Why Was The 30 Years War so Brutal?

[TinyTartar]

Something that really has always kind of vexed me is why in particular the 30 Years War was so devastating.

6 Million people in Germany died, and when you consider the population dynamics of the time, this might have been almost on par with WW2's loss of life and destruction in proportion.

The sizes of armies were not tremendous, nor were the weapons used all that destructive in comparison with later on, but this was truly a cataclysmic event in European history.

Basically, what made this war in particular, besides its length, so destructive? The Hundred Years War did not do nearly as much damage, nor did most wars in the Middle Ages, and most wars afterwards until WW1 were not nearly as horrifying either.

And finally, were lessons learned from this war that made future ones in the era less brutal?

 

[Hapsburg]

The motivations for the initial fighting plays a part. Rather than simple greed or territorial desires, the conflict originated out of fanatical religious motivation, which is very hard to shake off. That can keep, at least, the leadership of the various sides gunning for a resolution long after millions of people have already suffered.

Second, these opposing forces opted for using large armies of mercenaries to do their dirty work. This is probably, in the long run, the bigger issue. Being hired help from far away, and with no ties to the innocent people caught in the crossfire, these mercenary groups had no compunction against abuse and plunder. No empathy for the locals, no motivation other than self-gain. And, especially, after long sieges of cities, no one was in the mood for mercy; Magdeburg is a good example, as the vast majority of the city's population were slaughtered after its capture. Think of it this way: you've just been sitting outside of a city, which refused to surrender, for however many months, so you're hungry, you haven't bathed in a while, you're tired, you're pissed off, and you're probably a little drunk. Sympathy for the conquered isn't exactly on your mind; in fact, you're probably inordinately livid towards them.

This would have been bad enough, but it fed into a cycle of unresolved violence, so it lasted three decades before everyone had finally had enough.

 

[Ivir Baggins]

As an aside to the above point about mercenaries, they also wouldn't go home until they received their back pay, which virtually none of the combatants actually had.

 

[dandan_noodles]

I wouldn't necessarily chalk the devastation up to it being a religious conflict, considering the most destructive phase of the war came when France attacked her fellow Catholics, and we all know how utterly atrocious purely political conflicts can be. Rather, states and armies operated without modern systems of funding and supply, which forced soldiers to provide for themselves by other means; armies crisscrossing the same territory repeatedly exhausted the resources available, leading to starvation and famine, especially as temperatures plummeted in the depths of the Little Ice Age. Colder temperatures, droughts, floods, food shortages, political unrest, famine, disease, and war all worked together to make this an apocalyptic bloodbath.

 

[raharris1973]

WWI probably was not as bad, for civilians at least.

Even in WWII Europe was probably able to offset the losses with more birth and child survivals, which was not the case for 30 yrs war

 

[TinyTartar]

From doing some reading, I think there are a few main factors that accounted for how bad the war was.

The Religious nature of it indeed meant that the brutality of things were stepped up when radicals of either side got involved, especially when it was foreign troops who did not understand German.

But more importantly, the lack of supply lines and professional power projection capabilities that could support armies larger than in the past running a gauntlet of complicated communication lines (the map of the Empire was ridiculous; who owned what was really fucking confusing) meant that everyone lived off of the land and robbed whatever peasants they had to, but what accelerated the killing to truly apocalyptic settings was when campaigns ended and the mercenaries hired for them simply did not go home, as all military order ended and they were not paid, and simply wandered wartorn Germany killing whoever they had to in order to eat and survive.

While siege combat was brutal, and religiously motivated warfare was relentless, the killing really came from unpaid and desperate mercenaries.

And obviously, the refugee problem did nothing to help the problem besides raise crime, disease, bigotry, and dead peasants. And the refugee problem was so pronounced because of the Peace of Augsburg making Cuius regio, eius religio a mandate that literally held life in forfeit if not obeyed, and when armies are redrawing the map constantly, atrocities were bound to happen.

 

[Emperor Constantine]

I definitely agree with the above posters, however the fact that the war was the longest, continuous conflict of the era. Most other long wars were broke up with truces, ceasefires and back and forth negotiations, with the battles themselves being over set regions. Even the Italian wars, the most comparable conflict of the time, was broken up by temporary treaties. The thirty years war, on the other hand, was a continuous, slow-grinding bloodbath. When one nation made peace two more jumped in (OK maybe that's not accurate, but the point stands). The war never really got smaller, only larger, especially after France jumped in directly.

