18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 35

[cahn]

In the previous post Charles II found AITA:

Look, I, m, believe in live and let live. (And in not going on my travels again. Had enough of that to last a life time.) Why can't everyone else around me be more chill? Instead, my wife refuses to employ my girlfriend, my girlfriend won't budge and accept another office, my brother is set on a course to piss off everyone (he WILL go on his travels again), and my oldest kid shows signs of wanting my job which is just not on, sorry to say. And don't get me started about Mom (thank God she's living abroad). What am I doing wrong? AITA?

Comments

This is not a summary of the Thirty Years' War

[mildred_of_midgard]

I just wanted to say, about halfway through the book, that I'm following the developments better than I would have even eighteen months ago; partly for expected reasons--having read at least *some* relevant 17th century books, like the Winter Queen and all those Schultz bios--but partly for a very unexpected reason: It turns out that if you understand the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Quadruple Alliance, and the Great Northern War, you can keep track of the complex Thirty Years' War almost with ease, because the geopolitical considerations are extremely similar.

Yes, some things have changed, like France is at its peak in 1700 and not so much in 1618, but it still wants the same things: prevent Habsburg encirclement, control the area around Piedmont/Savoy as the key to Italy, "Fuck you, England," (but with complications in both periods), and the like! Sweden: still invading Poland for much the same reasons. Spain: still trying to control Italy. The Dutch: still trying not to get run over by a major Catholic power. Austria: still worried about two-front wars with the Turks and Europe. Everyone else: still trying to get the Turks to go to war, still funding Hungarian uprisings to distract Austria.

Alliances along religious lines: still a thing but still secondary to economic and territorial self-interest for most parties, with cross-confessional alliances the norm. Alliance stability: still not a thing, because hardly anyone is fighting for a cause they believe in, but instead for a combination of their own interests and a balance of power. Control of the Baltic: still key to a surprisingly large number of the players. Sieges at Stralsund: still a thing! Finding enough fodder for your horses and food for your men, and trying to balance not sucking friendly territory dry and committing war crimes with not being able to keep your army solvent: still the SINGLE HARDEST problem.

I approve. This makes my life easier. *g*

ETA: And, of course, who can forget the wrangling over Jülich and Berg, which began just before the Thirty Years' War and was possibly more important than tall guys to FW? Münkler goes into detail on *why* everyone cares so much, which cleared up a lot of things for me and which I may elaborate on this weekend.

Re: This is not a summary of the Thirty Years' War

[selenak]

Finding enough fodder for your horses and food for your men, and trying to balance not sucking friendly territory dry and committing war crimes with not being able to keep your army solvent: still the SINGLE HARDEST problem.

No kidding. In all wars, of course, but since this was was waged mostly across German speaking territory, that‘s, more than any of the other factors, why three decades onwards so little of the population was left, and partly why the various German speaking realms had to catch up with France and England in terms of sociological, artistic and scientific development.

Anyway, I‘m glad the Thirty Years War is now comprehensible to you, and await further comments with great anticipation. Also, Cahn, Schiller wrote a trilogy of plays that‘s really a duology and a short one act prequel about one of the main actors in this war, Wallenstein, which has all the good stuff (torn loyalties, angst, slashy relationships) but alas was not made into an opera, or several operas, by Verdi.

Re: This is not a summary of the Thirty Years' War

[mildred_of_midgard]

In all wars, of course, but since this was was waged mostly across German speaking territory, that‘s, more than any of the other factors, why three decades onwards so little of the population was left, and partly why the various German speaking realms had to catch up with France and England in terms of sociological, artistic and scientific development.

Yeah, Münkler opens his book by talking about the German narrative of "Thirty Years' War-induced trauma" and how it intersected with the "Sonderweg thesis" (link for cahn) narrative that Germany developed along a unique path because it lagged in various ways behind countries like France and England, and how these narratives evolved over time and shaped the self-image, historiography, and foreign policy of Germany.

TL;DR for cahn: these narratives underwent many iterations and were espoused in different ways by different people, naturally, but one striking one is that it turns out if you're a 19th-early 20th century German expansionist, it's not hard to come up with or buy into a narrative that goes "Germany was victimized by everyone else in the Thirty Years' War," ergo "We didn't develop as quickly as everyone else," ergo "It's our neighbors' fault that we're not better off," ergo "They OWE us!" but also "Don't forget having wars fought on German territory is THE WORST, as the Thirty Years' War teaches us," ergo "Wars must be carried out on other people's territory, but also finished quickly with decisive battles, so they don't last thirty years and come back to bite us," ergo "INVADE! Blitzkrieg!"

