ive been reading about the war for acouple weeks now and i can recognize maybe 1/2 the names
― max, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 14:30 (twelve years ago) link
Alsace-Lorraine
― returning the native population to its violent 18th-century high (Michael White), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 14:34 (twelve years ago) link
alsace-lorraine newman
― max, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 14:34 (twelve years ago) link
Wallenstein, because he has a good social wargame named after him.
― der dukatenscheisser (Sanpaku), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 14:59 (twelve years ago) link
I read this last year and hated it- so dry and confusing. I heard good things about Wedgwood but never got around to it.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51DcVhOBfVL._SS500_.jpg
I'm voting for Christian of Denmark because the world loves a loser.
― brownie, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:07 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, that's what I keep promising myself I'll read. I am a bit wary - modern historical prose can be a quagmire. Maybe I'll line up the Wedgwood instead.
― you don't exist in the database (woof), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:11 (twelve years ago) link
wedgwood can be confusing--i mean the war is confusing, so--but shes anything but dry. i expected this to take me a couple months of drawn-out "when im in the mood" reading, but it flew by in a couple weeks
― max, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:14 (twelve years ago) link
RIYL game of thrones
lol i wondered if this was why you were reading this!
― Monstrous TumTum (Lamp), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:14 (twelve years ago) link
lol i mean it isnt, really, but it is, kind of
ill tell you one thing, there are about 40x as many things going on in the 30 years war as i ASoIaF, and wedgwood manages to get it all done in 1 book
― max, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:15 (twelve years ago) link
yes but how much do we know about frederick the fifth's incestuous relationship w/ his sister???
― Monstrous TumTum (Lamp), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:21 (twelve years ago) link
Been meaning to read this version of the Wedgwood book that's been sitting on my shelf for a while:
http://www.foliosociety.com/bookcat/9042/TYW/thirty-years-war
So maybe I will soon! The whole story really is headspinning and sad.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:22 (twelve years ago) link
More even than the other wars of religion, this is a conflict I always bring up w/ppl who are sketchy about separation of church and state.
― returning the native population to its violent 18th-century high (Michael White), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:25 (twelve years ago) link
Pictures may help some people choose their favourite. Here is Gustavus Adolphus:
http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/images/uploads/warlord/wgp-tyw-01.jpg
and here's the Count of Tilly:
http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/images/uploads/warlord/wgp-tyw-03.jpg
― you don't exist in the database (woof), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:31 (twelve years ago) link
his invasion of Germany is great. One of my friends always imagined the Danes riding in on Shetland ponies.
― The New Dirty Vicar, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:31 (twelve years ago) link
this list is from wikipedia btw, so it doesnt include people that wedgwood probably would have included, like axel oxenstierna
but surely he is in the book? I only know about the 30 years war from reading it, and I have heard of this guy.
― The New Dirty Vicar, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:33 (twelve years ago) link
As a kid studying the 30 yrs war, I learned that bayonets are the synthesis of pikes and muskets.
― returning the native population to its violent 18th-century high (Michael White), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:33 (twelve years ago) link
The Peace of Westphalia marks the beginning of the "modern" states system, according to trad IR theory, interestingly. Also, 30 Years' War can be thought of in terms of the playing out of the reformation and counter-reformation, and in the broader context of other 17th century conflicts, e.g. English Civil War, Glorious Revolution.
― Neil S, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:37 (twelve years ago) link
The Peace of Westphalia marks the beginning of the "modern" states system, according to trad IR theory
man, I remember writing an essay for AP European History in which this was the topic sentence. Good times.
― a 'catch-all', almost humorous, 'Jeez' quality (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:38 (twelve years ago) link
Also crucial in forging a sense of pan-German identity, and facilitating the slow but inexorable rise of Prussia IIRC. In fact, arguably the whole German question, which has overshadowed European history up until 1945/ 1992/ to date can be traced back to the 30 Years' War.
― Neil S, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:41 (twelve years ago) link
iirc the thirty years war was also the last major european war to be fought with mercenaries and your mixed hired goons instead of standing national armies
― sonderangerbot, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:42 (twelve years ago) link
xpost - I don't think they (bayonets) had been invented by the end of the 30 Years War.
One other great thing about the 30 Years War was that it was itself kind of part of the 90 Years War between the United Provinces and Spain.
― The New Dirty Vicar, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:45 (twelve years ago) link
xps to myself
although it is of course possible to characterise European history as essentially French up until 1814(?), then German from then onwards (to the present day?).
