I think Sweden retained control of the Narva river, so Narva and Ivangorod should be in Swedish hands. So the border should be a small distance to the east there - perhaps along the Luga river?
No GNW (or “Peter goes South”)
- Thread starter alexmilman
- Start date
Not that this is of any serious importance but it also can be along the modern lines: Narva on one side and Ivangorod on another with a river providing a convenient border. On its own Ivangorod is just a minor castle of no tactical or strategic value but with this arrangement it may turn into a city improving across the border trade and raising Narva’s commercial value.
No problem I'll edit it later. Otherwise there is a line to the east for reference as I was unsure is border at the river, or behind it.
Or , I'll leave it as it is?
Also, yea i mixed west bank Ukraine and Zaporozhia, I'll be sure to add it to Russia later along side Kazakh Junior Zhuz lands.
I'll use this light yellow part for reference.
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To simplify your task: Russia got Bratslav and Kiev Voievodships (but not Podolia) and with the Ottomans the border is by the Dniester. With Sweden leave it as it is: AFAIK, this was official border with Ingria. Thanks again.No problem I'll edit it later. Otherwise there is a line to the east for reference as I was unsure is border at the river, or behind it.
Or , I'll leave it as it is?
Also, yea i mixed west bank Ukraine and Zaporozhia, I'll be sure to add it to Russia later along side Kazakh Junior Zhuz lands.
I'll use this light yellow part for reference.
Beautiful! How are you doing that? Well, probably I’ll be too lazy to do something of the kind but still curious. Thanks.
Its not hard , i find a real world map and then i edit it/ redraw the borders using Inkspace. It helps to have rivers, towns, lakes, other maps for reference as it makes things far easier. Then you just get right color tone and its done.
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Money, money, money
49. Money, money, money….
“Money, money, money
Always sunny
In the rich man's world”
ABBA
“Вот тут герцог улыбаться перестал, Карл Оттон Четвёртый, герцог и курфюрст Ребенрее, никогда не улыбался, когда дело касалось денег. К серебру он относился весьма серьёзно.”
“Инквизитор. Башмаки на флагах.” Борис Конофальский [1]
There was never too much money and their major sources were not the gold and silver mines but two modest plants, flax and hemp.
These two, besides being in a high demand domestically, were the main export items and Peter was quite active in promoting their cultivation in Russia. Besides ordering to double their production on his own lands, Peter issued (who would doubt) a special ukaz with the demand to increase the lands dedicated to these culture and, in the areas where they were not previously grown, to teach peasants how to grow them.
Besides their traditional area of the Central/Northern Russia, flax and hemp start spreading into the Southern regions (mostly hemp) with a sharp increase of the exports in both the raw materials and products made out of them.
The hempseed (an important export item) was straightforward but preliminary processing of the hemp itself was a long and complicated process. First of all, it was necessary to remove the resins holding fibers together. To do this a collected hemp had been dried in the sheafs, then cleaned with a water after which held in a water for the long periods of time, sometimes for few years, then dried and combed. Only after this it was ready for being used for the ships’ cables. Usually, it was taking two years between cupping the hemp and making it ready for the market. The hemp which was just dried could be used only for the ropes (which also was a considerable market).
Traditionally, hemp processing was one of the main occupations of the peasants of the Northern Russia [2] all the way to the White Sea, which made Archangelsk the main port for the hemp exports. Typically, after obtaining Ingria and founding St-Petersburg, Peter issued an order to conduct all hemp trade through this new port but this proved to be very inconvenient for the traditional producers and ukaz forbidding its export via Archangelsk had been cancelled. Even with this temporary drawback, export of the hemp and its products doubled within a decades. Some measures had been taken to increase export in a form of the final product, the cables, but, besides attending to the domestic needs, their export was only a fraction of the whole volume.
Eventually, the hemp processing spread to the central gubernias: Orlovskaya, Kaluzskaya, Kurskaya, Chernigovskaya and Mogilevskaya with a total annual production reaching 9,000,000 puds, half of which had been exported and another half processed and sold domestically. Export became state monopoly and Peter (from time to time) had been personally reviewing quality of the export products.
Flax was the second by importance. It was already quite popular all over the central part of the European Russia from Volga to Novgorod and one of the big export items (yarn, oil, fabrics) and extremely important on domestic market before Peter but he decided to elevate its production and processing on the “industrial” level … with usual screwup at a starting point [3]. He started with a right premise that it will be more profitable to export the fabrics than just yarn. The next, again, correct assumption was that Europe wants a wide canvass and not a narrow one traditionally produced in Russia. One more correct step was to import the Dutch equipment for production of a wide canvass and to order its Russian-made copies. After this comes “vintage Peter” issuing an order to forbid production of a narrow canvass. Seems reasonable. Yes, if one completely ignoring the fact that at this time most of the canvas had been produced by the individual peasants/artisans working from their homes and these homes usually had been too small to accommodate a much bigger Dutch-style equipment.
