John Pike, The Thirty Years War (Pen & Sword, 2022)
There are wars and complex wars, then there is the Thirty Years War fought between 1618 and 1648. This was a multi-faceted war for the religious, political, and economic control of Europe, a war that would create nations while diminishing empires and ending the dreams and ambitions of many a prince and lord, and a war that would usher in early modern Europe. Explaining all that would be some undertaking for any historian, but John Pike goes further to place this war in its global context. It is quite the journey.
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Pike gets off to a good start by placing his general maps up front, which is a blessing for a war such as the Thirty Years War. The text begins on familiar ground with the defenestration of Prague in 1618. Then Pike lays out his groundwork with an extended description of the Habsburg supremacy and the challenges it faced, both internally and externally. The Thirty Years War exposed both, beginning as a civil war then connecting to other conflicts to create a global conflagration. Pike continues with his background, folding in the major players and characters while embarking on his narrative of events. This is mostly straightforward military history, but Pike deftly mixes in economic, logistical, and political factors. He is aided in this by adding regular (idiosyncratically drawn) maps, and he uses subtitles, which act as very useful signposts for this complicated journey.
About half-way through his narrative, Pike turns to the global aspects of the Thirty Years War. This was an age of burgeoning global networks and budding imperialism. Pike also notes that the war against the Habsburgs had begun decades earlier but continued into the war years. Thus, we find the war spreading to Asia and the Americas where the ‘only law was naval power’, a military arm in which the Dutch excelled against the more powerful Spanish and Portuguese. Pike returns to Europe and a stalemate that fostered revolutions, such as the Catalan Revolt of 1640-1642 and the secession of Portugal. Almost all wars end with a settlement acceptable to all parties, but with seven primary participants in the Thirty Years War, this proved easier said than done. Pike notes that diplomacy continued during the war, but only as the war moved into its third decade did it gain a true foothold. A new generation of leaders entered the scene, which unblocked the political situation, aided by the crushing military victories at Rocroi and Tuttlingen in 1643. Exhaustion played its role too, with the Holy Roman Empire unable to field a decent army in 1645 to protect Vienna. By then peace was firmly on its way, bringing a cessation to hostilities in October 1648 through the Treaty of Westphalia. In his lengthy postscript, Pike analyses modern Europe, and its roots in the Westphalia treaty, and what that means going forward for the EU.
The Thirty Years War can be a dry and dusty subject to read, and it is easy to get lost in often kaleidoscopic sequences of almost simultaneous events and the people who participated in them. Pike’s account, however, is well managed and written with a public readership in mind. His narrative is easy to follow, and while the main thread is the military campaigns and battles, Pike effortlessly includes many of the other economic and political factors that facilitate warfare. He also embroiders small but colourful details into his text, such as the botched execution of Cinq Mars, dying bravely without a blindfold. Pike wisely adds plenty of maps to assist his readers. The inclusion of the postscript, connecting the Thirty Years War to the modern EU, felt like an unnecessary addition, but it was not intrusive. Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable book that casual readers will enjoy just as much as serious students.
