| which warfare style/ period was 'more bloody' |
| medieval |
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18% |
[ 8 ] |
| renaissance/ early modern warfare. |
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81% |
[ 35 ] |
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| Total Votes : 43 |
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Daniel Staberg
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 Posted: Sun 15 Jul, 2012 5:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | Daniel I'm not sure where you are getting your information, but it doesn't match my sources.
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I get my information from extensive studies of the 2nd Northern war published by Swedish, Polish, German and Danish historians. For an overview of the operational movements of the armies "Wojna polsko-szwedska 1655-1660" which was edited and partly written by Prof. Jan Wimmer is essential, Danish historian Finn Askgaard covered the naval warfare in his "Kampen om Östersjön" while Arne Stade, Lars Tersmeden and Jonas Heberg covered various aspects of the Swedish war effort. For example Heberg wrote devoted a volume of his extensive history of the Swedish artillery to the campaigns of Karl X Gustav.
| Jean Henri Chandler wrote: |
Which seem to imply that not only the Swedish Army, but Carl himself were directly involved with Danzig and hoping to capture it.
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Well it certainly implies that but the writer of the historyofwar.org page makes a lot of error. He clearly does not fully understand the geography of Prussia which at the time was divided into two parts, Royal Prussia in the west and Ducal in the east which was ruled by the Elector of Brandenburg. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons..._Ducal.png
On top of that the narrative includes both operations which the Swedes intended to carry out but never did while leaving out the fact that Karl Gustav was busy with the conquest of the southern Polish provinces.
This the map of the 1655 campaign from the Swedish edition of Wimmers work mentioned earlier
As you can see Swedish troops were busy with just about every part of Poland except the territory around Danzing. Apart from two small scale naval landings defeated by the Danzigers & local troops Swedish troops did not get with in 40 kilometers of Danzig. Karl Gustav was busy chasing first the Poles and then the Elector of Brandenburg and never got closer to Danzing than his campaign in Ducal Prussia. The troops closest to Danzig in the winter of 1655 was the corps of G O Stenbock which did indeed capture Elbing.
Both of these are inaccurate in many parts, hard to see how a city can be besieged when the enemy army is not even with 40 kilometers of it.
| Jean Henri Chandler wrote: |
The wiki on the Northern War further states that when the combined Dutch / Danziger forces lifted the Swedish blockade in 1457, Carl Gustav himself was only 55 miles away at Elbing. They list their source as Frost, Robert I (2004). After the Deluge. Poland-Lithuania and the Second Northern War, 1655-1660. Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-54402-5. |
I have Frost next to me and there is nothing on page 178 which the wiki quotes as a sources about a Swedish blockade of Danzig or Karl Gustav being in Elbing. The Dutch intervention refered to in the wiki links to the treaty of Elbing in 1656 and there was no Dutch fleet in the Baltic in 1657 so the Wiki writer must have gotten the years confused.
In 1656 the Dutch fleet arrived outside Danzig on July 17th, on that date Karl Gustav was with his army at Zakroczym (which is over 330 kilometers away) where he was preparing to fight the battle of Warsaw which began the next day.
| Jean Henri Chandler wrote: |
The people at militaryhistory.org seem confused on this point too then, because they said:
| Quote: | | The international position now began to turn in Poland’s favour. Swedish success worried their neighbours and rivals. The Dutch responded by sending a fleet to break to blockade of Danzig. |
Specifically what the Dutch fleet did was re-open the Danzig harbor, from what I understand. The wiki on the Treaty of Elbing also mentions the Dutch 'intervention'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Elbing
The wiki also agree with my assertion as to the reason for the Dutch intervention here:
| Quote: | | The Dutch Republic heavily relied on grain imports from the Baltic Sea region, much of it was bought from Royal Prussia's chief city Danzig (Gdansk). |
and goes on to mention the exact number of the Dutch land forces, 'forty-two Dutch and nine Danish vessels ...carrying 10,000 soldiers and 2,000 guns.' |
The Dutch & Danes certainly intended to break any Swedish blockade of Danzig which they found, the thing is that they never found one. The main Swedish fleet took a long time to outfit in 1656 and the only ships near Danzing were a squadron of 4 small ships commanded by Strussflycht. He did indeed harass ships sailing to Danzing but he did not have the ships or the firepower to establish a blockade. Danzig's own armed merchants & privateers could have broken his "blockade" any time they were willing to force a confrontation. He had been ordered elsewhere by the time the Dutch arrived hence the lack of confrontation between the Dutch and the Swedes. In effect the blockade had been lifted pending the arrival of the main body of the Swedish fleet.
