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PODs of the Thirty Years War XIII

Current list of spin offs I could (but won't) do from this series:

PoDs of the Eighty Years war
PoDs of the War of Three Kingdoms
PoDs of the French Wars of Religion
PoDs of the Russian Time of Troubles
PoDs of the Polish-Swedish Wars

...

Yeah that's literally just the first half of the 17th Century.
 
I can't find the damn reference in my copy of Peter Wilson's Europe's Tragedy, but I seem to recall an early Polish-Swedish skirmish where Gustavus narrowly avoided being pulled off his horse by Polish cavalry.

You're right that a Polish-Lithuania-Sweden is probably out of the scope of the series, but it would be fascinating to see what the war would be like without one of its iconic 'Great Men.' Even if we assume that Sigismund doesn't manage to take back the throne of Sweden, a war where the Gustavus can't intervene because he's too busy stabilising a realm that had to pay a bloody great ransom to get him back would be very different indeed.
 
You're counting the 1610-28/9 period in it, I take it?

They're at least as much a continuation of the traditional period as the Eighty Years War continues on either side of the 12 Years Truce.

I can't find the damn reference in my copy of Peter Wilson's Europe's Tragedy, but I seem to recall an early Polish-Swedish skirmish where Gustavus narrowly avoided being pulled off his horse by Polish cavalry.

You're right that a Polish-Lithuania-Sweden is probably out of the scope of the series, but it would be fascinating to see what the war would be like without one of its iconic 'Great Men.' Even if we assume that Sigismund doesn't manage to take back the throne of Sweden, a war where the Gustavus can't intervene because he's too busy stabilising a realm that had to pay a bloody great ransom to get him back would be very different indeed.

Page 432. It was actually an Austrian as part of Arnim's force dispatched to relieve Danzig which was supposed to be part of a quid-pro-quo to get a naval squadron for the Austrians in 1628, but that side of things fell through.
 
They're at least as much a continuation of the traditional period as the Eighty Years War continues on either side of the 12 Years Truce.

I think it is part of the lionization of Henri IV by later monarchists which leads to historiography saying they ended with the Edict of Nantes, but to the extent that they continued after his reign, I'd say there was a serious difference in degree: rebellions against the Crown, not civil war, with very little foreign involvement except in the case of La Rochelle.
 
Gustavus Adolphus actually did plan for a personal union between Sweden and Brandenburg-Prussia, more or less bullying the Prince Elector George William into agreeing that Princess Christina of Sweden were to marry the Prince Elector's son Frederick William when they both came of age.

It says something about how Gustavus Adolphus saw his family:

If the Prince Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia and the Queen of Sweden married, then it wouldn't be the House of Hohenzollern inheriting Sweden by marriage.

it would be the House of Vasa inheriting Brandenburg-Prussia by marriage.
 
Gustavus Adolphus actually did plan for a personal union between Sweden and Brandenburg-Prussia, more or less bullying the Prince Elector George William into agreeing that Princess Christina of Sweden were to marry the Prince Elector's son Frederick William when they both came of age.

It says something about how Gustavus Adolphus saw his family:

If the Prince Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia and the Queen of Sweden married, then it wouldn't be the House of Hohenzollern inheriting Sweden by marriage.

it would be the House of Vasa inheriting Brandenburg-Prussia by marriage.

This is good stuff for the article where I'll be attempting to construct a 'ok o disaster at Lutzen but what next actually?' scenario.
 
Gustavus Adolphus actually did plan for a personal union between Sweden and Brandenburg-Prussia, more or less bullying the Prince Elector George William into agreeing that Princess Christina of Sweden were to marry the Prince Elector's son Frederick William when they both came of age.

It says something about how Gustavus Adolphus saw his family:

If the Prince Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia and the Queen of Sweden married, then it wouldn't be the House of Hohenzollern inheriting Sweden by marriage.

it would be the House of Vasa inheriting Brandenburg-Prussia by marriage.

Which... well, is positively Spanish considering who Gustav's wife and therefore Christina's mother was.
 
This is good stuff for the article where I'll be attempting to construct a 'ok o disaster at Lutzen but what next actually?' scenario.

I did do some cursory reading on the topic, and it would appear that Gustavus Adolphus wasn't quite as delusional as I've always imagined him to be. The impression I get is that he probably didn't realistically imagine that he would ever become the Holy Roman Emperor, but he certainly did envision Swedish domination of the Baltic Sea (hence his interest in the Prussian match), and in accomplishing that, a good standing in Germany certainly was a plus.
 
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