"Best Thirty Years War Book" Topic

Hi, buying my own Christmas present this year, and I want to know which Thirty Years War book is the best. I don't want a book about the politics of the war, I want one that covers the battles and skirmishes of the war, hopefully with some content on uniforms.

Here is what I can offer from the books in my shelves.

Peter Wilson's book, first published in the UK as Europe's Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War, then in the US as The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy, and most recently in paperback as Europe's Tragedy: A New History of the Thirty Years War, is the best general history of the war. It, however, deals extensively with the politics of the period, although it does not neglect the military side of things. It comes in at 997 pages and is pretty dry reading.

I would also recommend the Geoffrey Parker, The Thirty Years War. A lot shorter at 339 pages it has more details on the military aspects.

You might also want to consider William Guthrie's two volumes, Battles of the Thirty Years War: From White Mountain to Nordlingen, 1618-1635 and The Later Thirty Years War: From the Battle of Wittstock to the Treaty of Westphalia. But Guthrie's work is flawed as the accuracy of his narrative is sometimes very suspect and he does not footnote his sources. In the past he has been taken to task on this board by Daniel S for much the same reasons as the review in:

link

Guthrie also has a third volume which I have not seen: William Guthrie, Actions of the Thirty Years War: Eastern Europe, the Baltic, Italy and France.

For details on armies, Helion & Company offer the following. Laurence Spring's two books, The Bavarian Army During the Thirty Years War, 1618-1648 and In the Emperor's Service: Wallenstein's Army, 1625-1634, are somewhat limited in the resources available on the topic. Very often he is forced to say what was being done elsewhere in Europe and extrapolate those details onto the two armies in question.

Much better are the two volumes by Michael Fredholm von Essen: The Lion From the North, The Swedish Army During the Thirty Years War: Volume 1, 1618-1632 and The Lion From the North, The Swedish Army During the Thirty Years War: Volume 2, 1632-1648.

Last of all is Pierre Picouet's The Armies of Philip IV of Spain, 1621-1665. Although the Spanish were only occasionally involved in the fighting in Germany the book is well done.

My recommendation is to start with either Wilson or Parker for a good overview of the topic. Both don't have a lot of maps or OoBs, but here I have a suggestion to supplement this. Back in the 90's my work took me down to Minneapolis MN on a fairly regular basis. The University of Minnesota was about a 15 minute drive away from our office and the university library had the six volumes of Sveriges Krig, 1611-1632 on their shelves with both maps and OoBs galore. A few hours at the photocopy machine and I had what I needed. And it gave me the added pleasure of the bewilderment on the face of the Canadian customs officer when I declared the purchase $25 USD of photocopies. LOL

I see you are in Saratoga NY and according to WorldCat both Yale and Harvard have Sveriges Krig in their libraries…

Ryan T – good review of the books, very helpful, thank you.

WOW! Great stuff thanks. I already have William Guthrie, Actions of the Thirty Years War: Eastern Europe, the Baltic, Italy and France, I thought was a great book. But I'll check out the others, thanks again.

Two books not yet mentioned I found interesting were Peter Wilson's Lutzen and Hanlon's Hero of Italy.

Only about half (and it's not a big book to begin with) of the Lutzen book is about the battle, but that half gives a better and more detailed look at the position of units, the flow of the battle, and the decision points than any other I have read for the period (though that's only a few).

The Hero of Italy covers a northern Italian campaign by a lowly duke. Plenty of detail on the skirmishes and decisions that lead up to a battle. Again, derived from a more scholastic work, this is a short and readable book that goes into more depth than most.

Ryan's selection is outstanding; I do have a few minor additions.

To begin with, my observations are about books in English only. Daniel S, an occasional poster here who is very knowledgable about the period, has mentioned several times that there is substantial information available about the period in languages other than English that has not been translated and, apparently, has generally been underused by some of the English-language writers of the period. A search of TMP posts should turn up some of these discussions, including his observations about Guthrie.

Our old friend Osprey has a history of the 30YW in its essential histories series. I've not read it so I am not sure how good it is-my guess would be typical Osprey fare with the usual virtues and defects. Osprey also has at least two books on the armies of Gustavus Adolphus; I'm not sure if they have anything else on the period.

Ask for the books mentioned by Ryan…

Geoffrey Parker is an outstanding academic historian of the period, with notable books -including textbooks-on the period as well as the 80 Years War. His main focus, however, has been Spanish history during the period-3 different bios of Phillip 2d for example. Parker's book "The Thirty Year War" is interesting and useful but it's a collection of essays, written specifically for the book I believe, about the war written by a collection of authors. With that said, the various authors are knowledgable (e.g., John Elliott) and the bibliography has quite a few non-english references.

