History UsefulNotes / ThirtyYearsWar

The war itself had ''extremely'' long-lasting effects, the most notable of which was the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_sovereignty Westphalian theory of sovereignty]], which is to say the idea that a state has territory, population, a government, and that foreigners do not (directly) interfere in its affairs, leading directly to the modern concept of the nation-state. Some present-day Mainland Chinese scholars have tried to tout the Ming Empire's model of vassal/client-state relations with the outside world as the 'true precedent of the concept of national sovereignty' instead. However, it should be noted that while this model did deny the right of any Barbarian power to interfere with Ming domestic affairs, it explicitly endorsed the Ming's right to intervene in those of its client-states - [[CriticalResearchFailure i.e. the exact opposite of the whole point of Westphalia]].[[note]] On the other hand, this is kind of the point about Mainland China's idea of sovereignty and the proper relationship between China and not-China. [[/note]]

The war itself had ''extremely'' long-lasting effects, the most notable of which was the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_sovereignty Westphalian theory of sovereignty]], which is to say the idea that a state has territory, population, a government, and that foreigners do not (directly) interfere in its affairs, leading directly to the modern concept of the nation-state. Indeed, this last point is the real meaning of ''cuius regio, eius religio'': while religious affairs were in themselves important, they also served as a stand-in for the more general displeasure of the German princes at the constant interference of the Emperor and of rulers across Europe at the constant interference of ThePope (it's no coincidence that the Pope tends to drop out of European history textbooks sometime in the 17th century). The Westphalian system continued unchallenged among Western powers until the 20th century, when a few theoreticians attempted to make modifications in response to the atrocities of WorldWarII and the nasty business after TheGreatPoliticsMessUp (particularly TheYugoslavWars). Nevertheless, the modern system of states is more or less Westphalian, and several states (particularly [[RedChina China]] and to a lesser extent [[TheNewRussia Russia]]) still insist on it.

Massive European war raging from 1618 to 1648 (although the [[UsefulNotes/{{France}} French]] continued fighting the [[UsefulNotes/{{Spain}} Spanish]] for a bit longer), involving, directly or indirectly, just about every European power in some fashion. It is usually considered to be the longest recorded continuous war (The HundredYearsWar had a couple of interruptions, as did the EightyYearsWar), and in its time was one of the bloodiest wars recorded in history. It was mainly (though not exclusively) fought within the HolyRomanEmpire.

Its start is usually fixed on the [[InherentlyFunnyWords Defenestration of Prague]], an event in which a throng of rebellious Bohemian Protestants forced their way into Prague Castle and, after a symbolical trial, threw two Catholic Imperial governors [[DestinationDefenestration from a third-storey window]]. They survived badly bruised, their fall having been cushioned by either angels led by St. Mary (Catholic propaganda), a heap of horse manure (Protestant propaganda), or neither of the two (modern historians).

Some historians argue that, even compared to the wars of the twentieth century, it remains the most destructive war in European history in terms of its proportionate death toll and the degree of economic damage and social mayhem relative to the state of society before it. The unprecedented level of destruction stemmed from the way the war was fought continuously and entirely by very large mercenary armies operating without supply lines. Mercenaries were used so exclusively because the new, more effective gunpowder weapons (particularly the flintlock musket) in combination with the perfection of the pike-and-shot system[[note]]Pikes and other forms of "pointy stick" warfare were not yet obsolete at this point in time. That only came with the discovery of a way to turn a musket into a pointy stick--the bayonet--which only became widespread in the last quarter of the 17th century, long after the end of this particular war. For details, see [[Analysis/FantasyGunControl the Analysis page]] for FantasyGunControl.[[/note]] had made the old knight-based model of warfare obsolete nearly two hundred years ago by this point, and yet nobody had figured out the modern model of professional armies yet.[[note]]Gunpowder weapons had existed in Europe since at least the 15th century; however, gunpowder technology and tactics had changed dramatically. Technically, Creator/NiccoloMachiavelli ''had'' figured out the rough outlines of the model--he advocated for armies composed solely of citizens of the state in question, although he envisioned it as a militia of all able-bodied male citizens in the style of TheRomanRepublic rather than a professional force--but nobody listened to him.[[/note]] Missing a payment would mean your armies switched over to your enemy. The soldiers themselves were conscripted. An army would come to town and say, "every man here joins us or we hang you". The ones who joined had to loot farms and towns in order to survive since armies march on their stomachs. Often an entire town had to pool their gold, and bribe the invading army to go away (of course sometimes they'd just take the money and loot anyway).

* ''Die Harmonie der Welt'', an opera by Paul Hindemith about the life of Johannes Kepler.

