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Speaker 1: If you want to get the show early and ad free,

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Now listen very carefully. I've had some people ask me

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about this, even though I think on the last ad

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support me there. And I just want to thank everyone.

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It's because of you that I can put out the

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amount of material that I do. I can do what

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I'm doing with doctor Johnson on two hundred Years Together

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and everything else, the things that Thomas and I are

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doing together on condinal philosophy, it's all because of you.

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And yeah, I mean, I'll never be able to thank

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you enough. So thank you. The pekan Yonashow dot com.

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Everything's there. I want to welcome everyone back to the

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Peaking Yona Show. Thomas is back and after a little

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hiatus due to travel, we're going to continue the thirty

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Years War series.

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Speaker 2: How are you doing, Thomas, I'm doing well. I was

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very pleased that the first episode was so well received

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because it's a huge subject matter and I feel comfortable

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speaking on historical topics. But there's so much here. There's

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there's there's deep cultural anthropology here, there's ecclesiastical heritage, there's

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military science stuff, you know, so I was worried that

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maybe I wasn't presenting the material in a way that

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people found worthwhile. But there's been a lot of effusive praise,

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and I really appreciate that because I work hard this

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to deliver a you know, content that people actually benefit from.

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You know, there's a few different ways we can go

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in proceeding. I kind of want to. I realize I'm

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kind of dealing in broad strokes. That's because if I don't,

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will be on the same subject matter for the next

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five years. I've whittled down to what I think is

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most important in the During the in the seventeenth century,

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there was a revolution in military affairs. That's important, and

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there was a power political paradigm that preceded that that

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led to a sort of technological shock when the Thirty

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Years War arrived because it was so different than the

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preceding paradigm. Also, when I think of what became Germany

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in political terms, you know, Brandenburg Prussia was utterly devastated

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by the conflict, but it also solidified its militant Protestant identity,

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you know, And that's important too. But also the way

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that the the way that the modern battlefield developed, I

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think is ill understood, especially because the way in which

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military science textbooks were written then there was these very

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very geometric models presented and in manuals that dealt with

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things like infantry drill. There was exaggerated depictions of kinesiology

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and human motion. So for a long time that led

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a lot of war college types to think, oh, well,

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there was this overemphasis on drill. That's not why, Especially

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when most people weren't literate. They're trying to convey sort

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of the mechanics of human motion and the difference between

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the parade ground and the battlefield, as well as trying

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to convey to everybody from NCOs and and UH and

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battalion level officers to UH to conscripts and and you know,

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infantry grunts. They were trying to convey a concept in

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visual terms. Okay, there was actually a great deal of

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flexibility in the Thirty Years War, and in terms of

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how combined arms were were oriented, and make a mistake,

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there were real combined arms. You know, cavalry in cavalry,

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infantry and artillery was uh. It was incredibly complicated to

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deploy these forces in concert. And there was a technologic

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revolution underway then too, whereby if they came clear, particularly

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with respect to field artillery. Weapons designers realized there were

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certain potentialities too large guns, but there wasn't There wasn't

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the materials and the tools available to make them yet.

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So there was all these sort of intermediary designs where

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the bore wasn't quite right for the range desired, but

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the men making these things knew that this was possible.

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So military science was kind of overshooting military technology. Usually

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it's the opposite. So I've got the I hold the

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minority opinion a lot at a lot of subject matters,

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to the point where I'm sure some people are convinced

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I'm merely a contrarion. I don't think that I am.

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But this is yet another case, I think thirty years

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more tactics, that strategic orientation was light years ahead of

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everything before it, but they didn't have the tools to

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effectively deploy in totality, you know, within that complete paradigm

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also mission oriented tactics. And this becomes important owing to

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the conceptual biases born in the preceding military paradigm. For

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one of the major powers, you know, say like you

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know the Holy run Umpire or you know Poland Lithuania,

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or you know the that the Swedish Confederation, in order

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for them to feel an army, it would cost about

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seven million gulders just just to raise you know, like

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an army that could you know, uh that could uh

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you know, stand and face a peer competitor and not

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get slaughtered just out of the gate. And then you

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need to feed and pay these grunts and calvary men

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and artillery men. Then you need to feed all these animals.

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So this was astronomically expensive. So what I'm getting at

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is that if you wanted to sustain that level of

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operational effectiveness, you you had to copd had to resolve

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pretty rapidly. But also in the Thirty Years War, the

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way that it broke down where uh you know, you had, uh,

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you had adjacent principalities going to war with each other

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all at the same time. There was a you know,

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civil wars raging within a common polity, usually with the

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Protestants as the element and rebellion, but not always. So

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you had you had basewood amounted to war bands of

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zealots kind of like Christian muja deen, as well as

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mercenaries that were deployed as essentially uh, counterinsurgency elements, you know.

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And then you had the you had you had the

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arms of the the king or the reigning lesser nobility,

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and and these guys were like a war band living

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off the land, you know, they were not conventional military forces,

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so mission oriented, techic some some primitive iteration of it

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just became the order of the day. And uh this

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led to a lot of rapine, figurative and literal brig injury.

