"German Peasants War 1524-1526: Landsknechts and..." Topic

… the Swabian League.

"In the summer of 1524 near the Black Forest in what is today Stühlingen, Baden-Wurttemberg in southern Germany, one of the largest and most significant popular uprisings of recorded history in the middle and renaissance ages began. A quibble between peasants and the ruling countess in the province of Swabia led to a greater revolt of a loosely confederated Serf/Peasant alliance that became the catalyst for great conflict, upheaval, and civil war in the early Renaissance age in the central European Germanic kingdoms associated with the Swabian League. The league was lead by Emperor Charles V; locked in continuous series of campaigns with the Italians throughout his reign from 1519-1556.

The king appointed his brother and successor, Archduke Ferdinand of Austria (sharing the same name of his late ancestor, who's assassination sparked the Great War in 1914) to crush the rebellion in mostly the south & southwest of Swabian League territory. The Peasants Rebellion eventually ignited a near national revolution with hundreds of thousands fighting for the rights of religious and social liberty in Southwestern Germany.

For the Swabian League forces it was a war to defend property, the greater social order & culture, and also a secondary rebellion, between disaffected lower nobles and knights, many of whom were or who were at one time employed as landsknecht mercenaries, professional, well armed and trained soldiers from within and outside Austro-German provinces. Rather ironically the title of the Peasants War or Peasants Rebellion is somewhat misleading because many of the enemy rebel forces were laborers, artisans, or lower gentry. Many of the fighting men on both were outlaw knights, mercenaries and former soldiers from Switzerland and the other German kingdoms. The infrequent regional or national makeup of the rebels was most evident especially in the ever-lacking leadership of the Peasants movement itself…"
Full article here
link

Anyone wargame this?

Amicalement
Armand

And when a German answers you Götz… He is not quite polite.

"ancestor"? How can someone who was killed in 1914 be the ancestor of someone who was around 400 years before?

Obviously its not ancestor but descendant…

FOGR has army lists for the peasants, though wargaming the campaigns often has the problem that the forces are pretty unbalanced. The upside is that you can use most units for the Italian wars, the French campaigns and early Ottoman wars.

the last D&D campaign I ran was set in a fantasy version of that time (I had to add rules for gunpowder weapons, but otherwise, not many changes). The Swiss were dwarves, Bohemians were elves, Turks were orcs, etc.

Rob

Quite interesting idea my friend!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand