The [Battle of the White Mountain]?, near Prague in 1620 was a serious blow to protestant ambitions in the region. |
The [Battle of the White Mountain]?, near Prague in 1620 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 country would return to the Catholic fold after more than a century of Hussite and other heresy. Had the Bohemian rebellion remained a purely Eastern European affair, the Thirty Years War would have been over in fewer than thirty months. Unfortunately, the weakness of both Ferdinand? and of the Bohemians themselves led to the spread of the war to Western Germany. Ferdinand? had been compelled to call on his cousin, [King Phillip IV of Spain]? for assistance. The Bohemians had called on the Calvinist? [Frederick IV of the Palatinate]? to be their King. The Spanish, seeking to outflank the Dutch in preparation for the soon-to-be-renewed [Eighty Years War]? took Frederick?'s lands, the Palatinate, along the Rhine. |