Cologne War

(noun)

A war (1583–88) that devastated the Electorate of Cologne, a historical ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire, within present-day North-Rhine-Westphalia, in Germany. The war occurred within the context of the Protestant Reformation in Germany and the subsequent Counter-Reformation, and concurrently with the Dutch Revolt and the French Wars of Religion.

Related Terms

Examples of Cologne War in the following topics:

  • Religious Divide in the Holy Roman Empire

    • The Thirty Years' War was a series of wars between various Protestant and Catholic states in the fragmented Holy Roman Empire between 1618 and 1648.
    • The Thirty Years' War was a series of wars in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648.
    • The Peace of Augsburg (1555), signed by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, ended the war between German Lutherans and Catholics.
    • This was evident from the Cologne War (1583–88), in which a conflict ensued when the prince-archbishop of the city, Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, converted to Calvinism.
    • Religion in the Holy Roman Empire on the eve of the Thirty Years' War.

  • Fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire

    • The Peace of Augsburg ended the war in Germany and accepted the existence of the Protestant princes, although not Calvinism, Anabaptism, or Swiss Reformed.
    • A side effect was the Cologne War, which ravaged much of the upper Rhine.
    • When Bohemians rebelled against the Emperor, the immediate result was the series of conflicts known as the Thirty Years' War (1618–48), which devastated the empire.
    • The Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years' War, gave the territories almost complete independence.
    • The Thirty Years' War so bled the empire that it never recovered its strength.

  • The Final Ledger of Deaths

    • World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history in absolute terms of total dead.
    • Civilian casualties include deaths caused by strategic bombing, Holocaust victims, German war crimes, Japanese war crimes, population transfers in the Soviet Union, other war crimes, and deaths due to war related famine and disease.
    • The mass-bombing of civilian areas, notably the cities of Warsaw, Rotterdam and London, including the aerial targeting of hospitals and fleeing refugees[335] by the German Luftwaffe, along with the bombing of Tokyo, and German cities of Dresden, Hamburg and Cologne by the Western Allies may be considered as war crimes.
    • World War II was devastating for both the Allied and Axis nations.
    • Summarize the final ledger of military and civilian deaths of World War II.

  • Dada and Surrealism

    • Dadaism was intensely anti-war, anti-bourgeois and held strong political affinities with the radical left.
    • For many participants, the movement was a protest against the bourgeois nationalist and colonialist interests, which many Dadaists believed were the root cause of the war, and against the cultural and intellectual conformity—in art and more broadly in society—that corresponded to the war.
    • Many Dadaists believed that the 'reason' and 'logic' of bourgeois capitalist society had led people into war.
    • In Cologne, Max Ernst used photographs taken from the front during World War I to comment on the war.
    • Like Zurich, New York City was a refuge for writers and artists from World War I.

  • Louis XIV's Wars

    • Three major wars, the Franco-Dutch War, the Nine Years' War, and the War of the Spanish Succession, as well as two lesser conflicts, the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions, enabled France to become the most powerful state in Europe.
    • The conflict that followed is known as the War of Devolution (1667–68).
    • The Franco-Dutch War (1672–78), called also the Dutch War, was a war that pitted France, Sweden, Münster, Cologne, and England against the Dutch Republic, which was later joined by the Austrian Habsburg lands, Brandenburg-Prussia, and Spain to form a Quadruple Alliance.
    • During Louis's reign, France was the leading European power and it fought three major wars: the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg, and the War of the Spanish Succession.
    • There were also two lesser conflicts: the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions.

  • Administration of the Empire

    • The dukes often conducted feuds against each other—feuds that, more often than not, escalated into local wars.
    • In 1356, Emperor Charles IV issued the Golden Bull, which limited the electors to seven: the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg, and the archbishops of Cologne, Mainz, and Trier.
    • During the Thirty Years' War, the Duke of Bavaria and the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg were given the right to vote as the eighth and ninth electors, respectively.
    • Additionally, the Napoleonic Wars resulted in several electorates being reallocated, but these new electors never voted before the empire's dissolution.
    • Examples are the prince-archbishoprics of Cologne, Trier, and Mainz.

  • Architecture of the Holy Roman Empire

    • Many churches in Germany date from this time, including the twelve Romanesque churches of Cologne.
    • Cologne Cathedral is—after Milan Cathedral—the largest Gothic cathedral in the world.
    • Baroque architecture began in the early 17th century in Italy and arrived in Germany after the Thirty Years War.
    • Cologne Cathedral is—after Milan Cathedral—the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, built over a process of 600 years.

  • Slowing Momentum

    • Hitler's refusal to allow a retreat led to the deaths of 200,000 German and Romanian soldiers; of those who surrendered on 31 January 1943, only 6,000 survivors returned to Germany after the war.
    • Beginning in 1942, Allied bombing of Germany increased, severely damaging, among others, the cities of Hamburg, Cologne, and Dresden, killing thousands of civilians, and causing hardship for the survivors.
    • The Allies invaded Sicily and Italy next, but met fierce resistance, particularly at Anzio (January 22,1944–June 5,1944) and Cassino (January 17, 1944–May 18,1944), and the campaign continued from mid-1943 to nearly the end of the war.

  • Gothic Sculpture

    • Gothic art existed as monumental religious sculpture in churches, such as in the Cologne Cathedral, and as small, portable sculptures.
    • It was commissioned by Philip von Heinsberg, archbishop of Cologne from 1167 to 1191, and created by Nicholas of Verdun.
    • The Gero-Kreuz is the oldest large sculpture of the crucified Christ north of the Alps and is located in the Cologne Cathedral.
    • The Shrine of the Three Kings in Cologne Cathedral is said to house the remains of the Three Magi and serves as an example of German Gothic sculpture.
    • Explain how the art of the Cologne Cathedral embodies Gothic sculpture

  • Art Movements of the 1920s

    • The eclectic style emerged from the years between World War I and World War II, often referred to as the interwar period, and combined traditional craft motifs with Machine Age imagery and materials and an embrace of technology.
    • German Expressionism began before World War I and exerted a strong influence on artists who followed throughout the 1920s.
    • Dada began in Zurich during World War I and became an international phenomenon, although it was initially an informal movement intended to protest the outbreak of World War I and the bourgeois, nationalist and colonialist interest that Dadaists believed were root causes of the conflict.
    • Dada artists met and formed groups of like-minded peers in Paris, Berlin, Cologne, and New York City who engaged in activities such as public gatherings, demonstrations and publication of art and literary journals.
    • Arising from Dada activities during World War I and centered in Paris, Surrealism was a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s.