You're the best battle explainer! I'm so bad at it, I usually just wave my hands and mutter something about who won.
re: Wittelsbachs, they also did produce one notable Emperor in the Middle Ages, Ludwig the Bavarian, who ruled in the time the novel (and film) "The Name of the Rose" is set. Like many a medieval Emperor, he clashed with the Pope. Negotiations between his representatives and the papal representatives are why the monastery "The Name of the Rose" is set at is packed with clerical VIPs. (Our detective hero William of Baskerville, btw, is on the Wittelsbach Emperor's side.)
Bavaria teaming up with France was a thing throughout the 18th century; as Mildred notes, this resulted in MT's rival getting crowned early on only to lose Bavaria to Austrian troops before the coronation in Frankfurt was finished. His son Maximilian (Max is a very Southern German name, which is why it shows up in as many Wittelsbach rulers as "Friedrich" and "Wilhelm" does in Hohenzollerns, but also occasionally with the Habsburgs) was the one who promised MT to let go of the Wittelsbach attempts to be Emperor if he can get Bavaria back. But that wasn't the end of the France/Bavaria team-ups. It became a thing again when Napoleon happened. Which is how the Dukedom of Bavaria ended up as the Kingdom of Bavaria (which it remained until 1918), with some neat territorial gains (including my home province of Franconia) when Napoleon officially dissolved the HRE and redrew the map of the German principalities. And a new secular constitution. And no Bonaparte as King as but the previous Wittelsbach Duke (though his daughter married Eugene Beauharnais, Napoleon's step son).
As Mildred said, Bavaria is literally next door to Austria (the Austrian border is just an hour away from where I live, for example), which makes it obvious why the French when fighting the Habsburgs kept teaming up with the Wittelsbachs. The downside of teaming up with Napoleon, btw, came years later when a great many Bavarians died as allies of France in Russia in the infamous Russian winter. After which the King of Bavaria changed sides basically at the last minute which enabled him to sit at the victors' table after Napeoleon's defeat instead of losing his shiny new Kingdom (with territorial gains) and title.
So harmonious and unselfish was their [Eugene and Marlborough's] co-operation that popular medals were struck depicting them as Castor and Pollux.
Horowski also points out they were the military international bromance of the 18th Century, despite being very different men. Re: what was more the norm - remember how the 7 Years War, the first Miracle of the House of Brandenburg happened because after soundly defeating Fritz at Kunersdorf, the anti-Fritz-Alliance didn't march onto Berlin? One explanation for this were hierarchical arguments in the international leadership. On the other side, G2's son Bill the Butcher before failing ignomiously early in the 7 Years War also kept arguing with both his Hannover and his Prussian allies. Marborough and Eugene forming a dream team really was the absolute exception to the rule when it came to big name generals from different realms working together.
ETA: Controversial architectural style has been controversial throughout the ages. Tastes are divided on the matter. I leave you to form your own opinions. :
For the record, this is a very English thing, because the Baroque style never caught on in England; this palace is its one big example. Whereas in Germany, where every big and little prince wanted to have their very own mini Versailles in the late 17th and throughout the 18th century, the Baroque style for palaces is the norm, so most palaces are in that style, and when I first saw it, I didn't immediately get what was supposed to be unusual about it stylistically. Well, other than the tributes to Marlborough himself in the design, for:
This view of the Duke as an omnipotent being is also reflected in the interior design of the palace, and indeed its axis to certain features in the park. It was planned that when the Duke dined in state in his place of honour in the great saloon, he would be the climax of a great procession of architectural mass aggrandising him rather like a proscenium. The line of celebration and honour of his victorious life began with the great column of victory surmounted by his statue and detailing his triumphs, and the next point on the great axis, planted with trees in the position of troops, was the epic Roman style bridge. The approach continues through the great portico into the hall, its ceiling painted by James Thornhill with the Duke's apotheosis, then on under a great triumphal arch, through the huge marble door-case with the Duke's marble effigy above it (bearing the ducal plaudit "Nor could Augustus better calm mankind"), and into the painted saloon, the most highly decorated room in the palace, where the Duke was to have sat enthroned.
