Stay ConnectedWDF examines how wars broke out, how they were concluded, and their consequences. Expect juicy diplomacy, sneaky intrigue, fascinating characters, and incredible drama. By Dr Zack Twamley, qualified history nerd.
Current Series: The July Crisis
Patreon Series: The Age of Bismarck
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Matchlock is a historical fiction series set during the Thirty Years' War, beginning in 1622, when Matthew Lock lands in Europe to investigate the brutal murder of his parents.
Order your copy of Matchlock and the Embassy by clicking here.
Almost exactly 401 years to the day since Frederick accepted the Bohemian Crown, we return to our 30 Years War narrative, with episode #19!
In this episode, we reach the long-awaited moment when Frederick decided, after all, to accept the Bohemian Crown. Was it a terrible mistake? In retrospect, YES! However, as I explain in this installment, things were not so black and white in the summer and autumn of 1619. For one, the Habsburgs appeared to be on their last legs, and it's worth considering whether Frederick, seeing Vienna under siege for the second time in two years - felt pressure to act before the spoils had all been siezed.
But what about the other side. Was Ferdinand's military arm really as frail as Frederick seemed to believe? Granted, Ferdinand had only Spanish money and Bavarian promises, but as all were soon to see, these were still powerful weapons in the right hands. Further, while Ferdinand secured his allies with a mixture of bribes, unconstitutional pledges and quality Spanish steel, it seemed above Frederick's imagination to suppose that he could even be abandoned. His wife, after all, had sworn that James I & VI could not ignore their plight.
But James had no intention of jeopardising his rapprochement with Spain, and still believed, just as naively, that he could play both sides, and maintain peace between the two pillars of Christian Europe. Within a few years, the folly of these positions would become clear, but these were still desperate times for both sides of the initial conflict. After so many years of posturing and preparing, could Germany's most infamous rivalry now explode into the open, with Bohemia caught in the middle? (spoiler - yes, yes it could!)
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1) To support the podcast financially in return for some extra audio content, check out Patreon!
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4) For everything else, visit our website, where you'll find the shop, archive, and much more!
6) Get our new Thirty Years War book, For God or the Devil!
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I have a question for you - why don't you check out our new historical fiction series set during this very era - Matchlock! Our first instalment, Matchlock and the Embassy, is out NOW!
Order your copy of Matchlock and the Embassy by clicking here.
Welcome to our Q&A! Herein we answer loads of questions, including...
Who was the best diplomacy player in the conflict? How many in Bohemia actually wanted Freddy as King? What narrative of the war is my fave? What was the story with the Ottoman-Persian wars which kept the Turks so preoccupied during the war? What impact did climate change have on the war? What would have happened if Gustavus Adolphus had lived through Lutzen? What would have happened if Richelieu had died in obscurity from pneumonia, as he nearly did, thereby missing his later career as premier of France?
These q's are all here and there are more besides, so if you want some a's, you know where to go! The last four weeks have been great for bringing this show to new people, and you have all been so encouraging as I try to make WDF bigger than ever before.
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Order the book now! For God or the Devil is finally out!
After enduring Ferdinand’s repression, throwing off his yolk, formally deposing him and marching an army to Vienna, the Bohemians sought to go one better than all previous revolts had done. With Ferdinand deposed, this meant the crown of Bohemia was vacant, and it meant that someone else should be offered it. But whom? Someone, ideally, who was anti-Habsburg enough, but also powerful, wealthy and well-connected enough to defend the kingdom. Someone, ideally, who had a deep-seated hatred for the Habsburg influence. Who better to fit these criteria than Frederick V, the Elector Palatine? In this episode we answer that question, delving into the impressive connections Frederick had, as well as the root of his anti-Habsburg sentiments, which distinguished him as the ideal candidate…
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Matchlock is a historical fiction series set during the Thirty Years' War, beginning in 1622, when Matthew Lock lands in Europe to investigate the brutal murder of his parents.
Order your copy of Matchlock and the Embassy by clicking here.
Here we cover the years 1618-1619, when the fortunes of rebels, Hungarians, Habsburgs and everyone else in between would rise and fall. In this episode, we also see a critical milestone come to pass – Ferdinand, the new King of Bohemia, is formally deposed by his subjects, in protest at the heinous extent of his efforts to control their freedoms in violation of the Letters of Majesty. Our episode opens with the revolver pointed at Ferdinand's head, but his saviour was not far away.
