Thirty Years War - The 2nd Horseman - European History - Extra History - Part 2

and when he had opened the second seal i heard the second beast say come and see and there went out another horse that was red and power was given unto him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth and that they should kill one another and there was given unto him a great sword moctebuk holy roman empire may 20th 1631 a siege broken a city burning after months of grinding combat chile's imperial army has smashed into the protestant city the catholic league troops have set fires in the town hoping that it will draw the city's garrisons away from the defensive walls but then the wind turned those ten burning buildings into a hundred and now flames rather than soldiers have stormed mokteborg thousands of civilians huddle in basements to try to escape the horror but instead they die there suffocated or burned a thousand luckier souls gather in the cathedral sure that the catholic attackers will not burn it but instead in their relative safety they're forced to watch as gangs of soldiers rob torture and murder the population only 200 of the city's 1700 buildings survive as 20 000 men women and children die in a scene ripped straight from hell [Music] thanks so much to curiosity stream for helping to tell today's historic tale one reason prague fell so quickly in 1619 is that their attempt to join an alliance with the protestant states of germany never really worked whether the empire's protestants liked it or not the catholic ferdinand ii had won the election as king of bohemia fairly and most german lutherans were not in favor of backing an uprising and breaking their entire political system just to give the calvinist frederick v the crown better to just wait and elect a new king after ferdinand passed away and if ferdinand had been careful it could have gone that way and stayed a local conflict but then he started engaging in the most hapsburg of hobbies empire building before becoming the rebel king of bohemia frederick v had been and still technically was the elector prince of the polotnet able to vote for the position of holy roman emperor but since frederick was now technically a rebel and a traitor ferdinand decided to occupy the palatinate to strip frederick of his vote and instead give it to his brother-in-law maximilian of bavaria now ferdinand had many lutherans on his side during the bohemian revolt but this was a clear breach of the empire's rules and when catholic armies including spanish troops marched into the palatinate with maximilian at their head things really kicked off and other countries began getting involved the netherlands which had recently revolted against spain and won their independence now saw that war resumed and get folded into the larger conflict and the dutch at war with hapsburg spain suddenly warmed to the exiled calvinist frederick v and decided to bankroll his war against ferdinand and habsburg austria meanwhile james the first of great britain whose daughter was married to frederick threatened spanish shipping if his son-in-law's titles were not restored and actually spain was in fact interested in negotiating not wanting to spend itself on ferdinand's behalf and so the two worked out a compromise that would have prevented the war giving back frederick some of his land and passing the electoral vote to his son instead but neither frederick nor ferdinand accepted the deal and the war began in earnest and look i know that was a lot of information but here's why we're getting into the weeds this is how the conflict went from a constitutional crisis in the holy roman empire to a black hole that sucked in soldiers from across europe and if you're thinking this is all starting to sound a lot like 1914 with a local conflict drawing europe into war you most certainly aren't alone in fact soldiers in world war one thought the very same thing but here's where politics really step in because while we throw around names like spain austria and great britain in the 17th century nationalism was still in its infancy religion ideology family bonds or money often meant more than patriotic ties in fact rather than thinking of countries it's often more helpful to think about the leading families of each nation the stewards in great britain the bourbons in france and of course the spanish and austrian hobsburgs and another thing about the habsburgs they were not well liked controlling both spain and the holy roman empire they surrounded france meaning that though the bourbons were catholic they were also the habsburg's greatest enemies similarly the habsburgs hardline catholic policies set them against protestant countries and even alienated parts of their own empire not to mention they were also big into absolutist rule and the divine right of kings to the point that ferdinand's ultimate goal was to turn the holy roman empire from a constitutional confederation of small states that elected a ruler who had limited power to one where he had direct control and could enforce religious uniformity to put it simply he wanted to make his territory a catholic land even the pope who you'd expect to be down for this sort of program felt queasy at the prospect after all he was also a prince of a small italian kingdom and he didn't exactly want a massively powerful absolute estate directly to his north so over the course of the conflict he'd gradually align himself more and more alongside france frederick for his part and with the financial support of the dutch and british managed to keep the protestant cause alive in german lands despite defeat after defeat from the catholic league in 1625 denmark intervened and its king christian iv led 20 000 troops into germany but his success was short-lived and four years later denmark was knocked out of the war and then came the king of sweden gustavus adolphus entering the war with pamphlets and speeches trumpeting himself as the savior of protestant europe but the germans didn't really think so partially because the german population was starting to get wise to the consequences of having so many armies marching and battling through their lands namely that looting sexual assault theft murder and violence against civilians quickly became commonplace during