave Georg Friedrich of Baden-Durlach. But these defenders of Protestantism acted in exactly the same way as the champions of Catholicism: unfortunate Germany now had to experience what Russia experienced shortly before in Time of Troubles and once tested France in its troubled times under Charles VI and Charles VII; the troops of the Duke of Brunswick and Mansfeld consisted of prefabricated squads, completely similar to our Cossack squads of the Time of Troubles or the French Arminaks; people of different classes, who wanted to live merrily at the expense of others, flocked from everywhere under the banners of these leaders, not receiving salaries from the latter, lived by robbery and, like animals, raged against the peaceful population. German sources, in describing the horrors that Mansfeld's soldiers allowed themselves, almost repeat the news of our chroniclers about the ferocity of the Cossacks.

Danish period (1625–1629)

The Protestant partisans could not stand against Tilly, who triumphed everywhere, and Protestant Germany showed a complete incapacity for self-defence. Ferdinand II declared Frederick V deprived of the electoral dignity, which he transferred to Maximilian of Bavaria. But the strengthening of the emperor, the strengthening of the House of Austria, was to arouse fear in the powers and force them to support the German Protestants against Ferdinand II; at the same time, the Protestant powers, Denmark, Sweden intervened in the war, besides political, and from religious motives, while Catholic France, ruled by the cardinal of the Roman Church, began to support the Protestants from purely political goals in order to prevent the House of Habsburg from gaining dangerously for her.

The first to intervene in the war was Christian IV, the Danish king. Emperor Ferdinand, who until now was dependent on the league, triumphant through Tilly, the commander Maximilian of Bavaria, now set his army against the Danish king, his commander: it was the famous Wallenstein (Waldstein) Wallenstein was a Czech of humble noble origin; born in Protestantism, he entered the house as an orphan as a minor, to a Catholic uncle, who converted him to Catholicism, gave him up to the Jesuits, and then enrolled him in the service of the Habsburgs. Here he distinguished himself in Ferdinand's war against Venice, then in the Bohemian war; having made a fortune for himself in his youth by a profitable marriage, he became even richer by buying up confiscated estates in Bohemia after the Battle of Belogorsk. He suggested to the emperor that he would recruit 50,000 troops and support him, without demanding anything from the treasury, if he was given unlimited power over this army and rewarded from the conquered lands. The emperor agreed, and Wallenstein fulfilled his promise: 50,000 people actually gathered around him, ready to go wherever there was prey. This huge Wallenstein squad brought Germany to the last stage of disaster: having captured some terrain, Wallenstein's soldiers began by disarming the inhabitants, then indulged in systematic robbery, sparing neither churches nor graves; having plundered everything that was in sight, the soldiers began to torture the inhabitants in order to force out an indication of hidden treasures, they managed to invent tortures, one more terrible than the other; finally, the demon of destruction took possession of them: without any benefit to themselves, out of a single thirst for extermination, they burned houses, burned utensils, agricultural implements; they stripped men and women naked and let hungry dogs on them, which they took with them for this hunt. The Danish War lasted from 1624 to 1629. Christian IV could not resist the forces of Wallenstein and Tilly. Holstein, Schleswig, Jutland were deserted; Wallenstein had already announced to the Danes that they would be treated like slaves if they did not elect Ferdinand II as their king. Wallenstein conquered Silesia, expelled the Dukes of Mecklenburg from their possessions, which he received as a fief from the emperor, the Duke of Pomeranian was also forced to leave his possessions. Christian IV of Denmark, in order to preserve his possessions, was forced to make peace (in Lübeck), pledging not to interfere anymore in German affairs. In March 1629, the emperor issued the so-called Restorative edict, according to which all her possessions, captured by the Protestants after the Treaty of Passava, were returned to the Catholic Church; apart from the Lutherans of the Augsburg Confession, the Calvinists and all other Protestant sects were excluded from the religious world. The Restorative Edict was issued to please the Catholic League; but soon this league, i.e., its leader Maximilian of Bavaria, demanded something else from Ferdinand: when the emperor expressed a desire that the league withdraw its troops from there to facilitate Franconia and Swabia, Maximilian, in the name of the league, demanded that the emperor himself dismiss Wallenstein and dissolve him an army that, with its robberies and cruelties, seeks to completely devastate the empire.

