The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1314: The Thirty Years War - Part 5 - w/ Thomas777

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

53 MinutesPG-13Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer.Thomas continues a series on the 30 Years War, which many historians count as the most important European conflict prior to the 20th century. Radio Free Chicago - T777 and J BurdenThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Buy Me a CoffeeThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas' WebsiteThomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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How you doing, Thomas? I'm all right. At some point, I want to do a proper analysis. of the war journal of Peter Hagendorf. This is a fascinating artifact. Peter Hagendorf was a, he was a pikeman, he was a mercenary, but he was an officer, and he was highly literate. He kept a war journal for 21 years, and all told, because his diary is pretty taciturn,

and he fought for the Catholic League, too, to be clear. He was a Bavarian. but he fought in every major theater for over 20 years so all told he marched about 15,000 miles and he was at the sacking of Magdeburg which was horrific you know the kind of stuff that happened there was the sort of thing that happened when the Red Army approached Berlin you know, mass rape and homicide looting at, at scale, about three-fourths of the population were annihilated. And Magdeburg had been this Protestant readout, and that's one of the reasons it was targeted for destruction, but the officers totally lost control of the men. And to be clear,

and Hagendorf talks about this you know most especially as the war dragged on you had to live off the land so you were allowed to loot you know like within reason like rape was obviously a crime and

technically you weren't supposed to kill a man it wasn't under arms even though both those things happened a lot but you know you had you had to feed yourself and there was whole camp followers with these huge mercenary companies.

And some guys even, like, had their wives and families with them. I mean, obviously, they were, you know, like, 20 or 30 miles, like, outside of, like, the active theater. But, you know, this became a way of life because it went on for so long. And Hagendorf, he actually lived to be pretty old. He lived into his late 70s. He became the mayor of some town. You know, he was a highly respected guy. But, yeah, he was very, he was very candid about the thing.

he saw go on and this wasn't discovered until 1988 and obviously it's it's written in a german dialect that is hard to decipher you know um slowly but i i can slowly get through modern german i can't something like that and if you try to put it through an ai program it just like makes mincemeat out of it because it you know it's not it's not tailored to translate that sort of um dialect but that's uh that's an important bit of documentary evidence that i consider essential and that that book by i think peter wilson that's considered the seminal recent history of the 30 years war. It makes a mention of it, but that's about it.

I find it incredible that it's not emphasized more in English language treatments. But I'm working on finding a way to translate excerpts of it. And

moving forward, I'll see what can be done. On the periphery of the 30 years war, was England and Spain and particularly I think Spanish imperial decline

was approximately caused by the 30 years of war even though Spain wasn't a major combatant they essentially bankrupt or the Catholic cause and the reasons for that are nuanced you know the Spanish Habsburgs and the Austrian Habsburgs were distinct lines, but obviously they had a common

interest in the fortunes of the empire, especially because the Spanish Habsburgs, Spain was a, even at Zenith, Spain was a great military power, and they extracted tremendous wealth from the Americas, but it was mostly in terms of species. There just wasn't, there wasn't a highly developed industriousness there. You know, there's a highly developed banking structure, and the Spaniards actually sold public debt on early financial markets, which is really interesting. In Genoa and Savoy, there was a lot of this kind of early financial activity.

But some of the Spaniards were really concerned about was what they viewed as, you know, the integral reputation of them. the monarchy as the defender of the catholic faith they retained a crusader's sensibility i think that carried over even into the 20th century you know that's why in the spanish civil war i mean there there was that sensibility even though obviously the monarchists were a minority faction and and those that were under arms are mostly carless and um and other uh minority um perspectives, he represents a minority perspectives, you back, you know, pretenders and things. But, you know, and Spain also had, the Spanish Haspergs had holdings in the low countries,

particularly in the Duchy of Orange, which was the Protestant heartland, obviously. and the Dutch revolt turned into this military quagmire for the Spanish Empire and it became a full-blown sectarian conflict so for the sake of prestige as well as credibility you know obviously the Spaniards had to engage and don't get me wrong

there was plenty of Spaniards infantry on the ground who were like actively engaged but you know there wasn't there wasn't the same commitment at mass scale as you know

the as was the case of the you know the empire you've got to look at the Holy Roman Empire as as being the the element around which

which all Catholic military power orbited. And of course, German lands were the dedicated battleground for the most part. And there was, during the 30 years' war, the Spaniards made an effort to settle accounts with the Dutch reformed. And Huguenots streamed in from France to support their co-religionists. And this obviously presented a challenge too because the Spaniards saw the potential for a hostile mobilization on the frontier of, you know, the Castilian heartland. So that's part of it. But, you know, and there was.

