WDF 26: First Anglo-Dutch War

Having defeated its Spanish enemy after 80 long years, nobody could have supposed that the Dutch Republic would do anything but prosper after 1648. The promise of peace resulted in a booming of Dutch ambitions around the world, and an even greater return on their worldwide investments. The Dutch could count no power their economic equal on the continent, and it certainly seemed as though their Golden Age would remain in place for the foreseeable future. History of course, is never so simple. The Dutch were in fact embarking on a collision course after 1648, though they could not have known it at the time. Their next enemy was to be, in many ways, their political and ideological twin and, in previous years, one of their closest trading partners.

The Dutch Empire, with the lighter green shade denoting the imperial possessions and the darker green denoting the economic possessions in the early Republic. The orange dots essentially represent the warehouses and location of Dutch business that were responsible for Dutch Eastern commerce.

A modern map of the Dutch provinces. Nowadays Holland is divided into two separate provinces, but during our era it was one, and thus dominated the seafaring interests of the Republic.

The War of the Three Kingdoms had ravaged the British Isles on a level experienced during the Thirty Years War on the continent. The residual problems that the new English Commonwealth, founded in May 1649 only months after killing the King of England, Scotland and Ireland, Charles I. The civil wars in the British Isles had been raging on and off since 1643, and would not end convincingly in favour of the English Rump Parliament until late 1651. In those 8 years the conceptions of English, Scottish and Irish statehood would be pulled apart and would fray at the seams. In mid-1653 did the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland become transformed into the family dictatorship ruled over by Oliver Cromwell, but the turmoil that began in the early 1640's never truly went away in the meantime.

The new model army drill that brought the Parliamentarians to victory against the Royalists

Re-enactment of the civil war, a popular historical pursuit for history nerds like myself.

King Charles I of the British Isles, whose execution in early 1649 crystalised the radical new steps that the Three Kingdoms were keen to embark upon. 

The causes of the war will be covered in the four episodes, but suffice it to say they revolved around commercial jealousies on the English part, as well as the Dutch inability to give the Rump what it wanted. In a bizarre logic, war would result because the Dutch could not agree on English terms for a union. The fundamental English desire was to secure its new regime against foreign threats caused the Rump's reps in The Hague to promote their case of union with the newly triumphant Dutch Republic.

Not wishing to jeopardise the state of affairs that their victory over Spain had secured, the Dutch remained unwilling to agree to a union that they perceived would become dominated by London. The Dutch had kept an eye on what the Rump had done; Ireland and Scotland had been subdued by force, and offers of a Commonwealth were believed to be the next step towards further domination by London. Why would the Dutch agree to such a lopsided union when they had everything to gain in the status quo? The English could not answer such a question, and because neither side were willing to give ground, tensions only escalated.

Depiction of the States of Holland, where much of the most important decisions of the Republic were taken

Building where the States-General, effectively the governing apparatus of the Dutch Republic, met for the purpose of crafting state policy. Present were representatives from all 7 Provinces, though Holland certainly had the most influence thanks to its position, thanks to its pride of place in the Republic.

When the war did erupt, few could have anticipated what would happen next. Expecting a Dutch walkover, Europe was stunned to bear witness to the English domination of the war, thanks to its reliance on huge warships and its concentration on firepower that overwhelmed the old Dutch tactics. Still attempting to use the tactics that had enabled it to carve out its place atop the European food chain, fireships and undersized converted merchant vessels were what awaited the English first rates. The overwhelming impact of English superiority of fire and tactics weren't felt initially, but after a series of devastating defeats, the Dutch predicament became quickly desperate.

Battle of the Gabbard Bank depicted in a painting; one of the most devastating losses suffered by the Dutch in their history; the loss here resulted in the scales finally falling from Dutch eyes.

Battle of the Kentish Knock, the first proper encounter between both sides, yet it wasn't conclusive enough to convince the Dutch that change to their strategy was badly needed.

