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Bohemian Estates 12 Kreuzer
(silver coin replica) 1619 AD.
OBV: MONETA . REGNI . BOHEMIAE, royal crown, 1619
below.
R: IN DEO FOR (12) TITVDO, Czech lion rampant
left.
From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia:
The Bohemian Revolt
Period: 1618-1625
Being without
descendents, Emperor Mathias sought to assure an orderly transition
during his lifetime by having his dynastic heir (that fiercely Catholic,
Ferdinand of Styria, later Ferdinand
II, Holy Roman Emperor) elected to the separate royal thrones of
Bohemia and Hungary. Some of the Protestant leaders of Bohemia feared
losing the religious rights granted to them by Emperor Rudolf II and so
preferred the Protestant Frederick
V, elector of the Palatinate (successor of Frederick
IV, the creator of the League
of Evangelical Union). But other Protestants supported the position
also taken by the Catholic forces and so in 1617
Ferdinand was duly elected by the Bohemian Estates to become crown
prince, and automatically, upon the death of Mathias, the next King of
Bohemia. When the king-elect sent two Catholic councillors (Martinitz
and Slavata)
as his representatives to Hradčany
castle
in Prague in May 1618
to administer the government in his absence, the Bohemian Calvinists
seized them, subjected them to a mock trial, and threw them out of a
palace window. The Catholic version of the story claims that angels
appeared and carried them to safety. The Protestant version says that
they landed in manure.
This event, known as the Second
Defenestration of Prague, began the Bohemian Revolt. Soon the
Bohemian conflict erupted in the entirety of Greater Bohemia,
effectively Bohemia,
Silesia,
Lusatia
and Moravia,
which was already riven by conflict between Catholics and Protestants.
This confrontation was to find many facets and mirrors across the
continent of Europe
with the involvement of France, Sweden,
inter alia.
Had the Bohemian
rebellion remained a purely Eastern European affair, the war could have
been over in fewer than thirty months, but the death of Emperor Mathias
in 1619
emboldened the rebellious Protestant leaders who had been on the verge
of a settlement. The weaknesses of both Ferdinand (now officially on the
throne after the death of Emperor Mathias) and of the Bohemians
themselves led to the spread of the war to western Germany. Ferdinand
was compelled to call on his cousin, King Philip
IV of Spain for assistance.
The Bohemians, desperate
for allies against the Emperor, applied to be admitted to the Protestant
Union, led by their original candidate for the Bohemian throne, the Calvinist
Frederick
V, Elector Palatine. The Bohemians hinted that the Palatine Elector
would become King of Bohemia if he allowed them to join the Union and
come under its protection - however, similar offers were made by other
members of the Bohemian Estates to the Duke
of Savoy, the Elector
of Saxony, and the Prince
of Transylvania. The Austrians, who seemed to have intercepted every
letter leaving Prague, made public these duplicities, and unraveled much
support for the Bohemians, particularly in the court of Saxony.
The rebellion initially
favoured the Bohemians. They were joined in revolt by much of Upper
Austria whose nobility was Lutheran and Calvinist (a fact that would
swiftly change in the coming years.) Lower Austria revolted soon after
and in 1619, Count
Thurn led an army to the walls of Vienna itself. In the East, the
Protestant Prince of Transylvania, Gabriel
Bethlen, led a spirited campaign into Hungary with the blessings of
the Turkish Sultan. The Emperor, who had been preoccupied with the Uzkok
War, hurried to reform an army to stop the Bohemians and their
allies from entirely overwhelming his country. Count
Bucquoy, the commander of the Austrian army, defeated the forces of
the Protestant
Union at the Battle
of Sablat, led by Count Mansfeld, on 10
June 1619.
This cut off Count Thurn's communications with Prague, and he abandoned
his siege of Vienna at once. Sablat also cost the Protestants an
important ally - Savoy, long an opponent of Habsburg expansion, had
already sent considerable sums to the Protestants and even troops to
garrison fortresses in the Rhineland. The capture of Mansfeld's field
chancery revealed the Savoyards' plot, and forced the embarrassed duke
to leave the war.
In spite of Sablat, Count
Thurn's army continued to exist as an effective force, and Mansfeld
managed to reform his army further north in Bohemia. The Estates of
Upper and Lower Austria, still in revolt, signed an alliance with the
Bohemians in early August, and on the 22
August 1620
Ferdinand was officially deposed as King of Bohemia, replaced by the
Palatine Elector, Frederick V. In Hungary, even though the Bohemians had
reneged on their offer of their crown, the Transylvanians continued to
make surprising progress, driving the Emperor's armies from that country
by 1620.
The Spanish sent an army
from Brussels under Ambrosio
Spinola to support the Emperor, and the Spanish ambassador in
Vienna, Don Inigo Onate, persuaded Protestant Saxony to intervene
against Bohemia in exchange for control over Lusatia. The Saxons
invaded, and the Spanish army in the West prevented the Protestant
Union's forces from assisting. Onate conspired to transfer the electoral
title from the Palatinate to the Duke of Bavaria in exchange for his
support and that of the Catholic League. Under the command of General
Tilly, the Catholic League army (which included René
Descartes in its ranks) pacified Upper Austria, while the Emperor's
forces pacified Lower Austria; united, the two moved north into Bohemia.
Ferdinand II decisively defeated Frederick V at the Battle
of White Mountain, near Prague
on 8
November 1620.
Bohemia would remain in Habsburg hands for three hundred years.
That defeat caused the
dissolution of the League of Evangelical Union and the destruction of
Frederick V's holdings. Frederick V was outlawed from the Holy Roman
Empire and his territories, the Rhenish Palatinate, were given to
Catholic nobles, while his title of elector of the Palatinate was given
to his distant cousin Duke Maximilian of Bavaria. Frederick V, although
landless, made himself a prominent exile abroad, and tried to curry
support for his cause in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden.
It was a serious blow to
Protestant ambitions in the region. The rebellion effectively collapsed
and widespread confiscations of property and suppression of the
pre-existing Bohemian nobility ensured that the country would return to
the Catholic fold after more than two centuries of Hussite
and other religious dissent. The Spanish, seeking to outflank the Dutch
in preparation for the soon-to-be-renewed Eighty
Years' War, took Frederick's lands, the Rhine
Palatinate. The first phase of the war in Eastern Germany was fully
ended when Gabriel Bethlen of Transylvania signed the Peace
of Nikolsburg with the Emperor on December
31, 1621,
gaining a number of territories in Royal
Hungary.
Some historians regard
the period from 1621-1625 as a separate phase of the Thirty Years War,
calling it the Palatinate phase. The catastrophic defeat of the
Protestant army at White Mountain and the departure of Gabriel Bethlen
meant the pacification of eastern Germany. The war in the West, focused
on occupying the Palatinate, consisted of much smaller battles than the
Bohemian and Hungarian campaigns saw, and a much greater use of siege. Mannheim
and Heidelberg
fell in 1622, and Frankenthal
in 1623. The Palatinate was in the hands of the Emperor.
The remnant Protestant
army, led by Mansfeld, made an attempt to reach the Dutch border. Tilly
outmanuevered them at Stadtlohn on 6
August 1623
and only a third of Mansfeld's force of 21,000 managed to escape the
battle. Out of supplies, manpower, and money, Mansfeld's army dispersed
in 1624.
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