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Awful stuff happened. But even basically upright and civilized troops,

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you know, you they had to live off the land,

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you know, so you were fighting not just you know,

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your your your day to day wasn't just you know,

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in operational terms, locating, closing with and killing the enemy

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or if you know, you were licking your wounds. As

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a unit, you know, as as a company or as

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a battalion, you were basically moving only at night and

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hiding during the day until you could refit and regroup.

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But in either one of those, under either one of

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those conditions you had to feed yourself, you'd starve, and

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especially two in these battle spaces, it's not like normal

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commerce was was being totally interrupted. You know. It's not

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like you go to a marketplace and buy a wunch

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of loads of bread or something. You know. So this, uh,

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this changed everything. And when I talked about the shock aspect,

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it wasn't just technological or or historical the way to

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understand Europe really for the preceding couple of centuries, but

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in earnest for the preceding fifty years. You know, I

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made the point about the Turkish War that the Habsburgs

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fought against the Ottomans between fifteen ninety three and sixteen

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oh six. That was the largest mobilization of military force

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in habsburg Lands since the fifteen sixties. And to be clear,

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the Ottomans were still in comparative terms, were still a superpower,

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albeit went in decline in this sixteenth and seventeenth century,

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and Europeans all viewed the Ottomans as a common threat

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to Christendom. And this did two things, and they were

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that wasn't just a fiction that was exploited for you know,

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political reasons, but this Europe needed that external military and

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uh political threat to sustain anything approaching unity between these

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diverse polities, but also the Eastern European the Central and

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Eastern European frontier especially. You know, we got into talking

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about Transylvania and Morovia and to a lesser degree, Bohemia

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in the last episode. It was impossible to truly fortify

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this frontier in a linear kind of garrison capacity. There

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were a large Swas territory that were just impassable, you know,

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because they were triple canopy forest populations were concentrated in

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these scattered towns. You know, it didn't it lent itself

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to a strategic thing. He was oriented very much to

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countering this discrete threat and creating what amounted to a

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defense in depth by garrisoning lead elements at key junctures,

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you know, almost like almost like NATO dated at the

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faulted gap in the north German plane just because there

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was only a handful of avenues of assault ingress, okay,

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and then as a secondary defensive court on you know,

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deployment would be more linear, all right. But this informed

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military doctrine from top to bottom and pretty much throughout

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the continent. And at the odd time of hostilities in

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sixteen eighteen, basically every officer in NCO serving in Halfsburg

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like bearing arms for the Habsburgs had had cut his teeth, uh,

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you know, in in the in the Turkish War. So

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this fluid and diffuse pattern and combat and deployment that

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ensued in the Thirty Years War, which was one part

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civil war, one part pretty conventional conflict between adjacent polities.

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No nobody was prepared for that, you know. And so

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the this the learning curve was a trial by fire,

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you know. And uh, the people who are most towards

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that end to the the people who are kind of

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unsung and overlooked. And I'm sure again people will say

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this is a conceptual bias line towards the Protestant side.

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But these counts and dukes like like Count Thurn, like

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hone Lob and Mansfield, they led the Bohemian rebel element

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you know, in the eastern hasper Lands, and they really,

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they really put a huge amount of hurt on what

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was viewed as kind of the the top infantry and

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cavalry elements of the day. And this is this is

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overlooked in favor of a you know, the battlefields farther west,

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where these military science types basically look at their their

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view is basically that the Spanish style of warfare was

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deteriorating and becoming obsolescent, and that's whatever. Butod he abided,

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including the Habsburgs. Then you know, after about a decade

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on the Swedes intervened and the Swedes revolutionized warfare. I

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don't accept that for a lot of reasons. But you know, this, uh,

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this paradigm that wasn't quite unconventional, but also is not

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at all conventional warfare. And the way we think of

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it as was extant, you know, before or after. That's uh,

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that's important and uh it's not unlike uh, in my opinion,

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what happened uh in the Balkans and on the Eastern

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frontier in World War two, you know. And uh so

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this this also had a conceptual aspect to it too,

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because as as innovation and tactics and new ways of

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fighting and incorporating you know, truly effective gunpower weaponry as states, uh,

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like what became Prussia. You know. There they're claim to

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prestige and their power political ambitions were facilitated by their

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excellence at warfare almost exclusively. I mean, yeah, I there's

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obviously there's a huge amount of culture produced by you know,

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kingdoms like Prussia as well. But there, but that that

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was that that was the the singular most significant variable

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in their ascendency and the degree to which military considerations

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either direct or directly or obliquely, it's sort of coded

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European development. That's a hugely important point. And uh, that's

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one of the things that sets europe apart and European

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people apart, you know. And uh, Europeans are kind of

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the ultimate warrior race, you know that I don't think

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they can be denied, you know. But the uh and

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another way the reason this is important, and another way,

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I part way from a lot of court historians. You know, again,

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this this idea that for really the first decade of

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the Thirty Years War, you know, it was a matter

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of obsolete tactics and strategy and technique being exposed as such.

