The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe 0813320534, 0813320542, 9780813320540, 9780367318727, 9780429496264

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Preface
List of Credits
The Military Revolution in History and Historiography
Paradigms
Chapter 1: The Military Revolution, 1560-1660
Chapter 2: The ‘Military Revolution, 1560-1660’— A Myth?
Chapter 3: The Military Revolutions of the Hundred Years War
Chapter 4: A Military Revolution? A 1660-1792 Perspective
Aspects
Chapter 5: Recalculating French Army Growth During the Grand Siècle 1610-1715
Chapter 6: The Military Revolution and the Professionalisation of the French Army Under the Ancien Régime
Chapter 7: The trace italienne and the Growth of Armies: The French Case
Chapter 8: Fortifications and the Military Revolution: The Gonzaga Experience, 1530-1630
Chapter 9: Strategy and Tactics in the Thirty Years’ War: The ‘Military Revolution,’
Chapter 10: Tactics or Politics? “The Military Revolution” and the Hapsburg Hegemony, 1525-1648
Chapter 11: “Money, Money, and Yet More Money!” Finance, the Fiscal-State, and the Military Revolution: Spain 1500-1650
Chapter 12: The Military Revolution: Origins and First Tests Abroad
Rejoinder
Chapter 13: In Defense of The Military Revolution
About the Book and Editor
About the Contributors
Index

Citation preview

The Military Revolution Debate

HISTORY AND WARFARE Arther Ferrill, Series Editor

T H E MILITARY REVOLUTION DEBATE: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe Clifford J. Rogers, editor SUN PIN: MILITARY METHODS Ralph D. Sawyer, translator T H E ANATOMY OF A L I T T L E WAR: A Diplomatic and Military History of the Gundovald Affair (568-586) Bernard S. Bachrach T H E GENERAL'S GENERAL: The Life and Times of Arthur MacArthur Kenneth Ray Young TO D I E GALLANTLY: The Battle of the Atlantic Timothy J. Runyan and Jan M. Copes, editors T H E HALT IN T H E MUD: French Strategic Planning from Waterloo to Sedan Gary P. Cox GOOD NIGHT OFFICIALLY: The Pacific War Letters of a Destroyer Sailor William M. McBride CRETE: The Battle and the Resistance

Antony Beevor

T H E HUNDRED YEARS WAR FOR MOROCCO: Gunpowder and the Military Revolution in the Early Modern Muslim World Weston F. Cook, Jr. SUN-TZU: ART OF WAR

Ralph D. Sawyer, translator

HIPPEIS: The Cavalry of Ancient Greece Leslie J. Worley FEEDING MARS: Logistics in Western Warfare from the Middle Ages to the Present John A. Lynn, editor T H E SEVEN MILITARY CLASSICS OF ANCIENT CHINA Ralph D. Sawyer, translator

THE MILITARY REVOLUTION DEBATE Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe edited by CLIFFORD J. ROGERS

Q Taylo Routledg New Yor r & kFranci Londo s Grou n e p

History and Warfare

First published 1995 by Westview Press Published 2018 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © 1995 Taylor & Francis A l l rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the pub­ lishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi­ cation and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The military revolution debate : Readings on the military transformation of early modern Europe / edited by Clifford J. Rogers. p. cm. — (History and warfare) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8133-2053-4. — ISBN 0-8133-2054-2 (pbk.) 1. Europe—History, Military. 2. Europe—History—1517-1648. I . Rogers, Clifford J. I I . Series. D231.M55 1995 355'.0094—dc20

ISBN 13: 978-0-8133-2054-0 (pbk)

94-45319 CIP

Contents

Preface

ix

List of Credits

xi

The M i l i t a r y Revolution i n History and Historiography, Clifford J. Rogers

1

Paradigms

1 2

The M i l i t a r y Revolution, 1560-1660, Michael Roberts The ' M i l i t a r y Revolution, 1560-1660'— A Myth? Geoffrey Parker

3

37

The M i l i t a r y Revolutions o f the H u n d r e d Years War, Clifford J. Rogers

4

13

55

A M i l i t a r y Revolution? A 1660-1792 Perspective, Jeremy Black

95

Aspects

5

Recalculating French A r m y G r o w t h D u r i n g the Grand Siecle 1610-1715, John A. Lynn y

6

The M i l i t a r y Revolution and the Professionalisation o f the French A r m y Under the Ancien Regime, Colin Jones

7

149

The trace italienne and the G r o w t h o f Armies: The French Case, John A. Lynn

8

117

169

Fortifications and the M i l i t a r y Revolution: The Gonzaga Experience, 1530-1630, Thomas F. Arnold

201 vii

viii 9

10

11

Contents Strategy and Tactics i n the T h i r t y Years' War: The ' M i l i t a r y Revolution,' David A. Parrott

227

Tactics or Politics? "The M i l i t a r y Revolution" and the Hapsburg Hegemony, 1525-1648, Simon Adams

253

"Money, Money, and Yet More Money!" Finance, the Fiscal-State, and the M i l i t a r y Revolution: Spain 1500-1650, LA.A. Thompson

12

273

The M i l i t a r y Revolution: Origins and First Tests Abroad, John F. Guilmartin

y

Jr.

299

Rejoinder

13

I n Defense o f The Military Revolution,

Geoffrey Parker

337

About the Book and Editor

367

About the Contributors

369

Index

371

Preface

T H E 1991 M E E T I N G OF the American M i l i t a r y Institute, held i n D u r h a m , N o r t h Carolina, witnessed a t r u l y extraordinary conference session. Four historians each gave a short presentation, then the discussion was t h r o w n open. I t seemed that everyone i n the audience had something to say—a question to ask, a fact to offer, an interpretation to suggest. Ideas flew across the r o o m u n t i l the last m o m e n t o f the time allocated to the session, and afterwards two different historians com­ mented to panel members that i t had been the most remarkable conference dis­ cussion i n their experience. The topic that had evoked so m u c h interest and debate was, o f course, the " M i l i t a r y Revolution" i n early m o d e r n Europe. The excitement generated by that roundtable discussion inspired me to begin the process o f p u t t i n g together this b o o k — w h i c h includes, along w i t h other key essays o n the m i l i t a r y revolution, ar­ ticle-length versions o f each o f the short presentations that began that session. Consequently, I wish to dedicate this anthology to m y fellow panel members (and mentors)—John F. G u i l m a r t i n , Jr., John A. Lynn, and Geoffrey Parker—and to all those w h o participated i n the debate and discussion that day. Clifford J. Rogers

Credits

Chapter 1 is a revision o f an inaugural lecture delivered before The Queen s U n i ­ versity o f Belfast on 21 January 1955; i t was first published i n its current f o r m i n Michael Roberts, Essays in Swedish History (Minneapolis, 1967), pp. 195-225. I t is reprinted here by the k i n d permission o f the author. A n earlier version o f Chapter 2 was originally published i n Journal of Modern History 48 (1976), pp. 195-214. The revised version, reprinted here w i t h the gra­ cious permission o f the author, was originally published i n Geoffrey Parker, Spain and the Netherlands 1559-1659: Ten Studies (London, 1979), pp. 86-103. Chapter 3, w h i c h is p r i n t e d here w i t h some revisions, first appeared i n Journal of Military History 57 (1993), pp. 241-278. I t is republished w i t h the generous per­ mission o f the Society for M i l i t a r y History. Chapter 5 originally appeared i n a somewhat shorter f o r m i n French Historical Studies 18 (1994), pp. 881-906; the author wishes to thank the editors o f French Historical Studies (and its publisher, Duke University Press) for permission to re­ p r i n t the article i n this volume. Chapter 6 first appeared i n its current f o r m i n Michael Duffy (ed.), The Mili­ tary Revolution and the State, 1500-1800: Exeter Studies in History 1 (Exeter, 1980), pp. 29-48. I t is reprinted w i t h the gracious permission o f the University o f Exeter Press. Parts o f this chapter have been extracted f r o m the author s "The Welfare o f the French Foot-Soldier from Richelieu to Napoleon," History (1980). They are re­ produced here w i t h the k i n d permission o f the editor o f History. Chapter 7 first appeared i n Journal of Military History 55 (1991). I t is reprinted here w i t h the generous permission o f the Society for M i l i t a r y History. Chapter 9 first appeared i n Militargeschichtliche Mitteilungen 18, no. 2 (1985). I t is reprinted here w i t h the generous permission o f the editors. Chapter 10 first appeared i n John A . Lynn (ed.), The Tools of War (Champaign: University o f Illinois Press, 1990). Copyright 1990 by the Board o f Trustees o f the University o f Illinois. Used w i t h the permission o f the University o f Illinois Press. It should be noted that some typographical errors i n the original versions o f ar­ ticles reprinted i n this volume have been corrected.

The Military Revolution in History and Historiography CLIFFORD

J. ROGERS

" T H E ORDINARY T H E M E and argument o f history," wrote Sir Walter Raleigh early 1

i n the seventeenth century, "is war." Few o f his contemporaries w o u l d have dis­ agreed w i t h this assessment: as J. R. Hale has pointed out, "there was probably no single year throughout the period i n w h i c h there was neither war nor occurrences 2

w h i c h looked and felt remarkably like i t . " U n t i l recently, however, most academic historians have treated war and m i l i t a r y affairs as subjects o f tertiary interest at best, completely overshadowed i n importance by social and economic structures and processes. I am by no means one to disregard the importance o f economic forces i n his­ tory. There can be little doubt, for instance, that the development o f civilization proper along the banks o f the Nile, Indus, Yellow, and Tigris and Euphrates Rivers can be rivalled only by the Industrial Revolution as a key t u r n i n g p o i n t i n h u m a n history, or that b o t h o f these were, first and foremost, economic phenomena. But i f the "carrot" o f the p r o d u c t i o n and allocation o f wealth is one o f the basic m o ­ tive forces o f history, the "stick" o f the creation and application o f coercive force is the other. The walls o f U r u k , like the steam-powered European gunboats that coursed the Yangtze i n the nineteenth century, symbolize h o w economic and m i l i ­ tary developments almost inevitably go hand i n hand. C o n t r o l over the means o f violence, as sociologists f r o m Aristotle to Weber and Andreski have argued, can have as m u c h impact o n social and political systems as does control over the means o f p r o d u c t i o n .

3

Unfortunately, however, m i l i t a r y history has been nowhere near as successful as economic history i n integrating its material into the " b i g picture" presented i n general histories. There are exceptions, o f course—Heinrich Brunner and Lynn White, for example, enjoyed remarkable success i n arguing that the rise o f heavy cavalry to m i l i t a r y predominance i n Western Europe laid the foundation for the 4

feudal system, and so for medieval society as a whole. I n general, though, m i l i i

2

Clifford J. Rogers

tary historians have been m u c h more effective i n showing h o w revolutions i n m i l ­ itary technique and technology can transform the art of war than i n showing h o w the resulting changes i n warfare can alter entire societies. As Michael Roberts put it, "the experts i n m i l i t a r y history have been mostly content to describe what hap­ pened, w i t h o u t being overmuch concerned to trace out broader effects; while so­ cial historians have not been very apt to believe that the new fashions i n tactics, or improvements o f weapon-design, were likely to prove o f m u c h significance." 5

6

Yet i t w o u l d be fair to say that at least one area o f historical scholarship has done a good j o b o f weaving the thread o f m i l i t a r y history into the overall picture it presents. Ever since the mid-1950s, the " M i l i t a r y Revolution," as Roberts dubbed i t , has been thoroughly integrated into the canon o f early m o d e r n Euro­ pean history—and, increasingly, into early m o d e r n w o r l d history as well. As de­ scribed i n Roberts' brilliant and seminal 1956 article o n the subject, the M i l i t a r y Revolution centered o n tactical reforms undertaken by Maurice o f Nassau and Gustavus Adolphus, most notably a return to linear formations for shot-armed infantry and aggressive charges for cavalry. These tactical changes required more highly trained and disciplined soldiers; this led to the general adoption o f d r i l l , uniforms, and standing armies organized into smaller, more standardized units. These armies rapidly grew to unprecedented size as a "result o f a revolution i n strategy, made possible by the revolution i n tactics, and made necessary by the circumstances o f the T h i r t y Years' War." 7

A t this point, Roberts' analysis o f m i l i t a r y changes merges i n t o a consideration of their constitutional and societal impact. Larger, more permanent armies and the more intensive marshaling o f resources w h i c h they required "led inevitably to an increase i n the authority o f the state." Governments used that authority, backed by new-style armies, to impose far heavier burdens (taxes, corvées, and other impositions) than ever before o n society at large, so that warfare o n the vast new scale could be fought. I n order to manage and direct these resources, govern­ ments had to employ a host o f new officials. Thus, the centrally organized, b u reaucratically governed nation-state—the paramount symbol o f the m o d e r n era—ultimately grew from the tiny seed of late-sixteenth century tactical reforms. M i l i t a r y factors played a key, even a pre-eminent, role i n shaping the modern world. Over the nearly four decades since Roberts first presented his thoughts o n the M i l i t a r y Revolution, a number o f historians, Geoffrey Parker foremost among them, have studied, discussed, and debated nearly every aspect o f his argument. Many elements o f Roberts' conception have been convincingly challenged; new analytical components added; and different interpretations o f its significance p u t forward. But the essential p o i n t is that these scholars never lost sight o f the need to keep discussions o f m i l i t a r y matters closely tied to the impact they had o n soci­ ety as a whole. That is why the M i l i t a r y Revolution i n early m o d e r n Europe is as i m p o r t a n t historiographically as i t was historically. I n addition to helping us understand

The Military Revolution in History

3

such diverse issues as bureaucratization, the nature o f revolutions, state forma­ t i o n , and the rise o f the West—as well as specific historical episodes from the Wars o f Italy to the T h i r t y Years War to the British conquest o f India—the active and wide-ranging debate over the M i l i t a r y Revolution has brought the explana­ tory value o f m i l i t a r y history to the attention o f the historical c o m m u n i t y as a whole. O n l y four decades ago, academic m i l i t a r y history i n the United States was almost non-existent; today, even an economic/social historian like Princetons Charles Tilly can comment that " m i l i t a r y competition . . . underlay b o t h the cre­ ation and the ultimate predominance o f the national state." The ongoing M i l i ­ tary Revolution debate is at least partially responsible for this historiographical revolution. 8

COURSE

OF T H E D E B A T E

Roberts' article immediately f o u n d wide acceptance among early m o d e r n histori­ ans, partly because Sir George Clark incorporated the idea o f the M i l i t a r y Revolu­ t i o n into his 1958 War and Society in the Seventeenth Century A somewhat re­ vised version o f "The M i l i t a r y Revolution, 1560-1660" appeared i n Roberts' 1967 Essays in Swedish History (and is reprinted here), b u t the m i n i m a l scale o f the al­ terations after ten years demonstrates how successfully the piece had avoided crit­ icism. Indeed, i t was only after another decade had passed that the first major re­ vision o f the M i l i t a r y Revolution thesis appeared, w i t h Geoffrey Parker's "The ' M i l i t a r y Revolution', 1560-1660—a myth?" 9

As we m i g h t expect f r o m a biographer o f Gustavus Adolphus, Michael Roberts had made Sweden and the T h i r t y Years War the focus o f his analysis. Parker, p r i ­ marily a Spanish historian (and later a biographer o f Philip I I ) , expanded the M i l ­ itary Revolution theme b o t h geographically and chronologically to embrace what some have termed the "Hapsburg hegemony." A l t h o u g h he pointed out that the roots o f the M i l i t a r y Revolution extended back as far as the 1430s, he concentra­ ted o n the period 1530-1710. The regression o f the starting date by t h i r t y years, though seemingly innocuous, had major conceptual repercussions. Parker ac­ cepted the key importance o f the growth o f armies over this period, b u t argued that since the first surge i n m i l i t a r y manpower came before the reforms even o f Gustavus' predecessor, Maurice of Nassau, the tactical developments described by Roberts could not be the cause o f the gargantuan armies w h i c h stalked the fields of early m o d e r n Europe. 10

To provide an alternative explanation for this phenomenon, Parker turned to the new style o f artillery fortifications developed i n Italy i n the first decades o f the sixteenth century, the trace italienne. The superb ability o f this type o f fortress to resist b o t h bombardment and infantry assault tipped the strategic balance i n fa­ vor o f the defensive. Battles became "irrelevant—and therefore unusual"; war be­ came p r i m a r i l y an affair o f sieges. Siege warfare, w i t h its vast entrenchments and numerous garrisons, demanded money and manpower o n an unprecedented

4

Clifford /. Rogers

scale—at the same time as the g r o w t h o f the population and wealth o f Europe made i t possible to meet that demand. By emphasizing the trace italienne, Parker added a key new ingredient to the M i l i t a r y Revolution debate: m i l i t a r y technol­ ogy as a causative factor. The publication o f his article i n 1976 i n the prestigious Journal of Modern His­ tory already signalled a breadth o f interest i n this conception. Parker's ideas were soon incorporated i n t o wide-ranging studies like W i l l i a m H . McNeill's The Pur­ suit of Power. T h o u g h somewhat altered, the basic idea o f the M i l i t a r y Revolu­ t i o n continued to h o l d the high ground b o t h i n early m o d e r n and i n m i l i t a r y his­ toriography. Further w o r k i n the field began to appear, including C o l i n Jones' "The M i l i t a r y Revolution and the Professionalisation o f the French A r m y under the Ancien Regime" and the other two articles i n Michael Duffy's The Military Revolution and the State, 1500-1800. These studies tended b o t h to expand the dates o f M i l i t a r y Revolution even further, and also to re-emphasize the connec­ tions between the M i l i t a r y Revolution and state formation, bureaucratization, and m i l i t a r y professionalization. While Roberts and Parker had mentioned the greater impact o f the new large armies o n society, Jones' article spelled out the de­ tails o f plundering, taxation, billeting, and Kontrihutions. I t also pointed out the transition f r o m the ad hoc mobilizing expedients o f the early M i l i t a r y Revolution, "cobbled together w i t h an almost prodigal delegation o f powers," to the more sys­ tematized, professional (even "absolutist") methods o f the later ancien regime. 11

12

13

14

15

After what had been a gradual evolution o f the debate, there was an explosion o f scholarship i n the mid-1980s, w h i c h can be said to have revolutionized the study o f the phenomenon. D a v i d Parrott published his "Strategy and tactics i n the T h i r t y Years War: the ' m i l i t a r y revolution,'" w h i c h offered what may be the most i m p o r t a n t critique o f the entire M i l i t a r y Revolution thesis yet produced, i n 1985. Parrott pointed out that, before making arguments based o n tactical re­ forms, historians should look carefully at h o w battles were actually fought. His conclusion—that the tactical reforms described by Roberts were i n practice nearly irrelevant to the battles after the Swedish invasion o f Germany —is cer­ tainly open to debate; b u t the questions he asks, and the issues he raises, are i m ­ portant ones. Rather than emphasizing tactical or technological factors, Parrott turned to logistic and political influences when addressing the subject o f army growth. This, too, has had a lasting impact o n the historiography. N o fewer than four studies o f the impact o f the M i l i t a r y Revolution i n Scandi­ navia appeared between 1983 and 1985. J. R. Hale's masterly 1985 study, War and Society in Renaissance Europe, 1450-1620, devoted a chapter to what he termed the " M i l i t a r y Reformation." I n the same year, John Lynn contributed a study o f French tactical developments, 1560-1660, arguing that the French evolved the small tactical units and linear infantry formations typical o f the M i l i t a r y Revolu­ t i o n independently o f D u t c h and Swedish developments. I n 1986 Gunther Rothenberg published an excellent study o n the M i l i t a r y Revolution i n the seven­ teenth century, focussing o n its intellectual component, while Pepper and Adams' 16

17

18

19

20

The Military Revolution in History

5

Firearms and Fortifications offered a valuable case-study o f the impact o f trace italienne fortifications. The high p o i n t o f this burst o f scholarly effort came w i t h the publication o f Parker's 1984 Lee Knowles lectures as The Military Revolution: Military innovation and the rise of the West, 1500-1800 i n 1988. The Military Revolution—which this anthology is intended to complement— attracted a great deal o f attention, even before i t w o n the Best Book Award o f the American M i l i t a r y Institute (1989) and the Dexter Prize for the best b o o k o n the history o f technology published between 1987 and 1990. I t offered a number o f refinements to earlier work, including a survey o f the m i l i t a r y changes (or lack thereof) away from the "heartland" o f the Revolution, i n areas like Britain and Eastern Europe, where cavalry retained more o f its o l d importance and the trace italienne remained rare. Logistics, recruitment, and m i l i t a r y organization re­ ceived more in-depth treatment, and the naval aspects o f the M i l i t a r y Revolution, per se, were given their first real analysis. A l l o f this material provided a m m u n i ­ t i o n for Parker to make his m a i n point: that "the key to the Westerners' success i n creating the first t r u l y global empires between 1500 and 1750 depended u p o n pre­ cisely those improvements i n the ability to wage war which have been termed 'the m i l i t a r y revolution.' " 21

22

2 3

" W h o is so thoughtless and lazy," asked the historian Polybius i n the second century B.C., "that he does not want to k n o w how . . . the Romans, i n less than 53 years, conquered nearly the entire inhabited w o r l d and brought i t under their rule—an achievement previously unheard o f ? " I f the rise o f Rome to imperial power continues to h o l d our interest today, i t is easy to see w h y Europe's ascen­ sion to genuinely global predominance—so m u c h more immediate—is a subject few students o f history can resist. By harnessing the concept o f the M i l i t a r y Revo­ l u t i o n to this issue, Parker added substantially to its breadth and its importance. Henceforth i t w o u l d be clear that the consequences o f m i l i t a r y innovation i n early m o d e r n Europe belonged at least as m u c h to W o r l d as to European History. The pace o f publications relating to the M i l i t a r y Revolution has continued u n ­ abated up to the present. Simon Adams, i n his 1990 "Tactics or Politics? 'The M i l i ­ tary Revolution' and the Hapsburg Hegemony, 1525-1648," follows David Parrott's lead i n arguing against tactical or technological causes for army growth, w h i c h he sees as resulting more f r o m changing political balances and strategic approaches. Adams also claims that the great increase i n m i l i t a r y manpower usually attributed to the T h i r t y Years War took place almost entirely o n paper: "the number o f effec­ tives rose b u t little, and the scale o f battles and campaigns was unchanged." John Lynn, one o f the most i m p o r t a n t writers o n the M i l i t a r y Revolution, is equally skeptical o f the significance assigned by Parker to bastioned-trace fortifi­ cations. Lynn's "The trace italienne and the G r o w t h o f Armies: The French Case" offers a powerful critique o f a technologically-based view o f the M i l i t a r y Revolu­ t i o n , and stresses the growing population and wealth o f Europe as the key factors behind the development o f the massive armed forces o f the sixteenth and seven­ teenth centuries. 24

25

Clifford J. Rogers

6

I n addition to Lynn's article, 1991 also saw the publication o f Jeremy Black's short monograph, A Military Revolution? Military Change and European Society, which attacked the M i l i t a r y Revolution thesis by emphasizing continuity rather than change i n early m o d e r n European warfare. Black's study also argued that the major changes i n matters military w h i c h did take place belonged p r i m a r i l y to the period after 1660. This changed chronology implies that absolutism was more the cause than the result o f the M i l i t a r y Revolution. He has taken up this later period again i n his new article, "A M i l i t a r y Revolution? A 1660-1792 Perspective," which appears for the first time i n this anthology. This piece helps to r o u n d out our view o f the M i l i t a r y Revolution, w h i c h tends to focus too m u c h o n the first half o f the 1500-1800 period. After all, i t was only i n the century after the failure o f the siege of Vienna i n 1683 that Western European arms showed a reasonably consistent ability to overcome their most advanced opponents—Ottomans, Mughals, and other civilizations w i t h developed gunpowder technology. A l t h o u g h Black deals mainly w i t h changes i n the art o f war f r o m 1660-1720, he also credits the years 1470-1530 and 1792-1815 w i t h "revolutionary" status i n m i l i ­ tary history. This echoes the argument o f m y o w n 1993 article, "The M i l i t a r y Revolutions o f the H u n d r e d Years' War," which holds that the m i l i t a r y innova­ tions w h i c h underlay the rise o f the West d i d not occur i n a single revolution, b u t rather through a process o f "punctuated e q u i l i b r i u m evolution"—that is, through a series o f intense revolutionary episodes, each b u i l t o n a more extended base o f slow evolutionary change. This process began w i t h the " I n f a n t r y Revolu­ t i o n " o f the fourteenth century and the "Artillery Revolution" o f the fifteenth, and has continued to the present day. Each revolutionary period i n m i l i t a r y affairs has had dramatic consequences for the history o f Europe, and eventually for the world. 26

27

Like m y o w n article, John Lynn's recently published study, "Recalculating French A r m y G r o w t h d u r i n g the Grand Siecle, 1610-1715," is presented here w i t h some revisions, consisting mainly o f expanded documentation i n the endnotes. The importance o f army growth i n the M i l i t a r y Revolution has received universal agreement, though its causes have not. Lynn's article, taking France as a case study, subjects this key issue to the most rigorous analysis i t has yet received. This provides relatively hard data w i t h which historians can test the various paradig­ matic approaches to the M i l i t a r y Revolution, o n one o f its analytical axes at least. Another case-study w h i c h emphasizes the importance o f army g r o w t h is I . A . A. Thompson's " ' M o n e y , money, and yet more money!' Finance, the Fiscal-State, and the M i l i t a r y Revolution: Spain 1500-1650." F r o m the first, scholars have em­ phasized h o w the M i l i t a r y Revolution imposed unprecedented burdens o n b o t h state and society i n early m o d e r n Europe, burdens reflected i n higher taxation and more elaborate bureaucracies. I n Spain, for example, royal expenditures (nine-tenths o f w h i c h went to pay for wars present or past) roughly quadrupled i n real terms between 1500 and 1650. Thompson's article, w r i t t e n for The Military Revolution Debate, studies this phenomenon i n detail, elucidating b o t h its causes 28

29

The Military Revolution in History

7

and its effects. One o f his i m p o r t a n t conclusions is that the great b u l k o f the i n ­ crease i n military expenditure can be attributed directly to the growth o f military manpower—not to tactical or technological changes related to the general adop­ t i o n o f gunpowder weapons or to the cost o f the trace italienne. Perhaps even more significant is the article's argument that the fiscal pressures o f hegemonic war w o u l d not necessarily drive a "coercion-extraction cycle" leading to the i n ­ creased power and capability o f the bureaucratic central state. Instead, the need to marshal ever-greater war resources could force the center to make political concessions i n order to gain the cooperation o f the periphery i n raising the neces­ sary finances. 30

31

Thomas Arnold's new c o n t r i b u t i o n , "Fortifications and the M i l i t a r y Revolu­ tion: The Gonzaga Experience, 1530-1630," points out another way i n which the M i l i t a r y Revolution could w o r k against the centralizing tendencies o f the emerg­ ing nation-states. T h r o u g h a careful study o f h o w the trace italienne molded the political and m i l i t a r y strategy—and, ultimately, the fate—of the Duchies o f M a n ­ tua and Monferrat, A r n o l d shows h o w the defensive power o f fortifications alia moderna could place a stumbling block i n front o f the ambitions o f expansionist or centralizing royal governments, m u c h as medieval stone castles had done be­ fore the A r t i l l e r y Revolution o f the fifteenth century. Arnold's conclusions, like Thompson's, argue against the widely held belief that only the emerging Great Powers could afford the state-of-the-art m i l i t a r y technology o f the early m o d e r n period. One o f the growing "gunpowder empires" w h i c h stumbled over the trace italienne was the O t t o m a n state. I n another article published here for the first time, John F. G u i l m a r t i n , Jr., looks at h o w the m i l i t a r y innovations arising f r o m the Wars o f Italy helped the Hapsburgs check the Porte's expansion i n the Bal­ kans. "The M i l i t a r y Revolution: Origins and First Tests A b r o a d " also looks at three other early 16th-century cases: the handful o f Spanish conquistadors w h o overwhelmed the Inca and Aztec empires, the Portuguese soldier-merchants w h o so rapidly seized control over the Indian Ocean, and the various powers w h o struggled for control o f the Mediterranean through the end o f the century. By showing us how the European arms forged by the early M i l i t a r y Revolution fared against opponents o f various levels o f technological and m i l i t a r y sophistication, Guilmartin's article helps us analyze w h i c h innovations i n the craft o f war were t r u l y significant, and w h i c h were merely incidental. 32

The last w o r d i n this volume belongs to Geoffrey Parker, since i t is p r i m a r i l y his conception o f the M i l i t a r y Revolution w h i c h has served as a q u i n t a i n for the pens o f the other contributors. His new essay, " I n Defense o f The Military Revolution? responds to many o f the critiques o f his w o r k contained i n the other studies i n this volume, and some others as well. But Parker does n o t merely attempt to parry every attack o n his original thesis: he integrates some o f the divergent perspectives provided by the other contributors to this b o o k w i t h new material o f his o w n ,

8

Clifford J. Rogers

p o i n t i n g the way to a new synthesis. O f course, that new synthesis, i n good dialec­ tical fashion, w i l l only be the basis for continued debate i n the future.

THIS

BOOK

The summary o f the debate o n the M i l i t a r y Revolution offered above is by no means exhaustive. The volume o f material o n the subject has made i t impossible to include every relevant article i n this i n t r o d u c t i o n , m u c h less this anthology. I n ­ stead, this b o o k aims to do three things: 33

First, by b r i n g i n g together the most i m p o r t a n t previously published articles o n the M i l i t a r y Revolution, to make them easily accessible b o t h to scholars w o r k i n g i n this area and to a wider audience o f students o f early m o d e r n and m i l i t a r y his­ tory. The literature is, after all, too broad to be adequately addressed by reading Parker's book alone. This is particularly i m p o r t a n t because many o f these studies were published i n hard-to-get places: Parrott's i n Militargeschichtliche Mitteilungen, Jones' i n a pamphlet published by the University o f Exeter, and so on. Second, to fill some gaps (chronological and thematic) w h i c h I perceived i n the M i l i t a r y Revolution literature. The new articles by Thomas A r n o l d , Jeremy Black, John F. G u i l m a r t i n , Jr., and I . A . A . Thompson serve this purpose. I n a way, Geoffrey Parker's defense o f his view o f the M i l i t a r y Revolution does so, too. T h i r d , to enable the reader to p u l l the diverse viewpoints represented by these articles i n t o an overall framework w h i c h w i l l b o t h solidify his or her understand­ ing o f the M i l i t a r y Revolution and highlight questions w h i c h have been raised b u t not fully answered. M y hope is that this collection w i l l introduce a wider audience to the burgeoning research i n this area, and also serve to spur further w o r k o n the M i l i t a r y Revolution.

Notes 1. Quoted in J. R. Hale, War and Society in Renaissance Europe, 1450-1620 (London: Fon­ tana, 1985), 39. 2. Hale, War and Society in Renaissance Europe, 21. 3. Stanislav Andreski, Military Organization and Society (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968 [First edition 1954]); Cf. Aristotle, The Politics, ed. Stephen Everson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), esp. IV.3, IV.13, VI.7; Max Weber, General Economic His­ tory, tr. Frank Knight. (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1950 [reprint of 1927 ed.]), 324-5. 4. Heinrich Brunner, "Der Reiterdienst und die Anfánge des Lehnwesens," Zeitshcrift der Savigny-Stiftung fur Rechtsgeschichte, Germanistische AbteilungVlll (1887) and Lynn White, Jr., "Stirrup, Mounted Shock Combat, Feudalism, and Chivalry" in his Medieval Technol­ ogy and Social Change (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962). The criticism of Lynn White's version of the stirrup/shock combat/feudalism nexus is discussed in Kelly DeVries, Medieval Military Technology (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview, 1992), 95-122. 5. Another exception to this proposition—and a very important one—is William H . McNeill's The Pursuit of Power (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).

The Military Revolution in History

9

6. Page 13, below. y. Below, p. 18. 8. Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and the European States, AD 990-1990 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 191. The significance of Tilly's remarks is underlined in John A. Lynn's ex­ cellent review essay, "Clio in Arms: The Role of the Military Variable in Shaping History," Journal of'Military History 55 (1991), 83-95. 9. George N . Clark, War and Society in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958), 73-75. 10. Below, pp. 40, 42. 11. Technology had, of course, long been recognized as the motor of economic change. It is no surprise that technical and technological developments should have as much impact on society through the "means of violence" as through the "means of production." Parker's use of military technology as a key explanatory variable has been criticized (with reference to his 1988 book, The Military Revolution: military innovation and society, 1500-1800) as technological determinism, though not very convincingly. See Bert S. Hall and Kelly R. DeVries, "Essay Review—the 'Military Revolution Revisited" Technology and Culture, 31 (1990), 500-507, rebutted by Harold Dorn in the following issue of the same journal, pp. 656-658. Cf. George Raudzens, "War-Winning Weapons: The Measurement of Technologi­ cal Determinism in Military History," Journal of Military History, 54 (1990), 407-415. 12. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power. McNeill, interestingly, was the editor of the Journal of Modern History at the time when Parker's article was accepted for publication. 13. Also published in this period was John Lynn's "The Growth of the French Army dur­ ing the Seventeenth Century," Armed Forces and Society, 6 (1980), the precursor of his re­ lated article in this volume (below, Ch. 5). 14. Below, Ch. 6, here at p. 150. 15. Roberts' article was published in 1956 and reissued in 1967; Parker's appeared in 1976; the Duffy pamphlet (The Military Revolution and the State) and John Lynn's article, "The Growth of French Army," were published in 1980. 16. David A. Parrott, "Strategy and Tactics in the Thirty Years' War: the 'Military Revolu­ tion,'" Militargeschichtliche Mitteilungen 38/2 (1985), reprinted below, Ch. 9. 17. Below, pp. 227, 228, 234, 235, 236. 18. K. J. V. Jespersen, "Social Change and Military Revolution in Early Modern Europe: Some Danish Evidence," Historical Journal, XXVI (1983); three articles in Scandinavian Journal of History, X (1985). 19. J. R. Hale, War and Society in Renaissance Europe, 1450-1620 (London: Fontana, 1985). 20. John A. Lynn, "Tactical Evolution in the French Army, 1560-1660," French Historical Studies, XIV (1985). In this article Lynn included the following memorable epigram: "Try­ ing to understand seventeenth-century European history without weighing the influence of war and military institutions is like trying to dance without listening to the music" (p. 167). 21. Gunther E. Rothenberg, "Maurice of Nassau, Gustavus Adolphus, Raimondo Montecuccoli, and the 'Military Revolution' of the Seventeenth Century," in Makers of Modern Strategy, ed. Peter Paret, Gordon A. Craig, and Felix Gilbert (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 32-63. Simon Pepper and Nicholas Adams, Firearms and Fortifications. Mili­ tary Architecture and Siege Warfare in Sixteenth-Century Siena (Chicago: University of Chi­ cago Press, 1986).

10

Clifford J. Rogers

22. The 1989 A M I Best Book Award was shared with James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. 23. The Military Revolution, 4. 24. Histories 1.1.15. 25. Below, Ch. 10, here at p. 258. 26. Below, p. 110. 27. This article was awarded a Moneado Prize by the Society for Military History in 1994. 28. Originally published in French Historical Studies 18 (1994). 29. Below, p. 274. 30. A concept developed by S. E. Finer in "State and Nation-Building in Europe: The Role of the Military," The Formation of National States in Western Europe, ed. Charles Tilly (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975). 31. Compare Brian M . Downing, The Military Revolution and Political Change: Origins of Democracy and Autocracy in Early Modern Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993) . 32. For the idea of "gunpowder empires," see McNeill, The Pursuit of Power, 95-99. 33. Some of the noteworthy works dealing with the military revolution, other than those mentioned above, are: Weston F. Cook, The Hundred Years War for Morocco. Gunpowder and the Military Revolution in the Early Modern Muslim World (Boulder: Westview, 1994); Edward M . Furgol, "Scotland turned Sweden: the Scottish Covenanters and the Military Revolution, 1638-51" in J. Morrill, ed. The Scottish National Covenant in its British Context (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990); Mahinder S. Kingra, "The Trace Italienne and the Military Revolution during the Eighty Years' War, 1567-1648," Journal of Military History, 57 (1993); Bruce D. Porter, War and the Rise of the State (New York: The Free Press, 1994) , ch. 3: "The Military Revolution and the Early Modern State"; David Ralston, Import­ ing the European Army: the Introduction of European Military Techniques and Institutions into the extra-European World, 1600-1914 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); and Frank Tallett, War and Society in Early-Modern Europe, 1495-1715 (London: Routledge, 1992).

Paradigms

Y

*

1 •

The Military Revolution, 1560-1660 MICHAEL

ROBERTS

I T IS A H I S T O R I C A L commonplace that major revolutions i n m i l i t a r y techniques have usually been attended w i t h widely ramifying consequences. The coming o f the m o u n t e d warrior, and o f the sword, i n the middle o f the second m i l l e n n i u m BC; the t r i u m p h o f the heavy cavalryman, consolidated by the adoption o f the stirrup, i n the sixth century o f the Christian era; the scientific revolution i n war­ fare i n our o w n day—these are all recognized as major turning-points i n the his­ t o r y o f m a n k i n d . The p e r i o d i n the history o f the art o f war w i t h w h i c h I shall t r y to deal i n this lecture may seem f r o m this p o i n t o f view to be o f inferior i m p o r ­ tance. But i t brought changes w h i c h may not i m p r o p e r l y be called a m i l i t a r y rev­ olution; and that revolution, when i t was accomplished, exercised a p r o f o u n d i n ­ fluence u p o n the future course o f European history. I t stands like a great divide separating mediaeval society f r o m the m o d e r n w o r l d . Yet i t is a revolution w h i c h has been curiously neglected by historians. The experts i n m i l i t a r y history have mostly been content to describe what happened, w i t h o u t being overmuch con­ cerned to trace out broader effects; while social historians have not been very apt to believe that the new fashions i n tactics, or improvements i n weapon-design, were likely to prove o f m u c h significance for their purposes. Some few sociolo­ gists, indeed, have realized the importance o f the problem; b u t historians tend to find their expositions a trifle opaque, and their conclusions sometimes insecurely grounded. Yet i t remains true that purely m i l i t a r y developments, o f a strictly tech­ nical k i n d , d i d exert a lasting influence u p o n society at large. They were the agents and auxiliaries o f constitutional and social change; and they bore a m a i n share o f responsibility for the coming o f that new w o r l d w h i c h was to be so very unlike the old. 1

The m i l i t a r y revolution w h i c h fills the century between 1560 and 1660 was i n essence the result o f just one more attempt to solve the perennial problem o f tac­ tics—the p r o b l e m o f h o w to combine missile weapons w i t h close action; h o w to unite h i t t i n g power, mobility, and defensive strength. A n d the solution offered by the reforms o f Maurice o f Orange and Gustav A d o l f was a return, under the inspi13

Michael Roberts

14

ration o f Vegetius, Aelian, and Leo the Isaurian, to linear formations. I n place o f the massive, deep, unwieldy squares o f the Spanish tercio, or the still larger b u t more irregular blocks o f the Swiss c o l u m n , they relied u p o n a m u l t i p l i c i t y o f small units ranged i n two or three lines, and so disposed and armed as to p e r m i t the full exploitation o f all types o f weapon. Maurice used these new formations wholly for defence; b u t i t was the great achievement o f Gustav A d o l f to apply them w i t h brilliant success i n offensive actions too. Moreover, he restored to cavalry its proper function, by forbidding the caracole; he made i t charge home w i t h the sword; and he insisted that i t rely for its effect u p o n the impact o f the weight o f m a n and horse. A n d lastly, as a result o f his experiments i n gunfounding, he was able to a r m his units w i t h a light and transportable field-piece designed to supply close artillery support for infantry and cavalry alike. 2

These were fundamental changes; and they were essentially tactical i n nature. But they entailed others o f much larger implication. They entailed, for instance, a new standard i n the t r a i n i n g and discipline o f the ordinary soldier. The soldier o f the M i d d l e Ages had been, o n the whole, an individualist; and he (and his horse) had been highly trained over a prolonged period. The coming, first o f firearms, then o f the Swiss column, put an end to this state o f affairs. The mercenary i n the middle o f a pike-square needed little t r a i n i n g and less skill: i f he inclined his pike i n correct alignment and leaned heavily o n the m a n i n front o f h i m , he had done almost all that could be required o f h i m . So too w i t h the musketeer: a certain dexterity i n loading—it could take as many as ninety-eight words o f c o m m a n d to fire a musket—a certain steadiness i n the ranks, sufficed to execute the countermarch, since no one could reasonably demand o f a musket that i t should be aimed w i t h accuracy. The t r a i n i n g o f a b o w m a n , schooled to be a dead shot at a distance, w o u l d be wasted o n so imperfect an instrument as an arquebus or a wheel-lock pistol; and the pike, unlike the lance, was not an individual weapon at all. One reason w h y firearms drove out the b o w and the lance was precisely this, that they economized o n t r a i n i n g . Moreover, deep formations, whether o f horse or foot, dispensed w i t h the need for a large trained corps o f officers, and required a less high morale, since i t is difficult to r u n away w i t h fifteen ranks behind you. 3

4

The reforms o f Maurice inaugurated a real, and a lasting, revolution i n these matters. Maurice's small units had to be highly trained i n manoeuvre; they needed many more officers and NCOs to lead them. The tactics o f Gustav A d o l f postulated a vastly improved fire-discipline, and long practice i n the combination o f arms. The sergeant-major o f the tercio had been well content i f he mastered the art of'embattling by the squareroot'; the sergeant-major o f Maurice's army must be capable o f executing a great number o f intricate parade-ground evolutions, based o n Roman models, besides a number o f battle movements o f more strictly practical value. For L o n d o ñ o d r i l l and exercises had been designed p r i m a r i l y to promote physical fitness; for Lipsius they were a method o f inculcating Stoic v i r tues i n the soldier; for Maurice they were the fundamental postulates o f tactics. F r o m Aelian Maurice borrowed the whole vocabulary o f m i l i t a r y command, 5

6

The Military Revolution, 1560-1660

15

7

transmitting i t almost unaltered to our o w n day. Contemporaries f o u n d i n the new d r i l l w h i c h he introduced a strange and powerful fascination: i t was an ' i n ­ vention, a 'science', indeed, a revelation; and a large literature appeared, designed to explain to the aspiring soldier, i n two pages o f close p r i n t , the precise signifi­ cance o f the order 'right turn'—a service the more necessary, since i t sometimes meant, i n fact, t u r n left. A n d so officers became not merely leaders, b u t trainers, o f men; diligent practice i n peacetime, and i n winter, became essential; and d r i l l , for the first time i n m o d e r n history, became the precondition o f m i l i t a r y success. The decline i n the size o f the basic infantry u n i t f r o m about three thousand to about t h i r t y meant that individual initiative was n o w expected at a far lower level of c o m m a n d than before. The slowly-increasing technical complexity o f firearms was already beginning the process o f forcing the soldier to be a primitive techni­ cian. I f the revolution i n d r i l l implied a more absolute subordination o f the sol­ dier's w i l l to the c o m m a n d o f a superior, i t implied also an intelligent subordina­ t i o n . Henceforth i t m i g h t not be the soldier's business to think, b u t he w o u l d at least be expected to possess a certain m i n i m a l capacity for thinking. The army was no longer to be a brute mass, i n the Swiss style, nor a collection o f bellicose individuals, i n the feudal style; i t was to be an articulated organism o f which each part responded to impulses f r o m above. The demand for u n a n i m i t y and preci­ sion o f movement led naturally to the innovation o f marching i n step, which ap­ pears at some date impossible to establish about the middle o f the seventeenth century. A n d the principle o f mass-subordination, o f the solution o f the i n d i ­ vidual w i l l i n the w i l l o f the commander, received a last reinforcement w i t h the slow adoption o f uniforms: ' w i t h o u t uniforms', said Frederick the Great, 'there can be no discipline.' The process was already observable i n the 1620s; b u t i t was scarcely complete by the end o f the century. The long delay is easily explained. As long as body-armour remained general, uniforms were scarcely practical; and even when armour was abandoned, the c o m m o n use o f the sword-resisting buffcoat prevented for a time a general change. Moreover, the habit o f using merce­ nary armies, and the notorious readiness o f mercenaries to change sides, induced men to prefer the 'token'—a kerchief r o u n d the arm, a green branch i n the hat— w h i c h could be discarded easily as the occasion for i t passed. Nevertheless, by the time Louvois was well i n the saddle i t was sufficiently plain that the general adop­ t i o n o f uniforms w o u l d not long be delayed. Their mass-psychological effect w i l l be readily appreciated by anyone w h o has ever w o r n one. The way was clear for the armies o f the nineteenth century: i t remained only for the twentieth to complete the process by replacing dolmans, busbies, eagle's wings, and all the flaunting panache o f Cossack and Hussar, by the flat u n i f o r m i t y o f field-grey and khaki. 8

9

10

11

12

The new emphasis o n t r a i n i n g and d r i l l seemed to contemporaries to reinforce their already established convictions about the best way to recruit an army. The armies w h i c h carried t h r o u g h the m i l i t a r y revolution—or u p o n w h i c h that revo­ l u t i o n impinged—were nearly all mercenary armies. I t has indeed been argued,

16

Michael Roberts

w i t h some plausibility, that the great m i l i t a r y innovations throughout history have generally coincided w i t h the predominance o f mercenaries; and i t has been asserted, more specifically, that the reforms o f Maurice were possible only i n a mercenary force, since the prolonged d r i l l i n g and high degree o f professional skill which they demanded w o u l d have been impossible to obtain f r o m a citizen m i l i ­ t i a . But though this last contention (as we shall see i n a m o m e n t ) cannot be sus­ tained, there is no doubt that the use o f mercenaries was attended w i t h certain obvious advantages. The mercenary had no local attachments, was indifferent to national sentiment; and this made h i m an invaluable agent i n the suppression o f popular disturbances. A mercenary army cared not at all i f the war were p r o ­ longed, or fought far from home; i t economized the state's o w n manpower, and hence its wealth; the system o f recruiting t h r o u g h captains relieved the govern­ ment o f a good deal o f administrative work. There were, o f course, many counter­ vailing disadvantages: the mercenary was undisciplined, unreliable, and averse to battle; his arms and equipment were unstandardized and often b a d ; the em­ ployer was invariably swindled by the captains; and the whole system was r u i n ­ ously expensive. So expensive, indeed, that the smaller and poorer states were forced to look for alternatives. A r o u n d the t u r n o f the century many o f the lesser German states—and even some quite b i g ones such as Saxony, Brandenburg and Bavaria—began to experiment w i t h local m i l i t i a s . M i l i t a r y writers such as Machiavelli and Lazarus v o n Schwendi had urged the superiority o f the citizen army, w i t h many a backward glance at the m i l i t a r y virtues o f republican R o m e . But i t was forgotten that the classical authors whose m i l i t a r y teachings formed the basis o f the Maurician reforms all dated f r o m times when the Roman forces were citizen-armies no longer. The event proved that the half-trained militias were incapable o f mastering the m o d e r n art o f war. Their failure i n Germany was universal, ignominious and complete; and i t seemed that those were right w h o contended that i n the new conditions only mercenary armies could be effective. The Swedish victories, however, were a warning against too hasty a conclusion; for the Swedish army was a conscript national militia—the first t r u l y national Euro­ pean army—and i t proved capable o f mastering m i l i t a r y techniques m u c h more complex than had been seen before. The second and more i m p o r t a n t stage o f the m i l i t a r y revolution, which Gustav A d o l f carried through, was i n fact launched, not by highly-skilled professionals, b u t by conscript peasants; and experienced mercenary soldiers such as Robert M o n r o had to go to school again to learn the new Swedish methods. A n d n o t only were the Swedish armies better than any mercenaries; they were also incomparably cheaper. There was no peculation by captains; and payment could be made i n land-grants, revenue-assignments, taxremissions, or i n k i n d . 13

14

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16

17

18

But conditions i n Sweden were exceptional, and other European countries felt unable to follow the Swedish example. The Spanish army under Philip I I d i d i n ­ deed contain some conscripts, as well as international mercenaries and Spanish 'gentlemen-rankers', and the Prussian army o f Frederick W i l l i a m I was a mixed

The Military Revolution, 1560-1660

17

19

army t o o ; b u t o n the whole the rulers found no feasible alternative to a merce­ nary force, drawn, often enough, from the more impoverished and mountainous regions o f Europe such as Scotland, Albania, or Switzerland. Few monarchs o f the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were prepared to es­ tablish national armies; for most o f them agreed w i t h Christian I V o f D e n m a r k and John George o f Saxony i n being u n w i l l i n g to p u t arms into the hands o f the lower orders: only where the peasantry had been reduced to a real serfdom was it esteemed safe to proceed u p o n the basis o f conscription. This stage was n o t reached i n Prussia before the end o f the century; nor even i n Russia before the re­ forms o f Peter the Great. Except i n Sweden, therefore, and to some extent i n Spain, the armies continued to be mercenary armies throughout the century. The difference was that they became standing armies too. A n d this change arose mainly from the obvious need to make them less burdensome to the state. A l ­ ready before the end o f the sixteenth century i t was realized that the practice o f disbanding and paying-off regiments at the end o f each campaigning season, and re-enlisting t h e m i n the following spring, was an expensive way o f doing business. Large sums were payable o n enlistment and mustering, and ( i n theory at least) all arrears were paid up o n disbandment. But between mustering and disbandment pay was irregular and never full, despite the so-called 'full-pays' w h i c h occurred from time to t i m e . I f then a mercenary force were n o t disbanded i n the autumn, but continued f r o m year to year, the calls u p o n the exchequer were likely to be considerably lessened, and the general nuisance o f mutinous soldiery w o u l d be abated. Moreover, i f the army remained embodied throughout the winter, the close season could be used for d r i l l i n g and exercising, o f w h i c h since the tactical revolution there was m u c h more need than ever before. There were, moreover, special areas where winter was the best season for campaigning: i t was so i n the marshy regions o f Poland and north-west Russia; and i t was so i n Hungary, for the Turkish camels could n o t stand the cold o f the Hungarian plain, and their an­ nual retirement provided the Habsburgs w i t h the chance to recoup the losses o f the preceding summer. Considerations such as these led one prince after an­ other to retain his mercenaries o n the strength throughout the winter months: Rudolf I I was perhaps the earliest to do so; b u t Maurice o f Orange was not far be­ h i n d . F r o m this practice arose the m o d e r n standing army; and i t is w o r t h while emphasizing the fact that i t was the result o f considerations o f a m i l i t a r y and fi­ nancial, and not o f a political or constitutional nature. Writers such as de la Noue, Duplessis-Mornay, Wallhausen and Montecuccoli all advocated standing armies o n purely m i l i t a r y grounds. There seems little basis for the suggestion that standing armies were called into being by artful princes i n order to provide em­ ployment for their turbulent n o b i l i t y ; or that they were a sign o f the inherent Drang nach Machtentfaltung o f the monarchs; or that they were designed to en­ able the rulers to establish a sovereignty unrestrained by law and custom and free f r o m constitutional limitations—though they d i d , no doubt, prove very service­ able instruments o f despotism. Where absolutism t r i u m p h e d i n this century, i t 20

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24

25

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d i d so because i t provided the response to a genuine need; and though an army might be useful for curbing aristocratic licence, i t was b u t an accessory factor i n the general political situation which produced the eclipse o f the Estates. Essen­ tially the standing armies were the product o f m i l i t a r y logic rather than o f p o l i t i ­ cal design. A n d the same is true o f the permanent navies: greater obligations i n the way o f commerce-protection, increased need for making blockades effective, the demand for trained crews and officers constantly at call, economy o f adminis­ tration—these were some o f the factors that produced permanent navies; and i t was a constitutional accident that the first two attempts i n this direction—the Compagnie van Assurantie o f Frederick Henry, and the Shipmoney fleets o f Charles I—should b o t h have acquired a sinister significance i n the minds o f their opponents. 27

But i t was n o t only that armies were tending to become permanent; i t was also that they were rapidly becoming m u c h larger. A n d this I take to be the result o f a revolution i n strategy, made possible by the revolution i n tactics, and made neces­ sary by the circumstances o f the T h i r t y Years' War. The sixteenth century had al­ ready seen a notable broadening o f strategic horizons: i n the long duel between Valois and Habsburg, simultaneous operations o n two or more fronts had been the rule, and i t w o u l d have been difficult at times to decide w h i c h was the encircler, and which the encircled. The same was true, o n a vaster scale, o f the struggle against the Turks: Portuguese attacks o n Eritrea, Persian assaults u p o n Asia M i n o r , were balanced by Turkish alliances w i t h France and England. A t the same time the discovery o f the New W o r l d , and the penetration o f the East Indies, extended the possible area o f European conflict u n t i l i t covered most o f the globe, and inaugurated a new age o f amphibious warfare. But these developments were for long unsystematic, the realm o f the project-maker and the armchair strategist: the day had n o t yet arrived when the m i l i t a r y and naval administrations o f Eu­ rope were equal to the coordination o f effort over distances so formidable. The sterility o f warfare i n Europe, i n the time o f Prince Maurice, is the accurate mea­ sure o f the strategic t h i n k i n g o f the age. The T h i r t y Years' War brought a change. Battle came again into favour, per­ haps under the influence o f confessional ferocity, and w i t h i t a strategy aiming at battle; and as hostilities ranged back and forth over Germany, and along the bor­ ders o f Germany f r o m Poland and Transylvania to Italy, Lorraine and the Nether­ lands, commanders were driven to look at the whole o f central Europe as one great theatre o f war. W h e n Gustav A d o l f wrote that 'all the wars o f Europe are now blended into one', he was t h i n k i n g i n terms o f politics; b u t the remark was equally true i n regard to strategy. Wallenstein sends A r n i m to fight o n the Vistula; Pappenheim rushes to the relief o f Maestricht; Olivares dreams o f seizing G ó t e borg, and o f a Spanish naval base at Wismar, to be made accessible by a Kiel ca­ n a l : Piccolomini makes a famous march f r o m Flanders to Bohemia; Savoy, Venice, Transylvania and even the Tatars o f the Crimea become elements i n everwider and more unified plans o f operations. Above all, Gustav Adolf's strategic 28

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t h i n k i n g seems a whole dimension bigger than any that had preceded it. He suc­ cessfully combines two types o f strategy: o n the one hand a resolute offensive strategy designed to annihilate the enemy i n battle—the product o f confidence i n the superiority o f the new Swedish tactics; o n the other a wholly new gradualist strategy, designed to conquer Germany by the occupation and methodical con­ solidation o f successive base-areas. The two blend i n his plan for the destruction of the Austrian Habsburgs by the simultaneous and effectively co-ordinated oper­ ations o f five or seven armies m o v i n g under the king's direction o n an enormous curving front extending f r o m the middle Oder to the Alpine passes. I t was a strategic concept more complex, vaster, than any one commander had ever previ­ ously attempted. His death prevented its being carried out; b u t the closing years o f the war saw other developments o f interest. The strategy o f devastation began to be employed w i t h a new thoroughness and logic; and, as its consequence, the war became pre-eminently a war o f movement, best exemplified i n the campaigns of Baner, Torstensson and Gallas. N o t all o f these developments were to be pur­ sued i n the years that followed: an age o f reason and mathematical logic w o u l d t r y to b r i n g war itself w i t h i n the scope o f its calculations, to the detriment o f that of­ fensive spirit w i t h o u t w h i c h wars cannot be w o n ; b u t the effects o f the strategic revolution o f w h i c h Gustav A d o l f was the most illustrious exponent were n o t to be effaced. 31

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The most i m p o r t a n t o f them was the great increase i n the scope o f warfare, re­ flected i n a corresponding increase i n the n o r m a l size o f the armies o f the major powers. Philip I I had dominated Europe i n his day w i t h the aid o f an army w h i c h probably d i d n o t exceed 40,000 men: a century later, 400,000 were esteemed nec­ essary to m a i n t a i n the ascendancy o f Louis X I V . I n 1627, under the Elector George W i l l i a m , Brandenburg possessed a defence force totalling 9 0 0 : under Frederick W i l l i a m I , the n o r m a l establishment was about 80,000. The previous m i l l e n n i u m could show n o t h i n g to compare w i t h this sudden rise i n the size o f western European armies. Great agglomerations o f troops for a particular occa­ sion had indeed occurred i n the past, and the Turks had brought vast hosts to bear u p o n their enemies; b u t i n the West, at least, the seventeenth century saw the permanent establishment o f some armies at levels w h i c h earlier ages had rarely, i f ever, k n o w n . W i t h Louvois, indeed, the passion for mere numbers had something o f a megalomaniac quality: an aspect, perhaps, o f that 'pursuit o f the quantitative' w h i c h has been considered as an essential characteristic o f the new industrial­ i s m . I t may perhaps be legitimately objected that the instances I have chosen to illustrate the growth o f armies are hand-picked: the Spanish armies o f 1690 were certainly no bigger than those o f 1590; and the army w i t h w h i c h Charles X I I w o n the battle o f Narva was slightly smaller than that w i t h w h i c h Charles I X lost the battle o f K i r k h o l m : that Gustav A d o l f had 175,000 men under arms i n 1632 was for Sweden a quite exceptional circumstance, never repeated. But this does n o t al­ ter the fact that the scale o f European warfare was throughout the century p r o d i ­ giously increasing: the great armies o f Louis X I V had to be met by armies o f com3 3

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parable size; and i f one state could n o t manage i t , there must be a Grand Alliance. Moreover, i n the seventeenth century numbers had acquired a precise meaning: when Charles V is credited w i t h assembling an army o f 120,000 men to repel the Turkish attack, we are perhaps entitled to decline to take the figure too literally; b u t when Louvois states the French army at 300,000, i t is safe to assume that there was just that number o n the muster-rolls, even though n o t all o f t h e m may have appeared i n the ranks. A n d so i t happened that (as Montecuccoli observed) men, no less than money, became i n the seventeenth century the sinews o f w a r : hence the concern o f the earliest demographical investigations to make sure that p o p u ­ lation was not declining; hence the insistence o f the mercantilists, w i t h their eyes ever u p o n the contingency o f war, that a copious population is among the chief riches o f the state. 37

