The Thirty Years' War

The Thirty Years' War, story by story.

1. IPrague, 1609 to 1618
   

   Chapter I · Prague, 1609 to 1618

   The Defenestration of Prague

   You play Count Thurn

   The regents broke Bohemia's promise. What do you do with two of them by an open window?

   Prague, May 1618. Bohemia, a rich kingdom in the heart of Europe, is mostly Protestant, but its king is the Catholic Emperor.

   Your first call · Witnesses: most of Bohemia's Protestant lords

   Throw them out of the windowLock them up as hostages

   Sources

   • The War Begins: The Defenestration of Prague (May 1618), account from the Slavata circle printed in Documenta Bohemica Bellum Tricennale Illustrantia II (Prague, 1972), pp. 42 to 49, trans. Ellen Yutzy Glebe, German History in Documents and Images (the four regents in the window corner by the stove; the question whether they knew of the Emperor's letter; the oath of secrecy; Martinitz given Karlstein over Thurn; Slavata's plea to be charged before the Emperor or the courts; Martinitz: 'Let us commend ourselves to the Lord our God'; Slavata and Martinitz declared 'personal enemies and enemies of our land'; the burgrave and grand prior led out; Thurn takes Slavata; Martinitz thrown first crying 'Jesus, Mary', then Slavata, then the secretary Philip Fabricius; the Virgin Mary seen catching Martinitz in her cloak; the 1419 defenestration in the editor's abstract)
   • The Bohemian Religious Peace (July 1609): Rudolf II's Letter of Majesty, German History in Documents and Images (Matthias's invasion of 1608 forced Rudolf to accede almost totally; free practice of religion 'in any place'; the right to build new churches)
   • Anton Gindely, History of the Thirty Years' War, trans. A. Ten Brook (New York, 1884), vol. 1, ch. I pp. 32 to 66 (Ferdinand expels Protestant preachers in Styria; Thurn a foreigner who never mastered Czech, veteran of the Turkish wars, commander of the Estates' troops in 1609; the 1617 vote, only Thurn and Fels against; Thurn moved from Karlstein, about 8,000 thalers a year, to a judgeship worth 400; Klostergrab church torn down 11 to 13 December 1617; Braunau ordered to give up its church; ten regents; the March 1618 meeting and Thurn's speech; the letter of 21 March forbidding further meetings and threatening trials, believed in Prague to be the regents' work; Thurn's warning of a plot and the request to come armed; the 'demonstration'; the conference of 22 May, Kinsky's daggers rejected for the window; 'we shall not leave the place without a decisive answer, a yes or no'; Budowec's warning of 1609 that the two who refused to sign would be blamed; shots fired after them; Fabricius's flight to Vienna; thirty Directors; Thurn takes the army) ch. III pp. 98 to 128 (Matthias dies 20 March 1619; the Directors' order of 18 April 1619; Moravia joins; the Danube crossed with seized ferry boats; Ferdinand's audience with the Lower Austrian Protestants and the 400 cuirassiers; Vienna's garrison of nearly 5,000 with citizens and students; no artillery; recalled by the Directors; Thurzo's visit; camp broken on the night of 13 June; Buquoy's Spanish reinforcements; Sablat, 10 June) and ch. VII pp. 276 to 278 (twenty-seven condemned to death; executions in the Old Town on 21 June 1621: twenty-four beheaded, three hanged)
   • S. R. Gardiner, The Thirty Years' War, 1618 to 1648 (London, 1887), ch. I to II (Matthias 'old and infirm'; the reply believed, 'though incorrectly', to be the work of Slawata and Martinitz; Martinitz thrown first crying 'Jesus, Mary', then Slawata, then the secretary Fabricius, all three crawling away; the leaders on the scaffold; ch. V: Thurn fighting for Christian of Denmark in 1626)
   • Anton Gindely, History of the Thirty Years' War, vol. 2, ch. III p. 130 (Count Thurn with the Saxon general Arnim at the surrender of Prague, November 1631)
   • Windows onto History: The Defenestrations of Prague (1419 to 1997), The Public Domain Review (Protestant pamphleteers said a pile of refuse and dung below the window broke their fall; the 1419 defenestration at the New Town Hall)
   • Karlstejn Castle, official site, 'About the castle' (the Bohemian crown jewels kept in the Chapel of the Holy Cross from 1436 until 1619)
   • Deutsche Biographie, index entry for Philipp Fabricius (c. 1580 to 1631), name form 'Fabricius von Rosenfeld und Hohenfall'
2. IIHeidelberg and Prague, 1619 to 1620
   