Portrait of Albrecht von Wallenstein

The imperial princes hated Wallenstein, an upstart who, from a simple nobleman and leader of a huge band of robbers, became a prince, insulted them with his proud address and did not hide his intention to place the imperial princes in the same relation to the emperor, in which the French nobility was to their king; Maximilian of Bavaria called Wallenstein "dictator of Germany". The Catholic clergy hated Wallenstein because he did not care at all about the interests of Catholicism, about spreading it in the areas occupied by his army; Wallenstein allowed himself to say: “One hundred years have already passed since Rome was in last time plundered; now he must be much richer than in the time of Charles V. Ferdinand II had to give in to the general hatred against Wallenstein and took away his command over the army. Wallenstein retired to his Bohemian estates, waiting for a more favorable time; he did not wait long.

Swedish period (1630–1635)

Portrait of Gustav II Adolf

France, ruled by Cardinal Richelieu, could not indifferently see the strengthening of the House of Habsburg. Cardinal Richelieu first tried to oppose Ferdinand II with the strongest Catholic prince of the empire, the head of the league. He presented to Maximilian of Bavaria that the interests of all German princes required resistance to the growing power of the emperor, that the best remedy to maintain German freedom consists in taking the imperial crown from the House of Austria; the cardinal urged Maximilian to take the place of Ferdinand II, to become emperor, vouching for the help of France and its allies. When the head of the Catholic League did not succumb to the seductions of the cardinal, the latter turned to the Protestant sovereign, who alone was willing and able to fight against the Habsburgs. It was the Swedish king Gustavus Adolf, son and successor of Charles IX.

Energetic, gifted, and highly educated, Gustavus Adolphus, from the very beginning of his reign, waged successful wars with his neighbors, and these wars, by developing his military abilities, strengthened his desire for a role greater than the modest role played in Europe by his predecessors. He ended the war with Russia with the Peace of Stolbov, beneficial to Sweden, and considered himself entitled to announce to the Swedish Senate that the dangerous Muscovites were driven away from the Baltic Sea for a long time. On the Polish throne sat his cousin and mortal enemy Sigismund III, from whom he took Livonia. But Sigismund, as a zealous Catholic, was an ally of Ferdinand II, therefore, the power of the latter strengthened and Polish king and threatened Sweden with great danger; relatives of Gustav-Adolf, the dukes of Mecklenburg, were deprived of their possessions, and thanks to Wallenstein, Austria was established on the shores of the Baltic Sea. Gustavus Adolphus understood the basic laws of European political life and wrote to his Chancellor Oxenstierna: “All European wars are one huge war. It is more profitable to transfer the war to Germany than to be forced to defend oneself in Sweden later. Finally, religious convictions imposed on the Swedish king the obligation to prevent the destruction of Protestantism in Germany. That is why Gustav-Adolf willingly accepted Richelieu's proposal to act against the House of Austria in alliance with France, which meanwhile tried to settle peace between Sweden and Poland and thus untied Gustav-Adolf's hands.

In June 1630, Gustavus Adolphus landed on the shores of Pomerania and soon cleared this country of imperial troops. The religiosity and discipline of the Swedish army was in striking contrast to the predatory character of the army of the league and the emperor, so the people in Protestant Germany received the Swedes very cordially; from the princes of Protestant Germany, the Dukes of Lüneburg, Weimar, Lauenburg and the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel took the side of the Swedes; but the electors of Brandenburg and Saxony were very reluctant to see the entry of the Swedes into Germany and remained inactive to the last extreme, despite the exhortations of Richelieu. The cardinal advised all German princes, Catholics and Protestants, to take advantage of Swedish war, connect and force the emperor to have peace that would ensure their rights; if they now split up, some will become for the Swedes, others for the emperor, then this will lead to the final destruction of their fatherland; having one interest, they must act together against a common enemy.

Tilly, who now commanded the troops of the league and the emperor together, spoke out against the Swedes. In the autumn of 1631, he met with Gustav-Adolf at Leipzig, was defeated, lost 7000 of his the best troops and retreated, giving the victor an open road to the south. In the spring of 1632, the second meeting of Gustav-Adolf with Tilly took place, which was strengthened at the confluence of the Lech into the Danube. Tilly could not defend the Lech crossings and received a wound from which he soon died. Gustavus Adolphus occupied Munich, while the Saxon troops entered Bohemia and captured Prague. In such an extreme case, Emperor Ferdinand II turned to Wallenstein. He forced himself to beg for a long time, finally agreed to again create an army and save Austria on the condition of unlimited disposal and rich land rewards. As soon as the news spread that the Duke of Friedland (the title of Wallenstein) had resumed his activities, seekers of prey rushed to him from all sides. Having ousted the Saxons from Bohemia, Wallenstein moved to the borders of Bavaria, fortified not far from Nuremberg, repulsed the attack of the Swedes on his camp and rushed into Saxony, still devastating everything in his path like locusts. Gustavus Adolf hurried after him to save Saxony. On November 6, 1632, the Battle of Lützen took place: the Swedes won, but lost their king.

