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Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna be discussing the Thirty Years War, Which
isn't it just a subject matter of trivial interest to historians.
It was the forum event of the European modern era
until World War Two, and even as recently as the sixties.
In the Buddhist Republic, they polled university educated people from
presumably different walks of life, and they said, what was
the most catastrophic event ever to befall Germany? And worse
than World War One, worse than the Bubonic plague, worse
than even the Weimar starvation years? Was a thirty Years
War and into the Third Reich era. It's interesting Gerbels, Spear,
and the Fure himself all referenced the Thirty Years work
consistently in public addresses. Okay, all told that it killed
between eight and twelve million people, which was a massive
attrition rate, a huge amount of a huge percentage which
were civilians. The battle ground was the German kingdoms, and
it truly was a war fought by It truly was
a European civil war by direct intervention and by proxy.
England famously and significantly set it out, but between forty
and sixty thousand Englishmen went to fight for the Protestants.
And Hitler's take on this was interesting, to say the least.
He said that Germany, first of all, it was destroyed
and it never truly recovered until the Bismarck era, which
I think is inarguable, however you feel about the declarant
He also said that the sort of organic distribution of culture,
truly culture bearing elements in Germany presumably the purest of
the of the Indo European stratum. He said that populations
were scattered to the four wins, and there was such
catastrophic losses which weren't evenly distributed, that historical memory was compromised,
as well as cultural habit and learning. And this is
one reason why the Europeans had been set back so
much relative to the nascent superpowers, but particularly America. You know,
obviously the Habsburg Austrian Hitler was going to have a
sort of deep historical perspective on these things. But I
think that that's an account of the historical record that
needs to be taken seriously, whether one accepts or rejects it.
Also there's this concept, and thankfully there's been a lot
more intelligent scholarship than the Thirty Years War, even from
relatively mainstream historians. Traditionally, the way it was taught to people,
even at advanced graduate level was that, oh, well, this
was just a religious war of sectarian origin. That's the
wrong way to look at it. Obviously, confessional aspects can't
really be extricated from high politics, particularly in that era.
But something I emphasize in my own manuscript, which I
always say, deals with this conflict, because the Peace of
Westphalia it wasn't a single tree. That's why it's called
it was FAILI in peace and we'll get to that.
That's when the modern state system begins. But there there
wasn't There wasn't that. There wasn't a quote Protestant Church,
and this kind of conceptual misunderstanding in doors to this day,
even when people like Michael Jones I'll talk about Protestantism
like it's some mirror of the Roman Catholic Church or something.
Lutherans and Calvinists had nothing in common other than opposition
to the papacy, and in some localized theaters they fought
each other. This one Lutheran theologian of the era. He
famously said that he basically called us the Taliban. He
said that the dragon of Calvinism is as insidious as
the Mohammedians. Okay. And for example, one of the things
Calvinists were prone to, particularly as emotions and confessional passions
were at a high because of active warfare, Calvinist partisans
they'd smash icons to say, see, this is idolatry, This
object has no power, otherwise God's wrath would intervene. Lutherans
would never have done something like that. There's I mean,
there's there's Lutheran sures this day that are actively confessional,
you know. But even those that place deliberate distance and
in terms of their liturgy and ritual between their own
congregations and Catholic practices, they they revered icons and and
relics for historical reasons, you know, So you can't. Then
there was this minority faction in uh Transylvania and Moldovia
who identified as they were this ethnic minority population of
indigenous Slabs most of them, but they identified as Unitarian.
And now there's nothing in common with like the Faue
Church of today. There were these people who rejected the
trinitarian concept of of God. Okay, they were obviously a
minor player, But my point being, there was not this
binary political or sectarian diet, you know, because England and
Scotland and Ireland didn't play a direct role in this.
I mean they did by proxy, and plenty of Englishman,
Irishmen and Scotsmen did fight on the continent. But I
believe because Britain wasn't impacted, that's one of the reasons why.
And tragically people never truly lived to live together along
sectarian line and this didn't resolve until the end of
the twentieth century in Britain, which.
Speaker 1: Is a.
Speaker 2: Speculative, but I think there's also something too that postulate,
but that's something of a digression. And also, finally, I
don't think people fully realize that agreed of Habsburg power
to this day in the present day. I mean, the
Holy Roman Empire, it wasn't just a contrivance. I know
there's the famous I can't remember who the sources of
the statement, but the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy,
nor Roman, nor an empire. Okay, it wasn't just a
ceremonial structure. It had incredible power, and no small measure,
because the Habsburgs dominated it, which meant the Habsburgs dominated Europe.