The War would only be ended with the Treaty of Westminster, where the Act of Seclusion would solve what Cromwell upheld to be the prime threat to the Commonwealth's security: the Orange family. Thus, the importance of the Orange family is revealed at this early a stage. William III of the House of Orange was barred from entering office in the Dutch Republic and, at just 4 years old, seemed destined to fade into obscurity thanks to the demands of the victorious English. Yet, times would change, and there would come a point when that same William III would rule both Britain and the Netherlands under a union. In a strange twist, it was just as the Rump had intended, yet the series of events that would lead to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 were directed at a common enemy, France, and by that stage the Anglo-Dutch relationship had come to symbolise all that the Rump originally hoped it would in 1651 when it had offered its seemingly impractical union. Of course, by 1688 it had taken three Anglo-Dutch Wars and the threat of an even greater enemy, Louis XIV, to change the relationship between the English and Dutch into an amicable one....

William III when the act of seclusion was signed. At just 4 years old when his succession to the Dutch Republic was barred, few could have anticipated his later meteoric rise not just to the top of the Dutch Republic, but also to the pinnacle of European power politics by the end of the century.

The Act of Seclusion that prevented by law any member of the House of Orange from holding office in the United Provinces; it was directly aimed at William III, who was 4 years old at the time.

 ..........but these, are stories for another episode. So thanks for reading history friends, and I hope you enjoy the First Anglo-Dutch War!


Thanksssssssss

The Post-Westphalian Age

The treaties were signed, but peace was far from eternal.

After tearing itself apart for 30 years, the various powers of Europe; Spain, France, Sweden, the Dutch, the Habsburgs and others had made their peace, but not completely. Spain remained at war with France. France was consumed by a revolt led by some of its court's highest profile noblemen. The Dutch remained locked in a struggle across the sea with Portugal in modern-day Brazil, and of course, foreign intrigue and competition was forever in the background of all dealings that were concluded by European statesmen.

A simple map of Europe c. 1648

A rather more depressing map of the HRE that brings it all home. The different tones show the variation in the drop in population that the war caused.

The Thirty Years War had revealed the limits of power in Early Modern Europe.  States could only go so far when mobilising their populations or resources. They could only push their people so far before revolt threatened. Events in France vindicated this, as did events in Spain, where revolution in Catalonia and its Portuguese vassal had ripped its prospects apart. In addition for Spain, there was no escaping the fact that in the case of its longest running revolution, the Dutch, its failure to quell that corner of its empire's dissension had resulted in the transformation of the European balance of power.

The Dutch were embarking on their Golden Age, a fact that would set them on a collision course with virtually all of their neighbours. For the moment though, their prospects looked bright. Their former overlord Spain was enmeshed in its own numerous problems, a fact which enabled the Dutch to become the most important trading partner of the Iberian Peninsula. The Dutch success was made that much easier by the utter chaos that their sometimes geographical rival England had fallen into.

The English Civil War consumed the entirety of the British Isles. Uncertain loyalties in Ireland, Scotland and in the New World necessitated campaigns of notable ferocity and destruction in these regions. By the late 1640's Charles I had been captured by forces loyal to the Parliament and the first phase of the civil wars appeared to be nearing an end. The most striking acts of this play had yet to come however; a head had yet to roll, a Commonwealth had yet to be declared and a protector had yet to be named. All of these would come in time, but for the moment England was not in a position to stake its claim to the international system as it once had, leaving, for the moment, the task of assessing and acting to preserve the balance of power to the Dutch.

The face of change: Oliver Cromwell in 1656. 

The head that would roll. Charles I of England and Scotland. 

But the Dutch weren't the only state transformed by the wars of before. The Swedish Empire had been born from them. Having emerged from the obscurity of Scandinavia and from under Denmark's shadow thanks to the exploits of its conquering king Gustavus Adolphus, Sweden had gone on to endure difficult periods and incredible highs, to the point that it was an undeniable first class power by 1648. Unlike other powers of its time, Sweden had made its name and achieved this new rank purely by force of arms alone. Few other powers could claim the startling rise to power that it could, but the majority of Sweden's neighbours had more binding them together after 1648 than the threat of Swedish armies. The consequences of this fact will be felt in future, but as the daughter of Gustavus, Cristina, came of age in 1644, Sweden appeared destined to remain at its newfound place of prosperity.

