Thirty Years War
Protestant-Catholic European conflagration
The Thirty Years War was a devastating conflict fought primarily in Central Europe from 1618 to 1648.
It began as a religious struggle between Protestant and Catholic states within the Holy Roman Empire but evolved into a broader political contest involving most European powers.
The war killed millions through combat, famine, and disease, depopulating large regions of Germany.
The Peace of Westphalia that ended it established principles of state sovereignty that shaped modern international relations.
- WestphaliaHistoric northwestern German region
- HabsburgEuropean imperial dynasty
- ProtestantPost-schism Western Christian
- CatholicPapal church adherent
- religious conflictClash over doctrinal differences
mercenary · siege · plague · famine · population collapse · Richelieu · Bohemia · pillage · musket · pike · devastation · war of attrition · Holy Roman Empire · treaty · reformation · cavalry · battlefield · Swedish
- GermanyBerlin, Munich, Hamburg, Germany, German
- WarsWorld War I, WWI, civil war, cold war, Korean War
- Early ModernRenaissance, 1500s, 1600s, Reformation, sixteenth century
- German HistoryNazi, Prussia, Saxony, Reichstag, Napoleonic Wars
- 1600s EuropeLouis XIV, Glorious Revolution, Peace of Westphalia, Versailles, William of Orange
- church-statechurch-state, separation, church-state separation, establishment clause, religious accommodation
Thirty Years WarSix-Day War
Week-minus-one combat, 1967
Falklands War · Gulf War · blitzkrieg · surgical strike · raid
Thirty Years WarPeace of Westphalia
1648 sovereignty-establishing treaties
Pax Romana · peacetime · Concert of Europe · peace · armistice