I don't have a new military idea--I reached the last gov't tech before I can get Regimental Systems because of scientific revolutions, but I'm like 12 years ahead or something crazy so I've been waiting until it doesn't take 25000 ducats to get to. I had 50 regiments at the start of the war, a pair of rough pyrric losses probably brought this down to ~35. The true factor in the war will be lack of political will and Austria's unexpected core on Cracow.
My advantages are high leadership and being a tech level ahead.
'Low point'--Prussia during the Silesian War, part 2
The Silesian War, in the Prussian mind, was not only a war against the Bohemians, Austrians, or Poles. The war was, first and foremost, against the system of laws that the Emperors had built before them. While Frederich was in full support of the Prussian system of law, which he ordered simplified into a system which he called the 'Frederichan Code'.
The Frederichan Code was not so much a code of law as it was a rebuttal to the Imperial Code, which stated that the citizens of the Empire had certain rights and entitlements. The Frederichan Code was far longer and gave many more rights to the citizens of Prussia, however, the code's language phrased the rights of Prussian citizens as 'allowances', which may seem odd until one reads the fine print in the last section
While the Imperial Code was a code of rights and entitlements, which no King could remove, Frederich, by making the Frederichan Code, was attempting to roll back the definition of rights as had been defined by Emperor Ferdinand but also by Christian Albrecht and Cicero.
Though his attempts to subordinate the laws of Prussia went against Prussian tradition (and were unsuccessful), Frederich played into a long tradition of using shows of force in order to delegitimize Imperial Law. From the Ostpomern War to the War of Danish Aggression, successive Prussian kings had attempted to show that the only thing that was actually keeping the Empire together was force.
To satisfy this end, the Prussian military during the Silesian War performed some of the most abominable acts of the 16th century. The most famous example occurred in the town of Kaplice, a small village south of Prague on the Vltava. A regiment of Prussian cavalry encountered resistance from the local militia, leading to a set of skirmishes throughout the countryside. Eventually the Prussian Captain realized something--'I came to the realization that the militia needed food to operate, while we had the advantage of mobility'.
This led to a widespread destruction of crops and animals, and when the people of the village attempted to stop the forced famine, what happened was a massacre of the whole town, leading to perhaps 2.000 casualties. The corpses were dumped into the Vltava, which made the river virtually useless for agriculture for the next couple of years, and which may have led to the plague of Prague later in the decade. Widespread raiding of Poland and Bohemia may have contributed to as high as a 4 and 11% reduction in the populations of both countries respectively. (Sorry for going so deep into the looting of Bohemia, if this violates any paradox forum rules I will remove this)
Though these actions would come later into the war, it is clear that the goal of the Doppelkorps, even at the earliest point in the war, was making the Empire as an institution irrelevant. This was the highest priority as the war began, though other priorities, such as breaking the power of Thuringia (by supporting Pomerania's annexation of Vonpommern and forcing the independence of Saxony), and a small land annexation from Poland, were also noted. Nearly all of the Doppelkorps expected a short war, fearing the possibility of rebellion. This possibility was crushed during the battle of Meissen.
The Battle of Meissen led to a chase across the mark, and the decimation of the Army of Judea
The army of Judea was, as I have said, in many ways an experimental army. Diedrick Breisen was on the fringe of the fire tactics school, which believed that, with suitable terrain, only a small number of men would be needed to repulse any cavalry charge, leaving the majority of the army for firing tactics. As such, only one in twenty men in the Army of Judea were pikemen. When the Army was sent to Meissen, the assumption was that they would beat the Thuringian army there and have the thick woods of Meissen plus the Elbe between them and the Thuringians.
However, the Elector Frederich Wilhelm crossed the Elbe at a point farther north, which gave Breisen a hard choice--cross the Elbe with the risk of a 19,000 man army at his rear, or engage the Thuringians on unfavorable ground. Arrogant in his chances, Breisen attacked the Thuringian army at a point when it seemed split, in order to destroy the Thuringian infantry and cannon. This came out of the Prussian Army Academy's conception of fire elements as offensive, and in this state of mind Breisen's choice made sense. In fact the Prussian army had routed nearly all of Thuringia's infantry and artillery before a mass cavalry charge broke them.
The average Prussian officers total disregard for and ignorance of shock tactics meant that only a small group of men were held back to protect the artillery, and the Prussian cavalry was simply used to scout the battlefield and was not continuously scouting. This meant that a group of 9,000 cavalry was able to flank the Prussian army at its moment of glory and was able to destroy firstly the 3rd and 5th Jewish regiments (IE Prussia's artillery) and then the rest of the Army of Judea. What was left, a ~4,000 man remnant, demoralized and without artillery, retreated to Ruppin before they were caught there, and then to Berlin, where the army was destroyed.
