THE AGE OF RELIGIOUS WARS AND THE EMERGENCE OF ABSOLUTISM
THE ERA OR RELIGIOUS WARS
The history of 17th Century Europe is primarily a study in the after effects of the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation was not simply a religious phenomena, but a restructuring a way of life that had endured for well over one thousand years. As the Reformation worked its way across Europe, it initiated a period of European history characterized by almost 100 years of continuous violence. Though this violence was most prevalent in the Holy Roman Empire, being the birthplace of the Reformation, other countries were not spared.
SPAIN, ENGLAND, FRANCE
The Reformation made little headway into Spain itself, and therefore the Iberian Peninsula was spared the internal dissension that characterized most of the rest of the continent. In the Spanish held Netherlands, however, Calvinism had a significant impact, and revolt was inevitable.
The Netherlands were the wealthiest region in Europe, and the center of the emerging global economy. Consisting of seventeen provinces, occupying the territory held today by the modern Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, the people were accustomed to considerable local autonomy and religious diversity.
The event which precipitated the revolt was the Spanish attempt to impose a more centralized government upon the very independent provinces. The Catholic church in the Netherlands was reorganized. Philip II insisted upon increasing the number of bishops in the provinces from 4 to 18, with himself nominating the officeholders. He then attempted to impose religious uniformity by insisting that all the decrees of the Council of Trent be enforced. The last straw was the realization by the Protestants in the Netherlands that taxes collected in their own territory were being used to promote Spanish interests, including the suppression of Calvinism.
Protestants immediately banded together in a covenant pledging to resist the Decrees of Trent and the Inquisition. Initially following legal channels with their complaints, several hundred Protestant nobles presented their grievances to Margaret of Parma, Philip's regent in the Netherlands. While at the regent's court they were ridiculed, branded with the appellation "Beggars." Rather than the intended humiliation, the name quickly was transformed into a badge of honor. The battle cry of the rebels now became "Long Live the Beggars!" Violence erupted in 1566, when Calvinists, led by the nobles, began to assault Catholic churches. The population was shocked by the destructiveness of the iconoclastic frenzy, giving it the name "The Calvinist Fury. Philip II responded by replacing the Margaret with the ruthless Duke of Alva, and sending in 10,000 veteran troops to suppress the rebellion. Alva asserted that he would rather destroy the country than see it fall into the hands of heretics.
Rather than cowing before such aggressiveness, the Netherlanders entrenched. In the northern provinces, the revolt became organized under the leadership of William of Nassau, the prince of Orange, known to his contemporaries as William the Silent.
William was a politique, an individual who allowed political situations and circumstances to determine his course of action rather than religion. Today he would be called a pragmatist. He was born a Lutheran, but converted to Catholicism as a child in order to receive his inheritance. In 1581, in a document known as the Union of Utrecht, the northern provinces declared themselves independent of the Spanish crown and took the name the United Provinces of the Netherlands. William is frequently referred to as the Father of the Dutch Republic.
The conflict escalated further in 1584, with the assassination of William the Silent, perhaps the first great leader in Dutch history. Philip had placed a reward on William's head, and though William had never express strong religious sentiment, he quickly became a martyr for the Protestant cause.
Finally, the Dutch struggle assumed international status in 1585, when the Spanish declared war on England. The English break with the Catholic Church under Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, stressed relations between the two nations. On several occasions, Philip had attempted to incite rebellion among Elizabeth's Catholic subjects, while Elizabeth had harrassed the Spanish with a strong, unofficial, policy of piracy directed against the treasure-laden Spanish galleons returning from the New World. As Protestants themselves, the English had a natural sympathy with the Dutch situation from the beginning. Beginning with covert aid to the Netherlands and escalating until and English army was sent in to aid the Netherlands in their struggle, the Spanish declaration of war was both justified and inevitable.
The war proceeded in piece-meal fashion until 1588, when Phillip II, sent a huge fleet of 130 ships known as the Armada against the English with the intention of restoring the nation to the Catholic faith.