   Chapter II · Heidelberg and Prague, 1619 to 1620

   The Winter King

   You play Frederick V of the Palatinate

   A kingdom in revolt offers you its crown. Do you take a crown someone else already wears?

   Heidelberg, 1619. A young German prince with a famous father-in-law and a castle above the river is being offered a crown.

   Your first call · Letters from King James: none

   Accept the crown nowWait for King James to agree

   Sources

   • Anton Gindely, History of the Thirty Years' War, trans. A. Ten Brook (New York, 1884), vol. 1, ch. III pp. 136 to 162 (the imperial election at Frankfurt on 28 August 1619: the Palatine envoy Solms first names Maximilian of Bavaria, then joins the majority, Ferdinand votes for himself, unanimous; Ferdinand deposed in Prague 19 August; Saxony's drunken, well-run elector does not aspire to the crown; election of 26 August, only seven votes for Saxony, Ruppa's speech on Frederick's alliances with the Union, England and Savoy; cannon announce the election on 27 August; Frederick asks for delay until James concurs, Prague refuses; the French Secretary of State warns him; the Union at Rothenburg will defend only his hereditary lands; Anhalt: receding would load him with perpetual shame; acceptance on 25 September without England; James's anger, refusal of all aid, his Spanish marriage plan; the States-General threaten to stop their payments; entry into Prague 31 October, coronation 4 November) and ch. IV p. 208 (the cathedral cleared of all its pictures, to the annoyance of Prague)
   • Gindely, History of the Thirty Years' War, vol. 1, ch. VI pp. 246 to 254 (White Mountain, 8 November 1620: Frederick leaves the camp the day before to rest in the palace; Anhalt asks him to come; he entertains the two English ambassadors; the meal just over, he rides out and meets his fleeing army; victory in scarcely an hour; flight on the morning of 9 November with Elizabeth and their son)
   • S. R. Gardiner, The Thirty Years' War, 1618 to 1648 (London, 1887), ch. II to III (the marriage of 1613; Frederick's 'comfortable belief that his election was the act of God'; his mother's warning and 'He is carrying the Palatinate into Bohemia'; 'He will only be a winter-king', whispered by the Jesuits; pictures torn down and the great crucifix thrown aside, offending Lutheran subjects; dinner with two English ambassadors while the battle was fought; flight to the Hague; the treaty of Ulm, by which the Union promised neutrality; John George besieging Bautzen in Ferdinand's name; the ban of the Empire, January 1621; the electorate transferred to Maximilian, 1623; Frederick dies of fever at Bacharach in 1632)
   • Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 'Scultetus, Abraham' (court preacher to Frederick V; his sermon against images of 12/22 December 1619 before the clearing of the castle church 'auss Koeniglicher Mayestaet gnaedigstem befelch', on the King's own order; images and old altars removed; bitterness among the Lutheran Czechs)
   • The War Begins: The Defenestration of Prague, editor's abstract, German History in Documents and Images (Frederick V's life dates, 1596 to 1632)
   • Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911), 'Frederick V.', Wikisource (born at Amberg 26 August 1596; married Elizabeth, daughter of James I, in February 1613; died at Mainz 29 November 1632)
3. IIIBohemia and Vienna, 1618 to 1625
   

   Chapter III · Bohemia and Vienna, 1618 to 1625

   Wallenstein's Army

   You play Albrecht von Wallenstein

   The Emperor needs an army and cannot pay for one. Who pays for a war nobody can afford?

   Vienna, 1625. The Emperor Ferdinand has crushed Bohemia's revolt, and now a new Protestant enemy is gathering an army in the north.