Also, there's the fact that for the last decade or so of the war was basically negotiation by war. Destroying cities, towns, farms and lands would be a way to bring down the price, so to say.

 

[LSCatilina]

WWI probably was not as bad, for civilians at least.

Actually, situation for civilians in on occupied regions is often considered being worse on several regions (Western Europe, Balkans, etc.) than during WWII., and other places didn't had exactly a stellar treatment on civilians (see Eastern Front during WW1)

Anyway,

The Hundred Years War did not do nearly as much damage, nor did most wars in the Middle Ages

It did significant damage, tough, especially when it come to periodical raiding. Some lands ravaged by chevauchées had to wait one century before recovering : it's hard to say how many people was touched (lack of sources on it, and concomittent ravage of the plague). Depending on the demographic projections, it could have been relatively high (while stritctly military losses remained low, due to the general medieval conception of warfare) with reasonable guesstimates (again, it's really out of blue giving the situation) going from half a million to 2 millions.

The main differences with 30 Years Wars is that you didn't have pauses in conflicts : it was going on again and again with different players, subventioned by other powers to continue the show.
Warfare's changes, as well, provided much more room for involving civilians not only in battle but as "collateral victims".

And eventually, the huge identitarian religious/politic features would only have made it bloodier : with two sides strongly idenfitying the other as something to eradicate, rather than to defeat...
French Guerres de Religion, on this part, weren't that different : 2 to 4 millions death.

 

[Matteo]

Something that really has always kind of vexed me is why in particular the 30 Years War was so devastating.

6 Million people in Germany died, and when you consider the population dynamics of the time, this might have been almost on par with WW2's loss of life and destruction in proportion.

The sizes of armies were not tremendous, nor were the weapons used all that destructive in comparison with later on, but this was truly a cataclysmic event in European history.

Basically, what made this war in particular, besides its length, so destructive? The Hundred Years War did not do nearly as much damage, nor did most wars in the Middle Ages, and most wars afterwards until WW1 were not nearly as horrifying either.

And finally, were lessons learned from this war that made future ones in the era less brutal?

Most of the deaths were not due to massacre of civilians but to disruption, chaos, looting and destruction to feed one's army and to prevent the enemy armies to feed themselves, ... Etc.

Societies in the 17th century were far less economically developed than in the 19th or 20th centuries. So when you had 30 years of chaos on a territory that becomes a battlefield, many many civilians die.

What happened is rather close to Mesoamerica without smallpox.

 

[Youngmarshall]

Lack of Potatoes.

 

[fhaessig]

The Hundred Years War did not do nearly as much damage, nor did most wars in the Middle Ages, and most wars afterwards until WW1 were not nearly as horrifying either.

Citation needed. I have seen that claim made a lot of time, but never seen it backed by hard numbers. Mostly because I am not sure we have hard credible numbers for a lot of other wars.

Do you have hard numbers for the regions of France which were hit by the 100 year wars (the fighting seems to be concentrated in some areas, so taking overall France does not make sense)? What about the Mongol conquests (again, some areas seem to have been hit very hard, while others were less hit)? ALso, what about the wars/conquests outside of Europe? Some of them, like the original Zulu conquests resulted in outright replacement of the population; what was the loss among the original population? Same question about some of the war/migrations in the Americas. And while we speak of population migration, what about the Volkswanderung which resulted in the fall of the western roman empire? or the establishment of that empire for that matter (Caesar's conquest of Gaul comes to mind)?

Don't mistake me, I have no doubt the 30 year war wa shorrible and the civilian population suffered a lot. I am just wondering about the usual claim that it was the worst before WWI (in absolute numbers, because in proportional numbers, it doesn't even come close to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_War)

 

[De von Of]

Citation needed. I have seen that claim made a lot of time, but never seen it backed by hard numbers. Mostly because I am not sure we have hard credible numbers for a lot of other wars.