Because the way to think of the Holy Roman Empire
is that as the political nucleus of Europe was defested
from Rome, it became situated in what's now Germany, and
drawing upon not just there, you know, there the patronage
of the of the Roman Catholic Church, but also aiming
to derive legitimacy from an understanding of historical continuity, you know,
the understanding was that this is this is this is
the new Rome, this is the new imperial seat. And
the Habsburgs also Spain. At that time, the Spanish Habsburgs
controlled Spain, which was the closest thing to a superpower
in the seventeenth century. And the Spanish Habsburgs and the
Holy Roman Habsburgs and the Austrian Habsburgs, the German Habsburgs
if you were, if you will, they weren't formally allied,
but on all serious matters of politics they always found
themselves making common cause, you know. So the end of
the truly feudal structure. There's a reason why the Peacelessphilia
is identified as the beginning of the modern state system.
And it's not just for structural reasons or because the
conceptual bias of biases of Whig historians, who who can
who kind of can failate this pastiche of progressive linear
development in the astoro of a record. You know, this
really was the end of one political reality at what
amount of planetary scale and the emergence of a new one.
And it's not reducible to to the sectarian hostilities or
court intrigues of this byzantine you know, arrangement of duchies
and principalities and things. Those aspects obviously played into it,
but it's more common located in that this is this
is an unbelievably massive topic. So I'm gonna be jumping
around a bit, probably, and I always take notes extensively
something my data points are at my immediate disposal. But
I don't like write out narratives. So if I'm jumping
around a lot, I forgive me for that. My alibi
is that's the nature of the subject matter. The thirty
years were again it for context too, And then I'll
move on from the kind of hard and fast data record,
you know, parts of what's modern day Germany as we
think of it. They there was there was this highest
fifty attrition or more. You know. So again this was
comparable obviously, not in terms of the cultural destruction wrought
by enduring occupation and you know, the the global political
order of the twenty to twenty first century, but in
terms of raw attrition, this was as destructive as World
War Two to the Germans as a people. You know,
the origins such that there is a single origin point,
and I think this is fair. The Bohemian Revolt is
cited as the opening salvos of the Thirty Years War,
and the revolt itself started because of the defenstration of Prague.
Those that don't know, defenstration is a fancy word for
throwing somebody out a window. Okay. Now this begs the
question as the who got thrown out the window? On
Wednesday December twenty third or May twenty third, sixteen eighteen,
a representative of the Halfsburg Court named vill M Slavata
he in a a delegation from the Bohemian Treasury as
well as a Supreme Court. He was a Supreme Court
judge and he was president of the Bohemian Treasury. Okay,
and he he spent his entire political career, serving the
Habsburg dynasty directly. He was married to an heiress Halfsburg heiress,
which made him one of the richest men in the
entire kingdom. He was accompanied by Uh and another treasury
representative named Yaroslav Borita van von Martinez and one other man,
and they were seized and quite literally thrown out the
window into a ditch below. And then Uh according to
some accounts, the men were stabbed when they hit the
ground Slavata sword and not been unbubbled from his belt.
Apparently he was also stuck with his own sword. But
incredibly all three of these guys lived. But in those days,
among other things, tensions being incredibly high, They're being great
concern over a looming Protestant revolt, which happened, you know,
became the Wahemian revolt that was just mentioned. The initial
war that traveled was that all three men had died,
you know, And this obviously Uh provoked something of an
over response, arguably by the by the Habsburgs. But the
Ferdinand was for context, Ferdinand was the king of Bohemia.
He was the Duke of Steria or the Prince of Steria.
I can't remember his exact title, but he uh Steria
had been something of a something of a Lutheran stronghold,
and he'd crushed Prostenism within his domain very aggressively, and
he was on record as saying with time that he'd
rather see he'd rather see his kingdom destroyed than than
for heresy to be tolerated within its borders. He was
elected King of Bohemia by the electors in the Holy
Holy Roman Empire in the previous May sixteen seventeen, and
Ferdinand he declared that he would tolerate prostant religious freedoms,
many of which were laid down by the Peace of Augsburg.
And we'll get into what that the implications that were,
but owing to his it was a record of persecuting
Protestants and outright crushing nass and Protestant revolts. There was
a great concern over what his tenure would look like.
