Line #16 UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar


1	%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1480429716024063900
2	%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.
3	%%
4	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_30yrs.jpg]]
5	[[caption-width-right:350:''Death rides a coal-black horse...'']]
6
7	->''"First came the Greycoats to eat all my swine,\
8	Next came the Bluecoats to make my sons fight,\
9	Next came the Greencoats to make my wife whore,\
10	Next came the Browncoats to burn down my home.\
11	I have naught but my life, now come the Blackcoats to rob me of that."''
12	-->--'''Anonymous Poem from the Thirty Years War'''
13
14	Massive UsefulNotes/{{Europe}}an war raging from 1618 to 1648 (although the [[UsefulNotes/{{France}} French]] continued fighting the [[UsefulNotes/{{Spain}} Spanish]] for a bit longer), involving, directly or indirectly, just about every European power in some fashion. It is usually considered to be the longest recorded continuous war (UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar had a couple of interruptions, as did UsefulNotes/TheEightyYearsWar), and in its time was one of the bloodiest wars recorded in history. It was mainly (though not exclusively) fought within the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire. It was devastating to the Empire: Most estimates suggest one ''third'' of Germans died in the war. In fact, a survey of Germans in the 2010s rated the 30 Years War as worse than World War II.
15
16	Its start is usually fixed on the (third) [[InherentlyFunnyWords Defenestration of Prague]], an event in which a throng of rebellious Bohemian Protestants forced their way into Prague Castle and, after a symbolical trial, threw two Catholic Imperial governors and their secretary [[DestinationDefenestration from a third-storey window]]. They survived badly bruised, their fall having been cushioned by either angels led by St. Mary (Catholic propaganda), a heap of horse manure (Protestant propaganda), or neither of the two, because it wasn't a particularly high window (modern historians).
17
18	The causes of the war are complex, and considering the numerous participants arguably unique to each one of them. The basic conflict involved tensions between Protestants and Catholics inside the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire, which had been building up since UsefulNotes/TheProtestantReformation, tensions between the emperor and his princes (Protestant ''and'' Catholic), tensions between the Czechs and the [[UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} Germans]] within TheEmpire, the [[UsefulNotes/LEtatCestMoi old French]]-[[UsefulNotes/TheSoundOfMartialMusic Habsburg]] rivalry, [[UsefulNotes/{{Denmark}} Danish]]-[[UsefulNotes/{{Sweden}} Swedish]] rivalry, [[UsefulNotes/TheEightyYearsWar the Spanish conflict with the Dutch]], the Spanish conflict with the Portuguese (who succesfully revolted against Spanish rule with French encouragement/help), and Swedish designs on the Baltic.
19
20	These countries were a wonderfully mixed bag of big powers in their decline, rising powers ascending, and people just plain caught up in the melee, some of whom eventually did well, some of whom didn't. Although the Thirty Years' War hasn't accrued so much attention in pop culture as, say, the Napoleonic Wars, it might have concentrated an even bigger pool of political and military talent. The war congregated imperial generals like Albrecht von Wallenstein, Johann Tserclaes and Raimondo Montecuccoli; Spanish luminaries like UsefulNotes/AmbrogioSpinola and UsefulNotes/CardinalInfanteFerdinand; French powerhouses like the Viscount of Turenne and the Prince of Condé; Dutch leaders like Maurice and Frederick Henry of Nassau; newcomers like the Swedish reformer King Gustavus Adolphus; and many others, all playing an often chaotic - and ''deadly'' - XanatosSpeedChess.
