The Thirty Years' War
Overview
The Thirty Years’ War, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Protestant Reformation
The Thirty Years' War was a succession of four wars between two opposing groups of various Protestant and Catholic states in the fragmented Holy Roman Empire from 1618 to 1648. The outcome of this conflict confirmed the Protestant Reformation in Europe and contributed to the progress of personal sovereignty in religious matters specifically and other kinds of individual choices in general.
Learning Objectives
Discuss the topic of religious conflict as a result of the Reformation: the causes and outcome of the Thirty Years War.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Peace of Augsburg: a treaty between Charles V and the forces of Lutheran princes on September 25, 1555, which officially ended the religious struggle between the two groups and allowed princes in the Holy Roman Empire to choose which religion would reign in their principality
Ferdinand II: His reign as Holy Roman Emperor coincided with the Thirty Years’ War and his aim, as a zealous Catholic, was to restore Catholicism as the only religion in the empire and suppress Protestantism.
Bohemian Revolt: an uprising of the Bohemian estates against the rule of the Habsburg dynasty
defenestration: the act of throwing someone out of a window
Thirty Years' War: a series of wars in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, growing out of the Protestant Reformation
Overview
The Thirty Years' War was a succession of wars in central Europe from 1618 to 1648. It was the longest and most destructive conflict in European history up to that time, resulting in millions of casualties.
Initially a war between various Protestant and Catholic states in the fragmented Holy Roman Empire, it gradually developed into a more general conflict involving most of the great powers. These states employed relatively large mercenary armies, and the war became less about religion and more of a continuation of the Bourbon-Habsburg rivalry for European political pre-eminence. In the 17th century, religious beliefs and practices were a much larger influence on the average European. In that era, almost everyone took one side or the other.
The war began when the newly elected Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II, tried to impose religious uniformity on his domains, forcing Roman Catholicism on the Protestant states. The northern Protestant states, angered by the violation of their rights granted in the Peace of Augsburg, banded together to form the Protestant Union. Ferdinand II was a devout Roman Catholic and relatively intolerant by way of contrast with his predecessor, Rudolf II. His policies were considered stridently pro-Catholic.
The Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a fragmented collection of largely independent states. The position of the Holy Roman Emperor was mainly titular, but the emperors from the House of Habsburg, also directly ruled a large portion of imperial territory (lands of the Archduchy of Austria and the Kingdom of Bohemia), as well as the Kingdom of Hungary. The Austrian domain was thus a major European power in its own right, ruling over some eight million subjects. Another branch of the House of Habsburg ruled over Spain and its empire, which included the Spanish Netherlands, southern Italy, the Philippines, and much of the Americas. In addition to Habsburg lands, the Holy Roman Empire contained several regional powers, such as the Duchy of Bavaria, the Electorate of Saxony, the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the Electorate of the Palatinate, Landgraviate of Hesse, the Archbishopric of Trier, and the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg.
Peace of Augsburg
After the Protestant Reformation, these independent states became divided between Catholic and Protestant rulership, giving rise to conflict. The Peace of Augsburg (1555), signed by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor ended the war between German Lutherans and Catholics. The Peace established the principle Cuius regio, eius religio (“Whose realm, his religion”), which allowed Holy Roman Empire princes to select either Lutheranism or Catholicism within the domains they controlled; this ultimately reaffirmed the independence they had over their states. Subjects, citizens, or residents who did not wish to conform to a prince’s choice were given a period in which they were free to emigrate to different regions in which their desired religion had been accepted.
Although the Peace of Augsburg created a temporary end to hostilities, it did not resolve the underlying religious conflict, which was made yet more complex by the spread of Calvinism throughout Germany in the years that followed. This added a third major faith to the region, but its position was not recognized in any way by the Augsburg terms, to which only Catholicism and Lutheranism were parties.