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Like that's that's not really true either. You know, innovation

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happened rapidly and immediately, and you know it, Uh, those

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commanders and those elements that couldn't adapt essentially immediately upon

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first contact with an opposing force, that they just ceased

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to exist. You know. So there's a flexibility built in

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too tactical doctrine by necessity. That sounds tautological, but that

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there is a there is a totological aspect to the

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way military affairs play out at particularly at company or

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battalion level. I don't think serious people dispute that, you know,

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it's uh. Also to it. Another thing that changed brutal

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is the wars. What the Turks were, you know the

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Turks basically, the Turks would probe, they'd see what avenues

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of assaulting grass were available, and again on the frontier

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and especially in Transylvania and Marouvia, these were few, and

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then they'd exploit those breaches when they had overwhelming force

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on their side. When they met resistance you know that

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couldn't be overwhelmed, they frequently evade and shelter behind fortifications,

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you know, uh, in in anticipation of the counter attack,

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you know, in in in the Hungarian theater though, and

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you know, in what became the the Bohemian theater. The

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order of the day was I mean, this wasn't part

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of not completely you know, a sectarian war, a holy war.

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Even the objective really was the stack of bodies, you know,

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it was it was it was a headhunt, you know,

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exploit uh like like you know, locate close with the

241
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enemy and annihilate them as as an end in itself

242
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was oftentimes the mission orientation, you know, but this differed

243
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by that, you know what battlespace we're talking about, and

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there was just like a malagamat diverse mission orientations, tactical doctrines, terrains,

245
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weather patterns, you know, you name it. It was a

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there's probably more data other than in the twentieth century,

247
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the other than in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In

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the nineteenth century it oh, so the American War between

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the States, the twentieth century obviously, I don't need to

250
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lably explicate this. But other than that, other than those

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two examples, there was more data gleaned on the practical

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business of combined arms tactics and infantry war fighting, and

253
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from you know, glean from the Thirty Years War than

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any other conflict paradigm. And I'll die on that I'll

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die on that hill proverbially another and yeah, the technology

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revolution too. It's probably like you know, people, it's probably

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become some of cliche, but you know, warfare is the

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mother of invention, you know, even like what we're doing

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right now. I mean, the the Internet exists because it

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was it was a survivable command to control platform, you know,

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in in anticipation of nuclear war. You know, the entire

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telechrome revolution came out of the Cold War. You know,

263
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air power or you know as we know it, you know,

264
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came out of military exigencies. You know, the space program,

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you name it. Like I I'm the first person to

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criticize the the the rent seeking, and the parasitic nature

267
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of the of the military apparatus. Okay, I mean, I

268
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think people who read my content are well aware of that.

269
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But this talking point that a lot of both liberals

270
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and libertarians are prone to, where they say that like

271
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wartech never produced anything, or that it's a worthless expenditure

272
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of human energies and capital. That's complete nonsense. There's warfare

273
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produces all kinds of innovations, that have broad application and

274
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claiming otherwise is just moronic, you know. And simultaneously, in

275
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the seventeenth century there was just a lot of punctuy innovation,

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particularly on the side of mathematics and engineering and things.

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But something big that happened between handheld firearms basically appeared

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in the battlefield between the fourteen seventies at about fifteen

279
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twenty or fifteen thirty, but they hadn't really been perfected.

280
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They were largely perfected by the time of the Opposite

281
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of Hostilities in sixteen eighteen, and that led to the

282
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development of a new kind of shock deployment pattern which

283
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is really fascinating and I'll get more into this as

284
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we get into this series. But your firearm infantry they

285
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would deploy basically like a fe lanx and the Dutch

286
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developed this technique of constant fire even while retreating where

287
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stated simply essentially like the uh, the the lead line

288
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of the faylanks would fire and then break off, you know,

289
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and then the second line and then third line, and

290
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uh they'd each line would reload, you know, as the

291
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line in front of them was uh finding their target

292
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and and discharging their weapons. But uh this uh, your

293
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pikemen thus are who traditionally had a defensive role because

294
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pikemen and fixed formation horses will not charge and throw

295
00:27:52,559 --> 00:27:58,119
themselves on pikes. Horses are really smart, and war horses

296
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are bred for those kinds of instincts some of other things.

297
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But your pikemen essentially need to protect the they they

298
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need to protect the your uh, your your shot FLANX

299
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from enemy cavalry and UH. Traditionally, when the sort of

300
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:35,519
earliest combined arms UH tactical paradigms developed, and some of

301
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this endoored the Thirty Years War, but it mostly didn't. Traditionally,

302
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your cavalry assaults uh its counterpart, you know, your infantry

303
00:28:53,559 --> 00:29:00,119
assaults its counterpart, you know, having to rush your infantry,

304
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:05,680
or having this kind of light cavalry element light in

305
00:29:05,759 --> 00:29:08,720
terms of not really being armored, but that's loaded down

306
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with handled firearms that essentially like zig zags in skirmish formation,

307
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and UH then swoops in, you know, to provide extra

308
00:29:22,359 --> 00:29:28,200
firepower to a FAILANX that's being out gone, nder, overwhelmed

309
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or threatened by cavalry. All these sort of innovations and

310
00:29:35,759 --> 00:29:42,440
tweaks the paradigm you know, became necessary, you know, and

311
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:51,000
h productive techniques and conventionally, uh, Transylvania was conventionally the

312
00:29:54,039 --> 00:29:57,160
it was almost like Krupp or the scot To arms

313
00:29:57,200 --> 00:29:59,880
works of its of the Middle Ages, an early modern period.

