Timeline of the Thirty Years' War

Many of the adventures of Lamentations of the Flame Princess act against the background of the Thirty Years' War. For those of you immersed into this setting, here is a short timeline of events which shaped the course of the war in Germany.

1618: The war starts as a conflict between Protestant and Catholic states about the authority of emperor Ferdinand II in Bohemia.
1620: The Bohemian Revolt is crushed in the battle of Weißen Berg.
1625: The Protestant king Christian IV of Denmark and Norway intervenes in the German war. Emperor Ferdinand II employs Albrecht von Wallenstein to fight the Danish armies.
1626: The war contractor Peter Ernst Graf von Mansfeld who fought for the Protestants dies near Sarajevo from hemorrhage.
1629: After a series of defeats king Christian IV endet his intervention in the war with the treaty of Lübeck.
1630: The Swedish king Gustav Adolf invades the Holy Roman Empire, heavily subsidized by Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister of Louis XIII of France, and by the Dutch.
1631: Magdeburg is sacked by imperial troops led by Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly, with a great part of the population murdered and the city burned.
1631, September: In the battle of Breitenfeld the forces of Gustav Adolf defeat the Catholic League led by Tilly.
1632: Tilly dies of a wound by an arquebus bullet he suffered in the battle of Rain.
1632, November: In the battle of Lützen the forces of Wallenstein clash with the Swedish troops. The Swedes prevailed, but king Gustav Adolf was killed.
1634: Wallenstein, who lost the trust of emperor Ferdinand II, is murdered by on of his captains in Eger.
1634, September: Protestant forces were smashed in the battle of Nördlingen.
1635: Roman Catholic France intervenes in the German war against the Holy Roman Empire and Spain.
1636: The imperial army and Spanish forces invade deep into French territory and threaten Paris.
1637: Emperor Ferdinand II dies and is succeeded by his son Ferdinand III.
1638: Bernhard von Weimar wins the battle of Breisach and pushes the Habsburg armies back from the borders of France. The tide begins to turn for the French.
1639: Bernhard von Weimar dies of black pock.
1641: Spain ends it's subsiding payments to emperor Ferdinand III in Vienna because of financial crisis in Madrid.
1642: The second battle of Breitenfeld is one of the bloodiest battles in the Thirty Years' War. The Swedish army under field marshal Lennart Torstenson wins a decisive victory and smashes the imperial troops with 5.000 death and another 5.000 captured. The battle enabled Sweden to occupy Saxony and impress on Ferdinand III the need to include Sweden, and not only France, in further peace negotiations.
1643: Denmark-Norway makes preparations to again intervene in the war, this time on the imperial side against Sweden.
1643: The battle of Rocroi against the French is a disastrous defeat for Spain. Spain plays no further role in the ongoing Thirty Years' War.
1644: The Royal Swedish Navy inflicts a decisive defeat on the Danish army in the battle of Fehmern Belt, forcing them to sue for peace.
1648: The battle of Prague is the last one in Thirty Years' War. The Swedish captured parts of Prague and many valuable treasures which until today are preserved in Stockholm.
1648, October: The Treaties of Münster and Osnabrück are signed and officially end the war.
1650: Until two years after the Treaties of Münster and Osnabrück bands of unpaid mercenaries roam the German lands, looting and murdering.

In Europe the Thirty Years' War left estimated 8 million people dead, most of them victims of famine and the Black Death.