Tensions Mount
Religious tensions remained strong throughout the second half of the 16th century. The Peace of Augsburg began to unravel—some converted bishops refused to give up their bishoprics and certain Habsburg rulers, as well as other Catholic rulers of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain, sought to restore the power of Catholicism in the region. This was evident from the Cologne War (1583 – 1588), in which a conflict ensued when the prince-archbishop of the city—Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg—converted to Calvinism. As he was an imperial elector, this could have produced a Protestant majority in the college that elected the Holy Roman Emperor, a position that Catholics had always held.
At the beginning of the 17th century, the Rhine lands and those south to the Danube were largely Catholic, while Lutherans dominated the north and Calvinists dominated certain other areas, such as west-central Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. Minorities of each creed existed almost everywhere, however. In some lordships and cities, the numbers of Calvinists, Catholics, and Lutherans were approximately equal.
Much to the consternation of their Spanish ruling cousins, the Habsburg emperors who followed Charles V (especially Ferdinand I and Maximilian II, but also Rudolf II and his successor Matthias) were content to allow the princes of the empire to choose their own religious policies. These rulers avoided religious wars within the empire by allowing the different Christian faiths to spread without coercion. This angered those who sought religious uniformity. Meanwhile, Sweden and Denmark—both Lutheran kingdoms—sought to assist the Protestant cause in the Empire and wanted to gain political and economic influence there as well.
By 1617, it was apparent that Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, would die without an heir, and that his lands would go to his nearest male relative: his cousin Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria, heir-apparent and Crown Prince of Bohemia.
War Breaks Out
The war began when the newly elected Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II tried to impose religious uniformity on his domains, forcing Roman Catholicism on its peoples, which resulted in the Protestant states banding together to revolt against him. Ferdinand II, educated by the Jesuits, was a staunch Catholic who wanted to impose religious uniformity on his lands; this made him highly unpopular in Protestant Bohemia. The population’s sentiments notwithstanding, the added insult of the nobility’s rejection of Ferdinand, who had been elected Bohemian Crown Prince in 1617, triggered the Thirty Years’ War in 1618, when his representatives were thrown out of a window and seriously injured. The so-called Defenestration of Prague provoked open revolt in Bohemia, which had powerful foreign allies. Ferdinand was upset by this calculated insult, but his intolerant policies in his own lands had left him in a weak position. The Habsburg cause in the next few years would seem to suffer unrecoverable reverses. The Protestant cause seemed to wax toward a quick overall victory. The war can be divided into four major phases: The Bohemian Revolt, the Danish intervention, the Swedish intervention, and the French intervention.
The Bohemian Revolt and the Thirty Years' War
The Bohemian Revolt (1618 – 1620) was an uprising of the Bohemian estates against the rule of the Habsburg dynasty, in particular Emperor Ferdinand II, which triggered the Thirty Years' War.
Learning Objectives
Discuss the topic of religious conflict as a result of the Reformation: the causes and outcome of the Thirty Years War.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Peace of Augsburg: a treaty between Charles V and the forces of Lutheran princes on September 25, 1555, which officially ended the religious struggle between the two groups and allowed princes in the Holy Roman Empire to choose which religion would reign in their principality
Ferdinand II: His reign as Holy Roman Emperor coincided with the Thirty Years’ War and his aim, as a zealous Catholic, was to restore Catholicism as the only religion in the empire and suppress Protestantism.
Bohemian Revolt: an uprising of the Bohemian estates against the rule of the Habsburg dynasty
defenestration: the act of throwing someone out of a window
Thirty Years' War: a series of wars in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, growing out of the Protestant Reformation
Background
In 1555, the Peace of Augsburg had settled religious disputes in the Holy Roman Empire by enshrining the principle of Cuius regio, eius religio, allowing a prince to determine the religion of his subjects. Since 1526, the Kingdom of Bohemia had been governed by Habsburg kings who did not force their Catholic religion on their largely Protestant subjects. In 1609, Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia (1576 – 1612), expanded Protestant rights. He was increasingly viewed as unfit to govern, and other members of the Habsburg dynasty declared his younger brother Matthias to be family head in 1606. Upon Rudolf’s death, Matthias succeeded in the rule of Bohemia.
