Endless dynastic conflicts throughout Europe, aggravated by growing religious divisions and reinforced by the impact of firearms, led to an upheaval in military affairs within Europe. The still rather primitive European monarchies of the early 16th century were forced to take into account innovations, and this led to changes in the system of government. The armies of the late 15th century still consisted primarily of archers (capable of firing up to ten arrows in a minute with a chance of an accurate hit at a distance of up to 200 yards - 182.4 meters), cavalry and spearmen. Sometimes this set was supplemented by several pieces of artillery. The development of the latter led to serious changes in the means of defense - the walls of the fortresses became lower and thicker, and they began to build bastions and install artillery. Along the perimeter, the defensive structures became longer. The cost of construction increased significantly, but the new defense systems were effective, and the capture of cities became very difficult even with long sieges, digging underground passages and the presence of numerous armies. Therefore, it was extremely rare that any of the many battles became decisive. The first type of infantry firearm in Europe was the arquebus, developed at the beginning of the 16th century - it took several minutes to reload, and the distance of an accurate hit was half that of archers, but it was effective because it did not require long training of soldiers in shooting . The revolution began only after the development of the musket in the 1550s (it was first used by Spanish soldiers in Italy). It could pierce steel armor at a distance of a hundred yards (91.4 m), and ancient weapons such as the broadsword, halberd and crossbow, which had been of little use over the previous decades, finally disappeared (even the British abandoned their traditional war bows in the 1560s). The pikemen were much less effective, but were retained to protect the musketeers as their rate of fire was slow. A solution to the problem was found in the 1590s, when they came up with a method of volley firing, lining up musketeers in long rows. However, this required training, training and discipline, and the coherence of the actions of different units. By the 1620s, the Swedish army could field six ranks of musketeers, so well trained that they could maintain a continuous fire. Rifled guns already existed, but their rate of fire was even lower and they were used only for sniping. By the beginning of the 17th century, the first examples of field artillery appeared - the Swedes used up to eighty guns in the 1630s.
As a result of these technical innovations, the size of European armies increased rapidly. By the end of the 15th century, the armies of Charles VIII in Italy and his Spanish opponents numbered no more than 20,000 men and were dwarfed by the great armies of the Song dynasty in China six hundred years earlier. Over the course of a century, the Spanish army grew approximately tenfold, to 200,000 men, and by the 1630s an army of 150,000 men was considered normal for any large state. By the end of the 17th century, the French army numbered about 400,000 people, and the decline of the Spanish power was reflected in the fact that the government could maintain an army of no more than 50,000 people. Even mid-level countries, such as Holland and Sweden, maintained armies of 100,000 men or more by the end of the 17th century. At first, technological innovations affected the situation in the main conflict areas - Italy, France, Spain and the Netherlands. England, unthreatened by invasion, did not build modern fortifications and maintained a much smaller army; In some battles during the civil war of the 1640s, such as Nesby, no field artillery was used at all.
Significant changes also occurred in naval affairs, since in the two centuries after 1450 they learned to equip sailing ships with cannons. By the beginning of the 16th century, firearms in the navy were represented by muzzle-loading bronze cannons that fired iron cannonballs weighing sixty pounds (27.24 kg). By the end of the century, they learned how to build galleons, and the Dutch, at the beginning of the 17th century, were the first to build a fleet suitable for long-term voyages in the oceans; it was intended to attack the Spaniards. It included the first frigates with a displacement of 300 tons, equipped with 40 cannons each - by the middle of the 17th century the Dutch had 157 warships. By the end of the 17th century, the navies of the major European powers were capable of conducting operations in the Caribbean, Indian and Pacific Oceans, and attacking each other thousands of miles from their bases. (More advanced ships were built in Asia. In the 1590s, the Koreans created the "turtle ship", an early version of an ironclad ship, about 100 feet (30.5 m) long, covered with hexagonal metal plates to prevent boarding or penetration of the sides. The Turtle had twelve cannon ports on each side and 22 hatches for small firearms and flamethrowers, which were used to repel the Japanese during the invasion of the 1590s).
These huge armies and fleets needed serious support. In the 1440s, French artillery used 20,000 pounds (about 8 tons) of gunpowder per year; two hundred years later she needed 500,000 pounds (about 200 tons). Weapons for the infantry had to be made in large workshops, and the production of iron and metal products had to be increased. Arsenals and shipyards were built. People had to be hired through conscription and they had to be paid in one form or another. Military expenses began to “eat up” almost the entire income of states - for example, in the rich Ottoman Empire, almost two-thirds of government income was spent on the army and navy. Even countries such as England, which avoided involvement in the major European wars, could find themselves on the brink of bankruptcy. The war with Scotland and France (lasting intermittently from 1542 to 1550) cost about £450,000. per year, despite the fact that the state income was only 200,000 f.st. in year. Financing of the war was provided by the sale of monastic lands confiscated by Henry VIII (two thirds of them were sold by 1547), increased taxes, withdrawal of money under the guise of voluntary loans, confiscation of private property; and still the national debt reached 500,000 pounds. Art. In Spain, which was forced to pay for the political demarches of the Habsburgs, the situation was even more deplorable. When Philip II came to the throne in 1556, he found that all the state's income for the next five years had already been spent on paying off the principal loans and interest. The Spanish monarchy went bankrupt; the same thing was repeated in 1575, 1596, 1607, 1627, 1647 and 1653. Money lent to monarchs was essentially simply confiscated - the kings always had the opportunity to get more money by refusing to pay interest on loans already issued until new ones were given.
Most countries lacked bureaucratic structures to command and maintain large armies. Recruiting soldiers also created many difficulties. As a rule, those who had no other alternative to direct death from starvation joined the army. In many places, administrators were given orders to send a certain number of criminals to the army. Therefore, the armies were a heterogeneous collection of undisciplined rabble, and the composition of the units was constantly changing. The formations did not disintegrate mainly due to the fear of losing their share of the spoils. Desertion rates were high; On average, armies lost almost a quarter of their strength each year to disease, desertion, and military casualties. It could be worse: the strength of the Spanish army in Flanders fell from 60,000 in June 1576 to 11,000 in November. Between 1572 and 1609, the Spanish army in the Netherlands mutinied no less than forty-five times. Unable to organize their own armies, by the beginning of the 17th century, governments began to entrust this to contracted specialists - during the period of maximum active warfare in European territories in the 1630s, more than 400 such assistants were employed. Some of them, such as Wallenstein, supported entire armies on behalf of the emperor and could greatly enrich themselves if the campaign was successful. Only in Sweden under Gustav Adolf there was a conscription system, but this led to dire consequences in the country. Bygde, one of the parishes in Sweden, was obliged to supply 230 men for the army within two decades after 1620. Of these, only fifteen survived, and five of those who returned home were crippled - the male population of the parish was reduced by half. The soldiers were paid very meager salaries, and the supply of numerous troops was difficult due to the disgusting state of European communications. A garrison of 3,000 people located in a town could be more numerous than the inhabitants of the city itself, and an army of 30,000 people exceeded the population of most cities in Europe. The problems were further aggravated by the need to provide fodder for the horses, and besides, the army was followed by a huge number of “convoys.” In 1646, there were 960 soldiers in two Bavarian regiments, but they were accompanied by 416 women with children and 310 servants. Provisions were supplied to the armies in the form of “protection fees” by the villages through which they passed (quickly realizing that this was much more effective than simple robbery). In the areas of the most intense fighting, villagers had to buy off both rival armies and put up with the threat of diseases spread by the troops. Residents of areas adjacent to the main roads suffered as armies marched back and forth. The Ottoman army had clearly established supply systems and used certain main routes when passing through Anatolia. But during the 1579 campaign against the Safavids, she had to choose new routes of movement, since all the villages along the previous route were abandoned and abandoned.
The transition from a medieval army to a professional army of the New Age required not only the invention and widespread introduction of firearms. Along the way, the rulers had to change the very principles of formation and supply of troops, and at the same time form a new type of state - a military-fiscal one. Historian Artem Efimov, host of the telegram channel “Piastry!”, talks about this in more detail. .
French Guards Infantry Regiment: Sergeant, Pikeman, Musketeer, 1630, drawing from 1830
Wikimedia Commons/Gustvave David
The “Military Revolution” is, in a nutshell, the transition from an army with spears to an army with muskets. Firearms appeared in Europe back in the 14th century, but for a long time they were purely auxiliary: bulky cannons and arquebuses (squeakers) were ineffective on their own. Only at the end of the 16th century in the Netherlands, which fought for independence from Spain, light muskets appeared, and the stadtholder Moritz of Orange developed effective tactics for their use. Less than three decades later, this technology and tactics were borrowed from the Dutch and improved by the Swedes, and this largely contributed to the army of King Gustavus II Adolf's reputation as invincible in the Thirty Years' War. Then this innovation began to spread everywhere.
What does money have to do with it? Be patient, it will become clearer now.
Medieval armies were recruited according to the principle of militia: the king called his vassals to arms, they recruited a detachment from their peasants, and from these detachments an army was formed. The armament and supply of each detachment was the concern of the one who formed this detachment. At the end of the war, everyone went home and the soldiers became peasants again.
The new army didn't work like that. For a square of musketeers to be effective in battle, discipline, drill training, shooting training, and generally remarkable training were required. The army had to become professional, regular: the soldier had to remain a soldier in peacetime. Therefore, the state had to provide its maintenance. In addition, the weapons and equipment of such an army required a real military-industrial complex: no village blacksmith could make muskets for an entire regiment; it needed the metallurgical industry, manufactories, and so on. All this required the concentration of resources and power, that is, the centralization of the state. Add to this the decline in the military importance of the aristocratic militia (knighthood), the uselessness of castles and armor against firearms - and you get a general idea of the social, political, economic and cultural significance of the "military revolution".
The equipment and allowances of the new army could theoretically be purely natural. The state establishes a military industry, cloth and leather factories (to sew uniforms and make boots), and also collects taxes from the peasants in bread, meat, and the like and distributes these products throughout the army. In fact, this is exactly how medieval feudal lords equipped and supplied their troops. But this is the case when size matters: keeping a hundred people and ten thousand on a subsistence basis are logistically and organizationally incomparable tasks, even if all the resources are sufficient.
It is much easier to keep the army on payroll. And the market will take care of the rest: the merchants themselves will buy bread, meat, beer and other products from the peasants, bring it all to the barracks, and the soldiers themselves will decide what to spend their salaries on. (This is, in particular, what Bertolt Brecht’s play “Mother Courage and Her Children” tells about.)
And private industry is more efficient - it is more profitable to purchase weapons from private factories than to maintain state-owned ones.
Accordingly, the treasury's need for money is growing. Taxes in kind are successively replaced by monetary ones. On the other hand, due to demand from soldiers, the commercialization of the economy is increasing. This is an additional factor in the acceleration of monetary circulation, along with population growth and urbanization in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Moreover, there were many wars during this period, and a countless number of soldiers were deployed throughout Europe.
As a result, the “military revolution” developed a new type of state - the so-called military-fiscal state ( fiscal military state), which has two main inextricably linked functions: collecting taxes and maintaining the army with this money. It was the military-fiscal state that Peter I built in Russia. Hence his famous statement (in the first instructions to the Senate, 1711): “Money is the artery of war.”
(At another time, in another place and on another occasion, Peter wrote that “the peasants are the artery of the state.” In his mouth, the “artery” is the “bloodstream,” something without which everything else does not work, as well as “the main and most important resource".)
