How did the 30 years war end in a draw?

[Steel_atlas]

A thread in the EU IV forums got me wondering how the Catholic League managed to hold out so well during the 30 years war.

It seems to me that Spain, Austria, PLC and some German minors managed to hold off the rest of Europe.

So how the heck did they manage to do it?

 

[Galaahd]

Because it wasn't the rest of Europe.

It was some German states, Bohemia in the first phase, Denmark in the second phase, Sweden in the third phase, then France and Netherlands in the last phase.

 

[Steel_atlas]

Because it wasn't the rest of Europe.

It was some German states, Bohemia in the first phase, Denmark in the second phase, Sweden in the third phase, then France and Netherlands in the last phase.

I know the Ottomans supported Translyvania, and since France and Savoy were supporting the Protestants I suppose Russia and England might not have been directly participating they were supporting the Protestants as well.

Thats still 2 nations taking on 4 major nations in succession who were receiving support from other major nations.

 

[liveandletdie14]

It's a complex answer but partially because the capacity of either side to send large forces against each other diminished as the war went on. In Germany the largest battle was around 40,000 against 31000, after 1635 the battle's rarely went over 15,000-20,000 troops on each side. Outside of Germany the battles involved larger numbers between France and Spain. The war essentially descended into a war of attrition in Germany essentially as soldiers main priority was garrisoning and holding non-devastated regions for political and strategic reasons.

There was also the fact that not all sides were equally involved or wanted to be involved in the war Brandenburg and Saxony switched sides after a crushing defeat and after the crushing defeat of Sweden in 1634 it compelled most of the Protestant princes to sue for peace. Neither side had the capacity to engage in constant large scale fighting leading to periods of inactivity with different 'countries'

 

[Avernite]

A thread in the EU IV forums got me wondering how the Catholic League managed to hold out so well during the 30 years war.

It seems to me that Spain, Austria, PLC and some German minors managed to hold off the rest of Europe.

So how the heck did they manage to do it?

First you had half-HRE+Spain+Poland against half-HRE+Ottomans, which ended with the Ottomans fought to a draw and half the HRE ground down. Meanwhile there was a French-English war with shades of French civil war.
Then you continued with Denmark and some-HRE (with some Anglo-French support; those guys...) vs half-HRE with Spanish support (the Spanish being again occupied in the Netherlands), which ended painfully for the Danes.

This phase ended more or less in complete catholic victory, so push the reset button here on all the HRE except Austria - they're now all dead or out, even if they still provided the battlefields.

Enter Sweden with French-Dutch support, fighting Austria with Spanish support. Sounds not so uneven, but again, in the end Sweden lost.
At the same time there was Sweden/Russia vs Poland going on, which at this time was still fairly even (given the Swedes were also occupied with Germany), followed by another brief Polish-Ottoman fight.

Sweden lost like Denmark before them, so the French finally got into it seriously, bringing about the final phase which firmly included the Netherlands and more westerly Europe, giving France/Netherlands/Sweden(/England) vs. Spain/Austria, but with the understanding that Sweden and Austria were half-dead it's mostly France/Netherlands vs Spain and Sweden/half-HRE against Austria/half-HRE. Here the Habsburgs lost, but then the Danes were re-entering against Sweden, so the anti-Habsburg victory mostly ended up reversing the price of the early protestant losses in the Palatine, Danish and Swedish phases (still, it did manage to break Spain as a superpower).

 

[Pyoro]

The bigger surprise is probably that the HRE survived at all. 20-50% of the population dead for most regions, over 70% for others, everyone's treasury completely bled dry, and the populace still split between protestants and catholics. The Emperor lost authority, making the HRE more decentralized, but it wasn't swallowed up by foreign powers or just fell apart completely (heck, economically it seemed to recover pretty well. One of those post-war-booms you sometimes get).

Also, I think that while both sides had achievable goals, both sides also had kinda hard to achieve goals. Like, "fight protestanism". Well, yeah, you can defeat the protestant countries, but then what? Kill every protestant? Likewise, the HRE princes fighting the Emperor didn't really want to dismantle the HRE, as far as I understand, but they had various personal goals they wanted to achieve, so coordination perhaps wasn't so perfect and determination to fight it all out with a clear goal ahead not quite so pronounced.

 

[pithorr]

Poland generally did not participate, short of some relief of Vienna against Transylvania
The war with the Ottomans had nothing in common with the 30YW.

 

[Avernite]

Poland generally did not participate, short of some relief of Vienna against Transylvania
The war with the Ottomans had nothing in common with the 30YW.

Yes and no... the Ottomans and Swedes were fighting both the HRE and Poland during the period, so Poland's strength mostly helped the Imperial side.

 

[pithorr]

Yes and no... the Ottomans and Swedes were fighting both the HRE and Poland during the period, so Poland's strength mostly helped the Imperial side.

Oh, maybe it helped a bit, but it was mainly the billateral thing over the control of Moldavia. You can't count any conflict of the faction involved (especially indirectly) in the 30YW as the part of it.

 

[Yakman]

It ended the way it did because that is what both sides could live with.