Without heirs, Emperor Matthias sought to assure an orderly transition during his lifetime by having his dynastic heir (the fiercely Catholic Ferdinand of Styria, later Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor) elected to the separate royal thrones of Bohemia and Hungary. Ferdinand was a proponent of the Catholic Counter-Reformation and not well-disposed to Protestantism or Bohemian freedoms. Some of the Protestant leaders of Bohemia feared they would be losing the religious rights granted to them by Emperor Rudolf II in his Letter of Majesty (1609). They preferred the Protestant Frederick V--Elector of the Palatinate (successor of Frederick IV, the creator of the Protestant Union). However, other Protestants supported the stance taken by the Catholics, and in 1617 Ferdinand was duly elected by the Bohemian Estates to become the Crown Prince and, automatically upon the death of Matthias, the next King of Bohemia.
The Defenestration of Prague
The king-elect then sent, in May 1618, two Catholic councillors (Vilem Slavata of Chlum and Jaroslav Borzita of Martinice) as his representatives to Hradčany castle in Prague. Ferdinand had wanted them to administer the government in his absence. On May 23, 1618, an assembly of Protestants seized them and threw them (and also secretary Philip Fabricius) out of the palace window, which was some sixty-nine feet off the ground. Remarkably, though injured, they survived. This event, known as the Defenestration of Prague, started the Bohemian Revolt. Soon afterward, the Bohemian conflict spread through all of the Bohemian Crown--including Bohemia, Silesia, Upper and Lower Lusatia, and Moravia. (Moravia was already embroiled in a conflict between Catholics and Protestants.) The religious conflict eventually spread across the whole continent of Europe, involving France, Sweden, and several other countries.
Aftermath
Immediately after the defenestration, the Protestant estates and Catholic Habsburgs started gathering allies for war. After the death of Matthias in 1619, Ferdinand II was elected Holy Roman Emperor. At the same time, the Bohemian estates deposed Ferdinand as King of Bohemia (Ferdinand remained emperor, since the titles are separate) and replaced him with Frederick V, Elector Palatine, who was a leading Calvinist and the son-in-law of the Protestant James VI and I, King of Scotland, England, and Ireland.
Because they deposed a properly chosen king, the Protestants could not gather the international support they needed for war. Just two years after the Defenestration of Prague, Ferdinand and the Catholics regained power in the Battle of White Mountain on November 8, 1620. This became known as the first battle in the Thirty Years' War. This was a serious blow to Protestant ambitions in the region. As the rebellion collapsed, the widespread confiscation of property and suppression of the Bohemian nobility ensured the country would return to the Catholic side after more than two centuries of Protestant dissent.
There was plundering and pillaging in Prague for weeks following the battle. Several months later, twenty-seven nobles and citizens were tortured and executed in the Old Town Square. Twelve of their heads were impaled on iron hooks and hung from the Bridge Tower as a warning. This also contributed to catalyzing the Thirty Years' War.
Danish and Dutch Intervention in the Thirty Years' War
After the Defenestration of Prague and the ensuing Bohemian Revolt, the Protestants warred with the Catholic League until the former were firmly defeated at the Battle of Stadtlohn in 1623. After this catastrophe, Frederick V, already in exile in The Hague, and under growing pressure from his father-in-law James I, was forced to abandon any hope of launching further campaigns. The Protestant rebellion had been crushed. Frederick was forced to sign an armistice with Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, thus ending the “Palatine Phase” of the Thirty Years' War.
Learning Objectives
Discuss the topic of religious conflict as a result of the Reformation: the causes and outcome of the Thirty Years War.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Peace of Augsburg: a treaty between Charles V and the forces of Lutheran princes on September 25, 1555, which officially ended the religious struggle between the two groups and allowed princes in the Holy Roman Empire to choose which religion would reign in their principality
Ferdinand II: His reign as Holy Roman Emperor coincided with the Thirty Years’ War and his aim, as a zealous Catholic, was to restore Catholicism as the only religion in the empire and suppress Protestantism.