The transformation i n the scale o f war led inevitably to an increase i n the au­ t h o r i t y o f the state. The days when war partook o f the nature o f feud were n o w for ever gone, and the change is reflected i n (among other things) the development o f international law, o f w h i c h I shall speak i n a moment. O n l y the state, now, could supply the administrative, technical and financial resources required for largescale hostilities. A n d the state was concerned to make its m i l i t a r y m o n o p o l y abso­ lute. I t declared its hostility to irregular and private armies, to ambiguous and semi-piratical naval ventures. Backward countries such as Scotland were the ex­ ceptions that proved the rule: the failure o f Scottish parliaments to disarm H i g h ­ land clans was a sign o f weakness i n the body politic. Navies become state navies, royal navies: the o l d compromise o f the armed merchantman falls into disuse; the Dutch West India Company goes bankrupt. Effective control o f the armed forces by a centralized authority becomes a sign o f modernity: i t is no accident that the destruction o f the streltsi by Peter the Great preceded by a century and a quarter the destruction o f the Janissaries by M a h m u d I I . This development, and the new style o f warfare itself, called for new adminis­ trative methods and standards; and the new administration was f r o m the begin­ n i n g centralized and royal. Secretaries o f state for war are b o r n ; war offices prolif­ erate. The Austrian Habsburgs had possessed a Hofkriegsrat since the m i d sixteenth century; b u t i n the seventeenth the rising m i l i t a r y powers—Sweden, France, Brandenburg, Russia—all equipped themselves w i t h new and better ma­ chinery for the conduct o f war. Inevitably these new officials spent a good deal o f their time i n grappling w i t h problems o f supply—supply o f arms and armaments, supply o f goods, clothing, transport and the rest. Experience showed that i t was bad for discipline, as well as inefficient, to p e r m i t the mercenary armies to equip themselves: i t was better to have standardized weapons, a l i m i t e d number o f recognised calibres, an agreed m a x i m u m o f windage, a consistently-compounded gunpowder, and, i n the end, u n i f o r m clothing, and boots i n three standard sizes. Hence the state was driven to attempt the supervision o f supply; i n many cases, to p r o d u c t i o n o n its o w n account; sometimes, to monopoly: the Spanish Nether­ lands had a state m o n o p o l y o f the manufacture o f gunpowder, the Swedish Trad38

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ing Company was created to facilitate c o n t r o l o f a strategic material—copper. M i l i t a r y needs drove the monarchs into ever-increasing interference i n the lives o f their subjects: i n Sweden, as i n England, there were bitter complaints at the grisly perquisitions of the saltpetre-collector. The developments i n the science of fortifi­ cation, o f w h i c h Vauban was to be the most eminent exponent, meant new fortresses for the pre carré, and this i n t u r n meant heavier corvées, the subversion of municipal liberties, and the increased power o f the sovereign: 'fortresses', says Montecuccoli, 'are the buttresses o f the crown'; and he added that the fact that ' l i ­ centious' nations such as the English disliked them merely proved their u t i l i t y . The stricter discipline, the elaborately mechanical d r i l l i n g , required by the new linear tactics, matched the tendency o f the age towards absolute government, and may well have reinforced it: i t was tempting to t h i n k that the discipline w h i c h had succeeded so well i n the field m i g h t yield equally satisfactory results i f applied to civil society. The ruler was increasingly identified w i t h the commander-in-chief, and f r o m the new discipline and d r i l l w o u l d be b o r n not merely the autocrat, b u t that particular type o f autocrat w h i c h delighted i n the name o f Kriegsherr. I t was not the least o f England's good luck, that for the whole o f the critical century f r o m 1547 to 1649 she was ruled by monarchs w i t h neither interest nor capacity for m i l i t a r y affairs. I t was certainly no accident that Louis X I I I should have been 'passionately fond' o f d r i l l ; nor was i t a mere personal q u i r k that led Louis X I V to cause a medal to be struck, o f w h i c h the reverse displays h i m i n the act o f tak­ ing a parade, and correcting, w i t h a sharp poke of his cane, the imperfect dressing of a feckless private i n the rear r a n k . The newly-acquired symmetry and order o f the parade-ground provided, for Louis X I V and his contemporaries, the model to which life and art must alike conform; and the pas cadence o f Martinet—whose name is i n itself a programme—echoed again i n the majestic m o n o t o n y o f inter­ minable alexandrines. By the close o f the century there was already a tendency i n monarchs o f an absolutist cast to consider m i l i t a r y u n i f o r m as their n o r m a l at­ tire—as Charles X I I d i d , for instance, and Frederick W i l l i a m I . I t was not a fash­ ion that w o u l d have commended itself to H e n r y V I I I , or Gustav Vasa, or Philip I I . 39

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One very i m p o r t a n t effect o f all these developments was i n the sphere o f fi­ nance. The ever-increasing cost o f war—the result o f larger armies and navies, more expensive armaments, longer periods o f training, bigger administrative staffs, i n an age when prices were still rising—embarrassed the finances o f every state i n Europe. Kings were presented w i t h new problems o f paying large and dis­ tant armies, w h i c h posed new difficulties o f remittance; and the solutions they found to these difficulties contributed a good deal to the development o f financial instruments and a structure o f credit: Wallenstein's ties w i t h the great German fi­ nanciers were an essential element i n his success. Everywhere kings f o u n d that though they m i g h t s t i l l — w i t h care—live o f their o w n i n peacetime, they plunged into debt i n wartime. A n d i n this p e r i o d i t was almost always wartime. They fell back o n affaires extraordinaires, o n ad hoc financial devices, some o f them suffi­ ciently remarkable: this is the age o f Peter the Great's pribylshtiki or tax-inven43

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tors, and o f the analogous officials employed after Colberts death by Le Pelletier at the Controle Genérale. They had recourse to currency debasement, sale o f m o ­ nopolies, sale o f crown lands, inflation o f honours, and above all to the sale o f of­ fices, w h i c h i n this century for the first time becomes a general European phe­ n o m e n o n . But sooner or later financial stringency, i n country after country, involved the authorities i n constitutional crises: the monarchs f o u n d themselves forced to parley w i t h their Estates, or to violate the ancient constitutional liber­ ties. Behind all the great insurrectionary movements o f the age—the T h i r t y Years' War, the English rebellion, the Fronde, the revolts i n the Spanish realms—there lay, as one major element i n the situation (though o f course not the only one) the crown s need for money; and that need was usually produced by m i l i t a r y c o m m i t ­ ments whose dimensions were i n part the result o f the m i l i t a r y revolution. O n the whole, the monarchs prevailed; the income for maintaining standing armies was taken out o f the control o f the Estates; sometimes m i l i t a r y finance—as i n Bran­ denburg—was wholly separated f r o m the ordinary revenues. A n d i n Germany this issue o f the conflict resulted, i n part, f r o m the fact that i n the last resort the Estates had rather sacrifice a constitutional principle, and retain the security af­ forded by a standing army, than risk the appalling sufferings and crushing finan­ cial exactions which, as the experience o f the T h i r t y Years' War had shown, awaited the militarily impotent or old-fashioned. Nevertheless, though the standing army thus came to be accepted as the lesser o f two evils, i t was a grievous burden to the smaller and financially weaker states. They had discarded the alter­ native o f a militia; a standing army seemed inescapable; b u t many o f them could scarcely finance i t f r o m their o w n resources. I t was this situation w h i c h presented such opportunities to that subsidy-diplomacy u p o n which the aggressive policies of Louis X I V were to thrive. 44

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I f liberty, then, were thus to be sacrificed to the army, i t ought at least to be an army that was really the property o f the king, and not a mere agglomeration o f re­ cruiting speculators. The free bargaining between recruiting captain and employ­ ing prince, the Articles o f War w h i c h partook more o f the nature o f an industrial agreement than o f a code o f m i l i t a r y discipline, —these things were repugnant to the orderliness and efficiency o f the new m i l i t a r y ideal. The larger the army, the greater the need for disciplining i t f r o m above. The monarch must take over the business o f recruiting and paying men, as he was already beginning to take over the business o f supplying material and supervising war-industries. A n d the m o n ­ archs, i n fact, d i d so. The Articles o f War o f Gustav A d o l f set a new standard o f royal control, and were imitated even i n countries which employed a p r e d o m i ­ nantly mercenary army. Wallenstein made a start i n curbing the independence o f the recruiting captains; and a generation later Louvois and the Great Elector were to profit f r o m his example. By the end o f the century the monarchs had mostly gained effective control o f their armies. I t was a significant development; for once the armies became royal (as the navies already were) the way was open for their eventually becoming national. 47

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The social consequences o f the m i l i t a r y revolution were scarcely less i m p o r t a n t than the constitutional. I n the M i d d l e Ages war had been almost the privilege o f a class; by the seventeenth century i t had become almost the livelihood o f the masses. The M i l i t a r y Participation Ratio (to b o r r o w the language o f the sociolo­ gists) rose sharply. M e n flocked to the swollen mercenary armies. I n part they d i d so, no doubt, because i n the Germany o f the 1630s and 1640s the army was the safest place to be; b u t also, and more generally, because the new warfare offered fresh prospects o f a career. Never before had commanders required so many sub­ alterns and NCOs. I t was no wonder that impoverished Scots and Irish made all haste to the wars o f Low Germanie: 'He w h o is d o w n o n his luck', ran the contem­ porary Gaelic proverb, can always earn a dollar o f Mackay'. Even the cavalry, which had once been the close preserve o f the nobility, was n o w open to all w h o could sit a horse and fire a pistol; for w i t h the abolition o f the lance the European nobility tended to abandon heavy cavalry to the professionals, while light cavalry had long appeared to them almost as socially subversive, since i t eliminated the difference, i n m o u n t , arms and equipment, between the noble and his esquire. The decline o f expensive heavy armour, w h i c h was a consequence o f the growing realization that no armour could stop a musket ball, and that i n any case few mus­ ket balls h i t their mark, had obvious social implications too. The obliteration o f the o l d distinction between cavalry and foot, gentlemen and others, is a matter o f c o m m o n remark i n the seventeenth century: as Sir James Turner p u t i t , 'the an­ cient distinction between the Cavalry and Infantry, as to their b i r t h and breeding, is wholly taken away, men's qualities and extractions being little or rather just n o t h i n g either regarded or enquired after; the most o f the Horsemen, as well as o f the Foot, being composed o f the Scum o f the Commons'. The new armies, i n fact, served as the social escalators o f the age; the eternal wars favoured interstratic mobility; and for a young m a n w i t h some capital behind h i m a regiment could be a brilliant investment: Wallhausen lamented that war was ceasing to be an h o n ­ ourable profession, and was becoming a mere traffic. But even for the youth w h o had no other assets than a native pugnacity and the habit o f survival, ad­ vancement was n o w probable, and the impecunious commoner whose wits were sharp m i g h t certainly hope for a commission. He could not, indeed, feel that he carried a baton i n his knapsack. Very few o f the leading commanders o n the C o n ­ tinent were o f humble origin: Aldringen had been a lackey, Derfflinger was a tai­ lor's apprentice, Jean de Werth rose f r o m absolute obscurity; b u t the great names are still noble names: even Catinat came f r o m the noblesse de robe. Nevertheless though the highest positions m i g h t i n practice remain unattainable, the army had become an attractive career, and i n France three generations o f m i l i t a r y service w o u l d enable a family to claim reception into the noblesse de race. As the o l d custom o f conferring k n i g h t h o o d o n the battlefield declined, the new custom o f ennoblement came to take its place. N o r were the possibilities o f advancement re­ stricted to the army i n the field. A host o f clerks and secretaries was now required to keep the muster- and pay-rolls, and conduct the correspondence o f semi-liter51

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ate commanders: Grimmelshausen makes Herzbruder's father a muster-clerk i n the Saxon army, and the merchant's son, Oliver, becomes secretary to a Swedish general. Administrators were i n brisk demand for the new war offices; business heads were needed to solve the ever-widening problems o f logistics: such careers as those o f Michel Le Tellier, Johan Adler Salvius, and Louis de Geer, tell their o w n tale. The importance o f the civilian, bourgeois, administrators i n b r i n g i n g order and method into the management o f the fighting services has often been re­ marked, and Colbert and Louvois are the most famous representatives o f this de­ velopment. But i t has less often been pointed out that i t was the purely m i l i t a r y changes o f the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries that opened to the middle classes a quite new field o f activity, and tempting prospects o f social ad­ vancement. H o w good those prospects could be may best be seen f r o m a glance at the peerages conferred by successive Swedish monarchs u p o n persons o f this sort. 59

I t is true that the enhanced opportunities provided by the new style o f army tended, before the century was out, to be somewhat restricted. The decay o f heavy cavalry, the decline o f individualist warfare, was accompanied by the gradual withering away o f such remnant o f the o l d noble obligation o f m i l i t a r y service as had survived f r o m the middle ages. I n France, i n Sweden, i n Brandenburg, knight-service had vanished for all practical purposes by the t h i r d quarter o f the century. I t was outmoded and inefficient, disorderly and unreliable, and subver­ sive o f the new principle o f concentrating m i l i t a r y power under the absolute con­ t r o l o f the sovereign. But the n o b i l i t y found, i n the new standing armies, an open­ ing w h i c h more than compensated t h e m for the loss o f their o w n special m i l i t a r y organization; and the monarchs, indeed, took care that i t should be so. The more impoverished o f them—the hoberaux, Junkers, knapar—were delighted to be re­ lieved o f the burden o f supplying the expensive equipment o f the heavy cavalry­ man,- and glad to be able to find a full-time career i n the king's service. I t was not long before they attempted to claim, as a privilege o f b i r t h , an excessive share o f the new opportunities. By the beginning o f the eighteenth century, though the so­ cial escalator was still o n the move, there was a widespread tendency to label i t 'Nobles Only', and this tendency was not wholly counteracted by the practice (prevalent i n some countries) o f ennobling non-noble officers w h o m i g h t attain to a certain grade. Meanwhile, the a r m w h i c h presented the aspiring soldier w i t h the fewest social barriers was undoubtedly the artillery. Empirical i n method, generously approx­ imate i n effect, the artillery was nevertheless ceasing to be a 'mystery', and was o n the way to becoming a regular a r m o f the services, w i t h a n o r m a l m i l i t a r y organi­ zation: the first purely artillery regiment seems to have been that established by Gustav A d o l f i n 1629. A n d behind the artillery lay a fringe o f scientific laymen and m i n o r mathematicians—those 'mathematical practitioners' whose part i n educating the seamen, gunners and surveyors o f the age has now been made clear. Indeed, one m a i n element i n the m i l i t a r y revolution was the harnessing, for the first time and o n a large scale, o f science to war: the invention o f corned 60

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powder towards the end o f the sixteenth century gave to firearms a new effectiveness, and w o u l d have been still more i m p o r t a n t i f the techniques o f metallurgy had been able to take full advantage o f this advance. A century o f notable technical progress, nevertheless, lay b e h i n d the Swedish light artillery. Very soon after the invention o f a satisfactory portable telescope i t was being used i n the field by Maurice and Gustav Adolf. The importance for m i l i t a r y purposes o f advances i n cartography seems first to have been recognized by Stefan Batory, w h o caused m i l i t a r y maps to be d r a w n for h i m i n the 1580s. Technicians and theoreticians vied w i t h each other i n devising new and more terrible weapons: multiple-barrelled guns were invented u p o n all hands; Napier, the father o f logarithms, was more favourably k n o w n to his contemporaries as the m a n w h o b u i l t a submarine, suggested the use o f gas-shells, and designed an armoured fighting vehicle; Gilius Packet invented the first hand-grenade for Erik X I V i n 1567f Jan Bouvy i n his Pyrotechnie militaire (1591) described the first practicable t o r p e d o . Maurice o f Orange dallied w i t h saucisses de guerre, w i t h saws fitted w i t h silencer attachment (for nocturnal attacks u p o n fortresses), and w i t h other contrivances more curious than effective. I n 1650 the Venetians resorted to biological warfare i n the defence o f Crete, despatching D r Michael Angelo Salomon thither to infect the Turkish armies w i t h the quintessence o f the pest'. I t comes as no surprise that when Colbert founded his Académie royale des Sciences, one o f its m a i n objects should have been the application o f science to war. 64

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These developments brought to an end the period i n w h i c h the art o f war could still be learned by mere experience or the efflux o f time. The commander o f the new age must be something o f a mathematician; he must be capable o f using the tools w i t h w h i c h the scientists were supplying h i m . Gustav A d o l f consistently preached the importance o f mathematics; M o n r o and Turner spoke slightingly o f illiterate o l d soldiers. A n d since war must be learned—even by nobles—institutions must be created to teach it: the first m i l i t a r y academy o f m o d e r n times was founded by Johan o f Nassau at Siegen i n 1617. The need for m i l i t a r y education was especially felt by the nobility, whose former supremacy i n arms was beginning to be challenged; and the century saw the foundation o f noble academies or cadetschools, w h i c h sought to combine the n o w gentlemanly acquirement o f fortificat i o n w i t h the Italian t r a d i t i o n o f courtly education: such were Christian IV's Sor0, Louvois' short-lived cadet-school, and the similar Austrian establishment, founded i n 1648 by the ominously-named Baron de Chaos. Side by side w i t h the older stratification o f society based u p o n b i r t h or tenure, there n o w appeared a parallel and to some extent a rival stratification based o n m i l i t a r y and civil rank. The first half o f the seventeenth century sees the real emergence o f the concept o f rank. I n the armies o f the Landsknechts, for instance, the distinction between officers and men had been faint, and their bands had at times something o f the aspect o f a self-governing democracy. A l l that was n o w changed. After captains came colonels; then ( i n the T h i r t y Years' War) majors; then a regular hierarchy o f generals and field-marshals. Soon after 1660 Louvois 70

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regulated precedence i n the French army. A n d this hierarchization was the more necessary, since very soon m i l i t a r y ranks were drawn into that general sale o f of­ fices w h i c h was one o f the characteristics o f the age. O n the whole, the parallel h i ­ erarchies o f rank and b i r t h avoided conflict; the n o b i l i t y contrived to evade n o n ­ commissioned service, except i n special regiments (such as Charles XII's guards) where i t was recognized to be no derogation; and the locution an officer and a gentleman became a pleonasm rather than a nice distinction. But i n some coun­ tries at least (Russia and Sweden, i n particular) the state f o u n d i t expedient to promulgate Tables o f Rank, i n order to adjust delicate questions o f precedence as between (for instance) a second lieutenant and a university professor, or an en­ sign and a college registrar. By the close o f the century, the officer-corps had been b o r n : a European, supranational entity, w i t h its o w n ethos, its o w n international code o f honour, its o w n corporate spirit. The duellum o f a dying chivalry is trans­ formed into the affair o f honour o f a m i l i t a r y caste. A n d the m i l i t a r y revolution is seen to have given b i r t h , not only to m o d e r n warfare, b u t also to m o d e r n milita­ rism. £

The effect o f war u p o n the economic development o f Europe i n this period is one o f the classic battlefields o f historians—a 'dark and bloody g r o u n d ' whereon Professor N e f still grapples valiantly w i t h the shade o f Werner Sombart, m u c h as Jacob wrestled w i t h the Angel—and i t w o u l d be rash for one w h o is not an eco­ nomic historian to intrude u p o n this argument. But this at least may be said: that war was a fundamental presupposition o f mercantilist thought, and by many mercantilists was considered to be necessary to the health o f the state—and i m ­ plicit i n all their theories was the new concept o f war-potential. The mercantil­ ists held that the economic activities o f the state must be so directed as to ensure that i t be not at the mercy o f a foreign power for those commodities—whether men, money, or goods—without w h i c h wars cannot be waged: Thomas M u n , for instance, urged the stockpiling o f strategic raw materials. A n d when mercantil­ ist writers i n France and England and Austria—and even i n Sweden—boasted that their respective countries excelled all others i n fertility o f soil and mineral wealth, they were i n fact proclaiming their preparedness for war, and w a r n i n g o f f an aggressor. But since few states could be t r u l y autarkic, there arose, more clearly than ever before, the idea o f economic warfare; the more so, since the needs o f ar­ mies were n o w greater and more varied. There had, o f course, been conscious economic warfare before: repeated attempts had been made to cut o f f the Turks from supplies o f war-materials; similar attempts were made i n the 1560s to deny them to Muscovy; Sweden had been hard h i t i n the Seven Years' War o f the N o r t h by the Danes' stoppage o f her imports o f salt. But i n the seventeenth century eco­ n o m i c warfare became wider i n range, sharper, and more effective than before. This increased efficacy is a consequence (but also a cause) o f larger navies, and o f the b u i l d i n g o f ships w i t h a greater sea-endurance. I t was a sign o f the new scope o f economic warfare that the D u t c h i n 1599 not only declared a total blockade o f the entire coasts o f Italy, Portugal and Spain, b u t also proceeded to a serious at74

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tempt to make that blockade effective. A t the same time, the n o t i o n o f contra­ band o f war underwent a considerable extension: b y the mid-century i t could be made to cover even such commodities as corn, specie, cloth and horses. I t was to meet this situation that the legists o f Europe began the attempt to formulate an international law o f contraband and blockade. Before the middle o f the century the D u t c h had already induced at least three nations to recognize the principle 'free ships make free goods'; and i t was partly because o f the serious m i l i t a r y i m ­ plications that there had arisen the classic controversy between the advocates o f mare liberum and mare clausum. The m i l i t a r y revolution, indeed, had i m p o r t a n t effects u p o n international relations and international law. There can be no doubt that the strengthening o f the state's control o f m i l i t a r y matters d i d something to regularize international relations. The mediaeval concept o f war as an extension o f feud grows faint; m i l i t a r y activities by irresponsible individuals are frowned on; the states embark o n the suppression o f piracy; the heyday o f the Algerines and the Uscocchi is drawing to a close. The century witnessed a steady advance towards restriction o f the o l d rights o f looting and booty, and before the end o f it cartels governing the exchange o f prisoners had become usual. This was a neces­ sary consequence o f the decline o f individual warfare; for looting and booty had been juridically based o n the idea o f feud, and the apportionment o f booty had been generally linked to the amount o f capital invested by the soldier i n his arms and equipment, so that the cavalryman received more than the footsoldier: hence when the state provided the capital i t reasonably claimed the disposition o f the l o o t . Nevertheless, before this stage had been arrived at, Europe had endured a period—the period o f the T h i r t y Years' War—when war-making seems to have been only intermittently under the state's control, and when ordinary conduct was o f exceptional savagery. The explanation o f this state o f affairs lies, i t seems to me, i n the technical changes w h i c h I have been considering. The increased size o f armies, the new complexity o f their needs, at first confronted the states w i t h prob­ lems o f supply w h i c h they were incapable o f solving—hence the bland indiffer­ ence o f most generals d u r i n g the T h i r t y Years' War to any threat to their line o f communications. Armies must live off the country; looting and booty were neces­ sary i f the soldier were to survive. The occupation o f territory thus became a le­ gitimate strategic object i n itself; and conversely, the commander w h o could not deny to the enemy the territory he desired must take care so to devastate i t that i t became useless to h i m . Thus, as Piero Pieri observes, frightfulness became a logis­ tical necessity, a move i n a struggle for supply w h i c h was itself the result o f the increased size o f armies and the l o w level o f administrative techniques. Already, however, there were signs o f better things. Gustav Adolf, despite his d i c t u m that bellum se ipsum alet was not content to plunder Germany haphazard; and among other innovations he introduced a system o f magazines, by w h i c h supplies and war material were concentrated at strategic points such as Erfurt, N u r e m ­ berg, U l m , and M a i n z : i t was a development that looked forward to the eigh­ teenth century. Nevertheless, the menace o f the self-supporting army, wandering 77

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at large over central Europe, lasted sufficiently long to induce i n Germany's neighbours a sharpened consciousness o f frontiers, and a new determination to make them defensive. Richelieu put the p o i n t clearly when he wrote i n his Testa­ ment politique that a well-fortified frontier was necessary to prevent the raids o f a marauding enemy. A generation later the idea o f a frontier as one or more lines o f fortified places was well developed, and f r o m i t there followed the rather new no­ t i o n that frontiers must be 'rectified' to meet strategic requirements. The age o f Vauban, o f the pré carré, o f the Reunions, is not far ahead. 84

Before that stage was reached, the administrative n i h i l i s m w h i c h had been one of the early consequences o f the m i l i t a r y revolution made i t urgent to draw up afresh some code for the conduct o f war. This was the situation i n w h i c h Hugo Grotius wrote his De Jure Belli ac Pads. I t bears o n every page the impression o f the m i l i t a r y revolution; for i t was the hopelessness o f maintaining the o l d stan­ dards i n the face o f the new situation that forced Grotius to go so far i n the condo­ nation o f evil. I t seemed to Grotius that the o l d restraints—moral, conventional or religious—had ceased to be effective, and that m a n i n his war-making had sunk to the level o f the beasts. The last vestige o f chivalry had perished i n the French civil wars; and the antagonism o f Catholic and Protestant had made reli­ gion the pretext for ferocity, rather than a check u p o n i t . To these factors were now added the growing predominance o f missile weapons, w h i c h were dehuman­ izing war into an affair o f undiscriminating slaughter at a distance, and also the new strategy o f devastation. I t was an age when the soldiery came near to assert­ ing a prescriptive right to massacre a recalcitrant civilian p o p u l a t i o n ; and the armies o f the T h i r t y Years' War had latterly to contend, not only w i t h their official enemies, b u t w i t h the bloodthirsty vengeance o f peasant guerillas: Simplicissimus might well comment o n 'the enmity w h i c h there ever is between soldiers and peasants'. I n this situation, Grotius sought to set limits to what was legitimate i n war. But the importance o f his attempt has obscured the fact that the limits he d i d set were appallingly wide: wider, for instance, than i n Suárez and Gentili; and far wider than i n V i t o r i a . Grotius taught that i t is lawful to k i l l prisoners o f war; that assassination is legitimate, i f not accompanied by perfidy; that unrestricted devastation o f the lands and cities o f the enemy is permissible, even i f they have surrendered; that the civilian has no right to special consideration; and that 'the slaughter o f w o m e n and children is allowed to have impunity, as comprehended i n the right o f war'—a position w h i c h he buttressed, according to his habit, w i t h an apposite quotation f r o m the 137th Psalm: 'Blessed shall he be that taketh thy children and dasheth them against the stones.' I t is true that he proceeded to urge m o r a l considerations w h i c h must deter the good m a n f r o m m a k i n g use o f these rights; b u t they remain rights none the less. Grotius, i n fact, reflects the l o ­ gistical devastation o f the age o f the T h i r t y Years' W a r ; though i t was to the same classical authorities w h i c h had given Maurice the inspiration for his disciplinary reforms, that he turned for his repertory o f convenient instances. The absolute, 85

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feral warfare o f the epoch, w i t h w h i c h Grotius thus felt obliged to come to terms, gave a peculiar incisiveness to the logic o f Leviathan. The continued use o f mercenary armies, w i t h their professional codes and tra­ ditions, and the rise o f an international officer-class, d i d indeed provide mitiga­ tions before many decades had passed: new m i l i t a r y conventions grew up, to reg­ ulate the relations o f armies to one another. But i t was long before these restrictions were applied to civilians: not u n t i l the most civilized state i n Europe, impelled by m i l i t a r y logic, had twice devastated the Palatinate, d i d public o p i n i o n begin to t u r n against the type o f warfare w h i c h Grotius had been compelled to le­ gitimize. Grotius, indeed, represents a transitional stage at w h i c h the m i l i t a r y rev­ o l u t i o n had n o t yet worked out its full effects. A completer control by the state o f its armies, better administrative devices—and the fear o f reprisals—were required before there could be any real alleviation. I f the m i l i t a r y revolution must be given the responsibility for the peculiar horrors o f the T h i r t y Years' War, i t d i d at last evolve the antidote to them. The eighteenth century w o u l d b r i n g to Europe a long period i n w h i c h a l i m i t a t i o n o f the scope o f war was successfully maintained. But it is a long way still, i n 1660, to the humane rationalism o f Vattel. Such were some o f the effects o f the m i l i t a r y revolution: I have no doubt that others could be distinguished. I hope, at least, to have persuaded y o u that these tactical innovations were indeed the efficient causes o f changes w h i c h were really revolutionary. Between 1560 and 1660 a great and permanent transformation came over the European w o r l d . The armies o f M a x i m i l i a n I I , i n tactics, strategy, constitution and spirit, belong to a w o r l d o f ideas w h i c h w o u l d have seemed quite foreign to Benedek and Radetzky. The armies o f the Great Elector are linked i n frangibly w i t h those o f Moltke and Schlieffen. By 1660 the m o d e r n art o f war had come to b i r t h . Mass armies, strict discipline, the control o f the state, the submer­ gence o f the individual, had already arrived; the conjoint ascendancy o f financial power and applied science was already established i n all its malignity; the use o f propaganda, psychological warfare, and terrorism as m i l i t a r y weapons was al­ ready familiar to theorists, as well as to commanders i n the field. The last remain­ ing qualms as to the religious and ethical legitimacy o f war seemed to have been stilled. The road lay open, broad and straight, to the abyss o f the twentieth cen­ tury.

Notes 1. For a general treatment of the period Hans Delbrück, Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politischen Geschichte, Berlin, 1920. iv, is the best authority, though this volume is on a slighter scale than its predecessors. Paul Schmitthenner, Krieg und Kriegführung im Wandel der Weltgeschichte, Potsdam, 1930, is a stimulating and suggestive survey. Sir Charles Oman's A History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century (1937) necessarily ends with Maurice of Orange. The best discussions in English are the chapter in Sir George Clark, The Seventeenth Century, Oxford, 1929, and the same author s War and Society in the Seventeenth Century, Cambridge, 1958.

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2. For a fuller consideration of the changes in the art of war in Europe, and the reforms of Maurice and Gustav Adolf, see chapter 3 of M . Roberts, Essays in Swedish History (Min­ neapolis, 1967). 3. 'Non bisogna credere che l'addestramento dei combattanti richieda tempo e spese: non ci sonó esercizi d'armi nel senso moderno. Una sia pur rudimentale istruzione permette agli Svizzeri di formare dei corpi tattici...': Piero Pieri, // Rinascimento e la Crisi militare italiano, Turin, 1952, p. 236. 4. There were many reasons for the decline of the lance, but this was certainly one of them: see Raimondo Montecuccoli, Memoires, Strasbourg, 1735, p. 16; and cf. J. J. Wallhausen, Art militaire a cheval, Frankfurt, 1616, pp. 3-22. 5. I.e., the art of drawing up a given number of men into a perfect square. There is a de­ scription in Sir James Turner, Pallas Armata (1683), pp. 266-8. 6. E.g. 'The Quadrate or Square, the Wedg, the Tenaille or Tongs, the Saw, and the Globe': Turner, op. cit, pp. 112-14. 7. Werner Hahlweg, Die Heeresreform der Oranier und dieAntike, Berlin, 1941, pp. 25-93, 110-16; J. W. Wijn, Het Krijgswezen in den Tijd van Prins Maurits, Utrecht, 1934, pp. 74,13840, 430; H . Wertheim, Der toller Halberstadter. Herzog Christian von Braunschweig im pfalzischen Kriege, Berlin, 1929, i , 116. Jáhns suggested that Maurice's reforms may have been forced on him by the great wastage of trained soldiers during protracted hostilities in a small area, and the consequent need to use untrained men. But the old style would have suited untrained men much better. Max Jáhns, Handbuch einer Geschichte des Kriegswesens von der Urzeit bis zur Renaissance, Leipzig, 1880, p. 1207. 8. J. J. Wallhausen, UArt militaire pour Tlnfanterie, Oppenheim, 1615, p. 65. 9. Jáhns, op. cit, p. 1208. 10. The matter of marching in step needs investigation. The only discussion appears to be E. Sander, 'Zur Geschichte des Gleichschrittes', Zeitschrift fur Heeres- und Uniformkunde (i935)> who as a result of a misreading of Francis Grose, The Military Antiquities of Great Britain (1812), i , 345, attributes the credit for the idea to the Earl of Essex, on the strength of a sentence which he believes to be contained in A Worthy Speech spoken by his Excellence the Earl of Essex (1642). But the quotation is in fact (as Grose plainly states) from the Regula­ tions of 1686; and confidence in Sanders views is not much restored by his suggestion that marching in step was the 'gegebene Form' for armies of the Nordic Race. It has been said that it was Leopold of Dessau who made it the rule in the Prussian army (W. Sombart, Der moderner Kapitalismus, i , 345); but it seems probable that it was used much earlier. The Swiss columns and the tercios, though they marched to tap of drum, do not seem to have kept step; and such reproductions of Callot's etchings as I have seen suggest that the armies of the Thirty Years' War did not keep step either. Wallhausen says nothing of it in his chap­ ter on marching (Wallhausen, UArt militaire pour ITnfanterie, pp. 121-4); nor does Monro (Monro his Expedition [London, 1637], i i , 190). But whatever may have been the case on the march, it seems quite certain that the infantry of the early seventeenth century kept step for drill. Thus Wallhausen writes (op. cit, p. 73): 'Tenez le pied gauche coy, conversez vous en reculant le pied droict'; and E. D. Davies, in The Art of War and Englands Traynings (1619), is even more explicit: 'The Captaine commands, Files to the right hand Counter march, and then the Leaders of the Files advancing with their right legge, turn to the right hand, and march downe towards the Reare ...' (p. 194). Indeed, it might be possible to argue from Davies that English soldiers already kept step on the march: 'Let him march then with a good grace, holding vp his head gallantly, his pace full of grauities and state ... and that

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which most imports, is that they haue alwaies their eies vpon their companions which are in ranke with them, and before them going iust one with the other, and keeping perfit distance without committing error in the least pace or step [my italics]' (p. 76). This may be to attach too much importance to a mere flower of Davies' exuberant style; but it seems very likely that pikemen, at least, could not afford to be out of step when marching in close order, for the position of the pike when held at the trail, and its extreme length, would otherwise have been liable to imperil the haunches of the man in front: see Davies' description, loc. cit. 11. TI n y a pas un Cavalier dans les trouppes de France, qui n'ait un habillement de Bufle, depuis que Ton s'est deffait de ceux de fer': Gaya, Traite des Armes, Paris, 1678, p. 56. 12. R. Knótel, H . Knótel, J. Sieg: Handbuch der Uniformkunde. Die militarische Tracht in ihrer Entwicklung bis zur Gegenwart, Hamburg, 1937, is a standard history. The authors consider that there were no true uniforms before about the middle of the century; but it is possible to dispute this view: see, e.g., Wertheim, op. cit, i , 94; E. von Frauenholz, Das Sóldnertum in der Zeit des dreissigjahrigen Krieges, Munich, 1938, i , 41-2; K. C. Rockstroh, Udviklingen af den nationale haer i Danmark i det 17. og 18. Aarhundrede, Copenhagen, 1909, i, 18, 52-3. 13. Paul Schmitthenner, Europaische Geschichte und Sóldnertum, Berlin, 1933. 14. Ibid., p. 26; Piero Pieri, La formazione dottrinale di Raimondo Montecuccoli', Revue internationale d'histoire militaire, x, (1951), p. 94: 'le esigenze della nuova tattica esigono insomma degli eserciti mercenari permanenti'. 15. See on this Eugen Heischmann, Die Anfange des stehenden Heeres in Ósterreich, Vienna, 1925, pp. 199-200. 16. For these attempts see E. von Frauenholz, Die Landesdefension in der Zeit des dreissigjahrigen Krieges, Munich, 1939; H . Wertheim, Der toller Halberstadter, i, 68-75; Max Lenz, Landgraf Moritz von Hessen, in Kleine historische Schriften, Munich and Berlin, 1920, ii, 128-31; C. Jany, Geschichte der Kóniglich Preussischen Armee, Berlin, 1928, i , 26-9, 61; Otton Laskowski, 'Uwagi na marginesie nowego wydania Zarysu Historii Wojskowosce w Polsce Generata Mariana Kukiela', Teki Historyczne, v (1951-2), p. 39; Rockstroh, i, 4-38, 65; H . Kretzschmar, Sachsische Geschichte, Dresden, 1935, ii, 39. 17. For Lazarus von Schwendi, see E. von Frauenholz, Lazarus von Schwendi. Der erste deutsche Verkünder der allgemeinen Wehrpflicht. 18. As Gustav Adolf put it to Adolf Frederick of Mecklenburg; 'Es móchtte E. L. imandt einbilden wollen, als wen das lands volck nicht zum krige tauget, lasen sich solches ja von den grossprecheren nicht einbilden, glauben mihr (der ich tegelich die probe da von nehmen muss) das wen sihe wol gefiirret vnd gecommendiret werden, mit ihnen mehr, dan mit der irregularen soldatesce, auss zu richtten: C. G. Styffe, Konung Gustaf II Adolfs skrifter, Stockholm, 1861, p. 414. Sweden did indeed employ mercenaries in time of war to supplement her standing army of conscripts; but the permanent force, as provided for in the Form of Government of 1634, was a militia. 19. R. Altamira y Crevea, Historia de España y de la Civilización española, Barcelona, 1927, iii, 289-93; P. Schmitthenner, Krieg und Kriegführung im Wandel der Weltgeschichte, p. 196. 20. V. K. Kiernan, 'Foreign Mercenaries and Absolute Monarchy', Crisis in Europe 15601660, ed. T. Aston (1965), pp. 122-3. 21. Rockstroh, i , 4, 6, 31, 65; G. Irmer, Die Verhandlungen Schwedens und seiner Verbündeten mit Wallenstein und dem Kaiser von 1631 bis 1634, Leipzig, 1899, i , 259: in August c

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1632 John George told Lars Nilsson Tungel, 'Ich will die bauren nicht bewehren, solte auch das land unter sich, über sich gehen'. 22. For all this E. von Frauenholz, Das Soldnertum in der Zeit des dreissigjahrigen Krieges is now the best authority. 23. Heischmann, pp. 105-6. 24. Wallhausen also made the point that a standing army eased the burdens of the civil population, since it avoided the excesses which usually accompanied disbandment: Wallhausen, UArt militaire pour ITnfanterie, pp. 19-20; Montecuccoli, p. 64. In the last months of his life, Gustav Adolf was driven to attempt to form a standing army for the whole of Protestant Germany, in the interests of discipline. 25. As suggested by A. Vagts, A History of Militarism (1938), p. 46. 26. As suggested by Werner Sombart, Der moderne Kapitalismus, i , 345, though he did add, 'Die Waffentechniek mag dabei mitgesprochen haben. 27. J. E. Elias, Het Voorspel van den eersten Engelschen Oorlog, 's Gravenhage, 1920, i , 150i , for a suggestive comparison of the two cases. 28. Axel Oxenstiernas skrifter och brefvexling, Stockholm, 1888-, I I , i , 396. 29. The Kiel canal was Wallenstein s idea. It is noteworthy that the biggest canal enterprise of the century—the Canal des Deux Mers, linking Bordeaux with the Mediterranean—was essentially a strategic work. 30. In 1639: one of the great military feats of the war: see Birger Steckzén, Johan Baner, Stockholm, 1939, p. 330. 31. Lars Tingsten, 'Nágra data angáende Gustaf I I Adolfs basering och operationsplaner i Tyskland 1630-1632', Historisk tidskrift, I Series, xlviii (1938); Sveriges krig 1611-1632, v, 282-4, 314, 330-8; vi, 7, 33-4,179, 259. For a fuller discussion of Gustav Adolf's strategy, see Roberts, Essays in Swedish History, pp. 71-3. 32. B. Steckzén, Baner, pp. 208, 332, 342; Piero Pieri, 'La formazione dottrinale di Raimondo Montecuccoli', pp. 100, 110: 'La guerra cessa per sfinimento, attraverso una strategica logoratrice sempre piú crudele e implacabile'; and cf. Per Sórensson, 'Fáltherrar, hárorganisation och krigfóring under trettioáriga krigets señare skede' Scandia, iii (1930), passim. 33. Altamira, i i i , 295; J. Colin and J. Reboul, Histoire militaire et navale (-Histoire de la nation francaise, ed. G. Hanotaux, vii), Paris, 1925, i , 428, 432, 433; General Weygand, Turenne, Paris, 1934, p. 98. 34. C. Jany, op. cit., i , 53. 35. J. U. Nef, La Naissance de la civilisation industrielle, Paris, 1955, passim. 36. The Swedes had 10,800 at Kirkholm; 'at most 10,000' at Narva: G. B. C:sson Barkman, Svea Livgardets historia, Stockholm, 1938-9, i i , 537; Rudolf Fáhraeus, Karl XI och Karl XII, Stockholm, 1932, p. 338. 37. Pieri, 'Formazione dottrinale d i . . . Montecuccoli', p. 114. 38. 'Self-equipment is conducive to the relaxation of discipline—that is, to the flattening of the pyramid of subordination': Stanislaw Andrzejewski, Military Organization and Society (1954), p. 99. But I cannot agree with his view that arms monopolies were 'the expression of [the rulers'] desire to assert their control, and not dictated by technical necessities': ibid., p. 88. 39. Montecuccoli, pp. 110-11. 40. Colin and Reboul, p. 368.

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41. Weygand, Histoire de VArmée francaise, p. 144, reproduces this medal. 42. For a discussion of related problems, see James E. King, Science and Rationalism in the Government of Louis XIV, Baltimore, 1949. 43. A. Ernstberger, Hans de Witte, Finanzmann Wallensteins, Wiesbaden, 1954. 44. J. Saint-Germain, Les financiers sous Louis XIV, Paris, 1950, p. 17. V. Klutchevski, Pierre le Grand et son oeuvre, Paris, 1953, pp. 162-6. 45. K. R. Swart, The Sale of Offices in the Seventeenth Century, The Hague, 1949, passim. 46. The point is well made in M . Ritter, 'Das Kontributionssystem Wallensteins', Historische Zeitschrift, 90 [N.F. 54] (1930), pp. 248-9. 47. G. Droysen, Beitrage zur Geschichte des Militarwesens in Deutschland wahrend der Epoche des dreissigjahrigen Krieges, Hanover, 1875, pp. 28-31, for the resemblances between a mercenary company and a gild. 48. Andrzejewski, op. cit., p. 96. 49. V. Loewe, Die Organisation und Verwaltung der Wallensteinischen Heere, Freiburg i.B., 1895, pp. 22-4. 50. L. Andre, Michel Le Tellier et Louvois, Paris, 1942, pp. 327-40; Gordon A. Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army 1640-1945, Oxford, 1955, pp. 5-6. 51. The term is Andrzejewski's. 52. Especially for those who lived on a main traffic artery: one major cause of the decline in the population of Coburg during the period was enlistment. G. Franz, Der dreissigjahrige Krieg und das deutsche Volk, Jena, 1943, p. 41. 53. T. A. Fischer, The Scots in Germany: being a contribution towards the History of the Scots abroad, Edinburgh, 1902, p. 74, gives the proverb in the original. Cf. the Scots ballad: "First they took my brethren twain, Then wiled my love from me, O, woe unto the cruel wars In Low Germanie!" See B. Hoenig, Memoiren Englischer Officiere im Heere Gustaf Adolfs und ihr Fortleben in der Literatur, in Beitr. z. neueren Philologie J. Schipper dargebracht, Leipzig, 1902, pp. 324-50. 54. Turner, Pallas Armata, p. 166. Or as Wallhausen put it, when lamenting the decline of the lance, 'on est contraint de se servir de gens basses et vils': Art militaire a cheval, p. 3; and cf similar remarks in Richelieu, Testament politique, p. 476. 55. Wallhausen, LArt militaire pour Vlnfanterie, pp. 9-10. 56. There is a good discussion of the question in H . J. C. von Grimmelshausen, Simplicissimus the Vagabond [trans. A. T. S. Goodrick] (1912), in chapters xvi-xvii: 'Who was the Imperialist John de Werth? Who was the Swede Stalhans [i.e. Stálhandske] ? Who were the Hessians, Little Jakob and St Andre? Of their kind there were many yet well known, whom ... I forbear to mention'. He argues that this is no new state of affairs; but when he comes to give a list of earlier examples he can think of no instance between Hugh Capet and Pizzaro except Tamerlane. Simplicissimus was mistaken about Stálhandske, moreover: his father had been kammarjunkare to Erik XIV. 57. Roland Mousnier, La Vénalité des Offices sous Henri IVet Louis XIII, Rouen, n.d., p. 506; cf. Frauenholz, Sóldnertum, i, 27: 'vom Ritterschlag hort man nichts mehr, an denen Stelle tritt die Nobilitierung'. For conditions in Sweden, E. Ingers, Bonden i svensk historia, Stockholm, 1943, i, 234; B. Steckzén, John Baner, p. 57: 'Their [sc. Swedish infantry officers'] coats of arms are often of recent origin, and many of them are not easily distinguishable from the young peasant lads that serve as NCOs, or fill the ranks as privates'. 58. It was said of the Feldschreiber that 'er muss fast des Hauptmanns Meister sein, der selber oftmals nicht schreiben und rechnen kann': Loewe, op. cit., p. 20.

Michael Roberts

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59. As for instance in the Great Elector's Generalkriegskommissariat: 'From the begin­ ning its civilian officials interfered with military affairs and acted very independently of the army command': F. L. Carsten, The Origins of Prussia, Oxford, 1954, p. 263. 60. Richelieu, Testament, pp. 393-4, condemns ban and arriere-ban; and see, for Sweden, R Sórensson, 'Adelns rusttjánst och adelsfanans organisation', Historisk tidskrift, 42 (1922), 145-50, 221-3; 3 for Brandenburg, Jany, op. cit, i, 10-12. 61. In the armies of the Great Elector, for instance, 'the officers of the artillery and the engineers were almost exclusively commoners': Carsten, op. cit, p. 271. 62. Sveriges krig 1611-1632, supplementary vol. ii, 295. 63. E. G. R. Taylor, The Mathematical Practitioners of Tudor and Stuart England, Cam­ bridge, 1954, passim. 64. A. R. Hall, Ballistics in the Seventeenth Century, Cambridge, 1952, p. 16: 'The standard of engineering technology was not merely insufficient to make scientific gunnery possible, it deprived ballistics of all experimental foundation, and almost of the status of an applied science, since there was no technique to which it could, in fact, be applied'. 65. M . Kukiel, Zarys historji wojskowosce w Polsce, London, 1949, p. 46. For Gustav Adolf's interest in cartography, see Fórsvarsstabens krigshistoriska avdelning, Vagar och vagkunskap i Mellaneuropa under trettioáriga krigets sista skede, Stockholm, 1948, pp. 41-2. 66. L. Hammarskiold, 'Ur svenska artilleriets hávder', Artilleri-Tidskrift, 1941-4, p. 93. 67. Krijgskundige Aantekening van Johan van Nassau, ed. J. W. Wijn, p. xii. 68. Saucisses de guerre are described by Johan of Nassau as 'korbe welche langerlich und geflochten sint ... mit eisernde schroten kugel oder kleinen steinen auffollet', and as 'wurste welche voll pulvers gefullet und in die rustlócher [of a fortress] so viel man dun kan, gesteckt, und die mauer also gesprengt werden'. They are said to have been sacks an ell thick and ten to twelve feet long: Krijgskundige Aantekening—van Johan van Nassau, pp. 50, 94 and note 2. They are possibly to be distinguished from the saucissons described in a note to Montecuccoli (Mémoires, p. 137, note) as 'grosses fascines liées en trois endroits'. 69. Sir G. N . Clark, 'The History of the Medical Profession', Medical History, X, (1966), p. 218. 70. Styffe, GustafAdolfs skrifter, pp. 65, 67; Monro His Expedition, I I , 175,196; and in gen­ eral for military education W. Sjóstrand, Grunddragen av den militara undervisningens uppkomst- och utvecklingshistoria i Sverige till ár 1792, Uppsala, 1941. The concluding sec­ tion of Wallhausen's Art militaire a cheval (pp. 97-134) is 'a discourse of two persons ... on the excellence of the Military Art, maintaining that (except Theology) it excels all the other arts and sciences, as well liberal as mechanical', and insisting that 'the Military Art ought to be taught in Academies, as Letters are'. And Davies writes (The Art of War and Englands Traynings, p. 29) that the military profession 'being then more perfect and aboue all other Arts, consequently it is necessarie we vse in the same greater Studie, and more continuall exercise then is to be vsed in any other Art'. 71. Sjóstrand, pp. 177-83; Wijn, pp. 74-80; Heischmann, pp. 211-13. 72. Loewe, pp. 18-25. 73. Andre, Le Tellier et Louvois, pp. 317-21; and (on the emergence of rank) Wijn, pp. 6273; Frauenholz, Soldnertum, i, 28-9; Sjóstrand, p. 71. 74. Edmond Silberner, La Guerre dans la Pensee économique du XVIe au XVIIIe Steele, Paris, 1939. 75. Ibid., p. 99. an
4795 Cf. Anonimalle Chronicle, 148. That there was a similar connection between mili­ tary service and the infamous Jacquerie of 1358 is suggested by the fact that the name given to the rebels—Jacques Bonhommes—had previously been used to describe urban militia contingents sent to participate in royal campaigns. See Francoise Autrand, "La déconfiture. La bataille de Poitiers (1356) á travers quelques textes francais des XlVe et XVe siécles," in Philippe Contamine, et al. (eds.) Guerre et société en France, en Angleterre et en Bourgogne. XIVe-XVe Siécle. (Lille: Centre d'histoire de la region du nord et de l'Europe du nordouest, 1991), 99. Cf. Richard Kaeuper, War, Justice and Public Order. England and France in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988), 360. 51. Jean Juvenal des Ursins, Histoire de Charles VI, in Choix de chroniques et mémoires sur Vhistoire de France. XlVe siécle (Paris: Panthéon Littéraire, 1838), 385. See Rymer, Foedera, vol. I l l , pars 2, 704, for the very different English royal attitude. 52. But cf. Thomas N . Bisson, "The Military Origins of Medieval Representation," Amer­ ican Historical Review 71 (1966), 1207. 53. One fifteenth-century list of participants in a Parliamentary election, for example, includes 1 knight, 8 esquires, 10 "gentilmen" and 105 common freemen. See J. G. Edwards, "The Huntingdonshire Parliamentary Election of 1450," in Essays in Medieval History Pre­ sented to Bertie Wilkinson, ed. T. A. Sandquist and M . R. Powicke (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), 385. Mum and the Sothsegger, a poem written around 1400, empha­ sizes the role of good "schire-knyghtis" as mere representatives of the electorate: "We are servants taking a salary and sent from the shires to show their grievances and to speak for their profit... and if we are false to those who send us here, then little are we worthy of our hire." Mum and the Sothsegger, ed. Mabel Day and Robert Steele (London: Early English Text Society, 1936) 24-25. For the "free" nature of elections, see A. Luders, et al. Statutes of the Realm (London: Record Commission, 1810-20) 2:156.

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54. For a good survey of the early development of the English Parliament, see G. L. Har­ ris, "The Formation of Parliament, 1272-1377," in R. G. Davies, ed., The English Parliament in the Middle Ages (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1981). For the early develop­ ment of the longbow and tactics based on its use, see Hardy, Longbow, 36-49. 55. Sir Goronwy Edwards, The Second Century of English Parliament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 38, and G. L. Harriss, King, Parliament, and Public Finance in Medieval En­ gland to 1369 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 271, 513, for the Parliamentary side. For the military side, see the Lanercost Chronicle's description of Dupplin Muir and Halidon Hill, and Froissart's descriptions of Cadzand, Hennebon, Quimperlé, Bergerac, Auberoche, and Crécy, all in the first two decades of Edward's long rule. Froissart already has the French at Hennebont in 1342 refer to "les arciers qui tous les desconfisoient," {Oeuvres, 4:51), while the Lanercost chronicle says of Dupplin Muir (1332) that "victi sunt Scotti máxime per sagittarios Anglicorum." J. Stevenson, ed. Chronicon de Lanercost (Edinburgh: Maitland Club, 1839), 268. 56. Rotuli Parliamentorum, 2:67; Goronwy Edwards, The Second Century of English Par­ liament, 49. Harriss, King, Parliament, and Public Finance, 259, 320, 359. Note also the stat­ ute cited in Michael Prestwich, The Three Edwards: War and the State in England 1272-1377 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1980), 235. 57. Indirect taxation: Goronwy Edwards, The Second Century of English Parliament, 1921. This was of great importance, as indirect taxation was then replacing direct subsidies as the largest source of royal income, as the research of Mark Ormrod is showing. 1369 powers: Harriss, King, Parliament, and Public Finance, 513. 58. The increasing economic importance of the towns also played a part in their gain in political power, but wealth can only be exchanged for power if the transaction is protected by force: otherwise, he who holds the power is likely to take the wealth without making po­ litical concessions. 59. See Morgan, War and Society in Medieval Cheshire, 1277-1403, 4-5,52-3, and Maurice H. Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages (London, 1965), 130,150,163, 229. 60. For the 40s. voting qualification, see Rotuli Parliamentorum, 4:350. Cf. S. J. Payling, "The Widening Franchise—Parliamentary Elections in Lancastrian Nottinghamshire," in England in the Fifteenth Century ed. Daniel Williams (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1987), and J. G. Edwards, "Election," 386. For the 40s. "archer class," see Michael Powicke, Military Obligation in Medieval England (Oxford University Press, 1962), 193,182, 190; cf. Rymer, Foedera, II.ii.900,901. During the same period, a horse archer's annual wage was nearly five times that amount, which shows that it was indeed a very moderate prop­ erty qualification. 61. Verbruggen, Art of Warfare, 132. 62. Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, 256. 63. Ibid. Lot, Vart Militaire, 1:223-235; Joseph Dahmus, Seven Decisive Battles of the Mid­ dle Ages (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1983), 167. 64. Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, tr. Marjorie Chibnall (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 6:241. Cf. Guillaume le Breton's Philippiad, Song 11, verses 120-132. 65. Verbruggen, Art of Warfare, 173. Lot, Vart Militaire, 1:277. Froissart (Oeuvres, 2:225) reports that "there was a great slaughter of the Flemings, because none was given mercy." 66. Alfred H . Burne, The Agincourt War (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1956), 87, 210. The French casualties at Crécy were similar: 1,542 men-at-arms and an uncertain number

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of commoners. Burne, The Crecy War, 184. At Poitiers, over 2,000 knights and men-at-arms lost their lives. Ibid., 307. 67. Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, 6:241. 68. Excluding customs revenue. Hariss, King, Parliament and Public Finance, 523-6. "Or­ dinary" revenue does not include the direct taxes on movable wealth granted intermit­ tently by Parliament. 69. Jonathan Sumption, The Hundred Years War, v. 1: Trial by Battle (London: Faber and Faber, 1990), 470. Philippe Contamine, "Rancons et butins dans la Normandie anglaise (1424-1444)," in his La France aux XlVe et XVe siecles. Hommes, mentalités, guerre et paix (London: Valorium Reprints, 1981), 260. 70. Froissart, Oeuvres, 10:171. In the same battle, the Flemish leader commanded his troops under pain of death to take no prisoners, but "Kill all, kill all," ibid., 158. See also 4:406, 2:221-2; Chronicles, 1:306,325, 2:356-7, 432, 448, 599, 609, etc.; Jean le Bel, Chronique ed. J. Viard and E. Déprez (Paris: SHF, 1905), 2:82 ("archiers qui tuoient gens sans deffense et sans pitié"); Chronicon de Lanercost, 350-6; and Verbruggen, Art of Warfare, 170. Simi­ larly, the Scottish men-at-arms who rode down the English archers at Bannockburn "slayand thamme without ransounne." Such a slaughter had been seen "neuir quhar, in na cuntre." Barbour, The Bruce, 308 (cf. 319). Another good example, by coincidence from the same year as the battle of Crécy, is the battle of Vottem, where the Liegeois militia, fighting on foot with axes and warhammers, "tuoient et assommoient ces chevaulx et ces chevalliers sans nulle pité et sans point de renchon," killing, according to one chronicler, 1,600 menat-arms. Kervyn de Lettenhove (ed) Récits d'un bourgeois de Valenciennes (Louvain, 1877), 212-213. Concerning the disinclination of the Swiss to take prisoners, Contamine (War in the Middle Ages, 291) points out that the 1444 Kriegsordnung "thought it necessary to prohibit combatants from tearing out the hearts of their dead enemies and cutting up their bodies." 71. For the lethality of the arrow, see the Chronographia Regum Francorum, 2:232 ("plures autem ex eis ceciderunt ex sagitis Anglicorum" etc., re. Crécy); Froissart, Oeuvres, 4:75, 406, 5:49, 52; Chronicles 2:196; William Stewart, The Buik of the Cronicles of Scotland (London: Rolls Series, 1858), 3:367; Jean de Hocsem La Chronique de Jean de Hocsem ed. Godefroid Kurth. (Brussels: Commission Royale d'Histoire, 1927), 345 ("saggittarios infinitos qui telis suis majorem numerum occiderunt") For iconographic evidence, see the depiction of the battle of Poitiers (from BN MS fr. 2643, fo. 207) reproduced in David R. Cook, The Black Prince (Canterbury: Cathedral Gifts, 1990), 16-17. Pikes were also consid­ ered "but too mortal": Froissart, Chronicles, 2:496; cf. Jehan de Wavrin Anchiennes Cronicques dEngleterre (Paris: SHF, 1858), 3:74. 72. Commanders often made ordinances to prevent this from happening. An AngloBurgundian ordinance of 1423, for instance, stated that "no person, whatever might be his rank, should dare attempt making any prisoners on the day of the battle until the field should be fairly won. Should any such be made, the prisoner was to be instantly put to death, and with him the person who had taken him, should he refuse to obey." Enguerrand de Monstrelet, Chronicles, tr. Thomas Johnes (London: William Smith, 1840), 500. Similar ordinances were made in many other instances, e.g. by the English at Crécy and Neville's Cross and the Flemings at Roosebeke. 73. When the graves of those killed by the Swiss at the battle of Sempach were opened at the end of the nineteenth century, it was found that "the skulls were nearly all dreadfully split by halberd-strokes." C. W. C. Oman, A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages

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(London: Meuthen, 1924), 25m. Cf. Froissart on Roosebeke: Oeuvres, 10:170. See Matthew Bennett, "La Regie du Temple as a Military Manual or How to Deliver a Cavalry Charge," in Studies in Medieval History Presented to R. Allen Brown (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1989), 17, for some interesting observations on the very different mechanics of cav­ alry vs. cavalry fights. Part of the reason casualties were higher after the Infantry Revolu­ tion is simply that men on foot cannot escape from battle as easily as men on horseback, and a large proportion of those killed in a medieval battle were struck down while seeking to flee. 74. Parker, Military Revolution, 118, quoting two American colonials. 75. There is a good color reproduction of one of the Milemete guns in Richard Humble, Warfare in the Middle Ages (Leicester: Magna Books, 1989), 147. J. R. Partington, A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder (Cambridge: W Heffer 8c Sons, i960), 105, gives what pur­ ports to be a Florentine provisione, also of 1326, for the acquisition of cannon and iron balls for the defense of the Republic. The document is somewhat questionable, however: ac­ cording to Bernhard Rathgen (Das Aufkommen der Pulverwaffe [Munich: Verlag Die Schwere Artillerie, 1925], 15), its "discoverer" was later sentenced to ten years in prison for stealing documents, altering them to make them seem more valuable, and then reselling them. On the other hand, J. F. Finó has published a photograph of the document in "L'artillerie en France á la fin du moyen age," Gladius 12 (1974), 14, and it certainly appears to be written in a hand of the early fourteenth century. Finó also reproduces the other Milimete illumination. 76. Called "vasa" and a "scolpo." Rathgen, Aufkommen der Pulverwaffe, 14. 77. The Brut, or the Chronicles of England, ed. F. W Brie (London: Early English Text So­ ciety, i960), 282, version "O." 78. The same was generally true of the use of other stone-throwing siege engines of the day (mainly trebuchets), as innumerable examples from Froissart show. At the siege of Mortagne in 1340, for example, the besiegers from Valenciennes had "ung tres-bel enghien et bien jetant, qui portoit grosses pierres jusques dedens le ville et jusques au castiel, et ce travailloit et cuvrioit forment chiaux de Mortaigne." Oeuvres, 3:265. 79. T. F. Tout, "Firearms in England in the Fourteenth Century," EHR 26 (1911): 682-3; Cf. Rathgen, Aufkommen der Pulverwaffe, 36. Of course, guns were much more expensive than older forms of artillery to operate, if not to purchase, because of the very high cost of gunpowder. 80. Tout, "Firearms in England," 689-691. 81. For Cahors: Napoleon I I I and I . Favé, Etudes sur le passé et Vavenir de VArtillerie (Paris: J. Dumaine, 1846-1871) 3:82n. For St.-Sauveur: ibid., 4: pieces justicatives, xviii-xlii. The largest of these guns required 2,385 lb. of iron and steel to manufacture, but most were much smaller guns of cast bronze. A recent master's thesis by Peter J. Burkholder, "The Manufacture and Use of Cannons at the Siege of St-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, 1375" (U. of To­ ronto, 1992) gives extensive details and shows that most of these guns arrived too late to af­ fect the course of the siege. 82. Froissart, Chronicles, 2:246. Perugia, similarly, had 500 "cannoni" made in 1364, "da spararsi a mano," but each was only a few inches long. Angelo Angelucci, Delle Artiglierie da Fuoco Italiane. Memorie storiche con documenti inediti (Torino, 1862), 16. 83. Tout, "Firearms in England," 677-8. 84. Christine de Pisan, The Book ofFayttes of Armes and ofChyvalrye, tr. William Caxton, ed. A.T.P Byles (London: Early English Text Society, 1937), 153-4- The largest of the guns