314
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:03,519
They built really great siege engines, and they built really

315
00:30:03,519 --> 00:30:09,759
great artillery, the Transylvanian Saxons, you know, they they were

316
00:30:09,799 --> 00:30:14,200
this uh, there there were these you know, Germans who

317
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:17,680
settled in Transylvania, and you know, one thousand eighty or

318
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:21,000
even earlier. They were another population that was ethnically cleansed

319
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:28,240
after World War Two. Incidentally, but uh, productive techniques in

320
00:30:28,319 --> 00:30:32,839
metal urgy and things became such that, you know, guns

321
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:36,000
and artillery, you know, they couldn't be mass produced in

322
00:30:36,039 --> 00:30:38,960
the terms that we think of it, but they could

323
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be produced at a scale that was there before basically unprecedented.

324
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:50,720
Interestingly too, and this added, uh, there's nuances of the

325
00:30:50,799 --> 00:30:53,559
command structure of armies in the Thirty Years War in

326
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:57,680
military culture that are they're not just anthropologically interesting as

327
00:30:57,720 --> 00:31:10,559
fascinating stuff, but artillery men, the loading of artillery, the

328
00:31:10,599 --> 00:31:16,599
practice of targeting fighting as an artillery man, these guys

329
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:21,400
belonged to the same guild as miners because it partook

330
00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:26,559
of medals and things, and so if you wanted if

331
00:31:26,599 --> 00:31:29,880
you wanted the artillery in your in the army you

332
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:32,759
were raising, you had to deal with the miners guild.

333
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:39,720
I can't remember who their patron saint is, but point

334
00:31:39,759 --> 00:31:43,720
being so you basically you had to be on good

335
00:31:43,839 --> 00:31:46,119
terms if you were a prince or a duke or

336
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:51,599
whatever with the guild under which artillery men you know,

337
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:56,880
fell and they'd view their guild as having authority that's

338
00:31:56,880 --> 00:32:02,480
superseded dead of commanding officers. Then, to be clear, the

339
00:32:02,559 --> 00:32:07,119
guild system, it wasn't just some glorified version of a

340
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:11,039
Freemasons or something. The idea was that productive techniques and

341
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:14,880
artisanal techniques and things, this is all part of like

342
00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:19,640
God's revelation. This is a sacred aspect to the preservation

343
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:23,680
and maintenance and passing on to this knowledge. It's very

344
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:28,359
deeply theological and it was taken very very seriously, you know.

345
00:32:28,759 --> 00:32:37,400
So there was a certain prestige and fraternal and celerity

346
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:41,519
that attended you know, guys who served in the artillery branch.

347
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:49,440
But it also it caused problems. You know, people think

348
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:52,119
inner service rivalry and like late modernity is like a

349
00:32:52,119 --> 00:32:55,119
big deal. I mean this plus two when you couple

350
00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:58,920
it with sectarian divisions, you know, like we talked about

351
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:02,599
in the first episode. Yes, there you know, the protest

352
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:06,759
the Calvinists and the Lutherans were nominally allied and and

353
00:33:07,079 --> 00:33:11,599
you had Lutherans and Protestants serving in common formations. But

354
00:33:11,799 --> 00:33:16,039
there was a lot of tension there, you know, they

355
00:33:16,079 --> 00:33:20,920
there there, There wasn't some sort of there, There wasn't

356
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:24,400
sort of deeply felt you know, generically Protestant identity quite

357
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:31,599
the contrary. So there's all there's all kinds of complicated stuff.

358
00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:34,599
That's what I'm getting at. That we'd associate with the

359
00:33:34,599 --> 00:33:41,880
medieval period, you know, like what mainstream Anglophone history uses

360
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:45,960
the medieval era, but you know that that was still

361
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that still held significant psychological sway over at military organizations

362
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:58,000
and and putting institutions, you know, in into the sixteen hundreds.

363
00:33:58,039 --> 00:34:02,440
You know, it's really fascinating. And again too, like I said,

364
00:34:02,519 --> 00:34:08,440
there was there was real difficulty with uniformity of ammunition

365
00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:12,599
as well as bores for these guns because there's all

366
00:34:12,679 --> 00:34:17,159
kinds of experimentation going on because like I said, these designers,

367
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:22,599
they they were experimenting with designs that they knew were possible,

368
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:26,440
but there there just wasn't the material or the technique

369
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:32,639
perfected to make a battlefield viable yet. So this led

370
00:34:32,639 --> 00:34:38,000
to a lot of failures of discreet platforms because the

371
00:34:38,039 --> 00:34:41,159
testing grounds literally the battlefield, but also even those that

372
00:34:41,559 --> 00:34:44,199
even those guns that were viable, there was such a

373
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:52,039
diversity of models that you know, it caused combatibility issues,

374
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:54,840
you know, or even if there was plenty of ammunition

375
00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:56,880
on deck, you know, you'd have men who hadn't trained

376
00:34:56,920 --> 00:34:59,840
on whatever guns that they you know, were able to

377
00:34:59,840 --> 00:35:04,079
get hold of, you know, and things like that. So

378
00:35:04,119 --> 00:35:06,280
it's kind of amazing things worked as well as they did.

