The Thirty Years' War was certainly not the longest of Europe's wars, both the Hundred Years' War and the Eighty Years' War were longer than it was. However the Thirty Years' War at least appeared interminably long and dominated by an increasingly irresolvable stalemate moreso than those later wars. Why did this happen? IMHO it was because the alliance systems were too evenly balanced and because the limitations of economics, military matters, and technology of the time did not favor either side securing an advantage over the others. However I say this as someone whose reading on this era is more limited than I like it to be. What do you think?