* ''The Jester's Tale'', a Czech movie from 1964 by director Karel Zeman, is set in 1625 Moravia against the backdrop of the Thirty Years' War.

It didn't matter whose side the army was on, to the common peasant, they were the enemy, as a farmer who found an army spending the winter on his lands would find he didn't have enough to feed his family. There were also large groups of civilians (mostly women and children) that were kidnapped from looted towns, and forced to live as servants and prostitutes for the army. Many children were born in the army and never knew anything else when the war ended decades later. Many mercenaries would just desert the army and strike it out on their own as "Freebooters" which more often then not was just a nicer way of saying bandits and highwaymen, thus furthering the plight of the common peasant just trying to live their lives. Add to that the religious dimension of the conflict. A particularly fanatical lord would often decide he didn't like that his neighboring lord was Catholic, or Protestant, [[WeAreStrugglingTogether or the wrong kind of Protestant]], and order his mercenaries to go and slaughter his neighbor's peasants even if the majority of said peasants were the same religion as him, as this would destroy that lord's income. Sadly, that's just scratching the surface. Unsurprisingly, many of the greatest works of art depicting the horrors of war have their origin in this conflict, most famously ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Grandes_Mis%C3%A8res_de_la_guerre The Miseries and Misfortunes of War]]'' by Jacques Callot.

Massive European war raging from 1618 to 1648 (although the [[UsefulNotes/{{France}} French]] continued fighting the UsefulNotes/{{Spain}} Spanish]] for a bit longer), involving, directly or indirectly, just about every European power in some fashion. It is usually considered to be the longest recorded continuous war (The HundredYearsWar had a couple of interruptions, as did the EightyYearsWar), and in its time was one of the bloodiest wars recorded in history. It was mainly (though not exclusively) fought within the HolyRomanEmpire.

[[caption-width-right:264: [- Wallenstein's order to Pappenheim to intervene in the battle of Lützen, where both he and Gustav Adolf were killed. The order is stained with Pappenheim's blood. -] ]]

Massive European war raging from 1618 to 1648 (although the French continued fighting the Spanish for a bit longer), involving, directly or indirectly, just about every European power in some fashion. It is usually considered to be the longest recorded continuous war (The HundredYearsWar had a couple of interruptions, as did the EightyYearsWar), and in its time was one of the bloodiest wars recorded in history. It was mainly (though not exclusively) fought within the HolyRomanEmpire.

The causes of the war are complex, and considering the numerous participants arguably unique to each one of them. The basic conflict involved tensions between Protestants and Catholics inside the HolyRomanEmpire, tensions between the emperor and his princes (Protestant ''and'' Catholic), tensions between the Czechs and the Germans within TheEmpire, the old French-Habsburg rivalry, Danish-Swedish rivalry, the [[EightyYearsWar Spanish conflict with the Dutch]], and Swedish designs on the Baltic. All of these things flowed together to create a 30-year long [[SophisticatedAsHell clusterfuck]] in which the sides were not always clearly marked, with certain factions frequently changing sides or essentially blackmailing their "allies" as the situation seemed to shift to their own advantage. The three decades of war are considered to be very important because of the military, social and economic development that it accelerated: Armies in this period became even larger than they had been during the Habsburg-Valois and Habsburg-Ottoman and Religious Wars of the 16th Century, and new tactics were tried out that would eventually become important.

The war itself is considered to have been exceptionally destructive, killing off as much as 1/3 of the population of the Holy Roman Empire - not through fighting, though, so much as causing artificial famines with the giant and marauding standing armies' need to continually steal hundreds of tons of food daily from the surrounding landscape to sustain themselves. Worse, the indecisive and back-and-forth nature of the war meant that ''the same areas'' (given their economic and/or strategic importance) were raided again and again and again (whereas others remained totally untouched), as the page quote attests. The primary causes of death during the war were thus beriberi, measles, tuberculosis, smallpox, and the common cold.

The causes of the war are complex, and considering the numerous participants arguably unique to each one of them. The basic conflict involved tensions between Protestants and Catholics inside the HolyRomanEmpire, tensions between the emperor and his princes (Protestant ''and'' Catholic), tensions between the Czechs and the Germans within TheEmpire, the old French-Habsburg rivalry, Danish-Swedish rivalry, the [[EightyYearsWar Spanish conflict with the Dutch]], and Swedish designs on the Baltic. All of these things flowed together to create a 30-year long [[SophisticatedAsHell clusterfuck]] in which the sides were not always clearly marked, with certain factions frequently changing sides or essentially blackmailing their "allies" as the situation seemed to shift to their own advantage. The three decades of war are considered to be very important because of the military, social and economic development that it accelerated: Armies in this period became much larger than they had been during the Middle Ages, and new tactics were tried out that would eventually become important.