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was to throw five-hundred-pound shot. Although she claimed to have based her list on the advice of "wyse knyghtes that be expert in the sayde thynges of armes," this seems to be a rather extreme number. By comparison, the large and well-provided Bohemian armies be­ sieging Carlstein in 1422 had only 52 guns, of which 6 were very large (Wenceslai Hagecii, Bbhmische Chronica [Cadan: J. S. Zluticensem, 1596] fo. 114V); and the artillery train pur­ chased for the Earl of Salisbury in 1428 comprised just 72 guns, of which only seven fired 100+ lb. shot (P.R.O.: Exchequer, Accounts Various [Eioi]/5i/27, 30) 85. M . Lantier, ed. Cent cinquante textes sur la guerre de CentAns dans le bailliage de Cotentin (St.-Lo, 1978), 140; Froissart, Oeuvres, 8:411; Karl Jacobs, Das Aufkommen der Feuerwaffen am Niederrhein bis zum Jahre 1400 (Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1910), 56, 86. 86. Joseph Gamier, LArtillerie des Dues de Bourgogne, d'aprés les documents conserves aux archives de la Cbte-d'Or (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1895), 26-7, 265. I am indebted to Kelly DeVries for advising me of this valuable source. 87. W. Hassenstein (ed.), Das Feuerwerkbuch von 1420 (Munich: Verlag der Deutschen Technik, 1941), 145. Schmidtchen, Bombarden, Befestigungen, 32. Note that 80cm is nearly twice the diameter of the shells fired by the 16-inch main guns of twentieth-century battle­ ships! 88. Froissart, Oeuvres, 5:389, 376. In both cases the guns shot both fire and large bolts. Cannon were also used to drive the French besiegers away from Quesnoy in 1340, according to the same author. 89. Froissart, Chronicles, 2:246, 250. Chronique de Du Guesclin, ed. M . Fr. Michel. (Paris: Bibliothéque Choisie, 1830), 121. Jacobs, Das Aufkommen der Feuerwaffen, 129-30. 90. Hassenstein, Feuerwerkbuch von 1420, 31. Cf. the Royal Armouries Firework Manu­ script, Royal Armouries Library (Tower of London), MS I-34, fo. 36V-37V. For a concrete example, see the siege of Bourges in 1411, where an assault was driven off by fierce cannonfire. Pierre de Fenin, Mémoires ed. Dupont (Paris: SHF, 1837), 27. 91. The quotes are from the English Chronicle of the Reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI (Camden Soc, 1868), 40, and the Pseudo-Elmham, Gesta Henrici Quinti: The Deeds of Henry V, ed. and tr. Frank Taylor and John S. Roskell (Oxford: Oxford Univer­ sity Press, 1975), 39. The number of Henry's guns is given in a contemporary letter; see Burne, Agincourt, 36. The reference to tennis alludes to the story of the tennis balls mock­ ingly sent to Henry V by the French Dauphin. 92. John Capgrave, The Chronicle of England ed. F. C. Hingeston (London: Rolls Series, 1858), 310; Chronique Normande, in Henrici Quinti, Angliae Regis, Gesta, ed. Benjamin Wil­ liams (London: English Historical Society, 1850), 168. 93. Gesta Henrici Quinti, 37; English Chronicle of the Reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI, op. cjt.; Sir Harris Nicolas, History of the Battle of Agincourt (London: Johnson & Co., 1832), 310. 94. Gesta Henrici Quinti, 39. 95. Contra the argument of B. H . St. J. O'Neil that "in the years 1369 to 1375, the French were able to batter down walls of fortresses both successfully and quickly." Castles and Can­ non (Oxford: Clarendon, i960), 33; cf. a similar statement in Rathgen, Aufkommen der Pulverwaffe, 4. 96. Chronique Normande, 188. 97. A poem written by an eyewitness to the siege, John Page, eloquently expresses the supply problems of the townsmen: "They etete doggys, they ete cattys;/They ete mysse,

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horse and rattys/ ... /For xxxd. went a ratte/For ij noblys went a catte./For vj d. went a mous;/They lefte but fewe in any house." Poem on the Siege of Rouen in The Historical Col­ lections of a Citizen of London in the Fifteenth Century, 18 (Cf. 38). See also Monstrelet, Chronicles, 1:404, and the Chronique Normande, 191. 98. Chronique Normande, 191, 202; John Holinshed, Holinshed's Chronicles: Richard II 1398-1400, Henry IV and Henry V, ed. R. S. Wallace and A. Hansen (Oxford: Clarendon, 1928), 64-5, 109, 123-7; J- H . Wylie 8c W. T. Waugh, The Reign of Henry the Fifth (Cam­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1929), 3:107-9, 210-15, 35 - Louis Bellaguet (ed.), Chronique du religieux de St. Denys (1380-1422) (Paris: Crapelet, 1839), 6:446-8; Monstrelet, Chronicles, 421, 468-76, 498, 508-522; Thomas Gregory, Gregory's Chronicle in Historical Collections of a London Citizen, ed. J. Gairdner (London: Camden Society, 1876), 148; John de Wavrin A Collection of the Chronicles and Ancient Histories of Great Britain, Now Called England ed. W. and E. Hardy. (London: RS, 1887), 3:32; R. A. Newhall, The English Conquest of Normandy, 1416-24 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1924), 131. 99. Although Waurin, Recueil des Croniques, 2:394, 40!> and Fenin, Mémoires, 174, em­ phasize the role of the artillery at Meaux. 100. There are several earlier examples of significant artillery successes, but these, in terms of the Artillery Revolution, are analogous to the harbinger infantry victories of Courtrai, Bannockburn, and Morgarten, in that they were only possible because of special circumstances. In 1405, Henry IV's bombards flattened a substantial portion of the walls of Berwick (British Library, MS Vespasian FVII, f. 71), but from the south side where the for­ tifications were so low and so thin "that a man may stand within the wall and take another by the hand without the wall." James Wylie, History of England under Henry the Fourth (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1884-1898), 2:271. The walls were in any case falling down for "verray feblesse." S. B. Chrimes, "Some Letters of John of Lancaster as Warden of the East Marches towards Scotland" Speculum 14 (1939), 20. Two years after that, Spanish "lombardas" were "demolishing a great part of the wall" of Zahara when the garrison surrendered ... but the Moors had only recently begun to repair the fortifications of the town. Fernán Perez de Guzman, Crónica del serenissimo rey don Juan el segundo deste nombre (1517), cap. xxxv-vi. 101. Le Mans, Sainte-Suzanne, Mayenne-la-Juhez: Jean Chartier, Chronique de Charles VII ed. Vallet de Viriville (Paris: P. Jannet, 1858), 1:45-47. See also Guillaume Cousinot, Chronique de la Pucelle, ed. V. de Viriville (Paris: Gamier Fréres, 1892), 199-200. For Montmiral and Gallardon: Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys, 6:463. Artillery was equally effective at Quesnoy in 1421, but the place was only poorly fortified. See Waurin, Recueil des Croniques, 2:395-6. 102. Chartier, Chronique de Charles VII 1:45-47. The meaning of the last part of the sen­ tence is unclear: it may mean that the guns made a breach in the wall more than a bow-shot wide. 103. Monstrelet, Chronicles, 509. 104. Franz Palacky, Urkundliche Beitrage zur Geschichte des Hussitenkrieges vom Jahre 1419 an (Prague: E. Tempsky, 1873), 151. 105. Monstrelet, Chronicles, 1:566; Waurin, Recueil des Croniques, 3:346, 348; Chartier, Chronique de Charles VII, 1:47,143-146; A. J. Pollard, John Talbot and the War in France, 1427-1433 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1983), 53. Burne (The Agincourt War, 291) has the siege of Harfleur opening in August rather than July, which would make it just under 1

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three months, and the chroniclers (e.g. Chartier, 1:259) generally have the siege beginning in April, which would make it six months. 106. Monstrelet, Chronicles, 1:570, 619. 107. Description of the newly recaptured castle of Castelnau-de-Cernes in a grant by Henry V I . Malcolm Vale, War and Chivalry (London: Ducksworth, 1981), 132. 108. Charles V I I made use of 16 large bombards for the siege. Chartier, Chronique de Charles VII, 2:178-179. 109. Chartier, Chronique de Charles VII, 2:205; Guillaume Leseur, Histoire de Gaston IV, comte de Foixed. H . Courteault (Paris: SHF, 1893-6), 119-21; Chartier, Chronique de Charles VII, 2:254-256. 110. J. Stevenson, ed. Letters and Papers illustrative of the Wars of the English in France during the Reign of Henry the Sixth, King of England (London: Rolls Series, 1861-4), 2:619 et seq. Most of the 100 strongpoints referred to were actually never assaulted; they surren­ dered before then. Yet this does not mean that artillery did not play a key role, for it was the threat of assaults through breaches made by cannon which caused the defenders to surren­ der so readily. At Harcourt, for example, "The Frenchmen who were before the town set up their cannon; and at the first shot they pierced right through the walls of the lower court. Then the said English [of the garrison] were filled with doubt, and agreed to surrender the said castle ..." Gilíes le Bouvier, Le Recouvrement de Normendie, par Berry, Herault du Roy in J. Stevenson, ed. Narratives of the Expulsion of the English from Normandy (London: Rolls Series, 1863), 274; cf. 321, 327, 339,341, 366. "Never," writes le Bouvier, "was so large a coun­ try conquered in such a short time." In explaining this "moult grant marveille," he empha­ sizes the role of the artillery. "There was such a great number of large bombards, large can­ non, fowlers, of serpentines, of capadeaux, of ribaudequines and of culverins, that not in the memory of man has anyone ever seen a Christian king with such great artillery." (Ibid, 368, 373-4). See also Anne Curry, "Towns at War: Relations between the Towns of Nor­ mandy and their English rulers, 1417-1450" in J. A. F. Thomson, ed., Towns and Townspeo­ ple in the Fifteenth Century (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1988), 149-50,155-6. 111. Leseur, Histoire de Gaston IV, 119-20. 112. Chartier, Chronique de Charles VII, 2:235-238, after le Bouvier, Recouvrement de Normendie, 373-4. He adds that the French could have taken by assault any of the places which surrendered, if they had wanted to. 113. Jean de Bueil, Le Jouvencel, ed. Léon Lecestre (Paris: SHF, 1887), 37. 114. Gesta Henrici Quinti, 37. 115. For the first, see O'Neil, Castles and Cannon, 24, and H . Dubled, "L'artillerie royale francaise á l'époque de Charles V I I et au debut du régne de Louis XI (1437-69); les fréres Bureau" Memorial de VArtillerie Francaise 50 (1976), 563. For the second, see Dubled, pas­ sim, and Napoleon and Favé, Etudes sur le passé et Vavenir de VArtillerie, 2:99. 116. Schmidtchen, Bomharden, Befestigungen, 17-18, 49. The master-gunner's book of 1411 in the Austrian National Library ( Handschriftsammlung, Codex 3069, ff. 9V, 19V, cf. fo. 31) shows similarly-proportioned guns. For bombards from the late 1430s on, in con­ trast, a barrehball ratio of 5:1, as recommended in the Feuerwerkbuch, seems to have been typical. 117. Hassenstein, Feuerwerkbuch von 1420, 71; Schmidtchen, Bomharden, Befestigungen, 50-51. 118. It is described in detail in Codex 3069 of the Austrian National Library (written 1411), fos. 8V-9V. Cf. the nearly identical text (taken from Munich CGM 600) in Gustav

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Kóhler, Die Entwicklung des Kriegswesens und der Kriegführung in der Ritterzeit (Breslau: W. Koebner, 1887), 231. 119. Fowlers and other smaller guns, however, usually had longer barrels with removable powder chambers shaped like beer steins, of which each gun was supplied with two or more. These could be loaded from the breech; the balls did not need to be wedged or sealed in place; and the chambers could be kept pre-prepared and replaced without waiting for the gun to cool fully. Thus, they could fire much faster. 120. Schmidtchen, Bombarden, Befestigungen, 44 (re. 1437). It seems from a few pieces of evidence, however, that a maximum of six to eight shots per day could be fired from large bombards of the shorter-barrelled type (contra Schmidtchen, 44). Perez de Guzman, Crónica, cap. xli-xliii; Partington, History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder, 114; Hagecii, Bóhmische Chronica, fo. 114V et seq. Bellaguet, Louis (ed.) Chronique du religeux de St. Denys (1380-1422) (Paris, 1839) 5:652, has a big gun being fired 12 times a day. 121. Schmidtchen, Bombarden, Befestigungen, 49-50, contra Dubled's assertion that "the manner of loading artillery pieces hardly changed after the beginning of the [fifteenth] century" (p. 580). 122. The Amsterdam Bombard, probably one of the largest made by the spiral method, has a barrel length of 53 cm and a caliber just slightly less. Thus, it would have fired a stone of about 400 lbs. Jacobs, Aufkommen der Feuerwaffen, 68-71. 123. The best description of this process is in Robert D. Smith and Ruth Rhynas Brown, Bombards: Mons Meg and Her Sisters (London: Royal Armouries, 1989), 20. 124. Thus the "barrel" of a gun. 125. From the very first, smaller guns and some large ones were also cast of bronze (or other copper alloys). From 1422, cast iron guns also begin to appear in inventories occa­ sionally, including some of substantial size. Gamier, VArtillerie des Dues de Bourgogne, 267. 126. For example, see the 17,700 lbs. of iron used for making guns for Henry IV (P.R.O., Foreign Accounts, E364/43/6), or the 35,150 lbs. of iron used to make seven large guns for the Earl of Salisbury's artillery train in 1428 (Accounts Various, E101/51/27). 127. Blast furnaces were in use in Belgium by 1340; by 1420 these were designed with sep­ arate hearths for fining and reheating. The Low Countries, in addition to being the center for the development of the blast furnace, were also the most important cannon-manufac­ turing area in Europe. See Alex den Ouden, "The Introduction and early spread of the blast furnace in Europe," Wealden Iron Research Group Bulletin, No. 5, 2nd ser., 1985. Thanks to Robert D. Smith of the Tower Armouries for bringing this article to my attention. 128. A. R. Williams, "Medieval Metalworking," Chartered Mechanical Engineer (Septem­ ber 1978), passim. 129. T. F. Tout has shown that guns were generally priced by weight at 4d/lb in the four­ teenth century (Tout, "Firearms in England," 682-3), but by the 1430s the price had fallen to about 3d/lb. The bombard "Bedford," weighing 8,000 lb, was appraised at 1,000 l.t. in 1434, which works out to 2.5 s. t. (= 3.3 d. sterling) per pound (Stevenson, Letters and Pa­ pers, 566) Another great bombard, Mons Meg, was purchased in the 1450s by weight at 2 s. t. ( 2.66 d. sterling) per pound (Contamine, War, 49). The rate of 2 s. t. per pound also ap­ pears for a 4,000 lb cannon in 1447 and a 12,000 lb. bombard in 1446 (Gamier, VArtillerie des Dues de Bourgogne, 57,112). In England in 1428, the large iron guns purchased by John Parker, Master of the King's Ordinance, went for 2.2 or 2.4 d. per pound (PRO E101/51/27, 30). Smaller guns generally went at even lower rates: by the end of the Hundred Years War, as low as 12-18 d. t. per pound. Gamier, LArtillerie des Dues de Bourgogne, 111,115.

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130. The paragraphs which follow offer a somewhat simplified history of the develop­ ment of gunpowder after its introduction in Europe. As I intend to present the matter more fully in another article, I have kept the notes here to a minimum. 131. The ideal mix is about 75% saltpetre, 12% sulphur and 13% charcoal. A widely-used formula of c. 1400 called for 7i%/i3%/i6%. See Napoleon and Favé, Etudes sur le passé et Vavenir de VArtillerie, 3:107; Partingdon, History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder, 324. 132. E.g. the formulae in Hassenstein, Feuerwerkbuch von 1420, 61 et seq. (Cf. the Royal Armouries MS I-35, fo. xxxxvi et seq.); Gamier, VArtillerie des Dues de Bourgogne, 60; and Napoleon and Favé, Etudes sur le passé et Vavenir de VArtillerie, 3:145-6. For a more extreme example, see ibid., 124. 133. For example, Jean Bureau expected to spend 2,200 l.t. to purchase powder in preparation for the 1443 campaigning season. Contamine, Guerre, 666. 134. Contra the universal claim (Hassenstein, Feuerwerkbuch von 1420, 84, 61; Schmidtchen, Bomharden, Befestigungen, 46; Contamine, War, 197; Dubled, "L'artillerie royal francaise," 571) that it was invented only c. 1420. See PRO, E101 (Exchequer: Accounts Various)/3i/4, and Codex 3069 of the Austrian National Library, fo. 2, for (somewhat am­ biguous) evidence of corned powder in England in 1372 and (fairly clear) in Germany in 1411. Napoleon and Favé, Etudes sur le passé et Vavenir de VArtillerie, 3:124, show that the use of the new type of powder was still not universal by 1417, however. 135. John F. Guilmartin, Jr. "Ballistics in the Black Powder Era," in R. D. Smith, ed. Brit­ ish Naval Armaments (London: Royal Armouries, 1989), 87. The more rapid evolution into gas meant that more of the force of the explosion was produced before the shot left the bar­ rel of the gun, and therefore applied to the ball. Tightly loaded serpentine powder burned like a single giant "corn" of powder, relatively slowly. 136. Austrian National Library, Handschriftsammlung, Codex 3069, fo. 2; Contamine, War, 197; Napoleon and Favé, Etudes sur le passé et Vavenir de VArtillerie, 3:146. The author of the Feuerwerkbuch, which Hassenstein dates at c. 1420, more modestly claims that comed powder was half again as strong as sifted powder. Hassenstein, Feuerwerkbuch von 1420,17; cf. Royal Armouries MS I-34, fo. 4V. 137. The bursting of cannon was fairly common in any case. At the siege of Aberistwyth in 1408, for example, the English lost their great guns "Neelpot" and "Messager" as well as two smaller cannon, shortly after bursting "Kyngesdoghter" at Harlech. PRO E364 (For­ eign Accounts)/49/3. 138. Contra the assertion of J. R. Hale that firearms "had little effect on the fortunes of campaigns as a whole or on the balance of political power." J. R. Hale, "Gunpowder and the Renaissance: An Essay in the History of Ideas," in his Renaissance War Studies (London: The Hambledon Press, 1983), 390. 139. For example, see the unconvincing arguments of Gary M . Anderson, "Cannons, Castles and Capitalism: The Invention of Gunpowder and the Rise of the West," Defence Economics 3 (1992), and of J. R. Hale, who asserts that "The case for the suggestion that ar­ tillery was an instrument centralizing power is ... feeble." War and Society in Renaissance Europe (London: Fontana, 1985), 248; cf. 251. 140. For these devlopments, see Dubled, "L'artillerie royal francaise," passim. The idea that effective siege artillery was introduced only around 1494 is widespread. For recent ex­ amples, see George Raudzens, "War-Winning Weapons: The Measurement of Technologi­ cal Determinism in Military History" Journal of Military History, 54 (Oct. 1990), 407, and Marguerita Z. Herman, Ramparts, (Garden City Park, NY: Avery, 1992), 9.

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141. Hale, Renaissance War Studies, 389-90; McNeill, Pursuit of Power, 89; Lot, Vart Militaire, 2:466. Much of the following section of this article follows the trail blazed by McNeill. 142. Contamine, Guerre, 666. As a result, a royal ordonnance of the following year re­ quired the Master of Artillery to present an account of his expenses to the king on a monthly basis. Dubled, "L'artillerie royal franchise," 558. 143. Quoted in Verbruggen, Art of Warfare, 273; Cf. Froissart, Oeuvres, 3:358. DuBois ex­ aggerated the difficulties of siege warfare somewhat—castles could rarely withstand a full year's siege, and often fell within a few months or even weeks due to treachery or mines— but his essential point is valid. A similar situation obtained after the development of the trace italienne fortress in the sixteenth century: see the statement by Don Luis de Requesens, quoted in Geoffrey Parker, The Dutch Revolt, (Revised edition. London: Pere­ grine, 1988), 165. 144. The Military Revolution, 8. The knowledge of artillery developed by the Spanish and Portuguese in fighting the Moors transferred easily to Iberian conquests in the New World, Africa, and Asia: it was a short step from Reconquista to Conquista. See also Weston Cook's important study, "The Cannon Conquest of Nasrid Spain and the End of the Reconquista," Journal of Military History^ (1993), 44, 51. 145. Guicciardini, History of Italy, ed. J. R. Hale, tr. Grayson (New York: Washington Square Press, 1964), 153, and History of Florence in ibid., 20. Cf. Cook, "Cannon Conquest," 51. 146. From his Counsels and Reflections. Quoted in Parker, The Military Revolution, 10. Comparison of these quotes from Guicciardini with the remarks of Pierre Dubois (see quotation in the text at footnote 142) will do much to answer the "critical" question John Keegan poses in the introduction to his The Mask of Command (New York: Elizabeth Sifton Books - Viking, 1987), 8: "whether there is an alternative style o f . . . strategy not of conquest but of security, and i f so, how and why it came to be supplanted." Strategy based on con­ quest generally flourishes only when the balance in siege warfare lies with the offensive, as in c. 1420-c. 1520. 147. Cf. Guiccardini, History of Florence, in History of Italy, 20; and Felix Gilbert, "Machiavelli" in Peter Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 23. 148. Though it is, of course, impossible to isolate out the effects of the Artillery Revolu­ tion from other factors. 149. For the "artillery fortress," see John Lynn, "The trace italienne" For the decline in battle, see McNeill, Pursuit of Power, 91. The frequency of battle seems to be a good barom­ eter of military revolutions. There was a certain surge in frequency c. 1300-45 as the Infan­ try Revolution hit the stage, then another, greater one after the advent of the Artillery Rev­ olution. Battle went out of favor with the Artillery Fortress Revolution of the early sixteenth century, but came back into favor with the "Gustavian" revolution a century later. This dialectic could perhaps be extended to the periods of Vauban, Napoleon, the First and Second World Wars. ... 150. See Burne, Agincourt War, 319, and "Lettre sur la Bataille de Castillon en Périgord, 19 juillet 1453" in BEC 8 (1846): 246. 151. Cf. the closely related "coercion-extraction cycle" proposed by S. E. Finer in "State and Nation-Building in Europe: The Role of the Military" in The Formation of National States in Western Europe, ed. C. Tilly (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 96.

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152. McNeill, Pursuit of Power, 10511, citing Richard Bean, "War and the Birth of the Na­ tion State," Journal of Economic History, (1973), 33. 153. The quote is from Martin van Creveld, Technology and War from 2000 B.C. to the Present (New York: The Free Press, 1989), 106. For similar statements, see J. R. Hale, Renais­ sance War Studies, 390-391, and the citations in note 139, above. 154. Quoted in Gilbert, "Machiavelli," 15. Giorgio's Trattato di architettura civile e militare is believed to have been written around 1495, just after the Artillery Revolution hit Italy. 155. To use William H . McNeill's valuable concept. 156. One might continue this list with the changes in European military systems of the seventeenth century described in Jeremy Black's book; the changes of the French Revolu­ tionary period; of industrialized war; and of the nuclear revolution. Once the process of punctuated equilibrium evolution in the European craft of war got started, it never stopped. 157. With bursts of more rapid development in the early seventeenth and late nineteenth centuries. 158. For a concise but informative recent summary of the course of the punctuated equi­ librium debate, see Tim Beardsly's overview, "Punctuated Equilibrium: Darwin Survives as the Debate Evolves" in Scientific American (March 1990). See also Niles Eldredge and S. J. Gould, "Punctuated Equilibria: An Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism" in T. J. Schopf (ed.), Models in Paleobiology (San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper, 1972); and the articles in Al­ bert Somit and S. A. Peterson, The Dynamics of Evolution: The Punctuated Equilibrium De­ bate in the Natural and Social Sciences (Ithaca: Cornell U.P., 1992). 159. Vale, War and Chivalry, 141-2; J. R. Hale, "The Early Development of the Bastion," in Europe in the Late Middle Ages eá. J. R. Hale (Evanston, 111., 1965); Contamine, War, 2034.

M

4 •

A Military Revolution? A1660-1792 Perspective JEREMY

BLACK

T H E N O T I O N OF A M I L I T A R Y revolution i n the period 1560-1660 has been useful i n offering a conceptual framework w i t h i n which early-modern warfare can be dis­ cussed. I t offered an alternative to a narrative account, one that at once addresses the central questions o f change and, or as opposed to, continuity, and the causes and consequences o f change. The concept was also fundamental i n that i t ad­ dressed narrowly m i l i t a r y questions, particularly tactics and training, i n a fashion that, apparently, directly brought out their wider implications for broader issues o f governmental and political development. This was crucial because the relation­ ship between m i l i t a r y innovation and 'state f o r m a t i o n , or at least domestic p o l i t i ­ cal history, is one that has to be p u t alongside the more conventional account o f the m i l i t a r y aspects o f inter-state competition. Furthermore, the thesis o f a m i l i t a r y revolution was well suited to the approach towards 'state f o r m a t i o n that was dominant i n the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. This approach emphasised coercion and force and thus focused o n qualitative and quantitative developments i n the armed forces at the disposal o f central govern­ ments and the consequent ability o f these governments to establish absolutist re­ gimes. I n the 1980s, however, b o t h absolutism and early-modern European state f o r m a t i o n have been redefined, for example i n W i l l i a m Beik's Absolutism and So­ ciety in Seventeenth-Century France (Cambridge, 1985), away from an emphasis on coercion and, instead, towards one o n a greater measure o f consensus, at least w i t h i n the elite. This has i m p o r t a n t implications for the study o f early-modern m i l i t a r y history, not only because the purpose o f m i l i t a r y change requires re-ex­ amination, but also as its process needs re-consideration. The extent to which more effective m i l i t a r y forces reflected not more autocratic states b u t rather crown-elite co-operation is more apparent. The use o f the concept o f a m i l i t a r y revolution i n the early-modern period was greatly advanced by Geoffrey Parker i n his The Military Revolution. Military inno95

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vation and the rise of the West, 1500-1800 (Cambridge, 1988), for, w i t h valuable i n ­ sights based u p o n incredibly wide-ranging knowledge, Parker located European developments i n the wider global context o f ' t h e rise o f the West'; although, as he made clear, the latter was far f r o m a smooth process i n m i l i t a r y terms. Parkers w o r k was even more valuable because most o f the w o r k o n the rise o f the West, not least Wallerstein's thesis i n his Modern World System (1974,1980) o f relation­ ships based o n zones o f exploitation, adopted a somewhat crude economic causa­ t i o n that neglected m i l i t a r y factors or treated them as a necessary consequence o f other power relationships. I n focussing, i n m y A Military Revolution? Military Change and European Soci­ ety 1550-1800 (London, 1991), o n the period after 1660,1 was motivated by a sense that this had been neglected i n terms not only o f what happened then, i n b o t h a qualitative and quantitative sense, b u t also o f the significance o f these develop­ ments. A n examination o f this period, most c o m m o n l y k n o w n as the ancien re­ gime, throws light b o t h o n the previous century and o n the subsequent period o f the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1792-1815. I f themes o f change and con­ t i n u i t y are to be addressed i n studying 1560-1660 and 1792-1815, then i t is crucially necessary to consider ancien regime warfare, as claims o f change are often made for 1560-1660 and 1792-1815 i n the context o f misleading assumptions about the stagnation, indecisiveness and conservatism o f ancien regime warfare. These assumptions are b u t part o f a more general historiographical neglect o f change i n the ancien regime that rest i n part o n the very conceptualisation o f that period, and indeed o n the connotations o f its linguistic description. I n crude terms, the general model is o f a resolution o f the mid-seventeenth century crisis i n the shape o f absolutist states and societies, the subsequent stability o f w h i c h was a crucial component o f the ancien regime, b u t one that was faced i n the late eighteenth century by a new general crisis. Thus the chronology o f m i l i t a r y change is apparently matched by a more gen­ eral political chronology, although there has been no attempt to relate the two. This analysis is, however, problematic. I f too static an interpretation, i n b o t h po­ litical and m i l i t a r y terms, is adopted for the ancien regime, then major change must be sought and explained i n the late-eighteenth century. Conversely, i f the emphasis is rather o n a more dynamic, fluid or plastic ancien regime or early modern period, then i t is less necessary to focus o n change or the causes o f change i n the late-eighteenth century. This dynamism can indeed be demonstrated by arguing that the early m o d e r n m i l i t a r y revolution requires reconceptualisation. Rather than adopting the no­ t i o n o f a single revolution (the Roberts thesis) i t is more accurate to suggest that, i f early-modern changes can be described i n terms o f revolution, there were two 'revolutions', one i n the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the other i n C.1660-C.1720. The first has been ably described by Parker, w i t h his emphasis o n firearms and the trace italienne, but because he b o t h failed to break free f r o m Roberts' model and neglected to consider the post-1660 period, he gave the mis1

2

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leading impression that the Roberts thesis could be sustained and amplified by his o w n emphasis o n the preceding period. Instead, i t is apparent from a consider­ ation o f seventeenth-century warfare that the major changes took place after 1660, and, indeed, i t can be argued that Roberts' century was i n relative terms one o f limited change between two periods o f greater importance. The principal changes i n C.1660-C.1720 were b o t h qualitative and quantitative. The replacement o f the pike by the newly-developed socket bayonet, the pre­ packaged cartridge, the substitution o f the matchlock musket by the flintlock and the replacement o f the pike increased infantry firepower and manoeuvrability. I t led also to a decline i n the relative importance o f cavalry i n most European ar­ mies. Navies provide some o f the best indicators o f change i n the period 1660-1720. The development o f line-ahead tactics greatly altered naval warfare, not only tac­ tically b u t also by increasing the importance o f heavily gunned ships o f the line, and thus o f the states able to deploy and maintain substantial numbers o f such ships. I n 1639 at the Downs, the attack i n line-ahead was first executed i n Euro­ pean waters. The English fleet was ordered i n 1653 to use the line-ahead formation pioneered by the D u t c h . The new fighting instructions for the D u t c h fleet issued i n 1665 laid d o w n that fighting be done i n a single line o f battle. I n 1666 the signal for forming line o f battle was added to the general signal book, thereby complet­ ing the adoption o f line-ahead tactics by the D u t c h navy. Qualitative changes, i.e. line-ahead tactics, were accompanied by, indeed re­ quired due to the stronger emphasis o n gunnery, greater specialisation i n war­ ships, so that, w i t h the exception o f the heavily-armed East Indiamen, merchantmen were no longer used as warships. Furthermore, there were signifi­ cant developments i n the size o f navies. The D u t c h , English and, f r o m the 1660s, the French substantially increased the size o f their fleets i n the 1650S-80S and the power o f their gunnery also rose appreciably. New bases were created, for example by the French at Lorient, Rochefort and Brest, while D u n k i r k and Toulon were enlarged. Advanced shipbuilding techniques were followed and i n about 1680 the French developed the bomb-ketch, a very useful warship for attacking positions on land. A professional naval officer corps was developed. Accounts o f the English navy make i t clear that, although there had been ap­ preciable developments i n the sixteenth century, they were dwarfed i n terms o f numbers o f warships, tactics and naval organisation by those i n the second half o f the seventeenth century. I n the early-eighteenth century these developments were followed by the launching o f Russia as a naval power under Peter the Great and the dramatic revival o f Spanish naval strength and organisation under Philip V . Thus larger 'standing navies' were a feature o f the late-seventeenth century, al­ though there are major problems i n producing aggregate totals o f European war­ ships—the lists i n George Modelski and W i l l i a m Thompson's Seapower in Global Politics, 1494-1993 exclude several i m p o r t a n t second-rank naval powers, most ob­ viously Denmark and Sweden, and revise upwards the number o f guns required 4

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for a ship to be counted—it is nevertheless clear that aggregate numbers rose ap­ preciably i n the late-seventeenth century, and then again i n the eighteenth. These large permanent naval forces were a critical factor i n enabling European powers to secure their overseas empires. Similarly, larger standing armies developed i n the century after the Roberts period. The b u l k o f the growth occurred i n the later period and i t was o f such an order that i t cannot be described simply i n terms o f the continuation o f already established patterns o f growth. Again there are problems w i t h counting numbers and, i n particular, effectives, and i t is necessary to exercise considerable caution even when using oft-cited figures. One o f the most useful, and necessarily collec­ tive, projects that m i l i t a r y historians could engage i n w o u l d be the p r o d u c t i o n o f an authoritative data-bank o n army strengths i n the early-modern period. C o n ­ temporaries had no doubt that the rise o f armies was exaggerated and that many units were incomplete. Thus, the theoretical size o f the Portuguese army i n 1761 was 31,000; the actual numbers, 16,50o. Accepting these caveats, i t is nevertheless clear that the army sizes o f the major powers rose dramatically i n the period 1660-1720. This was certainly true o f Aus­ tria, France and Russia, and was also true o f second-rank powers, particularly Britain, Prussia and Savoy-Piedmont. The French army was cut after the War o f the Spanish Succession finished i n 1714, b u t i n the period 1720-80 the size o f the Austrian, Prussian and Russian armies continued to grow appreciably. There were also i m p o r t a n t improvements i n 1660-1720 i n m i l i t a r y and naval administration, especially i n the ways i n w h i c h armies and navies were trained, equipped, paid and controlled by their governments. The French and Prussian armies were ob­ vious examples. This administrative dimension was the one i n w h i c h many o f the most i m p o r t a n t changes occurred. Better administration allowed the recruitment and maintenance o f larger armies. 7

8

9

10

Thus, o n b o t h land and sea, and i n b o t h qualitative and quantitative terms, there were major changes i n the period after 1660. Whether they deserve descrip­ t i o n i n terms o f a revolution is o f course subjective: there are no agreed-upon c r i ­ teria by w h i c h m i l i t a r y change, especially qualitative development, can be mea­ sured or, more significantly, revolution discerned. I f simply quantitative criteria are to be addressed then i t is difficult to compare aggregate and percentage i n ­ creases. Again different aggregate figures can p o i n t to different results. W i t h ships, for example, tonnage, number o f guns and weight o f guns can provide dif­ ferent results. Eighteenth-century British warships were less impressive than their Bourbon counterparts. French and Spanish ships were better designed and gener­ ally faster. I n 1744 A d m i r a l Mathews complained about the British warships under his c o m m a n d and provided an indication o f the danger o f judging naval effective­ ness i n terms o f the number o f guns per warship: Nor can ships which cannot make use of their lower tiers of guns, though they mount ninety and eighty guns, do the duty expected (by the ignorant) against the 74 and 64

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gun ships of France who can fire theirs ... there is no proportion of metal, our lightly gunned ships having but twelve and six pounders, whereas some of the enemy's sev­ enty-four gun ships carry forty, eighteen and nine pounders ... the rest of them, thirty two, eighteen and nine; their ships of sixty four guns have twenty four, eighteen and nine pounders, which makes even them better men of war than our eighty gun ships that cannot make use of their lower tiers which they will ever seldom be able to do ... I have now but two ships of ninety and three of eighty guns, that can make use of their lower tiers of guns, i f it blows a cap full of wind ... not in [my] power to en­ gage the enemy, when he is superior to them, nor to escape when he is inferior. 11

I n counting numbers o f guns i t is also necessary to note that the ability to use them varied: the regular gun-drills o f the British navy enabled their ships to maintain a heavier and more accurate fire for longer. Clearly numbers, therefore, were n o t the sole factor. This was also the case o n land, most spectacularly d u r i n g the Spanish defeat o f the empires i n the New W o r l d . The Aztec and Inca empires were overthrown by tiny forces, as discussed by John G u i l m a r t i n i n this volume. Indeed i t is at the level o f global significance, so ably discussed by Parker, that the importance o f the changes i n the post-1660 period can best be considered. There are problems i n considering European and extra-European warfare as parts o f a single whole. The physical conditions, the size o f the forces involved and the problems o f central control o f them were all very different i n the two areas. Yet an assessment o f revolutionary impact requires such a perspective. I n terms o f the global reach o f seapower, the balance had swung towards the European powers long before 1660, b u t that was not true o n land. The post-1660 period was unfortunately neglected by Parker; indeed his b o o k carries misleading dates, for i t principally deals w i t h 1500-1650 and n o t the fol­ lowing century and a half. This is especially unfortunate because i t is related to a stress o n the clash between trans-oceanic European forces and non-European powers, and a consequent lack o f emphasis o n Europe's land frontier: the border w i t h the Turks and, farther east, w i t h Persia. Indeed, whereas Parker mentions the siege o f V i e n n a , i t is disappointing, i n light o f the valuable attention he focuses on relations between European and non-European powers, that he subsequently neglects Austro-Turkish warfare. The same is also true o f its Polish-Turkish and Russo-Turkish counterparts, and o f Russian warfare w i t h Persia and i n Central Asia. 12

13

14

Yet i t is i n this sphere that change can most obviously be noted. For centuries European powers had been under pressure f r o m the east; essentially settled societies resisting the inroads o f partly nomadic peoples. Such an assessment can be taken back to the last centuries o f Imperial Rome (Persian attacks o n Classical Greece were somewhat different), and then the successive attacks made by Arabs, Magyars, Seljuk Turks, Mongols, O t t o m a n Turks and T i m u r (Tamerlane), al­ though the pressure f r o m the east was not continuous and the Crusades were an i m p o r t a n t example o f European powers applying pressure i n the opposite direc-

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tion. I t was the O t t o m a n Turks w h o finally conquered the Balkans and i n 1453 overthrew Byzantium. I n the sixteenth century, thanks i n part to the effective use of firearms and cannons, Turkish power expanded even further. Selim I defeated the Safavids o f Persia at Caldiran (1515) and pushed Turkish frontiers eastwards. Victories at Marj Dabik (1516) and Cairo (1517) led to the conquest o f the Mame­ luke Empire. The frontiers o f Christendom were pushed back. I n the Mediterra­ nean, Rhodes fell i n 1522 and Cyprus i n 1570-1 and all o f N o r t h Africa bar M o ­ rocco acknowledged Turkish lordship. Belgrade fell i n 1521 and the decisive victory o f Mohacs (1526) was followed by the conquest o f most o f Hungary by Suleiman I (the Magnificent). The Turkish advance was held—a series o f unsuccessful sieges (Vienna 1529, Corfu 1537, Reggio 1543 and Malta 1565) m a r k i n g the l i m i t o f advance—but that d i d not end the Turkish threat to Christian Europe. The Turkish state was one o f the most populous i n Europe, its military system the most sophisticated i n six­ teenth-century Europe. The Austro-Turkish war o f 1593-1606 revealed the logisti­ cal strength o f the Turkish army. I t was fortunate for the European powers that the Turks devoted so m u c h energy to their long wars against Safavid Persia: that o f 1578-90 led to a welcome reduction i n the threat to Habsburg Europe. I n the mid-seventeenth century Turkish power suffered a decline, b u t there was then a revival o f strength and energy under the first two grand viziers o f the Kóprülü dy­ nasty. They benefited f r o m the end o f war w i t h Persia i n order to revitalise the Turkish state and this enabled them to take a more active role i n Europe: the long conflict w i t h Venice over Crete (1645-69) was brought to an end successfully w i t h the fall o f Candia. Turkish authority i n Transylvania was made more effective as a result o f a war i n 1658-61, and the Turks were left i n complete control there after a brief war w i t h Austria i n 1663-4. A war w i t h Poland, 1671-6, led to the acquisition of Podolia, a large territory stretching from the Dniester to the Dnieper which i n ­ creased their ability to intervene i n Poland and the Ukraine. The disturbed state o f the latter encouraged the Turks to attack Russia i n 1677-81, although war brought them no gains. I n 1682 Imre Thókóly, the leader o f the anti-Habsburg rebels i n the section o f Hungary ruled by Austria, agreed, i n return for Turkish help, to become a vassal o f the sultan, and i n 1683 the Turks advanced o n Vienna. 15

16

Thus, the Turks were still very m u c h a dynamic force i n the late-seventeenth century. Indeed, i n so far as there was a military revolution either i n the Roberts period or earlier, i t had not hitherto led to a decisive shift i n the military balance or movement i n the frontier between Christendom and Islam, a p o i n t that was further underlined by the peripheral nature o f the Christian military impact o n N o r t h A f r i c a . This situation was to change radically by 1718, so that i n 1730 there was no doubt that H e n r y Fielding was being satrical i n his play The Coffee-House Politician when he had Politic repeatedly express his concern about Turkish inten­ tions, culminating i n his fear that 17

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we should see Turkish galleys in the [English] Channel... it is possible for the Grand Signior to find an ingress into Europe. — Suppose, Sir, this spot I stand on to be Tur­ key—then here is Hungary—very well—here is France, and here is England— granted—then we will suppose he had possession of Hungary—what then remains but to conquer France, before we find him at our own coast... this is not all the dan­ ger ... he can come by sea to us. 18

There had been a dramatic reversal, a true m i l i t a r y revolution. The Turkish defeat at Vienna (1683) was followed by substantial Austrian advances. Buda fell i n 1686, 1687 brought a decisive victory at Berg Harsan (Nagyharsany) and the deposition o f Sultan M e h m e d IV, and 1688 saw the fall o f Belgrade. The collapse o f the Turk­ ish position i n the Balkans and an Austrian advance into the w o r l d o f the O r t h o ­ dox appeared i m m i n e n t . The Austrians developed links w i t h rebellious elements among the Bulgarians and Serbs and began negotiations w i t h the prince o f Wallachia, a Turkish client-ruler. I n 1689 they seized Nish and Skopje and reached B u ­ charest. The Serbian patriarch o f Pec was persuaded to take an oath o f loyalty to Leopold I , w h o o n 6 A p r i l 1690 issued an appeal for the support o f all Balkan peo­ ples against the Turks and promised liberty under their lawful ruler, himself as King o f Hungary. Austrian victories reflected the improvements introduced by Montecuccoli, Commander-in-Chief and President o f the War Council 1668-80. The Austrian army became larger and more mobile and this was subsequently furthered by the i n t r o d u c t i o n o f flintlocks. Flintlocks and bayonets gave the Austrian infantry an i m p o r t a n t tactical advantage over the Turks w h o had neither. Logistics, rather than the Turkish armies, became the principal problem facing the Austrians. The late 1680s may have represented the best o p p o r t u n i t y for driving the Turks out o f all or most o f the Balkans u n t i l the nineteenth century, but Turkish resil­ ience should not be underrated, while f r o m 1688 the Austrians were distracted by the outbreak o f war i n Western Europe (the Nine Years War or War o f the League o f Augsburg, 1688-97). The chaos that greeted Suleyman I I (1687-91) was quashed, and a new grand vizier from the Kóprülü family, Fazil Mustafa (1689-91) restored order to army and government. I n 1690 he t o o k Nish and Belgrade, b u t i n the following year Fazil and the Turkish hopes o f recapturing Hungary were b o t h killed at the major defeat at Zalánkemén. Conflict over the next few years was indecisive and difficult, due to Austrian commitments against Louis XIV, and, i n the battle-zone, improved fortifications, the depletion o f local sources o f supply and the problems o f fighting i n undrained marshy lowlands. Matters moved to a climax as a result o f the accession o f the en­ ergetic Mustafa I I (1695-1703) and the end o f the war i n Italy i n 1696 w h i c h en­ abled Leopold to transfer more troops and his rising general, Eugene o f Savoy, to Hungary. Euguene routed Mustafa at Zenta i n 1697, the latter suffering possibly 30,000 casualties. The eventual peace settlement at Karlowitz (January 1699) saw

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Austria gain Transylvania and all o f Hungary except the Banat o f Temesvár ( T i m i soara), while her allies Poland and Venice acquired Podolia and the Morea. Conflict was resumed i n 1716, the Austrians w i n n i n g crushing victories at Petrovaradin (1716) and Belgrade (1717) and capturing Temesvár (1716) and Bel­ grade (1717). The Peace o f Passarowitz (1718) left Austria w i t h the Banat o f Temes­ vár, Little (Western) Wallachia and n o r t h e r n Serbia. These victories indicated the increasing vulnerability o f Turkish mass formations to the firepower o f disci­ plined Austrian units. The shift i n the balance o f military advantage between Aus­ tria and Turkey was also significant, as the best way to p u t a definite temporal boundary o n the M i l i t a r y Revolution ( i n Parker's valuable globalist sense o f the term) is to isolate the p e r i o d when Europeans became militarily superior to peo­ ple w h o i n the past had been their equals or superiors, most pointedly the Turks. I n contrast to the receding frontier o f Europe i n the sixteenth century, there was expansion i n the late seventeenth and early eighteenth: the m i l i t a r y balance be­ tween 'West and East' had reversed. This clearly qualifies as a 'revolution' o f the wheel o f m i l i t a r y fortune, to restore the w o r d to its original metaphor. Austrian victories were part o f a more general shift i n European warfare away from speed, m o b i l i t y and p r i m a l shock-power and towards defensive tactics based o n infantry firepower, a shift that was already apparent among the major European powers d u r i n g the first half o f the sixteenth century. I t was this shift that also led to the defeat o f 'Gaelic' forces i n Britain, culminating at the killing field at Culloden i n 1746. More generally, the period from 1660 o n u n t i l the outbreak o f the French Revo­ lutionary Wars saw the victory o f armies emphasising the concentrated firepower o f disciplined infantry and their supporting artillery over more mobile forces that stressed the use o f shock-power i n attack. This theme links b o t h a number o f oth­ erwise disparate campaigns and, more generally, the struggle between established governments and rebellious 'marginal' forces, for example the Cossacks and Jaco­ bites, and that between European Christian states and their Islamic neighbours. As w i t h all theses, this one must not be pushed too far: the Turks were essen­ tially a settled people, and the western Europeans had been so long before the 'military revolution' b u t w i t h o u t enjoying m i l i t a r y superiority over their moremobile opponents. A similar contrast between the more specialised and organised forces o f essentially settled peoples and their more mobile, often nomadic oppo­ nents was scarcely new and can be seen elsewhere i n the period 1660-1792, for ex­ ample i n the struggles between the Turks and the Bedouin, Mughal India and i n ­ vaders from Afghanistan, and M a n c h u China and the peoples o f lands conquered between 1691 and 1760, such as the Khalkhas o f Eastern Mongolia and the Dzungarians o f Western M o n g o l i a . Nevertheless i n the period 1660-1792 the success o f the major European states i n creating effective forces able to use concentrated and disciplined firepower i n order to defeat opponents was very i m p o r t a n t i n global terms. The success o f these forces against opponents armed w i t h guns was particularly significant. I n 19

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short, i t can be argued that the qualitative European military changes already noted—the bayonet, the flintlock musket, accurate and mobile grape- and canis­ ter-firing field artillery, and warships firing a greater weight o f metal—were cru­ cial i n that they opened up a major gap i n capability among armies and navies armed w i t h firearms. I n addition, while earlier European conquests (America, Philippines, Portuguese coastal gains i n Africa and Asia) could rely o n superior technology (gunpowder, fortifications, steel), those o f the period 1660-1792 re­ flected not only superior technology but also a superiority i n m i l i t a r y technique (broadly conceived to include d r i l l , cartography, logistic and financial institu­ tions, as well as tactics) which was more difficult to transfer or replicate than technology, resting as i t d i d o n the foundations o f centuries o f European social and institutional change. It w o u l d be misleading to i m p l y that European forces were invariably success­ ful. There were a number o f p r o m i n e n t failures, including Golitsyn's campaigns i n the Crimea i n 1687 and 1689, the Russian siege o f Azov o f 1695, Peter I's cam­ paign against the Turks i n 1711 and Austrian campaigns against the Turks i n 1739 and 1788. A less well-known failure was the encirclement and annihilation o f a Russian force o n the bank o f the river Sunja i n 1785 by N o r t h Caucasian Muslims taking part i n the holy war launched by Sheikh Mansur. The Russians also found i t difficult to impose control i n north-east Siberia. The Aleuts destroyed the recently founded Russian base o f Mikhailovsk i n 1802. 21

22

There were also setbacks for European powers i n N o r t h Africa. The English abandoned Tangier i n 1683, the Spaniards lost O r a n i n 1708, recaptured i t i n 1732 and evacuated i t i n 1792, the Portuguese lost Mazagam i n 1765 and major Spanish attacks o n Algiers i n 1775, 1783 * d 1784 were repelled. Some 6,000 Spaniards died i n the 1775 attack. I n 1741 the Bey o f Tunis seized the offshore island o f Tabarca which the French had purchased from the Lomellino family, defeated a French counterattack and sacked the French Africa Company's base at Cape Negre. Elsewhere i n Africa the attempt by the Portuguese to expand their influence up the Zambesi was defeated by a widespread tribal rising i n 1693-5. I n 1698 their leading base i n East Africa, Mombasa, fell to the O m a n i Arabs, w h o had captured Muscat f r o m the Portuguese i n 1650, developed a formidable navy w i t h wellgunned warships, and sacked D i u i n 1668. Retaken i n 1728, Mombasa and the at­ tendant suzerainty over the Swahili islands and states o f East Africa—Pate, Pemba, Zanzibar and Malindi—were lost again i n 1729. The French d i d not con­ t r o l Madagascar f r o m the coastal bases they established. I n South Asia Louis XIV's intervention i n Siam (Thailand) was unsuccessful, as was the attempt by b o t h the British and the French to benefit from the Burmese civil war i n the 1750s. A n alliance o f the British o f Bombay and the Portuguese o f Goa was unable i n 1721 to capture Culabo (Colabo) the principal base o f the Angria family o f corsairs. I n 1737-40 Goa was involved i n a disastrous war w i t h the Maratha confederation, which led to the loss o f the Portuguese 'Province o f the North'. The British settlement o f Balambangan o n Borneo was destroyed i n a r

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!775 by a local uprising. I n 1792 the British prudently refused a request from the Rajah o f Nepal for assistance against Chinese m i l i t a r y pressure although the Ch'ing intervention cut off Tibet-Bengal trade and closed Bhutan to the British. Similarly, the decision was taken not to offer the Rajah o f Kedah assistance against Siam even though the British had obtained Penang i n 1786 by offering the pros­ pect o f such assistance. It is therefore possible to suggest the marginality o f European m i l i t a r y pressure i n Africa and Asia. M a n y o f the non-European states were powerful and aggres­ sive. Even when the Europeans made gains they were not always preserved. I n 1689 Russia ceded the A m u r valley to China by the Treaty o f Nerchinsk. I n 1722 Peter the Great advanced along the Caspian. Darband and Resht were occupied i n 1722, Baku i n 1723 and i n 1723 Shah Tahmasp o f Persia was persuaded to yield the provinces along the southern and western shores o f the Caspian. A Persian revival and the loss o f many soldiers to disease, however, led the Russians to abandon their gains by the Treaties o f Reht (1729,1732) and Gence (1735). 23

Yet i f the global territorial position i n 1792 is compared w i t h that i n 1660 the gains o f territory between European and non-European powers are overwhelm­ ingly to the benefit o f the former, and the land frontier between Christian and non-Christian Europe had changed dramatically. This was o f crucial importance for Christian Europe. U p to 1683 the tide had flowed i n the opposite direction. The Austrian conquest o f Hungary was the precondition o f Austrian strength i n the eighteenth century; indeed the Austrian successes i n the 1680s marked a major shift i n the European balance o f power against Louis XIV. Similarly, Russia was able to act effectively i n part because its southern question had been radically al­ tered: the issue was n o w how far i t w o u l d be possible to advance. The successes against the Turks were crucial t r i u m p h s for the European Tand powers' and as major contests between land powers they were a fair test o f m i l i ­ tary capability. The failures listed earlier were overwhelmingly those o f amphibi­ ous power. Small settlements w i t h only limited maritime connections w i t h dis­ tant home bases were only infrequently the basis o f imperial expansion i n the eighteenth century, b u t the rationale o f many o f these bases was commercial rather than territorial, and indeed they were frequently controlled directly by trading companies. The Europeans faced serious difficulties when they sought trans-oceanic terri­ torial expansion, b u t their military power should not be underrated. I n part their very difficulties, as i n N o r t h America, came from the b o r r o w i n g o f European weaponry and, although to a lesser extent, tactics by their opponents. Indeed John Macpherson, a senior official o f the British East India Company, w h o i n 1771 had noted that the French had 'disciplined some Regiments o f Madegascar Cafres', wrote twelve years later that British forces had taken all the ports belong­ ing to France's ally, Hyder A l i of Mysore, ' i n some of w h i c h we have found the ma­ terials and great advancement o f a very considerable naval power'. Nadir Shah only succeeded at the siege o f Ganja w i t h the help o f Russian engineers disguised 24

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as Iranians. I n 1787 the dynamic Bo-daw-hpaya, King o f Burma, negotiated w i t h the French at their Bengal base o f Chandernagore i n his search for Western arms. I n the early 1790s Jezzar Pasa o f Palestine was reported to have obtained British arms, including field artillery, from the British Consul i n Alexandria, for his ef­ fective army. Nevertheless, despite the b o r r o w i n g o f European techniques by non-Western peoples, the European colonial powers still had considerable success. The Indians and others w h o adopted European m i l i t a r y methods d i d not do so w i t h full suc­ cess: there was a major difference between technology w h i c h was relatively easy to acquire though less so to copy proficiently, and technique, which was culturally based and therefore very difficult to adopt. This was particularly so i n the case o f tactical developments. I n India at least, when the Europeans ran into trouble, i t was usually w i t h local forces that had adopted technique as well as technology. I n his Importing the European Army. The Introduction of European Military Tech­ niques and Institutions into the Extra-European World, 1600-1914 (Chicago, 1990), David Ralston emphasises the degree to w h i c h the full Europeanization o f armed forces entailed social and cultural changes and was therefore very difficult. The Dutch East India Company was not invariably successful, b u t i t d i d suc­ ceed i n considerably extending its territorial power i n Java. Elsewhere i n Indo­ nesia, despite the financial problems o f the Company, i t was still able to h o l d its own. I f i n 1759 Rajah M u h a m m a d o f Siak destroyed the D u t c h post at Pulau Gontong, i n 1761 a D u t c h punitive expedition avenged the massacre and placed the Rajah's brother on the throne. I n 1784 the Bugis' siege o f Malacca was unsuc­ cessful: the D u t c h relieved their post, captured Riau and forced the Sultan o f Riau-Johor to become i n effect their vassal. 25

26

I n southeast Asia as a whole the use o f firearms was very extensive, b u t the vol­ ley technique was not adopted; the war elephant, pikes, swords and spears were still the d o m i n a n t weaponry; firearms made little impact o n tactics; and by the eighteenth century the southeast Asians had abandoned the attempt to keep pace w i t h new developments i n the p r o d u c t i o n of b o t h firearms and gunpowder. Thus wheel lock and flintlock mechanisms were not reproduced i n southeast Asian foundries. 27

Developments i n India were more dramatic. The British succeeded i n becom­ ing the d o m i n a n t power i n b o t h Bengal and South India, regions where the com­ bined population far exceeded that o f Britain. Small British forces defeated vastly larger numbers o f Indians at Plassey (1757) and Buscar (1764). British m i l i t a r y power led to a clear sense o f superiority as i n 1788 when the Commander i n Chief and Governor General, Charles, 2nd Earl Cornwallis, proposed to pursue Britain's claim to the Circar o f Guntur (Guntoor) against the N i z a m o f Hyderabad by force using diplomacy simply to secure the settlement: it will be most expedient that our troops should march into the Circar on Captain Kennaway's arrival at Masulipatam; and that our present Resident Meer Hussein

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should about ten days before inform the Nizam of our intention, giving the most positive assurances that our design was entirely limited to the taking possession of the Circar as our undoubted right by treaty. 28

This was very m u c h the language o f a general confident o f his power, and the re­ sult justified Cornwallis' o p t i m i s m . The value o f the European model o f warfare was shortly afterwards to be demonstrated again i n b o t h Indo-China and south­ ern India. The problems o f France, already i n political and serious financial difficulties, prevented her government i n 1788 f r o m fulfilling treaty commitments to send forces to the assistance o f N'guyen A n h , son o f one o f the claimants to Cochin China (the area around the Mekong). N'guyen A n h , w h o was initially dependent on Chinese pirates and Cambodian mercenaries, captured Saigon i n 1788. I n place of royal forces, he received only French arms and a small number o f advisers, hired thanks to the help o f French merchants. Nevertheless, i n 1789-92 the advis­ ers trained his troops i n European methods o f war and helped N'guyen A n h con­ quer Cochin-China. Olivier d u Puymanel was responsible for the army, Jean M a ­ rie Dayot for the navy. The Tayson capital at Hue was captured i n 1801. By 1802 all o f Vietnam had been conquered and N'guyen A n h proclaimed himself Emperor Gia-long o f V i e t n a m . 29

I n southern India, another dynamic power, Mysore, was crushed by the British i n 1791-2 and 1799. The ability o f Britain to do so was an indication, not only o f the global reach o f its power, b u t also o f the flexibility o f European forces i n the period. The British army succeeded i n c o m b i n i n g the firepower that was so effec­ tive against Mysore's fortresses w i t h a reasonable degree o f mobility. Cornwallis had stressed the value o f m o b i l i t y f r o m the outset. I n January 1787 he wrote, 'no m a n i n India can be more convinced than I a m o f the importance o f cavalry to our armies', and later that year he added, I found, in the extensive field in which I acted during my command in the southern provinces of America, very great advantage from mounting about eighty or an hun­ dred men on ordinary horses, to act with the cavalry; By this means I could venture to detach my cavalry and strike an unexpected blow at a very considerable distance from my army. It occurs to me, that in case of an invasion of the Carnatic, you might find a corps of this sort picked from your European infantry ... very useful. It would not only protect the cavalry when detached in their camp or quarters, and assist them when harassed by swarms of irregular horse in the field, but it would enable you fre­ quently either by surprise at night, or ambuscade, to punish considerable parties of plunderers, who are employed in laying waste the country. 30

Once war had broken out w i t h T i p u Sultan o f Mysore, Cornwallis stressed the i m ­ portance b o t h o f cavalry and o f bullocks to move the artillery. He was also well aware o f the logistical problems, w r i t i n g to the Prime Minister, W i l l i a m Pitt, ' i t is no easy task to provide for the subsistence o f vast multitudes i n a distant desert'. The Marathas and the N i z a m o f Hyderabad provided i m p o r t a n t assistance, espe31

32

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d a i l y i n cavalry and supplies, b u t their forces were less valuable than had been an­ ticipated. Cornwallis was not able to rely o n their support and there was criticism o f the quality o f the cavalry and artillery. Cornwallis' success can be compared w i t h that o f the Russians i n the RussoTurkish wars o f 1768-74 and 1787-92. I n b o t h conflicts the Russians were able to overrun the Turkish possessions n o r t h o f the Danube and to cross the river. I n 1791 Russian victories over the Turks i n advances across the Danube at Babadag and Machin revealed the vulnerability o f Selim I I I : his army was largely destroyed and he accepted Russian peace preliminaries. The following year Captain Sidney Smith was sent by the British government to Constantinople o n a secret mission i n order to report o n the Turkish military position and to consider the means which the Russians may appear to h i m to have o f making an impression u p o n Constantinople, or any other part o f the Turkish Empire, by any attack made from the Black Sea, either by their naval force, or by an army landed near to C o n ­ stantinople, and acting i n concert w i t h their fleet'. The 'Eastern Question' had certainly begun. 33

c

34

The extent o f the Russian military achievement has been challenged. Gunther Rothenberg argued that 'Suvorov's reputation rested o n his victories over the poorly disciplined and rather backward forces o f the O t t o m a n Empire and Po­ land . . . His strategy was primitive, calling for an attack o n the enemy wherever he was found, and his tactics, based o n the cult o f the bayonet, were outdated and wasteful when delivered against troops relying o n fire'. This analysis, however, u n ­ derrates the problems o f campaigning i n eastern Europe and mistakenly implies that there is a clear c o n t i n u u m o f achievement i n military method i n the light o f which i t is readily possible to assess what was 'primitive'. Detailed studies o f Rus­ sian warfare have been more positive. Russian military success has been attributed to grasping the necessary interrelationship of'tactics, operations, and logistics', i n order to pursue a 'strategy o f annihilation' furthered by the use o f compact m o ­ bile forces drawing o n advanced bases and supply magazines, by reliance o n storming fortresses rather than conventional sieges, and by a 'credible offensive formation': the battlefield use o f mutually-supporting squares, attacking i n an ar­ ticulated fashion and benefiting from crossfire. Similarly, i t was 'gun-power that decided the issue' between Russian and Turkish naval forces near Ochakov i n 1788: larger Turkish fleets were defeated by more heavily-gunned Russian ships. The combination o f m o b i l i t y and firepower was crucial: the distances to be covered to the n o r t h and west o f the Black Sea or i n India were immense and cer­ tainly different f r o m those covered by most European armies campaigning i n Germany, Italy and the Low Countries between 1660 and 1779. The focus o n Euro­ pean warfare i n that period has always been o n those countries, and i t is not sur­ prising that this has led to a less than full appreciation o f warfare i n the period. I n particular, there has been a neglect o f the more mobile warfare that was character­ istic o f eastern Europe and o f extra-European offensive operations. This is possi­ bly a reflection o f a historiographical bias i n favour not only o f western and cen35

108

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tral European warfare, but more markedly, i n b o t h German works and those o f Anglo-American scholars heavily influenced by German suppositions, i n favour o f the n o t i o n that Frederick I I represented the highest p o i n t o f ancien regime war­ fare. This is arguably misleading i n terms o f the European forces competing i n western and central Europe i n the Frederician period, not least t h r o u g h leading to a relative neglect o f the French under Saxe and the Austrians under Daun. I t also underrates the potential diversity o f warfare i n western and central Europe, a d i ­ versity that was to be underlined f r o m 1792 as Frederician linear tactics were shown to be at a disadvantage i n the face o f troops fighting i n open order i n the enclosed and wooded country o f the Austrian Netherlands and eastern France. Furthermore, such a n o t i o n also leads to a treatment o f warfare outside this re­ gion as largely peripheral. This essay, o n the contrary, argues that i f the global and m i l i t a r y significance o f the second stage o f the early-modern ' m i l i t a r y revolution is to be grasped, i t is necessary to look at that warfare. I t has to be considered b o t h o n land and o n sea, for scholars mostly concerned w i t h Frederician warfare and more generally w i t h that o f the eighteenth century have tended to neglect the naval side—and yet i t is clear that the concept o f a military revolution must address i t . As yet m u c h o f the w o r k necessary for a general re-evaluation o f extra-Euro­ pean warfare i n the period 1660-1792 has not been carried out, b u t a number o f points emerge from a preliminary consideration. First, i t is necessary not to as­ sume that success is simply measured t h r o u g h the conquest o f territory: as ever, i t is necessary to consider the purposes o f m i l i t a r y force(s), not least their cost-ef­ fectiveness. Secondly, m i l i t a r y effectiveness could also be demonstrated i n de­ fence, a p o i n t that is often overlooked. Thus, rather than concentrating solely o n the struggles between European and non-European (including Turkish) forces, i t is also i m p o r t a n t to direct attention to extra-oceanic struggles between European powers; and, i n the case o f the Thirteen Colonies, peoples. I t is readily apparent, for example, that the strength and flexibility o f the Spanish system i n the New W o r l d has been underrated. This is demonstrated i n part by the advance o f New Spain—in Chile and the m o d e r n southwest o f America, while i n the 1690s the Mayans were brought under Spanish control—and more so by the ability o f Spain to resist the pressure o f other states, not least Britain. I n the New W o r l d , Spain had created a generally successful defensive system based o n fortifications sup­ ported by m i l i t i a . This was a system well adapted to the environmental and eco­ logical problems o f warfare i n the tropics. Havana was also the site o f an i m p o r ­ tant naval dockyard. The navios and frigates b u i l t there out o f the durable local cedar and mahogany woods proved strong and long-lasting ships. Furthermore, the Spanish military system i n the New W o r l d was also effective i n attack, as was demonstrated d u r i n g the American War o f Independence. Consideration o f the Spaniards i n the New W o r l d is valuable because i t under­ lines the flexibility o f European m i l i t a r y models. The same point also emerges from consideration o f warfare i n N o r t h America, before, d u r i n g and after the War 36

37

38

A Military Revolution?

