19.8. 1619 The rebellious Czech Estates deposed Ferdinand II.

The only ally willing to join his fate in 1619 with the Bohemian uprising was the twenty-three-year-old Calvinist Elector Frederick V. Falck. He succeeded Ferdinand II, who had been deposed by the rebellious Bohemian Estates.

In the ongoing war with the Habsburgs, the rebels relied on abundant foreign aid. Since the spring of 1619 they had indeed received financial and military support from the Netherlands, and Duke Charles Emmanuel of Savoy had also sent a mercenary army to Bohemia. In contrast, France, England and even the Union of Protestant Princes in the Empire maintained neutrality.

The only ally willing to join his fate with the Bohemian uprising was the twenty-three-year-old Calvinist Elector Frederick V. He saw the acquisition of the Bohemian royal crown as the culmination of an ambitious foreign policy for his small imperial principality.

"In August 1619, a general assembly was held at which the Estates officially deposed Ferdinand II. from the Bohemian throne and elected Frederick the Palatine as the new king," writes, for example, the Central Bohemian Historical Collection.

After the death of Matthias and the dethronement of Ferdinand II, Frederick was thus elected King of Bohemia on 26 August 1619. However, the anti-Habsburg camp, supported from the north also by Catholic Poland and Lutheran Saxony, was clearly a weaker opponent of the Bohemian-Falkland personal union.

"For more than two years the fighting between the Estates and Habsburg armies lasted on Czech and Moravian territory. The rebels' double attempt to capture Vienna in 1619 failed. It was decided by the shortcomings of the Estates' army and ineffective cooperation with other anti-Habsburg forces, especially Bethlen's troops. Instead, the imperial army occupied the southern outskirts of Bohemia right at the beginning of the uprising and created a base there to attack Prague. The war operations did not disrupt the economic life of the Bohemian lands and brought hardship and hardship to their inhabitants."Jaroslav Pánek and Oldřich Tůma write in their book History of the Czech Lands.

A handful of noblemen showed unusual dedication and supported military units from their own resources. However, the majority of lords and knights did not appreciate the extent of the impending danger and continued to be concerned primarily with short-term personal gain. The situation culminated in the Battle of White Mountain on 8 November. As many as 21,000 Estatesmen and as many as 28,000 enemy soldiers were prepared for the conflict, most of whom did not intervene at all.

The two-hour battle turned into a catastrophic defeat of the Estates. The military fiasco exposed the internal disintegration of the rebel camp and the imperious incompetence of Frederick Falcke, the "Winter King".who spent only one winter on the throne, fled Bohemia and made no attempt to recapture it.

Jaroslav Pánek and Oldřich Tůma, History of the Czech Lands, Středočeský sborník historický, www.wikipedia.org