u/doritofeesh

From the """""totally unbiased""""" perspective of the Catholics in the Thirty Years War, I present:

Tilly vs the Confederates (no, not the American ones, I mean the Protestants).

Johann Tserclaes, Graf von Tilly, was perhaps the greatest general of the Thirty Years War before Gustav II Adolf stepped on the stage.

He was commander of the Liga forces (that is, the Catholic League) and in just five short years of active campaigning in 1620, 1622, 1623, 1626, and 1627, Tilly had routinely outmanoeuvred and humiliated five different Confederate generals and destroyed seven armies, winning victories all across Germany and never losing a single campaign.

He would eventually meet his match in Gustav and his Swedish army in 1631-1632, but prior to that period, Tilly was probably the best general of his time, winning campaigns left and right despite being in his sixties. Hell, when he fought his last battle against Gustav at Rain am Lech in 1632 and died due to a mortal injury, the man was 73 years old!

As for how his campaigns unfolded, for anybody interested in studying them, I have compiled those campaigns in a doc below (which is a work-in-progress, as I still haven't done 1631-1632 yet):

Military Career of Johann Tserclaes, Graf von Tilly

Well, the commanders of the 17th century are among my absolute favourites to study, but while a lot of people may know of Gustav, I wonder how many know of his campaigns in-depth beyond just Breitenfeld? What about his famed opponents such as Tilly and Wallenstein or the many other renowned commanders of the age?

Therefore, I suppose I'ma begin a series in which I compile the campaigns of these various commanders and break them down into concise docs in order to illustrate their ability in the tactical, operational, and strategic arts of war, shining a light on many of these relatively obscure or less popular figures in order to make their feats more known in the general mil-his community.

Therefore, I thought of no one better to introduce first than Tilly, the great opponent who Gustav crossed swords with before Wallenstein. Linked below is a doc (which is a work-in-progress) of his campaigns starting from 1620 all the way to his death in 1632. Though, so far, I have only covered the campaigns of 1620, 1622, and 1623, they should hopefully provide a nice appetizer for those interested in the careers of these individuals.

Without further ado, here is The Military Career of Johann Tserclaes, Graf von Tilly.

There's been many debates on Napoleon's various performances against Wellington and Karl, as well as how well he might have theoretically done against Suvorov. However, how well do y'all think these famed Coalition commanders would have done if they had to face one another? I have my own personal views on it, but I'm curious what many of you guys think.

Seeing several folks doing these, I figure I might as well drop my own.

Haven't done one of these in awhile, but since my opinions have changed a lot since I've studied these generals more and more, I spose the placements will be greatly different from before.

Anyways, this is where I would personally compare various Napoleonic generals to others during the Age of Gunpowder.

Also just realized I probably shoulda made the names bigger... they're so smol.

Edit 1: Since so many folks asking bout Ole Fritz, I didn't put him on here because I don't feel satisfied with my level of knowledge on his campaigns and want to dive much deeper into him first before making any assessment. I know his battles, but I want to study all his operations as well and that's prob gonna take a long time, so until then, bruv just on the shelf.

Edit 2: Also, for the few asking about the other Napoleonic marechals and Vauban... Uhh, Suchet is kinda in the same boat with Fred where I wanna study more on him before I can do him justice. Just about all the other guys don't have the sauce in independent command (leading campaigns) enough for me to place them. If I was judging based on corps command performance, a lot of them would rank extremely highly, but since I'm only gauging independent commanders here, they're not on the list.