Comments by "bakters" (@bakters) on "Why We're Facing another 30 Years War" video.

  1. I always thought that our age the most closely resembles that of the Gutenberg revolution. Too many parallels to put in a short post. Anyway, I believe you missed a very important mechanism for which the press allowed, and that is the state funded propaganda. Previously kings had to be legitimized by the church, but with print, they could legitimize themselves. That lead to protestant revolts, since the kings did not need the church anymore, and robbing their property was definitely profitable. Propaganda allowed for absolutist states to emerge, absolutism allowed for large armies to be levied. Finally, I don't think that weak morale was the main reason for the stagnant warfare of the era. Morale works both ways. It takes a lot of grit to resist a siege too. What changed warfare was improved artillery and road networks, which made it possible to gather enough guns in one spot to overwhelm the defendants. Napoleonic infantry might have been highly motivated, but they were rather poorly equipped, especially for siege warfare. No armor, no close combat weapons, poor support, hardly a pot between them to cook a stolen chicken. Earlier armies were extremely well equipped in comparison. Because you simply couldn't feed Napoleonic size armies, you had to win with quality. So I disagree on this part, but I definitely liked the video overall.
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