Submitted by Royal_Bumblebee_ t3_ydslck in todayilearned
"left millions dead" is a huge understatement.
There were areas that were completely depopulated several times.
By "completely depopulated" I mean no people left, no farm animals left, no cats or dogs left. Even trees were pretty much exterminated in some areas.
defenestration sounds like they wrote a series of harshly worded poems. not start chucking a bunch of kings out of windows
A dungheap placed by the Virgin Mary according to the Catholic Church
One of the most transformative periods of European history, it was more or less 4 wars back to back to back to back, also spawned the concept of real politik when Cardinal Richlieu (because Louis XIII was too busy having gay adventures with his lover) had France intervene on the side of the Protestants. Thats not even going into the foundational nature the Peace of Westphalia had on European diplomacy for centuries afterward.
Well that seems unnecessarily brutal. Even the Mongol Horde left the trees.
*2nd Defenestration, first ones happened in 1419, comes from the latin root de meaning out, and fenestra meaning window (also fenetre in French means window),
As well as the strength of the Swedish at the time and how things could have turned out very different for them.
I spent a long time researching this and felt as if I didn't even touch the surface!
religious wars tend to be extra brutal
I mean they were technically nature worshippers (kinda sorta not really but also yes)
RIP Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North
My favourite part is when Denmark joined, got beaten, then joined the other side years later and were defeated again.
the sunni-shiite wars were also really brutal.
i don't really understand why there wasn't ...
well, let's not go there.
european christians learned to separate church and state after their religious wars. that doesnt seem to be a universal lesson.
Islam and Islamic scripture is much more directly tied to the governance of people than Catholicism or Protestantism, like the concept alone of seperation of Church and State is just incredibly alien to a majority of Muslims. Europeans learned to separate the two after centuries of Church intervention and it only happened due in large part to the ambitions of absolutist monarchs, and even then it wasnt a uniform, timely, or bloodless process.
This was either the second or third time in which Czech rebels in Prague threw someone out the window
there was not enough food with several foreign armies ravaging the country. so it was a matter of survival not of wanton violence.
edit I mean there was certainly a surplus of brutality and violence, but cats, dogs, any animals were eaten, not killed for sport
Mine too, as you can see.
My favorite part is Poland and Sweden as arch enemies. Did not see that coming.
My favorite part is sweden fighting with ships on lake constance in central europe.
Just to help you OP, the "dungheap" thing is completely mythological made up thing. There was no dung under the Prague castle in the 17th century. What happened was that their very "fluffy" style of clothing slowed their fall on a ground, that wasnt 90 degrees against the window, but slightly inclined, which again slowed the impact.
3rd defenestration. The 2nd one happened in 1483.
Maybe this kind of thing is why separation of church and state is so important.
Some Poles are still a bit salty about it...
People do this sort of thing whether it's about religion or not.
Which one?
Sounds like she didn't like them all that much either. She could just as easily have placed a pile of straw.
The second time the Czechs thrown somebody out of a window in Prague and caused a war.
It wasn't really about religion for the most part.
Sure, the event that started it was Bohemia offering their crown to a protestant prince and pissing of the catholic emperor. But after that it was all just a big lootfest where every European power just had their way with the peasants of the HRE.
Nothing makes this more clear than catholic France and protestant Sweden teaming up against the empire.
yeah, burning and pillaging my home town, raping the girls and killing the men by force feeding them excrements. A true gentleman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwedentrunk
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Rest in peace my ass.
I'd always heard reference to the 30 Years War in history, but we never really studied it at all. Then I got really curious and started reading about it and was shocked at how brutal and deadly it was and how it was just kinda glossed over in school. Especially brutal for the poor commoners just trying to survive and live their lives that had the misfortune of living in the wrong place.
Currently reading a 1500 page book about it. Slowly.
It's a really nice looking room in the town hall. I just visited.
omnibus podcast covered this
Remember, when discussing the Defenstration of Prague, you need to be specific and refer to the third or 1618.
The dungheap appears to be a later protestant invention. The catholics of course claimed angelic intervention. In practice fall was short enough that they just got lucky.
Oh me too!
While religion was certainly a significant element in the war, it was not really a religious war. Consider that the war was ended by an alliance between Gustavus Adolphus (a leading Protestant monarch) and Cardinal Richelieu (whose religious affiliation you can guess from the name).