The Battle of Berlin marked the end of the Army of Judea, and the first time in Brandenburg-Prussia's history that an army had been totally dissolved on the battlefield.
Some revisionist historians have accused Frederich of cynically sending nearly 15,000 (10,000 + various supporting staff) Prussian religious minorities to die against the Thuringian army. I would argue that Frederich sending an army only half the size of the Thuringian army into Meissen had more to do with his underestimation of Thuringian prowess than with a want to eliminate Prussian Catholics. The reason we could know this is because of the most famous of Thuringian captives, Crown Prince Derick, later King in Prussia Ferdinand II.
Ferdinand II was only a young man when Frederich sent him to the Army Academy. Just as Frederich Wilhelm felt that he was trained to be an excellent administrator in the Kronesaug, he felt that the realpolitical environment he was creating in northern Europe necessitated a strong, military ruler. And, at first, Derick took to it--the bloodlessness of the Fire School appealed greatly to Derick, whose logical personality was drawn to its rational conception of warfare.
This idea was torn apart by the early Thuringian campaign. Witnessing the horrible way which the Prussian military treated Thuringian peasants, and the summary executions of Prussian prisoners of war, seeing firing squads, the heads of his friends on pikes, and rape and pillage performed by both Thuringians and Prussians, led to what I can only describe as an acute post traumatic disorder in him in his late years, as well as a deeply ingrained pacifism. One of his most used quotes was a contemporaneous journal entry: "To those who believe that war makes men out of boys, today I have seen war make animals out of men. If one strives for war, I can hardly believe how one can describe themself as civilized."
The decimation of the Army of Judea and the capture of the crown prince may seem like news which would have brought Frederich Wilhelm to mobilize his armies. However, he was already engaged in a colassal battle against the armies of the Bohemian Emperor. Hapsburg forces had pushed the Konigsgard north, towards Breslau, and soon enough the Army of Silesia and the fractured remnants of the Konigsgard were engaged against the entire Army of Bohemia, which at the time was sized at roughly 25,000 men.
The Battle of Breslau, while also a defeat, was a Pyrrhic victory for the Bohemians--15,000 of their 25,000 man force was killed
Schmittern, unlike Breisen, was the only member of what was called 'the charge school'. Unlike his colleagues, he taught the oft-skipped shock tactics class in the Army Academy, and though he as much as any of the Prussian believed in the strength of Artillery, he placed artillery in front positions so that they could support massive artillery and cavalry charges. Outside of the city of Breslau, the Bohemian heavy cavalry were continually killed by artillery and musket shot, and close ranged offensive musket volleys tore into Bohemian tercios. Schmittern, leading his personal regiment of armored pikemen, gave the command to Frederich and maneuvered behind the Bohemian line. A synchronized attack in which Schmittern's pikes engaged Bohemian artillerymen and support troops at close quarters and the Prussian cavalry attacked Bohemian infantry, killed 5,000 men within the week. The combat ended in a showdown when Emperor Karel led 3,000 Bohemian heavy cavalry in a charge against the Prussian infantry. They barely held, and for his efforts Karel found himself captured. The Prussian captain, hearing of Bohemian atrocities north of Breslau in Belowski, put Karel in front of a firing squad and placed Karel's head on a pike.
The Battle of Breslau at the end of Schmittern's charge
While successful, these attacks left the Prussian armies tremendously tired and demoralized. Instead of allowing his men to rout later in the battle, Schmittern decided to cut his losses and moved both the Konigsgard and the Army of Silesia to Opol, where Frederich Wilhelm discovered three pieces of bad news--Derick had been captured, and (with the exception of the Prussian delegate) the electors had unanimously elected Vaclav III of Bohemia to the Imperial throne. Most worryingly, especially to an accountant like Frederich and ESPECIALLY considering Frederich's initial goal of making Prussia financially independent, the Kingdom had defaulted on its debts. Interest rates rose from the traditional 3% to a debilitating 7%, leading to the loss of 1,500 more thalers from the Directory every month.
The election of Vaclav III was mostly an imperial reaction to Prussian aggressiveness, and the collapse of Prussian finances
The dawn of 1630 was the lowest point the Prussia had been in since the Ostpomern war. With Bohemians raiding Silesia, Poles raiding Prussia, and Thuringians raiding the mark, the 8,000 men in Opol were rightfully worried about the future of their realm. But things would soon turn around, starting with the arrival of Danish reinforcements.