Johan de Witt, the de facto PM of the Dutch Republic from 1653-1672

The definer of an era: William III of England began his career as William III, Prince of Orange and Stadtholder in the States of Holland. His incredible career and rivalry with Louis XIV is one which is long overdue a film, or at least a long series on Netflix. 

A typical Dutch painting of sailboats, 1679. Note the abundance of orange.

Of course, it had reached this new level at the expense of its neighbours. Poland and Denmark in particular still had notable bones to pick with the Swedes. In the case of the former, dynastic ties and an ugly family feud meant that the two lines of the Vasa family sat at very different ends of the European spectrum in 1648. This rivalry would erupt over the coming years, but for the moment Poland was occupied with its quest to quell nationalist rebellion from its Cossack minority, and Denmark was still reeling from the devastating campaign of assassination that Sweden had launched against it only a few years before. For Poland in particular, the growing power of Russia was a cause for concern, and indeed for Swedish policymakers, focusing on the need to protect their newly won Baltic territories, the Russians seemed like the enemy of the future. Over the previous years they had modernised and expanded their army greatly, as well as see the extension of the Tsar's power over lands to the east, north, west and south of Moscow.

Russia could not expand forever though. To its south lay the formidable Ottoman Empire, whose stake in Balkan affairs would not be shifted for another three centuries. The Thirty Years War had certainly given it a reprieve from any wars with the distracted Habsburg family, but its vassals in the Crimean Tartars and Transylvania had been very busy indeed. Their control over an effective buffer zone led to permanent unease in Vienna, and in the Habsburg court a future war with the Turk seemed both likely and necessary. The Thirty Years War had changed how the Holy Roman Empire operated, but it remained the primary cultural and political nerve centre of the Germans. This would not change for the remainder of the century, but signs were already emerging that things would not be the same after Westphalia.

The Habsburg hereditary lands that encompassed most of the Austrian Empire formed the backbone of the HRE. Surrounding it was Bavaria, its sister Catholic heartland and its valuable ally throughout the war. To the north things became more complex. Brandenburg-Prussia straddled Pomerania and some critical Imperial fiefs. Saxony remained a Protestant stronghold and a centre of European learning. The Rhineland and its Palatine family had fingers in numerous pies despite their humiliation and exile in years past. First and foremost, the election of a new emperor, though it would seem to be mostly a formality by this stage, remained an important European event. Until that fact changed, and until Europeans could ignore the pull of Vienna in favour of another capital, the Empire of the Germans would always be relevant.

Great contemporaries: Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor 1658-1705

Tsar Alexis I of Russia, 1645-1676

The Sun King Louis XIV, King of France 1643-1715, though ruling solo only from 1661.

The Thirty Years War had left many scars; it was hard to imagine that such a war could ever occur in Europe again; the extent to which the ordinary man had had to bear the brunt of such savage conditions meant that an indelible imprint had been left on the European, but especially German psyche. War had by no means vanished from the plethora of tools at a statesman's disposal, but it had certainly lost much of its sheen, and the reasons for waging it had notably been altered. Sovereignty and independence, state power and the absolute rights of kings; these were issues which concerned Europeans now. Whether they would lead to the same level of warfare and destruction as the previous thirty years had wrought remained to be seen, but many issues remained at the top of European politics that could not be ignored, and many figures were waiting in the wings to take these issues to their logical conclusion, as their father's statesmen and their grandfather's statesmen had done so terribly before. War would always be on the horizon in post-Westphalia Europe; what remained to be seen was where conflict would be experienced next.

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Hello history friends! Welcome to a new season of WDF! Season 3, if my calculations are correct. This new season will see me present to you a new series of wars. Some would call these wars obscure, others would consider them essential for understanding how modern Europe came to be. It is my pleasure to attempt to bring these wars to you, and to bring to life new eras of history which were simply dying to be discovered. I hope you'll join me for the ride! Thanksssssssss! :D

Zack (B.A.)

End of Crisis, Beginning of War

Having finally reached the end of the line in our July Crisis Project, and in the process now feeling like I'm able to live my life without constantly thinking about these people, I feel like a blog post is in order to give you a chance to put faces to the names of these statesmen and to see the list of sources I used for my work.