Observer - Observer 2001 № 10
REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS
V.SLIPCHENKO,
Doctor of Military Sciences, Professor
In military and political journalism one can find the very often used concept of “revolution in military affairs.” Since there is no strictly scientific definition of this category, its interpretation is usually associated with the appearance of almost any new type of weapon: an assault rifle, a tank, an airplane, a ship project, a space-based sensor, etc. But in fact, we cannot talk about any kind of revolution here, since not every new weapon revolutionizes military affairs.
A revolution presupposes a radical revolution, a sharp, spasmodic transition from one qualitative state to another. The appearance of even the latest weapons and military equipment very rarely led to a radical change in the forms and methods of armed struggle and warfare in general. At best, a new weapon could lead to a change in tactics or, very rarely, operational art. In this article, this concept of “revolution in military affairs”, which is very important for science and practice, is considered for the first time from a strict position changes in war in general.
1. First revolution in military affairs occurred when, instead of stones and sticks, warriors began to use specially made spears, swords, bows, arrows, and armor for military confrontation. For three and a half thousand years out of the total five thousand years of the existence of civilization on our planet, there were contact wars first generation in the form of hand-to-hand combat using edged weapons. Of course, over this long period of time, the weapons themselves changed many times: swords, chain mail, and helmets were made from more durable materials, but numerous wars did not change the quality of the weapons and continued to be fought using first-generation methods.
2. Only in the XII-XIII centuries. the first generation of wars gave way to wars second generation. Second revolution in military affairs was associated with the invention gunpowder, and with him - firearms: rifles, pistols, cannons. There was a sharp, radical transition from one war to another. The wars of the second generation were also contact wars, but they were fought completely differently than in the first generation. The enemy could be defeated at some distance. Second generation wars lasted about 500 years.
3. About 200 years ago, scientific and technological progress contributed to the invention rifled weapons. Weapons have become more accurate when hitting targets, longer-range, multi-charged and of different calibers. This led to another third revolution in military affairs and the emergence of contact wars third generation, which acquired a trench character, operational scale and required a large number of manpower wielding these weapons.
4. More than 100 years ago another thing happened again fourth revolution in military affairs. She was associated with the invention automatic weapons, which began to be installed on tanks, airplanes, and ships. Contact wars of the fourth generation acquired a strategic dimension, and their conduct also required a lot of manpower, weapons and military equipment. Fourth generation wars continue to this day.
5. In 1945 there was fifth revolution in military affairs. It led to the emergence nuclear weapons, and with it the possibility of non-contact nuclear missile warfare fifth generation. Now a number of nuclear countries are in constant high readiness for such a war. However, there is hope that nuclear weapons will not be used in future wars, since no goals can be achieved with their help.
6. In the last decade of the last century, another sixth revolution in military affairs. It is associated with the appearance precision weapons, and with it non-contact wars absolutely new sixth generation. Non-contact wars are characterized by the fact that the attacking side, with the help of long-term massive strikes, can deprive the economy of any enemy, in any region of our planet. The ability to kill others with impunity, but not die ourselves, will certainly become a powerful destabilizing factor in the world.
Thus, a revolution in military affairs is such fundamental and qualitative changes occurring under the influence of scientific and technological progress in the means of armed struggle, which radically change the construction and training of the armed forces, methods of conducting military operations and war in general.
Starting from the fourth generation, the revolution in military affairs manifests itself primarily through the strategy of warfare as the main component of the art of war. The first three generations of warfare manifested themselves primarily through tactics and the operational art of warfare.
Paradoxical as it may seem, strategy is actually needed to correct political mistakes and blunders, to pay for the sins of politicians. If in modern wars the strategy of warfare does not change, but only operational art or tactics change, then it cannot be considered that fundamental changes have occurred and a revolution has taken place in military affairs. Most likely, we are talking only about the results of scientific and technological progress or the military-technical revolution.
Thus, the use of jet aircraft for the first time in the world in the Korean War 50 years ago led to a change in the form of the struggle for air supremacy, but this did not change the strategy of the war as a whole. In the Vietnam War, combat helicopters were used in large numbers for the first time, which led to a change in combined arms combat - it acquired an air-land character, but again the nature of this war did not change, and both of these wars did not go beyond the fourth generation. In the 80s of the last century, experimental launches of high-precision weapons were carried out in wars in the Middle East, but here the nature of the war did not change either.
But the war in Yugoslavia in 1999 changed the nature of the war as a whole. It was carried out mainly in a non-contact manner, which quite convincingly indicates the beginning of the sixth revolution in military affairs in the United States, although there are those who, for various reasons, would not like to notice this.
Now the world is undergoing a continuous process of military-technical revolutionary transformations in military affairs, and despite the fact that in a number of countries it is very significant, its results have not yet been extended to everyone, even from the most developed countries, to the area of strategy. This will take at least 10 years. This means that there are currently no countries fully prepared for the wars of the next, sixth generation.
There are no funds, and there will not be for a very long time, to prepare the armed forces of many economically weak nuclear and non-nuclear countries for wars of the new generation. At the beginning of the 21st century. states will not be fully capable of conducting armed struggle in the forms and methods of sixth generation wars. And it is absolutely clear that all measures taken in nuclear countries lagging behind in military development will most likely only be associated with an increase in the rate on nuclear weapons. Here we should expect further modernization of nuclear missile weapons, as well as a tightening in military doctrines of the provision on abandoning the principles of non-first use of nuclear weapons.
The next sixth revolution in military affairs is closely connected with the further exploration of military space, computerization, the use of ultra-high-speed circuit switches, artificial intelligence, lasers, microwaves, and elementary particles. Advanced technologies are already making it possible to create practically new, unparalleled space-based weapons, which will help change the nature of armed struggle and wars in general. Not only may there be an expansion in the number of countries using military space, but prohibitive actions are also expected on the part of some countries - leaders in space. Military operations in space are very likely with the goal of unhindered creation of large-scale space infrastructure to ensure the conduct of non-contact wars.
There is a danger here that can be associated with the fact that the advantages previously achieved at the quantitative level of the balance of forces and means created for the past fourth and fifth generations of wars, taking into account all the restrictions and reductions in troops and weapons, can be quickly lost. This will immediately expose the helplessness of states that are a generation behind in wars and will immediately destabilize the international and strategic situation.
The ability of countries prepared for the new sixth generation of wars to launch sudden, massive, long-term, high-precision strategic strikes at any range and against any enemy on our planet reduces the importance of the factor of forward deployment and eliminates the need for the constant presence of military forces. But at the same time, the difficulties of distinguishing and identifying nuclear and conventional weapons systems and delivery systems at targets will increase significantly, which will undoubtedly increase the risk of the authorized use of nuclear weapons.
The sixth revolution in military affairs is dangerous, first of all, because the world community on our planet will inevitably be split into those who are separated from the rest by a generation of wars and those who remain in the past fourth and fifth generations. We should expect great resistance from nuclear-armed countries, which are a generation behind the war in reducing and eliminating nuclear weapons. There may be a desire of non-nuclear countries to become nuclear.
Now all international treaty agreements are concluded around conventional weapons of the fourth generation of wars and nuclear weapons of the fifth generation of wars. But there are absolutely no agreements related to precision weapons and non-contact methods of using them. This weapon can destroy the entire existing treaty base. The UN should already be developing individual and joint early warning tools for a split in the world community for global control of all processes associated with the next revolution in military affairs. The time has come for a “revolution in disarmament.”
A unique edition that has no equal! The first domestic study of the Great Firearms Revolution of the 15th–17th centuries, which revolutionized not only military affairs, but also the entire history of mankind. With the spread of firearms, the former shock tactics (when the infantry pike dominated the battlefield and the main branch of the army were pikemen) were replaced by “fire combat,” the remote defeat of the enemy by massive fire from musketeers and artillery, so, in blood and gunpowder smoke, The Middle Ages were dying and the New Time was born.
The military revolution, fraught with radical social transformations, proceeded at different speeds in Western Europe, in Rus', in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire - these differences largely explain the rise of the West and the decline of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, and the belated refusal of Rus' from the “Ottoman "The military model in favor of the Western European tradition largely predetermined the special path of development of Russian civilization.
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If you look back, it is easy to notice that in the last quarter of the 16th century. In matters of military development, the country was ahead of everyone, overtaking all other European states in economic development in the same way as the Italians did at the beginning of the 15th century. P. Chaunu, in the elegant manner characteristic of the French historical school, noted that from the end of the 15th century. “...the center of gravity of Europe subtly moved along the north-south axis, slightly inclined to the west...”, and that the 16th century. became the last time when the Mediterranean dominated Europe. “Traditional history is subject to the same chronology as global history, moving from the inland sea to the plankton-rich cold seas of the north... Classical Europe is also cold Europe, under the stern eye of the formidable god of the Puritans and the hidden god of the Jansenists. Europe that left the Mediterranean..." 149. And the Netherlands was one of the first, if not the first, to join this process of gradual movement of the economic, political and cultural center of Europe to the north. Finding themselves under Habsburg rule at the end of the 15th century, the countries of what is now the Benelux, already distinguished by a high level of economic development and included in the imperial economy, took advantage of the opportunity presented to them.
By the middle of the 16th century. this region, which had neither colonies nor rich natural resources, and was not distinguished by its population, became perhaps the main economic and financial center of Northern and Central Europe. The size of the economic potential of the Netherlands can be judged by the following figures: by the end of his reign, Charles V extracted 2 million guilders (analogous to a ducat) per year from the “Lowlands” only as direct taxes, and the same amount was spent on the development of military infrastructure, then how Spain itself brought only 0.6 million ducats to the imperial treasury 150. And this despite the fact that in 1500 the population of Spain was about 8 million people, and the Netherlands - 1.9 million people. 151. According to the estimates of the Duke of Alba, who was sent by the governor to the Netherlands, in 1570 the industrial and craft potential of the Netherlands amounted to 50 million guilders, and the same amount was in the agricultural sector. The volume of domestic trade at the same time fluctuated between 17 and 28 million guilders, not to mention the size of import-export operations - in the middle of the 16th century. they amounted to about 36–38 million guilders 152. So the introduction of the 10% turnover tax proposed by Alba (the infamous alcabals) was supposed to bring at least 5 million guilders annually to the Spanish treasury - more than gold and silver were imported from America at that time. And this despite the fact that, let us emphasize this again, there were no gold or silver mines in the Netherlands, and all these successes were achieved through the exclusive development of banking, trade, industry and the agricultural sector, i.e. through the use predominantly internal resources. Obviously, this was the secret of the fact that the small Netherlands rebelled against the great Spanish Empire and, after an 80-year struggle, managed to gain the upper hand, gaining independence (though not entirely, but only partially). The highly developed economy of the Netherlands at that time ensured not only the creation, but also the maintenance throughout the war with Spain of a powerful army and navy, the strength of which was sufficient to force the Spanish crown in 1648 to abandon its intention to restore its power over Holland - the “Seven Provinces” "
The Swedish king Gustav II Adolf tried, and not without success, to borrow the Dutch experience. And again Europe was amazed - little Sweden, which no one took seriously for a long time, turned out to be capable of inflicting a number of serious blows on the Roman Empire and played one of the leading roles in the Thirty Years' War. This war, even more than the wars of the 16th century, was a war primarily of monetary resources, of “golden soldiers” 153. The measures taken by Gustav Adolf to develop the Swedish economy allowed him to increase the income of the Swedish crown from 600 thousand thalers in 1613 to 3.189 million thalers in 1632, and create a number of large manufactories that provided his army with high-quality weapons and equipment. Together with monetary subsidies from France (640 thousand thalers annually in the early 30s of the 17th century) and a “bread” subsidy from Russia (by reselling bread bought cheaply in Russia on the Amsterdam trading exchange, Gustav at the same time had the same number of thalers annually, and in 1631 - even 1.2 million thalers 154) this allowed the “lion of the north” to carry out a successful military reform, deploy a powerful army and intervene in the Thirty Years' War, turning its tide in favor of the anti-Habsburg coalition. It must be borne in mind that Sweden was a small country in which people lived at the beginning of the 17th century. only 1.25 million inhabitants. Naturally, in order to play a more or less significant role in European politics, a large army was needed, and Sweden itself could not provide it. Therefore, contrary to generally accepted opinion, the army of Gustav Adolf consisted mainly of mercenaries - under Breitenfeld, there were only 20.2% of “natural” Swedes under the banner of the “northern lion”, and under Lutzen - 18%, and then the process of reducing the Swedish component in the army Sweden continued continuously throughout the Thirty Years' War 155.
