Honestly I have never seen a Reformation this radical. I've seen Poland and Austria go Protestant in my Germany and Poland games, respectively, but I've NEVER seen a major power that wasn't me go Reformed.
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I agree, the Reformation is truly staggering. A great update, and as Chris said, you wrote the Personal Union/Inheritance into the story beautifully.
Are you guys liking the me fitting learning into the AAR thing? As I said, I've been writing this to keep myself sharp, and so I'm going over several concepts (The first post on Dynamics was written through the idea of geographical determinism, the post on modern policing etc, plus the whole thread is being written from an Institutionalist standpoint). I'm thinking that I'll bring up Hegel's idea of History in the next entry. Sound good? You guys learning anything =p?
Do whatever you want, bringing philosophical concepts is quite awesome.
Also: HUGE REFORMATION. Seriously, how this happened? I'm shocked, awed and intrigued.
This AAR is very good, but I have one, rather ranty issue: you keep on misspelling province names. It's Głogowskie, not Glonowski, Opolskie, not Opolski, and Raciborskie, not Rackinborski. The final "e" really matters and isn't silent, it denotes neuter gender of adjective (as all this names are really adjectives-turned-nouns in Polish, as is with names of all provinces). Yes, I know this is a rather small problem, but I just felt you needed to know
Merrick Chance', go ahead and unleash IR concepts on the thread, but please, try and bring in Carl Schmitt somehow (and maybe a "constructivist" update regarding alliances and war when you get in the late 1600s).
(and maybe a "constructivist" update regarding alliances and war when you get in the late 1600s).
Do whatever you want, bringing philosophical concepts is quite awesome.
Also: HUGE REFORMATION. Seriously, how this happened? I'm shocked, awed and intrigued.
This AAR is very good, but I have one, rather ranty issue: you keep on misspelling province names. It's Głogowskie, not Glonowski, Opolskie, not Opolski, and Raciborskie, not Rackinborski. The final "e" really matters and isn't silent, it denotes neuter gender of adjective (as all this names are really adjectives-turned-nouns in Polish, as is with names of all provinces). Yes, I know this is a rather small problem, but I just felt you needed to know
Yeah, I'll start spelling it correctly now. I realized 2 entries ago that I was misspelling it, but I was worried that if I started spelling it correctly that people might not know what I was talking about. I'll start spelling it correctly now that there are correct spellings of it in the thread
Good read. Although I got a bit confused about the PU thing. In the pic of Silesia I can see Krystian Ludvik I ruling the nation yet it is in PU with Prussia. While Prussia is still ruled by Johann Cicero? How's that possible?
Glad you're going to do sth about misspelling.
Finally, I dunno about the hugeness of the reformation. Come on, out of biggies only Sweden and Poland converted. Historically Poland at least a couple of times was close to doing so and even if it hadn't it hosted numerous 'heretics', many of them held prominent positions. When I see one more big boy (either France, England or Austria) and one medium powers outside HRE (Denmark or Norway) convert, I'll say it's normal reformation. Remember, the Councils may introduce reforms and some Protestants will reconcile others will get cold feet. And yet there is the counter-reformation, so the Church may strike back. We shall see how that develops.
What is odd/interesting about your reformation is the power and popularity of radical reformers!
Glad you're going to do sth about misspelling.
Finally, I dunno about the hugeness of the reformation. Come on, out of biggies only Sweden and Poland converted. Historically Poland at least a couple of times was close to doing so and even if it hadn't it hosted numerous 'heretics', many of them held prominent positions. When I see one more big boy (either France, England or Austria) and one medium powers outside HRE (Denmark or Norway) convert, I'll say it's normal reformation. Remember, the Councils may introduce reforms and some Protestants will reconcile others will get cold feet. And yet there is the counter-reformation, so the Church may strike back. We shall see how that develops.
What is odd/interesting about your reformation is the power and popularity of radical reformers!
Oh, one last thing--if anyone sees me saying something that's wrong (misspelling names, or what I've been more worried about--misreading the ethnicities of advisers), feel free to call me out!
edit: gabor, I think it's a bug that I've seen before. I think it happens if the Silesian version of Cicero dies without the Prussian version. You can see it if you go to a period when there's a personal union, and then use the console command "die HUN" for instance. The Hungarian ruler will be different, they'll still be in a personal union, but if you do "die HAB" then both rulers will die.
edit: gabor, I think it's a bug that I've seen before. I think it happens if the Silesian version of Cicero dies without the Prussian version. You can see it if you go to a period when there's a personal union, and then use the console command "die HUN" for instance. The Hungarian ruler will be different, they'll still be in a personal union, but if you do "die HAB" then both rulers will die.
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I agree with Gabor; the real Reformation was at least as widespread as this one, and it's only because in-game the Reformation is generally puny that this looks big. Also, is it just me or does England almost never go Protestant?
Seriously great AAR by the way. I'm really digging the political science stuff, especially since Augustine's City of God is pretty fresh in my mind. Now if only you could somehow reference Heidegger, I'd be in pretentious nerd heaven.
Seriously great AAR by the way. I'm really digging the political science stuff, especially since Augustine's City of God is pretty fresh in my mind. Now if only you could somehow reference Heidegger, I'd be in pretentious nerd heaven
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The Periphery Crumbles: Prussia in the Radical Reformation and the 1560s
The great theologian Hans Kung once said "the Reformation was truly the battle between Catholicisms' periphery and its centre". While this is not a fully accurate statement (both of the major Reformists, Brenta and Becke, made their careers in Italy), the spirit of the phrase must have been felt strongly by 1570. The three major kingdoms which converted from Catholicism--Sweden, Prussia, and Poland--were all on the intellectual periphery of Western Europe, and their conversion (while it wasn't the true origin), sped up the creation of an independent Eastern European intellectualism.
While Western Europe was content to rely on its monasteries and universities for its knowledge, the invention of the printing press truly transformed the cities of Eastern Europe. With increasing literacy rates (optimists put Prussian literacy at 10% by the 17th century), the urban artisan class was increasingly the driver of intellectual pursuits, and it will soon be made clear that the Lithuanians looked more to the publishing houses in Vilno than to the Church for cultural cues. Catholicism in the fringes had long relied more on local traditions than the policy of Rome.
Not only did the Reformation create a separate Eastern European identity, it also reintroduced History (in the Hegellian sense of battles between ideologies) into Europe. The first half of the 16th century was marked by a degree of realpolitick in Europe which would not be seen again for centuries, precisely because the kings involved tacitly agreed on most things--on their sovereignty, in the Augustan mode of political philosophy, and in the importance of attacking the smaller Beckian states in order to strengthen Catholicism but most importantly themselves. This system of norms was similar to the system of norms in Metternich's Europe, and it allowed for a great deal of leeway for the kings to ally against each other. The alliance system in the 1550s cared little for denominations--Austria was allied to Beckist Sweden and Orthodox Russia in order to counter Catholic Poland, for instance.
This was no longer true. Ideology now mattered in foreign policy again. Prussia, which had long allied with Poland against its enemies in the Empire, was now no longer able to stomach the egalitarian spirit of the Noble Kingdom's denomination. It wouldn't be accurate to describe the Reformation as East VS West, so much that it was about the rise of Eastern Europe.
Sweden
Sweden by the reign of Erick IX
Becke's works were translated into Finnish during the early 1530s, and the work of translating the Bible into Finnish and Swedish led to the creation of hundreds of minor publishing houses. By 1540, most of the towns in Finland had accepted Becke's teachings. At this time, one of the major Finnish noble princes, Gustav, was enjoying some of the last years where freedom of travel was a part of Europe.
Gustav was a lucky man--he had all of the monetary advantages of being in a major royal family, but none of the responsibilities. His claim to the throne of Sweden required both his older brother and his cousin to die, and that the current King of Sweden be killed without an heir. Faced with this opportunity, Gustav moved from the provincial town of Abo to Berlin, both in order to experience a real city (Scandanavia at this time was made mostly from small towns), and to see the Prussian perspective of Becke--after all, Sweden and Prussia both had large Beckist minorities.
Faced with the 'Prussian Work Ethic' which Weber wrote about, Gustav quickly gave up his blessed and sedentary lifestyle and instead decided that he would apprentice with a lawyer. The Stettin lawman Joseph Steicke took Gustav in and taught him the laws of the Empire, but taught him more as well. Steicke was one of Finck's followers, and while he wasn't as intelligent as Finck, he indoctrinated Gustav through his apprenticeship in the concept of Absolute Rule (a novel concept in the early 16th century) and in Becke's beliefs. By the age of 23, Gustav was a learned lawyer who defended Pommerania's right of commerce against Prussian bureaucrats. Soon afterwards, he got a letter saying that Sweden required him to be registered and to act as an officer.
