Is the Notion of an Early Modern Military Revolution Tenable?
The notion of an early modern military revolution is one which is a much debated subject among historians. Two historians who are very dominant in this field are Geoffrey Parker and Michael Roberts. Although they both agree that a military revolution occurred, they disagree on the timing of a revolution in war. Roberts argues that a military revolution started in 1560 and "by 1660, the modern art of war had come to birth." Parker, on the other hand, sees the military revolution as a "firmly sixteenth century phenomenon with antecedents in the fifteenth."
Prior to the early modern period, warfare was based around castles and fortified towns and attempts to capture them. This changed very little in the middle ages. Armies had a maximum of forty thousand soldiers, many of whom were mercenaries (1550). Armies consisted of Pike men in square formations supported by cavalry and musketeers. Battles often ended in a stalemate and wars were very lengthy as a result of this. Through the military revolution emerged new tactics, technology and style of warfare. Michael Roberts acknowledged four revolutionary traits of what he called the military revolution. "First, the superiority of disciplined infantry - musketeers rather than pike men - armed and drilled to prosecute a field battle by the ordered application of firepower, not the hurly-burly of man-man combat; second, themanifestly greater size of these new-style, mostly musketeer armies; third, the emergence of bolder, more dramatic strategies designed to seek a decisive battle at the culmination of a sharp campaign; and fourth, a need for larger and more reliable and intrusive commissariats and military bureaucraci...
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...tary revolution occurred is not tenable but the notion that the face of warfare, the order of the world and the way people perceived war changed in this period and has shaped the modern world definitely is tenable.
Bibliography
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H. G. Koenigsberger: Early Modern Europe 1500 - 1789 (The Silver Library) Pearson Education Limited 1987
J. M. Roberts: The Penguin History of Europe Penguin Books 1997
Michael Roberts: The Military Revolution 1560 - 1660 Boulder, CO, 1995
G Parker: The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West 1500 - 1800 Second Edition Cambridge University Press 1996
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Stephen J. Lee: The Thirty Years War TJ Press (Padstow) 1991
Rather he focuses on the logistics of warfare through the innovations in gunfire, cannon manufacturing and operation, and defensive warfare. Moreover, Parker does not attempt to use his position and research to criticise other scholars position on the military revolution. He simply agrees with Michael Roberts definition and attempts to contribute his principles of innovation as a means to strengthen Roberts
The American Revolutionary War was a very significant time period for the History of the United States. The colonies were ruled by the British Parliament and they began feeling as if they were being mistreated as they were forced to pay unfair taxes and their power as a whole was being very limited. Evidently they wanted to gain independence from the British. At first they attempted to take a non-violent stance and reason with the British government, but the British were reluctant to do so. As a result the American Colonist over time resulted in declaring war against them in 1775. Whether this war was inevitable or not has been debated for many years now; however the war was inevitable due to the fact that the American Colonist attempted to reason with the British Parliament to begin with but was quickly turned down. The word “Inevitable” means certain to happen or unavoidable. This means the question is asking whether the American Revolution was avoidable or not and although the question is very arguable and there is evidence to support both sides there is more evidence supporting the fact that the war was inevitable.
Jackson J. Spielvogel, Western Civilization: Volume I: To 1715, 8th Edition, (Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012), 301.
Bartlett, Robert, ‘The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural change 950-1350’ (Penguin Books 1994)
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By the eve of Revolution, predominately during 1750 to 1776, colonists' sense of identity and unity though fragile was still distinct enough that war eventually became the only option against their mother country.
Military History: The Definitive Visual Guide to the Objects of Warfare. New York: DK Publishing, Inc., 2012. Print.
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“In July 1945, the first atomic bomb was tested in New Mexico and the next month the second and third weapons off the production line were dropped on Japan. Since then no nuclear weapons have been used in anger, although tens of thousands have been accumulated by the major powers and their destructiveness and sophistication increased immensely.” The nature of warfare is constant and evolved from multiple factors and military revolutions over time. The purpose of this paper is to identify the most important military revolution in history and highlight its effects that permeate modern day society. The proliferation of nuclear weapons is the most significant military revolution that led to the greatest changes in warfare, which include the immergence of new threats such as non-state actors, the shift from total war to low intensity conflict, and the importance of technology and innovation. This military revolution completely shattered existing paradigms of warfare due to the real threat of nuclear weapons’ total destruction of humanity.
Jackson J. Spielvogel, Western Civilization: Volume I: To 1715, 8th Edition, (Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012), 90.
When explaining how the warfare of the Middle Ages shaped and changed the way we looked at war and weapons, we must first start in the early Middle Ages. In The Art of Warfare in the Middle Ages, A.D. 378-1515, written by Charles Oman and John Beeler, he states, “between the middle of the fourth and the end of the sixth century lies a period of transition in military history…in war as in all else, the institutions of the ancient world are seen to pass away, and a new order of things develops itself” . As you can see, the warfare of the ancient Romans was passing and the new modernized technology was coming to the forefront.
Rice, Eugene E. and Anthony Grafton. The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559. 2nd. ed. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1994.
Rice, Eugene E. and Anthony Grafton. The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559. 2nd. ed. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1994.