With the Dutch & Danes on station outside Gdansk the Swedes decided not to risk a war and the issue was settled by negotiating the treaty of Elbing. Wikipedia is basicly accurate but does leave out one important but controversial aspect of the treaty which is that Danzig never fullfiled it's obligation to become a neutral part in the war but rather kept waging war against the Swedes.
The wiki entry is also an interesting example of how information gets distorted as it is translated and quoted, the number of warships & cannon right but the Wiki turns every single man in the joint fleet into "soldiers", the actual strenght of the Dutch fleet was 4787 sailors & naval gunners, 1187 soldiers and 1659 cannon, the nine Danish ships added 1615 sailors & soldiers together about 400 cannon.
"There is nothing more hazardous than to venture a battle. One can lose it
by a thousand unforseen circumstances, even when one has thorougly taken all
precautions that the most perfect military skill allows for."
-Fieldmarshal Lennart Torstensson.
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Jean Henri Chandler
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| Posted: Wed 18 Jul, 2012 3:02 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks I'm well aware of the difference between Ducal and Royal Prussia. My own expertise is on the 15th Century but I'm familiar with all the primary sources and most of the modern academic scholarship on the region for that period including German, Lithuanian, Swedish, and Polish sources.
Given that you are an expert on the Early Modern period, I hope you will entertain a few questions to clarify what you said upthread?
My first question, how far is 40 kilometers in terms of the daily movement of a 17th Century army? One days march? Two days? More? Assuming dry weather of course, I'm aware that overland movement was dicey at certain times of the year in Prussia and Poland.
Second question. When you say that "Nor was there any siege in 1656 for the Dutch to break, the Dutch fleet did not fight the Swedes at all . "
...is this meant to be literally true? Or in a more vague sense, such as that the Dutch did not do much fighting against the Swedes except to clear out a relatively small force in the fortress of Danziger Haupt / Głowa Gdańska at the mouth of the Vistula? If a small force is imposing a blockade and runs away or surrenders when a larger force arrives, I guess you are saying this means there was no actual lifting of the blockade?
When the wiki states: "a combined Danish and Dutch fleet broke the naval blockage imposed on Danzig by Charles X Gustav"
They are incorrect?
When the wiki states; "After 5 years of fighting around Danzig (Gdańsk), the Swedish force which has made little ground surrendered."
They are incorrect?
This book, The 'Mother of All Trades': The Baltic Grain Trade in Amsterdam from the Late 16th to the early 19th Century seems to make the same mistake in saying "Swedish troops blockaded Danzig from the land and from the Sea".
So does this book, The Dutch Army and the Military Revolutions, 1588-1688, which says "The Hague decided to send 42 warships and 1,400 Dutch troops to break through the Swedish blockade"
There seem to be 30 or 40 books which reference this Swedish blockade. Why do you think this apparent myth of a Swedish blockade was so widespread?
Also did Stenbock capture Elbing or merely occupy it after it agreed to open it's gates after seeing the way the wind was blowing in the rest of Poland? Was there any fighting there?
J
Books and games on Medieval Europe Codex Integrum
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William P
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| Posted: Thu 16 Aug, 2012 1:07 am Post subject: |
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| Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | I think the OP is actually somewhat correct, though it would be hard to prove - you'd have to make a whole long series of youtube videos, not that it might not be a worth-while thing to do if you had the time and the patience.
There are a couple of differences between warfare warfare, very generally, in the Medieval period, and in the early modern period.
But before I get into that it's important to make two points.
First it's very dangerous to generalize according to European history. The reality in Spain was different from the reality in England which was different from the reality in Poland and so on.
Second it's dangerous to generalize across such vast time scales, people debate the meaning of the term Medieval, some would take that back all the way to the 6th or 7th Century, others would start after Charlemagne, or the Battle of Hastings, or somewhere else more or less arbitrarily. I've noticed from talking to people in various countries each education system seems to have a different arbitrary cut-off point. Though you narrowed it down a bit, it's still a rather long period of time.
J |
its worth noting that to simplify things im only tackling the areas at the heart of european military revolution that also came about as a result of the renaissance, like the creation of pike and shot armies to match the swiss and also to emulate the roman systems...
so by that i mean italy, england, france the HRE, the low countries, and areas like belgium scandinavia and netherlands plus the iberian countries like spain and portugal
in other words, im thinking about the areas we now call western europe, so this doesnt include russia poland, the balkans, the baltic (although the balkans were, fairly under the thumb of the ottomans)
this is also more relevent because it was these countries particularly the big players like france england spain portugal and later on, the dutch as well, were the ones who also had the biggest impact outside europe (hence the reason why english french spanish and portugese are the most WIDELY spoken languages in the world even if not spoken by the largest number of people.
