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

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Its military experience has also been extraordinarily varied: threatened and threatening; a mere buffer-zone, and a global threat. illuminating on the complicated relationship between Prussia, both state and society, and its army . Instead, Wilson gives reasons why modern English-written works especially comb over well-trodden ground with respect to the history of military Prussia, while giving scarce attention to the leviathan that was the Holy Roman Empire during the 1500s-1700s. Prussia, meanwhile, invested in militarization but maintained a part-time army well into the nineteenth century.

As with all history, what with hindsight seems inevitable, at the time is the result of chance, mistakes and Clausewitz's famous fog of war. Violence had stamped the German state since unification in the late 19th century and Heuss’s own republic had emerged in 1949 from the ashes of two devastating world wars instigated by German governments. I have never read a better background to the development of modern Switzerland with its unique military history, nor have I ever seen a work, even amongst those purporting to focus on the Hapsburg Empire(s), that more clearly highlighted their enormously underrated influence on the developing German way of war.Germany of course took the wrong path thanks to 'Prussian' militarism which we had to destroy, twice. Almost inevitably, this has in practice meant protracted, relentless and often unwinnable wars, and - in 1939-1945 - moral catastrophe. Wilson delves into literature, art, and philosophy, exploring how these expressions of German identity evolved over time. We can learn all the intimate details of weaponry from the Thirty Years War or the Franco-Prussian War, but discussions of weaponry for Fredrick the Great aren’t there.

Iron and Blood follows his epic history of the Thirty Years War and his even more epic history of the Holy Roman Empire. Moreover, Wilson's treatment of the two world wars and the subsequent division and reunification of Germany is particularly praiseworthy.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.

An examination of civilian responses to conflict challenges the notion of Germans as uniquely war-like…A timely book. The whole book, at 900+ pages, serves as a massive and clear counterpoint to received wisdom — that there is no special "German way" (Sonderweg) — and that the historical analogies that remain are, as the saying goes, both convincing in their simplicity and completely wrong. From the Enlightenment and Romanticism to the cultural boom of the Weimar Republic, the author captures the vibrancy and complexity of German cultural contributions. Wilson is the author of Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire, an Economist and Sunday Times Best Book, and The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy, winner of the Distinguished Book Award from the Society of Military History. While many conflicts and specific battles are referenced in passing here, the author's themes are far grander in design.strengths and weaknesses are inseparable from its very bulk and like his history of the Holy Roman Empire it is thematic rather than narrative. His book - “Iron and Blood” is a history of all things military for German-speaking peoples since 1500. Germany, their argument goes, was naturally predisposed to bellicosity thanks to its place at the heart of Europe. Not for the faint of heart, but great book for those looking for a broad overlook of military history and culture as it interacted and reacted to political currents and whims.

I’m also not sure that including the Swiss (because they were German speakers) really works, rather it adds to the loss of focus. However if you’re looking to experience the history, the people and compile a working understanding of the interwoven strands then look elsewhere.g. how Switzerland as we know it came to be, or how the Holy Roman Empire's amoeba X-volved into another imperial amoeba, the Austro-Hungarian. The primary aggressor in Central Europe was not Prussia but the Austrian Habsburg monarchy, yet Austria’s strength owed much to its ability to secure allies. Wilson’s point that German history, seen over the long term, consists of more than an endless series of wars.