FACULTY OF HUMANITIES, LAW AND SOCIAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT OF

HISTORY & ECONOMIC HISTORY

Constructing a New World

Assignment 4

Seminar Tutor: Adam Morton

Sławomir Trzciński

Student Number: 07454882

20.03.2009

BA (HONS) HISTORY DEGREE, YEAR 2
Course Number: 41202036

2

Was a

‘Military Revolution’ a Cause or Consequence of State Expansion In

Early Modern Europe

When in the 1950s Michael Roberts delivered a lecture before the University of

Belfast, he did not know that it would

create a new “battlefield” for the historians

interested in military history. The lecture given by Roberts was an entirely new

conception of the changes which took place between 1560-1660, and which he

called a „military revolution‟. This new approach evoked an argument among

historians that has lasted for over fifty years.

The term of the military revolution is used by scholars to describe rapid changes in

warfare, which occurred roughly after the 16th century and had reached its

culmination by the 18

th

century. Innovations in tactics, the introduction and use of

gunpowder weapons, a new type of fortifications, and the rise of infantry at cost of

cavalry; these are factors to which military historians are generally unanimous. There

is also

an opposite camp, which denies that the word “revolution” is appropriate, they

suggest using

“evolution” instead.

1

According to its main champion, Clifford J. Rogers, there was not a single revolution,

but a series of smaller revolutions, over a longer period of time, which collectively

1

Clifford J. Rogers, ‘The Military Revolutions of the Hundred Years' War’, The Journal of Military History, Vol.

57 (Apr., 1993), p. 244.

3

would give

“punctuated equilibrium evolution”

2

. His theory highlighted the importance

of two factors which occurred during the Hundred Years‟ War: the Infantry and

Artillery Revolutions. These, consequently, were followed by major shifts in

fortification and the administration of war.

Rogers‟ idea leads us straight to a different idea presented by a prominent military

historian, Geoffrey Parker, who is often described as a disciple of Roberts‟ military

revolution.

Roberts‟ thought assumed that there were a tactical shift based on linear

formations of musketeers and an increase in the size of armies. As his hallmark he

pointed out the reformed armies of Gustavus Adolphus and Maurice of Nassau, who

created larger and well-disciplined formations. Parker, however, pushed the

argument further claiming that Roberts was wrong about superiority of Swedish

linear tactical units which could be beaten by square blocks of soldiers as at

Nordinglen

3

. Moreover, Parker placed his revolution between 1500-1800, and

emphasized the significance of the fortifications known as the trace italienne, in

addition, showed the triumph of firepower over melee

4

. There are also other theories

which differ slightly from Geoffrey Parkers‟. Jeremy Black argues that Parker‟s

revolution lasted definitively too long like for a revolution. In his opinion, the military

revolution should be located between 1660 and 1710

5

.

2

C. J. Rogers, ‘The Military Revolutions of the Hundred Years' War’, p. 244.

3

David Eltis, The Military Revolution in Sixteenth-century Europe, (I. B. Tauris, 1998), p.10.

4

Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovations and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800,

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 12-13.

5

Jeremy Black, A Military Revolution?: Military Change and European Society, 1550-1800, (London: Palgrave

Macmillan, 1991).

4

As can be seen from the above, the number of the theories is equal to the number of

historians. At this point of this paper I would like to present my view on the military

revolution, which in some points (process stretched over a long time) is similar to

Rogers‟, but is different in others. First of all, he contradicts himself saying that the

battles at Courtrai in 1302, Bannockburn in 1314, and Morgarten in 1315, were of

lesser importance because the victorious infantrymen used peculiarities of the terrain

to achieve a victory over feudal cavalry, while he gives the example of Crecy in 1346,

as his argument of the Infantry Revolution, where the English longbowmen, fighting

from behind stakes with support of men-at-arms, decimated the French noble

cavalry

6

. Instead, I suggest looking at the point in history, when pikemen for the very

first time defeated cavalry not being in a defensive position. Such a situation

happened in 1339 at Laupen, where the Swiss infantry defeated both the noble

Burgundian cavalry and infantrymen, and what has been called by Brian T. Carey as

the Return of Heavy Infanty.

7

Nevertheless, due to the fact that the Swiss were not a standing army, but militia,

thus for the purpose of this essay I will narrow the researched period down to that

presented by Geoffrey Parker.

