THIRTY YEARS' WAR. The name given to the great European struggle (1618-48) which marked the climax of the Reformation (q.v.), closing the period of distinctively religions poli tics and opening that. in which secular statecraft took the place of ecclesiastical. The Religious Peace of Augsburg (1555) afforded no permanent settlement of the questions that had been stirred up by the Protestant revolution. Its terms rec ognized only Lutherans and Catholics, and mean while the Calvinists had grown strong, and, un fortunately for the Protestant cause, the most violent enmity existed between them and the Lutherans. The relations of the Emperor and the German princes were ill-defined and such adjustment as had been reached was hardly tenable. France had already her natu ral interests from the affiliations of religion and aided the German Protestant princes in their insubordination toward their Imperial Catholic head. The Reformation, by overthrowing the idea of Christ's unity in the Church, broke down the theory of a Holy Roman Empire and put forward in its place the Germanic idea of autonomy for individual States. In the turmoil of sixteenth-eentnry Europe it was inevitable that the solvent for these and many collateral issues should be found in a general war. The outbreak came in an unexpected way. The liberal reign of Maximilian II. (1564 76) was favorable to the growth of Protestant ism in the Austrian dominions. His successor. Rudolph Ti. (1576-1612). brought in the reac tionary Jesuit influence and allowed full play to the forces of the Counter-Reformation. Open interference with the practice of the Protestant religion was permitted and numbers of Protestant churches were destroyed. In 1607 Maximilian L. the Catholic Duke of Bavaria, made himself master of the free Imperial city of Donanwiirth, whose inhabitants were mainly Protestants. A number of Protestant. princes and cities founded in 1608 the Evangelical Union for the defense of their interests and their faith, and this was met by the formation of the Catholic League under the leadership of Maximilian of Bavaria in 1609. In that year the Emperor was forced to publish his Majcsititsbrief, by which the Protestants of Bohemia were guaranteed the free exercise of t heir religion. At this time the political state of the Empire was further unsettled by the .thlich-Cleves war of succession. (See Jetico.) In 1612 the Emperor Rudolph 1I. died and was succeeded by his brother Matthias, to whom the Archduchy of Austria. Moravia, Ilungary, and Bohemia had previously been transferred as a result of Rudolph's reckless rule: in 1617 the Bohemian estates were called upon to crown, as their prospective King, Duke Ferdinand of Styria. the heir presumptive, in ac cordance with a custom which had become estab lished. Ferdinand had made himself prominent by the relentless manner in which he had rooted out Protestantism in his paternal Styrian dominions. His attitude encouraged the Catho lic Church in Bohemia in its aggressions, and soon a dispute regarding the interpretation of the Majestiitsbrief brought on an open conflict.
On May 23, 1618, a both• of Protestants, led by Count Thurn, entered the royal palace at Prague, and hurled two odious representatives of the Crown, Martinitz and Slavata, from its windows. This `defenestration,' the victims of which escaped with their lives, inaugurated a struggle which was to convulse Europe for thirty years.
The Bohemians rose in arms under Thurn, and the insurrection spread into the adjoining Haps burg dominions. A body of troopi of the Union, under Count Mansfeld, appeared on the scene, and Bethlen Gabor, Prince of Transylvania, pre pared to make war on Austria. Alattbias was wholly unprepared to meet the onslaught. Spain alone came to his aid, but the Spanish force was too weak to stay the advance of the enemy. The Emperor died in Mareh, 1619, and Ferdinand, who succeeded him as the bead of the }louse of Hapsburg, found himself beleaguered in Vienna by the victorious Thnrn. Through his indomitable firmness he succeeded in averting the fall of his capital, and made his way to Frankfort, where he was elected holy Roman Emperor as Ferdinand IT. (August, 1619). The Bohemians, having declared their throne vacant, placed their crown upon the head of the Elector Palatine Frederick V.. the son-in-law of James I. of England. Ferdinand. whose capital was in the meanwhile again threatened, this time by the Prince of Transylvania. was enabled to at tack Frederick by means of the forces of the Catholic League. whose leader, Maximilian of Bavaria. was offered a rich indemnity. John George. the Lutheran Elector of Saxony. eager for territorial acquisitions, entered the field against the Bohemians. while the Spaniards in vaded the Lower Palatinate. The Protestant rnion dared not move. and James I. kept aloof from Frederick. On November 8, 1620, a battle was fought at the White Hill, before the walls of Prague, in which the army of the League, under Tilly, was completely victorious: Fred erick fled from Bohemia. which was chastised in a fearful manner by the Emperor. and forced back into the fold of bhe Catholic Church. The dissolution of the Evangelical Union ensued. The cause of the Elector Palatine, however, whose hereditary dominions, the Upper and the Lower Palatinate, were assailed, found inde pendent and intrepid champions in Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick, lawless partisan lead ers. George Frederick, the Margrave of Baden Durlach, also took up arms for Frederick, and he and Mansfeld gained a victory over Tilly at Wiesloch on April 27, 1622. On Slay 6th, how ever, the former was vanquished by Tilly at Wimpfcn, and on June 20th a like disaster befell Christian of Brunswick at Iffichst. On August 6, 1623, Christian of Brunswick sustained a second defeat at the hands of Tilly at Stadt lohn. Frederick was stripped of his possessions. The Upper Palatinate and the electoral dignity were conferred on Maximilian of Bavaria.