This is further shown by the fact that mercenaries and prisoners of war regularly were incorporated into the winning army after a lost battle. Many combatants changed sides multiple times. The devastation of the countrysides and the multiple plunderings of the same regions left no other choice than to join the war for many.
Call it what it was: The Defenestration of Prague.
Those thrown out the window were said to have been caught and placed on the ground by the wings of Angel by their allies and those sympathetic. Those against the Habsburgs said the two governors landed in horse shit.
It's a triumph of the Politiques- people who don't give a damn which side is right or wrong, they just want the squabbling to stop so the basic activities of the country can go on unimpeded.
We could use more of those.
I did NOT know Swedes were so into inflation. Also that's damn horrific.
Would you rather get Schwedentrunk'd or Scaphism'd?
I'd never heard of it until I went to Prague and was looking round the castle - literally couldn't believe this was a genuine historical event!
To be fair, haven't everyone conquered Poland? They're kind of a tramp when it comes to being invaded.
The Habsburg is not only one of the most inbred families in human history, they're also suspiciously involved in almost every european war. Remember Franz Ferdinand? Dude was a Habsburg.
It keeps your tongue from sticking when the Pole is cold.
I hear that’s a cheesy place.
> Scottish mercenaries
Who assassinated Wallenstein, right?
That was most likely German mercenaries under Swedish pay actually, only around 10% of the Swedish army were Swedes/Finns. So your own countrymen were probably the ones pillaging, raping, torturing and murdering their fellow Germans.
Not really. It was about political power more than anything. Catholic France sided with the Protestants.
Also loads of farmers were drafted, killed or driven away. Resulting in massive famines since production output was simply lowered. And lets not forget the diseases that 30 years of war brings and spreads around.
Yeah you didnt want to live in europe back then.
I'm not sure but that's fascinating if so!
In case anyone is interested... the Czech nobles throwing the governors onto the dungheap features at 6:52min in this history cartoon...
Doesn't make it better for Gustav Adolf, does it?
When your family rules some of the largest/most important nations in Europe (Holy Roman Empire, later Austria, Spain and all of their various holdings over the years including most of Central Europe, the Netherlands, etc.) its not suspicious to be involved in all of the major wars, its expected.
You would think they would put a screen on it
Yeah. But also, their mental health weren't the best. It's not a stretch to think without them the world would have been better off.
They had three?? Did other cities have numbered defenestrations?
Really? Poland was kind of a jerk during their height of power. No one liked them back then. They were like Russia is today.
The war was so bad that it was literally the reason some countries started pushing for a body of laws (culminating in the Geneva Conventions) to regulate warfare.
Also what people fail to realize is this view is not at all prevalent outside of Western and Central Europe and North America.
I mean he died like two years into the involvement of the Swedish army and they stayed involved for 16 years after that so more than likley it was the commanders after him that might have perpetrated it.
Calling the 30-Years war a Religious War is somewhat of a simplification. The sides didn't follow religious lines. It was more of a war against the power of the Emperor, and his ability to rule over those territories not part of his immediate demesne.
France sponsoring Sweden makes sense from a geopolitical standpoint. It was less a lootfest and more a very calculated move from the French higher-ups to preserve their status.
France was wedged in between Spain which was ruled by the Habsburgs and the HRE which usually had a Habsburg as emperor. The Holy Roman Emperor couldn't actually do all that much without his nobles' consent though, up until the war where the emperor was fighting against some of his most powerful lords.
But Cardinal Richelieu (yes, the one from The Three Musketeers) figured that if the Catholic side (meaning the Emperor) was successful in forcing the protestant lords to re-convert to Catholicism the logical next step would be to take this newfound power and convert the empire into a single centralised realm under Habsburg rule.
That would mean France would quickly lose its status as one of the hegemons of Europe. The best way to prevent this was to keep the emperor small and that meant sponsoring Sweden.
I haven't really studied this particular era, but I know Poland was a jerk. I just didn't realize they pissed off the Swedes.
Source? That sounds more fantastical than the dungheap story which was accepted without question by the academic sources I've read.
Half of it was
Well, they have the misfortune of being located between Russia and Germany...
Good luck to you.
I've read a few books on it. It is bleak and depressing. There is absolutely nothing good in the midst of the fighting, no courageous view of the human spirit, just death and destruction throughout.
If you read Czech I can recommend you something. My history teacher at university was one of the historians who went against the dungheep/trashheep story and spent a lot of time going through primary sources to dispute that.
"religion is good!"
Ah, Swedes…
Which one is it? Would you recommend it?
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The impact of the Peace of Westphalia on diplomacy has been vastly overstated.
Messiahs always need people dying in their name
Not to mention it’s always so much more complex than “they do religion wrong therefore kill.” Sunni and Shiite Muslims have lived alongside each other for centuries in many places with no issues. Changes in material conditions turn these differences into a potential battleground.
defenestrated into feces.
Author's name is Wilson. So far I like it, but you'd have to be used to reading books of that length.
I don't really think they could have, in the grand scale of historical inevitability. Within a few centuries, united Germany and modernised Russia would have been as issue for them, and at that point it's just an issue of sheer demographics. They didn't have an open frontier to expand into, and instead would have to rely on conquest of their direct neighbours, which isn't really terribly effective. And their position in the Baltic means they couldn't really have leveraged their naval strength into a colonial empire since a single blockade of the straits between Denmark and Sweden would have completely dismembered them.
My understanding is that he was seen as ineffective and negligent by the Emperor. Added to that, there were rumors that he was seeking peace with Sweden (outside of Hapsburg approval) and it was decided to do away with him. He had been a Moravian before converting for political and economic reasons, so there was a real fear he could side with the Protestant Cause, thus death was chosen.
The Scot mercenaries had been particularly effective and often served as the guard units for Wallenstein, etc. Ferdinand chose them to do the deed, which they did, along with killing some of his closest officers and adjutants. I think some of the Scots were protestant themselves.
That's where the word defenestrate comes from.
fluffy clothing would have negligible impact to slow their acceleration; a 70 foot drop isn't big enough to reach speeds close to their terminal velocity that the friction would be a major player (although it would lower their final terminal velocity) - a person reaches terminal velocity after about 1500 feet.
They landed both with something that was softer than stone and also at an incline. Their political opponents claimed it was a dungheap, but it certainly could have been something more benign; lots of layers of fluffy clothes would help with the landing a bit.
At least one of them had severe injuries, though.
It should be seen as one of the wars of transition from a feudal state to a centralized state, the same as the English Civil War (which took place during the same time period), the French Fronde, the 80 Years War between the Hapsburgs and the Dutch, and in Iberia (Portugese Restoration War and Catalan Revolt - although Philip IV and then Charles II didn't really try to bring the nobles to heel, and Charles I had earlier dealt with the nobility with a compromise after the Revolt of the Comuneros) .
Religion played a part as one element that the center (the Hapsburg Court) was trying to enforce against its feudal nobles used to greater privileges.
I'd recommend CV Wedgwood, the 30 Years War. Very good .
Tongue stuck to a cold Pole? Great joke, here’s your upvote.
Tattoo on the lower back says Welcome.
There is too much of a incline (I dont know if thats the proper word). Modern examination proved that they was nothing that could potentially stay in the specific place and slow their fall. Professor Josef Petráň and professor Josef Tesař and others proved that the only thing that had any influence on the slowing of the impact had to be either their clothes or simply the "terrain situation" at the place. If you can read Czech I could provide you with some direct quotes from their research.
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Also not sure where did 70 feet drop come from. The Czech researchers worked with 50 feet, which is the height of the window from which Slavata, Martinic and Fabricius were thrown from.
I thought the dungheap was the counter-explanation for why they survived being tossed out the window. One side basically said “wow, these people were tossed out the window and didn’t die, God must have protected them.” Then the other side was like “wasn’t God, they landed in poop.”
oookay? how is it connected to the comment above?
In 2014, Ireland legislated to remove thousands of obsolete laws that were left over from our time under British control. One of those was the declaration of war against Denmark in 1666 which had never been overturned.
As a prank bro! As a prank!
Or today in Putins Russia.
Yes. And it was inclined area under the window+ the baggy/fluffy clothes. Both sides tried propaganda.
The third Defenestration of Prague.
Yes they were.
Robert Monro was one of the mercenaries and was an interesting figure.
Bot got lost
you are a bot
At 50 feet, the clothes have even less of an impact on slowing their descent - the friction from the air increases as the speed increases, and they aren't going fast enough after just 50 feet.
