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Authors: Mark Kurlansky
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they become. So it is not surprising that a war known as the Thirty Years War would be deeply unpopular. Of course no one planned for the war to last that long, and the name came later. Wars usually start well for the war promoters. The Urban II speech is made; the enemy is declared despicable; God's stand, firmly behind the cause, is declared; and the killing is nothing short of the honorable and patriotic thing to do. In the case of the Thirty Years War no one could find as tidy a justification as “driving out the infidel,” but the cause was outlined with the prerequisite simplicity nevertheless. The war was basically about the dismantling of the Holy Roman Empire, which, as every schoolchild learns, was never holy, was German, not Roman, and was never exactly an empire.
Today it is difficult to explain what those two generations of combat were about—neither the first nor last war to lose meaning in hindsight—yet European monarchs were able to raise huge armies nevertheless to slaughter each other from 1618 to 1648, for the cause, or causes. It was as though World War I had continued into World War II without a break in the fighting.
Most of the fighting took place in Germany, decimating the German population, destroying German agriculture and trade, and giving German peasantry a jaundiced view of war for the next two centuries, during which time German pacifist and antiwar movements flourished. Numerous groups, such as the Spiritualists, mystics who believed inspiration from the Holy Ghost was more important than Scripture, opposed war. The year the war ended, 1648, a mystic named Paul Felgenhauer wrote Perspective of War, a book asserting that the recent calamity in Germany was the beginning of the end of the world. He argued that a complete rejection of warfare was the only reasonable stance. Other books rejecting warfare, even defensive war, were written after the war by other mystics, such as Christian Hohburg of Hamburg and Annecken Hoogwand, who declared war a sin. Pietism, a sect that challenged the Lutheran establishment much the way earlier sects had challenged Catholicism, emerged with a strong antiwar message. From this movement came the German Baptist Brethren, popularlyknown as the Dunkers, who embraced a style of pacifism similar to that of the Mennonites.
Enduring a civil war followed by a revolution, seventeenth-century England also experienced enough warfare to stimulate antiwar movements. In this setting, Quakerism, a mystic religion that was neither Catholic not Protestant, rejected both sides in the English upheaval. To a Quaker, Oliver Cromwell, who led the Puritans to power through his military prowess, was the Constantine of Puritanism. By establishing the religion he had destroyed its principles.
The Quakers were so named, mockingly, after the physical habits of its founder, George Fox, when in a state of spiritual possession. Though initially persecuted, especially by local government, the Quakers were largely protected by Cromwell as one of theirs, once the Puritans came to power. But Quakers provoked the political establishment by refusing the taking of oaths and the tipping of a hat as a sign of respect. Only gradually did they become pacifists, and once they adopted an uncompromising antiwar stance, their persecution, including prison, public beatings, and whippings, became widespread. In the 1670s their meeting houses were forcibly closed, even physically dismantled.
Spin-offs of Puritanism also rejected violence, such as the Diggers, a short-lived movement that tried to establish an egalitarian commune in rural Surrey in 1649. They were destroyed by a violent mob, but were much talked about and imitated by Yippies and other 1960s movements in the United States. Gerrard Winstanley, the founder of the Diggers, had called war “a plague” and wrote, “We abhor fighting for freedom.” This seems a strange paradox at first until one reflects on how often in history war is justified
Today it is difficult to explain what those two generations of combat were about—neither the first nor last war to lose meaning in hindsight—yet European monarchs were able to raise huge armies nevertheless to slaughter each other from 1618 to 1648, for the cause, or causes. It was as though World War I had continued into World War II without a break in the fighting.
Most of the fighting took place in Germany, decimating the German population, destroying German agriculture and trade, and giving German peasantry a jaundiced view of war for the next two centuries, during which time German pacifist and antiwar movements flourished. Numerous groups, such as the Spiritualists, mystics who believed inspiration from the Holy Ghost was more important than Scripture, opposed war. The year the war ended, 1648, a mystic named Paul Felgenhauer wrote Perspective of War, a book asserting that the recent calamity in Germany was the beginning of the end of the world. He argued that a complete rejection of warfare was the only reasonable stance. Other books rejecting warfare, even defensive war, were written after the war by other mystics, such as Christian Hohburg of Hamburg and Annecken Hoogwand, who declared war a sin. Pietism, a sect that challenged the Lutheran establishment much the way earlier sects had challenged Catholicism, emerged with a strong antiwar message. From this movement came the German Baptist Brethren, popularlyknown as the Dunkers, who embraced a style of pacifism similar to that of the Mennonites.
Enduring a civil war followed by a revolution, seventeenth-century England also experienced enough warfare to stimulate antiwar movements. In this setting, Quakerism, a mystic religion that was neither Catholic not Protestant, rejected both sides in the English upheaval. To a Quaker, Oliver Cromwell, who led the Puritans to power through his military prowess, was the Constantine of Puritanism. By establishing the religion he had destroyed its principles.
The Quakers were so named, mockingly, after the physical habits of its founder, George Fox, when in a state of spiritual possession. Though initially persecuted, especially by local government, the Quakers were largely protected by Cromwell as one of theirs, once the Puritans came to power. But Quakers provoked the political establishment by refusing the taking of oaths and the tipping of a hat as a sign of respect. Only gradually did they become pacifists, and once they adopted an uncompromising antiwar stance, their persecution, including prison, public beatings, and whippings, became widespread. In the 1670s their meeting houses were forcibly closed, even physically dismantled.
Spin-offs of Puritanism also rejected violence, such as the Diggers, a short-lived movement that tried to establish an egalitarian commune in rural Surrey in 1649. They were destroyed by a violent mob, but were much talked about and imitated by Yippies and other 1960s movements in the United States. Gerrard Winstanley, the founder of the Diggers, had called war “a plague” and wrote, “We abhor fighting for freedom.” This seems a strange paradox at first until one reflects on how often in history war is justified
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