Peter H. Wilson - Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples since 1500

Iron and Blood

Copyright Peter H. Wilson, 2022

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

First published in the United Kingdom by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, Penguin Random House, 2022

Set in 10.2/13.87 pt Sabon LT Std

Typeset by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes

First Harvard University Press edition, 2023

Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 978-0-674-98762-3

For Rosie

The terms German, Germany, and German lands are used for convenience to denote the political space and its inhabitants as discussed in this book and are not intended to indicate that those places and peoples were necessarily German-speaking, nor that they would have identified themselves as German. Place names and those of emperors, kings and other well-known historical figures are given in the form most commonly used in English-language writing. For east Central European locations, this tends to be the German version, while for some in the west it is usually the francophone one (e.g. Strasbourg rather than Straburg). Royalty are generally identified by the anglicized form of their names, except where the German version has become established (e.g. Kaiser Wilhelm II). Otherwise, the modern German version is used. The term Empire is used throughout for the Holy Roman Empire, distinguishing this from references to other empires, such as those of the Ottomans or Napoleonic France. Likewise, Estates refers to corporate social groups, like the nobility and clergy, and to the assemblies of such groups, whereas estates identifies land and property. Foreign terms are italicized and explained at first mention. Terms and their definitions can also be accessed using the index.

Currency is given in its historical form. For the first three centuries discussed here, there were two primary units of account: the north German silver taler (tlr) and the southern German and Austrian florin (fl). The nominal exchange rate was 1.5 fl to 1 tlr. Imperial Germany adopted the Mark (M) after 1871, valued (in 1873) at 3 tlr. Austria reformed its currency in 1858 when 100 new fl were worth 105 old fl. It replaced the florin with the Krone (crown), equal to 2 fl, in 1892. The First World War destabilized the German Mark, which was replaced by the Reichsmark (RM) in 1924; this was also introduced in Austria after its annexation in 1938. Germanys post-war division led to the adoption of the Deutsche Mark (DM) in Western Germany and the Mark (M) in Eastern Germany. The DM was replaced by the Euro () in 2002. Switzerland lacked a standardized currency before the introduction of the franc in 1798, but even this only had a uniform value in all cantons after 1850.

This book is the culmination of my thinking on German military history across my career and is the kind of book I wished had been around when I started over three decades ago. The field has been transformed since the 1980s through critical reflections on warfare which place the study of conflict within its larger human context, as well as more recent efforts to reconnect that wider dimension with a discussion of how armed forces organize and conduct war. This book attempts to combine both approaches to provide a comprehensive account of the past five centuries. Such a venture would have been impossible without the efforts of several generations of scholars on whose work I have drawn. More immediately and personally, it has been my good fortune to have benefited from the advice of many generous colleagues. In particular, I would like to thank Rick Schneid and Jack Gill for sharing their research into German troop numbers during the Napoleonic Wars, as well as Franois Bugnion, Mary Sarotte, and Adam Storring, who kindly sent useful material or pointed me in the direction of books I had overlooked. Jan Tattenberg read extended sections of the draft and offered valuable comments and suggestions. Klra Andresov Skoup provided great assistance with Czech-language literature. Simon Winder at Penguin enthusiastically supported the project from the start and offered innumerable insightful comments and suggestions on the entire work. I am also grateful to Kathleen McDermott and the staff at Harvard University Press for putting the book into production in the US, and to James Pullen at Wylie for support throughout. Cecilia Mackay and Danielle Nihill turned a wish-list of illustrations into reality, Richard Masons punctilious copy-editing eliminated many potential errors and inconsistencies, and Ian Moores rendered my suggestions into beautifully clear maps. I am indebted to Rosie for her love, good humour and support, without which I doubt that I would have finished.