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On 6/9/2022 1:18 AM, David P wrote:
QUORA: Why was Germany historically so warlike?
by Jose Marco Bisnar, Lives in Davao City, Philippines, July, 2021
The Thirty Years’ War.
The 30 Years’ War was a real trauma for Germany in that it cost the land some 3 to 8 million innocent individuals who had nothing to do with the geopolitical squabbling between the Austrians, the Spanish, the French and the Swedes, all of which
during that time possessed formidable empires and armies and all of which fought all across the German realm to do some bloodletting in deciding which religion is the one being truly legitimized by God.
Germany included the lands of the Electorate of Brandenburg, the core region of what would later be the Kingdom of Prussia, the prime-mover and the beating heart of Germany that this question is asking. And it too as well, though it eventually gained
lands in the aftermath, was not spared from the brutality of the 30 Years’ War; in fact, it was one of the most devastated regions by the twilight of the war. The destruction wrought by war was so immense that on average as much as one of every two
persons living within the Electorate was dead.
Electorate of Brandenburg within the German realm. [MAP #1]
So the Elector of Brandenburg, Friedrich Wilhelm, decided that for his domain to avoid such a horrid fate again, a full-time professional army in defense of the realm is needed. Thus began the birth of one of history’s most formidable armies: the
Prussian Army.
The Great Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm. Having founded the Prussian Army, he was also sometimes considered the “Father of the German Army”. [painting]
With blood, iron and sweat all through effort for a hundred years, the Prussian Army rose from a tiny army of royal confidantes of no meaningful military proficiency, to a huge army manned by competent officers and infantry that shoots muskets as
doubly as fast as their contemporaries could. The army was so huge that aristocrats during the era were easy to mock Prussia as having “an army that owns a kingdom”. They were never wrong to poke compliments at it, but it was due to past geopolitical
and national trauma that cost so many lives that which army is now trying to prevent from happening again.
Over the many years that passed, from Friedrich der Grosse’s colorful victories during the Seven Years’ War through the mixed bag of black and white record of the Napoleonic Wars till the great spectacle of 1870–1, the Prussian Army grew both in
size and influence that it turned Prussia from this…
[MAP #2]
to this.[MAP #3]
There was simply no state within the German realm that could oppose such a highly militarized state that Voltaire once called the modern-day Sparta, not even the mighty Austrians who barely lasted seven weeks against it before being eventually humbled
and brought to the negotiating table on losing terms. With Austria out it was only a matter of time before the steely chancellor Otto von Bismarck could unite Germany under Prussian domination, and it was from there in which Germany pre-1945 was finally
associated with being warlike and militaristic — the fact that the new empire was being led by Prussia, the fact that before the war of 1870 against France the armies of Bavaria and Wurttemberg copied the Prussian military system, and the fact that the
whole new Imperial German Army have to be modeled after the Prussian Army, the best the world could have.
Really, the atrocity of the Thirty Years’ War is what led to the birth of the modern German Army, and with it, Germany’s association with militarism.
Basically nothing more then a bloody disagreement between the Germanic
states. The real history is the mass migration of the Germanic tribes
from Russia to the Persian peninsula and thence beyond to what became
the Nordic/Scandinavian countries etc. There are a couple of fellows in
this NG that can expertly shed education on this subject. Even a portion
of the British Isles were Teutons. Some claim that the Red-haired DNA in Ireland came from the Germanic Viking invading the Young ladies of that country.
bnVsbA==
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