Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-speaking Peoples Since 1500

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Wilson provides a bold survey of over half a millennium of warfare… His book is a masterful demonstration of the great potential of the new military history that has emerged over recent decades as scholars, distancing themselves from an older generation mainly interested in chaps and maps, have begun to pay more attention to the social, economic, and political aspects of war. ” —David Motadel, New York Review of Books Peter Wilson doesn't write many books, but the few that he does write are very long and very German. Iron and Blood follows his epic history of the Thirty Years War and his even more epic history of the Holy Roman Empire. There is inevitably a degree of overlap over these three topics, although Iron and Blood takes a wide ranging, rather than forensic approach to 500 years of German military history.

From the author of the acclaimed The Thirty Years War and The Heart of Europe, a masterful, landmark reappraisal of German military history, and of the preconceptions about German militarism since before the rise of Prussia and the world wars. I can't pretend that looking at 'German' speaking people doesn't make for a complex and large history but it avoids the anachronisms that writing a 'nation' based history involves. The book's Peter H Wilson, Chichele Professor of the History of War at Oxford University, has written a magnificent new book showing that Germans’ relationship to warfare is far too complex, varied and, indeed, interesting to be distilled so simplistically. Whereas most studies cover only the blood-soaked eighty years from the wars of unification in the 1860s to the end of the Second World War in 1945, Wilson takes his readers through a full half-millennium of German warfare, from 1500 to the present. His book’s geographical scope is similarly vast, encompassing all that once was German-speaking central Europe – lands which extended through and beyond modern Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Iron and Blood describes the martial actions behind the major political upheavals in this territory. Yet it also goes deeper, explaining how professional armies, technology and tactics developed, and how experiences of war and soldiering over a period of five hundred years profoundly shaped German society. The book is as much a history of Germany as it is a military history. Wilson goes through painstaking detail to describe the ever-changing political landscape of Europe leading up to World War I and II… A fascinating study. ” —Lynn White, Books for Congress Starting in 1500 with the Holy Roman Empire describing the relationship between the electors and empire and between each other, reasons when the war was deemed as permissible, means to wage the war, day to day of the army, relationship between the army and the civilian, advances in weaponry and strategy and how those changed the face of war. All this and more is in the book, each theme having its own subdivision.If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. An illustration of the ruthless, loathsome, cruel and abominable beast, which in a few years wretchedly and miserably devastated and devastated most of Germany. Broadsheet by an unknown artist, 1635. Iron and Blood delves into politics, economics, technology and social developments. Its long view of Germany’s military history, magisterial detail and acute analysis provide a new understanding of what was once Europe’s warring heart. ” — The Economist

Members of the German Wehrmacht’s Free India Legion, during training for duties on the Atlantic Wall. Photograph, c. 1943. Iron and Blood is also ambitious in its contextualisation of military history, drawing on political, economic, and social developments. An examination of civilian responses to conflict challenges the notion of Germans as uniquely war-like… A timely book. ” —Katja Hoyer, History Today A thorough/detailed book indeed, but I've felt the balance of details was a bit off, some numbers could be omitted, as well as enumeration of certain facts. Overall, liked the book a lot and the title of the book lives up to its name. Engagement at Gislikon during the War of the Sonderbund, 1847. Engraving, published by F. G. Schulz, Stuttgart c. 1850.Audiobook) Settle in, for this is a long work. Wilson attempts to give a one-volume treatment to the military history of the German states/Germany, covering over 500 years. He captures a lot, but he can’t get everything. Wilson looks to dispel the myth that the German military really is based on the Prussian model and that it was at its peak in the 2 World Wars. There is far more to the story, as shown here. Moltke and his staff-officers outside Paris, 19 September 1870. Painting by Anton von Werner, 1873. Iron and Blood delves into politics, economics, technology and social developments. Its long view of Germany's military history, magisterial detail and acute analysis provide a new understanding of what was once Europe's warring heart. The Economist A lieutenant and cycle messenger of the Tirolean Feldjäger, 1934. Lithograph from the series Adjustireung und Ausrüstung des Österreichischen Bundesheeres, 1918–38. Self-portrait of a Valaisan soldier in Neapolitan service. Drawing contained in a letter home, 1830s.

The two world wars have generated an almost incomprehensible amount of historical writing, but have also posed a historiographical problem: they have “stunted debate and frozen German military history”, as Peter Wilson puts it. Historians imagine that all German military history is rooted in Prussia; and they write mainly about battles. The existing literature focuses on the period between German unification in 1871 and the Third Reich’s destruction in 1945, to which all roads are seen to lead. I found it especially worthwhile in tracing the path from the mass levies of medieval times through the hiring of mercenary armies to the idea of a standing army. And as I said above, there is at last equal attention given to Austrian development: I've only found good looks at equivalent developing of the Holy Roman Empire's military in books written in German. This goes for the Swiss military evolution as well--their soldiers once admired as the epitome of the warrior. From the author of the acclaimed The Thirty Years War and Heart of Europe, a masterful, landmark reappraisal of German military history, and of the preconceptions about German militarism since before the rise of Prussia and the world wars. The author has chopped his book into 5 sections: the 1500s, 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, and last, but certainly not least, the rather bloody 1900s of toothbrush moustsche notoriety. Each century is sub-divided into three chapters: 1. A summary of (numerous) wars. Those who like traditional battle narratives may be saddened to learn that Dr Wilson limits discussion of actual fighting to brief, dry summaries: Count Goring von Hess defeated Burgomeister Hitler Rommelstein at the battle of BarbarossaAuschwitz and then most of the Army succumbed to dystentery forcing an anti-climactic peace.

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Wilson outlines the evolution of cavalry, artillery and firearms, and the increasing sophistication of tactics and fortifications. The justifications for war also evolved: the Christian ideal of the “just war”, which Wilson defines as a war sanctioned by a properly constituted authority, fought for a just cause, after all other remedies had been exhausted, and in which only essential force is used, rather than gratuitous violence, had fallen out of the rhetoric by the 17th century, to be replaced by “the public good”, vindicating wars of expansion, aggression and conquest stimulated by greed and ideology.