From Bohemia to the Thirty Years War

Abstract

The traditional starting date for the Thirty Years War is 1618, implicitly on 23 May, the day of the defenestration, although significant military hostilities did not commence until August of that year. According to the usual interpretation described in Chapter 1, the Empire and indeed much of Europe were only awaiting a trigger for the near-inevitable general conflict to break out. Hence it might be expected that after two and a half years, by the time of the battle of the White Mountain on 8 November 1620, this wider war would have been well under way. Quite the contrary was the case. Outside the Palatinate, barely a shot had been fired in Germany, and military action had been limited to a few minor cavalry skirmishes. Spinola’s Spanish army had occupied the Palatinate west of the Rhine in three months of minor sieges and cat-and-mouse manoeuvres, and it was already moving into winter quarters, while after the defeat of the Bohemians the Protestant Union army was looking for a face-saving excuse to disband, as was the Union itself.¹ The latter had received some financial and military help from England and the Dutch, although little more than their minimum commitments under the long-standing alliance treaties, but no other supporters, whether German territories or foreign powers, had rallied to the cause with practical assistance. The logical next question is thus why did the war spread to Germany from 1621 onwards when it had not done so before?