21
22	All of these things flowed together to create a 30-year-long [[SophisticatedAsHell clusterfuck]] in which the sides were not always clearly marked, with certain factions frequently changing sides or essentially blackmailing their "allies" as the situation seemed to shift to their own advantage. The only major Western/Northern European areas this conflict didn't really touch were Britain and Ireland, whose island status allowed them to mostly sit this one out and intervene only when they felt like it--though they eventually became [[UsefulNotes/EnglishCivilWar too busy killing each other]] to intervene at all. The three decades of war are considered to be very important because of the military, social and economic development that it accelerated: Armies in this period became even larger than they had been during the Habsburg-Valois and Habsburg-Ottoman and Religious Wars of the 16th Century, and new tactics were tried out that would eventually become important.
23
24	The war itself is considered to have been exceptionally destructive, killing off as much as 1/3 of the population of the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire -- not through fighting, though, so much as famines caused by the giant standing armies' need to continually maraud and steal hundreds of tons of food daily from the surrounding landscape to sustain themselves. Worse, the indecisive, back-and-forth nature of the war meant that ''the same areas'' (given their economic and/or strategic importance) were raided again and again and again (whereas others remained quite untouched), as the page quote attests. The primary causes of death during the war were thus beriberi, measles, tuberculosis, smallpox, and the common cold.
25
26	Some historians argue that, even compared to the wars of the twentieth century, it remains the most destructive war in European history in terms of its proportionate death toll and the degree of economic damage and social mayhem relative to the state of society before it. The unprecedented level of destruction stemmed from the way the war was fought continuously, and entirely by very large armies operating without supply lines. Mercenaries were used very often because the new, more effective gunpowder weapons (particularly the flintlock musket) in combination with the perfection of the pike-and-shot system[[note]]Pikes and other forms of "pointy stick" warfare were not yet obsolete at this point in time. That only came with the discovery of a way to turn a musket into a pointy stick--the bayonet--which only became widespread in the last quarter of the 17th century, long after the end of this particular war. For details, see [[Analysis/FantasyGunControl the Analysis page]] for FantasyGunControl.[[/note]] had made the old knight-based model of warfare obsolete nearly two hundred years ago by this point, and yet nobody had figured out the modern model of professional armies yet.[[note]]Gunpowder weapons had existed in Europe since at least the 15th century; however, actual gunpowder weapons and tactics had changed dramatically. Technically, Creator/NiccoloMachiavelli ''had'' figured out the rough outlines of the model--he advocated for armies composed solely of citizens of the state in question, although he envisioned it as a militia of all able-bodied male citizens in the style of UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic rather than a professional force--but [[IgnoredExpert nobody listened to him]].[[/note]] Missing a payment would mean your armies switched over to your enemy. The soldiers themselves were conscripted. An army would come to town and say, "every man here joins us or we hang you". The ones who joined had to loot farms and towns in order to survive since armies march on their stomachs. Often an entire town had to pool their gold, and bribe the invading army to go away (of course, sometimes they'd just take the money and loot anyway).
27
28	It didn't matter whose side the army was on; to the common peasant, they were the enemy, as a farmer who found an army spending the winter on his lands would find he didn't have enough to feed his family. There were also large groups of civilians (mostly women and children) that were kidnapped from looted towns, and forced to live as servants and prostitutes for the army. Many children were born in the army and never knew anything else when the war ended decades later. Many mercenaries would just desert the army and strike it out on their own as "Freebooters" which more often than not was just a nicer way of saying bandits and highwaymen, thus furthering the plight of the common peasants just trying to live their lives.
29
30	Add to that the religious dimension of the conflict. A particularly fanatical lord would often decide he didn't like that his neighboring lord was Catholic, or Protestant, [[WeAreStrugglingTogether or the wrong kind of Protestant]], and order his mercenaries to go and slaughter his neighbor's peasants even if the majority of said peasants were the same religion as him, as this would destroy that lord's income. Sadly, that's just scratching the surface. Unsurprisingly, many of the greatest works of art depicting the horrors of war have their origin in this conflict, most famously ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Grandes_Miseres_de_la_guerre The Miseries and Misfortunes of War]]'' by Jacques Callot.
