9 Atrocities in the Thirty Years War
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Peter H. Wilson
Abstract
This chapter focuses on the continental experience of the Thirty Years War. Gustav Drosyen, in his biography of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, labelled the process the 'Magdeburgisation' of the war. The nationalist gloss has long fallen from fashion, but many still explain the level of violence in the Thirty Years War by presenting it as the culmination of a supposed 'age of religious wars'. Two terms existed for what were considered abuses of legitimate violence: Excess and Kriegsgreuel. Unlike the twentieth-century propaganda, there was little attempt to use atrocity allegations for ideological mobilisation by fanning hatred of a demonised enemy. Magdeburg served to mask later Swedish atrocities. Massacre as understood today was subsumed as an atrocity on a large scale involving multiple deaths. Twentieth-century massacres and genocide have often involved sustained, systematic killing over prolonged years in the case of the Nazi Holocaust.
Abstract
This chapter focuses on the continental experience of the Thirty Years War. Gustav Drosyen, in his biography of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, labelled the process the 'Magdeburgisation' of the war. The nationalist gloss has long fallen from fashion, but many still explain the level of violence in the Thirty Years War by presenting it as the culmination of a supposed 'age of religious wars'. Two terms existed for what were considered abuses of legitimate violence: Excess and Kriegsgreuel. Unlike the twentieth-century propaganda, there was little attempt to use atrocity allegations for ideological mobilisation by fanning hatred of a demonised enemy. Magdeburg served to mask later Swedish atrocities. Massacre as understood today was subsumed as an atrocity on a large scale involving multiple deaths. Twentieth-century massacres and genocide have often involved sustained, systematic killing over prolonged years in the case of the Nazi Holocaust.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- List of figures ix
- List of contributors xi
- Series editors’ preface xv
- Acknowledgements xvii
- 1 Introduction – 1641 1
- 2 Early modern violence from memory to history 17
- 3 The ‘1641 massacres’ 37
- 4 1641 in a colonial context 52
- 5 Towards a cultural geography of the 1641 rising/rebellion 71
- 6 Out of the blue 95
- 7 News from Ireland 115
- 8 Performative violence and the politics of violence in the 1641 depositions 134
- 9 Atrocities in the Thirty Years War 153
- 10 Why remember terror? 176
- 11 Language and conflict in the French Wars of Religion 197
- 12 How to make a successful plantation 219
- 13 An Irish Black Legend 236
- 14 Afterword 254
- Index 274
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- List of figures ix
- List of contributors xi
- Series editors’ preface xv
- Acknowledgements xvii
- 1 Introduction – 1641 1
- 2 Early modern violence from memory to history 17
- 3 The ‘1641 massacres’ 37
- 4 1641 in a colonial context 52
- 5 Towards a cultural geography of the 1641 rising/rebellion 71
- 6 Out of the blue 95
- 7 News from Ireland 115
- 8 Performative violence and the politics of violence in the 1641 depositions 134
- 9 Atrocities in the Thirty Years War 153
- 10 Why remember terror? 176
- 11 Language and conflict in the French Wars of Religion 197
- 12 How to make a successful plantation 219
- 13 An Irish Black Legend 236
- 14 Afterword 254
- Index 274