The behavior of Gustavus Adolf in Germany after the Leipzig victory aroused the suspicion that he wanted to establish himself in this country and receive imperial dignity: for example, in some places he ordered the inhabitants to swear allegiance to him, did not return the Palatinate to his former elector Frederick, persuaded the German princes to join the Swedish service; said that he was not a mercenary, that he could not be satisfied with money alone, that Protestant Germany should separate from Catholic Germany under a special head, that the organization German Empire it is outdated that the empire is a decrepit building fit for rats and mice, not for man.

The strengthening of the Swedes in Germany particularly alarmed Cardinal Richelieu, who, in the interests of France, did not want Germany to have a strong emperor, Catholic or Protestant. France wanted to take advantage of the present turmoil in Germany to increase her possessions and let Gustavus Adolf know that she wanted to regain the heritage of the Frankish kings; to this the Swedish king replied that he had come to Germany not as an enemy or a traitor, but as a patron, and therefore could not agree that at least one village should be taken away from her; he also didn't want to let french army entered German soil. That is why Richelieu was very happy about the death of Gustavus Adolphe and wrote in his memoirs that this death delivered Christianity from many evils. But by Christianity we must understand here France, which really gained a lot from the death of the Swedish king, having received the opportunity to interfere directly in the affairs of Germany and get more than one village from her.

After the death of Gustavus Adolphus, the government of Sweden, after the infancy of his only daughter and heiress Christina, passed to the State Council, which decided to continue the war in Germany and entrusted its conduct to Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna, the famous state mind. The strongest Protestant sovereigns of Germany, the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, shied away from the Swedish alliance; Oxenstierna managed to conclude an alliance in Heilbronn (in April 1633) only with the Protestant ranks of Franconia, Swabia, the Upper and Lower Rhine. The Germans inspired Oxenstierna not a very favorable opinion of themselves. “Instead of going about their business, they only get drunk,” he told a French diplomat. Richelieu in his notes says about the Germans that they are ready to betray their most sacred obligations for money. Oxenstierna was appointed director of the Heilbronn League; command over the army was entrusted to Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar and the Swedish General Gorn; France helped with money.

Meanwhile, Wallenstein, after the Battle of Lützen, began to show much less energy and enterprise than before. For a long time he remained inactive in Bohemia, then went to Silesia and Lusatia and, after minor battles, concluded a truce with enemies and entered into negotiations with the Electors of Saxony, Brandenburg and Oxenscherna; these negotiations were conducted without the knowledge Viennese court and aroused strong suspicion here. He freed Count Thurn, the implacable enemy of the House of Habsburg, from captivity, and instead of expelling the Swedes from Bavaria, he again settled in Bohemia, which suffered terribly from his army. From everything it was clear that he was looking for the death of his implacable enemy, Maximilian of Bavaria, and, knowing the intrigues of his enemies, he wanted to ensure himself from a second fall. Numerous opponents of him and envious people spread rumors that he wants to With help the Swedes to become an independent Bohemian king. The emperor believed these suggestions and decided to get rid of Wallenstein.

Three of the most important generals in the army of the Duke of Friedland plotted against their commander in chief, and Wallenstein was killed at the beginning of 1634 in Jaeger. Thus perished the most famous ataman of a rabble gang, which, fortunately for Europe, no longer appeared in it after the Thirty Years' War. The war, especially at the beginning, was of a religious nature; but the soldiers of Tilly and Wallenstein did not rage out of religious fanaticism: they exterminated equally both Catholics and Protestants, both their own and others. Wallenstein was a complete representative of his soldiers, was indifferent to faith, but believed in the stars, diligently studied astrology.