This led to a very conspiratorial development whereby Protestant nobles,
the Czech nobility of Bohemian particular, were very very anti
Catholic and their sensibility they determined like now was the
time to rebel. They offered the crown to the man
who became known as Frederick the First, Frederick the Palatine.
The Czech noble estates chose Frederick primarily because he was
the leader of the Protestant Union, which was a military
alliance founded by his father. The charter of which, or
the treaty of which, declared that all signatories and the
kingdoms and duchies they represented, you know, would come to
the aid of any Protestant community. Under result, they'd come
to their collective defense. And the big hope was that
when war arrived, James the sixth of Scotland and James
the First of England, King James, the hope was that
he would come to the aid of the Protestant Union
and you know, bring his military might to bear, not
just for the sake of you know, the faith, but
because he was Frederick's father in law. This was not forthcoming.
King James advised Frederick against taking the crown, and his
notion was, you can't you know, a takeover from the
Habsburgs is going to lead to a general state of war,
you know, and you can't win that. James realized coming
to the defense of coming to the defense of a
Protestant coalition on the continent. Maywell Lee do you know,
open ustilities with France and or Spain, which were periodically
emerged in any way, you know, But the main thing
was that it was uh, it was it was a
keyhote crusade, you know, and this, uh, this led to
something ement during breach. I think between uh the continent
and in England. You know, I'm not I'm not subsisting
as any approximate cause between these events, and that Germanophobia
and the foolishness of UH people advanced a tart centuries later,
but it UH England kind of withdrew into itself visa
be the continent. And I think had there been, had
there been more of a common front against the papacy,
that would have been different, but even something short of
open military alliance. But the it was. On August nineteenth,
the Bohemia States declared that they were re sending their
recognition of Ferdinand's election, you know, concomaly declaring that Frederick
was their king. Fernand was subsequently elected Holy Roman Emperor
nine days later, which made war inevitable if Frederick accepted
the Bohemian crown in lieu of bowing out with something
approaching honor, and he made very well have done that
as most of his In addition to being snubbed by
his father and law James, almost all of Frederick's advisory
cabinet urged him to reject it, including the Duke of Savoy. However,
who he did enjoy backing from was Maurice of Orange
and Christian of Anahalt, both of whom commanded substantial military
forces in their own right, and the Dutch at that
time they had very full coffers, you know, and we're
a juggernaut in maritime trade as well as having a
lot of political clout. They basically offered an open ended
guarantee to the Protestant Union to purchase weapons and munitions,
and the thought was among the Dutch as well as Frederick,
that this would facilitate at long last a wider support
in Central Europe in the Protestant Lands, if not a
general uprising. This was not forthcoming in substantial measure, because
even people who had contempt for the Habsburgs, even people
who didn't view the de facto reign and stewardship at
the Catholic Church over Europe, rejecting an elected Holy Roman emperor,
that was not alliging people willing to cross regardless of
their confessional allegiance, and at placed one in a precarious position.
There was no going back from that, you know, and
obviously two in a sectarian coded war, one can't expect
any quarter if they end up on a losing side.
But on top of that, you'll be you and all
your men will be slaughtered as brigands as if you
know your your your causes belly involved rejecting a legitimate,
legally elected ruler. It just wasn't done, you know. Let
me find my place here now. One of the reasons
why this was significant, well, the reasons why we know
so much about the Thirty Years War. The seventeenth century
is kind of viewed as the first media revolution, because
that's when a media that as we can properly think
of it came about. Even before you know, the wide
availability of a modern printing press, there was just a
tremendous amount of documentation about the battlefield situation, you know,
by literate people, and at that time, still in the continent,
you know, monasteries, among other things, functioned as repositories of
literacy and record keeping. Well pretty much everywhere that became
a battle space had a monastery or an abbey in proximity.
And because this conflict dragged on for so long and
there was so much punctuated violence in these locales that
ultimately became contested, there was just a whole lot of
there's a whole lot of documentation of what was happening,
and upon the conclusion of UH of hostilities, what we
can think of as the sort of earliest precursor of
the modern newspaper emerged in the form of a report
on the on the Piece of West Failure, and UH
the decades subsequent, the actual written Piece of West Failure,
with many, many pages of commentary and like institute accounts
of what was underway, this became uh the equivalent of
an international bestseller, you know, with the dozens of editions,
and I believe that continued for about one hundred years.
You know, obviously the primary audience is people in academ
and stuff, but that that was basically unheard of other
than other other than you know, the Bible. If you're
talking about, UH, you know, something pretty use that scale.
