"Thirty Years War Tactics?" Topic

I've been doing a lot of reading on Renaissance tactics (16th century/Italian Wars) and am now getting very interested in the continuing evolution of battle tactics into the early/mid 17th century (it seems to be one constant flow.) Any suggestions about books on tactics and warfare in the Thirty Years War. I looking for something on the same quality level as Bert Hall's Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe or The Renaissance at War by Thomas Arnold. Thanks for any help.

If you can find a copy, try "European Weapons & Warfare, 1618-1648" by Eduard Wagner. 1979 by Octopus Books
ltd. ISBN: 0 7064 1072 6. Some chapter titles:

Close Order Combat, Artillery, The Supply Train, River Crossings, provisions for the troops, etc.
VERY well illustrated , in color. Shows how cannons were hauled up slopes, sword fighting techniques, siege equipment and use, deployment of troops based upon doctrine differences and much more. Mine is a hardback and about 2 inches thick. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

Sadly the TYW as a period is still plauged by an extensive "mythology" obscuring the actual facts as far as tactics are concerned and with very few academics interesting in writing "tactical history" the factual errors are still being repeated as the truth in many modern sources.

It is realy a case of having to either go back directly to the period sources or read bits and pieces in carefully selected modern sources.

Further to Dye4minis, I would also recomend Wagner's book and Warlord Games have done a reprint of it for £25.00 GBP but with 10% off until the end of the year.
I haven't seen the actual reprint so I don't know if they have cut anything out. It is softback 296 pages.
Rich
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Thanks Tom and Rich for the lead.

Thanks Daniel for the warning. I guess part of the mythology would be things like the Swedes with their new model army fighting an old stogy Imperialist opponent stuck in 16th century tactics. Can't see myself able to engage primary sources easily. Perhaps you could write a book!

And oddly enough, Marcus I have a copy of that book. I don't remember why I got it but I think that you were there at the time.

My original English language copy has the last several pages in German.

It is realy a case of having to either go back directly to the period sources or read bits and pieces in carefully selected modern sources.

Seems like an opportunity for someone with a command of different languages and access to those period sources to produce the new definitive work on the subject Daniel. :-)

Daniel has had this suggested to him before. He's not interested in writing a book on the subject, but Brent Noseworthy was on this board not so long ago seeking expert collaborators with access to primary sources for something along those lines.

Hmm, "Henry Martini" I'd be interested in a link which shows were I've written that I was not_interested_in writing such a book on this forum. Since as far as I can remember I have never done so and I was rather suprised at your statment of a opinion I have never prononuced.

Lacking the time and/or resources to write a book is not the same as being disinterested in writing one. For me it's become a bit of a catch 22 that the very work that provides me with the resources to conduct my research also leaves me with an increasingly small amount of free time to write in and is even before taking into account the needs of my family or the fact that I'm obliged to spend a bit over a month each year in uniform as a member of the Swedish armed forces.

If I had the time I'd be happy to write a book or even three. Indeed I've been looking at ways in which to break down the subject into smaller parts in order to publish at least part of the research I've collected over the years but even then the work probably requires a bit more time than I can make available at the moment.

Pamphlets Daniel! In true 17th century manner, pamphlets! Perhaps Brent Nosworthy might be interested in collaborating, he has asked for interested parties to work with him.

Marcus,

One needs to think of the Thirty Years war as Thirty years of wars. Asking for a book on tactics for these series of conflict, is akin to asking for a book on the 20th century war. Daniel S would be more than happy to provide what he can, but you need to be very specific. Narrow it down to a time and army would be best, or better yet, a single battle. He has a great blog,

link

but then again, this subject(s) is so vast, one cannot not even really touch it in a lifetime.

There is little you will find in English which is reliable, and even Swedish and German sources can be corrupt at times. For example, I have been struggling to find sources, reliable sources in any language for the Catholic League under Tilly.

Daniel will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe he can probably provide more resources for the Swedish army than any other.

Wiliam

Ilodic, in reading recently Bert Hall's Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe, The Renaissance at War by Thomas Arnold and Mallett's The Italian Wars plus a host of smaller works I am surprised at the continuity of the tactics from the 1520s to the 1640s. Not that there isn't growth and development. But the development is organic and logical to my understanding. I don't agree with you that comparing 1618-1648 to the 20th century is analogous. The 20th has seen radical advances that dwarf anything in the 17th century (from field artillery to air power to communications and command control.)

That said in moving into the 17th century I am curious about how tactics continued to evolve. Any help is appreciated and I'll take a look at Daniel's blog.

