The Thirty Years' War

#5: Magdeburg was one of Germany's largest cities at the time. It took more than a century to regain its status. The event was known sarcastically as "Magdeburg Wedding". The Catholic emperor had forced the protestant Magdeburg to marry him.

#7: This shows that the war was not simply a religious conflict. Richelieu's plan was to weaken his Habsburg opponents in the fight over supremacy in Europe. He succeeded.

#12: Soldiers were not directly paid by the state but largely lived off pillaging. The Treaty of Westphalia might not have worked if many of the soldiers had not been given posts as government clerks at the same time.

It has also been suggested that one of the reasons the Thirty Years' War began was that the Ottoman Empire was engaged militarily in Asia during that time. They were usually quarrelling with Austria in the Balkans. Now that Austria was free of that burden, it could employ its money and troops elsewhere. Quite fittingly, the Ottomans resolved their Asian struggles and refocused on Europe around the time the Westphalian Peace was signed. All of this information I base on lectures by Herfried Münkler, political scientist and author of a book on the subject.