Wilson's book, by whatever title, is an outstanding and detailed history of the period, but, as Ryan says, covers much more than the military aspects of the War. For example, as I recall, much of the early part of Wilson's book is devoted to the effect of the reformation and counter-reformation on the relevant states and how that led to the War. Fascinating stuff, but not everyone's cup of tea. It's also, again as Ryan says, long and dry.

I agree wholeheartedly with Ryan's recommendation of the Helion books, albeit so far they have been focusing on specific aspects of the War rather than the War as a whole. The series is ongoing and more are likely coming. If you buy any of the Helions I'd advise shopping around a bit. I got my copy of "Lion From the North vol. 1" directly from the UK (I'm in the US) before Amazon listed it as available and for a lower price, even with shipping, than Amazon's listed cost.

As for stuff not listed by Ryan….

For a shorter outline history of the period-to understand the background as it were-I'd suggest as an alternative Cicely Wedgwood's "The Thirty Year's War." It's a bit shorter than Wilson's book and is an easier read. Wedgwood was a noted non-academic (professional writer, not professor) writer on the period with books on Montrose, William the Silent and a 3 vol history of the ECW. On the other hand, Wedgwood's book won't have the more modern scholarship on the war-it was published about 1935 IIRC, but cheap used copies are readily available.

If you don't mind older histories without the latest scholarship, I'd suggest you look at Theodore Dodge's "Gustavus Adolphus" as a general history of the period with a somewhat better treatment of the military aspects than Wedgwood or Wilson-Dodge was a serving officer who lost a leg at Gettysburg. Dodge's book covers a the period from the early 17th century through the Spanish Succession, but it's an easy read. As I mentioned, it lacks modern scholarship, and it doesn't have a bibliography so we can't check Dodge's sources. It's been reprinted several times in the past 20 years or so, and it's also available on the Internet Archive for free and as a kindle for $.99 USD.

If you want something a bit different, "French Armies of the Thirty Years' War" by Stephane Thion covers the French armies and campaigns of the French phase of the War. Think of it as a more detailed, and expensive, Osprey-type book. The same publisher (LRT Editions) has promised a history of the Spanish tercios during the TYW period.

For a detailed discussion of the weapons and warfare of the period, but not much about the general history or battles themselves, I like Eduard Wagner's "European Weapons and Warfare 1618-1648." My copy, bought 2nd hand, was published in 1979 (in English translation, don't know original pub date or language), but I believe Warlord Games has recently republished it. As the bibliography shows, it relies on lots of non-english language sources.

There is also a history of the Swedish military, "A Warrior Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of Sweden as a Military Superpower, 1611-1721" by Henrik Lunde. I've not read the book, but I did thumb through it at a bookstore a year or so back. I thought it was poorly written and I was not at all impressed by its bibliography, and so didn't buy it. On the other hand, lots of reviewers at Amazon seem to like it… My recommendation would be to not buy it sight unseen, but YMMV.

BTW, about bibliographies… whenever I'm evaluating a history book for purchase I like to check the bibliography. Sometimes the sources cited by the author can tell quite a lot about the breadth and depth of the author's knowledge and the seriousness of his book. For example, I've seen several histories of British India that included G.A. Henty's young adult (Boy's Own type) novels as sources, and they were cited for factual statements rather than as books to read to get an impression of or feel for the period type references. Any author that cites a novel as a factual source either isn't aware that his source is fiction and so is uninformed, thinks the reader won't know it is fiction and so is duplicitous, or doesn't know the difference between fiction and nonfiction and so is untrustworthy. Rant over.

For non-book sources…

The web site "Steven's Balagan" has articles on the TYW rules and uniforms. Here's a link to his Spanish Army painting guide:

link

Steve Danes' TYW rules "Father Tilly" and supplements include maps and OBs for some of the War's battles. I used to have the playtest versions of Danes' rules and battle scenarios from back in the day, and as I recall they were useful.

Oh, and for more of a social history rather than a military history (so likely not what you want) and a bit of a different perspective of the war and period, there is Herbert Langer's "The Thirty Years' War" translated from German.

Worth every penny is "European Weapons and Warfare 1618-1648" by Eduard Wagner. Octopus Books Ltd, ISBN: 0-7064-1072-6 Lavishly illustrated with visual formations, equipment, uniforms, horse hitching , how to get a cannon up an incline, and hundreds of other useful things of the period. Yes, discussions on Tactics by nationalities also hit upon. Better than the 2 volume , slip covered, mega expensive color reference published in German by the folks at the Vienna Heer Museum! If you have an interest in the period and saw the inside pages, you'd probably buy it!

I originally tried to limit myself to book that either covered the big picture or dealt specifically with the armies, but this thread is expanding to cover other material as well so I'll add a few more suggestions.

