Thirty Years' War Fed Itself

During the Thirty Years' War, the phrase bellum se ipsum alet, meaning "the war feeds itself," described a brutal system in which rulers and commanders avoided fully paying or supplying their armies and instead allowed soldiers to take what they needed from occupied territories. Troops requisitioned food, money, livestock, and shelter from ordinary civilians, often using force when communities could not provide enough. The system devastated farming regions, stripped peasants of their food and resources, and helped cause widespread famine, displacement, and death across Central Europe.

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