First is Gavrilo Princep, who assassinated the Archduke and his wife and began the July Crisis.

Next up we have his mark and the man who had plans for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Franz Ferdinand. 

Next up we have Franz' uncle Franz-Josef, the incumbent emperor at the time of the July Crisis, and the man who signed off on numerous early orders that would prove so instrumental.

Next we have Austria's Foreign minister Leopold von Berchtold, whose declaration of war on Serbia on 28th July precipitated much of the crisis, but not all of it!

And who can forget Stefan Tisza? The man wholly responsible for delaying Vienna's response time!

And who can forget Count Alexander Hoyos? The Austrian who acquired the 'blank cheque' for his state and ensured that Germany would support the Habsburgs in *whatever* transpired.

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Helmut von Moltke the younger was living in his uncle's great shadow. Helmut the elder had overseen the defeat of France in 1870, now Germany surely hoped that lightening would strike twice with their second iteration of the military Moltke family. Though ardently pro-force and determined to stick to the war policy as planned, and unable to improvise, Moltke's control of events are almost always overstated by historians, who see Moltke as the conception of Germany in the pre-war years. Moltke was bellicose and would later prove himself hopelessly blind to foreign opinion when he insisted on the violation of Belgium, but he didn't control the country, and spent more time complaining that the 'two old women' of the Chancellor and Kaiser were restraining his hand and embarking on a weakly paciffist course.

Theobald Von Bethmann Holweg served as Germany's Chancellor from 1909-1916, and thus had a fundamental part to play in our story. The crisis would bear witness to the collapse of his life's work, as he had keenly pursued a policy of reapproachment with Britain on the basis that the naval race between Germany and Britain had wound down by 1914.

Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II, who this project will hopefully rehabilitate a tad in your eyes, is pictured here. As someone who tried to negotiate for peace till the very end, Wilhelm is interesting because for so long he was portrayed as the boogeyman of the era, and even I fell victim to this portrayal in my last special on the July Crisis. Sorry about that Willy.

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Wilhelm's third cousin lived in St Petersburg and was in fact the Tsar on Russia. Tsar Nicolas II was a weakly willed man, but was also a man who loved nationalist rhetoric and hated war; two strangely incompatible traits that would lead to his internal struggle later on to sign the mobilisation order.

Nicolas' Foreign Minister was Sergei Sazonov, the Russian statesman who would later insist on general mobilisation to the approval of Russia's war party, even after Nicolas cancelled it the previous day.

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These Russians met their French counterparts over the course of the summit from 20th-23rd July. Here is pictured Raymond Poincare, France's President and a determinedly bellicose man when it came to the issue of defending the entente's interests. He was, interestingly, from Alsace, born there in 1860, and remembered the invasion of German troops into his homeland for the rest of his life.

Rene Viviani was the French PM, who accompanied Poincare to the summit. A relatively new appointee to the office, Viviani was a pacifist and had to be persuaded regularly by Poincare of the need for the Russian alliance. He would become a determined supporter of the bellicose French course, much to Poincare's undoubted happiness.

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A British statesmen who must receive a mention was Sir Edward Grey, the thoroughly pre-occupied British foreign secretary during the July Crisis. Consistently behind on events and distracted by Ireland, one could make a case for Grey's unawareness of how bad things on the continent really were in 1914. His bias towards the entente is obvious when one notes how willing he was to believe the Franco-Russian picture of events, which was doctored to suit the entente's need to have a Britain that was on side with them. His battle to convince his government of the need to intervene would not be won by the time Germany invaded Belgium, and because of that German act the whole process became far easier to attain.

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After listing the folks responsible, the time has now come to list the sources I used. I of course cannot account for everything, and certainly used some accounts more than others, but the vast majority of what I used is listed here. Note in particular Christopher Clark's book the Sleepwalkers, and Sean McMeekin's book July 1914. Both were stellar works and helped me greatly; should you happen to own these books you'll likely notice that I drew upon their arguments and conclusions considerably for my project. I am indebted to them for their hard work, and I would highly recommend you check them out.