Gustavus Adolphus
While the Armada lay at anchor off the coast of Calais, the English set a number of ships ablaze and drove them into the midst of the Spanish fleet. The Armada scattered, with many of the ships heading into the unpredictable waters of the North Sea. The fierce storms and the greater mobility of the English vessels dealt a heavy blow to the Spanish, with less than half of the Armada returning intact to Spain. The Protestants considered the great storm that had finished the Armada a direct intervention from God, and christened it the "Protestant Wind."
News of the Spanish defeat quickly spread throughout Europe, inspiring Protestants everywhere in their cause. More important, the victory insured the continued existence of England as an independent Protestant nation.
The conflict in the Netherlands lasted until 1609, when the northern provinces finally broke free of Spanish domination and became the independent nation of the Netherlands. A twelve year treaty was signed pledging Spanish non-intervention in the affairs of the Netherlands.
FRANCE
In France the Reformation also made quick progress. By the late 1560s, Calvinists known as HUGUENOTS controlled one-third of the French territory. The Valois dynasty, ruling France at this time, was firm in its allegiance to Rome, and opposed the existence of Protestant territory within French borders. Civil war broke out, culminating in 1572 with the SAINT BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY MASSACRE. 32,000 Huguenots were killed in Paris and the other major cities.
The Valois dynasty ended in 1589, when Henry III died without a male heir. The religious wars in France then became a dynastic conflict, which was finally brought to an end in 1598, when Henry IV, the first king of the new Bourbon dynasty, signed the EDICT OF NANTES. Essentially the Edict was an enforced truce between the forces of Catholicism and Protestantism, allowing the Huguenots to maintain control of the cities they occupied when hostilities began.
It is interesting to note that Henry IV had previously been a leader among the Calvinists, and only converted to Catholicism when it became obvious that such a conversion would be necessary for him to ascend to the throne. Speaking of his conversion, he is reputed to have said "Paris is well worth a Mass." Having been on both sides of the fence, Henry IV proved to be an understanding ruler and devoted the remainder of his reign trying to heal the rifts that had been generated by the civil war.
THE CONFLICT IN THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE
As mentioned above, the lion's share of violence generated by the Reformation took place in the birthplace of the Reformation; the Holy Roman Empire.
The Holy Roman Empire was a loose confederation of German states established nominally in 800, at the time of the coronation of Charlemange. It was unique in that the ruler was elected by a body composed of 3 ecclesiastical electors and 4 secular electors.
By 1531, the Protestant princes and many of the independent cities in the Holy Roman Empire joined together in a mutual defense pact against the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. Though Charles defeated the alliance in 1547, he was unable to break their power, and the conflict continued throughout Germany. With the treasuries of both Charles and the princes exhausted, hostilities were brought to a close in 1555, when both sides signed the PEACE OF AUGSBURG.
Under this treaty, the religion of a particular territory would be determined by the religion of the prince of that territory. Expressed in the Latin phrase CUJUS REGIO, EJUS RELIGIO i.e., Whose Region, Whose Religion, this agreement settled the religious disputes, but it left German a patchwork of Protestant and Catholic states, each ever vigilant against their neighbor. The fractures would take centuries to heal. The two greatest failures of the Peace of Augsburg were its failure to take into account the disposition of Church property in the event a ruler converted to Protestantism, and its failure to recognize the importance of the growing number of militant Calvinists in the Empire. By the beginning of the seventeenth century sporadic incidents of violence were occurring between the two groups throughout the Empire.
Throughout the reign of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (1576-1612) Protestant churches throughout Germany were destroyed and the Protestant right to free worship was restricted. Representatives of the Emperor made it clear that nothing short of a restoration of Catholicism was their goal in spite of the Treaty of Augsburg.
Rudolf II was an unusually eccentric individual, and had several portraits of himself painted as the 'spirit' of various seasons. Here the emperor is seen as "The Spirit of Autumn."
