Professor%20Peter%20H.%20Wilson: List of publications

La guerre de Trente Ans (1618-1648) fut plus souvent ponctuée de batailles que les historiens ne l’ont longtemps présumé. On dénombre en effet 48 batailles moyennes et grandes par les effectifs engagés, de 7 000 à 89 000 soldats. Or, loin de couler de source, la mémoire des batailles a été sélective et intermittente. Pourquoi certaines batailles ont-elles été commémorées et d’autres oubliées ? Pourquoi certains événements militaires ont-ils été l’objet de pratiques mémorielles en tant que batailles ? Quels rôles l’image de bataille a-t‑elle joué ?Cet article éclaire ces questions au moyen de trois exemples : la bataille de la Montagne Blanche (1620) saturée de mémoires captées – par une historiographie tchèque nationaliste rétrospective mais aussi, dans l’immédiat, par Domingo Ruzola, un carme déchaux en quête de sainteté, et par une présentation erronée de la disposition des troupes confédérées –, la bataille de Tuttlingen (1643), un affrontement perçu comme important tout en tombant rapidement dans l’oubli chez tous les belligérants, enfin Alerheim (1645), qui a vu s’affronter des traditions conflictuelles.L’image est mobilisée comme un moyen de prouver la bataille, voire la victoire, tout en se prêtant à toutes sortes d’appropriations. La mémoire de la guerre de Trente Ans s’est développée dès les événements eux-mêmes et a d’emblée été polysémique, voire protéiforme et foncièrement conflictuelle. La guerre a été construite en images. <br> English Images of Battle in the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648): Testimonies, Evidence, Memories<br> The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) was punctuated by more frequent battles than historians have long believed. There were forty-eight battles deemed medium or large on the basis of the number of soldiers involved, with troops numbering from seven thousand to eighty-nine thousand. However, memories of these battles are uneven: selective and intermittent. Why were some battles commemorated and others forgotten? Why have certain military events been remembered as battles? What role did images of battle play?This article sheds light on these questions by means of three examples. First, the Battle of White Mountain (1620), of which there are myriad records, including a retrospective Czech nationalist historiography; an account, in the immediate aftermath, by Domingo de Ruzola, a Discalced Carmelite seeking holiness; and an erroneous record of the distribution of the allied troops. Second, the Battle of Tuttlingen (1643), a conflict perceived as important though it quickly fell into oblivion among all the belligerents. And finally, the Battle of Nördlingen (1645), near the village of Alerheim, which witnessed the clash of conflicting traditions. Images were mobilized as proof of the battle, or even of the victory, while also lending themselves to all sorts of appropriations. Memories of the Thirty Years’ War were thus constructed as soon as the events took place, and from the outset they were polysemous, protean, and fundamentally conflictual. Representations of the war were formed through images.

This article offers a short, critical survey of the 'grand' or 'master' narratives produced since the 1950s by those discussing the history of war in early modern Europe. It examines in turn the War and Society approach, the concept of a Military Revolution, narratives linking political and social impacts, the more recent models of Fiscal Military and Contractor States, and the debates around the nature of military change. It concludes that grand narratives are always flawed, but we need them to relate or compare what would otherwise be a bewildering array of disconnected stories.

The chapter argues that we need to set subsidies in their wider context as just one of many ways of transferring war-making resources across political jurisdictions. Subsidies belong to the contractual forms which emerged during early modernity and which in this chapter are termed Fiscal-Military Instruments. Direct recruitment, foreign regiments, auxiliary troops and subsidy troops were all Fiscal-Military Instruments which evolved across early modernity as ways of transferring men, money, materials, services, information, and expertise between partners. Such instruments facilitated what were high-risk arrangements between partners who were often justified in mistrusting each other.

A great, sprawling, ancient and unique entity, the Holy Roman Empire, from its founding by Charlemagne to its destruction by Napoleon a millennium later, formed the heart of Europe. It was a great engine for inventions and ideas, it was the origin of many modern European states, from Germany to the Czech Republic, its relations with Italy, France and Poland dictated the course of countless wars - indeed European history as a whole makes no sense without it. In this strikingly ambitious book, Peter H. Wilson explains how the Empire worked. It is not a chronological history, but an attempt to convey to readers why it was so important and how it changed over its existence. The result is a tour de force - a book that raises countless questions about the nature of political and military power, about diplomacy and the nature of European civilization and about the legacy of the Empire, which has continued to haunt its offspring, from Imperial and Nazi Germany to the European Union.

The volume opens with editor Frederick C. Schneid s substantial introduction, which reviews the strategies and policies of each participating state throughout the wars, establishing a clear context for the essays that follow.&quot;

This Handbook brings together leading historians of the events surrounding the English revolution, exploring how the events of the revolution grew out of, and resonated, in the politics and interactions of the each of the Three Kingdoms - ...

This is hardly surprising since it is often contested among historians whether it is actually appropriate to speak of a single war or a series of conflicts.

This text offers a collective exploration of aspects of cross-border and transnational interaction in the Holy Roman Empire.

The horrific series of conflicts known as the Thirty Years War (1618-48) tore the heart out of Europe, killing perhaps a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to whole areas of Central Europe to such a degree that many towns and regions never recovered. All the major European powers apart from Russia were heavily involved and, while each country started out with rational war aims, the fighting rapidly spiralled out of control, with great battles giving way to marauding bands of starving soldiers spreading plague and murder. The war was both a religious and a political one and it was this tangle of motives that made it impossible to stop. Whether motivated by idealism or cynicism, everyone drawn into the conflict was destroyed by it. At its end a recognizably modern Europe had been created but at a terrible price. Peter Wilson's book is a major work, the first new history of the war in a generation, and a fascinating, brilliantly written attempt to explain a compelling series of events. Wilson's great strength is in allowing the reader to understand the tragedy of mixed motives that allowed rulers to gamble their countries' future with such horrifying results. The principal actors in the drama (Wallenstein, Ferdinand II, Gustavus Adolphus, Richelieu) are all here, but so is the experience of the ordinary soldiers and civilians, desperately trying to stay alive under impossible circumstances.

The Bee and the Eagle brings together a team of international specialists to present original findings on six key themes of Empire: political cultures, war and military institutions, monarchy, nationalism and identity, and everyday ...

This volume brings together essays from leading specialists on the international dimension, national experiences, political mobilisation, and reaction and legacy.

Peter H. Wilson addresses fundamental questions, such as how the apparently fragile structure of the Holy Roman Empire survived the trauma of the Thirty Years War, and why, despite gross social inequality, Germany did not experience mass ...

This book investigates how scholars from a variety of disciplines have defined and explained political development across what was formerly known as the &#39;age of absolutism&#39;.

German armies examines the diversity of German involvement in European conflict from the Peace of Westphalia to the age of Napoleon.

This book examines the role of war and the development of the smaller German territories in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries through the example of the duchy of WÜrttemberg.