A short list of usefull secondary sources in English

Thomas Baker "The Military Intellectual and Battle: Raimondo Montecuccoli and the Thirty Years' War".
This is a complete translation into English of Monteccucoli's "Sulle Battaglie" ("Concerning Battle") that Monteccucoli wrote while a Swedish prisoner in the early 1640's. Barker also provides a biography of Montecuccoli as well as short descriptions of the battles of Breitenfeld, Lützen and Wittstock. Montecuccoli is one of the most important sources as far as TYW tactics is concerned and Sulle Battaglie and his other writings contain a lot of important "tactical snippets" to use a term coined by the late Paddy Griffith. However a number of pretty esoteric theoretical constructs that Montecuccoli put down on paper to pass the time. (A good example is his octagonal infantry battalion.) So you need to separate the actual TYW practice recorded by Montecuccoli from his own theories and the old ancient ideas that he included in his text to show his mastery of ancient Roman military texts. There are a few oddities in the translation as well due to the translator not being sufficiently familiar with 17th Century military practice. But all in all a volume well worth the effort to track down.

John A Lynn "Giant of the Grand Siecle: The French Army 1610-1715"
Lynn's massive and seminal work on the French army covers a lot more than the TYW but is well worth reading because shows how an army developed over a long period and does include a good chapter on tactics and weaponry. The later is very rare in academic works and Lynn covers all 3 arms of the army as well as both battle and positional warfare.

David Parrot "The Business of War: Military Enterprise and Military Revolution in Early Modern Europe".
While the book does not contain information on lowlevel tactics it provides organisational and to some extent grand tactical/operational information on the armies of the later TYW and challenges several older views on the quality and abilities of these armies. A refreshing new view on the subject (new at least in English) that does have a few odd quirks though. An example of these is the the authors insitence on using the erronous term "militia" for the native Swedish troops rather than the correct term ("conscripted professionals") found in the source he used (Swedish historian Jan Glete) as well as an exaggeration of certain aspects of how the Swedish senior command functioned.

Richard Brzezinski: The Army of Gustavus Adolphus vol I & II
Still two of the best Osprey volumes printed and a good introduction to the Swedish army. When published in 1991 & 1993 these books were some of the first to seriously challenge the view that the Swedish army and the reforms of Gustavus Adolphus were revoluntionary in nature while the Imperial/Spanish/Catholic armies were backwards and inefficient. While the author does go too far in a couple of instances (such as turning the Swedish cavalry from the supermen of Michael Roberts to next to helpless without support) many of the conclusions have stood the test of time.
These books are actually the reason why I began to do increasingly serious research into the subject of TYW tactics. Originaly my aim was to disprove Brzezinski's conclusions but ended up thoroughly convinced by the facts that the "old" view of TYW tactics championed by Michael Roberts and the Swedish General Staff historians was quite wrong in a lot of places.

Keith Roberts "Pike and Shot Tactics 1590-1660"
I've had the greatest respect for Roberts work on ECW subjects and this book was one I was really looking forward to but in the end it was a disapointment due to the certain problems with the authors research. The key problem is the reliance on English language sources which simply do not provide sufficient information on the subject even though the author is to be commended for his use of primary sources rather than secondary works. This and a lack of knowledge of the modern research into the for example the tactics used by the Spanish army causes serious flaws in a work that had a lot of potential. But with an understanding of the books limitations it is still worth reading. (To understand the books limitations in more detail I recomed reading Dr. Pierre Picouet's research on the Spanish linked to below and comparing it with the books description)
You can also find a previous discussion about this book here TMP link

Arguably the best source on available on the Spanish army in English is the work of Dr. Pierre Picouet which is freely available online here: tercio1617.0catch.com/home.html
Much recomended even though the website is a bit of chore to navigate through.

Books to avoid
The two Osprey volumes on the Imperial army, very bad research and numerous examples of plagiarism of older books. Artwork is about as bad as far as historical accuracy is concerned.

The "Battles of the 30 years war" series by William Guthrie, I'm discussed the serious problems with these books many times before on this message board and won't waste the time of any would be readers by doing so again.

Very much appreciated Daniel. A wealth of information here. I have been rereading Brzezinski's two Osprey volumes as I write. I agree with you that they represent the best of Osprey's productions (gives exactly the kind of information as serious student would want.)

Picouet's research on the Spanish is very impressive. Looking forward to diving in.

Thanks again.

Mark

Daniel S,

Thank you for the above list of useful sources in English.

"Books to avoid
The two Osprey volumes on the Imperial army, very bad research and numerous examples of plagiarism of older books. Artwork is about as bad as far as historical accuracy is concerned."

Do you have any other suggestions for information on the Imperial Army? I'm afraid I'm barely monolingual so I'm referring to works in English.

Thanks,

Bill.

There is an excellent bibliography of English language sources on the Thirty Years War compiled by William Young at:

PDF link

Especially useful is the section on "Military and Naval Affairs" beginning on page 4.

Big Red,
I am afraid there is no easy way to find good information about the Imperial army in English. One has to search for bits and pieces in books like the ones by Barker and Parrot above. There is in fact no focused study of the Imperial army available even in German. (Though there is a number of studies that cover parts of the subject.)