The example of the Dutch and Swedes turned out to be contagious. He was approached by the minister of the French king Louis XIV, J.-B. Colbert, when the “Sun King” set him the task of finding means to implement an active foreign policy. And Colbert managed to cope with this problem. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that, for example, Louis XIV, who, unlike Philip II, did not have the richest overseas colonies, would have embarked on the path of foreign policy expansion and achieving French hegemony in Europe, if not for Colbert’s active work in developing French industry and trade. So, if in France in the 15th–16th centuries. About 50 manufactories arose, then thanks to the tireless work of Colbert in the 60s - early 80s. XVII century More than 300 of them were created, including 19 that produced weapons and 24 that produced ship gear and materials. Significantly, by 75–100% between 1664 and 1686. (according to various sources), the tonnage of the French merchant fleet increased 156. In any case, the increase in military spending, for example, from 21.8 million livres in 1662 to 46 million livres in 1671 and to more than 100 million livres in 1679 would have been impossible without Colbert’s consistent implementation policies of aggressive, militant protectionism, mercantilism and promotion of the development of the French economy 157. In a certain sense, the French economy modernized by Colbert fueled the war, and a quick, victorious war created favorable conditions for economic development (namely a quick and victorious war, otherwise the country would be on the brink of economic and financial collapse. – P.V.).
The economic policy proposed by Colbert and closely related political and administrative reforms, which consisted in further strengthening royal power through the completion of the process of centralization of power, concentrating its entirety (at least formally, de jure) in the hands of the king and his officials at the end of the 17th century - the beginning of XVIII century, to one degree or another, were accepted by the leading European powers. " L'etat c'est moi“ (“The State is me!”) - this famous phrase, attributed to the “Sun King” Louis XIV and which almost all monarchs of the Modern Age (with rare exceptions) could subscribe to, clearly demonstrates the expansion of the limits of royal power and power.
Thus, summing up in the 2nd half of the 17th century. a more or less solid political, economic and financial foundation for military structures contributed not only to the preservation of the trend towards the growth of armies that had clearly emerged in the previous period. Moreover, growth rates have seriously changed towards their increase. This is clearly evidenced by the data in the following table 158:
Table 3
Changes in the size of a number of Western European armies in the last quarter of the 15th - late 16th centuries.
This growth is even more noticeable if we look at the dynamics of the development of the armed forces of individual states. Perhaps the most striking example will be France, which, after the end of the era of the Hundred Years War and the completion of the overall process of forming a single state, was actively involved in the struggle for hegemony in Europe with the Habsburgs. This required the French crown to fully increase its military potential. The numerical growth of the French army in the late Middle Ages - early modern period is reflected in table 1 159.
Table 3 shows that while the general trend of growth in the number of soldiers under the royal banners continued, from time to time there was a reduction, and sometimes quite significant. This reduction can be demonstrated by the example of the French royal army during the religious wars of the 2nd half of the 16th century. If at the end of 1562 the royal army consisted of 288 companies of infantry and cavalry, which together with the artillery servants amounted to almost 48.5 thousand people, then by the beginning of 1568 it had grown to 451 companies and 72.2 thousand soldiers. After this, a rapid decline began, and at the end of 1575, the 223 companies of the royal army numbered only 29.2 thousand soldiers 160. Spain in this regard is even more indicative - after the maximum tension in the Thirty Years' War, a period of long decline began, as a result of which Spain “fell out” of the ranks of the great powers. It is not difficult to notice that the reduction of armies occurred mainly during periods of relative foreign policy calm or internal crisis, experienced, for example, by Spain or France. It was quite natural to reduce the army during periods of peace. In the same France, after the end of the Thirty Years' War, the size of the army was reduced from the list of 200 thousand soldiers by the beginning of the 60s. XVII century up to 72 thousand. After the war with Holland in 1672–1678. it grew to almost 280 thousand, immediately after the conclusion of peace there was a new reduction by more than a third, to 165 thousand. However, with all these fluctuations in the last quarter of the 17th century and throughout most of the 18th century. the strength of the French army never fell below 130–140 thousand soldiers and officers even in peacetime, 161 that is, almost as much as Philip II had at his disposal at the peak of his power.
Thus, starting from the middle of the 17th century. the number of European armies rose sharply. This almost immediately affected the number of troops clashing on the battlefields, as shown in the following table 162:
Table 4
The number of armies in the battles of the 17th – early 18th centuries.
As a result, if in 1609 there were about 300 thousand soldiers under arms in the armies of the countries of Central and Western Europe, then 100 years later, at the final stage of the War of the Spanish Succession, there were already 860 thousand 163 . A significant increase in the number of armies, especially in the second half of the century, was associated with another extremely important feature of the military revolution - the transition from temporary contract armies to permanent armies, taken entirely for the maintenance of the royal treasury and basically not disbanded even in peacetime. time.
This transition was facilitated by a number of both objective and subjective circumstances. The economic component has already been mentioned above - the increase in financial and economic potential made it possible to abandon the previous practice of disbanding the army after the end of a campaign or war. Moreover, in the 16th century. wars became a “good” tradition and practically did not stop. Thus, France in 1495–1559. fought for 50 years, from 1560–1610. – 33 years, in 1611–1660 – 41 years, and in 1661–1715. - 36 years. Between 1480 and 1700 Spain participated in 36 wars, the Roman Empire in 25, after 1610. Sweden and the Empire fought every 2 out of 3 years, and Spain 3 out of 4 164 . As a result, recruited once, mercenary armies de facto turned into more or less permanent ones. At the same time, as noted by S.E. Alexandrov, “...short-term contract mercenary work of the late 15th – mid-17th centuries. acted as an ersatz standing army; within its framework, mechanisms were worked out, on the basis of which later, first permanent mercenary troops, and then the armies of modern times were formed” 165.
The transition to standing armies had both negative and positive consequences. The preservation of significant military contingents in royal service in peacetime made it possible to avoid the repetition of the horrors of war in peacetime. Yes, mercenary soldiers, recruited by experienced “entrepreneurs,” were true professionals, masters of their craft and, most importantly, always ready for battle. J. Lynn gives an example typical of that time: the French king Francis I was preparing in 1544 to repel the invasion of the British from the north and the Spaniards from the south, he entered into an agreement with the Swiss Confederation to supply him with 16 thousand infantry. The agreement was signed in July, and already at the end of August 16 thousand Swiss, fully ready for battle, had already concentrated in the camp near Chalons 166.
However, the dissolution of such armies in the “off-season”, when their services were not needed, inevitably entailed an aggravation of social tension. Mercenaries, as Machiavelli wrote, knew nothing else but to fight, and they had no inclination to engage in peaceful labor. Having weapons in their hands, they turned into a serious danger to local authorities and the population. By engaging in robberies, murders and violence, the soldiers, who were temporarily left out of work, undermined the order, tranquility and inner peace that had been so laboriously established by the authorities. I already had a sad experience of this kind. A similar situation, for example, developed in France at the turn of the 50s – 60s. XIV century, and then in the early 40s. the next century, when there was a pause in hostilities between the French and English kings and numerous mercenaries, left without work, took up robberies and robberies 167. Something similar happened again fifteen hundred years later, when, after the end of the Italian Wars, France was plunged into the abyss of religious wars. As J. Wood noted, it was the inability to maintain a strong, numerous army not only in war, but also in peacetime that determined the extremely long and destructive nature of the French religious wars of the late 16th century. 168.
The creation of a standing army, which was on full government pay, made it possible to remove another serious danger. The mercenaries, for whom war was a craft, despite all the measures taken, remained faithful to their word and their employer only as long as they received money or, in extreme cases, hoped to receive it. Otherwise, their loyalty was more than doubtful, and no one could guarantee that the soldiers who did not receive the promised salary or booty would not rebel and take what was due to them by force 169 . The example of the Spanish Army of Flanders is perhaps the most illustrative in this regard. Despite the fact that the Spanish treasury spent huge amounts of money on its maintenance, constant delays in paying salaries led to the fact that the army melted like spring snow from desertion and was constantly shaken by riots and mutinies of soldiers. Thus, in November 1576, the Spanish army in the Netherlands actually numbered about 8 thousand soldiers instead of the registered 60 thousand. Sometimes desertion reached enormous proportions - during the siege of the Dutch fortress Bergen op Zoom from July to October 1622, the size of the siege Spanish army decreased from 20.6 thousand to 13.2 thousand soldiers - mainly due to desertion 170. As for the soldier's mutinies, between 1572 and 1576. there were 5 of them, and between 1589 and 1607. – 37 (each involving at least 100 soldiers). The rebellion of 1576 was especially terrible, when mercenaries, out of control of their commanders, devastated the southern Netherlands and staged a pogrom in Antwerp, where up to 8 thousand civilians were killed 171.
The rebellion of 1576 had fatal consequences for Spanish rule in the Netherlands - from that moment on, all attempts to restore order in the rebel provinces through negotiations and the search for some kind of compromise became impossible due to the growth of anti-Spanish sentiment. The mercenary army, which by that time had long become, in the words of J. Parker, “a state within a state with its own rhythms of birth and death, an organism with its own characteristics and motivations...” 172, imperiously intervened in the calculations of politicians and overturned them. But it couldn’t be otherwise - the multinational “gangs” of mercenaries were united and united by only one thing - a sense of common interests, the notorious esprit de corps, attachment to their captains and, only last of all, loyalty to the oath and religion 173.
The transition from armies recruited on a contract basis for a time to permanent armies, entirely supported by the crown, made it possible to avoid all these dangers. Such an army could no longer be (at least theoretically) a toy in the hands of ambitious “entrepreneurs” capable of creating serious problems for their employers. It did not pose a serious threat to the internal stability of the state and society - the authorities tried, and not without success, on the one hand, to isolate the army from society, and on the other hand, to keep it ready in case of unforeseen internal political complications to suppress unrest and rebellion. Such an army truly became an obedient instrument in the hands of the crown, a genuine " ultima ratio regis", since many private "entrepreneurs" were replaced by one, "general", in the person of the monarch, who acted simultaneously as both a "locator" and a "conductor". Such an army was always “at hand”, and it did not require significant time to mobilize it and bring it into combat readiness - even from a purely military point of view, it was more convenient and profitable than the previous contract army.
However, in order for this army to be in a state of combat readiness and not pose a threat to the king’s subjects, it was necessary to solve the extremely important and complex task of providing it with weapons, equipment, provisions and fodder. It was easier in this regard with the previous contract army, if only because the contract army supplied itself to a large extent with weapons and ammunition 174 . The mercenary army obtained food and fodder itself - at best, purchasing it from the local population, and more often - simply by looting. It is no coincidence that the Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, in his instructions to Albrecht Wallenstein in 1625, pointed out the need to maintain strict discipline in the troops, aimed, among other things, at preventing robberies and looting by soldiers, as a result of which the country turned into a desert 175. And this was not accidental - Germany, after many years of peace and tranquility, for the first time encountered the morals of hired soldiers, who equally robbed both Catholics and Protestants, without making any distinction between the two. For example, the Protestant general Count E. Mansfeld to maintain his troops in the early 20s. XVII century with indemnities (and looting) he devastated the territory of both the Catholic (after the defeat of the Protestants in 1620 at White Mountain) Czech Republic and the Calvinist Palatinate.