He answered the call and fought against the Livonian Order, and his command of the Swedish mercenaries was one of the primary reasons for the Swedish conquest of Livonia. While resting on his laurels in a garrison in Abo, he got a second life changing letter: the King had died with his son and cousin in a storm on the way back from the Council in Scotland. With the only other man between Gustav and the throne rotting from the assault on Livland, Gustav took the name Erick IX and took the Swedish crown. He was the perfect man for the time (9/9/9)
This put Sweden in the same awkward position that Prussia faced: the King was sympathetic with the plight of the Reformers, however he was also stuck in the alliance system. Sweden's alliance with Austria had long helped it conquest land from Norway and Denmark, and though Sweden did not have the same amount of fear that the Prussians did, the Swedes knew that a country with a population as small as their would never be able to stand on its own against the Russians.
However, once the decision to limit the vernacular was brought to the ears of Erick, he knew what he had to do. The economy of Sweden had been booming for the past two decades from the trading of translated Bibles, and to destroy this industry would be to force most of northern Sweden and Finland back into the Dark Ages. The famous claim that Erick would defend Christianity for the People rather than the Priests could have been rephrased as "I will defend Christianity, not for the Preists but for my economy!" In any case, the seizing of Church land gave the Kingdom a colassal amount of capital (So yeah, I helped out the first major to convert to Protestantism/Reformism by giving them a ton of money [5000, IE the cash cheat] and giving them Defender of the Faith, because I've seen a lot of things happening where a Protestant country will take in one more Catholic province and then convert back to Catholicism. I feel like you shouldn't be able to convert of your own free will with the same ruler, if that makes sense) which the Swedes then used in the 2nd Northern War. The Hapbsburgs at first stayed true to their anti-Polish alliance, until the realization came to the court that in supporting a Beckist state, they were stabbing the last bastion of Catholicism in the North (Norway) in the back. The turning of the Hapsburgs preserved Norway's independence for another couple of decades, while Swedish troops marched all the way to Novgorod before they agreed to the peace treaty giving them the other half of Finland.
Sweden by 1570
Poland
The Religious Make-Up of the Republic of Poland, 1562
While Sweden was the first major state to convert from Catholicism, it was the conversion of August III which brought real alarm, both to the Emperor and to the Pope. The Polish army had long been used as a countermeasure to the Russians, and the colossus that was Poland had brought concern to European courts even before its conversion, and now that Poland was working under its own Church, the eyes of all of Europe were looking at and praying for the Heart of Europe.
While many historians have honed in on the similarity between the Swedish Conversion and the Polish Conversion--that both sprung from the same event (an Eastern nobleman coming to the throne), there are huge differences between the two. For one, Sweden converted to Beckist Christianity, which, by 1550 already had a long intellectual legacy, going from Kreyitz's teachings and the teachings of Finck, as well as Becke's Swedish, Italian, and German brethren.
But Poland's conversion was to a totally new brand of Christianity, one which was uniquely Polish. Republikanin Christianity (or Republican Christianity) had three ideological roots--the strength of the Renaissance in Poland, the populist intellectuals in Lithuania (who were generally actually aristocrats), and the unique combination of Orthodoxy and Catholicism in Eastern Poland.
The priest Antanas started his life as an Orthodox Christian Lithuanian living in Minsk. He was orphaned at a young age and was moved to a Catholic orphanage. Antanas very swiftly caught on to Catholic theology, and by the time he was in seminary he was known as "one of the greatest orators Minsk has ever known". The one issue which set him apart from his Catholic brothers was his lack of 'patience' as the seminarians called it. Augustus says that we are all equal for eternity in the Kingdom of God, so the brief period of inequality during our lives in the Kingdom of Man is of small importance. Antanas believed differently--he felt that the equality of men in the Kingdom of God was a sign that 'to live equitably is to live within the grace of god', and that inequality is the devils invention, made to keep us apart.
These views closed a great many doors for Antanas--letters between the head of the Minsk Seminary and the head of the Polish See suggest that Antanas would be perfect material for a cardinal if he weren't such a radical. This only got worse as time went on--when he moved to Mogilev, a recently converted province, Antanas joined a long tradition of Catholic priests accepting certain aspects of the local religion. Soon Antanas was giving sermons against the concept of original sin, which, combined with his sermons on the purity of democracy and the Roman revival in Polish culture, gave Antanas a large and wealthy parish.
When the news came that the Church would be placing Catholic tradition alongside scripture, it became obvious that Antanas would soon be considered a heretic. Instead of being attacked by the Inquisition, he preempted the Church and created his own religion. His parishioners, mostly dis-empowered Lithuanian nobles, by and large followed him into heresy. Soon Antanas was printing his works at the Vilno publishing houses, and other Lithuanian priests started preaching his books at sermons.
This heresy would not be tolerated for long. Once the King August II discovered that his own brother in law was practicing Republikanin, he marched to Vilno at the head of a group of inquisitors. What followed was one of the first democratic coups in history. Before reaching Vilno, August II was met on the field by a massive mob of peasants led by the local noblemen and by the King's brother-in-law. The battle was quick--August II did not expect resistance and the mob was thirsty for blood. With his brother in law's head on a pike, August III announced the new Polish Korona, which would be based on democratic principles--regardless of religion, noblemen would now be allowed to vote for their king.
The next several years had a lot of worries for August III--for the Republikanin Christians were still a small minority, mostly in the Grand Duchy. But Poland had freedom of religion laws which protected the speech of Catholic priests. How was August III to convert his country when opposing religion kept its rights? August came up with two ideas--one novel, the other all too old. He limited the rights of Catholics to move and congregate, but he also set up a huge literacy project, using the Bible translated by Antanas into Ukrainian, Polish, Lithuanian, and Belorussan as reading guides. August also set up a large number of Republikanin orphanages. By the Polish wars of religion, the Republikanins had spread throughout Poland, but Catholics were enraged.
Poland at the end of the Wars of Religion, 1470
Prussia
By the mid-1560s, the mark was fully converted
Prussia did more than any other state to start the reformation. All three of the major lines of thought present in Beckist Christianity were created by Brandenburgers, and the Berlin printing presses and artisan class translated Beckist works into a menagerie of Eastern European languages, thus spreading the religion.
However, Prussia's conversion to Christianity at the death of Johann Cicero led not to a Golden Age but to a pair of undiplomatic Kings who had to put their all in simply to keep the state afloat. The Europe-wide recession caused by the death of the Catholic bookmakers was felt in Prussia as well, and the state had to constantly take out loans. Beyond this, I feel that it's relevant to point out the obvious--Prussia was not as large as Sweden or Poland. While in Poland, the seizing of Church lands allowed for a proto-industrialization of the Vistula, the small amount of church land taken in Silesia and Prussia was just barely enough for Frederich to pay off his loans.
As I said, the Reformation brought 'politics' and history back into Europe. No longer were most Kings experts of realpolitick, most foreign policy during the era was trying to either contain or expand the Reformation. Prussia had greatly benefited from the rule of Cicero, who's diplomacy was able to launch Prussia into major powerdom. His son was not such a diplomat. Awkward like his grandfather (-2 diplomacy), Frederich was obsessed with bringing literacy and Beckism to his realm. This conflicted with his want to create an army that could spread Beckism to the South. Frederich represented all of the problems of the typical Prussian king: they had enough resources to expand their power inwardly or outwardly, but not to do both. In trying to do both, Frederich nearly bankrupted the realm multiple times.
Beyond this, he angered the Silesians. The Silesian estate, even under 10 years of rule, was chaffing under the rule of the Doppelkorps, and with signs showing that the Prussian army would expand to 40,000 men, there was the worry that Silesian men would be put into Prussian regiments. The Estates requested an exception in their favor. Frederich (and his little brother, Ferdinand) would have none of this. It was not an issue of sovereignty, they argued, but of having a simple system of law. While this angered the Silesians, Ferdinand's focus on a simple system of rules cut down drastically on regulations, which led to Berlin being one of the most industrialized cities in Europe at this point.
The anger of the Silesians, and the benefits of the Prussian state
In converting the populace, Prussia focused more on literacy campaigns than any other state. This is partially because they were able to--the mark was now dotted with artisan workshops producing new books. However, there were still a large number of Catholics in the country, Catholics who had been taught by the Franciscans and who weren't likely to be converted. The Franciscan Arch-Bishop of Bremen, Georg II, humbly requested that, if Ferdinand was not continuing the Statute in Restraint of Appeals (a provision which allowed the King to appoint Bishops), then perhaps the Catholics could be represented by a renewed Bishopric of Magdeburg. Frederich agreed to this, on the provision that the Bishop would also be appointed. The Bishop at Mageburg would represent Prussia's Catholics for the next three centuries.