* The standalone Expansion "With Fire and Sword" for MountAndBlade picks up right after the war just to the East of it, and its' effects echo heavily.

The causes of the war are complex, and considering the numerous participants arguably unique to each one of them. The basic conflict involved tensions between Protestants and Catholics inside the HolyRomanEmpire, tensions between the emperor and his princes (Protestant ''and'' Catholic), tensions between the Czechs and the Germans within TheEmpire, the old French-Habsburg rivalry, Danish-Swedish rivalry, the [[EightyYearsWar Spanish conflict with the Dutch]], and Swedish designs on the Baltic. All of these things flowed together to create a 30-year long [[SophisticatedAsHell clusterfuck]] in which the sides were not always clearly marked, with certain factions frequently changing sides or pressing for concessions from their "allies" as the situation seemed to shift to their own advantage. The three decades of war are considered to be very important because of the military, social and economic development that it accelerated: Armies in this period became much larger than they had been during the Middle Ages, and new tactics were tried out that would eventually become important.

The causes of the war are complex, and considering the numerous participants arguably unique to each one of them. The basic conflict involved tensions between Protestants and Catholics inside the HolyRomanEmpire, tensions between the emperor and his princes (Protestant ''and'' Catholic), tensions between the Czechs and the Germans within TheEmpire, the old French-Habsburg rivalry, Danish-Swedish rivalry, the [[EightyYearsWar Spanish conflict with the Dutch]], and Swedish designs on the Baltic. All of these things flowed together to create a 30-year long [[SophisticatedAsHell clusterfuck]]. The three decades of war are considered to be very important because of the military, social and economic development that it accelerated: Armies in this period became much larger than they had been during the Middle Ages, and new tactics were tried out that would eventually become important.

The war itself is considered to have been exceptionally destructive, killing off as much as 1/3 of the population of the Holy Roman Empire - not through fighting, though, so much as causing artificial famines with the giant and marauding standing armies' need to continually steal thousands of tons of food daily from the surrounding landscape to sustain themselves. Worse, the indecisive and back-and-forth nature of the war meant that ''the same areas'' (given their economic and/or strategic importance) were raided again and again and again (whereas others remained totally untouched), as the page quote attests. The primary causes of death during the war were thus beriberi, measles, tuberculosis, smallpox, and the common cold.

Some historians argue that, even compared to the wars of the twentieth century, it remains the most destructive war in European history in terms of its proportionate death toll and the degree of economic damage and social mayhem relative to the state of society before it. The unprecedented level of destruction stemmed from the way the war was fought continuously and entirely by very large mercenary armies operating without supply lines. Mercenaries were used so exclusively because the new, more effective gunpowder weapons (particularly the flintlock musket) in combination with the perfection of the pike-and-shot system[[note]]Pikes and other forms of "pointy stick" warfare were not yet obsolete at this point in time. That only came with the discovery of a way to turn a musket into a pointy stick--the bayonet--which only became widespread in the last quarter of the 17th century, long after the end of this particular war. For details, see [[Analysis/FantasyGunControl the Analysis page]] for FantasyGunControl.[[/note]] had made the old knight-based model of warfare obsolete, and nobody had figured out the modern model of professional armies yet.[[note]]Gunpowder weapons had existed in Europe since at least the 15th century; however, gunpowder technology and tactics had changed dramatically. Technically, Creator/NiccoloMachiavelli ''had'' figured out the rough outlines of the model--he advocated for armies composed solely of citizens of the state in question, although he envisioned it as a militia of all able-bodied male citizens in the style of TheRomanRepublic rather than a professional force--but nobody listened to him.[[/note]] Missing a payment would mean your armies switched over to your enemy. The soldiers themselves were conscripted. An army would come to town and say, "every man here joins us or we hang you". The ones who joined had to loot farms and towns in order to survive since armies march on their stomachs. Often an entire town had to pool their gold, and bribe the invading army to go away (of course sometimes they'd just take the money and loot anyway). It didn't matter whose side the army was on, to the common peasant, they were the enemy, as a farmer who found an army spending the winter on his lands would find he didn't have enough to feed his family. There were also large groups of civilians (mostly women and children) that were kidnapped from looted towns, and forced to live as servants and prostitutes for the army. Many children were born in the army and never knew anything else when the war ended decades later. Many mercenaries would just desert the army and strike it out on their own as "Freebooters" which more often then not was just a nicer way of saying bandits and highwaymen, thus furthering the plight of the common peasant just trying to live their lives. Add to that the religious dimension of the conflict. A particularly fanatical lord would often decide he didn't like that his neighboring lord was Catholic, or Protestant, [[WeAreStrugglingTogether or the wrong kind of Protestant]], and order his mercenaries to go and slaughter his neighbor's peasants even if the majority of said peasants were the same religion as him, as this would destroy that lord's income. Sadly, that's just scratching the surface. Unsurprisingly, many of the greatest works of art depicting the horrors of war have their origin in this conflict, most famously ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Grandes_Mis%C3%A8res_de_la_guerre The Miseries and Misfortunes of War]]'' by Jacques Callot.