In 1608, a group of Calvinists formed themselves into the Protestant Union, and were responded to in kind by the formation of the Catholic League in 1609. The Catholic League was headed by Maximillian of Bavaria and was allied with Emperor Ferdinand, the Hapsburg head of the Holy Roman Empire. Hence, a decade before the beginning of the Thirty Years War , the Empire was already divided into rival camps, and a violent solution to the crisis became inevitable. The Bohemian arm of the Protestant Union struck the first blow.
THE THIRTY YEARS WAR
This war, which was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history, may be divided into four phases, usually designated and dated as follows:
Bohemian (1618-25)
Danish (1625-29)
Swedish (1630-35)
French (1635-48).
THE BOHEMIAN PERIOD (1618-1625)
Outraged by the aggressive policies of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Bohemia, the Bohemian Protestants, a majority of the population, demanded that Ferdinand II, then king of Bohemia, intervene.
In terms of character, Ferdinand II was a good man. He was a devoted husband and father, and showed an unusual interest in the well-being of his subjects. Earlier in his life, when he was the Duke of Styria, it was said that he knew the name of every peasant in his duchy, and frequently came to their aid with both legal and material assistance. He was, however, an ardent Roman Catholic and the Habsburg heir presumptive to the Holy Roman Empire, and felt it in the best interest of Bohemia to ignore the Protestant appeal.
On May 23, 1618, the crisis could be stalled no longer, and the Protestants of Prague invaded the royal palace, seized two of the king's ministers, and threw them out a window. They two ministers fell 70 feet, but escaped with their lives. Catholics were quick to assert that they had been saved though the direct intervention of the Virgin Mary. Protestants, however, emphasized that the Virgin Mary must have strategically placed the manure heap which broke their fall. This act, known as the Defenestration of Prague, was the beginning of a national Protestant uprising.
THE THIRTY YEARS WAR
News of the "The Defenestration of Prague," spread quickly and revolt spread with it. Soon the respite brought by the Peace of Augsburg was ended, and open civil war broke out across Germany. The Emperor, Rudolph II, sent out a call to those loyal to the Catholic cause to join him in his effort to suppress the rebellion.
He knew that he could count on the support of the government of Spain, ruled by his Hapsburg cousins. More than simply familial loyalty, the Spanish were waiting for their twelve-year treaty of peace with the Netherlands to expire before they attempted to reconquer the rebellious provinces. Aid given to the Emperor would surely be returned later. Additionally, the Emperor promised the Spanish control of Alsace, a small territory between France and Germany, and historically the most intensely-contested bit of land in all of Europe.
Interestingly, the German Catholic princes, who had the most to lose or gain, were reluctant to enter the conflict. They valued their independence, and feared a strong emperor, albeit a strong Roman Catholic emperor, more than the influence of Protestantism.
There were other pressing questions, as well. Would France stand by and allow the Spanish to take control of Alsace, essentially placing the French nation in a Hapsburg vise? Also, the extension of Hapsburg power to the Baltic sea would threaten the existence of both Sweden and Denmark, both independent and thoroughly Protestant. The suppression of the German uprising had monumental international implications.
Following the Defenestration of Prague, the rebels quickly seized control of Bohemia, and chose Elector Frederick of the Palatinate, a staunch Calvinist, as their king.
Ferdinand II was now the Holy Roman Emperor, though having lost his own kingdom he now possessed neither money nor troops. He knew that he must retake Bohemia. In the first place, more than half of the imperial revenue was generated by that country, and secondly, Bohemia controlled one of the seven imperial electoral votes. With that territory now in the hands of Protestants, the balance had been tipped, since Protestant princes already controlled three of the electoral votes. Such a balance would have the unspeakble potential of placing a Protestant king as the Holy Roman Emperor in the event of an imperial election.
Ferdinand turned to the Catholic prince of Bavaria, Maximillian, and the Spanish for aid. To Maximillian, he promised control of Frederick's Palatinate, as well as the position of elector, and to Spain he promised control of Frederick's territory in the Rhineland.