However, what was suitable for relatively small contract armies could not be applied to new, significantly increased armies, which the crown took on for full government support. At the same time, she had to solve an extremely difficult problem - after all, maintaining the discipline and combat effectiveness of the troops directly depended on their supply and the timely issuance of cash and other salaries. To imagine the size of the problem, it is enough to cite the following figures: an army of 60 thousand soldiers and officers consumed 45 tons of bread, more than 40 thousand gallons of beer, 2.3 thousand cows daily - the daily norm for issuing provisions per soldier was in the 16th–17th centuries about 1 kg of bread, 0.5 kg of meat, 2 liters of beer; 20 thousand horses, combat and transport, consumed 90 quintals of forage, and each horse required at least 6 gallons of water daily 176. In addition to salaries, provisions and fodder, the armies also needed a much larger quantity of all kinds of equipment and weapons than before. For example, just one shipment of ammunition sent in 1558 from Spain to the North African fortress of La Guletta included 200 quintals of lead, 150 quintals of arquebus wick, 100 quintals of fine-grained gunpowder, 1000 baskets for earth and 1000 shovels for a total amount of 4665 ducats excluding transportation costs. Artillery was extremely expensive to maintain. Thus, in 1554 alone, the Spanish treasury spent more than 40 thousand ducats per month on the maintenance of the artillery park in the Netherlands (50 guns and a convoy with 4,777 horses and 575 carts) 177 . 12 years later, the German military writer L. Fronsperger calculated that an artillery park of 130 guns, including 100 field guns, with all the servants, horses and carts would cost its owner 42,839 guilders per month 178 .
The former craft workshops could no longer supply the army, which had sharply increased in number, with the necessary weapons and equipment, and the state, which could not wait, began to actively intervene in the economy, promoting its development both through military orders and the creation of state-owned manufactories. The Spanish crown, which, due to the fact that it had to fight a long war, which went down in history as the “Eighty Years” war with the rebel Netherlands, was perhaps one of the first, if not the first, to think about this problem. In any case, over 20 years, from 1570 to 1591, the productivity of the main Spanish armory workshops in Gipuzkoa and Vizcaya increased by 50%, and they were able to produce annually 20 thousand arquebuses and 3 thousand muskets, not counting edged weapons . As an example, we can also cite France, where Colbert, during the years of his stay in power, founded only 10 metallurgical and metalworking manufactories and 19 manufacturing weapons, not counting those engaged in the production of cloth, linen, leather, stockings, etc., which also produced goods “ double”, as they would say now, appointment 179. Even the production of such a seemingly simple type of weapon as infantry pikes turned into a real industry, which required the organization of a complex, centrally managed economy 180. Domestic researcher V.I. Pavlov quite rightly noted in this regard that “... in European states of the era of the genesis of capitalism, the distribution system had a direct impact on production through military orders of the late feudal absolutist state. They entailed the creation of a fairly stable sphere of commissary consumption. Only absolutism creates a regular army with the same type of weapons and uniforms, which makes it possible to establish mass production of standard bladed weapons and firearms and ammunition of certain calibers. Thus, in place of the skilled gunsmiths, who each time followed the tastes of the masters of single combat, there came a capitalist manufactory, fulfilling mass orders from the commissariat. Accordingly, with the introduction of a uniform uniform for soldiers and officers, the army became a large consumer of standard fabrics and shoes. In this way, the sale of the products of capitalist manufactories was guaranteed. An important stimulator of technical progress in manufacturing production were orders from the navy...” 181. In the same France, during the era of Colbert, the navy grew so much that France became one of the three first naval powers. If in 1660 France had only 12 combat-ready ships (not counting the galleys of the Mediterranean squadron), then 11 years later 194 ships and frigates with a total tonnage of about 140 thousand tons sailed under the flag with the royal lilies. The ones founded by Colbert worked almost exclusively for the needs of the fleet. 24 manufactories that produced ship equipment and tar mills, not counting those manufactories that produced weapons 182.
There was another, let’s call it political, problem, which was impossible to resolve without refusing the services of the captains-“entrepreneurs”. As J. Lynn wrote, “... the army, recruited through contracts with the captains of mercenary “gangs” and local “grandees,” consisted of mercenaries who did not have any special feelings for the employer, and therefore she fought for him as long as he paid her service. Captains and “grandees” were always ready to turn their arms against their employer, and their soldiers were equally ready to fight for his interests and, without receiving payment, to rebel against him, engaging in robbery of what they contracted to defend...” 183. An example of this is the fate of the imperial military leader A. Wallenstein. Trying to conduct an independent political intrigue, he thereby aroused suspicions on the part of Emperor Ferdinand II, and, doubting the trustworthiness of his general, the emperor gave his consent to the elimination of the condottiere, who had become unreliable 184.
Thus, the needs of growing armies stimulated the development of the economy and especially industry and trade, and on the other hand, contributed to the gradual completion of the process of transformation of the monarchies of the Renaissance into the monarchies of the New Age, which were characterized by a strong central government with a developed bureaucratic apparatus, capable of establishing an uninterrupted system supplying the armed forces with everything they need. Spain was the first to take this path under Charles V and Philip II. Created in the 2nd half of the 16th century. The Spanish bureaucratic apparatus and commissaries performed, in the words of F. Braudel, a real feat, having managed, “... based on their large “distribution ports” - Seville, Cadiz (and later Lisbon), Malaga, Barcelona - to move galleys, fleets and regiments - tercios on all the seas and lands of Europe..." 185. The creation of such an apparatus, by the way, greatly contributed to the further acceleration of the growth in the number of standing armies, since now, unlike in previous times, the supply and management of sharply increased armies has become easier than the previous, relatively few!
Individuals, captains-"entrepreneurs" and states whose size and resources, as well as the structure of the state apparatus did not correspond to the new requirements, in the face of such rapidly growing military costs, were doomed to defeat and ultimately to extinction. “Only rich states were able to withstand the fabulous costs of wars of the new type,” F. Braudel rightly pointed out 186 . True, this process stretched out quite a lot over time, and only after the Thirty Years' War, on the fields of which armies recruited on a contract basis met for the last time, Europe changed, and changed in the most serious way. The German historian K. Beloch wrote in 1900 that in the 1st half of the 17th century. only a state whose population was at least 17 million people could claim the status of a “great power” 187. Despite all the conventions of this indicator, it has a certain meaning. Indeed, only three European states at this time reached this level of population and corresponding economic potential - Spain, the Roman Empire and France, and the future lay with such states. The time of city-republics like Florence, Venice or the Hanseatic cities was irrevocably passed, and even Holland and Britain could not yet be considered truly great powers, acting separately.
The new European monarchies of the 2nd half of the 17th century, born in the fire of conflicts of the 2nd half of the 16th - 1st half of the 17th centuries, with their striving for absolute royal power, a standing army and police, and an extensive bureaucratic apparatus, were much more stronger structures than their predecessors. This was manifested in their foreign policy, including that which was carried out “by other means” - sharply increased financial and material capabilities created the necessary conditions for military creativity and the implementation of the most daring tactical and strategic ideas and projects. Wars of the 2nd half of the 17th – early 18th centuries. became relatively shorter, more intense, without long pauses in the course of hostilities caused by the need to accumulate financial, material and other resources, and the warring parties were able to pursue much more decisive goals during military campaigns. This was reflected in domestic policy. The new “...European states monopolized the right to have armed forces not only in their European possessions, but also in the colonies, on land and at sea... The monopolization of violence was also part of the process of domestic “pacification” and the establishment of control over society...” noted J. Black 188.
In parallel with the creation of the necessary economic and financial base, the further “concentration” of power in the hands of the monarchy, which was an indispensable condition for making a qualitative breakthrough in the development of military affairs, European military theorists and practitioners worked hard to find a way out of the created tactical and strategic impasse. It cannot be said that they were in the 2nd half of the 16th century. did not realize the significance and seriousness of the problems they faced as firearms and tactics improved.
The changing conditions of the war inevitably led to a further decline in the importance of pikemen and gendarmes and an increase in the role of musketeers and arquebusiers. As G. Delbrück rightly noted, “...large columns armed with long pikes showed their full significance only in large battles. If it was not possible or the commander did not consider it desirable to achieve a decisive outcome in the battle and the war came down to mutual attrition and small enterprises, such as surprise raids, capture of castles, sieges, etc., then firearms turned out to be more necessary and suitable than long peak. Along with the use of riflemen, the field of activity of light reiters expanded..." 189. The progress of firearms further reduced the importance of pikemen. Indeed, in order for them not to be an easily vulnerable target, their columns began to gradually decrease in size. A small column of pikemen no longer had the necessary striking power, like the massive “squares” of the Swiss or Landsknechts of the early 16th century.
At the same time, without musketeers and arquebusiers, the pikemen sometimes became simply powerless against the enemy - at least the same pistol reiters, capable of devastating a square of pikemen without engaging them in hand-to-hand combat, fraught with large losses. The Duke of Guise, one of the leaders of the Catholic League during the religious wars in France in the 2nd half of the 16th century, uttered a very characteristic phrase in one of his conversations: “To defeat the Reiters, you need to have a decent detachment of good musketeers and arquebusiers... that’s the sauce , which kills their appetite..." 190. As a result, in the infantry, musketeers and arquebusiers, and in the cavalry, reiters came to the fore. If earlier, as noted above, they played a supporting role in relation to the pikemen and gendarmes, now more and more often they acted on the battlefield either independently, or reinforced by the same pikemen. As a result, the ratio of riflemen and pikemen began to change, and not in favor of the latter, as evidenced by the data in the following table.
Table 5
Change in the ratio (in%) of the number of infantry armed with different types of weapons in Western European armies of the 16th century. 191
Thus, in the 2nd half of the 16th century. The realization that musketeers and arquebusiers should play a more significant and independent role on the battlefield is gradually taking hold in the minds of Western European military theorists and practitioners. The main obstacle to the transformation of musketeers into a completely independent branch of infantry remained the relative imperfection of matchlock arquebuses and muskets, primarily the slowness of loading and the associated low rate of fire and, in particular, low accuracy. At short distances, the arquebus gave an average of 50% hits, and the musketeer - about 80%, but as the distance increased, shooting accuracy fell exponentially. The low rate of fire (at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries, loading a matchlock musket required 28 operations, which took at least a minute) also seriously limited the potential of infantry armed exclusively with hand-held firearms 192 . Under these conditions, the battle was won by the one who was able to bring more musketeers onto the battlefield and use the maximum number of them in one salvo. Once again, analogies with the past arise here. The secret of the success of English tactics during the Hundred Years War was, first of all, that English military leaders, for the first time in the history of medieval European military affairs, began to use archers en masse, putting thousands and thousands of archers on the battlefield. It is no coincidence that F. de Commines, having the opportunity to observe the actions of archers in battle, noted: “In my opinion, in battle archers are the decisive force, when there are a lot of them, when there are few of them, they are worth nothing(emphasis added. – P.V.)" 193.
