European Warfare in a Global Context, 1660-1815

Jeremy Black

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781134159215
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This original book presents a global approach to eighteenth century warfare. Emphasis is placed on the importance of conflict in the period and the capacity for decisiveness in impact and development in method. Through this Jeremy Black extends the view beyond land to naval conflict.

European Warfare in a Global Context offers a comparative approach, in the sense of considering Western developments alongside those elsewhere, furthermore it puts emphasis on conflict between Western and non-western powers. This approach necessarily reconsiders developments within the West, but also offers a shift in emphasis from standard narrative of the latter.

This book is the ideal study of warfare for all students.

1
INTRODUCTION

War was central to the history of the period and to the experience of its people, while, in so far as long-term developments are concerned, these conflicts were also of great importance. As the result of the wars of the period, the Turks were pushed back into the Balkans, French hegemonic aspirations in Europe were defeated, and the fates of North America and India were settled, as was the struggle between Britain and France for maritime and colonial dominance. Furthermore, the Spanish empire was fatally weakened. Thus, the period was not only important to the rise of the West within the world, but also to the question of who was to dominate the West, which indeed answered the question ‘which West?’. In particular, different versions of French predominance (Bourbon, Revolutionary and Napoleonic), in and beyond Europe, were offered and defeated during the period. Apart from these grand shifts – of territorial change, state-building and, more infrequently, ideological control – armies were also responsible for the maintenance of order and the defence of authority, whether against rioters, separatism, brigands, striking workers or religious dissidence.

The contrast, however, between different scholarly and popular perceptions of Western warfare in the period emerges clearly when the general account of this warfare on the world scale as dynamic and displaying greater capability than non-Western rivals, is set alongside the apparent situation within the West, which was allegedly characterised by stagnant or limited development under the ancien régime prior to the French Revolutionary wars, which began in 1792. This contrast reflects, in part, a difference in perception between the world scale, where the West appears as a transforming force, and, on the other hand, the standard view taken of conservative regimes within Europe, in this case those of the ancien régime. This view argues that conservative regimes are, simply through being such regimes, less able to adjust to the requirements of change, dramatically displayed by the French revolutionaries, and less willing to act decisively. In contrast, in this view, military capability requires the active embrace of change. This view plays a central role in the teleological, indeed Whiggish, assumptions that are so important to military history as an academic discipline. These assumptions, however, are flawed both in general and in specific cases.

Much scholarship on military history is concerned with the search for dynamism in the shape of major change. The extent to which there was indeed change in portions of the period covered by this book, and the causes and nature of this change, have been debated, with particular attention devoted to the implications of the transition, at the close of the seventeenth century, from matchlock musket and pike (two separate weapons) to flintlock musket and bayonet (two capabilities in the same weapon that was wielded by one soldier); and to the use of column attacks by the forces of Revolutionary France in the 1790s. Furthermore, the respective merits of the developments seen under Louis XIV, Peter the Great, the Duke of Marlborough, Prince Eugene, Frederick the Great, and also in the closing years of the ancien régime in the 1770s–1780s have all been discussed. While notable, there were, however, no fundamental alterations in military capability or effectiveness, whether in force projection (the ability to deploy force at a distance) or combat during the ancien régime.¹ The absence of military revolution, or any equivalent to the sweeping organisational and technological transformation of the mid- to late nineteenth century, does not, however, imply that warfare in the meantime was static.

Whether discussing the period covered by this book, or more generally, arguments for military development have to be handled with care. Some of the literature is flawed because of its analytical approach, not least the questionable assumptions of the existence of a paradigm or model power setting the patterns for other powers, of a clear hierarchy in military capability and of an obvious tasking model for the military. Aside from these questionable assumptions, there is still the challenge of assessing the quality of change. In particular, the resilience of Austrian, Prussian and Russian forces in the 1790s, and the degree to which French war-making in the 1790s and 1800s built on pre-Revolutionary developments, indicate that the French Revolution did not make redundant what had come earlier, as is sometimes implied. This was a situation even more clearly exemplified by continued British success at sea before, during and after the Revolutionary period. This point suggests not only the strength of ancien régime structures, and the appropriateness of their tactics and operational and organisational characteristics, with reference to the parameters of the period, but also that the international politics of the 1790s bear a major responsibility for the failure to defeat Revolutionary France,² rather than simply military considerations.