Wallenstein, arguably the most interesting of the historical figures of the period, is covered in two books. Golo Mann, Wallenstein, His Life Narrated, is a massive study translated from the German. A shorter, and equally insightful, study is found in Geoff Mortimer, Wallenstein, The Enigma of the Thirty Years War.

Gregory Hanlon, mentioned above by coryfrom Missoula, also wrote Italy: 1636: Cemetery of Armies which includes an excellent study of the Battle of Tornavento. I did not buy the book when I first came across it, being somewhat intimidated by the $100 USD+ price, but instead got hold of it through inter-library loan. Hanlon has some very good observations on the importance of morale and his paragraphs on skirmishing (or scaramuccia) were very useful.

Also mentioned above was Wilson's short book on Lützen. It can be supplemented by the downloadable dissertation by André Schürger, The Archaeology of the Battle of Lützen: an Examination of 17th Century Military Material Culture. theses.gla.ac.uk/6508

The Battle of Nördlingen is best covered by Peter Engerisser and Pavel Hrnčiřík, Nördlingen 1634 : die Schlacht bei Nördlingen – Wendepunkt des Dressigjährigen Krieges. Even if the main text in German is not readable to all the last 100 pages are a wealth of details on organization, troop strengths, tactical deployment and individual unit histories.

I have not yet seen the LRT Editions book on the French armies and campaigns by Stephane Thion, but I have looked at the same publisher's book on the Spanish tercios. It was written by Pierre Picouet and covers the same material as is found in his later book from Helion. Picouet also used to have an excellent web site on 17th C tactics that now appears to be off-line. I luckily copied it all to my hard drive, but it still is accessible on the Way-Back Machine if you look for "h**p://tercio1617.0catch.com/TactiqueUk.html"

Replace the "**" with "tt"

Ryan: Thanks for the additional leads; they may be a bit beyond Irish Marine's remit, but I appreciate them.

For the others, Schurger's thesis on the archaeology of the Battle of Lutzen has some extremely interesting details and is well worth downloading for the details alone.

Also, several of Geoffrey Parker's relevant books are available on internet archive as one-hour loans.

I have started to become a big fan of the Helion & Company's books and especially of these two volumes by the author Michael Fredholm von Essen:

• The Lion from the North, The Swedish army during the thirty years war: Volume 1, 1618-1632
• The Lion from the North, The Swedish army during the thirty years war: Volume 2, 1632-1648

Both books give a good view on the campaigns, studies of battles, development of organization and tactics of the Swedish army, but also in my opinion good info on the war and time in general. The author also makes a good job to try to explain reasoning behind certain strategies and decisions instead of just presenting dryly what happened.

What I also like about these books and other books from Helion is the format, rich with footnotes, which makes it easier to follow the sources, and hopefully make the books less prone to fall for old myths or sweeping factoids. I was glad to see that the books are up to date on that Spanish/Imperial side was not fighting in old-style deep "Tercio" formations in this period, that there were no galloping exotic "eastern" Finns, and no fantasy fast shooting muskets on the Swedish side. In its place is a more nuanced view of what some of the real differences in tactics, organization and leadership were and on things that were more similar on all sides in the conflict, contrary to some other books repeated old myths.

I highly recommend the books!

As a side note: From my reading, in some popular narratives of the thirty years war the Swedish armies' influence is greatly diminished to a minor player after the death of king Gustavus Adolphus in 1632 and after the loss at the battle of Nördlingen in 1634, marking the end of the so called Swedish phase. One thing that I found interesting in Volume 2 is where it is shown (page 160) that in beginning 1648, the final year of the war, on the winning Protestant-French side the Swedish army had more than twice the number of companies (915 companies) in Germany compared to France (432 companies) and that the Swedish armies were applying great pressure on the Imperial side. My conclusion of this is that to understand the Thirty years war from 1630 onwards, the Swedish army is an important topic, as a major player, all the way up to 1648.

Just finished last week Peter Wilson's The Thirty Years War Europe's Tragedy, while covering battles in a all encompass volume didn't get into actual mechanics of the age much. Was first book I read of before the 7YW.

'Eyewitness Accounts of the Thirty Years War' by Geoff Mortimer (Macmillan 2002) is an interesting read; Mortimer is also the writer of a book on Wallenstein called 'The Enigma of the Thirty Years War'as mentioned above.

Eyewitness Accounts of the Thirty Years War' by Geoff Mortimer, only had one review, and it thrashed this book.

Dick Harrison wrote a very readable book on the TYW. Originally in Swedish ('Ett stort lidande har kommit over oss') is has been translated into Dutch. I haven't seen an English edition though.