From Bohemia to the Thirty Years War 259involvement in the war. The plight of Friedrich and the Palatinate
doubtless also contributed to Christian’s decision to intervene, although
his repeated advice to his nephew to come to terms with Ferdinand
suggests that to have been his preferred approach, while by this time
Friedrich was already becoming a forlorn and increasingly irrelevant
figure on the sidelines.
In June 1625 Christian moved south with his new army. This was
not formally an act of war, as it merely took him further into the
Lower Saxon Circle, where asKreisobersthe was responsible for defence.
Although this was a transparent technicality Ferdinand hesitated, but
in mid-July Maximilian took the initiative. Still acting in his capacity
as a commissioner appointed by the emperor to enforce Imperial law,
he instructed Tilly to put the matter to the test by himself marching
into Lower Saxon territory.^50 When he did so Christian accepted the
challenge, and this was the point at which the Bohemian revolt and its
aftermath moved from being a series of relatively localised campaigns,
centred successively around Bohemia, the Palatinate, and Westphalia,
to become the full-scale international conflict known as the Thirty
Years War.