Perhaps more than butterflying away Frederick is needed. In retrospect, TTYW- like WWI- seems inevitable(too many forces were on a collision course). Yet- to para-
phrase Eisenhower- Frederick’s acceptance of the crown proceeded to topple one dom-
ino after another. No Frederick as King of
Bohemia, it’s someone else’s regime that
Ferdinand’s troops would have destroyed
@ White Mountain in 1621. Someone other
than Frederick probably would then have come crawling to Ferdinand, asking for par-
don, or accepted plans for compromise that
were floated about. Frederick, being Fred-
erick, refused- a distinguished historian of
the conflict says that if Frederick had instead
acquiesced “there would have been no Thirty
Years War”*- called in Denmark, then other
foreign powers came in on both sides, etc.,
etc.
There most likely would have been some sort
of war in Germany in the early-to-mid 17th
Century, but without Frederick taking the crown it would have been a different conflict,
with different players. It might not have been as long- & destructive- as TTYW turned
out to be.
*- C.V. Wedgwood, THE THIRTY YEARS WAR,
p. 144 of the 1961, Anchor Paperbacks edition. Although originally published in 1938, I think this book still remains the best
single-volume history of the war in print.