Essay --

Thirty Years’ War The Thirty Years' War was a series of wars fought in the Holy Roman empire, involving most of the countries within, the war lasted 30 years. This war massively affected europe and created a cultural divide between catholics and protestants. Philip III of Spain attempted to continue the foreign policy views of his father, Philip II, which basically meant that Spain had to be kept ready for war. Thus in 1618, when Ferdinand II, heir apparent to the throne of Bohemia, began to slash certain religious privileges enjoyed by his subjects there, they immediately appealed for aid to the Protestants in the rest of the empire and to the leading foreign Protestant states: Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, and Denmark (Trueman). Even though the war between the German Catholics and German Protestants were all in the Holy Roman Empire were both Christian it slowly spread was more of a fight over the balance of power. There were two sides in the Thirty Years’ War the Protestant League and the Catholic League. The Protestant League consisted of Frederick of Bohemia who was the leader of the Protestant princes, Denmark led by king Christian IV, Sweden led by king Gustavus Adolphus, and the Netherlands led by the house of orange all financially supported by king of France Louis XIII. The Catholic League consisted of the leader Duke Maximillian of Bavaria, Holy Roman Empire Led by Emperor Ferdinand II, and king of Spain Philip IV (Billiet). There were five major phases of the Thirty Years’ War the Bohemian Revolt, Palatinate phase, Danish intervention, Swedish intervention, and the French intervention (Thomas). In the Bohemian phase a group of Bohemian Protestants captured the governors of prague and threw them out of the palace w... ...ing both flanks the remaining infantry moved to attack the Tercio of Naples (the best unit in the Spanish army). The German infantry failed horrendously, and the Spanish veterans held their ground due to some help from the musketeers in the woods. The spanish managed to wound Brunswick and drove his army off the field. The Protestants lost 3,000, 500 were wounded, and 1,500 captured. The spanish couldn’t have asked for a better fight. The Spanish suffered 300 dead and 900 wounded. The following day the Spanish cavalry obliterated the remaining Protestant infantry as they marched. Of the 24,000 men that left the Palatine that day only 3,000 Protestant cavalry managed to reach the next town (Thomas). As shown many times in historical past battles like the persians vs. the greeks numbers don’t matter its the strategy and will of the people to protect their way of life.