(after all the portuguese were responsible for almost singlehandedly changing japanese warfare by introducing the matchlock musket. )
also jean, that long post you attatched to these caveats, how well do you think it would serve as a script for a video in its own right?? since it seems to decently cover 'western europe' as a whole.. saying what everyone is doing as the century wears on.
also in the interests of proper source recognition since it was your post how would i best acknowledge that i got the information from you, plus the rest of myArmoury,
i think, as you say multiple vids are needed, ill also be doing one on the decline of the 'knightly cavalry'
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Timo Nieminen
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| Posted: Thu 16 Aug, 2012 1:31 am Post subject: |
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| William P wrote: |
its worth noting that to simplify things im only tackling the areas at the heart of european military revolution that also came about as a result of the renaissance, like the creation of pike and shot armies to match the swiss and also to emulate the roman systems...
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Did the European military "revolution" come about as a result of the Renaissance, or did the Renaissance come about as a result of the military "revolution"? Or neither?
Were pike & shot armies created to match the Swiss? To emulate the Romans? Guns and gunpowder were improving. They had been shown to be effective on the battlefield, pre-Renaissance. So, you want lots of guns. Can't just deploy guns (handguns or cannon) unprotected - what to do? Fight behind fortifications, use wagon-forts, or use pikemen.
To match the Swiss, hire your own Swiss, or make your own Swiss-substitutes (Landsknechts). Pike & shot armies were not like Roman armies, whatever classical pretensions were there due to the Renaissance.
"Why" is a difficult question to answer in something like a short video. The answers are often very complex. This is why books can be better than TV documentaries.
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
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William P
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| Posted: Thu 16 Aug, 2012 4:08 am Post subject: |
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i have a book called 'the renaissance at war' or the wars of the renaissance as part of the book series called 'cassells history of warfare'
http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Re...edir_esc=y
it covers 6 chapters plus an introduction
the intro examines the question regarding the common idea of the 'gunpowder revolution', as its seen in both the popular media and by, say older victorian writers etc. Saying that things didnt happen in a vacuum etc and that the 'military revolution was the result of a number of things at once.
the 6 main chapters of the book are
the new fury- changes in artillery use and fortress design as well as covering changes to seige protocol.
the new legions- covers the topic of the changes to infantry organisation and the rise of the 'pike and shot' model
the new Caesars- the move from the rich and noble people going from being heavy knightly lancers and such to instead forming the ranks of regimental officers and battlefield commanders etc,
cross vs crescent- wars against the ottomans.
dueling kings- the wars between the hapsbergs, valois, tudors etc.
faith against faith- the wars between protestants and catholics.
in regards to your specific question on pike and shot
my understanding is that, regarding the adoption of pike and shot warfare went SOMETHING like this mostly from the book on renaissance warfare i mentioned earlier,
-swiss pikes routinely show how strong they are in the 15th century and are well prized as mercenaries, they are adopted alot by the french.
-the HRE, to counter them, forms the landscknechts the spanish and portuguese also adopt the pike blockk model, i not sure of the story behind that change through, such armies of pike and shot used in the italian wars in battles like pavia..
-at around the same time this is all happening, an obsession with the ancient greeks and romans and looking to them as a way of doing things becomes the fashionable thing to do, (as we all know this is seen a the major source of reason for why the renaissance happened at all but of course its never that simple). and this also makes people look at how the romans and alexander and the successor kingdoms did really well with their system of proffesional, disciplined infantry marching in tight step etc etc.
around the 1540's the french, seeing how well such an army system worked for their opponents, and also not wanting to keep pay through the nose for the swiss mercenaries, AND due to the ideas of copying the romans for ideas, results in the french king ordering the formation of 6 'legions', each 6000 men strong. ( apparently they plucked the number, 6000, straight from the roman sources)
im not too clear on the situation of how the spanish and Portuguese came to use the professional pike and shot model though
later on we have changes to how these blocks are set up and equipped, and eventually the pike is dropped altogether in favor of the bayonet musket in the 18th century.
i would argue overall that to say which caused which is like the chicken and the egg question, and also because arguably one influenced the other at pretty much the same time,
is also say that, while thanks to gunpowder improvements,and the reemergence of infantry showing they are actually a major force to be reckoned with, such as the swiss, the english longbows, the scottish schiltrons etc not to mention that, in england at least, armies were going from the basis of a system of feudal tenure, to a more contract and indenture based system of mustering although the last thing occured over the course of at least 2 centuries.