But as I did say, the clothes and the incline would help dissipate the force of the impact. So clothes can make a difference (so if you meant slowed the forces on them at impact, then yes, we are in agreement)
Wallenstein was one of, if not THE, best general of the Imperial side i doubt he was seen as ineffective.
Sure, english isnt my first or second language, so we probably do. Still, the main point is that the paper/dung/trash heap Story Is just innacurate.
We only went into the war the second time so that we had a good excuse to be at war with sweden
Just what Conservative Jesus would have wanted.
The war was incredibly brutal. As an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Magdeburg
Fenster / finestra means "window".
It's still important context as to why we have separation of church and state in the US. Several States had established religions at the time the constitution was drafted, so leaving open the possibility of an established religion at the federal level could had led to conflict down the road that they wanted to avoid.
Birth of the modern state!
Think it was more opportunism from Sweden, also they were fucking monstrous, them and Russia killed 1/4 of the population.
Netherlands was also big on defenestrations if I remember correctly. (Although nothing beats Putin’s Russia in defenestration enthusiasm)
Poland claimed the Swedish throne so not really without reason that Sweden didn't like Poland.
Sure, think that comes a little short of justifying 1/4 of total genocide.
You can go see the window at the Prague Castle.
The Czechs have a long and rich history of throwing important people out of windows to make a point.
Found this, thought you might find it interesting LoL
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/690123
>...Windows might, at first, seem to be an unlikely topic of historical study; a closer look, however, reveals that their material history and symbolism is closely tied to the history of shifting representations of political power and concepts of sovereignty. Defenestration and other window-related forms of punishment that emerged in this period represent a dark chapter in this history.8 They raise broader questions about the interrelation of the history of architecture and material culture, on the one hand, and political symbolism and culture, on the other, in early modern Europe.
I would have bought Apple stocks when they were around 1 Groat, and later would purchase a 100m boat with my 100 Groats and anchored off Mykonos for a few years until New Zealand was discovered.
Witaj
Wilkommen
Добро пожаловать
Prague is not in Russia.
This has been fascinating. Thanks for your contributions.
The Last Valley by J. B. Pick is an historical novel that reflects a lot of the chaos and general awfulness of the time. Was made into a pretty good movie with Michael Caine and Omar Sharif.
That's unfortunately what war has been for most of human history, and still is in some parts of the world. Today in developed and democratic countries, soldiers are in most ways like any other kind of employee in the public sector; they get paid decently or even well and the state, which is answerable to civilians who care about human life even if it's on the 'other' side, has extensive power to punish them if they break the rules. In times like the Thirty Years War, you often even need to let your soldiers loot, rape, and pillage just to keep your army intact; that is how you're repaying them for risking their lives for your cause.
I’m sure they stopped counting defenestrations in NYC long ago.
Thank you! I read a lot of nonfiction and history books, though this one definitely sounds on the longer end. I'll take a look, and see if it feels like something that would hold my interest.
Quite the opposite in fact. My undestanding is that he grew to powerfull and the emperor feared him. Also maximilian of bavaria hated his guts and basically told the emperor wallenstein or me and that was that
There is also a very very disturbing dolph lundgren movie where he plays a landsknecht. Little stoned me was more than floored by this movie
Prove it
Okay. Here is an essay I wrote. It's about the rise of the state but this is essential in the formation of the European state system. The European State system (or diplomacy) recognised states' right over the sovereignty over their own territory and dealt with other sovereign states as equals (meaning they had external autonomy) - so the rise of the sovereign state (which is attributed to Westphalia) is pretty important in this. Anyway, the essay is pretty brief, so if you want to delve deeper into any part of it let me know.
"
What explains the rise of the state, and does this have anything to do with the Treaty of Westphalia?
