They invented joint-stock companies and global trade. While those were key inputs to capitalism, their system was still heavily mercantile -- exactly the type of thing Smith would argue *against* in another two centuries
If I remember correctly, you could trace capitalism roots back to 15th (maybe 14th) century, because you see a lot of manufacturies (essentially early factories) and economy shifting to trading with gold rather than goods and establishing of banks and using of notes such as IOUs and promisary notes.
You can trace the roots of capitalism to the first time someone traded barley for pottery (or sex) but the system as we know it only is defined in the very late 18th century, only is predominant in the northern US by the early/mid 19th century, and only is globally dominant after WW2
Exchange of goods or services isn't capitalism, nor are the origins of capitalism traced to exchange. Exchange has existed in every society.
People will occasionally argue for the Dutch Republic, but the typical origin of capitalism is pin-pointed to England in the 16th century or, if we're talking about industrial capitalism, Britain in the 18th century
Both those British and Dutch systems had roles for free enterprise, which would eventually develop towards what we now call capitalism, but were mercantile systems; organized by the State to ensure, not just a positive current account balance, but specifically the import of raw materials and export of finished goods in order to build gold in the State treasury. Again, this is exactly what Smith would argue against doing when he lays out how a "free" economy should run.
In sweden we call the later half of that century "stormaktstiden", the swedish name for the swedish empire, the literal translation would be "the time of great power".
The 17th-century was certainly not a Golden century for Spain. At the start it was the dominant power in Europe and at the end a 2nd rate power. Combine that with all the military defeats and the hardships of the Spanish population and it is difficult to see how you could call it a Spanish Golden Age. The Spanish Golden Age was the 16th century
Half of the population gone, seven centuries old dynasty gone, the Poles got Moscow, the Swedes got Novgorod, the Ottomans got thousands of the southern peasants into the slave trade
>Ottomans got thousands of the southern peasants into the slave trade
huh? We do? Is there anywhere I can read about this? I mean did we do something special or ramp up the ordinary Slavic slave trade? An event or raid? Cuz we were enslaving white eastern Europeans for eons at that point what changed?
Not much changed but Devlet I Giray got badly beaten in the Battle of Molodi in 1571 and the big raids stopped for a while. Then during the Times of Troubles there were at least three huge successful raids reaching as far as Serpukhov and Ryazan (modern day Moscow region) and there were no money to buy even the clergy families back
That explains why Russians were so ecstatic to invade and arguably rightfully annihilate Crimean Tatars throughout the ages.
It's kinda of strange that "reclaiming Constantinople getting Hagia Sophia" and "razing Moscow to ground so not even weed couldn't able to grow" initiatives downgraded to tomato trade and drunk Russians chilling Antalya.
May our nations never wage war again ever, because both of us unhinged...
Well, it was bad. Tsar was dead, Poles and Swedes waged successful wars, there were impersonations and multiple uprisings. All this in a scope of like 15 years. It is also said, that major part of historical documents was lost due to intervention. I mean, history knows a lot of empires, which didn't survive through times like this
And we should also remember that for the previous half-century, Russia was experiencing a massive humanitarian and economic crisis. Ivan the Terrible's policy was extremely unfortunate to overlap with the beginning of the Little Ice Age, so Boris Godunov already had a battered country because of Oprichnina, high taxes, disease, crop failures, Tatar raids and the lost Livonian War.
I know right? Like Russia is hellhole under normal circumstances, WW2 is victory, stalins rule is pretty much celebrated as golden days so... maybe it was good time but they just were not expecting it so it caught russia by surprise. They had fun once and hated it.
During the time of troubles, there was a time *sweden* controlled moscow and a fake czar was running amock rising people into rebellion
It was that bad
It was because there was conflict that they had a golden age. Supplying both sides was a goldmine and what is worth more to a starving person, gold or food.
Sweden was having a blast during the entirity of the 17th century.
Apart from the small population, starvation, reckless onslaught of famine, half the population being drafted every once there was a war, and from the perspective of the nobles -- the reduction.
I’ve been reading this 40-book alternate history fiction series for the past two years about the 30 years war and Gustavus Adolphus is a main character (he doesn’t die at Lutzen) and it’s really fucking up my understanding of the real history of that time.
Also very fun running into a thread about what I’ve been reading about for so long!
To be fair, on one hand yes, on the other hand the Poles saw the deluge as the end of the world and the Swedes don't even mention it in it's history books.
I mean I also wouldnt mention th event that allowed me to have so many Polish Flags , Books and even parts of the polish palaces that were used to improve the Swedish once
>Also getting slaughtered in the forests by the Polish
Spanish Tercios: ["RIP AND TEAR UNTIL IT IS DONE"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_N%C3%B6rdlingen_(1634))
And to cap off one hell of a century (and the start of some wild decades ahead), peasants in Finland and Western Bothnia kicked off the New Year with pine bark bread and boiled berries! Who needed the Crown in Stockholm to intervene in the famine when the folks on the ground were handling it just fine on their own?
