ABSTRACT
The seventeenth century was a tempestuous and turbulent age, filled with ruinous wars and bloody revolutions. Historians examining new departures in warfare refer to a military revolution. Historians viewing the baroque in the Habsburg lands have characterized it as a "blend of insecurity and confidence" and felt that it reflected a "crisis of sensibility". The former drastically changed its character after the Habsburg victory at the White Mountain in 1620, a crucial date in Czech history. Historiography has advanced the concept of a general crisis of the seventeenth century, which is formulated in spiritual, ideological-political, and socio-economic terms. Political confrontation in the seventeenth century seemed often to result from the state seeking to enlarge its power. The political nation failed to draw a lesson from the catastrophes of the mid-century. Instead it came to believe that the country had been saved through divine providence and the superiority of the free political system.
