The Thirty Years Wars (C.V. Wedgwood)

"Poverty, political unrest, religious divisions, conflicting interests and individual jealousies- these were tinder for a war.  Fire was not lacking."

The Thirty Years War (1618-48) is a seminal conflict in European history.  Fought largely on German soil, it embodied the tensions of and involved nations from the entire continent.  Its convoluted and complex nature defies summarization; it's easiest to point to the general condition of man- our innate selfishness- and the horrors it can unleash as nations, dynasties, and religions all vied for prominence and expansion.  This was a conflict of the Holy Roman Emperor vs. rights of German princes, Catholic vs. Lutheran vs. Protestant, Hapsburg vs. Bourbon, the United Provinces (Netherlands) vs. the Spanish Netherlands & Spain & Austria vs. France vs. Sweden, and more.  Competing interests led to shifting alliances as one power appears to gain the upper hand, throwing religious opponents into temporary alliances and once-mortal national foes into bonds of friendship.  The power shifts, and new truces are formed.  Armies, more mercenary bands than national protectors, fight for whoever pays the best (or at all), and plunders the countryside to ruin.  And for what?

In Germany the war was an unmitigated catastrophe. In Europe it was equally, although in a different way, catastrophic. The peace . . . was totally ineffectual in settling the problems of Europe . . . the Peace of Westphalia was like most peace treaties, a rearrangement of the European map ready for the next war.

Wedgwood continues:

As there was no compulsion towards a conflict which, in despite of the apparent bitterness of parties, took so long to engage and needed so much assiduous blowing to fan the flame, so no right was vindicated by its ragged end.  The war solved no problem.  Its effects, both immediate and indirect, were either negative or disastrous.  Morally subversive, economically destructive, socially degrading, confused in its causes, devious in its course, futile in its results, it is the outstanding example in European history of meaningless conflict.

She wrote this in the 1930s, just after WWI, lending her claim greater significance.  Indeed, the war ultimately set Germany back centuries and aided the creation/rise of Prussia, which (one can argue) in turn set the stage for the horrific war three hundred years later.

Brilliant in her prose and assessments, Wedgwood had me entranced from the introduction.  Highly recommended.

Rating: A