The re-organization of Prussia's bureaucracy along Protestant lines, combined with the instability of an entire country converting, meant that it was only in 1460 that Prussia felt the kind of peace and quiet under Cicero's reign. There were still gains made--multiple Kronesauge banks opened across Silesia, and the rise of burghers and artisans across the country led to a far higher level of economic development. However, this would all be put to risk when Frederich intervened in Poland's War of Religion.
Prussia's armies march on Sandomierz
sorry for the meh entry, this is me writing a weekend later about a relatively calm period for the country
The great theologian Hans Kung once said "the Reformation was truly the battle between Catholicisms' periphery and its centre". While this is not a fully accurate statement (both of the major Reformists, Brenta and Becke, made their careers in Italy), the spirit of the phrase must have been felt strongly by 1570. The three major kingdoms which converted from Catholicism--Sweden, Prussia, and Poland--were all on the intellectual periphery of Western Europe, and their conversion (while it wasn't the true origin), sped up the creation of an independent Eastern European intellectualism.
While Western Europe was content to rely on its monasteries and universities for its knowledge, the invention of the printing press truly transformed the cities of Eastern Europe. With increasing literacy rates (optimists put Prussian literacy at 10% by the 17th century), the urban artisan class was increasingly the driver of intellectual pursuits, and it will soon be made clear that the Lithuanians looked more to the publishing houses in Vilno than to the Church for cultural cues. Catholicism in the fringes had long relied more on local traditions than the policy of Rome.
Not only did the Reformation create a separate Eastern European identity, it also reintroduced History (in the Hegellian sense of battles between ideologies) into Europe. The first half of the 16th century was marked by a degree of realpolitick in Europe which would not be seen again for centuries, precisely because the kings involved tacitly agreed on most things--on their sovereignty, in the Augustan mode of political philosophy, and in the importance of attacking the smaller Beckian states in order to strengthen Catholicism but most importantly themselves. This system of norms was similar to the system of norms in Metternich's Europe, and it allowed for a great deal of leeway for the kings to ally against each other. The alliance system in the 1550s cared little for denominations--Austria was allied to Beckist Sweden and Orthodox Russia in order to counter Catholic Poland, for instance.
This was no longer true. Ideology now mattered in foreign policy again. Prussia, which had long allied with Poland against its enemies in the Empire, was now no longer able to stomach the egalitarian spirit of the Noble Kingdom's denomination. It wouldn't be accurate to describe the Reformation as East VS West, so much that it was about the rise of Eastern Europe.
Sweden
Sweden by the reign of Erick IX
Becke's works were translated into Finnish during the early 1530s, and the work of translating the Bible into Finnish and Swedish led to the creation of hundreds of minor publishing houses. By 1540, most of the towns in Finland had accepted Becke's teachings. At this time, one of the major Finnish noble princes, Gustav, was enjoying some of the last years where freedom of travel was a part of Europe.
Gustav was a lucky man--he had all of the monetary advantages of being in a major royal family, but none of the responsibilities. His claim to the throne of Sweden required both his older brother and his cousin to die, and that the current King of Sweden be killed without an heir. Faced with this opportunity, Gustav moved from the provincial town of Abo to Berlin, both in order to experience a real city (Scandanavia at this time was made mostly from small towns), and to see the Prussian perspective of Becke--after all, Sweden and Prussia both had large Beckist minorities.
Faced with the 'Prussian Work Ethic' which Weber wrote about, Gustav quickly gave up his blessed and sedentary lifestyle and instead decided that he would apprentice with a lawyer. The Stettin lawman Joseph Steicke took Gustav in and taught him the laws of the Empire, but taught him more as well. Steicke was one of Finck's followers, and while he wasn't as intelligent as Finck, he indoctrinated Gustav through his apprenticeship in the concept of Absolute Rule (a novel concept in the early 16th century) and in Becke's beliefs. By the age of 23, Gustav was a learned lawyer who defended Pommerania's right of commerce against Prussian bureaucrats. Soon afterwards, he got a letter saying that Sweden required him to be registered and to act as an officer.
He answered the call and fought against the Livonian Order, and his command of the Swedish mercenaries was one of the primary reasons for the Swedish conquest of Livonia. While resting on his laurels in a garrison in Abo, he got a second life changing letter: the King had died with his son and cousin in a storm on the way back from the Council in Scotland. With the only other man between Gustav and the throne rotting from the assault on Livland, Gustav took the name Erick IX and took the Swedish crown. He was the perfect man for the time (9/9/9)
This put Sweden in the same awkward position that Prussia faced: the King was sympathetic with the plight of the Reformers, however he was also stuck in the alliance system. Sweden's alliance with Austria had long helped it conquest land from Norway and Denmark, and though Sweden did not have the same amount of fear that the Prussians did, the Swedes knew that a country with a population as small as their would never be able to stand on its own against the Russians.
However, once the decision to limit the vernacular was brought to the ears of Erick, he knew what he had to do. The economy of Sweden had been booming for the past two decades from the trading of translated Bibles, and to destroy this industry would be to force most of northern Sweden and Finland back into the Dark Ages. The famous claim that Erick would defend Christianity for the People rather than the Priests could have been rephrased as "I will defend Christianity, not for the Preists but for my economy!" In any case, the seizing of Church land gave the Kingdom a colassal amount of capital (So yeah, I helped out the first major to convert to Protestantism/Reformism by giving them a ton of money [5000, IE the cash cheat] and giving them Defender of the Faith, because I've seen a lot of things happening where a Protestant country will take in one more Catholic province and then convert back to Catholicism. I feel like you shouldn't be able to convert of your own free will with the same ruler, if that makes sense) which the Swedes then used in the 2nd Northern War. The Hapbsburgs at first stayed true to their anti-Polish alliance, until the realization came to the court that in supporting a Beckist state, they were stabbing the last bastion of Catholicism in the North (Norway) in the back. The turning of the Hapsburgs preserved Norway's independence for another couple of decades, while Swedish troops marched all the way to Novgorod before they agreed to the peace treaty giving them the other half of Finland.
Sweden by 1570
Poland
The Religious Make-Up of the Republic of Poland, 1562
While Sweden was the first major state to convert from Catholicism, it was the conversion of August III which brought real alarm, both to the Emperor and to the Pope. The Polish army had long been used as a countermeasure to the Russians, and the colossus that was Poland had brought concern to European courts even before its conversion, and now that Poland was working under its own Church, the eyes of all of Europe were looking at and praying for the Heart of Europe.
While many historians have honed in on the similarity between the Swedish Conversion and the Polish Conversion--that both sprung from the same event (an Eastern nobleman coming to the throne), there are huge differences between the two. For one, Sweden converted to Beckist Christianity, which, by 1550 already had a long intellectual legacy, going from Kreyitz's teachings and the teachings of Finck, as well as Becke's Swedish, Italian, and German brethren.
But Poland's conversion was to a totally new brand of Christianity, one which was uniquely Polish. Republikanin Christianity (or Republican Christianity) had three ideological roots--the strength of the Renaissance in Poland, the populist intellectuals in Lithuania (who were generally actually aristocrats), and the unique combination of Orthodoxy and Catholicism in Eastern Poland.
The priest Antanas started his life as an Orthodox Christian Lithuanian living in Minsk. He was orphaned at a young age and was moved to a Catholic orphanage. Antanas very swiftly caught on to Catholic theology, and by the time he was in seminary he was known as "one of the greatest orators Minsk has ever known". The one issue which set him apart from his Catholic brothers was his lack of 'patience' as the seminarians called it. Augustus says that we are all equal for eternity in the Kingdom of God, so the brief period of inequality during our lives in the Kingdom of Man is of small importance. Antanas believed differently--he felt that the equality of men in the Kingdom of God was a sign that 'to live equitably is to live within the grace of god', and that inequality is the devils invention, made to keep us apart.
These views closed a great many doors for Antanas--letters between the head of the Minsk Seminary and the head of the Polish See suggest that Antanas would be perfect material for a cardinal if he weren't such a radical. This only got worse as time went on--when he moved to Mogilev, a recently converted province, Antanas joined a long tradition of Catholic priests accepting certain aspects of the local religion. Soon Antanas was giving sermons against the concept of original sin, which, combined with his sermons on the purity of democracy and the Roman revival in Polish culture, gave Antanas a large and wealthy parish.
