During the early seventeenth Century, Germany was ravaged by war. The Thirty Years War was closely connected to the war between France and Spain (1635-59) and the Spanish-Dutch "Eighty Year War" that finally ended in 1648.
 

The War's five phases: I. The onset, 1607-18 II. The Bohemian crisis, 1618-23 III. The Danish interval, 1625-9 IV. The Swedish invasion, 1630-5 V. The final French phase, 1635-48