180 The Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Revolt in Bohemia, 1618
times he had far fewer troops at his disposal, and he was dependent on
his allies for infantry and artillery support, as well as for the pay for his
men, to the extent that they could not provide for themselves through
booty.
Elsewhere religious sympathies did not extend to physical assistance,
not least because the conflict in Bohemia came out of the blue to most
of the prospective allies. Insofar as Europe had been expecting a war,
this was not it, and for most it necessitated a new political appraisal of
the situation. Speculation had centred around a war on Germany’s west-
ern frontiers, probably developing from a renewal of hostilities between
the Spanish and the Dutch in the Netherlands after the end of the truce
in 1621, and almost certainly involving France in an alliance against
the Habsburgs. This concept was essentially the war which almost hap-
pened in 1610 around Cleves-Jülich, but which in the event was limited
to a single brief siege. The outbreak of war in Bohemia was thus three
years too early and moreover in the wrong place, not in the Rhineland,
where French, Spanish and Dutch territories were in close proximity to
each other, but far away to the east, where none of those powers, nor
any of the other potential allies for the Bohemians, had direct strate-
gic interests. The days were passing, if not already past, when princes
were inclined to go to war for mainly religious reasons, although many
could still manage to reconcile their religious convictions to their polit-
ical objectives. At first sight few Protestant powers could see any such
wider reasons for involvement in Bohemia, so they limited themselves
to sympathetic noises and talk of mediation.
Some of their princes also had more pressing concerns. Gustavus II
Adolphus of Sweden had just concluded a short war with Russia over
border areas and was looking for an opportunity to renew his raids on
Polish territory. His military activity in turn occupied the attention of
Christian IV of Denmark, always on his guard against his Nordic neigh-
bour as a first priority. Meanwhile James I of England was still pursuing
his long-standing objective of arranging a Spanish marriage for his son
Charles, which precluded him from supporting a Protestant rebellion
against the Habsburgs in Bohemia. James refused even to make a loan,
although his anti-Spanish subjects contributed enough in a public sub-
scription to finance a regiment of 2500 men, which reached Bohemia in
August 1620.^3
France had even better reasons for not wishing to become involved,
having recently passed through a period of internal turmoil which
included two rebellions, noble-led and with Huguenot support, follow-
ing which the teenage Louis XIII finally seized power from his mother’s