When the news came that the Church would be placing Catholic tradition alongside scripture, it became obvious that Antanas would soon be considered a heretic. Instead of being attacked by the Inquisition, he preempted the Church and created his own religion. His parishioners, mostly dis-empowered Lithuanian nobles, by and large followed him into heresy. Soon Antanas was printing his works at the Vilno publishing houses, and other Lithuanian priests started preaching his books at sermons.
This heresy would not be tolerated for long. Once the King August II discovered that his own brother in law was practicing Republikanin, he marched to Vilno at the head of a group of inquisitors. What followed was one of the first democratic coups in history. Before reaching Vilno, August II was met on the field by a massive mob of peasants led by the local noblemen and by the King's brother-in-law. The battle was quick--August II did not expect resistance and the mob was thirsty for blood. With his brother in law's head on a pike, August III announced the new Polish Korona, which would be based on democratic principles--regardless of religion, noblemen would now be allowed to vote for their king.
The next several years had a lot of worries for August III--for the Republikanin Christians were still a small minority, mostly in the Grand Duchy. But Poland had freedom of religion laws which protected the speech of Catholic priests. How was August III to convert his country when opposing religion kept its rights? August came up with two ideas--one novel, the other all too old. He limited the rights of Catholics to move and congregate, but he also set up a huge literacy project, using the Bible translated by Antanas into Ukrainian, Polish, Lithuanian, and Belorussan as reading guides. August also set up a large number of Republikanin orphanages. By the Polish wars of religion, the Republikanins had spread throughout Poland, but Catholics were enraged.
Poland at the end of the Wars of Religion, 1470
Prussia
By the mid-1560s, the mark was fully converted
Prussia did more than any other state to start the reformation. All three of the major lines of thought present in Beckist Christianity were created by Brandenburgers, and the Berlin printing presses and artisan class translated Beckist works into a menagerie of Eastern European languages, thus spreading the religion.
However, Prussia's conversion to Christianity at the death of Johann Cicero led not to a Golden Age but to a pair of undiplomatic Kings who had to put their all in simply to keep the state afloat. The Europe-wide recession caused by the death of the Catholic bookmakers was felt in Prussia as well, and the state had to constantly take out loans. Beyond this, I feel that it's relevant to point out the obvious--Prussia was not as large as Sweden or Poland. While in Poland, the seizing of Church lands allowed for a proto-industrialization of the Vistula, the small amount of church land taken in Silesia and Prussia was just barely enough for Frederich to pay off his loans.
As I said, the Reformation brought 'politics' and history back into Europe. No longer were most Kings experts of realpolitick, most foreign policy during the era was trying to either contain or expand the Reformation. Prussia had greatly benefited from the rule of Cicero, who's diplomacy was able to launch Prussia into major powerdom. His son was not such a diplomat. Awkward like his grandfather (-2 diplomacy), Frederich was obsessed with bringing literacy and Beckism to his realm. This conflicted with his want to create an army that could spread Beckism to the South. Frederich represented all of the problems of the typical Prussian king: they had enough resources to expand their power inwardly or outwardly, but not to do both. In trying to do both, Frederich nearly bankrupted the realm multiple times.
Beyond this, he angered the Silesians. The Silesian estate, even under 10 years of rule, was chaffing under the rule of the Doppelkorps, and with signs showing that the Prussian army would expand to 40,000 men, there was the worry that Silesian men would be put into Prussian regiments. The Estates requested an exception in their favor. Frederich (and his little brother, Ferdinand) would have none of this. It was not an issue of sovereignty, they argued, but of having a simple system of law. While this angered the Silesians, Ferdinand's focus on a simple system of rules cut down drastically on regulations, which led to Berlin being one of the most industrialized cities in Europe at this point.
The anger of the Silesians, and the benefits of the Prussian state
In converting the populace, Prussia focused more on literacy campaigns than any other state. This is partially because they were able to--the mark was now dotted with artisan workshops producing new books. However, there were still a large number of Catholics in the country, Catholics who had been taught by the Franciscans and who weren't likely to be converted. The Franciscan Arch-Bishop of Bremen, Georg II, humbly requested that, if Ferdinand was not continuing the Statute in Restraint of Appeals (a provision which allowed the King to appoint Bishops), then perhaps the Catholics could be represented by a renewed Bishopric of Magdeburg. Frederich agreed to this, on the provision that the Bishop would also be appointed. The Bishop at Mageburg would represent Prussia's Catholics for the next three centuries.
The re-organization of Prussia's bureaucracy along Protestant lines, combined with the instability of an entire country converting, meant that it was only in 1460 that Prussia felt the kind of peace and quiet under Cicero's reign. There were still gains made--multiple Kronesauge banks opened across Silesia, and the rise of burghers and artisans across the country led to a far higher level of economic development. However, this would all be put to risk when Frederich intervened in Poland's War of Religion.
Prussia's armies march on Sandomierz
sorry for the meh entry, this is me writing a weekend later about a relatively calm period for the country
Some other things happened: my banker died but I got a new one, a Sherrif became head of the Kronesohr while a general became head of the Doppelkorps, etc, but I figured that this is a more interesting topic, and I was writing this in parallel to getting a loan done (EU3 has spoiled me for loans, I'm used to saying "if it's more than 4% I'll just wait until I can convert to protestant!")
Great update there, I think you have a great reformation in your game. It really seems to be wide spread (or at least compared to my games).
So are you going for some territorial gains or are you just helping poland out so it stays reformed?
So are you going for some territorial gains or are you just helping poland out so it stays reformed?
Really, really good update.
Here's what I don't understand though:
August II and August III, his brother-in-law, are both Jagiellonians, right? Only August III is under teachings of Antanas, who developed Republikanin Christianity, which states that... nobles have right to elect their own king?! As I get it, by this bit of dramatization you were trying to tell that Poland in-game faced revolts, after which it changed to Noble Republic from whatever government it previously enjoyed? And that event to welcome reformist scholar happened at some time during this revolt? Am I right? I'd better be right, I can't imagine this happenin' any other way 'round...
Oh, and Sweden getting whole Finland from Russia looks so great, it's a shame in my games Finland always stays divided.
Keep up the good work!
Here's what I don't understand though:
August II and August III, his brother-in-law, are both Jagiellonians, right? Only August III is under teachings of Antanas, who developed Republikanin Christianity, which states that... nobles have right to elect their own king?! As I get it, by this bit of dramatization you were trying to tell that Poland in-game faced revolts, after which it changed to Noble Republic from whatever government it previously enjoyed? And that event to welcome reformist scholar happened at some time during this revolt? Am I right? I'd better be right, I can't imagine this happenin' any other way 'round...
Oh, and Sweden getting whole Finland from Russia looks so great, it's a shame in my games Finland always stays divided.
Keep up the good work!
Just a little slice of Poland would go down quite nicely, I think; though perhaps you'll find yourself wanting another one just as soon as you're done digesting the first!
Yes, you're right, Poland converted by decision around the same time as negotiating with rebels (or something...is there an event that changes Poland to a Noble Kingdom? Because Poland did become a noble kingdom at roughly this point)
Sadly, none I'd know about, though maybe those more experienced do know?
Force of Arms: Prussia's Army under Frederich and Ferdinand
The reigns of Frederich and Ferdinand led to the rise of one of the most ubiquitous of Prussian institutions: the Prussian Army. Since the 19th century, when the Catholic Center Party used the term 'Prussian' as an attack on their conservative rivals (by the way, if any of you are interested in German history or even in democratization, there's a fantastic book called "Practicing Democracy", about the Reichstag in the Kaiser Reich. Not only is it fantastically done history, it's also a good political science text: I based a good part of a term paper on the theories that Anderson brings forward, and her works may end up being the foundations of my senior project. ANYWAY), the term 'Prussian' has had a certain connotation in Western culture, connotations similar to the term 'Spartan': hierarchical, uncultured, and above all, militaristic, the popular conception of the Prussian army was that it was deeply integrated into all parts of Prussian society.
While this is not entirely true, Ferdinand's reforms of the Army (which stretched through his reign and his brothers) turned the Prussian Army into one of the most disciplined, well-supplied, and intimidating armed force in Europe at the time. This can be drawn back to Frederich's intervention into the Polish Wars of Religion.
While the popular conception of the Prussian army is that it was a constant in Prussian life, existing before in the form of the Brandenburgian army and perhaps before time. There are indications of this--the Brandenburgers adopted gunpowder weapons at a very early point, using arquebuses to compliment their pikemen formations during the 4 Years War. However, not only was the Prussian army a completely different sociological force before 1570, it adopted radically modern tactics during the Polish war of religion and during the Danish wars of aggression.
