Medieval Warfare Review Worksheet

Please describe the relative advantages and disadvantages between

mounted knights and infantry, and between light infantry, light cavalry,
and heavy cavalry during the Middle Ages:
○ Knights
• Advantages:
 Speed
 Height
 Shock power
 Intimidation factor
 Mobility
 Heavily armored
 Few other weapon systems that can consistently take out an
armored knight
• Disadvantages:
 Vulnerable to distance weapons (long bow etc.)
 Costly to train and armor
 Useless in siege warfare
○ Infantry
• Advantages:
 Better tactics than mounted knights
 Can hold the line
 Can take down knights with discipline
 Less expensive
 Pike weapons
• Disadvantages:
 Fatigue
○ Light Infantry
• Advantages:
 Less expensive to outfit
 Defensive against light cavalry (shooting missile
projectiles/longbow/crossbow) with accuracy
 Better tactics
 Longbow and cross bow (distance advantage)
• Disadvantages:
○ Heavy Cavalry
• Advantages:
 Stirrup
• Disadvantages:
 Heavier (harder to move)
 Most expensive
○ Light Cavalry
• Advantages:
 Guerrilla warfare (superior mobility over heavy cavalry)
 Compel heavy cavalry to fight
 Better horsemen
• Disadvantages:
 No stirrup
○ Heavy infantry --> defend --> heavy cavalry
Heavy cavalry --> attack- --> light infantry
 Light infantry --> defend --> light cavalry
Light cavalry --> attack --> heavy cavalry
Light cavalry --> attack --> heavy infantry
Light infantry --> attack --> heavy infantry

Please identify the institutions and individuals who attempted to regulate

war during the Middle Ages, and describe the means (how) using
examples
○ Church of Augustine
• Christians should fight Christians
• Justification in war
• Justification before war
○ Church
• Pax Dei
 War as illegal on certain days/times
• No war against pilgrims, nuns, priests, merchants
• Not on Holy Days or during Lent
• Tregua Dei
 Treaty of God
 Framework to enforce peace
• Crusades to move the fighting outside of Europe
 Not real attempt to limit warfare, but just to move it abroad
• Aquinas and idea of 'just war'
 Leaves out what to do about non-combatants and non-Christians
• Attempts failed because they had no way to enforce codes of conduct
(warfare was endemic in Middle Ages)
 Set a precedent that war is bad and thus, we should try to avoid
it
○ Chivalric code
• Knights supposed to protect the helpless
• Failed code because knights did not know or follow this conduct
○ Feudalism limited warfare
• Hierarchical society where only Lord is allowed to declare war
 Prevent war because only one person that can decide upon war
• Failed because everyone claimed the right of the feudal Lord
○ Royals enforced taxes and limited warfare to battlefield
• Levy and raised taxes in an attempt to centralize armies (instead of
private armies)
 Not effective, but later on would become more effective
○ Petition for King of France for recourse during Hundred Year's War
Please account for the English victory at Agincourt in 1415
Please account for the prisoner massacre
○ King Henry was afraid that French solders would grab weapons on the
ground (discarded from fallen soldiers) and attack them from the rear
• Thought French 3rd line was going to attack and the prisoners would
break out
○ Heard there was an attack on supply chain in the rear
• Taken too many prisoners because battle had gone unexpectedly
well
 • More prisoners than healthy soldiers
○ Spite, fear of uprising, and control
• Intimidate French army = control and quell the remaining French
prisoners to cooperate and surrender
○ As inefficient as the chivalric code was in conducting warfare, some
knights did buy into the idea of 'just war'
• Foot soldiers and bowmen were drags of society (gone to fight for
mercenary reasons, and to avoid jail time back home)
• Step to killing prisoners was outside what was supposed to happen
because these prisoners were valuable
Please account for why men fought at Agincourt
○ King Henry the 5th's honor
○ Fighting on the side of angels (God's blessings) - fighting for God
○ Got a certain amount of alcohol before battle on English side
○ Henry 5th was a great leader
○ Fought for peers and for each other
○ Perks of war (booty and loots)