379
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:10,440
And like I said it, the sophistication on display in

380
00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:16,000
you know, these these tactical treatises and stuff is pretty

381
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:20,800
it's pretty incredible. But yeah, at the same time too,

382
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:25,639
it uh there was a self conscious uh emulation of

383
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:29,880
the Greek failanx and and that kind of drill technique,

384
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:32,559
you know, and and a lot of that endoors to

385
00:35:32,599 --> 00:35:37,400
this day, you know, but it's not merely it's not

386
00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:41,079
merely ceremonial and it's not merely parade ground stuff that

387
00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:48,480
looks pretty. There's certain even today, I mean, even as

388
00:35:48,599 --> 00:35:55,320
uh the modern battlefield is has become truly fluid and

389
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:01,159
what have you. And and in a lot of ways,

390
00:36:01,519 --> 00:36:06,760
you know, all private assumptions relating the wan and particularly

391
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:15,079
infantry combat are no longer particularly relevant. But there's certain

392
00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:20,960
there's certain geometric realities that are constant no matter what

393
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:25,320
you know. And there's the added benefit with some of

394
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:30,760
these techniques and practices that there's the way to tradition

395
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:35,840
behind them. That's the way to understand the aforementioned you know,

396
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:40,639
like I can't remember we were talking. I was talking

397
00:36:40,679 --> 00:36:42,760
to you or talking to our dear friend Jay Burden

398
00:36:43,199 --> 00:36:46,159
about the spirit of the bayonet and how at the

399
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:51,360
end of the day, you know, the the bayonet and

400
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:58,480
the cold steel blade, when not affixed to a rifle,

401
00:37:00,159 --> 00:37:09,880
remains a relevant implement of the infantry and of warfare generally,

402
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:16,360
and that will never change. You know, it's the same, uh,

403
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:24,400
it's the same sort of principle. But it also what

404
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:29,920
this was further complicated. I touched on the presence of

405
00:37:30,039 --> 00:37:40,559
pikemen and you know, faylanx of gunners in the battle

406
00:37:40,599 --> 00:37:47,480
space of the Thirty Years War. Optimizing this combination was

407
00:37:47,519 --> 00:37:54,599
incredibly difficult, and even if it could be optimized in

408
00:37:54,800 --> 00:38:04,559
UH parade, ground exercises and in training. You know, gun

409
00:38:04,599 --> 00:38:10,840
smoke made visibility very very difficult something in the heat

410
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:14,519
of battle, trying to shout orders as a battalion commander

411
00:38:15,679 --> 00:38:23,639
when you don't have the benefit of, you know, a

412
00:38:23,679 --> 00:38:28,559
clear visual perspective. That means you've got to be able

413
00:38:28,599 --> 00:38:36,639
to rely upon regular movements, you know, and anticipating how

414
00:38:36,679 --> 00:38:38,840
those movements are going to break down, and how they're

415
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:43,159
going to adapt and how they're going to reconstitute in

416
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:49,960
the midst of all manner of configurations of assault, you know.

417
00:38:53,119 --> 00:38:55,400
And it's a rare man who can do that effectively.

418
00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:05,039
But it also meant that UH, you know, again, these

419
00:39:05,519 --> 00:39:14,360
challenges were emerging owing to immediate military exigency. You know,

420
00:39:14,719 --> 00:39:21,559
this wasn't more college UH exercises that were then being

421
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:28,519
parlyed into operational doctrines in the field. You know, these

422
00:39:28,519 --> 00:39:39,400
things are being innovated as it happened. The Dutch need

423
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:43,960
to be credited with pioneering a lot of what became

424
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:58,199
pike and shot battlefield doctrine. The UH. The Dutch had

425
00:39:58,239 --> 00:40:02,119
deployed the way we talked about a moment ago, with

426
00:40:02,239 --> 00:40:10,679
the pikemen flanking musketeers. And to be clear too, in

427
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:15,599
most European armies, even even handgun infantry were still referred

428
00:40:15,599 --> 00:40:27,880
to as musketeers. The Spaniards, in contrast and the imperial infantry,

429
00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:34,360
you know, the Holy Roman Empire, they were more conventional.

430
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:42,440
They favored the depth, elaborate depth within their formations, I mean,

431
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:47,960
because they had the man power. But also they practiced

432
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:51,719
something not unlike what we consider to be deep battle,

433
00:40:52,079 --> 00:40:54,920
you know, like the Soviets did and now the Russians do,

434
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:59,800
albeit in an an altered form, you know, which makes

435
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:03,440
I mean, forgive the digression, but you know, like we've

436
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:05,000
talked about, and like I'm not sure a lot of

437
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:08,400
people know this. You know, the reasons why the our

438
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:11,599
approach of the Russian Federation, the reason why they perform

439
00:41:11,679 --> 00:41:15,519
a modified goostep. You know, they they were drilled by Prussians.

440
00:41:15,599 --> 00:41:19,480
I mean Klauds of Witch was observing the Battle of

441
00:41:19,559 --> 00:41:30,920
Moscow from Moscow, you know, Russian deep battle. Uh, there's

442
00:41:31,079 --> 00:41:38,440
the DNA of uh. You know some of these imperial

443
00:41:39,719 --> 00:41:44,280
infantry doctrines you know, which admittedly uh, the where it

444
00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:48,119
was was someone at odds with Prussian sensibilities, but you

445
00:41:48,159 --> 00:41:51,719
had plenty of Prussian officers who were drilling the Ivans

446
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:56,800
and and what I'm wanted to do has for techniques.

