Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Switching.
To anybody visiting this site without using the links I post (something I find unlikely, to be perfectly honest, but I thought I should cover all my bases), the location of this blog has changed to wordpress. It still retains all of its top-notch content, so no worries about that. You can find it, in all its glory, here.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011
Eurothon: 30 Years War
Alright, I know that I missed the last two days. And that's very sad. Prom craziness and life happened. But now it's time to take a good look at what was one of the culminating events of the Reformation, the 30 Year's War.
The origins of the war can be mostly found in the Peace of Augsburg a little more than half a century earlier, which allowed for Catholics and Lutherans in the German principalities to coexist peacefully. At least, that was the idea. In practice, it merely put off conflict for awhile; princes practicing different religions were still hostile to each other, just not openly, and the spread of Calvanism went unacknowledged by the Holy Roman Empire and was considered an illegitimate religion at the beginning of the war. Essentially, this set the stage for a whole lot of people to kill each other over some BS religious crusade. This is one of the events that makes it a bit astonishing to thing that the HRE actually remains in existence for several hundred years after this.
Anyways, in addition to all the crazy religious stuff going on, all the other European powers saw the opportunity in the nation that was basically at war with itself. Protestant nations, such as the Netherlands, Sweden, and England all jumped in on the side of the Protestant German states, along with France which was Catholic but had dynastic ambitions in the country, once civil war became a sure thing.. Sweden was, surprisingly, the biggest player on the Protestant side and had it's one moment of historic bad-assery during this period, conquering a significant portion of the German states at it's peak during the 30 Year's War under the leadership of Gustavus Adolfus II who gets his own day even 500 years after his death. Because he is a total bad ass. More on him later.
The Catholic side was backed by the Hapsburg empire, which at this time included Spain, the majority of the HRE's possessions (Austria and Bavaria were two of the larger players here) and, towards the end of the war, Denmark which became a Spanish territory. Many of these joined the Catholic League in response to the League of Evangelical Union formed by some Protestants, which drew the proverbial line in the sand for the war.
The final straw that started the whole debacle was Ferdinand I's (who is also Ferdinand II because royalty MAKES NO SENSE) ascension to the throne of the HRE. He was a staunch supporter of religious unity in his territory, having been educated by the Jesuits (who were a result of the Counter-Reformation movement, so were fairly anti-Protestant). His clear ill-will against the Protestants caused many of the nobles to reject him, which basically created the exact same shit storm you might imagine when half of a nation rejects its ruler. We go now to the first stage of the war.
Stage 1: Bohemian Revolution
When Ferdinand I/II took over, he sent several councilors to Bohemia in a diplomatic effort to avoid conflict with the Protestant. In one of the most refreshingly straight forward political maneuvers in history, the leaders of Protestant Bohemia threw them out a third story window. Though the fall was a good 50 feet or so, they survived remarkably unharmed.
The conflict spread throughout the western German region, eventually leading to Ferdinand recruiting the aid of some family over in Spain, which at this time was actually a politically significant force. Protestant countries who had been previously too afraid to attack the Hapsburgs because of their immense and entirely baffling family tree were emboldened by the revolt and joined in the fun.
Fredrick V, a protestant, was pleaded to for entrance into the Protestant League by the Bohemians, who desperately needed allies to fight the Catholics. They offered Fredrick the throne in exchange for the admission, but had also apparently made this offer to a fairly large number of other leaders to gain support as well, making them the king offer sluts of the 1600's. This cost them a good amount of support from the countries they had hoped to get support from. Not too surprisingly, the rebellion didn't proceed too well for the protestants then. The Protestant armies were crushed, leaving only a few stray generals wandering about. This was enough to cause trouble, however.
Phase II: Denmark takes off a bit more than it can chew
Denmark saw the Catholic League victory as a threat to it's sovereignty as a Protestant nation. Christian IV, Denmark's king at this time, raised a fairly sizable army to fight the Catholic League, receiving support from some Protestant areas of the HRE and some money from France and Britain, who both had interests in keeping the Habsburgs down. He also received some aid from Sweden in the form of war reparation, which was nice.
But there was still a reason as to why the Habsburgs were the most powerful family in Europe at the time. Despite Christian IV's best efforts, his primary general, Mansfeld, died of tuberculosis and he lost several important battles. He was pushed back to his borders, where he was saved by the fact that Wallenstein decided that an invasion would cost more than any possible benefit. The peace treaty here made Denmark remove itself from the conflict, giving Catholics greater control over the German states.
Phase III: It's Gustavus Adolfus time, biznatches!
