Ten Minute History - The Thirty Years' War (Short Documentary)

16:18 and bohemia here is in revolt at this point Bohemia formed an important part of the Holy Roman Empire and had since the Protestant Reformation moved steadily away from Catholicism much of this was thanks to their prior rulers such as Matthew so allowed the Protestants greater freedom of worship this was built upon the previous 1555 Peace of Augsburg which allowed for rulers of territories within the Holy Roman Empire to choose its religious denomination so long as that denomination was Catholicism or Lutheranism that is Mathias didn't have any children and so appointed an heir Ferdinand of Styria the Archduke of Austria who succeeded him as King of Bohemia in 1617 Ferdinand was a devout Catholic and so sent representatives to bohemia' to shut down the Protestant churches and demand the conversion of its nobles the Bohemians had a clever way of countering this they threw Ferdinand's representatives out of a third-story window an event known as the second defenestration of Prague because this was not the first time people have been thrown out of a window for religious reasons Ferdinand unsurprisingly was unhappy that his representatives who survived by the way were treated as such bohemia' was thus plunged into a civil war many of the Holy Roman Empire's Catholic states were dragged into the war as well Bohemia was aided by these states notably the Palatinate and Transylvania and were given financial aid by the Netherlands it's worth noting that there were other Protestant states within the Empire the most notable being Saxony who remained neutral because they didn't want any trouble Spain and its territories led also by the Habsburg join the war on the side of their German relatives and things weren't looking good for Bohemia so the leader of the Bohemian rebels was Heinrich Cerne who reached out to Frederick of the Palatinate who in 1619 was crowned as king of bohemia bohemia' was reaching out to other major protestant powers like England Sweden and Denmark Norway but they were very cautious and didn't approve of Frederick's actions with the King of Denmark Christian the fourth asking him who advised you to drive out kings and seize kingdoms in the same year Ferdinand was made Holy Roman Emperor and third even managed to march on Vienna but to no avail 1620 saw the Bohemian revolt crushed at the decisive battle of the white mountain with the Imperial forces being led by johann circus the count of Tilly as a result the Bohemian leadership fled in Transylvania made peace which left the Palatinate as the only major resisting state resistance continued there until 1622 when it was conquered and the majority of the Protestant forces were pushed out of the Empire the next year sporadic fighting continued but was crushed by 1625 our sending the first phase of the war could the Bohemian phase there was however now a power war running between Spain and the Netherlands who had resumed the eighty Years War it seemed that this would be the end of the conflict but King Christian who also held lands in the Empire was concerned the Protestants would be persecuted severely he decided to intervene in 1625 marching his army down south two-faced hilly in another Habsburg general outbreak from Valen Steen a Catholic bohemian who made lot of money by seizing Protestant lands there this began the second phase of the war the Danish phase Christians intervention went poorly and he was subject to continuous defeats at the hands of both Chilean volunteen and he was pushed back into Denmark Christian had expected his fellow Protestant kings in Sweden and England to back him but both had failed to do so demet was also backed financially by the French who as you'll note were Catholic meaning that this war was about more than religion the French simply wanted to weaken the Habsburg neighbors but the support had to stop when their own Protestant population the Hyuga nose revolted in 1629 Christian the fourth signed the treaty of Lloyd Beck which allowed him to keep his territories on the condition that he stay out of the affairs of the Empire the problem still remained that the Protestant domains of Europe were concerned about a powerful Catholic Empire neighboring them the mantle of defending Protestants fell to the Swedish King Gustav ii better known as Gustavus Adolphus who art the finishing a war with the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth decided to intervene much like Christian the fourth Gustavus also received financial help from the French unlike Christian the fourth however Gustavus intervention was wildly successful fortunately for Sweden fallen Steen had been dismissed by the distrustful and preferred inand in 1630 leaving Tilly is the best commander available in 1630 Swedish forces landed here in Pomerania which was itself Protestant and currently fighting Emperor this began the third stage of the war the swedish phase once there the swedish managed to threaten brandenburg-prussia into giving them help Gustavus also attempted to bring Saxony into the war but its leader John George the first wanted to remain neutral Tilly fearing a Saxon Swedish alliance invaded Saxony forcing John George to join Gustavus out of desperation oops in 1631 a combined swedish Saxon force met Tilly the most famous battle of the war the Battle of Brighton felled Tilly's much larger force was utterly crushed and both sides met again the next year at the Battle of rain which was another Swedish victory and also saw Tilly killed so the question here is why did Sweden win where Denmark lost the answer is complicated but Sweden had a slightly more efficient way of recruiting and arming soldiers the normal way was that a noble would be asked to fund his own soldiers which cost a lot in return for the spoils of war in a chance at everlasting glory army upkeep came at the cost of whichever region was hosting them and was often devastating for the local population their sweden's method of raising troops was slightly different for a start Sweden being Protestant men the Gustavus was the head of the Church of Sweden and he used local churches the census to determine population specifically the taxable and recruitable population however there were still incredible burdens on the areas of the Holy Roman Empire which hosted the Swedish army as for the military side Gustavus his army focused much more on a doctrine of masked fire and combined use of muskets cannon and cavalry to shock the enemy warfare was naturally moving in this direction and both the Spanish and Dutch had made use of this first but Gustavus