Bohemian Revolt: an uprising of the Bohemian estates against the rule of the Habsburg dynasty
defenestration: the act of throwing someone out of a window
Edict of Restitution: a belated attempt by Ferdinand II to impose and restore the religious and territorial situations reached in the Peace of Augsburg (1555), passed eleven years into the Thirty Years’ War
Thirty Years' War: a series of wars in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, growing out of the Protestant Reformation
Danish Intervention
After the Bohemian Revolt was suppressed by Ferdinand II, Christian IV—the Danish king—led troops against Ferdinand because of his fear that recent Catholic successes threatened his sovereignty as a Protestant nation.
Dutch Intervention
Peace following the imperial victory at Stadtlohn proved short lived, with conflict resuming at the initiation of Denmark. Denmark had feared that the recent Catholic successes threatened its sovereignty as a Protestant nation. Danish involvement, referred to as the Low Saxon War, began when Christian IV of Denmark--a Lutheran who also ruled as Duke of Holstein, a duchy within the Holy Roman Empire--helped the Lutheran rulers of neighboring Lower Saxony by leading an army against Ferdinand II’s imperial forces in 1625.
Christian IV had profited greatly from his policies in northern Germany. For instance, in 1621, Hamburg had been forced to accept Danish sovereignty. Denmark’s King Christian IV had obtained for his kingdom a level of stability and wealth that was virtually unmatched elsewhere in Europe. Denmark was funded by tolls on the Oresund and also by extensive war reparations from Sweden.
Denmark’s cause was aided by France, as well as Charles I of England who agreed to help subsidize the war; Charles I’s aid was most likely the result of familial connections, as Christian was a blood uncle to both the Stuart king and his sister Elizabeth of Bohemia through their mother, Anne of Denmark. Some 13,700 Scottish soldiers under the command of General Robert Maxwell, 1st Earl of Nithsdale were sent as allies to help Christian IV. Moreover, some 6,000 English troops under Charles Morgan also eventually arrived to bolster the defense of Denmark, though it took longer for them to arrive than Christian had hoped, due partially to the ongoing British campaigns against France and Spain. Thus, Christian, as war-leader of the Lower Saxon Circle, entered the war with an army of only 20,000 mercenaries, some of his allies from England and Scotland, and a national army 15,000 strong, leading them as Duke of Holstein rather than as King of Denmark.
War Ensues
To fight Christian, Ferdinand II employed the military help of Albrecht von Wallenstein, a Bohemian nobleman who had made himself rich from the confiscated estates of his Protestant countrymen. Wallenstein pledged his army, which numbered between 30,000 and 100,000 soldiers, to Ferdinand II in return for the right to plunder the captured territories. Christian, who knew nothing of Wallenstein’s forces when he invaded, was forced to retire before the combined forces of Wallenstein and Tilly. Christian’s mishaps continued when all of his allies were forced aside: France was in the midst of a civil war, Sweden was at war with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and neither Brandenburg nor Saxony was interested in changes to the tenuous peace in eastern Germany. Moreover, neither of the substantial English contingents arrived in time to prevent Wallenstein’s defeat of Mansfeld’s army at the Battle of Dessau Bridge (1626) or Tilly’s victory at the Battle of Lutter (1626).
Wallenstein’s army marched north, occupying Mecklenburg, Pomerania, and Jutland itself, but it proved unable to take the Danish capital, Copenhagen, on the island of Zealand. Wallenstein lacked a fleet, and neither the Hanseatic ports nor the Poles would allow the building of an imperial fleet on the Baltic coast. He then laid siege to Stralsund, the only belligerent Baltic port with sufficient facilities to build a large fleet. It soon became clear, however, that the cost of continuing the war would far outweigh any gains from conquering the rest of Denmark. Wallenstein feared losing his northern German gains to a Danish-Swedish alliance, while Christian IV had suffered another defeat in the Battle of Wolgast (1628); both were ready to negotiate.