   Your first call · The Emperor's war chest: empty

   An army that pays for itselfAn army the Emperor pays for

   Sources

   • Anton Gindely, History of the Thirty Years' War, trans. A. Ten Brook (New York, 1884), vol. 1, ch. VIII pp. 379 to 391 (born 1583; Jesuit schooling at Olmutz; the rich elderly widow who left him her estates; loyalty to the Habsburgs in 1619; buying confiscated lands after White Mountain, paid partly in the debased coin of 1622 and 1623 worth a tenth of its face value, and his part in the De Witte coinage consortium; Count Palatine 1622, prince 1623, principality of Friedland 1624, its own justice and taxation, armourers and clothmakers from the Netherlands; command of an army as a profitable business; the offer of about February 1625; accepted in May for 15,000 foot and 6,000 horse, general in June and Duke of Friedland; Christian IV at Hameln; 50,000 men by spring 1626)
   • Anton Gindely, History of the Thirty Years' War, vol. 2, ch. I pp. 15 to 18 (the dismissal: envoys sent to Memmingen with instructions to ask him to yield calmly; 'he had already read his destiny in the stars'; 'The Elector of Bavaria domineers over the Emperor'; 'I will, however, yield obedience'; envoys sent away with royal presents; his astrologer Seni)
   • S. R. Gardiner, The Thirty Years' War, 1618 to 1648 (London, 1887), ch. IV to V (faith in astrology; the wealthy marriage; seizing the Moravian estates' cash box and riding to Vienna, Ferdinand sending it back, 'no gentleman'; richest landowner in Bohemia; the offer to raise an army at his own cost, paid by contributions from the authorities where it was quartered rather than plunder; Mansfeld's armies; the original request for 20,000, the 50,000 story rejected; Christian of Denmark fled to his islands; the dukes of Mecklenburg declared forfeit in February 1628 and their duchies pledged to Wallenstein for military expenses, to the electors' disapproval; the siege of Stralsund, raised on 3 August 1628; Regensburg 1630, Pomeranian subjects feeding on grass, the electors' demand, Gustavus's landing; dismissal accepted 'without a murmur')
   • Leopold von Ranke, Geschichte Wallensteins, ch. 3 (Projekt Gutenberg): Kepler's horoscope of 1608, 'ein unruhiges Gemueth', 'ein Duersten nach Ehre und Macht', 'viele und grosse Feinde werde er sich zuziehen'
   • Klaudia Einhorn and Guenther Wuchterl, 'Kepler's Wallenstein-Horoscopes', Acta Universitatis Carolinae, Mathematica et Physica 46 (2005), pp. 101 to 114 (Wallenstein born 24 September 1583, Gregorian; he commissioned the 1608 horoscope incognito through a middleman; Kepler rectified it in 1625 at Wallenstein's demand)
   • S. R. Gardiner, The Thirty Years' War, ch. V to IX (Lutheran parents, orphaned at twelve, the Jesuits at Olmutz; Mansfeld, 'who could not pay his soldiers, must of necessity plunder'; the bridge of Dessau, 25 April 1626; Christian IV flies to Funen, October 1627; the dukes of Mecklenburg 'had steadily supported the King of Denmark', declared forfeit February 1628; Stralsund refuses a garrison February 1628, siege raised 3 August; Wallenstein at Eger 24 February 1634, killed 25 February)
4. IVMagdeburg, 1630 to 1631
   

   Chapter IV · Magdeburg, 1630 to 1631

   Magdeburg

   You play Dietrich von Falkenberg

   Tilly is at the walls and the Swedes are far away. How long can a city wait for help?

   Magdeburg, spring 1631. One of the richest Protestant cities in Germany has bet everything on a foreign king, and the Emperor's army has come to collect.