After the death of Wallenstein, the emperor's son Ferdinand assumed command of the imperial army. In the autumn of 1634, the imperial troops united with the Bavarian troops and utterly defeated the Swedes at Nördlingen, Horn was captured. Elector of Saxony concluded with the emperor separate world in Prague, Brandenburg and other German princes followed suit; only Hesse-Kassel, Badei and Wirtemberg remained in the Swedish alliance.

Franco-Swedish period (1635–1648)

France took advantage of the weakening of the Swedes after the Battle of Nördlingen to clearly intervene in the affairs of Germany, restore balance between the fighting parties and receive a rich reward for this. Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, after the Nördlingen defeat, turned to France with a request for help; Richelieu concluded an agreement with him, according to which Bernhard's army was to be kept at the expense of France; Oxenstierna went to Paris and received a promise that a strong French corps would act in concert with the Swedes against the emperor; finally, Richelieu made an alliance with Holland against the Spanish, allies of the emperor.

In 1636, military happiness again went over to the side of the Swedes, who were commanded by General Baner. Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar also happily fought on the Upper Rhine. He died in 1639, and the French took advantage of his death: they captured Alsace, which they had previously promised to Bernhard, and took his army for themselves as a mercenary. The French army appeared in southern Germany to act here against the Austrians and Bavarians. On the other hand, the French were active in the Spanish Netherlands: the young Prince of Conde began his brilliant career with a victory over the Spaniards at Rocroix.

Peace of Westphalia 1648

Meanwhile, in February 1637, Emperor Ferdinand II died, and with his son, Ferdinand III, in 1643, peace negotiations began in Westphalia: in Osnabrück between the emperor and the Catholics on the one hand, and between the Swedes and Protestants on the other; in Munster - between Germany and France. The latter was then more powerful than all the states of Europe, and its claims aroused just fears. The French government did not hide its plans: according to Richelieu, two works were written (Dupuy and Cassan), which proved the rights of the French kings to various kingdoms, duchies, counties, cities and countries; it appeared that Castile, Arragon, Catalonia, Navarre, Portugal, Naples, Milan, Genoa, the Netherlands, England must belong to France; imperial dignity belongs French kings as the heirs of Charlemagne. The writers reached the point of being ridiculous, but Richelieu himself, without demanding Portugal and England, explained to Louis XIII about "natural boundaries" France. “It is not necessary,” he said, “to imitate the Spaniards, who are always trying to spread their possessions; France must think only about how to strengthen itself in itself, it is necessary to establish itself in Maine and reach Strasbourg, but at the same time it is necessary to act slowly and carefully; one can also think of Navarre and Franche-Comte.” Before his death, the cardinal said: “The purpose of my ministry was to return to Gaul its ancient borders assigned to it nature compare the new Gaul in everything with the ancient. It is not surprising, therefore, that during the Westphalian negotiations, the Spanish diplomats began to curry favor with the Dutch, even ventured to tell the latter that the Dutch waged a just war against Spain, for they defended their freedom; but it would be highly imprudent of them to help France to grow stronger in their neighbourhood. Spanish diplomats promised two Dutch commissioners 200,000 thalers; the king of France wrote to his representatives whether it was possible to persuade the Dutch to his side by some gift.

In October 1648, the negotiations ended. France received the Austrian part of Alsace, Sundgau, Breisach, with the preservation for the imperial cities and the owners of their former relations with the empire. Sweden received most of Pomerania, the island of Rügen, the city of Wismar, the bishoprics of Bremen and Verden, also with the preservation of their former relations with Germany. Brandenburg received part of Pomerania and several bishoprics; Saxony - the lands of the puddles (Lausitz); Bavaria - Upper Palatinate and retained the electoral dignity for her duke; The Lower Palatinate, with the newly established eighth electoral dignity, was given to the son of the unfortunate Frederick. Switzerland and the Netherlands were recognized as independent states. Regarding Germany, it was decided that the legislative power in the empire, the right to collect taxes, declare war and conclude peace belongs to the Sejm, consisting of the emperor and members of the empire; the princes received supreme power in their possessions with the right to conclude alliances among themselves and with other states, but not against the emperor and the empire. The imperial court, which decided the disputes of the ranks with each other and with their subjects, was to consist of judges of both confessions; at the Diets the imperial cities received equal right voices with princes. Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists were granted complete religious and liturgical freedom and equality of political rights.

