War and Peace in Europe, 1598-1650

Just as the causes of war intersected with one another, the chronology of the conflicts listed separately overlapped as well. One particularly war-torn period was the first half of the seventeenth century, when the confessional conflicts unleashed by the Reformation, compounded by the economic pressures of a growing European population, overlapped with and reinforced long-standing regional and dynastic struggles, civil wars, wars of independence, and incipient wars for commercial hegemony overseas. As Geoffrey Parker illustrates with the table above, 'In the first half of the century there was not one full calendar year of peace' in Europe; and in the 1640s every major country was engulfed in war, some on two or even three fronts simultaneously. If the conflicts between Christian states and the Ottoman Empire were added to this chart, the frequency of conflict would be still further intensified.