Thirty Years' War - Conquest - Extra History - #1

prague kingdom of bohemia 16 21 the axe falls then falls again nobles die knights are slain some have their hands chopped off others are quartered and put on spikes 27 liters of the bohemian revolt the protestant uprising against the holy roman emperor ferdinand ii die one after the other ferdinand it is said plans to dominate and recatlicize bohemia he's ordered all protestants to convert or leave back on the street a common woman watches the executions unfold axes and swords falling again and again then she goes home and trying to make sense of what she's seen opens her bible to the book of revelation and i saw when the lamb opened one of the seals and i heard as it were the noise of thunder one of the four beasts saying come and see and i saw and behold a white horse and he that sat on him had a bow and a crown was given on to him and he went forth conquering and to conquer she closes her book this war she knew had only just begun thanks so much to hellofresh for bringing this episode to the table the 30 years war was one of the most destructive periods in all of european history three decades of bloodletting massacre and death that would not be surpassed in body count until the trenches of world war one and that's an incredible concept considering that the armies that went to war between 1618 and 1648 had none of the mechanized instruments of slaughter available in the 20th century this was a war of pike and shot where men went to battle hefting bladed weapons or muskets so heavy that they required a forked stand to rest them on yet even with just these crude implements up to 8 million people lost their lives the death toll however did not fall equally in all places kicked off by a political religious dispute in the holy roman empire the vast majority of the fighting took part in central europe so the population there bore the heaviest chair of the violence in some areas over half the population died and the empire lost about 20 percent of its people civilian casualties outnumbered military deaths seven to one and the holy roman empire would take a century to recover its population but describing in detail why this happened is difficult in fact we could spend an entire series just explaining why this war started the early military campaigns or how the treaty of westphalia ended it instead we've decided to take a look at the 30 years war as a massive humanitarian crisis and explore why the body count reached such incredible heights we'll look at factors like military violence and battles but also starvation poor harvests weather conditions and outbreaks of epidemic disease and as a frame for all of this we'll be using a device that many people in the worst affected lands turned to apocalyptism the four horsemen from the king james bible unleashed to scour a quarter of the earth are an ideal way to divide the period's many dangers conquest war famine and death and today we'll be looking at the first conquest when martin luther nailed his 95 theses to a church door in 1517 he not only sparked a religious reformation he plunged europe into what would become decades of religious war political units across the continent from kingdoms like england and bohemia down to levels of individual towns broke out into struggles over both church doctrine and political power and nowhere is this more true than the lands of the holy roman empire which quickly became a patchwork of majority catholic and majority lutheran provinces towns and cities but war is a destructive and expensive endeavor and by 1555 pretty much everyone was sick of it so that year holy roman emperor charles v part of the habsburg family that had a lock on the position of emperor signed a treaty with a league of lutheran princes in augsburg germany the piece of augsburg had a single idea at its heart expressed by the phrase whose realm his religion meaning essentially the prince of a realm whatever its size could decide whether to be catholic or lutheran and enforce that religious conformity honest territory those that did not wish to convert would then move to an area whose prince practiced their chosen faith and for a while the piece of augsburg worked pretty well the key words of course being for a while see the holy roman empire was a patchwork anyway comprised of not big provinces but estates some only a few square miles and not even continuous where the head authority was a prince though in reality these princes could be lords counts bishops knights abbotts or even a representative of a free city each of these had a vote at the imperial diet and was semi-autonomous then the emperors were elected by seven elector princes and as a result had very little direct control over lands in the empire unless their family personally governed them so whose realm his religion was a fitting solution for this decentralized empire and on a day-to-day basis german lutherans and catholics became pretty used to each other in fact evidence indicates up to 20 of marriages crossed that theological division things were stable not without tension or danger but people were able to navigate the chasm in their daily lives but the piece of augsburg did leave out a protestant group that even the lutherans considered heretics calvinists who among other theological differences with lutherans argued that jesus was only spiritually present in the bread and wine served during communion because calvinists were not included in the peace of augsburg they had no religious protections even went under a lutheran ruler meaning their safety hinged on whoever was in charge and how lenient they were which is how things kicked off in bohemia in 1618. for nearly a decade the holy roman emperors