Where's a rolling historiography thread when you need one?
― Neil S, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:46 (twelve years ago) link
holy roman empire germanic
― conrad, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:49 (twelve years ago) link
Psycho-somatic addict insane
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:51 (twelve years ago) link
william guthrie wrote two volumes about the battles of this war that go a long way clearing up some of the military confusion, giving background on who, what and why. they are really expensive, luckily my library has both volumes.
recommended
― brownie, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:52 (twelve years ago) link
NDV OTM
I don't think they (bayonets) had been invented by the end of the 30 Years War
I mean that having pikemen protecting musketeers from cavalry charges was phased out when infantry units could defend themselves by fixing bayonets and, yes, it definitely postdates the Thirty Years War.
― Cuius regio, eius radicchio (Michael White), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:52 (twelve years ago) link
Magdeburgization
Famous mezzotinter, Ruprecht Pfalzgraf bei Rhein, Herzog von Bayern, Duke of Cumberland.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_-HE1lR1mlb8/SsrdsCkos7I/AAAAAAAABFg/-T7mzvFeDk4/s320/3818049701_57e2da7f71_o.jpg
― Cuius regio, eius radicchio (Michael White), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:58 (twelve years ago) link
here is a thing that has long perplexed me about the 30 Years War - why did those big unwieldy Tercio formations the Spanish liked ever seem like a good idea?
― The New Dirty Vicar, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 15:59 (twelve years ago) link
Didn't Philip K Dick pick up a 30 Years' War fixation at some point? Why was he into it?
That doesn't sound right to me - feel like most of the action is Spain + Hapsburgs in the 15th-16th century.
― you don't exist in the database (woof), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:00 (twelve years ago) link
I am really intrigued by the idea of a PKD 30 Years War novel.
Has anyone read the not-PKD book about a load of West Virginian coal miners who are transported back in time to the 30 Year War (with all their blue collar trade union leftism and modern fire arms)? 1639 or something I think it is called. It is maybe a bit of a roffle, but I haven't read it myself.
― The New Dirty Vicar, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:05 (twelve years ago) link
those big unwieldy Tercio formations
Because they worked until the advent of better musketry and artillery, they were a better combo of pikes (and swords) and muskets against cavalry, especially, than any other formation. The linear formations that Gustavus Adolphus used and later 18th century military doctrine preferred gave a better rate of fire (as successive lines of men rolled past each other shooting and loading) nonetheless adopted the bayonet as a form of pike and the square was used up until the 19th century, famously at Waterloo.
― Cuius regio, eius radicchio (Michael White), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:06 (twelve years ago) link
― you don't exist in the database (woof), den 17 augusti 2011 18:00 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
yes, didn't really turn french until the 17th century really, mostly thanks to the thirty years war.
― sonderangerbot, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:11 (twelve years ago) link
Tercios - I am thinking not just the pike squares, which seem quite handy, but those odd formations that look like little miniature man made castles with little turrets on the corners. They seem so unwieldy that it's hard to imagine them doing anything but sit there.
I also find it fascinating that it took Gustavus Adolphus to turn cavalry back into shock troops (rather than the somewhat rubbish pistoleers they had been up to then).
― The New Dirty Vicar, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:16 (twelve years ago) link
Tercios are also non-linear and supposedly self-contained; you can swarm around them and ride around them and they'll kill more of you than you of them regardless of their liaison with other tercios.
― Cuius regio, eius radicchio (Michael White), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:19 (twelve years ago) link
― The New Dirty Vicar, Wednesday, August 17, 2011 11:33 AM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
yes--axel o. is a huge player, which is why its odd he's not on wikipedia's like (i guess because he wasn't technically a commander of any armies?)
― max, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:21 (twelve years ago) link
wedgwood, btw, specifically casts the 30YW as the end of spain as a "great power" (and more broadly as the beginning of the end of hapsburg domination) and the rise of france/the bourbons
― max, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:22 (twelve years ago) link
French from Pippin until Spanish Empire, really, then French again from the 1650's until 1815 at least. Look at the American uniforms from the Civil War; kepis and epaulettes and whatnot.
