[123], Based on local records, military action accounted for less than 3% of civilian deaths; the major causes were starvation (12%), bubonic plague (64%), typhus (4%), and dysentery (5%). [93] In May, a Bavarian force under von Mercy destroyed a French detachment at Herbsthausen, before he was defeated and killed at Second Nördlingen in August. During 1629, another 274 suspected witches were killed in the Bishopric of Eichstätt, plus another 50 in the adjacent Duchy of Palatinate-Neuburg. James responded to this attack on his son-in-law by sending naval forces to threaten Spanish possessions in the Americas and the Mediterranean, and announced he would declare war if Spinola had not withdrawn his troops by spring 1621. Four of the electors were Catholic, three Protestant; if this could be changed, it might result in a Protestant Emperor. [126], The modern consensus is the population of the Holy Roman Empire declined from 18-20 million in 1600 to 11–13 million in 1650, and did not regain pre-war levels until 1750. [103], France and Savoy made peace in the April 1629 Treaty of Suza, which allowed French troops passage through Savoy, and recognised their control of Casale and Pinerolo. At Second Breitenfeld in October 1642, Lennart Torstenson inflicted almost 10,000 casualties on an Imperial army led by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria. The financial issues were arranged soon after landing, from what might seem to us from an unexpected source – France. He was formally and posthumously given the name Gustavus Adolphus the Great by the Riksdag of the Estates in 1634. The Battle of Lutzen occurred on November 16, 1632 during the Thirty Years' War and resulted in a Swedish victory though gifted leader King Gustavus Adolphus was killed in the fighting. [62] With French resources tied up in Italy, he helped negotiate the September 1629 Truce of Altmark between Sweden and Poland, freeing Gustavus Adolphus to enter the war. In an event known as the Second Defenestration of Prague, the two men and their secretary Philip Fabricius were thrown out of the castle windows, although all three survived. Gustavus AdolphusThe king of Sweden from 1611 to 1632, credited with founding the Swedish Empire, who led Sweden to military supremacy during the Thirty Years’ War. About However, it was a compromise that failed to resolve underlying religious and political tensions within the Holy Roman Empire. He is often Backed by French subsidies, the Swedes and their German allies won a series of victories over Imperial forces, although Gustavus was killed in 1632. Gustavus Adolphus and the Struggle of Protestantism for Existence by C. R. L. Fletcher, Gustavus Adolphus - Lion of the Protestant Cause, The Wreck of Columbus’s Ship, the Santa Maria, May Have Been Found, Gustavus Adolphus – Lech River and Nuremberg, Gustavus Adolphus – Battle of Breitenfeld, Shackleton’s Ad – Men Wanted for Hazardous Journey, The Politics and Economics of Reconstruction, Hawaiian Princess Kapiolani – “My God is Jehovah”. [127] Nearly 50% of these losses appear to have been incurred during the first period of Swedish intervention from 1630 to 1635. deteriorating military position. [112], Negotiations with France and Sweden were conducted in conjunction with the Imperial Diet, and were multi-sided discussions involving many of the German states. [114], The Peace was later denounced by Pope Innocent X, who regarded the bishoprics ceded to France and Brandenburg as property of the Catholic church, and thus his to assign. In 1938, C. V. Wedgwood argued it formed part of a wider European conflict, whose underlying cause was the ongoing contest between Austro-Spanish Habsburgs and French Bourbons. [17], The war consisted of two main phases, the first being a primarily internal conflict between Emperor Ferdinand II and his opponents within the Holy Roman Empire, with external powers playing a supportive role. Christian IV of Denmark was also Duke of Holstein, and it was in this capacity he joined the war in 1625. Frederick and the remnants of Mansfeld's army took refuge in the Dutch Republic. [60], Made over-confident by success, in March 1629 Ferdinand passed an Edict of Restitution, which required all lands taken from the Catholic church after 1555 to be returned. In October, von Hatzfeldt defeated a Swedish-English-Palatine force at Vlotho but the main Imperial army under Matthias Gallas abandoned North-East Germany to the Swedes, unable to sustain itself in the devastated area. [87] Richelieu