European tacticians were faced with a number of tasks of paramount importance. Firstly, how to increase the efficiency of the riflemen’s fire and how to organize them in such a way as to enable as many of them as possible to participate in the salvo. The logical consequence was a reduction in numbers tercio to ensure its better controllability and maneuverability and reduce the depth of its combat formation. Secondly, in the new conditions, fire discipline acquired enormous importance, which could only be developed through long and thorough training of both soldiers and officers. Self-control, fire discipline, eye (the ability to correctly determine the salvo distance at which the enemy would suffer the greatest losses and be forced to abandon the continuation of the attack) became more and more important. The actual transition from temporary contract armies to permanent armies, which took place in person at the end of the 16th century, was supposed to facilitate the resolution of this problem.
Thus, the idea of a revolution in tactics through the replacement, relatively speaking, of a shock column of tactics with a linear defensive one was literally in the air. The pikemen were clearly losing their former dominance on the battlefield, and sooner or later someone had to make a truly revolutionary decision that would overturn all previous ideas about tactics - refuse to decide the outcome of the battle in close combat and give primacy to the distant defeat of the enemy. It was not the hand-to-hand combat of masses of infantry and cavalry that was supposed to bring victory, but the concentrated, massive fire of musketeers and artillery. The pairs of pikemen-gendarmes and musketeers-reiters, figuratively speaking, now had to switch roles.
The implementation of this idea in practice was only a matter of time, and very soon. Theoretically, the Spaniards should have been the first to make this transition. And, it seemed, by the end of the 16th century. they took this path. So, in 1570, Domenico Moro proposed reducing the number of pikemen to 1/3, and also adopting a battle formation in which musketeers and pikemen would line up on the battlefield as independent units 6 ranks deep(emphasis added. – P.V.). Essentially, the idea expressed by Moreau was revolutionary in nature. Tactics acquired a passive character instead of the previous active one. The former medieval deep columns-“battles” of pikemen, who broke through the enemy front with their ramming blows and the onslaught of a closely knit mass of people, were to be replaced by formations that had a pronounced defensive nature. The outcome of the battle would be decided not by hand-to-hand combat of fighters armed with melee weapons, as in the good old Middle Ages, but by the massive fire of musketeers and arquebusiers.
Having caught these trends, the Spanish military leaders, as noted above, by the end of the 16th century. reduced the number tercio from the initial 3 thousand soldiers to 1.5–1.8 thousand, or even less, while simultaneously increasing the proportion of riflemen in its composition. This inevitably led to a change in the combat formation itself. The square of pikemen decreased, and the “sleeves” made up of musketeers, on the contrary, grew in size, and in some cases the rear tercio no longer covered himself with arrows. The pike gradually turned from an offensive weapon into a defensive one. Who else but the Spaniards, with their resources and experience, could and should have taken the last, decisive step and carried out a revolution in tactics.
However, there is no prophet in his own country. Having reduced the number of the former massive and cumbersome, but too vulnerable pikemen during the Italian Wars and for the first time successfully used a large number of arquebusiers and musketeers on the battlefields, the Spanish generals were unable to complete the turn they had begun. Mesmerized by the successful actions of their excellent infantry, brought together in tercio, they practically until the middle of the 17th century. continued to adhere to the old tactics, which by that time were meeting the requirements of the time less and less. Ultimately, this conservatism, coupled with economic, financial and political problems, destroyed both the glory of Spanish weapons and the power of Spain.
The next approach to the tactical revolution was made by the French. During the fierce religious wars in the 2nd half of the 16th century. in France, elements of the new tactics were actively used by the Huguenots and Catholics (especially the former). J. Lynn, analyzing the development of military affairs in France at the end of the 16th century, during these wars, noted that Henry of Bourbon, the future king Henry IV, a talented military leader and practitioner, carried out a number of reforms in his army. Thus, at his request, the Huguenot cavalry refused to use “pure” caracole and, having lined up on the battlefield in 6 ranks (! – P.V.), used firearms only to prepare the last throw at large gaits with swords drawn. In addition, Henry repeatedly mixed cavalry squadrons and companies of musketeers, providing tactical support to each other on the battlefield. Henry paid much more attention to the actions of the musketeers than his opponents. In his army, pikemen, although they made up a significant part of the infantry, no longer played a significant role. In any case, the outcome of the three most important battles fought by Henry in October 1587 at Koutras, in September 1589 at Arc and in March 1590 at Ivry was decided by the coordinated actions of Henry’s cavalry, arquebusiers and artillery. The Catholics, who fought according to the rules of the Spanish-Catholic military system, were unable to oppose anything of equal value to Henry’s flexible tactics. “By 1600,” noted J. Lynn, “the French army was using approximately the same tactics as Gustavus Adolphus a quarter of a century later...” 194.
However, unlike the Dutchman Moritz of Nassau, who will be discussed further, Henry was not a theorist. An excellent tactician, for whom Suvorov’s “eye” clearly prevailed over abstract thinking, Heinrich was never able to become a “scientist-soldier” and was unable to create his own military school. Being an excellent practitioner, having intuitively outlined the way out of the tactical impasse, Heinrich was unable to bring the matter to its logical conclusion, formalizing his tactical research in the form of a theory. However, he still had students and followers who completed the work he began.
Summing up the overall development of Western European military thought and practice by the end of the 16th century, we can say with confidence that a critical mass was already present. The tactical ideas brought to life by Moritz of Nassau were no longer something unusual and unheard of in Europe. As F. Tullett noted, “...knowledge about new weapons, drill, tactical battle formations, fortification and siege techniques and other aspects of military affairs spread widely in military literature, which included pamphlets, brochures, books, treatises, manuals and memoirs. They began to appear in ever-increasing numbers from the beginning of the 16th century, poured in like a flood after 1560 and continued to appear in large numbers throughout the 17th century...” 195. Through the work of several generations of practitioners and theorists, a certain new intellectual space, an “atmosphere” was created, in which more and more new recipes for achieving victory were constantly born. The only thing that remained was to “catch” the spirit of the times, capture it, generalize, analyze, create a new military system and test it in practice, proving the effectiveness of new methods not only on paper, but also in the field, to combine theory and practice. The European military was already ready to accept new tactical principles.
This leap in the development of Western European military affairs is in full accordance with the above-mentioned trend of transferring the center of gravity of the economic, financial, political and intellectual life of Europe from south to north, from the sunny and hot shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the gloomy and cold shores of the English Channel, the Northern and Baltic seas occurred at the turn of the 16th–17th centuries. in the most advanced country at that time in all respects - Holland, the “Seven Provinces”. And this coup turned out to be connected with the events of the Eighty Years' War of 1568–1648, a war in which little Holland managed to win independence from the seemingly invincible Spanish Empire.
The Eighty Years' War, which is practically not covered in any way in modern Russian historiography, occupies, perhaps, a place in the history of the development of Western European and world military affairs that is no less, if not more important, than the Italian Wars. If the latter marked the transition to the highest stage of development of military affairs of the Middle Ages in Western Europe, then in relation to the Eighty Years' War we can say that then the process of formation of both the war and the army of the New Age began. Netherlands of the last quarter of the 16th century. became a kind of real testing ground for testing new ideas and military technologies. It was here, on Dutch soil, that the late medieval military system, brought to the greatest possible perfection, encountered new realities and ultimately suffered its first serious defeat. The Dutch military system, born during the confrontation, became the basis for the Swedish system, and from them the European military art of the New Age would later be formed.
Many historians associate the creation of the foundations of a new, “Protestant” military system with the activities of two people - the cousins of Wilhelm (Willem) - Ludwig and especially Moritz of Nassau, who led the Dutch fight against Spanish rule from the late 80s. XVI century The small “Republic of the United Provinces”, having entered into confrontation with the powerful Spanish Empire, found itself in an extremely difficult situation. With the outbreak of the revolution in the Lowlands, the Spanish crown, taking advantage of its enormous military and naval power, occupied the Netherlands and began to mercilessly suppress all manifestations of discontent. Contrary to all expectations, the punitive expedition, which initially seemed easy and quick, unexpectedly dragged on - the Dutch stubbornly resisted. However, the advantage was on the side of the Spaniards, and the rebels suffered failure after failure, trying to fight the Spaniards according to their rules of the game.
Moritz took command of the Dutch army at a difficult time for the republic. Previous experience of clashes with the Spanish army showed the unreliability of the previous mercenary armies that William of Orange tried to use. German mercenaries found themselves defeated by Spanish veterans, famous for their unstoppable pressure, courage and stamina - Jemmingen, Mooc, Gembloux clearly demonstrated this. The inability to resist the Spaniards in field battles forced the Dutch to rely on waging serf warfare. Besieging one after another Dutch cities and towns, many of which were modernized or rebuilt according to the principles trace italienne, the Spaniards were losing momentum and incurring completely unnecessary expenses and losses 196. Moritz and Wilhelm of Nassau received a precious respite in order to carefully consider the reasons for the failures and try to find a path to victory.
When starting to reform the Dutch army, Moritz and his brother found themselves in a difficult situation. The enemy opposing them had an undeniable superiority in quantitative indicators of military power. The Spanish generals had at their disposal the enormous financial and material resources of the empire of Philip II. His military leaders could always count on recruiting the required number of experienced mercenaries and their commanders, experienced in the military practice of the time. Within the framework of the established in the 16th century. With a military system that included a combination of pikemen, arquebusiers, reiters and gendarmes, supported by artillery fire, the Spaniards and their supporters were invincible. In this game the Spaniards had all the trump cards in their hands. To defeat the armies of Philip II, it was necessary to change the rules of the game, force them to fight according to different rules, that is, make a breakthrough, a leap into another dimension. It was necessary to create a different, more effective military system that had a margin of safety for further development.
The prerequisites for this transition to the early 90s. XVI century were present. Not to mention the widespread use of firearms and trace italienne, a special, “small” war in Holland contributed to serious changes in the organization and armament of troops. As J. Parker noted, the war in Holland was characterized not only and not so much by the conduct of sieges and the defense of fortresses, but also by a generally increased military activity, expressed in a greater number of skirmishes and clashes, mainly with small forces. Previous forms of tactical organization of troops, designed primarily for large field battles, turned out to be unsuitable for this type of combat operations. As a consequence of the realization of this fact, in the Dutch army reformed by Moritz, “... the companies were reduced in number and consolidated into regiments, which, in turn, decreased in size and became more manageable on the battlefield... The soldiers received uniform equipment, uniform details, and exercises on parades have become more frequent. Gradually, the soldiers turned into parts of a huge mechanism and lost their individuality. The armies have become more “modern”…” 197. Heavy cavalry became a secondary branch of the army (during sieges it was of little use, one loss), as well as pikemen, while musketeers and artillery acquired even greater importance and came into first place.
Moritz and Wilhelm, taking these changes into account, tried to connect them with ancient military experience. People who were very well read in the works of ancient and Byzantine military theorists 198, the brothers were able to successfully solve this difficult problem. It was all the easier for them to do this because, as G. Delbrück aptly noted, “... they did not have to create a new military organization, and they did not strive for this, but only further develop the already existing organization that they inherited (emphasis added. - P.V.)..." 199 .
The main thing they learned from Roman military experience was the need to introduce constant, regular training and strict discipline into the army, which they intended to maintain primarily by regular and stable payment of salaries to soldiers and officers. Of course, certain elements of soldier training were introduced earlier, as well as more or less regular training. However, recruiters have always preferred to recruit soldiers who are already trained and knowledgeable in military affairs, rather than recruits who still need to be trained and trained in the process of conducting combat operations. It was easier for the Spaniards in this regard - they had an advantage in human resources and were not blocked from land, like the rebellious Netherlands. The Dutch were deprived of such an opportunity. The long-term war with the Spaniards disrupted the previous system of replenishing armies with mercenary soldiers already familiar with the basics of military craft. As F. Engels noted, they “...had to be content with those physically fit volunteers they could find, and the government was forced to train them...” 200 .