The aid was adequate, and Ferdinand was able to bring Bohemia back under imperial control. More important, the office of Emperor, previously a freely-elected position was now made hereditary as well. The Emperor from that day forward must be a Hapsburg.
Eyebrows went up across Europe. The German Protestant princes in the northern portion of the Holy Roman Empire saw their electoral power nullified in a moment, and their own territories threatened as well. Abroad, the French, English, Dutch, and Danish, knew that some action must be taken to prevent Hapsburg consolidation. In the end, an internationally-financed force Danish force of 30,000, led by King Christian IV, began to make their way into the heart of Germany.
THE DANISH PERIOD (1625-1629)
As Christian IV's army descended into northern Germany to aid the beleagured Protestant princes, it was clear that he could expect no DIRECT assistance. France and England were allied against Spain, but both were involved in serious domestic problems. The great powers would assist financially, but they could offer little help. At this stage of the conflict, Christian IV and Denmark were on their own.
For Christian IV, his intervention not primarily religious in nature. Denmark controlled the duchy of Holstein, Germany, and the continued pressure of Ferdinand II made the continued presence of Denmark questionable.
Ferdinand, however, realized that he would need more than the unstable German Catholic princes if he was to overcome the might of Christian IV. To secure the forces he needed, Ferdinand turned to the powerful Wallenstein, a wealthy and opportunistic duke.
Wallenstein
Wallenstein was born a Lutheran, but he converted to Catholicism for political reasons. He was tall, thin, and forbidding. Wallenstein was not religious, but he was very superstitious, frequently turning to the stars for guidance. He was born under the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter that Tycho had observed as a young man, and at one point he asked Kepler to cast his horoscope. According to Kepler's reading of the stars, Wallenstein possessed:
". . . a restless, exacting mind, impatient of old methods and forever striving for the new and the untried, secretive, melancholy, suspicious, contemptuous of his fellow men and their conventions. He would be avaricious, deceitful, greedy for power, loving no one and by no one beloved, changeable in his humours, quarrelsome, friendless and cruel."
In this case, the counsel of the stars spoke true.
Wallenstein had married a wealthy widow who conveniently died soon thereafter, leaving him her estates and the freedom to espouse the daughter of one of Ferdinand's councilors. When this wealth and influence was combined with Wallenstein's own natural business instinct, he quickly came to control
a quarter of the land in Bohemia and was able to offer to raise, quarter, and provision an army of mercenaries 50,000 strong at his own expense. Ferdinand had only to provide their pay.
The emperor recognized the danger of giving too much authority to this powerful subject, but he could no longer afford to rely upon the Catholic princes of Germany and the Spanish. He accepted Wallenstein's offer, and with these augmented forces he gained several quick victories over the Danes. Northern Germany was occupied, and Wallenstein was given Mecklenburg as a reward for his assistance. A duchy on the Baltic Sea whose former ruler had made the mistake of siding with the Danes.
In 1627 Christian IV was driven into the Jutland Peninsula, and the future fate of the Holy Roman Empire rested upon Ferdinand's next step.
On the one hand, Wallenstein advised Ferdinand to use the power at his disposal to created a more centralized German state. This, however, would alienate the Catholic princes who had opposed any increase in imperial power. On the other , he could satisfy the demands of the Church, and restore the lands that had been seized by the Protestants since the Peace of Augsburg. In this case, he would further alienate the Protestant princes, many of whom had remained neutral in the conflict.
Ferdinand chose the latter course and issued the Edict of Restitution in 1629, thereby restoring ecclesiastical territories to the Catholics. Then, to placate Maximilian and the Catholic League, he dismissed Wallenstein. By refusing to follow Wallenstein's advice, Ferdinand condemned Germany to more than two centuries of political disunity.
THE SWEDISH PERIOD (1630-1635)
Though the Catholic forces were at their peak, the lack of wisdom Ferdinand demonstrated by refusing to follow Wallenstein's counsel soon became obvious.