In other words, he started with destroying what was already there before creating an alternative. Fortunately, soon enough he was made aware of the situation and cancelled his order. The narrow canvass still had been going to the domestic market and for the export purposes he ordered creation of the big state manufactures, most of which (what a surprise) soon after their creation proved to be economic failures and had been sold to the private entrepreneurs allowed to purchase the workers besides hiring the free laborers [4]. The Swedish specialists in production of a wide canvass had been invited to provide a necessary expertise. [5]
The first state canvas manufacture near Moscow used as its employees the volunteers escapee serfs and “various types of people” who had been promised a complete pardon for their previous misdeeds. Quite new thing was production of a sailcloth, which was earlier an imported item.
Another important aspect of the flax production was flax oil. It was produced from a different type of flax, which is much shorter but has a much greater oil content. Peter, for a short while, forbade export of the flax seed but then made it a state monopoly, then made it free again, then allowed export of only flax oil, then introduced practice of selling monopoly to the private persons, and so on.
In parallel with these experiments Peter established a special service to control quality of a sold flax [6]. Not sure if it helped too much.
Both hemp and flax turned into the cash crops. In the regions where they had been widely produced the estate owners often had been taking “obrok” from their peasants not with the money but with these products and their “derivatives” (fabrics, oil, yarn, etc.). Of course, Menshikov was one of the first estate owners who founded a small textile plant producing the napkins. Yaguzhinsky was not too much behind ending with a number of canvas and silk manufactures.
At some point Peter, after a long series of experiments related to which product from which area should be sold where, gave up and left it to the merchants.
________________
[1] “At that point the duke stopped smiling. Charles Otton the 4th, the Duke and Elector of Rebenree, never smiled when it was coming to the money issues. His attention to the silver was absolutely serious.” “Inquisitor. Boots on the flags” Boris Konofalsky.
[2] Who as a result had been much better off than the peasants living on the best agricultural lands of Russia.
[3] A newly acquired tendency to think means that he usually thinks after a screwup, not that he always starts with a thorough studying of an issue, soliciting educated advice from the friendly ASBs in a process. 😜 It is quite enough that he starts thinking before a screwup grows to a full-blown SNAFU.
[4] Usual problem: the lower classes proved, one more time, unable to understand what is good for them (in a grand schema of things) with a need to use the administrative persuasion. 😢
[5] In OTL these specialists had been captured during the GNW.
[6] After the British merchants complained that the Russian sellers are cheating on the quality. A controller must be “a honest foreigner” paid, in equal shares, by seller and buyer based on the weight of a traded material.
“Money, money, money
Always sunny
In the rich man's world”
ABBA
“Вот тут герцог улыбаться перестал, Карл Оттон Четвёртый, герцог и курфюрст Ребенрее, никогда не улыбался, когда дело касалось денег. К серебру он относился весьма серьёзно.”
“Инквизитор. Башмаки на флагах.” Борис Конофальский [1]
These two, besides being in a high demand domestically, were the main export items and Peter was quite active in promoting their cultivation in Russia. Besides ordering to double their production on his own lands, Peter issued (who would doubt) a special ukaz with the demand to increase the lands dedicated to these culture and, in the areas where they were not previously grown, to teach peasants how to grow them.
Besides their traditional area of the Central/Northern Russia, flax and hemp start spreading into the Southern regions (mostly hemp) with a sharp increase of the exports in both the raw materials and products made out of them.
The hempseed (an important export item) was straightforward but preliminary processing of the hemp itself was a long and complicated process. First of all, it was necessary to remove the resins holding fibers together. To do this a collected hemp had been dried in the sheafs, then cleaned with a water after which held in a water for the long periods of time, sometimes for few years, then dried and combed. Only after this it was ready for being used for the ships’ cables. Usually, it was taking two years between cupping the hemp and making it ready for the market. The hemp which was just dried could be used only for the ropes (which also was a considerable market).
Traditionally, hemp processing was one of the main occupations of the peasants of the Northern Russia [2] all the way to the White Sea, which made Archangelsk the main port for the hemp exports. Typically, after obtaining Ingria and founding St-Petersburg, Peter issued an order to conduct all hemp trade through this new port but this proved to be very inconvenient for the traditional producers and ukaz forbidding its export via Archangelsk had been cancelled. Even with this temporary drawback, export of the hemp and its products doubled within a decades. Some measures had been taken to increase export in a form of the final product, the cables, but, besides attending to the domestic needs, their export was only a fraction of the whole volume.
Eventually, the hemp processing spread to the central gubernias: Orlovskaya, Kaluzskaya, Kurskaya, Chernigovskaya and Mogilevskaya with a total annual production reaching 9,000,000 puds, half of which had been exported and another half processed and sold domestically. Export became state monopoly and Peter (from time to time) had been personally reviewing quality of the export products.
