Imperial Armies of the Thirty Years’ War (1) Infantry and artillery

Imperial Armies of the Thirty Years’ War (1) Infantry and artillery Osprey Men-at-arms 457 Written by Vladimir Brnardic Illustrated by Darko Pavlovic Osprey Publishing 2009, 48 pages ISBN: 9781846034473 Imperial Armies of the Thirty Years’ War (1) Infantry and artillery at Osprey... When I first started wargaming many years ago one of the first wars to take my interest was the Thirty Years War (TYW). The TYW was Germany’s war of religion, it pitted the Protestant German Princes and their foreign allies against the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor (the German Emperor in actual fact) and the German Catholic League made up of the Catholic German Princes. It was also the fighting ground on which many English and Scots Generals and officers of the English Civil War learnt their trade.

As I already own MAA 235 The Army of Gustavus Adolphus (1) Infantry and MAA 262 The Army of Gustavus Adolphus (2) Cavalry covering the Swedish forces, I was greatly interested to see what this first volume on the Imperial armies had to offer. It is a great little book covering the infantry and artillery of the Imperial forces and though it doesn’t specifically cover the Catholic League, a lot of what is inside can also be applied to them. In fact because of the fluidity of mercenary recruitment during the period much of the information inside could also be applied to the German Protestant forces as well. The book is divided into an outline of the war broken into the various phases and the creation of an Imperial Army under Wallenstein. It then goes on to cover the Infantry’s recruitment, training and organisation. The next section covers tactics, before moving on to equipment. Then the book moves on the artillery, before ending on the colour plate commentaries. As usual the colour plates are informative and beautiful. I’ve enjoyed Darko Pavlovic artwork before in the Men-at-Arms books covering the Austro-Hungarian army of World War One, and the plates in this book do not disappoint. I haven’t read anything from Vladimir Brnardic before, but the book seems very well researched and informative. I look forward to following volumes and I hope we will also see something on the French, Spanish, Danes and Protestant Germans of TYW in the future. Wayne