The development of the nation-state across Europe such as France and Belgium revolutionized politics and warfare. Key to the nation state was the ability of the king to centralize power and create a civil bureaucracy and professional military. These militarizes were expensive and war could easily bankrupt a country. To improve revenue the states developed methods to prevent local officials from gaining access to taxes. However, the most important steps were mercantilism, the national banks such as the Bank of England, and the introduction of parliaments. These parliaments were meant to integrate wealthy non-nobles, especially merchants, into the state’s political structure. A strong sense of self was also very important for these relatively small countries to maintain themselves and not simple disintegrate.
Author: histacs
The Global War to Control Trade
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the European powers fought a global war over control of the worlds ocean-borne trade. The development of Mercantilism in Europe revolutionized economic relations. In Mercantilism, governments control trade and use it to pressure other countries economies. Much of the European expansion and warfare at this time was carried out by chartered companies, which employed their own armies and navies. Commerce, raiding, and the seizing of fortified trading posts played an important role in these wars. Wars were fought over the silver trade, the fur trade, and especially the highly lucrative slave plantations and the slave trade. Both piracy and smuggling grew in this period. Much of it controlled by these companies.
The Wooden World
The so-called Wooden World of the 18th century represented a global society based on seafaring. Warships ranged from sloops, with perhaps a dozen cannon, to a first-rate ship of the line with a hundred or more. These ships known as Men-of-war required educated officers and a skilled crews willing to live in the horrendous conditions on board. The cramped space, spoiled food and rationed water being only a few of the difficulties. Thus, a specialized culture of seamen was needed from which to draw crew. Sailors where drawn from around the world, and crews where integrated. A special naval culture developed, which was as cosmopolitan as its reputation for being vile. European states developed naval schools and research institutes. Non-Western cultures did not adopt fully-rigged warships, although they had the resources to do so. This was perfectly rational since it was not their traders who where threatened on the high seas. They let Europe pay the high bill for such navies.
Regiment
Around 1500 A.D. Fernandez Gonzalo de Cordoba organized companies of matchlockmen and pikemen into units called columns. In which the pikemen protected the matchlocks against cavalry and while they reloaded. The French adopted this and renamed it a regiment. In the French army there were 500 men in a company and three companies in a regiment. Drill or the timed action of reloading in standardized steps meant that volley fire was possible. Massed volley fire was much more effective than sporadic individual fire and made the pikemen’s job much easier. By 1650 with the adoption of the plug bayonet armies could dispense with pikemen completely. Cannons were also organized into units, only these were called batteries. What differentiated the European regiments from other 17th and 18th century units around the world was its incessant drill. Roll call became a part of the routine and soldiers also practiced marching which developed into the military parade. Barracks separated soldiers from the general population as a whole, which fostered discipline and developed a distinct military culture. Regiments had names and/or numbers, and a sense of competition with other regiments was fostered. While loyalty to the Monarch or State was stressed through oaths and ceremonies, distinctive regimental flags and uniforms, as well as tradition and song, developed.
Religious Turmoil
The 16th and 17th centuries where a time of much religious turmoil. In Europe it was the time of the Protestant Reformation. The Ottoman empire in the middle east was suppressing other Islamic sects such as the Shi’ites. Even India saw many religious wars between Muslim and Hindu factions. The conquest of the Mughal emperors brought Muslim rule over most of the India subcontinent. Like the first rulers of the Ottoman Empire, the early Mughal rulers were very tolerant and cosmopolitan. Also like in the Ottoman Empire this tolerance did not last long. They destroyed Hindu temples, forcibly converted Hindus to Islam and killed many who resisted. This led to the rise of Sikhism as a dominate sect. Originally a peaceful movement, when the persecution began the sixth Sikh Guru, Har Gobind militarized Sikhism in response to these assaults. This time also saw continued fighting between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. The fighting was centered in north Africa and southern Spain.
Spread
By the 15th century, European domination of global trade had resulted in the rapid spread of European military technology east. The matchlock and cannon replaced earlier Chinese-derived models. The new guns, using corned gunpowder, had a revolutionary impact on anywhere they went. One of the greatest was on the steppe peoples. The new weapons especially the cannon, were very effective against cavalry. As they had in Europe, these weapons brought an end to the reign of the armored horseman on the battlefield. After the 16th century there were no more successful steppe invasions of a settled region. The expense of gunpowder armies for the East was immense. The production of weapons required not only a source of iron but foundries as well. Foundries had not been a problem for Europe. Since they were needed to produce bells for churches, Europe had already had the infrastructure. This was not the case in the East. Another cost was the needed infrastructure to produce corned gunpowder on an industrial scale. But the fact that a peasant equipped with one of these weapons could defeat an armored noble propelled there spread. The increased expense of war required more complex bureaucracies to collect taxes, manage the purchase of weapons and powder, and pay soldiers. These weapons also decreased the power and influence of the nobility and strengthened that of centralized monarchies. By the beginning of the 17th century, four great empires stretched across the East. They had spread using the peasant to defeat the noble and the cannon to break any stronghold.