Ferdinand focuses on stabilising his position after the unsettling events of spring and summer 1619, when Vienna seemed close to succumbing and was at the mercy of the rebels. Aid from Spain was en route, but so was an attack from that troublesome quarter, Transylvania, as Bethlen Gabor set off to stick it to the Emperor Elect. The explosive elements of a full-blown war were added, and it required only the intervention of a sworn enemy of Ferdinand, powerful enough to tip the balance, for everything to escape Pandora’s Box forever…
**DON'T FORGET TO FOLLOW THESE LINKS!**
1) To support the podcast financially in return for some extra audio content, check out Patreon!
2) To find a community of history friends, look at our Facebook page and group!
3) To keep up to date with us, follow us on Twitter!
4) For everything else, visit our website, where you'll find the shop, archive, and much more!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Matchlock is a historical fiction series set during the Thirty Years' War, beginning in 1622, when Matthew Lock lands in Europe to investigate the brutal murder of his parents.
Order your copy of Matchlock and the Embassy by clicking here.
Here we ask an important question – how did the Bohemia revolt become the Thirty Years War? After throwing the Habsburg magnates out the windows of the town hall in Prague, what was next for the rebels? First and foremost, the kingdom had to be brought together to fight as one, and the three estates were assembled, determining on resistance to their new King’s inflammatory policies of repression and intolerance. Bohemians must fight for their rights, but could they hope to defeat the powerful Habsburgs? Further, could they risk losing to Ferdinand when their very freedoms were on the line?
In such desperate times, desperate measures were sought out, and these were pursued in the foreign connections Bohemian officials had built up over the years. Publishing their Apologia to the world, the Bohemians gathered with enemies of the Habsburgs such as the Duke of Savoy, and marched an army to Vienna. The Emperor, utterly unprepared at the storm he had been warned against provoking, called in some foreign aid of his own, and the ingredients were already in the offing for a terrible calamity quite unlike any which Bohemia, or indeed Europe, had ever seen.
**DON'T FORGET TO FOLLOW THESE LINKS!**
1) To support the podcast financially in return for some extra audio content, check out Patreon!
2) To find a community of history friends, look at our Facebook page and group!
3) To keep up to date with us, follow us on Twitter!
4) For everything else, visit our website, where you'll find the shop, archive, and much more!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Matchlock is a historical fiction series set during the Thirty Years' War, beginning in 1622, when Matthew Lock lands in Europe to investigate the brutal murder of his parents.
Order your copy of Matchlock and the Embassy by clicking here.
Episode 15 - what's in the box?
Well, Bohemia continues to descend into rebellion, but its activism did not stop merely on the local, national level. Instead, Bohemians contacted known advocates of an anti-Habsburg conspiracy, and they landed on Ferdinand’s arch-rival, Frederick V, the Elector Palatine and sworn foe of the Habsburg supremacy. In the years since he had come to the office of Elector Palatine, Frederick’s regime had distinguished itself thanks to the policies of Christian of Anhalt, a radical anti-Habsburg, and charger of policy in Frederick’s stead. Anhalt arranged the more controversial agreements, and guaranteed that the British marriage went ahead, but Frederick was very far from his puppet. The Elector Palatine was more than willing and able to make moves himself, and Bohemia seemed to present the ideal opportunity to strike.
It wasn’t as though the Bohemians wished to instigate the Thirty Years War – above all, they wished to be able to trust their new King, Ferdinand. But try as they might, something seemed off. In a fit of optimism, their leaders made the cardinal error of approving Ferdinand’s position, only to regret it soon after. The new king had made a public show of accepting the Letters of Majesty, thereby accepting Bohemia’s claim to tolerations and privileges which made Ferdinand’s skin crawl. So how had he agreed to it? Well, to put it simply, he lied his head off. Princes might be required to honour agreements and treat honestly with their subjects, but Ferdinand’s religious advisors had assured him that breaking such deals with the Bohemian heretics was not a sin at all, and was in fact to be encouraged. Thus duped, the Bohemians were bound to do what Bohemians did best, and launch a rising for the third time in a decade. The writing was on the wall, but Ferdinand ignored it, and thus the first phase of a conflict which was to end in three decades at Westphalia was begun.
**DON'T FORGET TO FOLLOW THESE LINKS!**
1) To support the podcast financially in return for some extra audio content, check out Patreon!
2) To find a community of history friends, look at our Facebook page and group!
3) To keep up to date with us, follow us on Twitter!
4) For everything else, visit our website, where you'll find the shop, archive, and much more!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Want to show your appreciation for Bismarck Rise? Oddly enough, you can do so by heading in a completely different direction! Matchlock is a historical fiction series set during the Thirty Years' War, beginning in 1622, when Matthew Lock lands in Europe to investigate the brutal murder of his parents. Fans of intrigue and drama, in addition to battles and complex characters, will love it!