in the end we would have eventually gotten something similar to the early modern armies since the chinese armies of course evolved over time as well.
but, i think without the cultural renaissance and the political fabric of europe as well it wouldnt have evolved in quite the same way, it may not have evolved as fast either.
we have the romans and armies of alexander are seen as inspiration for a model of proffessional army
on the other hand the swiss showed how their form of fighting with pike and halberd in column charging forward, could be a battle winne.
and armies were becoming more professional anyway, as i mentioned above in europe with the change from feudal armies to contractoral and indenture based armies. like the formation of the french ordonence companies.
and another example is that i think at Rhodes state of the art angle bastions manned by the hospitilars fell to the ottomans quickly in a matter of weeks, whereas another seige of much older fortifications by the ottomans attacking the hospitilar order lasted a few months and ended by mutual agreement.
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Timo Nieminen
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| Posted: Thu 16 Aug, 2012 3:15 pm Post subject: |
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Not so easy to summarise a book as a short video, or even a long video, without major simplification!
| William P wrote: | armies were going from the basis of a system of feudal tenure, to a more contract and indenture based system of mustering although the last thing occured over the course of at least 2 centuries.
in the end we would have eventually gotten something similar to the early modern armies since the chinese armies of course evolved over time as well.
but, i think without the cultural renaissance and the political fabric of europe as well it wouldnt have evolved in quite the same way, it may not have evolved as fast either. |
This is the key point: going from feudal armies to much larger professional armies. IMO, the bigger part of this is the change to larger armies, not the de-feudalisation. The increase in size requires de-feudalisation. We also see (late) Medieval armies where only a minority of the army is men-at-arms, and not all of them were there performing feudal service.
Increased size of armies needed increased supply of money. This needed changes in state finances, and more general changes in economics and industry.
Political fabric drove it, of course. War is political. I don't think the cultural Renaissance had much to do with it in substance.
Compare China. Medieval Chinese armies were already large, already non-feudal, and state finances could support them. From early Ming to late Ming to Qing, we see increased use of firearms, but nothing worthy of "Military Revolution." (A strong limit to the size of Chinese armies that were deployed in various wars was availability of local supply. The state could afford more soldiers, but sending them to where they would starve was not useful. The limit wasn't how much money was available to hire mercenaries.)
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
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William P
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| Posted: Thu 16 Aug, 2012 8:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Timo Nieminen wrote: | Not so easy to summarise a book as a short video, or even a long video, without major simplification!
| William P wrote: | armies were going from the basis of a system of feudal tenure, to a more contract and indenture based system of mustering although the last thing occured over the course of at least 2 centuries.
in the end we would have eventually gotten something similar to the early modern armies since the chinese armies of course evolved over time as well.
but, i think without the cultural renaissance and the political fabric of europe as well it wouldnt have evolved in quite the same way, it may not have evolved as fast either. |
This is the key point: going from feudal armies to much larger professional armies. IMO, the bigger part of this is the change to larger armies, not the de-feudalisation. The increase in size requires de-feudalisation. We also see (late) Medieval armies where only a minority of the army is men-at-arms, and not all of them were there performing feudal service.
Increased size of armies needed increased supply of money. This needed changes in state finances, and more general changes in economics and industry.
Political fabric drove it, of course. War is political. I don't think the cultural Renaissance had much to do with it in substance.
Compare China. Medieval Chinese armies were already large, already non-feudal, and state finances could support them. From early Ming to late Ming to Qing, we see increased use of firearms, but nothing worthy of "Military Revolution." (A strong limit to the size of Chinese armies that were deployed in various wars was availability of local supply. The state could afford more soldiers, but sending them to where they would starve was not useful. The limit wasn't how much money was available to hire mercenaries.) |
speaking of feudal to professional armies whats a good book or indeed a series of books to get an idea of the makeup of medieval armies so i know how much things ACTUALLY changed if they really did change at all espacially in terms of the role of infantry on the battlefield.
thats what ive cme to like about this thread, ive been able to really narrow down my ideas eventually ill also have to look again at my book on the evolution on the english knight to look again at the changes to army size and theconditions of mustering aka feudel tenure turning to indentures although i am very acutely aware that the english system will be VERY different to the continental armies in terms ofwell, a lot of things.
one thing i also realised is that the system of contracts was for a second purpose, not larger size but loner campaigns in the 14th and 15th century english armies were constantly fighting campaigns in wales against the scots under edward 1 and then later during the hnred years war, these wont be over in 40 days neccesarily so you need another way for keeping men in the field away from their homes.