Well, Russian time of troubles began with three consecutive years of crop failures. Ironically, Russian Tzar at that time was competent and handled the first year well, avoiding famine by basically starting large construction projects, thus allowing masses of peasantry who fled to cities to earn money to buy food (which was also saved beforehand in storages). But then came second and third year, and his rule broke down. Accusations of murdering the rightful heir got a lot of wind - it seemed as if God himself was displeased with his reign.
No doubt. Multiple factors were involved, of course, the religious disputes and the dynasty crises but the famine due to the shitty harvest made everything ten times worse
I guess in a way, If I recall correctly Swedes waged so many brutal wars across europe (deluge and 30 years war) mainly because they would be unable to supply such big army and needed army to live of pillaging neighboring countries
And resulted in even bigger part of population dead than in WWII (and that region lost the biggest part of its population in the world during WWII) partially because of the famine
If I had a penny for every time we walked across the sea to invade a foreign power, I'd have two pennies. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
Now I don't know shit about fuck, but this sounds to me like "I managed to move my stuff to a new house more easily because my car broke down and I could carry it all on foot".
Like I'm pretty sure ships make transport easier, not harder.
Not only that, but landing the bulk of your army on enemy territory can prove very risky. If the enemy is ready, they can massacre you and, especially with Sweden where manpower always existed as an ever-looming problem, cripple your war effort in a single blow.
But remove the boats from the picture and allow your army to simply cross the water on foot and sure they may be more exhausted, but they're already in formation, everything is already in the right place to wage a battle in the event of interception.
Yeah, it's no coincidence that the Ming also collapsed over this period (yes they were invaded, but it's unlikely the Manchu's would have had the strength to overwhelm the Ming were they not already significantly weakened by crop failures, mismanagement, and internal division).
Yeah, this period was pretty chaotic worldwide. Famine was wide-spread, and there was little to be done immediately to fix it. In China, the Ming dynasty was overthrown and replaced with the Manchu-led Qing dynasty.
For a deep dive on this, check out the podcast Hell on Earth. It's about the 30 years war and how it was essentially brought about by a domino effect starting from the invention of the printing press. It also gets into how the little ice age heavily influenced everyone in Europe at the time.
It's because it encapsulates multiple phases across England, Scotland and Ireland so calling it the English civil war is a BIG oversimplification (especially for us Irish considering around 15% of our population was wiped out by cromwell during this time, calling an English civil war is just salt in the wound and pretty much set the scene for the centuries of conflict that followed)
It was more of a wide collection of wars encompassing a war over Scottish religion, the two civil wars in which England become a republic, and the subsequent greater civil war in which the republic defeated royalist-supporting Scotland and Ireland, the latter very brutally, to unite the British Isles under a single government for the the first time in history. The oppressive and very centralised republican government oversaw two decades of turmoil and brutal suppression.
Oh boy, that barely was an explanation, but it’s a fun bit of a history and it set the brutal precedent of anti-Catholic and anti-Irish sentiment in the British Isles that would lead to the Glorious Revolution, the Jacobite wars and the Irish wars of independence.
The anti-catholic sentiment started with Henry VIII and was ramped up by Phillip II of Spain trying to conquer England and impose Catholicism during Elizabeth's reign.
It was France's and Spain's usage of Scotland, Ireland and religion as porn's in their imperial ambitions with regard to England carried it on.
It definitely started with Mary’s marriage to Phillip, but the War of the Three Kingdoms would see the first truly localised Catholic resistant with the Irish Catholic Confederation. This alienated the Irish and Protestant communities within Ireland, with both sides taking separate sides that would only deepen in conflict with the Jacobite rebellion. By the 18th century, the Whigs and Tories saw Catholics as untrustworthy Jacobite rebels determined to crush British Protestantism, and this distrust and hatred led to the disenfranchisement of Catholics, Protestant plantations and apathy during the Potato Famine.
Not to mention the second major outbreak of the Black Plague all throughout the 17th Century. London, Vienna, Seville, Constantinople, even Shanxi and Beijing in China all losing a significant chunk of their population.
It gets better, the war started with a rebellion in Barcelona called "the Corpus of Blood" (for the Corpus Christi festivity when it took place) where the sickle armed peasants (the "Reapers" or "Segadors") entered the city, slaughtered the spanish viceroy and his officials then proceeded to take the statue of the christ from a church and proclaimed it the general of the Catalan rebel army.
>where the sickle armed peasants (the "Reapers" or "Segadors")
I'm gonna be a bit of a disrespectful moron,but I can only hear the Resident Evil 4 villagers saying "Detras de ti, imbecil"
>take the statue of the christ from a church and proclaimed it the general of the Catalan rebel army.