 

[demanvanwezel]

I've read that it took so long because the only way left to pay the mercenaries was through plunder (and you couldn't exactly dismiss them as then the enemy would take advantage)

 

[Barsoom]

A thread in the EU IV forums got me wondering how the Catholic League managed to hold out so well during the 30 years war.

It seems to me that Spain, Austria, PLC and some German minors managed to hold off the rest of Europe.

So how the heck did they manage to do it?

Wrong premise. The Catholic League was not defending what its members had, it was attempting to solidify Habsburg control over the HRE, threatening a European hegemony. Their opponents had their particular goals (e.g. Sweden wanted the Baltic coast) but these were varied and didn't unify them. Instead their only recurring feature is that they intervened to prevent a major Habsburg victory. Each intervention occurred at the point when the Catholic League appeared in control of the HRE, each disrupted it long enough to prevent a peace settlement in favor of the Habsburgs and when one failed, it was followed by another again at the point when the Habsburgs seemed close to victory. In the long run, these interventions succeeded, forcing the Habsburg to recognize the HRE's, and Europe's, fractious state as the new normal. The Westphalian treaties ending the war codified this as the principle of state sovereignty.

 

[Sanny]

I'll never be able to wrap my head around the 30 Years War. Too complex.

 

[trybald]

Poland generally did not participate, short of some relief of Vienna against Transylvania
The war with the Ottomans had nothing in common with the 30YW.

The Polish-Ottoman war was mostly about Osman II wanting to get more involved in European affairs and strike the Catholics' soft underbelly, with Cossack raids and general border tensions used merely as casus belli. In many ways it was directly related to 30th Years War.

 

[Director]

Another consideration is the limited ability of armies to move and supply themselves - primitive and limited transportation and logistical infrastructure overwhelmed by large armies. It was easy to gain local superiority and very difficult to keep it - as sharks have to move to breathe, the undisciplined armies had to move to eat.

 

[liveandletdie14]

I'll never be able to wrap my head around the 30 Years War. Too complex.

I recommend P. Wilson Europe's Tragedy: A New History of the Thirty Year's War

 

[gagenater]

Another consideration is the limited ability of armies to move and supply themselves - primitive and limited transportation and logistical infrastructure overwhelmed by large armies. It was easy to gain local superiority and very difficult to keep it - as sharks have to move to breathe, the undisciplined armies had to move to eat.

So much this. The various powers of Europe simply lacked the ability to put enough men in the field to be decisive and then keep them there until a meaningful victory was achieved. Campaigns were regional, or seasonal, or both, and their duration and locations depended very much, and sometimes completely on the ability of the powers to maintain an army in the field in any particular location. So (for example) if last year the campaign for domination of the Baltic trade was in Pomerania, it can't be there again this year - there is no spare food to eat handy, and the ability to ship food to them is insufficient - so this year we invade at Mecklenburg! Likewise different powers would exhaust their excess cash, or manpower, or local food supplies and be forced into a period of inactivity until they could build up a sufficient local excess of whatever their shortage was to be able to contemplate any serious military activity. In the interim, they would try to get allies to 'carry the load' or negotiate a truce, or perhaps make war on a lesser power they felt they could deal with using the materials on hand. Or alternately if food supply was the limit, they might go on the offensive in some other area where food supplies were more plentiful. It's hard to think of today, but in that era, the ability to get together food in excess of what the local population in an area needed, and then move it to somewhere else was severely limited compared to the modern era. Today it's literally nothing to move 50 or 100,000 people across a country like Germany overnight and then find them someplace to live and eat for a while - it happens routinely every year when people go to a big soccer game, or during Christmas holidays. In that era, a similar movement of a similar number of people across a similar distance would take weeks, or even months. It would almost necessarily be accompanied by tremendous inflation of food prices wherever they went, food shortages choked roads turned into mud pits, bridges failing, fords getting churned up and destroyed, etc. And that's just moving them around in peaceful controlled territory. It's not accounting for the fact that they are actively making war and destroying stuff.

 

[Director]

The fact that always resonated with me was that, until the railroad, it cost less to ship people and goods across the Atlantic than to go 100 miles inland. Before the railroad, it took 6 months and $1000 to send a person from the east coast to the west. After the railroad, it took about 7 days and cost about $100.

There were really no good roads in Germany at that time, not even by Roman standards, so any meaningful amount of freight had to go by water - one reason why Marlborough's campaigns were canal-linked.

So yes, the political leaders were able to mobilize a lot more men than could be fed and equipped. The 'magazine' campaigning of Frederick the Great is a direct response to that stripping of the land.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

There were really no good roads in Germany at that time, not even by Roman standards,

Not even by Roman standards ? You will be hard pressed to find a road network in the century we are talking about that can be compared to the Roman one.Not even cities usually had paved roads.

(just nitpicking)

 

[pithorr]

Not even by Roman standards ? You will be hard pressed to find a road network in the century we are talking about that can be compared to the Roman one.Not even cities usually had paved roads.

(just nitpicking)

Well, I think in Italy, France or Spain something did remain...