In 1630, the Protestants of northern Germany gained a new champion in the person of Gustavus Adolphus, the king of Sweden. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, and from childhood he had been trained to he a king. When he was six, he began to accompany the army on campaigns; when he was ten, he began to sit at the council table and give his opinions; and when he was in his teens, he received ambassadors unaided. Now thirty-six, Gustavus had already given evidence of being one of the greatest men of his age. In his nineteen years as king, he had proved himself to he as able an administrator as Maximilian of Bavaria and as careful a military organizer as Wallenstein. He was now about to show that he was a gifted diplomat, a devout Protestant. And he was about to move into Germany with a well-trained, well-disciplined army.
Interestingly, his forces were subsidized in part by the French through negotiations with Richelieu. The ironic thing here is that Richelieu was a Cardinal in the Catholic Church. More importantly, he was a Frenchman, and his first loyalty was to his country rather than to his Church. His strong motivation to aid the Protestants was due to the fact that a Imperial victory would essentially surround France, with the Spanish Hapsburgs to the south and the Austrian Hapsburgs to the northeast.
As in everything else, Adolphus demonstrated that he was a military tactician of extraordinary genius. The fashion of the day was to utilize the most massive battle assemblages possible. Adolphus abandoned this in order to achieve greater mobility and firepower. Cavalry and infantry were deployed in a series of alternating small squares so that they could turn easily in any direction. Light artillery was substituted for heavy artillery because it could be advanced rapidly, fired from the front lines in battle, and withdraw quickly if necessary.
Musketeers were organized in files five deep. The first file was taught to fire and step back to reload. Then the second file fired and stepped back to reload, and then the third and the fourth and the fifth, by which time the first file was ready to fire again. Thus, continuous fire emerged from the Swedish lines.
The one important advantage that Gustavus Adolphus lacked was money, for Sweden was a poor country. When the French offered financial assistance, he therefore accepted but was careful never to let French wishes interfere with his policy. During his brief, glorious career in Germany, he was clearly his own master.
Many considerations led Gustavus Adolphus to enter the war. First, the strategic motivation: If the Habsburgs were allowed to consolidate their hold on the southern shores of the Baltic Sea, sooner or later they were sure to use the ports of this area as a staging area for an attack Sweden. By seizing the southern shores of the Baltic the threat of invasion was averted. "It is better,'' the Swedish estates declared when they learned of the situation, "that we tether our horses to the enemy's fence, than he to ours.''
Second, the economic motivation: Baltic commerce made up the larger portion of the royal income, and Gustavus had frequently voiced his desire to turn the Baltic into a Swedish lake. In order to make a reality of this dream, they would have to gain possession of northern Germany.
Third, there was true religious motivation: Gustavus Adolphus, a sincere Lutheran, was genuinely distressed to see the plight of fellow Lutherans in Germany. As an added incentive, the forces of the Emperor had sacked the city of Magdeburg in 1631. Magdeburg was the 'maidencity' of the Protestants. It was one of the first cities to be converted, and was therefore a powerful symbol of the Protestant cause.
The Swedish invasion completely altered the situation in the Empire. And after a great victory in the battle of Breitenfeld, Gustavus Adolphus was free to march where he pleased. Ferdinand had no choice: he had to humble himself and recall Wallenstein.
The two generals fought an indecisive battle at Nuremberg, and Gustavus Adolphus withdrew to the north. Once more they clashed at Lützen, and this time the Swedes were victorious. Unfortunately, Gustavus was killed in the engagement.
The death of Gustavus Adolphus gave the Catholics new hope, but the rivalry between Maximilian, duke of Bavaria, and Wallenstein weakened their cause. Wallenstein, who had never forgiven Maximilian and Ferdinand for his first dismissal, plotted with the Swedes and French.
