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December 28, 1065: Westminster Abbey in London was consecrated.

It was built by Edward the Confessor and was completed about one week before his death.

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#Paris avenue Lowendal (~1904)

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Antwerp Cathedral by David Roberts

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#Paris 49, rue du Cardinal Lemoine, Hôtel Lebrun (1913)

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Frederick the Great Playing the Flute at Sanssouci, by Adolph Menzel in 1852

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Venice, Full Moon over Santa Maria Salute, by Karl Heilmayer (1829-1908)

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#Paris Rue Pirouette (de la rue de Rambuteau)

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The late stages of Thirty Years' War saw many difficult battles between veteran generals.

This war was incredibly brutal but many great deeds of arms were also performed!

I would like to talk about the heroic defense of Brno in 1645 where a garrison of 1500 Imperial soldiers defended this Moravian city against an army of around 30,000 Swedish and Transylvanian troops.

The commanders on both sides were men of great renown who already proved themselves in this war.

The Imperial troops defending the city were commanded by Jean-Louis Raduit de Souches, a French Huguenot who ended in Imperial (Habsburg) service. The Swedes were commanded by Lennart Torstensson, a brilliant and extremely underrated Swedish commander.

The story of how both men ended in this situation is very interesting.

Souches was from a French Huguenot minor noble family which rebelled against King of France Louis XIII. They took refuge in the Protestant stronghold La Rochelle. As a young man, Souches participated in the famous Siege of La Rochelle in 1627-28 where the city ultimately surrendered to French royal forces. After this defeat, Souches was forced to flee. As a Huguenot, he went to Protestant Sweden, where he joined the army led by Gustavus Adolphus which entered the Thirty Years' War in 1630. He proved his worth serving the Swedes, for he was a brave warrior and a capable leader in battle. However he was also easily angered and difficult to control, getting into many conflicts. This would eventually lead to an end of his military career in the Swedish army.

The manner in which this happened was very interesting and revealed Souches' fierce character. In 1642, as a colonel, he felt that he was "insulted" by general Torsten Stalhansk, so he challenged the said general to a duel. Stalhansk replied that it was against regulations to challenge a superior officer. Because Stalhansk refused to fight, Souches was enraged and decided abandon the Swedish army, switching sides and joining the Imperial army. He proved his worth to the Habsburgs as well and was given the command of the city of Brno at the time the Swedish army was advancing to conquer this important stronghold in May 1645. The portrait I attached to this "longpost" is that of Souches, to honor this great warrior and commander!

The man whom Souches would face, Lennart Torstensson, was a truly great military commander. His failure to capture Brno should by no means diminish his overall great military career. When people think of Swedish involvement in the Thirty Years' War, they think of King Gustavus Adolphus and his campaign, but Torstensson was no less impressive as a commander. Torstensson initially served as an artillery officer where he proved himself as a great innovator, making artillery more mobile, contributing greatly to Swedish success. He fought in the Thirty Years' War from the beginning of the Swedish intervention in 1630. But his real chance to shine was when he was promoted to Field Marshal in 1641.

During Torstensson's time as a Field Marshal, Swedish armies advanced deep into Holy Roman Empire. In 1642 he marched through Brandenburg and Silesia into Moravia, taking the fortresses of Głogów and Olomouc on his way. Later that year he went to Saxony to defeat the Imperials at the second Battle of Breitenfeld. His progress in modern-day eastern Germany and Czechia was briefly interrupted as Sweden got into a war with Denmark. This war, which lasted from 1643 to 1645, is literally known as the Torstensson War. A reminder that this Swedish commander was so great that he has an entire war named after him!

In this Torstensson War, the Swedes were successful in defeating Denmark. By 1644, Torstensson invaded Germany again, defeating the Imperial army at the Battle of Jüterbog. In January 1645 he broke into Bohemia, where he won a great victory against the Imperial army at the Battle of Jankau on 6 March 1645. The Imperials suffered great casualties in this battle and Swedes also took many prisoners whom they enlisted in their own army to replace their own casualties. It looked like the road to Vienna was wide open and that Torstensson had a chance to deliver a crippling blow to the enemy...

At this point I would like to just briefly describe how war was fought at these later stages of Thirty Years' War. Initially, the war started with Habsburgs and their allies fighting the Protestant princes within Holy Roman Empire from 1618-1629, and defeating the Danish intervention. In 1630 the Swedes intervened which pushed the Habsburg Imperial forces on defense. This part of war ended with the Peace of Prague in 1635. In this treaty, German Protestant princes made peace with the Habsburg Catholic Emperor, ending the religious aspect of the war.

