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Austria The Thirty Years' War, 1618-48
The anti-Habsburg rebellions reflected the rising tensions
between Catholics and Protestants in the early 1600s. Proponents
of the Counter-Reformation, often operating under Habsburg
protection, were reaping the fruits of a generation of work:
monastic life was reviving, Catholic intellectual life was
regaining confidence, and prominent figures were returning to the
Catholic Church. As a result, Protestants were increasingly on
the defensive. The German princes split into two military camps
based on religious affiliation: the Evangelical Union and the
Catholic League.
In August 1619, a Bohemian diet elected as king the
Protestant elector-prince of the Palatinate, Frederick V, and the
conclave of elector-princes elected Ferdinand II (r. 1619-37)
Holy Roman Emperor. On November 8, 1620, a force combining troops
from the Catholic League and the imperial army decisively
defeated Frederick V's largely mercenary force at the Battle of
White Mountain. Throughout the 1620s, the combined imperial and
Catholic forces maintained the offensive in Germany, enabling
Ferdinand to establish his authority in the Hereditary Lands,
Bohemia, and Hungary.
Equating Protestantism with disloyalty, Ferdinand imposed
religious restrictions throughout the Hereditary Lands. In 1627
he implemented a long-planned decree to make Bohemia a
one-confession state: Protestants were given six months to
convert or leave the country. In the face of a strong Hungarian
nationalist movement headed by the Calvinist prince of
Transylvania, however, Ferdinand could maintain his hold on Royal
Hungary only by confirming guarantees of religious freedom.
Foreign intervention by Denmark, Sweden, and France kept
Ferdinand from bringing the war to a conclusion through military
power and also frustrated his efforts in the mid-1630s to reach a
compromise with the Protestant German princes. The subsequent
military campaigns of the Thirty Years' War, however, only
marginally affected those portions of the Habsburg territories
that are part of modern Austria.
Data as of December 1993
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