A N O T E O N THE T E R M

‘ T H I R T Y YEARS W A R ’

F . L. C A R S T E N Westfield College, London

TEN YEARS AGO Dr. S. H. Steinberg put forward a new interpretation of the Thirty Years War in the columns of this journal. Its tendency was to deny the catastrophic character of this war, even for those German territories which had been hit by it, and to reassess the economic consequences of the war within the framework of an alleged general decline starting about the middle of the sixteenth century and thus not due to the war.’ In the course of that article Dr. Steinberg wrote: Seventeenth-century authors speak of the military events of the first half of the century as ‘wars’, ‘bella’ in the plural and clearly distinguish between the ‘bellurn Bohrmicum’, ‘bellurn Suecinrm’ and so forth. The figure ‘thirty’ and the singular ‘war’ seem to occur for the first time in Pufendorf‘s De statu imferii C e r m i c i (1667) . . .a

If it is true that the seventeenth century did not think of the war as one war, this would be a point of importance and might necessitate a re- valuation of the events that we have grown accustomed to call the Thirty Years War. There is, however, definite evidence to the contrary. I have cited elsewhere a letter of March 1659 from the Elector Ferdi- nand Maria to the deputies of the Estates of Bavaria, in which he used the term ‘Thirty Years War’.s More recently I have found in the State Archives at Stuttgart a whole series of references to the war in the singular. The first-&om the year I 655-interestingly enough speaks of the great poverty and penury of the duchy’s inhabitants as due to the past ‘Twenty Years War’: ‘beij U q e r e r Underthanen bekanter grosser Armuethen und ohnvermoglichkeit, darin dieselbe beij vorgeswestem Zwanzig jahrigen Krieg gesturzet worden. . .” For Wurttemberg it had indeed been a Twenty Years War because the duchy had not been touched by it until 1628. Four years later we find a reference to the

I have discusied this part of Dr. Steinberg’s interpretation in ‘War there an economic decline in Germany before the Thirty Years’ War?’, English Histinid RNinu, Ixxii, 1956,

‘ State Archiva Stuttgart, Tomi Aclofimr Prowindium Wurtembcrgicmwn, liii, p. 1278: draft

PP; ff: rrtmy, h i , 1947, p. 92.

of a Rcuss of 12 March 1655.

See English Hktotical fiuicw, Lorii, 1956, p. 2.p, n. 4.

F. L. CARSTEN * 9’ ruin and immeasurable loss suffered by the duchy through the ‘German War’ which had lasted for such a long time: in was grossen unuberdenklichen Schaden, Verlust, und ruin, auch bluet- stiirzung, dises Herzogthum . . . durch den lang gewehrten teutschen Krieg gesezet . . . bis endlich der Allerhochste seine gnad verlihen, dass zu Miinster und Osnabrugg besondere Tractaten angestellet und nach langem tractiren ein allgemeiner Friden geschlossen . . .‘j The Estates of Wiirttemberg appear to have first used the term ‘Thirty Years War’ in 1666, pointing to the experience of the war as a reason for declining a ducal demand for a money grant for the building of fortifications : Es weisen die Exempla der Jenigen in dem H. Reich gelegener Ihrer Vostungen den fbgewehrten 30 Jahrigen Krieg hindurch zwar destituirter, aber auff dise stund noch nicht restituirter Sthde, wie hoch Ihre Majores und Lijbl : vorfordern Sich dergleichen fortification Kosten ankhomen lassen. . Two years later the Estates twice used the same term in opposing a money grant to enable the Duke to hire mercenaries on account of the war in the Spanish Netherlands and the military preparations of France in Alsace and elsewhere.’ In 1670 the Duke asked his Estates for a new grant because his ordinary revenues had sharply declined on account of the long ‘German War’.e In 1673 and in 1675 the Estates, resisting further ducal demands, again referred to the damage which the country had suffered during the Thirty Years War.0 All these examples, to which more could be added, are taken &om

private and unpublished exchanges between the Duke and the Estates. There is thus no suspicion of propaganda or of any ulterior motive attached to the terms used in this correspondence, as there might have been in the writings of Pufendorf and other authors addressed to a wider public. At least in these documents, there seem to be no references whatever to the wars in the plural: both the Duke and the Estates clearly thought of the events of 1618-48 as one war, and that a war with catastrophic effects on the economic and financial situation of Wiirttemberg.

6 State Archiva Stuttgart, Tm. Acbrum Prooincicrlium Wurtnnbsrgiconun, Iviii, pp. 563-4: proparition to the Diet of 5 January 1659.

7 Zbid., Ixviii, fa. 416, 570: declaration of the Estates of 13 February and 7 March 1668.

9 Zbid., lxxiii, fo. 494: deliberation of the Estata of 24 March 1673; h v i i , to. @I:

ZM., lxvii, fo. I$: declaration of the Estates of 26 November 1666.

Ibid., lxx, fo. 137: ducal proposition of 12 January 1670.

declaration of the Eatata of 8 March 1675.