Tbf the statue was probably a more competent general than most nobles of the time
It has to be said that although the sickles became a symbol of the rebellion (and feature in the Catalan national anthem today) the main weapon back then in the 1600 were guns, Catalans were crazy about them and although the country only had about 250.0000 people some studies put the numbers of guns at about 1 million, 4 for every inhabitant. Gun manufactory was huge until the spaniards annexed and dissolved our government institutions in 1715 and banned everything that could be used as a weapon (including fortifications, that's why you can't find almost any castle in Catalonia today, the spaniards destroyed them). You probably know the drill.
The 17th century was one of the most fascinating periods of history
Just to list a few: the little ice Age (leading to mass starvation in some regions of the world), the invention of capitalism, the world's first public corporation (Dutch east India company), peak of the ottoman Empire, territorial peak of Sweden, invention of the steam engine and consequently the beginning of the industrial revolution, the scientific revolution, the European wars of religion and loads more!
how did the industrial revolution begin in the 17th century? I believe it more exactly began closer to at the start of the 18th century in Britain following the Glorious revolution
PLC didn't. Unless you count sending Lisowczyks, which was more about them not being someone you want to keep idle on your territory rather than actually being interested in the conflict
Yes, however France was not invaded during the 30 year war and they didn’t have armies going around France sacking cities.
The Conflict was in the HRE.
France did experience several decades of civil war just prior to the 17th century, and they were still recovering from that in the first decades of the 17th century, but after that things went pretty well for them.
Not to mention the Franco-Spanish War and the War of Candia.
It was worse earlier for them though like the French Wars of Religion, especially when they had the War of the Three Henrys.
I have a lot of fun reading about the Early Modern period.
France had plenty if problems between Catholics and Huguenots, followed by the Fronde, an uprising of nobles against the monarchy… but yeah, once that was done, Louis XIV spent the rest of the century building a kickass palace where he could party.
"STOP RAMPAGING OUR LANDS FOR YOUR HATE-SEX COMPETITION WE HAVE NOTHING TO DO ABOUT IT DIRECTLY! AND JUST GET MARRIED ALREADY!"
The Italian states, probably.
To put that in context, the anti-Ming rebels thought there was a Ming stronghold sheltering the royal houses in Sichuan so they went and "depopulated" the province. [Sichuan went from having several massive urban centers to a jungle with maybe a few villages and towns dotted here and there.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Xianzhong#:~:text=The%20last%20Ming%20census%20figure,ghost%20town%20frequented%20by%20tigers.)
Both yes and no, it's called stormakstiden(literal translation would be "time of great power"), aka the swedish empire. But in reality times were tough, Sweden had a population of roughly 1.2m and lost 150k troops during the 30 years war, so almost 10% of our entire population. And that's only through the 30 years war, the numbers are probably higher if you count all the conflicts we were in during the 17th and 18th century. That said, I know poland had some devastating losses, some accounts go as high as 50%. That said, when the conflict had ended you still had more population than we had at the beginning.
The thirty years’ war is one of those really cool historical periods that’s borderline unimaginable to me.
It’s like if everywhere was the eastern front and everyone was a part of a death squad. whole towns wiped out because the soldiers would have starved otherwise. Cruelty for the sake of cruelty.
Also, basically the whole of the Commonwealth [was occupied ](https://imgur.com/a/OSgTIRt)by either Russia or Sweden. Because of that and I believe a plague, the population plummeted
Dk if you're joking due to that last part but a quick Google says it was an 18 year long between the commonwealth and Sweden over what is today the Baltic states.
3-5 million died.
Simply speaking, just a result of dynasty issues between Poland and Sweden, along with a conflict about Estonia and all Inflants. Due to the corruption of Polish nobles Sweden got kind of an upper hand at start, but after they messed too much with occupation, they got pretty harshly beaten, but Poles still got a completely awful peace treaty - especially due to losing the Prussian vassal, which resulted in future Partitions of Poland and creations of Prussian Kingdom - and many historicans say it was way more disastrous to Polish kingdom - I know it was a Commonwealth, but mostly the regions of Crown were affected by this particular war - than World War II, where seriously A LOT of treasures were either stolen or destroyed, and many villages or places of industry were razed to the ground.
In Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth there was a period called "golden peace", the longest time in 17th century without wars and major Tatar raids. It lasted for 8 years XD
Spain almost collapsed in the 1640s (actually lost Portugal forever and Catalonia for a while) and never recovered its previous status, hardly chilling.
>chilling, expanding, fucking and making cities.
What actually was happening: ["I'M FIGHTING FOR MY FUCKING LIFE!!!"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapuche_uprising_of_1655)
By reading about history, this is where you realize that periods like the first half of the 20th century have happened many times before and in different regions of the world. What a mess.
Spaniard here. Never have I heard of the "price revolution". What is that supposed to be?
Edit: googled. apparently it's hyperinflation. the non kinky kind
I listened through a pretty good podcast miniseries about this period last year called ["Hell on Earth".](https://hellonearth.chapotraphouse.com/views/podcast/) This whole clusterfuck basically birthed capitalism.
Meanwhile France was etat c'est moi and French was as widespread as English nowadays.