had expanded protestant rights in bohemia this included a pragmatic decree called the letter of majesty granting religious freedom to the bohemian estates and letting bohemians develop what amounted to a state church but in 1617 holy roman emperor mathias was sickly and childless wanting to solve his succession issue before he passed on so he got the bohemian estates which voted on their kings to elect his cousin ferdinand ii as the next king of bohemia after he died which was a problem since it was well known that ferdinand was a hardline catholic who wanted to eradicate protestantism within the empire and once ferdinand had gotten enough lutheran princes on his side to win the calvinists were terrified after all emperor matheus was sick and when he died ferdinand would not only become the king of bohemia he would also almost certainly be elected as holy roman emperor he'd lead the whole empire and also govern bohemia directly and that's when it all went out the window literally because when ferdinand sent a pair of hardline catholic governors to administer bohemia in his absence a group of bohemian protestants met them at prague castle after the pair read aloud a threatening letter from ferdinand the assembled protestant nobles responded by throwing the pair out the window now what happened next depends on who you believe catholic propagandists say that angels swept down to catch the governors while protestants said the men survived because they fell in a giant pile of tongue and then we have historians pointing out that they landed on a gradual slope and broke a lot of bones with this second defenestration of prague that being a fancy word for throwing someone out a window and yeah this was the second time it happened the 30 years war began the revolt spread across bohemia which was already primed for religious war and it might have stayed a local conflict except that mathias died and frederick did succeed him as holy roman emperor causing panic amongst other protestants in the empire then sides formed austrian protestants joined the rising as did some in germany bohemia attempted to join the protestant union a group of protestant estates in the empire that formed as a sort of mutual defense pact and invited the calvinist elector prince frederick v to be king of bohemia ferdinand by turn called in military aid from his cousin philip ii the king of spain forming the catholic league this catholic league marched on austria one of their armies headed by the count of tilly a brilliant but ruthless commander then on november 8th 1620 27 000 catholic troops stood outside prague the only thing in their way being 15 000 bohemians on a low rise called white mountain the bohemians crumpled a flank attack sending their first units into retreat many rebels seeing their fellows running joined the route without firing a shot then the imperial cavalry surrounded and massacred them four thousand dead in an hour ferdinand had entered prague as a conqueror and the habsburgs would personally govern bohemia for the next 300 years a few months later the axes raised and fell on the rebel leaders frederick v went into exile and the man who welcomed him to prague had his tongue nailed to the city gate but ferdidand had pushed too far and this would not stay a small regional conflict for the second horseman was on his way to take peace from the earth war oh boy zoe there is no way we are tackling another horseman of the apocalypse on an empty stomach oh you know what we need haha you read my mind furry friendo it's dinner time and there's no better way to get a home-cooked meal fast than from hellofresh i love that they wanted to sponsor this episode because i've been using them to keep my belly happy and save me time since before i even joined the ec crew seriously they're one of the only reasons i'm able to eat as well as i do while still balancing so many episodes in production and there's a lot no grocery stores no stressful meal planning just everything i need to prepare wholesome tasty meals delivered right to my door then i'm eating in a half hour or less speaking of eating this week i made balsamic tomato and herb chicken with zoe's help of course and it was awesome then jeff told me he whipped up some pub style shepherd's pie for his family which looks so good i already put it on my list for next time wait a minute zoey what are you doing come on cat you already had dinner and deliciousness aside another thing i really love about hellofresh is their commitment to sustainability ingredients are pre-portioned so we waste less food and i was excited to learn that the carbon footprint of their service is actually 25 smaller than that of meals made from store-bought groceries that kind of blew my mind so i'm excited that hellofresh is offering all you fine folks quite the delectable deal go to hellofresh.com and use the code extra credits 12 to get 12 free meals including free shipping and when you do you'll be helping to support your wallet the environment and our channel all at the same time again that's 12 free meals at hellofresh.com using the code extra credits 12. your time and taste buds will thank you [Music] that's right zoe ahmed ziad turk alicia bramble casey 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Channel: Extra History

Views: 750,139

Keywords: animated, extra history, history lesson, learn history, world history, history channel, Thirty Years War part 1, military history, documentry, Literary Analysis, military history lectures, history documentary, history explained, educational videos, civilization, history, thirty years war, war, france, holy roman empire, thirty years' war

Id: GaPU1-vMQOI

Length: 11min 8sec (668 seconds)

Published: Sat May 29 2021