   Your first call · Tilly's army: about 30,000

   Pull back, burn the bridge and suburbsHold the forts outside the walls

   Sources

   • Anton Gindely, History of the Thirty Years' War, trans. A. Ten Brook (New York, 1884), vol. 2, ch. II pp. 56 to 67 (Stalmann's 'golden mountains' and the threat of the crowd at the council-house door, the alliance of August 1630; Falkenberg, marshal of the King's court, sent to enlist troops; burghers made to quarter soldiers; Pappenheim's blockade and his offer of 400,000 thalers and an estate, rejected with disdain; Tilly arrives 5 April 1631, about 30,000 men; the outworks placed too far out to be held without the whole garrison, lost with guns, ammunition and good men; Gustavus's letter from Landsberg of 27 April promising to come after a couple of months; the attack on the Toll Redoubt from 28 April, evacuated on the night of the last of April, the bridge destroyed, the suburbs burned; Tilly's summons rejected by Falkenberg's zeal, the citizens offering to negotiate to gain time; the syndic's plea on 19 May; Falkenberg's 'two days', his night on the walls, his speech at the council-house interrupted by the storm; Tilly's delay until full daylight, half the sentries resting; Pappenheim breaks in, Falkenberg killed; the city burned except the cathedral and about fifty houses)
   • A Local Apocalypse: The Sack of Magdeburg (1631), Otto von Guericke's chronicle, trans. Julie K. Tanaka, German History in Documents and Images (editor's abstract: Magdeburg's 30,000 inhabitants, Tilly born 1559, Brandenburg's alliance an immediate consequence; Guericke: Falkenberg shot; murder, burning, plundering, torture; the wind spreading the fire, the city in ashes by ten that night; about 20,000 dead; the bodies taken by wagon to the Elbe; 'Magdeburg quarter' meaning no mercy; Brandenburg's alliance with Gustavus as an immediate consequence)
   • S. R. Gardiner, The Thirty Years' War, 1618 to 1648 (London, 1887), ch. V (Gustavus 'durst not bring his army' to Magdeburg without the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg; the Edict of Restitution, 1629, restoring the archbishopric of Magdeburg to the Catholic clergy; Gustavus unable to march to Magdeburg without the electors of Saxony and Brandenburg; the sack of a stormed town claimed as a right by soldiers; the 'virgin fortress which had resisted Charles V. and Wallenstein')
5. VGermany, 1631 to 1632
   

   Chapter V · Germany, 1631 to 1632

   Lutzen

   You play Gustavus Adolphus

   Wallenstein has split his army for the winter. Do you strike now, in the fog?

   Saxony, November 1632. The king of Sweden has fought his way across Germany, and only one general has ever stopped him.

   Your first call · Wallenstein's army: split in two

   March and attack Wallenstein nowWait for the Saxon army

   Sources

   • S. R. Gardiner, The Thirty Years' War, 1618 to 1648 (London, 1887), ch. VI to VII (the corporal stealing cows, 'it is better that I should punish you'; Wallenstein entrenched near Nuremberg, hunger and pestilence, the failed storm of 3 September 1632; Wallenstein marches into Saxony plundering to detach the Elector; Naumburg, refugees kissing the hem of his garments and his fear of God's punishment; Wallenstein expects winter quarters; Pappenheim allowed to raid, ordered to seize Halle on the way; fog on 16 November, the hymns, 'Fear not, little flock'; armour thrust aside because of a wound; the mist clears at eleven, 'Forwards'; the centre driven back, the king rides to the rescue faster than his horsemen, shot in the arm, the back and the head; Pappenheim mortally wounded; Bernhard of Weimar takes command; Wallenstein retreats)
   • Anton Gindely, History of the Thirty Years' War, trans. A. Ten Brook (New York, 1884), vol. 2, ch. IV pp. 142 to 148 (Wallenstein takes Leipzig; Pappenheim detached to Halle with eight regiments of horse and five of foot; Gustavus advances by Naumburg; Pappenheim recalled in the night, leaving at 2 a.m. on the 16th; the King wished to attack before dawn but was hindered by fog; the watchword 'God with us'; Lutzen set on fire; Pappenheim mortally wounded; the King shot in the arm, then mortally; Bernhard of Weimar and Kniphausen fight on; the imperialists withdraw)
   • Erik Gustaf Geijer, The History of the Swedes, trans. J. H. Turner (London, 1845), pp. 277 to 285 (Project Runeberg scans 0303 to 0311), quoting the Swedish Intelligencer, Chemnitz, Khevenhueller and Duke Bernhard's report: Naumburg, 'I fear that God will punish me; these people honour me like a god'; the king's whole force about 18,500; the Saxon main body detained in Silesia, a corps at Torgau; 5 November Old Style (15 November New Style), news of Pappenheim's departure halfway to Pegau about ten in the morning, Wallenstein's troops lying unprepared in the villages round Lutzen; Wallenstein writes to Pappenheim to return; the Rippach pass, night falls; the ditches and the windmills; fog until towards noon; 'Since his wound at Dirschau, he had ever found it painful to wear armour'; the king killed among the cuirassiers; Pappenheim on the field about two in the afternoon, after the king's fall; the body brought to Meuchen in the night)
   • Anton Gindely, History of the Thirty Years' War, vol. 2, ch. II and IV (Gustavus born 1594; 'the Northern Lion, as Gustavus Adolphus was called'; Wallenstein withdraws from Lutzen to winter quarters in Bohemia)
   • Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911), 'Gustavus II. Adolphus', Wikisource (born at Stockholm castle 9 December 1594; Christina 'then in her fourth year' when he sailed in 1630)
6. VIStockholm and Westphalia, 1632 to 1647
   