Flax was the second by importance. It was already quite popular all over the central part of the European Russia from Volga to Novgorod and one of the big export items (yarn, oil, fabrics) and extremely important on domestic market before Peter but he decided to elevate its production and processing on the “industrial” level … with usual screwup at a starting point [3]. He started with a right premise that it will be more profitable to export the fabrics than just yarn. The next, again, correct assumption was that Europe wants a wide canvass and not a narrow one traditionally produced in Russia. One more correct step was to import the Dutch equipment for production of a wide canvass and to order its Russian-made copies. After this comes “vintage Peter” issuing an order to forbid production of a narrow canvass. Seems reasonable. Yes, if one completely ignoring the fact that at this time most of the canvas had been produced by the individual peasants/artisans working from their homes and these homes usually had been too small to accommodate a much bigger Dutch-style equipment.
In other words, he started with destroying what was already there before creating an alternative. Fortunately, soon enough he was made aware of the situation and cancelled his order. The narrow canvass still had been going to the domestic market and for the export purposes he ordered creation of the big state manufactures, most of which (what a surprise) soon after their creation proved to be economic failures and had been sold to the private entrepreneurs allowed to purchase the workers besides hiring the free laborers [4]. The Swedish specialists in production of a wide canvass had been invited to provide a necessary expertise. [5]
The first state canvas manufacture near Moscow used as its employees the volunteers escapee serfs and “various types of people” who had been promised a complete pardon for their previous misdeeds. Quite new thing was production of a sailcloth, which was earlier an imported item.
Another important aspect of the flax production was flax oil. It was produced from a different type of flax, which is much shorter but has a much greater oil content. Peter, for a short while, forbade export of the flax seed but then made it a state monopoly, then made it free again, then allowed export of only flax oil, then introduced practice of selling monopoly to the private persons, and so on.
In parallel with these experiments Peter established a special service to control quality of a sold flax [6]. Not sure if it helped too much.
Both hemp and flax turned into the cash crops. In the regions where they had been widely produced the estate owners often had been taking “obrok” from their peasants not with the money but with these products and their “derivatives” (fabrics, oil, yarn, etc.). Of course, Menshikov was one of the first estate owners who founded a small textile plant producing the napkins. Yaguzhinsky was not too much behind ending with a number of canvas and silk manufactures.
At some point Peter, after a long series of experiments related to which product from which area should be sold where, gave up and left it to the merchants.
________________
[1] “At that point the duke stopped smiling. Charles Otton the 4th, the Duke and Elector of Rebenree, never smiled when it was coming to the money issues. His attention to the silver was absolutely serious.” “Inquisitor. Boots on the flags” Boris Konofalsky.
[2] Who as a result had been much better off than the peasants living on the best agricultural lands of Russia.
[3] A newly acquired tendency to think means that he usually thinks after a screwup, not that he always starts with a thorough studying of an issue, soliciting educated advice from the friendly ASBs in a process. 😜 It is quite enough that he starts thinking before a screwup grows to a full-blown SNAFU.
[4] Usual problem: the lower classes proved, one more time, unable to understand what is good for them (in a grand schema of things) with a need to use the administrative persuasion. 😢
[5] In OTL these specialists had been captured during the GNW.
[6] After the British merchants complained that the Russian sellers are cheating on the quality. A controller must be “a honest foreigner” paid, in equal shares, by seller and buyer based on the weight of a traded material.
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I don't think so, LNW just like GNW was separate affair from WoSS to make an impact and after that both Sweden and Russia didn't have any interest to join. There was Russo-Turkish war, but once again it was separate affair.
kham_coc
Banned
I would immagine that Swedish and Danish rented armies made some difference but not much I would think.
The Danes rented their army 1701-1709 OTL. The main difference is ~10 000 Swedish troops and perhaps the increased availability of mercenary manpower, as Saxony is not trying to rebuild and expand its army (several times) with Russian money as OTL and Sweden is not trying to replenish casualties the same way.
Yes, in general, you are right but there were certain things related to the WoSS which actually could impact the events on the Baltic. I’m planning one such change which could produce a domino effect relevant to this TL. If there is going to be an anti-Swedish coalition, then Britain becomes relevant because starting from 1714 Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg is also George I of Britain and the British willingness/ability to subsidize his military adventures or even provide a direct naval backup is important for what I’m tentatively defining as “Foolish War” (still have to figure out quite a few things before starting it).
Yes, and it looks like the agreements with the allies allowed them to compensate for the losses by hiring the mercenaries in Hermany and even Hungary. So they are ending WoSS with approximately the same 35,000 as they had before it. Of course, a big part of these troops are not the Danes and they are there only for as long as they are being paid but at least for a while they are here.
Well, not of them had been killed.
