Thirty Years' War

The Thirty Years' War was a conflict fought between the years 1618 and 1648, principally in the Central European territory of the Holy Roman Empire, but also involving most of the major continental powers. It occurred for a number of reasons. Although it was from its outset a religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics, the self-preservation of the Habsburg dynasty was also a central motive.

Casualties and disease

The devastation caused by the war has long been a subject of controversy among historians. Estimates of mass civilian casualties of up to thirty percent of the population of Germany are now treated with caution. The mortality rate was perhaps closer to 15 to 20 percent, with deaths due to armed conflict, famine and disease. Much of the destruction of civilian lives and property was caused by the cruelty and greed of mercenary soldiers. It is certain that the war caused serious dislocation to both the economy and population of central Europe, but may have done no more than seriously exacerbate changes that had been initiated by other factors.

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Pestilence of several kinds raged among combatants and civilians in Germany and surrounding lands from 1618 to 1648. Many features of the ongoing war facilitated disease transmission. These included ongoing troop movements, the influx of waves of fresh soldiers from foreign countries, and the shifting locations of battle fronts. In addition, the displacement of civilian populations and the overcrowding of refugees into cities led to both disease and famine. Information about numerous epidemics is generally found in local chronicles, such as parish registers and tax records, that are often incomplete and may be exaggerated. The chronicles do show that epidemic disease was not a condition exclusive to war time, but was present in many parts of Germany for several decades prior to 1618.

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However, when the Danish and imperial armies met in Saxony and Thuringia during 1625 and 1626, disease and infection rates in local communities increased. Local chronicles repeatedly referred to "head disease," "Hungarian disease," and a "spotted" disease identified as typhus. After the Mantuan War, between France and the Habsburgs in Italy, the northern half of the Italian peninsula was in the throes of a bubonic plague epidemic. (See Italian Plague of 1629-1631.) During the unsuccessful siege of Nuremberg, in 1632, civilians and soldiers in both the Swedish and imperial armies succumbed to typhus and scurvy. Two years later, as the imperial army pursued the defeated Swedes into southwest Germany, human deaths from epidemics reached high rates along the Rhine River. Bubonic plague continued to be a factor in the war. Beginning in 1634, Dresden, Munich, and smaller German communities such as Oberammergau recorded large number of plague casualties. In the last decades of the war, both typhus and dysentery had become practically endemic in Germany.

Related Topics:
Saxony - Thuringia - Typhus - Bubonic plague - Italian Plague of 1629-1631 - Siege of Nuremberg - Scurvy - Rhine - Dresden - Munich - Oberammergau - Dysentery

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