My understanding of the 1618 defenestration is that war was essentially inevitable by that point. The Holy Roman Empire had always been fragile—more of a loose

My understanding of the 1618 defenestration is that war was essentially inevitable by that point. The Holy Roman Empire had always been fragile—more of a loose alliance of princedoms than a proper kingdom or empire—and yet less than one year into his reign Ferdinand II started rolling back the strong religious protections that a large number of his vassals had begun to take for granted. There was no way that Ferdinand's approach to ruling the quarrelsome and religiously diverse German states wouldn't have led to war, even if these specific hotheads had kept their cool in that specific building on that specific day.