★★ Theodore Dodge wrote in his tome, Gustavus Adolphus, that the Thirty Years War did not have grand tactics. He was not alone in that belief. Dodge served in the American Civil War and studied Napoleon's campaigns, as well as those of the 17th Century. In order to grasp this statement, we must define Grand Tactics.... Continua a leggere →
Mercenary in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England
★★★★ The English word ‘mercenary’ is derived from the Latin mercenarius, a hireling or someone who is paid for work. The original etymology of the mercenarius is rooted in two other Latin words: mercari, to trade or exchange, and merx, commodity or merchandise. That wider meaning was frequently associated in general usage with faithlessness and... Continua a leggere →