Discovery
Europeans used the new geographical knowledge and navigational technique developed during the Renaissance to try to circumvent Muslim control of trade with China. They constructed the galleon, a new kind of ship that was capable of making the very long voyages. The Portuguese dominated the route down and around the tip of Africa. In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed west hoping to find an alternate route. The Spanish explorers only gradually realized that they had found a new continent. Hernan Cortez was sent in 1518 from the island of Cuba to the mainland. He was supposed to build a settlement and establish trade with the Aztec Empire. Cortez had other ideas. Historians still argue over how small Spanish armies managed to conquer the Aztec and Incan Empires. Both diseases such as Smallpox, and the immense superiority of the Spanish steel weapons and armor, where significant factors. Another key factor was the highly stratified nature of the native society. Once the ruling class was defeated and co-opted, the Spanish were able to simply take over the work obligations imposed on the peasantry. Equally important was that the Spanish did not try to suppress the native aristocracy. They ruled through it, often marrying into it. Though ineffectual, the native population did offer perpetual resistance to Spanish rule for decades to come.
The Renaissance
by the 15th century, gun making and gunpowder production had already become major industries in Europe. Guns were placed on European merchant ships, which allowed them to defend themselves in a way that non-Europeans could not. This allowed the mercantile city-states of Italy to prosper. As the wealth of these city-states grew they began to lend credit to other countries. This allowed European nations to wage wars using gunpowder, which was far more expensive than traditional warfare. At the same time as all this wealth was pouring in, Greek speaking scholars fled from the crumbling Byzantine empire to Italy as their homeland was overrun by the armies of the Muslim world. The common language known by both the Italians and Greeks was Latin causing its resurgence as a language. This was the setting for the beginning of the Renaissance. The massive technological advancements of this period were in part due to the wealth in this region and the fierce competition of these city-states. The surplus of wealth also allowed for great artists, writers, and thinkers to arise. The Nobility of Europe went to the mercantile city-states of Italy to learn Philosophy and the Arts. Latin became the common language of the learned. Europe surpassed the rest of the world during this time. No longer did Europe stand in awe of the technologies of the East. Now Europe was the center of learning and thought and the rest of the world looked on in wonder.
Ancient America
The theory that people came over the Bering Strait to populate the Americas is widely accepted, but there is strong evidence that at least the people of South and some of Central America came via canoe. There are amazing parallels between the civilizations in these regions and those of Early Mesopotamia. This suggests common ancestry or even direct lineage. In both cases, urbanization occurred rapidly and a single large city seems to have been the origin of civilization for its region. They share similar governing structures, with a ruling elite that derived their power from religion and control of irrigation, not from force. With the domestication of maize and the potato these American cities flourished. South America never used anything more advanced than copper tools and very few at that. Else where in the Americas not even this level of technology was achieved. Yet they where able to construct wonders that rivaled the Egyptian Pyramids. By around 900 A.D. most of the large urban sites of the Americas had been abandoned, and the empires that were left were shadows of the former. Thus a brief history of the Americas.
The Rest of the World by the 15th Century
While Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and most of Asia where all at a similar technological level, the rest of the world lagged behind. The Sahara Desert acted as a barrier that delayed development for most of Africa for several centuries. While civilizations like the Zulu nation developed, most of the political structure of Africa remained on the tribal level. The most advanced weapon was the iron-tipped spear. Around 300 B.C. the peoples of the Malayo-Polynesian language family migrated out of Southeast Asia into the islands of Oceania and did not have access to any metal deposits. Which meant they were technologically limited, despite incredible navigational sophistication. Despite metal deposits farther south in Papua New Guinea and Australia, these places never advanced beyond the Stone Age. To the north of Europe, Norse sages tell of battles with the Skraelings, their name for the Native Americans. Even with centuries of interaction the use of iron and diseases did not spread to North America. All advanced civilization in South America had dissolved leaving it in much the same state as Africa.
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