When Diplomacy Fails Podcast

Although the Dutch and Spanish had made their peace, 1648 had room for one more campaign, and there had arguably never been so much on the line. With warfare came the chance to secure more leverage at the peace table, but the Franco-Swedish allies faced problems of its own. How were the Swedes to settle the impossibly high wage bill of so many thousands of unpaid soldiers? How were the French goin...

Please consider supporting our podcast friend Benjamin Jacobs during this difficult time. In this special episode, Thom Daly joins me to rant about the state of education in America, how Republican ideologues ban what they don't understand, how misinformation and scaremongering replaced proper political discourse, and whether he has much hope that it will actually improve. I then discuss Brexit, e...

Here, in our third-last episode of the series, we take the time to analyse Cardinal Mazarin's motives. What kind of role did religious motivations, strategic motivations, political or economic or any other kind of motivation have upon his behaviour? Was he fighting for French security, or future French expansion? In line with this, we look at the religious question in the Empire, which had appeare...

As the war raged, Maximilian of Bavaria was forced to reconsider his position towards his Emperor. As the Habsburgs' most faithful and important German ally since the beginning, the rumours that Max was contemplating a truce had to be taken seriously. One thing was clear though - the wily Bavarian Elector had made his name by identifying the most advantageous course, and whatever decisions he made...

By the end of 1646, two massive problems plagued the negotiators. For France, the matter was Alsace, a huge chunk of territory along the sensitive Rhine region, which had long served as a buffer between the French and Imperial spheres. For Sweden, Pomerania, a slice of land along northern Germany's Baltic coast, was the central issue. The process by which the powers solved these questions, the com...

Check out our series Diplomacy: Britain vs America to nerd out on a forgotten era of Anglo-American confrontation, complete with war scares, gunboat diplomacy, and me pronouncing many things incorrectly! It's time to get all emotional, as we tie up the Eighty Years' War between the Spanish and Dutch, which had formed an integral part of the Thirty Years' War in its earlier phase, but which had, fr...

The Battle of Jankau in 1645, followed by Allerheim later in the year, confirmed that the Emperor could expect few miracles from the battlefield. Bavaria seemed teetering on the edge, making secret moves towards the French, while the Spanish buckled, and the Swedes rampaged throughout the Habsburg Hereditary Lands. Ferdinand III understood that his greatest chances for self preservation lay in Wes...

The wide range of interests and powers that gathered at the two Westphalian cities each tell a fascinating story. Whether it was the two French agents that loathed one another; the Dutch tradition of representing each of the seven provinces; Swedish desires to legalise its control over Pomerania; Johan Oxenstierna's frequently drunken state, when he wasn't insisting on trumpets blasting to announc...

After so long dancing around the issue, here we finally look at the moment when the Westphalian towns of Osnabruck and Munster hosted delegates from all across Europe and the Empire. Why were the French so eager to arrive with an enormous entourage? How did the delegates get their mail? How did warmer creatures cope with the cold, rainy mud of Germany? We get into it here, as well as contextualisi...

Don't forget that for a limited time you can get 16% off an annual Patreon membership - sign up now to get 40 hours of exclusive content AND listen to our new series on Anglo-American diplomacy from 1838-1846. Your support will help me become Dr Zack! Yes, I do still exist! In this episode we examine how the French coped with the sudden absence of Sweden, which had turned its attention to the Dane...

Don't forget that for a limited time you can get 16% off an annual Patreon membership - sign up now to get 40 hours of exclusive content AND listen to our new series on Anglo-American diplomacy from 1838-1846. Your support will help me become Dr Zack! By late 1643, one could be forgiven for expecting Lennart Torstensson, the Swedish commander in Germany, to take stock of his situation and plan for...

Don't forget that for a limited time you can get 16% off an annual Patreon membership - sign up now to get 40 hours of exclusive content AND listen to our new series on Anglo-American diplomacy from 1838-1846. Your support will help me become Dr Zack! It's about time I dropped my research on you guys, so in this episode we'll be plumbing the depths of something I've mentioned many times, but rarel...

To get this series and 40+ hours of extra content, make sure you sign up for an annual Patreon membership to get 16% off NOW! I couldn't have got this far in the PhD without the support of you lovely patrons, and this is my way of saying thanksss, so why not nerd out with us? Oh boy, it's finally time! Now you get to see what I've been working on over the Christmas break, an extremely chunky and d...

Get 16% off an annual Patreon membership and access to our new series examining Anglo-American Relations from 1838-46 when you sign up now! The Battle of Rocroi was a signal French triumph, but it did not transform the face of the war, either in the Netherlands or in Europe. A Bavarian victory later in the year at Tutlingen made 1643 a year of ups and owns, but of far greater consequence than who...

Give yourself an early Christmas present including over 40 hours of extra content when you sign up on Patreon! I'll even lie about you in the opening monologue! Pay for a year's membership and get 5% off! 1641 was the year when Lennart Torstensson was finally appointed commander of Sweden's mostly German army. Having hunkered down for many years in the north of the country, Torstensson understood...

By 1640, two rebellions shook Madrid to its core, and had a dramatic knock on effect on Spain's ability to support its Habsburg cousins in Vienna. In summer, Catalonia erupted in revolt after years of provocations and intransigence. When Portuguese soldiers were sent to quell the rising, those soldiers took home news of Spanish weakness, and by December, Portugal had broken away, and declared itse...

In this episode I'm joined for a great conversation about Frederick the Great's 1740 invasion of Silesia, by a guy who knows a whole lot about it - Alec Avdakov from the Life and Times of Frederick the Great Podcast! Listen in and make sure you find Alec's show by clicking below. Thanksss Alec! Follow on Spotify Subscribe on Apple Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

By 1640, both the Habsburgs and their foes had reached something of a crisis. There were opportunities to be had, if a new campaign could be pursued, but where to find the money, and how to support the soldiers in lands no longer suitable for massive armies? As they sized each other up, diplomacy continued in the background. Could the Swedes and French finally achieve that seizmic victory they des...

War is hell, as the saying goes, but just how bad was the war by the late 1630s, after two decades of fighting? As we learn here, the worst aspects of the conflict didn't come from the deaths in battle, but what went along with the battle - armies that marched over aching, increasingly desolate lands; the ruination of the delicate agricultural system; the acute crisis of starvation that followed,...

King Philip IV of Spain and King Charles of Britain had a surprising amount in common by the late 1630s. Both were presiding over a deteriorating situation domestically and abroad, and during the Battle of the Downs in October 1639, both came off worse than before.  For Charles, the problem was one of authority, which had suffered terribly following years of wrong headed religious and politic...

Want to do some research? Want to nerd out on a massive selection of history books? Perlego has you covered, and you can get your first week for free and 50% off your first month by signing up here! After ten years of podding, we've seen a wide range of fascinating guests brave enough to nerd out with yours truly, but who is my favourite? Find out here, in this long-delayed episode, to see if your...

The war which began in the Habsburg humiliation at Prague had arguably crystallized by the late 1630s, and thus begins perhaps my favourite period of the conflict! We now have battles raging in Northern Germany, where Johan Baner's Swedish-German force faced down Matthias Gallas' Imperials. Further towards the Rhine, Octavio Piccolomini watched the border near the Spanish-Dutch war, where Spain po...

Get 50% off your first month and a week's free trial when you sign up to Perlego with my link! Use the code WDF2022 and access an incredible catalogue of academic and library books - I'd be lost without Perlego , and I think you'll be really excited and impressed when you check them out. Their history collection has saved me $ and time! EPISODE : With the passing of Emperor Ferdinand II in Februar...

Having looked at Sweden's failed plans for Poland, and then at Richelieu's ultimate survival, we return here to the Swedish theatre - this time, the pressure is all on the Swedish Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna, who somehow had to turn everything around, and keep Sweden's war in Germany going. As 1635 turned to 1636, Oxenstierna's desperation moved him to approach Cardinal Richelieu, cap in hand, for...

Since my laptop died, I would REALLY appreciate your support in getting a new one. RIP my twelve year old lappy! After so many years of cold war, finally, by 1635, France and Spain were destined to face each other in the battle - and what a battle it was! As defensive and offensive plans collided, and each side verged from crisis to stability and back to crisis again, the world shivered with nervo...