The war itself is considered to have been exceptionally destructive, killing off around 1/3 of the population of the Holy Roman Empire. Some historians argue that, even compared to the wars of the twentieth century, it remains the most destructive war in European history in terms of its proportionate death toll and the degree of economic damage and social mayhem relative to the state of society before it. The unprecedented level of destruction stemmed from the fact that it was the first major gunpowder war, the first war that involved all of Europe, and that the war was fought entirely by mercenary armies. Mercenaries were used so exclusively because the new, more effective gunpowder weapons (particularly the flintlock musket) in combination with the perfection of the pike-and-shot system[[note]]Pikes and other forms of "pointy stick" warfare were not yet obsolete at this point in time. That only came with the discovery of a way to turn a musket into a pointy stick--the bayonet--which only became widespread in the last quarter of the 17th century, long after the end of this particular war. For details, see [[Analysis/FantasyGunControl the Analysis page]] for FantasyGunControl.[[/note]] had made the old knight-based model of warfare obsolete, and nobody had figured out the modern model of professional armies yet.[[note]]Gunpowder weapons had existed in Europe since at least the 15th century; however, gunpowder technology and tactics had changed dramatically. Technically, Creator/NiccoloMachiavelli ''had'' figured out the rough outlines of the model--he advocated for armies composed solely of citizens of the state in question, although he envisioned it as a militia of all able-bodied male citizens in the style of TheRomanRepublic rather than a professional force--but nobody listened to him.[[/note]] Missing a payment would mean your armies switched over to your enemy. The soldiers themselves were conscripted. An army would come to town and say, "every man here joins us or we hang you". The ones who joined had to loot farms and towns in order to survive since armies march on their stomachs. Often an entire town had to pool their gold, and bribe the invading army to go away (of course sometimes they'd just take the money and loot anyway). It didn't matter whose side the army was on, to the common peasant, they were the enemy, as a farmer who found an army spending the winter on his lands would find he didn't have enough to feed his family. There were also large groups of civilians (mostly women and children) that were kidnapped from looted towns, and forced to live as servants and prostitutes for the army. Many children were born in the army and never knew anything else when the war ended decades later. Many mercenaries would just desert the army and strike it out on their own as "Freebooters" which more often then not was just a nicer way of saying bandits and highwaymen, thus furthering the plight of the common peasant just trying to live their lives. Add to that the religious dimension of the conflict. A particularly fanatical lord would often decide he didn't like that his neighboring lord was Catholic, or Protestant, [[WeAreStrugglingTogether or the wrong kind of Protestant]], and order his mercenaries to go and slaughter his neighbor's peasants even if the majority of said peasants were the same religion as him, as this would destroy that lord's income. Sadly, that's just scratching the surface. Unsurprisingly, many of the greatest works of art depicting the horrors of war have their origin in this conflict, most famously ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Grandes_Mis%C3%A8res_de_la_guerre The Miseries and Misfortunes of War]]'' by Jacques Callot.

The causes of the war are complex, and considering the numerous participants arguably unique to each one of them. The basic conflict involved tensions between Protestants and Catholics inside the HolyRomanEmpire, tensions between the emperor and his princes (Protestant ''and'' Catholic), tensions between the Czechs and the Germans within TheEmpire, the old French-Habsburg rivalry, Danish-Swedish rivalry, the [[EightyYearsWar Spanish conflict with the Dutch]], and Swedish designs on the Baltic. All of these things flowed together to create a 30-year long clusterfuck. The three decades of war are considered to be very important because of the military, social and economic development that it accelerated: Armies in this period became much larger than they had been during the Middle Ages, and new tactics were tried out that would eventually become important.

