THE great European conflict which gives its name to the present volume of our History had a complicated origin, an unprecedented range, and far-reaching consequences. The story of its origin reaches back into a period dealt with in an earlier division of this work -- whether the Thirty Years’ War be regarded, in the airy phrase uttered on a memorable occasion by Lord Beaconsfield, as “a war of succession for a duchy near Schleswig-Holstein”, or as the inevitable result of deep rooted religious differences not to be settled by ambiguous parchment compromises, or as the outburst of the storm brewed by militant Calvinism, or finally as the opportunity cautiously prepared and still more cautiously allowed to mature by the far-sighted statesmanship of France. After the War had broken out, not in the west but in an eastern borderland of the Empire, it gradually absorbed into itself all the local wars of Europe. The quarrels of the Alpine leagues and those about the Mantuan succession, the rivalries of the Scandinavian north and of the Polish north-east, the struggle, only temporarily suspended, of the United Provinces against Spain, the perennial strife between Spain and France for predominance in Italy and elsewhere all contributed to the sweep of the current. Even the Ottoman Empire was concerned in its progress; for the “Turco-Calvinistic” combination announced by the pamphleteers was by no means a mere hallucination. “All the wars that are on foot in Europe”, wrote Gustavus Adolphus to Axel Oxenstierna in 1628, “have been fused together, and have become a single war”.

There was one exception which the Swedish King did not live to witness - the great English Civil War, which ran its course side by side with the last years of the Continental conflict, without at any point intersecting it. In the later years of the reign of her first Stewart King, England might have decisively influenced the great issues of European politics; but James I missed the chance of harmonizing the interests of his dynasty with the religious sympathies of the nation; and the opportunity was, however anxiously he desired it, never recovered by the unfortunate Charles I. Thus the history of England, with that of Scotland and Ireland, ran its course apart.

The vicissitudes of the Continental conflict here narrated were so many and so tremendous as constantly to transform the designs of the belligerent Powers, and often to modify materially the purposes of the personages most actively concerned in the course of affairs. It thus frequently becomes difficult to judge the chief actors on the scene with either consistency or equity. Leibniz (in a passage of his celebrated memorandum proposing a French expedition to Egypt) points out how the Habsburg Emperors Ferdinand II and Ferdinand III, at first merely intent on the defence of their own dominions, and then upon the pursuit of their assailants, were afterwards against their own will, as foe joined foe, drawn into “progressus ulteriores” till their unexpected successes combined with the fact of their Spanish kinship to bring into the field against them not only Protestant Kings and Princes, but well-nigh the whole of Europe. The designs of Gustavus Adolphus, definitely restricted at the outset, were progressively expanded, and, before they were stopped by death, had ceased to be fettered even by his long-standing compact with France. The schemes of Wallenstein, and even those of Bernard of Weimar, were similarly subject to almost continuous change.

The effects of the great European war call for no less attentive a study. The settlement of the Peace of Westphalia remained for more than a century and a half the norm of the international relations of the European States, and governed the status Imperii and that of its members; but the consequences of the War itself for Germany remained perceptible long after that settlement had been revised and recast, and even after the new German Empire of our own times had been established. In 1880, when Prince Bismarck was at the height of his power, the German Ambassador in London, Prince Hatzfeldt, as Lord Fitzmaurice relates, told Lord Granville that “Germany had not yet recovered from the effects of the Thirty and the Seven Years’ Wars; and that a determination to prevent the recurrence of similar disasters ought still to be the keynote of German policy”. The temporary ascendancy of Sweden in northern Europe, gained by her sword and by it to be maintained or jeopardized; the enduring control over the political life of Western Europe at large, and even over parts of the Empire itself, secured to the French monarchy by the far-sighted policy of Richelieu, and of his disciple Mazarin; the slow but sure decay of Spain; the transfer of colonial power from her and Portugal to the United Provinces and England; the extraordinary prosperity of those Provinces and the consequent jealousy between them and their only Protestant rival; finally the downfall of the political influence of the Papacy, and the beginnings of a new era of religious thought to which the master-mind of Descartes pointed the way all these historical phenomena are associated with the course and issue of the War, and may, in a wider or in a narrower sense, be reckoned among its consequences.

In bringing out the present volume, the Editors cannot but once more refer to a loss which they have suffered, together with all students of English history. It had been the hope of Lord Acton, and for a time it was ours, that the eminent historian of England under James I and Charles I, under the Commonwealth, and during the earlier part of the Protectorate, would have contributed to this work a complete summary of a period of English history to whose struggles we mainly owe the preservation of our constitutional liberties. But Dr S. R. Gardiner was only able to write for our History the first of the chapters undertaken by him, in which he gave proof of his close study of the connection between English and Continental affairs. This chapter was printed in an earlier volume of this work; those dealing with the reign of Charles I and the ensuing years have been contributed by other writers, friends and fellow-workers of the historian whom we have lost.

A short chapter is added, commemorating a school of English poetry associated with much that was noblest in the ideas of the age that was passing away. Of Milton, solitary even in the midst of the conflict in which he bore a part, something more will be said in the volume of this History dealing with the age in which his greatest work saw the light. There also will be treated the great classical age of French literature, of which the beginnings fall within the period covered by our present volume.

In conclusion, we desire to call attention to an exceptional feature and one which is intended to remain altogether exceptional Bibliographical portion of the present volume. The contemporary Histories of the Thirty Years’ War, and many later works based upon these, are very largely indebted - not always to the advantage of unadulterated historical - truth to its pamphlet literature. Without some knowledge of that literature it is impossible to understand the force of the blasts of fierce hatred and wild fear which swept over a distracted nation; or to form a conception of the mass of misrepresentation, perversion and falsification with which the newsletters and historical narratives of the time had to deal. All the more necessary is an inspection of such genuine historical documents as still exist. To English students few of these, and only a small proportion of the vast pamphlet literature of the age, have hitherto been generally accessible. It seemed a fitting tribute to the memory of Lord Acton, the projector of this History, to utilize the noble collection of books brought together by him and now, thanks to the generous action of Mr. Carnegie and of Mr. John Morley, part of the Cambridge University Library, for the purpose of attempting what has never before been attempted in this country a full bibliography of the Thirty Years’ War, and more especially of its extant original documents and contemporary narrative and controversial literature. The first of the bibliographies in the present volume represents such an attempt. It does not claim to be exhaustive; but it is meant, taken in conjunction with the several bibliographies which follow, to be a step in that direction. The bibliography in question could not have been produced without the skilled aid of Miss A. M. Cooke, who under the general direction of the University Librarian is engaged in classifying and cataloguing Lord Acton's collection, and that of the Assistants working in this department. For this aid our sincere thanks are due. We venture to add that the study of modern history in our University and in this country will in our opinion benefit very greatly from the publication, which we trust is no longer distant, of the classified catalogue of the library of our late Regius Professor.

A. W. W.

G. W. P.

S. L.