31
32	In a grim {{Foreshadowing}} of the modern military-industrial complex, the latter half of the war became infamous for largely degrading into a state where the various participants continued to fight because they could not afford to stop: it was simply cheaper to keep paying your armies by looting the enemy's lands than paying the severance package. This was eventually solved by having TheEmperor pay.
33
34	The war once and for all broke any pretense of the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire being a unified state, permanently knocked Spain off of the top spot of Europe's greatest power, cemented France as the dominant power in Europe (at least on land),[[note]]The English and the Dutch fought a series of wars around this time for dominance over the seas. The English ultimately won, and kept their dominance for an impressive 300 years, when UsefulNotes/WorldWarII transferred naval supremacy to the United States.[[/note]] and propelled Sweden to the status of short-lived great power. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking It also made boots fashionable.]] It concluded with the Peace of Westphalia, two treaties (in Münster and Osnabrück) that involved the Spanish accepting Dutch independence, a blanket pardon for any crimes committed in the war, and some territorial changes; it's sometimes called the "Peace of Exhaustion". The key point, though, was the acceptance that a ruler could choose the religion of his state (the so-called ''cuius regio, eius religio''--"whose realm, his religion" principle), but those who followed other Christian denominations (Calvinism was covered in this for the first time) could also do that with some restrictions. While religious conflict and persecution still occurred in Europe well into the 19th century, this pretty much wrapped up the major religious wars of Europe as it was no longer seen as practical to wage wars to enforce a specific sect of Christianity.
35
36	The war itself had ''extremely'' long-lasting effects, the most notable of which was the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_sovereignty Westphalian theory of sovereignty]], which is to say the idea that a state has territory, population, a government, and that foreigners do not (overtly) interfere in its affairs, leading directly to the modern concept of the nation-state.
37
38	Indeed, 'sovereignty' is the real meaning of ''cuius regio, eius religio'': while religious affairs were in themselves important, they also served as a stand-in for the more general displeasure of the German princes at the constant interference of the Emperor and of rulers across Europe at the constant interference of UsefulNotes/ThePope (it's no coincidence that the Pope tends to drop out of European history textbooks sometime in the 17th century, reappearing only to crown Napoleon, play the spoiler in Italian unification, and do a deal with Mussolini[[note]]And in some tellings, encourage the end of the Warsaw Pact, though that is strictly because the Pope at the time happened to be Polish[[/note]]). The Westphalian system continued unchallenged among Western powers until the 20th century, when a few theoreticians attempted to make modifications in response to the atrocities of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and the nasty business after the end of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar (particularly UsefulNotes/TheYugoslavWars). Nevertheless, the modern system of states is more or less Westphalian and several states (particularly [[RedChina China]] and to a lesser extent [[UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia Russia]]) still insist on it.
39
40	One of the things that make the war so maddeningly complicated is that participants tend to go off and fight separate battles whenever they get tired of the central conflict, such as the Danish-Swedish war of 1643–1645, and the back end of the war is mainly concurrent with the beginning of the UsefulNotes/EnglishCivilWar, which had similarly wide-ranging long-term effects (for entirely unrelated reasons). Since the mid-20th century, some historians have lumped the Thirty Years War and other major crises, such as the collapse of the Ming Dynasty and Russia's Time of Troubles, into a broader period of the global disaster known as the "General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century." While not all of these conflicts overlapped, they often shared broader macrohistorical causes, including a period of severe climate change and economic mismanagement.
41
42	Those wishing to explore this time period more thoroughly in a comprehensive and understandable manner might want to check out C. V. Wedgwood's ''The Thirty Year's War'', or Peter H. Wilson's ''The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy''.
43
44	----
45
46	!! Works set in the Thirty Year's War include:
47
48	[[foldercontrol]]
49
50	[[folder:Film]]
51	* ''The Jester's Tale'', a Czech movie from 1964 by director Creator/KarelZeman, is set in 1625 Moravia against the backdrop of the Thirty Years' War.