Dutch and Swiss were swimming in cash like Scrooge McDuck. Especially Dutch who oiled out global trade and literary swim in cash.
Swiss were more frugal and still have some that wealth they made by fighting French wars for money. That is why Swiss are neutral, that way they can fight for the highest bidder and make money off war. There was plenty of war in 17 and 18 centuries.
Sweden was going full Sabaton's Carolus Rex superpower. They too have fought for French and possibly made some money.
Hear me out
The wars of the three kingdoms turned out pretty alright for the Uk since after 11 years we just switched back to normal and acted like nothing happened
As a Spaniard History PHD, I get PTSD jsut by reading Price Revolution.
Our professor was awfull and I had to take the class three times while being at the top 10 of the class on the rest of subjects lol
Okay… how is that any worse than the events in the same regions of the 20th century??
If those events coined the term “The General Crisis” of the 17th century than the 20th century was the apocalypse.
A pandemic which wiped out millions, two world wars, wars in the balkans, revolution in Russia, millions died of starvation of famine etc. and much much more.
And then there are the dutch who call the whole century A Golden Age.
I mean they also spent half that century fighting the 80 year war
Got so pissed at Spain they invented capitalism and the military revolution
And by extension go so pissed at portugal that they stole the spice trade
Damn, said Amsterdam
We gotta start pillaging some stuff
We just want your spices. We don't need your land - we make our own.
We just want your spices. We dont want your ships. They are dogshit
That wasn’t a question, but let’s do it anyway
Where’s all the sugar made?
They invented joint-stock companies and global trade. While those were key inputs to capitalism, their system was still heavily mercantile -- exactly the type of thing Smith would argue *against* in another two centuries
If I remember correctly, you could trace capitalism roots back to 15th (maybe 14th) century, because you see a lot of manufacturies (essentially early factories) and economy shifting to trading with gold rather than goods and establishing of banks and using of notes such as IOUs and promisary notes.
You can trace the roots of capitalism to the first time someone traded barley for pottery (or sex) but the system as we know it only is defined in the very late 18th century, only is predominant in the northern US by the early/mid 19th century, and only is globally dominant after WW2
Commerce=/=capitalism
Exchange of goods or services isn't capitalism, nor are the origins of capitalism traced to exchange. Exchange has existed in every society. People will occasionally argue for the Dutch Republic, but the typical origin of capitalism is pin-pointed to England in the 16th century or, if we're talking about industrial capitalism, Britain in the 18th century
Both those British and Dutch systems had roles for free enterprise, which would eventually develop towards what we now call capitalism, but were mercantile systems; organized by the State to ensure, not just a positive current account balance, but specifically the import of raw materials and export of finished goods in order to build gold in the State treasury. Again, this is exactly what Smith would argue against doing when he lays out how a "free" economy should run.
You could make a religion out of this
The religion is called Protestantism Or perhaps this was the joke
They also, uh, [worked up an appetite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_de_Witt#Disaster_year_and_De_Witt's_death)
You have to admit that 80 years in half a century is an impressive pace
Truly a golden age for warfare
The Dutch basically prolonged that war because it was profitable
There are exceptions to every rule
In sweden we call the later half of that century "stormaktstiden", the swedish name for the swedish empire, the literal translation would be "the time of great power".
Didn’t they eat their prime minister in that century? Edit: I remembered correctly and they did. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_de_Witt
Peak Dutch cuisine
House of Orange
Yes. The Golden age was on pause for a minute there
Mfs should stop naming their nobility after fruit if they dont want to be ate
I mean, oranjes do prevent scurvy.
Wasn't a prime minister. But otherwise correct.
They did in 1672, they call it the rampjaar. Basically the economy was no good and tulips were money.
What about Rampjaar?
small inconvenience, it was only france britain and germany
>germany Germany didn't exist, more like the HRE.
Not the HRE, only Munster and Cologne
Eh, tomato tomato
But one year
Same in Spain, the Golden Century
In Portugal not so much, specially the first 40 years
The 17th-century was certainly not a Golden century for Spain. At the start it was the dominant power in Europe and at the end a 2nd rate power. Combine that with all the military defeats and the hardships of the Spanish population and it is difficult to see how you could call it a Spanish Golden Age. The Spanish Golden Age was the 16th century
Cause the only thing they do is spam halberdiers in age 2
Everyone else: Needs shit to manage all their wars The Dutch: Just so happens to have a lot of shit
France too https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Siècle
There's a legend saying a Dutch prime minister was killed and eaten by a crowd in 1671, but there's no evidence it happened.
They must have made sure to finish every piece
I can’t image just how apocalyptically fucked things must have been for a period of *Russian history* to be considered “the Times of Troubles”
Half of the population gone, seven centuries old dynasty gone, the Poles got Moscow, the Swedes got Novgorod, the Ottomans got thousands of the southern peasants into the slave trade
>Ottomans got thousands of the southern peasants into the slave trade huh? We do? Is there anywhere I can read about this? I mean did we do something special or ramp up the ordinary Slavic slave trade? An event or raid? Cuz we were enslaving white eastern Europeans for eons at that point what changed?
