Lutzen 1632 - Climax of the Thirty Years War

Seventeenth-century Germany was splintered into over 1,000 semi-independent political units, some of them little more than the private estates of knights or counts. In theory, the 'Holy Roman' emperor had power over this chaotic collection of states. He was chosen by the vote of seven Electors: the archbishops of Cologne, Trier and Mainz; the Dukes of Brandenburg and Saxony, the King of Bohemia, and the Pfalzgraf {or Count Palatine). It was the Pfalzgraf's acceptance of the crown of Bohemia, and with it a second electoral vote, that finally pushed the Empire into all-out war. With the conquest of the Pfalzgraf's lands after the battle of White Mountain (1620), the Pfalz vote was transferred to the Duke of Bavaria in 1623. Catholic forces in Germany were answerable either to the Catholic League (the 'Leaguists'), whose main members were the three Archbishop-electors and Bavaria, or to the Habsburg emperor (the 'Imperialists').
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