The war itself is considered to have been exceptionally destructive, killing off around 1/3 of the population of the Holy Roman Empire. Some historians argue that, even compared to the wars of the twentieth century, it remains the most destructive war in European history in terms of its proportionate death toll and the degree of seconomic damage and social mayhem relative to the state of society before it. The unprecedented level of destruction stemmed from the fact that it was the first major gunpowder war, the first war that involved all of Europe, and that the war was fought entirely by mercenary armies. Mercenaries were used so exclusively because the new, more effective gunpowder weapons (particularly the flintlock musket) in combination with the perfection of the pike-and-shot system[[note]]Pikes and other forms of "pointy stick" warfare were not yet obsolete at this point in time. That only came with the discovery of a way to turn a musket into a pointy stick--the bayonet--which only became widespread in the last quarter of the 17th century, long after the end of this particular war. For details, see [[Analysis/FantasyGunControl the Analysis page]] for FantasyGunControl.[[/note]] had made the old knight-based model of warfare obsolete, and nobody had figured out the modern model of professional armies yet.[[note]]Gunpowder weapons had existed in Europe since at least the 15th century; however, gunpowder technology and tactics had changed dramatically. Technically, Creator/NiccoloMachiavelli ''had'' figured out the rough outlines of the model--he advocated for armies composed solely of citizens of the state in question, although he envisioned it as a militia of all able-bodied male citizens in the style of TheRomanRepublic rather than a professional force--but nobody listened to him.[[/note]] Missing a payment would mean your armies switched over to your enemy. The soldiers themselves were conscripted. An army would come to town and say, "every man here joins us or we hang you". The ones who joined had to loot farms and towns in order to survive since armies march on their stomachs. Often an entire town had to pool their gold, and bribe the invading army to go away (of course sometimes they'd just take the money and loot anyway). It didn't matter whose side the army was on, to the common peasant, they were the enemy, as a farmer who found an army spending the winter on his lands would find he didn't have enough to feed his family. There were also large groups of civilians (mostly women and children) that were kidnapped from looted towns, and forced to live as servants and prostitutes for the army. Many children were born in the army and never knew anything else when the war ended decades later. Many mercenaries would just desert the army and strike it out on their own as "Freebooters" which more often then not was just a nicer way of saying bandits and highwaymen, thus furthering the plight of the common peasant just trying to live their lives. Add to that the religious dimension of the conflict. A particularly fanatical lord would often decide he didn't like that his neighboring lord was Catholic, or Protestant, [[WeAreStrugglingTogether or the wrong kind of Protestant]], and order his mercenaries to go and genocide his neighbor's peasants even if the majority of said peasants were the same religion as him. Sadly, that's just scratching the surface. Unsurprisingly, many of the greatest works of art depicting the horrors of war have their origin in this conflict, most famously ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Grandes_Mis%C3%A8res_de_la_guerre The Miseries and Misfortunes of War]]'' by Jacques Callot.

The war once and for all broke any pretense of the HolyRomanEmpire being a unified state, cemented France as the dominant power in Europe, and propelled Sweden to the status of short-lived great power. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking It also made boots fashionable.]] It concluded with the Peace of Westphalia, two treaties (in Münster and Osnabrück) that involved the Spanish accepting Dutch independence, a blanket pardon for any crimes committed in the war, and some territorial changes; it's sometimes called the "Peace of Exhaustion". The key point, though, was the acceptance that a ruler could choose the religion of his state (the so-called ''cuius regio, eius religio'' principle); but those who followed other Christian denominations (Calvinism was covered in this for the first time) could so with some restrictions. This pretty much wrapped up the religious wars of Europe.

* The ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' series by Creator/EricFlint has a 20th century West Virginia coal mining town dropped into the middle of the conflict, in the middle of the Germanies.

* German 1910 historical novel ''Der Wehrwolf'' (''The Warwolf'') by Hermann Löns, a revenge-fantasy about North-German peasants who, after having been plundered and brutalized repeatedly by occupying troops, form a guerilla that routinely ambushes and massacres foraging soldiers. The book is notorious for being a favorite of the Nazis; it directly inspired the terrorist ''Werwolf'' guerilla at the end of WorldWarII. From the other wiki:

The war itself is considered to have been exceptionally destructive, killing off around 1/3 of the population of the Holy Roman Empire. Some historians argue that, even compared to the wars of the twentieth century, it remains the most destructive war in European history in terms of its proportionate death toll and the degree of seconomic damage and social mayhem relative to the state of society before it. The unprecedented level of destruction stemmed from the fact that it was the first major gunpowder war, the first war that involved all of Europe, and that the war was fought entirely by mercenary armies. Mercenaries were used so exclusively because the new, more effective gunpowder weapons (particularly the flintlock musket) in combination with the perfection of the pike-and-shot system[[note]]Pikes and other forms of "pointy stick" warfare were not yet obsolete at this point in time. That only came with the discovery of a way to turn a musket into a pointy stick--the bayonet--which only became widespread in the last quarter of the 17th century, long after the end of this particular war. For details, see [[Analysis/FantasyGunControl the Analysis page]] for FantasyGunControl.[[/note]] had made the old knight-based model of warfare obsolete, and nobody had figured out the modern model of professional armies yet.[[note]]Gunpowder weapons had existed in Europe since at least the 15th century; however, gunpowder technology and tactics had changed dramatically.[[/note]] Missing a payment would mean your armies switched over to your enemy. The soldiers themselves were conscripted. An army would come to town and say, "every man here joins us or we hang you". The ones who joined had to loot farms and towns in order to survive since armies march on their stomachs. Often an entire town had to pool their gold, and bribe the invading army to go away (of course sometimes they'd just take the money and loot anyway). It didn't matter whose side the army was on, to the common peasant, they were the enemy, as a farmer who found an army spending the winter on his lands would find he didn't have enough to feed his family. There were also large groups of civilians (mostly women and children) that were kidnapped from looted towns, and forced to live as servants and prostitutes for the army. Many children were born in the army and never knew anything else when the war ended decades later. Many mercenaries would just desert the army and strike it out on their own as "Freebooters" which more often then not was just a nicer way of saying bandits and highwaymen, thus furthering the plight of the common peasant just trying to live their lives. Add to that the religious dimension of the conflict. A particularly fanatical lord would often decide he didn't like that his neighboring lord was Catholic, or Protestant, [[WeAreStrugglingTogether or the wrong kind of Protestant]], and order his mercenaries to go and genocide his neighbor's peasants even if the majority of said peasants were the same religion as him. Sadly, that's just scratching the surface. Unsurprisingly, many of the greatest works of art depicting the horrors of war have their origin in this conflict, most famously ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Grandes_Mis%C3%A8res_de_la_guerre The Miseries and Misfortunes of War]]'' by Jacques Callot.

The war itself is considered to have been exceptionally destructive, killing off around 1/3 of the population of the Holy Roman Empire. The unprecedented level of destruction stemmed from the fact that it was the first major gunpowder war, the first war that involved all of Europe, and that the war was fought entirely by mercenary armies. Mercenaries were used so exclusively because the new, more effective gunpowder weapons (particularly the flintlock musket) in combination with the perfection of the pike-and-shot system[[note]]Pikes and other forms of "pointy stick" warfare were not yet obsolete at this point in time. That only came with the discovery of a way to turn a musket into a pointy stick--the bayonet--which only became widespread in the last quarter of the 17th century, long after the end of this particular war. For details, see [[Analysis/FantasyGunControl the Analysis page]] for FantasyGunControl.[[/note]] had made the old knight-based model of warfare obsolete, and nobody had figured out the modern model of professional armies yet.[[note]]Gunpowder weapons had existed in Europe since at least the 15th century; however, gunpowder technology and tactics had changed dramatically.[[/note]] Missing a payment would mean your armies switched over to your enemy. The soldiers themselves were conscripted. An army would come to town and say, "every man here joins us or we hang you". The ones who joined had to loot farms and towns in order to survive since armies march on their stomachs. Often an entire town had to pool their gold, and bribe the invading army to go away (of course sometimes they'd just take the money and loot anyway). It didn't matter whose side the army was on, to the common peasant, they were the enemy, as a farmer who found an army spending the winter on his lands would find he didn't have enough to feed his family. There were also large groups of civilians (mostly women and children) that were kidnapped from looted towns, and forced to live as servants and prostitutes for the army. Many children were born in the army and never knew anything else when the war ended decades later. Many mercenaries would just desert the army and strike it out on their own as "Freebooters" which more often then not was just a nicer way of saying bandits and highwaymen, thus furthering the plight of the common peasant just trying to live their lives. Add to that the religious dimension of the conflict. A particularly fanatical lord would often decide he didn't like that his neighboring lord was Catholic, or Protestant, [[WeAreStrugglingTogether or the wrong kind of Protestant]], and order his mercenaries to go and genocide his neighbor's peasants even if the majority of said peasants were the same religion as him. Sadly, that's just scratching the surface. Unsurprisingly, many of the greatest works of art depicting the horrors of war have their origin in this conflict, most famously ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Grandes_Mis%C3%A8res_de_la_guerre The Miseries and Misfortunes of War]]'' by Jacques Callot.