447
00:41:57,000 --> 00:41:58,199
I find this fascinating.

448
00:42:00,079 --> 00:42:00,320
Speaker 1: Yah.

449
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:15,719
Speaker 2: And of course too it you know, the the Imperial

450
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:24,679
Habsburgs and the Spaniards generally could field more musketeers than

451
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:30,920
a lesser force could. And you know it if you can,

452
00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:37,159
if you can overwhelm the enemy with firepower at the

453
00:42:37,159 --> 00:42:43,280
point of contact, you know, that's that's always a massive

454
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:49,760
force multiplier. And to be clear too, there there wasn't

455
00:42:49,800 --> 00:42:53,920
only one type of cavalry. This this evolution of distinct

456
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:58,480
cavalry elements, this preceded the Thirty Years War, but not

457
00:42:58,800 --> 00:43:03,360
really by as much as you might think. What there

458
00:43:03,480 --> 00:43:06,199
is why cavalry was king for so long. It's not

459
00:43:06,400 --> 00:43:11,159
just because of the mystique of it and the fact

460
00:43:11,159 --> 00:43:16,800
that equestrian was the exclusive domain and nobles, you know,

461
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:22,239
in in European societies for the most part. But there

462
00:43:22,320 --> 00:43:25,280
was distinct there was this there's about there's basically five

463
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:31,400
distinct rules in the cavalry by the turn of the

464
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:39,199
seventeenth century. There was the chack role, there's firepower and reconnaissance.

465
00:43:41,559 --> 00:43:46,719
There was the mobile you know, reinforcement element, you know,

466
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:55,039
and there was the U there's the probing element. For

467
00:43:55,159 --> 00:43:59,719
lack of a better I'm gonna guess that would fall.

468
00:43:59,800 --> 00:44:02,440
I mean that that they fall into the within the

469
00:44:02,519 --> 00:44:09,000
number of the scouting function. But these these are all

470
00:44:09,119 --> 00:44:15,880
very different kinds of roles, you know. And the way

471
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:23,360
they train these horses is fascinating. Horses being smart, you know.

472
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:26,800
The battlefield is frightening, you know, not just for men,

473
00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:30,639
but also for bees, especially intelligent beasts like horses. And

474
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:37,760
if horses are amiss dead things, they'll instinctively go to

475
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:41,360
avoid them, you know, like rotting corpses and stuff. So

476
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:45,679
the way they train war horses the the armies of

477
00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:53,719
the day, they haven't performed these charge drills amisstuh piles

478
00:44:53,760 --> 00:45:00,880
of carrion and rotting animal carcasses and bonfires like. Meanwhile,

479
00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:03,360
they have men like squeezing shots off, you know. So

480
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:06,119
the horse that get used to you know, overcome its

481
00:45:06,159 --> 00:45:11,760
fear of of of fire and firepower, as well as

482
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:15,679
become habituated to literally the smell of death, you know,

483
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:21,320
because they've been exercise and fields full of blazing straw

484
00:45:21,400 --> 00:45:27,320
and piles of detritus, you know, and they were all.

485
00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:31,039
They were also training to kick out and maneuver information

486
00:45:31,519 --> 00:45:41,679
without falling over. It's really incredible, but uh cavalry, A

487
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:51,760
proper war horse, uh with a mount could technically gallop

488
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:55,840
at about forty kilometers per hour. With a with a

489
00:45:55,920 --> 00:46:01,800
with a rider weighted down with armor and weapons, I mean,

490
00:46:01,800 --> 00:46:05,239
it's top speed would be considerably less than that, but still,

491
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:07,800
I mean that that's insane. You know, a warhorse with

492
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:12,039
a mounted calorieman bearing down at you with that speed,

493
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:16,880
at point of contact, it will tear you to pieces,

494
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:26,599
you know, and thus the shock element. And that's why

495
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:30,760
the pike developed the pikes of versatile weapon. Even though

496
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:35,920
it looks essentially just like a great big spear. You

497
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:40,079
had to be very, very physically strong to be an

498
00:46:40,079 --> 00:46:47,800
effective pike man. You also had to have very stealing nerves.

499
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:58,800
But and even even trained and experienced pike man who'd

500
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:01,840
been in battle before, there were times where their nerves

501
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:05,199
failed them and they, you know, the the pike FAILANX

502
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:10,719
fell apart because just got a fear, you know, and

503
00:47:11,159 --> 00:47:14,920
a skilled infantry commander or a skilled calory commander he

504
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:18,239
could discern when that was going to happen, sometimes by

505
00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:22,559
literally how shaky, you know, the pike formation was, you know,

506
00:47:23,280 --> 00:47:26,400
in which case you go in and assault it, you know,

507
00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:30,360
assume you know, one of the presumption they'll break ranks,

508
00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:34,280
and because horses won't throw themselves on pikes, they'll break off,

509
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:42,159
you know. And the way the way pikemen were deployed

510
00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:50,360
in a fixed defensive FAILANX, they were staggered such that

511
00:47:54,000 --> 00:48:01,760
it was essentially a veritable, like tightly contained forest of pikes.

