The Thirty Years' War
A religious conflict becomes a general European war and kills a third of Germany.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 30 years
- Known to
- ± 1 year
- Era
- Early Modern, Holocene
Beginning in Bohemia in 1618, the war draws in most of Europe and devolves from confessional conflict into a struggle over Habsburg power — Catholic France funds Protestant Sweden against Catholic Spain and Austria. Armies live off the land, and mortality in parts of the Holy Roman Empire reaches a third of the population through violence, famine and disease. It is the deadliest European conflict before the twentieth century in proportional terms.