   Chapter VI · Stockholm and Westphalia, 1632 to 1647

   The Peace of Westphalia

   You play Queen Christina of Sweden

   Your father's chancellor wants more from the war. Who gets to end it, the queen or the man who ran it?

   Stockholm, 1647. The war in Germany started before Sweden's queen was born, and at twenty she wants it over.

   Your first call · The war: in its 29th year

   Order them to finish the peaceLet the chancellor's son hold out

   Sources

   • Erik Gustaf Geijer, The History of the Swedes, trans. J. H. Turner (London, 1845), pp. 323 to 345 (Project Runeberg scans 0349 to 0371) (Oxenstierna in council, 1637: the principal aim of the German war was not the defence of religion but that Sweden and its partners in religion might sit in security; Konigsmark takes the Little Side of Prague with immense booty, the town itself untaken; signing at Osnabruck and Munster; Sweden's lands; the armies' plenipotentiaries and their demands lowered to 5,000,000 rix-dollars; John Oxenstierna to Wrangel, 13 October 1648, 'we cannot longer tarry in it without the greatest blame from the queen's majesty'; De la Gardie's influence and the charge that the Oxenstiernas delayed the peace; Christina's letter of 10 April 1647, 'dally no longer... answer it before God, the estates of the realm, and me', meant for John Oxenstierna; to Salvius, 'R. C. shall not have power alone to move the world with a finger', the promise of senatorial rank; the chancellor's withdrawal to his estates; Gustavus's order that she have a masculine education; at eighteen she read Thucydides and Polybius in Greek and wrote Latin, German and French; presiding over the council from May 1642; of age on her eighteenth birthday, December 1644; Charles Gustavus generalissimo, 1648; her promise to marry no one else; the council's advice to marry; her proposal of February 1649 and the council's resistance; Charles Gustavus declared successor, 10 March 1649; the abdication of 6 June 1654 in Peter Brahe's words, regalia laid aside one after the other; conversion; death at Rome, 19 April 1689)
   • S. R. Gardiner, The Thirty Years' War, 1618 to 1648 (London, 1887), ch. VIII to X (Christina succeeds peaceably, Oxenstierna exercises authority; Nordlingen, 6 September 1634, 10,000 dead; open intervention of France, May 1635; the congress split between Osnabruck and Munster to avoid quarrels over precedence; the Emperor's envoy at Munster in July 1643, the Swedes and French in 1644 and 1645, the first formal proposition in June 1645; ch. XI: in a district of Thuringia 1,773 families before the war, 316 in 1649)
   • Treaty of Westphalia (Treaty of Munster), 24 October 1648, Avalon Project, Yale Law School (Article I, 'a Christian and Universal Peace'; Article II, 'a perpetual Oblivion, Amnesty, or Pardon of all that has been committed since the beginning of these Troubles'; Article XLIX, the settlement made with Sweden confirmed 'also with those call'd the Reformed')
   • Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), 'Pope Innocent X', Wikisource ('Zelo domus Dei', 26 November 1648, declaring null and void the articles of the Peace of Westphalia detrimental to the Catholic religion)