The Economist explainsWhat happened in the Thirty Years War?
THE TENSIONS in the Middle East between Saudi Arabia (ruled by the Sunni Saud family) and Iran (the leader of the Shia camp) have led many commentators to draw parallels with Europe’s Thirty Years War (1618-48). That was a conflict that had devastating consequences for central Europe, with around 20% of the German population being killed. The war had religious roots as the Holy Roman Emperor (initially the Habsburg Ferdinand II) tried to reassert Catholic hegemony over the Protestant areas of the empire. The Reformation had begun in Germany in 1517 with the theses of Martin Luther and many princes of the Empire (which had a quasi-federal structure) had converted to the Protestant cause.
An initial revolt by Bohemian Protestants, who threw Imperial representatives out of the window (the Defenestration of Prague), was easily crushed. But the Emperor’s successes, and his attempts to confiscate territory, alarmed other Protestant powers. First Denmark intervened (unsuccessfully) and then Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden achieved a string of military victories for the Protestant side, before he was killed in battle in 1632.
The battle lines were not drawn on exclusively religious grounds. France, a Catholic power, financed the Swedish invasion and later joined the war directly; some Protestant rulers initially fought on the Emperor’s side (the Protestant cause was itself divided between Lutherans and Calvinists). Many of the participants had territorial motives; Sweden wanted control of the Baltic while France used the war to acquire Alsace and Lorraine, two areas that were to cause repeated tensions in the 19th and 20th centuries. The conflict also formed part of the much longer eighty-years war between Spain and its former province, the Netherlands.
So what are the parallels? The first is that events cast long shadows, whether one is thinking of the Reformation, the Iranian revolution of 1979 or the Iraq war of 2003. Changes in the balance of power cause others to react. The second is that religious conflicts, once started, are very hard to stop because of the passions they arouse. In the 17th century, the exhausted powers eventually agreed not to try and impose their faith on other states. The third, perhaps, is that the initial victor may not prove the eventual winner; American military power is less dominant than it seemed after 2003. After the Thirty Years War ended in 1648, Habsburg influence over much of Germany was reduced and the monarchy eventually evolved into the Austro-Hungarian empire.