European Weapons & Warfare 1618 1648

The 'Defenestration of Prague', the coup d'etat staged by Protestant Bohemian nobles against officials of the Hapsburg Emperor triggered the Thirty Years War. When Habsburg Spain intervened in support of their Holy Roman Emperor relative, what had started as a localized political and religious dispute in Germany, transformed into a European and global conflict.

More than three and a half centuries have passed since the Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years War (1618-48), but this most devastating of wars in the early modern period continues to capture the imagination of readers: this book reveals why. It was one of the first wars where contemporaries stressed the importance of atrocities, the horrors of the fighting and also the sufferings of the civilian population. The Thirty Years War remains a conflict of key importance in the history of the development of warfare and the 'military revolution'.

Der 30-jährige Krieg 1618-1648 zählt zu den dunkelsten Kapiteln in der europäischen Geschichte. An diese leidensreiche Zeit, die von Hunger und Tod geprägt war, erinnert jetzt das Weimarer Alte Musik-Ensemble "The Playfords" mit seinem Programm "Es geht ein dunkle Wolk herein - Lieder aus der Zeit des Dreißigjährigen Krieges". Es erklingen deutsche Balladen, Volkslieder, Hymnen auf Kriegshelden wie Tilly und Gustav Adolf, eindrückliche Lieder der Landsknechte, schwermütige Klagen und trotz allem ausgelassene Tänze, hoffnungsfroh erdachte Friedenslieder und eindrückliche Choräle aus der Zeit des Dreißigjährigen Krieges.