You know, mass production wasn't possible then, but you know, this, uh, this,
this was this was remarkable for all kinds of reasons. Now,
something I think is UH very important and isn't really
fleshed out enough. With a handful of exceptions. There's a
couple of books that deal with it. But the the
Habsburg experience of maintaining the continental piece, this was very
much colored, I think UH in a way that was
counterproductive in terms of developing a meaningful picture of the
strategic situation by the conflicts the Hasburgs. It fought against
the Turks, and make no mistake, the Ottomans were by
no means and decline at the turn of the seventeenth century.
The successors of Suliman the Magnificent weren't. They didn't have
nearly his mandate nor his power, but the Ottomans still
controlled a massive amount of territory. They had a mighty
military apparatus. They were then the primary JEO strategic threat
to Europe, and in the first phase of hostilities in
the Thirty Years War, almost all the Hasburg officers had
cut their combat teeth and what was called the colloquially
the Long Turkish War or the Thirteen Years War, Yeah,
fifteen three to sixteen oh six. You know, so the
guys who'd been young officers in the Long Turkish War
you know, at the onset of hostilities in sixteen eighteen.
You know, they were men in senior commands by that point,
but halfsburg Lands were they were they were cause of
Politan sectarian terms, okay. And particularly on the frontier in
places like Transylvania and really Moldovia, Wlachia and Transylvania. You
know the experience of Hasspurg the Hasburg's ruling these territories.
There's a basic stability even amids cultural distance and periodic
tensions between these populations. Okay. And there's to the fact
of the common menace of the Ottomans. The internal politics
of Transylvania, I mean, to be clear, like it was,
it was a piss it was. It was a patrig
of four major populations. There was a minority of Turkish
peasants and Eastern Slavs, who both of whom were sort
of outside of the reigning political culture. But the main
populations were Orthodox Romanians, Calvinist Magyars, Lutheran Saxons, the Transylvanian Saxons,
and uh some self governing indigenous Slavic elements who who
were nominally Catholic but probably abided some sort of folk
belief system, and the Prince of Alachia was uh, it
was the Prince of Transylvania was was basically able, with
a handful of exceptions, to maintain these kinds of brokering
agreements between groups, particularly the three nations of Uh, you know,
the mag Aaron Nobles, the Saxon, you know that Sex
and German Lutherans and these Orthodox Romanians, you know, and
the this balance was somewhat enshrined by uh. What is
known in the story cord is the Torda agreement, not
tortas like a Mexican sandwich, Torda t r d A
that extended as a matter of law, equal rights, UH, Catholics, Lutherans,
Calvinists and UH. This situation and the Orthodox was complicated
because some are in communion with Rome, some weren't. But
you know, regardless, it was it was a chart of
religious freedom that was basically observed. And you know, the
Habsburgs looked westward and they saw sectarian warfare being in
the norm and the lands managed by their dynasties. And
I believe they convinced themselves that they're sort of progressive
sensibility about sectarian tolerance and their confessional tolerance and you
know they're they're kind of enlightened political ethics is what,
you know, generated stability in these frontier territories. And not
again you know, the geo the geostrategic reality of you know,
the Ottoman threat that uh now over time to his
game enshrined when the Transylvanian prince converted to Calvinism, and
he did so because an overwhelming number of Protestant nobles
embraced the Calvinist faith. Well. The population, the peasantry especially
were overwhelmingly Catholic or Orthodox, and the burghers and the
and the the commerce oriented populations, and the towns almost
who were led by the Saxons, they were overwhelmingly Lutheran.
You know, So this idea you can have, you can
have a can have a Protestant principality that's of a
Calvinist uh reformed orientation, you know, presiding over a Lutheran
business class and in a Roman cab like a peasantry.