109

39

o f American Independence. The flexibility o f the Americans i n using their colo­ nial experience o f warfare is the p o i n t c o m m o n l y underlined, b u t i t is also the case that the British varied their tactics. A more-open, less packed, two-deep line was adopted i n the middle colonies because o f the relative unimportance o f cav­ alry. I n the South the British under Cornwallis sought to make their forces more mobile. Tarleton's infantry advanced to the Waxhaws o n horseback and attacked 'cavalry and infantry blended'. The eventual failure at Yorktown i n 1781 has dis­ torted the analysis o f the campaigns i n the South. Archibald Campbell's rapid capture o f Savannah i n 1778, Prevost's success i n r o u t i n g a N o r t h Carolina force at Briar Creek i n 1779 by attacking i t from the rear and his advance o n Charleston i n 1779) Clinton's encirclement and successful siege o f Charleston i n 1780, and Cornwallis' success at Camden that year and his march across N o r t h Carolina i n early 1781, were evidence o f British flexibility and mobility, as was Clinton's flank­ ing manoeuvre at Brandywine i n 1778. I n the West Indies i n 1794-5 the British used specially-raised units o f slaves, w i t h European commanders, capable o f m o v i n g rapidly and acting as light infantry. 40

The n o t i o n that m o b i l i t y o n campaign and the value o f the attack i n battle were not rediscovered u n t i l the Revolutionary Wars is therefore misleading. I t does not describe adequately campaigning i n western and central Europe where there were striking examples o f mobility. Marlborough's march to the Rhine i n 1704 is the best k n o w n , but there were other instances o f rapid movement over considerable distances, for example some o f the movements o f Frederick I I and Prince H e n r y o f Prussia d u r i n g the Seven Years War. The improvement o f European roads dur­ ing the century further aided mobility. As already implied, the ability o f European forces to solve the tactical and strategic problems o f warfare a w o r l d away from the parade-ground conventions o f western and central Europe was instrumental i n the decisive d r i v i n g back o f the Turks and i n the establishment o f Britain as a territorial power i n India. I t is therefore pertinent to stress innovation, change and impact when considering warfare i n the period 1660-1792. The destruction o f Cossack independence by the Russians was symptomatic o f this process. What was u n t i l then, i n effect, an independent warrior people was brought under control by the 'westernised' military units o f Peter I's army. I n 1709 the Cossack headquarters at Star a Sich was destroyed. The Cossacks were per­ mitted to establish a new centre at Nova Sich, but that also was destroyed i n 1775 and all o f Zaporozhia was made part o f an imperial province k n o w n as New Rus­ sia. M i l i t a r y strength was linked to centralization and state expansion, a crucial theme i n the early-modern ' M i l i t a r y Revolution'. Change and impact must also be stressed i n the case o f naval power. I n 1788 Cornwallis wrote w i t h reference to a proposed attack o n the French i n India, ' u n ­ less we have a fleet capable o f looking the enemy i n the face, we must not hazard a considerable body o f troops.' Naval power was crucial to imperial expansion and consolidation, and i n military terms there was a significant expansion i n amphib­ ious capability, the basis o f imperial expansion i n the nineteenth century. A m 41

Jeremy Black

110

42

phibious operations faced serious problems, many o f which were not resolved, but, nevertheless, substantial forces were sent considerable distances, as when the British captured Manila i n 1762 or New York i n 1776. The crucial nature o f army-naval cooperation was demonstrated i n the Yorktown campaign o f 1781, the reach o f naval power by the establishment o f the first European settlement i n Aus­ tralia i n 1788. Two years later, d u r i n g the Nootka Sound controversy, as earlier d u r i n g the War o f American Independence, the British considered far-flung at­ tacks o n the Spanish empire. They established a base o n the A n d a m a n Islands i n 1789. The French were also active, charting the coast o f Asia i n the 1780s and send­ ing naval expeditions into the Indian and Pacific oceans, while this was also a period o f Spanish activity i n the Pacific and o f the expansion o f Russian power o n N o r t h America's Pacific l i t t o r a l . 43

44

The potential gap between European m i l i t a r y capability and that o f non-Euro­ pean peoples was demonstrated most clearly i n the Pacific, not only i n Australia b u t also i n eastern Indonesia. Captain John Blankett sailed through the Moluccas i n December 1790 and found 'the natives ... were all armed w i t h spears and shields, and all o n horseback'. He was, however, unimpressed by the D u t c h fort o n T i m o r that he visited: 'a miserable band, composed o f a few German deserters and Malays compose a sort o f garrison'. Blankett noted that the D u t c h preserved their position by exploiting the rivalries o f the rulers o f T i m o r . This was scarcely a picture o f unrivalled European supremacy, b u t Blankett's very voyage demon­ strated that the European powers were taking the initiative. Similarly, i n central Amazonia i n the 1760s and 1770s, the Portuguese were unable to defeat the guer­ rilla attacks o f the mobile M u r a w i t h their ambushes o f Portuguese canoes and their attacks o n isolated settlements. The Muras d i d not learn the use o f firearms, b u t were very effective w i t h their bows and arrows. Nevertheless, the Muras could not defeat the Portuguese and the peace they sought i n 1784 appears to have re­ flected the need to reach an accommodation w i t h colonial power. 45

46

To conclude, the 'revolutionary' periods were c. 1470-c. 1530, c. 1660-c. 1720 and (primarily because o f the levée on masse rather than tactics) 1792-1815. Roberts' emphasis o n 1560-1660 is incorrect. Equally, though 1660-1720 and 1792-1815 might be periods o f fairly dramatic change, the intervening era was not static and unchanging. Historians, w i t h the obvious exception o f Parker, have tended to ne­ glect the significance o f European conflict i n the wider w o r l d . The significance o f the lessons o f colonial warfare, however, were often lost o n contemporaries i n Eu­ rope. Leaving aside the wider historical significance o f European overseas expan­ sion i n the eighteenth century, the military impact o n the way European wars were fought was often slight. The British, for example, failed to develop light infantry despite the lessons o f the American War o f Independence. Nevertheless, i t is per­ haps significant that the European powers engaged i n land conflict w i t h non-Eu­ ropean states i n the 1720-92 era (Russia, Austria and Britain) proved more resil­ ient than Prussia (and other states) i n standing up to revolutionary France; although other factors were also pertinent.

A Military Revolution?

Ill

The nature o f the ' m i l i t a r y revolution thesis also poses a problem. Parker, and especially Roberts, l i n k broad m i l i t a r y and societal change to changes i n tactics and m i l i t a r y technology and argue that these were b o t h revolutionary and i n n o ­ vative. The problem is, as ever, one o f terms. N o t only is revolution a tricky con­ cept, b u t clearly many tactical developments were hardly innovative i n the sense o f being t r u l y original. The use o f dragoons i n the T h i r t y Years War, for example, was little different from the use o f m o u n t e d infantry i n India and elsewhere i n the late-eighteenth century. Equally, the Spanish system o f colonial defence based o n fortresses and local m i l i t i a m i r r o r s the efforts o f many European states to orga­ nize for defence at the beginning o f the seventeenth century, for example German states such as Nassau. W h a t was really going o n i n large part was the clever adap­ tation o f existing ideas to suit local circumstances. While at the micro level these changes i n tactics could b r i n g revolutionary results, i n the sense o f decisive local victories, i t is difficult to l i n k these together at the macro level into some all-em­ bracing theory o f revolutionary change. These changes have to be distinguished from t r u l y original innovations, such as the flintlock and the socket bayonet, w h i c h altered the parameters o f conflict. O n sea as o n land the m i l i t a r y capability o f the European powers was far f r o m static i n the period 1660-1792. There is still m u c h w o r k required o n the age, b u t i t is already clear that, i n order to assess b o t h the 'Roberts century' and the Revolu­ tionary/Napoleonic period i t is essential to consider the intervening years. D o i n g so o n the global scale underlines their importance.

Notes I would like to thank Matthew Anderson, Michael Hill, Geoffrey Parker, John Plowright, Cliff Rogers and Peter Wilson for their comments on earlier drafts of this chapter. 1. H . E. Bodeker and E. Hinrichs (eds.), Alteuropa-Ancien Régime-Frühe Neuzeit. Rróbleme una Methoden der Forschung (Stuttgart, 1991), pp. 11-50. 2. A good recent summary is offered by W. Doyle, The Old European Order 1660-1800 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 295-6. 3. J. M . Black, 'Ancien Regime and Enlightenment', European History Quarterly 22, (1992), pp. 247-55. 4. On tactical changes, B. Nosworthy, The Anatomy of Victory. Battle Tactics 1689-1763 (New York, 1990). On the French navy see most recently, G. Symcox, 'The Navy of Louis XIV, in P. Sonnino (ed.), The Reign of Louis XIV (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, 1990), pp. 127-42 and Philippe de Villette-Mursay, Mes Campagnes de Mer sous Louis XlVavec Un Dictionnaire des personnages et des bátanles edited by M . Verge-Franceschi (Paris, 1991). 5. D. Loades, The Tudor Navy (Aldershot, 1992); K. R. Andrews, Ships, Money and Poli­ tics. Seafaring and naval enterprise in the reign of Charles I (Cambridge, 1991); M . Duffy, 'The Foundations of British Naval Power', in Duffy (ed.), The Military Revolution and the State 1500-1800 (Exeter, 1980), pp. 49-85; B. Capp, CromwelTs Navy. The Fleet and the En­ glish Revolution, 1648-1660 (Oxford, 1992); D. Davies, Gentlemen and Tarpaulins: The Off-

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cers and Men of the Restoration Navy (Oxford, 1991); J. Ehrman, The Navy in the War of William 111 1689-1697 (Cambridge, 1953). 6. J. P. Merino Navarro, La Armada Española en el Siglo XVIII (Madrid, 1981). 7. Modelski and Thompson, Seapower in Global Politics, 1494-1993 (London, 1988), pp. 27-61 and esp. 62-70. 8. For some useful comparisons for the Austrian army in 1740-75, P. G. M . Dickson, Finance and Government under Maria Theresia 1740-1780 (2 vols., Oxford, 1987), I I , 355. 9. State of the Portuguese army enclosed in Mello, Portuguese envoy in London, to Earl of Egremont, Secretary of State for the Southern Department, 15 Dec. 1761, London, Public Record Office (hereafter PRO) 30/47/2. On the Spanish army, Benjamin Keene, envoy in Spain, to the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of State for the Southern Department, 7 Ap. 1734, PRO. State Papers 94/119. On the Russians, Frederick I I to Klinggraeffen, 28 May, 8 June 1754, Politische Correspondenz Friedrichs des Grossen (46 vols., Berlin, 1879-1939) X, 342, 346; Charles Fraser, Secretary of Legation in St. Petersburg, to Sir Robert Murray Keith, 31 May 1788, London, British Library, Department of Manuscripts, Additional Manuscripts 35540 f.249. 10. J. Chagniot, 'La Rationalisation de l'Armée Francaise aprés 1660', in Armées et Diplomatie dans VEurope du XVIF Siécle (Paris, 1992), pp. 97-108. 11. Mathews to Newcastle, 17 Feb. 1744, Mill St. House, Iden Green, papers of Edward Weston. I should like to thank John Weston-Underwood for permission to consult these papers. 12. Parker, Military Revolution, p. 126. Aside from the works he cites, it is also useful to consult T. M . Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent: Vienna's Second Turkish Siege and Its Historical Setting (Albany, New York, 1967); J. Berenger (ed.), Les Relations FrancoAutrichiennes sous Louis XIV Siege de Vienne (1683), (proceedings of Saint-Cyr colloque 1983); Barker, 'New Perspectives on the Historical Significance of the "Year of the Turk'", Austrian History Yearbook, 19-20 (1983-4) pt. 1, pp. 3-14. 13. See most recently, A. Balisch, 'Infantry Battlefield Tactics in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries on the European and Turkish Theatres of War: the Austrian Response to Different Conditions', Studies in History and Politics, 3 (1983-4), pp. 43-60. 14. See recently, B. Menning, 'G. A. Potemkin and A. I . Chernyshev: Two Dimensions of Reform and the Military Frontier in Imperial Russia', in The Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, Proceedings, 1980; C. Duffy, Russia's Military Way to the West. Origins and Nature of Russian Military Power 1700-1800 (London, 1981), pp. 27, 49-53,168-78,185-9; L. Hughes, Sophia. Regent of Russia 1657-1704 (New Haven, 1990), pp. 197-203, 206, 211-17; A. S. Donnelly, The Russian Conquest of Bashkiria, 1552-1740; A Case Study in Imperialism (New Haven, 1968). 15. C. Finkel, The Administration of Warfare: the Ottoman Military Campaigns in Hungary, 1593-1606 (1988). 16. W. E. D. Allen, Problems of Turkish power in the sixteenth century (London, 1963). 17. A. C. Hess, The forgotten frontier: a history of the sixteenth-century Ibero-African frontier (Chicago, 1978). 18. Fielding, Coffee-House Politician (London, 1730) I , i i i , iv, I I , xi. 19.1 owe to Cliff Rogers the reference to the original metaphor of revolution. J. M . Hill, 'The Distinctiveness of Gaelic Warfare, 1400-1750', European History Quarterly, 22 (1992), pp. 323-45. See, more generally, his Celtic Warfare 1595-1763 (Edinburgh, 1986), and Black, Culloden and the '45 (Gloucester, 1990).

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113

20. A. Cohen, Palestine in the Eighteenth Century. Patterns of Government and Adminis­ tration (Jerusalem, 1973), pp. 104-11; R. Tapper, 'The Tribes in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Iran, in The Cambridge History of Iran VII (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 513-18. 21. A. Bennigsen, 'Un mouvement populaire au Caucase au XVIIIe siécle', Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, 5 (1964), pp. 159-97; M . B. Broxup (ed.), The North Caucasus Bar­ rier. The Russian Advance towards the Muslim World (London, 1992), pp. 3, 75. 22. J. Forsyth, A History of the Peoples of Siberia. Russia's North Asian Colony 1581-1990 (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 81-2,144-6,149. 23. K. C. Chaudhuri, Anglo-Nepalese Relations from the Earliest Times of the British Rule in India till the Gurkha War (Calcutta, i960), pp. 68-70; J. K. Fairbank (ed.), The Cambridge History of China, X (Cambridge, 1978), p. 103; V. T. Harlow, The Founding of the Second British Empire 1763-1793 II (1964), pp. 355-6. 24. B. R Lenman, 'The Transition to European Military Ascendancy in India, 1600-1800', in J. A. Lynn (ed.), Tools of War. Instruments, Ideas, and Institutions in Warfare, 1445-1871 (Urbana, 1990), pp. 119-20; P. M . Malone, The Skulking Way of War. Technology and Tactics among the Indians of New England (1991); Forsyth, Siberia, p. 144; S. Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia 1500-1700 (Harlow, 1993), pp. 256-60. 25. Macpherson to 2 n d Earl of Shelburne, 16 July 1771, 17 Ap. 1783, Bowood, papers of 2 n d Earl, Box 56; P. Avery, 'Nadir Shah and the Afsharid Legacy', in The Cambridge History of Iran VII (Cambridge, 1991), p. 38; W. J. Koenig, The Burmese Polity, 1752-1819 (Ann Ar­ bor, 1990), pp. 22-5; Cohen, Palestine in the Eighteenth Century, p. 291. 26. M . C. Ricklef, War, Culture and Economy in Java, 1677-1726 (The Hague, 1990). 27. L. Y. Andaya, 'Interactions with the Outside World and Adaptation in Southeast Asian Society, 1500-1800', in N . Tarling (ed.), The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, I (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 380-95. 28. Cornwallis to Sir Archibald Campbell, 12 Ap. 1788, London, PRO, 30/11/159 f.123-4. 29. A. Faure, Les Francais en Cochinchine au XVIIIe siécle. Mgr. Pigneau de Behaine (Paris, 1891); G. Taboulet, La Geste francaise en Indochine (2 vols., Paris, 1955-6), 1,161-279; P. Pluchon, Historie de la Colonisation Francaise. I. Le Premier Empire Colonial (Paris, 1991), pp. 760-4. 30. Cornwallis to Campbell, 7 Jan., 11 Oct. 1787, PRO. 30/11/159 f.23, 83-4. 31. Cornwallis to Henry Dundas, Commissioner of the Board of Control for India, 5 Aug., 12 Nov. 1790, PRO. 30/11/151 f.54, 64. 32. Cornwallis to Pitt, 3 Dec. 1791, PRO. 30/11/175 f.19. 33. F. and M . Wickwire, Cornwallis. The Imperial Years (Chapel Hill, 1980), pp. 147,152, 162-3. 34. William, Lord Grenville, Foreign Secretary, to Smith, 19 June 1792, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bland Burges papers 41 f.6. 35. G. E. Rothenberg, Napoleons Great Adversaries. The Archduke Charles and the Aus­ trian Army 1792-1814 (London, 1982), p. 58 (quote), and The Art of Warfare in the Age of Na­ poleon (London, 1977), pp. 21-2; B. Menning, 'Russian military innovation in the second half of the eighteenth century', War and Society, 2,1 (1984), pp. 23-41; I . R. Christie, 'Samuel Bentham and the Russian Dnieper Flotilla', Slavonic and East European Review, 50 (1972), pp. 187-96. 36. G. E. Sanders, The Spanish Defence of America 1700-63 (unpublished Ph.D., Southern California, 1974); R. Harding, Amphibious Warfare in the Eighteenth Century. The British

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Expedition to the West Indies 1740-1742 (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 154-60. See also J. C. M . Oglesby, 'England versus Spain in America, 1739-48; the Spanish side of the hill', Canadian Hist. Assoc., Historical Papers (1970), pp. 147-57; C. I . Archer, The Army in Bourbon Mexico 1760-1810 (Albuquerque, 1977); J. R. McNeill, Atlantic Empires of France and Spain. Louisbourg and Havanna, 1700-1763 (Chapel Hill, 1986). 37. J. D. Harbron, Trafalgar and the Spanish Navy (London, 1988), pp. 51-75. This work is chronologically more wide-ranging than the title might suggest; C. Fernandez-Shaw, 'Participation de la Armada Española en la Guerra de la Independencia de Los Estados Unidos', Revista de Historia Naval, 3 (1985), pp. 75-80. 38. N . O. Rush, The Battle ofPensacola (Tallahassee, 1966); W. S. Coker and R. Rea (eds.), Anglo-Spanish Confrontation on the Gulf Coast during the American Revolution (Pensacola, 1982). 39. J. M . Dederer, War in America to 1775. Before Yankee Doodle (New York, 1990); J. M . Black, War for America. The Fight for Independence (Stroud, 1991). 40. Black, War for America, p. 189. 41. O. Subtelny, Domination of Eastern Europe. Native Nobilities and Foreign Absolutism, 1500-1715 (Kingston, 1986), p. 136. This wide-ranging and interesting study largely ignores the military dimension. 42. P. Mackesy, 'Problems of an Amphibious Power: Britain against France, 1793-1815', Naval War College Review (1978). 43. The New York force operated from Halifax, the Manila force from India. 44. C. Gaziello, ^Expedition de Laperouse 1785-1788 (Paris, 1984); M . E. Thurman, The Naval Department of San Bias: New Spain s Bastion for Alta California and Nootka 1767 to 1798 (Glendale, California, 1967); W. L. Cook, Flood Tide of Empire: Spain and the Pacific Northwest, 1543-1819 (New Haven, 1973), pp. 65-396. 45. Blankett to Lord Hawkesbury, 1 Mar. 1791, BL. Add. 38226 f. 114,116. 46. D. Sweet, 'Native Resistance in Eighteenth-Century Amazonia: The "Abominable Muras" in War and Peace', Radical History Review, 53 (1992), pp. 49-80.

Aspects




Conde

50,00()(F)

Philippsburg

60,000(1)

5,000(F)

10,000

12:1

1676 ( 7 / 7 - 8 / 2 9 ) 6 1

Maestricht

40,(>00(D/S)

7,000(F)

5,000

5.7:1

1677 (2/28-3/17)62

Valenciennes

40,000(F)

3,000(S)

1677 ( 3 / 2 2 - 4 / 2 0 ) 6 3

Saint-Omer

1677 ( 3 / 2 3 - 4 / 1 9 ) 6 4

Cambra i

(F) 30,000(F)

1678 ( 3 / 1 - 1 0 ) 6 5

Ghent

60,00()(F)

1678 (3/13-26)66

Ypres

50,000(F)

3,000(S)

16.7:1

1684 ( 4 / 2 8 - 6 / 4 ) 6 7

Luxembourg

32,000(F)

6,000(S)

5.3:1

Date

1674 ( 7 / 2 9 - 1 0 / 2 5 ) " 1675 ( 8 / 1 3 - 9 / 1 ) 5 8

1688-1697

Relief/ Observ.

Casualties attacker

Casualties defender

Attacker:Garrison ratio Comments

500

4,000(F)

3.8:1 Cir. done 23 April; fell in 3 days

13.3:1 r35,000

4,00()(S)

7.5:1; 7,000 peasant workers dug siege lines

( 4 2 , 4 0 0 — average size of attacking force, 50% over 35,000; average days, 36, median 2 6 )

1688 (10/5-29)68

Philippsburg

30,0()0(F)

2,000(1)

15:1

1689 ( 7 / 1 6 - 9 / 8 ) 6 9

Mainz

60,000(1)

8,000(F)

7.5:1

1689 (9/16-10/12)70

Bonn

30,000(I/B)

3,000(F)

1691 (3/15-4/10)71

Mons

46,000(F)

4,800(S)

r38,00() o46,()0()

1692 ( 5 / 2 6 - 7 / 1 ) 7 2

Namur

60.000(F)

9,280(S/D)

o6(),00()

1693 (9/10-10/11)73

Charleroi

38 bats., 38 esq . 3,500(S) est. 30-35,00()(F)

1694 (6/17-29)74

Gerona

18.000(F)

1695 ( 7 / 1 - 9 / 6 ) 7 5

Namur

80,00()(E/D/S)

1697 ( 5 / 1 5 - 6 / 5 ) 7 6

Ath

40,0()()(F)

1697 ( 6 / 6 - 8 / 1 0 ) 7 7

Barcelona

30.000(F)

4,000

10:1 9.6:1; 20,000 pioneers dug siege lines

7,000

4,000

7.2:1; 20,000 pioneers from conquered provinces dug siege lines

2,200

8.6:1 3.6:1

5,00()(S) 18,000

5,000

3,850(S)

53

500

12,000(S)

10,000

7,000

13.000(F)

6.2:1 2.5:1

1 7 0 2 - 1 7 1 4 ( 2 6 , 5 0 0 — average size of attacking force, 21% over 35,000; average days 4 3 , median 3 7 ) 1702 ( 4 / 1 8 - 6 / 1 5 ) 7 8

Kaiserworth

22,000(D/P)

5,000(F)

2,900

1,000

4.4:1

1702 ( 6 / 1 8 - 9 / 9 ) 7 9

Landau

46,000(1)

4,400(F)

3,000

1,700

10.5:1

1702 ( 8 / 2 9 - 9 / 9 ) 8 0

Guastalla

33,000(F/S)

2,200(1)

15:1

1,100

840

2,400(F)

60

40-50

10.4:1

40,000(E/D)

8.000(F)

1,000

3,000

3.47:1

Kehl

28,000(F)

2,200(1)

Bonn

40,000(E/D/P) 3,600(F)

600

860

11.1:1

1703 (8/15-25)87

Huy

42,000(E/D)

7.500(F)

60

1,200

5.6:1

1703 ( 8 / 1 5 - 9 / 7 ) 8 8

Breisach

24.000(F)

3,500(1)

900

300

6.9:1

1703 (9/10-27)89

Limburg

16,000(E/D)

1.400(F)

100

60

11.4:1

1703 (10/13-11/17)90

Landau

26.000(F)

3,800(1)

5,000

1,800

6.8:1

1703 (12/3-16)91

Augsburg

23,000(F/Bv)

6,000(1)

1704 ( 5 / 3 1 - 6 / 8 ) 9 2

Susa

12.000(F)

2,300(Sa)

1704 ( 6 / 5 - 7 / 2 4 ) 9 3

Vercelli

26.000(F)

7,000(Sa/I)

1704 ( 8 / 2 3 - 9 / 1 1 ) 9 4

Ulm

11,000(1)

2,600(F/Bv)

1704 ( 8 / 3 0 - 9 / 3 0 ) 9 5

Ivrée

10,000(F/S)

2,000(1)

1704 ( 9 / 9 - 1 1 / 1 1 ) 9 6

Landau

30,000(1)

5,000(F)

1704(10/14)-1705(4/9)97

Verrua

30,000(F/S)

6,000(Sa/I)

1704( 10/21)-1705(4/30)98 Gibraltar 1704 (11/4-12/20)99 Trarbach 1705 (4/10-10/17)ioo Badajoz

20,000(F/S)

4,000(E)

12,000

20,000(E/I)

600(F)

1,000

25,000(E/Po)

1,000(S)

1705 (7/16-9/8)ioi

Mirándola

5.000(F)

1,500(1)

1705 ( 9 / 1 8 - 1 0 / 6 ) 1 0 2 1705(10/31)-1706(l/7)io3

Barcelona

11,000(E/D/I)

5,800(S)

1.9:1

Nice

7,000(F)

l,400(Sa)

5:1

Venlo

30,000(D/P)

1,100(F)

1702 (9/25-10/20)82 1702 ( 9 / 2 6 - 1 0 / 6 ) 8 3

Stevenswaert

30,000(E/D)

1,500(F)

Ruremonde

25,000(E/D)

1702 (10/13-29)84

Liége

1703 ( 2 / 2 5 - 3 / 9 ) 8 5 1703 ( 4 / 2 7 - 5 / 1 5 ) 8 6

1702 ( 9 / 1 1 - 2 3 )

81

1706 ( 4 / 3 - 5 / 1 2 ) 1 0 4

Barcelona

24,000(F)

8,000 + 8,000

1706 (5/1-12)105

Hagenau

5,000(F)

2,000(1)

1706 ( 6 / 2 - 9 / 7 ) 1 0 6

Turin

40.000(F)

14,700(Sa/I)

1706 ( 6 / 2 9 - 7 / 6 ) 1 0 7

Ostende

20,000(E/D)

5,000(F/S)

1706(8/9-18)108

Menin

30,000(E/D)

5,500(F/S)

1706 ( 8 / 2 7 - 9 / 5 ) 1 0 9

Dendermonde

6,000(E/D)

2,000(F/S)

1706 ( 9 / 1 6 - 1 0 / 2 ) 1 1 °

Ath

21,000(E/D)

2.000(F)

1707 ( 6 / 1 2 - 7 / l l ) i n 1707 ( 7 / 1 4 - 8 / 2 2 ) H 2

Lérida

32,000(F/S)

2,500(E/D)

Toulon

38,000(Po/I/E) 9,000(F)

1707 ( 9 / 1 8 - 1 0 / 4 ) H 3

Gi. Rodrigo

9,500(S/F)

1,400(E/Po)

1708 (6/12-7/11)114

Tortosa

30,000(F/S)

3,800(I/D)

1708 ( 8 / 1 3 - 1 2 / 9 ) 1 1 5

Lille

35,000(E/D/I)

16.000(F)

27.3:1 20:1

12.7:1

3.8:1 5.2:1 1,100

900

3.7:1 4.2:1 5:1

5,000 rl4,000

3,000

12,000

6:1 5:1 5:1

350

rl4,000

33.3:1 25:1 3.3:1

3 or 1.5:1 r30,000 o48,000

200

600

2.5:1

14,000

3,000

3.42:1

2,620

1,101

5.5:1

4:1 3:1 800

10.5:1 1,000

r40,000

10,000

12.8:1 4.2:1 7.8:1

o55,000

14,000

1,800

7.9:1

7,000

2.5:1

Table of French Sieges, 1445-1715 Date

Fortress or town

Attacking force*

Garrison

Relief/ Observ.

Casualties attacker

Casualties defender

Attacker.Garrison ratio Comments

1708(12/25)-1709(l/2)»6

Ghent

40,000(E/I)

15.000(F)

4,800

1709 ( 6 / 2 6 - 9 / 3 ) » 7

Tournai

40,000(E/D/I)

7,000(F)

5,400

3,200

5.7:1

Mons

20,000(E/D/I)

4,300(F/S)

2,300

980

4.7:1 7.5:1

1709 ( 9 / 2 4 - 1 0 / 2 0 ) 1 1 8 1710 ( 4 / 2 3 - 6 / 2 7 ) "

9

1710(7/14-8/28)120 1710 (9/6-29)121

r90,000 o90,000

4,000

2.18:1

Douai

60,000(E/D/I)

8,000(F)

8,000

3,000

Béthune

31,000(E/D/I)

4,000(F)

3,000

1,800

7.75:1

Saint-Venant

9,000(E/D/I)

3,000(F)

960

400

3:1

7,000

3,400

4:1

3,000

1,800

6:1

3,000

2,000

3.2:1

1710 (9/12-11/8)122

Aire 1710(12/12)-1711(l/24)i23 Gerona 1711 ( 8 / 7 - 9 / 1 3 ) 1 2 4 Bouchain

28,000(E/D/I)

7.000(F)

30,000(F/S)

2,400(1)

30,000(E/D/I)

5.000(F)

12.5:1 r3,000

1711 (11/12-12/22)125 1712 ( 6 / 8 - 7 / 3 ) 1 2 6

Cardona

8,000(F/S)

2,500(1)

Le Quesnoy

18,000(D/I)

5.500(F)

3.2:1

1712 ( 7 / 1 7 - 8 / 2 ) 1 2 7

Landrecies

20,000(D/1)

5.000(F)

1712 (7/25-30)128

Marchiennes

22,000(F)

7,000(D/P)

400

200

3.1:1

1712 ( 8 / 1 4 - 9 / 8 ) 1 2 9

Douai

25,000(F)

3,300(D/I)

5,000

1,000

7.6:1; 20,000 pioneers dug siege lines"

1712 (9/8-10/4)131 1712 (10/1-19)132

Le Quesnoy

28,000(F)

2,200(D/I)

1,000

700

12.7:1

Bouchain

20.000(F)

2,000(D/I)

1712(ll/l)-1713(l/3)i33

Gerona

9,000(1)

4,000(S)

r24,000(F) o 12,000

1713 ( 6 / 1 1 - 8 / 2 0 ) 1 3 4

Landau

40,000(F)

7,000(1)

o70,000

10,000

2,000

5.7:1

1713 ( 9 / 2 2 - 1 1 / 1 6 ) 1 3 5

Fribourg

80,000(F)

9,300(1)

10,000

3,600

8.6:1

1714 ( 7 / 7 - 9 / 1 2 ) 1 3 6

Barcelona

70,000(F/S)

16,000(S)

20,000

6,000

4.4:1

o60,000 r90,000

4:1

0

400

10:1 2.3:1

* Forces are coded as follows: F * French, Fc - French Catholic, Fp - French Protestant, Bur - Burgundian, Bv • Bavarian, D - Dutch, E - English, I = Imperial, Po - Portuguese, S = Spanish, Sa - Savoyard, Sw - Swiss, Swe - Swedish, T - Turkish, r - relief army, o - army of observation.

195 1. R. Ernest Dupuy and Trevor N. Dupuy, Encyclopedia of Military History (New York, 1970), 418. 2. Dupuy and Dupuy, 428-29. 3. Guy Gapelle, Histoire de Conde etses forti­ fications (Beuvrage, 1978), 27. 4. Andre Verley, Boulogne-sur-mer a travers les ages, vols. 2-3 (Paris, 1978), 2: 87. 5. Dupuy and Dupuy , 4 7 1 . 6. Christopher Duffy, Siege Warfare: The Fort­ ress in the Early Modern World, 1494-1660 (London, 1979), 46; Dupuy and Dupuy, 472. 7. Dupuy and Dupuy, 474. 8. Ibid. 9. Vezio Melegari, The Great Military Sieges (New York: 1972), 130-33; see as well Ferdinand Lot, Recherches sur les effectifs des arméesfrancaises des Guerres d'ltalie aux Guerres de Relig­ ion, 1494-1562 (Paris, 1962), 69-70, for total effectives of the attacking French army. 10. A. Rozet, L'invasion de la France et le siege de Saint Diger, 1544 (Paris, 1910), 6; Pauline Giloteaux, Histoire de Landrecies des origines á nos jours ( L e Quesnoy, 1962), 57; Lot 70-71. 11. Charles Ornan, The Art of War in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1937), 229-33; Lot, 81-84. 12. Rozet, 39, 66, 155; O m a n , 338, puts the besieging force at only 12,000 and states that Luxembourg fell June 6. 13. Rozet, 39. 14. O m a n , (London, 1937), 340. 15. Alain Lottin, Histoire de Boulogne-surmer (Lille, 1983), 106-10. 16. H. Noel Williams, Henri II (New York, 1910), 282, credits the three forces besieging Metz at 70-80,000 and the French garrison at 10,000. Herny Lemonnier, La lutte contre la maison d'Autriche: La France sous Henri II, Histoire de France, ed. E . Lavisse, vol. 5, pt. 2 (Paris, 1904), 154, gives Guise's estimate of 60,000. 17. Lemonnier, 156. 18. Dupuy and Dupuy, 477. 19. Ibid. 20. O m a n , 264; Dupuy and Dupuy, 477. 21. Lot, 174-75. 22. Dupuy and Dupuy, 481. 23. Ibid. 24. J e a n Pierre Babelm, Henri IV ( 1 9 8 2 ) , 519-21. 25. Gaston de C a n n e , ed., Documents sur la ligue en Bretagne: Correspondence du due de Mercoeur et des Ligueurs bretón avec VEspagne, vol. 1 (Vannes, 1899), 125, letter from Mercoeur to Philip II. 26. M. Pernot, Les guerres de religion, 15591598 (Paris, 1987), 170. 27. Nelly Mulard, Calais au temps des Lys (Calais, 1961), 3 4 - 3 8 . 28. Jeanne Estienne, Le bel Amiens (Amiens, 1967), 114.

29. Gaston Bodart, Militár-historisches KriegsLexikon, 1618-1905 (Vienna and Leipzig, 1908), 53. Bodart has been used quite extensively as a statistical source in this table. Bodart concerned himself with the statistics of war, even writing a study of casualties. His work seems very much a work of serious scholarship, c o m m a n d i n g the respect of such a historian as David Chandler, who also relies on his figures in his studies. 30. L'armée á Nancy, 1633-1966 (Nancy, 1967), 11. 31. Giloteaux, 65-67. 32. Bodart, 64. 33. Ibid., 62. 34. Ibid., 66; Turenne et Vart militaire (Paris, 1975), 174-76; Duffy, Siege Warfare, 125; Jean Bérenger, Turenne (Paris, 1987), 159. 35. Turenne et Vart militaire, 195. 36. Histoire de la Fortification dans le pays de Thionville (Thionville, 1970), 11. 37. Turenne, Mémoires de Turenne (Paris, 1872), 4-5; Dupuy and Dupuy, 544. 38. Turenne, 21-24. 39. Ibid., 25. 40. Bodart, 75. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid., 76; Marc Blancpain, Monsieur le prince (Paris, 1986), 99-100. 43. Giloteaux, 69-71. 44. Louis Trenard, Histoire de Cambrai (Lille, 1982) , 146. 45. Turenne, 111, 116. 46. Ibid., 198-99; Turenne et Vart militaire, 143-44. 47. Capelle, 28. 48. Bérenger, 325-27; Giloteaux, 74; Turenne et Vart militaire, 146, states the French attackers had 21,000. 49. Bérenger, 3 2 9 - 3 1 ; Turenne et Vart mili­ taire, 147-48; Eveline Godly, The Great Conde (London, 1915), 463-73. 50. Trenard, 146. 51. P. Lazard, Vauban, 1633-1707 (Paris, 1934), 112, Vauban's figures. 52. Dupuy and Dupuy, 561-62. 53. Michel Roche, Histoire de Douai (Westhoek, 1985), 125-26. 54. Bodart, 90. 55. Ibid., 93; Andre Corvisier, Louvois (Paris, 1983) , 281, letter from Colbert stated that Louis had only 20,000 men and that the garrison was 6,000. 56. Stephen Baxter, William III ( L o n d o n , 1966), 105. 57. Ibid., 121-22. 58. Bodart, 97. 59. Capelle, 29. 60. Bodart, 100. 61. Ibid. 62. Ibid.; Jean-Michel Lambin, Quand le Nord devenait francais (Paris, 1980), 73.

196 63. Lottin, 114; Dupuy and Dupuy, 566. 64. Bodart, 101; Lottin, 114; Trenard, 150. 65. John B. Wolf, LouisXIV (New York, 1968), 262. 66. Bodart, 103. 67. Ibid., 105; Jacques Dollar, Vauban á Lux­ embourg (Luxembourg, 1983), 57, gives the French besiegers only 20-21,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry. 68. Bodart, 109; Georges Michel, Histoire de Vauban (Paris, 1879), 211-18; Henri Martin, The Age of Louis XIV, vol. 2 (Boston: 1865), 82. 69. Bodart, 110; Martin, 96-97. 70. Bodart, 111. 71. Ibid., 114; Lazard, 225-26; Corvisier, 468. 72. Bodart, 116; Chistopher Duffy, Fire and Stone (London, 1975), 163-74; Lazard, 230-31; Louis XIV, Oeuvres, eds. Grimoard and Grouvelle, 6 vols. (Paris, 1806), 4 : 3 5 7 - 5 9 , gives garrison size as 9,280 and states that 20,000 pioneers were raised from conquered provinces to dig the five leagues of lines. 73. Lazard, 257-58; Reginald Blomfield, Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban (London, 1938), 134. 74. Bodart, 120. 75. Ibid.; Michel, 283-309; Martin, 142-46. 76. Bodart, 121, gives size of besieging army as 52,000; Lazard, 274, states that the 40,000 included three corps of which only one, under Catinat, was actually engaged in the trenches, while the other two covered; Christopher Duffy, The Fortress in the Age of Vauban and Frederick the Great, 1660-1789 (Lonton, 1985), 30, con­ cerning Ath, he sets garrison as 3,850 and French losses as 53 dead and 106 wounded. 77. Bodart, 122; Michel, 178; Martin, 198-200. 78. David Chandler, Marlborough as a Military Commander (London, 1973), 336-37; Bodart, 125. 79. Bodart, 128. 80. Ibid., 127. 81. Ibid., 128; Chandler, 336-377. 82. Chandler, 3 3 6 - 3 7 . 83. Ibid. 84. Bodart, 129; Chandler, 3 3 6 - 3 7 . 85. Bodart, 130. 86. Ibid., 131; Chandler, 3 3 6 - 3 7 . 87. Bodart, 132; Chandler, 3 3 6 - 3 7 . 88. Bodart, 132. 89. Ibid., 133; Chandler, 3 3 6 - 3 7 . 90. Bodart, 134. 91. Ibid., 135. 92. Ibid., 136. 93. Ibid., 137. 94. Ibid., 139. 95. Ibid. 96. Ibid., 140. 97. Ibid., 141. 98. Ibid., 142. 99. Chandler, 3 3 6 - 3 7 . 100. Bodart, 144.

101. Ibid., 142. 102. Ibid., 143. 103. Ibid., 145. 104. Ibid., 146. 105. Ibid. 106. Ibid., 149, differs in listing besiegers as 36,000 and garrison as 10,500; Duffy, Fortress in the Age of Vauban and Frederick the Great, 50. 107. Bodart, 148; Chandler, 3 3 6 - 3 7 . 108. Bodart, 148; Chandler, 3 3 6 - 3 7 . 109. Bodart, 148; Chandler, 3 3 6 - 3 7 . 110. Bodart, 150; Chandler, 3 3 6 - 3 7 , differs in giving French casualties as 60. 111. Bodart, 153. 112. Ibid., 152. 113. Ibid., 153. 114. Ibid. 115. Ibid., 158; Dupuy a n d Dupuy, 623; Chandler, 338-39, presents allied losses as 15,000; Duffy, Fortress in the Age of Vauban and Frederick the Great, 3 8 - 3 9 . 116. Bodart, 161; Dupuy and Dupuy, 623; Chandler, 3 3 8 - 3 9 . 117. Bodart, 160; Chandler, 3 3 8 - 3 9 , gives casualty figures as 3,800 for the French. 118. Bodart, 161; Dupuy and Dupuy, 623; Chandler, 3 3 8 - 3 9 . 119. Bodart, 162; Chandler, 3 3 8 - 3 9 , sets the French garrison at 7,500, French casualties at 2,860 and allied losses at 8,009. 120. Bodart, 163; Chandler, 3 3 8 - 3 9 , gives casualty figures for the allies of 3,365 and 1,200 for the French. 121. Bodart, 163; Chandler, 339. 122. Bodart, 163; Chandler, 3 3 8 - 3 9 , assigns 7,200 casualties to the allies and 1,400 to the French. 123. Bodart, 164. 124. Ibid., 166; Chandler, 3 3 8 - 3 9 , assigns 4,080 casualties to the allies and 2,500 to the French. 125. Bodart, 166. 126. Ibid., 167. 127. Ibid., 168. 128. Ibid.; Pierre Paul, Denain (Paris: 1963), 172, gives the garrison as only 4,500. 129. Bodart, 168. 130. Roche, 138. 131. Bodart, 169. 132. Ibid. 133. Ibid., 170. 134. Ibid.; Claude C . SturgiH, Marshal Villars and the War of the Spanish Succession (Lex­ ington, Ky., 1965), 130, gives the garrison's size as 10,000 and its casualties as 4,550 and French casualties as 4,800 dead; Paul, 187-91, credits the French with 45-50,000 and the allied garrison with 9,700. 135. Bodart, 171; SturgiH, 133, gives garrison size as 13,000 and its casualties as 7,000. 136. Bodart, 171.

The trace italienne and the Growth of Armies

197

Notes I . 1 would like to thank the following for research support: the National Endowment for the Humanities, summer stipend for 1989; the Research Board, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC); the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security, UIUC; the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, UIUC; and the Department of History, UIUC. I also owe many a debt to my research assistants Jeffrey McKeage and Ed­ ward Tenace, and to my colleague, Geoffrey Parker, who has been so supportive through­ out this project. 2. Geoffrey Parker, "The 'Military Revolution 1560-1660—a Myth?" Journal of Modern History 48 (June 1976) reprinted above, Ch. 2, and The Military Revolution: Military Inno­

vation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800 (Cambridge, 1988). The original publication of this article ("The trace italienne and the Growth of Armies") in the Journal of Military His­

tory erroneously read "late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries" for "late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries." 3. Parker, Military Revolution,

24.

4. Ibid. 5. Parker, "The 'Military Revolution'," 208 (above, p. 45). In the initial publication of this article (i.e., "The trace italienne and the Growth of Armies"), "1630s" was incorrectly printed in place of "1530s." 6. Parker, Military Revolution,

40.

7. Ibid., 39. 8. Bert S. Hall and Kelly R. DeVries, "The 'Military Revolution Revisited," Technology and Culture, July, 1990, 500-7. 9. Simon Adams, "Tactics or Politics? 'The Military Revolution and the Hapsburg He­ gemony, 1525-1648," in Tools of War, ed. John A. Lynn (Champaign, Illinois, 1990), 28-52, reprinted below, Ch. 10. 10. John A. Lynn, "The Growth of the French Army during the Seventeenth Century," Armed Forces and Society 6 (Summer 1980): 568-85; and John A. Lynn, "The Pattern of Army Growth, 1445-1945," in Tools of War, 1-27. I I . David Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army During the Ministry of Car­ dinal Richelieu," diss., Oxford University, 1985,142, estimates that the numbers of men ac­ tually present in units stood at only 50 percent of full strength for the years 1630-38. In con­ trast, Etapes records at Amiens, 1695-96, reveal that regular infantry units stood at 80 percent of official strength, and cavalry at 97 percent. Archives municipales d'Amiens, EE 403 and 405. 12. See Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1990 (Oxford, 1990); David Kaiser, Politics & War: European Conflict from Philip II to Hitler (Cambridge, Mass., 1990); and Brian M . Downing, The Military Revolution and Political Change in Early

Modern Europe (Princeton, forthcoming 1991). According to Charles Tilly, European "state structure appeared chiefly as a by-product of rulers' efforts to acquire the means of war." (Coercion, Capital, and European States, 14.)

13. On Italian Renaissance fortifications see: J. R. Hale, "The Early Development of the Bastion: an Italian Chronology, c. 1450-c. 1534", in J. R. Hale, J. R. L. Highfield, and B. Smalley, eds., Europe in the Late Middle Ages (London, 1965), 644-94; J. R. Hale, Renais­ sance Fortification: Art or Engineering (London, 1977); and Simon Pepper and Nicholas Ad­ ams, Firearms and Fortifications (Chicago, 1986).

198

John A. Lynn

14. Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban, Oeuvres de M. de Vauban, 3 vols. (Amsterdam and Liepzig, 1771), 1:33. 15. Ibid. Vauban stated that the smallest fortresses were 200-300 toises in diameter. 16. V. Derode, Histoire de Lille (Lille, 1848), 118; Alain Lottin, Les grandes batailles du nord (Paris, 1984), 125. 17. Gaston Bodart, Militar-historisches Kriegs-Lexikon, 1618-1905 (Vienna and Leipzig, 1908), 90,158. 18. Vauban, Oeuvres, 1:33. 19. The table has been drawn from a number of sources. The most important among them is Bodart's Kriegs-Lexikon. I have also made use of R. Ernest Dupuy and Trevor N . Dupuy, The Encyclopedia of Military History (New York, 1970), for the past twenty years the standard reference work in military history. The other volumes cited will be found in the footnotes to the table itself. 20. Dupuy and Dupuy, Encyclopedia of Military History, 472. See wall diagram in Délices des Pays-Bas, vol. 2 (Liege, 1769), reproduced in Lottin, Les grandes batailles, 95. 21. Alain Lottin, Histoire de Boulogne-sur-mer (Lille, 1983), 106-10. See several plates of the city walls in Andre Verley, Boulogne-sur-mer a travers les ages, 3 vols., (Paris, 1978). 22. H . Noel Williams, Henri II (New York, 1910), 282; Henry Lemonnier, La lutte contre la maison dAutriche: La France sous Henri II, Histoire de France, ed. E. Lavisse, vol. 5, pt. 2,

(Paris, 1904), 154. See the plans of Metz walls in 1550 in Francois-Yves Le Moigne, Histoire de Metz (Toulouse, 1986), 223. 23. Abbeville's walls look essentially medieval until transformed 1634-1741. Lucien Lecat, Deux siécles d'histoire en Picardie (Amiens, 1982), 135; Histoire dAbbeville (Abbeville, 1972),

15-16; Ronald Hubscher, Histoire dAmiens (Toulouse, 1906), 140-41. 24. Bodart, Kreigs-Lexicon, 62. Saint-Omer's walls were still medieval in 1668. Alain Derville, Histoire de Saint-Omer (Lille, 1981), 151. 25. Jean Bérenger, Turenne (Paris, 1987), 237. 26. Vauban, Oeuvres, 1:32-33. 27. Ibid., 2:78. 28. Bodart, Kriegs-Lexikon, 136. 29. Ibid., 137. 30. Ibid., 169. 31. Ibid., 114; P. Lazard, Vauban (Paris, 1934), 225-26; and Andre Corvisier, Louvois (Paris, 1983), 468. 32. David Chandler, Marlborough as a Military Commander (London, 1973), 338-39; Bodart, Kriegs-Lexikon, 161; and Dupuy and Dupuy, Encyclopedia of Military History, 623. 33. Bérenger, Turenne, 335; Dupuy and Dupuy, Encyclopedia of Military History, 561; and

Bodart, Kriegs-Lexikon, 84, who gives the size of the Spanish relief force as 12,000. 34. Bodart, Kriegs-Lexikon, 168. 35. Documents cited in Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 94. 36. Service Historique de l'Armée de Terre, Archives de Guerre (AG), A i98, 5 March 1666, letter from Louvois to Pradel. 37. Service Historique de l'Armée de Terre, Bibliothéque (SHAT, Bib.) Tiroirs de Louis XIV, état of 1 January 1678. 38. SHAT, Bib., Génie 11 (fol.), Vauban, "Les places fortifiées du Royaume avec les garnisons necessaires á leur garde ordinaire en temps de guerre." This document is without 1

The trace italienne and the Growth of Armies

199

date, but marginal notes, apparently by an archivist, analyze the date of the document by the fortresses mentioned. 39. SHAT, Bib., Gen. 11 (fol.), Vauban memoirs, "Etat general des places forts du royaume," dated November 1705. 40. Vauban to Louvois, 4 October 1675, Rochas d'Aiglun, Vauban, safamille et ses écrits, 2 vols. (Paris, 1910), 2:131-32. 41. Vauban, "Mémoire des places frontiéres de Flandres," November 1678, in d'Aiglun, Vauban, 1:190. 42. Memoir on infantry, undated, ibid., 1:287. 43. Turenne, Mémoires de Turenne (Paris, 1872), 187. 44. At the March 1991 meeting of the American Military Institute, Christopher Duffy stressed the greater manpower demands created by multiplying the outworks of fortresses. 45. My thanks to Murray for applying his argument to the relationship between fortresses and garrisons when I presented this article as a paper at Ohio State University in October 1990. 46. Parker, Military Revolution, 39.

47. Based on figures from AN, KK 355, "Etat par abrégé des recettes et dépenses, 16621700." 48. Claude Villars, Mémoires du maréchal de Villars, ed. marquis de Vogüé, vol. 2 (Paris, 1887), 229-30. 49. Parker, Military Revolution, 24.

50. See his David Parrott "The Administration of the French Army During the Ministry of Cardinal Richelieu," and his "Strategy and Tactics in the Thirty Years War: The 'Military Revolution'," Militargeschichtliche Mitteilungen, XVIII, 2 (1985), reprinted below, Ch. 9. 51. Lynn, "Pattern of Army Growth," 21, fni5. 52. 12 December 1672 letter from Conde to Louvois in Griffet, Recueil des lettres pour servir d'eclaircissement a Vhistoire militaire du régne de Louis XIV, vol. 2 (Paris, 1760), 143-

50.1 thank George Satterfield for this reference. 53. SHAT, Bib., Gen. 11 (fol.), Vauban, "Les places fortifiées du Royaume," fol. 12 ver.

A

8

•

Fortifications and the Military Revolution: The Gonzaga Experience, 1530-1630 THOMAS

ALMOST

FORGOTTEN

F.

