Thirty Years War

A Thirty Years War was a set of conflicts that took place on the European continent between the years 1618 and 1648.

Religious and political in character, the Thirty Years' War represented a profound crisis that hit the seventeenth century intensely.

Thirty Years War – Summary

During the seventeenth century, several European countries their main objective was to increase their power through the conquest of new domains and markets. However, competition between centralized monarchies triggered numerous armed conflicts.

Furthermore, the consequences of Protestant Reformation It is counter-reformation in the political configuration of Europe, provoked several religious conflicts, one of them was the Thirty Years' War.

This war brought together the Protestants on the one hand, represented by Denmark, Sweden, Holland and an alliance between the German principalities, and, on the other, the Catholics, who rallied around the King of Spain and the Austrian Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, both members of the Habsburg family.

Protestants revolted against the sovereignty of the Austrian emperor, along with France, the largest Catholic state at the time.

Even practicing the Catholicism, the French allied themselves with the Protestants with the aim of taking over the territories of the Habsburgs and weakening the Holy Roman Empire and Spain.

The results of that war were catastrophic in terms of material and human loss. It is believed to have caused the deaths of around 4 million people. The center of the European continent was devastated, with its plantations destroyed.

The end of the conflict was characterized by the signing of the Treaties of Peace of Westphalia, in 1648. From then on, the interests of the State were superimposed in relation to religious values. In addition, states became sovereign over their territories.

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