238 The Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Revolt in Bohemia, 1618
The war in Germany
The development of the war in Germany during 1622 and 1623 was
complicated, and its course is fully described by Wilson, but for present
purposes the main interest is not in the military action, which will be
outlined only briefly, but in who joined in the fighting, and why.^18
Two powers whose participation was more limited than might have
been anticipated were the Spanish and the Dutch. Contemporaries had
expected that the ending of the truce in 1621 would lead not only
to a resumption of the war in the Netherlands, but to its extension
into a major European conflict, and some historians have explicitly
or implicitly incorporated this into their view of the Thirty Years War.
In the event the two wars proceeded mainly independently and in par-
allel, although they inevitably spilled over the boundaries from time
to time, while on occasion the respective belligerents helped or were
helped by the corresponding side in the Empire. Nevertheless, as Wilson
observes, ‘like the [Dutch] Republic, Spain had no intention of becom-
ing involved in Germany and increasingly regarded the war there as a
serious distraction....Both Madrid and Brussels sought rapid disengage-
ment in order to concentrate on the struggle against the Dutch.’ He
adds that ‘the void was filled by new champions for whom the Palatine
cause became an honourable cloak for a variety of more personal
ambitions’.^19
On an individual level many of the German noblemen who became
involved in the war at around this time, some a little earlier, some a
little later, were younger sons, for whom the church or the military
were traditional occupations in the absence of a worthwhile inheritance.
Opportunities in the church were limited, and even army commissions
were not always available, particularly after the ending of the Long
Turkish War in 1606 and the truce in the Netherlands from 1609, so
that many young men were eager to sign on as the conflict in the Empire
developed. The extent to which they were influenced by religion or pol-
itics obviously varied, but it is probably true to say of most that they
joined up not for these reasons but in pursuit of personal advantage,
although such considerations may well have influenced which side they
chose to serve.
The range of differing approaches is well exemplified by four Sachsen-
Lauenburg brothers, all younger sons of the previous ruling duke. The
family was Lutheran, and the eldest of the four, Franz Julius, married
a sister of the duke of Württemberg, a leading figure in the Protestant
Union, but even so he entered Imperial service, although as a courtier