Furthermore, once the notions that conservative societies lack the capacity for reform, and that they are necessarily weaker than revolutionary counterparts, are challenged, then the conceptual can be joined to the empirical in rejecting the notion of the ancien régime as redundant. This rejection also offers another approach to the issue of earlier change. Rather than seeing a fundamental problem of limited effectiveness in ancien régime warfare that required reform, it is possible to argue that the challenges were far more specific and contingent, being different for individual states at particular junctures. The focus should therefore be on considering the military tasks of the moment and those seen as likely to arise, which can be discussed in terms of what would subsequently be referred to as strategic culture, the phrase used to describe what were at the time apparently inherent strategic assumptions.³ This may appear to offer a rather bitty and inconsequential account of the period, in place of the grand sweep of clear-cut and general developments in war-making, but, in fact, this approach accurately reflects the absence of a dominant teleology.

As recently as two decades ago, metanarratives of long-term military history were written in terms of such a teleology, specifically the move towards total war capability and doctrine then held to define modern warfare, especially with the maximisation of destructiveness through the enhancement of firepower. In such a context, the approach offered in the previous paragraph, with its focus on the particular requirements of the moment, would have appeared lame, and, in practice, as a recognition of the irrelevance of the ancien régime. Indeed, the period of this book was seen as important largely in terms of the progenitors of modernity supposedly offered by the American War of Independence (1775–83) and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars (1792–1815). Now, however, as the multiple character of modern warfare can be better understood, so the very process of modernisation can be seen to involve far more continuity, and also non-linear development, than was hitherto appreciated.

In addition, modern interest in limited warfare makes aspects of the doctrine and practice of ancien régime conflict appear relevant; although, in fact, the limited character (within the parameters of what was judged possible) of this conflict should not be stressed. This was true for the experience of conflict, the degree of mobilisation of available resources (particularly manpower and money), and the impact on civilians, the last discussed in Chapter 11.

If change in the social politics and political consequences of force in early modern Europe can now be presented in more gradualist, and less revolutionary, terms, than would have been the case two decades ago, then this matches the long-term character of technological, scientific and intellectual trends. Once a chronological focus is added, then ‘long term’ can also mean slow, although that should not be seen as a criticism, not least because change was difficult and the character of military life and capability frequently intractable. Furthermore, in place of a ‘big bang’ seen in the language of military revolutions, or a triumphalist account towards clear improvement, comes the scholarly understanding that incremental change poses its own problems of assessing best practice, as well as the difficulties of determining whether it was appropriate to introduce new methods. Indeed, the definition and conceptualisation of novelty were themselves important issues of intellectual development. In practice, the use by modern scholars of models of diffusion, and of the language of adaptation, both make change in the past appear far less problematic than was the case.

Naval power and warfare similarly demonstrate a variety also seen on land. This may appear surprising, as the focus on ships of the line in the literature appears to suggest a uniformity, while the period also saw the large-scale deployment of ships of the line in Mediterranean waters, for example by the English in the 1650s and from the 1690s, and by the Dutch and the French in the struggle over control of Sicily during the Dutch War of 1672–8, and the marked decline in the importance of galley conflict there. Furthermore, the decision by Peter the Great of Russia (r. 1689–1725) to build up a navy of ships of the line similar to that of other European powers rested in part on direct emulation, not least through Peter’s visit to shipyards in England and the United Provinces (Netherlands) and through the hiring of Western experts. It was also maintained by his successors, most prominently Catherine the Great (r. 1762–96), under whom Russian naval power in 1769–70 was successfully deployed in the Mediterranean, albeit in a move dependent on British consent.

Nevertheless, there were other naval forces that also need consideration. In shallow waters, such as the Gulf of Finland, galleys proved more useful, and sailing warships were similarly of little value in rivers. River gunboats are generally ignored by naval (and military) historians, both of this period and of others, but they were important, particularly on the rivers of the Balkans and southern Russia, such as the Danube and the Don, in conflicts between the Turks and their neighbours. In 1702, the Swedish flotilla on Lake Lagoda was defeated by a far stronger Russian squadron.⁴

