THIRTY YEARS' WAR was not properly one war, but rather an uninterrupted suc cession of wars (1618-48) in Germany, in which Austria, the most of the Catholic princes of Germany, and Spain, were engaged on one side throughout, but against dif ferent antagonists. This long-continued strife had its origin in the quarrels between the Catholics and Protestants of Germany, and the attempts of the former, who were the more powerful body, to deprive the latter of what liberty of worship they had obtained. The severe measures taken by the emperor, the head of the Catholic party, against the Protestant religion, led also to strictures on their civil rights; and it was to protect their political as well as their religious liberties that the Protestants formed a union, May 4, 1608, with Frederick IV., the elector palatine, at its head. The rival union of the Catholic powers, under the leadership of the duke of Bavaria, followed July 11, 1609. In Bohemia, the immense preponderance in numbers (two out of three) and influence of the Protestants had forced from their Austrian king an edict of toleration (July 11, 1609), which was at first faithfully observed; but during the reign of Matthias, sundry violations of it were made with impunity; and as the influence of Ferdinand of Styria (see FERDLNAND his successor, began to be felt in more flagrant partiality to the Catholics, the kingdom became a scene of wild excitement; three of the Catholic party were thrown from the window of the Bohemian council-chamber at Prague, and ulti mately Ferdinand was deposed, and Frederick V., the elector palatine, chosen in his stead (1619); and count Thurn, at the head of an insurgent army, repeatedly routed the imperial troops, and actually besieged the emperor in Vienna. The Catholic princes, though as apprehensive as their opponents of the encroaching policy of Austria, crowded to the emperor's aid; and while the Protestant union and James I. of Great Britain held aloof from Frederick, whose sole allies were Bohemians (under Thurn), Moravians, Hungarians, and a Piedmontcse contingent of 3,000 (under count Mansfeld), a well appointed army of 30,000,. under duke Maximilian, advanced to support the Austrians, and totally routed Frederick's motley array at Weissenberg (Nov. 8, 1620), near Prague, afterward reducing the upper, while an army of Spaniards tinder Spinola ravaged the lower palatinate, and the Saxons (ill alliance with the emperor), occupied Lusatia. The Bohemians were now subjected to the most frightful tyranny and persecution; a similar policy, though of a more moderate character, was adopted toward the people of the palatinate—the Protestant union standing aloof, and subsequently dissolving, Through sheer terror. But the indomitable pertinacity and excellent leadership of count
Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick, two famous partisan leaders, who ravaged the territories of the Catholic league, and the forced cession to Bethlem Gabor of large por tions of Hungary and Transylvania, did much to equalize the success of the antagonis tic parties.
Here the war might have ended; but the fearful tyranny of Ferdinand over all the Protestants in his dominions (Hungary excepted), drove them to despair, and the war advanced to its second phase. Christian IV. of Denmark, smarting under some injuries inflicted on him by the emperor, and aided by a-British subsidy, came to the aid of his /German co-religionists in 1624, and being joined by Mansfeld and Christian of Bruns wick, advanced into Lower Saxony, while the emperor, hampered by the political jealousy of the Catholic league, was unable to oppose him. But when, by the aid of Wallenstein (q.v.), a powerful and effective army had been obtained, and the leaguers under Tilly, in co-operation with it, had marched northward, the rout of the Danes by Tilly at Lutter (Aug. 17, 1626), and of Mansfeld by Wallenstein at Dessau (April 1, 11, and 25, 1626), again prostrated the Protestants' hopes in the dust; yet a gleam of com fort was obtained from the victorious raid of Mansfeld through Silesia, Moravia, and Hungary, though his scheme for an insurrection in Hungary failed, and his death soon after, at Zara, freed the emperor from a formidable and irreconcilable enemy. The con.: blued imperialists and leaguers meantime had overrun North Germany and continental Denmark, and ultimately compelled king Christian to conclude the humiliating peace o,' Lubeck (May 12, 1629). This second great success seems to have turned Ferdinand's head, for not content with a still more rigorous treatment of the Protestants, and the promulgation of the restitution edict, which seriously offended even the Catholics, lie stirred up Poland against Sweden, and insulted Gustavus Adolphus, both personally and in the persons of his ambassadors—insolent impertinences which he soon saw bitter reasons to regret. The Catholic league now forced him to reduce his army, and sup plant Walienstein by Tilly; while France was inciting Gustavus to the willing task of aiding the Protestants in Germany.