Do you have hard numbers for the regions of France which were hit by the 100 year wars (the fighting seems to be concentrated in some areas, so taking overall France does not make sense)? What about the Mongol conquests (again, some areas seem to have been hit very hard, while others were less hit)? ALso, what about the wars/conquests outside of Europe? Some of them, like the original Zulu conquests resulted in outright replacement of the population; what was the loss among the original population? Same question about some of the war/migrations in the Americas. And while we speak of population migration, what about the Volkswanderung which resulted in the fall of the western roman empire? or the establishment of that empire for that matter (Caesar's conquest of Gaul comes to mind)?

Don't mistake me, I have no doubt the 30 year war wa shorrible and the civilian population suffered a lot. I am just wondering about the usual claim that it was the worst before WWI (in absolute numbers, because in proportional numbers, it doesn't even come close to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_War)

Doesn't even come close? Large regions of Germany like Pommerania lost over 60% of their total population. Sometimes more than 70%.

That' still more than the 70% of male population cited in your link.

 

[Intosh]

Something that really has always kind of vexed me is why in particular the 30 Years War was so devastating.

6 Million people in Germany died, and when you consider the population dynamics of the time, this might have been almost on par with WW2's loss of life and destruction in proportion.

The sizes of armies were not tremendous, nor were the weapons used all that destructive in comparison with later on, but this was truly a cataclysmic event in European history.

Basically, what made this war in particular, besides its length, so destructive? The Hundred Years War did not do nearly as much damage, nor did most wars in the Middle Ages, and most wars afterwards until WW1 were not nearly as horrifying either.

And finally, were lessons learned from this war that made future ones in the era less brutal?

Civils wars, including religious wars, are always the most destructive as fighters had a real motivation and reason to fight the war. A normal war is the will of the ruler and for reasons the fighter not always understand, in a civil war, reasons are clear for most of the fighters and the ennemies are very closed to you so the will to eliminate them is more important.

 

[fhaessig]

Doesn't even come close? Large regions of Germany like Pommerania lost over 60% of their total population. Sometimes more than 70%.

That' still more than the 70% of male population cited in your link.

Read the full article. The number you give is the minimum death toll for direct death (as in killed in battle). The worst estimates, when disease and famine are taken into account, is 90% of the whole population, though this one seems exagerated. More realistic ones state 60 - 70% death toll for the whole population for the whole country.

Relevent part of the article

' Paraguay suffered massive casualties, and the war's disruption and disease also cost civilian lives. Some historians estimate the nation lost the majority of its population. The specific numbers are hotly disputed and range widely. A survey of 14 estimates of Paraguay's pre-war population varied between 300,000 and 1,337,000.[69] Because of the local situation, all casualty figures are a very rough estimate; accurate casualty numbers may never be determined.
The worst reports are that up to 90% of the male population was killed, though this figure is without support.[68] One estimate places total Paraguayan losses—through both war and disease—as high as 1.2 million people, or 90% of its pre-war population.[70] A different estimate places Paraguayan deaths at approximately 300,000 people out of 500,000 to 525,000 pre-war inhabitants.[71] During the war, many men and boys fled to the countryside and forests. After the war an 1871 census recorded 221,079 inhabitants, of which 106,254 were female, 28,746 were male, and 86,079 were children (with no indication of sex or upper age limit).[72]

A Brazilian priest with Paraguayan refugees coming from San Pedro, 1869 or 1870.
A 1999 study by Thomas Whigham from the University of Georgia (published in the Latin American Research Review under the title "The Paraguayan Rosetta Stone: New Evidence on the Demographics of the Paraguayan War, 1864–1870", and later expanded in the 2002 essay titled "Refining the Numbers: A Response to Reber and Kleinpenning") has a methodology to yield more accurate figures. To establish the population before the war, Whigham used an 1846 census and calculated, based on a population growth rate of 1.7% to 2.5% annually (which was the standard rate at that time), that the immediately pre-war Paraguayan population in 1864 was approximately 420,000–450,000. Based on a census carried out after the war ended, in 1870-1871, Whigham concluded that 150,000–160,000 Paraguayan people had survived, of whom only 28,000 were adult males. In total, 60%-70% of the population died as a result of the war,[73] leaving a woman/man ratio of 4 to 1 (as high as 20 to 1, in the most devastated areas).[73]
Of approximately 123,000 Brazilians who fought in the Paraguayan War, the best estimates are around 50,000 men died. Uruguay had about 5,600 men under arms (including some foreigners), of whom about 3,100 died.[citation needed]
The high rates of mortality were not all due to combat. As was common before antibiotics were developed, disease caused more deaths than war wounds. Bad food and poor sanitation contributed to disease among troops and civilians. Many deaths are believed to have been caused by cholera. Among the Brazilians, two-thirds of the dead died either in a hospital or on the march. At the beginning of the conflict, most Brazilian soldiers came from the north and northeast regions; the change from a hot to a colder climate, combined with restricted food rations, may have weakened their resistance. Entire battalions of Brazilians were recorded as dying after drinking water from rivers. Therefore, some historians believe cholera, transmitted in the water, was a leading cause of death during the war.[citation needed]
A death of over 60% of the Paraguayan population makes this war proportionally one of the most destructive in modern times for a nation state'