Results of the Thirty Years' War

The consequences of the Thirty Years' War were important for Germany and for the whole of Europe. In Germany, the imperial power has completely drooped, and the unity of the country has remained only in name. The empire was a motley mixture of heterogeneous possessions, which had among themselves the most weak connection. Each prince ruled independently in his domain; but since the empire still existed in name, since there was a general authority in name, which was obliged to take care of the welfare of the empire, and meanwhile there was no force that could compel this general authority to cooperate, the princes considered themselves entitled to postpone any care for the affairs of the common fatherland and have unlearned to take its interests to heart; their glances, their feelings have been reduced; They could not act separately because of their impotence, the insignificance of their means, and they completely lost the habit of any general action, not being very accustomed to it before, as we have seen; consequently they had to bow before every power. Since they lost consciousness of the highest governmental interests, the only goal of their aspirations was to feed themselves at the expense of their possessions and feed themselves as satisfyingly as possible; for this, after the Thirty Years' War, they had every opportunity: during the war they were accustomed to collecting taxes without asking with ranks; they did not abandon this habit even after the war, especially since the terribly devastated country, which required a long rest, could not put up forces that would have to be reckoned with; during the war, the princes arranged for themselves an army, it remained with them after the war, strengthening their power. Thus, the restriction of princely power by ranks that existed before disappeared, and the unlimited power of princes with bureaucracy was established, which could not be useful in small possessions, especially in the above-mentioned character adopted by the princes.

In general, in Germany, material and spiritual development was stopped for a certain time by the terrible devastation caused by the gangs of Tilly, Wallenstein and the Swedish troops, who, after the death of Gustavus the throat of the most disgusting filth was known under the name of the Swedish drink. Germany, especially in the south and west, represented the desert. In Augsburg, out of 80,000 inhabitants, 18,000 remained; in Frankenthal, out of 18,000, only 324; in the Palatinate, only a fiftieth of the total population remained. In Hesse, 17 cities, 47 castles and 400 villages were burned.

With regard to the whole of Europe, the Thirty Years' War, having weakened the House of Habsburg, crushed and completely weakened Germany, thereby raised France, made her the preeminent power in Europe. Another consequence of the Thirty Years' War was that Northern Europe in the person of Sweden, she took an active part in the fate of other states and was an important member European system. Finally, the Thirty Years' War was the last religious war; The Peace of Westphalia, proclaiming the equality of the three confessions, put an end to the religious struggle generated by the Reformation. The dominance of secular interests over spiritual ones is very noticeable during the Peace of Westphalia: spiritual possessions are taken away from the Church in a multitude, secularized, pass to secular Protestant lords; it was said that in Münster and Osnabrück the diplomats played with bishoprics and abbeys, as children play with nuts and dough. The pope protested against peace, but no one paid any attention to his protest.

Albert von Wallenstein - commander of the Thirty Years' War

The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) was the first all-European war. One of the most cruel, stubborn, bloody and longest in the history of the Old World. It began as a religious one, but gradually turned into a dispute for hegemony in Europe, territory and trade routes. It was conducted by the house of Habsburg, the Catholic principalities of Germany on the one hand, Sweden, Denmark, France, German Protestants on the other

Causes of the Thirty Years' War

— Counter-Reformation: an attempt by the Catholic Church to win back from Protestantism the positions lost during the Reformation
— The aspirations of the Habsburgs who ruled the Holy Roman Empire German nation and Spain, to hegemony in Europe
— The fears of France, which saw in the policy of the Habsburgs an infringement of their national interests
The desire of Denmark and Sweden to monopoly control the maritime trade routes of the Baltic
— Selfish aspirations of numerous petty European monarchs, who hoped to snatch something for themselves in a general dump

Members of the Thirty Years' War

— Habsburg bloc - Spain and Portugal, Austria; Catholic League - some of the Catholic principalities and bishoprics of Germany: Bavaria, Franconia, Swabia, Cologne, Trier, Mainz, Würzburg
— Denmark, Sweden; Evangelical or Protestant Union: Electorate of the Palatinate, Württemberg, Baden, Kulmbach, Ansbach, Palatinate-Neuburg, Landgraviate of Hesse, Electorate of Brandenburg and several imperial cities; France