Re Jülich and Berg: So, in the last three years of salon, I've always been wondering *why* people cared so very, very much about these little principalities that I'd never even heard of, so much so that it's even the reason why Hohenzollerns became Calvinist when their country was Lutheran.

Münkler explains that they were one of the most prosperous areas of Germany, and whoever owned them could expect a lot of profit (remember, cahn, that this was also true of Silesia).

Plus they were in key positions along the lower Rhine, so the ability to impose tolls on or even block river traffic passing through, and controlling crossings of the Rhine (always important for armies), meant that whoever owned this area could be a major power player in the politics of northwestern Germany.

All of which makes sense of why they mattered to generations of Hohenzollerns, especially if your principality, aka Brandenburg, is known as the "sandbox of Germany." (Admittedly, I am told that a certain amount of Hohenzollern propaganda was at work in that reputation, downplaying the resources they actually controlled.) See, no one ever told me before this how prosperous Jülich and Berg were in proportion to their rather small size.

Speaking of which, one other thing that makes this book comprehensible despite its paucity of maps, is the last three years I spent staring at Google maps, and also becoming familiar with old-fashioned German placenames of Polish and Czech towns. It's paying off, in that I can now follow along in my head with the campaigns without visuals. I have to say that represents a real victory of salon, because your average American has no idea where, say, the Oder is, much less Marienwerder (today Kwidzyn, Poland)--I certainly didn't!--and Münkler sure as heck isn't going to show you.

Re: This is not a summary of the Thirty Years' War

[cahn]

Ohhhh, okay, this is very interesting thank you for the link and the TL;DR :)

Re: This is not a summary of the Thirty Years' War

[cahn]

Oooooh! I looked these up and they are all available in presumably dreadful English translation, but I might be able to live with that... :)

Peter Hagendorf and tragedy

[mildred_of_midgard]

A while back, selenak mentioned that she learned from the Thirty Years' War documentary "Die Eiserne Zeit" that a soldier named Peter Hagendorf, one of the rare literate soldiers, kept a diary throughout the war.

Well, Münkler uses his diary extensively as a source, and I had to share this passage, because it reminded me so much of another -dorf, our Lehndorff, and what he went through (Google translated to spare me the time):

Of course, not everyone accepted the great death as stoically as the mercenary Hagendorf, who had to experience great suffering himself. When he is ordered from Freising to Straubing, his wife, who has just given birth, follows him. “But her child died on the way, and she also died a few days later in the hospital in Munich. May God grant her a joyful resurrection with the child and all her children [who previously died soon after birth], amen. Because in the eternal blessed life we ​​want to see each other again. So now my wife is asleep with her children." This entry from 1633 was followed two years later, after Hagendorf had remarried, by another death note: «On November 11 my wife recovered from childbirth. Was baptized right away. His name was Jürg Martin, lived 24 hours. God give him a happy resurrection." In the year 1640: «My wife recovered from a young son on February 18th. Was called Quirinus, lived 6 days and died. May God grant him a happy resurrection." And the following year: «On April 9th, my wife recovered from a young daughter. Was baptized here in Tirschenreuth, is in the Upper Palatinate in the Bohemian Forest. Her name is Barbara. May God grant her long life." But then: “On May 9, 1641, my daughter died in Ingolstadt. May the good Lord grant her a happy resurrection." A few years later: "At Pappenheim, my wife recovered from a young daughter, November 3, 1645. May God grant her a long life." And the next year: “My little daughter died on August 22nd. Margareta. May God grant her a happy resurrection."

At least, when the war ended, Hagendorf and his second wife had a six-year-old son and a one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Melchert Christoff and Anna Maria by name. The two surviving children, about whose further fate we know nothing because Hagendorf's records break off soon after the end of the war, are opposed to eight children who died during the war. Now, infant mortality was high in the 17th century, and the deaths of the eight children were not directly related to the war; indirectly, however, because life in the baggage train, the epidemics and diseases rampant there, and the constant moving on significantly increased the usual infant mortality rate. According to the records, Hagendorf accepted it calmly, and just as he associated the birth of a child with the wish for a long life, so he associated death with the wish for a “happy resurrection”. Throughout the years of war, his belief in God and the afterlife remained at least formulaic for him.

:-(

On a more cheerful note, that documentary *does* look good, Selena, and though it's not officially available to me in the US, at least the first couple episodes are on YouTube. I'll probably fork over for the DVD and *cough* make it work once the time comes for serious listening practice. But given that it took me ~20 minutes to get through the trailer and first 2 minutes of the first episode, this is good enough for non-serious practice. Thanks for the rec!

Re: Peter Hagendorf and tragedy

[cahn]

Arrrrgh, you could not pay me enough to live in the past!! :(