The Start of the Thirty Years’ War: The History and Legacy of the Early Battles that Began the Deadly Conflict

It has been famously pointed out that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, but it was also not an empire in the sense people expect when hearing the term. In theory, the emperor was the highest prince in Christendom, and his dominion extended the length and breadth of Western Europe. The empire had been created by the papacy in 801 when Pope Leo III famously crowned the supposedly unwitting Charlemagne in Saint Peter’s Basilica, intending to recreate the Western Roman Empire. In truth, the imperial power did not extend beyond central Europe, which by the beginning of the 16th century included Germany, northern Italy, and the Netherlands. Even in these lands, however, the emperor struggled to command obedience. His dominion over northern Italy was theoretical only, the cities of the Netherlands were deeply conscious of their ancient rights and privileges, and Germany had long ceased to be compliant. They were united in only one sense: denying the emperor power.

The Thirty Years' War was one of the most horrific conflicts in history, resulting in the deaths of nearly two-thirds of Germany's population, and the Battle of White Mountain in 1620 was the first major battle of that war. The battle was fought mainly due to Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II’s dealings with the Bohemians and their new king, Frederick of the Palatinate, who Ferdinand regarded as illegitimate. It was also partly a struggle between the centralizing attempts of the Habsburg dynasty conflicting with the traditional regional autonomy that existed within the legislative institutions called the Estates. What gave it an emotional element was the enmity between Bohemian Protestantism and Ferdinand II’s zealous Catholicism. The war would permanently affect the fate of modern Europe.