that was the primary loci where Englishmen under arms were engaged as well, was in the low countries against Spanish forces. You know, in Spain and England were big enemies at that time, obviously. Well, you know, one of the reasons, the situation in Ireland is complicated, but the geostrategic imperative in the early modern period for what England was doing in Ireland, a lot of it had to do with the threat of, you know, Ireland becoming a basing hub for Spanish military aggression against Britain, which is really interesting. And that wasn't unfounded.

But, you know, the... And there was wild stuff to... secondary theater in the Orient in Japan the Dutch began fighting the Spaniards and you know various chogunots allied with

one faction or the other which I think is fascinating so this was a truly global conflict such as these things were possible in you know

early modernity. But for context, I posit that the zenith of the Pax Romana of Spain, I guess that be the Pax of Spania, was approximately 1510 to about 1660. And like I said, I believe

that Spanish decline was approximately caused by, you know, the 30 years of war and what essentially bankrupted the imperial coffers therein. You know, and like I said, even though the Spanish Haspergs were distinct lineage, their fortunes were bound up with, both houses were interstitially bound up in terms of their historical fortunes and interests. common intrigues and predicted both and uh you know spain just got too big and if we accept that the spanish empire was the standard bearer of the roman church that's one of the things that hurt the roman catholic

church it it got too big and just became unmanageable you know that was um and this happened very rapidly. You know, and of course, they were emboldened. I think people forget people on this idea of the recontista as, you know, just these kinds of a handful of moors on the periphery of the, of Iberia, you know, who had to be dealt with. And, you know, it was this sort of lesser crusade and, you know, this, and that happened over a couple decades. The Umayad Caliphate conquered all of Spain. Spain was an Islamic domain,

you know, and it was centuries before it was reclaimed entirely for Christendom. But once it was, and once the, you know, concomitantly, the Spaniards started carving out huge, swaths in the Americas as their exclusive domain you know they they became very complacent and eubristic and dare I say decadence you know but also the the sheer scale of those kinds of interest becomes unmanageable it just doesn't it just doesn't work But, you know, at this time, too, there was a, the Spanish generated this kind of deep under dependence with Portugal, and Portugal had this mighty fleet, you know, and they had claims in Brazil, obviously, but also Africa and the Orient. And those possessions were thinly held, so they got the force of the Spanish army and Spanish money behind these, uh, these holdings, you know, in exchange for, you know, essentially availing their fleet

to the Spanish Habsburgs. You know, to be clear, and there's a... The Spanish, like the British, like, empires that work, at least for a time, they didn't believe in these mass occupations. There was only... In Angola and Mozambique, there was a couple of... thousand Portuguese forts. And that's it.

You know, in Brazil, there was something like 30,000 white Europeans. You know, contra two and a half million or so indigenous Brazilians, you know. And if you can't manage imperial holdings with that, sort of thin pro and then if there was a revolt the Portuguese had come and they'd kill everybody that's how you do it you know that the Mongols did it that way too

you don't and you don't permanently garrison men just for the sake of doing it either you know I know I know people think that I'm like an America hater or something

I'm not for the record but it just the wrongheadedness with which America proceeds taggely and strategically is staggering. There's an illiteracy there that's somewhat incredible. So I'm not trying to insinuate those sort of conceptual prejudices and every subject matter I deal with,

but I think it's relevant. Spain also around this time, they were suffering a population decline. And Portugal itself, funnly brought about a million or so new subjects to the union with Spain. But it's, it didn't really make sense. There was something going on when your population starts declining. I mean, that's not to say that, you know, endless population growth is some sort of axiomatic good or indicator of cultural.

or racial health, it's not. But when there begins to be some precipitous population decline, despite the fact that national wealth is increasing and quality of life is increasing, that means there's something happening, I think. You know, and that was very suddenly, you know, Spain just kind of started dying out, you know, to the point where they're having problems managing, like literally manning the garrisons of this world empire. You know, like by,

at about the midpoint of hostilities in 1631, there was about four million Castilians, which meant they'd lost approximately a million people over about half a century. I mean, that's staggering. And these people didn't die of like some plague outbreak or something. You know, there was a, you know, like in the colonies probably some of that owed to disease and just got the difficulty of living and unfamiliar and untamed environments.

