Some of Wedgwood’s portraits are brilliant, succinct, evocative and commendably nonsentimental. The peasanty in general emerged from the war in a stronger position with regard to the rest of society than any they had yet held.

In spite of that levelling of classes which some claim to be the effect of acute and prolonged emergency, the social hierarchy emerged from the war as rigid as before. Even though the war marked the ascent of the Dutch republic, the refeudalisation of parts of Eastern Europe and the rise of absolutism in France and Austria, Wedgwood will have none of it and she certainly has no time for the bourgeoisie’s eternal rising, rising, rising: Since the publication of Wegdwood’s book, marxist and structuralist historians (notably the Brits Eric Hobsbawm and Rodney Hilton) have pointed out various underlying economic and social causes of the war. Wedgwood is an ardent adherer to the ‘cult of diplomacy’ and her emphasis throughout is on the leading personalities of the day: the empty-headed Count Friedrich Wilhelm of the Palatine, the indefatigable and deeply religious Emperor Ferdinand II, the staunch but shortsighted ‘Lion of the North’ Gustavus II Adolphus, the mercurial Cardinal Richelieu, the impenetrable but lugubrious Duke Albrecht von Waldstejn and the egocentric Duke Maximilian of Bavaria. Though well-researched and beautifully written (according to the author historiography is a form of literature), the book is out-dated in several ways.

Whatever the heroism, stubbornness or calculation of the protagonists may have achieved, the most common result of their exploits was rarely in doubt. Indeed one is struck time and again by the lack of compassion, foresight and leadership qualities among the German princes whilst the desastrous consequences of their over-arching ambitions and ill-considered plans were all too predictable. Wegdwood summarises her account by stating that the Thirty Years War ‘solved no problem’ and was ‘the outstanding example in European history of meaningless conflict.’ Of course other peoples’ wars sometimes appear meaningless to us although the people who risk life and limb to fight them have good reason to believe in their cause – a mistake we should bear in mind when speaking of wars remote in time as well as space.Įven so, the student of the era is bound to be impressed by the nightmarish trial imposed on Germany by the violent rifts between Protestants and Catholics, between Bourbon, Hapsburg and Vasa and between brilliant but cynical adventurers like Ernst von Mansfeld and Wallenstein.

The book amply delivers on its introductory promise to demonstrate ‘the dangers and disasters which can arise when men of narrow hearts and little minds are in high places’. Bromide fibre print by Lucinda Douglas-Menzies, 1987

The thirty years war by cv wedgwood