Leseprobe

61 T he Thirty Years’War was not a world war in the sense that the whole world was affected by it, but it was a war that was fought in large parts of the world. Similarly, it was a war that took place mainly in Central Europe, but whose course was deci- sively influenced from the outset by European-wide issues and interests.1 The beginnings in Bohemia Even before the outbreak of the Bohemian Revolt in Prague in 1618, two secret treaties concluded in March and June 1617 between Archduke Ferdinand of Inner Austria—the later Emperor Ferdinand II—and King Philip III of Spain created the conditions for open conflict with the Estates in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. In the first treaty, Philip promised not to contend for the imperial crown, but in return demanded territorial concessions in western Central Italy and the transference to him of imperial claims to Alsace.The second agreement was effectively a treaty of succession: Ferdinand was acknowledged as heir to the Habsburgs’ eastern territories, even though King Philip III was more closely related to Emperor Matthias than the archduke was. This marked the definitive separation between the German and Spanish lines of the Habsburgs.2 In this way, Ferdinand created the basis for alliance with Spain and the Catholic League (fig. 1). Bolstered by this agreement, Ferdinand was recognised and crowned as King of Bohemia in 1617 and King of Hungary in 1618.3 The point of contention that led to the Prague Defenestration in 1618, and thus to the Revolt, was rela- tively trivial. However, the rebellion in Bohemia not only brought about the establishment of a Council of the Bohemian Estates headed by Count Jindřich Matyáš Thurn-­ Valsassina (Heinrich Matthias von Thurn) as the state government, but also threatened to shift the balance of power between Protestant and Catholic forces in the Empire and in Europe.4 In spring 1619 the Protestant Netherlands decided to support the insurgent Bohemians by supplying them with 25,000 thalers per month,5 and in August of the same year the Bohemian Estates declared Ferdinand’s election as King of Bohemia invalid. FIG. 1 Georg Pachmann, Emperor Ferdinand II in Black Armour , Vienna, c. 1635, oil on canvas, h. 195.5 cm, w. 130 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum – Schloss Ambras Innsbruck, inv. no. GG 3115 However, the Bohemian rebels did not immediately find a candidate for the Bohemian throne. Elector Johann Georg I of Saxony had declined the proposal. Finally, Friedrich V, Elector Palatine, accepted the offer,6 and on 27 August 1619 he was elected King of Bohemia. Control of Bohemia was so important because it was decisive for the balance of power in the Holy Roman Empire. One reason for the choice of Friedrich of the Palatinate was the fact that his wife, Eliza- beth, was the daughter of the English King, James I, and the Bohemian Estates were hoping for strong support from England. Emperor Ferdinand, for his part, was convinced he could count on the support of the great Catholic powers— Spain and, at that time, France—and was banking on their assistance. It was his confidence in Spain’s support that pre- vented him from giving in to the demands of the Protestants, even when the troops of the Bohemian rebels had advanced almost as far as Vienna and the Upper and Lower Austrian Estates were ever more urgently demanding religious con- cessions from the Emperor.7 The interests of the Dutch Republic Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the architect of the Twelve-Year Truce between the northern provinces and Spain, having been overthrown and executed in 1618, the stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, Maurice, Prince of Orange, was once again able to determine the foreign policy of the United Provinces on his own.Maurice was an uncle of Friedrich V of the Pala­ tinate, but it was actually political considerations that led him to support the attack on the Habsburgs in Bohemia.Maurice, Prince of Orange, saw the German conflict primarily as a politically strategic instrument by which Spanish financial resources and armed forces could be diverted away from the war with the Netherlands and bound up in a war within the Empire.8 For the Dutch, it was important that the anti- Habsburg forces in the Empire were not completely defeated by the Emperor. For if Habsburg hegemony were to extend throughout the Empire, the northern Netherlands would be surrounded by the Emperor and Spain, which would have seriously worsened the strategic position of the United Prov- inces. Until his death in 1625, Maurice of Orange remained the most important ally of Friedrich V of the Palatinate and the anti-Habsburg forces in the Empire.9