The Deadliest Event in Human History: The Thirty Years’ War
As a disclaimer, there have been events that have killed far more people than the Thirty Year’s War. However, relative to the population of Earth at the time of this great conflict, the Thirty Years’ War earns the title of the deadliest event in human history. This war, fought between 1618-1648, in Europe, was also known as the last of the religious wars, and for good reason.
To contextualize, the Protestant Reformation had just ended prior to the 1600s. For anyone who does not already know, the Protestant Reformation was an era during the 1500s in which Christian reformers challenged the traditional ways of Catholicism and created new, Protestant religions. Through many wars and struggles, several new branches of Christianity were created, including Calvinism, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and Zwinglianism. That noted, religion was a very large part of politics back then, and it sparked very destructive wars all of the time.
So, of course, the Thirty Years’ War resulted from religious tension. Austria, during the early 1600s, was a staunchly Catholic nation. Their former leader, Charles V, had fought the Lutherans in Prussia with dedication (he lost: Peace of Augsburg). Charles V would also be the Holy Roman Emperor during the early stages of the great conflict known as the Thirty Years’ War (shortly before Ferdinand III took over).
Remembering the important role religion played in conflicts back then, we now move into Bohemia, a land held by the Imperial Austrians. Bohemia had a population that was a Calvinist majority, which is a Protestant branch of Christianity. The Calvinists were not at all pleased living under the Catholic rule of the royal governors of Bohemia, and in 1618, it all came to a head.
A group of Protestant rebels stormed the government building and threw the royal governors out of the second or third story window, where they landed in manure. The Catholics would call this a “divine miracle,” and the Protestants would claim that the royal governors deserved to be tossed into excrement. The governors fled the scene, and the incident became known as the Defenestration of Prague.
Defenestration literally means to throw something out a window (I love how specific old-timey words are). Interestingly enough, this was actually the third Defenestration of Prague (the first being in 1419 and the second being in 1483), but the third one, in 1618, is most commonly the default reference. This event sparked a civil war in Bohemia, and this and one other event set the stage for the deadliest war that mankind has ever seen.
In Prussia, Frederic IV’s Protestant Union was challenged by the Catholic League of German States. The Hapsburg emperors and princes also became involved (the emperors would side with the Imperial Austrian Catholics and the princes with the Protestants). The tension in Germany, combined with the crisis in Bohemia, would lead to catastrophe.
The Thirty Years’ War had four major stages. I will not go into too much detail on the first two and the last one, as the war, as hinted by the name, lasted thirty years (that is a lot of time to cover), but the third phase was rather important, so I will spend some time on that. The first phase was known as the Bohemian Phase (1618-1625), called so because much of the fighting centered around Southern Europe and the Balkans. It basically saw the Catholics crushing the Protestants.
Next came the Danish Phase (1625-1629). King Christian V of Denmark, a Lutheran, sent his armies down south to confront the Imperial Austrian armies, the allied Prussian nations, and the Electorate of Bavaria. They would march all the way to middle Europe, and then be pushed all the way back by the Catholics. Summary of this phase: it was a major Catholic victory.
Now before I get into the second half of the war, I do want to emphasize what it is so far. Basically, the Thirty Years’ War, until 1630, saw various armies simply wandering across Europe until the found each other. The conflict was particularly bad for civilians, as well. Seeing as Europe was dotted with villages and cities practicing a variety of branches of Christianity, whenever armies would stumble upon a city or town that was not of their specific faith, they would torment it.
Armies would storm civilian settlements, destroy them, and kill and torture their inhabitants (interestingly enough, this was often the case even if the village and the army shared the exact same faith). This was not only a large part of the reason for why an estimated eleven million people were killed during the conflict, but because the war fragmented the Prussian states so much, they would not unite into Germany for another two hundred thirty years (in 1871).
Right, now onto the Swedish Phase, the most important phase of the war (1629-1635). Enter Sweden (Protestant), important because of Sweden’s leader, King Gustavus Adolphus (Gustav II Adolf), the most important figure of the Thirty Years’ War. For one, he was a military genius, and the tactics the great leader invented would last for centuries to come.
Firstly, he created what was known as the “Swedish Salvo,” in which three rows of musketeers would each have twelve rounds of bullets. One row would fire, and then the second one and then the third while the first row reloaded. These tactics were very good at repelling advancing infantry and cavalry (especially during the battle of Rocroi, in 1643). Gustavus also revolutionized artillery on the battlefield.