To answer this question, it is necessary to briefly explain two key concepts; firstly, the state and secondly, the Treaty of Westphalia. The state, when used in this essay, is a political unit with clear boundaries that has two key features “internal hierarchy and external autonomy.”1 This means internally there is a clear structure in place for who wields the power and who does not – this is typified by the state having a monopoly on power and violence.2 Externally, they have to be able to act in their own interests without any constraints imposed by a higher authority. In essence, the state is a sovereign political unit; sovereign in the way it rules internally and sovereign in the way it interacts with other political units on the world stage. As for the Treaty of Westphalia, that was a set of two treaties (despite what the name might suggest), the Treaty of Osnabrück (between Sweden and the Holy Roman Empire) and the Treaty of Münster (between France and the Holy Roman Empire), which ended the Thirty Years War.3 Many people, particularly those in the field of international relations, regard Westphalia as the start of the sovereign state and of state system of international politics,4 but this is just a convenient “founding myth”5 for two reasons. Firstly, the Treaty of Westphalia had little to do with sovereignty.6 Secondly, the gradual emergence of the state and the state system was happening long before and long after Westphalia.7
So where does the idea of Westphalia kickstarting the modern state come from? It mostly stems from two ideas; that Westphalia granted states of the Holy Roman Empire (the Empire) the right to form alliances and that the Thirty Years War was an attempt by the Habsburgs to create a “universal monarchy”.8 If Westphalia did indeed grant the Princes of the Holy Roman Empire the right to conduct their own foreign policy for the first time, the theory that the rise of the state was due to Westphalia would hold some water. However, this is simply not true, Westphalia was just confirming a right that German states had been practicing for some time (for example, Brandenburg’s 1605 alliance with the United Provinces of the Netherlands).9 Furthermore, there were two large alliances within the Holy Roman Empire at the outbreak of the war in the form of the Catholic League and the Evangelical Union.10 This is even recognised by the Emperor in 1634 when he put forward a settlement that would allow Princes and cities to have alliances with actors outside the empire but not within.11 So, Westphalia was neither the moment when states in the Empire started conducting their own foreign policy (as this was happening before)12 and it wasn’t when it was first recognised by the Emperor (as that was in 1634).13 Therefore, Westphalia did little to contribute to the rise of the state in this way.
Additionally, it was not a victory of sovereign states against the Habsburg ideas of universal monarchy14 as this was largely propaganda.15 It was propaganda that even the German Princes, who were supposedly (according to the French and Swedish) going to be subjugated by the emperor,16 did not embrace.17 The epitome of the sovereign states victory over the Habsburgs was the independence of the Swiss and the Dutch being secured. But the Swiss did not see themselves as independent after Westphalia18 and the Dutch were already considered independent before Westphalia.19 This demonstrates the Treaty of Westphalia was again just recognising the reality of the situation rather than contributing to the formation of state system.
In fact, Westphalia (in some ways) solidified ideas that went against the state system and the idea of sovereign states. The most obvious example of this would be the fact that Princes could no longer decide religion of their territories (which had been the case since 1555), instead the religious status of the Empire would be frozen.20 This is a clear way in which Westphalia went against the principles of internal sovereignty (which underpin the modern state). Westphalia, also limited alliances that could be made by the states in the Empire (they could not enter an alliance that was harmful to the Empire or one that would breach Westphalia),21 this clearly goes against the principle of “external autonomy.”22 In fact it was the Empire’s courts and the Diet that was meant to uphold Westphalia,23 far from diminishing the role of the Empire this actually codifies it. The Holy Roman Empire continued to exist for over 150 years after Westphalia and was destroyed by Napoleonic France rather than political disintegration,24showing that Westphalia did not contribute (at least significantly) to the rise of the state. Surely if the peace of Westphalia created a system of sovereign states,25 then the Empire would not have been able to survive until the 19th century.
Westphalia, also infringed upon the Sovereignty of actors who were not part of the Empire and relied on these same actors to enforce the treaty.26 The Swedish territorial concessions (that it gained from Westphalia) were still part of the Empire and Swedish rulers had to sit on the imperial Diet to represent them.27 Similarly, the French concession of Alsace was to maintain the autonomy the Austrians had granted it.28 Both of these countries did not have full sovereignty over these territories due to Westphalia and in Sweden’s case their territories had an overlord in the form of the Emperor.29 France and Sweden being guarantors of Westphalia means they could intervene in the Empire’s affairs if necessary.30 All this paints a picture that is contradictory to Westphalia being the impetus for political bodies to have sole authority over their territory.