Some think that be wanted to create a great middle European empire in which Catholic and Protestant could live in peace. Others see him as a Czech patriot who sought to revive the Bohemian state with himself as king. More probably he was motivated only by his selfish, restless ambition. Whatever Wallenstein's plans, Ferdinand knew that he could not be trusted. He was declared guilty of treason and was murdered, defenseless in his bedroom, by a disloyal contingent of his own troops.
Six months after the death of Wallenstein, Ferdinand received another bit of good news. His imperial forces defeated the Swedes at Nördlingen in 1634. The northern kingdom was no longer a serious threat, and the Peace of Prague (1635) formally ended the third phase of the conflict. One by one the German Protestant princes made peace in return for the certain modifications of the Edict of Restitution.
Ferdinand kept the gains he had made before 1627, and he now had the united support of the German princes. Their support was an important asset, because nine days before the terms of the peace were published, France had declared war on the Holy Roman Empire in order to check the power of Spain.
THE FRENCH PERIOD (1635-1648)
The French declaration of war on the Spanish Hapsburgs transformed the conflict from a religious contest to a dynastic struggle. The French, the Dutch and the Swedes allied themselves against the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, and in a remarkable turn of allegiances, Denmark. Christian IV had decided that he feared the Swedes more than the Catholics.
The progress of the war was slow and terrible. The French were able to effectively repel the Spanish advances into their territory, while simultaneously advancing to the east against the Holy Roman Empire. From the north, the Swedes were able to advance, augmented by the Dutch and those German Protestant princes who were still able to fight.
From 1638 onward, the imperial armies were forced to surrender their European strongholds one after another. For the next eight years, the Empire resisted. Finally, after central Bavaria was invaded, Maximilian I of Bavaria concluded, the Truce of Ulm, with Sweden and France in 1647.
Ferdinand III, who had succeeded his father in 1637, refused to capitulate, and as a result, fighting continued in Germany, Luxembourg, the Low Countries, Italy, and Spain throughout the remainder of 1647. Maximilian I broke the truce of Ulm, and reentered the war on the side of the empire, to little avail. By the end of 1648, the Swedes had laid siege to the city of Prague, the French to the city of Munich, and Ferdinand, in his capital of Vienna, was threatened by the same treatment. In such a situation, Ferdinand III could only agree to the peace conditions of the victors.
THE TREATY OF WESTPHALIA
In 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia was signed by most of the conflicting powers, France and Spain alone continuing the struggle. This conflict would continue for another eleven years, finally to be settled by the Treaty of Pyrenees in 1659.
RESULTS OF THE WAR AND THE TREATY OF WESTPHALIA
1. By effectively blocking the Habsburg efforts to strengthen their authority in the empire, France replaced Spain as the most powerful nation in Europe.
2. The individual states of the HRE were given authority to conduct their own political affairs. Henceforth they could enter into alliances and negotiations with one another and with foreign powers without the approval of the Emperor.
The conditions of the Peace of Augsburg (1555) were reinstated, and the rights guaranteed to the Lutherans under that treaty were now extended to Calvinists and other Protestants, as well as to the Lutherans. Though the prince could still determine the religious affiliation of his district, dissidents would be free to emigrate. The multiplicity of new Protestant sects was accepted.
These two conditions insured that the most important of the German states became virtually autonomous, and German unity was postponed for more than two centuries.
3. The independence of Switzerland and the seven northern provinces of the Netherlands was officially recognized.
4. France received most of Alsace. The French also received the cities of Verdun, Metz, and Toulon their northwestern frontier. The significance of this is that it established a defensive perimeter against any future German aggression.
Those who suffered most were the German people. Over 300,000 were killed in battle. Millions of non-combatants died of malnutrition and disease, and the remnants of undisciplined armies wandered about the countryside, taking what they wanted and destroying what they wished. It is estimated that the population of the Holy Roman Empire dropped by a third during those years; from about 21,000,000 to 13,500,000 between 1618 and 1648, an average of one percent decline per year. Even if the figures exaggerate, the Thirty Years War remains one of history's most costly in terms of lives and resources.
THE ERA OR RELIGIOUS WARS
