Magdeburg

Abstract

Abstract Ever since Martin Luther had nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg in 1517, violence between northern European Protestants and the champions of the Catholic Church was inevitable. Through the sixteenth century Spain’s armies battled for the faith against the heretics, then late in the 1500s the Holy Roman Empire assumed the cause. The immediate causes of the Thirty Years War originated in Prague in 1618, where a struggle over succession between Catholic and Protestant pretenders focused the attention of both faiths. Rather than submit to the rule of a ten-man administration (seven of whom were Catholic), rebels led by Count Matthias von Thurn threw them out of a window of the palace in Prague. The Protestant Union raised an army to aid the new Protestant administration in the city, while the Holy Roman Empire dispatched troops to restore order. The imperial forces were defeated. After that initial setback, however, they won a series of victories, culminating in the reestablishment of Catholic rule in Bohemia in 1623. The hero of the imperial cause was Jan Tserkales, Baron von Tilly. In 1625 the war flared again owing to the initiative of King Christian IV of Denmark, who hoped to make himself both religious and political leader of northern Europe. Baron von Tilly continued to have regular success against Protestant forces, as did Albert von Wallen-stein, the duke of Friedland, who had raised an army to fight for the empire. In 1629 the Catholic Church issued the Edict of Restitution, effectively banning most Protestant worship. Failing in his goals, King Christian signed the Treaty of Lubeck and returned to Denmark. Wallenstein had made himself into a powerful commander, so much so that many Catholic princes feared his ambition and convinced the Holy Roman Emperor to dismiss him once the fighting ended.