So, after two Protestant groups have failed to win the acknowledgement of their religion, the natural thing to do would be to try again. But this time, it was a total badass leading the Protestant armies instead of those pansies who died of things like tuberculosis and beheading.
The precise reason as to why Adolfus entered into the war is unknown, but it was clear that he wanted to limit the power of the HRE, as well as prevent the subjugation of Protestant nations. He received funds from France in their continuing effort to fight a proxy war against the HRE and Spain. In a relatively short amount of time, Adolfus pushed the Catholic League back until he controlled almost half of the HRE's territory. Needless to say, he was quite pleased with himself.
France, now confident enough that things were going smoothly, formally allied with Sweden in 1631 and stopped being such pansies. Swedish armies continued pushing through German lands, killing a prominent Catholic general in the process and gaining a definitive upper hand. Unfortunately, Wallenstein pulled a clever maneuver and moved in behind the Swedish force and threatened the supply lines, forcing Adolfus into a battle that was severely disadvantageous for the Protestant armies. Adolfus went boldly into the trap and was killed in action, being way more manly than those other people who had just pansied out. Despite Adolfus' death, the Swedish army was momentarily victorious. After this, the Swedish armies became less successful and Protestant Germany sued for peace with the Peace of Prague, ending the civil war in Germany and limiting the power of Protestant princes.
Part IV: More or less the end
The end part of the war includes a lot of back and forth, eventually resulting in Sweden having gained a fair amount of ground in the HRE once again, leaving only Austria firmly under Habsburg rule. France invaded Spain, meeting with initial disaster and then ending up with more or less the same borders. Eventually, a series of peace agreements were reached known collectively as the Peace of Westphalia was reached by the nations of Europe, which was the first example of a big peace talk and was very exciting.
The terms of the treaty were as follows: The imperial domain was reset to pre-war terms, meaning each individual territory had its own religious determination and semi-autonomy. In addition, Calvinism was acknowledged as a legitimate religion.
In response, the pope had a hissy fit in which he declared the agreement "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time", which was actually just part of his effort to expand his vocabulary for verbally smiting the heathens.
Some various territorial disputes were settled, which were relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, and:
Religious wars were prohibited, saying that the religious sovereignty of every nation was guaranteed. It would be, in theory, a good idea.
Well, that's basically all there is to that. It was very exciting. Tomorrow will most likely be the 7 Years War, which was largely covered in the short history of imperialism but will be rehashed in a more educational fashion.
I was going to post a few panels with this, but there were extenuating circumstances. Maybe tomorrow.
The origins of the war can be mostly found in the Peace of Augsburg a little more than half a century earlier, which allowed for Catholics and Lutherans in the German principalities to coexist peacefully. At least, that was the idea. In practice, it merely put off conflict for awhile; princes practicing different religions were still hostile to each other, just not openly, and the spread of Calvanism went unacknowledged by the Holy Roman Empire and was considered an illegitimate religion at the beginning of the war. Essentially, this set the stage for a whole lot of people to kill each other over some BS religious crusade. This is one of the events that makes it a bit astonishing to thing that the HRE actually remains in existence for several hundred years after this.
Anyways, in addition to all the crazy religious stuff going on, all the other European powers saw the opportunity in the nation that was basically at war with itself. Protestant nations, such as the Netherlands, Sweden, and England all jumped in on the side of the Protestant German states, along with France which was Catholic but had dynastic ambitions in the country, once civil war became a sure thing.. Sweden was, surprisingly, the biggest player on the Protestant side and had it's one moment of historic bad-assery during this period, conquering a significant portion of the German states at it's peak during the 30 Year's War under the leadership of Gustavus Adolfus II who gets his own day even 500 years after his death. Because he is a total bad ass. More on him later.
The Catholic side was backed by the Hapsburg empire, which at this time included Spain, the majority of the HRE's possessions (Austria and Bavaria were two of the larger players here) and, towards the end of the war, Denmark which became a Spanish territory. Many of these joined the Catholic League in response to the League of Evangelical Union formed by some Protestants, which drew the proverbial line in the sand for the war.
The final straw that started the whole debacle was Ferdinand I's (who is also Ferdinand II because royalty MAKES NO SENSE) ascension to the throne of the HRE. He was a staunch supporter of religious unity in his territory, having been educated by the Jesuits (who were a result of the Counter-Reformation movement, so were fairly anti-Protestant). His clear ill-will against the Protestants caused many of the nobles to reject him, which basically created the exact same shit storm you might imagine when half of a nation rejects its ruler. We go now to the first stage of the war.
