The Thirty Years War.? 10 PTS!!!!?

Question

Who won it?

Was it a civil War?

Was it a Religious war?

Was it a dynastic War?

Who lost it?

I'm totally confused!!!Please Help!!!

Answer 1

The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) was a religious war principally fought in Germany, where it involved most of the European powers. [5][6][7] The conflict began between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire, but gradually developed into a general, political war involving most of Europe.[8] The Thirty Years' War was a continuation of the France-Habsburg rivalry for European political pre-eminence, and in turn led to further warfare between France and the Habsburg powers.

The major impact of the Thirty Years' War, fought mostly by mercenary armies, was the extensive destruction of entire regions, denuded by the foraging armies. Episodes of famine and disease decimated the populace of the German states and the Low Countries and Italy, while bankrupting most of the combatant powers. [9] Some of the quarrels that provoked the war went unresolved for much longer time. The Thirty Years' War was ended with the Treaty of Münster, a part of the wider Peace of Westphalia. [10]

Over the course of the war, the population of the German states was reduced by about 30%.[11] In the territory of Brandenburg, the losses had amounted to half, while in some areas an estimated two-thirds of the population died. The male population of the German states was reduced by almost half. The population of the Czech lands declined by a third due to war, disease, famine and the expulsion of Protestant Czechs. The Swedish armies alone destroyed 2,000 castles, 18,000 villages and 1,500 towns in Germany, one-third of all German towns.[12][13][14][15]

Answer 2

Not many people came out of the thirty years war as winners.  Most came out dead.  

Think of how an earthquake occurs, pressure between two plates builds until something gives.  That was the 30 years war.  European society came under tremendous stress due to a couple inventions, the printing press, and gunpowder driven weapons.  Changes in technology change the relative power structure,  and those changes do not go peacefully.  The printing press made possible the dissemination of information outside the tight control of the church.  This made possible the Protestant movement.  Gunpowder driven weapons destroyed the power base of the medieval society.  It took a lifetime to train a knight and an afternoon to teach a peasant how to blast him out of the saddle.  This set in place conflicts between old and new, between north and south, between nobles, and clergy.  When the quake came it ripped the fabric of society apart and set in motion one of the worst periods of anarchy in human history.

Germany took 250 years to recover.  While France, Spain, Austria, and England developed national identities, Germany remained a fragmented patchwork of hundreds of little polities.  In the latter part of the 19th century Germany finally overtook her neighbors in population.  And Germany united under Prussian rule, becoming a single entity.  And then Germany sought to claim its place amongst the other nations of Europe, what resulted was a series of small wars in the 19th century including the Franco-Prussian war, and then in a pair of massive wars in the 20th.  To use the geology analogy.  That earthquake set in motion a tsunami that traveled across three centuries to arrive in the 20th century.  To understand the causes of WWI and WWII it helps to understand the 30 years war.