• Sean McMeekin, July 1914. 2013.
• Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914. 2012.
• Geoffrey Wawro, A Mad Catastrophe: the outbreak of world war 1 and the collapse of the Habsburg Empire. 2014.
• James Joll & Gordon Martel, The Origins of the First World War. 2013.
• Roderick McLean, Royalty and Diplomacy in Europe 1890-1914. 2007.
• Richard Ned Lebow, Forbidden Fruit: Counterfactuals and International Relations. 2010.
• Thomas Otte, July Crisis, the world's descent into war, Summer 1914. 2014.
• Dale Copeland, The Origins of Major War. 2001.
• Brian Higgins, Historians and the July Crisis of 1914: An Historiography of the Origins of the First World War. 1987.
• Richard F. Hamilton, Holger H. Herwig, Decisions for War, 1914-1917. 2004.
• William Mulligan, The Origins of the First World War. 2010.
• Daniel Allen Butler, Burden of Guilt: How Germany Shattered the Last Days of Peace, Summer 1914. 2010.
• Winston Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918. 1930 (republished since).

Thankssssssssssssss for reading and listening!

WDF: The End of the Thirty Years War

We've worked very hard to get all the way here, and I'm so proud to have had you here with me!

How do I even summarise how I'm feeling? How do I even go out with the kind of bang that justifies this era? I think it's fair to say that I really can't, because I will always be my biggest critic and I'll always remember something later on that I could or should have said instead or as well, or that would have been a better way to end the special.

We can run down the final events of what happened one last time though, and provide you guys with some handy photos and a full bibliography for those of you interested in locating my sources.

Maximilian of Bavaria provides us with one of the most interesting characters and story arcs of the war.

Maximilian of Bavaria of course deserves special mention, since his declaration of peace in March and then his return to the war in the September of 1647 effectively elongate the war and ensure that France and Sweden were forced to really crush the Imperials yet again for the message to be sent home. When they did this in the battle of Zusmarshausen in May 1648 it left the Habsburg-Bavarian alliance in tatters and with even less options that before. As Mazarin likely whispered something along the lines of 'I told you so' to his Bavarian enemy, Sweden continued its march into the Empire proper, and entered Bohemia to begin their final siege of Prague. The Swedish high command planned a total conquest of the Habsburg hereditary lands, so as to force Ferdinand III to make peace and grant concessions at Westphalia. France was eager to see this also, since it would have meant more pressure on Spain. The pressure proved too great; Ferdinand couldn't face another loss of such magnitude, and he elected to abandon his Habsburg Spanish brethren rather than continue the war in the face of hopeless odds. With the signing of the articles that formed the Treaty of Osnabruck, Ferdinand had extricated the HRE from conflict with France and Sweden, as well as resolving the remaining issues that kept the continent at war.

The treaty of Munster signed in January between the Dutch and Spanish was ratified in the final articles of the peace in October 1648. It meant that the French and Spanish were still at war, but that the rest of the continent could breath a sigh of relief at last.

Mazarin was likely a tad relieved to see the war with the Emperor concluded, because earlier in 1648 the Spanish had managed to make peace with their eternal enemy of the Dutch Republic, which for a time left the French alone against both Habsburg lines. However, the pressure exerted by success in the field made any positive results of this negligible, since the Emperor was overcome with the need to save himself rather than save Spain. In other words, France had been saved from a prolonged conflict with the Habsburg families largely because of events occurring within the HRE, events like the siege of Prague which, much like other French fortunes, tended to rely on Swedish actions. One could thus claim that France had been saved from a 2 on 1 assault by Sweden, though it is debatable whether the war would have been allowed to end by either the Swedes or French if it meant the French would be going it alone.

By signing on the dotted line the treaties of Munster and Osnabruck, Prague was saved from Swedish possession once word got out that the empire was now at peace. Wrangel, in charge of the army, withdrew, likely saving the citizens from the expected fall of the city, as the Swedes were within the bowels of it when word came. Here is a painting of the battle of Charles bridge, which was charged by the Swedes numerous times and held by the Prague citizens against all hope.

