Holy Roman Empire

Battle of Fornovo: Rising to Crush an Invader

By Jonathan North

Fifteenth-century Renaissance Italian political life was a heady mix of intrigue, provocation and dispute, backed by limited wars and border raids. Read more

Holy Roman Empire

Louis XIV: the Sun King of France

By Brooke C. Stoddard

Louis XIV of France is remembered as the Sun King, the most resplendent figure of his age, the man who snatched dominance of Europe from the Spanish and built France into the preeminent power of the second half of the 17th century. Read more

Holy Roman Empire

Baptism or Death: The Wendish Crusade, 1147-1185

By Kirk Freeman

By the middle of the 12th century, much of western Europe had settled into a tenuous, often interrupted peace, and many modern nation-states had begun to emerge. Read more

Holy Roman Empire

The Battle of Mollwitz: Opening Move For Prussian Expansion

By Arnold Blumberg

On October 20, 1740, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of Austria, died, leaving his vast holdings and titles to his 23-year-old daughter, Maria Theresa. Read more

Holy Roman Empire

Trampled Banners: The Battle of Nördlingen (1634)

By William E. Welsh

From within the walled city of Nördlingen in the Upper Palatinate, a lone rocket arced slowly skyward on the night of September 3, 1634. Read more

Holy Roman Empire

Unholy Sabbath in Flanders

By William E. Welsh

With his one good eye, French King Philip II looked east down the straight line of an old Roman road in the disputed county of Flanders on Sunday, July 27, 1214. Read more

Holy Roman Empire

Fehrbellin: The Battle that Made Prussia

By Louis Ciotola

For nearly two and a half centuries, Prussia celebrated June 28 as a birthday of sorts. On that date in 1675, the Prussians achieved the start of their proud military tradition. Read more

Holy Roman Empire

Disaster at Nicopolis

By William E. Welsh

Thick black smoke rose skyward from burning villages on the southern frontier of the Hungarian Kingdom in the spring of 1395. Read more

Holy Roman Empire

The Battle of Lechfeld 955 AD

By William E. Welsh

When summer arrived in Bavaria in late June ad 955, thousands of unwelcome barbarians from the Carpathian basin were gathering on its eastern fringe, poised to invade the southern part of the East Frankish kingdom once again. Read more

Holy Roman Empire

Frankish Disaster in Saxony

By William E. Welsh

The Saxon warriors worked tirelessly from dawn to dusk atop the mountain felling trees, cutting them into logs, and adding them to the field fort they were building on a flat spur of the Suntel Mountains in the heart of their homeland. Read more

Holy Roman Empire

Spanish Disaster at Rocroi

By William Welsh

Five hundred Spanish musketeers filed into the dim forest on the southern edge of a wooded plain south of the border fort at Rocroi, France, at dusk on May 18, 1643. Read more

Holy Roman Empire

The Art of Victory: Koniggratz 1866

By William E. Welsh

The Prussian soldiers had been awake long before sunup on the morning of July 3, 1866, and were marching downhill to the Bystrice River in the rolling countryside of Bohemia, 65 miles east of Prague. Read more

Holy Roman Empire

Battling Bishops of Christendom

By William J. McPeak

Bishops in battle? It’s not as unlikely as it sounds. At the Battle of Hastings in 1066, Norman Duke William, soon to be dubbed William the Conqueror, held his heavy cavalry in check until the most advantageous moment to charge the right flank of King Harold’s Saxons. Read more

Holy Roman Empire

Pikes: A Versatile and Deadly Weapon

by William McPeak

Although formal training in the use of the pike—an ash-handled spear 18 to 20 feet long—did not begin until the 15th century, ancient Greeks and Romans used so-called “long spears” as standard infantry issue against cavalry. Read more

Holy Roman Empire

Battle of the Standard — August 22, 1138 AD

By Terry Gore

The English commander, William de Aumale, heard the roar of the Scots army even before it appeared out of the early morning mists. Read more

Holy Roman Empire

Frederick the Great and the Battle of Leuthen: Triumph of Tactics

By Vincent B. Hawkins

Frederick the Great put to use what he learned from his successes and failures. At age 28, new king Frederick Wilhelm II (the Great) burst out of Prussia in an attack on Silesia, which lay within the domain of Maria Theresa, Queen of Austria and Empress of the Holy Roman Empire. Read more

Holy Roman Empire

Game Features: Europa Universalis IV: Art of War

by Brian Belko

The Thirty Years’ War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history. The final collapse of the old Roman Empire completely redrew the political and religious map of central Europe, and paved the way for sovereign states to emerge from the fighting. Read more

Holy Roman Empire

The 1541 Algiers Expedition

By Bruce Ware Allen

In the late summer 1541, 40 warships appeared off the shores of Sardinia, part of a grand armada gathered by Charles the V of Spain, Holy Roman Emperor. Read more