Stage 1: Bohemian Revolution
When Ferdinand I/II took over, he sent several councilors to Bohemia in a diplomatic effort to avoid conflict with the Protestant. In one of the most refreshingly straight forward political maneuvers in history, the leaders of Protestant Bohemia threw them out a third story window. Though the fall was a good 50 feet or so, they survived remarkably unharmed.
The conflict spread throughout the western German region, eventually leading to Ferdinand recruiting the aid of some family over in Spain, which at this time was actually a politically significant force. Protestant countries who had been previously too afraid to attack the Hapsburgs because of their immense and entirely baffling family tree were emboldened by the revolt and joined in the fun.
Fredrick V, a protestant, was pleaded to for entrance into the Protestant League by the Bohemians, who desperately needed allies to fight the Catholics. They offered Fredrick the throne in exchange for the admission, but had also apparently made this offer to a fairly large number of other leaders to gain support as well, making them the king offer sluts of the 1600's. This cost them a good amount of support from the countries they had hoped to get support from. Not too surprisingly, the rebellion didn't proceed too well for the protestants then. The Protestant armies were crushed, leaving only a few stray generals wandering about. This was enough to cause trouble, however.
Phase II: Denmark takes off a bit more than it can chew
Denmark saw the Catholic League victory as a threat to it's sovereignty as a Protestant nation. Christian IV, Denmark's king at this time, raised a fairly sizable army to fight the Catholic League, receiving support from some Protestant areas of the HRE and some money from France and Britain, who both had interests in keeping the Habsburgs down. He also received some aid from Sweden in the form of war reparation, which was nice.
But there was still a reason as to why the Habsburgs were the most powerful family in Europe at the time. Despite Christian IV's best efforts, his primary general, Mansfeld, died of tuberculosis and he lost several important battles. He was pushed back to his borders, where he was saved by the fact that Wallenstein decided that an invasion would cost more than any possible benefit. The peace treaty here made Denmark remove itself from the conflict, giving Catholics greater control over the German states.
Phase III: It's Gustavus Adolfus time, biznatches!
So, after two Protestant groups have failed to win the acknowledgement of their religion, the natural thing to do would be to try again. But this time, it was a total badass leading the Protestant armies instead of those pansies who died of things like tuberculosis and beheading.
The precise reason as to why Adolfus entered into the war is unknown, but it was clear that he wanted to limit the power of the HRE, as well as prevent the subjugation of Protestant nations. He received funds from France in their continuing effort to fight a proxy war against the HRE and Spain. In a relatively short amount of time, Adolfus pushed the Catholic League back until he controlled almost half of the HRE's territory. Needless to say, he was quite pleased with himself.
France, now confident enough that things were going smoothly, formally allied with Sweden in 1631 and stopped being such pansies. Swedish armies continued pushing through German lands, killing a prominent Catholic general in the process and gaining a definitive upper hand. Unfortunately, Wallenstein pulled a clever maneuver and moved in behind the Swedish force and threatened the supply lines, forcing Adolfus into a battle that was severely disadvantageous for the Protestant armies. Adolfus went boldly into the trap and was killed in action, being way more manly than those other people who had just pansied out. Despite Adolfus' death, the Swedish army was momentarily victorious. After this, the Swedish armies became less successful and Protestant Germany sued for peace with the Peace of Prague, ending the civil war in Germany and limiting the power of Protestant princes.
Part IV: More or less the end
The end part of the war includes a lot of back and forth, eventually resulting in Sweden having gained a fair amount of ground in the HRE once again, leaving only Austria firmly under Habsburg rule. France invaded Spain, meeting with initial disaster and then ending up with more or less the same borders. Eventually, a series of peace agreements were reached known collectively as the Peace of Westphalia was reached by the nations of Europe, which was the first example of a big peace talk and was very exciting.
The terms of the treaty were as follows: The imperial domain was reset to pre-war terms, meaning each individual territory had its own religious determination and semi-autonomy. In addition, Calvinism was acknowledged as a legitimate religion.
In response, the pope had a hissy fit in which he declared the agreement "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time", which was actually just part of his effort to expand his vocabulary for verbally smiting the heathens.
Some various territorial disputes were settled, which were relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, and:
Religious wars were prohibited, saying that the religious sovereignty of every nation was guaranteed. It would be, in theory, a good idea.
Well, that's basically all there is to that. It was very exciting. Tomorrow will most likely be the 7 Years War, which was largely covered in the short history of imperialism but will be rehashed in a more educational fashion.
I was going to post a few panels with this, but there were extenuating circumstances. Maybe tomorrow.
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