Dutch, Swedish and German History
I'm still feeling really bad and all of the things that were overwhelming me before are still overwhelming me now. But, I've had some time to just distract myself from that and I've done it by going back into history and it seems to have let my mind begin the process of re-balancing itself. So while I've been feeling completely unable to cope, I've been playing Victoria II and reading Eric Flint's alternate history series 1632 and reading Wikipedia. One thing leading to another, I'm well up on Dutch, Belgian and Swedish history. However, the chief focus seems to be Germany, especially in the form of the 30 years war, the rise and growth of Prussia, German involvement in the Battle of Waterloo and the formation of the German Empire.
I guess I'm fascinated by German history because it strikes me as an amazingly long time for them to have gotten together as a single country comprising the territories of German speaking peoples. The Germanic culture group is one of the largest in Europe. If they had gotten together, they would have kicked everyone's arses. Instead, they ended up dying by the hundred thousands in petty little wars and religious strife. Like Italy, they united quite late in their history, almost when they no choice. Then when they did, they ended up in the two World Wars almost without thinking and gave the world Fascism and genocide.
I'm also fascinated by the fact that German unification came from Prussia. Why Prussia? It's been puzzling me for a while and I find it confusing, because I'd never heard of Prussia. Also, the little I knew about it seemed to indicate that the territory of Prussia was that little bit of northern Poland that Polish people swear has been theirs since history immemorial and that is the last place in the world I'd imagine German unification coming from. That little part is also ironically now that little part of Russia that's separate from the rest, called Kalingrad. So the irritating could claim that German unification came from Russia. But Prussian history is quite fascinating. Broadly, they seem to be descended from the Teutonic knights, who secularised after the Polish gave them a thrashing (seriously, the 1410 Battle at Grunwald is really big in Polish history) and also after the Protestant Reformation swept through their ranks. They turned into a duchy which got linked into Brandenburg (where Berlin is) and that nucleated into Germany eventually. Somehow the name stuck.
Contrast that with Dutch history. The Dutch also begin as a series of small principalities, although like the English, their history seems to begin when the "Duchy" of Burgundy takes over a decent swathe of them. You have to wonder, if a Duchy like Burgundy or Normandy can invade whole countries, whether they should still be called that. But, yes, it was only a duchy and, like most places with people in the French cultural group, it was never going to survive French unification. Indeed, French unification presents another odd contrast to the German one. But I digress.
The Dutch then seemed to have been taken over by Austria and, through dynastic dealings that really make my head swim, then ended up under the Spanish through the Hapsburg Dynsasty. The Austrians seemed to have unified an area roughly aligned with Belgium and the present day Netherlands, then the Netherlands broke off into some kind of political union based on a republic that did various things and even went through something called the United Kingdom ahead of Britain. However, their desire to maintain themselves as one entity in order to preserve themselves against everyone else seems to have been firm enough to keep themselves together.
In the meantime, the rise of Sweden really interests me because the 30 Years War was really nasty, resulting in mass famine and death. In the Eric Flint books, the Swedish are presented as about one of the few sides that are in any way sane. In my Polish history, we were taught to think of them as evil because they flooded the country (and they were filthy Protestants), and only our Catholic faith at Czestochova saved Poland from getting seriously conquered.
However, I've been reading up on both Gustav II Adolf and also his adviser, Alex Oxeinstierna. I had thought that, in the war against Poland, the Swedes had over-extended themselves with Imperial ambitions and this caused mass death and starvation in Sweden. But now there's another spin on the whole thing, with Gustav II Adolf as the father of modern warfare and his Chancellor the father of the modern Swedish nation, with Sweden being one of the major reformers of the time producing one of the most modern nations in the whole of Europe.
It does appear that the Swedes fought much more professionally in the 30 Years War than anyone else and therefore were guilty of less rape, carnage and destruction than just about anyone else (shock, horror, they paid for their army supplies). Their victory at Brietenfeld was pretty amazing and halted the advance of the Catholic faction, as well as getting rid of Count Tilly and his truly unsavoury mercenary army. I don't know if Brietenfeld was was quite the turning point, which allowed the Protestant Reformation and religious freedom to continue, that Eric Flint thinks it is, especially as most of the gains were reversed later, but it's hard not to root for the Swedes, since their whole organisation and ethos screams out a much more egalitarian and modern state.
I guess I'm fascinated by German history because it strikes me as an amazingly long time for them to have gotten together as a single country comprising the territories of German speaking peoples. The Germanic culture group is one of the largest in Europe. If they had gotten together, they would have kicked everyone's arses. Instead, they ended up dying by the hundred thousands in petty little wars and religious strife. Like Italy, they united quite late in their history, almost when they no choice. Then when they did, they ended up in the two World Wars almost without thinking and gave the world Fascism and genocide.
I'm also fascinated by the fact that German unification came from Prussia. Why Prussia? It's been puzzling me for a while and I find it confusing, because I'd never heard of Prussia. Also, the little I knew about it seemed to indicate that the territory of Prussia was that little bit of northern Poland that Polish people swear has been theirs since history immemorial and that is the last place in the world I'd imagine German unification coming from. That little part is also ironically now that little part of Russia that's separate from the rest, called Kalingrad. So the irritating could claim that German unification came from Russia. But Prussian history is quite fascinating. Broadly, they seem to be descended from the Teutonic knights, who secularised after the Polish gave them a thrashing (seriously, the 1410 Battle at Grunwald is really big in Polish history) and also after the Protestant Reformation swept through their ranks. They turned into a duchy which got linked into Brandenburg (where Berlin is) and that nucleated into Germany eventually. Somehow the name stuck.
Contrast that with Dutch history. The Dutch also begin as a series of small principalities, although like the English, their history seems to begin when the "Duchy" of Burgundy takes over a decent swathe of them. You have to wonder, if a Duchy like Burgundy or Normandy can invade whole countries, whether they should still be called that. But, yes, it was only a duchy and, like most places with people in the French cultural group, it was never going to survive French unification. Indeed, French unification presents another odd contrast to the German one. But I digress.
The Dutch then seemed to have been taken over by Austria and, through dynastic dealings that really make my head swim, then ended up under the Spanish through the Hapsburg Dynsasty. The Austrians seemed to have unified an area roughly aligned with Belgium and the present day Netherlands, then the Netherlands broke off into some kind of political union based on a republic that did various things and even went through something called the United Kingdom ahead of Britain. However, their desire to maintain themselves as one entity in order to preserve themselves against everyone else seems to have been firm enough to keep themselves together.
In the meantime, the rise of Sweden really interests me because the 30 Years War was really nasty, resulting in mass famine and death. In the Eric Flint books, the Swedish are presented as about one of the few sides that are in any way sane. In my Polish history, we were taught to think of them as evil because they flooded the country (and they were filthy Protestants), and only our Catholic faith at Czestochova saved Poland from getting seriously conquered.
However, I've been reading up on both Gustav II Adolf and also his adviser, Alex Oxeinstierna. I had thought that, in the war against Poland, the Swedes had over-extended themselves with Imperial ambitions and this caused mass death and starvation in Sweden. But now there's another spin on the whole thing, with Gustav II Adolf as the father of modern warfare and his Chancellor the father of the modern Swedish nation, with Sweden being one of the major reformers of the time producing one of the most modern nations in the whole of Europe.
It does appear that the Swedes fought much more professionally in the 30 Years War than anyone else and therefore were guilty of less rape, carnage and destruction than just about anyone else (shock, horror, they paid for their army supplies). Their victory at Brietenfeld was pretty amazing and halted the advance of the Catholic faction, as well as getting rid of Count Tilly and his truly unsavoury mercenary army. I don't know if Brietenfeld was was quite the turning point, which allowed the Protestant Reformation and religious freedom to continue, that Eric Flint thinks it is, especially as most of the gains were reversed later, but it's hard not to root for the Swedes, since their whole organisation and ethos screams out a much more egalitarian and modern state.