ARNOLD

TODAY, i n the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries the

Gonzaga lords o f Mantua and Montferrat i n N o r t h Italy were among the most notable princes o f Europe (Figure 8.1). They could legitimately claim descent f r o m the last emperors o f the Eastern Roman Empire, and two Gonzaga w o m e n married Habsburg H o l y Roman Emperors. The justifiably famous Gonzaga court at M a n t u a supported artists and musicians o f European reputation. A n d at that court the Gonzaga regularly entertained royalty: Charles V o f Spain i n 1530, his son Philip i n 1549, and H e n r y I I I o f France i n 1574. T h o u g h Mantua a n d Montferrat were n o t large territories i n comparison w i t h principalities outside I t ­ aly, they were populous and rich, and the Gonzaga capital o f Mantua was famous for its gardens, churches, stately palaces—and formidable defenses. For the Gonzaga could not depend o n r u l i n g Mantua and Montferrat simply by right and reputation; other princes, inside Italy and w i t h o u t , could be expected to challenge Gonzaga rule at the slightest opportunity. Such were the facts o f political life i n dynastic Europe. To h o l d their lands i n the turbulent sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Gonzaga turned to fortifications. The city o f M a n t u a i n the marquisate (later duchy) o f Mantua and the city o f Cásale i n Montferrat became two o f the best-fortified cities i n all o f Europe. Belted w i t h bastions and guarded by citadels, fortified Mantua and Cásale ensured the continuity o f Gonzaga rule; for­ tifications were the bedrock o f the family's determination t o survive as lords o f Mantua and Montferrat. The Gonzaga experience w i t h fortifications at Mantua and Cásale illustrates a celebrated larger pattern: the spread o f angle-bastion fortifications throughout first Italy, and then the other regions o f Europe most threatened by war (the Habsburg-Valois/Bourbon frontiers, the Netherlands, the Danube valley, Ger201

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many). But the Gonzaga experience was exceptional i n three regards. First, the Gonzaga were among the very first princes i n Italy—or Europe—to embrace the new-style fortifications, based o n the angle bastion, that revolutionized m i l i t a r y engineering after 1500. Second, the Gonzaga repeatedly embarked o n projects at the cutting edge o f fortification design: at M a n t u a i n the 1530s, w i t h the Porto Fortezza citadel, and then more dramatically i n the 1590s, w i t h the construction o f a massive citadel at Cásale. T h i r d , the Gonzaga fortification strategy—reliance on M a n t u a and Cásale as the fortified linchpins o f the two Gonzaga principali­ ties—was directly tested i n war, d u r i n g the War o f the M a n t u a n Succession i n 1628-1630. I n that conflict M a n t u a and Cásale suffered two sieges each by Impe­ rial and Spanish forces, respectively. Mantua, fatally weakened by plague, fell and was sacked i n July o f 1630, b u t Cásale held out against the k i n g o f Spain u n t i l a ne­ gotiated settlement ended the conflict. Even though M a n t u a fell, the survival o f Cásale vindicated the Gonzaga dukes political position—and his temerity i n risk­ ing war w i t h Spain and the emperor. W i t h o u t the fortifications at Mantua and Cásale, the Gonzaga duchies w o u l d have been virtually defenseless. The history o f Gonzaga fortifications—their construction i n the sixteenth century, their war­ time record i n the early seventeenth—makes t h e m an ideal case study for a dis­ cussion o f how fortifications helped make an early m o d e r n m i l i t a r y revolution. Geoffrey Parker, i n The Military

Revolution

(1988), firmly identifies the angle

bastion as one o f the three critical innovations impelling a revolution i n early m o d e r n land warfare: "a new use o f firepower, a new type o f fortifications, and an 1

increase i n army size." Parker emphasizes the l i n k between angle-bastion fortifi­ cations and a consequent g r o w t h i n army size. According to Parker, the prolifera­ t i o n o f the trace italienne—as the new Italianate fortification system was k n o w n n o r t h o f the Alps—forced states to recruit and m a i n t a i n larger armies b o t h to take enemy fortressess and to garrison their o w n fortification works. I n time o f war, the new m i l i t a r y architecture placed enormous demands o n the w a r r i n g parties. The c u l m i n a t i o n o f many a campaign was the massive siege, where the attacker matched the defender's angle bastions w i t h extensive earthwork lines, miles long and studded w i t h fortified camps, infantry sconces, and angled ravelins. These lines sometimes faced out to fend o f f an army o f relief as well as inward to enclose the city or citadel under siege; there could even be two separate lines, an inner and an outer belt o f earthworks. The greatest sieges became simply monstrous, swallowing whole campaigns to become v i r t u a l wars unto them­ 2

selves. Where geography was most constraining, particularly i n the Netherlands, earthwork lines following rivers defended whole frontiers. Armies often dug more than they marched, and a soldier needed to be as " w i l l i n g to fight w i t h the Spade 3

as w i t h the sword." The need for massive fortifications required the mass m o b i l i ­ zation o f laborer auxiliaries, i n peace and i n war. A n d men were not the only re­ source needed i n ever-greater quantities: cannon, gunpowder, shot, oxen, horses, grain, fodder, w o o d and a whole catalog o f other siege requisites, f r o m matchcord to shoes to shovels, chewed up the enormous sums devoted to war. The new

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scale o f war, i n geographic, human, and monetary terms, demanded the organi­ zation o f (relatively) efficient commissariats and encouraged the g r o w t h o f state and m i l i t a r y bureaucracies to raise taxes, extort contributions, and cajole bankers. For Parker, these momentous changes i n the scale and practice o f warfare, espe­ cially the g r o w t h i n army size, all flowed f r o m the spread o f the angle bastion after the year 1500. T h o u g h logically attractive, the essential l i n k between army size and the angle bastion has been challenged as unproven, at least i n the French case. I t may i n fact be impossible to prove, w i t h numbers, that the angle bastion was the root cause o f the dramatic increases i n army size across the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. But the relationship between the angle bastion and army size is not the only is­ sue. For Parker, the angle bastion had i m p o r t a n t political consequences. The new architecture was extremely expensive, a fact that suggests that the costs o f the new warfare pushed smaller and poorer states out o f the balance o f power. To support this position Parker turns to the excellent, indeed model, analysis o f the m i l i t a r y architecture and warfare o f the period: Simon Pepper and Nicholas Adams, Fire­ 4

arms and Fortifications,

Military

Architecture

and Siege Warfare

in

Sixteenth-Cen­

5

tury Siena (Chicago 1986). This meticulous case study is one o f too few m o n o ­ graphs examining i n detail the theoretical and technical issues o f the military revolution i n a particular political context. The Sienese experience w i t h m o d e r n fortifications seems cautionary: despite m u c h expenditure and effort, the walls o f Siena were only partially modernized w i t h angle bastions, and the city failed to h o l d o f f a Hispano-Florentine invasion at mid-century. Parker seizes u p o n this example: The Republic of Siena ... lost its independence ... largely because its leaders em­ barked upon a programme of fortification that they could not afford. In 1553, faced with the threat of imminent attack by its enemies, it was decided that seventeen towns, including Siena, would be equipped with new bastions and ramparts. But la­ bour, funds and building materials were all so hard to come by that, when the inva­ sion occurred in 1554, few of the projected defence works were complete; and yet the Republic had spent so much on fortification that it had no resources left either to raise a relief army or even hire and man a fleet to succour its coastal fortresses. So in April 1555, after a grueling ten-month siege, Siena surrendered unconditionally and was, after a short period of occupation, annexed by her neighbour, Florence. The military revolution had led directly to extinction. 6

This conclusion, that "the m i l i t a r y revolution . . . led directly to extinction," sug­ gests that the angle bastion assisted the emergence o f wealthy and populous great powers, as the only states w h o could afford the new fortifications. Parker is n o t the only scholar to note this connection. I n a review o f Parker's Military Revolu­ tion an Italian historian, also citing Pepper and Adams' Firearms and Fortifica­ tions, concluded that "Italian liberty was certainly the first v i c t i m o f the m i l i t a r y revolution." I n this view, the new m i l i t a r y architecture was an innovation that 7

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Revolution

weakened the sovereignty o f the Italian states, placing them at the mercy o f the wealthier proto-national kingdoms o f n o r t h e r n Europe and Iberia, leading d i ­ rectly to the so-called Spanish hegemony i n Italy. The Sienese example has also led to a more general discounting o f the trace italienne as an "ambiguous" i n n o ­ vation because "its spread throughout Europe i n the century after 1500 was patchy, for the expense involved could bankrupt a small principality or a city-state (as i t d i d Siena i n the 1550s and Geneva i n the 1580s), and no major city could af­ ford a complete enceinte." This line o f argument charges that the overall i m p o r ­ tance o f the angle bastion has been generally exaggerated. 8

But there is a different o p i n i o n as well, that the true political effect o f the trace italienne was to stymie Habsburg imperialism: By checking the sovereignty of siege cannon so quickly, the trace italienne played a critical role in European history. By the 1530s ... high technology once again favored local defenses, at least in those regions where governments could afford the cost of the new fortifications and the large number of cannon they required. This put a very effective obstacle in the way of the political consolidation of Europe into a single i m ­ perial unity at almost the same time that such a possibility became conceivable, thanks to the extraordinary collection of territories [inherited by Charles V ] . ... [In Italy] imperial consolidation halted halfway, with Spanish garrisons in Naples and Milan supporting an unstable Habsburg hegemony in Italy. 9

I n this view the angle bastion was indeed a revolutionary m i l i t a r y innovation w i t h significant political consequences—and not bad ones for the m i d d l i n g and smaller states o f Europe. The coming o f the trace italiennehas also been identified as part o f a larger European pattern o f m i l i t a r y innovation preserving political plurality: [The new military architecture] restored the security of the Italian city-states, or at least of those which had not fallen to a foreign conqueror and which possessed the vast amounts of manpower needed to build and garrison such complex fortifications. ... Above all, it hindered the easy conquest of rebels and rivals by one overweening power in Europe, as the protracted siege warfare which accompanied the Revolt of the Netherlands attested. ... The authority acquired through gunpowder [in Japan and India] was not replicated in the West, which continued to be characterized by political pluralism and its deadly concomitant, the arms race. 10

Here the angle bastion is firmly identified as the weapon o f the smaller power re­ sisting a larger, b u t a caveat remains: states had to possess the "vast amounts o f manpower" necessary to take advantage o f the revolutionary new m i l i t a r y archi­ tecture. That caveat w o u l d explain the failure o f Siena's fortification policy i n the mid-sixteenth century. This survey o f the literature reveals that there are, i n general, two opinions re­ garding the larger political consequences o f the trace italienne. One p o i n t o f view maintains that the expense o f angle-bastion fortifications l i m i t e d their effective use to the larger, wealthier states. A second, contrary perspective argues that the

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new m i l i t a r y architecture was widely available to the weaker powers, and effec­ tively obstructed the ambitions o f the larger. Because to date the only detailed ex­ amination o f a smaller state's fortification policy is the case o f Siena, the best pub­ lished evidence supports the idea that the trace italienne helped push the smaller states o f Europe into political oblivion. But an examination o f the Gonzaga experience proves that the coming o f the angle bastion d i d not necessarily weaken the lesser powers o f Italy or Europe. The angle bastion was not, by nature, solely a tool o f empire. I n Italy—and i n Eu­ rope—smaller states were not universal victims o f the m i l i t a r y revolution, and the angle bastion d i d not usher i n any mass political extinction. Contra the case o f Si­ ena, i n Italy the new military architecture became the basis o f a new strategic sys­ tem i n w h i c h the smaller and m e d i u m powers, though often the allies o f the Habsburgs, preserved and even increased their independence. Embracing the new military architecture, the Italian states b u i l t furiously. For them, as for most states at most times, whether o f the sixteenth or the twentieth century, massive expense and even the prospect o f bankruptcy hardly impeded investment i n m i l i t a r y might. The Gonzaga participated i n a trend that also included the Farnese, Este, Savoia, and Medici, as well as the Habsburgs and the popes. The oligarchic mer­ chant republics o f Genoa and Venice (the first a firm ally, and the second an even firmer enemy o f the Habsburgs) b u i l t as w e l l . Even tiny city-states, such as Lucca and Geneva, could successfully modernize their fortifications and rest secure be­ h i n d massive bastion defenses. A t Geneva, the expensive new walls kept out the rapacious duke o f Savoy i n 1588 and again i n 1602; though these new walls were costly, a decision not to b u i l d new fortifications w o u l d have been far more dear. As Geneva and Lucca show, w i t h dedication almost any state could avail itself o f the new m i l i t a r y architecture. The example o f Lucca i n particular exposes the case of Siena as exceptional; w i t h more prudent political policies—in particular, not harboring anti-Medici Florentine exiles—perhaps the Sienese Republic too could have survived and i n time constructed a comprehensive circuit o f m o d e r n de­ fenses. 11

12

13

I n the larger pattern, the case o f Siena stands out as an exception, not the rule. The new m i l i t a r y architecture ultimately imperiled the Spanish position i n Italy, not the security o f the independent Italian states, and i n the end i t was Spain, and not the lesser powers, that failed politically and militarily i n the face o f the angle bastion. Thus Charles V's legacy, Spanish hegemony i n Italy, eroded at the same time and for the same reason that the Habsburg position i n the Netherlands col­ lapsed: angle-bastion fortifications. T h o u g h i n Italy i n the second half o f the sixteenth century there was no great political cataclysm to match the D u t c h Re­ volt, a sixteenth-century Italian arms race i n fortification construction just as de­ cisively replaced Habsburg dominance w i t h local independence. I n the 1520s a prince such as Federigo Gonzaga, the fifth marquis o f Mantua, w o u l d be almost helpless before a Spanish or Imperial army; a century later Federigo's grandson, duke Carlo o f Mantua and Montferrat, successfully defied 14

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b o t h the k i n g o f Spain and the emperor, thanks to the security provided by anglebastion fortifications. I n 1500 any city i n Italy was relatively defenseless before the siege cannon and gunpowder mines o f an investing army. By 1600, after some sev­ enty years o f intense fortification construction, almost every major Italian city bristled w i t h stout angle bastions. Even where there was no complete circuit o f permanent fortifications, the m a t u r i n g engineering science o f earthworks could rapidly provide the necessary defensive h o r n - and crownworks. I n the early cam­ paigns o f the Italian Wars—the 1494-95 chevauchée o f Charles V I I I o f France be­ ing the famous example—an army could defiantly march hither and yon, w i t h as m u c h ease as the freebooting bands o f the great fourteenth- and fifteenth-century mercenary captains: the Company o f the Star, the Catalan Grand Company, the White Company. But by the seventeenth century fortified strong points—cita­ dels, bastioned towns, earthwork lines—blocked free passage along the highways, navigable rivers, and m o u n t a i n passes o f Italy, and any campaign necessarily i n ­ volved the systematic subjugation o f many prickly fortresses. The sixteenth cen­ t u r y encompassed a m i l i t a r y and political revolution; a revolution w r o u g h t by the proliferation o f the trace italienne. A n d no case better exemplifies this revolu­ t i o n — o r better identifies h o w smaller states could benefit from i t — t h a n the Gonzaga fortification experience. The 1520s were perilous years for Federigo Gonzaga, fifth marquis o f Mantua (ruled 1519-1540). The danger came f r o m the seemingly interminable fighting o f the Italian Wars. These campaigns, after t h i r t y years o f war or the r u m o r o f war, climaxed i n the second decade o f the sixteenth century as k i n g Francis I o f France and the emperor Charles V disputed their precedence i n Europe—and their title to M i l a n and Naples. The armies o f b o t h monarchs, swelled by the forces o f Ital­ ian allies, marched and countermarched across central and n o r t h e r n Italy, threat­ ening neutrals as well as belligerents. These armies ( o f up to twenty thousand men or more) were as populous as good-sized cities, and they moved across the countryside like locusts, b u r n i n g , pillaging, and demanding provisions from the villages and towns w i t h i n their grasp. I n 1527 one o f the largest o f these armies, a vagabond Imperial host o f ill-paid Germans, Spaniards, and Italians, swept d o w n on an ill-prepared and weakly defended Rome, the political base o f the Medici pope Clement V I I , the emperor s last rival for temporal supremacy i n Italy. I n a w o r l d where cruelties were commonplace and unremarkable, the sack o f Rome w h i c h followed shocked all Italy. The Florentine humanist Luigi Guicciardini, the elder brother o f the historian Francesco, memorialized the fury o f the sack i n an essay w r i t t e n soon after events unfolded: 15

In the streets you saw nothing but thugs and rogues [the Imperial soldiery] carrying great bundles of the richest vestments and ecclesiastical ornaments and huge sacks full of all kinds of vessels of gold and silver. ... Great numbers of captives of all sorts were to be seen, groaning and screaming, being swiftly led to makeshift prisons. In the streets there were many corpses. Many nobles lay there cut to pieces, covered with mud and their own blood, and many people only half dead lay miserably on the

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ground. ... After the Spanish and Germans had rested and recuperated somewhat from the incredible fatigue they incurred while scouring the city for booty, they be­ gan with many painful and cruel tortures to interrogate their prisoners. Their aim was to discover both hidden riches and the quantity of money their prisoners were able to pay for their liberation. ... Many were suspended by their arms for hours at a time; others were led around by ropes tied to their testicles. Many were suspended by one foot above the streets or over the water, with the threat that the cord suspending them would be cut. Many were beaten and wounded severely. Many were branded with hot irons in various parts of their bodies. Some endured great thirst; others were prevented from sleeping. Avery cruel and effective torture was to pull out their back teeth. Some were made to eat their own ears, or nose, or testicles roasted; and others were subjected to bizarre and unheard of torments that affect me too strongly even to think of them. 16

The brutal sack o f Rome i n 1527 was only the most dramatic event o f a decade heavy w i t h terrifying m i l i t a r y calamities. Several major Italian cities suffered sieges, including Parma i n 1521, Genoa i n 1522, M i l a n i n 1522 and 1526, Cremona i n 1523, Pavia i n 1525 and again i n 1527, Naples i n 1527-28, and Florence i n 1529-30. Smaller towns and villages unlucky enough to lie along an army's line o f march often survived only as smoking milestones m a r k i n g the soldiers' passage. Field encounters took place as well, the battle o f Pavia i n 1525 being the most decisive, b u t that battle, like most others o f the period, was the consequence o f an on-going siege. For contemporaries the most fearsome aspect o f the current wars was the vulnerability o f towns and cities to murderous assault by w i l l f u l , headstrong ar­ mies. Wise rulers accordingly t u r n e d their attention to the fortifications defend­ ing their chief cities. As a prudent prince, Federigo Gonzaga d i d everything he could to protect his principality f r o m war, and especially its capital, the city o f Mantua, f r o m the t w i n disasters o f siege and sack. He avoided open participation i n the Italian wars, i n ­ stead following the political middle road as long as he could w i t h o u t frustrating and thus angering any prince w h o seemed strong enough to w i n . Thus, i n the campaign that preceded the 1527 sack o f Rome, Federigo deliberately refused to honor a m i l i t a r y contract obligating h i m to aid pope Clement. Instead o f ob­ structing the advance o f Imperial troops, he allowed the emperor's German mer­ cenaries to cross the marquisate o f M a n t u a and the river Po w i t h o u t hindrance, essentially wishing them godspeed o n their way south towards Rome and Flor­ ence. I n this way Federigo firmly, i f n o t publicly, shifted his loyalty to the rising star o f Charles V, a shift o f allegiance that stood h i m and his family i n good stead for the remainder o f the century: i n 1530 Charles V rewarded Federigo by elevat­ ing M a n t u a to a duchy. Such duplicity should come as no surprise, considering that this was the w o r l d where Machiavelli learned and practiced the art o f state­ craft. But Federigo could n o t depend o n political craft alone. 17

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The safety o f M a n t u a ultimately depended o n the state o f her defenses, and be­ fore the 1520s the city's only fortifications (Figure 8.2) were a medieval circuit o f

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curtain walls and narrow towers erected i n the opening years o f the fifteenth cen­ t u r y . Tall and t h i n , these walls and towers were incapable o f withstanding a m o d e r n sixteenth-century artillery bombardment and infantry assault. There was also the Castello d i San Giorgio, a picturesque late medieval castle, b u t by the six­ teenth century the Castello, as obsolete as the city walls, served only as an a r m o r y and as an annex to the surrounding Reggia palace complex. M a n t u a could still depend o n her magnificent natural site, a large island surrounded by the broad waters o f the M i n c i o river, b u t though formidable, this moat was no guarantee o f invulnerability; the city still badly needed new fortifications able to resist the lat­ est techniques o f siege warfare. The only attempt to modernize the city's defenses had been made d u r i n g the 1509 campaign against Venice, b u t the hasty works erected at that date, almost certainly o f earth construction, apparently subsided i n the following years. Should a hostile—or merely uncontrollable—army fix o n his capital, Federigo faced m i l i t a r y and political disaster. Considering the uncer­ tain swirl o f power politics i n Italy, no fears were groundless. Federigo, o f course, was not alone i n this insecurity: every Italian prince and government respected the power o f the m o d e r n gunpowder assault, be i t artillery or the mine, and all over Italy cities and towns belted by medieval walls were n o w relatively defense20

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less—or, more importantly, seemed relatively defenseless—before an invader's army. The full, horrible consequence o f such vulnerability became terribly clear after the sack o f Rome. However, necessity had already sparked architects and m i l i t a r y men to develop new methods and new materials o f fortification, and by the early sixteenth cen­ t u r y the resulting new styles o f fortification offered the hope o f real protection against attacking armies, even those well supplied w i t h heavy siege c a n n o n . First o f all, given the expertise, manpower, and time to prepare t h e m properly, earth­ w o r k ditches and ramparts, effective and cheap i f n o t glamorous or durable, could resist artillery fire and infantry escalade very w e l l . Such earthworks could also admirably m o u n t defensive artillery, allowing defenders to reply to their be­ siegers i n k i n d . By the Italian Wars the t r a d i t i o n o f earthwork anti-artillery de­ fenses was a century old, and experimentation w i t h the f o r m o f earthworks certainly aided i n the development o f effective permanent anti-artillery fortifica­ tions. I n the early sixteenth century there were essentially two schools o f thought regarding permanent anti-artillery fortifications. One favored a brute bolstering of the medieval tradition o f high masonry defenses: walls and massive artillery towers became extremely thick, fitted w i t h internal casemates chambering defen­ sive c a n n o n . More ingenious, and ultimately more successful, was the develop­ ment o f an entirely new theory o f fortification, based o n an angled defensive perimeter maximizing the enfilading fire o f cannon and small arms to create a dense zone o f cross-fire capable o f decimating any enemy assault. The distinctive architectural f o r m o f this new defensive system was the angle bastion: a low, broad, thick artillery platform, spade- or arrow-shaped i n plan. Usually an earth core faced w i t h a masonry retaining wall, the massive b u l k o f such bastions could safely withstand a considerable p u m m e l i n g by siege artillery before collapsing and breaching. A sole angle bastion was a negligible improvement to a city's or fortress's perimeter: the cross-fire that was the heart o f the angle-bastion system depended o n the paired flanks and faces o f opposite bastions. For this reason early m o d e r n angle-bastion fortresses and fortified cities assumed their hallmark star or snowflake plan, w i t h the flanks o f each bastion providing the enfilading fire that protected its neighbor. Early examples o f the angle bastion can be found from the last decades o f the fifteenth century, from even before the opening o f the Italian Wars w i t h Charles V I I I ' s invasion o f Italy i n 1494, and the idea o f an angled defensive perimeter p r o v i d i n g enfilading fire, the essential theory behind the an­ gle bastion f o r m , can be traced back even earlier. But i n the 1520s the advantages o f the angle bastion were not yet conclusively proven. O n l y i n the 1530s d i d the angle bastion become the unquestioned f o r m o f all m i l i t a r y architecture i n Italy: before that decade's end princes, architects, and engineers had to choose between various defensive options and strategies. Was i t best to rely o n ad hoc earthworks supplementing existing medieval walls? O r should the expense and effort o f mas­ sive masonry artillery towers and walls be borne? O r were angle bastions (which 22

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must at first have looked queer to the u n i n f o r m e d or unconvinced) the best solu­ tion? For the much-needed modernization o f Mantua's defenses the young prince Federigo ( b o r n i n 1500, he was an exact contemporary o f Charles V ) at first de­ pended o n the counsel o f the more experienced m i l i t a r y men at his court, men who had proven themselves i n the many campaigns o f Federigo's father, the mar­ quis Francesco, w h o had led an allied Italian army against Charles V I I I at the fa­ mous battle o f the Taro, or Fornovo, i n 1495. One o f these men was Alessio Beccaguto, a veteran o f 1495 and several other campaigns, w h o i n the 1520s de­ signed a b o l d new scheme o f fortifications for M a n t u a . Beccaguto originally hoped to r i n g the entire island city w i t h fortifications b u i l t to his pattern, b u t fi­ nancial constraints and other difficulties l i m i t e d actual construction to the south­ ern side o f the city, where the newer Suburbio faced the marshy Te island. I n the mid-i520s the Isola del Te was the site o f another major architectural project: Federigo's new pleasure palace, the Palazzo del Te, where he could disport w i t h his married mistress Isabella Boschetti, away f r o m the disapproving eyes o f the court (especially those of his mother, Isabella d'Este.) Both projects, the Palazzo del Te and Beccaguto's new fortifications, were i m p o r t a n t for the projection o f princely power; such civic landmarks w o n the approval and respect o f the rare royal visi­ tor, and meanwhile they awed the locals and impressed foreign ambassadors and passing tourists. The political purpose behind the new fortifications was very clear: to protect the city o f Mantua, and thus the person o f the prince and the prestige o f the Gonzaga family, f r o m the vicissitudes o f politics and the threat o f invasion. H o p i n g to convince Federigo to invest i n his p r o g r a m for the complete refortification o f Mantua, Beccaguto gushed the advantages o f his plan to his master: 26

27

When Your Excellency will have your city completely fortified, you will be able to re­ ply to those who ask, "who is your friend?"—"[I am the] friend of God and the en­ emy of everyone else." 28

Beccaguto was promising his master near i m m u n i t y from the threat o f siege and sack, and was therefore offering m i l i t a r y security and the guarantee o f political independence. For Beccaguto, and presumably for Federigo as well, walls were better than allies. I n the war-stricken w o r l d o f the 1520s, where powerful m o n ­ archs such as Charles V or Francis I could threaten invasion almost at a w h i m — and w i t h those monarchs' mercenary armies often barely at the c o m m a n d o f their generals, and sometimes only tenuously controlled by the policies o f their cashpoor paymasters—there was compelling need for m i l i t a r y and political security. Fortifications provided that security. T h o u g h newer and better designs soon eclipsed Beccaguto's efforts, the idea behind his w o r k — t h a t fortifications should provide m i l i t a r y security and so ensure the prince's independence—remained the political theme behind all subsequent fortification construction at Mantua and at other Gonzaga cities.

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Despite his assurances o f their excellence, Alessio Beccaguto's new fortifica­ tions for Mantua, conceived by the early 1520s, were flawed i n design, and i t was just as well that the money or political w i l l was never found for the complete i m ­ plementation o f his program. Beccaguto's design d i d not depend o n angle bas­ tions: rather, his fortifications as b u i l t o n the southern side o f the city consisted o f two r o u n d artillery towers separated by long stretches o f massive new walls (a t h i r d tower at the southwest corner o f the city remained unfinished). The towers themselves were too far apart to rely o n the protecting fire o f their neighbors. I n ­ stead, i t is clear that Beccaguto intended each tower to be a self-defending strong point, radiating artillery fire. W o r k o n Beccaguto's fortifications, never steady, ended i n 1528 w i t h the onset o f the plague—and Beccaguto died i n the same year, perhaps himself a v i c t i m o f the pest. W h e n the tower he left unfinished was com­ pleted i n 1531, i t was completed as an angle bastion w i t h a pointed salient and deep protected flanks. This tower, k n o w n as the Torre Alessio, was the first angle bastion at Mantua, and its construction marks the rise to influence o f a new gen­ eration o f engineers and m i l i t a r y men. The two completed towers o f Beccaguto's design were n o t rebuilt as angle bastions, suggesting some ambivalence regarding their design deficiencies. Significantly, when an Imperial army threatened the southern side o f Mantua a century after Beccaguto's death, i n the fall o f 1629, new earthworks were b u i l t across the Te island for the defense o f the city: the presiding engineer d i d not rely o n Beccaguto's walls and towers, relicts o f the experimental age preceding the unquestioned acceptance o f the angle bastion. After 1530 the root principle o f the angle bastion—enfilading fire f r o m protected flanks—deter­ m i n e d the design o f every fortification at Mantua. The first great Gonzaga fortification program o f the new era was the construc­ t i o n o f a pentagonal angle-bastion fortress to the n o r t h o f the city, o n the far side o f the M i n c i o . This fortress was k n o w n as the Cittadella or Porto Fortezza, and i t remained, w i t h modernizations, the heart o f the city's defenses into the nine­ teenth century. The four massive bastions o f this citadel (the fifth corner o f the fortress was a gatehouse facing the M i n c i o ) were only completed w i t h difficulty, after m u c h expenditure and time. Duke Federigo's government (Mantua was a duchy from 1530) needed a special duty, the maccaluffo, levied at the mills and gates o f the city, to meet the costs o f constructing the citadel. I n 1542 cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, chief regent for the young duke Francesco, instituted a salt tax to finance the fortifications at Porto; this tax stayed i n effect u n t i l at least 1559. Other obstructions, including the legal procedures needed to evict landowners f r o m the site, delayed progress as w e l l . The masonry facing o f the Madonna bas­ t i o n was only completed i n 1570, t h i r t y years after duke Federigo's death: con­ struction o f the citadel therefore took over a generation. Yet well before that date the site was defensible, and as early as 1540 the fortifications o f Mantua as a whole were considered quite formidable. I n that year a Venetian ambassador reported to the Senate the state o f Mantua's defenses, including a t h u m b n a i l sketch o f the city's strategic position and importance to Venice: 29

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[Mantua is] a city very strong both by nature and by art: by nature, most of it is de­ fended by the lake; by art, [it is defended] by a thick wall with heavy bastions where they are needed. [The city] is situated in a place so that, as our friend, it could sup­ port all of Lombardy and all the State of Your Serenity, and as an enemy it could en­ danger it in many ways, because it is 20 miles from Verona; from Legnago 25 miles; from Brescia, Parma, Reggio, and Modena 40; from Cremona, Milan, Padua 60; from Vicenza and Ferrara 50. 31

F r o m the perspective o f Venice, M a n t u a was the fortified hub o f a wider region strategically wedged between Habsburg M i l a n and the Venetian presence i n L o m ­ bardy and the Veronese. A Venetian ambassador i n 1564 remarked again that the city was "strongly and heavily bastioned," and by that date the Porto citadel w o u l d have been very impressive.

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Fortifications, as well as a large population

(some 40,000 inhabitants) and a vigorous economy (silk manufacture, a fertile countryside, and a prosperous Jewish c o m m u n i t y ) , made M a n t u a a city o f the first class. Gonzaga fortifications were n o t l i m i t e d to the city or duchy o f Mantua. I n 1531 duke Federigo acquired title to the marquisate—later the d u c h y — o f Montferrat through marriage to the heiress Margherita Paleólogo. The Gonzaga succession to Montferrat was not an easy one. The local elites, b o t h the feudal nobility and the privileged citizens o f the principal towns, were unhappy at the prospect o f passing from weak Paleólogo to strong Gonzaga rule. The marquis o f Saluzzo and the duke o f Savoy as well had their o w n claims to Montferrat, and b o t h disputed the Gonzaga inheritance. The Gonzaga acquisition o f Montferrat ultimately de­ pended o n Habsburg support: for complex dynastic reasons, the original mar­ riage between Federigo and Margherita depended o n the grace o f the emperor; the legality o f the Gonzaga claim to Montferrat was upheld by Charles V i n 1536; and Spanish troops from the M i l a n garrison were needed to help enforce the Gonzaga claim i n 1533,1536, and o n several different occasions between 1560 and 1565. French intervention also complicated matters. I n 1536 French soldiers p i l ­ laged the homes o f Gonzaga supporters i n the city o f Cásale. Most o f Montferrat was occupied by France between 1555 and 1559, and was only given up as a condi­ t i o n o f the 1559 Peace o f Cateau-Cambrésis. Finally, i n 1565, the citizens o f Cásale, the most i m p o r t a n t city i n Montferrat, rose i n open rebellion. T h r o u g h a t y p i ­ cally Gonzaga combination o f guile and force, the rebellion was suppressed and its ringleaders executed or imprisoned i n the duchy o f Mantua. The first t h i r t y o d d years o f Gonzaga rule i n Montferrat were therefore hardly settled or secure; i n fact, Gonzaga rule could hardly be said to exist. The Gonzaga needed some bridle to curb the restive citizens and nobility o f Montferrat, and to support Gonzaga rule against outside interference, especially from Savoy and even France. Perhaps as worrisome was a demonstrated dependency o n Habsburg political support and the Spanish garrison i n M i l a n . Revolt, intervention, and dependence o n Spain all severely l i m i t e d Gonzaga sovereignty i n Montferrat.

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Figure 8.3

Thomas F. Arnold

Fortifications at Cásale.

After the suppression o f the 1565 revolt the Gonzaga made fortifications the cornerstone o f their Montferrat policy. Cásale, formerly the center o f opposition to the Gonzaga and the ancient capital o f the region, n o w became the base for Gonzaga control o f Montferrat, thanks to a massive fortification p r o g r a m

33

(Fig­

ure 8.3). The French, d u r i n g their occupation, had perhaps first attempted the modernization o f Casales medieval walls w i t h the addition o f a single great angle bastion; they certainly considered b u i l d i n g a pentagonal citadel. But the first sig­ nificant fortification project to reach completion was the Gonzaga modernization 34

o f the existing medieval Castello, probably i n the 1570s. This modernization is a fascinating example o f the angle-bastion system; an example i n fact w i t h o u t true or classic angle bastions. Instead, four new ravelins—flankless pointed artillery platforms—were ingeniously b u i l t along the walls between the existing four tow­ ers o f the castle. Casemates w i t h steeply-angled firing ports i n b o t h the medieval towers and i n the sides o f the ravelins created the necessary defensive cross-fire. Surrounding the whole was a wet ditch conforming to the star pattern o f a typical angle-bastion fortress. T h o u g h eccentric, and based o n a medieval core, this was indeed a functionally m o d e r n fortification. But a modernized Castello was not enough. Plans for the further, dramatic modernization o f the city's defenses went forward. A 1585 plan proposed adding two new large angle bastions to the city's existing medieval walls.

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w i t h the accession o f duke Vincenzo I , an even bolder plan w o n out. Duke Vincenzo abandoned the idea o f modernizing the city walls, and instead resusci­ tated the o l d idea o f a citadel d o m i n a t i n g the city, b u t o n a m u c h grander scale: the plan was for an enormous new six-bastioned citadel, thirty-five hectares i n area and perfectly polygonal, the largest and most technically advanced anglebastion fortification i n Italy. This proposal was the w o r k o f Germánico Savorgnano, scion o f a great m i l i t a r y engineering family w i t h a considerable rep­ utation w o n i n Venetian service. A n army o f laborers began w o r k o n this superfortress i n 1590, and massive earth-moving operations soon created the out­ lines o f ditch, ramparts, and bastions. The more exacting w o r k o f facing the walls and bastions w i t h brick and stone was n o t completed u n t i l 1595. Meanwhile, new support buildings—a governors quarters, a granary, m i l l , bread oven, and powderhouses (one for each bastion)—went up inside the ample citadel. Inte­ grating the new citadel w i t h the o l d city took longer, b u t by around 1605 new r a m ­ parts connected b o t h . One o f these ramparts, angling between the city, the river Po, and the citadel, opened up space for a new extension o f the city, the Borgo Novo. By the early seventeenth century Cásale was one o f the best fortified cities i n Europe, and i n size and for technical sophistication the citadel at Cásale was unsurpassed i n Italy. Duke Vincenzo explained the political purpose o f this new fortress i n a letter w r i t t e n to his duchess i n Mantua o n the occasion o f the cita­ del's dedication i n 1590. This was to be a fortress so strong "that there w i l l n o t be another like i t i n Italy, . . . a fortress so unassailable that i t w i l l be the key to this state." Vincenzo clearly intended his citadel at Cásale to be the m a i n sinew of his family's h o l d o n Montferrat. 36

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Outside observors recognized the success o f Vincenzo's intention. I n his 1614 report to the Venetian Senate, Alvise Donato, general o f the artillery for duke Ferdinando, identified fortified Cásale as the "foundation o f everything" i n Montferrat, because "the citadel, the chief w o r k — a n d I can say w i t h t r u t h — t h e glorious w o r k o f marquis Germánico Savorgnano, is i n the universal judgement of well-informed men held to be one o f the most perfect, one o f the best planned and strongest places constructed i n m o d e r n times." Donato went o n to explain that this great fortress held the necessary equipment for its defense: strong, m o d ­ ern cannon; weapons (pikes, muskets, arquebuses, corselets and helmets) for 6,000 men; and a continually replenished stockpile of 75,000 bags o f grain (50,000 for the city o f Cásale, 25,000 for the citadel). Cásale was the anchor o f Gonzaga rule i n Montferrat. There was no lack o f challenges to that rule, and events rewarded the sixteenthcentury Gonzaga dukes' investment i n fortifications at Mantua and Cásale. The dukes o f Savoy never accepted the Gonzaga acquisition o f Montferrat, and a shortage o f male heirs kept the house o f Gonzaga perilously close to a succession crisis. Between 1613 and 1618 the duke o f Savoy twice tried to annex Montferrat by force, causing the Montferrat War, a conflict also k n o w n as the first and second wars o f the M a n t u a n Succession. Venice and Spain supported the Gonzaga 38

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through the l i m i t e d campaigning o f these wars, b u t i n late 1627 the governor i n M i l a n , D o n Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, switched Spanish support to the ambitious schemes o f the duke o f Savoy. The reason for this change was the ac­ cession o f Carlo Gonzaga i n late December, 1627. Better k n o w n as Charles Gonzague, the duke o f Nevers, Carlo headed the French branch o f the Gonzaga family. The Spanish court at M a d r i d was initially prepared to accept the duke o f Nevers as duke o f Mantua, b u t the precipitate m i l i t a r y action o f the governor o f M i l a n involved Philip IV, and then his cousin the emperor Ferdinand I I , i n a war w i t h disastrous and far-reaching consequences. Duke Carlo Emanuele o f Savoy and the governor o f M i l a n agreed to separately invade and quickly divide the Gonzaga duchy o f Montferrat: the duke o f Savoy w o u l d get what his family had always claimed, and D o n Gonzalo w o u l d be able to present his k i n g w i t h a nice piece o f territory and the fortress o f Cásale. This neat plan o f operations quickly unraveled. 40

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T h o u g h planned i n December o f 1627, the Spanish invasion o f Montferrat only went forward o n the last day o f M a r c h 1628. The duke o f Savoy had begun his i n ­ vasion the day before; t h r o u g h the spring and early summer Carlo Emanuele s army methodically occupied those parts of Montferrat allocated to the duke. D o n Gonzalo f o u n d his campaign more difficult. His small army showed up before the walls o f Cásale i n the first week o f A p r i l , and the governor o f M i l a n clearly ex­ pected the citadel to fall to bluster and the mere appearance o f a Spanish force. A parley party f r o m D o n Gonzalo approached the citadel and announced— falsely—that they carried a letter f r o m the emperor demanding that the city give itself up. The Gonzaga governor o f Cásale p r o m p t l y asked to see the letter, and this simple request exploded D o n Gonzalo's ruse de guerre. D o n Gonzalo then settled d o w n to attempt a formal siege, b u t his army lacked the manpower to en­ circle and mask the city, the cannon to b o m b a r d it, and even the necesary experts to direct the siege: D o n Gonzalo had to write to Genoa requesting the loan o f the city's m i l i t a r y engineer. The governor o f M i l a n had completely underestimated Casale's powers o f resistance. As the spring t u r n e d to summer D o n Gonzalo's force was finally reinforced enough to m o u n t a proper siege, b u t the city showed no signs o f weakness as the days shortened again and the rains o f a u t u m n ap­ proached. 43

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Meanwhile, the duke o f Nevers directed the relief o f Cásale f r o m the Gonzaga court i n Mantua. A t first he hoped to lift the siege o f Cásale w i t h an army o f mer­ cenaries and vassals raised from his French estates, b u t this scratch force disinte­ grated as i t tried to enter Savoy i n the first week o f August. W i t h this failure, the duke o f Nevers t u r n e d to the k i n g o f France. I n A p r i l he had w r i t t e n to Louis X I I I and the queen mother, Maria de' Medici, suggesting that an invasion o f Italy and the rescue o f Cásale w o u l d be the continuation o f H e n r y IV's unfinished antiSpanish foreign policy. Richelieu even considered exactly h o w m u c h i t w o u l d take to raise the Spanish siege: he estimated a force o f 12,000 infantry, 2,000 cav­ alry, and a train o f ten guns. But a French expedition o f relief was impossible, at 46

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least for now; the king's army was locked i n its o w n siege, before La Rochelle, and Richelieu was determined to prosecute the siege w i t h o u t respite or compromise. The fall o f La Rochelle i n late October, 1628 made French intervention i n Italy possible. O n M a r c h 5,1629, an army under the personal c o m m a n d o f Louis X I I I routed a Savoyard force at the Pass o f Susa. The duke o f Savoy immediately switched allegiances and agreed to assist the French army i n a march o n Cásale. D o n Gonzalo, w i t h no prospect o f taking Cásale and facing a Franco-Savoyard i n ­ vasion o f Lombardy, had no choice b u t to abandon his siege o n M a r c h 19,1629. Its mission completed, the French army went no farther into Italy, b u t instead re­ turned to France for a last campaign against the Huguenots. The first siege o f Cásale ended as a Spanish disgrace. 48

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The war i n Italy n o w became the p r i o r i t y o f Spanish policy i n Europe. D o n Gonzalos replacement was A m b r o g i o Spinola, a Genoese w i t h long experience o f serious siege warfare i n the Netherlands and Germany. He was given the full re­ sources to take Cásale. The government o f the k i n g o f Spain also finally prevailed o n the emperor Ferdinand I I to intervene against the duke o f Nevers, and so 1629 saw two Habsburg armies prepare for a renewed war i n Italy. The Imperial army gathered i n the Valtelline and then the Milanese over the summer o f 1629; as well as reinforcing the Habsburg cause, the Imperial soldiers brought the plague into Italy. By the end o f September this army was poised o n the border between Span­ ish Lombardy and the duchy o f Mantua. 50

The duchy o f Mantua's first line o f defense was the river Oglio, a north-south tributary o f the Po. A series o f earthwork strong points, b u i l t under the direc­ t i o n o f the m i l i t a r y engineer Francesco Tensini, an expert i n such works o n loan from the duke o f Nevers' lukewarm ally, Venice, reinforced this natural frontier. Despite intense preparation, these frontier defenses hardly withstood Imperial at­ tack. O n October 19 Imperial troops assaulted several points along the Oglio. Si­ multaneously, Imperial cavalry crossed the Oglio o n a p o n t o o n bridge at the far n o r t h end o f the river line and swept d o w n the east bank o f the river, scattering what little opposition i t met. The veteran Imperial army had expertly turned the flank o f the Oglio line, trapping most o f the M a n t u a n and Venetian defenders; only a few escaped the general collapse to find refuge i n the city o f M a n t u a . The city was already prepared for a siege. I n late September the duke o f Nevers issued a proclamation ordering the citizens o f the city, including the religious and the Jews, to appear en masse w i t h picks, shovels, baskets and whatever other tools they could muster to w o r k o n new earthworks (again designed by Tensini) for the defense o f the c i t y . Workers clearing the suburbs o f buildings to prevent their use as cover by the Imperial army used gunpowder to demolish several churches. Tensini's impressive new earthworks supplemented the existing fortifications o f the city, especially o n the Isola del Te and o n the western side o f the city, the Predella gate. The siege began i n earnest i n the first week o f November. The Imperial army forced a crossing onto the Te island (the explosion o f a magazine holding several 51

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barrels o f powder routed the defenders) and began to drive trenches toward the southern side o f the city, defended by earth ravelins and hornworks i n front o f Beccaguto's century-old walls and towers. The low water table here made offen­ sive siege operations impossible; the Imperial assault trenches only filled w i t h wa­ ter. Cannon were no more effective. The Imperial siege guns, mounted o n the eastern bank o f the M i n c i o , attempted a bombardment o f the city, b u t the range across the lakes was so great that only three or four unfortunates were k i l l e d . Perhaps overestimating the success o f this cannonade, the Imperial army pre­ pared an assault o n the city by way o f the long S. Giorgio bridge. W i t h flags flying and drums beating, a deep c o l u m n o f German soldiers rushed along the cause­ way. O n the city side o f the bridge, i n the Giardino bastion, a French lieutenant w i t h a few Venetian soldiers had prepared a pair o f cannon loaded w i t h musket balls, aimed i n a perfect enfilade d o w n the causeway. The discharge o f these pieces at point-blank range instantly decimated the Imperial attack; the M a n t u a n chronicler o f the siege m o r b i d l y noted that the Imperials, n o w respectful o f the city's defenses, left their dead and dying to rot o n the b r i d g e . W i t h the failure o f this assault the Imperial army t u r n e d to slower methods. A dam o n the M i n c i o downstream o f the city backed up the water o f the river, d r o w n i n g the water wheels o f the city's mills. T h o u g h well supplied w i t h grain, the city faced starva­ t i o n because grain could not be g r o u n d for meal to make bread. The defenders eliminated this threat i n a daring night raid i n w h i c h forty soldiers i n small boats destroyed the dam and released the backed-up waters o f the M i n c i o . After these failures the Imperial army sat back to wait the city out. Conditions i n the c i t y — the population swelled by refugees f r o m the countryside—soon became dire. For­ age was especially scarce, and animals were slaughtered rather than allowed to starve. This created an o d d abundance i n a city o f want: at one p o i n t meat sold for two pennies a p o u n d , while a cartload o f hay went for forty or fifty silver coins. But as winter intensified the suffering o f the Imperial soldiers, i n the open and w i t h the plague raging i n their ranks, was worse than that o f the citizens and gar­ rison o f Mantua. I n the week before Christmas the Imperial army evacuated its siege lines for winter quarters along the Oglio and south o f the Po. 54

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Imperial retreat was a reprieve, not salvation. The defenders destroyed the I m ­ perial earthworks, reinforced and extended their o w n , and sent cavalry patrols deep into the surrounding countryside. But the raising o f the siege sowed the seeds o f disaster; the Imperial lines had i n effect enforced a quarantine o n M a n ­ tua, and w i t h the siege lifted the plague bacillus entered the city. I n May the Impe­ rial army resumed a close siege o f Mantua, and t h r o u g h the early summer the I m ­ perial soldiers watched the defense o f the city disintegrate as the defenders died like flies: by mid-June there were only 16,634 sickly inhabitants left. Disease, not any weakness i n the city's fortifications, doomed Mantua. Sensing that the plague had worked its worst, the Imperial army assaulted the city from three sides o n July 16,1630. Resistance was brief and the Imperial soldiers soon began their plunder­ ing. The duke o f Nevers at first retreated to the Porto Fortezza citadel, b u t o n July 58

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18 he surrendered himself and his family o n generous terms. W i t h his capital rav­ aged by war and disease, his cause seemed extinguished. But the duke o f Nevers remained unbowed, and he well understood how his fight connected to the larger politics o f Europe: after surrendering he airily discussed the wider wars coursing across Europe, especially the situations o f H o l l a n d and A l b a n i a . He then took horse for exile i n the Papal States. T h o u g h Mantua had fallen, the fortress-city o f Cásale remained untaken, and as long as Cásale held out the duke o f Nevers' claims to Montferrat and Mantua remained very m u c h alive. 59

The second siege o f Cásale was a m u c h more scientific effort than the first. U n ­ like D o n Gonzalo, Spinola d i d not underestimate his target, b u t Spinola's p r u ­ dence and deliberation gave the duke o f Nevers and the defenders o f Cásale what they needed most: time. Spinola's cautious invasion o f Montferrat only reached Cásale i n the first week o f May, 1630; he had already outlined his timetable for the reduction o f Cásale i n a council o f war o n A p r i l 30: the siege lines w o u l d go up i n mid-June, and Spinola estimated the city w o u l d fall by the end o f September. Cásale failed to abide by these sanguine predictions; its governor, garrison, and citizenry proved tenacious. New defensive earthworks reinforced the city's already strong fortifications, and the defenders melted d o w n a broken cannon to m i n t brass siege money (tokens that could be redeemed for specie after the war) stamped w i t h defiant slogans such as "no retreat, no surrender." While Cásale held out, the plague destroyed Spinola's army. Spinola himself died o f the sickness on September 25—ironically, at about the time he had expected the fall o f Cásale. 60

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The continued resistance o f Cásale, past even the fall o f Mantua i n July, allowed a French army to fight a second campaign o f relief. This French army crossed the French frontier w i t h Savoy o n March 19, even before Spinola opened his siege. The Savoyard citadel o f Pinerolo, blocking the French advance, fell o n March 29; between June 30 and July 6 the French army crossed the M t . Cenis pass; and o n July 6 the French scattered an army under prince Thomas o f Savoy at the battle o f Avigliano. A reinforced French force, under marshal Schomberg, moved on to­ ward Montferrat i n late August. A t this p o i n t diplomacy took over. France and Spain were technically at peace, and yet m i l i t a r y operations i n Italy pointed to­ wards an armed confrontation at Cásale. A n y such encounter w o u l d mean open war. Delaying truces came and went, b u t i n the end (by October 26 marshal Schomberg's army was w i t h i n a few miles o f Cásale) Spain backed down. Cásale was saved, and the diplomatic conclusions to the war (the two Peaces o f Cherasco o f A p r i l 6 and June 19,1631) restored Mantua and most o f Montferrat, including Cásale, to the duke o f Nevers, w h o also received the emperor's investiture. The k i n g o f Spain and the emperor gained n o t h i n g and lost much; the war was a Habsburg catastrophe. The Spanish war effort failed because Richelieu and Louis X I I I seconded the duke o f Nevers, b u t the two French campaigns to relieve Cásale w o u l d have been impossible had that city fallen. The p r i m a r y cause o f Spanish and Habsburg fail­ ure was therefore the independent strength o f the Gonzaga fortress complexes at 62

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Cásale and Mantua. M o b i l i z i n g the resources to besiege these cities proved well w i t h i n the powers o f the k i n g o f Spain and the emperor; taking t h e m proved vastly more difficult. A n d the taking o f one city was n o t enough; the fall o f M a n ­ tua—more the w o r k o f plague than m i l i t a r y a c t i o n — d i d n o t sink the duke o f Nevers' cause. For a Habsburg victory Spain had to take Cásale. D o n Gonzalo ex­ pected Cásale to fall easily to a coup de main; instead, the hasty action o f the gov­ ernor o f M i l a n involved Philip I V i n a politically unnecessary and perhaps m i l i ­ tarily unwinnable war. Once committed, the Spanish government directed all available resources to taking Cásale, b u t Spinola's siege also failed and the m o u n ­ tain o f men, money, and materiel heaped together to crush Cásale went to waste. The bastions o f Cásale, duke Vincenzo Gonzaga's pet project, d i d n o t bankrupt the Gonzaga state w i t h their construction; instead those bastions defied Spain's very best effort to take them—an effort that absorbed the full resources o f the Spanish empire. According to one historian: Spain gained nothing from the War of Mantua, and her responsibility for it was a de­ parture from the doctrine of defence on which her foreign policy was professedly based. On both counts her prestige suffered. So did her resources: by this miscalcula­ tion Olivares sabotaged any hopes his administration may have entertained of finan­ cial recovery. The Italian front swallowed up all the crowns returns from the Indies and

a good portion of private returns, [italics added] Of the 3 million ducats of private rev­ enue brought on the Tierra firme fleet in 1629 the crown laid its hands on 1 million and added it to its own 800,000 for immediate dispatch to Italy. ... The War of Man­ tua was a distraction from, not a contribution towards, the central issue of Spanish policy, the war against the Dutch. Coinciding as it did with the financial stringency caused by the loss of the New Spain fleet in 1628 [seized in the Caribbean by the Dutch], it brought the campaign in the Low Countries virtually to a halt. 65

I n the age o f the angle bastion, the cost o f taking a sophisticated fortress eclipsed the considerable expense o f constructing one. The daunting costs o f fortifying alia moderna w i t h angle bastions could be spread over decades, and often were, while the money for a siege had to be raised and spent i n one campaigning sea­ son. The finances o f fortress warfare could therefore w o r k to the benefit o f the small state. The Gonzaga proved they could afford to b u i l d Cásale; Spain proved i t could not afford to successfully besiege i t . That is the tactical perspective. O n the strategic level, the trace italienne took a weakly held, barely sovereign state— Gonzaga M o n t f e r r a t — a n d made i t politically viable and nearly invulnerable m i l i ­ tarily. That is a revolution indeed. The Gonzaga fortification experience was n o t an aberration, and the Spanish and Imperial invasions o f Montferrat and M a n t u a between 1628 and 1630 were not the only campaigns to bog d o w n i n siege warfare. The events o f several other conflicts i n early seventeenth-century Italy reveal the friction fortifications ex­ erted o n the pace and effectiveness o f offensive operations. The 1613-1618 Montferrat War between Savoy and a Spanish-Gonzaga-Venetian alliance was one o f m i n o r sieges o f m i n o r places: Cásale, the fortified heart o f Montferrat, was

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never even approached. The contemporaneous 1615-1617 Uzkok War between Venice and the archduke Ferdinand o f Styria (the future emperor Ferdinand I I ) consisted almost entirely o f a long-drawn Venetian siege o f Gradisca. A decade later, i n 1625, a quick Savoyard thrust at Genoa easily crossed the frontier, b u t then collapsed into a lackluster campaign o f small sieges. As mentioned above, the duke o f Savoy's similar attempts o n Geneva ( i n 1588 and again i n 1602) failed mis­ erably before the walls o f that city. Finally, the French relief expedition o f 1630 had to fight its way to Cásale past strong Savoyard fortifications: Richelieu retained one o f these, Pinerolo, as France's permanent gate to the Po Valley. The sixteenthcentury Italian arms race i n fortifications, by bolstering the defensive strengths o f all states that availed themselves o f the new m i l i t a r y architecture, had narrowed the power gaps between city-states and princely states, and between princely states and the great European kingdoms: thus the duke o f Savoy could not take Genoa or Geneva, and the k i n g o f Spain could not swallow Montferrat. The same dynamic existed outside o f Italy. I n the Netherlands the bastioned cities o f the U n i o n o f Utrecht resisted Spanish reconquest and transformed the D u t c h Revolt into an Eighty Years' War—a war that ended w i t h the recognized i n ­ dependence o f the United Provinces. I n France the Huguenot cities o f the south­ west pursued a strategy identical to that o f their Calvinist co-religionists i n the Netherlands. These cities formed what has been titled the "United Provinces o f the M i d i , " and their bastions held off the forces o f the French crown for sixty years. The two greatest Huguenot places de süreté (fastnesses authorized by the Edict o f Nantes and i n earlier Valois concessions) were Montauban and La Rochelle; the second city defied a royal siege i n 1573-74 and nearly survived Riche­ lieu's t r u l y massive effort o f 1628. Its walls were as m o d e r n and as comprehensive as any i n Europe. I n late sixteenth-century Germany the Free Cities and princes o f the Empire exhibited an enthusiasm for fortification construction equal to that o f their peers i n Italy. There were several n o r t h e r n Casales—fortress cities anchoring small states—in and around western Germany, including Hanau-Neustadt i n Hanau, Karlshaven i n Hesse, Jülich i n the duchy o f the same name, Nancy i n Lor­ raine, and Philippsburg i n the tiny bishopric o f Speyer. The electors Palatine—a family as ambitious i n their o w n sphere as were the Gonzaga i n Italy—remade the defenses o f their Rhineland principality by constructing a major fortress-city at M a n n h e i m , where from 1606 the D u t c h engineer Bartel Jonson supervised the construction o f the seven-sided Fredericksburg citadel and an equally heavily bas­ tioned city proper. Fortified M a n n h e i m supplemented new walls at Frankenthal and Heidelberg; all three places held out against Imperial and Spanish armies long after the collapse o f the elector Frederick V's Bohemian adventure i n 1620, Frankenthal only giving up i n March o f 1623. I n France, Germany, and the Low Countries, as well as i n Italy, independent and quasi-independent cities and princes made fortifications the foundation o f their m i l i t a r y preparedness. N o for­ tification was invulnerable, and i n wartime a successful fortification strategy de­ pended o n more than strong bastions: allies, disease, generalship, and a thousand 66

67

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other variables affected the course o f every siege. But i n the broad analysis the trace italienne, unquestionably a tactical revolution i n m i l i t a r y architecture, ac­ complished a political revolution as well: restoring to the smaller states o f Europe a m i l i t a r y defensibility otherwise lost i n the fifteenth century w i t h the develop­ ment o f effective siege cannon.

Notes I would like to thank Derek Croxton, Paul Kennedy, Geoffrey Parker, David Parrott, Clifford Rogers, and Geoffrey Symcox for their many helpful comments and suggestions. I am also grateful for the financial support of a John M . Olin Postdoctoral Fellowship at the International Security Program at Yale University. 1. Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution (Cambridge 1988) 43. 2. Salient examples of epic sieges are the Imperial siege of Metz in 1552, the Spanish siege of Antwerp in 1584-1585, the Spanish siege of Breda in 1624-1625, the royal French siege of La Rochelle in 1627-1628, and the Dutch siege of s'Hertogenbosch in 1629. For capsule sur­ veys of significant siege campaigns see Christopher Duffy, Siege Warfare, The Fortress in the Early Modern World 1494-1660 (London 1979). 3. The words of a 1643 pamphleteer quoted in Charles Carlton, Going to the Wars, the Ex­ perience of the British Civil Wars 1638-1651 (London 1992) 158.

4. John A. Lynn, "The trace italienne and the Growth of Armies: The French Case," The Journal of Military History 55 (1991). Reprinted above, Ch. 7. 5. The thesis that fortification costs bankrupted Siena was first voiced in Judith Hook, "Fortifications and the End of the Sienese State," History 62 (1977). 6. Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution (Cambridge 1988) 12. 7. Piero Del Negro, review of Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution (Cambridge 1988), Rivista Storica Italiana 102 (1991) 258.

8. Simon Adams, "Tactics or Politics? 'The Military Revolution and the Hapsburg He­ gemony, 1525-1648," in John Lynn, ed. Tools of War (Urbana, Illinois 1990) 36. Reprinted below, Ch. 10, here at p. 259. 9. William H . McNeill, The Pursuit of Power. Technology, Armed Force, and Society since

A.D. 1000 (Chicago 1982) 91. My thanks to Clifford Rogers for bringing this passage to my attention. 10. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Economic Change and

Military

Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York 1987) 23-24. 11. For the Medici see J. R. Hale, "The End of Florentine Liberty: the Fortezza da Basso," Renaissance War Studies (London 1983) 38; Daniela Lamberini, "Le mura dei bastioni di Pistoia: una fortificazione reale del '500," Pistoia Programma 7 (1980); Andrea Andanti, "L'Evoluzione del sistema difensivo di Arezzo: 1502-1560" in Carlo Cresti, Amelio Fara, and Daniela Lamberini, eds. Architettura militare nelVEuropa del XVI secólo (Siena 1988) espe­ cially fig. 1; and Daniela Lamberini, "Giovanni Battista Belluzzi ingegnere militare e la fondazione di Portoferraio," in Giuseppe M . Battaglini, ed. Cosmopolis: Portoferraio Medicea secoli XVI—XVII (Pisa 1981). For the Este see Umberto Malagú, Le mura di Ferrara (Ferrara i960) and Paolo Ravenna, ed., Le mura di Ferrara (Ferrara 1983) especially the dia­ grams on 31-36. For the Savoia see Martha D. Pollak, Turin 1564-1680; Urban Design, Mili-

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Revolution

tary Culture, and the Creation of the Absolutist Capital (Chicago 1991). For Rome see Giulio

Schmiedt, "Cittá e fortificazioni nei rilievi aereofotografici; I I . Le fortificazioni dalla meta del secólo XVI all'Unitá dTtalia," Storia dTtalia 5:1 (Turin 1973) 220-221. 12. For Venice see M . E. Mallett and J. R. Hale, The Military Organization of a Renais­ sance State: Venice c. 1400 to 1617 (Cambridge 1984) 409-447; Andre Chastel and Antonio Corazzin,

V architettura

militare

véneta

del

Cinquecento

(Milan

1988)

and

"II

Rinnovamento difensivo nei territori della Repubblica di Venezia nella prima meta del Cinquecento: modelli, dibattiti, scelte," in Carlo Cresti, Amelio Fara, and Daniela Lamberini, eds. Architettura militare nelVEuropa del XVI secólo (Siena 1988).