The creation of a correct system for teaching the basics of military affairs to privates, non-commissioned officers and officers was all the more important because, applying ancient military knowledge to the experience of modern warfare accumulated by that time, Moritz and Wilhelm gradually came to the idea from which linear tactics was subsequently born. Small Dutch infantry companies, which, as noted above, consisted of 2/3 musketeers and arquebusiers, were located in several lines 201 supporting each other. Each company, in turn, was lined up in 10 ranks with musketeers at the edges and pikemen in the center. In order to maintain continuous firing, Moritz, on the advice of Wilhelm-Ludwig, introduced mandatory use for his musketeers. caracole 202. The company of musketeers thus turned into a kind of grapeshot, showering the enemy with a hail of bullets. The pikemen were supposed to cover the musketeers from attacks by enemy cavalry or pikemen. Let us note, however, that, as in the case of the caracoling reiters, it is unlikely that in real battle conditions the Dutch musketeers and arquebusiers would have been able to maintain fire for a long time through a counter-march, but the importance of this innovation (borrowed by the brothers from the same Spaniards) lay, of course, in its disciplinary effect. The words of G. Delbrück regarding the importance of caracole for the reitar, which we cited earlier, are quite applicable to the recruits of Moritz of Nassau.
Describing the tactical formations of Moritz’s army, A.A. Svechin noted their main feature: “The strength of this fragile battle formation was based solely on the discipline and trust of soldiers in their commanders, on the great mobility of small units, on the confidence of control... Art was opposed to nature(emphasis added. – P.V.)..." 203.
The importance of discipline as one of the most important, if not the most important element of the military system of Moritz of Orange, was also emphasized by G. Rotenberg, who wrote that “...discipline then became a key element, and even though circumstances forced the Orange reformers to abandon the use of hired for a long time, professional mercenary troops in favor of an army recruited from among citizens, they retained an emphasis on discipline achieved through the efforts of a professional officer corps, drill and training ... "204.
Moritz and Wilhelm accurately grasped the main difference between the Roman imperial army and its main opponents - an individual legionnaire, perhaps, was inferior to his opponent, a Gaul, a German, a Dacian or a Sarmatian, in individual skill in hand-to-hand combat, in physical strength, dexterity, etc. But he surpassed them in his ability to fight as part of a closely knit group, a team where the weakness of one warrior was compensated by the joint efforts of all fighters aimed at achieving victory. So now, Dutch reformers have relied not on the individual qualities of a soldier, but on “art,” meaning by it the development of skills for collective action. It can be said that the Nassau brothers opened a new page in the history of military affairs - just as manufacturing relegated artisans to the background, no matter how skilled they were in their work, so the army-machine created by Moritz inevitably had to displace the medieval "artisans" from military affairs.
The new soldier had to act automatically, perform techniques with a musket and pike, without thinking or paying attention to what was happening around him. Thus, caracole with the obligatory counter-march and the ability to maneuver on the battlefield in order to ensure continuity of fire of the musketeers and mutual support of riflemen and pikemen, it required serious and lengthy training based on brutal drill. This was the only way to instill in inexperienced recruits and the various rabble recruited under the banner of the Orangemen self-confidence and develop in them the ability to withstand the pressure of Spanish veterans 205 . But the Spanish soldier in that era was considered the best soldier in Europe. It is no coincidence that the Ambassador of the Venetian Republic at the court of Philip II, Suriano, wrote that “... the Spanish king owns a breeding ground of persistent people, strong in body and spirit, disciplined, fit for military campaigns, marches, attacks and defenses...”. The French researcher M. Defourneau, who used this statement in his book about the “Golden Age of Spain,” noted that “... the Spanish soldier elevated to the highest level a sense of self-worth, based simultaneously on the military qualities that made up his reputation, and on the consciousness of that, fighting for his king, he serves higher goals - he fights in the name of the Lord ... " 206.
Increased requirements for the level of training of ordinary soldiers led to a corresponding increase in requirements for command personnel, both officers and especially non-commissioned officers. The commanding staff of the army of the New Age differed from the medieval mercenary captain in that he was not just the most advanced and most skilled fighter, but above all an educator and teacher. Before leading his subordinates into battle, he had to prepare them, train them, instill in them confidence in their abilities - no matter by what means. And although the awareness of the need for a thorough theoretical military education did not immediately win its place in the sun, its value was recognized by everyone. Thus, in 1616, Count Johann of Nassau opened a military academy for young nobles in his capital, Siegen. The course of study at this academy was designed for six months and involved the study of weapons and armor, the theory and practice of training and driving troops in battle, maps and various types of military literature. True, the number of students at this academy was small - in 1623, for example, it was only 23 cadets 207.
By the beginning of the 17th century. the creation of the new military school was generally completed, and it was tested in practice. Europe was amazed to see that the mighty Spanish Empire was powerless to cope with small Holland. The impression of the success of the Dutch army, trained in accordance with the new military system, was enormous. The “United Provinces” turned into a veritable Mecca for the Protestant military. Dutch military experience began to quickly spread throughout Europe, both through books and through soldiers and officers who transferred to serve in other armies and served under the banners of Moritz and William of Nassau. As J. Lynn aptly noted, Moritz “gained a European reputation as a “scientist-soldier,” a brilliant innovator and a talented general. His knowledge of all components of the art of war made Holland a true “military college of Europe” ... "208.
However, the widespread dissemination of the principles of the new military school throughout Europe was hindered by the fact that the fighting in the Netherlands took place under rather unique and specific conditions. A small, densely populated, highly urbanized country with an anthropogenic landscape and many fortified cities and towns, crossed up and down by rivers and canals, was unsuitable for the operations of large masses of troops. It was especially difficult for the cavalry. Of course, Moritz extended his tactical insights to his own cavalry, carefully training and drilling them. He ensured that his horsemen could maneuver as easily and operate in closely-formed tactical cornet units as the Dutch infantry 209 . However, the unique nature of the fighting in Holland prevented the widespread use of cavalry. It was primarily an “infantry” war, and the cavalry clearly did not have enough room for active action. Thus, the Dutch system had a rather specific character. As D. Parrott noted, “... the Dutch reform was the result of the army’s adaptation to waging positional warfare, mainly associated with the implementation of full-scale sieges. The reforms, by maximizing infantry firepower and enhancing defensive effectiveness, could create armies that, through discipline, drill, and the use of linear tactics, were better equipped to conduct sieges. However the reform did not solve the problem of taking the initiative into one’s own hands and going on the offensive on the battlefield(emphasis added. – P.V.)..." 210.
It is no coincidence that we highlighted the last phrase - while improving the defensive potential of his army, Moritz was unable to solve the problem of going on the offensive. Why? Perhaps the answer to this question was given by G. Rotenberg, who considered Moritz first of all an administrator, then a tactician and a master of siege warfare, but not a strategist 211. Apparently, this circumstance was responsible for the low interest in the Dutch system on the part of the Imperials and Spaniards. Tactically, Moritz's army maintained an extremely passive course of action, responding to a challenge without making one itself. The system he developed, according to M. Roberts, was rigid and inflexible, and the external effect of his reforms was largely negated by Moritz’s own refusal to take active action, his desire to avoid field battles and win the war through the defense of fortresses and siege 212. The Dutchman preferred to fight with a shovel and pickaxe, rather than with a musket and sword, and achieved significant success in this. So supporters of the Spanish-Catholic school could quite rightly argue that Moritz’s successes were accidental and under other conditions an army trained according to the Dutch system would not be able to act as successfully as Moritz’s army.
What was suitable for Holland with its specific conditions was not suitable for other countries. In a word, any attempts to introduce the Dutch system in its pure form, without applying it to local conditions (as was done at the beginning of the 17th century in Sweden), as a rule, were doomed to failure. The experience of the battles of the 1st half of the Thirty Years' War showed that the reserve of strength of the Spanish-Catholic school had not yet been completely used up. Tercio, regardless of whether the Spaniards or the Imperials used them on the battlefield, they had great striking power. With skillful leadership, troops professing, albeit old-fashioned, but still quite effective shock tactics of the late Middle Ages, still represented a formidable force, which was confirmed, for example, in 1618 in the battle of White Mountain. However, the old military school no longer had a historical perspective. With the birth of a new system based on different tactical and organizational principles, it became outdated. The onslaught of the Spaniards and their impulse were countered by musket and artillery fire, restraint and discipline. Experience of the Thirty Years' War and conflicts of the 2nd half of the 17th century. proved Moritz right.
In order for the Dutch system to gain universal recognition and wide distribution, it was necessary to improve it in relation to more open, less urbanized and human-developed spaces like Holland and Belgium. Simply put, the Dutch system in its classic “open field” form was of little use. The Dutch experience could not be copied in its pure form and required certain mental work to adapt it to specific conditions. As M. Roberts aptly noted, Moritz and his brother only outlined the main lines of development in troop training, tactics and strategy, which had yet to be developed. It was necessary to feel the spirit of Moritz's reform, and not its form, and complete the work begun by the Dutch. King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden tried to solve this problem. J. Parker, comparing the experience of reforms carried out by Moritz and Gustavus Adolphus, noted that “... the most important difference Dutch "military revolution" from the Swedish was not in the innovations themselves, but in their application and scale(emphasis added. – P.V.). Moritz of Nassau rarely entered into battle (and if he accepted a challenge, he led small field armies - about 10 thousand soldiers), since the nature of the terrain in which he had to operate, dominated by a system of fortified cities, made field battles very rare - more important there were sieges of cities. But Gustav acted in areas that were spared by the war, and if there was a war there, it was seventy years ago (as it was in Bavaria) or more. Thus, there were few well-fortified cities here - although, if they existed, they had to be besieged in the "Dutch manner" - and control of the area was achieved only through victorious battles ... "213.
It is possible that the innovations of Gustav Adolf, after almost three hundred years, no longer look as revolutionary (especially since, as noted above, much of what he introduced into Swedish military practice had already been tested by military leaders in the previous century), as in his time, and that the king himself deserves more attention as a statesman and political figure than as a commander and military reformer. This is exactly how his activity is assessed, for example, by the English historian R. Brzezinsky, who believes that Gustav Adolf earned fame as a great commander and reformer only thanks to a coincidence of circumstances 214. However, taking into account this critical point of view, it is still necessary to note that through his activities Gustavus Adolf greatly contributed to the acceleration of the development of Western European military affairs and the eventual victory of those ideas put forward by Moritz of Orange, the implementation of which led to the completion of the creation of the armies of the New time and corresponding military tradition.
The Swedes became familiar with the ideas of Moritz of Nassau quite early. As early as 1601, his cousin, Johann of Nassau, arrived in Sweden and attempted to reorganize the Swedish army along Dutch lines. However, his attempt was not successful, as shown by the crushing defeats of the Swedish army from the Poles near Weissenstein in 1604 and Kirchholm in 1605. The actions of the Swedish army during the siege of Pskov in 1615 cannot be called successful. Bearing in mind the insufficient combat capability of the Swedish army, Revealed during clashes with the Poles and Russians at the beginning of the 17th century, Gustav II Adolf began to reorganize the Swedish army. In 1620, he went on a long trip to Germany, where he studied all the latest military innovations and, obviously, came to the conclusion that the Dutch military system was the most promising.
