The main challenge for Gustav II Adolf was to defend the Lutheran faith against the Catholics of the south (according to Swedish geography; "the south" was actually present-day Germany and Poland and should not be confused with today's southern Europe). To do this he realized that he had to defeat the Holy Roman Empire on the field of battle; this was the dominating Catholic …

The compromise of 1867 marked a recognition of the need for bilingualism in areas where an important portion of the population used another language; the procedure was imposed by official instructions in 1871.. In the 3 provinces which now are part of the Czech Republic, the languages used were (around 1900): Bohemia: Czech (63%), German (37%); Moravia: Czech (70%), …