The Silesian War at the dawn of 1630, and army positions. 2 Prussian armies are in Opol, and the black dot in Lithuania is the Rigan Army
My advantages are high leadership and being a tech level ahead.
'Low point'--Prussia during the Silesian War, part 2
The Silesian War, in the Prussian mind, was not only a war against the Bohemians, Austrians, or Poles. The war was, first and foremost, against the system of laws that the Emperors had built before them. While Frederich was in full support of the Prussian system of law, which he ordered simplified into a system which he called the 'Frederichan Code'.
The Frederichan Code was not so much a code of law as it was a rebuttal to the Imperial Code, which stated that the citizens of the Empire had certain rights and entitlements. The Frederichan Code was far longer and gave many more rights to the citizens of Prussia, however, the code's language phrased the rights of Prussian citizens as 'allowances', which may seem odd until one reads the fine print in the last section
While the Imperial Code was a code of rights and entitlements, which no King could remove, Frederich, by making the Frederichan Code, was attempting to roll back the definition of rights as had been defined by Emperor Ferdinand but also by Christian Albrecht and Cicero.
Though his attempts to subordinate the laws of Prussia went against Prussian tradition (and were unsuccessful), Frederich played into a long tradition of using shows of force in order to delegitimize Imperial Law. From the Ostpomern War to the War of Danish Aggression, successive Prussian kings had attempted to show that the only thing that was actually keeping the Empire together was force.
To satisfy this end, the Prussian military during the Silesian War performed some of the most abominable acts of the 16th century. The most famous example occurred in the town of Kaplice, a small village south of Prague on the Vltava. A regiment of Prussian cavalry encountered resistance from the local militia, leading to a set of skirmishes throughout the countryside. Eventually the Prussian Captain realized something--'I came to the realization that the militia needed food to operate, while we had the advantage of mobility'.
This led to a widespread destruction of crops and animals, and when the people of the village attempted to stop the forced famine, what happened was a massacre of the whole town, leading to perhaps 2.000 casualties. The corpses were dumped into the Vltava, which made the river virtually useless for agriculture for the next couple of years, and which may have led to the plague of Prague later in the decade. Widespread raiding of Poland and Bohemia may have contributed to as high as a 4 and 11% reduction in the populations of both countries respectively. (Sorry for going so deep into the looting of Bohemia, if this violates any paradox forum rules I will remove this)
Though these actions would come later into the war, it is clear that the goal of the Doppelkorps, even at the earliest point in the war, was making the Empire as an institution irrelevant. This was the highest priority as the war began, though other priorities, such as breaking the power of Thuringia (by supporting Pomerania's annexation of Vonpommern and forcing the independence of Saxony), and a small land annexation from Poland, were also noted. Nearly all of the Doppelkorps expected a short war, fearing the possibility of rebellion. This possibility was crushed during the battle of Meissen.
The Battle of Meissen led to a chase across the mark, and the decimation of the Army of Judea
The army of Judea was, as I have said, in many ways an experimental army. Diedrick Breisen was on the fringe of the fire tactics school, which believed that, with suitable terrain, only a small number of men would be needed to repulse any cavalry charge, leaving the majority of the army for firing tactics. As such, only one in twenty men in the Army of Judea were pikemen. When the Army was sent to Meissen, the assumption was that they would beat the Thuringian army there and have the thick woods of Meissen plus the Elbe between them and the Thuringians.
However, the Elector Frederich Wilhelm crossed the Elbe at a point farther north, which gave Breisen a hard choice--cross the Elbe with the risk of a 19,000 man army at his rear, or engage the Thuringians on unfavorable ground. Arrogant in his chances, Breisen attacked the Thuringian army at a point when it seemed split, in order to destroy the Thuringian infantry and cannon. This came out of the Prussian Army Academy's conception of fire elements as offensive, and in this state of mind Breisen's choice made sense. In fact the Prussian army had routed nearly all of Thuringia's infantry and artillery before a mass cavalry charge broke them.
The average Prussian officers total disregard for and ignorance of shock tactics meant that only a small group of men were held back to protect the artillery, and the Prussian cavalry was simply used to scout the battlefield and was not continuously scouting. This meant that a group of 9,000 cavalry was able to flank the Prussian army at its moment of glory and was able to destroy firstly the 3rd and 5th Jewish regiments (IE Prussia's artillery) and then the rest of the Army of Judea. What was left, a ~4,000 man remnant, demoralized and without artillery, retreated to Ruppin before they were caught there, and then to Berlin, where the army was destroyed.