Now, THIS can be a serious problem. I don’t know, yet. 😉
Im kinda looking at it as LNW II expanded edition. It will certainly be foolish for Denmark and even worse for Prussia, but not so much for Sweden.
Armies
50. Armies
In 1705 army of Hanover and Celle included 20 battalions (750 each) and 32 squadrons (350 each) totaling 15,000 infantry and 11,200 cavalry. Out of that number 5 battalions had been rented to the Dutch and 5 to the Brits.
Denmark
At the start of the LNW Denmark had an army of 35,000. After the peace of Travendal the large Danish army prepared for a major war against Sweden, became a major burden on the Danish economy, when it couldn't, as anticipated, live off the enemy's land. Downsizing the army was not possible, since the Danish king wanted to retain the option of going to war with Sweden at some future date, in order to regain the provinces lost in the treaty of Roskilde 1658 and disposal of the thousands of troops had its own problems. The Danish king therefore decided to make more than half of the Danish army, two-thirds of which were enlisted in Germany, available to the Allied powers during the War of the Spanish Succession. Political goodwill thus gained, could in addition be useful in any future war with Sweden and Holstein-Gottorp.
These troops had been, in turn, split two ways:
1. Danish Auxiliary corps in Hapsburg service [1]. 8,000 troops with 2,000 more troops recruited in Germany. As compensation, Denmark would within six years receive the million rixdollars that the Habsburg emperor owed the Danish king since 1674. If a Habsburg prince would become king of Spain another million would be transferred to the Danish treasury. These troops marched to Italy to fight under command of Prince Eugene and suffered heavy casualties which left only a half of the initial force by the end of 1702. In the spring, the corps marched through the Tyrol to Linz where reinforcements arrived from Denmark. After the arrival of the 1703 reinforcements, the Danish corps consisted of a cavalry regiment, a dragoon regiment, and four infantry regiments. It remained in Linz until the spring of 1704 when it marched to Hungary where it took part in the suppression of Rákóczys's Hungarian insurgency. The winter of 1704-1705 was spent living off the land in hostile Bavaria, where its maintenance did not burden the Habsburg treasury. In 1705, the corps returned to Hungary and renewed heavy fighting. The following year, the corps combat value fell significantly when the Habsburg emperor no longer could afford to pay it.
At that point Frederick IV, who seemingly did not believe in love without a compensation, began the diplomatic efforts to extricate his troops from the Hapsburg service and by 1709 the Danish corps left Hungary. Frederick had enough money to restore this corps to its initial strength but majority of the soldiers were now Germans and Hungarians.
2. Danish Auxiliary corps in Anglo-Dutch service [2]. 12,000 had been made available in 1701 for the service in the British and Dutch armies. The terms had been much more generous than with the Hapsburgs [3]. The corps was under command of the duke Carl Rudolf of Wurttemberg who was seemingly very good in extracting the money promised by the allied by refusing to march until the payments had been received.
Of these troops, three thousand would be horse, one thousand dragoons, and eight thousand foot. As compensation Denmark received 540,000 rixdollars as levy money, as well as 300,000 rixdollars annually as long as the war lasted. [4]
Previous monetary claims on Denmark were dropped by the powers. The Danish auxiliary corps would be paid and provisioned according to Dutch regulations, and the pay disbursed by Danish paymasters. At the end of each year's campaign season the Danish corps would receive the same recruitment money as the Dutch army, in order to replace its manpower losses. If a company or regiment would be destroyed, its commanding officer would receive recruitment money sufficiently enough to re-raise it. The agreement expired in ten years. If twelve thousand soldiers were not enough, the Danish king would put another four thousand soldiers at the disposal of the powers. In 1703 two additional regiments, one dragoon and one foot, were raised in the name of the minor dukes of Württemberg-Oels. But they were raised by Denmark and formed part of the Danish auxiliary corps, and when the regiments were disbanded after the end of the war, the soldiers were transferred to Danish service.
On a route to the theater these troops looted Bavaria and joined the allied force in time to take part in the Battle of Blenheim where they lost 2,300 by killed and wounded. In 1704-08 the corps had been fighting under Marlborough command (providing the money had been paid) and participated in a number of sieges and battles (2,200 soldiers and 1,300 horses lost in 1706, 3,500 in 1708 ) but hiring the new recruits during the winters. In 1709 the corps remained in the winter quarters until June, awaiting the one million guilders owed by the Dutch Republic, then joined and lost 1,300 at Malplaquet. In 1712 Britain made peace with France and the corps was taken over by the Dutch
In 1713, the "English" units of the corps returned to Denmark, and in 1714 the rest. In a meantime Frederick IV raised 17,000 militia for the anticipated war with Sweden.
As a personal observation. while the duke Carl clearly was very good in looking for the Danish financial interests and, seemingly, in recruitment as well, his performance as an independent military commander is not necessarily up to the same standard and the same goes for the Danish troops in general (this is based strictly upon the OTL performances but there is no reason to consider it improving noticeably in this TL).