The Duke was to have sat with his back to the great 30-tonne marble bust of his vanquished foe Louis XIV, positioned high above the south portico. Here the defeated King was humiliatingly forced to look down on the great parterre and spoils of his conqueror (rather in the same way as severed heads were displayed generations earlier). The Duke did not live long enough to see this majestic tribute realised, and sit enthroned in this architectural vision. The Duke and Duchess moved into their apartments on the eastern side of the palace, but the entirety was not completed until after the Duke's death.
Given that Louis never visited England and Versailles kept being imitated all across the continent, I'm not sure the intended humiliation was ever felt in France, but hey.
Another thing: by the end of the 19th century Blenheim was pretty run down, until the current Duke of Marlborough in 1895 married American heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt and with her money restored its current splendor. In fact, this was the main purpose of the marriage. To quote wiki again:
In November 1896 he coldly and openly without love married the American railroad heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt. The marriage was celebrated following lengthy negotiations with her divorced parents: her mother, Alva Vanderbilt, was desperate to see her daughter a duchess, and the bride's father, William Vanderbilt, paid for the privilege. The final price was $2,500,000 ($77.8 million today) in 50,000 shares of the capital stock of the Beech Creek Railway Company with a minimum 4% dividend guaranteed by the New York Central Railroad Company. The couple were given a further annual income each of $100,000 for life. The bride later claimed she had been locked in her room until she agreed to the marriage. The contract was actually signed in the vestry of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, New York, immediately after the wedding vows had been made. In the carriage leaving the church, Marlborough told Consuelo he loved another woman, and would never return to America, as he "despised anything that was not British".
Which is another reason why Shaw in his Charles/James conversation about John "Jack" Churchill includes that dig about the Churchills and their meanness.
Re: War of the Spanish Succession: Blenheim
You're the best battle explainer! I'm so bad at it, I usually just wave my hands and mutter something about who won.
re: Wittelsbachs, they also did produce one notable Emperor in the Middle Ages, Ludwig the Bavarian, who ruled in the time the novel (and film) "The Name of the Rose" is set. Like many a medieval Emperor, he clashed with the Pope. Negotiations between his representatives and the papal representatives are why the monastery "The Name of the Rose" is set at is packed with clerical VIPs. (Our detective hero William of Baskerville, btw, is on the Wittelsbach Emperor's side.)
Bavaria teaming up with France was a thing throughout the 18th century; as Mildred notes, this resulted in MT's rival getting crowned early on only to lose Bavaria to Austrian troops before the coronation in Frankfurt was finished. His son Maximilian (Max is a very Southern German name, which is why it shows up in as many Wittelsbach rulers as "Friedrich" and "Wilhelm" does in Hohenzollerns, but also occasionally with the Habsburgs) was the one who promised MT to let go of the Wittelsbach attempts to be Emperor if he can get Bavaria back. But that wasn't the end of the France/Bavaria team-ups. It became a thing again when Napoleon happened. Which is how the Dukedom of Bavaria ended up as the Kingdom of Bavaria (which it remained until 1918), with some neat territorial gains (including my home province of Franconia) when Napoleon officially dissolved the HRE and redrew the map of the German principalities. And a new secular constitution. And no Bonaparte as King as but the previous Wittelsbach Duke (though his daughter married Eugene Beauharnais, Napoleon's step son).
As Mildred said, Bavaria is literally next door to Austria (the Austrian border is just an hour away from where I live, for example), which makes it obvious why the French when fighting the Habsburgs kept teaming up with the Wittelsbachs. The downside of teaming up with Napoleon, btw, came years later when a great many Bavarians died as allies of France in Russia in the infamous Russian winter. After which the King of Bavaria changed sides basically at the last minute which enabled him to sit at the victors' table after Napeoleon's defeat instead of losing his shiny new Kingdom (with territorial gains) and title.