But, you know, in Europe proper, that wasn't the case. And even on the periphery, it's not the whole story. you know so something was something something was happening here you know and it uh and the economic profile like i said spain was incredibly rich but it was stagnant there wasn't value-added innovation going on there um the spanish were importing a huge amount of gold to silver a huge amount of raw material and food And that was it. And after the defeat of, in some critical naval engagements, they modernized their warships in a way that was impressive.

But Wartek is its own thing. I mean, I made that point before, the Soviet Union made very good weapons. you know, that exists independently of the value added economy. It's a different thing. And it's not just a spontaneous earning the price mechanism, you know, assigning the correct value of inputs. It's something, it's something metaphysical, I think.

but that you know that's something too that I think underlay the 30 years war in paradigmatic terms there's not economic

causes of war but national economics is a function of power political activity and the Dutch and other merchant

nations that were ruled by Protestant aristocrats. They began crowding in on Spanish colonial trade and rising white populations of Protestants in the Americas and, you know, in Asia that played a part in this too. The Spanish wanted to crush the Dutch and the English for that reason also.

And sectarianism plays into that as economic competition, particularly the sort of zero-sum paradigm that characterized early modern economic activity. You know, it's a perfect storm of causes and make no mistake

it was Spanish silver was what was funding a tremendous percentage of Catholic military activity and the war effort couldn't have been sustained in critical capacities

without that and This changed as time went on, and depending on what combatant faction we're talking about, it varied. But mostly, especially early on on the Catholic side, what was called the Flanders School of Warfare was fairly dominant in the way the Empire fought as well as the Catholic League. and this owed the fact that the Spanish infantry systems were tried and true in the common perception of military strategists in large part because of success in the Turkish war, which again was where pretty much every man with combat experience had cut his proverbial teeth by the time of onset of hostilities. You know, and it was, on the one hand,

it was highly methodical. It didn't leave a lot of room for what we'd consider an early iteration of mission-oriented tactics. But it was effective at managing early ranged weapons in a way that complimented Pike infantry. And that, you know, that's another example, I think, of the Spanish imprint on the pattern of hostilities, especially in terms of the praxis of the praxis of,

infantry combat and that's highly significant for a lot of reasons there's comparatively massive expenditures i mean all throughout the existence of the spanish empire but uh by the turn of the 17th century you know the this exponentially increased and by 1600s and by 1600s the main land element, the main infantry element of Spanish forces was the army of Flanders. It had approximately 60,000 men under arms, which made it the largest operational army in Europe. You know, and that when you've got that many men under arms, when you're expending that much capital, you know, human and material towards military

readiness and war tech that that tends towards encouraging hostilities that's not just a peaconic talking point from

you know the early Cold War that's actually true you know it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in conceptual terms if, you know, a footing of anticipatory mobilization becomes normative. But also, it

triggers responses in all kinds of ways that then become war indicators as perceived by actual and potential rivals. And I think that's part of it too. Europe was incredibly mobilized, and there was an outsized contemplation of military affairs sort of across the board. And when the leading continental power, which at that time was Spain, has tens of thousands of men under arms, it's importing mass amounts of silver, and its primary activity,

is all things that orbit around military readiness and innovation that has a tendency to code institutions towards hostilities at scale, I think. That's not to say that it's axiomatic. And, you know, these things are complicated, and they got more complicated in the modern age. but I believe too that that was one of the reasons why the Cold War became so dangerous. And the potentiality of mobilization at scale also itself becomes a difficult to control variable

because potentialities that translate to direct capabilities means that any political, actor has to behave with the assumption that, you know, he can be destroyed if he's not consciously hypervigilant about, you know, sustaining a potential mobilization timetable that's not going to disadvantage him relative to the capabilities of an adversary, you know, who can mobilize quicker. So then that leads to a situation of permanent readiness, which itself then is

perceived as a clear and present threat just by its very existence. And then, of course, when human decision makers become increasingly sidelined, you know, as was the case in the 20th century, and there's these weapons that, and weapons platforms that are very binary

