Michael

“Etwa 15.000 bewaffnete Kommunisten & Sympathisanten brachten Polizeistationen & Bahnhöfe unter ihre Kontrolle. Gustav Noske [SPD], der die Macht der extremen Linken um jeden Preis brechen wollte, setzte 40.000 Mann an Regierungstruppen & Freikorps ein. Mit Hilfe von Maschinengewehren, Feldartillerie, Mörsern, Flammenwerfern & sogar Granaten & Bomben aus der Luft wurde die Rebellion niedergeschlagen. Als die Kämpfe am 16. März zu Ende gingen, hatten 1200 Menschen den Tod gefunden.”
― Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947

“Es kam auch zu weiteren Überläufen, allen voran 4000 Sachsen, die Reyniers Korps zugeteilt waren und ganz einfach in geschlossenen Reihen zu den Alliierten marschierten. Zu den Augenzeugen dieses bemerkenswerten Seitenwechsels zählte Marschall Macdonald, der durch das Fernrohr beobachtete, wie die Sachsen, während sie einen erfolgreichen Vorstoß gegen die Verbündeten anführten, einfach kehrtmachten und ihre Waffen auf die Franzosen richteten, die ihnen folgten.
»Kalten Blutes, in himmelschreiender Weise«, erinnerte er sich später, »schossen sie die Ahnungslosen nieder, mit denen sie bis hierher in treuer Waffenbrüderschaft gefochten.« Verzweifelte Versuche Marschall Neys, die Reihen zu schließen und einen Gegenangriff zu führen, wurden von der britischen Raketenbrigade zunichte gemacht, deren Congreve’sche Raketen, benannt nach dem britischen Erfinder William Congreve, unter den vorrückenden Kolonnen Angst und Schrecken verbreiteten.”
― Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947

“Sacrosanctis was in fact the public face of a corporate conspiracy between the leading men of three powerful European families: the Medici (in the form of Pope Leo); Jakob Fugger, head of the Augsburg banking and mining dynasty and a man often said to have been the richest in human history; and Albert, archbishop of Mainz, a member of the politically influential Hohenzollern dynasty and (not coincidentally) the man to whom Luther mailed the first copy of his Theses.
The nature of the agreement between these three was broadly thus: Albert, who was already archbishop of Magdeburg, had been permitted by the pope to become archbishop of Mainz at the same time – which made him the most senior churchman in Germany, and meant he controlled two of the seven electoral votes which determined the identity of the German emperor. (His brother already controlled a third.) Vast fees were due to Rome as a tax on taking office as an archbishop – but Albert could afford these, thanks to a loan from Fugger, who advanced the money on the basis that he would have the Hohenzollern and their electoral votes in his pocket. Albert, for his part, promised Leo he would do all he could to make sure that German Christians bought as many indulgences as possible, partly because his share of the proceeds could repay his debt to Fugger and partly so that funds would flow rapidly to Leo in Rome for the completion of St Peter’s. For the parties involved this was a neat arrangement by which they all got what they wanted – so long as the faithful did their part and kept pumping money into pardons.”
― Dan Jones, Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages

“During the thirteenth century Genoese traders in the Black Sea port of Caffa struck a deal to run slaves captured in the Caucasus by the Mongols to the Mamluk rulers of Egypt, shipping them to the Nile Delta via the Black Sea and Mediterranean, whereupon the slaves would be forcibly impressed into the Mamluk army. Effectively this meant that the Christian Genoese were directly responsible for supplying workers to a power that was doing its best to crush the western crusader states of Syria and Palestine.”
― Dan Jones, Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages