The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy » (New Edition)

Peter H. Wilson is G. F. Grant Professor of History at the University of Hull.

A deadly continental struggle, the Thirty Years War devastated seventeenth-century Europe, killing nearly a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to towns and countryside alike. Peter Wilson offers the first new history in a generation of a horrifying conflict that transformed the map of the modern world.

When defiant Bohemians tossed the Habsburg emperor’s envoys from the castle windows in Prague in 1618, the Holy Roman Empire struck back with a vengeance. Bohemia was ravaged by mercenary troops in the first battle of a conflagration that would engulf Europe from Spain to Sweden. The sweeping narrative encompasses dramatic events and unforgettable individuals—the sack of Magdeburg; the Dutch revolt; the Swedish militant king Gustavus Adolphus; the imperial generals, opportunistic Wallenstein and pious Tilly; and crafty diplomat Cardinal Richelieu. In a major reassessment, Wilson argues that religion was not the catalyst, but one element in a lethal stew of political, social, and dynastic forces that fed the conflict.

By war’s end a recognizably modern Europe had been created, but at what price? The Thirty Years War condemned the Germans to two centuries of internal division and international impotence and became a benchmark of brutality for centuries. As late as the 1960s, Germans placed it ahead of both world wars and the Black Death as their country’s greatest disaster.

An understanding of the Thirty Years War is essential to comprehending modern European history. Wilson’s masterful book will stand as the definitive account of this epic conflict.

For a map of Central Europe in 1618, referenced on page XVI, please visit the book feature.

Publishers Weekly

From the Defenestration of Prague in 1618 until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, brutal warfare swept across Europe. In his monumental study of the causes and the consequences of the Thirty Years War, Wilson, a professor of history at the University of Hull in England, challenges traditional interpretations of the war as primarily religious. He explores instead the political, social, economic as well as religious forces behind the conflict—for example, an Ottoman incursion left the Hapsburg Empire considerably weakened and overshadowed by the Spanish empire. Wilson then provides a meticulous account of the war, introducing some of its great personalities: the crafty General Wallenstein; the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus, who preserved his state through canny political treaties and military operations; and Hapsburg archdukes Rudolf and Matthias, the brothers whose quarrels marked the future of Bohemia, Austria and Hungary. By the war's end, ravaged as all the states were by violence, disease and destruction, Europe was more stable, but with sovereign states rather than empires, and with a secular order. Wilson's scholarship and attention to both the details and the larger picture make his the definitive history of the Thirty Years War. 16 pages of color photos; 22 maps. (Oct.)

• List of Illustrations


• List of Maps and Battle Plans


• List of Tables


• Note on Form


• The Habsburg Family Tree 1500-1665


• Note on Currencies


• Preface

Part one: Beginnings

1. Introduction

Three Men and a Window

Interpretations

The Argument

2. Trouble in the Heart of Christendom

The Empire

Confessionalization

Religion and Imperial Law

3. Casa d'Austria

Lands and Dynasty

Estates and Confession

The Catholic Revival

4. The Turkish War and its Consequences

The Turkish Menace

The Ways of War

The Long Turkish War

The Brothers' Quarrel

5. Pax Hispanica

The Spanish Monarchy

The Dutch Revolt 1568-1609

The Spanish Road

Spanish Peace-making 161

6. Dominium Maris Baltici

Denmark

The Divided House of Vasa

Poland-Lithuania

7. From Rudolf to Matthias 1582-1612

Religion and the German Princes

Confession and Imperial Politics to 1608

Union and Liga 1608-9

The Ju¨ lich-Cleves Crisis 1609-10

8. On the Brink?

Emperor Matthias

The Uskok War and the Habsburg Succession 1615-17 255

Palatine Brinkmanship

Part Two: Conflict


9. The Bohemian Revolt 1618-20

For Liberty and Privilege

A King for a Crown

Ferdinand Gathers his Forces

White Mountain

Accounting for Failure

10. Ferdinand Triumphant 1621-4

The Palatine Cause

Protestant Paladins

The Catholic Ascendancy 1621-9

11. Olivares and Richelieu

Olivares

Richelieu

The Valtellina

12. Denmark's War against the Emperor 1625-9

Trouble in Lower Saxony

Wallenstein

Denmark's Defeat 1626-9

13. The Threat of European War 1628-30

The Baltic

The Netherlands

Mantua and La Rochelle

The Edict of Restitution

The Regensburg Electoral Congress 1630

14. The Lion of the North 1630-2

Swedish Intervention

Between the Lion and the Eagle

The Swedish Empire

Calls for Assistance

Zenith

15. Without Gustavus 1633-4

The Heilbronn League

Tension along the Rhine

Spain Intervenes

Wallenstein: the Final Act

The Two Ferdinands

16. For the Liberty of Germany 1635-6

Richelieu Resolves on War

The War in the West 1635-6

The Peace of Prague 1635

Appeals to Patriotism

Renewed Efforts for Peace

17. Habsburg High Tide 1637-40

Stalemate

Resolution on the Rhine

Peace for North Germany?

18. In the Balance 1641-3

The Franco-Swedish Alliance 1641

The War in the Empire 1642-3

Spain's Growing Crisis 1635-43

From Breda to Rocroi 1637-43

19. Pressure to Negotiate 1644-5

The Westphalian Congress

France in Germany 1644

The Baltic Becomes Swedish 1643-5

1645: Annus horribilis et mirabilis

20. War or Peace 1646-8

A Crisis of Confidence 1646

Towards Consensus

Spain's Peace with the Dutch

The Final Round 1648

Part Three: Aftermath


21. The Westphalian Settlement

The International Dimension

A Christian Peace

Demobilization

The Imperial Recovery

22. The Human and Material Cost

An All-destructive Fury?

The Demographic Impact

The Economic Impact

The Crisis of the Territorial State

Cultural Impact

23. Experiencing War

The Nature of Experience

Military-Civil Relations

Perceptions

Commemoration

• Abbreviations


• Notes


• Index