Thirty Years' War


The Thirty Years' War began as a civil war and was fought between 1618 and 1648, principally on the territory of today's Germany, and involved most of the major European continental powers. Although it was from the outset a religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics, the rivalry between the Habsburg dynasty and other powers was also a central motive, as shown by the fact that Catholic France under the de facto rule of Cardinal Richelieu supported the Protestant side in order to weaken the Habsburgs in order to further France's position as the pre-eminient continental power. This increased the France-Habsburg rivalry which lead later to direct war between France and Spain.

The major impact of the Thirty Years' War, which primarily used mercenary armies with little concern for anyone's rights or property, was to lay waste entire regions scavanged bare by the foraging armies causing a directly related much higher than normal death rate amongst the civilian populous as episodes of widespread famine and disease (a starving body has little resistance to illnesses) devastated the population of The Germanies and The Low Countries, while bankrupting many of the powers involved. The war may have lasted for 30 years, but the conflicts that triggered it continued unresolved for a much longer time. The war ended with the Treaty of Münster, a part of the wider Peace of Westphalia

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