Thirty Years War

Johann Rudolph Glauber (1604—1670) was born in Germany, but the Thirty Years War (1618—1648) that so devastated the German states led him to seek more peaceful conditions in Holland where he spent all but five of his last thirty years. Unlike most of the other well-known chemical workers of the seventeenth century, Glauber did not have a university education, and his chemical activities were directed toward technical and commercial applications as well as medical ones. He took his philosophical stance from an even earlier tradition than Paracelsus, that of alchemy itself His devotion... 

Unfortunately, the idea seems to have backfired monumentally the Palatinate under its new ruler, Frederick V, became a hotbed of alchemical, Hermetic and Rosicrucian thought. Such was the paranoia engendered by the Rosicrucians — they directly challenged both the Catholic and Protestant churches, as well as every monarch — that when Frederick accepted the crown of Bohemia it immediately started the Thirty Years War. 

Lutheran pastor who composed The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart during the early years of the Thirty Years War. He eventually fled to England, where he may have participated in Samuel Hartlib s circle. 

An exile from Germany courtesy of the Thirty Years War, Hartlib was the prime mover behind the Invisible College, which... 

The Thirty Years War, the last of the great religious wars of Europe. National conquest replaces religious conversion as a military aim. The loyalty of the individual is gradually transferred from the Church to the State. 

At the French Court, tobacco became enormously popular for smoking as well as for pharmaceutical purposes. Around 1570, smoking was common among Dutch seamen, and during the Thirty Years War, the soldiers of TiUy, Gustav Adolf and Wallenstein eventually extended the consumption of tobacco across the whole of Europe. The Swedish botanist Carl von Linne (1707-1778) named the plant genus after Jean Nicot, where also the name of its main alkaloid is derived from. 

The time of need was the time of the cruelest war in Europe since the Thirty Years War three hundred years earlier. Patriotic feelings gave way to hate and relatives and friends became enemies. Towns and landscapes were destroyed, and societies, including political and commercial organisations, were changed. Although World War I ended in 1919 its effects persisted through the interwar period and the next war, up to 1945. 

The consumption of cast iron rose considerably with the frequency of wars and the mechanization of the armies. It is said that during the Thirty Years War the Cathohc army under Tilly sent about 15 000 cannon balls of cast iron every day into Magdeburg at the siege of this town in 1631. Iron cannons were cast directly from the blast furnace. These pieces were inexpensive - compared to bronze cannons - but very heavy. They were not used for light field artillery but for permanent installations in forts and on ships. 

The mistreatment of other religious groups eventually contributed to the religious reasons for the outbreak of the Thirty Years War. The 1648 Peace of Westphalia was composed of two treaties the Treaty of Munster and the Treaty... 

Asch RG (1997) The thirty years war - the Holy Roman Empire and Europe, 1618-1648. St. Martin s Press Inc., New York... 

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