The Great Wars of Europe.
We all know WWII, WWI, the Napoleonic Wars, the Thirty Years War...
Wait, Feature History Guy! I hear you say because you don't know my name!
What's a Thirty Year's War?
Good Question! Let's find out today in Feature History.
Hello and welcome to Feature History,
featuring the Thirty Years War,
named so because the 29 years, 11 months, 3 weeks and 1 days war is not as catchy.
In this video I'm going to be talking about the rationale of the war
and effect it had throughout history all the way up until modern day.
So if that sounds like a slice of fried gold, well then let's go on.
Now I'm going to do something real crazy, real revolutionary,
and we're going to talk about the background (gasp)!
The Thirty Years' War started in 1618 and ended in,
say it with me, 16... 1648.
Very good.
It was a war about the Protestant Reformation.
Now, understanding the Protestant Reformation
is pivotal to understanding the Thirty Years' War.
But this video isn't called "The Thirty Years' War 𝘢𝘯𝘥 the Protestant Reformation."
So what are we gonna do?
Well luckily for you, I feature in a video over on JABZY's channel
doing a three minute history video on the Protestant Reformation and the German Peasants' War.
So go click on that if you didn't come from there, and check it out. You'll love it. I'm sure of it.
So I'm going to quickly recap what was said in that video which which links to our topic.
We have the Catholics and the Protestants each other's throats.
Tensions high, and there's been quite a few wars.
In 1555, an attempt was made to settle everything.
The Peace of Augsburg was made and introduced the idea of
cuius regno, eius religio,
which is Latin for basically "whoever reigns, the official religion is his."
Noted, if your religion was not either Catholic or Lutheran, well then your're shit out of luck.
If we move over the the Holy Roman Empire, you'll see that it's not perfectly united.
That really sums up all of the HRE's history,
but here I'm referring specifically to the distribution of Catholics and Protestants.
So what happens when you have a ruler who's Catholic ruling over a Protestant majority?
Well, the quick answer is, a lot of angry Protestants.
To address this, Emperor Rudolf II
granted Protestants toleration through a Letter of Majesty in 1609.
Rudolf's house, the House of Habsburg, all decided that
he's not exactly what they're looking for in an Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire,
and so, he was replaced by his brother, Matthias.
By the time Matthias had fully taken over,
he realized that as an aging, childless monarch, he was not doing anyone any favors
and so ended up handing over rulership to his cousin, Ferdinand II.
Ferdinand II took power in 1617 as Holy Roman Emperor and the King of Bohemia.
He was a devout Catholic and so, after ascending to rulership,
he decided to revoke the Letter of Majesty.
We now go to Bohemia,
which is in modern-day Czechoslovakia,
which, I suppose, is the modern-day Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The Protestants there were furious and so,
on the 23rd of May, 1618,
they retaliated and threw the councilors Ferdinand had administering the region in his absence
out the window.
This was known as the "Defenestration (which is a fancy word for throwing someone out the window) of Prague."
Actually, it was the second defenestration of Prague.
Believe it or not, in 1419, they had done that before.
Shockingly enough, after falling 21 metres, these councilors survived!
Catholics claimed that angels had swept down and saved these righteous men.
Protestants said they fell in a pile of shit.
And with this retaliation, the Bohemian revolt had started,
and so, of course, the Thirty Years' War did as well.
Now, what's critical to understand about the Thirty Years' War
is that it is separated into four phases:
The Bohemian Phase,
the Danish Phase,
the Swedish Phase,
and the French Phase.
In the first two phases of the war, it was predominantly a local and religious struggle,
whereas in the second two, it became a truly continental and political war.
So now with Bohemians in open revolt,
the rebellious fervor began to spread across Germany.
So Ferdinand reached out to his nephew,
Philip IV of Spain, for assistance.
He agreed, as this conflict would help offer the Spanish an opportunity to reconquer the Dutch.
The Bohemians needed a major power to back them
and so started sending out deals to everyone they could think of.
These letters were seized by the Austrians, though,
who made it public that Bohemians were whoring out the same deals to multiple people.
So most people backed away from the Bohemians.
Frederick V was elected as the King of the Bohemians in 1619
and so, whether or not he wanted to be in this situation,
he was now.
On the 8th of November, 1620,
Frederick and Ferdinand's armies confronted each other in the Battle of White Mountain
where Ferdinand decisively defeated the Bohemians.
So the Bohemian Phase really closes out, and it seems that this would have just been a short, local dispute
if it wasn't for the fact that it raised up many pressing concerns for all European monarchs,
and several Protestant leaders kept close tabs on these happenings.
So it wasn't too long before someone decided to intervene.
Denmark was directly north of the HRE,
and even had several holdings in the HRE.
So you can see why the Protestant King of Denmark, Christian IV,
had a vested interest in this conflict.
Denmark, England, and Scotland joined to protect the still-standing Dutch,
who were completely neglected up till this point, but basically,
they're there, they're Protestant, and near the HRE, you get the story.