Stages of the Thirty Years' War

• Bohemian-Palatinate period (1618-1624)
• Danish period (1625-1629)
• Swedish period (1630-1635)
• Franco-Swedish period (1635-1648)

course of the Thirty Years' War. Briefly

“There was a mastiff, two collies and a St. Bernard, some bloodhounds and Newfoundlands, a beagle, a French poodle, a bulldog, a few lapdogs and two mutts. They sat patiently and thoughtfully. But then a young lady came in, leading a fox terrier on a chain; she left him between a bulldog and a poodle. The dog sat down and looked around for a minute. Then, without a hint of any reason, he grabbed the poodle by the front paw, jumped over the poodle and attacked the collie, (then) grabbed the bulldog by the ear ... (Then) and all the other dogs opened hostilities. The big dogs fought among themselves; small dogs also fought with each other, and in their free moments they bit big dogs by the paws.(Jerome K. Jerome "Three in One Boat")

Europe 17th century

Something similar happened in Europe at the beginning of the 17th century. The Thirty Years' War began as a seemingly autonomous Czech uprising. But at the same time, Spain fought with the Netherlands, in Italy they sorted out the relations between the Duchy of Mantua, Monferrato and Savoy, in 1632-1634 Muscovy and the Commonwealth clashed, from 1617 to 1629 there were three major clashes between Poland and Sweden, Poland also fought with Transylvania, that in turn called on Turkey for help. In 1618, an anti-republican conspiracy was uncovered in Venice ...

• March 1618 - Czech Protestants appealed to the Holy Roman Emperor Matthew with a demand to stop the persecution of people on religious grounds
• 1618, May 23 - in Prague, the participants of the Protestant congress committed violence against the representatives of the emperor (the so-called "Second Prague defenestration")
• 1618, summer - palace coup in Vienna. Matthew on the throne was replaced by Ferdinand of Styria, a fanatical Catholic
• 1618, autumn - the imperial army entered the Czech Republic

  Movements of Protestant and imperial armies in the Czech Republic, Moravia, the German lands of Hesse, Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony, sieges and the capture of cities (Ceske Budejovice, Pilsen, Palatinate, Bautzen, Vienna, Prague, Heidelberg, Mannheim, Bergen-op -Zoom), battles (at the village of Sablat, on the White Mountain, at Wimpfen, at Hoechst, at Stadtlon, at Fleurus), diplomatic maneuvers were characteristic of the first stage of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1624). It ended with the victory of the Habsburgs. The Czech Protestant uprising failed, Bavaria got the Upper Palatinate, and Spain captured the Electoral Palatinate, securing a foothold for another war with the Netherlands

• 1624, June 10 - Treaty of Compiègne between France, England and the Netherlands on an alliance against the imperial house of Habsburg
• 1624, July 9 - Denmark and Sweden joined the Treaty of Compiegne, fearing the growth of Catholic influence in northern Europe
• 1625, spring - Denmark opposed the imperial army
• 1625, April 25 - Emperor Ferdinand appointed Albrech von Wallenstein as commander of his army, who invited the emperor to feed his mercenary army at the expense of the population of the theater of operations
• 1826, April 25 - Wallenstein's army at the battle of Dessau defeated the Protestant troops of Mansfeld
• 1626, August 27 - The Catholic army of Tilly defeated the troops of the Danish king Christian IV in the battle of the village of Lutter
• 1627, spring - Wallenstein's army moved to the north of Germany and captured it, including the Danish peninsula of Jutland
• 1628, September 2 - at the Battle of Wolgast, Wallenstein once again defeated Christian IV, who was forced to withdraw from the war

  On May 22, 1629, a peace treaty was signed in Lübeck between Denmark and the Holy Roman Empire. Wallenstein returned the occupied lands to Christian, but obtained a promise not to interfere in German affairs. This ended the second phase of the Thirty Years' War.

• 1629, March 6 - the emperor issued an Edict on restitution. fundamentally curtailed the rights of Protestants
• 1630, June 4 - Sweden entered the Thirty Years' War
• 1630, September 13 - Emperor Ferdinand, who feared the strengthening of Wallenstein, dismissed him
• 1631, January 23 - an agreement between Sweden and France, according to which the Swedish king Gustav Adolf pledged to keep a 30,000-strong army in Germany, and France, represented by Cardinal Richelieu, to take on the costs of maintaining it
• 1631, May 31 - The Netherlands made an alliance with Gustavus Adolphus, pledging to invade Spanish Flanders and subsidize the king's army
• 1532, April - the emperor again called Wallenstein to the service

