Volta
Conflict23 May 1618 – 24 October 1648

Thirty Years’ War

Also called: Thirty Years War, Defenestration of Prague

The last great war of religion, fought mainly in the Holy Roman Empire from the 1618 revolt of Bohemian Protestants until 1648; as Denmark, Sweden and France joined in, it became a struggle for European supremacy.

The Defenestration of Prague, 1618 — engraving by Matthäus Merian, 1662
The Defenestration of Prague, 1618 — engraving by Matthäus Merian, 1662

Matthäus Merian · Public domain · Source

Tension ran high because the Peace of Augsburg had not recognised Calvinism and Protestant and Catholic leagues of princes faced each other. On 23 May 1618 Protestant nobles in Bohemia threw the Catholic emperor’s officials from a window of Prague Castle (the Defenestration of Prague), sparking a revolt that was crushed at the White Mountain in 1620.

Denmark (1625) and then Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (1630) invaded in the name of the Protestant cause. Gustavus beat the imperial forces under Wallenstein but fell at Lützen (1632). From 1635 Catholic France, guided by Cardinal Richelieu, fought openly on the Protestant side to break the Habsburgs, and the war turned from a war of religion into a contest of power between states.

Mercenary plundering, famine and plague devastated Germany, and some regions lost more than a third of their people. The war ended with the Peace of Westphalia (1648). At the same time in East Asia the Later Jin (Qing) was rising, and Joseon, after Gwanghaegun’s policy of neutrality, suffered the Manchu invasions of 1627 and 1636.

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The map in 1618

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States at the time
Holy Roman Empire · belligerent
Habsburg Monarchy · belligerent
Spain · belligerent
Denmark · belligerent
Sweden · belligerent
France · belligerent

People

  • Gustavus Adolphus1594 – 1632

    commander · King of Sweden (r. 1611–1632) who entered the Thirty Years’ War at the head of the Protestant side and fell at the Battle of Lützen

1 part of this event

  1. 1648Peace of Westphalia

    The treaties concluded at Münster and Osnabrück in 1648 ended the Thirty Years’ War, recognised Calvinism and the independence of Switzerland and the Netherlands, and opened the modern order of sovereign states standing side by side.

Before and after

Earlier
1609 Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion
Later
1701 War of the Spanish Succession

Themes that include this event

  • Reformation and Absolutism1517 – 1796

    From Luther’s Ninety-five Theses to Catherine the Great — the wars of religion of a divided Christendom ended at Westphalia, and absolute monarchs armed with divine right, standing armies, bureaucracies and mercantilism, followed by the enlightened despots of eastern Europe, contended for the balance of power among sovereign states