Prussia
Prussia had an army of 40,000 out of which 8,000 had been sent to Italy and 5,000 to the Netherlands. Individual parts of the army took part in a total of 56 battles during the war in Italy and on the Rhine front, which of course improved their quality even if it made it difficult to conduct the future recruitment in the Prussian provinces.
Leopold von Anhalt Dessau brought about a significant increase in the performance of his troops through a new drill and other organizational changes. Due to the early autonomy of the regiment owners, the equipment of the army was very different and each regiment drilled according to its own rules. Organized chaos was the result. Von Dessau was turning the Prussian infantry into an uniform body in which every shooter carried, loaded and fired his weapon with the same precision and speed. Prince Leopold had also recognized that the rhythmic march made it possible to fire while moving. The aim of the regular training measures in the Prussian corps was to achieve the absolute superiority of the thin infantry lines in combat against the enemy army line. The Prussian drill had the effect that the soldiers were trained off every initiative of their own until they functioned like machines even under the greatest loads.
Introduction of an iron ramrod was, definitely, a great innovation which was not unnoticed by Charles and Peter.
As far as these goals had been involved, von Dessau achieved almost a complete perfection and the system produced the impressive results on the battlefields of the WoSS where both sides had been playing by the same rules. [5]
An interlude
In 1711 Britain and France were already in a process of the separate peace negotiations but the military activities kept going on. In July Marlborough outmaneuvered Villars and penetrated French Lines of Ne Plus Ultra [6] and went to besiege the fortified town of Bouchain.
To defend the town Bouchain's governor, de Ravignau, had some 5,000 men against Marlborough's besieging army of 30,000 (on the schema it is a fortified camp North of the city) and the advantage of one of the strongest fortresses left to France, surrounded by the marshy land of the confluence of the rivers Scheldt and Sensée.
In addition, Villars' strong army had taken up position to the west of the allied camp, and had managed to open a tenuous link to the besieged garrison. In total, Marlborough had 85,000 (55,000 in a camp South from the town) and Villars 90,000 (in the camps to the West of the city). The siege was going on along the ….er… “classic rules”. The besiegers had been digging the parallels, Villars was trying to establish communication with the town across the swamps (“N” on the map) and Marlborough was preventing him from doing that. Strictly speaking, Villars was under the orders of LXIV not to risk, which made the whole exercise rather meaningless: after certain amount of digging and shooting any fortress was supposed to capitulate [7].
After a while Villars decided to ignore the royal orders (or just to define what “risk” means in that case) and quietly moved the bulk of his forces to his northern camp out of which he marched during the night by the Valenciennes road (North of the besieging army) and established strong batteries opposite to the crossings connecting besiegers with the main army (“L” on the map). The bulk of his force launched a direct attack against the outside earthworks and, especially, the opening on their right side. 5 out of 7 bridges had been destroyed which made help the besieging army quite difficult. The allied troops in the left part of the besieging camp had been trapped, and while the desperate cavalry charges from the main camp across the river helped to extricate some of them, most of the rest was pretty much an useless bloodbath. Marlborough had to abandon the siege losing 7,000 killed and wounded and up to 10,000 captured, plus all sieging artillery. Villars lost between 6 and 7,000.
Not that strategically this made a serious difference because by that time the Brits already had been looking for the way out of the war. But politically ot made certain difference providing the French with a better bargaining position in Utrecht, which had been used on the very important item of the Asiento de Negros. France had previously got from Phillip V the Asiento de Negros, allowing French slave traders to supply 5,000 slaves to the Spanish Empire each year. The Brits wanted it for themselves but now had to compromise. As a result, each side got a right for 2,500 for 10 years, instead of 30, as the Brits insisted. This was a serious blow because The British government sought to reduce its debt by increasing the volume of trade it had with Spain, which required gaining monopolistic access to the Asiento de Negros. Which, as far as this TL is involved, meant that for the next few years Britain is going to be very careful with the subsidies and involvements in the foreign adventures not directly involving its interests. [8]
_____________
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_Auxiliary_Corps_in_Habsburg_service_1701–1709#Background
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_Auxiliary_Corps_in_Anglo-Dutch_service_1701–1714
[3] No surprise there: the Brits and Dutch had much more money to spread around than the Hapsburgs who could not pay regularly even their own troops.
[4] To @von Adler we seemingly undersold the Swedes and now it is too late (or were the Swedish numbers in £££?). Why didn’t I find these numbers earlier? 🤑🤑🤑
[5] A car, which shows the best performance on a highway is not necessarily the best on a dirt road.
