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Is the Notion of an Early Modern Military Revolution Tenable?

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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 …show more content…

Prior to this era, the maximum size of an army was approximately forty thousand (1555) but this increased immensely. Parker argued that the demands of new siege style warfare required men to provision siege lines while attacking and to garrison towns and citadels while defending rose the

number of soldiers required to sustain a war. Gustavus Adolphus used an army of one hundred and seventy five thousand men to obliterate Habsburg influence in the Holy Roman Empire and Spain mobilised three hundred thousand men in the 1630's, which is far greater than the amount of troops used before. Armies were also becoming permanent rather than seasonal as they were prior to the revolution. Mercenary armies, which were widely used in the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries, were on the decline and conscription was on the rise. The Swedes used conscription in the Thirty Years War, which provided cheap and reliable regiments, as they "were motivated by religion and national sentiment" . This was very effective as conscription soldiers who believed they were fighting for something, be it their country or religion, were less likely to desert than mercenaries, who would desert if they were offered a higher wage. In countries where conscription was not being introduced, great emphasis was being placed on recruitment. However, mercenary armies were still widely being used in the seventeenth century. Gustavus Adolphus' army was defeated in 1632 by Wallenstein's mercenary army.

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