The Polish War of Religion
The battle of Posen influenced Prussian warfare for the next century
While August III is to be blamed for the beginning of Poland's intolerance towards Catholics, it was his successor, Alexsander Oginski, who followed up on and intensified them. Alexsander was the first Polish King to be elected, and with the entire government in question as well as Alexsander's personal legitimacy, the Korona responded through widespread crackdowns on Polish Catholic leaders. Even with this, Catholic nobles still outnumbered Republikanins by a colossal margin, and after 5 years of rule by an oppressive and incompetent king, the Catholic League, in collusion with the Hapsburg Emperor, suggested that perhaps a new king should be elected, preferably a Catholic.
Even at this point, only 10 years after the end of the Prusso-Polish alliance, there was a large number of Prussian officers suggesting that Prussia use Poland's weakness to take Gdansk, Posen, and Torun, in order to make Prussia yet again a contiguous country. They cited the claim that the Kingdom of Prussia had on Danzig, as well as the threat that a Catholic uprising would have to Prussia's (predominantly Catholic at the time) Silesian population. Beyond this, the strategic roads which Prussian noblemen bought in order to keep a connection to the Ostpommern could easily be severed by the Polish army, and a pre-emptive strike would make such a worry unneeded.
However, Frederich would have none of this. Neither he nor his younger brother thought that it was particularly wise to further destabilize such a massive power, beyond that while the revolt was massive by most standards, it was clear that in the long term the Polish Army would likely be able to defeat the rebels. Beyond this, stress arising out of the fear that the Polish Catholics would elect a Hapsburg to the Polish throne seems to have led to Frederich's early demise.
However, Frederich's primary goal occurred within his lifetime--by 1470 and the conversion of the city of Altmark, even the non-Mark territories were majority Beckist.
The news of Altmark's conversion came to Berlin at the same time as the the Polish War of Religion
Beyond this, the citizens of Breslau were already deeply politicized by the events in the Polish Republic. While the democratic principles of Republikanism were shared by Silesia, Poland's disrespect for minority rights during Alexsander's reign not only disgusted them, but reminded them of their own situation. While Frederich's rule was far more lenient than Alexsander's, the state did put its whole weight behind Beckists buying new churches, building new cathedrals, and printing new newspapers. With a Kronesohr that is now overwhelmingly dominated by its new task of policing, the organization of a Prussian police district in Wroclaw led to a revolt of 25,000 burghers.
While the Army of Prussia moved south to reinforce the Army of Silesia, important decisions were being made in the Doppelkorps. Cicero was always of the opinion that 'armies win battles, diplomacy wins wars', and thus, diplomats were generally at the head of the Doppelkorps and the actions of the army were completely subjugated under the will of the diplomatic corps. This was all well and good: Cicero, after all, had gained more territory for Prussia than any other ruler by that point. However, relying on a diplomatic King did not seem, to the Doppelkorps, as a good strategy. Beyond this, diplomacy won wars when Prussia was the major link in the Anti-Hapsburg alliance. Now that Prussia was isolated from any strong ally, she would need a strong army if she were to stay relevant in European politics.
With this in mind, Frederich had a writing contest through the late 1560s--the subject was "Why did the Knightly Orders Fail?" This question was, by 1560, one being asked by all of the European diplomatic community by the time. The Turks (generally considered at this point the greatest foe that Christendom had, even with the Reformation) had annihilated all of the Crusader States to their south, and the only surviving Knightly Order, the Templars, were now a merchant republic which got by selling Arab slaves to Italian noblemen. The answer came from one Gunther Schreuser, who's answer was concise and to the point--The Knightly Orders were from another time, when elite soldiers could easily defeat the peasant levies arrayed against them. With the invention of gunpowder, and most importantly with the professionalization of national militaries, the Knightly Orders really did not have a chance against the forces of the far larger Ottoman Empire.
The addition of Gunther Schreuser to the Prussian courts
He then stated that the way that Prussia could internalize this lesson was to base its army after the Bohemian one: focus on good leadership and rationalized command. Gunther was immediately promoted to the head of the Doppelkorps at the perfect time. His first white paper was on the subject of the Polish War of Religion. He agreed with Frederich that what was at stake--Hapsburg dominance of yet another European great power--was too large a risk. However, he also made a fantastic point: 40,000 peasants, split across all of Poland, was the Prussian army's enemy. However, there was no threat to the Prussian people, and the operation could be stopped at any point at which it became too expensive. Under the cover of fighting for Poland's stability, the Prussian army could use the battlefield of the Vistula to gain some expertize on what does and does not work in modern warfare.
While this was a fantastic (if inhumane and cruel) idea, it would have have succeeded if the Prussian Army wasn't staffed by a uniquely intelligent group of junior officers. The War of Religion eventually involved each of the three Prussian armies (...of Silesia, Prussia, and the Mark), and while Frederich was involving himself with the affairs of the Prussian state, Ferdinand traveled with a coterie of 50 Prussian officers as well as Schreuser, analyzing the results of each battle. With Frederich's health quickly deteriorating, Ferdinand took over, with a new plan for organizing the army of Prussia.
The Brothers Period was a period of intense development for Prussia--Frederich's moderate personality balancing out Ferdinand's militarism
Ferdinand helped write the White Paper of Our Learnings from the Polish campaign. It can be summed up as thus:
1. While armies being organized by region is still helpful, that each army is homogenous means that the soldiers of an army are only used to one kind of terrain. Making regiments heterogeneous will radically increase flexibility
2. Relying on charges and hand to hand combat is incredibly reliant on the terrain, on the quality of the soldiers, and on weather. During the battles in which the Prussians relied on their guns rather than charging, they killed far more and lost far less men.
3. While a consistent officer corps is helping, they need to be integrated into their regiments.
4. Command is still a mishmosh of Feudal institutions and more modern Prussian ones. It would be preferable to find some way to impress the King's authority over the Prussian military
5. Fighting on the defensive is infinitely preferable to fighting on the offensive, with this in mind the Prussian army should focus on aggressive strategic decision making in order to fight battles on the tactical defensive.
The last point is important, as it would determine Prussian tactics until Verdun.
The Danish War Of Aggression
It has been said that the Brothers didn't have anything close to the diplomatic skills of their father. While this is partially true, it's also note worthy to point out that the 16th century wasn't the same place as it was when Cicero was king. While Cicero had a lot of space to move, diplomatically, the Brothers had few possible allies. Beyond that, each of the wars they joined was aiming at the same enemy--Hapsburg influence. The possibility of a Hapsburg king of Poland drove the brother to intervene into the Polish War of Religion, and the increasing power of the Hapsburg Emperor led the Brothers to seek ways to curtail it.
One of the methods was found quickly, as envoys from the house of Oldenburg brought a treaty which would create a Danish-Prussian alliance. This was perfect for Ferdinand, as Denmark had several claims within the Empire.
The danish-prussian alliance
The Hapsburg army was now returning from a war of conquest on the Ottomans, and the Emperor Matthias used his surge of popularity to suggest a law granting the Emperor the right to intervene in Imperial wars of aggression, and to use force to take away the unlawfully gained provinces of any Imperial ruler. This served a dual purpose: firstly, Prussia was the only country with an unlawfully gained province, so the act was rather clearly an attack on the King in Prussia. Beyond this, the law set a precadent which would technically give the Emperor a cassus belli against the former Bishoprics, former Bishoprics which were now Electors. In short, the Enforcement Act was an attack on Protestantism within the Empire, and it was received with applause (Didn't get a picture of it, but it was passed).
The Enforcement Act
It was clear that things were soon coming to a head in the Empire. This looming threat meant that, while there were many forces in Prussia who were desperately trying to find a way to expand into Bohemia or Poland, that the King would have to play it safely, and try to expand the Protestant community rather than its own holdings. As the Prussian Army was expanded to 40,000, the semi-feudal system of laws regarding military command were starting to limit Prussia's ability to utilize its armed forces well. Because many officers were still Noblemen, when the nobles revolted at the joint rule between Frederich and Ferdinand, they were joined with a large coterie of officers who attempted to overturn the 'unjust rule' of the Brothers.
The Officer's Revolt was ended when Ferdinand expropriated the land of most of the Prussian nobility
The noble's revolt of the 1570's (through to 1575) led to yet another Kronesohr institution. The creation of domestic police in charge of stopping smuggling operations and 'high crimes' like treason did help noticably in the realm's ability to levy taxes and to fight partisans. However, only the King, or the Kronesohr acting in his stead could act as judges, since Albrecht had ended religious trials. This meant that, when the rebels were caught, the trials took up several months of time that could have been used administering the Kingdom. Because of this, Frederich set up a system of courts which would act in the King's stead. This allowed the Kingdom to remain 'under the King' while not giving up on administrative efficiency.
The Courts Act of 1576 was stereotypical of the Reign of the Brothers, for both Ferdinand and Frederich put their whole into simplifying the laws of the Kingdom
Rather than using the land for the purposes of the Crown, the Brothers opened it up to a new migration of Jews and Protestants from the Balearic Isles. The Baleares were a prison colony for Spanish Jews and Protestants, and when the Knights asked for land to base themselves in, the Spaniards figured that there would be no better group at converting the heretics than the Knights Templar. This proved to be false, however. The disgust with which the Balearic Protestants and Jews saw the slaving Templar knights made conversion an impossibility. The Knights, on the other hand, viewed the Protestants and Jews with suspicion, but also saw them as a useful tax base. In return for not having to serve in the Knights, the Jews and Protestants paid increased taxes, and the Knights, by and large, did not bother them.
This status quo lasted for 50 years, and after a while, the two groups became closer and closer. When the Knights switched to slaving as their primary method of commerce, the locals rebelled. In response, the Knights moved through the islands of the Balearic chain and exiled whole towns. The expulsion of the Jews caused a schism within the Knights--some who were disgusted in the lengths at which the Templars were going to accrue coin now saw men and women being exiled for protesting slaving. One Prussian Catholic, Nikolaus Below, renounced the Knights and Catholicism and brought several communities to the Kingdom of Prussia. The image of Nikolaus throwing his cloak to the ground in front of Ferdinand was the subject of many baroque paintings. Not only did the migration of multiple Jewish communities into the countryside of Prussia and Silesia lead to more taxable income, but the conversion of Nikolaus, in addition to the promotion of two Polish war veterans to marshals, led to the Prussian army being the best led in Europe.
I got another Army Academy event (I got within a short period of time while I was at 80 tradition, but after that I had the top 5 the world. #6 was held by a Qing leader
The Doppelkorps was also agreed as to the best strategies: fighting defensively on the battlefield while offensively on the march. Focusing on fire tactics and sieges, and using the terrain to its best, this is arguably the best generation of Prussian generals. And they were about to meet their test.
Following Denmark's declaration of War, Holstein, Munster, and Riga attacked Denmark. Ferdinand joined the war and immediately took total control over the recruiting system.
The odds were not in Prussia's favor. The armies of Hapsburg had recently defeated the Turk, and the popular conception in Europe was that the Austrian army was undefeatable, and beyond this Prussia would have to face the combined armies of nearly all of North-Western Germany, a far richer area. Luckily, however, Wurzburg was legally the head of the Anti-Danish coalition.
The heads of the Doppelkorps (Ferdinand, Below, and von Kyau) created a battleplan: the Guards would attack the Hannoverian, Oldenburger, and Munsterian armies, and move on Wurzburg. The Army of Silesia would move on Bamburg. The lack of troops stationed in Silesia would lure the Austrians into attacking, but the Army of Prussia would station in Raciborskie, heading off the Austrians. The Army of the Mark would destroy the armies of Lubeck and Holstein, before laying siege to Lubeck. If the war got that far, the King figured that Riga would be a valuable vassal, so the Army of the Mark would march on Riga afterwards.
Prussian Battleplan
The only problem was that this was dependent, to some degree, on Danish support, but Denmark could not move its troops across the straight towards Holstein, because the Lubecker navy had them blocked off. However, the rest of the plan went off without a hitch. The Guards in Hannover, led by Below (BELOW WHAT? AHAHAHAHA sorry I can't) broke the Hannoverians within hours, and the Prussian cavalry was capturing whole regiments by the end of the engagement.
The Battle of Braunswig
This was expected by both the Prussians and the Austrians. The Austrians, however, had higher expectations for themselves. Surely the largest army that the world had seen since the Mongols would be able to make short work of an army a fourth its size? The Austrian cabinet was already drawing up the partitions of Silesia when they got news of the first battle of Raciborskie.
The first battle of Raciborskie
The Silesian campaign went like so: The Austrians, realizing (through Bohemian agents) that there were no troops in Silesia, sent a scouting army of 5,000 to lay siege to Raciborskie, and to take the defensive advantage from the Prussians. After that, a larger force of 15,000 men (9,000 horse) was moving as well, hoping to assault the city and take it for themselves. After that the two armies were planned to split evenly, laying siege to Opolski and Wroclaw. However, the army of Prussia, led by Rupprecht Von Kyau, attacked and routed the scouts before the main army could reinforce them. What followed was a meatgrinder. The Prussians had taken a position at the top of a hill overlooking the Oder, and any Austrian group trying to move to the north or south to cross were met with a charge from the Prussian cavalrymen. It took weeks of engagement, with new Austrians constantly moving to the front and being broken under Prussian shot, finally ended when the remaining 10,000 Austrians charged across the Oder and breaking the Prussians. While this was technically a win for the Austrians and it led to the occupation of Raciborskie, it destroyed the conception of the KoK Armee as an indestructible force, and soon later the French would attack the Austrians.
While this was happening, the Army of Silesia had nearly starved out the population of Bamberg, and Denmark had annexed the territories of Holstein and Oldenburg. With the Lubeckers surrender, Ferdinand took his men and marched on Riga and gave the order to the army of Silesia, that the moment they capture Bamburg they are to move on southern Silesia. While Raciborskie was the only way to get to Prussia directly from Austria, the authority of the Bohemian king was very weak by this point, and the armies of Prussia and Austria moved freely through the kingdom. With the surrender of Bamberg, the army of Silesia marched to Raciborskie, however, on the way, they confronted several thousand Austrian scouts, which led to Selbecker asking if they shouldn't just be 'shooting on sight'. The second battle of Raciborskie was a total victory for the Prussians, and Von Kyau went the extra step to give chase to the Austrians across Hungary. When the war was done, the Armee Der Preusse had killed and captured 50,000 Austrian soldiers and was besieging Vienna. The war ended at a colossal loss for the Austrians. Ferdinand proved that while the Austrians could pass laws increasing their power, those laws meant nothing if they could not be enforced.
Prussia, Denmark, and Riga after the War of Danish Aggression. Note: don't call it the war of Danish Aggression to a Dane.
Repercussions
While the war of Danish Aggression did not result in many gains for the Prussians, landwise, there were several mental gains made.
The first was the integrating effects of the Prussian army. With the Recruiting Act being passed at the start of the war, the King now had ultimate authority over the raising of troops, and the de-segregation of the regiments changed the army from an occupying for into a multi-cultural institution. Beyond this, the fighting that the Prussian army did on the behalf of Silesia enamored Silesians greatly to the Kingdom--the war was followed by a series of rechristenings, and the provinces were renamed with German names--Glogowski became Belowski, Opolski became Opol, Wroclow became Breslau, and Raciborskie because Neukyau.
Beyond this, the makeup of the army changed. The post-mortem of the war noted that units using muskets for ranged combat delivered far more casualties than the pikemen portions of the regiment, and so efforts were made to increase yet again the number of gunpowder users in a regiment by the introduction of the musket. While carbines were also introduced into the Prussian cavalry, it was only a small number for the purposes of pursuing fleeing troops.
The reformation of the Prussian army, 1586
The Prussian state also enjoyed unheard of prestige after the war, and rode this wave of prestige all the way into the 17th century. With the Prussian Army as the strongest army in Europe besides the Russian Guards, and the kings of sound mind, De Crussol (the head of the Kronesauge) arranged the purchase of a large Hamburg bank, and in doing so, Crussol set Prussian loans at a regular price (2x yearly income, which by this point was 1.5 million thalers a year). The first of these loans went into the construction of a Palace in Neukoln, just south of Berlin.
The regularization of Prussian loans, and the palace at Neukoln
The reigns of Frederich and Ferdinand led to the rise of one of the most ubiquitous of Prussian institutions: the Prussian Army. Since the 19th century, when the Catholic Center Party used the term 'Prussian' as an attack on their conservative rivals (by the way, if any of you are interested in German history or even in democratization, there's a fantastic book called "Practicing Democracy", about the Reichstag in the Kaiser Reich. Not only is it fantastically done history, it's also a good political science text: I based a good part of a term paper on the theories that Anderson brings forward, and her works may end up being the foundations of my senior project. ANYWAY), the term 'Prussian' has had a certain connotation in Western culture, connotations similar to the term 'Spartan': hierarchical, uncultured, and above all, militaristic, the popular conception of the Prussian army was that it was deeply integrated into all parts of Prussian society.