Order your copy of Matchlock and the Embassy by clicking here.
Blood and iron, the Alvensleben Convention, and then the Congress of Princes – Bismarck’s first year as Minister President was certainly a busy one, yet it was about to become busier still. As a happy accident, the Danish crown became vacant upon the death of its king, and with this succession looming, Danish control over its German duchies, Schleswig and Holstein, loomed to the forefront of European politics once again, in a manner which it hadn’t done since 1848. The problem was that the Danes wished to retain their grip on the German duchies, through a constitution which would formalise the union between Danes and the duchies for good. The population of the duchies though, which was made up mostly of nationalist Germans, refused to have anything to do with such a scheme. The Danes refused to back down, but neither did the German Confederation – by a vote of one, in November 1863, the assembly at Frankfurt voted to return Denmark to its old constitution and protect the status quo of the duchies, by force if necessary. Just like that, a new crisis had fallen into Bismarck’s lap.
The Schleswig Holstein War would only last a few months, but Bismarck quickly ensured that the interests of Prussia were tied up in it. Before Prussian soldiers got involved, Bismarck demonstrated his flair for coups of a different kind – in the diplomatic sphere, Bismarck had broken through his own principles apparently, and forged an alliance with Austria. This alliance made, the combined forces of the two powers were turned against the Danes, and the outcome of the war became only a matter of time. The key question was what to do with the duchies; Bismarck believed in annexation, since Holstein and Schleswig boasted some strategically important land, as well as valuable farmland, and the potential to craft the Kiel Canal and improve the prospects of a Prussian navy. Yet there were several complications that got in the way of this aim. One of the great pleasures of this episode is to marvel at how Bismarck overcame these complications and limits to his power, and made an unpopular option – the annexation of the duchies – into the accepted state policy of Prussia. What was more, Bismarck managed to drag Austria along with him for the ride. The outcome proved more beneficial than Bismarck could ever have imagined.
Here we also say farewell to Bismarck for the moment, and we leave him in the aftermath of his great triumph until next time, when Hardcore WDF examines Bismarck’s next short sharp war, this time against Austria. I hope you’ll join me for that in the distant future, but I hope first and foremost that you have enjoyed listening to this series for the last few weeks or hours if you’re a patron! It took many months to make this, and 100,000 words of notes, fifteen hours of audio, and several headaches from reading too many Bismarck articles, but the end product is something I’m proud of, and something I’m happy to present to you listeners as a gift. From Zack to you, thanksss so much history friends, patrons, PhD Pals all, and I’ll be seeing you all, soon!
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Episode 7 – Domination and Manipulation: 1863-64.
He had made his fair share of errors, but it was fair to say at the same time that Bismarck wasn’t going anywhere. By the summer of 1863, the Polish business was mostly forgotten, and Bismarck could look further afield and see what developments in foreign affairs provided an opportunity to wipe the slate clean. He didn’t have to wait long. The Austrian Emperor Franz Josef claimed to desire a new constitution, one which all Germans should cooperate in crafting. To learn more, my fellow Germans, I wish to summon you to Frankfurt, where we can discuss the pending unification of Germany under Austrian control in more detail. This initiative had been on the cards for some time, but once it was announced, it was obvious to Bismarck what he had to do. Over the course of August 1863, Bismarck worked on the King. To Bismarck’s horror, Wilhelm saw no issue with the fact that he had been summoned, and his sense of tradition and pride at being summoned first meant that Bismarck would have a real fight on his hands.
If Your Majesty went to Frankfurt and kowtowed to the Austrians, Bismarck insisted, then Prussia would be forever ruined, and forever viewed as little more than a vassal state. Furthermore, your army would be placed at Austria’s command, your soldiers would become cannon fodder, your legacy would be destroyed, and your kingdom subordinated to Vienna. It was a concentrated and detailed verbal attack, launched against the exhausted king who lay on a sofa and just absorbed it all for nigh on three hours. By the time Bismarck was finished, he was in tears, at the height of nervous anxiety, and ready to walk out of the door and into the Prussian wilderness. But Bismarck’s state was nothing compared to the King’s – Bismarck had broken the poor man, and within hours, it was plain that Prussia would not in fact be attending the Congress of German Princes which the Austrians had intended to host in Frankfurt.
