PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Both the Lutheran and the Catholic princes tried to gain followers, in addition both sides felt threatened by Calvinism, which was spreading in Germany and gaining many followers.
As tension grew, the Lutherans joined together in the Protestant Union in 1608. The following year, the Catholic Princes formed the Catholic league. Now, it would only take a spark to set off a war!
The spark came in 1618. The future Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand ||, was head of the Hapsburg family. He ruled the Czech Kingdom of Bohemia. The Protestants in Bohemia did not trust Ferdinand, who was a foreigner and a catholic.
When he closed some Protestant Churches, the Protestants revolted. Ferdinand sent an army into Bohemia to crush the revolt.
Thus began the Thirty Years' War, a conflict over religion and territory and for power among European ruling families.
The Thirty Years War lasted from 1618-1648.
During the first 12 years, Hapsburg armies from Austria and Spain crushed the troops hired by the Protestant princes!
They also defeated the German Protestants who had supported the Czechs.
The Protestant Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and his disci- plined army of 23,000 men shifted the wave of the war in 1630. They drove the Hapsburg armies out of northern Germany. However Gustavus Adolphus was killed in 1632.
The war did great damage to Germany. Its population dropped from 20 million to about 16 million. Both trade and agriculture were dis- rupted, and Germany’s economy was ruined.