The Battle of Berlin marked the end of the Army of Judea, and the first time in Brandenburg-Prussia's history that an army had been totally dissolved on the battlefield.
Some revisionist historians have accused Frederich of cynically sending nearly 15,000 (10,000 + various supporting staff) Prussian religious minorities to die against the Thuringian army. I would argue that Frederich sending an army only half the size of the Thuringian army into Meissen had more to do with his underestimation of Thuringian prowess than with a want to eliminate Prussian Catholics. The reason we could know this is because of the most famous of Thuringian captives, Crown Prince Derick, later King in Prussia Ferdinand II.
Ferdinand II was only a young man when Frederich sent him to the Army Academy. Just as Frederich Wilhelm felt that he was trained to be an excellent administrator in the Kronesaug, he felt that the realpolitical environment he was creating in northern Europe necessitated a strong, military ruler. And, at first, Derick took to it--the bloodlessness of the Fire School appealed greatly to Derick, whose logical personality was drawn to its rational conception of warfare.
This idea was torn apart by the early Thuringian campaign. Witnessing the horrible way which the Prussian military treated Thuringian peasants, and the summary executions of Prussian prisoners of war, seeing firing squads, the heads of his friends on pikes, and rape and pillage performed by both Thuringians and Prussians, led to what I can only describe as an acute post traumatic disorder in him in his late years, as well as a deeply ingrained pacifism. One of his most used quotes was a contemporaneous journal entry: "To those who believe that war makes men out of boys, today I have seen war make animals out of men. If one strives for war, I can hardly believe how one can describe themself as civilized."
The decimation of the Army of Judea and the capture of the crown prince may seem like news which would have brought Frederich Wilhelm to mobilize his armies. However, he was already engaged in a colassal battle against the armies of the Bohemian Emperor. Hapsburg forces had pushed the Konigsgard north, towards Breslau, and soon enough the Army of Silesia and the fractured remnants of the Konigsgard were engaged against the entire Army of Bohemia, which at the time was sized at roughly 25,000 men.
The Battle of Breslau, while also a defeat, was a Pyrrhic victory for the Bohemians--15,000 of their 25,000 man force was killed
Schmittern, unlike Breisen, was the only member of what was called 'the charge school'. Unlike his colleagues, he taught the oft-skipped shock tactics class in the Army Academy, and though he as much as any of the Prussian believed in the strength of Artillery, he placed artillery in front positions so that they could support massive artillery and cavalry charges. Outside of the city of Breslau, the Bohemian heavy cavalry were continually killed by artillery and musket shot, and close ranged offensive musket volleys tore into Bohemian tercios. Schmittern, leading his personal regiment of armored pikemen, gave the command to Frederich and maneuvered behind the Bohemian line. A synchronized attack in which Schmittern's pikes engaged Bohemian artillerymen and support troops at close quarters and the Prussian cavalry attacked Bohemian infantry, killed 5,000 men within the week. The combat ended in a showdown when Emperor Karel led 3,000 Bohemian heavy cavalry in a charge against the Prussian infantry. They barely held, and for his efforts Karel found himself captured. The Prussian captain, hearing of Bohemian atrocities north of Breslau in Belowski, put Karel in front of a firing squad and placed Karel's head on a pike.
The Battle of Breslau at the end of Schmittern's charge
While successful, these attacks left the Prussian armies tremendously tired and demoralized. Instead of allowing his men to rout later in the battle, Schmittern decided to cut his losses and moved both the Konigsgard and the Army of Silesia to Opol, where Frederich Wilhelm discovered three pieces of bad news--Derick had been captured, and (with the exception of the Prussian delegate) the electors had unanimously elected Vaclav III of Bohemia to the Imperial throne. Most worryingly, especially to an accountant like Frederich and ESPECIALLY considering Frederich's initial goal of making Prussia financially independent, the Kingdom had defaulted on its debts. Interest rates rose from the traditional 3% to a debilitating 7%, leading to the loss of 1,500 more thalers from the Directory every month.
The election of Vaclav III was mostly an imperial reaction to Prussian aggressiveness, and the collapse of Prussian finances
The dawn of 1630 was the lowest point the Prussia had been in since the Ostpomern war. With Bohemians raiding Silesia, Poles raiding Prussia, and Thuringians raiding the mark, the 8,000 men in Opol were rightfully worried about the future of their realm. But things would soon turn around, starting with the arrival of Danish reinforcements.
The Silesian War at the dawn of 1630, and army positions. 2 Prussian armies are in Opol, and the black dot in Lithuania is the Rigan Army
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