 

[Fabius Maximus]

From the impression I get most modern historians think that religion was primarily a proxy for political concerns during the Thirty Years' War, not the root cause of the war itself. When politics dictated, states were quite happy to fight on the "wrong" side (Protestant Saxony with the Emperor, Catholic France against him). So I'm not sure that the supposedly greater brutality of religious warfare is the key factor here.

What I suspect was more important was the idea of "war paying for itself", whereby an army in the field could support itself by requisitions from the local populace without burdening the central treasury. This never actually happened, of course, but it did lead to an extremely large amount of pillage and plundering. This happened in other wars of the time (Louis XIV's invasions of Germany, for example), but the Thirty Years' War was longer and more widespread and frequently saw multiple campaigns in the same regions, meaning that the amount of pillaging was much, much higher.

 

[jahenders]

I agree -- the religious angle was primarily just an alternate political one.

The key factors IMNSHO were:
- Length of the war
- Extensive use of foreign mercenaries which their employers exercise little/no control over
- Armies living largely off the land (and repeatedly the same land)

From the impression I get most modern historians think that religion was primarily a proxy for political concerns during the Thirty Years' War, not the root cause of the war itself. When politics dictated, states were quite happy to fight on the "wrong" side (Protestant Saxony with the Emperor, Catholic France against him). So I'm not sure that the supposedly greater brutality of religious warfare is the key factor here.

What I suspect was more important was the idea of "war paying for itself", whereby an army in the field could support itself by requisitions from the local populace without burdening the central treasury. This never actually happened, of course, but it did lead to an extremely large amount of pillage and plundering. This happened in other wars of the time (Louis XIV's invasions of Germany, for example), but the Thirty Years' War was longer and more widespread and frequently saw multiple campaigns in the same regions, meaning that the amount of pillaging was much, much higher.

 

[avernite]

Something I am not sure is relevant, but just maybe it is:

While officially everyone was part of the Empire, noone quite saw it as 'taking our land from occupiers'. So while the nearly simultaneous 80 years war saw significant damage but also some near bloodless exchanges between the Dutch and Spanish (both claiming to be the rightful owners and overlords of the locals), in Germany there may have been more of 'well they are the enemy, who cares about their peasants/citizens'.

 

[Youngmarshall]

I agree -- the religious angle was primarily just an alternate political one.

People say this too often. Obviously politics plays a part but dismissing religious sentiment is a huge mistake.

The sense, from both sides, that their religion was under siege by heretics absoloutely contributed to the fierceness of the war.

But I stand by that the lack of potatoes was a huge reason for the death toll. Grain crops are exceedingly vulnerable.

 

[dandan_noodles]

People say this too often. Obviously politics plays a part but dismissing religious sentiment is a huge mistake.

The sense, from both sides, that their religion was under siege by heretics absoloutely contributed to the fierceness of the war.

But I stand by that the lack of potatoes was a huge reason for the death toll. Grain crops are exceedingly vulnerable.

The problem there is that there's no such thing as 'both sides'. Protestant states allied with Catholic states against Catholics allied with Protestants, so describing one side as Protestant or Catholic tells us nothing about who they fought or why. It's much more helpful to describe a side fighting for or against the Holy Roman Emperor, but even then, states were constantly changing sides according to which way the wind was blowing.

 

[Shadowwolf]

I remember reading that most of the German princes wanted to end it, however they could not pay the mercenaries what they owed them to end the contracts. If they just stopped paying them they would change sides, or devastate their former masters lands or both. In the end the Emperor had to pay most of the mercenaries bills as per the Treaty of Westphalia.