You know, the idea that this is workable, Oh, it
must owe to you know, the halfspuring system you know,
which wasn't which was which again wasn't. Nothing to be
extrapolated from these kinds of outlier kingdoms, you know. And
to be clear, the u Transylvania was so called because
it's it's dense woodland. It's it's probably triple canopy. My
research indicates it's it's comparable to the hurtzcan Forest, if
not even more dense. And only about a fifth of
that lay under cultivation. So the population was concentrated in
these isolated pockets that was largely cut off from the
ability to reinforce. Okay, so you had this kind of
the people had to take on this kind of warrior
ye women resensibility cont to the Turks who were a
real threat and uh, you know they showed no quarter
to uh the Infidel. You know, that's the reality, and
uh the Balkans and on the frontier like this, that's
not there's there's moronic neocons who try and make a
whole narrative out of this, which is nonsense. But that
what I'm describing was the reality. And conditions like that
are wonderful, like keeping the peace between sectarian and elements
and ethnic groups who otherwise would you know, be be
at odds, you know, I mean clearly I think so
I think, uh, the Habsburg had a sense the Habsburgs
had a sense owing to this kind of frontier experience,
not so much that they were immune to some sort
of sectarian revolt, but that their system had something that
built in mechanism whereby uh, you know, a general state
of civil war would be kind of unthinkable. And another
thing that kind of aggravated this, you know, the Habsburgs
they I think people have this view of them in
this era kind of like they. I mean, don't get
me wrong, I think Franz Joseph was a great man
and a real hero. But you know, by the nineteenth century,
the Spanish Habsburgs were a mess and the Austrian Habsburgs
admirable is as Franz Joseph may have been, you know,
it was there was something clearly out of time about them,
and and very reactionary. But you know, in the seventeenth
century they they were probably the best of European royals.
You know, these were learned people who excelled at military
command and commerce and all the other things that a
leadership cast of of a people should, you know, be
adept at. But they saw the writing on the wall
in some sense that the world was changing, you know,
and particularly the politics of the continent were changing, and
this sort of complex balance of feudal interests and this
interplay between what Doumseel called the functions you know, those
who work, those who fight, those who pray, that that
wasn't going to endure in perpetuity. And there was already
crasping the show. So the leading members of the Hasburg dynasty,
they became convinced that their posterity and the survival of
the system itself dependent upon restoring as the basis, you know,
of of of political loyalty as well as of you know,
kind of communitarian life, you know. And and that wasn't
entirely unrealistic, you know, not just because even uh, even
accounting for places where there was a Catholic minority in
the ruling of states, like in Transylvania, you know, there
there wasn't a Frostenism, was a house divided, like we
just talked about. And also, uh, you know, you had
a deeply religious peasantry. And even in places where you know,
the uh, the emerging mercantile class was majority Lutheran, you know,
there was still a reverence for the historical aspects of
the Roman Church, you know, and there was this belief
too that ultimately, uh, cooler heads will prevail among the
noble estates, because they've got to understand that if we
go to war with each other, it's just not manageable anymore.
You know, you can't have the leadership element at loggerheads
and survive as as a discrete polity, you know. So
I think there's understanding that you know, any reasonable man
understands that the real business at government is playhating the
peasants and devising and sustaining a communitarian ethos that's coded
into the culture, you know. And and top of that too,
there's a basic understanding owing to the politics of the
Holy See. And I mean that's not I'm not saying
something bad about the Roman Church, just the reality was,
among other things, at the after the mirrvur Ingine era,
the Pope became the defecto emperor of Europe, as it were,
because nature of bores a vacuum, you know, Like I'm
not saying that Vatican didn't want that role, but it
was also by necessity, you know, I think there was
an understanding and in the minds of the Habsburgs that
you know, a warring states, uh, paradigm, will you know,
bring everything down? Why when the cycle of violence truly
kicked off in Earnest, the Ottomans didn't assault. That's an
interesting question and we'll get I'm not going to get
into that this episode. But be it as it may
the UH and it's common too, and obviously, considering my
own heritage, I might not be truly objective on this matter.
There was a tendency. This has faded somewhat, at least
in mainstream accounts. Most histories of the thirty years were
from the mid to later twentieth century. In particularly, I've
got this book. It's a really good book. It was
published in nineteen sixty three. Excuse me. The other claims that,
while not putting blame on the Calvinists, he he views
the the Calvinists participation in UH these sorts of rebellious
efforts within halfsburg Lands to be the proverbial kerosene on
the fire, because it prevented it from being a clean
cut issue, you know. And like I said, there was
I think I mentioned at the outset there was there
was one Lutheran partisan writer who said, quote, the Calvinist
dragon is pregnant with all pregnant with all the horrors
of Mohammedianism. You know, there was a certain fanatical fervor
that Calvin hast brought to the table into the battlefield
and uh led to things frankly like throwing representatives of
the Hasburgs out the window. That it had the trappings
of a militant cult that was being propagated for you know,
as an instrumentality of rejecting the rule of law and
the legitimacy of duly elected kings and emperors. And you know,
that's that raises alarm, as it should, you know, But
again I'm of the belief, and don't get me wrong,
you know, again, I'm not I'm not saying that the
perspective I just described as which place as a substantial,
not blame but causal emphasis on Calvinist extremism as at
least an aggravating factor, and the depth and intensity of hostilities.
