the thirty years war

this is surely the greatest thread ever to have been on ILX.

I read that book a while ago... I can't rememember all those people. The Cardinal Infanta (fightin' clergymen, I wuv em) is tempting, as is Wallenstein, Gustavus Adolphus, and many others. The Earl of Leven wins points for appearing in both this and CVW's books about the English-Scottish-Irish Civil Wars of the 1640s.

The best bit in that book is the description of Johann Georg of Saxony having dinner, so I will have to vote for him.

I think the book (and the war generally) would make a great TV series - it goes on and on, has great characters, and lots of blood. Not much in the way of women characters, sadly.

I know none of these people BUT there is a common turn of phrase that apparently dates back to the thirty years' war, that I had to look up for work, and turned out to be a mishearing by Polish soldiers of a French term, or something like that. I will find it!

Oh my goodness I should probably read this book. Because I don't even know where to begin, honestly.

xp yeah when i started the book i was joking to my girlfriend that it was going to be my "game of thrones" replacement--and then it turns out to be, well, kind of the same thing, only with no magic or dragons or anything.

the problem with turning it into a tv series though is that its so COMPLICATED and there are so many characters! through the whole book i was wishing that wedgwood had included a "cast list" or something, shell refer to people that i havent thought about for hundreds of pages by their last names and im like wait who was that

this list is from wikipedia btw, so it doesnt include people that wedgwood probably would have included, like axel oxenstierna

max you're always reading the most interesting things! i never know what i should read--how do you do it??

ta-nehisi coates is reading this book right now and it was on sale at the borders in providence for 30% off

Found it!!

The word "gauntlet" is derived from "gantelope", from the Swedish "gatlopp" (street run, street race); a loanword probably acquired by English soldiers during the Thirty Years' War. The modern spelling of "gauntlet" was influenced by the French-derived word used for a glove worn as protection or armour.

--------

Gantlet comes from the Swedish gatlopp, a running down a lane, from gata, street, lane, and lopp, course, running, wherefore a gantlet is (1) a lane between two lines of men who beat some unfortunate as he tries to run through it, as in ‘run the gantlet,’ and (2) a stretch of railroad track on which on which two sets of tracks overlap to avoid switching in a narrow place. [[note this 2nd meaning]]

Gauntlet comes from French gantelet, diminutive of gant, glove, wherefore a gauntlet is (1) a protective glove and (2) a challenge, as in ‘fling down the gauntlet,’ from the former use of the glove as a symbol of defiance.

I'm gonna vote for the Earl of Leven, on account of 1) being Scottish and 2) having a most excellent mustache. But most of them had excellent facial hair in the 17th Century and also he was a mercenary for some dour protestant dudes, but still. I've decided polls on lesser criteria in the past.

step 1 to finding books: read more blogs

I find reading PW also works. Even if I only like the sound of one book per issue, that's still every week, and that list gets big fast.

I read Wedgewood's book in May after falling in love with the NYROB edition – a marvelous read.

*Wedgwood

Killed more ppl as a percentage of population than any other war in German history.

Also, "defenestration"!

Voted Gustavus Adolphus, btw

At a journalism workshop held last Friday, a staff writer at one of our local papers and a good friend explained how he fought to get "defenestrate" in a crime story. When he noticed the blank looks on our students' faces he told the story of the monks.

"The victim got de-windowed"

I prefer exfenestrate, really

"The victim was given a dose of pane"

I read Wedgewood's book in May after falling in love with the NYROB edition – a marvelous read.

― a 'catch-all', almost humorous, 'Jeez' quality (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, August 17, 2011 10:10 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah this is the one i read--great cover with a detail from this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/The_Hanging_by_Jacques_Callot.jpg

"The victim was given a dose of pane"

lol

Killed more ppl as a percentage of population than any other war in German history.

Also, "defenestration"!

― returning the native population to its violent 18th-century high (Michael White), Wednesday, August 17, 2011 10:14 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

wikipedia sez "the male population of the German states was reduced by almost half"

staying local, voting Buckingham – incarnates early Stuart court mix of power-politics-sex-aesthetics - set up to catch James I's fancy, becoming astonishingly powerful as favourite, failed and farcical endeavours, public hatred, an assassination.

Frederick V in second place. There is a weird romantic charge to him & Elizabeth ( I mean deliberately constructed, yes, but it endures), the Winter King and Queen in exile.

DOn't really know a lot of the continental names. I keep meaning to have a serious reading session about the 30yw, but it's pretty miserable even to casually think about.

"Franz von Mercy" ftw IMO.

ive been reading about the war for acouple weeks now and i can recognize maybe 1/2 the names

Alsace-Lorraine

alsace-lorraine newman

Wallenstein, because he has a good social wargame named after him.

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.

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.

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

RIYL game of thrones

lol i wondered if this was why you were reading this!

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

yes but how much do we know about frederick the fifth's incestuous relationship w/ his sister???

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.

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.

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

I'm voting for Christian of Denmark because the world loves a loser.

his invasion of Germany is great. One of my friends always imagined the Danes riding in on Shetland ponies.

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.

