Thirty Years War

3 Pages 772 Words

The Thirty Years War that lasted from 1618 to 1648 was one of the most destructive wars that consisted of more than one European country. The war started mostly due to the rapid destruction of the Roman Empire from 1555 up until the beginning of the war. The most important cause of the war was that the religious sectarianism grew stronger after decaying. The Thirty Years War was an extremely destructing war between so many European countries.
There were four main parts of the war. It consisted of the Palatine-Bohemian phase, Danish phase, Swedish phase and French phase. The Palatine-Bohemian phase started because Protestants were not allowed to worship freely and many of there churches were destroyed. The Catholic Church experienced the same thing. The Protestants and the Catholics formed a rebellion and demanded that Ferdinand 2nd did something. When he didn’t they started fighting. The Danish phase came into play when German Protestant states sought assistance against the Catholic states. Christian the 5th helped the states. Under his leadership he took of Saxony and Ferdinand signed the Edict of Restitution. The Swedish phase was minor compared to the other three. It just consisted of Ferdinand getting mad and Tily getting beat and the signing The Peace of Prague which ended the third phase. It was really just a modified Edict of Restitution. The last phase of the war was the French phase. Ferdinand was forced to sign a peace after a hard stall against all the battles of the war.
The main battlefields for all the conflicts were the cities and towns of Germany. Most of the soldiers were mercenaries and because of this they could not collect pay and this kicked them off the side where they had to make there own supplies. The armies from both sides of the war plundered and stole from the cities they marched through. When they needed stuff they would just ransack houses and take anything from food to shelter. This causes a downfal...