The title question, whether „a military revolution‟ was a

cause or consequence of state expansion in the given period, is problematic to

answer, because not always one was connected to the other. There were some

instances of the “signs” of the military revolution, although it had nothing to do with

6

Jean Froissart, ‘On The Hundred Years War: The Battle of Crecy 1346’,

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/froissart1.html.

7

Brian T.Carey, Warfare in the Medieval World, (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2007), p.177-201.

5

expansion, like the Cossacks in the 17

th

century Poland

8

. Moreover, in military history

can be found that some states were on a good way to be fully embraced by the

advantages of Parker‟s revolution, however, for some reason it did not happened, but

they were still able to expand.

In my research, by using the examples of four chosen states, I am going to convince

the reader that the military revolution was a result of state expansion. For this

purpose I will present instances of Spain, Poland with Sweden, Russia and the

Ottoman Empire respectively. The states have been chosen to express the range

and complexity of the topic, but also to show that not only Western Europe was

affected by the changes of their times. Spain because is well presented, in terms of

evidence, by Geoffrey Parker; Poland, due to the fact that some scholars claim there

was little signs of the revolution

9

; Russia, because military changes before Peter the

Great are often neglected, and the Ottoman state to widen the area of researched

subject beyond Europe.

The Spanish military revolution had its beginnings at the end of the 15

th

century in

1492, exactly in the same year when the three other important events for the history

of Spain

10

took place. Firstly, the Jews were expelled from the kingdom. Secondly,

Columbus on behalf of the Spanish crown discovered America. Finally, the last

8

Richard Brzezinski, Polish Armies 1569-1696, Vol. 2 (London: Osprey Publishing Ltd., 1987),pp. 17-19.

9

G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovations and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800,p.37.

10

Actually it was not ‘Spain’ at the time, but the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon ruled jointly by Ferdinand and

Isabella, however, for our convenience I will dare to use ‘Spain’.

6

Moorish stronghold was captured ending the Muslim presence the Iberian Peninsula.

What do all these events have in

common? The obvious answer would be “Spain”,

however it is too simple.

“In 1492 King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain,

succumbing to and indeed capitalizing on popular prejudice, expelled the Jews from

Spain”

11

This prejudice was usury, widely practised by the Jews, because Catholics

were forbidden by the Papacy to lend money and gain extra profits out of it. What is

more, the Jews in the Middle Ages very often acted to kings as money lenders.

Removing such a good source of money, the Spanish monarchs had to have

something in mind, and indeed, they had. The year 1499 saw Ferdinand successfully

persuading the pope to assign to him the administration over the Order of Saint

James of Compostela

12

, and what later, under the reign of Charles V, made possible

to acquire the orders of Alcantara and Calatrava along with their wealth

13

. The

acquisition of the orders was perfectly justified, because the capture of Granada had

completed centuries of the Reconquista.

To conquer the kingdom of Granada “the

most Catholic Kings” Isabella and Ferdinand had to spend ten years (1482-1492)

fighting the Moors, however, they had to their command circa 180 guns

14

, something

what their predecessors had not had.

11

Jeffrey Richards, Sex, Dissidence and Damnation: Minority Groups In the Middle Ages, (Abingdon: Routledge,

2007), p. 100.

12

‘Order of Saint James of Compostela’, New Advent: Catholic Encyclopedia,

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13353a.htm.

13

‘Order of Saint James of Compostela’, New Advent: Catholic Encyclopedia.

14

G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovations and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800,p.8.

7

The following century brought also changes in army size. When the Spanish rulers

were subduing the last Muslim kingdom in the Iberian they had no more than 20,000

soldiers, but four decades later, their grandson, Charles V, had 100,000 fighting the

Turks in Hungary in 1532, and 50,000 more when besieging Metz twenty years

later

15

. Such a dramatic rise in manpower entailed also high costs of waging wars. An

excellent picture of the Spanish war

expenses is given in Geoffrey Parker‟s book

16

.

The diagram shows that at the time of the Schmalkaldic war in 1547-8 he annual

cost was 2 million florins, the war in the Netherlands against France between 1552

and 1559 doubled that, the second Netherland war cost the Spanish Treasury 9

million florins annually. Although the expenses were enormous, worse was to come

yet : “by 1630, according to the military experts of most European states, it cost five

times as much to put a soldier in the field as it had don

e a century before”.