52	* ''Film/TheLastValley'' (1971) starring Creator/MichaelCaine, Creator/OmarSharif, a young Creator/BrianBlessed, and a score by Music/JohnBarry.
53	* ''Film/QueenChristina'', a 1933 Hollywood film starring Creator/GretaGarbo as Christina of Sweden, daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, features the late Thirty Years War as a backdrop.
54	* According to the opening narration, ''Literature/{{Krabat}}'' (2008) takes place at the time of the Thirty Years War, although the movie never gives much evidence of this. The novel it's based on was set during UsefulNotes/TheGreatNorthernWar.
55	[[/folder]]
56
57	[[folder:Literature]]
58	* ''[[Literature/{{Simplicissimus}} Der Abenteuerliche Simplicissimus]]'', a German {{satir\|e}}ical/{{picaresque}} novel (1668; four sequels) about a lad growing up in the middle of the war and conscripted into a military career; probably partially based on first-hand experiences of its author, Hans Jakob von Grimmelshausen. The first modern novel in the German language, it lampshades the endlessness and pointlessness of the war.
59	* The poetry of Andreas Gryphius (1616-64), a famous German poet of the Baroque period, often reflects the author's first-hand experience of the Thirty Years War. Gryphius' poems are still standard MediaNotes/SchoolStudyMedia in German schools, making him the oldest German author who is invariably covered in German class.
60	* The ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' series by Creator/EricFlint has a 20th century West Virginia coal mining town dropped into the middle of the conflict, in the middle of [[UsefulNotes/AllTheLittleGermanies the Germanies]].
61	** The whole series can be seen as a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the perpetrators of the war. Germany has been transformed from a giant free-for-all zone into Europe's dominant superpower, with the rebuilt Magdeburg as its capital and industrial center. [[spoiler:And after the brief civil war in 1636, the commoners of Germany are without question the dominant faction. Those peasants who got continually robbed, raped, and murdered by rampaging mercenary armies? Yeah, they now have the most advanced army in Europe.]]
62	* ''Välskärin kertomukset'' (The Surgeon's Tale) by Creator/ZachariasTopelius.
63	* ''The Green Brigade'' (1935) by James Lorimer tells the story of a young Scotsman who, on a mission to help the Stuart (former) Queen Elisabeth of Bohemia, becomes embroiled in the conflict.
64	* ''The War Hound and the World's Pain'' by Creator/MichaelMoorcock.
65	* German 1910 historical novel ''Der Wehrwolf'' (''The Warwolf'') by Hermann Löns, a revenge-fantasy about North-German peasants who, after having been plundered and brutalized repeatedly by occupying troops, become guerrillas who routinely ambush and massacre foraging soldiers. The book is notorious for being a favorite of the Nazis; it directly inspired the terrorist ''Werwolf'' guerrillas at the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. From the other wiki:
66	-->"The name was chosen after the title of Hermann Löns' novel, ''Der Wehrwolf'' (1910). Set in the Celle region, Lower Saxony, during the Thirty Years' War (1618-48), the novel concerns a peasant, Harm Wulf, who after his family is killed by marauding soldiers, organises his neighbours into a militia who pursue the soldiers mercilessly and execute any they capture, referring to themselves as ''Wehrwölfe'' ("Defense-wolves"). Löns said that the title was a dual reference to the fact that the peasants put up a fight (''sich '''wehr'''en'') and to the protagonist's surname of Wulf, but it also had obvious connotations with the word ''[[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Werwölfe]]'' in that Wulf's men came to enjoy killing. While not himself a Nazi (he died in 1914), Löns' work was popular with the German far right, and the Nazis celebrated his work. Indeed, Celle's local newspaper began serialising ''Der Wehrwolf'' in January 1945."
67	* ''Wallenstein'' (1971), a non-fiction biography of Albrecht von Waldstein by historian Golo Mann, son of novelist Thomas Mann.