As a kid studying the 30 yrs war, I learned that bayonets are the synthesis of pikes and muskets.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

holy roman empire germanic

Psycho-somatic addict insane

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

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.

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

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?

Didn't Philip K Dick pick up a 30 Years' War fixation at some point? Why was he into it?

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?).

That doesn't sound right to me - feel like most of the action is Spain + Hapsburgs in the 15th-16th century.

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.

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.

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), 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.

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).

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.

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, 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?)

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

yes, didn't really turn french until the 17th century really, mostly thanks to the thirty years war.

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.

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

right, that's how i've understood it - spent many happy hours in a-level history with Lockyer's Hapsburg and Bourbon Europe

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)

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.

What the fcuk do you need a steep slate roof for in a city where snow isn't really an issue?

Poem re the wonderful word 'Defenestration': 'In a Word' - R.P. Lister

have to go for ol' gustav II adolph

MIAC represent!

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.

yeah, should have qualified that French/ German division as being post-1648 (i.e. "modern")

wedgwood is a big GIIA fan, not unreservedly so but hes clearly the most impressive to her

and xxp fair enough, but it does seem to me that the 30yrs War crystallised this feeling a great deal, could be wrong tho...

re. Otto von Habsburg, did you hear the KFR about how somebody once asked him about how the Austria Hungary football match was going to go, and he replied absentmindedly "who are we playing?"

With all that dynastic v. national stuff, I am always struck by how England became a "modern" country long before everywhere else did - yet, wierdly, the United Kingdom retain such odd pre-modern things as having different legal systems in different parts of the country and still being more than completely notionally comprised of separate sub-units that only happen to lie together.

somebody once asked him about how the Austria Hungary football match was going to go, and he replied absentmindedly "who are we playing?"

This took me about 45 seconds to get but wow.

xp not sure that's true for "England", arguably the case for Britain/ United Kingdom/ British Isles though...

Sounds about right, Neil. Hating foreigners together is, sadly, a very efficient way of forging national identity.

I think that Italy and Germany have routinely gone through various periods of national yearning and national apathy since the end of the classical era. Germany had to shed Switzerland and Austria to make it happen in 1870 but it was still a pretty good deal to them. Italy is about as disillusioned as possible about unity right now, as far as I can tell.

Marquis de Feuquieres †

^^ this guy is pretty great btw, even more wily than richelieu

the United Kingdom retain such odd pre-modern things as having different legal systems in different parts of the country and still being more than completely notionally comprised of separate sub-units that only happen to lie together.

Never conquered by Napoleon or undergone a post-1789 style revolution.

and introducing parliamentarianism 200 years before everyone else helped.

one of the key questions of English history is "why no revolution?", though of course you might view France (and, later, Russia) as being the anomalous examples, and the slow evolution of English institutions as (generally) the norm across, at least, Northern and Western Europe.

"why no revolution?"

Dissolution of monasteries, Civil War and Dictatorship, Glorious Rebellion, Reform Acts of '32 and '67

neither side likes to see it this way, really, but the american revolution WAS the english revolution: geographical and socio-political constraints ensured the convulsion was limited to "britain west", and that half the sundered entity continued in one pre-revolutionary fashion, and the other became what it became -- those who favoured the transformation (eg paine; cobbett) either moved entirely to the new regime, or moved and then returned and tried to re-import some of its elements

The Cousins' Wars

FWIW, a very Catholic historian friend of mine thinks the book has an enormous pro-Protestant bias -- "and then the noble Protestants attacked and seized Prague, but the cowardly, treacherous Catholics got it back" etc.

Protestant bias from England?!

it has... something of a protestant bias. but not that extent by any means!

it has a much stronger "pro-peace" and "anti-prolonging this useless war" bias

she tends to have very kind words for ferdinand

everyone has kind words for ferdinand

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5uTl8P_QI5c/TBf6QsgTzUI/AAAAAAAAH0w/9BSzhIjty3U/s400/ferdinand2.jpg

except franco

FWIW, a very Catholic historian friend of mine thinks the book has an enormous pro-Protestant bias -- "and then the noble Protestants attacked and seized Prague, but the cowardly, treacherous Catholics got it back" etc.

the Catholics are the bad guys in that war, though, with their popery and wanting to bring everyone under the Habsburg yoke. Nearly all the others are also the bad guys, though. I love how the Lutherans revolt against the strictures of popery, and then start laying into other types of Protestant for not following their particular line.

I think in one of CVW's books about the English/Irish/Scottish civil wars she talks about the Marquis of Montrose's army as a wonderful example to the world, because it contained people of all kinds of different faith. One of the things that is always striking about the 17th century is how long it takes people to register that society might just work better for everyone if you just let people follow whatever religion they like.

she tends to have very kind words for ferdinand

in general doesn't CVW tend to have kind words for everyone? She keeps falling over herself to defend that drunken waster John of Saxony, and even feels a little bit sorry for poor Tilly after his soldiers have massacared 30,000 people at Magdeburg.