While this is not entirely true, Ferdinand's reforms of the Army (which stretched through his reign and his brothers) turned the Prussian Army into one of the most disciplined, well-supplied, and intimidating armed force in Europe at the time. This can be drawn back to Frederich's intervention into the Polish Wars of Religion.
While the popular conception of the Prussian army is that it was a constant in Prussian life, existing before in the form of the Brandenburgian army and perhaps before time. There are indications of this--the Brandenburgers adopted gunpowder weapons at a very early point, using arquebuses to compliment their pikemen formations during the 4 Years War. However, not only was the Prussian army a completely different sociological force before 1570, it adopted radically modern tactics during the Polish war of religion and during the Danish wars of aggression.
The Polish War of Religion
The battle of Posen influenced Prussian warfare for the next century
While August III is to be blamed for the beginning of Poland's intolerance towards Catholics, it was his successor, Alexsander Oginski, who followed up on and intensified them. Alexsander was the first Polish King to be elected, and with the entire government in question as well as Alexsander's personal legitimacy, the Korona responded through widespread crackdowns on Polish Catholic leaders. Even with this, Catholic nobles still outnumbered Republikanins by a colossal margin, and after 5 years of rule by an oppressive and incompetent king, the Catholic League, in collusion with the Hapsburg Emperor, suggested that perhaps a new king should be elected, preferably a Catholic.
Even at this point, only 10 years after the end of the Prusso-Polish alliance, there was a large number of Prussian officers suggesting that Prussia use Poland's weakness to take Gdansk, Posen, and Torun, in order to make Prussia yet again a contiguous country. They cited the claim that the Kingdom of Prussia had on Danzig, as well as the threat that a Catholic uprising would have to Prussia's (predominantly Catholic at the time) Silesian population. Beyond this, the strategic roads which Prussian noblemen bought in order to keep a connection to the Ostpommern could easily be severed by the Polish army, and a pre-emptive strike would make such a worry unneeded.
However, Frederich would have none of this. Neither he nor his younger brother thought that it was particularly wise to further destabilize such a massive power, beyond that while the revolt was massive by most standards, it was clear that in the long term the Polish Army would likely be able to defeat the rebels. Beyond this, stress arising out of the fear that the Polish Catholics would elect a Hapsburg to the Polish throne seems to have led to Frederich's early demise.
However, Frederich's primary goal occurred within his lifetime--by 1470 and the conversion of the city of Altmark, even the non-Mark territories were majority Beckist.
The news of Altmark's conversion came to Berlin at the same time as the the Polish War of Religion
Beyond this, the citizens of Breslau were already deeply politicized by the events in the Polish Republic. While the democratic principles of Republikanism were shared by Silesia, Poland's disrespect for minority rights during Alexsander's reign not only disgusted them, but reminded them of their own situation. While Frederich's rule was far more lenient than Alexsander's, the state did put its whole weight behind Beckists buying new churches, building new cathedrals, and printing new newspapers. With a Kronesohr that is now overwhelmingly dominated by its new task of policing, the organization of a Prussian police district in Wroclaw led to a revolt of 25,000 burghers.
While the Army of Prussia moved south to reinforce the Army of Silesia, important decisions were being made in the Doppelkorps. Cicero was always of the opinion that 'armies win battles, diplomacy wins wars', and thus, diplomats were generally at the head of the Doppelkorps and the actions of the army were completely subjugated under the will of the diplomatic corps. This was all well and good: Cicero, after all, had gained more territory for Prussia than any other ruler by that point. However, relying on a diplomatic King did not seem, to the Doppelkorps, as a good strategy. Beyond this, diplomacy won wars when Prussia was the major link in the Anti-Hapsburg alliance. Now that Prussia was isolated from any strong ally, she would need a strong army if she were to stay relevant in European politics.
With this in mind, Frederich had a writing contest through the late 1560s--the subject was "Why did the Knightly Orders Fail?" This question was, by 1560, one being asked by all of the European diplomatic community by the time. The Turks (generally considered at this point the greatest foe that Christendom had, even with the Reformation) had annihilated all of the Crusader States to their south, and the only surviving Knightly Order, the Templars, were now a merchant republic which got by selling Arab slaves to Italian noblemen. The answer came from one Gunther Schreuser, who's answer was concise and to the point--The Knightly Orders were from another time, when elite soldiers could easily defeat the peasant levies arrayed against them. With the invention of gunpowder, and most importantly with the professionalization of national militaries, the Knightly Orders really did not have a chance against the forces of the far larger Ottoman Empire.
The addition of Gunther Schreuser to the Prussian courts
He then stated that the way that Prussia could internalize this lesson was to base its army after the Bohemian one: focus on good leadership and rationalized command. Gunther was immediately promoted to the head of the Doppelkorps at the perfect time. His first white paper was on the subject of the Polish War of Religion. He agreed with Frederich that what was at stake--Hapsburg dominance of yet another European great power--was too large a risk. However, he also made a fantastic point: 40,000 peasants, split across all of Poland, was the Prussian army's enemy. However, there was no threat to the Prussian people, and the operation could be stopped at any point at which it became too expensive. Under the cover of fighting for Poland's stability, the Prussian army could use the battlefield of the Vistula to gain some expertize on what does and does not work in modern warfare.
While this was a fantastic (if inhumane and cruel) idea, it would have have succeeded if the Prussian Army wasn't staffed by a uniquely intelligent group of junior officers. The War of Religion eventually involved each of the three Prussian armies (...of Silesia, Prussia, and the Mark), and while Frederich was involving himself with the affairs of the Prussian state, Ferdinand traveled with a coterie of 50 Prussian officers as well as Schreuser, analyzing the results of each battle. With Frederich's health quickly deteriorating, Ferdinand took over, with a new plan for organizing the army of Prussia.
The Brothers Period was a period of intense development for Prussia--Frederich's moderate personality balancing out Ferdinand's militarism
Ferdinand helped write the White Paper of Our Learnings from the Polish campaign. It can be summed up as thus:
1. While armies being organized by region is still helpful, that each army is homogenous means that the soldiers of an army are only used to one kind of terrain. Making regiments heterogeneous will radically increase flexibility
2. Relying on charges and hand to hand combat is incredibly reliant on the terrain, on the quality of the soldiers, and on weather. During the battles in which the Prussians relied on their guns rather than charging, they killed far more and lost far less men.
3. While a consistent officer corps is helping, they need to be integrated into their regiments.
4. Command is still a mishmosh of Feudal institutions and more modern Prussian ones. It would be preferable to find some way to impress the King's authority over the Prussian military
5. Fighting on the defensive is infinitely preferable to fighting on the offensive, with this in mind the Prussian army should focus on aggressive strategic decision making in order to fight battles on the tactical defensive.
The last point is important, as it would determine Prussian tactics until Verdun.
The Danish War Of Aggression
It has been said that the Brothers didn't have anything close to the diplomatic skills of their father. While this is partially true, it's also note worthy to point out that the 16th century wasn't the same place as it was when Cicero was king. While Cicero had a lot of space to move, diplomatically, the Brothers had few possible allies. Beyond that, each of the wars they joined was aiming at the same enemy--Hapsburg influence. The possibility of a Hapsburg king of Poland drove the brother to intervene into the Polish War of Religion, and the increasing power of the Hapsburg Emperor led the Brothers to seek ways to curtail it.
One of the methods was found quickly, as envoys from the house of Oldenburg brought a treaty which would create a Danish-Prussian alliance. This was perfect for Ferdinand, as Denmark had several claims within the Empire.
The danish-prussian alliance
The Hapsburg army was now returning from a war of conquest on the Ottomans, and the Emperor Matthias used his surge of popularity to suggest a law granting the Emperor the right to intervene in Imperial wars of aggression, and to use force to take away the unlawfully gained provinces of any Imperial ruler. This served a dual purpose: firstly, Prussia was the only country with an unlawfully gained province, so the act was rather clearly an attack on the King in Prussia. Beyond this, the law set a precadent which would technically give the Emperor a cassus belli against the former Bishoprics, former Bishoprics which were now Electors. In short, the Enforcement Act was an attack on Protestantism within the Empire, and it was received with applause (Didn't get a picture of it, but it was passed).
The Enforcement Act
It was clear that things were soon coming to a head in the Empire. This looming threat meant that, while there were many forces in Prussia who were desperately trying to find a way to expand into Bohemia or Poland, that the King would have to play it safely, and try to expand the Protestant community rather than its own holdings. As the Prussian Army was expanded to 40,000, the semi-feudal system of laws regarding military command were starting to limit Prussia's ability to utilize its armed forces well. Because many officers were still Noblemen, when the nobles revolted at the joint rule between Frederich and Ferdinand, they were joined with a large coterie of officers who attempted to overturn the 'unjust rule' of the Brothers.
