Hello and

Hello and

History friends, patrons all, to our 30 Years' War miniseries on 17th Century Warfare.

Episode 12.

Last time we watched the tactics of the drill become more refined and put into practice once again,

where Gustavus Adolphus not just revolutionized how warfare happened, he also

went through a very significant test, the Battle of Brightonfeld, where he essentially turned

the 30 years war on its head and pretty much guaranteed that it would be a 30 years war, rather

than just a Habsburg War of Victory.

Now that we've looked at Gustavus and we've looked at several innovators, I want to look at some case studies here and I want to look at a few instances, not just necessarily where these revolutions were put into practice, but also where genuine changes happened in the actual

structure and habits of states. Today we're going to look at the Habsburgs and their standing

army, and we're going to trace this institution as well as its maturation over the 17th century.

And we'll conclude that crisis, be it from the Ottoman theatre, or within the

Thirty Years' War itself, provided fertile ground for emergency measures, which standing armies

were eventually born of. The Thirty Years' War did, of course, change things. It changed

how the Habsburgs made war in both branches in Austria and in Spain.

It also paved the way in Austria, which is where I'll be focusing today, for the advent of a new,

grossly expensive institution which would remain in place, incredibly enough, from the moment of

Wollinstein's appointment to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918.

This was a standing army, as we've said,

and it would be commanded invariably by the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor

and by the Habsburg Austrian Emperor.

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