CVW's tendency to sympathise with everyone is even more notable in her brilliant books "The King's Peace" and "The King's War", about the wars in England/Ireand/Scotland in the mid 17th century

oh no, missing full stop.

its true! shes likes everyone, mostly

she would vote for g2a in this poll

The best bit in that book is the description of Johann Georg of Saxony having dinner, so I will have to vote for him.

John George, who scorned foreign delicacies, had been known to sit at table gorging homely foods and swilling native beer for seven hours on end, his sole approach at conversation to box his dwarf's ears, or pour the dreges of a tankard over a servant's head as a signal for more. He was not a confirmed drunkard; his brain when he was sober was perfectly clear, and he drank through habit and good fellowship rather than weakness. But he drank too much and too often. Later on it became the fashion to say that whenever he made an inept political decision that he had been far gone at the time, and the dispatches of one ambassador at least are punctuated with such remarks as, 'He began to be somewhat heated with wine', and 'He seemed to me to be very drunk'. It made diplomacy difficult.

you only really need the first sentence there to see what a stand-up fellow he was.

I seem to remember visiting Wallenstein's house when I was in Prague. Only they call him Waldstein there.

I can't really even think about this subject w/o thinking of Jacques Callot's famous series of etchings, Les Grandes Misères de la guerre.

La bataille

http://images.clevelandart.org/prd1/ump.secure_uma?surl=1823977022ZZSFTVBEJHIW&version=4&enc=E553DA32447E0C1F83D8A3AF4014CD5B&f=1923.277.3.jpg

Pillaging

http://images.clevelandart.org/prd1/ump.secure_uma?surl=1823977022ZZSFTVBEJHIW&version=4&enc=2730541D94341051FDF866F316FD220D&f=1923.277.5.jpg

The Hanging

http://images.clevelandart.org/prd1/ump.secure_uma?surl=1823977022ZZSFTVBEJHIW&version=4&enc=85212A230200210F020AE76034486D39&f=1923.277.10.jpg

Pillaging and burning a village

http://images.clevelandart.org/prd1/ump.secure_uma?surl=1823977022ZZSFTVBEJHIW&version=4&enc=688E81C4B32DF2D79048920E48784400&f=1923.277.6.jpg

reminds me of Goya, he had presumably seen these...

the great cover to the NYRB edition has a detail from "the hanging"

reminds me of Goya, he had presumably seen these...

He owned a copy of these and they are widely cited as an influence on his Los Desastres de la Guerra.

re why no revolution in England.
I always thought it was agreed that a primary reason for the absence of a revolution in England (and specifically in the 19th century) was because of the rise and pervasiveness of the Methodist Church amongst the English working-classes.
ie the Methodist Church siphoning off the energies of a large proportion of the most of intelligent and outspoken members of the English working-class. It being particularly strong in the industrial areas of Lancashire and Yorkshire as well as with the rural poor in the West Country.
After all its often said that the rise of socialism in England was based more on Methodism than Marx.

to be honest, there weren't really revolutions in that many places... maybe the focus should be on why there were revolutions in places rather than the other way around.

Found the question a bit odd in a thread about a c17th war - seems like a c19th question, & idea of revolution. But did anyone read the recent Steve Pincus book that claims 1688, rather than the French, is the first modern revolution?

if methodism is being cited as a reason, the fact of america as "britain west" must also be: emigration to these particular colonies -- many settlements were explicitly set up with a religious-political basis -- filtered off generations of more radical protestant activism, working but especially middle class -- it's "where you went" if you felt the restoration/glorious revolution had turned the wrong way; it;s where you went if you didn't want kings up in your business (they were much further away etc

thus when methodism arose, it wasn't having to compete with a whole slew of more militant protestant-political activism: i;d also argue that the long century of torpid corruption essentually had to manage much less prickly protest "at home" because people likely to be pissed off had somewhere to travel to -- and overseas their energies were otherwise engaged, in survival, in self-establishment etc. And ultimately, come 1760 or so, in rebellion.

the first modern revolution is 1640-41: it was about money

LET US GET BACK TO THE 30 YEARS WAR.

What is your favorite battle in the war?

OK IN A MINUTE

40/41: money kicks it off, but the actual revolutionary-looking stuff 8 or so years later - execute the king in a (pretend) court, set up a commonwealth - had long ceased to be about that imo (all mixed up in it: religion; constitution; local beefs in the shires; charles I being a dick).

agree on Britain west & radicalism, tho' also Anglican church maybe a factor in non-revolution - latitude tradition means its a well-padded institution, can soak up, deaden some radical energies (when does Methodism split?)

OK 30YW

I started the Wedgwood book. She's so readable! I forgot how good she is at sweeping state-of-play summaries.

I can't believe we have to wait ELEVEN MONTHS to find out who wins this.

Would read a 400pp CV Wedgwood summary of A Song of Ice and Fire.

ilx technology does not allow polls that close in 30 years

:[

But did anyone read the recent Steve Pincus book that claims 1688, rather than the French, is the first modern revolution?

I think Thatcher made a very similar statement when the French were celebrating the bicentennaire of their revolution in 1989.