The Officer's Revolt was ended when Ferdinand expropriated the land of most of the Prussian nobility
The noble's revolt of the 1570's (through to 1575) led to yet another Kronesohr institution. The creation of domestic police in charge of stopping smuggling operations and 'high crimes' like treason did help noticably in the realm's ability to levy taxes and to fight partisans. However, only the King, or the Kronesohr acting in his stead could act as judges, since Albrecht had ended religious trials. This meant that, when the rebels were caught, the trials took up several months of time that could have been used administering the Kingdom. Because of this, Frederich set up a system of courts which would act in the King's stead. This allowed the Kingdom to remain 'under the King' while not giving up on administrative efficiency.
The Courts Act of 1576 was stereotypical of the Reign of the Brothers, for both Ferdinand and Frederich put their whole into simplifying the laws of the Kingdom
Rather than using the land for the purposes of the Crown, the Brothers opened it up to a new migration of Jews and Protestants from the Balearic Isles. The Baleares were a prison colony for Spanish Jews and Protestants, and when the Knights asked for land to base themselves in, the Spaniards figured that there would be no better group at converting the heretics than the Knights Templar. This proved to be false, however. The disgust with which the Balearic Protestants and Jews saw the slaving Templar knights made conversion an impossibility. The Knights, on the other hand, viewed the Protestants and Jews with suspicion, but also saw them as a useful tax base. In return for not having to serve in the Knights, the Jews and Protestants paid increased taxes, and the Knights, by and large, did not bother them.
This status quo lasted for 50 years, and after a while, the two groups became closer and closer. When the Knights switched to slaving as their primary method of commerce, the locals rebelled. In response, the Knights moved through the islands of the Balearic chain and exiled whole towns. The expulsion of the Jews caused a schism within the Knights--some who were disgusted in the lengths at which the Templars were going to accrue coin now saw men and women being exiled for protesting slaving. One Prussian Catholic, Nikolaus Below, renounced the Knights and Catholicism and brought several communities to the Kingdom of Prussia. The image of Nikolaus throwing his cloak to the ground in front of Ferdinand was the subject of many baroque paintings. Not only did the migration of multiple Jewish communities into the countryside of Prussia and Silesia lead to more taxable income, but the conversion of Nikolaus, in addition to the promotion of two Polish war veterans to marshals, led to the Prussian army being the best led in Europe.
I got another Army Academy event (I got within a short period of time while I was at 80 tradition, but after that I had the top 5 the world. #6 was held by a Qing leader
The Doppelkorps was also agreed as to the best strategies: fighting defensively on the battlefield while offensively on the march. Focusing on fire tactics and sieges, and using the terrain to its best, this is arguably the best generation of Prussian generals. And they were about to meet their test.
Following Denmark's declaration of War, Holstein, Munster, and Riga attacked Denmark. Ferdinand joined the war and immediately took total control over the recruiting system.
The odds were not in Prussia's favor. The armies of Hapsburg had recently defeated the Turk, and the popular conception in Europe was that the Austrian army was undefeatable, and beyond this Prussia would have to face the combined armies of nearly all of North-Western Germany, a far richer area. Luckily, however, Wurzburg was legally the head of the Anti-Danish coalition.
The heads of the Doppelkorps (Ferdinand, Below, and von Kyau) created a battleplan: the Guards would attack the Hannoverian, Oldenburger, and Munsterian armies, and move on Wurzburg. The Army of Silesia would move on Bamburg. The lack of troops stationed in Silesia would lure the Austrians into attacking, but the Army of Prussia would station in Raciborskie, heading off the Austrians. The Army of the Mark would destroy the armies of Lubeck and Holstein, before laying siege to Lubeck. If the war got that far, the King figured that Riga would be a valuable vassal, so the Army of the Mark would march on Riga afterwards.
Prussian Battleplan
The only problem was that this was dependent, to some degree, on Danish support, but Denmark could not move its troops across the straight towards Holstein, because the Lubecker navy had them blocked off. However, the rest of the plan went off without a hitch. The Guards in Hannover, led by Below (BELOW WHAT? AHAHAHAHA sorry I can't) broke the Hannoverians within hours, and the Prussian cavalry was capturing whole regiments by the end of the engagement.
The Battle of Braunswig
This was expected by both the Prussians and the Austrians. The Austrians, however, had higher expectations for themselves. Surely the largest army that the world had seen since the Mongols would be able to make short work of an army a fourth its size? The Austrian cabinet was already drawing up the partitions of Silesia when they got news of the first battle of Raciborskie.
The first battle of Raciborskie
The Silesian campaign went like so: The Austrians, realizing (through Bohemian agents) that there were no troops in Silesia, sent a scouting army of 5,000 to lay siege to Raciborskie, and to take the defensive advantage from the Prussians. After that, a larger force of 15,000 men (9,000 horse) was moving as well, hoping to assault the city and take it for themselves. After that the two armies were planned to split evenly, laying siege to Opolski and Wroclaw. However, the army of Prussia, led by Rupprecht Von Kyau, attacked and routed the scouts before the main army could reinforce them. What followed was a meatgrinder. The Prussians had taken a position at the top of a hill overlooking the Oder, and any Austrian group trying to move to the north or south to cross were met with a charge from the Prussian cavalrymen. It took weeks of engagement, with new Austrians constantly moving to the front and being broken under Prussian shot, finally ended when the remaining 10,000 Austrians charged across the Oder and breaking the Prussians. While this was technically a win for the Austrians and it led to the occupation of Raciborskie, it destroyed the conception of the KoK Armee as an indestructible force, and soon later the French would attack the Austrians.
While this was happening, the Army of Silesia had nearly starved out the population of Bamberg, and Denmark had annexed the territories of Holstein and Oldenburg. With the Lubeckers surrender, Ferdinand took his men and marched on Riga and gave the order to the army of Silesia, that the moment they capture Bamburg they are to move on southern Silesia. While Raciborskie was the only way to get to Prussia directly from Austria, the authority of the Bohemian king was very weak by this point, and the armies of Prussia and Austria moved freely through the kingdom. With the surrender of Bamberg, the army of Silesia marched to Raciborskie, however, on the way, they confronted several thousand Austrian scouts, which led to Selbecker asking if they shouldn't just be 'shooting on sight'. The second battle of Raciborskie was a total victory for the Prussians, and Von Kyau went the extra step to give chase to the Austrians across Hungary. When the war was done, the Armee Der Preusse had killed and captured 50,000 Austrian soldiers and was besieging Vienna. The war ended at a colossal loss for the Austrians. Ferdinand proved that while the Austrians could pass laws increasing their power, those laws meant nothing if they could not be enforced.
Prussia, Denmark, and Riga after the War of Danish Aggression. Note: don't call it the war of Danish Aggression to a Dane.
Repercussions
While the war of Danish Aggression did not result in many gains for the Prussians, landwise, there were several mental gains made.
The first was the integrating effects of the Prussian army. With the Recruiting Act being passed at the start of the war, the King now had ultimate authority over the raising of troops, and the de-segregation of the regiments changed the army from an occupying for into a multi-cultural institution. Beyond this, the fighting that the Prussian army did on the behalf of Silesia enamored Silesians greatly to the Kingdom--the war was followed by a series of rechristenings, and the provinces were renamed with German names--Glogowski became Belowski, Opolski became Opol, Wroclow became Breslau, and Raciborskie because Neukyau.
Beyond this, the makeup of the army changed. The post-mortem of the war noted that units using muskets for ranged combat delivered far more casualties than the pikemen portions of the regiment, and so efforts were made to increase yet again the number of gunpowder users in a regiment by the introduction of the musket. While carbines were also introduced into the Prussian cavalry, it was only a small number for the purposes of pursuing fleeing troops.
The reformation of the Prussian army, 1586
The Prussian state also enjoyed unheard of prestige after the war, and rode this wave of prestige all the way into the 17th century. With the Prussian Army as the strongest army in Europe besides the Russian Guards, and the kings of sound mind, De Crussol (the head of the Kronesauge) arranged the purchase of a large Hamburg bank, and in doing so, Crussol set Prussian loans at a regular price (2x yearly income, which by this point was 1.5 million thalers a year). The first of these loans went into the construction of a Palace in Neukoln, just south of Berlin.
The regularization of Prussian loans, and the palace at Neukoln
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