[6] While Vauban was, unquestionably, the outstanding military engineer, IMO the whole idea of the fortified lines was pretty much a massive waste of the resources because, unless you can strongly garrison the whole perimeter, sooner or later an energetic opponent is going to find an undefended place (I wonder if the Great Wall of China ever stopped any serious invasion). The same goes for his system of the fortifications. He designed a series of the strongly fortified places and then explained to everybody how they can be taken with the minimal risk, making the sieges one more “game by the rules”: it was well-known to both sides how much time it should take between starting the first parallel and the point by which the citadel becomes exposed to the direct fire and its garrison can honorably surrender saving besiegers and besieged unnecessary losses related to storming the walls, fighting inside the fortress and other uncivilized nonsense.
[7] Which did happen in OTL. The fortress capitulated after a month of a siege. The next year Villars took it back after 18 days of siege.
[8] In practical terms, no cart blanche for the future King George in his adventures as Elector of Hanover. 😜
“Since invention of money, all other forms of a gratitude became unnecessary”
“Dancing w kwaterze Hitlera”
Havover“Dancing w kwaterze Hitlera”
In 1705 army of Hanover and Celle included 20 battalions (750 each) and 32 squadrons (350 each) totaling 15,000 infantry and 11,200 cavalry. Out of that number 5 battalions had been rented to the Dutch and 5 to the Brits.
Denmark
At the start of the LNW Denmark had an army of 35,000. After the peace of Travendal the large Danish army prepared for a major war against Sweden, became a major burden on the Danish economy, when it couldn't, as anticipated, live off the enemy's land. Downsizing the army was not possible, since the Danish king wanted to retain the option of going to war with Sweden at some future date, in order to regain the provinces lost in the treaty of Roskilde 1658 and disposal of the thousands of troops had its own problems. The Danish king therefore decided to make more than half of the Danish army, two-thirds of which were enlisted in Germany, available to the Allied powers during the War of the Spanish Succession. Political goodwill thus gained, could in addition be useful in any future war with Sweden and Holstein-Gottorp.
These troops had been, in turn, split two ways:
1. Danish Auxiliary corps in Hapsburg service [1]. 8,000 troops with 2,000 more troops recruited in Germany. As compensation, Denmark would within six years receive the million rixdollars that the Habsburg emperor owed the Danish king since 1674. If a Habsburg prince would become king of Spain another million would be transferred to the Danish treasury. These troops marched to Italy to fight under command of Prince Eugene and suffered heavy casualties which left only a half of the initial force by the end of 1702. In the spring, the corps marched through the Tyrol to Linz where reinforcements arrived from Denmark. After the arrival of the 1703 reinforcements, the Danish corps consisted of a cavalry regiment, a dragoon regiment, and four infantry regiments. It remained in Linz until the spring of 1704 when it marched to Hungary where it took part in the suppression of Rákóczys's Hungarian insurgency. The winter of 1704-1705 was spent living off the land in hostile Bavaria, where its maintenance did not burden the Habsburg treasury. In 1705, the corps returned to Hungary and renewed heavy fighting. The following year, the corps combat value fell significantly when the Habsburg emperor no longer could afford to pay it.
At that point Frederick IV, who seemingly did not believe in love without a compensation, began the diplomatic efforts to extricate his troops from the Hapsburg service and by 1709 the Danish corps left Hungary. Frederick had enough money to restore this corps to its initial strength but majority of the soldiers were now Germans and Hungarians.
2. Danish Auxiliary corps in Anglo-Dutch service [2]. 12,000 had been made available in 1701 for the service in the British and Dutch armies. The terms had been much more generous than with the Hapsburgs [3]. The corps was under command of the duke Carl Rudolf of Wurttemberg who was seemingly very good in extracting the money promised by the allied by refusing to march until the payments had been received.
Of these troops, three thousand would be horse, one thousand dragoons, and eight thousand foot. As compensation Denmark received 540,000 rixdollars as levy money, as well as 300,000 rixdollars annually as long as the war lasted. [4]
Previous monetary claims on Denmark were dropped by the powers. The Danish auxiliary corps would be paid and provisioned according to Dutch regulations, and the pay disbursed by Danish paymasters. At the end of each year's campaign season the Danish corps would receive the same recruitment money as the Dutch army, in order to replace its manpower losses. If a company or regiment would be destroyed, its commanding officer would receive recruitment money sufficiently enough to re-raise it. The agreement expired in ten years. If twelve thousand soldiers were not enough, the Danish king would put another four thousand soldiers at the disposal of the powers. In 1703 two additional regiments, one dragoon and one foot, were raised in the name of the minor dukes of Württemberg-Oels. But they were raised by Denmark and formed part of the Danish auxiliary corps, and when the regiments were disbanded after the end of the war, the soldiers were transferred to Danish service.
