Posted on 07/31/2007 2:48:21 PM PDT by blam
Mass Grave Sheds Light on Europe's Bloody History
By David Crossland in Berlin
Europe's soil is blood-soaked from centuries of fighting but rarely yields mass graves from battles that took place before the two world wars. One such grave has now been found near Berlin with over 100 soldiers who died in the 1636 Battle of Wittstock. Archaeologists say they can learn much from the skeletons which show terrible wounds.
An archaeologist gently uncovering a row of skeletons in the mass grave found in Wittstock near Berlin.
Archaeologists in Germany are examining a mass grave containing the skeletons of more than 100 soldiers who fell in a major battle during the Thirty Years War.
Workers came across the graves by chance while digging in a sand pit near the town of Wittstock, northwest of Berlin, in June.
"The special thing about this find is that there are only very few mass graves in Europe between 1300 and 1850 that can be attributed to specific battles," Antje Grothe, the archaeologist leading the excavation, told SPIEGEL ONLINE.
Historians and archaeologists called to examine the neat rows of skeletons quickly concluded that they were men who died in the Battle of Wittstock on October 4, 1636, when a Protestant army of 16,000 Swedes beat a force of 22,000 from the Catholic alliance of the Holy Roman empire and Saxony. Some 6,000 men died in the fighting.
Archaeologists are now excavating the site and have started to examine the skeletons, many of which show the dreadful battlefield wounds that killed them - bones smashed by heavy blades, skulls torn open by musket balls.
The rarity of such graves may seem astonishing given the hundreds of battles that shaped Europe's blood-drenched history. But the battlefields often stretched over a number of square miles,
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
GGG Ping.
I’m just glad that we’ve pretty much outgrown the practice of killing each other over differences in religious beliefs...well, at least those Religions that are modern and civilized that is.
Wow, cool!
Only the rationale for slaughter has changed. Look at the 20th century.
Northern Irish still appear at it.
We forget that even the English civil Wars were marked by savage battles. More than 200,000 died in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland among a population of less than 10,000,000. A recent biographer of Luther has remarked that it would have been better for Europe if Luther had suffered the fate of Hus.
Coincidence?
I think not!
They must have eaten the brown acid.
Nah, it was probably the Purple Haze what got ‘em.
(bonus points if you get it!)
Wow. The Swedes used to fight?
Woodstock, not Wittstock. What are the bonus points good for? Brown acid?
Death tolls in old wars usually are less than in more recent ones, if only because it is easier to kill a lot more people with one weapon today. Though this is changing in some conflicts (not even wars) such as the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan (though it could be considered a war on the Iraqi/islamofascist side—they’re losing a lot of people, though not in the hundreds of thousands).
Sweden actually has one of the most advanced militaries in the world, and has a decent amount of soldiers due to conscription. It is a neutral country, but that is not the same as pacifist.
The author probably thinks the Middle Ages were a fun time, also. Maybe he even pines for the public burnings of heretics put on by the Church back then. Afterall, these spectacles were such great entertainment for the ignorant masses, as well as being didactic in nature! What this author reveals about himself is pretty ugly. It sounds to me like an endorsement of the repression formerly practiced by the RC Church. But I have often encountered this same sentiment among Catholics, so I am not surprised by it in the least.
I was giving the conclusion of Richard Marius, a recent biographer and admirer of Luther. Whether Luther was right or wrong theologically is beside the point, which is that he initiated an age of war motivated by religious fanaticism. Even the Reconquista, which lasted almost four hundred years,or the wars fought between Turks and Christians were never savage as the religious wars of Europe, especially those in France and Germany. Spain, England, Italy, and France were all saved finally by despotic governments. After 1648, religion no longer drove the wars of Europe. The despot Cromwell died early, sparing the country across the channel from another general like Henry V.
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