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The Origins of the Thirty

Years War?

The Thirty Years War was not only long, but also extremely complicated.
Hence almost all modern histories of the war (with one recent
exception^1 ) have sought to confine their accounts of the circumstances
and events prior to the revolt in Bohemia to their first substantive
chapter. Although there are differences in detail the overall approach is
generally similar, outlining the increasing tensions and the specific inci-
dents which by 1618 had created a critical situation in which a rebellion
in Prague could lead to a prolonged and widespread conflict. English-
speaking historians tend to stress the international context rather more
than their German colleagues, even those who espouse the modern
European view of the war, but this is a matter of emphasis rather than
a difference of principle. Consequently this book too will set out a sum-
mary of the background to the war as Chapter 1, firstly in order to
present the relevant facts conveniently and concisely, but secondly as
the basis for a discussion in Chapter 2 of the validity of the standard
interpretation.
Arndt describes the Thirty Years War as ‘a European war, but one
which took place predominantly on the soil of the Holy Roman
Empire’.^2 The latter part of this observation is certainly true in a lit-
eral sense, as at that time the Empire still theoretically included not
only Germany, Austria and the lands of the Bohemian crown, but also
much of northern Italy, together with Franche-Comté, Alsace, Lorraine
and the Spanish Netherlands, as well as the United Provinces (Dutch
Republic) and indeed the Swiss Cantons, notwithstanding that both the
latter territories had long since established their practical independence.
Nevertheless the term ‘Empire’ was by then commonly used in a more
limited sense, excluding not only the Swiss and the Dutch, but also the
areas under Spanish and French control or influence, while the status of

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