adasctles got better seiges stretched out, or COULD stretch out for longermeaning the men might still be around long after the normal feudel tenure would have expired.
its said that its half the reason harold was less equipped to fight at hastings, he hasalready sent most of the fyrd back home.
i definately need to find a book like christopher gravetts book on the english knights, but instead one that focuses on the french italians germans and spaniards
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Mon 20 Aug, 2012 9:55 pm Post subject: |
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That's why I'm a bit skeptical that a video -- or even a series of videos -- could ever cover the topic adequately. It'd need a book or at least a booklet with footnote citations to sources that the reader could check independently, since one of the most important things in presenting such a massive subject is making sure that the reader/viewer is aware of the full range of possible/alternative interpretations of the historical evidence.
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Jean Henri Chandler
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| Posted: Tue 21 Aug, 2012 6:58 am Post subject: |
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| William P wrote: |
in other words, im thinking about the areas we now call western europe, so this doesnt include russia poland, the balkans, the baltic (although the balkans were, fairly under the thumb of the ottomans)
this is also more relevent because it was these countries particularly the big players |
I think if you avoid the Baltic, especially Bohemia, Poland and Prussia, you basically have zero chance of understanding Medieval / Renaissance warfare. The Bohemians (i.e. Czechs) were as important as the Swiss, and far more important than the French in the development of late Medieval warfare. The Czechs basically established the gun and gun / infantry / war-wagon tactics, among other things. I can understand the hesitance, mind you, it is not a familiar subject to us English-language speakers. But if you want to get some basic grasp of warfare in the area which is now Germany, Austria, Scandinavia, and Holland, you really have to include Bohemia and the Baltic (due to the Hanseatic League and the Teutonic Knights). Otherwise it's like studying cars and leaving out Henry Ford...
As for "defeudalisation", there tends to be a very simplistic approach to comparing 'Feudal' armies of Knights and serfs to "Professional" armies of State supported regulars. But the reality was far more complex, the famous Swiss for example were almost entirely militia, urban burgerwehr from cities like Berne, Zurich, Basel, and Lucerne; and peasant militias from places like the cantons of Uri and Zug. The Landsknechts were drawn from much the same demographic, i.e. militias and armed peasantry from places like Swabia and Saxony. So were the Czech Hussites who played the role as the Swiss in Latin Christian armies fighting the Tartars in Poland and the Turks in Hungary. So were a lot of the armies in Sweden and Holland, not to mention the Flemish armies which defeated the French at Golden Spurs and so on.
Just as so many of the fantastic artistic and architectural achievements we think of as "Renaissance", these armies were actually largely made up of skilled craftsmen characteristic of late Medieval, Central / Northern European culture, not so-called "Western culture".
I think one of the things that really changed circa 1500-1520 with the opening up of the Atlantic, is that the relatively backwater (in terms of technology and culture) Western Kingdoms became rather vastly wealthier, and the concentration of economic power shifted from the Mediterranean, and places like the Serenìsima Repùblica Vèneta (Venice), to the seafaring Atlantic powers, Portugal, Spain, France, England, and eventually the Dutch Republic (the inheritors of the dynamism of the highly urbanized region of Medieval Flanders). This allowed the big Western Kingdoms to become consumers of Italian and Central European technology and culture, including military technology, which allowed them to consolidate power within their own nations, fight brutally with one another and expand beyond them. Their subsequent success in both economic and military spheres had a lot to do with the ability to apply the techniques and equipment developed by craftsmen of the late Medieval era, and apply / develop it to unskilled labor, which they had in abundance.
The other issue which had a major impact on Central and Northern Europe was the catastrophe of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation which created a massive civil war that flared across the continent for generations, dividing communities, devastating the land, and increasing the power of the Princes relative to the towns.
J
Books and games on Medieval Europe Codex Integrum
Codex Guide to the Medieval Baltic Now available in print
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William P
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| Posted: Mon 10 Sep, 2012 1:11 am Post subject: |
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pygLvyDdewU&am...ture=inbox i recently found this video from one of the hrrible histories episodes
from what you guys have told me this clip seems to sum up warfare very neatly, including the family fueding as well.
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Jean Henri Chandler
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| Posted: Mon 10 Sep, 2012 5:09 am Post subject: |
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That is a pretty good summary of a lot of medieval warfare...
Books and games on Medieval Europe Codex Integrum
Codex Guide to the Medieval Baltic Now available in print
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