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The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battle, famine, and disease, while some areas of what is now modern Germany experienced population declines of over 50%. Related conflicts include the Eighty Years' War, the War of the Mantuan Succession, the Franco-Spanish War, and the Portuguese Restoration War.
The House of Wittelsbach is a former German dynasty, with branches that have ruled over territories including Bavaria, the Palatinate, Holland and Zeeland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Hungary, Bohemia, the Electorate of Cologne and other prince-bishoprics, and Greece. Their ancestral lands of the Palatinate and Bavaria were Prince-electorates, and the family had three of its members elected emperors and kings of the Holy Roman Empire. They ruled over the Kingdom of Bavaria which was created in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918.
Ferdinand II was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia, Hungary, and Croatia from 1619 until his death in 1637. He was the son of Archduke Charles II of Inner Austria and Maria of Bavaria. His parents were devout Catholics, and, in 1590, they sent him to study at the Jesuits' college in Ingolstadt because they wanted to isolate him from the Lutheran nobles. In July that same year (1590), when Ferdinand was 12 years old, his father died, and he inherited Inner Austria–Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and smaller provinces. His cousin, the childless Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, who was the head of the Habsburg family, appointed regents to administer these lands.
Ferdinand III was from 1621 Archduke of Austria, King of Hungary from 1625, King of Croatia and Bohemia from 1627 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1637 until his death in 1657.
Frederick V was the Elector Palatine of the Rhine in the Holy Roman Empire from 1610 to 1623, and reigned as King of Bohemia from 1619 to 1620. He was forced to abdicate both roles, and the brevity of his reign in Bohemia earned him the derisive sobriquet "the Winter King".
The Catholic League was a coalition of Catholic states of the Holy Roman Empire formed 10 July 1609. While initially formed as a confederation to act politically to negotiate issues vis-à-vis the Protestant Union, modelled on the more intransigent ultra-Catholic French Catholic League (1576), it was subsequently concluded as a military alliance "for the defence of the Catholic religion and peace within the Empire".
The Protestant Union, also known as the Evangelical Union, Union of Auhausen, German Union or the Protestant Action Party, was a coalition of Protestant German states. It was formed on 14 May 1608 by Frederick IV, Elector Palatine in order to defend the rights, land and safety of each member. It included both Calvinist and Lutheran states, and dissolved in 1621.
Maximilian I, occasionally called the Great, a member of the House of Wittelsbach, ruled as Duke of Bavaria from 1597. His reign was marked by the Thirty Years' War during which he obtained the title of a Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire at the 1623 Diet of Regensburg.
Ferdinand Maria was a Wittelsbach ruler of Bavaria and an elector (Kurfürst) of the Holy Roman Empire from 1651 to 1679.
The Peace of Prague, signed on 30 May 1635, ended Saxony's participation in the Thirty Years War. Other German princes subsequently joined the treaty and although the Thirty Years War continued, it is generally agreed Prague ended it as a war of religion within the Holy Roman Empire. Thereafter, the conflict was largely driven by foreign powers, including Spain, Sweden, and France.
The Battle of Jankau, also known as Jankov, Jankow, or Jankowitz, took place in central Bohemia, on 6 March 1645. One of the last major battles of the 1618 to 1648 Thirty Years' War, it was fought between Swedish and Imperial armies, each containing around 16,000 men. The more mobile and better led Swedes under Lennart Torstensson effectively destroyed their opponents, commanded by Melchior von Hatzfeldt. However, the devastation caused by decades of conflict meant armies now spent much of their time obtaining supplies, and the Swedes were unable to take advantage.
The Battle of Zusmarshausen was fought on 17 May 1648 between Bavarian-Imperial forces under von Holzappel and an allied Franco-Swedish army under the command of Carl Gustaf Wrangel and Turenne in the modern Augsburg district of Bavaria, Germany. The allied force emerged victorious, and the Imperial army was only rescued from annihilation by the stubborn rearguard fighting of Raimondo Montecuccoli and his cavalry.
The Treaty of Fontainebleau was signed on 30 May 1631 during the Thirty Years' War, at the Palace of Fontainebleau. It was a pact of mutual assistance between Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria, and France, for a period of eight years.
The Electorate of Bavaria was an independent hereditary electorate of the Holy Roman Empire from 1623 to 1806, when it was succeeded by the Kingdom of Bavaria.
The Battle of Herbsthausen, also known as the Battle of Mergentheim, took place near Bad Mergentheim, in the modern German state of Baden-Württemberg. Fought on 5 May 1645, during the Thirty Years War, it featured a French army led by Turenne, defeated by a Bavarian force under Franz von Mercy.
The Treaty of Bärwalde, signed on 23 January 1631, was an agreement by France to provide Sweden financial support, following its intervention in the Thirty Years' War.
The Palatinate campaign, also known as the Spanish conquest of the Palatinate or the Palatinate phase of the Thirty Years' War was a campaign conducted by the Imperial army against the Protestant Union in the Lower Palatinate, during the Thirty Years' War.
Events from the year 1647 in Sweden.
Johann von Sporck was a German nobleman and Generalfeldmarschall. Sporck was born in 1595 and he began his military career at the start of the Thirty Years' War as a private. His personal bravery and mastery of cavalry tactics led to his steady advancement through the ranks as well as his ennoblement. He later fought in the Second Northern War, the Austro-Turkish War (1663–64) and the Franco-Dutch War. He retired in 1676, having received the rank of Generalfeldmarschall and accumulating great riches. He died three years later. His son Franz Anton von Sporck became a publisher and a patron of arts.
Johann Maximilian von Lamberg was an Austrian nobleman, diplomat and courtier. In the service of the Habsburgs, he excelled in the peace negotiations at the end of the Thirty Years' War, resulting in the Peace of Westphalia. Later in high offices he was one of the influential figures of the imperial court. In addition to gaining the title of count (1641), he expanded the family property in various parts of the Empire.
References
- ↑ "Maximilian I., Bayern, Kurfürst". Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek. Retrieved June 1, 2019.
- ↑ "Ferdinand III". Deutsche Biographie. Retrieved June 1, 2019.