Even if the focus is solely on ships of the line, which were, indeed, the most important type of warship, it is necessary to note a parallel with land warfare in which the form, like that of musket–pike–cavalry cooperation in the late seventeenth century, and musket-plus-bayonet–cavalry cooperation over the following century, could include important variations; although, in assessing these, modern scholars have to address the contrast between contemporary doctrine and practice.⁵ As with land forces, variations in naval tactics focused on distinctive specifications and objectives, particularly firepower, defensive strength, speed and manoeuvrability. These specifications, in turn, arose in large part in response to particular taskings. Thus, for warships, there were different emphases, including the extent to which ships were expected to cruise to the West Indies and to take part in line-of-battle artillery exchanges. Command skills on both land and sea involved understanding and taking advantage of the capabilities arising from specifications, and these are lost from sight if only a uniform account of weaponry and tactics is offered. It is also necessary to allow for variations in strategic culture at sea, as powers responded to the particular and changing needs and possibilities presented both by their situations and by the nature of their navies.⁶

An emphasis on variety in specifications and tasks can be extended to the equations of defensive strength and offensive firepower that helped determine the potency of fortifications and the success of sieges. Rather than assuming a perfect state of fortification, it is necessary to evaluate systems, not only with reference to the specifications that led to these equations, but also within the constraints of manpower and cost, each of which was also important in judging fitness for purpose. This returns attention from the theoretical and systemic to the particular, and, specifically, the political character of decision-making. Many positions were not strengthened in accordance with the latest fortification techniques, as they were too expensive to be comprehensively adopted. At the crudest level, the fortifications deemed necessary to withstand a major siege in western Europe were generally more than were necessary for most tasks in eastern Europe, and far more than was required to defeat a rebellion, although major fortresses in eastern Europe, such as the Turkish ones on the rivers athwart Russia’s advance into the Balkans, such as Izmail and Silistria on the Danube, played a key role in campaigns.

It is also necessary to consider the particular requirements of colonial fortifications. For example, alongside the large sums spent by France in the 1720s–1730s on fortifications at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island and on Pondicherry, its major base in India (where a rampart with bastions on the side facing the land was constructed in 1724–35, and a rampart on the coast in 1745), far less was spent by France on forts in the interior of North America and on the Louisiana coast. Indeed, in 1710, the woodwork at Fort Louis (Mobile) was so rotten with humidity and decay that the cannon could not be supported. However, these forts were not designed to resist artillery, unlike Louisbourg and Pondicherry. More generally, while fitness for purpose is a crucial concept when judging the applicability of weaponry and fortifications, such fitness is frequently misunderstood by putting the stress on the capacity for employing force, rather than the ends that are sought.

It is important also to assess the benefits that might stem if resources were employed for different purposes. Fortifications, for example, required large garrisons that could not readily be used for other purposes. Those near Susa designed to protect Piedmont from invasion from the Alps along the valley of the Dora Riparia were estimated in 1764 to require a garrison of ‘near 4000 men’ to defend them.⁷ Such forces could act as an operational reserve, but, more commonly, garrison forces lacked mobility, flexibility and even combat effectiveness. More generally, when planning defences, it was necessary to consider the need for troops and cannon in different areas of possible attack.

This issue highlights the trade-offs and compromises involved in planning and prioritisation, and the latter underlines the role in military capability of the assumptions referred to as strategic culture. If a group maintains the same body of ideas about force and interests, and the same conditions of power and enemies, for long periods of time, it may define the same range of options and make similar choices among them, may create institutions of specific character and quality, may use them in distinct ways and may follow a strategic style, relying for example on attrition, such as commerce-raiding at sea, as against the search for an immediate knock-out blow. This approach is relevant for both land and sea power, and both in Europe and further afield, for example with the stress in French policy on the land rather than trade, on the army rather than navy, and on European, not transoceanic expansion. However, while the concept of strategic culture is clearly of value,⁸ the detailed work required in order to flesh it out has not been tackled for most countries.⁹ That helps explain the importance of assessing the social politics of command (the social groups that dominated military command and their attitudes), which was significant in the framing of strategic culture.

Linked to the limitations in modern scholarly knowledge of the subject is the popularity of the misleading concept of Zeitgeist or spirit of the age, as in the notion of an ancien régime, Enlightenment, or revolutionary Zeitgeist which explains the nature of war-making. In this approach, the move from one set of attitudes to another explains developments. In asserting such a coherence, often on the basis of only limited work, this approach, however, neglects this limitation and also underplays the diversity of attitudes and practices. As a result, the stress on the Zeitgeist is both empirically and conceptually questionable.