512
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:08,960
You know, it became an it became an insurmountable obstacle

513
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:14,840
that uh was also mobile, you know, So I mean

514
00:48:14,880 --> 00:48:18,880
there was like any any one of these elements in

515
00:48:19,119 --> 00:48:27,960
and of itself is ah just an incredible task to coordinate,

516
00:48:29,119 --> 00:48:34,559
you know, intellectually and everything else let alone and you know, correct,

517
00:48:34,639 --> 00:48:46,880
uh congress with one another. And uh. Now, of course

518
00:48:48,079 --> 00:48:52,599
the abiquity of firepower and and handle firearms that battlefield

519
00:48:53,199 --> 00:48:57,559
that dramatically reduced the role of cavalry. So cavalry became

520
00:48:57,639 --> 00:49:01,639
fewer and fewer in absolute as well as relative terms.

521
00:49:01,679 --> 00:49:08,719
They also became more elite. Interestingly, in the East there

522
00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:18,800
were Hungarians as well as Polish nobles, still with some adaptations,

523
00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:26,840
obviously to the reality of the of the of battlefield tech.

524
00:49:28,079 --> 00:49:35,920
They retained a lot of conventional calorie doctrines, and uh

525
00:49:36,119 --> 00:49:41,880
they called themselves Hussars, you know, the UH Hussars like

526
00:49:41,920 --> 00:49:46,480
Prussian Hussars, which is actually where the totemkov comes from,

527
00:49:46,679 --> 00:49:51,199
was the death set Hussars. That is a totally different

528
00:49:51,400 --> 00:50:00,480
meaning in uh in in German armies. But famously there's

529
00:50:00,559 --> 00:50:05,960
the Polish, Lithuanian and winged Hussars. They'd wear full armor,

530
00:50:06,199 --> 00:50:12,559
including with a face plate, but they'd they create these

531
00:50:12,559 --> 00:50:19,599
elaborate wings out of wooden or metal frames and at

532
00:50:19,599 --> 00:50:24,159
a full gallop, one of these hussars, these wings had

533
00:50:24,159 --> 00:50:30,320
become violent and this high pitched sort of that way

534
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:35,159
between what sounded like a scream and a hiss would

535
00:50:35,280 --> 00:50:41,880
whistle through the apparatus, which is incredibly evocative and and

536
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:46,159
just kind of badass, I think. But those are the

537
00:50:46,199 --> 00:50:57,599
winged Hussars of you know, of a myth and lore cavalman. Also,

538
00:50:57,679 --> 00:51:02,400
obviously they they had to learn to handle firearms, they

539
00:51:02,400 --> 00:51:05,639
had to learn to shoot, they had to learn to

540
00:51:05,760 --> 00:51:14,440
you know, take down targets at relative range as well

541
00:51:14,480 --> 00:51:19,239
as in close combat. And the problem was even even

542
00:51:19,239 --> 00:51:23,079
one of the flint lock pistols of the day, they

543
00:51:23,119 --> 00:51:27,000
are comparatively long, you know, and all but the lightest

544
00:51:27,039 --> 00:51:32,199
ones generally needed something to stand or brace in order

545
00:51:32,239 --> 00:51:34,840
to be steady. But even though it's light enough to

546
00:51:34,920 --> 00:51:42,559
manage the way they'd be holstered. For a cavalryman, they'd

547
00:51:42,559 --> 00:51:47,920
be holstered lengthwise on either side. But with the UH,

548
00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:54,719
you'd have to they'd have to be drawn cross chest

549
00:51:55,159 --> 00:51:59,519
because the barrel would be facing opposite the rider, so

550
00:52:00,360 --> 00:52:04,119
you'd have to draw one length wise like that. And

551
00:52:04,159 --> 00:52:10,599
because most riders are right handed, they'd have to tip

552
00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:15,920
the horse left, then fire to the right, and like

553
00:52:16,280 --> 00:52:19,360
do all this one handed, you know, because obviously like

554
00:52:19,400 --> 00:52:22,400
fire rode, the horse's head is gonna. The horse doesn't

555
00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:27,039
go death, it's you know, you're gonna it could be

556
00:52:27,159 --> 00:52:35,559
powder burned or injured otherwise, but you know, they're in

557
00:52:36,159 --> 00:52:47,280
in addition to the risk presented by infantry guns in

558
00:52:47,320 --> 00:52:52,920
the battle space, you h every every every caloryman had

559
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:57,280
had to become essentially a like a competent infantryman as well.