68	* ''Wallenstein'' (1920), German historical novel by Alfred Döblin, focusing on Ferdinand II and Wallenstein, and drawing many [[RealitySubtext implicit parallels]] to UsefulNotes/WorldWarI.
69	[[/folder]]
70
71	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
72	* In an episode of ''Series/ThirtyRock'', Jack mentions the Defenestration of Prague when trying to explain to Liz who the Hapsburgs are.
73	[[/folder]]
74
75	[[folder:Music]]
76	* ''Rex Regi Rebellis'' by the Finnish band Music/{{Turisas}}.
77	* The first half of the {{Music/Sabaton}} album ''Carolus Rex'' covers this from Sweden's perspective, emphasizing the horrors of the war. "A Lifetime of War" in particular covers it in two different ways: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvdbDw5bXnQ the English version of the song]] spends the first verse discussing the causes of the war (royal ambitions disguised by religious zealotry) before moving into an entire song of "What the Hell, Europe?" [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo3cd1Rjsz4 The Swedish version]] focuses on the experiences of a common soldier fighting the war.
78	[[/folder]]
79
80	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
81	* [[http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3307/wallenstein ''Wallenstein'']] is set in the Thirty Years War.
82	* While it's primarily an JustForFun/XMeetsY crossover between [[Literature/TheThreeMusketeers Musketeers]] and [[OurMonstersAreDifferent various supernatural elements]], ''All For One: Regime Diabolique'' has the war as a major backdrop and it is entirely possible for characters to be caught up in it.
83	[[/folder]]
84
85	[[folder:Theatre & Opera]]
86	* As early as 1639--[[RippedFromTheHeadlines five years after the events it fictionalized]]--a play ''Albertus Wallenstein'' had been written by English poet Henry Glapthorne about the assassination of Wallenstein, and was performed at the ''Globe Theatre'' in London.
87	* ''Theatre/DerFreischuetz'' is set in this period; the villainous Caspar is a former soldier, and says he learned many knavish tricks from his fellow soldiers.
88	* ''Die Harmonie der Welt'', an opera by Paul Hindemith about the life of Johannes Kepler, whose otherworldly ambitions are contrasted with the worldly ambitions of Wallenstein.
89	* ''Theatre/MotherCourageAndHerChildren'' by Creator/BertoltBrecht
90	* The ''Theatre/{{Wallenstein}}'' trilogy of dramas by [[UsefulNotes/DichterAndDenker Friedrich Schiller]].
91	[[/folder]]
92
93	[[folder:Video Games]]
94	* ''VideoGame/{{Cossacks}}'': Parts of this war are covered in the French campaign of ''[[VideoGame/CossacksEuropeanWars European Wars]]''. A DLC pack for ''Back to War'' (the second expansion pack to ''European Wars'') has a campaign allowing the player to play as the French in the war. In addition, there are several multiplayer scenarios dramatising key battles in this conflict.
95	* ''VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis'' includes this era and has a bookmark to start in the Thirty Years' War. The fourth installment's Art of War DLC has the religious leagues mechanic that simulates the conditions that lead to the war and inevitably causes it to fire off at some point after 1550 in every playthrough.
96	* The standalone Expansion "With Fire and Sword" for ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade'' picks up right after the war just to the East of it, and its effects echo heavily.
97	* ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade: Warband'' mod ''[[https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/board,418.0.html Europe in Flames (1618 A.D.)]]'' bsasically uses the ''Mount & Blade'' open-world gameplay to depict the Thirty Years War, with historical factions and characters, a map of Central Europe, and a starting date set in 1618. The same modder created a similar mod named ''Europe in Flames: XVII Century Wars'', still set in the era but with more factions and a wider map (thus, not limited to the strict theater of the historical Thirty Years War).
98	[[/folder]]

Context UsefulNotes / ThirtyYearsWar