Prior to this time, cannons on the battlefield were to heavy to move quickly, so they could not be moved after the battle had started. Generals simply had to hope that the enemy would wander into the range of their guns, or they would be useless. Gustavus Adolphus invented mobile artillery, which was skillfully employed on the battlefield. He even invented the leather cannon (which did not work, but at least it was an attempt). The great king also used conscripts and composed his armies of equal numbers of musketeers and pikemen.
Now that the war was so huge, the reasons for fighting became less religiously-centered and more politically centered. For instance, France, though a catholic nation, funded the Swedish Protestant armies because both Spain and Imperial Austria were gaining too much power. Now that that is settled, what happened with Gustavus Adolphus?
Though King Gustavus was a king, he often fought along side his soldiers in combat (how valiant! If only our generals today did this, then maybe America would stop trying to pick a fight with everybody). Alas, this habit would be his end during the First Battle of Lutzen, Saxony (November 6, 1632), one of the most important battles of the Thirty Years’ War. There were several countries and armies involved, and the fog the morning of the battle was very thick.
King Gustavus Adolphus, after taking losses from enemy artillery, led his troops and some adjutants in a cavalry charge. The king and his generals became lost in the fog, and their horses were too fast for the rest of their troops. They accidentally ran into some Imperial scouts and sharpshooters and, though the others made it away, Gustavus was shot in the hand, then in the back, fell off his horse, and then was killed. The battle would ultimately be won by the Protestants, but Saxony proved costly to hold, and it turned into an Imperial victory.
The Swedes would, nonetheless, engage in combat during the Battle of Nordlingen, in 1634, in which they fought Spain and the Imperial Austrians. Their use of artillery and infantry combined easily won the day, and the Swedes pushed onward. The Swedes would later engage the Imperial Saxons and Austrians in Berlin during the battle of Wittstock, in 1636, in what also became a Swedish victory. Former to that, the Treaty of Prague stopped the fighting in 1635, but the Danes and Austrians would spark the war again in 1636.
There are literally dozens upon dozens of battles fought and countries fighting during the Thirty Years’ War, but these two were some of the most outstanding. The Swedes suddenly turned the tide of the war in favor of the Protestant armies. Now, the war raged pretty much all across all of Europe, except for the British Isles (Britain was very smart in that they largely kept out of the war entirely).
Then comes the fourth and final phase, the French Phase (1635-1648). As previously explained, France sided with the Protestants because, while they may have been a Catholic nation, their king, Louis XIII, feared that their Spanish and Hapsburg neighbors were gaining too much power. In this phase, however, the Swedes funded the French, who actually did most of the fighting.
The Battle of Rocroi, previously mentioned, was probably the most significant of the battles in this phase. Though the battle ended in a stalemate, it halted the Spanish advance, and it took the casualties of over nineteen thousand in all.
The final battle of the Thirty Years’ War was the Battle of Prague (1648), in which the Swedes took Prague Castle, but were unable to take the majority of the city. In the end, however, no one truly came out victorious in the Thirty Years’ War: both sides were simply worn out from thirty years of conflict and just stopped fighting. The war ended with the Peace of Westphalia, headed by Ferdinand III, that same year.
If you really are looking for a winner, however, the Protestants did technically win by a hair, seeing as France gained a little land, and Prussia became a place of complete religious freedom. France and Sweden would also emerge as dominant European powers (at least until the Great Northern War ended in 1721, for Sweden).
What the Thirty Years’ War truly symbolizes, however, was that Europe had now moved from an era in which religion was the dominant concern of most nations to one in which the new concern was politics. The thirty Years’ War is riotously called the “last of the religious wars,” especially seeing as nations pretty much fought only for power toward the end of it. But in terms of the political geography of Europe, almost nothing changed.
Once again, this was only a very brief overview of the war, seeing as it is such a major point in history that it would take far too long to describe it in its entirety. If you are really into this, though, I highly recommend that you look online for some of the battles of the conflict. There are some great videos that go into detail about the specifics of the war and its many battles, and some animated maps of Europe that show just how redundant the fighting actually was (land taken by one side this year would be lost to the other side the next year, pretty much). So, if you made it to the end of this post, thank you for taking the time to read it, and I hope you will consider reading some of my other history posts as well.