If this is the Thatch quote:

Human rights did not begin with the French Revolution; they stem from a mixture of Judaism and Christianity. We had 1688, our quiet revolution, where Parliament exerted its will over the King. It was not the sort of Revolution that France’s was. ‘Liberty, equality, fraternity’ — they forgot obligations and duties I think. And then of course the fraternity went missing for a long time.

I think that's just a v trad Whig view - afaict Pincus is making some more challopsy claims (it's a very bloody revolution seems to be the big one), tho' it does still look like a whiggish kick against those Dutch invasion, dynastic politics, aristo coup views of 1688 that have been strong over the last 10-20 years. Maybe I'll read it.

Isn't 1688 the triumph of the Whigs, though?

since my view of the english revolution is that it began with the lollards and still isn't completed, i can simultaneously out-bloody and out-whig allcomers

As a political term, Tory entered English politics during the Exclusion Bill crisis of 1678–81. The Whigs (initially an insult: 'whiggamore,' [a term meaning "cattle driver" used to describe western Scots who came to Leith for corn]) were those who supported the exclusion of James, the Duke of York from the succession to thrones of Scotland and England & Ireland (the 'Petitioners'), and the Tories (also an insult, derived from the Middle Irish word tóraidhe, modern Irish tóraí — outlaw, robber, from the Irish word tóir, meaning 'pursuit', since outlaws were "pursued men") were those who opposed the Exclusion Bill (the Abhorrers).

630 year old slow burn revolution - how British!

I've heard the derivations many times and of course there evolves something relatively coherent which we can call Whiggery, but W&M and then Anne were forced to rely rather extensively on the Junto Whigs and it was their aversion to a Catholic on the throne that led to 1688.

having a similar discussion on another board about a month ago: an actual real professional historian of the period said that pretty much everyone from 1690-1810 considered themselves some sort of whig: that actually existing politics was internal to whiggery

interesting also that the two main factions in a nascent global empire devise lasting insult-names for one another via terms for somewhat lowly inhabitants in two of the earliest nations to be swallowed up in said empire

xps

yes, but over the last 20 years this kind of reading has pushed forward (in some diff forms) & it tends to undermine what the Whigs have been taken to represent (trade, constitutional, bourgeois, parliamentary, 'popular' etc etc).

pretty much everyone from 1690-1810 considered themselves some sort of whig

this is horrible. Rockingham Whigs vs Chatham whigs, totally lost up that end of the century.

Part of the problem is that Tories tend to be shadowed by Jacobitism through to the middle of the 18th (not helped by eg Bolingbroke running off to St Germain, many of them had a side bet on Jamess II/III etc) - and Whigs are confusingly factional all on their own.

I kind of think that position is making-work-for-historians BS. Sure, I can see wanting to link the Anglo-Dutch wars and the western, bourgeois, Protestant, commercial rivalries of the Netherlands and Britain but Mary was a Stuart (and unlike Monmouth, of direct, legitimate birth), the country was steadfastly opposed to a Catholic, they'd just had a murderous civil war and subsequent military tyranny, and James was fucking idiot... Otherwise William wouldn't have been able to seize the throne and speaking of which, he and his wife were co-rulers. The only time in English history where there is a bi-partite sovereign.

Tories tend to be shadowed by Jacobitism

Thankfully James and brood were fools in the pay of the much-loved-in-Britain monarch of France. I think even Marlborough kept a correspondance w/James, though, for a while at least.

i'm a bit lost in all the xposts: what's horrible, that position i posted? and what's "making-work-for-historians BS"?

i think he was making a kind of Very Serious People argument about the "art of the possible" -- also to be fair, i added those dates, i can't now recall exactly when he was referring to, it may not have been as sweeping, though i think it reached into the 19th century

i don't really know enough abt 18th century parliamentary politics to defend or attack his position

what's "making-work-for-historians BS"?

Revisionist dutch-invasion position.

what's horrible, that position i posted

Sorry Mark, the 'horrible' was not a 'WRONG' just a shudder of horror/recognition from me, remembering old attempts to follow 18th century politics and realising everyone was a whig and I couldn't keep it all straight.

it was YES if anything

Mary was a Stuart (and unlike Monmouth, of direct, legitimate birth)

But Mary was James's daughter. She shouldn't be on the throne if her dad's alive and hasn't explicitly abdicated. Legitimising the revolution is trickier and more contentious than it at first seems, see for instance Edmund Bohun.

the country was steadfastly opposed to a Catholic

they'd just had a murderous civil war and subsequent military tyranny

and James was fucking idiot

Basically I don't think Dutch invasion is a BS position, but it's a bit narrow: it's a useful corrective to triumphal whiggism, and I think makes one look more carefully at England in 88, but it's wilfully blind to the successes of a trade-modernising interest in England.

And a lot of people would rather have the sitting king, catholic or no, than any kind of upset

one thing I have read about the "Glorious" "Revolution" is that the elite wanted rid of James but were very hostile to the idea that Kings could formally be got rid of - the last thing they wanted was to start the idea that Britain had an elective monarchy or one where the king could be removed for bad behaviour. So they seized on the idea that actually James had abdicated and so left the throne vacant for King Williamandmary.

yeah, it's a bit of a mess: the elite were divided, I think, but the sort-of-abdication justification (which has to cover James's son James too, forgot about him yesterday) is a good-enough theoretical fudge for the whole business - it just has not look like rule by conquest, or election, or a rebellion. It's p incoherent really, especially given the conditions William II puts on taking the throne.