Issues that remained a tad controversial included those revolving around Pomerania; only to be solved in 1653 with the Treaty of Stettin, and the Palatinate, which Bavaria wanted to occupy in full, but which had been changed to a dual occupation with the creation of a new electoral seat for the Palatine family. All in all though, it was a dramatic conclusion, because the war was ended and the internal problems of the Holy Roman Empire were over. There was mass celebration, especially within the Dutch Republic and in parts of Germany that hadn't been without conflict for three decades. People who had only known war, suffering, scarcity and chaos were now assured of peace and a more certain future. It had been achieved by the pen at the two Westphalian cities of Osnabruck and Munster, and it would provide history with a handy linchpin of 'this point religious issues, after this point stately issues'. The desire to make this transition rested on the statesmen who believed in a new order that revolved around sovereignty and neorealism; a serious change from the Reformation driven policies of Europe of the past 100 plus years.

Here's another image of Pomerania, this one showing how it was partitioned between Brandenburg and Sweden with the 1653 Treaty of Stettin.

The celebrations in Amsterdam at the news of the Peace of Munster, signed in January and ratified in May, 1648, were something to be behold. Apparently they involved a level of posing (looking at you, guy in the middle-front) that would put even folks of today to shame.

It was the execution of the Counts Egmont and Hoorne, at the time nobles loyal to Spain, that began the Dutch Revolt. Thus the Dutch planned their ceremonies that formalised the end of hostilies with Spain to coincide with the 80th anniversary of their deaths. The above statue, standing in Brussles, is a reminder of their sacrifice for Dutch independence, though it ironically stands in what was once the Spanish Netherlands.

The peace did not continue between Spain and France; their war would not end until the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659. The Empire in the meantime would be centralised along Ferdinand III's ideals; he would take the hereditary lands effectively transforming the region in a state, which would then last until the early 20th century and evolve into the Austria we know today.

The HRE at 1648. Note the growth of Habsburg lands, the presence of the Spanish satellites and the incredible amount of microstates.

Without my sources I'd just be the enthusiastic podder without any proof. So thanks to any historic author who has supplied me with legitimacy. I hope that my coverage of events has done your book justice. What follows is the complete bibliography of my Thirty Years War Special. Any one interested in tracking down the sources I used can find them here, and if you have any other q's be sure to let me know!

Until we meet again history friends, thanks so much for your encouragement and support, be it monetary or morale, and I will be seeing you all (surprisingly) soon!

Thanksssss

Complete bibliography of sources used/cited/referenced during thirty years war special:

• ·         Peter Padfield, Armada (Victor Gollancz LTD; 1988).
• ·         Vincent J. Pitts, Henri IV of France: His Reign and Age (JHU Press; 2012).
• ·         Geoffrey Parker, Europe in Crisis 1598-1648 (Fontanna Press; 1990).
• ·         Geoffrey Parker, The Thirty Years War (Routledge, 1984).
• ·         Edward Barton and Edwin Pears, “The Spanish Armada and the Ottoman Porte”, The English Historical Review, Vol. 8, No. 31 (Jul., 1993), pp. 439-466.
• ·         Matthew Dimmock, New Turks: Dramatizing Islam and the Ottomans in Early Modern England (Ashgate Publishing; 2005).
• ·         Hiram Morgan, Tyrone's Rebellion: The Outbreak of the Nine Years War in Tudor Ireland (Boydell Press; 1999).
• ·         Brendan Fitzpatrick, Seventeenth-century Ireland: The War of Religions (Rowman and Littlefield; 1989).
• ·         Richard Bonney, The Thirty Years War 1618-1648 (Osprey Publishing; 2002).
• ·         Mieczysław B. Biskupski, The History of Poland (Greenwood Publishing Group; 2000).
• ·         Brennan Purcell, The Winter King (Ashgate Publishing Company, 2003).
• ·         William P. Guthrie, The Later Thirty Years War: From the Battle of Wittstock to the Treaty of Westphalia (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003).
• ·         Paul Sonnino, Mazarin's Quest: The Congress of Westphalia and the Coming of the Fronde (Harvard University Press, 2009).
• ·         David Maland, Europe at War 1600-1650 (Macmillan Press Ltd, 1980).
• ·         Derek Croxton, Peacemaking in Early Modern Europe (Associated University Presses Inc, 1999).
• ·         Charles W. Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618–1815 (Cambridge University Press, 2000).
• ·         Ekaterina Porshnev, Muscovy and Sweden in the Thirty Years’ War 1630-1635 (Cambridge University Press, 1995).
• ·         Geoff Mortimer, Wallenstein: the Enigma of the Thirty Years War (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
• ·         Georges Pages, The Thirty Years War 1618-1648 (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1970),
• ·         C.V. Wedgewood, The Thirty Years War (London: Pimlico, 1992).
• ·         J.H. Elliot, Imperial Spain 1469-1716 (Penguin, 2002).
• ·         J.H. Elliot, The Revolt of the Catalans (Cambridge University Press, 1984).
• ·         J.H. Elliot, Spain and its World 1500-1700 (Penguin, 1989).
• ·         James Patrick, Renaissance and Reformation, Volume 6 (Marshall Cavendish, 2007).
• ·         Peter H. Wilson, Europe’s Tragedy: a History of the Thirty Years War (Penguin Books Ltd, 2009).
• ·         Ronald Asch, The Thirty Years War, the Holy Roman Empire and Europe, 1618-1648 (Macmillan Press Ltd, 1997).