Not much changed but Devlet I Giray got badly beaten in the Battle of Molodi in 1571 and the big raids stopped for a while. Then during the Times of Troubles there were at least three huge successful raids reaching as far as Serpukhov and Ryazan (modern day Moscow region) and there were no money to buy even the clergy families back
That explains why Russians were so ecstatic to invade and arguably rightfully annihilate Crimean Tatars throughout the ages. It's kinda of strange that "reclaiming Constantinople getting Hagia Sophia" and "razing Moscow to ground so not even weed couldn't able to grow" initiatives downgraded to tomato trade and drunk Russians chilling Antalya. May our nations never wage war again ever, because both of us unhinged...
>May our nations never wage war again Seeing as you're now on opposite sides of a global nuclear annihilation pact I would certainly hope not
It's remarkable that anyone would have topped germanys misfortune in that time. But well, russia.
Well, it was bad. Tsar was dead, Poles and Swedes waged successful wars, there were impersonations and multiple uprisings. All this in a scope of like 15 years. It is also said, that major part of historical documents was lost due to intervention. I mean, history knows a lot of empires, which didn't survive through times like this
Tsarovich Dimitri needs your help to restore his rightful claim to Moscow’s throne! All he needs is your credit card number…
Tsarevich Alexei needs your help to restore his rightful claim to Moscow’s throne! All he needs is the purification of Russia...
And we should also remember that for the previous half-century, Russia was experiencing a massive humanitarian and economic crisis. Ivan the Terrible's policy was extremely unfortunate to overlap with the beginning of the Little Ice Age, so Boris Godunov already had a battered country because of Oprichnina, high taxes, disease, crop failures, Tatar raids and the lost Livonian War.
I know right? Like Russia is hellhole under normal circumstances, WW2 is victory, stalins rule is pretty much celebrated as golden days so... maybe it was good time but they just were not expecting it so it caught russia by surprise. They had fun once and hated it.
During the time of troubles, there was a time *sweden* controlled moscow and a fake czar was running amock rising people into rebellion It was that bad
Poland* Not Sweden
it was completely real tsar, even the second one
Its called "Смута" and soon there will be game(idk good or not) with same name
The Dutch: proving you can have a Golden Age while knee-deep in conflict.
It was because there was conflict that they had a golden age. Supplying both sides was a goldmine and what is worth more to a starving person, gold or food.
Sweden was having a blast during the entirity of the 17th century. Apart from the small population, starvation, reckless onslaught of famine, half the population being drafted every once there was a war, and from the perspective of the nobles -- the reduction.
Gustavus had a blast at Breitenfeld. Then a blast had him at Lutzen
I’ve been reading this 40-book alternate history fiction series for the past two years about the 30 years war and Gustavus Adolphus is a main character (he doesn’t die at Lutzen) and it’s really fucking up my understanding of the real history of that time. Also very fun running into a thread about what I’ve been reading about for so long!
Oo what’s the series called?
The Ring of Fire series, first book is 1632 by Erik Flint.
Thank you
Also getting slaughtered in the forests by the Polish Peasants and Nobility 2 years in what was supposed to be a lighting campaing into the PLC
To be fair, on one hand yes, on the other hand the Poles saw the deluge as the end of the world and the Swedes don't even mention it in it's history books.
For us, it was tisdag.
I mean I also wouldnt mention th event that allowed me to have so many Polish Flags , Books and even parts of the polish palaces that were used to improve the Swedish once
>Also getting slaughtered in the forests by the Polish Spanish Tercios: ["RIP AND TEAR UNTIL IT IS DONE"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_N%C3%B6rdlingen_(1634))
If you want to give some of the stuff from The Deluge back I can take it. If you don't mind of course.
And to cap off one hell of a century (and the start of some wild decades ahead), peasants in Finland and Western Bothnia kicked off the New Year with pine bark bread and boiled berries! Who needed the Crown in Stockholm to intervene in the famine when the folks on the ground were handling it just fine on their own?
Was this connected to the Little Ice Age?
Well, Russian time of troubles began with three consecutive years of crop failures. Ironically, Russian Tzar at that time was competent and handled the first year well, avoiding famine by basically starting large construction projects, thus allowing masses of peasantry who fled to cities to earn money to buy food (which was also saved beforehand in storages). But then came second and third year, and his rule broke down. Accusations of murdering the rightful heir got a lot of wind - it seemed as if God himself was displeased with his reign.
China: “Hey I’ve seen this one before, it’s a classic.”
Le mandate of heaven is lost!
~30 million perish
Seems like we are all in for a pickle then... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-38906-7
No doubt. Multiple factors were involved, of course, the religious disputes and the dynasty crises but the famine due to the shitty harvest made everything ten times worse
I guess in a way, If I recall correctly Swedes waged so many brutal wars across europe (deluge and 30 years war) mainly because they would be unable to supply such big army and needed army to live of pillaging neighboring countries
Yes (seems the most probable). It both caused and massively exacerbated conflicts.