13. For Lucca see Giulio Schmiedt, "Cittá e fortificazioni," 217-219. For Geneva see Jean Pierre Gaberel, Vescalade de 1602 (Geneva 1855) and the plan in Giulio D. Argan, The Re­ naissance City (New York 1969) plate 89. 14. More than any other factor, the fortifications of the rebellious Dutch cities made Spanish reconquest impossible, despite the great wealth of Spain, the courage of her sol­ diers, and the competent professionalism of such men as Don Luis de Requesens, who in 1574 remarked: "There would not be time or money enough in the world to reduce by force the twenty-four towns which have rebelled in Holland," quoted in Geoffrey Parker, The Dutch Revolt (London 1977) 165.

15. For a political and military discussion of the sack see Judith Hook, The Sack of Rome (London 1972). For a discussion emphasizing the literary and especially artistic conse­ quences of the sack see Andre Chastel, The Sack of Rome (Princeton 1983). 16. Luigi Guicciardini, The Sack of Rome, tr. James H . McGregor (New York 1993) 98,108, and 109. 17. The best discussion of the Italian Wars remains Piero Pieri, II Rinascimento e la crisi militare italiana (Turin 1952), especially volume 2 parts 4-6. 18. Again, Luigi Guicciardini: "The terrible events that have occurred from 1494 up to the present day [c. 1528] have brought all of Italy to the brink of ruin. Their example should make not only the wise governors of republics and principalities but even the ignorant multitude realize that no organization and no preparation offers greater security than to be inside your own fortified walls protected by your own army," The Sack of Rome, 61. 19. It should be noted that Charles V was Federigo's feudal superior, as technically Man­ tua was a fief of the Empire. 20. For the fortifications of Mantua under the Gonzaga see the articles in Maria Rosa Palvarini and Carlo Perogalli, Castelli dei Gonzaga (Milan 1983). Also important is Daniela Ferrari, "Ingegneri militari al servizio dei Gonzaga nei Cinque e Seicento," Guerre stati e cittá. Mantova e Vitalia padana dal secólo XIII al XIX (Mantua 1988).

21. The one record of the 1509 works is in the Archivio di Stato di Mantova (ASMn), Archivio Gonzaga (AG), 2475, May 2,1509. 22. Writing in the 1530s, Francesco Guicciardini noted how the balance between offense and defense had swung to the advantage of the latter, in marked contrast to the early years of the Italian Wars. See his History of Italy, tr. Sidney Alexander (Princeton 1969) 340-342. 23. For a good discussion of fifteenth-century artillery and fortifications see Malcolm Vale, War and Chivalry (London 1981) 129-146. For a discussion of sophisticated fifteenthcentury Venetian earthworks see M . E. Mallett and J. R. Hale, The Military Organization of a Renaissance State, Venice c. 1400 to 1617 (Cambridge 1984) 92-94.

24. The culmination of the artillery tower, the elephantiasis of the medieval fortification tradition, came in Albrecht Dürer's treatise on fortifications, Etliche Underricht zur

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Befestigung der Stett, Schloss und Flechen—published in 1527, the same year as the sack of Rome. Artillery towers were built in Italy as late as 1525 (at Verona) and 1535, at Assisi. These Italian examples are from Simon Pepper and Nicholas Adams, Firearms and Fortifi­ cations (Chicago 1986) 22-23. 25. J. R. Hale, "The Early Development of the Bastion: an Italian Chronology c. 1450-c. 1534," in Europe in the Late Middle Ages (London 1965). Leonbattista Alberti expressed the essence of the angle bastion system in his De re aedificatoria, written in the 1440s and first published in i486: "There are others who contend that the best defense against a battery of missiles is for the line of the wall to follow the profile of the sawteeth. ... The wall should be flanked by towers acting as buttresses every fifty cubits. These should be round, stand­ ing out from the wall, and somewhat taller, so that anyone venturing too close would ex­ pose his flank to missiles and be hit; thus the wall is protected by the towers and the towers by each other." Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, tr. Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, and Robert Tavernor (Cambridge, MA 1988) 100-101. 26. Evidence for the form of Beccaguto's fortifications come principally from the early plans of Mantua, notably the 1596 engraved view map of the city by Gabriele Bertazzolo and the undated plan in ASMn, AG, 764. Besides scattered archival records of actual con­ struction, the best intimation of Beccaguto's intentions for the form and function of his fortifications comes from a 1522 letter to the marquis proposing new fortifications to front the obsolete S. Giorgio Castello: ASMn, AG, 2503, March 23,1522. 27. For an excellent analysis of the Palazzo del Te as a political object memorializing Federigo's military position see Egon Verheyen, The Palazzo del Te in Mantua: Images of Love and Politics (Baltimore 1977) 24-38. 28. Quoted in Stefano Davari, Cenni Storici ad Opere di Fortificazione della citta di Mantova del secólo XVI (Mantua 1875) 8.

29. ASMn, AG, 2195, April 17,1542 and ASMn, AG, 3613,176. 30. Several documents testifying to the problems of evicting and compensating land­ owners survive in ASMn, MCA, O-I, including papers dated 1547,1550,1553,1555,1562,1563, and 1567. The span of these documents reveals the extremely slow pace of construction. 31. Report of the ambassador Bernardo Navagero in 1540 on the occasion of the succes­ sion of Duke Francesco. In Arnaldo Segarizzi, ed., Relazioni di ambasciatori Veneti al Senato (Ban 1912) 1: 53. The report also noted that Mantua's defenses included 118 pieces of artillery, a considerable arsenal (though many of these pieces may have been small or an­ tique). 32. Report of the ambassador Vincenzo Tron in 1564 on the occasion of the succession of Duke Guglielmo. In Arnaldo Segarizzi, ed., Relazioni di ambasciatori Veneti al Senato (Bari 1912) 1: 66. 33. For the fortifications at Cásale see Anna Marotta, ed. La cittadella di Cásale da fortezza del Monferrato a baluardo dTtalia 1590-1859 (Cásale 1990) and Anna M . Serralunga Bardazza, Ricerche documentarie sulla Cittadella di Cásale Monferrato (Turin 1985).

34. The plan for this reconstruction survives: Archivio di Stato di Torino (AST), Corte, Carte topografiche per A et B, 1. 35. Plan dated 1585 by Giorgio Francesco Baronino, engineer of the ducal council of Montferrat: AST, Corte, Carte topografiche serie V Cásale Monferrato, 8. 36. For Germánicos service to the Gonzaga see Savorgnano d'Osoppo F. Bonati, Germánico

Savorgnan [sic], architetto militare a Mantova (Mantua 1965).

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Revolution

225

37. ASMn, AG, 2151, May 26,1590. 38. Report to the Senate of February 3, 1614. In Arnaldo Segarizzi, ed., Relazioni di ambasciatori Veneti al Senato (Bari 1912) 1: 233-234. At this time Venice was allied to the duke of Mantua. 39. For this war see Antonio Bombín-Perez, La cuestión de Monferrato (1613-1618) (Valladolid 1975). 40. For an exhaustive account of the events behind the 1628-30 war see Romolo Quazza, Mantova e Monferrato nella política

europea alia vigilia della guerra per la successione (1624-

1627) (Mantua 1922). For Don Gonzalo in Italy see Manuel Fernández Alvarez, Don Gonzalo Fernández

de Córdoba y la Guerra de Sucesión de Mantua y del Monferrato (1627-

1629) (Madrid 1955). 41. For the duke of Nevers see Ernile Baudson, Charles de Gonzague, Due de Nevers de Rethel et de Mantoue 1580-1637 (Paris 1947).

42. The situation at the Spanish court is masterfully revealed in R. A. Stradling, "Prelude to Disaster: the Precipitation of the War of the Mantuan Succession, 1627-1629," in The Historical Journal 33 (1990).

43. Letter from Sannazaro in Milan to the duke of Nevers in Mantua, April 5, 1628. ASMn, AG, 1759. 44. Romolo Quazza, La guerra per la successione di Mantova e del Monferrato (1628-1631)

(Mantua 1926) 1:117. 45. Only in early August did the Spanish government in Madrid realize that Cásale was not about to fall at any moment, and that Don Gonzalo would need sizeable reinforce­ ments. R. A. Stradling, "Prelude to Disaster: the Precipitation of the War of the Mantuan Succession, 1627-1629," in The Historical Journal 33 (1990) 783. 46. Chancellery minutes, April 26,1628. ASMn, AG, 2309. 47. "Advis que le Cardinal donna au Roy á son retour de Paris á La Rochelle" on about April 20,1628. In Pierre Grillon, Les Rapiers de Richelieu vol. I l l 1628 (Paris 1979) 207. 48. Quazza, La guerra 1:337. 49. A small French force continued on to reinforce the garrison at Cásale. 50. For Spinola see A. Rodriguez Villa, Ambrosio Spínola, primer marqués de los Balbases

(Madrid 1905). 51. The strategy for the defense of the duchy of Mantua was prepared in the council meeting of January 5,1628; ASMn, AG, 2309. A map of the Oglio defenses including troop strengths gives the situation in early September, 1629; ASMn, AG, 3590,159. 52. Scipione Capilupi, "Memorie di molte miserie," Raccolta di cronisti e documenti storici lombardi (Milan 1857) 2: 513-514. 53. ASMn, AG, 2047 bis, 134-135, September 22,1629. 54. Capilupi, "Memorie di motte miserie," 517. 55. Ibid., 519-520. 56. Ibid., 521 and 525. 57. Ibid., 528. 58. 13,500 secular Christians, 1,434 religious, and 1,700 Jews. ASMn, AG, 2786, June 12, 1630. 59. The duke of Nevers suggested that Dutch or Albanian help would aid his ally, Ven­ ice—and thus himself. This according to the eyewitness Giovanni Mambrino, "Vera relatione del modo col quale Tarmata imperiale alloggiata nel Mantovano," Raccolta di cronisti e documenti storici lombardi (Milan 1857) 2:549.

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60. Reported in a letter from Cornaro, the Venetian representative at Turin, to Busanello, the Venetian ambassador to Mantua. ASMn, AG, 737, May 4,1630. 61. Siege money authorized by the proclamation dated June 18, 1630 in ASMn, AG, Gridario 1568-1650. Examples of these coins are illustrated in Mathew Merian, Theatrum Europeaum (Frankfurt 1662) 2: 282. 62. The French campaign is the subject of Jacques Humbert, Une grand entreprise oubliée; Les Francois en Savoie sous Louis XIII (Paris i960), for the cited events 170-177. 63. For the diplomacy see Quazza, La guerra 2:202, 273-278, and 303-306. 64. "For Spain the results were an unrelieved disaster. Its intervention in Mantua had antagonized European public opinion, driven the papacy into the arms of the French, strained Madrid's relations with Vienna almost to the breaking-point, and wrecked Olivares' grand design for securing peace with the Dutch on terms better than those of 1609." J. H . Elliott, Richelieu and Olivares (Cambridge 1984) 112. 65. John Lynch, The Hispanic World in Crisis and Change (Oxford 1992) 106-107. 66. For the "United Provinces of the M i d i " see Janine Garrisson, Protestants du Midi 1559-1598 (Paris 1991) 177-224. 67. Contemporaries north of the Alps recognized Cásale as a model fortress. After taking Philippsburg in 1644, and improving its fortifications, a French official described it as now being the Cásale of Germany. Letter of October 2, 1644, in Archives du Ministére des af­ faires étrangéres, Correspondance politique, Allemagne, f. 376-8. My thanks to Derek Croxton for this reference. 68. Pierre Charpentrat, "Les villes, le mécénat princier et l'image de la ville idéale dans l'Allemagne de la fin du XVIe et du XVIIe siécles. Heidelberge et Mannheim," in Pierre Francastel, Vurbanisme de Paris et VEurope 1600-1680 (Paris 1969) 267-274.

9

Strategy and Tactics in the Thirty Years' War: The 'Military Revolution DAVID

A.

PARROTT

FOR T W E N T Y YEARS Professor Michael Roberts' w o r k o n the ' M i l i t a r y Revolution of the period 1560-1660 enjoyed undisputed pre-eminence as the accepted inter­ pretation o f military developments i n early m o d e r n Europe. I n 1976, an article by Geoffrey Parker made the first—and to m y knowledge, only—general criticisms of Roberts' thesis that a series o f tactical changes had a revolutionary impact u p o n European warfare. Professor Parker expressed reasoned doubts about whether these changes could be described as revolutionary, since serious inconsistencies emerge i n any attempt to assess their practical impact. Why, i n 1634, d i d the tacti­ cally conservative Spanish army wipe out the 'new model' Swedish at Nórdlingen? W h y were the developments i n tactics and strategy unable to b r i n g the European conflict to any decisive conclusion? Parker's suggestion is that Rob­ erts greatly over-emphasized inflexibility and traditionalism i n the conservative' armies, particularly the Spanish. He proposes that i t is possible to trace a receptiveness to similar tactical developments back at least to the condottiere o f the fif­ teenth century, and that a willingness to approach c o m m o n military problems was not confined to the D u t c h and the Swedes. I n matters o f developing fire­ power, the quality o f cavalry, the deployment o f small units and i n effective train­ ing, the Spanish army was quite as progressive as its rivals. 1

2

3

4

Yet the effect o f this is to confirm by implication the importance o f the tactical changes c o m m o n l y ascribed to the Nassau and to Gustavus Adolphus. The value and relevance of these developments i n explaining m i l i t a r y success i n the first half of the seventeenth century are not questioned; neither is the assumption o f the importance of tactical change explored i n any general way. Some further re-evalu­ ation o f the way i n w h i c h battles were w o n and lost d u r i n g the period may there­ fore be possible and valuable even though, i n the absence o f entirely accurate ac­ counts o f the conduct o f specific engagements, some o f the proposals must remain conjectural. 227

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Professor Roberts moves f r o m the tactical changes w h i c h were the essential ele­ ment i n the ' M i l i t a r y Revolution, towards their m a i n consequence, the develop­ ment o f a new concept o f strategy, w h i c h envisaged war u p o n a m u c h broader scale, fought by incomparably larger armies. This, once again, is supported largely by reference to Sweden. Professor Parker's modification—that strategy had always been determined by geography, and above all by the presence or ab­ sence o f m o d e r n fortresses—is equally clearly a reflection o f his concentration u p o n the Low Countries and the territories o f the Spanish C r o w n . M y research into the administration and organisation o f the French army i n the second quar­ ter o f the seventeenth century leads me to propose an alternative argument; while it w o u l d not be reasonable to maintain that m i l i t a r y art actually regressed after 1560, a case w i l l be made that the characteristic o f the p e r i o d was not revolution, b u t an almost complete failure to meet the challenges posed by the administra­ t i o n and deployment o f contemporary armies. Battles were w o n and lost largely incidentally o f the tactical changes o f the period. Moreover, battles themselves were rendered almost irrelevant by the failure o f a broader concept o f strategy to come to terms w i t h the real determinants o f warfare i n this period. 5

6

I Professor Roberts argues for tactical developments i n two general respects: changes i n the size and shape o f formations deployed o n the battlefield, and a more effective co-ordination o f infantry, cavalry and artillery. A ) A central contention is that the average size o f infantry units was very sub­ stantially reduced i n the century after 1560, and that this reflected a conscious tac­ tical choice o n the part o f the 'progressives'. Yet as Parker suggests, the phenome­ n o n o f a decline i n u n i t size was equally evident i n the case o f the Spanish tercios? I n France, the 1534 and 1558 plans for legions o f 6,000 m e n gave way to the reality o f regiments o f 1,500-2,000 men by the later sixteenth century. I t seems more ap­ propriate to regard the first stage o f the reduction i n u n i t size as a simple response to improvements i n the firepower o f hand guns. The p r i m a r y a i m o f a general re­ duction was to make better use o f the shot, w h i c h had hitherto been regarded as a secondary weapon, incapable o f w i n n i n g a battle i n its o w n right. 7

9

The redoubtable Swiss phalanx o f the later fifteenth century had been c o m ­ posed o f two groups o f soldiers, those carrying the Langspiess the eighteen foot ancestor o f the shorter, more manoeuvrable p i k e , and those armed w i t h closerange weapons, principally the halberd. The weight and awkwardness o f the Langspiess rendered i t far less attractive to the Swiss soldier, and the imbalance be­ tween the two weapons was causing concern by the early sixteenth century. I n fact, however, the increasing deployment o f a t h i r d weapon—firearms under the generic t e r m o f arquebuses—completely changed this situation. While every at­ tempt was made to preserve the p r o p o r t i o n o f Langspiesse/ipike i n the infantry unit, the halberd was sacrificed to the arquebuse, and the number o f troops armed y

10

11

229

Strategy and Tactics in the Thirty Years' War 12

w i t h these was permitted to rise. The c o n t r i b u t o r y factor i n this may have been the development o f more effective firearms, though whether this can be identified w i t h a clearly recognised single innovation—the i n t r o d u c t i o n o f the musket— seems open to question. The crucial decade for the emergence o f firepower could well be the 1520's. W i t h i n three years b o t h the Swiss phalanx and the French gendarmerie suffered crushing defeats at the hands o f Spanish arquebusiers oper­ ating i n conjunction w i t h artillery f r o m prepared positions. F r o m these events i t is possible to trace a steady upward growth i n the proportions o f firearms w i t h i n the infantry unit, t h r o u g h the Spanish developments o f the i55o's/6o's, up to the high p o i n t o f the concern to maximise firepower, evidenced i n the reformed D u t c h army o f the late sixteenth century. 13

14

15

16

I n this situation, the reduction o f the overall size o f the infantry u n i t appears as a logical consequence. The shift f r o m halberdiers to arquebusiersi musketeers is only comprehensible i f it is assumed that the commanders actually wished to em­ ploy their enhanced firepower. There is necessarily a l i m i t to the number o f rows i n a formation w h i c h can be equipped w i t h firearms; beyond this depth the sol­ diers w i l l obstruct one another, or the time taken for successive discharges by each row w i l l exceed the time required for the first r o w to reload. The obvious means to ensure that all the firearms could be used was simply to decrease the depth o f the entire unit, spreading the shot outwards i n lines or shallow blocks. If, how­ ever, a large u n i t o f c. 3,000 troops were to be disposed i n this shallower forma­ t i o n , i t w o u l d either be dangerously over-extended, or large numbers o f shot w o u l d be excessively distanced f r o m the protective body o f pike. The reduction o f the overall size o f the u n i t to a typical 1,500-2,000 appears to have solved these problems. The further reduction, undertaken by Maurice o f Nassau, from 1,500 to 550 men, seems less clearly advantageous. Yet o n the supposition that this was also i n ­ tegral to progressive' armies, considerable ingenuity has been devoted to showing the superiority o f the D u t c h battalion. One proposal is that as the p r o p o r t i o n o f officers i n this smaller u n i t was m u c h higher, the troops could be better drilled and supervised i n the execution o f complex commands. Yet Jacobi o f Wallhausen, one o f the strongest exponents o f the D u t c h reforms, criticises this as simple ex­ travagance, increasing the wage b i l l for each u n i t to no practical purpose. The implication o f the proposal is that the existing regiments were passive monsters, incapable o f adjustment to changed circumstances o n the battlefield and imper­ vious to the commands o f their officers. I n fact, the number o f officers i n a typical regiment appears to have been perfectly adequate. Manoeuvres and d r i l l exercises depended less u p o n the officers than u p o n the experience o f veterans, soldiers who were placed i n the three i m p o r t a n t positions i n each line: chef defile, chef de demi-file and chef de serre-file. These key men, the appointés i n each company, w o u l d be expected to take up marker positions at the front, middle and rear o f each line to ensure that the inexperienced recruits executed orders and held their positions. I t m i g h t be suggested that only states w h i c h lacked the nucleus o f a 17

18

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David A. Parrott

'standing' army w o u l d require the very elaborate d r i l l instructions and small for­ mations characteristic o f the D u t c h reforms. Roberts himself speaks o f the d r i l l sense o f the tercios, while the ability o f the Spanish infantry at Rocroi to trans­ f o r m themselves from a line i n t o a massive hollow square is evidence o f this ca­ pacity i n a c t i o n . 19

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The other argument advanced i n favour o f the M a u r i c i a n battalion is the sup­ posedly greater flexibility that i t gave the commander o f the army, w h o possessed two or three times the number o f units as his traditional opponent. Professor Parker points out that the Spanish had employed escuadrons o f between 600 and 3,000 men whenever these were required for a particular task. The French readi­ ness to f o r m bataillons indicates a similar willingness to break up the regiment when i t proved necessary. Yet these smaller units were not systematised; pitched battles o f the period had little to do w i t h infantry flexibility; m i l i t a r y survival and success required the highest levels o f cohesion—both w i t h i n individual units and across the entire front o f the army. I t is impossible to see h o w the M a u r i c i a n bat­ talions could provide this better than the larger units, and the evidence suggests that contemporaries remained i n all significant cases unconvinced. The newly levied forces o f the German protestants adopted these smaller units—probably to compensate for a shortage o f experienced veterans. Their armies suffered an u n ­ interrupted series o f major defeats d o w n to 1631. Indeed, even at Breitenfeld, the Saxon army, d r a w n up o n the D u t c h model and shattered by the impact o f Tilly's regiments, nearly lost the battle for Gustavus A d o l p h u s . A l t h o u g h Gustavus himself was originally persuaded o f the apparent advantages o f the small u n i t , his experiences i n Poland led h i m to a recognition o f the fragility o f an army de­ ployed i n such formations. I n consequence, he j o i n e d three or four squadrons to­ gether to f o r m the brigade, whose cohesion and striking power was demonstrated so clearly at Breitenfeld and L i i t z e n . T h o u g h the squadron retained an adminis­ trative existence and could be called u p o n for special assignments, Swedish suc­ cess i n battle consisted i n the greater and greater integration o f squadrons i n t o the brigades. 22

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By the 1630's i t was evident that the f o r m a t i o n o f 1,500-2,000 men had sus­ tained its position against the reformers. Yet despite this vindication, the strength o f units continued to decline. This phenomenon indicates the limitations o f any purely tactical explanation o f m i l i t a r y developments i n this period; the decline owes n o t h i n g to conscious choice, everything to the vagaries and c o r r u p t i o n o f the systems for troop recruitment i n a situation o f protracted warfare. I n France, financial and supply difficulties, fraud, death, sickness and deser­ t i o n , combined to ensure that u n i t strengths fluctuated w i l d l y throughout the campaign, and were i n all cases a small fraction o f their theoretical 'paper' strengths. A l t h o u g h a prestige French regiment was supposedly composed o f twenty companies o f 100 men, even official calculations took the companies at 60, so that the u n i t was assumed to be 1,200 s t r o n g . I n reality the strength could be anything f r o m 1,000 d o w n to 200 effectives, w i t h a typical strength o f 500-650. 27

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N o t surprisingly the French came increasingly to abandon the regiment as a tacti­ cal entity, and to amalgamate them i n t o fighting bataillons o f 800-900 m e n — ironically these n o w proved, i n general, to be the larger u n i t . The practice o f sepa­ rating the administrative and tactical unit, far from being an anachronism, was i n fact the only practical approach to the organisation o f armies whose effective strength fluctuated wildly. I t seems possible that Gustavus Adolphus' decision to combine the two i n the squadron, a step whose u t i l i t y is considered to be self-evi­ dent, may well have precipitated the same type o f uncertainty about real u n i t strengths and provided an additional motive for the creation o f the brigades. Cer­ tainly Professor Roberts' contention that the average size o f units fell from 3,000 to about 30 m e n draws attention to a circumstance that was far from generally welcomed. The latter figure reflected not a tactical decision, b u t the inability o f governments to coerce their entrepreneurs into the recruitment and maintenance o f full-strength companies. Jacobi o f Wallhausen's complaints about the dispro­ portionate cost o f officers' salaries i n small units find a practical echo i n the French administrative correspondence o f this period, deeply preoccupied w i t h the financial burden and m i l i t a r y inefficiency o f supporting low-strength units w i t h a full complement o f officers. 2 9

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B) The assumption made about changes i n tactical formations, and i n particu­ lar about the respective deployment o f pikes and firearms i n the infantry unit, also seem open to question. Characteristic o f the descriptions o f these tactical de­ velopments appears to be an implicit convention that the enemy forces remained static, frozen i n a f o r m a t i o n that w o u l d best illustrate the improved tactics o f the army under particular study. I t is difficult to discover how, precisely, the tercios fought, b u t circumstantial evidence suggests that they were not prepared to m a i n ­ tain the illogical formations habitually ascribed to t h e m . It is usually proposed that tercios and other Targe' units were always deployed i n a square, deep formation, w i t h a central block o f pikemen surrounded o n three or four sides by shot, w i t h some additional firearms disposed i n wings or separate platoons. The overwhelming disadvantage o f such a f o r m a t i o n is held to be the restriction u p o n the firepower that could be brought to bear against an attack u p o n one side. Yet i f the desire to increase the effectiveness o f firepower is to be given due weight as the explanation for the reduction i n u n i t size characteristic o f all armies d u r i n g the later sixteenth century, then its implications for the deploy­ ment o f units must also be allowed. For the ' M i l i t a r y Revolution' thesis leads to the improbable conclusion that although the 'conservative' commanders reduced the size o f their units, they persisted i n a deep formation that deprived them o f the enhanced firepower w h i c h had apparently justified the initial reduction. Underlying this misconception is a persistent confusion between the tactics o f the Swiss 'steam-roller' o f the early sixteenth century, and the characteristic use o f infantry as i t developed through the century. The Spanish or Swedish pikeman was not part o f a solid mass o f troops depending u p o n weight o f impact for effect, nor o f some inanimate palisade relying u p o n m u t u a l support and the weight o f 33

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the ranks behind to meet an enemy assault. Tactical manuals suggest that 'close order' between pikes entailed a space o f one and a half paces between each soldier to allow freedom to use the weapon. The order for an advancing f o r m a t i o n was three paces between each p i k e . Pikemen d i d not depend, as the Swiss spearmen had done, u p o n the support o f their fellows; as early seventeenth-century m a n u ­ als indicate, the use o f the pike had become a skill quite as elaborate as swords­ manship. Thus, there was no merit i n depth o f pike for its o w n sake; only the first six rows w o u l d be presenting arms to the enemy, while the other rows up to a generally accepted total o f ten were a reserve to fill out gaps i n the front lines. The pikes w o u l d be deployed i n a central, rectangular block, while the shot was arranged i n groups o f similar depth o n either flank. W h e n these latter were to fire, they w o u l d move forward and take up positions i n front o f the pike, f o r m i n g either long, well-separated rows or c o m b i n i n g these w i t h detached, slightly deeper, u n i t s . Their fire was entirely unaffected by the pikes, and only when the enemy drew close w o u l d the shot fall back through the rows o f pike, or resume their positions o n either side o f them. I f the pikemen are assumed to be tightly packed i n a square, the first o f these manoeuvres w o u l d be dangerous, i f not i m ­ possible. But this was not the case; the shot could easily pass through the wellspaced pikes, m o v i n g forward again when the enemy had retired. Moreover, the commander, i f deciding u p o n an advance himself, could choose between his shot or his pikemen, for they were not locked together i n any fixed order. A t Nieuport, the Archduke Albert ordered a first assault u p o n the D u t c h positions by 500 shot alone, and only when this failed d i d he send forward a mixed f o r m a t i o n o f infan­ try. 35

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I t seems evident that f r o m a comparatively early stage infantry units were no longer envisaged as independent m o v i n g fortresses; infantry were drawn up i n lines and the central concern became the maintenance o f a continuous front. What this required, however—and this d i d represent a seventeenth-century de­ velopment—was a system o f one or more lines o f reserves. The Imperial disaster at Breitenfeld was largely a consequence o f Tilly's decision, overconfident o f the superiority o f his troops, to place his entire army i n a single line. A l t h o u g h this allowed h i m to concentrate a formidable shock against the Swedish/Saxon army, the principal lesson o f the battle was that this gain d i d not justify the single-line deployment. The contrast w i t h Lützen is obvious; Wallenstein could contain and t h r o w back successive Swedish breakthroughs by deployment o f his reserves. A l t h o u g h possessing very l i m i t e d numbers o f troops, he created three lines so that his m a i n positions were supported by two sets o f reserves. There is i n fact some dispute about the Imperial battle order. Most o f the reliable sources attest to the three lines, w i t h five regiments i n the front and two each i n the second and t h i r d , the cavalry being concentrated u p o n the w i n g s . Yet there is an alternative, fre­ quently cited, account o f an order centred u p o n four great infantry squares drawn up i n a d i a m o n d formation, w i t h one further square o n the right flank amongst the cavalry. The proposal is not inconceivable; this deployment i n squares 41

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w o u l d be appropriate to a battle i n which considerable Swedish superiority m i g h t lead to outflanking and attacks against the rear o f the army. As i t happens, the evi­ dence for the line defence seems more convincing; while Wallenstein was pessi­ mistic and d i d not envisage any possibility o f assuming the offensive, he was suffi­ ciently confident o f his position and his entrenchments to draw up his troops i n line. He considered, correctly, that the Swedes w o u l d concentrate the attack against his centre while his cavalry proved strong enough to h o l d the flanks. He chose therefore to maximise firepower along the front line. However, at Rocroi, eleven years later, the Spanish infantry provide a rare ex­ ample o f troops w h o adopted a square formation. The hollow rectangle, formed after the French cavalry had shattered the Spanish second and t h i r d lines, i n ­ cluded not merely the tercios viejos b u t also eighteen cannon which had originally been positioned just i n front o f the first line. The concentration o f firepower and the formation's immense stability enabled the Spanish to beat off three attacks made o n all sides by the entire French army. The battle was protracted from 8-10 a.m., and while this defence led to the wholesale massacre o f the Spanish infantry, it also cost the French very heavily—some 4,000 dead and wounded i n an army o f 23,000. Most importantly, the defence m i g h t have permitted the arrival o f Beck and the other Spanish corps, some seven kilometers away f r o m the battle at 6:30 a.m.—an appearance w h i c h w o u l d have tipped a far f r o m predictable engage­ ment i n Spain's favour. 44

Lützen and Rocroi serve as practical evidence o f the general attitude to this de­ ployment. The square was not an archaic f o r m a t i o n close to extinction, still less the fixed order for the tercio or other Targe' units. I t had a place i n tactical theory and, occasionally, practice, as an ingenious and skilful deployment o f troops to meet one particular circumstance—a numerically superior enemy w h o m i g h t prove able to surround the units. Even works influenced by the D u t c h reforms provide numerous prescriptions for assembling these formations. Jacobi o f Wallhausen, i n his VArt Militaire pour ITnfanterie, illustrates a bewildering variety of rectangles, crosses, circles and other geometric devices for between 100 and 6,000 troops. Indeed, i t m i g h t be suggested that the concern w i t h elaborate d r i l l rituals and geometric precision was far more characteristic o f the neo-classical re­ forms o f the Dutch—the belief that geometry and mathematics could provide preconceived solutions to any likely m i l i t a r y c o n t i n g e n c y Sir James Turner's criticism o f embattling by the square-root' implies that such practices were still part o f military theory i n the second half o f the century. Elaborate prescriptions for square formations appear i n Gaya's 1689 L'Arr de la Guerre, where the specific context o f their use is emphasized. 45

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Such deployment i n the face o f an enemy w h o m i g h t succeed i n an outflanking or surrounding manoeuvre had an inherent logic w h i c h ensured its survival into the nineteenth century, and its most celebrated use o n the Napoleonic battlefields. Yet this survival should not be allowed to conceal the essentially untypical nature

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o f the 360 formation. Its abandonment i n most circumstances was a general fea­ ture o f the 'military revolution period. C) The argument for tactical change also rests u p o n assertions about improve­ ments i n weaponry and the coordination o f the various arms i n battle. Here i t seems necessary to consider how, i n fact, battles were fought i n the first half o f the seventeenth century. For i t seems at least a reasonable hypothesis that the salient feature o f battles—the increasing effectiveness o f infantry acting i n defence—ren­ ders most o f the assumptions about tactical change irrelevant. Indeed, i n so far as tactical innovations had any effect, i t was to consolidate this supremacy o f the de­ fensive. This o p i n i o n requires some qualification. W h e n armies o f obviously unequal capacities were set against each other, the defensive potential o f the lesser force could n o t save i t f r o m annihilating defeat. This was the pattern o f all the major engagements between the White M o u n t a i n and Breitenfeld. I t is naive to seek ex­ planations for the protestant—German, D u t c h and Danish—defeats i n terms o f tactical theory: the overcomplexity and passivity o f 'pure' Maurician tactics. The simpler explanation is that o f Clausewitz's ' M i l i t a r y Spirit'; an army o f veterans, habituated to a long series o f wars and victories, possesses an inherent superiority over its contemporary rivals that no amount o f tactical readjustment can offset. 49

Clausewitz himself cites the Spanish under Farnese and the Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus as possessing this spirit i n the highest degree. The same could be said o f Tilly's Bavarian/Imperial army d u r i n g the 1620's. I n the last resort, the Spanish, Imperial and Swedish armies w o n battles, not because o f their tactical practices or innovations, b u t because they perceived themselves as elite forces, embodying a national m i l i t a r y reputation for which they were prepared to make a far greater personal c o m m i t m e n t and sacrifice than their opponents. W h e n such elite forces clashed w i t h each other, the result w o u l d tend to be bloody and indeci­ sive. The Imperialist/Bavarian forces greatly underestimated this Swedish spirit at Breitenfeld; subsequent battles at the Alte Veste, Lützen, Nórdlingen and into the 1640's reveal opponents implacably c o m m i t t e d to a guerre a outrance, charac­ terised by an apparently incomprehensible spirit o f mass and individual sacrifice. This ' M i l i t a r y Spirit' is t h r o w n into sharp relief by contrast w i t h the French i n ­ volvement i n the war after 1635; inexperienced armies, largely u n c o m m i t t e d to the foreign policy, were successively annihilated by Spanish and Imperial armies d o w n to 1643. French forces proved consistently unable to sustain the offensive, despite numerical superiority. Even after this period, French m i l i t a r y fortunes fluctuated, and forces always tended towards disaster when drawn into battle. O n l y after 1660 d i d growing national awareness and m i l i t a r y reform produce an army comparably possessed o f a ' M i l i t a r y Spirit'. The 'committed' troops o f the 1630's were operating i n a situation where devel­ opments i n firearms and their coordination w i t h pikes, immensely strong cohe­ sion w i t h i n units, earthwork defences and the effective deployment o f reserves, rendered the infantry centre o f an army practically invulnerable to a frontal as-

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sault. Professor Roberts asserts that the improvements i n firing d r i l l , new c o m b i ­ nations o f musket and pike, developments i n cavalry tactics and the emergence o f a new light artillery, allowed the Swedes to resume the offensive o n European bat­ tlefields. Great emphasis is placed u p o n the use o f the salvo by the Swedish shot— the discharge o f several rows simultaneously rather than i n sequence or at w i l l . I t is claimed that this b o t h improved the effectiveness o f the defence, and permitted successful assaults against prepared positions. The first claim seems open to question; w h y is 'one long and continuated crack o f thunder' more i n t i m i d a t i n g than a continuous hail o f fire? T h o u g h Professor Roberts asserts that Wallenstein's musketeers had adopted the salvo by the time o f the Alte Veste, eyewit­ ness accounts suggest quite the contrary. The Swedish Intelligencer makes the more typical comment that: 'the cannons and muskets went off all day long i n ­ cessantly: so that n o t h i n g was to be seen u p o n the m o u n t a i n , b u t flame and smoke . . . ' 50

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W h e n the practical impact o f firepower from defensive positions was so clear, its superficial coordination was probably unnecessary. I t may be suspected that salvos were simply the logical product o f a specific d r i l l for reloading and firing weapons—itself required as a means to ensure a reasonable rate o f fire from units of inexperienced recruits. The more i m p o r t a n t claim for the salvo is its supposed ability to 'shatter' the enemy's ranks and allow the pikemen to 'push into the ruins' i n a successful of­ fensive. That a salvo w i l l somehow blow a hole i n an enemy u n i t is a classic piece o f tactical theory divorced from battlefield reality. Even i f a large number o f shots did h i t their mark, the effect w o u l d not be to break up the unit, b u t to create a barrier o f dead and wounded, further impeding any subsequent advance. I n fact, however, the effects o f firepower were never as overwhelming as the number of weapons and the close range w o u l d suggest. As long as the defending u n i t was prepared to h o l d its ground, return fire and could draw u p o n a typical ten ranks to make good losses at the front, i t w o u l d be capable of blocking and probably re­ pulsing the post-salvo assault. The apparently improved coordination o f pike and firearms was insignificant i n comparison w i t h the ' w i l l to combat' o f the forces involved. This tactical development was virtually irrelevant to the battles after the Swed­ ish invasion o f Germany. Only at Breitenfeld d i d an assault preceded by heavy fire achieve the expected result—the rout o f the Saxon army by Tilly's regiments. But again this is a typical case o f a massively confident, 'professional' army pitted against a force that was demoralised and inexperienced. Brought up against the Swedish second line, the Imperial assault faltered and disintegrated. Equally, no amount o f resolution i n their assaults could gain the Alte Veste for the Swedes. At Nórdlingen, Saxe-Weimar's troops launched fifteen separate assaults against the Spanish positions o n the Allbach w i t h o u t breaking t h r o u g h . When, at Lützen, the Swedish assaults forced t h r o u g h Wallensteins first line, they were t h r o w n back by counter attacks made by cavalry and infantry reserves. Faced by 53

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confident D u t c h or French resistance, even the Spanish infantry proved unable to overcome well-prepared defensive positions—as N i e u p o r t and Rocroi demon­ strated. O n l y one example appears to exist o f a battle w o n by a successful, direct assault u p o n a prepared centre. A t Rheinfelden i n February 1638, Saxe-Weimar's troops routed the Imperial forces d r a w n up outside the t o w n . The circumstances were somewhat exceptional, however, i n that the Imperial commanders were to­ tally unprepared for a further attack by Saxe-Weimar only three days after the ap­ parent defeat o f his forces. The units were scarcely deployed before the W e i marians made contact w i t h them. There is little reason to suppose that such a direct assault w o u l d have succeeded against well-prepared positions. 59

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So h o w were battles w o n and lost i n this period, given the dead-weight o f the infantry's defensive supremacy? Essentially by operations o n the wings o f the ar­ mies, usually involving exclusively cavalry, w h i c h permitted the victor to outflank the m a i n body o f the enemy and to launch a simultaneous assault o n the flank or rear. This, i n conjunction w i t h the continuous pressure o f a frontal assault against the infantry centre, w o u l d stand a good chance o f shattering the capacity for re­ sistance, and precipitating a r o u t by those elements o f the enemy army less com­ mitted to a suicidal defence o f reputation. Breitenfeld, again, is the exception w h i c h supports the rule. H a d T i l l y pos­ sessed more troops to fling into the assault u p o n the Swedish centre, his flanking advantage might have proved decisive. A t Liitzen, the collapse o f the Imperial cav­ alry o n the left flank after the death o f Pappenheim almost gave the Swedes an outright victory i n this typical fashion, while at Nórdlingen the Spanish/Impe­ rial counter-offensive was successful precisely because the Spanish were able to break i n between the forces o f Saxe-Weimar and H o m e , outflanking b o t h and u n d e r m i n i n g their weakening defence. Baner's initial assaults against the front o f the Imperial positions at Wittstock were repulsed w i t h heavy loss; the victory was gained, n o t w i t h o u t considerable risk, by the lengthy manoeuvre w h i c h permitted a simultaneous assault o n the rear o f the Imperial positions. Rocroi serves as the classic model o f this type o f victory; an initially weak French infantry defence i n the centre just held against Spanish pressure. The situation was completely changed by the overwhelming victory o f the French cavalry o n the right w i n g , their ability to regroup and to move d o w n against the flank o f the second and t h i r d lines o f Spanish infantry. These non-Spanish auxiliaries were routed, exposing the Spanish front line to si­ multaneous attack by the French cavalry, and by a considerably revived French i n ­ fantry centre. Finding themselves i n an untenable situation as an extended line, the tercios formed themselves into the great hollow square i n an attempt to stave off disaster. Further examples seem unnecessary; the pattern by w h i c h battles between well-motivated, 'professional' armies were w o n and lost o n the flanks, hence usually by the cavalry, was evident f r o m Liitzen onwards. Given this circumstance, i t may be suggested that Gustavus Adolphus' formal attempts to adjust the cavalry's role by a modification o f the caracole, were o f the 61

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most limited practical benefit. After their initial success i n the mid-sixteenth cen­ tury, particularly at Miihlberg, the adoption o f firearms by cavalry proceeded ev­ erywhere i n Europe. The fact that i n any engagement w i t h cavalry w h o were pre­ pared to resort to the arme blanche, the pistoleer force w o u l d be worsted, was overlooked. The underlying rationale o f cavalry equipped w i t h firearms, and their elaborate employment i n the caracole, was the same orthodoxy that i t w o u l d be possible to blow holes i n ten-deep infantry formations as a prelude to charging to contact, or to break the order o f an opposing cavalry force prepara­ tory to a clash w i t h swords. The inability to accept that this w o u l d simply not oc­ cur against well-disciplined and motivated troops had a predictable effect b o t h u p o n 'progressive' tactical developments, and u p o n the efforts o f their subsequent apologists. 66

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The prescriptions for the deployment o f Swedish cavalry, and their coordina­ t i o n w i t h detached platoons o f musketeers, were based u p o n the assumption that pistoleer tactics could be made to w o r k i f only the weight o f shot were suffi­ ciently increased—the same misapprehension w h i c h informed tactical changes for the infantry. I t is extremely difficult to see how the new system worked i n practice; Professor Roberts himself considers that i t may simply have been a trad­ ing o f disadvantages. To make the musketeers' salvos successful—in terms o f the theory—it w o u l d be necessary for b o t h the cavalry and the platoons o f shot to ap­ proach to a distance at which they w o u l d be subjected to equally heavy counterfire f r o m the defenders. The cavalry themselves w o u l d then be so close that they w o u l d find i t difficult to b u i l d up even the m o m e n t u m o f a rapid trot i n the intervening distance, and w o u l d leave the defenders time to prepare them­ selves for the impact. I n fact, as horses are not prepared to r u n straight into ob­ structions, the cavalry assault w o u l d disintegrate some yards away f r o m the reas­ sembled formation. Yet i f the advance began out o f range o f the defenders, the musketeers' salvo w o u l d prove (even more) ineffective, and the subsequent cav­ alry charge stand no chance o f success. 69

The real answer to this battlefield impasse was to encourage the cavalry to seek means o f getting around the front o f infantry units i n order to attack o n the flank or f r o m behind. But by attaching groups o f shot to the cavalry, and p e r m i t t i n g the survival o f the caracole, Gustavus Adolphus' reform may have made this type o f manoeuvre more difficult by discouraging an essential mobility. I t seems that the deployment o f musketeers amongst the cavalry quickly lost its original character. A t Liitzen, Wallenstein made use o f small groups o f shot w i t h the intention, not that they should assist a cavalry offensive, b u t simply to stabilise the Imperial front line up to Liitzen itself. I n reality, even as tactical theory affirmed a direct reliance u p o n firearms, cavalry engagements o n the flanks o f the armies had be­ come far too i m p o r t a n t to be fought i n such a l i m i t e d fashion. The typical cavalry conflict f r o m Liitzen onwards was a close quarter engagement i n which b o t h swords and firearms were used at point-blank range. Here again, the crucial fac­ tor was not new' tactics b u t the resolution o f the combatants. The cavalry w h o 70

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defeated their opponents w o u l d then have an o p p o r t u n i t y to break into the flank or rear o f the enemy centre, making outright victory a possibility. A t Lützen, the death o f Pappenheim and the r o u t o f the Imperial cavalry was, i n tactical terms, almost as great a setback as the death o f Gustavus Adolphus to the Swedes. Even i f the cavalry engagement began w i t h an exchange o f shot, or w i t h the discharges o f some supporting infantry, this w o u l d serve only as a prelude to the all-impor­ tant hand-to-hand engagement o n which the outcome o f battles after 1632 almost invariably depended. The Swedish cavalry was no different f r o m its enemies i n its rapid defacto resumption o f a fighting style w h i c h owed more to individual c o m ­ m i t m e n t and training than tactical reforms. 71

The developments i n artillery i n this period should not be isolated from these problems. What w o u l d have revolutionized the battlefield stalemate was the de­ velopment o f a light and highly mobile field artillery, the horse artillery o f a later age, capable o f the same degree o f m o b i l i t y as cavalry. The vaunted reforms o f Gustavus Adolphus produced n o t h i n g capable o f approaching this requirement. The Swedish k i n g devised a three p o u n d cannon, w i t h an effective range o f 300 yards, which required a crew o f only two gunners and could be manoeuvred w i t h the aid o f one horse. The guns were produced i n very substantial numbers, and at­ tached to individual infantry squadrons. A t Breitenfeld, the Swedes had at least 75 cannon, mainly o f this three p o u n d type, against 26 o n the Imperial side. Yet to all practical purposes, the guns were still stationary d u r i n g a battle—or rather they were not mobile as a matter o f course. The teams o f good-quality horses and individual, portable supplies o f a m m u n i t i o n d i d not exist to make m o b i l i t y straightforward; i t remained possible only as the result o f specific, large-scale op­ erations. This was the case at Jankow, where a large part o f the Swedish military effort consisted i n getting cannon up to a position, overlooking the flank o f the Imperial army, that had earlier been taken by the cavalry. 72

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I n contrast to this, Gustavus Adolphus considered i t too difficult and danger­ ous to despatch infantry and artillery support to Saxe-Weimar, w h o had captured a vantage p o i n t overlooking Wallensteins camp o n the Alte Veste. Professor Roberts' contention that i t was artillery o f the Swedish type, i n conjunction w i t h cavalry, that accounted for the destruction o f the Spanish tercios at Rocroi, is mis­ leading. I t was the arrival o f a couple o f French field pieces which, i n conjunction w i t h massed infantry fire, made i t possible finally to break open the Spanish square at the fourth assault. However, this success was i n marked contrast to the failure o f previous assaults w i t h o u t artillery support, d u r i n g which time the French cannon were being moved painstakingly across a few hundred yards o f battlefield. Unable to move w i t h the cavalry to exploit an advantageous flanking attack, the effect o f light artillery was to strengthen the already weighty preemi­ nence o f defensive tactics, raising the levels o f casualties and ensuring the costly failure o f any direct assault u p o n prepared positions. I n the course o f this discussion i t becomes evident that an unbridgeable gap lies between tactical theory—the supposed resumption o f the offensive w i t h the aid 74

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o f enhanced and redeployed firepower—and the perceived reality o f battles characterised by a growing defensive capability and decided by 'traditional', closequarter cavalry engagements. Whether or not this revision is accepted completely, it must indicate the dangers o f relying u p o n justifications o f self-conscious i n n o ­ vators and, i n general, o f attaching too m u c h importance i n any explanation o f military success to the effects o f tactical changes.

II

Given this overwhelming superiority o f the defensive, i t m i g h t reasonably be asked w h y pitched battles occurred at all? The post-1621 phase o f the war i n the Netherlands was marked by the almost total disappearance o f set-piece battles i n favour o f protracted sieges and elaborate manoeuvrings. Yet elsewhere i n Eu­ rope battles were still sought and waged w i t h a c o m m i t m e n t w h i c h suggests that they were considered to be o f crucial importance. Paradoxically, the explanation for this readiness to c o m m i t armies to potentially decisive engagements lies not i n a positive conception o f the role o f battle i n an overall strategy, b u t i n the failure o f such strategy to provide any escape from the constraints o f finance and logis­ tics. Because o f this failure, army commanders, even after victorious battles, were more likely to be prisoners o f circumstances than masters o f states. 76

Professors Roberts and Parker agree i n regarding an immense increase i n the size o f armies over the period 1500-1700 as clear evidence o f some type o f revolu­ t i o n . I t is perhaps necessary to draw a distinction between military and, broadly speaking, political factors i n accounting for this expansion. I n aggregate, armies increased at least ten-fold, f r o m the forces o f 25-30,000 men employed by the powers involved i n the Italian Wars o f the early sixteenth century, to the 387,520 troops theoretically maintained i n the armies and garrisons o f France i n 1690. Yet such figures suggest a steady increase i n the size o f armies which is misleading. The forces involved i n specific battles i n the i64o's/5o's were individually no larger than those o f the previous century. Even i n the more prosperous 1630's, battles involving substantially more than 20,000 troops were rare. Breitenfeld, w i t h 41,000 Swedes and Saxons set against Tilly's 31,000 troops, was unique d o w n to the 1660's. Indeed, the wars o f Louis X I V were the first occasion o f a real i n ­ crease i n the forces involved i n battles. 77

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This disparity between the overall size o f the forces raised by the European powers, and those actually involved o n the battlefield, deserves some attention. Professor Parker argues that the increase i n the size o f armies was due, i n the first instance, to the development o f fortification techniques—above all to the trace italienne—which required many more troops, especially relatively cheap infantry, to enforce an effective blockade. However, overlapping w i t h this, and increas­ ingly taking over f r o m i t at the beginning o f the seventeenth century, was a more obviously political conception o f the role o f military force. 81

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Charles V does not appear to have thought beyond individual victories i n the field towards a permanent military solution to the political challenge o f the Ger­ m a n protestant princes; Mühlberg was not followed by any systematic employ­ ment o f m i l i t a r y coercion. The contrast w i t h the use o f the Imperial and Bavarian armies i n the 1620's is striking. The threat or reality o f military pressure was here being used to enforce substantial political and religious change. F r o m the expan­ sion o f the A r m y o f Flanders i n the 1570's, i t seems clear that armies were per­ ceived as a means to place pressure u p o n entire states and populations by their simple presence, as m u c h as instruments for w i n n i n g a specific military advan­ tage. The imposition o f the Edict o f Restitution i n a situation where the Catholic armies were unchallenged i n Germany provides the clearest example o f this con­ ception o f the use o f military force. To this political i n t e n t i o n must be added the incontestable fact that the infla­ tionary process was b o t h cumulative and irreversible. Given that substantial n u ­ merical inferiority was a handicap that no strategic or tactical innovations could overcome, i t became incumbent u p o n major states to raise the largest armies pos­ sible. Even i f Gustavus Adolphus and Richelieu accepted neither the political nor technical justifications for m i l i t a r y expansion, the established size o f the Habs­ burg war machine by the 1630's made a comparable effort to raise unprecedented armies inevitable. None o f this seems particularly contentious; what does require more substan­ tial modification is the assumption made by b o t h Roberts and Parker that the ex­ pansion o f armies was dependent u p o n the fulfilment o f certain administrative and financial preconditions i n the state. Both consider that 'there had to be gov­ ernments capable o f organising and controlling large forces', and capable o f mobilising and expanding the financial resources o f society. While this was u n ­ doubtedly the case i n the later seventeenth century—evidenced i n BrandenburgPrussia, Sweden, the Cromwellian Protectorate and, above all, France, i t was certainly not the case amongst the protagonists o f the T h i r t y Years' War. 82

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The period o f substantial military expansion, above all, the i62o's/3o's, coin­ cided w i t h the apogee o f the military enterpriser, the colonel or 'General Contrac­ tor' w h o offered to undertake the administrative and (immediate) financial bur­ dens o f raising a regiment or an entire army for their overlords. I t seems paradoxical that monarchs, increasingly concerned to assert the theory o f abso­ lute sovereignty, should have had to rely u p o n armies raised and maintained by private contractors. Yet this is less contradictory than i t appears, since the greatly inflated armies o f this period were forced by external political circumstances u p o n states whose administrative structures were not able to cope w i t h this ex­ pansion. Indeed, w i t h o u t the administrative and above all, credit facilities o f the enterpriser, even the great powers o f the early seventeenth century w o u l d have proved unable to raise the armies o f 50,000-100,000 characteristic o f this period. Even where, as i n Holland, the capacity to fund the army through state channels 84

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existed, the enterprise system was still adopted to avoid the administrative burden and ' o p p o r t u n i t y cost' o f recruiting a directly levied militia i n the Provinces. I n most cases, however, the principal reason was financial incapacity—the broadening gulf between the revenues available to the state and the cost o f the ar­ mies that i t felt obliged to maintain. N o t merely were the revenues inadequate overall, b u t the primitive mechanisms o f tax extraction rendered i t impossible to collect large sums at the crucial points i n the m i l i t a r y year: spring recruitment, initial campaign expenses, a u t u m n disbandment or winter quarters. The entre­ preneur could make good these inadequacies through his (comparatively stron­ ger) credit facilities—the ability to mobilise a host o f avaricious subcontractors, and his relationship w i t h pure financiers w h o had access to the international money market. 85

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Yet all o f this was ultimately sleight o f hand; at some p o i n t the state had to pay for the army mobilised t h r o u g h the efforts o f its entrepreneur-subjects. Merely to keep the credit-system r u n n i n g , Wallenstein stipulated that he required 'ein par M i l l i o n alle Jahr'. Beyond this, however, any substantial payment o f the entre­ preneurs' expenses w o u l d be outside the resources o f the government. The 'solu­ tion' was the notorious Kontributionssystem—licence to exact cash payments f r o m enemy, neutral and ultimately, friendly territory at well above the rates re­ quired for the basic subsistence o f the army. The difference w o u l d be employed to reimburse the colonels, captains and other subcontractors for a p o r t i o n o f their initial outlay, and to satisfy the most pressing demands o f the financiers and sup­ pliers. 87

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The inherent problem o f such a system was that, especially when combined w i t h the general, illegal depredations o f the soldiery, i t w o u l d rapidly exhaust the economic potential o f whole areas o f the campaign theatre. This process was ac­ celerated by the reluctance o f the civilian populations to submit willingly to re­ peated, crippling exactions i n money and k i n d . Contributions therefore had to be extracted under continuous m i l i t a r y pressure. Wallenstein suggested that he could support an army o f 50,000 men i n Germany, b u t not one o f 20,000. The armies expanded for yet another n o n - m i l i t a r y reason: to facilitate the levy o f Contributions which, by their very scale, inevitably rendered this method o f sup­ p o r t i n g the forces increasingly unreliable. What were the alternatives? I n this period i t seems clear that there were none. France provides an i l l u m i n a t i n g example o f a state which rejected a purely entre­ preneurial model for its army. The experience o f civil war and weak, regency gov­ ernment characteristic o f most o f the period 1560-1629, rendered the French crown implacably opposed to the principle o f delegating military authority under any f o r m o f overt entrepreneurship. Yet the resources available to the French crown were no more capable o f supporting its military c o m m i t m e n t . Officers and overall commanders were informally expected to contribute to the costs o f their units or armies, b u t under various formulae which ruled out any claim to recipro­ cal entrepreneurial rights. The officer had no control over the disbandment or 89

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reformation o f his unit, and could expect no compensation for any costs incurred d u r i n g the command. Even i f killed o n active service, he had no guarantee that the u n i t w o u l d subsequently be transferred to one o f his relatives, rather than to a fresh petitioner. The crown, attempting to sustain a m i l i t a r y effort beyond its ac­ cessible resources, played u p o n the enthusiasm for m i l i t a r y office amongst the wealthy groups o f French society, and the subsequent threat to disband their units, as a means to obtain the additional credit that elsewhere was mobilised by an acknowledged, contracted entrepreneurial system. The price paid i n terms o f the absenteeism, insubordination and c o r r u p t i o n o f the French officer-corps was entirely disproportionate. H a d an effective m i l i t a r y administration existed as i t was to do i n the 1660S/70S, i t m i g h t have proved possible to m i n i m i z e the worst effects o f this system. I n fact, the financial inadequacy w h i c h pushed the govern­ ment towards such dangerous expedients was matched by a complete failure o f the existing administration to meet the challenge o f controlling the army, or o f disciplining and restraining the c o r r u p t i o n o f the officer-corps. Far f r o m leading to rationalisation and development, large-scale warfare pushed this administra­ t i o n into an increasingly all-pervasive inadequacy. Together w i t h the related i n ­ ability to develop a permanent, professional officer-corps, this failure does much to explain the outstandingly poor performance o f the French army d u r i n g Riche­ lieu's ministry. Both entrepreneurship and this inadequate blend o f central direction and unreciprocated credit-exploitation, imposed constraints u p o n army command­ ers. The general o f an army made up o f entrepreneur colonels and their regiments had to deploy his forces p r i m a r i l y to facilitate the extraction o f Contributions, and had to maintain a sufficient number o f troops under arms to coerce the pay­ ment o f these by reluctant civil populations. Equally, the French commander was constantly faced by the realities o f inherently inadequate central funding. A C o n ­ t r i b u t i o n system was not (at least legally) authorised, and the compensatory mobilisation o f the officers' resources confirmed their view o f themselves as p r i v i ­ leged volunteers, serving at personal convenience rather than under enforceable contracts. I t is the presence o f these constraints which renders discussion o f develop­ ments, or a revolution, i n strategy largely unconvincing. The overriding need to pay and supply armies inflated beyond the capacities o f their states, reduced strat­ egy to a crude concern w i t h territorial occupation or its denial to the enemy. Inadequate administration, or the l i m i t e d Contribution-potential o f the m a i n campaign theatres sharply constrained the commanders' freedom o f action. Large-scale transport o f supplies—despite the establishment o f rudimentary frontier magazines—was beyond the capacities o f the early m o d e r n state, which could raise troops b u t not the horses, waggons and food supplies required to sup­ p o r t them o n an extended campaign. The constant penalty for failure to exact fi­ nance and supplies, or for the non-cooperation o f trésoriers, financiers or munitionnaires, was the dissolution o f the army. Troops w h o had not received a 91

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basic subsistence i n money or k i n d w o u l d desert. (Mutiny, although equally de­ structive, was the prerogative o f elite forces, confident o f their central importance to the war-effort. ) Mass desertion, facilitated by the c o r r u p t i o n or absenteeism o f the u n i t officers, could destroy the m i l i t a r y capacity o f the state far more effec­ tively than enemy a c t i o n . The French army w h i c h attempted to invade Flanders i n 1635 fairly reliably calculated at 22,000 infantry and 4,500 cavalry. By mid-June, supply problems had reduced this to 13,000 foot and 4,000 horse, while by the end o f the campaign the army numbered fewer than 8,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry, despite having received reinforcements from Picardy i n July. This wastage rate o f between 50 and 75% was typical, striking only i n that the French obligations to the D u t c h ensured that the army began the campaign w i t h an ex­ ceptionally high effective strength. I n most cases the armies entered the cam­ paigns significantly under strength. Large-scale desertion before and d u r i n g the campaigns rendered calculations o f army size meaningless, and suggests that the forces o f 150-200,000 troops customarily ascribed to Richelieu's war effort overes­ timates the reality by at least 50%. While the uniquely unsatisfactory relation­ ship between the administration and the officer corps may have aggravated the problem o f mass desertion i n the French case, there can be no doubt that i t was the c o m m o n experience o f all the armies o f the period. Gustavus Adolphus' army i n Bavaria was reduced by at least 50% d u r i n g the fruitless three-month siege o f Wallenstein's camp outside N u r e m b e r g . 92

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H o w could a collapse o f army strength be avoided? For the French, or any other army unable to draw u p o n Contributions, by not o u t r u n n i n g the supply facilities (however inadequate) established i n the frontier provinces, and by imposing the most rigorous constraints u p o n m i l i t a r y action. Attempts to move beyond l i m ­ ited policies simply revealed the extent to w h i c h logistical practice lagged behind the scale o f armies—with invariably disastrous consequences. M o v i n g across the Rhine and living from a defacto C o n t r i b u t i o n system i n competition w i t h en­ emy forces m i g h t appear a solution. I n reality the extent o f the devastation i n these areas, and the tenacity o f the Imperial forces, rendered the systematic ex­ traction o f support almost impossible. Desertion i n the French 'armies o f Ger­ many' was catastrophic; the simple news that a u n i t was to move into Germany could reduce i t by 50% overnight, according to Richelieu. Where the C o n t r i b u ­ t i o n system had to be made to operate, i t was unrealistic to envisage any type o f strategy that d i d not accept this as the fundamental priority. The m a i n issue was whether the Contributions could be gathered from enemy territory—thus impos­ ing additional pressure u p o n the opponent—or whether the army w o u l d be forced to live off neutral or home territory. Campaigns reflected this simple logis­ tical imperative: battles were about the control o f territory w i t h supply potential, not the c u l m i n a t i o n o f any overall strategy clearly and directly related to the state's war-aims. I n that fatal sense warned o f by Clausewitz, warfare had become completely divorced f r o m its political object. Breitenfeld occured, not because Gustavus Adolphus was confident o f his capacity to defeat Tilly's veterans and 98

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anxious to seek out battle as quickly as possible, b u t because o f the need to ex­ pand the Contribution-base o f his o w n army and to deny Tilly the o p p o r t u n i t y o f using Saxony for the same purpose. After Breitenfeld, Gustavus d i d not use his enhanced army i n a direct advance against the Hereditary Lands to t r y to end the war decisively, b u t moved into the Rhineland, subjecting the various principali­ ties to systematic Contributions. Given the diplomatic difficulties that this pro­ voked w i t h France, angling as ever to create a Catholic, anti-Habsburg powerbloc i n Germany, and the essential strategic pointlessness o f the move i n terms o f Sweden's declared war aims, i t must be taken as a clear instance o f the influence o f logistics u p o n strategy. 102

I n 1632, the duel between Wallenstein and Gustavus Adolphus reflected the same preoccupation. The destruction o f half o f the Swedish army before N u r e m ­ berg owed little to the specific failure to capture Wallensteins positions, far more to the confinement o f 45,000 troops i n an area whose supply-potential was quickly exhausted and where the yield f r o m more extended zones o f C o n t r i b u t i o n began to d r y up. Having exploited this logistical circumstance to his advantage, Wallenstein, dispersing his army rather than suffering its dissolution through growing supply difficulties, was himself caught by Gustavus at L ü t z e n . 103

This explains the disparity between the size o f armies overall and o f the forces involved o n a specific battlefield. The limitations o f the supply system severely re­ stricted the number o f troops w h o could be concentrated i n one particular the­ atre. Gustavus Adolphus' 'Great A r c ' o f seven separate forces advancing across Germany seems less the product o f strategic genius, more a response to the c o m m o n knowledge that 175,000 men (or whatever force Sweden actually had u n ­ der arms at this stage) concentrated u p o n a single front w o u l d simply starve. Gar­ risoning, largely to supervise the extraction o f Contributions, and the dispersion o f blocks o f troops over broad areas o f territory, were the unavoidable conse­ quence o f sustaining an army o f this scale i n the absence o f effective centralised administration and supply. I have deliberately chosen examples o f strategy determined by logistics from the early 1630's, perhaps the halcyon period o f m i l i t a r y entrepreneurship. The sit­ uation for b o t h Kontributionssystem and direct administration had deteriorated significantly by the 1640's. The exhaustion o f numerous campaign theatres was compounded by the most notorious aspect o f the T h i r t y Years' War—the system­ atic ravaging and destruction o f whole areas o f territory i n a b i d to deprive the en­ emy o f logistical support after the 'friendly' army had w i t h d r a w n . Far f r o m being a product o f confessional barbarism, the policy reflected a clear-sighted awareness that the movements o f the enemy could be severely restricted by the efficient de­ struction o f local resources. So, however, were the subsequent strategic choices available to the commander w h o ordered the destruction. The size o f the i n d i v i d ­ ual armies involved i n operations or battles fell drastically: 10-15,000 troops seems to have been the typical size, outside o f Franco-Spanish campaigns o n the Flanders frontier. Attempts are made to dignify what had degenerated into a 104

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struggle almost exclusively concerned w i t h control o f territory w h i c h m i g h t p r o ­ vide temporary relief f r o m the all-pervasive problem o f supply and finance. The 'new style' of warfare—small armies containing at least 50% cavalry—abandoned systematic Contributions i n favour o f direct extortion and a guerre des courses de­ v o i d o f strategic significance. The war became one o f survival: the series o f defeats suffered by the Imperial armies after 1645 d i d ° t b r i n g a m i l i t a r y solution w i t h i n sight. They d i d , however, confirm that the Swedish and French armies controlled the exiguous supply potential o f Germany. As long as the war continued the E m ­ peror w o u l d be forced to support his shrinking armies from the resources o f the Hereditary Lands. Even had he been prepared to accept such an expedient, i t is probable that his m i l i t a r y entrepreneurs w o u l d not. The Peace o f Westphalia, w i t h its concern for Swedish indemnities and the consolidation o f the Emperor's power w i t h i n his o w n territories, is a significant indication o f the nature o f war­ fare i n the 1640's; victories could consolidate a m i l i t a r y advantage b u t could not precipitate any overall defeat o f the enemy state. The continuation o f the Franco/ Spanish conflict d o w n to 1659 merely emphasised the same situation. n

Peace, the return o f relative prosperity, and the development o f a far more ef­ fective m i l i t a r y administration, permitted the further expansion o f armies f r o m the 1660's—an inflationary process fuelled o n this occasion by Louis XIV's France. Yet the vice o f logistical constraints was scarcely loosened i n its grip u p o n the f o r m u l a t i o n and execution o f strategy. As G. Perjes proposes: If the efficiency of strategy was impaired by the initial trouble, difficulties arising from the low standards of food supply and agrarian techniques, low population den­ sity and the backwardness of transportation methods, how much greater was the gulf between the political aims of the war and the strategy destined to realise them, since the inadequacy of state administration and financial difficulties themselves were in­ strumental in widening this gap. 105

The central feature o f seventeenth-century warfare was the relative ease w i t h w h i c h states could raise large numbers o f troops, b u t i n circumstances where i t proved impossible to match these forces w i t h adequate or reliable administrative mechanisms. I n the first half o f the century the problem was above all o f inade­ quate financial resources to pay or supply the armies. The 'administrative revolu­ t i o n ' o f the second half, and the full emergence o f the 'coercion/extraction' cycle, may have gone some distance towards solving the immediate problem, but this served only to reveal the inherent technological and bureaucratic weaknesses o f early m o d e r n states confronted w i t h the burden o f supporting armies 2 0 0 300,000 strong. T h r o u g h o u t the century the penalty for neglecting logistical i m ­ peratives—in effect, for pursuing a strategy reflecting political war-aims—re­ mained the collapse o f the army through mass-desertion or complete supply fail­ ure. Thus o n counts o f b o t h tactics and strategy, I have reservations about the con­ cept o f a ' m i l i t a r y revolution' i n the period 1560-1660. I n the field o f tactics there

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is little evidence to support a division into 'progressives' and 'conservatives' i n matters o f u n i t size and formations. Improvements i n weaponry and the methods o f combining the three arms merely consolidated the already imposing preemi­ nence o f the army d r a w n up o n the defensive. The partial solution to the problem o f reestablishing a balance between offensive and defensive came f r o m a system­ atic resumption o f close-quarter cavalry engagements. While i t might be too sweeping to suggest that commanders i n the T h i r t y Years' War were entirely uninfluenced by strategic considerations, their freedom to act i n accordance w i t h any overall strategy was almost completely curtailed. The growing size o f armies initially reflected political considerations and ambi­ tions; subsequently i t became a necessary response to the c o m m i t m e n t o f other powers. Forced to increase beyond the resources available to the state, the insolu­ ble problems o f pay and supply became progressively all-embracing as the war moved into its final crisis. Tactics and strategy i n the T h i r t y Years' War are per­ haps best characterised as being undermined by t w o persistent failures: i n the one case, to break the dominance o f the defensive; i n the other, to cope w i t h logistical inadequacy.

