War is hell, as the saying goes, but just how bad was the war by the late 1630s, after two decades of fighting?

As we learn here, the worst aspects of the conflict didn't come from the deaths in battle, but what went along with the battle - armies that marched over aching, increasingly desolate lands; the ruination of the delicate agricultural system; the acute crisis of starvation that followed, and the spread of disease that followed it.

The picture was depressing, but it tells a story of a continent that grew more desperate for peace by the month. Could the Holy Roman Emperor make it happen? Let's find out...

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