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Fun Fact: Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, the famous Prussian field marshal of the Napoleonic era, served in a Swedish hussar regiment during the Seven Years' War. He was captured by Belling's hussars during a minor skirmish in 1760 and subsequently switched sides.
I am finally back to this series and now up to date with it. This is my close second favourite series on history after Epic History's Napoleon series. You have done excellent work. The video, audio and maps along with unit depictions etc have improved significantly. The changes you have implemented significantly enhance the watching experience. Sincerely thankful for this series. Edit: Btw, you don't narrate anymore? I can't tell anymore.
Thank you for the very kind words. I did invest a lot of time in improving the graphics, polishing my writing and narrative and finding a narrator to do it justice. I'm glad it shows.
@@HoH The earlier version gave it a personal touch with you on screen. Frankly, I had no problems then either. However, this works just as well because of the increase in smoothness of narration.
@@Dokja0 I really enjoyed narrating my videos, but admittedly, this is better. I noticed it attracts a lot of new viewers, which is something I struggled with over the years. As much as I miss it, investing in this definitely was the right call.
@@HoH Fair enough. That is important enough to warrant continuation of the new narration. It's alright. Changes are part of the process. Hope you narrate a video or two sometimes here and there though. Cheers.
Can’t emphasize enough how much a learned about Frederick from this series. He’s now one of my favorite generals. Can’t wait to see how he pulls it off
All I've learnt is how crazy he is, fighting pointless battle after battle. It's repetitive at this point. Just men dying horrible deaths for no reason.
@@skyhappy Because you're projecting your own beliefs of what you consider crazy or pointless onto what 1700s soldiers and leaders are thinking and not really considering their perspective! For all intents and purposes the Prussians are fighting a defensive war against their aggressive neighbours who want to weaken and carve them up. That's what the soldiers believe and that's what Frederick believes. That should explain why despite the struggle they do not give up and keep persisting
@@skyhappy those “pointless” battles are to defend their country in the biggest war yet at the time. When you’re surrounded by enemies I’d find it hard to believe anyone short of Napoleon could pull it off
This is a fantastic series in which I've learned a great deal from. The animated maps are incredible and your cited quotes and sources add a while new level of engagement! Far better than any uni lecture I've attended. Your previous lecture style is missed, as your cadence adds empasis to certain points -- as it transitions nicely with the visuals. I have much to learn from you. Bring the face-to-camera back, I say. You're a natural digital educator, brother :) Your choice of AI generated art prompts have gotten much better. Keep it up! I look forward to learning about the next area you're passionate about covering. Cheers from Canada!
And, just like that, the largest field-battle (along with Neukalen in 1762?) in the Swedish-Prussian Pomeranian war has been covered. What a glorious little battle! Awesome episode. Thank you!
@@elmascapo6588 It's clear to me that you have absolutely not idea what you're talking about; Sweden lost Finland to Russia in 1809, and forced Norway into a union in 1814, both of which - in Swedish eyes - are more relevant than the Pomeranian War (which isn't even that relevant). I don't know what you mean with "sweden's involvement wasn't tho" - Sweden's involvement in the Seven Years' War wasn't great either. In fact, it was much smaller than Sweden's involvement in the Napoleonic Wars: War against France in northern Germany (1805-07) and overall until 1810; war against Russia (1808-09); war against Denmark-Norway (1808-09); bloodless war against the UK (1810-12); another war against France (1813-14); war against Norway (1814).
@@Leaffordes and how did any of seeden's actions play a role in the downfall of napoleon For as i see it, Prince Bernadotte's unwillingess to help his old Master in the russian campaign played a bigger role in that disaster and the ones that followed than any military action taken by the swedish army
On this episode of Prussia vs Everyone... But seriously, I'm impressed that Prussia managed anything remotely resembling victory with nearly every major power throwing armies into this sanguinous maelstrom. As an aside note: excellent series really sheds light on this fascinating war and its kaleidoscope of personalities.
Not bad, Prussia fought an alliance 20 times stronger for seven years and survived. However, I am more impressed by the Swedish empire that fought a 40 times stronger alliance for 21 years and many times still came close to winning the war. Had it not been for the Swedish King dying in battle would Norway likely had fallen into Swedish hands. But instead did a German clown become the new King of Sweden, and he wanted peace at any cost just so he quickly could become King - because becoming King was the only thing that he cared for in life. Never the less did Sweden avoid getting carved up like Poland, and made no significant territorial losses aside from the Baltic provinces. Not bad for a country of just 1.5 million to alone fight against Russia, Denmark, Prussia, Saxony, Hanover and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The Pomeranian War may have been little more than a footnote (as evidenced by Frederick's own words shown on screen) and I doubt the words I said a couple of weeks ago on your "Which front should I cover next" poll had much sway on your decision to cover this battle or anything else Pomeranian War based, but I still appreciate the effort you put in on this video to cover it.