1644-46; Actions, Reactions and Distractions

HI all, before I begin the latest script writing for what'll be the final (can't believe I'm saying that) episodic batch on the TYW, I'd like to backtrack a bit and remind us of what we saw in the last two episodes. The Rhine is featured heavily, as were the two cities of Osnabruck and Munster in Westphalia. Plenipotentiaries also made numerous appearances. Torstensson pwnd Denmark and then  turned south to pwn the Habsburgs, and yet France remained a tad strained and inefficient along the Rhine frontier.

Lennart Torstensson was Sweden's greatest asset in the closing years of the Thirty Years War. Not only did he command the love and loyalty of his troops, but his reputation for victory enabled Sweden to maintain the level of reparations that they had always sought from the post-war settlement.

The struggles that first Turenne and then Condé had to endure were frequently referred to. It really did sound that a really frustrating time; neither Bavaria nor France had enough resources to really be fighting each other; Bavaria because it was exhausted and France because it was so preoccupied elsewhere.  Catalonia and Flanders decimated Spain's ability to mount an effective military offensive after 1642, yet it also ensured France was permanantly entrenched in these areas. Just like the Dutch would expend countless monies in Brazil, ultimately to lose it, the goal was not really to hold onto the region (at least in the case of the whole of Catalonia, Flanders was a different animal altogether) but to bleed one's enemy white as they scrambled to reclaim the area. The Dutch would use this strategy perfectly in their war against the Portuguese, who despite splitting from Spain remained at war with the Republic for another few decades. The fighting mainly involved Portugal trying to claw back what it had lost, while the Dutch fighting a withdrawing battle across the South American country.

Franz von Mercy was Bavaria's saviour along the Rhine until his death in August 1645

Louis, the Prince of Condé, or the Grand Condé as he's also known, had a family history of being pretty darn important in France. His father was one of Henry IV's greatest allies too!

Undoubtedly Franz von Mercy was someone Maximilian of Bavaria relied upon as the crucial link holding Bavaria's fortunes together. As we saw, Ferdinand III's reliance on Max was because of Spain's own weakness; the Austrian Habsburgs could no longer count the Spanish Habsburgs as their greatest military ally in Europe. But Ferdinand's increased reliance on Bavaria was too little too late. Despite von Mercy's skills, he was merely stemming the tide, but Bavaria could not hold back France alone. Ferdinand's wasting of Gallas' army in the Danish debacle and the seemingly reckless way in which he threw his last remaining forces at the French while Torstensson lay on the Danube show that Ferdy was on his very last legs too. These Imperial acts were the last gaps of a doomed war effort on the verge of being overcome by superior resources and exhaustion. What mattered was not total victory though, it was the degree to which you could apply your battlefield successes into the negotiations taking place in the Westphalian cities.

Lorraine was owned by Duke Charles IV. His policies have been seen by some as France's most frustrating experience of the TYW.