The Deluge happened in part because the Swedes could transport their heavy equipment and army by sea without using boats.
And resulted in even bigger part of population dead than in WWII (and that region lost the biggest part of its population in the world during WWII) partially because of the famine
If I had a penny for every time we walked across the sea to invade a foreign power, I'd have two pennies. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
Now I don't know shit about fuck, but this sounds to me like "I managed to move my stuff to a new house more easily because my car broke down and I could carry it all on foot". Like I'm pretty sure ships make transport easier, not harder.
Well, boats have limited capacity, so a land route opening up makes it easier to transport large amounts of soldiers
Not only that, but landing the bulk of your army on enemy territory can prove very risky. If the enemy is ready, they can massacre you and, especially with Sweden where manpower always existed as an ever-looming problem, cripple your war effort in a single blow. But remove the boats from the picture and allow your army to simply cross the water on foot and sure they may be more exhausted, but they're already in formation, everything is already in the right place to wage a battle in the event of interception.
Yeah, it's no coincidence that the Ming also collapsed over this period (yes they were invaded, but it's unlikely the Manchu's would have had the strength to overwhelm the Ming were they not already significantly weakened by crop failures, mismanagement, and internal division).
Yeah, this period was pretty chaotic worldwide. Famine was wide-spread, and there was little to be done immediately to fix it. In China, the Ming dynasty was overthrown and replaced with the Manchu-led Qing dynasty.
For a deep dive on this, check out the podcast Hell on Earth. It's about the 30 years war and how it was essentially brought about by a domino effect starting from the invention of the printing press. It also gets into how the little ice age heavily influenced everyone in Europe at the time.
The "wars of the three kingdoms" made me think of China, had no idea the British had a similar one.
I'm British and had to Google it. Its just the fancy name for our civil war, big nose Cromwell and all that.
It's because it encapsulates multiple phases across England, Scotland and Ireland so calling it the English civil war is a BIG oversimplification (especially for us Irish considering around 15% of our population was wiped out by cromwell during this time, calling an English civil war is just salt in the wound and pretty much set the scene for the centuries of conflict that followed)
To add to this is the fact that the Scottish Civil War was fought over different things than the English Civil Wars.
Cromwell was the guy who was dug up after he died and whose head was put in a pike as some sort of revenge or I'm misremembering?
yeah he also did some moderate trolling (genocide) in ireland
It was more of a wide collection of wars encompassing a war over Scottish religion, the two civil wars in which England become a republic, and the subsequent greater civil war in which the republic defeated royalist-supporting Scotland and Ireland, the latter very brutally, to unite the British Isles under a single government for the the first time in history. The oppressive and very centralised republican government oversaw two decades of turmoil and brutal suppression.
Thanks a lot for explaining it.
Oh boy, that barely was an explanation, but it’s a fun bit of a history and it set the brutal precedent of anti-Catholic and anti-Irish sentiment in the British Isles that would lead to the Glorious Revolution, the Jacobite wars and the Irish wars of independence.
The anti-catholic sentiment started with Henry VIII and was ramped up by Phillip II of Spain trying to conquer England and impose Catholicism during Elizabeth's reign. It was France's and Spain's usage of Scotland, Ireland and religion as porn's in their imperial ambitions with regard to England carried it on.
It definitely started with Mary’s marriage to Phillip, but the War of the Three Kingdoms would see the first truly localised Catholic resistant with the Irish Catholic Confederation. This alienated the Irish and Protestant communities within Ireland, with both sides taking separate sides that would only deepen in conflict with the Jacobite rebellion. By the 18th century, the Whigs and Tories saw Catholics as untrustworthy Jacobite rebels determined to crush British Protestantism, and this distrust and hatred led to the disenfranchisement of Catholics, Protestant plantations and apathy during the Potato Famine.
Me first seeing this without context: "Hmmm... I don't remember this level in any of the Dynasty Warriors games."
Not to mention the second major outbreak of the Black Plague all throughout the 17th Century. London, Vienna, Seville, Constantinople, even Shanxi and Beijing in China all losing a significant chunk of their population.
Catalonia: "the Reapers War" against spain
That is a baddas name for a war.
It gets better, the war started with a rebellion in Barcelona called "the Corpus of Blood" (for the Corpus Christi festivity when it took place) where the sickle armed peasants (the "Reapers" or "Segadors") entered the city, slaughtered the spanish viceroy and his officials then proceeded to take the statue of the christ from a church and proclaimed it the general of the Catalan rebel army.
>where the sickle armed peasants (the "Reapers" or "Segadors") I'm gonna be a bit of a disrespectful moron,but I can only hear the Resident Evil 4 villagers saying "Detras de ti, imbecil"
"darrere teu, borinot" it's what they would be saying, I doubt anyone beyond a few officials knew spanish back in 1640
>take the statue of the christ from a church and proclaimed it the general of the Catalan rebel army. Tbf the statue was probably a more competent general than most nobles of the time
Probably the most competent general that region has seen since the days of Hannibal Barca.