On a route to the theater these troops looted Bavaria and joined the allied force in time to take part in the Battle of Blenheim where they lost 2,300 by killed and wounded. In 1704-08 the corps had been fighting under Marlborough command (providing the money had been paid) and participated in a number of sieges and battles (2,200 soldiers and 1,300 horses lost in 1706, 3,500 in 1708 ) but hiring the new recruits during the winters. In 1709 the corps remained in the winter quarters until June, awaiting the one million guilders owed by the Dutch Republic, then joined and lost 1,300 at Malplaquet. In 1712 Britain made peace with France and the corps was taken over by the Dutch
In 1713, the "English" units of the corps returned to Denmark, and in 1714 the rest. In a meantime Frederick IV raised 17,000 militia for the anticipated war with Sweden.
As a personal observation. while the duke Carl clearly was very good in looking for the Danish financial interests and, seemingly, in recruitment as well, his performance as an independent military commander is not necessarily up to the same standard and the same goes for the Danish troops in general (this is based strictly upon the OTL performances but there is no reason to consider it improving noticeably in this TL).
Prussia
Prussia had an army of 40,000 out of which 8,000 had been sent to Italy and 5,000 to the Netherlands. Individual parts of the army took part in a total of 56 battles during the war in Italy and on the Rhine front, which of course improved their quality even if it made it difficult to conduct the future recruitment in the Prussian provinces.
Leopold von Anhalt Dessau brought about a significant increase in the performance of his troops through a new drill and other organizational changes. Due to the early autonomy of the regiment owners, the equipment of the army was very different and each regiment drilled according to its own rules. Organized chaos was the result. Von Dessau was turning the Prussian infantry into an uniform body in which every shooter carried, loaded and fired his weapon with the same precision and speed. Prince Leopold had also recognized that the rhythmic march made it possible to fire while moving. The aim of the regular training measures in the Prussian corps was to achieve the absolute superiority of the thin infantry lines in combat against the enemy army line. The Prussian drill had the effect that the soldiers were trained off every initiative of their own until they functioned like machines even under the greatest loads.
Introduction of an iron ramrod was, definitely, a great innovation which was not unnoticed by Charles and Peter.
As far as these goals had been involved, von Dessau achieved almost a complete perfection and the system produced the impressive results on the battlefields of the WoSS where both sides had been playing by the same rules. [5]
An interlude
In 1711 Britain and France were already in a process of the separate peace negotiations but the military activities kept going on. In July Marlborough outmaneuvered Villars and penetrated French Lines of Ne Plus Ultra [6] and went to besiege the fortified town of Bouchain.
To defend the town Bouchain's governor, de Ravignau, had some 5,000 men against Marlborough's besieging army of 30,000 (on the schema it is a fortified camp North of the city) and the advantage of one of the strongest fortresses left to France, surrounded by the marshy land of the confluence of the rivers Scheldt and Sensée.
In addition, Villars' strong army had taken up position to the west of the allied camp, and had managed to open a tenuous link to the besieged garrison. In total, Marlborough had 85,000 (55,000 in a camp South from the town) and Villars 90,000 (in the camps to the West of the city). The siege was going on along the ….er… “classic rules”. The besiegers had been digging the parallels, Villars was trying to establish communication with the town across the swamps (“N” on the map) and Marlborough was preventing him from doing that. Strictly speaking, Villars was under the orders of LXIV not to risk, which made the whole exercise rather meaningless: after certain amount of digging and shooting any fortress was supposed to capitulate [7].
After a while Villars decided to ignore the royal orders (or just to define what “risk” means in that case) and quietly moved the bulk of his forces to his northern camp out of which he marched during the night by the Valenciennes road (North of the besieging army) and established strong batteries opposite to the crossings connecting besiegers with the main army (“L” on the map). The bulk of his force launched a direct attack against the outside earthworks and, especially, the opening on their right side. 5 out of 7 bridges had been destroyed which made help the besieging army quite difficult. The allied troops in the left part of the besieging camp had been trapped, and while the desperate cavalry charges from the main camp across the river helped to extricate some of them, most of the rest was pretty much an useless bloodbath. Marlborough had to abandon the siege losing 7,000 killed and wounded and up to 10,000 captured, plus all sieging artillery. Villars lost between 6 and 7,000.
Not that strategically this made a serious difference because by that time the Brits already had been looking for the way out of the war. But politically ot made certain difference providing the French with a better bargaining position in Utrecht, which had been used on the very important item of the Asiento de Negros. France had previously got from Phillip V the Asiento de Negros, allowing French slave traders to supply 5,000 slaves to the Spanish Empire each year. The Brits wanted it for themselves but now had to compromise. As a result, each side got a right for 2,500 for 10 years, instead of 30, as the Brits insisted. This was a serious blow because The British government sought to reduce its debt by increasing the volume of trade it had with Spain, which required gaining monopolistic access to the Asiento de Negros. Which, as far as this TL is involved, meant that for the next few years Britain is going to be very careful with the subsidies and involvements in the foreign adventures not directly involving its interests. [8]
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[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_Auxiliary_Corps_in_Habsburg_service_1701–1709#Background
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_Auxiliary_Corps_in_Anglo-Dutch_service_1701–1714
[3] No surprise there: the Brits and Dutch had much more money to spread around than the Hapsburgs who could not pay regularly even their own troops.