William III.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/03/Death_of_William_Rufus.JPG/250px-Death_of_William_Rufus.JPG

xp
yes William III there typo, whoops

SO YES, BACK TO 30 YEARS' WAR

What were some good battles in the war? I only really remember the Battle of the White Mountain.

Are there 30 Years' War reenactment societies in Germany (ie like the Sealed Knot in the UK)?

both die in horse-related accidents of course, spooky.

I suspect that the lack of army uniforms deters reenactments. Also reenacting something like the sack of Magdeburg would be a bit unedifying.

Some important battles:

White Mountain: Imperial stormtroopers crush Bohemian rebel alliance.

[Battle I can't remember the name of]: Wallenstein leads Imperials to crushing victory over Danish shetland ponies.

Breitlingen: Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden crushes Bavarian and Imperial army; John George of Saxony's army runs away.

Sack of Magdeburg: Bavarian/Imperial army reduces civilian population of Magdeburg from 30,000 to 300, turning the town to ash in the process.

Lutzen: Gustavus Adolphus crushes Wallenstein but dies in the process - catching a stray bullet or murdered at the behest of allies who think he is getting too big for his boots?

After that I do not remember the battles so much, and maybe the war largely turns into mobs of soldiers charging around the country smashing up stuff and avoiding combat, a bit like the current war in the Congo. Two battles I remember are:

Nordlingen: combined Spanish/Imperial army adminster thrashing to Swedes.

Rocroi: French crush Spanish.

So now nearly everyone has defeated everyone else at least once, so everyone is happy.

having just been reading Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children, I am wondering how to vote for "all of these people are terrible and the only real heroes were long-suffering peasants"

I seem to recall that De Sade's "1000 Nights of Sodom" is set during the 30 Years War, and the pervs who have abducted the people on him they will vent their foul lusts are in some way symbolic of the warlords who laid waste Germany at that time.

both die in horse-related accidents of course, spooky.

So did William the Conqueror

"horses are the survivors of the age of heroes"

william iv really letting down the otherwise bulletproof king-william-horse-curse theory.

OK i'm diving into the wedgwood on the strength of this thread and :D

who wants to write the HBO series with me, this thing can run and run

by the way: ORNALDO BLOOMPS FOR ELECTOR PALPINTIN

God this thing is the 30 years poll.

warning - might start to lose viewers after the death of Wallenstein, things start to drag a bit.

I'm very glad I read this. Thanks max + this thread. Incredibly readable, & sort of double-perspective heartbreaking - one old tragedy, & Wedgwood in 1938 trying to tell Europe not to do this again.

& Wedgwood in 1938 trying to tell Europe not to do this again.

So sad

thank ta-nehisi coates, who convinced me to pick this up at 40% off at borders

the death of wallenstein would make for a FANTASTIC season finale

heres a nice thing about wedgwood and the way she works both sides of "great man" vs "slaves of history"

http://slawkenbergius.blogspot.com/2011/10/fatal-flaws.html

who wants to write the HBO series with me, this thing can run and run

This is seriously a genius idea.

This a watershed period in Western history and it would also make compelling viewing.

i haven't read this, but from what i know, it would be great tv

i'd love it in some super stagey peter greenaway/peter brook style. with a metal soundtrack.

wedgwood's books on the english civil war are masterful.

plus 'cecily veronica wedgwood' has to be one of my favorite names ever.

This is my favorite era of European history, I can't get enough of it. I bought 'Europa Universalis 3' a computer grand strategy game that covers this era with many excellent player created mods that enhance gameplay and it has eaten an embarrassing amount of my time. I like to pick some statelet on the periphery of the Holy Roman Empire like The Palatinate and try to assert an independent national autonomy in the face of imperialism and the clusterfuck of the reformation.

I feel that in a few weeks, I will be cursing you for bringing this game's existence to my attention.

thank ta-nehisi coates, who convinced me to pick this up at 40% off at borders

haha i also read this a couple months ago because of tnc

no axel oxenstierna no cred tho

The Hundred Years' War, 1336-1453

heres a nice thing about wedgwood and the way she works both sides of "great man" vs "slaves of history"

http://slawkenbergius.blogspot.com/2011/10/fatal-flaws.html

i can't really get with this.

- wedgwood often focuses on the weaknesses and failures of decision-making as being the drivers of change - of history - which is a totally fascinating way to look at things, but that's squarely within the "great men" tradition. whether it's their weaknesses or their strengths, we're still focusing on conventional leaders, men of power and prestige.

- the main critiques of "great men" thinking say you should look at economics, at cultural exchanges that produce bottom-up societal effects, that "great men" often have their hands forced by larger tides beyond any individual's control. personally while i love wedgwood's book it would be illuminating to learn more about the economics and culture of the time. for instance, the first part of benedict anderson's "imagined communities" is specifically about... german coffee house culture in the 17th century as the cradle of "print democracy", a development which basically gives birth to the entire concept of the public sphere. how does that connect with emergent religious ideas, nationalistic ideas?