17

It were truly fabulous sums of money, and the Spanish monarchs needed equally

fabulous revenues. I have mentioned Columbus

‟s discovery of America, however, I

have not explained its importance to conducting the expansionist policy of Spain. In

the twenty years after Tenochtitlan fell to Cortes, the Spanish

“took more specie from

Mexico and the Andes then all the gold accumulated by Europeans over the previous

centuries

”

18

. In 1545 they opened the Potosi mines in the Andes. Between 1560 and

1685 the mines were bringing profits of 25,000-35,000 tons of silver a year, whereas

15

G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovations and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800,p.11.

16

G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovations and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800,p.61.

17

G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovations and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800,p.61.

18

Robert Tignor, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the Modern World from the Mongol Empire to the

Present, (London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2002), pp.102-104.

8

later up to 1810, this sum doubled

19

. While the silver was vital to mercantile activity

between Spain and Asia, the gold was necessary to pay to the soldiers of the

increasingly growing state.

“Slightly” less fortunate than Spain was the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Although, the Commonwealth was

“deeply resistant to military innovation”

20

,

nevertheless, it had a direct contact with the states, which had been more open to

the advantages of the military revolution. For this instance, it is not enough to

mention the famous kingdom of Sweden ruled by outstanding Gustavus Adolphus,

but also the Holy Roman Empire from the west and south (Bohemia), the Ottoman

Empire- south east, and Russia from the east.

As Geoffrey Parker aptly commented:

”in the early seventeenth century there were

still ten horsemen for every foot soldier in the Polish army, and this was perfectly

reasonable, given the nature of Poland

‟s enemies

21

(the Tatars and the Turks).

Despite being a backward step, in terms of the trace italienne and numbers of

infantrymen , comparing to the Western and Northern counterparts, at the beginning

of the seventeenth century still was able to give a nasty surprise to the modern

armies of Northern Europe. For example, in 1605 at Kircholm 11,000 Swedish army

(8,500 pikemen, 2500 musketeers, and 11 cannons) under Charles IX was defeated

19

Robert Tignor, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, p. 102.

20

G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovations and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800,p.37.

21

G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovations and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800,p.37.

9

by c. 4,000 Polish-Lithuanian forces (1100 pikemen, 250 musketeers, 5 cannons)

under Jan Karol Chodkiewicz. The outcome was really astonishing, Polish casualties:

100 dead and 200 wounded, while the Swedes lost 5,000 men including wounded,

and 500 was captured

22

. Similarly, in 1610 at Kluszyn the combined Russian-

Swedish army was beaten by the Poles and the Lithuanians

23

.

Apart from the strictly equestrian character of the Polish army, there were also other

factors:

“the nobles who dominated the Polish state resisted any measure that might

enhance the power of the monarchy-whether it was hiring foreign mercenaries,

arming serfs, or fortifying royal cities

”

24

So, how was it possible, that the Polish

Kingdom was in that part of Europe so powerful? To answer this question we need to

move back in time to the year 1569, when Poland and Lithuania had joined as one

state by the Union in Lublin, and Ukraine was transferred to Poland

25

. Of course

Poland also expanded by conquest, however, it was the Union that made the realm a

power.

To fill up shortages of infantrymen, Poland created units called the Foreign

Autorament completely organised after the German model

26

. Nevertheless, more

often in use were companies of mercenaries, that were invaluable at besieging

22

Leszek Podhorodecki, Rapier i koncerz, (Warsaw, 1985).

23

Richard Brzezinski, Polish Armies 1569-1696, Vol. 1 (London: Osprey Publishing Ltd., 1987),pp. 8-9.

24

G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovations and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800,p.37.

25

R. Brzezinski, Polish Armies 1569-1696, Vol. 1 (London: Osprey Publishing Ltd., 1987),p. 8.

26

R. Brzezinski, Polish Armies 1569-1696, Vol. 2 (London: Osprey Publishing Ltd., 1987),p. 6.

10

fortifications. On a German print from 1577 we can see the German Landsknechts at

the siege of Danzig, who later under king Stephen Bathory would fight against the

Muscovites between 1579-82.

27

In addition, there were instances when soldiers from

the enemy side joined the Polish forces, and e.g. king Jan III Sobieski recruited the

Janissaries from prisoners taken at Chocim, and later in 1681 a group of Turkish

deserters joined the king

‟s army at Kamieniec Podolski (fortress occupied by the

Turks).

