Boydell Press The Escalation of the Thirty Years' War in the 1620s: The Threats to Habsburg Hegemony and the Rise of Wallenstein

A major reassessment of the first decade of the Thirty Years' War. Much has been written on the Thirty Years' War, particularly the Bohemian Revolt of 1618 which started the war and the Congress of Westphalia which ended the war in Germany in 1648. This book focuses instead on the 1620s when although it seemed that the war might peter out it in fact escalated into a much more destructive war than it had been previously. 1625 was a key year: the Emperor Ferdinand II, seemingly under threat on all sides, from France, Denmark and England as well as Hungary, Italy and Germany, commissioned Wallenstein to raise a new army, an army to be financed not by taxes but by living off the land, preferably the land of your enemies. Although the threats turned out to be more potential than real, Wallenstein's new army was instrumental in giving the war a new lease of life, massively enlarging the theatre of operations. Yet, the real escalation into a full-blown war encompassing almost all of Europe had to wait until French and Swedish intervention in 1629/30. Considering key aspects of the war in the 1620s, both the international situation from different countries' perspectives, and the nature of Wallenstein's army, the book presents much new research and new thinking on the war and on why it turned out to be so long lasting and so hugely destructive.