[4] To @von Adler we seemingly undersold the Swedes and now it is too late (or were the Swedish numbers in £££?). Why didn’t I find these numbers earlier? 🤑🤑🤑
[5] A car, which shows the best performance on a highway is not necessarily the best on a dirt road.
[6] While Vauban was, unquestionably, the outstanding military engineer, IMO the whole idea of the fortified lines was pretty much a massive waste of the resources because, unless you can strongly garrison the whole perimeter, sooner or later an energetic opponent is going to find an undefended place (I wonder if the Great Wall of China ever stopped any serious invasion). The same goes for his system of the fortifications. He designed a series of the strongly fortified places and then explained to everybody how they can be taken with the minimal risk, making the sieges one more “game by the rules”: it was well-known to both sides how much time it should take between starting the first parallel and the point by which the citadel becomes exposed to the direct fire and its garrison can honorably surrender saving besiegers and besieged unnecessary losses related to storming the walls, fighting inside the fortress and other uncivilized nonsense.
[7] Which did happen in OTL. The fortress capitulated after a month of a siege. The next year Villars took it back after 18 days of siege.
[8] In practical terms, no cart blanche for the future King George in his adventures as Elector of Hanover. 😜
Not too hard to go back, edit and have Sweden make more of a profit.
It can be noted that Denmark and Brandenburg-Prussia used the Anglo-Dutch school for tactics at this time - Marlborough modified them slightly, making the cavalry more offensive and finally killing the caracoll in the Allied army, but I am not certain if Denmark and Brandenburg-Prussia had adopted those changes by 1710. In 1710 and 1712, the Swedish army, even after being destroyed completely proved capable of destroying the Danish army twice.
The Anglo-Dutch school was a tactical dead end and by the Seven Years' War, everyone used the High German or French school. The OLT Russian school was a development of the High German school.
I have the same impression regarding the Danish performance and they were not just defeated twice: at least the first time they had been defeated pretty much by the raw levies (the Swedish paintings seemingly made the point in underscoring that Stenbock had the “peasant army”.Not too hard to go back, edit and have Sweden make more of a profit.
It can be noted that Denmark and Brandenburg-Prussia used the Anglo-Dutch school for tactics at this time - Marlborough modified them slightly, making the cavalry more offensive and finally killing the caracoll in the Allied army, but I am not certain if Denmark and Brandenburg-Prussia had adopted those changes by 1710. In 1710 and 1712, the Swedish army, even after being destroyed completely proved capable of destroying the Danish army twice.
The Anglo-Dutch school was a tactical dead end and by the Seven Years' War, everyone used the High German or French school. The OLT Russian school was a development of the High German school.
Even if the things had been learned from Marlborough and Eugene, they were about a predominantly shooting system with an emphasis upon the complicated maneuvers which were quite effective when implemented by these two military geniuses but not necessary are equally efficient when done by much lesser commanders. One more potential problem is that by the 1709 the Danish troops fighting in WoSS are only partially Danish after the years of recruitment all over the Europe. They are the mercenaries and are going to serve only when they are being paid bit if Denmark had problems with paying these numbers in 1701, surely, these problems did not go away in 1710-12, especially that King Frederick raised 17 regiments of the national militia, which he later turned into the army.
Now, Prussia is a completely different story because von Dessau did create a perfect mechanism for fighting within framework of the linear tactics. Its weak part is a cavalry, as was later demonstrated during the 1st Silesian War and Seydlitz is not around, yet. But while this army is a great engine in the terms of the synchronized shooting and maneuvering, the high rate of shooting means that the soldiers are not aiming and effectiveness of their fire is extremely low. It would be silly to deny importance of a discipline but, as was demonstrated during the 7YW, an offset could easily turn these soldiers into a fleeing crowd: they are not taught to fight outside the formation and on their own initiative. And, the linear tactics proved to be quite vulnerable to a combination of a concentrated artillery fire, the jagers doing the aimed shooting in the loose formations and the battalion columns advancing behind cover of the fire for a bayonet charge. Not to mention that the linear tactics can be used to its full potential in an open flat battlefield. Take Gross-Jagersdorf (7YW). The Prussians caught the Russians completely by surprise (and the leadership on the army level being absent) but attack of 4 Russian regiments on the left flank of the Prussian infantry broke it. Notice that this become possible because a dense forest made it impossible for the Prussians to fight as a single body but general Rumyantsev probably did not know tzat he can’t march his troops through the forest. 😜
BTW, I strongly disadvice to read wiki description of that battle: to say that is is not informative will be a compliment. 😢