― Cuius regio, eius radicchio (Michael White), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:24 (twelve years ago) link
she also warns against thinking of european politics in national terms in the era(s) leading up to the 30 years war, preferring instead to talk dynastically i.e., its not france and spain but bourbon and hapsburg
― max, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:24 (twelve years ago) link
right, that's how i've understood it - spent many happy hours in a-level history with Lockyer's Hapsburg and Bourbon Europe
― you don't exist in the database (woof), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:29 (twelve years ago) link
its not france and spain but bourbon and hapsburg
Considering that most of their subjects didn't speak French and Spanish and their realms were distinctly divisible (hence the indivisible mantra of republicanism), this makes good sense. It's slightly less salient in the British tradition since the monarchy ended up uniting the various kingdoms and territories of the Brit.., er, western Isles.
The Hapsburg architectural influence in Madrid and Toledo was really odd to me.
(Btw, Otto just died)
― Cuius regio, eius radicchio (Michael White), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:29 (twelve years ago) link
looked around, Transmigration of Timothy Archer has the stuff I'm thinking of in it - 30 Years War -> Wallenstein -> Schiller.
otm about Madrid - startled me to arrive for the first time and see that I was in a Hapsburg city.
― you don't exist in the database (woof), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:34 (twelve years ago) link
What the fcuk do you need a steep slate roof for in a city where snow isn't really an issue?
― Cuius regio, eius radicchio (Michael White), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:36 (twelve years ago) link
Poem re the wonderful word 'Defenestration': 'In a Word' - R.P. Lister
― ^^^ this (onimo), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:44 (twelve years ago) link
have to go for ol' gustav II adolph
MIAC represent!
― goole, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:50 (twelve years ago) link
In fact, arguably the whole German question, which has overshadowed European history up until 1945/ 1992/ to date can be traced back to the 30 Years' War.
Not sure I really buy this, entirely. Obv, the Low Countries veer away from the German speaking world and France was never really German speaking at the popular level and sure, the HRE was muti-national and -lingual but since the time of Otto the Great there has been some inkling of an idea of a Germany.
― Cuius regio, eius radicchio (Michael White), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:53 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, should have qualified that French/ German division as being post-1648 (i.e. "modern")
― Neil S, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:54 (twelve years ago) link
wedgwood is a big GIIA fan, not unreservedly so but hes clearly the most impressive to her
― max, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:54 (twelve years ago) link
and xxp fair enough, but it does seem to me that the 30yrs War crystallised this feeling a great deal, could be wrong tho...
― Neil S, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:55 (twelve years ago) link
https://dzwonsemrish7.cloudfront.net/items/0R1m2i0C172V1j0F1t1F/Closed%20burgonet%20(1620).jpg
― Lil' Brexit (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 21 April 2019 00:00 (four years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/AxTjQj0.jpg
― Lil' Brexit (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 21 April 2019 00:01 (four years ago) link
can anyone tell me what these windmills are doing on the battlefield? they look mobile.
https://i.imgur.com/0sVgi1Q.png
https://i.imgur.com/291EucF.png
both of these are from drawings of the battle of lutzen
― Lil' Brexit (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 1 May 2019 23:14 (four years ago) link
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/pvzcc/images/2/26/Windmill_Zombie.png/revision/latest?cb=20131022024322
― calzino, Wednesday, 1 May 2019 23:22 (four years ago) link
Battles happen in spaces occupied by whatever was there before it became a battle field. The odds are pretty good those windmills were put there to grind grain into flour. The armies just happened to converge in battle around them.
they look mobile.
how so?
― A is for (Aimless), Thursday, 2 May 2019 04:02 (four years ago) link
i thought that too aimless and you could be right. as drawn they just don't look like permanent structures to me, and it seems odd to have several of them in a row? but i dunno
― Lil' Brexit (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 2 May 2019 07:21 (four years ago) link
googling windmills of lutzen seems to confirm that the battle happened to take place near a miller's house and some windmills -- they do look impermanent yes but i think that may just be that the artists aren't there for photorealist reproduction of structures that are incidental to th action except as obstacles? the ones in the second pic do look to be on little stands so you can move them easily around a board -- but the entire drawing looks more like a wargaming table than an actual snapshot… and maybe it is? i mean, maybe that's what the artist set up to have something to draw?
― mark s, Thursday, 2 May 2019 07:51 (four years ago) link
I think the stands are just the bases, the bit that you can't turn to face the wind. a lot of old windmills had a v temporary look
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/de/Meindert_Hobbema._Landscape_with_a_windmill_%2817th_century%29.jpg/800px-Meindert_Hobbema._Landscape_with_a_windmill_%2817th_century%29.jpg
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/ADC2GG/exploded-view-of-windmill-for-milling-grain-17th-century-engraving-ADC2GG.jpg
― ogmor, Thursday, 2 May 2019 08:02 (four years ago) link
ok I'm gonna reluctantly stand down on this "war windmill" idea :(
― Lil' Brexit (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 2 May 2019 08:31 (four years ago) link
I did wonder if they could be some sort of battlefield semaphore tower but looks like they don't arrive til the early C19th
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Chappe_semaphore.jpg/441px-Chappe_semaphore.jpg
https://media.sciencephoto.com/image/v4000066/800wm/V4000066-Chappe_s_semaphore_station.jpg
― ogmor, Thursday, 2 May 2019 08:38 (four years ago) link
wedgwood fans will probably like the biography of elizabeth stuart written by carola oman - it's got that same tart authority and vivid flashes of reality that swim up suddenly like a fish. i.e. this description of Marie de Medici:
"Queen Mother," as Elizabeth invariably called her, had proved a terrifying old dame with a towering coiffure of metallic gold curls and sharp features, strongly marked by rage and chagrin
― Lil' Brexit (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 30 May 2019 20:30 (four years ago) link
the next sentence:
She had stayed in London until her son-in-law's subjects began to break her windows.
― Lil' Brexit (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 30 May 2019 20:31 (four years ago) link
The Habsburgs offer a vision of European unity even the hardest of Brexiteers could get behind, says @RCCoulombe https://t.co/9GD2aGdnDd— Catholic Herald (@CatholicHerald) May 30, 2019
― mookieproof, Thursday, 30 May 2019 20:45 (four years ago) link
there will never be a cool pope until a pope excommunicates the trad caths
― findom haddie (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 30 May 2019 20:53 (four years ago) link
wallenstein.
funny: i had the opposite goofy experience from tracer hand re “the windmills of lutzen”. i walk thru the battles as best i can on google earth as I read; the lutzen section describes a ditch set back from the eastern road and beyond that a line of windmills, so hovering around the area and zooming in on a possible road i was excited to indeed find a parallel ditch and some ways back a line of obviously modern 20/21c wind turbines. there they are!!! i failed to keep myself from thinking.
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 31 January 2021 05:46 (three years ago) link
At the beginning of the pandemic I ran through the 'Ring of Fire' series where an American town is transported back to southern Germany in 1632. Boy do they fuck up the Thirty Years War!
― Joe Biden Stan Account (milo z), Sunday, 31 January 2021 05:53 (three years ago) link
Madness and idealism flickered up among the oppressed in occasional tongues of flame. A dispossessed Protestant farmer in Austria, Martin Leimbauer, collected a band of followers by preaching and prophesying against the government. The third time his own people betrayed him, his headquarters was surrounded and he himself was dragged ignominiously from his hiding-place under the outspread skirts of two old women and carried with his young wife prisoner to Linz. Here, after declaring that God had made him his deputy on earth, he broke down under sentence of death and went to the block penitent and a Catholic. His wife, sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, escaped with the hangman’s assistant on the eve of her husband’s execution. With its gross humour, its cynical morality and its touch of spiritual grandeur, the story is typical of its time.
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 31 January 2021 05:58 (three years ago) link
still living in the looooong 17th century
― mookieproof, Sunday, 31 January 2021 06:03 (three years ago) link
elector frederick, whatta dope!
― goole, Tuesday, November 11, 2014 9:29 AM bookmarkflaglink
this guy makes ned stark look like lenin
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 31 January 2021 06:10 (three years ago) link
CVW is never cruel but she comes the closest when noting “the last known resting place of his coffin was a wine-merchant’s cellar at Metz”
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 31 January 2021 06:16 (three years ago) link
D’jall read Tyll? I liked it!
― Canon in Deez (silby), Sunday, 31 January 2021 06:40 (three years ago) link
no that looks cool tho! haven’t read grimmelhausen either. was gonna take a look at schiller’s wallenstein trilogy to see if it would be suited for my ongoing community-focused project of proposing plays absolutely no one wants to see.
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 31 January 2021 06:48 (three years ago) link
grimmelshausen. i was working without a net there.
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 31 January 2021 06:50 (three years ago) link
"based" !!
As today is the day everybody and their aunt will quote the famous St. Francis quote "Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary"to you, it is almost painful to be THAT spoilsport and tell you... it is NOT by St. Francis. Sorry folks. As based as it sounds. pic.twitter.com/UF0pUE5ARp— Eduard Habsburg (@EduardHabsburg) October 4, 2022
― mark s, Tuesday, 4 October 2022 09:11 (one year ago) link