Alsace was a critical region for France, and its control over it was borne out of its strategic necessity along the Rhine. French ownership of it came as a result of numerous treaties, which were held up in Westphalia as guaranteeing French rights to the region.

Franche-Comté was a Spanish critical for the maintenance of the Spanish Road, and its loss to France by 1645 was a testament to the dire nature of Spain's position by that year.

French occupation of the Rhine region also had dramatic implications for Spanish planning because the Spanish Road had once ran through all three of the above provinces that were now mostly in French hands. Spanish Netherlands was now totally cut off on land, and without the opportunity to resupply the soldiers in Flanders were in an almost impossible position.

This long overdue and very detailed map of the Rhine should hopefully clear up issues for those unfamiliar with European geography.

But it wasn't just the French thrusts into Bavaria that made headlines. Torstensson's forays into Denmark had ended by late 1644 and he was coming home in a big way. First he eliminated what remained of Gallas' forces and then focused his attention on the Empire proper. By 5th March 1645 Torstensson destroyed what remained of the Habsburgs' military integrity in the Holy Roman Empire. After this battle there simply wasn't a force in place adequate to combat the Habsburgs' enemies, and the allies of the Habsburgs would soon realise this.
In the battle of Mergentheim the following May though, French forces were again bloodied by Franz von Mercy as they attempted to follow up on their ally's successes in the Empire. The French failures were translated in Max of Bavaria's hilarious backtracking on his offers towards the French plennies at the two cities, which as we saw last time at one stage included France taking Bavaria under its protection. France soon regained what it had lost though. The battering of both sides at the Second Battle of Nordlingen in August spelled the end of Bavarian fortunes because von Mercy died on the field. His death meant that Max no longer had, not only the forces, but also the mind to control them. As French forces took Nordlingen, he was informed of Ferdinand's plan to send essentially the homeguard of the Habsburg heartlands on a daring dash across to the French position, to take the region back and relieve the pressure. It was daring not only because Ferdy was sending out his last line of defense, but also because Torstensson lay on the Danube apparently in reach of Vienna.

Yet the strike on Vienna would not come. Cardinal Jules Mazarin suspected foul play, and rumours began to emerge that the Swedes had been bought out. Yet the simple fact was that the Swedes, like the French, were human, and were using the siege of Brno as much to rest up as they were to take it from the Habsburgs. The fact that they were able to swing towards the French and remove them from the field yet again, sending them running back to Philipsburg, must have been immensely frustrating to Mazarin, because just when it seemed like France was on the verge of the kind of supremacy enjoyed by Sweden, it lost an important battle and thus lost ground at the bargaining table. As if seeking to blame someone else for the sting felt by their own inconsistency, French statesmen began loudly claiming Swedish foul play, yet Mazarin eventually put the kibosh on these rumours, which only gained so much ground in the first place because, as we saw, the French thought the Swedes were angry at them anyway for their secret Bavarian dealings. The fact is that they were, but Axe Ox was not so annoyed that he was simultaneously stupid; he knew Sweden had gained immeasurably since the French entry onto his side, he wasn't about to ruin the partnership now.

Mazarin was Richelieu's successor in every sense. His handle on Foreign Policy meant that even through the inconsistent military times, the French target remained in view, and that when negotiations came to a head he was ready to strike the best deal for his adopted homeland.

Nothing at the beginning of 1646 appeared certain, yet there was the certainty that Europe could not continue in its current state of war for much longer. The French nobility expected (accurately as it turned out) rebellion within the year, and the Swedes and Dutch all appeared to have their own agendas at the conference table that had to be made compatible with France so as to ensure the continuation of the working triple alliance. The Habsburgs were holding on, but at this stage it remained the goal of Ferdinand to acquire the best deal possible, with his trusty negotiator Trautmasdorff present in the two cities, while having to lose as little as possible. As we saw though, with the newly resurgent Ottoman threat, the loss of Saxony and the slow withdrawal of Bavaria, Ferdinand had begun to realise that in order to save his Empire, he must lose it first.

We'll see how all involved get involved next time, in episodes 25.96 and .98, due soon!

Thankssssss for reading!