That's not totally wrong. But I think it's important to
acknowledge that this, this wasn't a this wasn't a purely
sectarian conflict, you know, and I don't think there are
any such things is purely sectarian conflicts. That that's always
an aspect of a greater or lesser causal relevance, but
it's never an exclusive causes Belly and I object to
when people dismissively refer to religious wars. There's this, you know,
no such thing. And speaking of which, the Calvinists, for
their part, after defenestration of Prague, the propaganda that was
so sort of strongly tailored against them, you know, they reformed.
They came to characterize the Habsburg response as a Vatican
crusade against them, you know, and Calvinists are fond of
pointing out that idolaters, as they view it, will always
assault the true elect. Well, you know, the crusades on
the continent were essentially always directed against Pagans, some of
whom were engaged in truly demonic activities and things. So
this kind of narrative developed its own momentum. I mean,
first of all, crusade wasn't declared against the Calvinists, even
those who were in open revolt. But secondly, nobody suggested.
I mean, there there's there's Lutherans apparently who claimed that
you know, they they were in dragon like the Mohammedans
are pregnant with the menace of Mohammedians, but nobody that
I know of claimed that they were worshiping the devil
or pagans. But there was you know, there wasn't The
minds of some of these Calvinist partisans were about to
be pogrammed. And as the war went on that that
that did happen. I mean that happened to Catholic people too,
who were unfortunately found themselves, you know, a sectarian minority
on the ground. But you know, I it's a it's
another kind of typically tragic case of potentialities in the
public mind becoming immediate reality is going going to fear,
you know, and it's a it's a fascinating story. You know.
That's about all I got for my introduction, and frankly,
I'm kind of exhausted, but I'll get into the This
has been a very hectic week, So forgive me for
being abrupt or or what have you, And forgive me
if that was too scattershot, but I I one of
the things I's gonna do during my downtime on the
road is break down the the uh the some of
the military aspects of this. And it's kind of a
fascinating era, man, you know, uh I think it's uh
what became the pike and shot era it? Uh and
the pike being the primary edged weapon. You know. That's
I got into a conversation a lot of the fellows
the other day. We were talking about firearms because uh,
I was talking about the buck when twenty knighte would
just become my favorite blade. But uh, any we were
talking about the transition of infantry from blade of weapons
to firearms, and I'm like, you know, and the pike
and shot era firearms were viewed as like like if
you were a real infantryman, you you you killed people
with a pike. You ran them, I mean running somebody
through the pike. I mean that's that's that's pretty like
they're their blood will splash in your face. I mean
there's no joke. But it's interesting how uh that kind
of slow transition, uh to the the rifle, uh becoming
the the infantrymen's stock in trade. I guess it. We're
I mean one of the The British always made a
big deal. You got to retain the bayonet. I mean
bayonets are useful, you know to this day. And uh,
I know the Marines in the army brought back the
Bayonet after a Brief Hiatus and uh a goose have
Hasfard's book The Short Time is one of the chapters
called the Spirit of the Bayonet. But it that's that's
that's the legacy of what we're talking about, is uh,
you know, you got uh the imageryment has to be
he's got to be trained and capable of killing with
cold steel, and he's also got to understand the spiritual
significance of that. You know. I find that profound, you know,
And I'm not at base a military hound or something.
I just I just I think it's significant. But yeah, no,
that's Uh. I hope this was informative, and uh, if
not in lightning, I don't promise it light but I
hope I I hope I convey information in a way
that is useful.
Speaker 1: All right, good intro, and uh, you know, I guess
we'll probably pick this up back after you get off
the road. Everybody go to Thomas the Substack. It's real
Thomas seven seven seven dot substack dot com and you
can connect to him from anywhere into all other places
from there. That's his center of operations. So yeah, begins
that is that where it happens.
Speaker 2: That's that's where it originates at least line. Yeah, no,
thank you man. I'll only be gone, uh, I'll only
be gone like four or five days, so it won't
be like a marathon trip like the last, like a
Thomas tour. But no, I really appreciate it, man, and
I'll yeah, I'm moving forward to this series as it
gets
Speaker 1: Under week absolutely all right, thank you, talk soon a
couple of days