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Radio War Nerd EP #121 — Thirty Years War (Patreon)

Published:
2018-02-17 19:02:59
Imported:
2026-06

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Content

Guest: Andrea Signorelli, teacher & war history nerd

The War Nerd talks to Turin-based fellow war history buff Andrea Signorelli about that most complicated and still relevant of all European wars, the Thirty Years War from 1618-1648 . . . 

At ~1:16:15 War Nerd & Ames discuss current wars in the news: Israeli F-16  shot down over Syria & future of "air superiority" . . . Turkish invasion of Afrin not going well militarily . . . Thousands of ex-ISIS fighters join Free Syrian Army . . . American idiot on NBC ignorant about Korean memory of Japan occupation . . . 

Maps of Thirty Years War

* Map of major battles

* Map of European religious sects circa-1600

* Map of Gustavus' campaigns + treaty borders in 1648

Total time: 2:04:39

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

Files

Comments

Paul Vd

Can't sleep on planes ? Me neither. But just go to Thailand & get Valium. I took 5 or 6 10mg to sleep. It's like time traveling. Anyway.. I think the biggest limiting factor to peace in Syria is not Israel per se but the US's hegemonic pride. Any peace delivered by Russia is unacceptable to them. One thing to watch though is for US casualties. US casualties in Syria would change the game politically. Which is why they allegedly responded with such force against that militia force. If Syria casualties were on the news beside Afghan casualties and maybe some in Iraq, it would be too much.

Oren

I know you're covering a huge war in only about an hour, but this narrative is pretty lacking. If anyone in interested a podcast on the 30 Years War and the later wars of the 17th century, I recommend When Diplomacy Fails' series on it.

realBriannaWu

Any book or documentary recommendations for the 2006 Lebanon war?

Matthew C

Small point but I thought the story of the defenestration of the catholic priests to be really interesting. So, even though the intention was to kill them, after they survived the fall they were just simply allowed to live? If so, its amazing to me that even in a situation like that, people would be allowed to live. Is it just a sort of "will of god" moment? Even though the protestants would surely downplay it, I imagine they were still very superstitious people themselves, and I can imagine them not wanting to press their luck in terms of disobeying the "will of god" or whatever they would imagine it as.

Larry Dimes

The more I hear stories like the IDF F-16 shootdown, the more I keep getting this feeling that I'd wager some tech war nerds got before WW1; Advances in war fighting technology increasingly favor the defender and offensive armies will get slaughtered in a nation to nation war (or even in a nation to well armed militia group as the case is in Lebanon). This in an era where major powers (especially NATO and other US clients) have invested heavily in technology that is more or less designed to re-fight a WW2 blitzkrieg offensive style war. Anti armor, anti aircraft and anti shipping missiles have reached a point where they are far cheaper to mass produce that the multi billion dollar offensive systems they are designed to counter; sheer numbers alone can make up for technological disparity (as the F-16 shootdown shows). I'm not quite sure what this means, but it's been on my mind.

mt

Finnish soldiers: the most important part of the Swedish army during the 30 years ear were Finns. Fun fact: during the 2nd WW Swedish volunteer soldiers went to Finladn to fight the Russians. The Finns sent them back or hindered them to go to the frontlines because they were useless. You should make an episode about Finland and wars during the 20th century

Zacharias Bowen

Come onnnnn, there's got to be an ID on the interlude track, that was excellent.

Winterborn

With all due respect to Andrea Signorelli the problem was an over estimation of the guests English ability. He speaks it well enough for most things but this sort of podcast requires a higher level of mastery.

Winterborn

I wish I could use valium, once you've taken xanax for any amount of time the benzo cross tolerance makes valium like candy - I recall taking seven 10mg once and felling zero effect. That said for long trips I take five of six mg of ativan or xanax so yeah benzos are the best for that purpose.

Winterborn

We're yet to see a modern navy face this principle but I'm waiting to see the reaction when one of these insanely expensive ships gets sunk by anti ship missiles, the relative value of something like the 3M-54 versus a ship makes what you're saying so true. The only actual reason against this theory(and I recall a war nerd column about Venezuela in this regard) is that so many states that should arm themselves in this fashion still use their defence budgets as a form of diplomacy - buying the Russian/American/French export aircraft and tanks for favour more than use, I'm unsure of the practicality of this in the current age but it's probably an equation worth thinking about.

xnfec

Good show, I learned a lot from Andrea. I have a few points: the film Alatriste is a condensation of 5 or 6 novels with a bit from each of the novels in the film. The English stayed out of the 30 years war but there were elements who wanted in. In her SF/Fantasy novel "Sundial in a Grave", Mary Gentle has a scene indicating that James 1st oldest son Henry was a keen advocate of furthering the cause of protestantism. Gentle is a military historian and this flavours her books. Guy Fawkes also fought in the European wars. In Spanish, Caracol means snail. Does it mean anything else in Italian? Maurice of Nassau had other innovations that influenced tactics. He brought in permanent units (they did not disband at the end of the season - you see this in Alatriste as he is going back and forth between a civilian life and the army). He also brought in the counter-march, I think.

Jason Thompson

Another wonderful show. If I can toss a request on the pile -- do you ever think you'll do something on Alexander or the Wars of the Successors? I know this is some of the most over-trodden war history out there, and I remember when I was really young my first impression of Alexander the Great was that it was just SUPER BORING -- the guy's name was nothing more to me than a punchline in awful mid-1900s cartoons in my father's New Yorker collections. And 50 years later Oliver Stone's movie underlined it yet again as The Most Pompous War History (but, great set dressing!!). Despite all this, though, I'm fascinated by that time period and I'm just curious if you have any thoughts about it, enough to fill out an episode sometime when current wars are slow (we should be so lucky).

Tom Warner

Holy shit, prophetic!

Patrick Schütz

I’m from Hess and there’s a village right around my way that they still to this day called Sweden or swedes as they’re alleged to have aided them in one way or another