Excerpt from Wallenstein: Ein Dramatisches Gedicht The Thirty Years' War was the arbitrament by battle of the disputes arising out of the Reformation in Ger many, aggravated by the territorial and dynastic compli cations inseparable from the constitution of the empire. The German Empire, or Holy Roman Empire of German Nation, was a loose federation of sovereign states* under an elective monarch. From Albrecht II. (1438) to Francis II. (deposed this monarch was chosen from the princes of the house of Hapsburg, whose chief hereditary estates were Austria, Tirol and Styria. At the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, the electors were the princes of Bohemia, Saxony, Brandenburg, the Palatinate, Trier, Mainz and Cologne. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.