Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "SandRhoman History"
channel.
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
@XScorpionXful I don't think it is surprising, I mean countries loves to read and talk about their military victories but not so much about depressing and humiliating defeats. To me as a Swede is it a bit funny when I listen to Norwegian military podcast, and the Norwegian wars in the 1600s and 1700s are just quickly passed over while the Napoleonic war is much more talked about. Probably because thats the only war with Sweden it did do well. The Norwegian military history is sparse.. it does not have much military glory, its more of a country of great explorers that found iceland, greenland, america... and travelled antartica.
Likewise do the French love to talk about Napoleon, but the 1700s does not get much love from them. And here in Sweden is it not much written about Pomeranian war that went badly for Sweden.
After 1613 have Denmarks military history only seen defeats. Torstenssons war was a disaster for Denmark, and the war of 1658 was the worst catastrophy Denmark's history - its like when Germany lost Prussia or when Hungary lost two-thirds of its territory in 1920. The Scanian war was unsuccesful in taking back all lost lands from Sweden. And likewise was the Great Northern war. The country easily got bullied into submission during the Napoleonic wars. And 1864 was it time for Denmark to get beaten up by the Prussians. And the country lost to nazi-germany in just a few hours of fighting.
So from having been a great power during the viking age and medieval times and a pretty powerful Kingdom also under the Kalmar union... have Denmark faded into a tiny plot of land without much power. So I can understand if a Dane think the historical trend have been depressing.
Another reason for the lack of Danish literature is probably the fact that Denmark have historically been more of a naval power, unlike its Swedish neighbour which was a land power. Like England did the strong Danish nobility probably feel more comfortable with a strong navy than an army that the King could use to supress rivals for power. And Denmarks borders in year 1520 was much different from today. Not only did Jylland and Själland need a sea connection. But so did also the connection between Denmark and Norway, Denmark and Iceland, Denmark and Gotland and Denmark and Scania, Denmark and Bornholm. And Denmarks imperialist ambitions in the Baltic sea and its attempts to take Saaremaa also required a navy.
Denmark was also had a big merchant navy. And it was also the most succesful colonial power of all the countries in the Baltic sea, and its possessions in America, Africa and India needed a navy.
Its navy had a much higher quality than the army, and could score many victories against the Swedes even later on. So its not much surprising that the navy gets more attention than the arm.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
@somedude5951
"In fact, Catholicism is still prohibited in the British parliament today."
If for say the Swedish monarch would break Swedish law by changing his religion, then I think that the Swedish law would lose. Politically correct politicians would think it would be the most extremely important thing in the world to change that law as soon as possible. And even if they for some reason refused, then would the media and the general public demand that this stupid law would be abolished.
- And so it would.
So its not like it is dangerous for a Catholic to travel ot England, Sweden or the Netherlands today. I think laws are still on the books only because law makers are too lazy to remove them.
"King Henry VIII of England had a lot of interest in theology"
Well he didn't exactly live like God's best child, so to speak with his 6 wives and his habit of beheading them.
"Martin Luther"
Luther also changed his views on the Communist peasant rabble that claimed to follow him. He despised them. And rightfully so. Luther himself murdered a man in a duel while he was an university student and he felt much psychological pain after that. So the man was not behaving like a saint.
"This "divided the church" is nonsense."
That is not how Luther and many Kings looked at it. John III of Sweden sincerly wanted to create a middle of the road church that both Catholics and Lutherans could accept. Just as many Catholic and Orthodox christians wished to unify christianity again.
"Benito Mussolini, Joseph Mengele, Pol Pot, Francesco Franco, Adolph Hitler, and many more like that. Catholic power today is greater than ever, and Hitler has never been excommunicated."
True. But protestant christianity is hardly free from mass murders either. It have Cromwell who killed Irish. You can say that Charles IX was something like Swedens Cromwell - he fought a civil war and afterwards he murdered the pro-Sigismund Catholic nobility in Linköpings bloodbath. And afterwards he instated a military dictatorship with religious fundamentalist principles.