embraced this new form of warfare to great ends so back to the war Gustavus had marched his army through massive waves of Imperial territory by 1632 but had to prevent the reinstated volunteen from outmaneuvering him the two met at the Battle of lutes in which was a Swedish victory but did seek a staff as Adolphus and his horse killed in 1634 volun steam was also assassinated on the orders of the Emperor and so both sides had lost some of their most proficient generals except for the Spanish in the Dutch but they were busy 1634 also saw the tide turn in favor of the Habsburgs at the Battle of nordlingen the swedish army was obliterated by the spanish who were commanded by Cardinal Infante Ferdinand who were now firmly involved in the wider war the next year saw the signing of the Peace of Prague which saw Saxony Brandenburg and the other Protestant states in the Holy Roman Empire make peace leaving only sweden against the emperor in spain the dutch were still fighting as well but they had their own objectives France led by king louis xiii and under the advice of cardinal richelieu believed that the Peace of Prague made the Habsburg stew powerful and so decided on direct confrontation the French declared war on Spain in 1635 in the Holy Roman Empire the next year which began the French phase of the war Richelieu had a clever strategy during the war which was to not only fight head-on but also to fund rebellions and foreign armies which would force Spain in the empire to fight a war on several fronts despite this things went poorly for the French at first with Infante Ferdinand pushing all the way to the edge of Paris via the Spanish Netherlands the next four years were incredibly intense fighting with major a minor victories on both sides it also saw and preferred now in the second eye in 1637 and he was succeeded by his son Ferdinand the third so with all this fighting and turmoil what was life like for the people of the Holy Roman Empire to put it mildly it was miserable the war brought horrendous level of starvation plunder disease poverty in general misery to the people there these people needed someone to blame and they had one specific group in mind witches persecutions of witches were particularly severe in the Catholic South but given the widespread destruction of the lands across the entire Empire nobody was really spared the persecutions largely ended when the swedish intervened because stopping a foreign army was you know a bigger priority the war was still waging fiercely in 1640 in Spain was struggling with Portugal and Catalonia the latter of which had declared itself a principality under the rule of louis xiii portugal was being helped financially by the french - and all of this meant that spain had to withdraw its troops from its possessions in the rest of europe sweden was still fighting in the holy roman empire and in 1642 when the Second Battle of Brighton failed which basically gave a control over all of the north in the same year Cardinal Richelieu died in louis xiii decided to follow suit the next year leaving france with the child king and under the Regency of Louie's wife Anne of Austria the next year so an important French victory require which ended the idea of Spanish military invincibility and showed that France was still stable and would probably continue its rise so by this point everyone was getting bit sick and tired of this war and so delegates began discussing the terms for peace with each other these peace talks would take many years to come to any sort of agreement and whilst they were ongoing Sweden found itself in a new war this time with Denmark the Swedish one and in the end they took all of this territory but it did serve to distract them somewhat from the war with the Empire of course the Swedish would return quickly pushing south and after meeting up with the French continuously defeated the Imperial forces driving them further south in 1646 attempts to make peace were stepped up by both sides because this war had been raging for literally twenty-eight years now and everyone was a bit tired the negotiations were held over several years in the cities of osnabrück and Munster in January 1648 the Netherlands and Spain's on the Peace of Munster on which Spain recognized Dutch independence thus ending the eighty years war the Hapsburgs negotiating position was weakened in later 1648 when the French won an immense victory at the Battle of long the Swedish also laid siege to Prague at this time but little came of it after this - more peace treaties were concluded the first was the Treaty of Munster which made peace between France and the Holy Roman Empire but not Spain the second was the Treaty of osnabrück which made peace between Sweden and the Holy Roman Empire collectively these are known as the Peace of Westphalia and they had some territorial changes notably with Sweden France and Brandenburg gaining these lands it also reinstated the Peace of Augsburg allowing religious toleration of Calvinism and is largely considered to be the beginning of the modern era of international diplomacy the reason for this is that individual states were now treated as sovereign with no difference in the rights of one governed by Duke a king or an emperor this shows just how much the war changed over the decades from one driven by a desire of Protestant states to protect their fellow believers - one driven by the geopolitical desires of France and Spain the legacy of the 30 Years War is complex it's or the rise of Sweden in France and the decline of the Holy Roman Empire is Europe central power this was mostly because it was now entirely decentralized but also because the population loss within the Empire was catastrophic and important something to remember when discussing the wars military glories I hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching and a special thanks to James Bissonnette for sponsoring the channel if you'd like to know more about the 30 Years War there are some book recommendations in the description below you

Channel: History Matters

Views: 1,171,990

Rating: 4.9497275 out of 5

Keywords: Ten, Minute, History, 10, animated, documentary, short, education, educational, Thirty, Years, War, 30, France, Holy Roman Empire, HRE, Sweden, Swedish Empire, Denmark, England, Spain, Habsburgs, Bohemia, Gustavus Adolphus, Ferdinand II, Richelieu, Louis XIII, Netherlands, Dutch Revolt, Witchcraze, Protestant, Catholic, 1618, 1648, 1555

Id: EBLVzdvp8qE

Length: 9min 59sec (599 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 30 2018

Reddit Comments

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