Wilhelm could lament that he was missing out on a great honour, but Bismarck proved correct – the Frankfurt meeting was little more than Austria’s last effort to unite Germany under its aegis, with Austrian rules, Austrian soldiers, and Austrian predominance guaranteed. The realisation of the dream of national German unity was intoxicating for some, but not for Bismarck. If Germany was to be unified, then it must be under Prussia, and if the King of Prussia couldn’t see this, Bismarck would make him see it. All in all, it was a merciless campaign of bullying and persuading by Bismarck, yet if he hadn’t engaged in it, history would have turned out very differently indeed. Here, not for the last time, Bismarck changed history, and set Prussia on a course which was to end in triumph.
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You know what those Bohemians needed? Historical fiction! Matchlock is a historical fiction series set during the Thirty Years' War, beginning in 1622, when Matthew Lock lands in Europe to investigate the brutal murder of his parents.
Order your copy of Matchlock and the Embassy by clicking here.
Episode 14 of the Thirty Years War, 'Bohemian Rampancy', is out NOW!
Other than the ingenious title, what else does this episode offer? First and foremost, it offers and unparalleled look at Bohemia in the second decade of the 17th century. It is here that the Thirty Years War would be touched off, but precisely how would this transpire? At the heart of Bohemia’s problems, Wedgewood claimed, was a ‘dismal confusion’, but it certainly didn’t help that Bohemia itself was at the centre of the Habsburg hereditary lands. There could be no rest, and no relenting, from creating in Bohemia the kind of Kingdom Ferdinand II had always envisioned. Unfortunately for Ferdinand, the Bohemians had seen him coming.
Years of chafing under Habsburg rule had moved the Bohemians to demand a list of privileges, called the Letters of Majesty. This effectively granted Bohemia religious toleration before it was cool, though this was anything but cool to Ferdinand. In an era when religious uniformity and loyalty to the state were considered to be one and the same, it was impossible for Ferdinand to allow the religiously diverse Bohemia to continue on as it had under his cousins. Various trains were set in motion, the most ruinous of which lay in Ferdinand’s own intolerant personality, and which would explode into Prague in a matter of months.
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In this episode we examine the opening six months of Bismarck’s regime, and what a regime it was. It began, to Bismarck’s surprise, with a somewhat bumpy road. In the course of his first speech before the Landtag as Minister President, Bismarck discovered that his very reputation might prove the greatest danger to his premiership. In the course of this ‘Iron and Blood’ or blood and iron speech, Bismarck simply set forth the ideas and principles which he had always held dear, and which he had never tried to hide. Later, he would claim that he was trying to bring the deputies round to his way of thinking, in that they might see the need to place power in the Prussian army’s hand, thereby giving Prussia the chance to seize the day. To his contemporaries though, Bismarck’s speech was like the denunciation of Christian, moral principles, a rejection of the political independence which liberals so valued, and a reiteration of the nationalist, high Prussian guff which they couldn’t stand. Within a short while, Bismarck became vilified, and King Wilhelm came to terms with the fact that he would have to get rid of his minister. By this point, Bismarck had been in power for less than a month.
That Bismarck’s regime would be a mere flash in the pan was a hope entertained earnestly by his enemies, but they failed to account for two things. First, that the King would not be strong enough to fire his subject, and second, that Bismarck would never have allowed himself to be fired, not at this early stage. He turned on his head the mission of the disenchanted Wilhelm, and fired up his king with talk of defending the monarchy to the end, as a soldier defends his honour. The soldier in Wilhelm was touched deeply, with the effect that Bismarck, after this episode in manipulation, had never been so secure in his position. What was more, Bismarck had learned a valuable lesson just in time – that although the King was a decent man all told, he was not a particularly strong character, whereas Bismarck’s force of personality was already a commonly known fact. This combination proved essential to Bismarck’s staying power, not to mention his success.
Within weeks, Bismarck would have a new crisis to sink his teeth into – this one emanating from the Polish provinces of Russia, where a new Polish revolt was erupting. For just over a year, from 1863-64, the Poles fought a doomed campaign against the occupying Russian forces, and the Austrians and Prussians looked on. Now ensconced in his official post, Bismarck moved to make use of an active foreign policy, and over the course of a few days, established what seemed like a good working relationship with the Russians to cooperate in the destruction of the Poles. The Alvensleben Convention was the result, but this agreement, signed in February 1863, was far from a perfect solution. It sent a firm signal to the rest of the world, about where Prussia stood, but it was also somewhat hasty in Russian minds. Had Bismarck failed again, and if he had, could another such failure be survivable? The shaky initial months of this political genius were to show that Bismarck did not have it all figured out, at least, not quite yet.
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