However this did not mean the end of the war as French entered, allied to the Swedes, to fight their common enemy in Habsburgs, entering the last phase of the war which lasted from 1635 to 1648. By that time Germany was already exhausted from war. The manner in which the war was fought was devastating for the civilian population. The armies had poor logistics and had to live off the land. When they moved into a new region, they extracted as many resources as they could to sustain themselves, characterized by the popular saying "war feeds war" - the strategy of recruiting a large army of mercenaries and having that army sustain itself through loot or "contributions" from local lords and cities. Soldiers also spread diseases. As a result many parts of Germany were completely devastated by hunger and diseases after decades of movements of armies.

By 1640s the armies that marched through war-torn Germany, Bohemia and Moravia in the final stages of this epic conflict were medium-sized of around 15-20 thousand men, relied heavily on cavalry, and placed great importance on foraging and scouting the area. The speed of movement was very important. An army could win a great victory but that could be of little help if it would end up outmaneuvered. The campaigns were dictated by resources, the lack of foraging opportunities in one region was a great deterrent for the armies. It was especially important to get enough fodder for the horses.

For such reasons, Torstensson ultimately found himself unable to attack and capture Vienna. His campaign involved a plan to join with the French allies, led by the famed Turenne, and also with Transylvanian forces led by Sigismund II Rákóczi. The Principality of Transylvania was at war with the Habsburgs and aided their enemies in the Thirty Years' War. However Torstensson was unable to receive these reinforcements in time. The French were stuck in Bavaria where they would suffer heavy casualties at the second Battle of Nördlingen on 3 August 1645, while the Transylvanians were still on their way. Torstensson's army did not have enough forage and many horses died.

Because of all of this, Torstensson had to change course when he was just 50 miles from Vienna, so near yet so far from the great prize. He decided to try to capture Brno instead, the last Imperial stronghold left in Moravia, and wait for the possible reinforcements there. He had around 16,000 troops and it appeared that taking Brno would be easy enough. Brno only had a population of around 5,000 people and a garrison of only around 500 soldiers. Torstensson was already able to force the Moravian city of Olomouc into surrender back in 1642 and thought he could do the same with Brno.

But the situation in Brno was very different. A major factor in this was the commander of the defenders, the already mentioned Jean-Louis Raduit de Souches. He would never surrender to the Swedish besiegers because he was aware that he would be treated as a traitor due to his defection from Swedish army years ago back in 1642, when he switched sides and joined the Imperials. He also had experience in defending cities, due to the epic Siege of La Rochelle in 1627-28 in which he took part as a French Huguenot youth. This Siege of La Rochelle was one of the great sieges of this age, involving a lot of engineering. As a participant in this event, Souches understood the importance of psychological warfare in sieges and of mental fortitude of the defenders. He brought this type of experience to Brno.

The people of Brno were initially distrustful of Souches, largely because of his Protestant background. But he soon gained their trust with his determination and knowledge. He knew what kind of measures needed to be taken to strengthen fortifications of the city. All buildings that stood within 600 paces of the city walls were ordered to be demolished, old defensive moats were deepened, and new ones were created in some places. To ensure the supply of the population, an ox-drawn mill was built and all the wells in the city were cleaned. The old medieval castle of Špilberk was also strengthened and better connected with the city. Souches also had shingle roofs torn down and barrels of water prepared on the roofs of the houses, to prevent fires breaking out.

The records reveal that the number of the defenders was initially only 426 soldiers. They were supplemented by 1,049 men from the ranks of the people in the city. Practically all able-bodied men were recruited into this militia and given weapons. People were willing to defend their city for the Swedes had already caused much devastation in the land.

Torstensson and his army reached Brno on 3 May 1645. The Swedes began bombarding the city and digging trenches to reach the city walls. The defenders built counter-trenches and successfully repelled attacks. You can see the maze of trenches built by the Swedes to besiege the city on the painting of the siege which I attached to this post. The trenches were not just used to approach the walls but also to transport troops and materials. Underground tunnels were also built as the Swedes tried to mine sections of the walls, in which they were only partly successful. Like any prolonged siege in that era, it was a gruesome affair where both sides experiences various shortages. The defenders began experiencing a shortage of saltpeter, which was necessary for the production of gunpowder, while the besiegers had problems with supplies of food.

Psychological warfare played important part in these sieges. The morale of the defenders had to be kept high during difficult moments. A Jesuit priest Martin Středa played an important part as he managed to rally the citizens of Brno to stay steadfast in their fight to defend their city, delivering inspiring speeches. It was also important to show the besiegers that morale within the city remained high. Music was played on the walls and banners which mocked the Swedes were displayed.