28

Another non-Western example of the state, that achieved an unprecedented success

thanks to adapting innovations of the military revolution was Russia. The kingdom of

the tsars

“controlled an area of 15,000 square miles in 1462 and 8,600,000square

miles in 1914, thus expanding at rate of fifty square miles a day for four hundred

years

”

29

Everything started, according to Parker, in the late sixteenth century, with

the construction of fortifications being able to withstand long-lasting sieges. Between

1595 and 1602 in Smolensk was built such a fortress with the walls 5 meter thick, 19

meters high, and 6.5 km long.

30

Moreover, the tsar created in 1550 the basis of his

standing army consisted of infantrymen called the Streltsy

31

(handgunners

32

). Initially,

to Tsar

‟s disposition were 3,000 of the Streltsy, however, in the course the next

27

‘Late German Landsknecht Infantry’ , print made in 1577, from R. Brzezinski, Polish Armies 1569-1696, Vol. 2,

p. 6.

28

R. Brzezinski, Polish Armies 1569-1696, Vol. 2 (London: Osprey Publishing Ltd., 1987),p. 12.

29

Paul C. Michael, ‘The Military Revolution in Russia, 1550-1682’, The Journal of Military History, Vol. 68 (Jan.,

2004), p. 45.

30

G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovations and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800,p.38.

31

G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovations and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800,p.38.

32

In fact it meant literally „riflemen”, but at the time there was no rifles.

11

century their numbers increased, by 1600 there were 20,000 of them and by 1632-

34,000.

33

In the 17

th

century Russian rulers also recruited mercenaries. They were armed with

muskets and supported by field artillery. Interestingly, they were trained according to

the Military Instructions written by Maurice of Nassau and issued in 1649 by Tsar

Alexei Romanov. Their numbers in the 1630s were 17,400 men, and 80,000 by

1681,

34

what suggests pro- expansionist policy. To maintain such a big army the

Russian government needed huge amounts of money, but, in fact, he did not. Some

taxes, as grain taxes were paid in kind to pay for soldiers in Ukraine. Poor yields at

the time entailed the threat of famine, what is more, it was not enough to pay the

soldiers. The policy of selling grain to Sweden, in spite of inflation, led to riots in

Pskow and Novogrod.

35

It is also argued that in the seventieth century, tsars

“could

not pay for its armies without relying on emergency grain shipments and the

debasement of its currency

”

36

, notwithstanding their policy proved to be successful so

they could afford to hire new troops and expand their territories.

The last state I would like to present is the Ottoman Empire which in its initial and

medium stage was characterized by ease of absorbing military innovations. From the

beginning of the 17

th

century this ability was lost, however, the empire, despite its

33

G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovations and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800,p.38.

34

G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovations and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800,p.38.

35

Paul C. Michael, ‘The Military Revolution in Russia, 1550-1682’, p. 43.

36

Paul C. Michael, ‘The Military Revolution in Russia, 1550-1682’, p. 43.

12

decline, managed to survive until the early 20

th

century. The elite of the Turkish army

were the Janissaries, who were recruited from Christian boys given as a human tax

called devshirme. The children were trained in the spirit of Islam to become fanatical

and ferocious warriors, who being deprived of their families had nobody to be loyal to,

apart from the sultan.

37

According to Halil Inalcik, their numbers rose from 10,000

men in 1480 to 53,849 in 1670.

38

It is known that as early as in 1389 the Janissaries

were equipped with firearms, however, it was Mehmed II the Conqueror, who made

gunpowder weapons a regular part of the Ottoman arsenal.

39

The Ottomans thanks

to their outstanding military and political leaders, and applying the attributes of the

military revolution, firearms and artillery, were able to conquer vast areas of Europe,

Asia Minor and Africa.

40

Concluding, taking into consideration all given examples, although they do not

explore the topic thoroughly, it can be said that

„a military revolution‟ was a

consequence rather than a cause. The analyzed states provide a wide spectrum to

scholars for a further scrutiny, and more importantly, show that the revolution affected

also non-Western, non- Christian, even non- European states, instead of being

limited to Western and Northern Europe only.

37

Inalcik Halil, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300-1600, (London: The Trinity Press, 1973),p. 83.

38

Inalcik Halil, The Ottoman Empire,p. 83.

39

Virginia Aksan , ‘Ottoman War and Warfare 1453-1812’, in J. Black (ed.) War in the Early Modern World

(London: Routledge, 2004), p. 151.

40

Robert Tignor, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, p. 50.

13

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http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/froissart1.html.

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14

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Websites

„Order of Saint James of Compostela‟, New Advent: Catholic Encyclopedia,

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13353a.htm.