Amazing series, thank you for all the work you put in! Just want to say that I much prefer your narration than the other narrator, your voice IS this channel
Thank you so much! I wanted to learn about Frederick campaings all my life and no one has this videos but you. Thank you, thank you! Perhaps once your done put it all together in one video because I will defenetly watch it.
So so so good. Keep up the great work. This series is absolutely fantastic and look forward to every episode. Seriously. This and Epic Histories content is top tier!
It seems the desire to destroy Frederick in this war was very inconsistent. The Austrians wanted him gone yesterday. While the Russians seemed to hardly care at all. With everyone else falling somewhere in between. Probably a good thing on the whole for the man and his country.
Frederick really built up his reserve of administrative, diplomatic and military points to keep the war going more than it should... clearly he's using console commands.
Held their own? How so? After 1720 they repeatedly got their ass kicked by russia and instigated and involved themselves in many pointless wars with no plan or preparations. Bernadotte took one look at swedens military history the past 100 years and instantly knew this country’s hope for expansion is long gone and promptly implemented swedens neutrality principle which kept them from foolishly throwing themselves into wars for 200 years. It worked so well swedes got tired of living in a peaceful and well functioning country so they’ve been hard at work destroying it lately
I feel like i missed something. Has sweden been at war with Prussian in 1760 already? Or where did the Swedish "landing troops" come from? Were they stationed on some remenents of old Swedish terretory on the European mainland?
Early on in the war a Swedish army under General von Sternberg landed in Pomerania, and has quartered there ever since. I covered it in my videos about the '57 and '58 campaign. But the Pomeranian front was very quiet.
Stralsund-Stettin *area+ Bremen from early 1618 DELAWARE river colony too in New Continent, + St Barts Caribia = Gustav..ia. Swede too. *Scezzin Poland 1947-
This was hardly a battle, more of a skirmish as most of the Prussian losses were caused due to a reckless advance leaving the rest of the army behind thus poor leadership of the battalion. 2 notes: working round the clock is not 12 hours of the day it is 2h hours; you can't call a fortress impregnable when it is captured by the enemy. At this point it is hard to see how Frederick is going to come out of this conflict the winner.
Frederick was flawed for sure, but it's still impressive that he held out against multiple bigger countries for years (even if he was actually lucky with Russia). His masterpieces, Rossbach and Leuthen, were praised by Napoleon and are still studied today. He also managed to kick the Austrians out from Silesia after Russia's war exit despite the high casualties in previous lost battles.
Excluding the epicness and drama, he started a war that needed nothing short of miracle for him to win, he is not great not even close, he was so terrible that he managed to allie the habsburg and the French against him. He brought misery to millions of people, In terms of political descions, he was one of the worst kings in German history. @@TheAustrianAnimations87
@@elivinture6672says an idiot. He gambled, and won. Silesia ensured fron niw on Prussia will always have a say in the future of Germany. His domestic policy and mercantilsm ensured Prussia even small will havexsome of the richest Provinces and economy to support ger army. As contemporaries would say Prussian laws are fair. After thw war he wss the only stste that was not bankrupt and had enough money to start the reconstuction of his country. He codified Prussian laws, drained marshes between Oder and Elbe, finally connected most of his lands with the first partition of Poland, checked Austrian ambitions over Bavaria. The Hohenzollern projectcwhich started by the Great Elector will survived Napoleon and be a more vibrant and modern state than Austria, who she would soon eclipse culminating into unification of Germany. Its was inconceivable that thw Germans will be united by Brandedburg, a large but very poor region
Very fine video! It's crazy to think Prussia could last seven years surrounded by Great Powers. I always wanted to learn about these wars but alas, there was nothing on YT and I have sadly not the time to read about it. I genuinly thank you for your hard work and much luck to the channel :)
Great video as always! I think the last major battle for Frederick's Prussia will be Burkersdorf against Daun before the Seven Years' War in Europe ends.
I think one reason for the Swedish inactivity in this war can be attributed to the Russo-Swedish War of 1741-43 and the aftermath of the Battle of Villmanstrand; several leaders were executed because of the humiliating Swedish defeat. This would lead to rather unfortunate consequences, as Swedish commanders became very reluctant to risk their armies, resulting in them being overly passive. The Swedish soldiers and officers performed well - especially in the later stage - but the leaders were far from the same stock which had given the Swedish army its good reputation in earlier years.
I like it when you do indept videos in smaller and lesser known battles. The famous battles already have more videos anyone can see while the smaller ones never get any.