the conflict the destruction of makhtabog which opened this episode being the most famous incident yet that's not surprising right this was a religious war and therefore you'd expect a level of sectarian violence and massacre but that's not exactly true because this violence was almost universally about money see the vast majority of the troops in this conflict were professional soldiers who signed up expecting to be paid expecting being the key word there because while all of these nations fielded armies they quickly realized they couldn't reliably supply or pay them a problem that only worsened as the conflict stretched longer and longer even spain with access to american silver couldn't keep up and in the absence of official pay soldiers just started to you know take stuff granted sometimes with a veneer of legitimacy like christian iv who became famous for sending cities ransom notes demanding that they pay up or be sacked also catholic churches were a favorite target of his armies with troops stripping gold and silver ornamentation before marching on in fact christian himself liked to confiscate reliquaries containing bones of saints open them up give the bones back to the church and take the box it also happened unofficially troops broke into besieged cities and blundered them stealing anything of value and torturing civilians defined where they'd hidden any wealth also soldiers would raid villages and take livestock when their commanders couldn't come up with food and when a city that initially refused to surrender fell it was well known that it would be looted for days in fact one man who survived the fall of makhtabok as a child recalled five or six waves of soldiers coming into their house and demanding money and when his family convinced a kind catholic soldier to take them out of the city he witnessed the fate of those who hadn't had anything to give the marauders corpses lay naked in the street with several women drowned headfirst in a beer barrel and when they finally arrived at the enemy camp he remembers the soldier's wife scolding him for coming back with refugees rather than spoils of war granted commanders did try to discourage this behavior in fact one of the most enduring pieces of art from the conflict a series of etchings called the miseries of war famously shows a tree thick with the bodies of hung looters but this was not a humanitarian gesture on the part of generals they were more concerned that looting caused breakdowns in discipline and made armies vulnerable as men broke out of their units and spread out to pillage but no matter how many men were hanged it didn't change the fact that soldiers of all sides were frequently unpaid undersupplied and left to fend for themselves and all that looting which took place over and over as multiple militaries marched through the lands begot another problem because when the armies trudged away carrying sacks of grain chicken and pigs just as harvest season came and the first snowflakes began to fall that was when the third horseman would arrive the deadliest so far famine hey everyone irl matt and zoe here wanting to thank you for watching today's episode and also let you know about another great place you can go for awesome historical content curiosity stream you ready okay if you're watching this channel you are probably a little like me you love learning new things but you also kind of want to be a little entertained while you do it which is why i absolutely adore the nebula curiosity stream bundle they are two places i go every week for my content on the internet and a subscription to both services costs less than my weekly coffee habit and no that is not me saying that i drink too much coffee that is me saying this is a pretty dang good deal but using nebula you are helping out us and a ton of our other favorite educational content creators on the internet such as lady knight the brave low-spec gamer legal eagle just to name a few build a place on the internet where we're kind of a little bit more free to try out new and exciting stuff that might not work with youtube's algorithm all while enjoying ad-free videos in exclusive nebula originals we've done a few in the past that i'm super proud of and we actually have a few future projects coming out i can't say much on however one does rhyme with cod past so take from that what you will then on the curiosity stream side of the equation you get access to thousands of big-budget non-fiction videos and award-winning original series all across their online learning platform one of them that i just watched that was pretty cool was called castle siege defense because so much of the content on this channel actually does deal with castle battles on a macro level i wanted to learn a little more about exactly how these fortified residences kept their denizens safe for instance in the 12th century many castle architects opted for round towers i did not know why that was turns out it's not just because it looks cool it's actually because projectiles will ricochet off them easier which i thought was pretty neat so now you might be asking yourself how can you dear viewer get both of these great services for less than matt's totally normal and not planted caffeine addiction well you can start by going to curiositystream.com extra credits and you'll receive a year's worth of both nebula and curiosity stream for the discounted price of 14.97 which is 26 off the regular price and when you do not only will you be supporting extra credits but you'll also be supporting zoe and i's totally normal caffeine habit this bit didn't work out did it that's right zoe ahmed zion turk alicia bramble casey muscha dominic valenciana joseph blame kyle murgatroyd and o reals one are fantastic legendary patrons [Music] you

Channel: Extra History

Views: 577,947

Keywords: animated, extra history, history lesson, learn history, world history, history channel, Thirty Years War part 2, military history, documentry, Literary Analysis, military history lectures, history documentary, history explained, educational videos, civilization, history, thirty years war, war, france, holy roman empire, thirty years' war

Id: v3C35SIidJQ

Length: 11min 39sec (699 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 05 2021