- "we're somehow always being encouraged to 'leave room for agency,' an admonition that is current only as long as that agency involves otherwise powerless brown people ... in the contemporary view, people have agency, and that agency is important, as long as nobody is actually accomplishing anything"

i mean ...

the whole point of great tranches of non-great-men histories is specifically to show that repressed, devalued, or otherwise overlooked populations actually DID accomplish things (even if in the end they were defeated on key issues) - to rediscover the conflict beneath the veneer of victor-written consensus

while wedgwood is simply outside any sort of tradition or training that would allow her to "go there" or to benedict anderson's world, there are all kinds of enticing hints at to the swirl of a public starting to be aware of its own existence, both in the broad sense of religious radicalism and its deep connection with emergent ideas of nationalism (the "german liberties"; the bohemian "letter of majesty"; though it's questionable how much either of these were any sort of humanistic guarantee as opposed to simply a way to bribe the right princes)

all that said, the approach needs to be suited to the subject matter. and it's arguable that of any time and place, 17th century europe is most amenable to a "great man" view. there was extremely low literacy. there were very few outlets for expressions of public sentiment. princes, kings, etc really did have enormous power to act on their whims and instincts.

- "It's a bit like Jackson Pollock. There must be people out there who think Jackson Pollock is a good artist for excellent reasons. I suspect, however, that there are more people like me: people who secretly have no idea why anyone thinks Jackson Pollock is a good artist but, for social and cultural-capital kinds of reasons, don't want to discuss their qualms with anyone"

courageous challops my friend!

thats not challops! hes not saying jackson pollock is BAD, just that he doesnt know why jackson pollock is GOOD, which is a pretty okay thing to say, id think?

i mean unless "thinking jackson pollock is good" is a quality were all supposed to be born with

anyway im not sure what youre arguing--that wedgwood lies firmly on the "great man" side?

wedgwood totally cops to writing about The Thirty Years War from a 'great man' perspective in the introduction iirc.

dunno if there is enough data to go b anderson style on the thirty years war period

people who secretly have no idea why anyone thinks Jackson Pollock is a good artist but, for social and cultural-capital kinds of reasons, don't want to discuss their qualms with anyone

= "i am a gigantic wuss"

though it's true, this is a good analogy for how baffled he is by history that attempts to look at the agency of the oppressed: he doesn't get it, but he's too embarrassed to ask (because the PC BRIGADE ARE A BUNCH OF MEANIES)

yeah i dont mean to argue that wedgwood doesnt believe in the great man theory, at least in the context of 30yw, i mean its right there in her writing, i just like the way she works the other side, too--shes very clear about the socio-politico-cultural factors that led to the war, and to the war lasting that long. "economics" maybe less so.

ha that poor guy cant win with you! if he says "i dont think jackson pollock is good" its a challop, if he doesnt say it, hes a wuss!

because the CIA WILL TAKE YOUR GRANTS AWAY

no it's more like he's trying to have it both ways - "i may be just a poor unfrozen caveman, but i don't understand how a bunch of drippy paint constitutes good art... and i don't think i'm alone... not saying it's bad though, i just don't know!"

this is a side issue though to the guy's shocking condescension re: non-great-man history - he's like a step and a half away from asking why we don't have white history month

german coffee house culture in the 17th century as the cradle of "print democracy", a development which basically gives birth to the entire concept of the public sphere.

Does he basically get this from Habermas? If so, i think emergent public sphere stuff is later than the war, but yeah, I would be interested in seeing what the equivalent to the thomason tracts would be for them - assume there was an explosion of broadsheets, pamphlets etc.

xp, i didn't get that from him, but maybe i interpreted generously

if it's true that people have vast differences in power and resources available to them, with the many having little of x, and a few having lots of x, then it makes sense that the agency and flaws of the few have greater weight on what happens to all. i can't decide which town to raze next with my armies but some people have made that decision.

in a way you can square the circle of "great man"ism and oppression that way. they're the same thing.

goole i agree totally! i can't think of anybody would disagree actually

the first ever western newspaper (a weekly) was published in strasbourg in 1605, had a network of correspondents, and quickly appealed to the local prince for protection against others duplicating the stories under their own names

it's been a long time since i read imagined communities but my memory is that coffee houses specifically in the hapsburg empire were a kind of novel, hip thing, and became the place people would come to swap stories (in lieu of twitter obv)

i'd love to know the class makeup of those coffee houses though..

bunch of bohemians probably

hipsters

yeah, my coffee-house history is kind of anglocentric but they're big for the Habermas's 'emergence of the bourgeois public sphere' thing (in which England is the exemplary case) & for any more general social/cultural history here - a place where you can get the latest newssheets (esp as they develop into more critical/essayistic forms) & have conversations with a range of classes.

but those people didn't hold real power, didn't crush entire hamlets with their cavalries PFFFFFT

on the class thing - by 1700 certainly diff shops for diff factions & trades in England, but I get the impression there's some reach across classes - the literary ones certainly have connections upwards, & across land/trade squirearchy/gentry/city merchant gaps.