Notes 1. M . Roberts: 'The Military Revolution, 1560-1660.' Belfast 1955, reprinted above, chap­ ter 1; id.: 'Gustav Adolf and the Art of War.' Belfast 1955, see also in id.: Essays in Swedish History London 1967, pp. 56-81. Roberts: Gustavus Adolphus. A History of Sweden 1611-32. Vol.1.2. London 1953-58, here vol. 2, pp. 169-271. 2. G. Parker: 'The "Military Revolution", 1560-1660—a Myth?' In: Journal of Modern History 48 (1976) 195-214, reprinted above, chapter 2. 3. G. Parker: Spain and the Netherlands, 1559-1659. London, 1979, 85. 4. Parker, 'Military Revolution' (see Fn. 2), pp. 38-40. 5. Roberts: 'Military Revolution' (see Fn. 1), pp. 18-20. 6. Parker: 'Military Revolution' (see Fn. 2), pp. 41-43. 7. Roberts: Essays in Swedish History (see Fn. 1), pp. 60-62, 65-67; 'Military Revolution, 13 f. 8. Parker: 'Military Revolution' (see Fn. 2), p. 39. 9. R. J. Knecht: Francis I. Cambridge 1982, pp. 246-248; P. G. Daniel: Histoire de la Milice Francaise. Vol. 1.2. Paris 1721, here vol. 2, pp. 331-333. 10. H . Schneider: Der Langspiess. Wien 1976 (= Schriften des Heeresgeschichtlichen Muse­ ums in Wien. Militarwissenschaftliches Instituí. Bd 7.), pp. 7-24, p. 14. 11. W. Schaufelberger: Der Alte Schweizer und sein Krieg. Zurich i966, pp. 7-24, p. 18. 12. By the second half of the sixteenth century the proportion of halberds had stabilized at around 10% of an infantry unit (J. R. Hale: War and Society in Renaissance Europe, 14501620. London 1985, p. 52). 13. Jacobi of Wallhausen stresses that 'presque tous les pais ont leur facon de mousquet', and suggests that although the 'musket' shot was meant to weigh 2 ounces, this was rarely the case since it required a weapon too heavy for most soldiers (id.: UArt Militaire pour rinfanterie. Paris 1615, p. 35). Jacob de Gheyn's distinction between the musket and the spe2

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cific, small-calibre 'caliver', fired without a fork, seems more convincing. See the illustra­ tions in The Exercise of Armes for Calivers, Muskettes and Pikes. London (?) 1608. In general I am sceptical of whether the 'innovation of the musket consists in anything more than the adoption of a more fashionable name. 14. Battles of La Bicocca and Pavia (Knecht: Francis I—see Fn. 9—, pp. 114 f., 169). 15. Parker: 'Military Revolution (see Fn. 2), p. 39. 16. Roberts: Gustavus Adolphus (see Fn. 1), vol. 2, p. 184, gives proportions of 300 shot to 250 hand weapons in a Dutch battalion. M . D. Feld: 'Middle Class Society and the Rise of Military Professionalism: the Dutch Army 1589-1609.' In: Armed Forces and Society 1 (1975) 419-442, here p. 426, suggests that a Dutch infantry company of 135 men consisted of 74 men with firearms and 45 with pikes. 17. Jacobi of Wallhausen: L'Art Militaire pour ITnfanterie (see Fn. 13), p. 102. 18. Clear descriptions of this system in J. de Billon: Principes de VArt Militaire. Paris 1622, pp. 177-179; L. de la Fontaine: Les Devoirs Militaires des Offciers de I'Infanterie et de la Cavalerie. Paris 1675; John Keegan draws attention to the general thesis that the small group of soldiers, existing independently of the formal military structure, is far more i m ­ portant in explaining the success and motivation of troops in combat (id.: Face of Battle. London 1976, pp. 51 f.). 19. J. Chr. Allmayer-Beck, E. Lessing: Die kaiserlichen Kriegsvólker. Von Maximilian I. bis Prinz Eugen 1479-1718. München 1978, p. 116: 'Fiir die angeworbenen kaiserlichen Truppen schien ein besonderes Exerzitium wiederum nicht vonnóten, da diese ja, aus kriegsgeübten Sóldnern bestehend, in der Lage sein sollten, unerfahrenen Rekruten das Notwendigste beizubringen.' 20. Roberts: Essays in Swedish History (see Fn. 1), p. 62. 21. D. H. d'Aumale: Histoire des Princes de Conde pendant lesXVIe etXVIIe siécles. Vol. 18. Paris 1863-96, here vol. 4, p. 114. 22. Parker: 'Military Revolution' (see Fn. 2), p. 39. 23. De Billon: L'Art Militaire (see Fn. 18), p. 181, implies that bataillons were established from the early seventeenth century. 24. Roberts: Gustavus Adolphus (see Fn. 1), vol. 2, p. 251. 25. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 219 f. 26. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 250-253. 27. See for example the Archives des Affaires Etrangéres, Mémoires et Documents, France. Vol. 828, fos. 265-286: états of army strengths for 1637-projected. 28. Exact revues of units in the French army have not survived in large numbers, though the Archives des Affaires Etrangéres (see Fn. 27) do contain a representative selection: for e.g. Mémoires et Documents, France. Vol. 819, fos. 1-5—revues of units under de La Force and the Cardinal de La Valette, 1635. See also B. Kroener: Die Entwicklung der Truppenstarken in den franzósischen Armeen zwischen 1635 und 1661. In: Forschungen und Quellen zur Geschichte des Dreissigjahrigen Krieges. Minister 1981 (= Schriftenreihe der Vereinigung zur Erforschung der Neueren Geschichte e. V. Bd 12.), pp. 149-220. 29. H . de Besse: Relation des Campagnes de Rocroi et de Fribourg. Paris 1673, new ed. 1826, p. 98. Numerous other references. 30. Roberts: Essays in Swedish History (see Fn. 1), p. 65. 31. Ibid., p. 197. 32. For example, a letter of Le Tellier, then intendant of the army in Italy, from the early 1640's: printed in N . L. Caron: Michel Le Tellier: son administration comme intendant

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d'armée en Piémont, 1640-43. Paris 1880, p. 75,10th June 1641. Also Archives de la Guerre. Vol. A129, fo. 399,27th September 1636: Typical order for the reformation of all units in the army of Italy under 30 strong. 33. Roberts: Gustavus Adolphus (see Fn. 1), vol. 2, pp. 175 f. 34. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 173 f. 35. De Billon: LArt Militaire (see Fn. 18), pp. 181, 209; Aurignac: Livre de la Guerre. Paris 1663, ed. Azan. Paris 1904, p. 48. Sir James Turner, inexplicably, reverses the prescriptions, suggesting three paces between defensive pikes, one and a half between those charging: Pal­ las Armata. London 1670/71, p. 268. 36. De Gheyn: Exercise of Armes (see Fn. 13); J. of Wallhausen: Künstliche PiquenHandlung, darinnen schriftlich und mit Figuren dieses Exercitium angewiesen und gelehret wird. Hanau 1617. 37. Turner: Pallas Armata (see Fn. 35), p. 179. 38. This deployment seems to have been ignored by historians, though it is clearly indi­ cated in tactical manuals: de Billon: LArt Militaire (see Fn. 18), p. 168; de la Fontaine: De­ voirs Militaires (see Fn. 18), p. 282 et seq. In artists' depictions of the battles—for example, those of Snaeyers—this order of battle is clear. See the sequence in Allmayer-Beck/Lessing: Die kaiserlichen Kriegsvólker (see Fn. 19), pp. 89-104. More accessible is Snaeyers' painting of Imperial infantry at Nórdlingen, reproduced on the dust-jacket of Professor Parker's Thirty Years' War. London 1984. It is easy to see how assumptions might be made that these formations were 'typical' squares, but careful examination shows this not to have been the case. 39. The procedure is described by de Billon: LArt Militaire (see Fn. 18), pp. 196-199, who combines it with the widely established countermarch: 'Tout aussi-tot que le premier rang (of shot) fera advancer pour tirer, il faut que le second rang prenne sa place et se remettre a l'esgal du premier rang et front des picquiers.' 40. Sir Ch. Oman: A History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century. London 1937, p. 596. 41. Aurignac: Livre de la Guerre (see Fn. 35), p. 105, considers that this was the principal reason for Tilly's defeat. 42. J. Seidler: Untersuchungen über die Schlacht bei Lützen. Memmingen 1954, empha­ sizes that the two accounts by officers present in the Imperial army—Hoik and Diodati— agree upon this as the battle order. This verdict is accepted by Golo Mann in his biography of Wallenstein. Frankfurt a. M . , pp. 877-880. 43. Most fiercely asserted by H . Diemar: Untersuchungen über die Schlacht bei Lützen. Marburg a. d. L. 1890, though this is convincingly attacked by Seidler (see Fn. 42). It has had many exponents, partly, it may be suggested, under the influence of the Merian en­ graving of the battle, prepared for the Theatrum Europaeum. (Reproduced as the endpiece of Parker's Thirty Years' War—see Fn. 38—). Yet there seems little reason to take this en­ graving as a reliable depiction of the battle order; even at the very simplest level, the num­ ber of infantry drawn up in the five squares does not approach Wallenstein's force of 89,000. 44. D'Aumale: Histoire des Princes de Conde (see Fn. 21), vol. 4, pp. 82-133; de Besse: Re­ lation des Campagnes de Rocroi et de Fribourg (see Fn. 29), pp. 18-87. 45. J. of Wallhausen: LArt Militaire pour Vlnfanterie (see Fn. 13), p. 85 et seq. 46. See H . Eichberg: 'Geometrie als barocke Verhaltensnorm. Fortifikation und Exerzitien.' In: Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 4 (1977) 17-50.

Strategy and Tactics in the Thirty Years' War

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47. Turner: Pallas Armata (see Fn. 35), p. 268. 48. L. de Gaya: UArt de la Guerre. Paris 1689, p. 171; de la Fontaine: Devoirs Militaires (see Fn. 18), pp. 245-261. 49. C. von Clausewitz: On War. (Ed. Paret, Howard, Brodie. Princeton, N.J. 1976), pp. 187-189. 50. Roberts: Essays in Swedish History (see Fn. 1), pp. 66 f. 51. Id.: Gustavus Adolphus (see Fn. 1), vol. 2, pp. 264 n. 3. 52. The Swedish Intelligencer. Vol. 3. London 1634, p. 42. Accounts of Fronmüller: Geschichte Altenberg's und der Alten Veste b. Fürth. Fürth i860, and H. Mahr: Wallenstein vor Nürnberg 1632: sein Lager bei Zirndorfund die Schlacht an der Alten Veste. Neustadt/Aisch 1982. 53. Roberts: Essays in Swedish History (see Fn. 1), p. 67. 54. See John Keegan's account of the French advance at Agincourt: Face of Battle (see Fn. 18), pp. 98-101. 55. Again, Keegan's account of the substantially more effective British muskets at Water­ loo, and the limited effects of their fire even at almost point-blank range (id.: Face of Bat­ tle—see Fn. 18—pp. 172 f.). 56. Mahr: Wallenstein vor Nürnberg (see Fn. 52), p. 80 et seq. 57. E. van der Essen: Le Cardinal-Infant et la politique européenne de l'Espagne, 1609-41. Louvain 1944, p. 419. 58. G. Priorato: An History of the late Warres and other State Affaires of the best Part of Christendom, beginning with the King ofSwethlands Entrance into Germany, and Continuing until 1640 trans, by Earl of Monmouth. London 1648, pp. 131-134. 59. Oman: Art of War in the Sixteenth Century (see Fn. 40), pp. 592-603; d'Aumale: Histoire des Princes de Conde (see Fn. 21). 60.1. M . vicomte de Noailles: Bernhard de Saxe-Weimar. Paris 1906. 61. Priorato (see Fn. 58); Mann: Wallenstein (see Fn. 42), pp. 883-891. 62. Van der Essen (see Fn. 57), p. 420. 63. C. V. Wedgewood: The Thirty Years' War. London 1938, pp. 366 f. 64. D'Aumale: Histoire des Princes de Conde (see Fn. 21), vol. 4, pp. 114-116. 65. Though see ibid., vol. 4, pp. 424-440, on Nórdlingen II (Allerheim), and K. Ruppert: Die kaiserliche Politik auf dem Westfalischen Friedenskongress, 1643-1648. In: Forschungen und Quellen zur Geschichte des Dreissigjahrigen Krieges. Miinster 1979 (= Schriftenreihe der Vereinigung zur Erforschung der Neueren Geschichte e. V. Bd 10.), p. 81, on Jankow. 66. E. v. Frauenholz: Das Heerwesen in der Zeit des freien Sbldnertums. München 1936 (= Entwicklungsgeschichte des deutschen Heerwesens. Bd 2,1.), pp. 104-115. 67. Oman: Art of War in the Sixteenth Century (see Fn. 40), pp. 562 f., on the battle of Mookheide, where Spanish lancers routed Dutch pistoleers after their first ineffectual dis­ charge. 68. Roberts: Essays in Swedish History (see Fn. 1), pp. 57 f. 69. Ibid., pp. 68 f. 70. Priorato (see Fn. 58), p. 131. 71. Ibid., p. 134; Mann: Wallenstein (see Fn. 42), pp. 883 f. 72. Parker: The Thirty Years' War (see Fn. 38), p. 126. 73. Ruppert: Kaiserliche Politik (see Fn. 65), p. 81. 74. Fronmüller (see Fn. 52).

250

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75. Roberts: Essays in Swedish History (see Fn. 1), p. 60 and note 56. Roberts draws upon Weygand and Colin/Reboul, neither of whose accounts of Rocroi are satisfactory. 76. J. Israel: The Dutch Republic and the Hispanic World. London 1982, pp. 96 f. The one exception was at Kallo in June 1638, when the Army of Flanders inflicted a severe defeat upon the Dutch—ibid., p. 259. 77. Hale: War and Society in Renaissance Europe (see Fn. 12), p. 62; these are probably 'paper' strengths, considerably overestimating the real forces maintained during the cam­ paigns. 78. A. Corvisier: Louvois. Paris 1983, p. 325. 79. Freiburg, in 1644, was fought between armies of about 17,000 (d'Aumale: Histoire des Princes de Conde (see Fn. 21), vol. 4, pp. 316-323), while Jankow involved Swedish and I m ­ perial forces of only 15,000 (Ruppert: Kaiserliche Politik—see Fn. 65—, p. 80). Both of these appear to compare unfavourably with the battles of a hundred years earlier. 80. Parker: The Thirty Years' War (see Fn. 38), p. 126. 81. Id.: 'Military Revolution' (see Fn. 2), p. 45. 82. Roberts: 'Military Revolution' (see Fn. 1), pp. 20-22; Parker: 'Military Revolution' (see Fn. 2), pp. 45-48. 83. Professor Roberts' remark about the 'possibly overrated military reformers, Le Tellier and Louvois' (id.: Essays in Swedish History—see Fn. 1—, p. 65), dubious in itself, could only be sustained by ignoring simultaneous changes in the state which had a far more dras­ tic influence upon the effectiveness of armies than any tactical redefinition could achieve. A comparison of the French armies of the i66o's/7o's with those of preceding decades illus­ trates this clearly. 84. See particularly F. Redlich: The German Military Enterpriser and his Work Force. Vol. 1.2. Wiesbaden 1964/65 (= Vierteljahrschrift fur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Beihefte 47. 48.) 85. Feld: 'Middle Class Society and the Rise of Military Professionalism' (see Fn. 16); G. Oestreich: Neostoicism and the Early Modern State. Cambridge 1982, pp. 76-83. 86. The supreme example of this being Wallensteins relationship with his foremost fi­ nancier—see A. Ernstberger: Hans de Witte—Finanzmann Wallensteins. Wiesbaden 1954 Vierteljahrschrift fur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Beih. 38.) 87. Ibid., p. 166. 88. M . Ritter: Das Kontributionssystem Wallensteins. In: HZ90. N . F. 54 (1903) 193-249; F. Redlich: 'Contributions in the Thirty Years' War.' In: Economic History Review. 2nd Ser. 12 (1959/60) 247-254. 89. Mann: Wallenstein (see Fn. 42), pp. 370 f. 90. D. Parrott: The Administration of the French Army during the Ministry of Cardinal Richelieu. Oxford, D. Phil, thesis 1985, pp. 161-223. 91. Paris-based financiers/entrepreneurs who were prepared to make large-scale con­ tracts to supply the armies with the basic bread ration throughout a campaign or the win­ ter months. 92. G. Parker: 'Mutiny and Discontent in Spanish Army of Flanders, 1572-1607.' In: Spain and the Netherlands (see Fn. 3), pp. 104-121, p. 108. 93. Richelieu, in his Testament Politique, made the despairing statement that: TI se trouve en l'histoire beaucoup plus d'armées periés faute de pain et de police que par l'effort des armes ennemies' (ed. Andre. Paris 1947, p. 280). In this, he was echoing the common experience of all his contemporaries.

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94. A. Aubery: Mémoires pour servir a Vhistoire du Cardinal de Richelieu. Vol. 1.2. Paris 1660/61, vol. 1, p. 481. 95. Richelieu: Mémoires. Vol. 8. (28). Paris 1824, p. 334: Collections des Mémoires relatifs a YHistoire de France (2nd Ser., ed. Petitot, Monmerqué. Vol. 21-30); G. Avenel: Lettres, In­ structions Diplomatiques et Rapiers d'Etat du Cardinal de Richelieu. Vol. 1-8. Paris 1843-77, here vol. 5, p. 309,16th Oct. 1635; vol. 5, p. 73, 28th June 1635. 96. Kroener: Die Entwicklung der Truppenstárken in den franzósischen Armeen (see Fn. 28); Parrott: The Administration of the French Army during the Ministry of Cardinal Riche­ lieu (see Fn. 90), pp. 103-118,142. 97. Parker: The Thirty Years' War (see Fn. 38), p. 131; Mahr: Wallenstein vor Nürnberg (see Fn. 52), p. 64. 98. For example, the French advance to Mainz in 1635, which collapsed through supply failure evident from the outset of the campaign—B. Kroener: Les Routes et les Etapes. Die Versorgung der franzósischen Armeen in Nordostfrankreich (1635-61). Ein Beitrag zur Verwaltungsgeschichte des Ancien Regime. Münster 1980 (= Schriftenreihe der Vereinigung zur Erforschung der Neueren Geschichte e. V Bd 11.), pp. 83-94. 99. Archives des Affaires Etrangéres (see Fn. 27), vol. 816, fo. 226, undated (1635). 100. Clausewitz: On War (see Fn. 49), p. 143. 101. The Vernichtungsstrategie held by Professor Roberts to have been the conscious aim of Gustavus Adolphus (id.: Essays in Swedish History—see Fn. 1—, pp. 71 f.). 102. M . van Creveld: Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton. Cambridge 1977, P-14. 103. Parker: The Thirty Years' War (see Fn. 38), p. 131. 104. Roberts: Essays in Swedish History (see Fn. 1), p. 73. 105. G. Perjes: Army Provisioning, Logistics and Strategy in the Second Half of the Sev­ enteenth Century.' In: Acta Histórica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 16 (1970).

10

33322. Roberts, Gustavus Adolphus, 2:766. 23. Essen, Cardinal-Infant, 1:413, n. 3. 24. R. A. Stradling, "Olivares and the Origins of the Franco-Spanish War, 1627-1635," En­ glish Historical Review 101 (1986): 83. 25. Hans Wertheim, Der Tolle Halberstadter: Herzog Christian von Braunschweig im Pfalzischen Krieg, 1621-1622 (Berlin, 1929), 2:308-11,371-72,494-95 gives the composition of the three armies, though some skepticism is justified. 26. Israel, Dutch Republic, 252. Cf. Parrott, "Administration of the French Army," 25-29, "Strategy and Tactics," 243. 27. London, Public Record Office, SP 14/119/93. In 1542 Charles V warned his brother Ferdinand that the army of 40,000 foot and 8,000 horse he was proposing to raise for the Hungarian campaign was too large to manage. See P. S. Fichtner, Ferdinand I of Austria: The Politics ofDynasticism in the Age of the Reformation (New York, 1982), 128-29.

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28. Quoted in Roberts, Gustavus Adolphus, 2:470. 29. Mark A. Kishlansky, The Rise of the New Model Army (Cambridge, 1979), 36-37. For Wallensteins commission, see pages 257-58 of this essay. 30. Parker, Army of Flanders, 271-72. Israel, Dutch Republic, 162-65. 31. Parker, Army of Flanders, 6. 32. J. H . Elliott, The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline (New Haven and London, 1986), 509. 33. Ibid., Stradling, "Origins," 90. 34. M . E. Mallett and J. R. Hale, The Military Organization of a Renaissance State: Venice c. 1400 to 1617 (Cambridge, 1984), 213. 35. See n. 16 above. 36. Roberts, Gustavus Adolphus, 2:676-77. 37. Gerhard Benecke in Geoffrey Parker, The Thirty Years' War (London, 1984), 100. 38. The lists for the period 1621-34 are printed in tabular form as appendices to Documenta Bohémica Bellum Tricennale Illustrantia, ed. Josef Janék, et al. (Prague, 197177), vols. 3-5. 39. Documenta Bohémica, 4:51, 77. 40. Ibid., 11, 130, 137. Wallenstein did send 74 foot companies (20,000 men at full strength) to Tilly on the eve of Lutter am Barenberg. See also Mann, 289. 41. Documenta Bohémica, 4:204-5, 215. Wallensteins conference with the Imperial coun­ cillor Eggenberg at Bruck an der Leitha in November 1626, in which he is said to have pro­ posed the creation of an Imperial standing army, is discussed in Mann, 324-29. 42. Mann, 438. 43. John A. Lynn, "The Growth of the French Army during the Seventeenth Century," Armed Forces and Society 6 (1980): 569, 573. Parrott, "Administration of the French Army," 103. 44. Lynn, "Growth," 573. Cf. David Buissert, Henry IV (London, 1984), 174. The remain­ ing 25,000 were diversionary forces deployed in Navarre and Italy. 45. Parrott, "Administration of the French Army," 103-4. 46. Ibid., 105-17 passim, and the table on page 142. 47. This point was made to me by Professor Parker in conversation. 48. See Parrott, "Strategy and Tactics," 239-45. This article draws the same distinction between the growth of field armies and overall establishments as that made above and sees logistical considerations as the central limiting factor on the size of field armies. Cf. the comments of Davies, "Provisions," 246. 49. Parker, "Military Revolution—A Myth?" 45. 50. Parrott, "Administration of the French Army," 81. 51. See the tables in Parker, Army of Flanders, 271-72, and Het Staatsche Leger, 2:344-69. 52. Roberts, Gustavus Adolphus, 2:203. 53. Robert Stradling, "Catastrophe and Recovery: the Defeat of Spain, 1639-43," History 64 (1979): 216, and, more specifically, "Spain's Military Failure and the Supply of Horses, 1600-1660," History 69 (1984): 211-15. Parrott, "Administration of the French Army," 81-82. 54. Roberts, Gustavus Adolphus, 2:444. Parker, "Military Revolution—A Myth?," 45. 55. Simon Pepper and Nicholas Adams, Firearms and Fortifications. Military Architecture and Siege Warfare in Sixteenth-Century Siena (Chicago, 1986), 27-28. Judith Hook, "Fortifi­ cations and the End of the Sienese State," History 62 (1977): 373-74.

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56. Practically all of the towns listed by Brulez, "Het Gewicht," 394, as fortified between 1529 and 1572 are southern. 57. William S. Maltby, Alba. A Biography of Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Third Duke of Alba, 1507-1582 (Berkeley, Calif., 1983), 81. 58. Buisseret, Henry IV, 70-71. 59. For Wallenstein and Stalsund, see Mann, 412-15. 60. Pepper and Adams, Firearms and Fortifications, 31,129-30; Mallett and Hale, Military Organization, 411-12; M . L. Bush, The Government Policy of Protector Somerset (London, 1975 )> 7-39 passim. 61. For Italy, see the comments of Pepper and Adams, Firearms and Fortifications, 27-28, 157, and Mallett and Hale, Military Organization, 421-3. Cf. the observations of the earl of Leicester on Ireland: " I have oft times noted in the service of that land, whensoever we have placed any garrisons to front the enemy... it hath fallen out to be the way to chasten and plague him." Oxford, Bodleian Library, Carte MS 56, fols. 103V-4, to Sir William Fitzwilliam, 5 Dec. 1572. 62. For the creation of the Dutch provincial regiments after 1572, see Het Staatsche Leger, 1:254-62. J. W. Wijn, "Het Noordhollandse Regiment in de Eerste Jaren van de Opstand tegen Spanje," Tijdschrift voor Geschiednis 62 (1949), 245-46, notes that only a third of the original complement of the regiment was comprised of natives of the province, though the proportion varied from company to company. 63. For the dispersal of the French bandes after 1559, see Lot, 188, 253 ff. 64. War and Government in Habsburg Spain, 1560-1620 (London, 1976), 19. 65. See, for example, the instructions of Francis II to Marshal Tavannes, 12 April 1560, printed in Négociations, lettres et pieces diverses ... tirées du portefeuille de Sebastien de UAubespeine, Eveque de Limoges, ed. Louis Paris (Paris, 1841), 341-42. 66. For the Irish stage of this process, see Brendan Bradshaw, The Irish Constitutional Revolution of the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, 1979), 119-21. 67. Cf. Parrott, "Strategy and Tactics," 234-39. 68. The arguments outlined in the following paragraphs are developed more fully in my paper " 'The Catholic League' and the Emergence of Protestant Alliance Politics, 15591572," delivered at the Anglo-American Conference of Historians in London in July 1987, and to be published in Historical Research. 69. Francis I justified his Turkish alliance against Charles V in 1532 as a means to "rassurer toutes autres gouvernements contre un ennemi si grand." J. Ursu, La politique oriéntale de Francois I (1515-1547) (Paris, 1908), 75. For the French claim to be protecting the Sienese liberty in 1552, see Pepper and Adams, Firearms and Fortifications, 62. 70. Maltby, esp. 60-62. 71. For the establishment of the system whereby the Italian tercios provided trained companies for use elsewhere, see Parker, Army of Flanders, 33. 72. Essen, Alexandre Farnese, 3:53-54. Cf. Maltby, 151-52. 73. Maltby, 140. 74. Parker, Army of Flanders, 140-41, 233. 75. Essen, Alexandre Farnese, 3:143-44. 76. Calendar of States Papers, Foreign Series, Elizabeth I, vol. xxi, pt. 3 (London, 1929), 316, to Sir Francis Walsingham, 16 Sept. 1587.

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Simon Adams

77. As the States General informed the English in 1585; see the report of the Dutch com­ missioners at the making of the treaty of Nonsuch. The Hague: Algemeen Rijksarchief, Eerste Afdeling, Staten Generaal 8299, fol. 19-v. 78. Essen, Alexandre Farnese, 2:264. 79. Algemeen Rijksarchief, Eerste Afdeeling, Regeringsarchieven I-97, art. 4. Cf. Israel, Dutch Republic, 96-97, who claims that both the Dutch and the Spaniards were forced to deploy over 30,000 men in garrisons during the 1620s. 80. Essen, Alexandre Farnése, 5:62, 65. 81. On Maurice's reforms, see B. H . Nickle, "The Military Reforms of Prince Maurice of Orange," Ph.D. diss., University of Delaware, 1975. 82. See the comments of Cardinal Bertivolio quoted in Christopher Duffy, Siege Warfare: The Fortress in the Early Modern World, 1494-1660 (London, 1979), 63. 83. See Buisserert, Henry TV, 36-39. 84. The best account of the invasion of the Palatinate is Anna Egler, Die Spanier in der linksrheinischen Pfalz 1620-1632: Invasion, Verwaltung, Rekatholisierung (Mainz, 1971). See pp. 31-51 and pp. 183-87, Archduke Albert's letter to Philip III of 14 April 1620. A contempo­ rary translation of Spinola's oration can be found in the Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif., MS EL 6899. 85. See M . S. Junkelmann, "Feldherr Maximilians: Johann Tserclaes, Graf von Tilly," in Wittelsbach und Bayern. II. Um Glauben und Reich: Kurfürst Maximilian I, ed. H . Glaser (Munich and Zurich, 1980), 2/1: 377-80. Cf. Roberts, Gustavus Adolphus, 2:264, and Wertheim, Toller Halberstadter, 1:177. 86. Dieter Albrecht, Die auswartige Politik Maximilians von Bayern, 1618-1635 (Góttingen, 1962), 2-3, 91. 87. Creveld, Supplying War, 16, describes the process as a "flight forward." Cf. Roberts, "Gustavus Adolphus and the Art of War," 73, and Wertheim, Tolle Halberstadter, 1:157. 88. W. Brunick, Der Graf von Mansfeld in Ostfriesland (1622-24) (Aurich, W. Ger., 1957), 109-11. 89. On Wallenstein's strategy, see Mann, 327, 655, 667. 90. E. Ladewig Petersen, "Defence, War and Finance: Christian IV and the Council of the Realm, 1596-1629," Scandinavian Journal of History 7 (1982): 277-313, esp. 280, 301-4. 91. Roberts, Gustavus Adolphus, 2:650-53. Creveld, Supplying War, 13-17. 92. Stradling, "Origins," 90-91. Parrott, "The Causes of the Franco-Spanish War of 163559," in The Origins of War in Early Modern Europe, ed. Jeremy Black (Edinburgh, 1987), 72111, and "Administration of the French Army," 19. 93. Stradling, "Defeat of Spain," 216-17. 94. London, British Library, Cottonian MS Caligula B X, fol. 353, "A consideration of the whole matter of Scotland" (12 Sept. 1565). For Elizabeth's attitude to the financing of the Netherlands intervention, see J. E. Neale, "Elizabeth and the Netherlands, 1586-7," in Essays in Elizabethan History (London, 1958), 170-201. 95. Mallett and Hale, Military Organization, 215-16.

11

A

•

"Money, Money, and Yet More Money!" Finance, the Fiscal-State, and the Military Revolution: Spain 1500-1650 I.A.A.

THOMPSON

F O L L O W I N G M I C H A E L ROBERTS, there has been general agreement among histori­ ans that one o f the principal consequences o f the M i l i t a r y Revolution was a great increase i n the cost o f war, leading to the g r o w t h o f state taxation, bureaucratic administration, and centralized government. The scale, the costs and the organi­ zational demands o f the new style o f warfare are seen to have been the d r i v i n g forces o f a coercion-extraction cycle of power and resources that led inexorably to the monopolization o f m i l i t a r y force by the central government and to the con­ solidation of the territorial control of the state. The crucial features of the M i l i t a r y Revolution that are said to have made war so m u c h more expensive are the i n ­ creased size o f armies and navies, more sophisticated battle tactics requiring longer periods o f t r a i n i n g and more intensive leadership, the heavy capital costs of artillery and new fortification works, expensive gunpowder weaponry, the con­ tinuous nature and the continental scale o f sixteenth and seventeenth century wars, necessitating permanent defences and standing forces, and large adminis­ trative and logistical support staffs.

1

That war was overwhelmingly the most i m p o r t a n t item o f expenditure for v i r ­ tually every government i n early-modern Europe can hardly be doubted. That is not i n question. The more pertinent issues are whether war was costing relatively more i n this p e r i o d than i n previous ages; i n what ways were the costs o f war re­ lated to the changes i n the nature and conduct of war that have come to be k n o w n as the M i l i t a r y Revolution; and h o w d i d those costs affect the development o f fiscality and the state? Is war=taxes=state a universally valid syllogism? O r is this an inversion o f the proper syntax, state=taxes=war? Indeed, to what extent was war a state activity? A n d h o w m u c h o f i t was financed by the state, rather than by society, or by the soldier, or by its victims? 273

274

I.A.A. Thompson

Spain can be regarded i n many ways as the touchstone o f the problem o f the connection between the M i l i t a r y Revolution and the early-modern state. Spain had a dominant role i n the wars o f sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. Because o f the nature, composition and extent o f the Spanish Monarchy her forces were involved i n every type o f contemporary warfare, o n land, at sea, i n the Mediterranean, o n the oceans; her wars were internal, external, defensive, hege­ monic. As Kennedy writes, "The Spanish Empire's army probably provided the best example o f the 'military revolution i n action." A t the same time, Spain had developed a precocious government bureaucracy and a complex and effective sys­ tem o f public finance and credit which, though too often overlooked by histori­ ans, was for a long time far more advanced than those o f her major international rivals (the D u t c h included), u n t i l i t was undermined by the collapse o f the econ­ omy i n the seventeenth century. I f the M i l i t a r y Revolution d i d not promote the permanent establishment o f a powerful, centralized state i n Spain, then the whole argument l i n k i n g war and state development must be fundamentally weakened. 2

3

*

*

*

The expenditure o f the Spanish treasury multiplied at least twenty-fold be­ tween the start o f the sixteenth and the middle o f the seventeenth centuries, ap­ proximately four times faster than the general price level. The great b u l k o f that expenditure was o n war. O f the roughly 400 m i l l i o n ducats spent between 1621 and 1640, 47 percent went to war and defence; almost the same amount o n the servicing o f the debt, most o f w h i c h had been undertaken i n order to finance war i n the past; and the rest, some 8 percent, o n government, justice, the royal court and the household. M o r e than three-quarters o f disposable, unmortgaged income was spent directly o n war, a p r o p o r t i o n that all our evidence suggests was little different than i t had been 150 years before, or was to be fifty years later. The two centuries that followed the accession o f the Catholic Kings, Ferdinand and Isabella, i n 1474, witnessed an enormous increase i n the sums devoted to de­ fence and to debt charges. There were four m a i n periods o f explosive growth: the 1480s, when the size o f the Christian armies o f Ferdinand and Isabella fighting for the reconquest o f Granada increased f r o m 20,000 to 60,000 w i t h i n ten years; the 1530S-50S, the culmination o f the Emperor Charles V's hegemonic struggles against the French, the O t t o m a n Turks and the Protestant princes o f Germany; the 1570S-90S, the crucial decades o f Philip II's defence o f his Monarchy against infidels, rebels and heretics i n the Mediterranean, the Low Countries, Portugal, England and France; and the 1620S-40S, when Philip I V was sustaining the Catho­ lic and Habsburg cause i n Germany, Italy, France and the Netherlands, and resist­ ing the secession o f Catalonia and Portugal f r o m the Spanish C r o w n . Over the ten years 1495-1504, the equivalent o f 2.73 m i l l i o n ducats had been spent by Spain o n the war i n Naples. By 1559 the Venetian ambassador Soriano was reporting an annual wartime expenditure o f 10 m i l l i o n ducats. N o doubt he exaggerated, though that exaggeration is itself not w i t h o u t meaning; b u t i n 1574 at 4

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least 7 m i l l i o n ducats must have been allocated to defence; i n 1588 the President o f Finance was claiming that the k i n g was spending at the rate o f 8.4 m i l l i o n a year; and i n 1596 the secretary of war was looking ahead to an expenditure o f 10 m i l l i o n ducats. By the early 1640s, Philip I V s chief minister, the Count-Duke o f Olivares, was talking o f an average o f 17 m i l l i o n ducats being spent annually d u r i n g the current war. Even after Westphalia and the peace w i t h the D u t c h i n 1648, the demands o f war o n the treasury remained high, and the budget for 1678 was still calling for 11 m i l l i o n ducats i n silver and vellón. 5

Spain's military expenditures were made up o f three components: 1) the o r d i nary budget for the m i l i t a r y and naval establishment w i t h i n the Spanish theatre (the men-at-arms and light horse o f the Guards, the fortress garrisons i n N o r t h Africa and o n the French and the western frontiers, the galleys and galleons i n the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, fortifications, shipbuilding, armaments and m u nitions works). The allocations o n this account rose f r o m just over 1 m i l l i o n ducats i n the 1560s and 1570s to more than 3 m i l l i o n ducats i n the two decades after 1587, and, after a brief remission i n Philip I l l ' s reign, remained close to the 3 m i l l i o n m a r k under Philip I V after 1621. 6

2) extraordinary m i l i t a r y expenditures w i t h i n Spain, for such campaigns as those against the P e ñ ó n de los Vélez i n 1564 and Portugal i n 1579-83, or the repression o f the revolt o f the Alpujarran moriscos i n 1569-70, the preparation o f the A r mada against England i n 1586-88, and the almost continuous actions against the French, the Catalans and the Portuguese between 1637 and 1668, when warfare w i t h i n Spain itself became a permanent element i n the life o f many parts o f the country. These expenditures are i n their very nature the most difficult to reconstruct. By 1582 the conquest o f Portugal had cost a m i n i m u m o f 2,600,000 ducats; the Armada, only a few years later, probably cost another 4 m i l l i o n for the fleet alone; and some 2 m i l l i o n ducats (13.6 percent o f the total defence budget) was spent o n the Portuguese front i n 1643. T h o u g h irregular, such occasions were so frequent and so costly that they had a cumulative long-term impact o n Spain's finances. 3) remittances f r o m Spain to help pay for the wars i n the Low Countries, France, Italy and Germany, to w h i c h substantial contributions were also made by other parts o f the Monarchy. D u r i n g the 1520s and 1530s Charles V was raising about V2 m i l l i o n ducats a year f r o m the bankers to pay for his wars; i n the early 1550s he was raising nearly 2 m i l l i o n . W i t h the outbreak o f revolt i n the Netherlands, the 800,000 ducats spent there i n 1566 leapt to an annual average o f 2,750,000 for the next ten years, o f w h i c h 1,750,000 were sent f r o m Spain. By the early seventeenth century, Spain was sending 3,750,000 o f the more than 4 m i l l i o n the war was costing. I n 1574 alone, 5.7 m i l l i o n ducats were sent to the m i l i t a r y paymasters i n Italy and Flanders, and i n 1615 the armies i n Flanders and M i l a n were consuming V2 m i l l i o n ducats a m o n t h . I n 1636 i t was reported that credits o f 12 m i l l i o n ducats had been arranged for m i l i t a r y expenses i n Flanders, Germany, I t aly and France. The economic p u n d i t , Alberto Struzzi, calculated i n 1624 that re7

276

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mittances f r o m Spain for overseas defence payments i n the previous forty years amounted to 240 m i l l i o n ducats; this was m u c h the greatest part o f the financial burden o f Spain's global military role. 8

*

*

*

H o w m u c h o f this increase i n military spending is attributable to the M i l i t a r y Revolution? I n one sense the question is a tautology; a quantitative leap i n the costs o f war can itself be regarded as one dimension o f the M i l i t a r y Revolution. However, i t is not simply the amount o f money, b u t also specific features o f the changing conditions o f warfare, notably the supposedly high costs o f gunpowder technology, w i t h its siege cannon, bastioned fortifications, arms and munitions manufactures, as well as the organizational and logistical consequences o f the i n i ­ tial replacement o f heavy cavalry by massed infantry formations and the later l i n ­ earization o f battlefield tactics, w h i c h are at the heart o f the argument for the co­ ercion-monopoly state-building implications o f the M i l i t a r y Revolution. I t is important, therefore, to t r y to establish not only whether b u t also the precise mechanism o f how the technological, technical and tactical changes that c o m ­ posed the M i l i t a r y Revolution affected the costs o f war. 9

The cost of artillery-resistant fortifications has generally been considered a ma­ jor item o f new expenditure, especially when what was undertaken was the re­ building or redesigning o f entire systems o f defences, such as the 43 kilometers o f new defences b u i l t i n Flanders i n 1529-72 at a cost o f 10 m i l l i o n florins. I n Spain, however, a coherent account o f re-fortification costs is more difficult to come by. Throughout the 1520S-1580S the Cortes petitioned repeatedly for fortifica­ tions to be repaired or rebuilt, p r i m a r i l y to resist the incursions o f raiders from N o r t h Africa, and after the English landings i n Cadiz and Corunna i n 1587 and 1589 there was a call i n the 1590 Cortes for 1 m i l l i o n ducats to be allocated to the construction and repair o f fortifications. But the military pressure was not suffi­ ciently consistent for a wholesale reconstruction o f o l d medieval fortresses i n the new style, although the new constructions designed by the Italian schooled engi­ neers, Antonelli and Fratini, i n the 1560s and 70s, and Spanocchi, a little later, d i d incorporate essential m o d e r n features o f the trace italienne. N o t u n t i l a complete survey o f Spain's defences was undertaken i n 1569 by J.B. Antonelli was a full-scale programme o f construction and upgrading contemplated, to be begun o n the Pyrenean frontier and the Mediterranean coasts and islands i n the 1570s, and o n the Atlantic front i n the 1580s. Available information about fortification works and costs is therefore spotty. Improvements and repairs were being carried out i n fortresses along the French frontier and o n the Mediterranean coastline i n the 1520s and 1530s, and again i n the 1550s; the rebuilding o f the N o r t h African fortresses was begun i n the 1560s, w i t h 100,000 ducats sent for La Goleta-by-Tunis i n 1566-68. However, the maintenance, repair and reconstruction o f the frontier and coastal fortresses was an unending, i f sporadic, charge which grew even more onerous i n the last decades o f the century. Indeed, the Atlantic war made i t neces10

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sary to fortify a virtually new line o f coastal defences—Bayona, Corunna, Viana, Peniche, Cascaes, Cabeza Seca, Setubal, San Vicente, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Alarache, La Mamora. By the beginning o f Philip IV's reign nearly three-fifths o f what was required for defence works was targeted o n the Atlantic theatre. There is no doubt that the capital outlay o n these projects could be very sub­ stantial. One proposed scheme for the re-fortification o f Pamplona w o u l d have cost 700,000 ducats. I t was subsequently revised to reduce the cost to 200,000, b u t the new citadel still required 140,000 ducats for completion i n 1575; whilst at the same time, 185,000 ducats over two years was needed for the extensive building works i n Fuenterrabia and San Sebastián, and 74,467 ducats over the next three for the m a i n castle o f Perpignan. One official claimed that Philip I I had spent al­ most 2 m i l l i o n ducats o n Perpignan d u r i n g the course o f his life, and the great refortification o f O r a n was reputed to have cost 3 m i l l i o n ducats over t h i r t y years. More reliable is a statement presented to the Council o f War i n 1622, detailing the money needed to complete new works, improvements and repairs to all the de­ fences o f Spain, the Mediterranean and Atlantic islands, and the N o r t h African fortresses: the total requirement amounted to some 2V2 m i l l i o n ducats, and that excluded a contract for 432,000 ducats over six years for the fortification o f La M a m o r a signed i n 1618. 11

12

Sums o f this magnitude are by no means negligible, b u t they need to be put into context. The notional costs o f projects are not to be taken as representing actual expenditure, nor is i t proper to annualize momentary requirements or ret­ rospective totals i n which i t is not possible to separate the capital costs o f re-forti­ fication associated w i t h the M i l i t a r y Revolution f r o m the n o r m a l costs o f maintenance and repair which w o u l d have had to have been undertaken anyway. Furthermore, we have piecemeal figures because we have piecemeal re-fortifica­ tion. The improvement o f defence works was a long-drawn-out yet erratic pro­ cess, and rarely a financial priority. M a n y o f the works listed i n the 1622 survey had been instituted long before and were still not completed, or i n some cases even begun. Capital expenditure was the most readily deferred as soon as the i m ­ mediate danger passed. O n the Mediterranean coast, 106 new watchtowers, de­ cided o n i n the 1570s, having cost 112,000 ducats by 1608, w i t h another 53,000 duc­ ats outstanding, were still not "en defensa" i n 1621 after nearly fifty years. Such delays d i d not necessarily make things cheaper—the allocation for La M a m o r a had been paid only once since 1618 and by 1623 part o f the walls had collapsed and repairs alone needed 50-60,000 ducats a year —but they d i d mean that their budgetary impact was reduced. A l t h o u g h there were years when substantially larger sums were called for, the standard allocation across the period for "obras de fortalezas" was 50,000 ducats; that was 2.8 percent o f the total domestic military budget i n 1617, a figure close to that for the outlay o n fortification works i n 14951503 (4.1 percent o f total m i l i t a r y expenditure, 2.5 percent o f overall expendi­ t u r e ) . These sums pale i n comparison w i t h those devoted to civil building. The more than 200,000 ducats a year for the construction o f the Escorial i n 1583-90 13

14

15

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I.A.A. Thompson 16

was four times as m u c h as was being set aside for fortifications. The 5V2 m i l l i o n i n all spent by Philip I I o n the Escorial was probably not m u c h less than the total outlay by the central government o n all defence works d u r i n g his reign. O n the other hand, i t should be remembered that the C r o w n bore only part o f the ex­ pense o f re-fortification, the full costs o f which were, therefore, rather more than appear i n government budgets. The 168,000-ducat b i l l for Mallorca i n 1576 was shared 50/50 w i t h the island; o f the 44,000 ducats for the fortifying o f Cadiz, the C r o w n paid only 12,000; and o f the 23,914 projected cost o f the twenty-three tow­ ers planned for the Andalusian coast, the C r o w n s share was only 4,593 (19 per­ cent)—the rest was the responsibility o f the local l o r d s . 17

Not only were the fiscal implications o f fortification construction for the state i n Spain fairly modest, but the sums involved were by no means outside the fi­ nancial capacity o f individual provinces, cities and lords. I t may even be that six­ teenth-century fortifications were no more expensive to b u i l d and maintain than the great medieval castles, and i t is not at all obvious f r o m a financial perspec­ tive that the cost of building fortifications i n the new style by itself shifted the eco­ nomics o f scale away from local nodes o f military autonomy, or that those fortifi­ cations played any great part i n the centralization o f coercive power w i t h i n the body politic. 18

Artillery costs have also conventionally been considered to be a major element i n the increased cost o f war i n the gunpowder age. Fortress guns and field and siege trains clearly required considerable up-front capital investment. I t was, o f course, not only the M i l i t a r y Revolution that was a major source o f demand. The Naval Revolution also created a substantial demand for guns, overwhelmingly o f bronze, because i r o n was not much used for the m a i n pieces o n royal ships before the middle o f the seventeenth century. The ideal armament for a great galleon at the end o f the sixteenth century was approximately one t o n o f artillery for every 20 tons o f ship, which meant that the new royal Armada o f the Ocean Sea was fre­ quently carrying i n excess o f 1,000 tons o f artillery, its armament (guns, shot, and powder) w o r t h just about as m u c h as the vessels themselves. Periodic large-scale castings or acquisitions were needed to replace losses or to meet new require­ ments. We k n o w o f some 1,500 tons o f bronze guns cast i n Malaga and Lisbon alone i n the 100 years after 1530: 18,115 quintals (about 900 tons) costing 266,292 ducats i n the m i d 1570s; 347 guns weighing 11,07572 quintals and costing about 180,000 ducats after the Armada i n 1590-92; another 100 weighing 2,771 quintals and costing 77,288 ducats i n 1608; and 260 more i n 1628. That is not an exhaustive list, and i t does not include guns brought f r o m abroad, like Remigy de Halut's cannon from Malines and the Loeffer pieces from Augsburg that were found o n ships o f the Great Armada. I n the seventeenth century, a foundry was established i n Liérganes, near Santander, for the manufacture o f cheaper cast-iron artillery, w i t h a productive capacity o f 15,000 quintals a year i n 1637. Between 1628 and 1640, i t supplied the C r o w n w i t h some 3,600 tons o f ironware, 1,171 guns and 19

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250,000 cannonballs, to a value approaching 500,000 ducats, b u t also a consider­ able saving over the cost o f an equivalent quantity o f bronze guns. Guns naturally needed gunpowder, match and shot i n p r o p o r t i o n , and gun­ powder assignments increased from 27,650 ducats i n 1582 to 72,000 ducats i n the 1660s. Domestic gunpowder requirements reached a peak i n the m i d seventeenth century w i t h a contract for 500,000 ducats to supply 41,000 quintals (2,000 tons) over the nine years 1640-48. The 3,000 tons o f i r o n shot fired by that quantity o f powder w o u l d have cost a further 270,000 ducats or so. 20

21

We are fortunate i n having an almost complete account, drawn up i n Novem­ ber 1588, o f all guns, weapons and munitions i n C r o w n establishments i n m a i n ­ land Spain, together w i t h what was needed to b r i n g the stock up to scratch. This makes i t possible to calculate the total capital tied up by the state i n gunpowder technology i n the immediate wake o f the Armada to have been 622,758 ducats, i n ­ cluding approximately 300,000 ducats o f artillery; another 1,412,000 ducats was required to b r i n g the reserve stock up to the desired level. The addition o f an esti­ mate for stocks i n the N o r t h African fortresses and the Mediterranean and Atlan­ tic islands, o m i t t e d f r o m the review, w o u l d b r i n g the notional desired stock up to total o f about 2V2 m i l l i o n ducats. 22

However, we should not be misled by this figure. I t was perhaps no more than 3V2 percent o f the total capital o f the C r o w n debt at that time. Like all pre-industrial enterprises, the fixed capital invested i n armaments and m u n i t i o n s was low compared w i t h running-costs. Most munitions plant was small-scale and cheap—a shot factory i n Navarre, thought sufficient for all Spain's needs i n the 1580s, w o u l d have cost only 2,000 ducats to p u t into operation; i t ran i n the seven­ teenth century w i t h not many more than forty workers and an annual wage and maintenance b i l l o f 8,200 ducats. Even the largest culverin at the time o f the A r ­ mada cost no more than 1,000 ducats, the pay o f twenty infantrymen for a year, and there were guns o n the Armada fifty years old. The entire armament o f the royal fleet i n the early seventeenth century could not have reached 500,000 ducats, half its running-costs for one year. O f course, from a certain perspective a naval broadside was a spectacularly expensive event; at 5 ducats i n shot, powder and match, every 40 lb cannonball fired was the equivalent o f the price o f a musket, or almost two months' basic wages o f an ordinary soldier; b u t the observation is specious. The total cost o f powder, match, i r o n shot and lead provided for the en­ tire Armada i n 1588 came to only some 120,000 ducats, less than 50 percent o f one month's expenditure (256,588 ducats). Even for as artillery-preponderant an a r m as the navy, the ordinary expenditure o f powder, match, shot and lead amounted to a good deal less than 10 percent o f total r u n n i n g costs. Consequently, al­ though current account assignments for armaments and m u n i t i o n s rose substan­ tially between the m i d sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries, the entire an­ nual expenditure o n the artillery account hardly ever represented more than about 4 or 5 percent o f Castile's total domestic m i l i t a r y budget (a figure that was again reasonably constant from the 1490s). 23

24

25

26

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I f gunpowder technology added only marginally to the cost o f war to the state, neither was i t a m o n o p o l y o f the state. Evidence survives o f large aristocratic arse­ nals even i n the seventeenth century. The marquis o f Las Navas, for example, a title by no means i n the top rank o f the Spanish nobility, had twenty-five pieces o f artillery w h i c h he donated to the k i n g i n lieu o f taxes; they were w o r t h 30,000 ducats, and must therefore have been quite substantial pieces, weighing i n all some 50 tons, as m u c h as the entire siege t r a i n o n the Spanish A r m a d a . T h o u g h private arsenals o f this size were a rarity, they were i n decline clearly not because they could not be afforded, b u t because they were n o t needed. 27

