German Wars – Part I

There is a little thing from the point of view of a wargamer from Germany, that I am a bit envy about the wargamers from other countries like England, France or Spain. It has something to do about nationality and the relation to their own countries history.

When I meet wargamers from the UK, they can relate to anything between the first time a roman soldier put his foot down on the island, over the battle of Hastings until the recent campaigns in the middle east. As a german, war and country is mostly about the world wars and linked in a very negative way. And if you take a look at the historical rule set there isn't that much you can really relate to from a national point of view, like the many rules for the War of the Roses, HYW, ACW/AWI, ECW, Trafalgar and so on.

For that reason, i thought it might be interesting to take a look at the military conflicts with german participation. I am not an expert on that field nor is this going to be complete or 100% accurate, it is just a list to sow an idea or two for the tempted german or teutophile wargamer.

As this is about history, you can get a lot of information for free on the internet on pages like Wikipedia or libraries. On top of that, you'll surely find quite a lot of sources and books, for example Ospreys on different of these topics. Please note that some of these have different names or titles, depending if you're looking from an euro-centric or anglo-(american)-centric point of view.

It is interesting to see, where these conflicts happend and that there were important battles all over the german-speaking areas. Some of them even right around the corner and / or within a few miles radius.

Of course you don't need to start at 1525, there were earlier conflicts in the Holy Roman Empire, like in the beginning when Otto I unified the german tribes to a single empire or the german polish wars between 1002 and 1018 of Henry II. To be honest, sounds like a topic for an later article.

Early Modern:

These conflicts cover the battles of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation.

German Peasants War
Schmalkaldic War
Thirty Years War
Austro-Turkish War
Great Turkish War
Great Northern War
War of the Spanish Succession
Silesian Wars
War of the Austrian Succession
Seven Years War
War of the Bavarian Succession

The last battle of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation will be part of the second article, that starts with the Koalitionskriege or Napoleonic Wars, and covers conflicts of Prussia, Bavaria etc.

Thanks a lot for reading, come by again soon and leave a comment or give me a like on Facebook if you like this blog!