The rise of the state was not due to Westphalia. It was a process that had been happening gradually for centuries.31 International politics is Darwinian, only the states that are able to defend themselves survive.32 So, war is essential but the process of waging war also created states.33 To wage war an army is needed but an army needs men, provisions and arms – to be able to supply all this, the state will have to develop a means of extracting resources and capital.34 The more efficient the extraction, the more efficient the war making. It was also in a the “sovereign authority’s”35 interest to eliminate internal rivals and to try to centralise power. Once power was centralised enough, it can enact reforms that will improve the economy of the state – standardization, for example.36 Eventually, sovereign state model became the most efficient way to run an economy,37 and thus became the most proficient at war making. In time, more and more states would reform (or attempt to) to the sovereign state model.38 The first state to start this process of centralisation was England after the Norman invasion,39 just under 600 years before Westphalia. It was industrialisation that allowed the state to centralise power to a level never previously seen,40 and it is perhaps this that played the most important role in the rise of the state.
In conclusion, Westphalia did not bring about the rise of the state. It did not recognise states sovereignty over their own territory (most obviously with the Princes no longer being able to choose the religion of their territories)41 and it did not grant “external autonomy”42 (as the states already, mostly, had this).43 Westphalia, by its very nature was against the idea of sovereign states, as it allowed France and Sweden to intervene in the internal affairs of another political entity.44 Instead, the rise of the state is a slow process of centralisation and war making,45 which made the sovereign state the dominant political body as it was the most economically efficient46 and, by extension, the most capable of waging war.
Bibliography
Beaulac, Stephan. “The Westphalian Legal Orthodoxy – Myth or Reality.” Journal of the History of International Law 2000 2
Osiander, Andreas. “Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Westphalian Myth.” International Organization 2001 55 (2)
Spruyt, Hendrick. The Sovereign State and Its competitors. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994)
Tilly, Charles. “War-Making and State Making as Organized Crime.” In Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschmeyer and Theda Skocpol (Eds) Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) "
I hate sweden because of this war.
Thanks. I'm gonna read this later. I'm pleasantly surprised, I wasn't expecting a proper reply
Does that mean that in 1916, the UK was still at war with Denmark? Do the British ever clear that up?
Oh, this is why my German/austrian gamer friend's answer to "well, what was the 30 years war?" In a discussion about germanic peoples and war was "an accident"
I wouldn’t think so. It was the Kingdom of Ireland from 1542 to 1801 which was a client state of the English crown so it would have been an Irish law but introduced to follow England into hostilities against Denmark-Norway in the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
Cool.
Lmk what you think.
It's an excellent essay and thanks for posting your sources, I might check one or two out. My degree's in IR and the Westphalian treaty was upheld to nearly dogmatic levels by various profs and I was skeptical to an extent of it's influence.
Ah cheers man. I do history and politics with an IR module and luckily a lot of the professors here are either skeptical or outright hostile to the idea of the Westphalian System.
One of them wrote a book which was something like "Westphalia for the Middle East" which is an interesting read as it essentially argues that the Westphalian peace was essentially ensured limits on sovereignty to protect certain rights and limited intervention. He argues that something similar might help to solve many if the problems the Middle East face.
Intriguing. You don't happen to remember the name of the film do you?
No. You don't need a peace treaty or any kind of official document to end a war, just like you don't need a declaration of war to start one.
There really isn't such a thing as countries being "officially at war without knowing it".
They didn’t join the other side willingly lol, Sweden forced them to by invading them
It’s about as much an “accident” as World War I was an accident lol
That was the tread he was picking for the conversation years ago. Granted, this happened over ten years ago now so I don't know if that conversation would come up that way again
Lol fair enough
They destroyed so many cities, castles and killed a large amount of our people. They also stole sooo many treasures and artifacts. They refuse to return them even now. The Devil's Bible for example.
It was definitely about religion, at least 50%, the 30 years war basically broke the power of the church in Europe and basically kick started the protestant reformation. The other 50% was mostly politics between France and Austria, each of them trying to become the dominant power in Europe.
The protestant reformation was more than a hundred years earlier. The countries that are predominantly protestant today are exactly the ones that were before the war. Where and how did this war kickstart anything?
You're right, I mean kick started freedom of worship, which I erroneously conflated with the reformation.
Also, your statement about religions being the same isn't true. Some territories that were mostly protestant were forced to convert back to Catholicism as part of the peace.
FollowingSome3237 t1_ittylnt wrote
A third of the people living in German states dies during this and it involved many countries throughout Europe including Scottish mercenaries. A fascinating period of history.