they held some power

xp

the power to spurn dreary lutheran robusto for a full-bodied calvinist arabica

or is it the other way around?

great momus theory

i ordered this book btw, wallenstein is mentioned in the book on weber i just read

Fwiw coffee shop world is after 30yw. Only getting underway in the 50s iirc.

hipsters make some sense in late c17th/early 18th. Younger sons of Norfolk squires who have written a play and know someone who knows Addison.

mad jack mytton, regency rake -- he's a bit late, but i will pass up no opportunity to acquaint the world with his works

oh man that guy is a hero

Worth looking up Radio 4, Misha Glenny series "The invention of Germany", which begins, appropriately enough, in the 30 years war. Some interesting tidbits:

In memory of Gustavus Aldophus German children are still chastised with the threat of the Swedes. eg. "If you don't go to sleep the Swedes will get you"

Fredrick I of Prussia was more Polish than German, Prussian nationalism's affinity for germany was, in part a move to distance Prussia from feudal obligations to Polish Kings.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016btb4

Berlin gets its name from a slavic word for lake.

Fwiw coffee shop world is after 30yw. Only getting underway in the 50s iirc.

DAMMIT

totally want the relatable everyman character in the HBO series to be a fledgling reporter

or barista, obv

he should be a courier obv

and a potman

He can invent the exposé - just a thuringian broadsheet-writer-for-hire who's meant to be covering the birth of a two-headed lamb, but uncovers a Bavarian secret treaty with France.

when i get back to the smiley project, i should add in a bit about the writer smiley is doing a monograph on, who seems to be a german diplomatic envoy, from around this time, who writes up his travels (i'm on a train at the moment so can't look it up) (or even move, the student beside me is lolling in his sleep)

lolling or lol-ing?

the copy i'm reading is a 1961 penguin (v.early pelican imprint): it has a callot collage on the cover, in blue and pink, and the pages are nice and old and furry-feeling

it is very funny

The Death of Wallenstein, by Fredrich Schiller -

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6787

The Piccolomini

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6786

I think I voted already: Frederick V - he thought he could win, with magic.

SPOILERS

just reached the bit where one of the many christians* gets thrown from a horse 80 feet down from the battlements and another dies aged 28, his "vitals gnawed by a giant worm"

END SPOILERS

*name not denomination

"If one considers the expense on this occasion and wants to reduce it so that it can be afforded for a long time, it should be replied that great emergencies have no rule; that it is not a question of an expense that will last for many years; but that if, in order to remedy the present evil, one fails to make an extraordinary expenditure now, it will be necessary to make one in the future -- though it would not then produce any result, nor prevent our ruin."

-- Cardinal Richelieu to Louis XIII, Sept 6 1634

voted john george

John George... has been known to sit at table gorging homely foods and swilling native beer for seven hours on end, his sole approach at conversation to box his dwarf's ears, or pour the dregs of a tankard over a servant's head as a signal for more.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

oh no I haven't read this all the way through yet!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Disappointed this poll didn't run for 29 more years.

so is wedgwood definitely a better bet than wilson?

i think so

if wilson is at your library give it a try but it's dry. he just isn't an engaging writer imo

Piet Pieterszoon Hein was robbed u cocks.

we have this book in our library! *borrows book*

Great thread, this one...

this is pretty breezy reading, considering

it was a pretty breezy war

it was a helluva war

some called it the "war of a lifetime"

for some, their lifetime WAS the war of a lifetime, because they were born after 1618 and died before 1648

legend has it that the phrase "put up your dukes" was coined during the thirty years war, after one nobleman, after hearing tell of the maiming of an enemy duke, said "gather anew thy dukes of replacement, for we shall battle again as soon as it stops raining"

re: economics and bottom-up social business upthread, she does start after protestantism has been firmly entrenched across parts of europe. my thumbnail understanding was that war broke out right away after the reformation but duh there was a generation or two in between. it's during the period of protestant emergence when socio/demo/economic type questions are really interesting imo.

interestingly she does touch -- breezily! -- on intersecting questions of demographics, money and technology when explaining why most of the armies of this period were mecernaries

retroactively it was briefly named "world war -I", and historians referred to it as such for a time in the late 1940s to mid 1950s, until the popular re-release of the wedgwood book returned the name "thirty years war" to popularity

elector frederick, whatta dope!

rereading right now: seems all too grimly apt suddenly :(

i actually think she does touch on the element tracer was missing, abt the cultural dimension, in the first chapter -- if only to say that its salience was small relatively small (i'll go back and have a closer look)

Can't believe Wallenstein got only one vote.

fans of both the 30 years war and The Sot Weed Factor (and indeed Don Quixote) may want to dip into this. Written in 1669 about a naif who wanders about the horrors of the 30YW.