in terms of their the outcomes that they yield in both battlefield and counter value terms and you've got conditions where you know war is always likely if not imminent

but um that's kind of a digression um also too the there was there was a a naval component in the 30 years war, but not narrowly as scaled as one might think. And I think the reason why I was to the Spaniards, the Spaniards

basically had the, they had the coastal, the literal spaces and the coastal and contiguous zones abutting critical battle spaces locked down. They had a fleet of about 60 large warships by 1600. And they were divided into three equal squadrons, you know, patrolling the Straits of the Mediterranean, you know, the coast of France, the Lisbon fleet,

patrolling the Atlantic. They had a small Pacific squadron that essentially protected silver between Panama or approximately, you know, it's now the Panama zone and the continent. And that was generally adequate to deter piracy. Because despite we've seen the movies, you know, 16th century pirates weren't going to go up against Spanish warships. But that they're the effect of, like I said, in my opinion, you know, containing. I still leads to an infantry slog.

There's interesting counterfactual to contemplate the alternative. I'm not a naval warfare nerd, but it's nonetheless intriguing. And there's also a concern, you know, the Spaniards very much, they had a most integral view of you know they embody the throne and alter sensibility they viewed they viewed the sovereign mandate

and the favor of providence and religious variables to be all integral aspects of the fortunes of the nation and the race and you know the kingdom and they were very they were very cognizant of the potential for decline you know and in the 1590s that's kind of when the first sort of comparative historiography emerged and it was sort of the first suggestion by historiographers that

there's a natural life cycle of states and nations and races. There was this concern that Spain was entering its terminal stage. However, you know, this kind of, this sort of Spanish interpretation of that potentiality was, well, that's because people have abandoned God. You know, so if we can return to God and we can avail our mighty armament, in the service of crusading, you know, in defense of Christendom, as we always have, that can reverse this process and that can reverse our, you know, the slow death of our people, which again was literally happening in the form of this precipitous population decline. And obviously that sort of symbolic psychological, characterization.

of power political developments tends towards sectarian hostilities or at least a sectarian overlay to these things and that in turn added to or contributed to the the siege mentality of Protestants

particularly Calvinists who were saying from you know, they've been insisting long prior to the evidence of hostilities that we're going to be programmed. It's only a matter of time. And, you know, the Spanish or brutes, you know, who are simply the blades and, you know, the guns of the Pope. And at their first opportunity, they're going to exterminate us. You know, and then those things did start happening. happening. You know, I'm not going to sit there and suggest there was some conspiracy to exterminate

Protestants, but, you know, there were, there were, there were, there were, there were, there were, there were, there were, there were massacres. You know, there was a sectarian hatred that took root that went above and beyond fog of war brutality and things. And to be fair, Protestants did horrible things to their sectarian enemies, too. but it was there wasn't a monolithic Protestant church you know it was so there wasn't there wasn't you know a sort of reciprocal enemy concept you know to like comparable to the to the Vatican and that's important you know not not in moral terms I mean in conceptual ones and when people think that they're going to be, you know, when they think that they're being existentially threatened

with racial annihilation or being wiped away owing to, you know, their confessional allegiance, you know, and again, confession is ethnos. That's particularly strongly felt in America, but that's the case in Europe as well. You know, and ethnosis is just as important as race and other key core aspects of the way human identity is structured. And that is a fact that absolutely magnifies hostility. and magnifies violence within the course of hostilities and renders things possible that,

and even normative that wouldn't be in conflicts that aren't characterized by those factors. And also, too, the empire, you know, the Holy Roman Empire, they didn't. didn't have the same concern for what the Spanish called reputacion with respect to the monarchy. There's this whole complicated sort of cultural reverence for monarchy, the Spanish had. But what the empire did have in common, they stressed the majesty of the Holy Roman emperor. There was an exalted aspect to this. And that was also something, that's one of the reasons why the Habsbergs were able to capture this monopoly on the imperial crown. You know, the Habsbergs, in the Roman Catholic viewpoint, the Habsbergs were selected by God to rule.