So harmonious and unselfish was their [Eugene and Marlborough's] co-operation that popular medals were struck depicting them as Castor and Pollux.
Horowski also points out they were the military international bromance of the 18th Century, despite being very different men. Re: what was more the norm - remember how the 7 Years War, the first Miracle of the House of Brandenburg happened because after soundly defeating Fritz at Kunersdorf, the anti-Fritz-Alliance didn't march onto Berlin? One explanation for this were hierarchical arguments in the international leadership. On the other side, G2's son Bill the Butcher before failing ignomiously early in the 7 Years War also kept arguing with both his Hannover and his Prussian allies. Marborough and Eugene forming a dream team really was the absolute exception to the rule when it came to big name generals from different realms working together.
ETA: Controversial architectural style has been controversial throughout the ages. Tastes are divided on the matter. I leave you to form your own opinions. :
For the record, this is a very English thing, because the Baroque style never caught on in England; this palace is its one big example. Whereas in Germany, where every big and little prince wanted to have their very own mini Versailles in the late 17th and throughout the 18th century, the Baroque style for palaces is the norm, so most palaces are in that style, and when I first saw it, I didn't immediately get what was supposed to be unusual about it stylistically. Well, other than the tributes to Marlborough himself in the design, for:
This view of the Duke as an omnipotent being is also reflected in the interior design of the palace, and indeed its axis to certain features in the park. It was planned that when the Duke dined in state in his place of honour in the great saloon, he would be the climax of a great procession of architectural mass aggrandising him rather like a proscenium. The line of celebration and honour of his victorious life began with the great column of victory surmounted by his statue and detailing his triumphs, and the next point on the great axis, planted with trees in the position of troops, was the epic Roman style bridge. The approach continues through the great portico into the hall, its ceiling painted by James Thornhill with the Duke's apotheosis, then on under a great triumphal arch, through the huge marble door-case with the Duke's marble effigy above it (bearing the ducal plaudit "Nor could Augustus better calm mankind"), and into the painted saloon, the most highly decorated room in the palace, where the Duke was to have sat enthroned.
The Duke was to have sat with his back to the great 30-tonne marble bust of his vanquished foe Louis XIV, positioned high above the south portico. Here the defeated King was humiliatingly forced to look down on the great parterre and spoils of his conqueror (rather in the same way as severed heads were displayed generations earlier). The Duke did not live long enough to see this majestic tribute realised, and sit enthroned in this architectural vision. The Duke and Duchess moved into their apartments on the eastern side of the palace, but the entirety was not completed until after the Duke's death.
Given that Louis never visited England and Versailles kept being imitated all across the continent, I'm not sure the intended humiliation was ever felt in France, but hey.
Another thing: by the end of the 19th century Blenheim was pretty run down, until the current Duke of Marlborough in 1895 married American heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt and with her money restored its current splendor. In fact, this was the main purpose of the marriage. To quote wiki again:
In November 1896 he coldly and openly without love married the American railroad heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt. The marriage was celebrated following lengthy negotiations with her divorced parents: her mother, Alva Vanderbilt, was desperate to see her daughter a duchess, and the bride's father, William Vanderbilt, paid for the privilege. The final price was $2,500,000 ($77.8 million today) in 50,000 shares of the capital stock of the Beech Creek Railway Company with a minimum 4% dividend guaranteed by the New York Central Railroad Company. The couple were given a further annual income each of $100,000 for life. The bride later claimed she had been locked in her room until she agreed to the marriage. The contract was actually signed in the vestry of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, New York, immediately after the wedding vows had been made. In the carriage leaving the church, Marlborough told Consuelo he loved another woman, and would never return to America, as he "despised anything that was not British".
Which is another reason why Shaw in his Charles/James conversation about John "Jack" Churchill includes that dig about the Churchills and their meanness.