died in December 1642, followed by Louis XIII on 14 May 1643, leaving the five-year-old Louis XIV as king. [98] In September, he ordered his army under Bronckhorst-Gronsfeld to link up with the Imperial commander von Holzappel. Christian and Gustavus were able to arrange a treaty, which they signed in 1628, it was clear that Denmark would not fight Germany, as they had already been whipped by them. [109], Preliminary discussions began in 1642 but only became serious in 1646; a total of 109 delegations attended at one time or other, with talks split between Münster and Osnabrück. He died at the Battle of Lutzen on November 6, 1632. The spark that set off the Thirty Years War came in 1618, when the Archbishop of Prague ordered a Protestant church destroyed. As present not one of them dares to defend the other: each will look on quietly at the ruin of all. [26], Frederick IV now formed the Protestant Union, largely composed of states in Southern Germany, to which Maximilian responded by setting up the Catholic League in July 1609. He was supported by Spain, for whom it provided an opportunity to open another front against the Dutch. They included Christian IV of Denmark, who was also Duke of Holstein; in 1625 he intervened in Northern Germany until forced to withdraw in 1629. [142], The Peace reconfirmed "German liberties", ending Habsburg attempts to convert the Holy Roman Empire into an absolutist state similar to Spain. [88] The Madrid government quickly assembled an army of 26,000 men to crush the revolt, and on 23 January, they defeated the Catalans at Martorell. [145], Arguably, France gained more from the Thirty Years' War than any other power; by 1648, most of Richelieu's objectives had been achieved. At Prague in 1635, Ferdinand made peace with his German opponents by accepting their autonomy. Thirty Years' War (London, 1984), the best modern treat-ment of the subject, though one whose use to the aver-age reader is limited by the fact that only 226 of its 340 pages are text. This included ambitious Imperial states like Lutheran Saxony and Catholic Bavaria, as well as France, which faced Habsburg territories on its borders in Flanders, Franche-Comté, and the Pyrenees. Frederick fled Bohemia and the revolt collapsed. While technically legal, politically it was extremely unwise, since doing so would alter nearly every single state boundary in North and Central Germany, deny the existence of Calvinism and restore Catholicism in areas where it had not been a significant presence for nearly a century. In addition, Christians residing in states where they were a minority, such as Catholics living under a Lutheran ruler, were guaranteed freedom of worship and equality before the law. See more ideas about thirty years' war, gustavus, war. [37] Gabriel Bethlen, Calvinist Prince of Transylvania, invaded Hungary with Ottoman support, although the Habsburgs persuaded them to avoid direct involvement, helped by the outbreak of hostilities with Poland in 1620, followed by the 1623 to 1639 war with Persia. These concerns were exacerbated when a series of legal disputes over property were all decided in favour of the Catholic Church. Sweden emerged unscathed. Sweden had little money and only one ally, Transylvania, which was far from his field of actions. Ferdinand resisted signing until the last possible moment, doing so on 24 October only after a crushing French victory over Spain at Lens, and with Swedish troops on the verge of taking Prague. This is generally seen as the point when the conflict ceased to be primarily a German civil war. While both Leagues were primarily designed to support the dynastic ambitions of their leaders, their creation combined with events like the 1609 to 1614 War of the Jülich Succession to increase tensions throughout the Empire. [125] Poor harvests throughout the 1630s and repeated plundering of the same areas led to widespread famine; contemporaries record people eating grass, or too weak to accept alms, while instances of cannibalism were common. They therefore include factors unrelated to death or disease, such as permanent migration to areas outside the Empire or lower birthrates, a common but less obvious impact of extended warfare. [146] Although the Franco-Spanish conflict continued until 1659 and Spain remained a global force for another two centuries, Westphalia allowed Louis XIV of France to complete the process of replacing her as the predominant European power. 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