Negotiations and the Edict of Restitution
Negotiations concluded with the Treaty of Lübeck in 1629, which stated that Christian IV could retain control over Denmark (including the duchies of Sleswick and Holstein) if he would abandon his support for the Protestant German states. Thus, in the following two years, the Catholic powers subjugated more land. At this point, the Catholic League persuaded Ferdinand II to take back the Lutheran holdings that were, according to the Peace of Augsburg, rightfully the possession of the Catholic Church. Enumerated in the Edict of Restitution (1629), these possessions included two archbishoprics, sixteen bishoprics, and hundreds of monasteries. In the same year, Gabriel Bethlen, the Calvinist prince of Transylvania, died. Only the port of Stralsund continued to hold out against Wallenstein and the emperor, having been bolstered by Scottish “volunteers” who arrived from the Swedish army to support their countrymen already there in the service of Denmark.
Swedish Intervention in the Thirty Years' War
The Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years' War, which took place between 1630 and 1635, was a major turning point of the war, and is often considered to be an independent conflict. After several attempts by the Holy Roman Empire to prevent the spread of Protestantism in Europe, King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden ordered a full-scale invasion of the Catholic states. Although he was killed in action, his armies successfully defeated their enemies and gave birth to the Swedish Empire after proving their ability in combat. The new European power would last for a hundred years before being overwhelmed by numerous enemies in the Great Northern War.
Learning Objectives
Discuss the topic of religious conflict as a result of the Reformation: the causes and outcome of the Thirty Years War.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Ferdinand II: His reign as Holy Roman Emperor coincided with the Thirty Years’ War and his aim, as a zealous Catholic, was to restore Catholicism as the only religion in the empire and suppress Protestantism.
Edict of Restitution: a belated attempt by Ferdinand II to impose and restore the religious and territorial situations reached in the Peace of Augsburg (1555), passed eleven years into the Thirty Years’ War
Thirty Years' War: a series of wars in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, growing out of the Protestant Reformation
Gustavus Adolphus: King of Sweden from 1611 to 1632, also known as Gustav II Adolf, he led Sweden's emergence as major European power and Swedish forces during the Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years' War from 1630 into 1632
Pomerania - area between Germany and Poland on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea ravaged and depopulated during the Thirty Years War
Peace of Prague - 1635 peace ending Saxony’s participation in the Thirty Years’ War, leading to the withdrawal of other German powers, and leaving the War largely to foreign powers
Swedish Intervention
The Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years' War began when King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden ordered a full-scale invasion of the Catholic states; it was a major turning point of the war.
Background
The king of Sweden, Gustav II Adolf, had been well informed of the war between the Catholics and Protestants in the Holy Roman Empire for some time, but his hands were tied because of the constant enmity of Poland. The Polish royal family, the primary branch of the House of Vasa, had once claimed the throne of Sweden.
Lutheranism was the primary religion of Sweden and had by then established a firm grip on the country. Notably, one of the reasons that Sweden had so readily embraced Lutheranism was because converting to it allowed the crown to seize all the lands in Sweden that were possessed by the Roman Catholic Church. As a result of this seizure and the money that the crown gained, the crown was greatly empowered.
Gustav was concerned about the growing power of the Holy Roman Empire, and like Christian IV before him, was heavily subsidized by Cardinal Richelieu—the chief minister of Louis XIII of France, as well as by the Dutch.
Sweden’s Army
During this time, and while Sweden was under a truce with Poland, Gustav established a military system that was to become the envy of Europe. He drew up a new military code. And the new improvements to Sweden’s military order even pervaded the state by fueling fundamental changes in the economy. The improvements included tight discipline and meritorious service. Soldiers who had displayed courage and distinguished themselves in the line of duty were paid generously, in addition to being given pensions. The corps of engineers were the most modern of their age, and in the campaigns in Germany the population repeatedly expressed surprise at the extensive nature of the entrenchment and the elaborate nature of the equipment. The military reforms brought the Swedish military to the highest levels of readiness and were to become the standard that European states would strive for.