http://rbsche.people.wm.edu/teaching/grimmelshausen/

The officer bade them dig on stoutly. And presently they came to a cask, which they burst open, and therein found a fellow that had neither nose nor ears, and yet still lived. He, when he was somewhat revived, and had recognized some of the troop, told them how on the day before, as some of his regiment were a-foraging, the peasants had caught six of them. And of these they first of all, about an hour before, had shot five dead at once, making them stand one behind another; and because the bullet, having already passed through five bodies, did not reach him, who stood sixth and last, they had cut off his nose and ears, yet before that had forced him to render to five of them the filthiest service in the world* . But when he saw himself thus degraded by these rogues without shame or knowledge of God, he had heaped upon them the vilest reproaches, though they were willing now to let him go. Yet in the hope one of them would from annoyance send a ball through his head, he called them all by their right names: yet in vain. Only this, that when he had thus chafed them they had clapped him in the cask here present and buried him alive, saying, since he so desired death they would not cheat him of his amusement. ...

george smiley reads grimmelshausen!! (i think his academic studies were in medieval german)

rereading

p certain he comes up in wolfgang kayser’s v good the grotesque in art and literature, which is v strong on the “german” 17th century groteske.

see ask adam tooze’s powerpoint for the thirty year’s war, a lecture in his current series on germany and war

battle of the white mountain not how i imagined it from wedgwood

Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria

He banned dancing and anyone under the age of 55 from using a horse and carriage, paid his servants a pittance, "his meanness a byword in Europe". lol, I couldn't vote for this one in good conscience.

that PowerPoint is fabulous but ironically I'm too wrapped up in China this year to have time for Wedgwood or Wilson

I like Tooze's books on the Nazi economy and the tumultuous "Deluge" of the interwar period. His twitter is always good value as well.

i didn't vote bcz polls are bad and you should feel bad: however i have a fondness for johann tserclaes count of tilly as he shares a name w/my niece

In 1619 the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was truly massive! https://t.co/5Nc4669zIm pic.twitter.com/QShLEhFH2P

— Adam Tooze (@adam_tooze) January 30, 2018

also i realised i have a residual fondness for gustavus adolphus bcz purely he was mentioned in passing in an erich kästner book i enjoyed as a kid

(i think he appears in a dream, the book is in storage so i can't check)

just reached the part where gustavus adolphus dies and was overcome with unexpected sadness, this despite the the fact that

a) he probably wasn't that great of a guy, given that he was a king invading several other countries uninvited, razing crops and towns to the ground etc
b) given that he is not around today aged 424 i kind of suspected he had to have died at some point
c) i have read the book before
d) CVWedgwood foreshadows his death some pages before

also lol he is at the head of the poll with max's † by his name

he had to destroy Germany to save it, you see

Wedgwood has written an account of the life and times of Cardinal Richlieu, which i have bought, yet it sits forlorn and unread on the shelf above my desk

Started reading this last year but didn't get very far and I've resolved not to read any history this year, it's too depressing.

I found myself chuckling out loud at some audio-book Wedgewood the other day. It probably wasn't actually very funny, but it tickled me at the time. It was some quote from a diplomat reporting that Johann Georg had become very heated with the consumption of much wine, or words to that effect.

attention 30yw fans! i recently discovered that cv wedgwood wrote a biography of CARDINAL RICHELIEU, and it covers much of the same territory but from the french/bourbon angle, which was sort of a sideline in the og text

and i am happy to report that her Authority and Tone is present and correct throughout

for those in need of regular additional info on the territories central to this history, this twitter account is liveblogging the many regions that made up the holy roman empire. this particular episode involves an aristocratic family that named all its male children heinrich for 700 years:

Fear not, vassals, I have not forgotten you! I bring you news of the Vogtei of Greiz and Reichenbach! pic.twitter.com/OqnoQnnsLB

— Empire Roman Holy (@EmpireRomanHoly) February 25, 2019

https://dzwonsemrish7.cloudfront.net/items/0R1m2i0C172V1j0F1t1F/Closed%20burgonet%20(1620).jpg

https://i.imgur.com/AxTjQj0.jpg

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

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/pvzcc/images/2/26/Windmill_Zombie.png/revision/latest?cb=20131022024322

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?

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

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?

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

ok I'm gonna reluctantly stand down on this "war windmill" idea :(

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

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

the next sentence:

She had stayed in London until her son-in-law's subjects began to break her windows.

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

there will never be a cool pope until a pope excommunicates the trad caths

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.

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!

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.

still living in the looooong 17th century

elector frederick, whatta dope!

― goole, Tuesday, November 11, 2014 9:29 AM bookmarkflaglink

this guy makes ned stark look like lenin

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”

D’jall read Tyll? I liked it!

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.

grimmelshausen. i was working without a net there.

"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

Just found this account on X, which has been blogging this war (found it via Adam Tooze).

Lindau, 29. Sept 1625
* Bünder im Veltlin durch von Pappenheim gr. Schaden erlitten!
* Pappenheim hat ihnen 5 Schanzen, 12 Kanonen, 5 Schiffe abgenommen und viele Soldaten erlegt
* Uri geben dem König von Frankreich 2.000 Mann fürs Veltlin
* weitere Truppen nach Riva 1/3 pic.twitter.com/HIbmT3guff

— vor400 (1625) (@vor400) September 29, 2025