Medieval Warfare Chapter 1

The Centrality of War to the Middle Ages

○ Middle Ages spanned from 500 to 1500 (1000 year period)
• Fall of Rome in 1492 to beginning of early modern period at the end
of 15th century
• 2 parts: Dark Ages and Middle Ages (5th to 9th century is Dark Ages)
○ War/warfare suffused all aspects of Medieval society, but not the case in
later societies
○ Invasions from 7th century to 11th century,
• From south the Moslems
• From east the Magyars
• From north the Vikings
○ Crusades when Europeans fight back (12 major Crusade battles)
• Look to recapture the Holy Lands
○ Dynasties and rudimentary states fighting (local conflicts over land,
marriages etc.) each other throughout
○ Warfare in Middle Ages is different from modern period
• Architecture
 Landscape of Europe is littered with castles and old fortifications
from the Middle Ages
• Defense
• Place to regroup to strike an offensive blow
 Armaments survive
• Used in jousting tournaments
• Cultural phenomenon
 Poetry and manuscripts of Middle Ages
• Mounted knight as central character
• Sir Thomas Malory's King Arthur
• Don Quixote
 • Today, literature is not concerned with the archetypal
character like the knight
• Medieval warfare was part and parcel of the social institutions
 Feudalism: grant of land in exchange for military service
• Structure of society
• Upper echelons of society
• King, Duke, Marquis, Baron, Earl, Knight (all mounted
knights)
• Right and prerogative of the feudal lord to wage war
• Church sanctioned the idea of a 'just' war
• Land grant at the heart of military service
The Knightly Aristocracy
○ Social stratification is important in upper echelons of society
• How does it affect battlefield reality?
 Theoretically, one is supposed to fight with social equals on the
battlefield
 Mountain knight had a great disdain for foot soldier and his
weapons (cross bow, long bow etc.)
• Vulnerable to these weapons
• Social deference
 Mountain knight hated the infantry men who used spears (axe or
pike)
• Discipline in a medieval army is uncommon
• Matter of economics
 Cost a lot to be a knight
 Need an entire team (shield bearer, esquire, scouts, foot
soldiers, groomsmen etc.)
• Advantage of knight was shock power, speed, height, and distance
• Mythical ideal of knight
 Live up to chivalrous ideals, but never did
• Siege warfare
• Knights dismount and fight as common infantry (totally
useless)
○ Equipment and status
• After breeding, war horse is a fierce animal
 Stands 6'6'' at the withers, 2000 lbs
 Allowed for height and speed advantage when mounted upon
• Knight and horse were armored
 Warhorse wore leather and then armor
 Knight would carry a lance, a shield, and be armored initially in
the first part of the Middle Ages in chain mail (deflect piercing
from weapons)
 Lance was 15 to 20 feet long
• Stirrup was a very important tool
 Can't wield a 15 foot lance without the stirrup to balance
 Raise saddle gives mounted knight even more height
 Did the stirrup invent the elite, or did the elite already exist?
• Elite is predicated upon this stirrup
• Probably was an elite before that, and earlier elite adapted
the stirrup
 ○ Heavy versus light cavalry
• Difference is the stirrup
 Light cavalry doesn't have stirrup or cavalry
• Who had the fighting advantage?
 Came down to strategy and geography
• Light cavalry could use guerilla warfare (come down on
heavy European cavalry and never defeat it, but harass it
and starve it out)
• Not head to head because mounted knights were
armored
• Home field advantage had to count for something
• Heavy cavalry could inflict damage in close quarters
○ Armor
• Jousting tournaments were used for training
 Individual identity (great honor, financial reward)
• War becomes a means to an ends because it paid
 Knight was primary battlefield weapon, but he is increasingly
becoming less and less important as the cavalry becomes more
and more important
• Hidden contributions of foot solider (siege warfare came to
an end one way or the another because of infantry)
• Chain mail evolved into coat mail (Battle of Hastings is an example,
bayeaux tapestry)
 Used till 12 century
 Then get plate armor
• Shields disappear and make way for plate armor
 No need for a shield anymore
 Deflect piercing (long bow and cross bow)
• As long bow and cross bow becomes more prevalent, armor
becomes less flat (so that arrows glace off, flat surfaces can
be penetrated)
• Armor just gets more and more expensive
• First arms race
 Going back and forth, one side with advantage and then the
other side gets another advantage etc.
 Offense to defense push-pull
Infantry
○ Infantry was regularly defeating the mountain knights
• Swiss pikemen
• English long-bowmen
○ Matter of money
• Edward the 1st invades and conquers Wales
 Gathers together an army of 1,000 knights and 30,000 men
• Foot soldier plays a big part
• Wales is mountainous and thus, infantry soldiers are more
efficient and useful
 Infantry flush the French guerrillas, and knights would hunt them
down
• Infantry are less expensive to arm than mounted knights
○ Infantry have better tactics than mounted knights
 • Discipline is a prerequisite
○ Infantry not successful in completely moving the mounted knights off
battlefield
• Social preconceptions because knights are still social, economic, and
political leaders
 Gunpowder allowed for the removal of the knights
Fortifications
○ Use
• Defend territory
• Place to regroup for an offensive counterattack
• Later, place where local politics would be administered from
• Even later, in Middle Ages, place of feudal ceremonies (like jousting
tournaments)
○ First, response to invasion and threats
• Motte (keep) and Bailey
 Keep made of wood and hay
 Could be easily burned down
• Next, made square keeps out of stone and thus, could not be burned
 Arrows can glance off from stone
 Can tunnel below one of the corners to damage the structure
(compared to round keep)
○ What land is valuable to defend?
• Land alongside rivers (transportation means)
Ending Notes
○ Medieval technology threatened the status of the knight
• Use of longbow, pikes, and organization of men to hold lines against
knights
 Challenge knights' superiority on battlefield
• Fortifications in armor
 Prefer infantry in siege situation
• Knights remain the primary focus of medieval warfare despite the
advances in fortifications, technology, and strategy
○ The feudal order was very hierarchal in nature

