War And Society In Europe Of The Old Regime 1618 1789

The Thirty Years War was the central political and military encounter of the seventeenth century. It drew in virtually all of Europe, with the exception of England, and by 1650 no European country had entirely escaped the experience of violent conflict. Since the end of the Second World War historians in western and eastern Europe have been engaged in the task of reassuring the significance of the seventeenth century in general and the Thirty Years War in particular. They have formulated questions and attempted to answer them by using fresh sources. One especially rich depository is the archival system of Czechoslovakia. The seventeenth-century generals and diplomats of the Imperial side preserved masses of papers which usually found their way into family archives, many of them housed on Bohemian and Moravian landed estates. With the transfer of private archives into public hands after 1945, much new material became available to scholars. This volume surveys the process of historical rethinking and revision.

This book provides a detailed account of how war and military culture affected pre-revolutionary Europe, and how the rise of nationalism and people's armies prepared the way for the dawning of a new age.

Explore the epic conflict and contrasting leadership styles of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and Albrecht von Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland, two titanic figures in the Thirty Years War whose strategic brilliance and dramatic deaths shaped the course of modern warfare, analyzed in vivid detail by the author. The conflict, personal rivalry and contrast in personality, generalship and command, between the two iconic commanders in the Thirty Years War, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden for the Protestant powers, and Albrecht von Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland. More than just commanders at the tactical level they were statesmen, military organizers and strategists on a continental scale. Both commanders represented the 17th-century ‘military revolution in action’. The writing is vivid, graphic and detailed, without overloading, and readers can feel ‘involved’ in the action, from strategic planning to battlefield tactics, and even the melee. Both generals are titanic figures come, and their respective deaths - Gustavus heroically in battle and Wallenstein, murdered with the Emperor’s compliance – were dramatic highpoints in the long war. This is no hagiography, and the author analyses the contrasting reputations of two of the greatest military figures in modern history and analyses mistakes as well their triumphs. Both commanders’ understanding of the role of the modern state and finance as vital factors in the military revolution and modern warfare. A major contrast was Gustavus’s constant search for the tactical and strategic initiative compared to Wallenstein’s caution and patience and development of counter-punch defensive tactics. Exceptional for the period, a young warrior like an ‘Alexander’, Gustavus excelled in inspired battlefield leadership even at huge risk. Despite his death at Lutzen in 1632, he and his steadfast chancellor Oxenstierna, had decisively defeated the Emperor’s attempt to subjugate the Empire and introduce the Catholic counter-reformation. Gustavus contributed hugely to the ending of Habsburg supremacy while advancing new concepts in modern war. His death ushered in his acolytes including generals Baner, Saxe-Weimar and Torstensson. Gustavus or Wallenstein, the greater of the two? The reader must judge but Napoleon included Gustavus in his list of ten greats with Julius Caesar, Hannibal Barca, and Alexander the Great.

War and Society in Early Modern Europe takes a fresh approach to military history. Rather than looking at tactics and strategy, it aims to set warfare in social and institutional contexts. Focusing on the early-modern period in western Europe, Frank Tallett gives an insight into the armies and shows how warfare had an impact on different social groups, as well as on the economy and on patterns of settlement.