Without going into details of the reforms that were carried out by Gustav Adolf (they were repeatedly described in the literature), we note that the “Swedish lion” relied on the comprehensive strengthening of the firepower of his infantry by further increasing the proportion of musketeers and developing light field artillery , attached to the infantry. The battle formations of the Swedish infantry were even more extended along the front due to a reduction in their depth. “The Swedish battle formation has spread significantly along the front; contemporaries saw in it not so much active properties as defensive ones: Gustav Adolf created an indestructible living wall out of people...” 215. Following Henry IV, the Swedish king tried to instill an offensive spirit in the Swedish cavalry and strengthen its firepower by mixing it with musketeer units. But most importantly, Gustav Adolf paid great attention to developing close interaction between musketeers, pikemen, artillery - regimental and field, and cavalry on the battlefield. Taken together, these improvements in the Dutch military system allowed the Swedish army to successfully resist the Polish-Lithuanian army, which operated in a completely different military tradition (which will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter), and professed the old tactical principles of the imperial army on the battlefields of the Thirty Years war.
Of course, the old tradition did not die out immediately after the Swedes defeated the Imperials at Breitenfeld in 1631. At first glance, J. Parker was right when he wrote that it was “... a classic clash between the traditional battle formation used with from the Italian Wars, and new: Tilly's soldiers, lined up 30 ranks deep and 50 ranks wide, met Swedish musketeers lined up in six ranks and pikemen in 5, supported by numerous field artillery. The Swedes' superiority in firepower was stunning..." 216. If everything had been exactly like this, then the great European war, into which Gustav II Adolf entered, would have ended very quickly and would not have deserved the name of the Thirty Years. However, experienced imperial and Spanish generals, without completely abandoning their usual tradition, tried, and not without success, to make certain adjustments to their practice. The further course of the war showed the full significance of the subjective factor - it was not adherence to the Spanish-Catholic or Protestant systems that automatically guaranteed victory or defeat, but the talent of this or that military leader who sent his regiments, tercios and companies into battle. So, near Lutzen, the battle between the Swedes and the Imperials actually ended in a draw; near Nordlingen, the Swedes and their allies were completely defeated by the Imperials. The French, who tried to apply the Swedish system, were defeated in June 1639 near Didenhofen by the imperial field marshal Piccolomini, but in May 1643 at Rocroi the Spanish army, the backbone of which was made up of experienced veterans tercio The Flemish army was completely defeated by the French.
Many myths and legends have developed around the last battle, as well as around the battles that the “Swedish Lion” gave to the Imperials during his short but brilliant career. The most common one is that massive Spanish tercio could not resist the fire of the French artillery and fell under the attacks of the enemy cavalry. “Two factors played in favor of France: the superiority of cavalry and artillery - the rich army and the rich army... The heaviness of the Spanish battle formations dates back to the era,” wrote P. Chaunu, “when the spear triumphed over the musket... Rocroi is a recognition of the superiority of fire. This means a great shift in war tactics.” Of course, at first glance everything was exactly like this, and it is difficult to object to a historian who makes such a conclusion. But at the same time, a hundred years ago, attempts by massive battles of the Swiss or Landsknechts to resist attacks by cavalry supported by artillery fire ended just as sadly for the infantry. Another thing is that the defeat of the Spaniards at Rocroi became a kind of symbol - the Spanish tercio, reputed to be invincible for decades, were defeated, and their defeat coincided with the beginning of the decline in Spain's military power. In the minds of contemporaries, these two events overlapped each other, and another historical myth was born. However, regardless of how one evaluates the battles fought by Gustavus Adolphus or Condé, one thing is absolutely certain - the Thirty Years' War was the last war in which the traditional massive "battles" of polearm-armed heavy infantry attempted to counter artillery, cavalry and infantry. equipped primarily with firearms and operating in shallow (relative to the first, of course) battle formations. In this war, in a clash between two schools professing different tactical principles, fire finally defeated the blow. The American F. Pratt, characterizing the Spanish-Catholic military system, aptly compared it with a fortress 217, and just as medieval fortresses fell under artillery fire, so this last medieval fortress collapsed under volley fire from musketeers and regimental artillery. And the most important conclusion that P. Chaun made from the story about Rocroi can well be called the leitmotif of the entire military revolution of the late 15th - early 18th centuries: “On the one hand, fire puts economic and technical superiority in the first place. Linear orders require much greater coordination, and therefore more advanced training of people. Everything contributes to an increase in the cost and sophistication of war..." 218.
The second, decisive stage of the military revolution in Western Europe has ended. During its third stage, over the next more than two and a half centuries, European military thought was in a continuous search for the optimal combination of different types of troops, firepower and mobility, 219 improving the methods of combat use of infantry, cavalry and artillery. After the Thirty Years' War, the tactics of using infantry, consisting mainly of musketeers, more and more resembled a battle between two fleets. Lined up in parallel lines opposite each other, the infantry showered the enemy with deadly volley fire. The sharply increased firepower of the infantry determined its continued leading role on the battlefield and in the war as a whole. Imperial Field Marshal R. Montecuculi wrote about the importance of infantry in his contemporary war: “ Only in the infantry should the best strength and soul, and consequently the largest and most honest part in this army be(emphasis added. – P.V.)..." 220. Firearms finally defeated cold weapons, and “... the musket, and not the pike, became the “queen of the battlefield,” noted F. Tullett 221 . Naturally, this led to an increase in the number of infantry both in general and in its share, as evidenced by the data in the following table 222:
Table 6
The number of infantry and cavalry in Western European armies during some campaigns of the 17th - early 18th centuries.
To this we can add that infantry was cheaper than cavalry and, moreover, its great versatility was its important advantage. The benefit of cavalry lay primarily in its ability to actively maneuver both on the battlefield and beyond, in a “small” war. Infantry was also very useful in siege warfare, which was inevitable in the Western European theater of operations, which was densely populated and highly urbanized. Meanwhile, through the works of the French engineer and fortifier S. Vauban, a genuine revolution was carried out in siege warfare in the 2nd half of the 17th century. Having developed in detail the concept of an “artillery attack”, guided by the principle of “more sweat, less blood,” Vauban turned all ideas regarding the conduct of siege warfare upside down 223 . If done correctly, even fortresses built taking into account the latest trends within the framework of tradition trace italienne, could be taken in the shortest possible time, as was the case with Maastricht in 1673, Besançon in 1674 or Namur in 1692.
The last example is most typical for assessing the effectiveness of the gradual attack system proposed by Vauban. Namur was one of the strongest fortresses of its time. It was built according to the design of the talented Dutch fortification engineer Kehorn, Vauban's rival in both theory and practice. However, Namur held out against the French attack, which Vauban personally led, for only 35 days and was taken with relatively small losses, while Kehorn himself was captured by the French. In a word, as M. van Creveld aptly noted, siege warfare “... turned, as they said then, into the art not so much of defending a fortress, but of its honorable surrender...” 224 .
Of course, as always, there are no rules without exceptions, and in a number of battles of the 17th century. we can observe a picture where cavalry sometimes not only makes up a significant part of the army, but also exceeds it in number. Thus, under Breitenfeld in 1631, the share of cavalry in the army of Gustav Adolf was 1/3, and in the imperial army opposing it 30.5%, under Lutzen in 1632 - 31.3 and 28.8%, respectively, and under Jankau in 1645, the infantry was generally in the minority (the Swedes had 60% of the cavalry, and the Imperials had 2/3 of the army). In 1665, the army of H.B. von Galen, Prince-Bishop of Munster, nicknamed “the cannon bishop” for his belligerence ( Kanonenbischof), during the invasion of Holland, there were 10 thousand cavalry for 20 thousand infantry. Almost 40 years later, in 1704, under Hochstedt, the French had 36.2% of the cavalry, and the allied Anglo-Imperial forces opposing them had 41.7%. And even in the first major battle of the War of the Austrian Succession, in 1741 at Mollwitz, the Austrian army had 9,800 people. infantry 6800 people. cavalry 225. However, what is noteworthy is that although the Austrian cavalry managed to overturn and drive the Prussian cavalry from the battlefield, the outcome of the battle was decided by the actions of the Prussian infantry, which was superior to the Austrian in both numbers and training.
The data presented cast doubt on the previous thesis, but this is only at first glance. The development of linear tactics contributed to a certain “ossification” of battle formations, their loss of their former flexibility and elasticity. That is why the importance of cavalry has increased as the only type of troops that has retained more or less satisfactory maneuverability and mobility. The cavalry began to play an extremely important role as a kind of “fists” of the army commander - as Frederick the Great wrote, “... let the infantry stand in the center, and the newly formed cavalry on the wings; the plutons, inflicting fatal blows on the enemy, will form the body of the battle, and the horsemen will be his arms; and on the right and left sides they must extend them unremittingly..." 226. Therefore, its numbers have increased significantly in comparison with previous times, but, notably, as part of field armies. Thus, it was broken in the 1st half of the 16th century. the balance between infantry and cavalry was restored.
Thus, the activities of Moritz of Nassau, Gustav II Adolf and their successors raised European military affairs to a new level. The old medieval techniques and methods of warfare were replaced by new ones, born during the military revolution, and with them the “face of battle” itself changed, determined largely by those people who met in mortal combat on the battlefields of numerous wars of the New Age. The superbly trained and prepared single combat fighter of the Middle Ages was replaced by the soldier of the New Age, whose characteristic features (and the army, which consisted of this kind of human material) were brilliantly described by A.K. Puzyrevsky: “The individual development of a soldier, his ingenuity, dexterity and mental abilities became completely unnecessary. The troops were looked upon as machines or as living fortifications, designed to withstand the destructive effects of enemy fire for as long as possible; They did not look for the main reason for success in the force of the onslaught, but rather in the passive calm of the masses. Under these conditions, what should discipline strive for? Leaving aside the development of moral elements in the soldier, she had to conquer his habit of remaining in the ranks under all circumstances of battle, force him to direct all his attention to the mechanical dexterity of loading and the speed of firing; in order to satisfy his purpose, a person had to become an automaton, inaccessible to any external impressions of battle...” 227.
Medieval warfare was completely a thing of the past, although some of its remnants still made themselves felt for a very, very long time, right up to the First World War of 1914–1918, on the margins of which previous ideas about war were finally buried under hecatombs of corpses. The talk now was about improving the army-machine, bringing the principles of the new military school to their logical conclusion, when the equipment and manpower available to the generals could be used with the greatest efficiency. This will be done at the end of the 18th – beginning of the 19th century. Napoleon 228.
In the meantime, this was still far away, and the rivalry and competition between European powers that continued after the end of the Thirty Years' War, the desire to keep up with potential opponents in mastering the latest innovations in military affairs contributed to the further development of both tactics and strategy, as well as military equipment and technology. Essentially, if a European (or any other, Asian, African or American) state in that era aspired to the status of a great power or simply wanted to preserve itself as a subject of international relations, it was simply obliged to increase the potential of its armed forces, becoming involved in the process of military revolution . Otherwise, it turned into a rogue state, an object of politics, at the expense of which more successful and resourceful neighbors solved their own problems. Conservatism in military affairs inevitably led to fatal consequences. Any delay meant death, enslavement by more successful and insightful neighbors. “The inability to accept the necessary level of militarism, militaristic culture as an integral part of an effective political-state system, militarized social structure and militaristic ethos in the system of international relations led to fatal consequences. The first example of this could be Poland, which lost its independence in 1792–1795, noted J. Black, the second was the United Provinces (Dutch Republic), which was quickly conquered first by Bourbon and then by revolutionary France in 1747–1748 and 1795 ." 229. And, on the contrary, the successful adoption and creative development of the main provisions of the military revolution promoted the state to a leading position in the European “concert”. This is exactly what happened with the France of Louis XIV, whose army and military administration in the 2nd half of the 17th - early 18th centuries. became a role model 230.