Concepts as varied as Zeitgeist, national interest and strategic culture indeed encourage reification (turning concepts into coherent causal factors) for reasons that can be actively misleading. Drawing on Neoplatonic assumptions about inherent reality, they assert a false coherence in order to provide clear building blocks for analytical purposes: they are more useful, in short, for assertion than as description. This point can be taken further by challenging the notion that the frequently used paradigm/diffusion models – the spread of the methods of an allegedly paradigm power – create, as is argued, either a cultural space in war-making or, indeed, bridge such spaces as this spread takes place. Instead, the emphasis can be on how the selective character of borrowing, both within, and between such spaces, reflected the limited validity of employing terms such as early modern, European or Western, as if they described an inherent reality or a widespread practice.

This criticism can be taken further by questioning the use of particular texts and contemporary or near-contemporary writers to describe the ideas dominant in particular conjunctures, and thus the military culture of the period. The works of Guibert, Clausewitz and Jomini have been particularly influential for this period. Aside from the problems faced in establishing the textual history of particular works and the details of their writers’ intentions, there is the issue of the typicality of what survives, its influence, and the questionable nature of the relationship between literature and practice. Yet, it is valuable to consider texts, in order to provide alternatives to the use solely of military practice in order to understand contemporary assumptions. As the discussion of military culture focuses on perception – of norms, problems, opportunities, options, methods and success – this, however, poses more serious analytical problems than those of establishing the nature of battle, difficult as that is.

These points underline the looseness of the cultural description in military history, as well as the difficulty of employing the concept as either precise analytical term or methodology, but they do not undermine the value of the perspective. Instead, a synergy with the technological approach appears most attractive. Such a synergy would focus on issues such as the perception of improvement as well as processes of learning and norm-creation, both of which are important to the borrowing of ideas and practices. In this synergy, it will be necessary to be suggestive and descriptive, not assertive and prescriptive; but that is in accord with the nature of scholarship: history as question and questioning, not history as answer.

Similarly, strategic culture offers a possible synergy with political dimensions, as the pressures arising from international relations were important in the setting of goals and the tasking that helped determine doctrine and procurement and that drove strategy. In some cases, this process appeared clear. Joseph Spence, an Oxford professor who visited Turin in 1739–40, described ‘the general interest and aims of this state’ (the kingdom of Sardinia, which was based in Piedmont) as ‘to keep always prepared for war; to weigh the strength of the greater powers that may fall out; and to join with that power, by whom they may get most in Italy, and whose increase of power can prejudice them least.’¹⁰

More generally, however, even if long-term goals seemed clear, the means to realise them were less so. There has not been a systematic study of strategic culture in the period, and indeed work on strategy is often limited: instead, the focus tends to be operational and tactical, or the war-and-society approach. The absence of such a strategic study, for example for French policy in 1715–55, suggests not only a clear research need, but also a dimension that needs to be built into other perspectives. In particular, it is unclear how best to address the role of gloire, loosely translated as the pursuit of glory, in military objectives. An emphasis on gloire, which is frequently seen as having been particularly important in the late seventeenth century, appears to offer a non-rational account of policy, one in keeping with the dominant role of rulers and the prevalence of dynastic considerations, but this emphasis, role and prevalence were certainly rational as far as the political purpose, ethos and structure of states were concerned. The acquisition of gloire brought important prestige to rulers and, in particular, helped strengthen their relationship with the aristocracy. That it was pursued so actively by hard-headed monarchs such as Louis XIV of France (r. 1643–1715) suggests that they saw purpose as well as pleasure in gloire.¹¹ A stress on the cultural context and goals of decision- making therefore emphasises the extent to which decisions to go to war went way beyond the material calculations of circumstances and state interests, the things that have featured in most standard accounts. The so-called ‘new diplomatic history’, with its emphasis on the culture of international relations, offers an instructive parallel to work on strategic culture.

The search for gloire was more widely diffused socially in the late eighteenth century, as a concern with public politics became more important, most obviously in Britain, but also in states that lacked pow...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• PREFACE
• ABBREVIATIONS
• 1: INTRODUCTION
• 2: CONFLICT BETWEEN WESTERNERS AND NON-WESTERNERS
• 3: THE NATURE OF CONFLICT
• 4: WARFARE, 1660–88
• 5: WARFARE, 1689–1721
• 6: WARFARE, 1722–55
• 7: WARFARE, 1756–74
• 8: WARFARE, 1775–91
• 9: WARFARE IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY AND NAPOLEONIC ERA, 1792–1815
• 10: NAVAL POWER
• 11: SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONTEXTS
• 12: CONCLUSIONS
• NOTES
• SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY