Hello and welcome to the history of the Germans, episode 54, a bohemian bluff.

This week we'll see Barbarossa try using his freshly minted army to take down the city of Milan,

a city of 150,000 and the one commune that he needs to defeat if he really wants to establish

imperial rule in Italy. Before we start, just a reminder, the history of the Germans podcast is

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Now last week we talked about Barbarossa's efforts to put together a much larger force for his second Italian campaign.

This force of 10,000 knights was now gathered and in in July 1158, four separate armies set out for Italy.

The Duke Henry Yasomia god of Austria, the Duke of Corinthia, and the fearsome 500 Hungarian

horse archers came through the Valcanale, the far north-east of Italy.

Franconian, Swabian and Rhineland forces came down the Septima Pass straight on

to Lake Como. Bertrand of Teringen came down the westernmost route through Burgundy, and Barbarossa

himself comes via the Brenner Pass. A mighty force indeed, but what was the plan? The plan was simple. Barbarossa wanted to make himself

the ruler of Italy, a ruler even more powerful than Charlemagne or Otto the Great, a ruler who

brings peace, law and order to Italy. Yes, I know. The immediate objective was to bring Milan to

heal, a city that had insulted Imperial

honor more than once and being the most powerful of the communes that needed to be subjugated

if genuine control was to be established.

How this was to work, the Italians were told well before the first warhorse was settled,

before the first ox-cart

...