And the Anabaptists reign of terror in Münster was pretty awful even by the standards of the 1500s German civil war - which you can hear about in an episode by Dan Carlin.
And just like many popes were perverts, pedophiles, decadent, gambled, and were corrupt and wasteful... can the same be said about many reformers.
Luther as I said was an anti-semite who killed a man in duel. John Knox is said to have been a real motherf*cher.
And Jan van Leiden was a sexually obsessed pervert and massivly decadent, bloodthirsty and enjoying torture.
Southern Europe would go however go more full reé-tard than the north in religious matters. Spain shot themselves in the foot by kicking out all muslims and jews - and those talented people sought refuge in protestant countries - like Spinoza's family who fled to the Netherlands or the family of the economist David Ricardo who fled to England.
And Prussia would save French huguenots from murder and prosecution.
France and Spain lost some of their most highly educated people, while north European protestant countries benefitted from taking in those entreprenorial skilled people. Many Waloons from Belgium also moved to Sweden to escape religious opression from Spain.
So if the Catholics had been more tolerant towards other religions, then they would have kept protestant Europe poorer, while the Catholic countries would have kept their most talented workforce. And controlling the Indian ocean would probably have been easier if the Portugease had not over-extended themselves by declaring war on anyone who wasn't a fanatical catholic. They managed to make themselves enemies with everyone: muslims, protestants, hindus, arabs, europeans, indians.. and sure the Portugease were great sailors and had modern ships that could sink enemies at far distance. But even superior quality would not be enough for a country with a million people... if you are going to fight a world war with everyone who have the wrong religion. They made themselves too many enemies.
And while Spains crusader spirit perhaps helped to drag the country into exploring America, it also hampered the country by dragging the country into religious wars, and making educated people flee the country. And the Netherlands began to revolt against religious opression and demand independence. Had Spain not tried to tax the Netherlands and force catholicism upon them, then they would likely have been happy to stay under Spanish rule and undisturbed making lots of money from trade in the Baltics.
1
-
Sounds like the "Age of liberty" in Sweden. The power of the King was strongly limited. It was also a nobleman democracy. Foreign powers also bribed the political parties. Foreign powers played the game to keep this system in place so that Sweden would remain weak and dysfunctional. The Swedish speaking nobility in Finland began lusting for Finland to break off from the country and become independent or fall under Russian rule instead.
The Spanish empire had some of the same problems too. Only Castile paid taxes, which is of course absurd when you see that not just Castile but also all of Spain needed military protection, and so did Italy, North Africa, South America, Belgium, the Netherlands and other places of the empire. The nobles in the rest of the empire refused to pay their fair share. And the King backed down from confrontation, the wars was not so costly to begin with and American gold could pay for them.
But then more and more wars was started. And war debts grew. And the gold and silver was not enough to cover the costs. So King was forced to raise taxes to avoid bankruptcy. Holland hated taxes and religious opression so they declared independence. And a war in Holland sucked more money. Taxes had to increase even more. But the nobility in Italy and Spain refused to pay anything unless they got more independence from Spain.
So Spain fought wars on foreign countries, Holland and Portugal declared independence. The economic problems were huge and parts of the Kingdom became more and more independent from Spain in exchange for the right to Spain to tax those lands. And finally was the Spanish monarchy as weak as it was before the empire was created.
Also France, Denmark and the Austro-Hungrian empire was left dysfunctional because of their strong nobility.
Denmarks nobility refused to pay taxes or to let their farmers join the army. So Denmark could therefore not build a professional standing army. And that made them instead rely on mercenaries which in the long run gave them an army less effective than that of other countries which had a standing army (like Spain and Sweden). So the country got badly beaten in some wars with its neighbours. And once the country had learned its lesson and forced the nobility to loosen their grip, then it was already too late. Half of the country's provinces had already been lost to foreign powers.
One country would however have serfdom and remain succesful - and that was Russia.
A country where the nobility was so strong that it would be more fair to call people slaves instead of serfs. The country would however remain much backwards in the 1800s and 1900s.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1