The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) Part 1

The Thirty Years' War was a simmering dispute between the Roman Catholic Church and adherents of other denominations that arose after the Reformation in the 16th century.
It was initiated by the Estates Revolution in the lands of the Bohemian Crown against the monarch. There were also power struggles in Europe at the time between the Dutch provinces and Spain. Catholic France also entered the conflict, siding with the Protestants, fearing the expanding power of the Habsburgs.

The Thirty Years' War can be divided into four parts:
1. The Bohemian-Palatinate War, which took place between 1618 and 1623. It included the revolt of the Bohemian Estates, the rule of Frederick the Great in Bohemia and later his struggle with the Netherlands.
Between 1623-25 was a period of peace of arms in Central Europe.
2. The Danish War took place between 1625 - 1629 and is characterized by the entry of the Danish and Norwegian kingdoms into the war.
3The Swedish War, which is framed by the entry of Gustav II. Adolf's accession in 1630 and the signing of the Peace of Prague in 1635.
4. The Swedish-French War, with France actively entering the scene in 1635. The conflict ended with the signing of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.

After the end of the Thirty Years' War, no stone was left unturned across Europe.
Germany was fragmented into more than 200 states and states. It was not until the end of the 19th century that they were united.
The Czech Kingdom lost the territory of Lusatia (and later Silesia) and became part of the Austrian monarchy for 300 years. Thousands of people, especially the spiritual and intellectual elite, were forced to emigrate (before White Mountain, 85-90 percent of the population was non-Catholic). Before the war, about 1,700,000 people lived in Bohemia, around the mid-17th century only 950,000. In Moravia, about 600,000 of the 900,000 inhabitants remained.
Austria and Spain lost their key positions in Europe to France, and Sweden became the new superpower.
Many castles and towns were captured and burned - some of them after the war to prevent them from becoming a centre of resistance against the emperor. The repeated passages and stays of armies caused the plundering of the countryside. A large number of villages disappeared. The armies committed enormous atrocities against the civilian population.
The war, the unfavourable economic conditions and the forced, often violent conversion to the "true" (Catholic) faith also led to a plague ofThe robbery was on the rise again, and rogue soldiers and aggressive bands of beggars posed a great threat.

What is this?

- The Roman Catholic Church(inaccurately referred to as the Catholic Church) is the largest of the twenty-three autonomous Catholic Churches and the only Western Catholic Church comprising about half of all Christians. It is the largest religious organization in the world. The Catholic Church considers itself the direct successor of the early Church founded by Christ. It refers to the Bishop of Rome as the direct successor of St. Peter. Bishops observe apostolic succession in ordination and consider themselves successors of the twelve apostles.

- The Calvinist religion (Calvinism) originated in France in the 16th century during the Reformation. Its founder was John Calvin. Every person has a God-ordained mission. He must behave according to God's commandments. It emphasizes diligence, modesty, and a strictly moral life. It criticizes the behavior of the Church, wants to remove paintings and statues from churches and forbids singing during mass. The Calvinist religion took hold in wealthy countries such as England (Puritans) and France (Huguenots).

- The term "Lutherans" originally came from Catholics, who used it to refer to Protestants. Their faith is rooted in the legacy of Martin Luther and the subsequent Protestant Reformation. Lutherans are sometimes referred to as Evangelicals.

It all began with the Majesty
Emperor Rudolf II signed the Majesty of Religious Liberties on 9 July 1608 under pressure from the Czech Protestant Estates and his imperious brother Matthias. According to it, no one may be forced to join any religion against his will.
After a while, the ruler wants to resist the Majesty of Religious Liberties, and this costs him his throne. Matthias sits on it. He is childless, however, and so the Habsburg family council decides that Ferdinand of Styria, who, unlike Matthias, is a bigoted Catholic, will succeed him.
Ferdinand's ascension to the throne is complicated. The non-Catholics (Thurn, Jáchym Ondřej Šlik, Václav Budovec from Budov, Kašpar Kaplíř from Sulevice and Linhart Collona from Fels) insist on the consolidation of the state freedoms and the free choice of the monarch. In the end, however, only Thurn and Collona of Fels maintained their negative position. The others are intimidated.
Ferdinand of Styria is elected King of Bohemia by the Bohemian Estates on 5 June 1617 and crowned on 29 June in St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague.

Ferdinand II, painting originally for the church in Kutná Hora.

Ferdinand must promise to uphold the Majesty. It soon turns out that he does not intend to keep his promise. As an absolutist ruler, he denied the secular rights of the nobility. Because of the high number of Protestants (even among the nobility), the new king soon became unpopular.
The atmosphere thickened and the oppression of Protestants increased.
Thurn receives a letter from the emperor asking him to come to Vienna. He summons a congress of non-Catholic states to the Karolina in Prague, where he informs the assembled of its contents. Then they all take his side, affirming: 'If he is put to the sword, they will all stand by him."
On 22 May 1618, in an excited atmosphere, several friends with a combative spirit gathered in the palace of Albrecht Jan Smiřický in the Lesser Town. There they were reminded of the threat of an ancient Czech custom: "Whoever in the future would not stand or would disturb the common comparison is to be thrown out of the window."

Prague Defenestration
The next day, about a hundred non-Catholics set out for Prague Castle. Only two governors are present, Vilém Slavata from Chlum and Jaroslav Bořita from Martinice. At first, the meeting proceeds peacefully. The turning point comes when Ondřej Šlik attacks Martinice with a verbal attack. After a while, they were found guilty and sentenced to death by throwing them out of the windows. The events are described by Pavel Sláma from Zhora in History of Bohemia: "First, four persons of the nobility and one of the knights, namely Vilém the Elder, attacked the Count of Martinice. Lobbkovice, Albrecht of Smiřice, Voldřich of Vchynice, Jan Litvín of Říčany and Pavel Kaplíř, reached out with power, grabbed him by both hands and held him tightly. Then they lifted the person of the count of Martinice from the ground and put him in a black canopic cloak lined with tupltykytou.and the robber and the vagabond, but without a hat on his head, were thrown out of the window into the depths of the castle moat."It is said that as he fell he managed to cry out, "Jesu, Maria, miserere mei!" and one of the looms responded by saying, "Let's see if his Mary will help him."When he then looked out of the window into the ditch and saw Martinez alive, he cried out, "By all the saints! After Martinic, Slavata and the scribe Philip Fabricius follow.
Surprisingly, none of them suffers serious injuries after falling sixteen metres. The windows of the palace were reportedly "littered" with papers and other clutter. According to modern research, it also greatly helped the lord governors that the ground beneath the windows sloped and was not level.
Stone monuments to the grateful governors still stand at the impact sites.

The Estates' Revolt is just beginning, and also, unbeknownst to anyone, the Thirty Years' War.

The Second Prague Defenestration, a contemporary copperplate from Theatrum Europaeum

What is a defenestration?
Defenestration, from the Latin preposition de (from or also away) and the term fenestra (window). "Throwing out the window", was not uncommon in the Middle Ages and early modern period. It was a form of jointly undertaken punishment. The two historical events of 1419 and 1618 are mainly referred to as the Prague defenestrations.

(more next time)