560
00:52:58,199 --> 00:53:05,320
You know, it was just uh and in an incredibly

561
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:15,599
artuous litany of skills. And this is kind of you know, Americans,

562
00:53:16,199 --> 00:53:19,119
one of the reasons Americans are romantic about, you know,

563
00:53:19,159 --> 00:53:22,119
the Confederacy and stuff is you had these guys who

564
00:53:22,159 --> 00:53:27,320
could fight mounted, but you could also we're competent you know, gunmen,

565
00:53:29,320 --> 00:53:32,679
and you know had all these where we're competent in

566
00:53:32,679 --> 00:53:36,920
in in all these skill sets you know, like Confederate

567
00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:41,000
officers were, and uh like a lot of these Revolutionary

568
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:44,280
War guys were. But I mean that that's basically the

569
00:53:44,320 --> 00:53:49,119
origins of this. You know, that's where those who those

570
00:53:49,159 --> 00:53:55,480
were who could were physically and psychologically capable. I mean

571
00:53:55,519 --> 00:54:00,559
that that's where you you know, these uh the Thirty

572
00:54:00,639 --> 00:54:03,239
Years War is when men like that, you know, appeared

573
00:54:03,239 --> 00:54:05,559
on the battlefield. And I find that kind of fascinating,

574
00:54:06,400 --> 00:54:12,159
you know. And the uh the gun the rogue gunfighter,

575
00:54:13,800 --> 00:54:15,679
the old one gunfighter. He's kind of like the ran.

576
00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:18,559
He's kind of like the bastard run and offspring of

577
00:54:18,639 --> 00:54:21,199
this tradition too. I just I find that incredibly cool.

578
00:54:21,920 --> 00:54:27,760
You know, I don't know if I don't know if

579
00:54:27,800 --> 00:54:34,719
other people are grabbed by it that way, but you know, uh,

580
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:39,280
I was gonna get into the confessional aspects of this,

581
00:54:42,079 --> 00:54:45,400
because you know, competing varieties of Christianity. I think that's

582
00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:49,639
overstated when people asserted it was, you know, somehow like

583
00:54:50,039 --> 00:54:58,559
the approximate cause of hostilities, but it was the most

584
00:54:58,719 --> 00:55:03,679
significant anthropological element. And even with that not the case,

585
00:55:05,960 --> 00:55:11,239
these confessional identities emerged in true earnest at the same

586
00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:17,599
time as this conflict paradigm began taking shape. You know,

587
00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:23,119
we talked about last week how the Hasspurgs and trying

588
00:55:23,119 --> 00:55:29,800
to revive the Imperial mandate. They very much they tried

589
00:55:29,840 --> 00:55:34,360
to insinuate their political ambitions into a general Catholic revival.

590
00:55:34,519 --> 00:55:36,559
And that wasn't just cynical. I mean, first of all,

591
00:55:36,599 --> 00:55:38,679
a lot of a lot of the Hassburg nobles they

592
00:55:38,719 --> 00:55:42,199
were believing Catholics, and a lot of them are good Catholics.

593
00:55:43,039 --> 00:55:57,760
But it's also, you know, Calvinist and Lutheran identity was

594
00:55:59,199 --> 00:56:09,079
providing a serious challenge to what had been a very

595
00:56:09,159 --> 00:56:19,800
integral Catholic uh political ontology. And uh but I I

596
00:56:19,840 --> 00:56:22,760
that deserves an episode unto itself, so we'll get into

597
00:56:22,760 --> 00:56:24,920
that next time. I hope this wasn't formative and it

598
00:56:25,000 --> 00:56:27,079
wasn't too scattershot. Like I said, I don't want to

599
00:56:27,079 --> 00:56:28,719
I'm not trying to go o release alf conscious, but

600
00:56:29,639 --> 00:56:33,760
this is an important subject matter, not just the historical record,

601
00:56:33,840 --> 00:56:39,559
but for our people and for Christians especially, you know,

602
00:56:39,719 --> 00:56:42,400
so I want to make sure I present it properly.

603
00:56:42,519 --> 00:56:44,320
And plus I what as I want to do is

604
00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:50,960
waste anybody's time. So yeah, I uh I uh, I'm

605
00:56:51,000 --> 00:56:52,840
really looking forward to continuing the series. Man.

606
00:56:54,079 --> 00:56:57,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the uh, the concentration on the different

607
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:03,320
confessions definitely deserves its own episode, and this one, you know,

608
00:57:03,679 --> 00:57:09,440
I mean talking about battle and talking just about yeah,

609
00:57:09,519 --> 00:57:16,119
how much battle after this would be informed by it

610
00:57:16,239 --> 00:57:19,159
is uh is important to to share.

611
00:57:20,760 --> 00:57:22,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, a good deal. If you and the subs are happy,

612
00:57:22,559 --> 00:57:23,079
I'm happy.

613
00:57:23,679 --> 00:57:28,599
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, sir. All right, until the next time, I'm

614
00:57:28,639 --> 00:57:32,599
going to ask you to go over to Thomas's sub stack.

615
00:57:33,719 --> 00:57:38,599
Thomas's Twitter disappears and comes back, and disappears and comes back.

616
00:57:40,559 --> 00:57:42,840
It may not be the best place to get them,

617
00:57:42,880 --> 00:57:46,079
but over on sub stack you can get you can

618
00:57:46,119 --> 00:57:49,840
connect to pretty much anywhere Thomas is. And also you

619
00:57:49,880 --> 00:57:52,400
know he's got a chat over there and you can

620
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:56,760
reach out to him there. So please do that and

621
00:57:56,880 --> 00:57:58,760
uh Thomas until the next time.

622
00:57:59,519 --> 00:58:15,239
Speaker 2: Pete s