Swedish Intervention
From 1630 to 1634, Swedish-led armies drove the Catholic forces back, regaining much of the lost Protestant territory. Swedish forces entered the Holy Roman Empire via the Duchy of Pomerania, which had served as the Swedish bridgehead since the Treaty of Stettin (1630). After dismissing Wallenstein in 1630, from fear he was planning a revolt, Ferdinand II became dependent on the Catholic League. And Gustavus Adolphus allied with France and Bavaria. At the Battle of Breitenfeld (1631), Gustavus Adolphus’s forces defeated the Catholic League led by Tilly. A year later, they met again in another Protestant victory, this time accompanied by the death of Tilly. The upper hand had now switched from the Catholic League to the Protestant Union, led by Sweden. With Tilly dead, Ferdinand II returned to the aid of Wallenstein and his large army. Wallenstein marched to the south, threatening Gustavus Adolphus’s supply chain. Gustavus Adolphus knew that Wallenstein was waiting for the attack and was prepared but found no other option. Wallenstein and Gustavus Adolphus clashed in the Battle of Lützen (1632), where the Swedes prevailed, but Gustavus Adolphus was killed.
Ferdinand II’s suspicion of Wallenstein resumed in 1633, when Wallenstein attempted to arbitrate the differences between the Catholic and Protestant sides. Ferdinand II arranged for Wallenstein’s arrest after removing him from command, probably due to a fear that he would switch sides. One of Wallenstein’s soldiers, Captain Devereux, killed him when he attempted to contact the Swedes in the town hall of Eger (Cheb) on February 25, 1634. The same year, the Protestant forces, lacking Gustav’s leadership, were smashed at the First Battle of Nördlingen by the Spanish-Imperial forces commanded by Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand. During the campaign, Sweden managed to conquer half of the imperial kingdoms, making it the continental leader of Protestantism until the Swedish Empire ended in 1721.
Peace of Prague
By the spring of 1635, all Swedish resistance in the south of Germany had ended. After that, the imperialist and the Protestant German sides met for negotiations, producing the Peace of Prague(1635); this treaty entailed a delay in the enforcement of the Edict of Restitution for forty years and allowed Protestant rulers to retain secularized bishoprics held by them in 1627. This protected the Lutheran rulers of northeastern Germany, but not those of the south and west. Initially after the Peace of Prague, the Swedish armies were pushed north into Germany by the reinforced imperial army. The treaty also provided for the union of the emperor’s army and the armies of the German states into a single army of the Holy Roman Empire. Finally, German princes were forbidden from establishing alliances amongst themselves or with foreign powers, and amnesty was granted to any ruler who had taken up arms against the emperor after the arrival of the Swedes in 1630.
This treaty failed to satisfy France, however, because of the renewed strength it granted the Habsburgs. France then entered the conflict, beginning the final period of the Thirty Years’ War. Sweden did not take part in the Peace of Prague, and it joined with France in continuing the war.
French Intervention and the Conclusion of the Thirty Years' War
No longer able to tolerate the encirclement of two major Habsburg powers on its borders, Catholic France entered the Thirty Years’ War on the side of the Protestants to counter the Habsburgs and bring the war to an end.
Learning Objectives
Discuss the topic of religious conflict as a result of the Reformation: the causes and outcome of the Thirty Years War.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Thirty Years' War: a series of wars in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, growing out of the Protestant Reformation
Gustavus Adolphus: King of Sweden from 1611 to 1632, also known as Gustav II Adolf, he led Sweden's emergence as major European power and Swedish forces during the Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years' War from 1630 into 1632
defenestration - the act of throwing someone out of a window
Peace of Prague - 1635 peace ending Saxony’s participation in the Thirty Years’ War, leading to the withdrawal of other German powers, and leaving the War largely to foreign powers
Peace of Westphalia - a collection of peace treaties that ended the Thirty Years’ War
France’s Opposition to the Holy Roman Empire
France, though Roman Catholic, was a rival of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister of King Louis XIII of France, considered the Habsburgs too powerful because they held a number of territories on France’s eastern border, including portions of the Netherlands. Richelieu had already begun intervening indirectly in the war in January 1631, when the French diplomat Hercule de Charnacé signed the Treaty of Bärwalde with Gustavus Adolphus—by which France agreed to support the Swedes with 1,000,000 livres each year in return for a Swedish promise to maintain an army in Germany against the Habsburgs. The treaty also stipulated that Sweden would not conclude a peace with the Holy Roman Emperor without first receiving France’s approval.
