The Thirty Year's War: The Adbalance Of The Thirty Years War

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War, war never changes. All parties involved in war do it for one reason and one reason alone, power. This struggle for power is no different in the case of The Thirty Years’ War. Starting in Bohemia in 1618 as a regional conflict with the Hapsburg Empire, many parties were involved in the conflict. The Catholic Church was one such party struggling with the religious conflict of the Reformation. Other Nations such as France, England, Sweden, and Spain were involved as well and played a major role in obtaining greater power through the use of political actions under the guise of religion. Originating in Bohemia, the war’s roots take seed over a religious conflict. Duke Ferdinand issues an edict that goes against Bohemian culture by eliminating the ability for the Bohemian people to autonomously electing their own king. This singular action creates an imbalance of power, which fuels the Bohemians. A group of Bohemian nobles retaliate by throwing two emissaries of the emperor and their scribe out of a window of the Royal Palace in Prague, inciting the first symbolic act of the Bohemian rebellion from the empire. In 1619, Duke Ferdinand is crowned emperor Ferdinand II. …show more content…

The war started out as a dispute over a declaration by Duke Ferdinand and escalated to a large-scale war between Catholic versus Protestant, Calvinist, and Lutheran religions. While the war began due to religious motivation, the war ultimately ended up being a political tool used to limit the Hapsburg power in Spain. France, a Catholic power, and other anti-Catholic entities throwing their support behind Gustavus Adolphus, who was a deeply religious Protestant fighting the largely Catholic Spain. This led to a division of the Holy Roman Empire and left Germany divided as Sweden, France, and the Catholic Church carved out their territories through political means to increase their own party’s

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