The Thirty Years War

[Watchman]

As I said, the whole Polish foray generally bombed for Carolus X. Heck, I've been told he lost his nickname "the Invincible" in that mess.

Anyway, you have yet to present anything to make the Polish army (or at least the cavalry) appear any less fundamentally feudal in nature - the very fact that its linchpin are landed noblemen and similar potentates is alone enough to mark it as such. That, according to your description, the cavalrymen were at least partially mercenary is nothing new in such setups - how do you imagine the many "wandering knights" (often younger sons of noblemen who didn't inherit the estate) of medieval Europe made their living ?

The part about the "equal rights" of the nobility would appear to hint at something many sources I've seen speak of - the enormous military importance and therefore political influence (the coëfficent between the two being a typically feudal trait) of lower landed aristocracy, whom at least one source referred to by the term szlachta or thereabouts and added "famed for their courage".

The whole system costing the central governement, such as it was, very little is yet another typically feudal trait although such arrangements of military obligation have been very common also at other times and places - one need merely think of the citizen-soldier hoplites or Republican Roman legions, or the tribal warbands of their barbarian neighbors. All the better that way - states that rely on such systems quite often did so out of sheer inability to sustain an economy that allowed for alternatives (which, in other words, require a comparaticely sophisticated economy and a central governing organ capable of gathering taxes and pooling them for whatever use required, such as a standing army).

There yet remains a very strong air of feudalism over the whole affair. That it was a feudalism slightly different from, say, what you found in 14th century France is wholly beside the point - feudalism is a catchall term for a certain kind of landholding-cum-military system, not any specific national variety thereof. Its contemporaries seem to have been barely aware of its existence as any singular institution - for them it was merely the fact of life - and a formal theory of it (which can be summed up roughly as "no land without master") only developed during the 1600s or so, after it had become largely defunct and the nobility sort of felt themselves left hanging in the wind.

Not in the least because the newly emerging autocrat states were keen of restricting the privileges of the landholding class, especially taxation-related.

That aside, compared to the ultramodern Swedish army of the mid-1600s the Polish one was little more than a curious if still dangerous medieval relic. Englund, who seems fascinated by the collision of old and new military paradigms (he is clearly aware of the often tragic nature of the friction, and his tone is often almost wistful - gallant old individualism vs. faceless modern efficiency seems like a recurring theme in his books), may be excused if he bluntly calls it such especially in the context.

If you think that it was too dependant on looting the defeated enemy and their country note that other armies were also e.g. Swedes weren't called 'Tatars of the north' without a good reason.

Off with the finger-pointing, thank you. I don't think anyone who knows anything about the TYW has any illusions of the obscene devastation the various armies, including the Imperial ones, wrought in Germany or the horrors they visited upon the civilian populace. The conflict enjoys a reputation as the first truly "modern" war, that is to say, one where the civilians were the ones to suffer the worst and intentionally targeted by the warring powers...

Anyone who's read up on the Swedish role in the conflict, preferably without any nationalist mental filters (there are fairs held here in Finland celebrating the Hackapells, a at least here famous cavalry contignent in the Swedish army mostly recruited from the country's Finnish provinces... I like to call that sort of thing "my grampa was a worse murdering rapist than yours"- grandstanding), is going to have a difficult time finding nice things to say of the state army's conduct in Germany. The scorching of Bohemia, which earned Baner the nickname "Old Arsonist" in the Catholic camp and the eternal hatred of Bohemian peasantry, is probably the most extreme example but it ought to tell something that until early 1900s or so in many parts of Germany children were scared into submission by telling them "Swede" or Axel Oxenstierna (the Swedish Chancellor of State during the time) would take them if they didn't behave...

The Swedish participation in the conflict was only economically possible through massive debts to anyone and everyone who was willing to loan money, the generous French subsidies (Richelieu in a sense hired the entire Swedish army to cause trouble for the Habsburgs) and a very thorough looting and pillaging of the unfortunate German locals. But, then, the Emperor had it even worse - he lacked the French monetary support and to boot the fighting and ravaging went on in his lands...


As for the Hussars' weaponry, nobody said they fought with just the one-shot lance, just like the medieval knight carried a score of backup weapons and the 1600s cuirassieur and musketeer alike had a sword (in principle at least). That doesn't mean the lance was any less a pain in the arse on campaign - see your own mention of them usually being transported in wagons. The lance was always quite possibly the most disposable part of the feudal cavalryman's outfit in any case - its sheer lenght and the one-handed technique of wielding it made it cumbersome in the melee that often followed the initial shock charge. If nothing else there could well be someone's corpse skewered on it, or it might be stuck in some poor horse's bowels, so it was often unceremoniously discarded. Pages, squires and other serving-folk were tasked with bringing the knights fresh lances if and when required.

The one-shot hollow lances of the Poles were really just the logical next step.