Thank you Daniel S and Happy New Year. Right now I'm looking for organizations and it looks like Parrot may be a good place to start.

Ilodic,

For example, I have been struggling to find sources, reliable sources in any language for the Catholic League under Tilly

Are you looking for sources on tactics or on the Leaugist army in general? There is decent coverage of the later aspect of the army to be found in print.
One of the earliest indepth studies of a TYW army was in fact done on the Leaugist army, this was Johann Heilmann's "Kriegsgeschichte von Bayern, Franken, Pfalz und Schwaben 1506–1651 " (München 1868) were the later volumes are focused on the Leauge/Bavarian army. You will also find very good information on the Leaugist army during the 1621-1622 campaign in Hans Wertheim's "Der tolle Halberstädter Herzog Christian von Braunschweig im Pfälzischen Kriege 1621–1622 ", vol. 2 has a very detailed order of battle for Tilly's troops with regiments being detailed down to the names of the company commanders.

Daniel will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe he can probably provide more resources for the Swedish army than any other

If you count pages I actually have more source material related to the tactics used by the Imperial & Leaugist armies than I do for the Swedes. But in general sense you are are correct as the the Swedish archives are not only fairly easy for me to gain access to but they also hold a wealth of information thanks to the Swedish obessesion with record keeping. (Sadly there are gaps in the archives, particularly for the later part of the war as the official archives of Baner, Torstensson and Wrangel were lost in the 1697 fire which destroyed the Royal Palace in Stockholm.)

Thanks to the hard work of the historians of the Swedish General Staff the Krigsarkiv (War Archive) also has a significant amount of information about Sweden's allies and enemies during the 1630-1632 period. For example the unpublished study of the Saxon army they put together was until recently the best single volume on the subject in any language while order of battle data for the Imperial and Leaguist armies is still an invaluable source even 80 years later. (Basicly they

If I were to try to rate my knowledge of the various TYW armies it would probably look something like this:

Expert knowledge
Swedish army 1621-1632

Good knowledge
Swedish army 1633-1648
Imperial army 1630-1632
Leaguist army 1621-1632
Army of Baden-Durlach 1621-1622
Army of Christian of Braunschweig 1621-1622

Good to decent knowledge
Imperial army 1618-1629, 1633-1648
Army of Christian IV 1625-1629

Decent to limited knowledge
Spanish army 1618-1648
French army 1635-1648
Brandenburg army 1618-1648
Bavarian army 1633-1648

Limited knowledge
Army of Hesse-Kassel 1630-1648

Little knowledge:
Dutch army
Transylvanian army

Good knowledge
Army of Baden-Durlach 1621-1622

I must admit that I have never even heard of this army…

Marcus Brutus,
What I think that Ilodic is refering to is not the advances in warfare as such but rather the scope and difficulty of research. To cover the entire war and all armies you would need to be fluent in at least 12 languages and access some 20-30 archives in addition to well stocked research libraries to get to the sources. A lot of the work is like looking for a needle in a haystack in order to find the important pieces of tactical information. With the right tools and patience you will find the needle but it will take time unless one is very lucky. As an example it took me 7-8 years to make my first major breakthrough and the 2nd took something like 10 years if not more.

Daniel

Griefbringer,
It is the short lived army of Georg Friedrich, Markgraf von Baden-Durlach which he raised to help defend the Palatinate alongside Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick. It only saw action in the 1622 campaign and was destroyed as a cohesive force by Tilly and Cordoba in the battle of Wimpfen 1622

I have to concur, Daniel. Wargamers often fail to realise that the main input required to research poorly documented subjects is vast amounts of time: time to find the scattered fragments of information and link them together into a coherent picture via a chain of infrequent 'ah, ha…' moments.

I've had the same experience with my research into the colonial Australian frontier; harder even because it's a subject that until recently had no presence at all in the military historical literature, and just identifying potential sources constitutes a whole additional, preliminary layer of research.

This sort of historical research is a lot like panning for gold, with the number of sources to be searched equating to the volume of river water passing through the panikin.

Speaking of Christian of Braunschweig, there's a "Heere & Waffen" volume on him and his army. Anyone know if it's any good?

link

Phillius,
I've actually been looking at pamphlet style shorter texts as a way to give certain subjects a fuller treatment than I could put into a single chapter in a larger book. The "problem" is that the drafts keep expanding until the short text is a small book by itself…

Another problem is how to publish part of my research without revealing the unpublished parts prematurely.

The "Playbook" for the board game Saints in Armor by GMT Games has some useful information on the Army of Baden-Durlach and the Battle of Wimpfen. The orders of battle list first the strength of each unit at the ratio of 80-100 men per strength point and then the unit's morale on a scale of 1 to 8.

PDF link

An account of a visit in 2011 to the actual battlefield can be found at posting #9746 on the ConSimWorld forum.

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