Europe at War 1600–1650

The Thirty Years War within the Holy Roman Empire overlapped with the latter half of the Eighty Years War between Spain and the United Provinces, the struggle for Baltic supremacy between Sweden, Denmark and Poland and the renewal of Franco-Spanish rivalry following France's recovery from the Wars of Religion.In this book, the author analyses the inter-relation of these conflicts and refers also to the part played by England, Russia, the Swiss and the Osmanli Turks.He suggests that, without prejudice to the ambitions of Sweden, France and Austria - or to the aspirations of Calvinists, Catholics, monarchs, mercenaries and rebels, the conflict between Spain and the United Provinces goes a long way to explain the intensity of international interest in the affairs of Julich-Cleves, Bohemia, The Valtelline, Stralsund, Mantua and the Rhineland. This he attributes to Spain's need to protect her lines of communication with the Netherlands, and the determination of the Dutch not only to disrupt these lines but also to safeguard from Spanish interference their own essential trade routes with the Baltic. As a result the author suggests that if the Twelve Years Truce in the Eighty Years War of Spain and the United Provinces had not ended in 1621 the Thirty Years War, as popularly understood, would not have occurred.This book presents a clear analysis of the turbulent years in Europe between 1600 and 1650 and will be invaluable to students of seventeenth-century European history.