A series of wars in central Europe beginning in 1618 that stemmed from conflict between Protestants and Catholics and political struggles between the Holy Roman Empire and other powers. It ended with the Peace of Westphalia (1648).
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Thirty Years War (1618-48). The Thirty Years War had its roots in the dynastic and imperial ambitions of the house of Habsburg and its leadership in the Counter-Reformation. For the rest, the religious aspects should not be overstated because princes would readily trade religious conviction for political advantage; Catholic France in particular was eager to support Protestant states against the Habsburgs.
By the beginning of the 17th century there was parity between the faiths among the small principalities that made up Germany. Of the larger states, three of the …show more content…
A grand Protestant league was formed consisting of some German states, England, and Holland, secretly supported by France, and led by the imprudent Christian IV of Denmark, who began the attack in 1626. The Danes were run ragged for three years by the more numerous imperial and Bavarian armies, led by the Bohemian mercenary Wallenstein, and by 1629 they had had enough of fighting without effective support from their allies, and sued for peace. The alliance collapsed, and it seemed that Protestant hopes were lost, particularly when Ferdinand attempted to return to the state of affairs that had existed at the time of the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, demanding the return to Catholicism of lands that had subsequently converted to the Protestant faith by issuing the Edict of Restitution. For once Calvinists and Lutherans were united in their opposition to this draconian