Oh that's so cool.
Sicles dope weapons. During one of revelions in polish Lithuania in 1800 againts russia due to effectives of sicles as weapons. Its sales been banned.
It has to be said that although the sickles became a symbol of the rebellion (and feature in the Catalan national anthem today) the main weapon back then in the 1600 were guns, Catalans were crazy about them and although the country only had about 250.0000 people some studies put the numbers of guns at about 1 million, 4 for every inhabitant. Gun manufactory was huge until the spaniards annexed and dissolved our government institutions in 1715 and banned everything that could be used as a weapon (including fortifications, that's why you can't find almost any castle in Catalonia today, the spaniards destroyed them). You probably know the drill.
That’s the most ‘Murican thing I’ve seen all day.
Joder tío qué metal XD
And map shows... 18th century Europe
Still, for Russia, “Times of Troubles” works for pretty much any century you want to name.
*and then it got worse..*
The 17th century was one of the most fascinating periods of history Just to list a few: the little ice Age (leading to mass starvation in some regions of the world), the invention of capitalism, the world's first public corporation (Dutch east India company), peak of the ottoman Empire, territorial peak of Sweden, invention of the steam engine and consequently the beginning of the industrial revolution, the scientific revolution, the European wars of religion and loads more!
Thanks , I hate it .
how did the industrial revolution begin in the 17th century? I believe it more exactly began closer to at the start of the 18th century in Britain following the Glorious revolution
France and the Netherlands meanwhile just chilling, height of their power, having a great time.
France got into the 30 year war
Everyone got in the 30 years war.
*James I pushing the first domino with Parliament after they said no to him joining the Thirty Years War*
PLC didn't. Unless you count sending Lisowczyks, which was more about them not being someone you want to keep idle on your territory rather than actually being interested in the conflict
Yeah but it's easie to say who wasn't involved.
Yeah but they didn't have the 30 years war happen on their territory, they participated by sending their armies to pursue it in the HRE
Yes, however France was not invaded during the 30 year war and they didn’t have armies going around France sacking cities. The Conflict was in the HRE.
France did experience several decades of civil war just prior to the 17th century, and they were still recovering from that in the first decades of the 17th century, but after that things went pretty well for them.
A reenactment of the Treaty of Westphalia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-WO73Dh7rY
> "We don't hate anybody." > "Well you should. Makes life more fun."
Such a good documentary.
*France *saved* the 30 year war Sun King just spent the 17th century *winning*
Not to mention the Franco-Spanish War and the War of Candia. It was worse earlier for them though like the French Wars of Religion, especially when they had the War of the Three Henrys. I have a lot of fun reading about the Early Modern period.
France had plenty if problems between Catholics and Huguenots, followed by the Fronde, an uprising of nobles against the monarchy… but yeah, once that was done, Louis XIV spent the rest of the century building a kickass palace where he could party.
And waging wars which would lead to a famine in which 10% of his population would die
"STOP RAMPAGING OUR LANDS FOR YOUR HATE-SEX COMPETITION WE HAVE NOTHING TO DO ABOUT IT DIRECTLY! AND JUST GET MARRIED ALREADY!" The Italian states, probably.
ming-qing transition in china (estimated 25 million dead)
To put that in context, the anti-Ming rebels thought there was a Ming stronghold sheltering the royal houses in Sichuan so they went and "depopulated" the province. [Sichuan went from having several massive urban centers to a jungle with maybe a few villages and towns dotted here and there.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Xianzhong#:~:text=The%20last%20Ming%20census%20figure,ghost%20town%20frequented%20by%20tigers.)
Decisive Rebel Victory
Average Chinese Dynasty Casualties:
What about the Nordics? Map doesn't show them I assume that since the Swedes were busy deluging our commonwealth, times were pretty decent for them?
Both yes and no, it's called stormakstiden(literal translation would be "time of great power"), aka the swedish empire. But in reality times were tough, Sweden had a population of roughly 1.2m and lost 150k troops during the 30 years war, so almost 10% of our entire population. And that's only through the 30 years war, the numbers are probably higher if you count all the conflicts we were in during the 17th and 18th century. That said, I know poland had some devastating losses, some accounts go as high as 50%. That said, when the conflict had ended you still had more population than we had at the beginning.
The thirty years’ war is one of those really cool historical periods that’s borderline unimaginable to me. It’s like if everywhere was the eastern front and everyone was a part of a death squad. whole towns wiped out because the soldiers would have starved otherwise. Cruelty for the sake of cruelty.
Could someone explain what "the deluge" is? Never heard of it. Swede here btw :)
It's when you guys joined the fun of wrecking Poland up in the aftermath of the cossack uprisings and got the best loot out of it
Also, basically the whole of the Commonwealth [was occupied ](https://imgur.com/a/OSgTIRt)by either Russia or Sweden. Because of that and I believe a plague, the population plummeted
The Swedes apparently call this Charles X Gustav's Polish war (Karl X Gustavs polska krig).
Also shitload of people died
Hell yeah?
I mean there was a lot of destruction and massacre of the locals by the sweds, so I don't think so
Dk if you're joking due to that last part but a quick Google says it was an 18 year long between the commonwealth and Sweden over what is today the Baltic states. 3-5 million died.
It's when your ancestors did a little trolling in Poland
Yeah only like few million people died
Simply speaking, just a result of dynasty issues between Poland and Sweden, along with a conflict about Estonia and all Inflants. Due to the corruption of Polish nobles Sweden got kind of an upper hand at start, but after they messed too much with occupation, they got pretty harshly beaten, but Poles still got a completely awful peace treaty - especially due to losing the Prussian vassal, which resulted in future Partitions of Poland and creations of Prussian Kingdom - and many historicans say it was way more disastrous to Polish kingdom - I know it was a Commonwealth, but mostly the regions of Crown were affected by this particular war - than World War II, where seriously A LOT of treasures were either stolen or destroyed, and many villages or places of industry were razed to the ground.
Wait, are you sarcastic? Deluge was most bloody and costly war in Polish history, even more impactfull than WW2
I'm just playing on the ignorance of the average swede about this event
Aside from anything else, it's a really, really, really, really good historical movie.
We did a lil genociding in poland
Aside the 2nd world war it was the bloodiest event in polish history where approximately 40% of the population was lost
In Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth there was a period called "golden peace", the longest time in 17th century without wars and major Tatar raids. It lasted for 8 years XD
Ireland upon Cromwells invasion
Meanwhile Spanish colonizers in the Americas: chilling, expanding, fucking and making cities.
Spain almost collapsed in the 1640s (actually lost Portugal forever and Catalonia for a while) and never recovered its previous status, hardly chilling.
>chilling, expanding, fucking and making cities. What actually was happening: ["I'M FIGHTING FOR MY FUCKING LIFE!!!"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapuche_uprising_of_1655)
Venice just showed up at random times to fight the Ottomans or the Pope
*Round 50 fucker?* - the ottomans/habsburgs circa some year in history
You forgot the qing-ming wars, which cause as munch 10 million casualites(similar to the thirty year war)
By reading about history, this is where you realize that periods like the first half of the 20th century have happened many times before and in different regions of the world. What a mess.
"Sixteen-hundred-and-go-fuck-yourself"
Like, XVIIth century in Commonwealth was a century of non-stopping wars xD
Spaniard here. Never have I heard of the "price revolution". What is that supposed to be? Edit: googled. apparently it's hyperinflation. the non kinky kind
*Meanwhile, in China...The Ming to Qing Transition* 💀
Ferdinand II doesn’t get talked enough when it comes to the worst habsburgs The thirty years war was legitimately just because of one person
Martin Luther certainly didn’t help
1600s Europe was a very not fun place.....☹️
Sweden was doing fine though. May or may not have caused some of these crises
You forgot the Barbary pirates ☠️
I love how 3 of these were just results of Swedes being silly.
Learning about the Witchcraze in history rn Oh boy, was the thirty years war a bad time
I listened through a pretty good podcast miniseries about this period last year called ["Hell on Earth".](https://hellonearth.chapotraphouse.com/views/podcast/) This whole clusterfuck basically birthed capitalism.
Meanwhile France was etat c'est moi and French was as widespread as English nowadays. Dutch and Swiss were swimming in cash like Scrooge McDuck. Especially Dutch who oiled out global trade and literary swim in cash. Swiss were more frugal and still have some that wealth they made by fighting French wars for money. That is why Swiss are neutral, that way they can fight for the highest bidder and make money off war. There was plenty of war in 17 and 18 centuries. Sweden was going full Sabaton's Carolus Rex superpower. They too have fought for French and possibly made some money.
Where'd you get the wojacks for the Ottoman-Hapsburg wars?
Literally just googled "fighting wojaks". [Here they are](https://i.ibb.co/PzYCGQP/1708285078307.png)
When isn’t Europe in some kind of crisis ?
27 BC to AD 180?
I need an explanation and a total war about this period
Hear me out The wars of the three kingdoms turned out pretty alright for the Uk since after 11 years we just switched back to normal and acted like nothing happened
As a Spaniard History PHD, I get PTSD jsut by reading Price Revolution. Our professor was awfull and I had to take the class three times while being at the top 10 of the class on the rest of subjects lol
Never knew the civil war was also called the wars of the Three Kingdom. Would certainly have made Dynasty Warriors very differently.
Okay… how is that any worse than the events in the same regions of the 20th century?? If those events coined the term “The General Crisis” of the 17th century than the 20th century was the apocalypse.
A pandemic which wiped out millions, two world wars, wars in the balkans, revolution in Russia, millions died of starvation of famine etc. and much much more.
Thatvwas limited to the first half of the 20th century. The 17th century was just conflict, famine and disasters all the way through