Make the thirty years war so terrible that at least 51% of Germany dies in the conflict

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So this is my first post here. But I was asking myself how to kill at least 51% of Germany's population during the thirty years war. It's often a overlooked part of history here in Germany considering it's effect on it's population and it's mindset for the next hundred years, at least from my perspective. So I want to ask you how we can get from terrible to terrible²? And what effects would that cause for the next 200 years?
 
So this is my first post here. But I was asking myself how to kill at least 51% of Germany's population during the thirty years war. It's often a overlooked part of history here in Germany considering it's effect on it's population and it's mindset for the next hundred years, at least from my perspective. So I want to ask you how we can get from terrible to terrible²? And what effects would that cause for the next 200 years?
You have a number of options:

OK, what we had in the OTL is an overall reduction of the HRE states ranging from 25 to 40%, depending upon a region with some regions having it up to 50% (as in Brandenburg), sometimes even up to 2/3 and in Mecklenburg it fell from 300,000 to 50,000. So achieving your goal on a global scheme is not impossible.

There are few options or, even "better", their combination (disclaimer: I'm not advocating any form of a genocide or mass death from the epidemics, just follow the script :teary:):

1. Make this war lasting for a much longer time, say extra 15 - 20 years. Difficult, due to an exhaustion of the sides, but not completely impossible: Peace of Westphalia was signed in 1648 but the French-Spanish war continued until 1659. Admittedly, mostly in Catalonia but the point is that at least two of the main participants had resources to fight for an extra decade. So, take away Portuguese uprising (which forced Philip IV of Spain to divert attention to that theater) and the French (capture of Trier, Alsace, and Lorraine) and Dutch (capture of Limburg) successes which severed the Spanish Road pretty much putting Spain out of the general war and you still have Spain operating in Germany and supporting the Austrian Hapsburgs. Probably the simplest prerequisite is an absence of Richelieu's efforts to create a modern French army. Taking into an account that it is not quite likely that a person of his intelligence would stick forever to his initial model of paying the subsidies to the foreigners (from Count Mansfield to Sweden) instead of building up a national force, probably his earlier demise would do the trick: it seems that Louis XIII, on his own, was quite comfortable with the old ways. Then, if he dies on schedule, you have years of Fronde and then Louis XIV still being too young to start creation of the French army and to get the results. In a meantime, with the Spain still in play and France much more military passive than in OTL, fighting in Germany continues with the ever-increasing misery.

2. Increase number of the active combatants. This can be difficult because the states involved did not have unlimited financial resources. A possible solution would be to have more "free lancers", like Mansfield, raising their own armies and living off the land (with the obvious impact on that "land") or a greater direct foreign, but not French, intervention. For example, a big number of the Polish "volunteers". In OTL Lisowtchiki (otherwise known as the horsemen of the Apocalypse) had been participating on the initial stages of the 30YW but soon after the Battle of the White Mountain due to the complaints of the population (they were killing "even the children and the dogs") Ferdinand paid their salary and released them (most went back home, some went to the service of Maximilian of Bavaria). But their number never was big enough to contribute seriously to your scenario (during Lisowski's raid of 1615 there were 1,200 of them) so you'd need much more of the kind and to let them to stay in Germany for a much longer period, even if without imperial agreement. The realistic numbers would not be enough to make the needed difference but they could contribute noticeably, especially if we assume that the rumors about a good loot would provide for a steady influx of the volunteers during the years of war (say, something in the range of 5 - 7,000 doing their "best" for the 30 years. And if they managed to get interested few thousands Cossacks, even better in the terms of making things worse. More raids from Transylvania also would be helpful.

3. Epidemics. There were recorded outbreaks of typhus and during the Mantuan War there was an outbreak of the Bubonic plague in the Northern Italy (Milan lost 60,000 out of the 130,000 population, Venice 46,000 out of 140,000, Verona 33,000 out of 54,000; overall losses in Italy were estimated as up to a million). Have them spreading on a larger scale than in OTL and put scurvy and dysentery on the top and you are ending with a LOT of the deaths (possibly, few millions).
 

RousseauX

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So this is my first post here. But I was asking myself how to kill at least 51% of Germany's population during the thirty years war. It's often a overlooked part of history here in Germany considering it's effect on it's population and it's mindset for the next hundred years, at least from my perspective. So I want to ask you how we can get from terrible to terrible²? And what effects would that cause for the next 200 years?
I don't think this is even that hard, otl it wasn't that far from 50% on the upper range of estimates on death tolls
 
The Swedish phase was by far the most destructive. Have them come in when Denmark comes in and it extends open conflict with Central Germany in the crosshairs for another 6 years. At the same time, it cannot be a knockout blow. That means Spain needs to divert forces from the Netherlands towards Central Germany.

Ideally for this, you get a huge mix of nationalities bringing pillage and disease with them on an ever shifting front.

At the same time, Imperial finances go to hell quicker and then you have unpaid mercenaries on the rampage.

Add in a substantial Polish and French intervention and I think you get to 50%.

For good measure, the Ottomans need to start sending deep raids into Austria and Bohemia. They never really adapted the Hundred Years War style Cheavauchee raid to their irregular warfare playbook, but there was precedent for it in the Islamic World (the ritualized raids against Byzantium of the Umayyad and Abbasid Calips, for example). With their financial advantage, they could wipe out a fuck ton of people.
 
Ottoman (1621) and earlier French (1625) intervention. PoD for both is a longer living Ahmed I or Osman II taking the throne rather than his mentaly broken uncle. The French have a PoD... well... they deal with the Huguenots earlier than they did OTL. A PLC intervention may help in case of success in Russia or no war at all.

The Ottomans intervene just before a total Bohemian collapse, diverting Austrian attention to Hungary. The Hungarians keep on raiding and burning Moravia. The Spanish sent more help to their Austrian relatives. The French and Dutch battle the Spanish in the Southern Netherlands and Rhineland. The PLC attacks Bohemia and Brandenburg and the Swedish and Danish attack the Poles in the Northern HRE.

In such chaotic circumstances the death toll may rise...
 
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