Neither were the equipment costs o f the soldiery o f Spain's sixteenth-century armies and navies affected significantly by the development o f gunpowder and handgun technology. Compared w i t h pay, provision and outfitting, weaponry costs were marginal, and the new weapons were n o t necessarily more expensive than the weapons they replaced; a crossbow i n 1523 cost more than twice as m u c h as a handgun (escopeta), for example. I n England the complete equipment for a late medieval b o w m a n cost anywhere between three and five months' pay, yet the cost o f equipping an arquebusier (38 reales) or a musketeer (55 reales) i n Spain was less than a month's wages. I t cost far more to clothe h i m ; 116 reales for a c o m ­ plete outfit i n 1591, 140 reales i n 1663, nearly three months' wages for an arquebusier, b u t that was n o t a charge specific to the M i l i t a r y Revolution. O n average between 1610 and 1632 the C r o w n paid only 31,818 ducats a year for pikes, arquebuses and muskets supplied by the manufacturers o f Biscay, a relatively small sum and no more than was being spent fifty years earlier. Moreover, these were n o t i n principle charges o n government, for weapon, powder, match, ball and clothing were the responsibility o f the soldier himself, f r o m whose wages de­ ductions were made to recoup the cost o f outfitting as well as to pay for munitions and rations, though not, o f course, always the exact cost, either way. The corseleted pikeman (coselete), the arquebusier and the musketeer were therefore paid more to compensate for the cost, maintenance and physical burden o f the ar­ mour, weapon and a m m u n i t i o n , an extra ducat per m o n t h for the coselete and the arquebusier, an extra 3 ducats for the musketeer. 28

29

30

31

32

Tactical changes and changes i n the c o m m a n d structure also had financial i m ­ plications. The first, and perhaps most i m p o r t a n t , o f these changes was the marked fall i n the p r o p o r t i o n o f cavalry i n sixteenth-century armies, and w i t h i n the cavalry the progressive reduction i n the number o f men-at-arms compared w i t h light horse, w i t h the i n t r o d u c t i o n o f horse-pistoleers (herreruelos) around 1560, m o u n t e d arquebusiers i n the 1570s, and dragoons i n the 1630s. The replace­ ment o f the lance meant lighter armour, fewer horses, cheaper horses, and less training. The retreat o f the horseman i n face o f massed formations o f infantry, and then o f the heavily armed hombres

de armas i n face o f the caballería

ligera

probably halved the average u n i t cost o f an army, and made consequential savings i n training, equipment and upkeep o f men and horses. F r o m the 1630s, however, that fall i n the number o f cavalry was reversed. Overall the p r o p o r t i o n o f cavalry

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i n the armies o f the m i d seventeenth century was double that o f the previous 150 years. But horsemen were very expensive. A n ordinary cavalry trooper's wages were f r o m two to two-and-a-half times those o f an infantryman. The u n i t cost o f cavalry was clearly far greater than that o f any other a r m o n b o t h the current and the capital accounts. A captain o f light horse i n Naples i n 1575 claimed he needed 1,000 ducats a year for himself and seven servants and grooms to support his four horses, each o f them w o r t h 50 ducats and costing a month's wages to sustain. I n 1663 a troop o f eight companies o f German cavalry i n Extremadura, w i t h 497 horse, was costing 119,734 ducats a year, three times the cost o f a comparable n u m ­ ber o f infantry. 33

34

35

The saving achieved by the declining p r o p o r t i o n o f cavalry to infantry at the start o f the period contributed to making possible a considerable overall increase i n army size, the high cost o f which was also partly offset by a shift i n the balance between pikemen and arquebusiers. The fully-armed pikeman was the most ex­ pensive o f the infantry to fit out; the full k i t for the coselete cost more than twice as m u c h as that for the arquebusier and half as m u c h again as that for the muske­ teer. I n the early sixteenth century, the standard r a t i o o f p i k e m e n to h a n d gunners was three to one; b u t the p r o p o r t i o n o f pikemen declined steadily, to just over half by 1560, 35 percent i n the 1630s, 25 percent by the end o f the century. The fall i n the number o f pikemen was matched after about 1570 by a rising pro­ p o r t i o n o f highly-paid musketeers, f r o m 10 percent initially to 20 percent by the 1630s, and over 30 percent i n the 1690s. This movement, magnified overall f r o m the end o f the sixteenth century by an even greater prominence o f musketeers o n the new high-board fleets, revised the cost o f the infantry upwards, and together w i t h the revival o f the cavalry a r m i n the middle t h i r d o f the seventeenth century substantially increased the cost o f a standard military corps consisting o f onet h i r d cavalry and two-thirds infantry, o f w h i c h 25 percent were musketeers and 25 percent coseletes. O n such figures, these tactical changes d u r i n g the M i l i t a r y Revo­ l u t i o n w o u l d by themselves have increased the cost o f an army o f a given size by nearly a quarter. 36

37

38

A m o n g the organizational changes i m p l i c i t i n the reduction o f u n i t sizes i n six­ teenth-century armies and i n the linearization o f tactics i n the seventeenth cen­ tury, which also had an effect o n overall costs, was an intensification o f command structures. The number o f officers i n a force increased w i t h the reduction o f com­ pany size f r o m a standard 300 i n the m i d sixteenth century to 100, and i n practice often a good deal fewer, a generation later, a reduction for w h i c h there were sup­ ply-side as well as tactical causes. A t the same time the number o f corporals (cabos) was increased f r o m one for every twenty-five men, to one for every ten The total wage-bill for the primeras planas (the company command: captain, lieu­ tenant, ensign, sergeant, drummer, fifemen, quartermaster, barber-surgeon, and chaplain) rose proportionately as company size fell. The reduction i n company size f r o m 250 or 300 men to just 100 increased the p r o p o r t i o n o f the wage b i l l allo­ cated to the primeras planas f r o m about 12 to 22 percent, adding some 15 percent 39

4 0

282

I.A.A. Thompson Table 11.1 Relationship between number of military personnel and aomestic military expenditure in Spain, 1560-1621

Year

Personnel

Index

1560 1579 1583 1596 1600 1612 1621

12,985 17,789 22,603 49,402 30,041 27,989 33,320

100 137 174 380 231 216 258

Expenditure 782,000 1,164,000 1,823,410 3,798,000 2,810,250 2,174,775 2,921,940

Index 100 149 233 486 359 278 374

Deflated 100 123 183 348 216 183 247

to the overall cost o f 1,000 men. Taken together, these tactical changes alone ( i n ­ creased number o f officers and cabos, and altered p r o p o r t i o n o f cavalry and mus­ keteers) w o u l d have added over 40 percent per 1,000 men to the cost o f an army between the m i d sixteenth and the later seventeenth centuries. The M i l i t a r y Revolution i n its revolutionary, that is its qualitative dimension, as a change i n the nature o f warfare, was not therefore the m a i n vector o f financial revolution. A l t h o u g h i t is not possible to follow all the ramifications o f the revo­ l u t i o n i n m i l i t a r y technology associated w i t h the development o f gunpowder warfare through to quantifiable financial conclusions, the effect o f naval guns o n ship size, for example, or o n the destructiveness o f naval warfare, i t seems that the new-style fortifications, artillery and the handgun made only a marginal c o n t r i ­ b u t i o n to the increased costs o f war i n this period: under 10 percent at the out­ side. The tactical changes i n the proportions o f various arms, paid at different rates and equipped more or less expensively, and i n the ratio o f officers and NCOs were o f rather greater significance. However, although some o f the true costs o f these changes are concealed by the fact that m u c h o f the equipment and the m i l i ­ tary training was provided at private expense or at l o w marginal cost, our calcula­ tions suggest that the combined tactical and technological changes o f the M i l i t a r y Revolution, at extreme points and o n the most unfavourable comparison w i t h late medieval warfare, increased u n i t costs b y perhaps 50 percent and can hardly account for more than one sixth o f the real g r o w t h o f the m i l i t a r y account i n the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 41

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For all intents and purposes, the size o f the m i l i t a r y budget was determined straightforwardly by the number o f men o n the payroll. [Table 11.1] The burden o f manpower i n pay and provisions was overwhelming. Even i n the fleets, the pay and rations o f the personnel amounted to some 80 percent o f total r u n n i n g costs, compared w i t h 12V2 percent for the ship (freightage, rigging etc.), and 7V2 percent for m u n i t i o n s . But pay and rations were not variables w h i c h i n themselves contributed significantly to the overall increase i n costs. Remarkably, 42

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pay rates for the ordinary soldier remained fairly static for 200 years from the early sixteenth to the end o f the seventeenth century, at 1 real per day, 3 escudos or ducats a m o n t h , w i t h 1 ducat a m o n t h bonus for the coselete and the arquebusier, and 3 ducats bonus for the musketeer. Pay rates for higher ranks d i d rise, the i n ­ fantry captain s f r o m 15 escudos i n 1534, to 25 escudos by the 1560s, and 40 escudos from the 1570s through at least to the 1660s, but their impact was, naturally, corre­ spondingly less. The price o f rations also rose. O n the fleet they were costing the C r o w n 1V2 to 1.75 reales a day per m a n d u r i n g the first half o f the seventeenth cen­ tury—rather more than twice as m u c h as i n 1564; b u t again i t was a fluctuating rather than a steadily rising charge, and one that over the long t e r m kept broadly i n line w i t h the general movement o f food prices. I n 1596 the Spanish secretary of war, Esteban de Ibarra, noted that, " I f a comparison is made between what the men serving i n the armies and navies n o w are costing His Majesty, and what they cost the Emperor D o n Carlos, y o u w i l l find that for the same number o f men three times as m u c h money is needed at the present time than was spent then, and that is w i t h o u t the pay of the troops having gone up one maravedí!' His observa­ t i o n is often quoted i n support o f the l i n k between the M i l i t a r y Revolution and the burgeoning cost o f war, b u t w i t h o u t regard for Ibarra s o w n explanation, which highlighted, not the features o f the M i l i t a r y Revolution to which historians are most w o n t to draw attention, b u t financial laxity, c o r r u p t i o n and waste. I f it is indeed true, as Parker claims, that i t cost five times as m u c h to p u t a soldier i n the field i n the 1630s as i t had i n the 1530s, i t seems that m u c h the most i m p o r t a n t factor i n that increase was not the M i l i t a r y Revolution b u t monetary inflation; between those decades the general level of prices i n Spain had risen approximately threefold. 43

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Inflation apart, two things were p r i m a r i l y responsible for the b u l k o f the i n ­ crease i n the cost o f war i n Spain: 1) a m u c h larger number o f men i n the military forces, and the more continuous employment o f those forces; 2) the formation and maintenance o f large, permanent navies. The number o f men i n the armies o f Spain increased six or seven-fold between the 1480s and the 1640s. The principal reason for this increase was the intersection of Habsburg imperial interests w i t h the internationalization o f war i n the six­ teenth century. Simply, there were more men because there was more to defend, and more w i t h w h i c h to defend i t . There was, however, a double aspect to this growth. As Parker has pointed out, a numerical peak i n the size o f European m i l i ­ tary forces seems to have been reached by the m i d sixteenth century which was not surpassed, or not substantially, before a new burst o f expansion i n the later seventeenth century I n Spain, the Catholic armies o f Ferdinand and Isabella t r i ­ pled i n numbers d u r i n g the ten years o f the war i n Granada from 16,000-26,000 i n 1482-4 to 60,000 i n 1491. By the year o f Metz Charles V was paying 150,000 men, b u t thereafter that figure was probably not exceeded u n t i l the reign o f Philip IV, when for perhaps two decades f r o m the later 1620s the number o f soldiers i n Spanish service may again have reached, and perhaps gone beyond, the levels o f 4 6

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1552. These were, however, exceptional figures for campaign armies o n multiple fronts. It is far more relevant, as far as Spain is concerned, to talk o f the creation o f a standing navy i n the early-modern period than a standing army. The only perma­ nent troops i n Spain were the 2,000-3,000 mounted Guards o f Castile and Gra­ nada—a force whose effectives fell at times to as few as 1,000—and the semi-civilianized garrisons of the frontier fortresses. I t was the navy that was the first area o f spectacular growth i n regular defence expenditure i n the sixteenth century. The trigger was not the new high-board fleets i n the Atlantic f r o m the 1580s, b u t the galley fleets i n the Mediterranean from the 1520s. A t the beginning o f Charles V's reign the cost o f naval activity i n the Mediterranean was insignificant; fifty years later the Spanish and Genoese galleys alone were costing the Spanish treasury 671,000 ducats a year. A l t h o u g h that was a peak figure, the galleys were still as­ signed nearly 450,000 ducats before a major strategic reform was instituted i n 1620, and 272,000 thereafter. However, that fall was counterbalanced by the new naval activity taking place i n the Atlantic, which, i f occasional before, from the m i d 1580s generated, i f not a regular fleet, a regular charge that was rarely under 500,000 ducats a year, and sometimes over 1 m i l l i o n . M u c h more than armies, which could live off the land, the maintenance o f large regular fleets had a dispro­ portionate financial and administrative impact and represented a massive dis­ placement o f the cost o f war f r o m society to the state. Fleets not only required a considerable capital outlay, they also had to be supplied w i t h naval stores and victualled i n advance by the Crown, either directly or by contract. Victualling costs accounted for about one-third o f the budget o f the high seas fleets and about two-fifths o f that o f the galleys, and although they were discounted against the pay o f the troops, the rebate generally d i d not cover more than half the real costs o f the rations, w h i c h amounted to almost as m u c h as the daily wage b i l l . Despite the decline i n the number and cost o f the galleys, therefore, the overall naval b u d ­ get i n the Mediterranean and the Atlantic f r o m the later 1580s through the seven­ teenth century was never less than 1 m i l l i o n ducats a year more than i t had been at accession o f Charles V. O n top o f this there was a capital investment i n the ships of over 30 ducats a t o n , and approximately the same again for the ship's artillery; that is to say, about 1 m i l l i o n ducats altogether for a fleet o f forty front-line ves­ sels, w h i c h was what was usually projected i n the early seventeenth century, though by no means always achieved. A n n u a l r u n n i n g costs, therefore, at least equalled, i f they d i d not actually exceed, the entire capital value o f the fleet. 48

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The financial impact o f all this was an initial increase i n expenditure attribut­ able to the increased size o f the military forces and to the continuous wars o f the first half o f the sixteenth century, followed by a spectacular rise i n spending o n the fleets from the m i d to late sixteenth century which alone roughly doubled the size o f Castile's domestic m i l i t a r y budget. However, just as was the case w i t h total force numbers, the peak expenditures o f the m i d sixteenth century were not sub­ stantially surpassed u n t i l the 1630s, even i n monetary terms; the 10 m i l l i o n ducats

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a year spent o n the Netherlands, Italian, Catalan and Portuguese theatres i n 164954 probably fell below the peak expenditures o f the 1550s i n real terms, and below those o f the 1570s and 1590s n o t only i n real terms, b u t perhaps also i n n o m i n a l terms as w e l l . The key to the long-term growth o f m i l i t a r y spending was n o t the relatively brief and unsustainable peaks o f military action, b u t the steadily rising background level o f military c o m m i t m e n t which pushed the base-line o f expen­ diture higher and higher. Even i n years w i t h o u t active war overseas, Philip I I was supporting o n a continuous basis a m i n i m u m o f 50-60,000 men, made up o f per­ manent garrison troops i n Spain, N o r t h Africa, Italy, the A r m y o f Flanders, and the personnel o f the Mediterranean galley fleets. The formal complement o f per­ manent garrison and marine troops o n the Castilian account alone rose from about 13,000 i n 1560, to 50,000 i n 1596, and to 30,000 for the first three decades o f the seventeenth century, t r i p l i n g the ordinary domestic m i l i t a r y budget by the late 1580s, and never allowing i t to fall below twice its level o f the 1560s and 1570s, even i n the years o f general peace i n Philip I l l ' s r e i g n . This permanently high base-line meant that i t was never possible to catch up w i t h anticipated income pledged i n advance to secure credit for the exceptional demands o f the years o f m a x i m u m military effort, and thus extraordinary expenditure peaks were locked into a permanent charge through an irredeemable debt. 53

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The growth o f Spain's military expenditure was concentrated, as has been said, on four key moments: the 1480s; the 1530S-50S; the 1570S-90S; and the 1620S-40S. I n each, immediate needs were met ad hoc; consequential adjustments to the fis­ cal system followed i n their wake. Fiscal development was dragged along behind m i l i t a r y demand. The m i l i t a r y spending peaks were periods o f fiscal unpreparedness, necessitating resort to extraordinary expedients and unsustainable levels o f credit. Debt financing and the alienation o f resources thus froze the high costs o f these spending peaks into glaciers w h i c h then dominated the financial landscape o f the plateau below. I n the 1480s, the conquest o f Granada, and after i t the conquest o f Naples, was financed not p r i m a r i l y from the increase i n royal rents, b u t from the direct con­ tributions o f the cities and the nobility o f Castile, and by extraordinary ecclesias­ tical aids granted by the Papacy. The basic long-term structures o f Castilian royal finances had been established by the beginning o f the fifteenth century, and the financial achievement o f the Catholic Kings i n restoring the ordinary revenues was i n fact no more than a recuperation o f the best levels o f the earlier fifteenth century. What the Catholic Kings d i d was to procure a spectacular increase i n the extraordinary revenues. Some 600 cuentos o f the 800 cuentos Ladero estimates to be the monetary cost for the C r o w n o f the war i n Granada came f r o m the Papal "graces" o f the Cruzada and the Subsidio. That enabled the war to be fought w i t h o u t long-term financial consequences; there was some borrowing, b u t the 55

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legacy o f long-term debt was modest, and there was consequently no major devel­ opment o f state fiscality. The explosion o f military expenditure that took place i n the 1530S-50S was also sustained largely by expedients and extraordinary measures, though o f a different type from those employed i n the 1480s and 1490s. A n attempt to establish a more permanent basis for fiscal expansion i n 1539 w i t h the proposal to introduce a gen­ eral excise duty failed, largely because the apparent inelasticity o f the ordinary royal revenues (manifested i n the willingness o f the C r o w n to accept from the cit­ ies a composition o f its m a i n source o f tax income, the alcabalas and tercias, fixed for twenty years) left the treasury dependent o n the ad hoc "services" o f a Cortes o f Castile insistent o n preventing what was i n essence a system o f periodic finan­ cial subsidies, determined and administered locally by the cities themselves, from being transformed into a system o f regular t a x a t i o n . The C r o w n was thus forced into a dead-end exploitation o f regaban rights, extensive sales o f offices and rents and o f jurisdictions o f the M i l i t a r y Orders and the abbeys, the repeated sequestra­ t i o n o f private b u l l i o n from the Indies, b u t also, and overwhelmingly, into mas­ sive short-term b o r r o w i n g , engaged o n these and other extraordinary revenues at progressively more punitive premiums. I n the fourteen years 1543-56,18 m i l l i o n ducats were borrowed at rates rising from 28 percent to 49 percent, requiring the repayment o f over 25 m i l l i o n ducats. The legacy o f the financial exigencies o f this phase o f hegemonic warfare was therefore ambivalent. O n the one hand, the sales and alienations o f regalian rights and jurisdiction can be said to have r u n counter to the concept o f state-formation; fiscal "penetration" was declining throughout the reign o f Charles V, w i t h the real per capita tax burden falling f r o m the 1520s to a low p o i n t i n the late 1550s, and not regaining its earlier levels u n t i l the 1570s. O n the other hand, the huge accumulation o f debt created a damnosa hereditas that was to burden the Castilian fisc and the Spanish economy for two and a half centuries, b u t that was also the principal long-term vector for the extension and consolidation o f a permanent public revenue system o f taxes and ordinary revenues assigned to the servicing o f the massive issue o f undated gov­ ernment bonds (juros), the function o f w h i c h was to enable repayment o f the short-term debt to be deferred sine die (the so-called "bankruptcies" o f 1557,1560, i575> 1596, 1607, 1627, 1647, 1652, 1660, 1662). Interest owing o n juros increased three-fold (from a very l o w base) i n 1504-54, more than quintupled i n 1554-98, and then doubled again i n 1598-1667. The importance o f the rocketing quantities o f revenues committed to the servicing o f juros is not so m u c h as a measure o f debt, b u t as a measure o f public fiscality, o f a shift f r o m a fiscality o f subsidy to a system o f regular and permanent taxation that is the essence o f the tax-state. That was made possible because, i n the remission which followed the climactic warfare of the 1550s, Philip I I was able to increase his "ordinary" revenues by some 50 per­ cent between 1558 and 1562, and then by a further 1V2 m i l l i o n ducats i n 1575-77. This was achieved o n the back o f an expanding economy, b o t h w i t h the assent o f the Cortes, by renegotiating the sales tax agreements, and (free for once i n 1559 o f 56

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the immediate pressures o f war) i n disregard o f their protests, by increasing the rates o n i m p o r t and export dues that pertained to the C r o w n by regalian r i g h t . The vertiginous leap i n defence spending f r o m the late 1560s was funded i n i ­ tially by the same means as i n the previous period: ad hoc expedients, Papal grants, and b o r r o w i n g . A n d , i n m u c h the same way as i n 1557 and 1560, the conse­ quent nemesis o f debt was held off by the t h i r d "bankruptcy" o f the reign, under­ w r i t t e n by the alcabala increase o f 1575-77. The financial peculiarity o f this period lies i n the fact that the huge mobilizations for the annexation o f Portugal and the enterprise o f England i n the 1580s were funded w i t h o u t recourse to new measures by the spectacular increase i n b u l l i o n imports from the Americas i n the second half of the reign. By 1596 i t was possible to budget i n the expectation o f receiving 3 m i l l i o n ducats a year, nearly four times as m u c h as i n 1577 and about 30 percent o f the entire increase i n the C r o w n s income since 1559. But, more than a military d i ­ saster, the Armada was a financial disaster, for its failure committed Spain not only to the intensification o f its involvement i n France and the Netherlands, b u t also to a new m a r i t i m e war i n the Atlantic. M i l i t a r y activity o n such a scale, com­ ing at the precise m o m e n t when the economy was o n the d o w n t u r n and incapable of sustaining further expedients or existing levels o f ordinary revenues, could not be financed w i t h o u t innovation. The millones, the first increase i n the services granted by the Cortes for fifty years and introduced i n 1590, not to pay for the A r ­ mada b u t to pay for its consequences, was an enforced reversion to the finances o f subsidy w h i c h had fundamental constitutional and political implications for the balance between k i n g and k i n g d o m and for the "penetrative" power o f the state i n t o Castilian society. For the next seventy-five years, Cortes and C r o w n ma­ noeuvred respectively to retain the millones as a "service", controlled by the cities w h i c h periodically regranted i t , and to transform i t into a permanent state tax. 60

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D u r i n g the reign o f Philip I V ( 1 6 2 1 - 6 5 ) , extraordinary m i l i t a r y expenditures reached peaks i n n o m i n a l terms double those o f the 1 5 7 0 S - 1 5 9 0 S . They were met by an extreme combination o f measures which pushed the authoritarianism o f the state to the limits o f arbitrariness (forced loans, sequestration o f private b u l ­ l i o n , prerogative levies o f men and supplies, monetary manipulations, retentions of interest payments, revocations o f grants and concessions). But at the same time, i n the pursuit o f quick expedients, operational economies, and covert credit, royal rights, jurisdiction, revenues, and direct administrative control over m i l i ­ tary recruiting, provision and procurement were alienated to an unprecedented degree. By 1665, more of the ordinary and extraordinary income had been perpet­ uated as permanent, public revenues than ever before, and yet a progressively smaller p r o p o r t i o n was reaching the government's coffers. The state was eating its own tail. W h e n that became too painful, the meal had to stop. The reign o f Charles I I (1665-1700) saw the collapse o f internal authority, a tax-freeze, and the retreat o f Spain f r o m hegemonic conflict. The three were closely interrelated. 62

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The different components o f Spain's m i l i t a r y expenditure demanded different forms o f financing, and d i d not, therefore, necessarily move i n harmony; nor d i d they all have the same fiscal consequences. The ineluctable need—for monetary, strategic and political reasons—to provide hard cash upfront i n erratic and ex­ traordinary quantities for the support o f hegemonic wars outside Spain, and to provide that cash elsewhere than at source i n an acceptable m e d i u m (usually sil­ ver or gold), required the employment o f exchange and credit transactions which, i n the last resort, depended o n the guarantees o f a fiscality o f state taxation. O r d i ­ nary, domestic military expenses, o n the other hand, because o f their very regu­ larity, could i n principle be funded directly by the fixed assignment o f specific or­ dinary revenues (hypothecation), or, because o f their immersion i n the local economy and the lower political dangers o f compulsory subsidization, be i n prac­ tice regularly underfunded by under-hypothecation or default. Extraordinary internal expenditures, for their part, were generally presented as c o m m u n i t y rather than dynastic enterprises and so could be devolved and funded locally by a natural, or barter, fiscality i n which direct contributions i n k i n d were offset against existing tax obligations. That was not always accepted willingly, and, as i n France, i n Extremadura and O l d Castile the armies operated their o w n internal "contribution system", although their brutality was never the officially condoned policy i n M a d r i d that i t was i n Paris. These alternative fiscalities are the key to explaining the paradox that from a purely financial p o i n t o f view, the cost o f war should have increased a great deal more than actually seems to have been the case. Expenditure i n some years i n the 1570s was as high i n real terms as i t was i n the 1640s, when Spain was fighting not only i n the Netherlands, France and Italy, b u t also had armies i n Catalonia, Extre­ madura, Galicia and O l d Castile, and was maintaining one o f the largest battle fleets it had ever put to sea. There seems to be a palpable gap between government expenditure and the true cost o f war. That was partly because the entire cost was not fully covered by budgetary assignments, and when assigned was not fully honoured; and partly because the entire cost was not necessarily paid by govern­ ment. The emphasis o n the state as a m o n o p o l y o f coercive force and o n the M i l i t a r y Revolution as part o f the process o f the etatization o f war has diverted us f r o m recognizing how m u c h m i l i t a r y activity before the later part o f the seventeenth century was subsidized directly by the economy. The emphasis o n the "standing army" as an instrument o f state power has obscured the reality (very clear i n mainland Spain) that the very permanence o f m i l i t a r y fortresses and garrisons enabled a good deal o f the m i l i t a r y establishment to be maintained i n partial i n ­ dependence o f state support. The social costs o f war i n the age o f the M i l i t a r y Revolution fell differently than they had i n the age o f "feudal" warfare. Those so­ cial costs are very m u c h less easily determinable than the direct and overt costs o n the fiscal account, but they d i d not for that reason cease to be crucial b o t h to the 63

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ability o f states and societies to bear the cost o f the M i l i t a r y Revolution and to the impact o f the M i l i t a r y Revolution o n those same states and societies. Two small local examples illustrate the point. Between 19 A p r i l 1627 and early June, the royal sulphur works i n the t o w n o f H e l l i n i n Murcia ceased operation because the workers had gone to their homes to harvest the silk which was the m a i n source o f their i n c o m e . For the workers o f Hellin, just as for the arms manufacturers o f Guipúzcoa, and many o f the garrison troops i n Navarre, Catalonia and Galicia, their m i l i t a r y employment was a supplementary activity, or even a sideline. Their permanent nature, their "standing-army"-ness, was more apparent than real; they were i n reality part-time soldiers, even i f outsiders, immersed i n the local economy. I t was because their m i l i t a r y functions were subsidised by their participation i n the local economy that they could survive not only exiguous rates o f remuneration, b u t also the enormous backlogs o f debt, and staggeringly long periods w i t h o u t any financial support at all, w h i c h enabled the C r o w n to totter on f r o m one financial crisis after another w i t h o u t total collapse. A second f o r m o f subsidy to the C r o w n s m i l i t a r y treasury was monopoly. The gunpowder contracts w i t h Alonso Mathía de Bolaños o f Seville and w i t h Juan Jácome Semino o f Granada i n 1620 gave them an absolute m o n o p o l y o f the manufacture and sale o f gunpowder i n their respective provinces i n return for providing the king w i t h gunpowder completely free o f charge. That was only the most blatant example o f the way the contracting out o f m i l i t a r y supply functions not only enabled the state to wage war w i t h o u t the full administrative and procurement apparatus that otherwise w o u l d have been needed, b u t also shifted part o f the true costs o f the operation f r o m the fisc to the c o m m u n i t y . 66

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The M i l i t a r y Revolution was f r o m the financial p o i n t o f view a redeployment o f the costs o f war between society and the state, a transfer between the social and the public accounts. The cost o f "feudal" warfare o f the sort that was still so i m portant i n the Conquest o f Granada was a charge o n the economy levied directly through the social system; the cost o f war i n the M i l i t a r y Revolution was a charge o n the economy levied by the state through the fiscal system. Government b u d gets, therefore, inevitably exaggerate the costliness o f war i n the age o f the M i l i tary Revolution compared w i t h "feudal" war. Bean s estimate that 1 percent o f national income was spent o n defence i n the M i d d l e Ages, 2 percent or more i n the sixteenth century, and between 6 and 12 percent i n the eighteenth century—the figure i n Spain was nearer 4-5 percent i n the late sixteenth century—leaves the social invoice entirely aside. But government budgets also understate the cost o f war, for the unaccounted social costs o f war i n this period d i d not disappear; they were simply levied i n a different way. 69

Different types o f war employed, and to a degree necessitated, different methods o f financing; they therefore had different implications for state development. I n certain circumstances war could be self-supporting, living off contributions,

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plunder, requisition, prize, piracy, contraband, or even trade. I n other circum­ stances, considerations o f strategy, morale, logistics, and political expediency re­ quired the steady provision o f centrally raised cash and supplies or inward remit­ tances o f funds into the war zone from other parts o f the empire. Major hegemonic land wars, fought at a distance from their m a i n resource base, because o f their high b o r r o w i n g requirements, tended to lead to the development o f taxa­ t i o n and the fiscal-state; contrariwise, a permanent m i l i t a r y establishment could i n appropriate circumstances promote the privatization o f military and adminis­ trative functions by means o f the contracting out o f funding, maintenance and supply; and protracted wars w i t h i n the territory o f the state could be sustained by a more primitive (from the statist p o i n t o f view), local fiscality. Both private con­ tracting and local devolution, as forms o f credit as well as o f provision, reduced the need for an extensive apparatus o f state bureaucracy and finance. The devel­ opment o f the state as a fiscal entity was thus related to the type o f military activ­ ity i n w h i c h it was engaged. War, therefore, d i d not necessarily have a centralizing effect, and Schumpeter's " c o m m o n exigency" may have inhibited the develop­ ment o f the state as much as i t inspired i t . 7 0

Nowhere was that more the case than for Spain. The massive contributions o f the k i n g d o m o f Naples to the needs o f the Spanish Monarchy d u r i n g the T h i r t y Years War do not seem to have contributed i n any way to the consolidation o f the power o f the state there, but rather to a new feudalism o f landed banking and commerce empowered through their financial services to the C r o w n . I n Catalo­ nia, the attempt o f Olivares's U n i o n o f A r m s to promote a new framework for the political integration o f the Monarchy was i f anything counterproductive; despite Madrid's ability to end the secession o f the Principality by force, the Catalans contributed far more to the c o m m o n treasury when the threat o f integration was removed i n the new age o f provincial liberties and weak central government, the neo-foralismo o f the second half o f the seventeenth century, than they ever had be­ fore. I n neither instance is the n o t i o n o f an ascending cycle o f coercion and ex­ traction a particularly useful explanatory model o f state b u i l d i n g . The effective extractive potential o f coercion was not very h i g h i n early modern societies, nor was extraction i n practice much applied to domestic coercion and tax-enforce­ ment, at least i n Spain. For Spain itself, i t was the strategic dimension o f the M i l i t a r y Revolution, rather than its tactical or technological aspects, that was p r i m a r i l y responsible for the relentless growth o f defence expenditure. Involvement i n the global (or at least continental), hegemonic wars w h i c h accounted for the greater part o f the finan­ cial burden o f empire was i m p o r t a n t ; b u t equally i m p o r t a n t was the ratchet effect o f the unremitting, l o n g - r u n succession o f major conflicts, w h i c h wrecked every attempt to amortize the debt and disencumber the revenues. The massive recourse to credit is evidence that the needs o f war had o u t r u n the immediate re­ sources o f the state. However, the continued availability o f credit was secured by the potential o f the state for fiscal advance, and that was a function b o t h o f ac71

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cepted political authority and o f a favourable economic conjuncture. W i t h the collapse o f the economy, credit could only be raised by authoritarianism, as Olivares and Philip I V succeeded i n doing. When, o n the death o f Philip IV, royal authority also collapsed, the Spanish financial system collapsed w i t h i t . Spain, therefore, provides another and more fundamental qualification o f Brian Downing's thesis that m i l i t a r y exigency was incompatible w i t h constitutional principle, that "constitutional countries confronted by a dangerous international situation mandating extensive, domestic resource mobilization suffered the destruction o f constitutionalism and the rise o f military-bureaucratic absol u t i s m . " The Spanish case shows that "authoritarian political outcomes" could be avoided, not only where warfare though continuous was "only moderate i n scope and intensity", as i n England, or where resources were provided from abroad, as i n the United Provinces and Sweden, b u t also where intense and protracted m i l i t a r y pressures overloaded the political and administrative circuitry o f central government. A u t h o r i t a r i a n solutions were attempted i n Spain but they failed i n face o f the collapse o f trade and tax revenues and o f the ruralization o f the economy that militated against the centralist extraction o f resources. The state i n Spain, unable to develop a fiscal system capable o f maintaining the necessary levels o f m i l i t a r y spending demanded by its strategic position, was driven to selfdestructive financial expedients involving compromises w i t h local power centers and the devolution and privatization o f coercive-extractive and military-administrative functions w h i c h left the state w i t h great theoretical authority b u t limited effective power. Spain was thus incapable o f responding to the new leap i n the scale and global scope o f warfare that occurred i n the second half o f the seventeenth century, generating revolutionary administrative and financial changes and the creation o f national debts o f an unprecedented magnitude that were n o w quite beyond the diminished capacities o f the Spanish state. 74

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Notes 1. For a good summary and full bibliography of these positions, see Frank Tallett, War and Society in Early-Modern Europe, 1495-1715 (Routledge, 1992), 168-72. 2. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (Fontana, 1989), 57. 3. For accounts that reveal the full complexity of the Castilian fiscal system and the sophisticated relationship between asientos and juros, see R. Carande, Carlos Quinto y sus banqueros, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1943-67); M . Ulloa, La hacienda real de Castilla en el reinado de Felipe II, 2nd. ed. (Madrid, 1977); H. Lapeyre, Simón Ruiz et les asientos de Philippe II (París, 1953); F- Ruiz Martín, Pequeño capitalismo, Gran capitalismo. Simón Ruiz y sus negocios en Florencia (Madrid, 1990); J.C. Boyajian, Portuguese Bankers at the Court of Spain 1626-1650 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1983); A. Castillo, "Los juros de Castilla. Apogeo y fin de un instrumento de crédito", Hispania 23 (1963), 43-70, and "Dette flottante et dette consolidée en Espagne de 1557 á 1600", Anuales E.S.C. 18 (1963), 745-59; M . Steele, "International Financial Crises during the Reign of Philip I I , 1556-1598", unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1986.

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4. A. Domínguez Ortiz, Política y hacienda de Felipe IV (Madrid, i960), 333-42, for 162140; M.A. Ladero Quesada, La Hacienda Real de Castilla en el siglo XV (La Laguna, 1973), 58, expenditure of Alfonso de Morales, tesorero de lo extraordinario, 1495-1504, 1,731,000,000 mrs [maravedís], of which 61% on war and 13.5% on loan repayments; J. Aparici y García, Informe sobre los adelantos de la Comisión de Historia en el Archivo de Simancas, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1848), 1102,1584 76%; Actas de las Cortes de Castilla, lv 390-92, 1632-38 88.6%; AGS [Archivo General de Simancas] Estado 1947 f.135, "Provisiones Generales para el año de 1678", 79.6%. 5. Ladero, Hacienda Real de Castilla en el siglo XV, 58; E. Alberi, Le relazione degli ambasciatori veneti (Florence, 1839-63), I , i i i , 363, for Soriano; G. Parker, "Spain, her Enemies and the Revolt of the Netherlands, 1559-1648", Spain and the Netherlands, 1559-1659 (Collins, 1979), 32, for 1574; CSP Venetian, viii 336, no.623, for 1588; A. Pellegrini, Relazione inedite di ambasciatori lucchesi alia corte di Madrid (sec.XVI-XVII) (Lucca, 1903), 71, Iacopo Arnolfini 29.1.1644; AGS Estado 1947, f.135 for 1678. In constant silver ducats: 1574 7 million; 1588 7,600,000; 1596 8,300,000; 1640 12 million; 1678 7 million. 6. For details, I.A.A. Thompson, War and Government in Habsburg Spain, 1560-1620 (Athlone: London, 1976), Table B, p.289. 7. For these and other figures, see Thompson, War and Government, 70; Lorraine G. White, "War and Government in a Castilian Province: Extremadura 1640-1668", unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of East Anglia, 1986, 502. 8. Ramón Carande, Carlos Quinto y sus banqueros, vol.3, Los caminos del oro y de la plata (Deuda exterior y tesoros ultramarinos) (Madrid, 1967); Geoffrey Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road 1567-1659 (Cambridge U.P., 1972); Parker, "Spain, her Enemies and the Revolt of the Netherlands", 32; AGS GA [Guerra Antigua] 799, Council of War 15.5.1615, "con que en estas dos partidas se biene a consumir lo que renta cada año la Real hacienda"; Cartas de Jesuítas 18.3.1636, Memorial Histórico Español, xiii 384; for Struzzi, H.G. Hambleton, "The Economic Decline of Spain in the Seventeenth Century. Contemporary Spanish Views", unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1964, 205. 9. Kennedy, Great Powers, 56, who defines the Military Revolution as "the massive increase in the scale, costs and organisation of war" in the 150 years following the 1520s. 10. Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution. Military innovation and the rise of the West, 1500-1800 (Cambridge U.P., 1988), 12; Carande, Carlos Quinto y sus banqueros, ii 202. 11. Cortes de los Antiguos Reinos de León y Castilla, iv 374, 578, v 310, 431, 627, 750, 858; Actas de las Cortes de Castilla, iii 57,395, vi 835, x 378, xi 354 (12.5.1590); F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (Collins, 1972), i i 855, 858, for Africa and La Goleta; AGS GA 878, "Relación del estado en que se alian las Fortificaciones de los presidios de España Islas y fronteras y lo que parece que costara el acavar las unas y los reparos de otras", 18.12.1622. 12. R Idoate, Esfuerzo bélico de Navarra en el siglo XVI (Pamplona, 1981), 386 (for Pamplona); Braudel, Mediterranean, I I 857 n.89 (for Oran); AGS GA 80 f.102, for Fuenterrabía, San Sebastián and Pamplona; AGS GA 78 f.43 and GA 644, anón, relación, c.1603, for Perpignan. AGS GA 878, "Relación del estado en que se alian las Fortificaciones", 18.12.1622; for La Mamora, AGS GA 889, Council of War 30.5.1623. 13. As in Peñiscola in 1529-32, R. Pinilla Pérez de Tudela, "Noticias en torno a la fortificación de Peñiscola por Carlos I (1526-36)" in Temas de Historia Militar (Comunicaciones del Primer Congreso de Historia Militar—Zaragoza 1982) (Zaragoza 1985),

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2,248-57. The construction of the new citadel in Pamplona, begun in 1571, was barely complete in 1592, but once in place it was still militarily effective in the Carlist Wars in 1872. The fortification of Cartagena, begun by Philip I I , was still ongoing in 1626, BL [British Library] Egerton Ms 319, f.35. For the turrets in Andalusia, AGS GA 81 ff.445, 449; AGS GA 689, Council of War 31.7.1608; A. González Palencia (ed.), La Junta de Reformación 1618-1625, Archivo Histórico Español, vol. 5 (Valladolid, 1932), 367. 14. AGS GA 889, Council of War 30.5.1623. 15. For example, Relación 23.9.1617, BL Egerton Ms 2084, f.157; AGS GA 1301, Junta of War and Finance, 22.3.1604, 100,000 (reduced to 50,000, Lerma to Secretary Aguilar, 4.11.1606); AGS GA 744, Council of War, 29.10.1611,172,000 escudos of 1,031,875 land account (8-9% of total defence budget); 2.7.1622 132,204 escudos for fortifications out of 1,557,837 (8.5%); Ladero, Hacienda siglo XV, p.58, for 1495-1504; Carande, Carlos Vy sus banqueros, ii 203, for 1544 (50,000), 1553 (52,000). Lest it should be thought that Spain was peculiar in this regard within the Spanish Monarchy, it is worth pointing out that the 10 million florins spent on re-fortification in the Netherlands in the forty-three years 1529-72 was little more than the 8,600,000 florins that was received by the military treasury of the Army of Flanders in the single year 1572, Parker, Army of Flanders, 293. Domenico Sella talks of the Spanish government spending on "a stupendous scale" for the construction or modernization of fortifications in Lombardy during the first sixty years of the seventeenth century, but clearly has no figures to enable that expenditure to be quantified, Crisis and Continuity. The Economy of Spanish Lombardy in the Seventeenth Century (Harvard U.P., 1979), 57 and 206 n.40. 16. 200,000 ducats a year and more for the "obras de San Lorenzo" in the 1580s, AGS Estado 163, "Relación del dinero que ay y sera menester en los quatro meses que restan de este año de 1583"; Aparici y García, Informe, i, 102. 17. AGS GA 81 f.178 (Mallorca); Actas de las Cortes x, 533 (Cadiz); AGS GA 81 f.441, GA 689 Council of War 31.7.1608 (Andalusia). 18. See the information in Edward Cooper's Castillos señoriales en la Corona de Castilla, 4 vols. (Junta de Castilla y León, Salamanca, 1991). 19. In the 1590s it was estimated that the total cost of the ideal armament for a galleon of 1,100-1,300 toneladas was 19,319 ducats, inclusive of shot and powder; it would have cost about 20,000 ducats to build a galleon of that size, AGS GA 347, relación 1591; AGS GA 899, paper of Secretary of War, Martin de Aroztegui, 18.11.1624: construction costs of six galeoncetes with total of 1,600 toneladas, "puestos a la vela ... a toda costa", 51,200 ducats; cost of 100 bronze guns, averaging 20 quintals each, 56,000 ducats. 20. For details see "Aspects of Spanish Military and Naval Organization during the Ministry of Olivares" in I.A.A. Thompson, War and Society in Habsburg Spain (Variorum: Aldershot, 1992), ch.4, p.5. Iron guns cost about one-quarter the price of bronze guns, weight for weight, though they could stand less charge and had a much shorter life. 21. AGS CJH [Consejo y Juntas de Hacienda] 807 (1111), Council of Finance, 31.7.1660, and Thompson, War and Society, ch.4, p.5; AGS GA 136, f.280, for the allocation for 1582. In emergencies, particularly until the 1570s, gunpowder, shot and firearms were also i m ported from Italy and the Low Countries, adding somewhat (10-15 percent would be a guess) to the global costs for these materials; for some instances, Thompson, War and Government, 237. 22. AGS GA 365, "Relación general de la artillería que ay en España", 17.11.1588.

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23. Idoate, Esfuerzo bélico de Navarra, 387, 60. 24. On the figures of Secretary Martin de Aroztegui, 18.11.1624, AGS GA 899. 25. AGS GA 659, "Relación de lo que a poco mas o menos ymportara cada año el sueldo y gastos forzosos del Armada", 1606: 858,544 escudos, of which 63,200 (7.4%) for munitions (powder, shot, lead and match). The Secretary of the Navy, Martin de Aroztegui, allowed 8,000 ducats for munitions in the first year, and 4,000 in subsequent years, of 104,000 ducats for the six galeoncetes. Munitions costs of the Armada del Mar de Sur amounted to only 5%, B. Torres Ramirez, "Situación económica de las Armadas de Indias", Temas de Historia Militar. 2 Congreso de Historia Militar, Zaragoza, 1988 (Madrid, 1988), vol. 1, Ponencias, 243-59, at 254. 26. AGS GA 552, "Relación de lo que convendrá proveer este año de 1598", 116,000 ducats; AGS GA 569, relación with Council of War 28.4.1600, 136,000 ducats; AGS GA 1301, Junta of War and Finance, 22.3.1604, 166,229 (reduced to 100,000, Lerma to Secretary Aguilar, 4.11.1606); Domínguez Ortiz, Política y hacienda de Felipe IV, 375, "Resumen del estado de la real hacienda", Sept. 1650. The largest recorded allocation for "artillería, fortificaciones y fábricas" is the 172,500 ducats out of a domestic defence budget for 1608 of 2,216,563 ducats (7.8%)—4,216,563 including the assignment for Flanders, AGS CJH 345 (474), relación of royal revenues to 21.10.1608, 22.12.1607. 27. Calculated from C.J.M. Martin, "A 16th century siege train: the battery ordnance of the 1588 Spanish Armada", The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration 17.1 (1988), 57-73, and F.R de Cambra, Don Alvaro de Bazan, Almirante de España (Madrid, 1943), 300-1. In 1639, the duke of Medina Sidonia had as many as fortytwo pieces in his castle in Sanlucar de Barrameda. For these and other examples, Thompson, War and Government, 155 and 329 n.34. M.A. Ladero Quesada, Castilla y la Conquista del Reino de Granada (Valladolid, 1967), 127 for guns held by the great nobility in the late 15th century. There were more than fifty titled nobles at the end of the sixteenth century with revenues larger than those of Las Navas. 28. 450 to 187.5 wrs, Carande, Carlos Quinto y sus banqueros, iii 55. 29. Clifford J. Rogers, "The Military Revolutions of the Hundred Years' War", Journal of Military History 57 (1993), 246 (above, p. 58). 30. Rene Quatrefages, Los Tercios Españoles (1566-77) (Madrid, 1979), 192-7; M . Gracia Rivas, Los Tercios de la Gran Armada (1587-1588) (Madrid, 1989), 47; BL Additional Ms 28273 f.41, Council of War 14.6.1590. The cost of the handguns included a powder-horn and a fork for the musket; the helmet cost a further 24 reales, if engraved. The corseleted pikeman was even more expensive to equip: 6 reales for the pike, 80 reales for a plain breastplate. A complete outfit of clothing for 116 reales included a jacket (30), breeches (30), two shirts (24), doublet (13), hose (6), shoes (4) and hat (9). 31. AGS CMC 2 [Contaduría Mayor de Cuentas, segunda época] 760, "Libro de la quenta de Pedro Fernández de Caraa Bolibar", 29.11.1632. AGS GA 136 f.279, Secretary Delgado c.27.11.1582, 40,000 ducats needed; AGS GA 552, "Relación de lo que convendrá proveer este año de 1598 para el ministerio del artillería", 30,000; AGS GA 569, relación with Council of War 28.4.1600, 40,000. 32. Gracia Rivas, Tercios de la Gran Armada, 47. 33. In 1636 the Cardinal-Infante was reported to have had 18,000 horse, "something never before seen in Flanders", "Cartas de Jesuítas", Memorial Histórico Español (Madrid, 1861), xiii, 394. During the previous sixty years, the cavalry usually made up less than oneo

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eighth, and sometimes less than one-twentieth, of the Army of Flanders; by the late 1640s some one-fifth of the Army was cavalry, Parker, Army of Flanders, Appendix A, pp. 271-2. For Thomas Styward in 1581 horsemen were secondary actors in battle (The Pathwaie to Martiall Discipline, cited by H.J. Webb, Elizabethan Military Science [University of Wisconsin Press, 1965], p. 43); for Francisco Manuel de Melo in 1638 it was "the cavalry which usually wins or loses battles" (Política Militar en Avisos de Generales, aviso xxxvi). 34. S.M. de Sotto, Conde de Clonard, Historia orgánica de las armas de infantería y caballería españolas, 16 vols. (Madrid, 1851-62), iv 155. 35. AGS CJH 1069 (1462), 28.7.1683. 36. Gracia Rivas, Tercios de la Gran Armada, 47. 37. For Sancho de Londoño in 1568 the pikes were still "reinas de las armas"; by the end of the century, the Spanish infantry was in great part composed of handgunners; see Parker, Army of Flanders, p. 277; Clonard, Historia orgánica, i i i 145 (1516), iv 269 (ordenanzas of 8.6.1603), v 24 (1694); Actas de las Cortes de Castilla, xv 608 (26.5.1598); A. Cánovas del Castillo, "Del principio y fin que tuvo la supremacía militar de los españoles en Europa", Estudios Literarios, vol. 2 (Madrid, 1868), 433 (ordenanzas of 28.6.1632). 38. Introduced as an infantry weapon by the duke of Alba in 1567, Quatrefages, Los Tercios Españoles, 74. 39. Clonard, Historia orgánica, iii, 332 (5.12.1536), 426 (24.12.1560)—Spanish infantry company in Lombardy fixed at 300 "y no más ni menos"; Thompson, War and Government, 105. 40. Clonard, Historia orgánica, iv 416, an increase recommended by the baron de Auchy in 1642. 41. One reason for this was that over the long-term, in contrast to the view often perpetrated that munitions costs rose disproportionately, the prices of guns, weaponry and munitions do not seem to have kept up with the general movement of prices, nor for that matter with the overall rate of government spending. A high labour input and more efficient private procurement procedures may have helped. More information is needed to establish adequate price series for war materials, but it looks as if supply-side deficiencies were being overcome in most commodities by the second half of the sixteenth century. Arquebuses rose in price more than threefold overall between the 1480s and 1630s, relatively fast up to the 1570s—by 150 percent—but by less than 30 percent in the next 60 years; between the 1570s and the 1630s the price of the corselet rose similarly by 28 percent; but that of the musket remained unaltered; and that of the pike was halved. Gunpowder costing 74 reales a quintal in the 1480s was costing 150 reales in 1523, but no more than 154 reales in the 1570s, and only 160 reales vellón in the 1640s; shot, costing 13 reales in the 1480s, had more than doubled in price to 30 reales in the 1590s and tripled to between 41 and 43 reales in the 1640s, yet that was still well below the increase in the general price level between those dates; copper rose sharply in price at the end of the sixteenth century (with demand for coinage as well as for guns), but in 1608 it was still only three times more expensive than it had been in the 1480s. 42. AGS CJH 206 (310), "Relación del dinero que es menester por todo el año de 1591 para las cosas de la guerra en mar": 1,158,000 ducats, all but 165,000 (14.25%) of which was manpower related; AGS GA 659, "Relación de lo que a poco mas o menos ymportara cada año el sueldo y gastos forzosos del Armada": 81.8%; but only 70% in the Armada del Mar de Sur, Torres Ramirez, "Situación económica de las Armadas de Indias", 254.

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43. Contract rations on the Armada del Mar Océano were 51 mrs in 1606, 56V2 in 1660, 50 in 1684, AGS GA 659, CJH 809 (1111), CJH 1079 (1476). 44. BL Additional Ms 28373, ff.129-34. 45. Parker, Military Revolution, 61. 46. Parker, Military Revolution, 45. 47. Ladero, Castilla y la Conquista del Reino de Granada, 159; Parker, Military Revolution, 45; Philip II may have been paying 130,000 men in 1574; 108,000 according to the President of Finance in November 1587, CSP Venetian viii 319, no.593. There were reputedly 133,000 Spaniards alone fighting in Spain, Italy and Flanders in 1639; " I t is worth some note that not for more than a century have so many Spaniards been seen together on campaign", wrote Pellicer in his "Avisos", M . Camacho y de Ciria, Desistimiento español de la empresa imperial reconstituido sobre "Avisos" de Pellicer (Madrid, 1958), 28. 48. Thompson, War and Government, 294, War and Society, ch.4, P-4- For galley costs in the early decades of Charles V's reign, Carande, Carlos Quinto y sus banqueros, ii 210. 49. In 1574, over 400,000, and possibly 500,000 ducats were spent on the fleet of Pedro Menéndez de Aviles, AGS GA 77 f.208. 50. Between 1621 and 1623 the allocation for the Armada del Mar Océano was increased by 50 percent to 1,080,000 ducats; it was 800,000 in 1632-34, and rose to an average of 1,340,000 ducats for 75-80 vessels in 1635-38, plus a further 161,528 escudos for shipbuilding in 1637; from 1642 a contract was in operation to maintain 40 galleons for 1.2 million a year; Thompson, War and Society, ch.4, P-4; Actas de las Cortes de Castilla, xxxviii, 28. 51. In 1624 the soldiers on the galeoncetes of the Armada del Mar Océano were to have deducted 25 reales (850 mrs) of their 60 reales a month pay; rations were costed at 57 mrs a day (1,710 mrs a month); the total cost of victuals for the soldiers was 23,316 ducats, total deductions for rations and munitions came to 12,540 ducats of a wage bill of 27,360; AGS GA 899, Secretary Martin de Aroztegui, 18.11.1624. In the 1588 Armada, the soldier on basic rates had 19 3/4 of his 30 reales a month discounted for rations, and the soldier on double pay, 25 of his 40. 52. AGS GA 563, Bernave de Pedroso, 6.10.1598, "lo que sera menester para armar sesenta galeones": 1,161,000 ducats for men and provisions, and 1,130,000 to build and fit out (at 18,000 for each of 28 new galleons); AGS GA 899, Secretary Martin de Aroztegui, 18.11.1624: running costs of six galeoncetes 104,000 ducats, 51,200 to build, and 56,000 to gun. Each of Martín de Arana s six galleons, averaging 444.5 toneladas, built on contract in 1625-28, cost 15,696/16,696 ducats (excluding artillery), less than half the costs of provisioning and operating a galleon on one round trip to the Indies, C.R. Phillips, Six Galleons for the King of Spain (Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, 1986), 90, 234. 53. Actas de las Cortes de Castilla, lix , 28, averaging 10 million ducats a year for 1649-54. 54. Thompson, War and Government, 289. 55. Ladero, Castilla y la Conquista de Granada, 201 ff. 56. J.I. Fortea Pérez, Monarquía y Cortes en la Corona de Castilla: Las ciudades ante la política fiscal de Felipe II (Salamanca, 1990), 450-61. 57. Carande, Carlos Quinto y sus banqueros, iii, passim, especially the figures following p.26. 58. The expression is Michael Mann s, "The Autonomous Power of the State: Its Origins, Mechanisms and Results", in John A. Hall (ed.), States in History (Blackwell, Oxford, 1986), 109-36. 1

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59. L.M. Bilbao, "Ensayo de reconstrucción histórica de la presión fiscal en Castilla durante el siglo X V I " in E. Fernández de Pinedo (ed.), Haciendas Forales y Hacienda Real (Bilbao, 1990), 37-62; I.A.A. Thompson, "Castile: Polity, Fiscality, and Fiscal Crisis" in P. Hoffman and K. Norberg (eds.), Fiscal Crises, Liberty, and Representative Government, 1450-1789 (Stanford, 1994), 175. 60. Thompson, "Castile: Polity, Fiscality, and Fiscal Crisis", 160-69. 61. Charles Jago, "Parliament, Subsidies and Constitutional Change in Castile, 16011621", Parliaments, Estates and Representation 13 (1993), 123-37; Thompson, "Castile: Polity, Fiscality, and Fiscal Crisis", 169-72, and also my "Castile: Absolutism, Constitutionalism, and Liberty", in Hoffman and Norberg, Fiscal Crises, Liberty, and Representative Government, ch. 5,189-95. 62. I.A.A. Thompson, "The Government of Spain in the Reign of Philip IV" in Crown and Cortes. Government, Institutions and Representation in Early-Modern Castile (Variorum: Aldershot, 1993), ch.4, pp.71-74; and my "Castile: Polity, Fiscality, and Fiscal Crisis", 172-75. 63. Thompson, War and Government, 96-7, 73; AGS GA 1303, duke of Lerma to Martin de Aroztegui, 27.5.1617, on the fitting-out of the Escuadra del Estrecho, needing 144,000 ducats a year to maintain, but can get by giving the men six pays a year, "siendo puntual lo que toca a la comida, y con esto se presupone que con 100,000 ducados al año se podran sustentar estos seis navios." 64. White, "War and Government in a Castilian Province", 310; Thompson, "Castile: Polity, Fiscality, and Fiscal Crisis", 173. 65. White, "War and Government in a Castilian Province", 311, 319, 321. In 1650, the Councils of Finance and War rejected a proposal of the commander of the Army of Extremadura to introduce forced contributions, fearing it would result in the depopulation of the province, C. Sanz Ayán, "La problemática del abastecimiento de los Ejércitos de Extremadura y Cataluña durante 1652" in Temas de Historia Militar. 2 Congreso de Historia Militar, Zaragoza, 1988 (Madrid, 1988), vol.2, Comunicaciones I, 221-31, at 226; for France, J.A. Lynn, "How War Fed War: The Tax of Violence and Contributions during the Grande Siécle] Journal of Modern History 65 (1993), 286-310. 66. AGS Contadurías Generales, 854, Don Alonso de Cuéllar Carrasco, 26.5.1628. 67. Duke of Alba, 14.1.1581, "the soldiers who generally garrison the castles are low, wretched people who, because they have been there some time, are married and have jobs, some as weavers, others as cobblers or other trades, by which they earn their crust and keep themselves alive. Those who don't do that, don't stay long in the castles ..." Alba, duque de, Epistolario del III Duque de Alba, Don Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1952), iii, 750; Thompson, War and Government, 73-5. The Council of War accepted the usefulness of tolerating such practices, "because it is to Your Majesty's benefit, since as long as they do their guard duty on their days off, they earn a dozen reales which gets them by while they wait for their pay, even if it is somewhat late", AGS GA 876,16.2.1622, with specific reference to the garrison in Cadiz. 68. Thompson, War and Government, 259, 231-33. 69. R. Bean, "War and the Birth of the Nation State", Journal of Economic History 33 (1973), 203-21, at 212. 70. William H . McNeill, The Pursuit of Power. Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000 (Blackwell, Oxford, 1982), 95,103-16; Joseph A. Schumpeter, "The Crisis of the 0

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Tax State", International Economic Papers 4 (1954), 15, "Out of the common exigency' the state was born." 71. R. Villari, La rivolta antispagnola a Napoli. Le origini (1585-1647) (Bari, 1967), ch.5. 72. See K.A. Rasler and W.R. Thompson, "War Making and State Making: Governmen­ tal Expenditures, Tax Revenues, and Global Wars", American Political Science Review 79 (1985)» 491-507. 73. For another argument on the importance of "permanent" war, see E. Ames and R.T. Rapp, "The Birth and Death of Taxes: A Hypothesis", Journal of Economic History37 (1977), 161-78. 74. Brian M . Downing, "Constitutionalism, warfare, and political change in early mod­ ern Europe", Theory and Society rj (1988), 7-56, the quotation at p. 8. 75. This is the argument of my two contributions to the collective volume in the Making of Modern Freedom series, Riscal Crises, Liberty and Representative Government, 1450-1789, cited in notes 59 and 61 above.