* ''Mother Courage and Her Children'' by Creator/BertoltBrecht

The war itself is considered to have been exceptionally destructive, killing off around 1/3 of the population of the Holy Roman Empire. The unprecedented level of destruction stemmed from the fact that it was the first major gunpowder war, the first war that involved all of Europe, and that the war was fought entirely by mercenary armies. Mercenaries were used so exclusively because the new, more effective gunpowder weapons (particularly the flintlock musket) in combination with the perfection of the pike-and-shot system[[note]]Pikes and other forms of "pointy stick" warfare were not yet obsolete at this point in time. That only came with the discovery of a way to turn a musket into a pointy stick--the bayonet--which only became widespread in the last quarter of the 17th century, long after the end of this particular war. For details, see [[Analysis/FantasyGunControl the Analysis page]] for FantasyGunControl.[[/note]] had made the old knight-based model of warfare obsolete, and nobody had figured out the modern model of professional armies yet.[[note]]Gunpowder weapons had existed in Europe since at least the 15th century; however, gunpowder technology and tactics had changed dramatically.[[/note]] Missing a payment would mean your armies switched over to your enemy. The soldiers themselves were conscripted. An army would come to town and say, "every man here joins us or we hang you". The ones who joined had to loot farms and towns in order to survive since armies march on their stomachs. Often an entire town had to pool their gold, and bribe the invading army to go away (of course sometimes they'd just take the money and loot anyway). It didn't matter whose side the army was on, to the common peasant, they where the enemy, as a farmer who found an army spending the winter on his lands would find he didn't have enough to feed his family. There were also large groups of civilians (mostly women and children) that were kidnapped from looted towns, and forced to live as servants and prostitutes for the army. Many children were born in the army and never knew anything else when the war ended decades later. Many mercenaries would just desert the army and strike it out on their own as "Freebooters" which more often then not was just a nicer way of saying bandits and highwaymen, thus furthering the plight of the common peasant just trying to live their lives. Add to that the religious dimension of the conflict. A particularly fanatical lord would often decide he didn't like that his neighboring lord was Catholic, or Protestant, [[WeAreStrugglingTogether or the wrong kind of Protestant]], and order his mercenaries to go and genocide his neighbor's peasants even if the majority of said peasants were the same religion as him. Sadly, that's just scratching the surface. Unsurprisingly, many of the greatest works of art depicting the horrors of war have their origin in this conflict, most famously ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Grandes_Mis%C3%A8res_de_la_guerre The Miseries and Misfortunes of War]]'' by Jacques Callot.

* ''Film/TheLastValley'' (1971) starring MichaelCaine, OmarSharif and a young BrianBlessed. The score by JohnBarry is awesome.
* ''Film/QueenChristina'', a 1933 Hollywood film starring GretaGarbo as Christina of Sweden, daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, features the late Thirty Years War as a backdrop.
* According to the narration of ''Film/{{Krabat}}'' (2006), the plot takes place at the time of the Thirty Years War, but that never actually shows in the movie.

[[AC:Folklore]]
* Impossible-to-count amount of folk tales (from fairy-tales to legends), songs, art forms (again from paintings to fashion) either refer to this conflict or have roots in it. Surprisingly, it seemed to leave larger impression in these fields than any other conflict later - including both world wars, though this would need some hard data to prove right or wrong.

* ''Der Abenteuerliche Literature/{{Simplicissimus}}'', written in German in 1668 -- a satirical {{picaresque}} novel about a lad growing up in the middle of the war and conscripted into a military career; probably partially based on first-hand experiences of its author, Hans Jakob von Grimmelshausen. It lampshades the endlessness and pointlessness of the war, but is a good read anyway; also the first modern novel in German literature.
* The poetry of Andreas Gryphius (1616-64), the most important German poet of the Baroque period, is deeply formed by the author's first-hand experience of the Thirty Years War. Despite their age, Gryphius' poems are still standard SchoolStudyMedia in German schools (making him likely the oldest German author who is invariably covered in literature class).
* The ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' series by EricFlint has a 20th century West Virginia coal mining town dropped into the middle of the conflict, in the middle of the Germanies. HilarityEnsues.

* ''Välskärin kertomukset'' (The Chirurgeon's Tale) by ZachariasTopelius
* ''The War Hound and the World's Pain'' by MichaelMoorcock

* ''Wallenstein'' (1920), German historical novel by Alfred Döblin, focusing on Ferdinand II and Wallenstein, and drawing many [[RealitySubtext implicit parallels]] to WorldWarI.

* Music-wise, ''Rex Regi Rebellis'' by the Finnish band {{Turisas}}.
* The first half of the ''{{Music/Sabaton}}'' album ''Carolus Rex'' covers this, and makes no attempt at hiding the horrors of the war.

* There is also a [[http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3307/wallenstein board game]] with the name ''Wallenstein'', set in the Thirty Years War.

* As early as 1639 -- [[RippedFromTheHeadlines five years after the events it fictionalized]] -- a play ''Albertus Wallenstein'' had been written by an English poet Henry Glapthorne about the assassination of Wallenstein, and was performed at the ''Globe Theatre'' in London.
* ''Theatre/DerFreischuetz'' is set in this period, and the villainous Caspar is a former soldier, and says he learned many knavish tricks from his fellow soldiers.

* A DLC pack for ''{{Cossacks}}: Backs to War'' (an expansion pack to ''Cossacks: European Wars'') has a campaign allowing the player to play as the French in the war. In addition, there are several multiplayer scenarios dramatising key battles in this conflict.

The massive European war raging [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin from 1618 to 1648]] (although the French continued fighting the Spanish for a bit longer) involving, directly or indirectly, just about every European power in some fashion. It is usually considered to be the longest recorded continuous war (The HundredYearsWar had a couple of interruptions, as did the EightyYearsWar), and was, until the Taiping Rebellion, the bloodiest war in recorded human history. It was mainly (though not exclusively) fought in the HolyRomanEmpire. It famously started with the [[InherentlyFunnyWords Defenestration of Prague]], the throwing out of two imperial officials from a window (they were unharmed; depending on which side's propaganda you believed, this was either due to divine intervention or their landing in a pile of a substance polite historians call "equine stool", childish ones "horsie poo", and brutally honest ones "horse manure" or "horseshit").

The origins of the war are complex, and considering the [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters numerous participants]] arguably unique to each one of them. The basic conflict involved tensions between Protestants and Catholics inside the HolyRomanEmpire, tensions between the emperor and his princes (Protestant AND Catholic), tensions between the Czechs and the Germans within TheEmpire, the old French-Habsburg rivalry, Danish-Swedish rivalry, the [[EightyYearsWar Spanish conflict with the Dutch]], and Swedish designs on the Baltic. All of these things flowed together to create a 30-year long [[GambitPileup clusterfuck]]. The three decades of war are considered to be very important because of the military, social and economic development that it accelerated: Armies in this period became much larger than they had been during the Middle Ages, and new tactics were tried out that would eventually become important.

The war itself was one of the bloodiest and most destructive in human history, killing around 1/3 of the population of the Holy Roman Empire. The unprecedented level of destruction stemmed from the fact that it was the first major gunpowder war, the first war that involved all of Europe, and that the war was fought entirely by mercenary armies. Mercenaries were used so exclusively because the new, more effective gunpowder weapons (particularly the flintlock musket) in combination with the perfection of the pike-and-shot system[[note]]Pikes and other forms of "pointy stick" warfare were not yet obsolete at this point in time. That only came with the discovery of a way to turn a musket into a pointy stick--the bayonet--which only became widespread in the last quarter of the 17th century, long after the end of this particular war. For details, see [[Analysis/FantasyGunControl the Analysis page]] for FantasyGunControl.[[/note]] had made the old knight-based model of warfare obsolete, and nobody had figured out the modern model of professional armies yet.[[note]]Gunpowder weapons had existed in Europe since at least the 15th century; however, gunpowder technology and tactics had changed dramatically.[[/note]] Missing a payment would mean your armies switched over to your enemy. The soldiers themselves were conscripted. An army would come to town and say, "every man here joins us or we hang you". The ones who joined had to loot farms and towns in order to survive since armies march on their stomachs. Often an entire town had to pool their gold, and bribe the invading army to go away (of course sometimes they'd just take the money and loot anyway). It didn't matter whose side the army was on, to the common peasant, they where the enemy, as a farmer who found an army spending the winter on his lands would find he didn't have enough to feed his family. There were also large groups of civilians (mostly women and children) that were kidnapped from looted towns, and forced to live as servants and prostitutes for the army. Many children were born in the army and never knew anything else when the war ended decades later. Many mercenaries would just desert the army and strike it out on their own as "Freebooters" which more often then not was just a nicer way of saying bandits and highwaymen, thus furthering the plight of the common peasant just trying to live their lives. Add to that the religious dimension of the conflict. A particularly fanatical lord would often decide he didn't like that his neighboring lord was Catholic, or Protestant, [[WeAreStrugglingTogether or the wrong kind of Protestant]], and order his mercenaries to go and genocide his neighbor's peasants even if the majority of said peasants were the same religion as him. Sadly, that's just scratching the surface. Unsurprisingly, many of the greatest works of art depicting the horrors of war have their origin in this nightmare of a conflict, most famously ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Grandes_Mis%C3%A8res_de_la_guerre The Miseries and Misfortunes of War]]'' by Jacques Callot.