On This Day in History: November 25

The Cudgel War

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Bart Simpson to cop: “Can I see your club?” Cop: “It’s called a baton, son.” Bart: “Oh. What’s it for?” Cop: “We club people with it.” In the 16th century, Finnish peasants didn’t call them clubs either, but cudgels. And they used these cudgels to club the shit out of the nobility.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: November 25, 1596--

It was called the Cudgel War, and it was doomed from the start because they brought clubs to a gun fight. It took place in what is now Finland, but at the time it was part of the Kingdom of Sweden. Sweden had been in a lengthy scrap with Russia, which was not at all uncommon, and wars cost money so the rich folks said hey let’s tax the poor folks, and the poor folks started bashing rich folks in the head.

Wars don’t just cost money, but lives, and peasants weren’t just sick of the exorbitant taxes, but also of being pressed into becoming cannon fodder. There was a short uprising before Christmas in 1595, but the Swedish cavalry quickly crushed that. Eleven months later, on November 25, 1596, the Cudgel War officially began with a peasant uprising in what is now Northwest Finland. The leader of the uprising wasn’t a peasant, however. They’d elected wealthy landowner Jaakko Ilkka to run the rebellion. That’s not uncommon in history, FYI. Rebellions are usually led by wealthier and more educated members of society. The French Revolution was led by an ambitious middle class that was sick of nobility hogging all the money. Continues below …

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Anyway, they also had some swords and a few guns, but mostly the peasants used blunt instruments that also included maces (a stick with a spiky metal ball on the end) and flails (a stick with a chain on the end and at the end of that chain is a spiky metal ball). I’ve never been smoked in the head with a spiky metal ball, but I expect it could ruin anyone’s day. And the peasants ruined a lot of people’s days with their various instruments of brain bashing. For a time, Northwest Finland was not a good place to be a rich person.

The peasants laid waste to manorial estates and slayed the gentry, especially the tax collectors. Those tax collectors had an especially bad time of it. Then the professional, disciplined, well-armed, battle-hardened Swedish army was sent in. And holy shit even though they were outnumbered the peasants still kicked some ass. Initially. The peasants were obviously pissed, and it was a case of “size of the fight in the dog, not the size of the dog in the fight.” Alas, they fought to a truce that demanded the handing over of Jaakko. Jaakko said oh shit and noped out of there but was caught and executed. Other rebel leaders kept fleeing or getting killed and the peasants were soon leaderless.

Come February of 1597 there was a big open battle with the Swedish army and the peasants got fucking wrecked and that was that.

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