Europe's Tragedy - A new history of the Thirty Years War

As readers will have probably worked out for themselves the 17th Century is one of my key areas of interest.  This came about almost by accident through a friends involvement in historical re-enacting with the Sealed Knot.  One day about 30 years ago he turned up at my door with a full set of musketeer's equipment and a set of period costume.  The rest as they say is history.  Mostly the history of the British Civil Wars.  As always happens trying to understand one period of history leads to a need to understand the events that lead up to it which took me into the development of tactics during the Thirty Years War.  Lets call it the TYW from here on in.


Recently I came across an offer on Amazon's kindle book pages I couldn't refuse. A free download of a recent (2009) history of the TYW. So I downloaded it.  Quite literally nothing ventured, but as it turned out quite a lot gained.  The book in question is Europe's Tragedy - a new history of the Thirty Years War by Peter H Wilson.  Sadly you will have to pay £9.99 for the Kindle version now, but if you want a good overall history that covers the military, political  and social aspects of the war and it's aftermath this book has everything you need.

From a war gamer's perspective it doesn't go into a lot of detail of the individual battles but it gives a good background as to why those battles were fought and the problems all sides had in keeping men in the field. That said most of the major battles do get a map and there is also a campaign map at the end of the book.  It also provides good background on some of the wars on the fringes of the TYW such as the War of the Mantuan Succession. 


The book starts with a look at the way the political and religious tensions built up within the Holy Roman Empire in the late 16th century.  It makes it clear that the Austrian Hapsburgs were prepared to allow a reasonable amount of religious freedom and that the war when it came wasn't a purely religious war.  The rulers of the various German states were instead manoeuvring for power one against the other within the confines of the Imperial system.


It then goes on to look at the various factions both religious. national and political and their interactions before turning to a chronological history of the war.  It ends with a look at the longer term impact of the war especially the economic consequences.


The kindle edition suffers from an inability to quickly jump back and forth in the text to look at maps or remind yourself of earlier events.  I found that downloading a decent map of the geography of central Europe in the early 17th century helped enormously as my modern geographic knowledge of the area wasn't of any help with the location of early modern central European states! That though is a minor criticism of what is other wise a decent introduction to a very complex subject.