Thirty Years War Quotes

“The vast Lumpenproletariat, the product of the devastating Thirty Years’ War, the masses of morally depraved people, of beggars and tramps, accustomed to easy pickings—such was the reservoir from which the Prussian army recruited its soldiers.”
― Mark Borisovich Mitin, Marx and Engels on Reactionary Prussianism

“Even had a suitable Swede been available, it is unlikely Oxenstierna could have imposed him on the German generals. There was never any thought of giving command to Johann Georg of Saxony, whom Oxenstierna distrusted and despised as ‘an insignificant tosspot’.”
― Peter H. Wilson, The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy

“The war solved no problem. Its effects, both immediate and indirect, were either negative or disastrous. Morally subversive, economically destructive, socially degrading, confused in its causes, devious in its course, futile in its result, it is the outstanding example in European history of meaningless conflict... [a]lmost all [involved]... were actuated rather by fear than by lust of conquest or passion of faith. They wanted peace and they fought for thirty years to be sure of it. They did not learn then, and have not since, that war breeds only war.”
― Wedgwood C. V., The Thirty Years War