They were put in charge of the destiny of their subjects and of Catholic people. you know, and everything that flowed from the sovereign mandate ultimately could be traced back to providential will. So if you're some Protestant radical and you're going around smashing icons and you're putting priests to the sword, you are being recalcitrant and refusing to abide, the new order you know Roman Catholics are going to look at you as being utterly satanic. That's a perfect storm of variables tending towards

a remorseless brutality at scale. I don't think that can be disputed. You know, and ultimately there was for a time, particularly after the Turkish war, there was talk of a sort of informal union

whereby Rome would be Rome itself as a city-state would be incorporated into Spain's kind of informal empire, you know, and directly under its imperial influence, you know, literally becoming the army of the Pope. You know, and this actually went back to the ascendancy of the Borges. I think it was Alexander the 6th. Whoever was Pope in 1492 when Spain and Portugal, 492 to 1494, when Spain and Portugal essentially divided the new world up by the Treaty of Torsiades, the Pope began speaking this way as this kind of symbiotic relationship. between the empire and the holy sea whereby like i just said you know like the the arms of i the the hard power and the the army and navy of iberia would would become you know the the arms of

the of the holy see and in turn you know that the um the monarchy would would have uh the direct mandate of heaven you know and uh that's a lot of protestant propaganda even into the 20th century you know we talk about they talk about the pope as the pope is a roman dictator you know and and the catholic church is it's this it's this pagan imperialium that you know has always wanted to you know, wipe out pious Christiandom in favor of of this unholy, you know, antichristian mandate.

Like that's where they get that from. You know, um, I mean, it runs somewhat deeper than that. Like even, I mean, the point, uh, John Jay, he's my favorite of the founding fathers. I mean, Hamilton and he was something of an accolated

Hamilton's. But, Jay and Hamilton, they both wrote in the Federalist that we, you know, we being Americans, we're in Anglesaxon people that were liberating ourselves from this Latin oppressive, you know, a monarchy that's alien to our people, which is really interesting. But, I mean, that runs deep in Protestant sensibility. particularly obviously dissenters. You know, like Anglicans are their own thing. There are reformed who abide aspects of the Anglican right.

And I don't have a problem with that. I wasn't raised in that, but I don't, I'm not one of these people. I'm not like one of these primitive Baptists who claims that that's satanic or something. But it's very much a different thing, obviously. And it's, I don't to offend Anglicans on deck, but it has a very different source. You know, but this understanding of the Americans as a people, as this Germanic element that was subjugated by a Latinate overcast, that's deeply

coated into dissenter Protestant sensibilities you know and always has been and I find that really interesting but you know all this all this stuff has to be considered

and the 30 years war and I think the War three kingdoms too I think the direct line between the war of three kingdoms and the war between the states and america and i think the war of three kingdoms also was kind of a microcosm of what happened on the continent because what happens in britain often is a microcosm of what happened on the continents um you know at some point maybe we'll discuss that and then discuss cromwell's uh ascendancy and lordship of historical variables of the 30 years war and beyond, obviously.

The perception of a Catholic power play emerging from the Holy Roman Empire and from the Spanish Empire and Protestants, particularly Calvinists, believing that they were going to be exterminated, that was another factor that very, very much contributed to the severity of hostilities. You know, the Lutheran experience was somewhat different, although that it depended on locale and theater, too.

There was definitely, there were definitely sectarian massacres between Calais. some Lutherans on both sides. But yeah, it's important. Yeah, forgive me if that was a bit scattershot. I'm not feeling well at the moment, but that's all I got for today. I promise I'll be more on the ball next time. And I'll see what I can...

I'll see what I can do about finding the direct testimony of Peter Hagendorf. like I said, I'm actively working on finding a correct translation of some of these excerpts, but I think that'd be worth getting into. Awesome, awesome. No, I don't think it was Skid or shot at all. It seemed to be linear.

So, yeah. Great. All right. I encourage everyone go over to Thomas's substack, RealThomas-777.7.com, and you can connect to him pretty much everywhere from there. And maybe one of these days, Astral will remember that so that he can tag in the Inquisition episodes, which I think he did.

He dropped the message saying he actually did. He repaired that, Thomas. Yeah, I wasn't trying to get in my feelings to be a dick. I just, like I said, I was starting to think you guys were embarrassed to me or something. Like, why do I, because it happened like a couple times. Like, why do I never appear on these? Hey, that's astral. That's not me.

That's all right. I know you guys are my friends. I don't really think that you're embarrassed to be associated with me. All right, Thomas. Until the next time. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, buddy.