It might also be worth mentioning that they would be obviously facing the HRE,
which consisted of Austria and Bohemia because Bohemia had been taken back,
Spain, Hungary, and Croatia.
I can't constantly be updating you on who joins and leaves the war;
otherwise, I'd spend 73% of the video doing it.
So I made a chart, and by that I mean
I stole a chart I found on Wikipedia and printed it up.
You can find that in the description. Moving on...
In 1625, Denmark's armies headed south with their heads held high
and then headed north with everyone who still had heads.
They'd been firmly repelled by the Catholic mercenary, Albrecht von Wallenstein.
To summarize the Danish Phase, it's basically just another Protestant defeat.
Now, as I said earlier, up to this point,
all the fighting had been contained to the HRE and had been fought purely on a religious basis.
But in 1630 begins the Swedish Phase.
Interestingly enough, the beginning of the Swedish invasion coincides with
Ferdinand losing his trust in Wallenstein and dismissing him.
One character I want you to particularly turn your attention to is King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.
He's a Lutheran, a commander, and an all-around badass.
He descends into the HRE to the Protestants' aid and achieved victory at the Battle of Breitenfeld,
with credit to his use of mobile artillery, which saw him being referred to as "the father of modern warfare."
Now if you look at the chart, you'll note France is listed as against the HRE during this period.
To explain that, France was hoping to fund Sweden's war effort during this phase.
So while Gustavus was leading the charge, back in France,
Louis XIII was getting together the money to make this possible.
You might be asking yourself,
"Why is France, a Catholic country, helping the Protestant Swedes?"
Well, actually, this is where what I was getting at earlier comes into play.
The religious basis of the war became less and less prevalent
and politics really became the deciding factor in most choices.
So what pushed France to join Sweden?
Well, it's all about the balance of power.
You'll notice this concept a lot if you study French general relations for any extended period of time.
France, knowing it was surrounded by the Habsburg,
saw backing Sweden as a way to bring the Habsburg down a notch
and secure a more balanced and equal playing field in Europe.
So with all that explained, we're ready to delve into the French-backed Sweden
taking over HRE and-- oh shit, Gustavus just died.
(sigh)
Like any true commander, Gustavus Adolphus died in battle while leading a cavalry charge
on the 6th of November, 1632.
With Gustavus' death, Sweden decided it would like to take more of a backseat role in the war.
So in 1635, Sweden tags in France.
Sweden will be handling the budget, and France will take care of the more hands-on business.
So now we have two major powers going full force
with no stupid Baltic Sea in between them.
As you could imagine, this was the longest, the bloodiest, and the truly defining part of this war.
Given that, I'd prefer to really summarize this part.
There was a resurgence in witch hunts,
mass hangings, and other tragedies of war.
Some areas lost over 66% of their population.
More people died in the Thirty Years' War than the American Civil War
and the Napoleonic Wars combined.
Another way to contextualize this would be that WWI
killed 1.7% of the population.
Whereas the Thirty Years' War, without machine guns,
planes, tanks, and high-powered artillery,
killed 1.4%.
That's only a point two percent of a difference.
So after all this, after 30 years of fighting,
like most wars, the result is inconclusive.
In 1648, the Peace of Westphalia is signed.
It weakens the Holy Roman Emperor,
stripping their control over the princes, and really completely destroying the idea
of the Holy Roman Empire as any kind of actual empire.
The Dutch also get their independence from the Spanish,
but they, of course, don't get all their de jure lands back.
Brandenburg gains territory, leading to the rise of Brandenburg/Prussia.
If you wanna know why Prussia's important, I recommend part two of my 19th century France video.
You might want to watch part one, as well.
Actually, just watch all my videos.
Territory goes to France, really starting to solidify the French/German rivalry
that lasted all the way up to WWII,
and Switzerland gains its independence from the HRE as a confederation.
If you desperately want a winner,
I think you'd be relatively safe in claiming a French victory.
But if you have any particularly snobbish friends, they might flip out at you.
While other than, of course, redrawing the boarders, what else did the Thirty Years' War accomplish?
Freedom of religion began to seep more into society
with Calvinism being accepted and people being granted the freedom of private worship.
Religion began to withdraw from the main stage of European diplomacy,
and instead, politics began to be a much larger player.
I might not agree with this filthy Frenchman,
but hey, at least I get what I want, so I'll work with him.
That kind of thing.
The Thirty Years' War was very much the climactic end of an era.
It was not only the final war of the Protestant Reformation,
but also the final religious war in Europe.
Hopefully.
Thank you very much for watching.
I hope you enjoyed what you saw, because it was a real headache
attempting to wrap my head around early modern European history.
I'd like to thank JABZY very much for working with me.
I'm imagining 80% of viewers of this video came from JABZY's channel, but if you didn't,
you really should check him out. His videos are great.
So please give me a like or a dislike, as long as I get some reaction outta ya.
And I'll see you guys in the next episode.
Well, not really, I would just be looking at the viewer count with a dumb grin on my face.