France Enters the War
By 1635 Sweden’s ability to continue the war alone appeared doubtful. In September 1634 Swedish forces suffered a rout at Nordlingen. The following year Protestant German princes sued for peace with the German emperor, resulting in the Peace of Prague. Richelieu made the decision to enter the war against the Habsburgs. France declared war on Spain in May 1635, and on the Holy Roman Empire in August 1636, opening offensives against the Habsburgs in Germany and the Low Countries. France then aligned its strategy with the allied Swedes in Wismar (1636) and Hamburg (1638).
Early French military efforts were met with disaster, and the Spanish counter-attacked, invading French territory. The imperial general Johann von Werth and Spanish commander Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand ravaged the French provinces of Champagne, Burgundy, and Picardy, and even threatened Paris in 1636. Then, the tide began to turn for the French. The Spanish army was repulsed by Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar. Bernhard’s victory in the Battle of Compiègne pushed the Habsburg armies back towards the borders of France. Widespread fighting ensued until 1640, with neither side gaining an advantage.
However, the war reached a climax and the tide of the war turned clearly toward France and against Spain in 1640, starting with the siege and capture of the fort at Arras. The French conquered Arras following a siege that lasted from June 16 to August 9, 1640. The fall of Arras paved the way for the French to take all of Flanders. The ensuing French campaign against Spanish forces in Flanders culminating in a decisive French victory at Rocroi in May 1643.
Continued Swedish War Efforts
After the Peace of Prague the Swedes reorganized the Royal Army under Johan Banér and created a new one—the Army of the Weser, under the command of Alexander Leslie. The two army groups moved south in the spring of 1636, re-establishing alliances on the way, including a revitalized one with Wilhelm of Hesse-Kassel. They then combined and confronted the imperialists at the Battle of Wittstock. Despite the odds being stacked against them, the Swedish army won. This success largely reversed many of the effects of their defeat at Nördlingen, albeit not without creating some tensions between Banér and Leslie.
After the battle of Wittstock, the Swedish army regained the initiative in the German campaign. In 1642, outside Leipzig, the Swedish Field Marshal Lennart Torstenson defeated an army of the Holy Roman Empire led by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, and his deputy Prince-General Ottavio Piccolomini, Duke of Amalfi. The imperial army suffered 20,000 casualties. In addition, the Swedish army took 5,000 prisoners and seized forty-six guns, at a cost to themselves of 4,000 killed or wounded. The battle enabled Sweden to occupy Saxony and impressed on Ferdinand III the need to include Sweden, and not just France, in any peace negotiations.
Final Battles
Over the next four years, fighting continued, but all sides began to prepare for ending the war. In 1648, the Swedes (commanded by Marshal Carl Gustaf Wrangel) and the French (led by Turenne and Condé) defeated the imperial army at the Battle of Zusmarshausen, as well as the Spanish at Lens. However, an imperial army led by Octavio Piccolomini managed to check the Franco-Swedish army in Bavaria, though their position remained fragile. The Battle of Prague in 1648 became the last action of the Thirty Years' War. The general Hans Christoff von Königsmarck, commanding Sweden’s flying column, entered the city and captured Prague Castle (where the event that triggered the war—the Defenestration of Prague—had taken place thirty years before). There, they captured many valuable treasures, including the Codex Gigas, which contains the Vulgate Bible, as well as many historical documents all written in Latin; these are still preserved in Stockholm as the largest extant medieval manuscript in the world. However, they failed to conquer the right-bank part of Prague and the old city, which resisted until the end of the war. These results left only the imperial territories of Austria safely in Habsburg hands. The Thirty Years' War officially ended with the Peace of Westphalia, a series of peace treaties among the belligerents.
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