Hey, House of History, I have to correct you on one crucial part of this episode: at 12:14 of the episode, you said that the Prussians lost 350 men. The actual number of Prussian casualties is 550.
In this situation, only deus ex machina can save Fritz now. This is basically the situation in CK III when your brother is leading a rebellion, you are at -99% and then he dies of a heart attack.
It seems that had the Russians been more politically organized they would have made a Warsaw pact 200 years earlier. Fredrick was one of the few statemen who were aware of the existential threat Russia posed to Europe.
Swede Count Field marshal A Ehrenswärd Buried in Viapori today Suomenlinna. Sea fortress he constructed front of Helsinki Finland Svartholm another City Loviisa 's Protection, Notice also father / mastermind in creation of coastal Navy at Baltic sea's Gulf of Finland . sea fortress - ""Eftervard, stå här po egen botn, och lita icke på främmande hielp. For Post world/( generations ), stand here : on your own ground, = and do not trust foreign help .idea .. it may not come, so be self prepared. Count G .M . Sprengtporten :1779 is founder and first headmaster of Finnish officer training school. He was commander of Savo Brigade Swede- (Finn) - " Own dog's bite "Porrassalmi battle 1789 his old unit trooper's wounded him. He was at that time Catherine Great's military commander/aide = Russian enemy side Ehrenswärd
I’ve been waiting for this. Fantastic as always 👏🏻👏🏻! Thanks! Can you maybe PLEASE consider focusing more attention of the Pomeranian Front with Prussia and Sweden? I’d love to see more 😁😁
Unfortunately most of the Pomeranian front consisted of small skirmishes and battles like this. There isn't as much campaign to cover as there was in the east, south & west. Although perhaps I may visit some more battles in the future.
@@HoH I understand, I appreciate you making this video however. You hardly ever hear about the Pomeranian Theatre of War during this 7 years’ global conflict, I greatly appreciate you taking the time to cover it! Fantastic work, I’ll be here lurking in the comments throughout this series, keep it up! 😁🥂
It was sizeable, but ever since ~1759 quantity did not mean quality. The Prussian army was severely understaffed, most of the experienced officers and veterans were dead, wounded or captured, and Frederick resorted to recruiting farmers to fill his ranks. But yes, point taken, 55,000 is still considerable (although no match for a 130,000-strong army).
@@ralphklunder To be fair, for the Swedes, that was about half of their full army strength at the time. The Swedes could barely field more than 28,000 men after the Great Northern War (even at that, most of their armies during that war were only 15,000 strong at most). Additionally, corruption in the political system made sure most of the equipment for the Swedes was of terrible quality. There are reports of cavalry sabres breaking upon first contact with the enemy. The Swedes were not ready for a war, especially not a war of the scale of the SYW.
@@merlin4084 They probably could if they had wanted to. But the country was ruled by nobles back then and nobles think that tax cuts for themselves are more important than the well-being of the country they live in. And those same stupid nobles who refused to fund the military did then have this contradictory idea that it was a good idea for Sweden to also start wars to take back lost lands - even if the Swedish army was extremely unprepared for it. Swedens military have never been in such a weak and pathethic shape in its thousand year history as it was during the Pomeranian war and the war with Russia 1741-1743. Sweden lost both those wars and the result became economic ruin for our country. The country was even more indebted in 1762 than it was in 1721 after the Great Northern War. So to hell with the nobles I say. Its their fault that Sweden lost those wars and later on also lost King Gustaf III's war with Russia, and later on lost Finland to Russia in 1809. Like in all other countries were our country weak when the nobles gained power. Like under the incompetent rule under Queen Christina in the mid 1600s or under Age of liberty 1719-1772. Both periods resulted in corruption, and economic ineffiecency for the government and an underfunded military. The costly Scanian war was a direct result of the refusal of nobles to pay their taxes, so the military was therefore underfunded, weak, and poorly equipped... and things were so bad that Sweden had to make a military alliance with France because our military was too weak to defend our country on its own. And the result of this stupid foreign policy was that Sweden got dragged into a costly war that we had no interest in fighting, just because of the French King wanted to steal land from his neighbours. And this war resulted in the entire Swedish navy was lost - which was costly to replace, an entire decade with 100% of Swedens GDP going to shipbuilding just because of this stupid war. All because the nobles did not wanna pay their taxes or lose their privileges. And the Pomeranian war was no different in this regard. Our military sucked so badly that the Mussolinis Italians in North Africa seemed like a competent tough fighting force by comparison. The logistics sucked because we transported wagons to Pomerania. But they lacked wheels so for like half a year they were useless and could not be dragged by horses before then. Our economy was corrupt and filled with nepotism - like the Russia in 2022 - so it was discovered that tens of thousands of our muskets were useless, because the weapons delievered by a contractor to the government had for simplicity fulfilled the government contract by placing the touch hole (fänghålet) at the wrong end of the musket - which rendered it useless in battle as it could not fire any balls. Our men were as badly fed as Russian conscripts who are forced to eat 7 years old combat rations in Ukraine today. So no wonder that disease were rampant and soldiers died left and right before Swedish troops even had managed to go deep into Prussian territory. And fighting morale then fell like a rock. Our military was poorly funded so the troops still used simplified versions of the old Carolean uniforms of the Great Northern war. The Swedish coats were much longer than the Prussian ones. And such big and clumsy uniforms are not suitable for the war summers in continental Europe, but works better in colder climates in the north. The unique pairs of colored clothes for each regiment had been removed since the Great Northern War, and the result was much confusion about which soldiers belonged to which regiment and things could be a bit chaotic sometimes... so the new system was scrapped, and Sweden went back to the old system of the Great Northern War again as soon as the Seven years War was over for Swedens part. Our military was also incompetent with nobleman officer corps. And no one really wanted to take the glorious job of being the Commander-in-Chief for the Swedish troops in Germany. And the reason was because any General would be afraid to become executed if the war went badly for Sweden. General Charles Emil Lewenhaupt had been executed by the Swedish parliament for his bad performance in the war with Russia 15 years earlier... so this was all still in fresh memory among the Swedish officers. So no one wanted the job as General in Germany. Eventually would one guy take the job.. but since he did not wanted to become beheaded he always felt the need to send a letter to Stockholm to ask for permission for every order he wanted to give his troops. And the constant delays this system gave made the Swedish war effort even more inefficent, as the Swedish troops always were slow to move and to act. And usually did the Swedish troops act very careful and slow to not risk any defeats that could cause a risk of getting a high ranked officer to be exectued. So the Swedish military was incapable of achieving anything. The Prussians were too busy fighting on other fronts to be worried about the Swedes. But even so could the Swedish army not achieve anything because of terribly bad shape of its logistics system and the heavy manpower losses from diseases and officers who lacked the will to fight and signed up for taking a vacation instead. Its almost like the Swedish army would have fallen apart and died by itself even without any Prussian resistence. In such a bad state was the Swedish military in. From the most effiecent military machine in Europe under the Kings Gustavus Adolphus and Carolus Rex.. had the Swedish army become a crappy sad joke of fighting force. What little land Sweden managed to gain was quickly lost as soon as the Prussians could free up forces from other fronts to send to fight the Swedes. To me does this war symbolize the tragedy of the rule by nobles that happened after the death of Carolus Rex. Had he managed to stay alive would Swedens future been very different. Swedens greatness was built on the tradition of limiting the power of the nobles. The Danish King Christian II ("The tyrant") murdered many dozens of Swedish nobles in Stockholms bloodbath. The only one of them to survive managed to liberate Sweden from Denmark and become Swedens first King: Gustav Vasa. His son Erik did kill off the noble family called Sture. Erik was killed by his younger brother John III, who became the new King of Sweden, and he too threatened to murder Swedens nobles if they did not submit to his will. Later on would Johns younger brother Charles IX become King of Sweden, and he too murdered a large part of Swedens nobles in Linköpings bloodbath and many nobles fled to Poland avoid getting killed as well. Also the Kings Charles X, and Charles XI were very distrustful of the nobles. And Carolus Rex did not have much trust for them either - and rightfully so.
@@merlin4084well they probably could have fielded more men but the aftermath of the great northern war shock sweden to it's very core and it was an absolute disaster, the power vacuum after Karl XII death in 1718 allowed the nobility and other high ranking official to namb alot of power and completely destroyed the absolute monarchy that Karl XI hade created, sweden hade not fully recovered yeat and the corruption made it worse, had sweden got another administrative sound ruler sweden would have been back on it's feet pretty quickly, swedish soldier could still be relied on to fight with courage and determination and they were still pretty well drilled some even where veterans from the great northern war but the swedish army as a whole whas a shadow of its former self before the great northern war the swedish army in all numbeard around 200,000 men give or take ,it's military systems hade recently been greatly improved and the soldiers that were not combat veterans from the scania war where extremely well trained as they where professional soldiers, the swedish army in the seven years war relied on many of the old systems without many reforms or changes despite beaing badly needed at the time, sweden could have been in alot better shape but the power vacuum and the corruption that took place at the time did not favor sweden.
A wonderful historical coverage of that battle and its outcomes....Russian dominant on Baltic sea notable while austerian armies consolidated their's positions for future agents Prussia.....Sweden armies standed strongly against Prussians .only miracles rescues Prussians
