Military operations during the Thirty Years’ War led to major destruction in many parts of Germany, notably in Bavaria, leading to a realignment of political and economic power in Germany and further divisions based on religion.
Inhabitants of frontier areas have long been at higher risk from military action than those living in interior provinces. The inhabitants of the province of Bavaria thought they were among the latter group in the seventeenth century, but during the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648)
The Protestant Reformation was the great popular upheaval of the sixteenth century. Most supporters of Protestantism in Germany came from the central and northern parts of the region, but Protestantism, especially its more radical version, Calvinism, had attracted some followers in southern Germany as well. Calvinism was supported even though the Peace of Augsburg (1555) had given religious authority to the predominant Reformed faith, Lutheranism, in those areas where the ruler was Lutheran. The lack of a provision for Calvinism, together with the revival of the Catholic Church through the Counter-Reformation
All of the region’s Protestant rulers—whether Calvinist or Lutheran—fought to defend the Peace of Augsburg. The Catholics had two armies, the imperial army and that of the Catholic League, led by Duke Maximilian, and the Protestants had armies commanded by various princes, including the king of Sweden, Gustavus II Adolphus
The Catholics, for the most part, prevailed in the first ten years of the war (1618-1628). This trend prevented the Bohemians from choosing as their ruler the Calvinist Frederick William,
Beginning in 1630, the Protestants were the ones who most often prevailed. Gustavus won major victories for them before being killed in battle at Lützen
Swedish king and Protestant commander Gustavus II Adolphus was killed by Catholic forces in the fall of 1632 near Nuremberg, Bavaria, during the Thirty Years’ War.
The nature of the fighting and its consequences led to substantial destruction. Because both sides in the conflict ran out of money, it was common practice to rely on the occupied lands’ inhabitants to support the troops. The troops were generally quartered in the countryside, and the locals were forced to be supportive by providing the troops a place to rest and by giving them food. This system of “contributions” affected especially those who raised the food: the peasantry. Towns “contributed” to the war effort to prevent military depredation (plunder), though Nuremberg, for example, which had a healthy municipal treasury before the war, wound up with heavy indebtedness after the war.
Military strategy often called for troops to deliberately ravage the areas through which they marched. This was particularly the case in Bavaria, which was invaded by Protestant forces under Gustavus in 1632. In April, 1632, at the Battle of the Lech
Protestantism, a popular religion in the German states, including Bavaria, was gaining even more adherents, which angered the already concerned Catholic Church. A contemporary depiction shows Protestant preaching in the streets around the time of the Thirty Years’ War.
This devastation was enhanced by outbreaks of the plague in the early 1630’, outbreaks that were brought on by the military’s destruction of the countryside and the subsequent movement to the towns and cities of refugees seeking safety. It is not known how many deaths resulted from starvation, disease, or military action, but the number was substantial.
By the mid-1630’, both sides in the war were prepared to call a truce, but the negotiations proved difficult. The intervention of France gave new life to the Protestant cause, but Catholic Bavaria suffered again in 1645, when Protestant forces invaded the region once more. Protestant victories convinced combatants that it was time to stop fighting, and peace was negotiated at Münster and Osnabrück between 1645 and 1648, treaties now known collectively as the Peace of Westphalia
Historians have debated the extent of the devastation and destruction described in writings of and about the period, especially those descriptions by authors such as Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen
The devastation of the Thirty Years’ War might also have played a part in changing the role of armies in the century that followed. Armies were of limited size and were supported by taxes. They fought battles on limited fields, and the results tended to be confined to the exchange of territorial ownership among governments that were more or less absolutist in character.
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Beller, E. A. “The Thirty Years’ War.” In The New Cambridge Modern History, edited by J. P. Cooper. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1970. A good synthesis of accounts that noted Bavaria’s devastation. -
Guthrie, William P. Battles of the Thirty Years’ War: From White Mountain to Nordlingen, 1618-1635. Contributions in Military Studies 213. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2003. This first volume of two books describes the battles fought in the early years of the war. -
Guthrie, William P. The Later Thirty Years’ War: From the Battle of Wittstock to the Treaty of Westphalia. Contributions in Military Studies 222. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2003. Guthrie concludes his examination of the Thirty Years’ War with a description of the battles fought between 1636 and 1648. -
Holborn, Hajo. A History of Modern Germany: The Reformation. New York: Knopf, 1959. A general history of Germany by one of the foremost scholars in the field. -
Hughes, Michael. Early Modern Germany, 1477-1806. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992. Hughes is more skeptical of the extent of the devastation, noting that most of the description of it was by German authors. -
Parker, Geoffrey, ed. The Thirty Years’ War. 2d rev. ed. New York: Routledge, 1997. A comprehensive and authoritative history of the war. Like Hughes, Parker is somewhat skeptical of the extent of the destruction.
Christina; Ferdinand II; Gustavus II Adolphus; Leopold I; Lennart Torstenson; Albrecht Wenzel von Wallenstein.