  The third, Swedish, stage of the Thirty Years' War was the most fierce. Protestants and Catholics had already mixed up in the armies for a long time, no one remembered how it all began. The main driving motive of the soldiers was profit. Because they killed each other without mercy. By storming the fortress of Neu-Brandenburg, the emperor's mercenaries completely killed his garrison. In response, the Swedes destroyed all the prisoners during the capture of Frankfurt an der Oder. Magdeburg was completely burned, tens of thousands of its inhabitants died. On May 30, 1632, the commander-in-chief was killed during the battle at the Rhein fortress. imperial army Tilly, on November 16, in the battle of Lützen, the Swedish king Gustavus Adolf was killed, on February 25, 1634, Wallenstein was shot dead by his own guards. In 1630-1635, the main events of the Thirty Years' War unfolded in Germany. Swedish victories alternated with defeats. The princes of Saxony, Brandenburg, and other Protestant principalities supported either the Swedes or the emperor. The conflicting parties did not have the strength to bend fortune to their own advantage. As a result, a peace treaty was signed between the emperor and the Protestant princes of Germany in Prague, according to which the execution of the Edict of Restitution was postponed for 40 years, the imperial army was formed by all the rulers of Germany, who lost the right to conclude separate alliances among themselves

• 1635, May 30 - Peace of Prague
• 1635, May 21 - France entered the Thirty Years' War to help Sweden, fearing the strengthening of the House of Habsburg
• 1636, May 4 - victory Swedish troops over the allied imperial army at the Battle of Wittstock
• 1636, December 22 - the son of Ferdinand II Ferdinand III became emperor
• 1640, December 1 - Coup in Portugal. Portugal regained independence from Spain
• 1642, December 4 - Cardinal Richilier, the "soul" of French foreign policy, died
• 1643, May 19 - Battle of Rocroix, in which the French troops defeated the Spaniards, which marked the decline of Spain as a great power

  The last, Franco-Swedish stage of the Thirty Years' War had character traits world war. Military operations were conducted throughout Europe. The duchies of Savoy, Mantua, the Venetian Republic, and Hungary intervened in the war. The fighting was fought in Pomerania, Denmark, Austria, still in the German lands, in the Czech Republic, Burgundy, Moravia, the Netherlands, in the Baltic Sea. In England, supporting the Protestant states financially, broke out. Raging in Normandy popular uprising. Under these conditions, in 1644, peace negotiations began in the cities of Westphalia (a region in northwestern Germany) Osnabrück and Münster. Representatives of Sweden, the German princes and the emperor met in Osanbrück, and the ambassadors of the emperor, France, and the Netherlands met in Münster. Negotiations, the course of which was influenced by the results of incessant fighting, lasted 4 years

And the religious wars of the sixteenth century. only consolidated the split of Europe, but did not lead to a solution to the problems generated by these events. The confrontation between the Catholic and Protestant states of Germany was especially acute, where the slightest change could lead to a violation of the fragile balance established in the process of the Reformation. Thanks to the developed system international relations the change in the situation in Germany affected the interests of almost all other European states. Both Catholics and Protestants had powerful allies outside the empire.

The combination of all these reasons created in Europe dangerous situation, which could be blown up by the slightest spark that arose in such an electrified atmosphere. This spark, from which a pan-European fire flared up, was a national uprising that began in 1618 in the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia (Czech Republic).

The beginning of the war

Revolt of the Czech Estates

By religion, the Czechs from the time of Jan Hus differed from other Catholic peoples who lived in the possessions of the Habsburgs, and have long enjoyed traditional liberties. Religious oppression and an attempt by the emperor to deprive the kingdom of its privileges led to a rebellion. In 1620 the Czechs suffered a crushing defeat. This event became a turning point in the entire history of the Czech Republic. The previously flourishing Slavic kingdom turned into a disenfranchised Austrian province, in which all signs of national identity were purposefully destroyed.

Peace of Westphalia 1648, which ended the Thirty Years' War, confirmed the equality of the Catholic and Lutheran religions throughout Germany. The largest Protestant states of Germany increased their territories, mainly at the expense of the former church property. Some church possessions came under the rule of foreign sovereigns - the kings of France and Sweden. The positions of the Catholic Church in Germany were weakened, and the Protestant princes finally secured their rights and actual independence from the empire. The Peace of Westphalia legitimized the fragmentation of Germany, giving the many states that made up her full sovereignty. By drawing a line under the era of the Reformation, the Peace of Westphalia opened a new chapter in European history.