History of the Ottoman Empire in the 2nd half of the 17th–18th centuries. serves as a clear example of how, for almost two centuries, from the 15th to the end of the 16th century, a state considered exemplary from a military point of view, which was late in joining the process of military revolution, fell into decay and turned from a threat to Europe into its “sick man” " The even sadder fate of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was discussed above. The neighbor of Turkey and the Polish-Lithuanian state, Russia, on the contrary, managed, albeit with some delay, to jump on the bandwagon of the departing train and, at the cost of enormous efforts and strain of all the forces of not only the state, but also society, complete the processes associated with the military revolution, and become a great power. The fate of the military revolution in these countries will be discussed in the following chapters of our work.
Implemented by the Dutch and Swedes in the 1560s and 1660s, it increased the effectiveness of firearms and created the need for better trained troops and therefore standing armies. These changes, in turn, had significant political consequences: a different level of administration was needed to support and supply the army with funds, people and provisions, in addition, finance and the creation of new governing institutions were necessary. “Thus,” explains Roberts, “modern military art made possible—and necessary—the creation of a modern state.”
M. Roberts placed his military revolution between 1560 and 1660. In his opinion, during this period linear tactics were developed, developing the advantages of firearms. However, this chronology is disputed by many scholars.
Ayton and Price emphasize the importance of the "infantry revolution" that began in the early 14th century. David Iltis notes that the actual change in firearms and the development of military doctrine associated with this change occurred at the beginning of the 16th century, and not at the end, as M. Roberts identified.
Others advocate a later period of change in military affairs. For example, Jeremy Black believes that the period 1660-1710 was key. These years saw an exponential growth in the size of European armies. While Clifford Rogers developed the idea of successful military revolutions in different periods of time: the first, “infantry” - in the 14th century, the second, “artillery” - in the 15th century, the third, “fortification”, in the 16th century, the fourth, “firearms” - in the 1580-1630s, and, finally, the fifth, associated with the growth of European armies, - between 1650 and 1715. Similarly, J. Parker extended the period of the military revolution from 1450 to 1800. During this period, in his opinion, Europeans achieved superiority over the rest of the world. . It is not surprising that some scholars question the revolutionary nature of changes that spanned four centuries. . K. Rogers proposed comparing the military revolution with the theory of punctuated equilibrium, that is, he suggested that short breakthroughs in the military sphere were followed by longer periods of relative stagnation.
Shallow formations are ideal for defense, but they are too clumsy for attacking actions. The longer the front, the more difficult it is to maintain formation and avoid breaks, to maneuver, especially turn. The Swedish king Gustav II Adolf understood well that assault columns, such as those used by Field Marshal of the Holy Roman Empire Count Johann Zerklas von Tilly, were faster and more agile. The Swedish king used them when required, such as at the Battle of Alta Vesta. As a result, armies began to use more subtle formations, but with slow evolutions and taking into account tactical considerations. . Firearms were not yet so effective as to have sole control over the disposition of troops, other considerations were also taken into account: for example, the experience of the units, the designated target, the terrain, etc. The discussion about the line and column went on throughout the 18th century until Napoleonic times and was accompanied by some bias towards the deep columns of the later campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars. Ironically, the reduction in the depth of cavalry formations proved to be the more lasting change carried out by Gustavus Adolphus. Combined with less emphasis on pistol fire, this measure resulted in a preference for melee fire using edged weapons, which was the direct opposite of the trend advocated by M. Roberts.
M. Roberts' concept of linear tactics was criticized by J. Parker, who questioned why the seemingly outdated Spanish tercios defeated the Swedes at the Battle of Nördlingen.
Instead of linear tactics, J. Parker proposed the emergence of the bastion system of fortifications (or trace italienne) in early modern Europe as a key technological element. According to this view, the difficulty of taking such fortifications resulted in a profound change in strategy. “Wars became a series of protracted sieges,” says J. Parker, “and battles in the open field became rare in regions where the trace italienne existed. To the highest degree,” he continues, “military geography,” in other words, the existence or absence trace italienne in this area, limited strategy in the early modern period and led to the creation of large armies needed to besiege new fortifications and to form their garrisons. Thus, J. Parker established the origins of the military revolution at the beginning of the 16th century. He also gave it has new significance, not only as a factor in the growth of the state, but also the main, together with the “maritime revolution,” factor in the rise of the West in comparison with other civilizations.
This model has been criticized. Jeremy Black noted that the development of the state allowed the growth of the size of armies, and not vice versa, and accused J. Parker of "technological determinism". Subsequently, the calculations presented by J. Parker to defend his idea of the growth of armies were harshly criticized by D. Iltis for lack of consistency, and David Parrott showed that the trace italienne era did not provide a significant increase in the size of French troops and that in the late period of the Thirty Years war, there is an increase in the share of cavalry in armies, which, in contrast to J. Parker’s thesis about the prevalence of siege warfare, shows a decrease in its importance.
Some medievalists developed the idea of an infantry revolution that occurred in the early 14th century, when in some famous battles, such as the Battle of Courtray, the Battle of Bannockburn, the Battle of Cephissus, the heavy cavalry was defeated by infantry. Be that as it may, it should be noted that in all these battles the infantry was entrenched or positioned in rough terrain unsuitable for cavalry. The same can be said about other battles of the 14th and 15th centuries in which the cavalry was defeated. In fact, infantry had triumphed in similar situations before, such as the Battle of Legnano in 1176, but in the open the infantry had to prepare for the worst, as demonstrated, for example, by the Battle of Pata and the Battle of Formigny, in which the vaunted English archers were easily broken. Despite this, the experience of battles such as Courtray and Bannockburn showed that the myth of the invincibility of knights had disappeared, which in itself was important for the transformation of military affairs in the Middle Ages.
More significant was the "return of the heavy infantry" as it was called by the historian Carey. Pikemen could, unlike other infantry, hold their own in open terrain against heavy cavalry. Requiring drill and discipline, such infantry did not make such demands on individual training, unlike archers and knights. The transition from the heavily armed knight to the foot soldier allowed the size of armies to expand in the late 15th century, as infantry could be trained more quickly and could be recruited in greater numbers. But this change came slowly.
The final development in the 15th century of plate armor for both rider and horse, coupled with the use of a rest that could support a heavier spear, ensured that the heavy rider remained a formidable warrior. Without cavalry, a 15th-century army could hardly achieve decisive victory on the battlefield. The outcome of the battle could be decided by archers or pikemen, but only cavalry could cut off retreat routes or pursue. In the 16th century, lighter, less expensive, but more professional cavalry appeared. Because of this, the proportion of cavalry in the army continued to increase, so that during the final battles of the Thirty Years' War, cavalry outnumbered infantry more than at any time since the classical Middle Ages.
Another change that occurred in the 15th century was the improvement of siege artillery, which made the old fortifications very vulnerable. But the superiority of the attacking side in siege warfare did not last very long. As Philippe Contamain noted, as with any dialectical process of any era, progress in the art of siege was answered in the form of progress in the art of fortification and, vice versa. Charles VIII's conquest of Italy in 1494 demonstrated the power of siege artillery, but fortifications that were specifically designed to withstand artillery fire began to appear in the region in the early years of the 16th century. The entire effect of the “artillery revolution” of the 15th century was negated quite quickly by the development of the bastion system or trace italienne. But the military superiority that a powerful siege park gave was expressed in a considerable strengthening of royal power, which we observe in some European countries at the end of the 15th century.
The growth of the size of armies and its influence on the development of modern states is an important point in the theory of military revolution. There are several sources for studying the size of armies in different eras.
By their nature, they are the most objective sources available. Since the Napoleonic Wars, European commanders have had reports on the strength of their units. These reports are the main source for the study of conflicts of the 19th and 20th centuries. Although they are not without their shortcomings: different armies account for available strength in different ways, and, in some cases, reports are corrected by commanding officers so that they look attractive to their superiors.
Other sources are lists of personnel, non-periodic reports on personnel under arms. Personnel lists are the main source for armies before the 19th century, but by their nature they lack integrity and do not take into account long-term sick leave. Despite this, they remain the most reliable sources for the period and provide an overall picture of the army's strengths. Third, payment lists provide a different set of information. They are especially useful for studying the costs of the army, but they are not as reliable as lists of personnel, since they only show payments and not actual soldiers under arms. Until the 19th century, “dead souls”, people listed by officers in order to receive a salary for them, were a common occurrence. Finally, “battle orders”, lists of units without indicating numbers, are very important for the 16th-18th centuries. Before this period, armies lacked the organizational capacity to establish permanent formations, so the battle order usually consisted of a list of commanders and the troops subordinate to them. An exception from Antiquity is the Roman army, which from its early period developed a significant military organization. The battle order cannot be considered a reliable source, since units during the campaign, or even during the peace period, rarely, if ever, reached the stated strength.
Modern historians use many of the administrative sources available now, but this was not the case in the past. Ancient authors too often give numbers without naming sources, and there are very few cases where we can be sure that they used administrative sources. This is especially true when it comes to enemy armies, where access to administrative resources was problematic in any case. In addition, there are a number of additional problems when we consider the works of ancient authors. They can be very biased in their messages, and inflating the number of enemies has always been one of their favorite propaganda techniques. Even when giving a balanced account, many historians, lacking military experience, lack the technical judgment to properly evaluate and criticize their sources. On the other hand, they had access to first-hand accounts, which can be very interesting, although in the field of numbers, it is rarely ever accurate. Historians regard ancient narrative sources as very unreliable in the field of numbers, so that it is impossible to derive benefit from them as from administrative sources. Comparisons between modern times and antiquity are therefore very problematic.
A clear distinction must be made between the entire army, that is, all the military forces of a given political entity, and the field army, the tactical units capable of moving as a single force during a campaign. The growth of the entire army is considered by some researchers as a key indicator of the Military Revolution. There are two main theses on this matter: either it is considered as a consequence of the economic and demographic growth of the 17th-18th centuries. , or - as the main reason for the growth of bureaucratization and centralization of the modern state in the same period. However, some who disagree with the main thesis challenge these views. For example, I. A. A. Thompson noted how the growth of the Spanish army in the 16th-17th centuries. contributed rather to the economic collapse of Spain and led to the weakening of the central government as opposed to regional separatism. At the same time, Simon Adams questioned the growth itself in the first half of the 17th century. Growth was noticeable in the second half of the 17th century, when states took over the recruitment and arming of their armies, abandoning the system of commissions that prevailed until the end of the Thirty Years' War. The organization of local and provincial militia systems at this time in a number of countries (and the growing importance of local aristocracies, the so-called "refeudalization of armies", especially in Eastern Europe) contributed to the expansion of the manpower base of national armies, despite the fact that foreign mercenaries still made up a significant percentage in all European armies.
The size of field armies throughout history has been dictated by supply constraints, especially provisions. Until the mid-17th century, armies largely survived on the terrain. They had no communication lines. They advanced to supply, and often their movements were dictated by supply considerations. Even though some regions with good communications could supply large armies for a longer period of time, they still had to disperse when they left those areas with a good supply base. The maximum size of field armies remained in the region of 50 thousand and below throughout the period. Reports of numbers above this number always come from unreliable sources and should be taken with skepticism.
In the second half of the 17th century, the situation changed seriously. Armies began to be supplied through a network of warehouses connected by supply lines, which significantly increased the size of field armies. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, before the advent of railways, the size of field armies reached a number exceeding 100 thousand.
The deterministic theory of military revolution based on technology gave way to models based more on slow evolution, in which technological progress plays a lesser role in comparison with organizational, managerial, logistical and general intangible improvements. The revolutionary nature of these changes became clear after a long evolution that gave Europe a dominant position in world military affairs, which would later be confirmed by the Industrial Revolution.