People imagine pre-modern sieges as static affairs, where defenders just defend their positions and repel assaults one after another, but in 17th century sieges it was very important for defenders to try to actively assault the enemy camp with sorties, trying to catch the enemy off guard. It was very important that the commander of these sorties knew what exactly to attack in the enemy camp to inflict as much damage as possible. Souches planned these surprise attacks very well. In one particular action, a crew of defenders of Brno attacked the Swedish trenches and set fires to improvised military structures that the Swedes had built. The Swedes needed four weeks to repair the damage. In another sortie, they managed to blew up some of the trenches with mines. Weather also played a part as the siege extended into summer. Heavy summer rains flooded the Swedish trenches and made life difficult for them.

As the Imperial forces in the area recuperated and regrouped following their defeats to Swedes, they began to pose another problem as Imperial raiding parties started to harass the Swedish troops foraging in the area and attacking the Swedish siege camp itself. The Swedes seemed to have been ill-prepared for that since a large attack of Imperial reinforcements of around 600-800 troops from the rear caught them totally off guard. They thought that an entire Imperial army attacked them which caused panic and they abandoned their positions. These allowed the said Imperial reinforcements to enter Brno unopposed and bring much needed manpower and provisions to the city.

The Swedes also received reinforcements as around 10,000 Transylvanian troops commanded by Rákóczi finally arrived. However these troops proved to be more of a nuisance rather than helpful. First of all these were mostly light cavalrymen who weren't of particular help in a siege. And secondly these reinforcements put a further strain on supplies. The arrival of Transylvanians meant more mouths to feed, of both men and horses. In this manner, having more men was not necessarily helpful in such siege.

The siege dragged into August and Torstensson realized he had limited time if he wanted to capture Brno. He had to take into considerations not just military but political factors as well since it was rumored that the Transylvanians might want to make peace with the Habsburg Emperor. His health was also deteriorating as he was crippled by gout and had to be carried around on a litter. In such circumstances Torstensson ordered an all-out assault on the city which would take place on August 15, the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. This day saw by far the heaviest fighting during all of the siege.

This final Swedish attack began on 5:00 on 15 August. After heavy bombardment of the city, the Swedes and their Transylvanian allies attacked at six different places. Fierce fighting took place in the trenches as well as in the city, as the Swedes managed to break through at some points. However Souches was ready for this scenario and placed many traps in the city. In one instance, the defenders lured the Swedes into a moat where they ambushed them with musket fire, grenades and stones, forcing them to retreat after suffering heavy losses. The defenders had cavalry reserves ready to intervene in the event of the Swedes penetrating the city. The Swedes managed to break into the city near Church of St. Thomas. The defenders retreated but a unit of dragoons came at the critical moment to repel the Swedes. Souches himself was present wherever the fighting was the fiercest, earning great respect from local people. The assaults finally stopped at 18:00 when the Swedes were finally repulsed.

The failed siege of Brno proved to be a disaster for the Swedish army as they had around 8,000 dead and wounded during their desperate attempts to assault the well-fortified city. The defenders had only around 250 dead. Torstensson rallied what was left of his forces and considered making one final attempt on Vienna, but on September 25 he finally abandoned the campaign. His health deteriorated and he resigned from command later that year and returned to Sweden in the early summer of 1646. As one great commander retired, another rose to prominence. Souches would have a long and illustrious career serving the Habsburgs which would see him promoted to Field Marshal in 1664. After he died on 12 August 1682, he was buried in the Church of St. James in Brno, the place where he conducted himself heroically and is forever remembered for that.

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Flood in Leopoldstadt, Vienna - 1784

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View on via Mercato, Milan - 1905

On the left side the covered market, which no longer exists today.

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View on Charles Bridge and #Prague Castle - 1869

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Charlottenstraße 59, Berlin - 1890

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Forum Suarium, Rome

The Forum Suarium was the pork market of ancient Rome during the empire, mentioned first in two inscriptions dating c. AD 200.

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"To the Bright Tomorrow of Communism", #Brno - 21 August 1968

On 20–21 August 1968, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries putting an end to Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring liberalization reforms.

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Place de la Concorde

Robespierre, together with seventeen other prisoners loyal to him, were guillotined here, putting an end to the Reign of Terror.

Of the 2,498 persons guillotined in Paris during the Revolution, 1,119 were executed on the Place de la Concorde.

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Carrer d'en Xuclà, Barcelona - 1960

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Elizabeth Cresswell Brothel in Bartholomew Close - 1658

Elizabeth Cresswell was one of the most successful prostitutes and brothel keepers of the English seventeenth century, starting with houses in Bartholomew Close.

Her bawdy houses were favored by King Charles and his court

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View towards Maria am Gestade Church, Vienna - 1854

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Imperial Mausoleum of San Vittore al Corpo, Milan - 4th Century

It was a circular funerary monument in the Roman city of Mediolanum (modern Milan).

It probably welcomed the tombs of the house of Emperor Valentinian.

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View towards the Church of Our Lady before Týn, #Prague - 1843

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