The Battle of White Mountain and the sack of Prague in the dispatches of some diplomats at the court of Vienna (1620-1621)

Abstract

The Battle of White Mountain (8th November 1620), epilogue of the first phase of the Thirty Years’ War, is seen in the European collective imagination in one of two ways: as the triumph of Catholic armies over Calvinist rebels by those who won, and as a day of shame by those who lost. The historical significance of this battle, however, lies not in its military aspects but in its immediate consequences (Polišenský): the sack of Prague began only a few hours after the battle, a city that offered no resistance (and in which there were only defenceless civilians left). We still do not understand the full scale of this event. What input, therefore, can diplomatic sources provide to this discussion? This article draws essentially on dispatches from foreign dignitaries accredited to the court of Vienna and, first of all, questions the reasons for the considerable delay with which Emperor Ferdinand II was informed of events. Furthermore, some ambassadors (from England, Genoa, Turin) were quite outspoken in reporting to their respective governments on the violence against civilians that was taking place in Bohemia at the time. The resulting image of White Mountain is thus quite different from the one painted by the Counter-Reformation: it was probably the women of Prague who paid the highest price for this defeat.