Medieval Warfare Jones Chapter 2

Types of Warfare
a. Defensive
○ Europe under siege (500 to 10th/11th Century)
 North: Vikings
• Invaded France, Mediterranean, Volga River, Sicily,
Constantinople, Eastern part of Roman Empire
• Greatest successes in Normandy and Sicily where
they established colonies
 Magyars coming from Hungary
• Battle of Lechclad: 50,000 Hungarians soldiers on
horseback and many knights
• Used numerical superiority to gain advantage
• Discipline broke down
• Germans took advantage of that
  Moors
• Better part of Siberian Peninsula and Toulouse, into
Southern France by 8th century
 Mongols
• After Genghis Khan's death, threat recedes
a. Expansion
○ First half is defensive, second half Europeans are pushing
back
○ Tutonic Knights
 Wars with Slavs and Pagan tribes
 Mini crusades with goal to Christianized the Pagans and
the Slaves of Eastern Europe
 Due role of conquering and Christianizing
• Killing and plunder commonplace
○ Reqonquista
 Spanish Christian forces push Moors out of Spanish
Peninsula
a. Crusades
○ 11th to 12th century
○ 9 major Crusades
 Most were failures
○ Battles between European knights and Arabs that controlled
Middle East at that time
 Second Crusade: Battle between King Richard Lion
Hearted (Kingdom of Heaven movie)
 Control over logistics and battle chains and could harass
Western knights to giving up
a. Rise of Organized/Regulated War
○ War was endemic and also accepted
 Who had the right to wage war?
• Everybody claimed the right
• Investiture: right to appoint the next Pope (Holy
Roman Empire thought it was their right, and
Cardinals thought it was their right)
 Petty conflicts also
• Dukes looking to increase their power (regional
wars)
• Duly constituted authority contested
• Hanseatic League of Northern Germany
 War was accepted as morally right
• Natural part of human society
○ After 12th century, greater organization and strategy
 Knight is supposed to be a public servant and live with
chivalric ideals
• Make sure there is peace in the land
• Hired gun of institutions who can actually do
something to regulate (Church and State =
monarchy)

Early Middle Ages

 a. From Roman to Christian Empire
○ End of Roman Empire, lose peace (lose Pax Romana)
○ The absence of power is like the absence of air (a vacuum),
something is going to rush in to fill in that void
 Beginning of Middle Ages, the Church fills this space
• How will Christianity govern warfare?
• Christianus Sum Non Possum Militaire
• I am Christian, I cannot be a soldier in the
military
• St. Augustine outlines the idea of what just war
is, and what unjust war is
• Augustinian Code that governs war in the
abstract sense
a. Augustine and Just War
○ Augustinian Code condones certain types of violence and
outlaws other types of violence
○ Jus in Bello (justification in war)
 Fighting well
 Confining destructiveness
 Treating POWs with respect
 Not employing torture
 Rejecting the notion that everything goes
 Says nothing about non-combatant
• How a Christian soldier fights a Christian soldier, not
how a Christian soldier fights combatants, Pagans,
Muslims, or Jews
○ Jus ad Bellum (justification before war)
 Just cause, like self-defense
 Comparative justice is the idea that the destructiveness
that you cause by going to war is going to right a greater
wrong
 Duly constituted authority to declare
 Right intention
 Probability of success
• World War I, everybody expected to win that war!
 Last resort
a. From Bellum to Werra
○ From civilized Roman warfare to Germanic tribes concept of
what war was
 For Germanic tribes, Werra meant enrichment
• About plunder and tribute
• Enforcing one's authority on subject people
• Few hundred men
• Little regulation
• Slave combatants and make them acknowledge your
power
 Bellum means war

Later Middle Ages

a. War Enriched
 ○ After Europe defends itself, it branches out and becomes
more prosperous
 Get trade and prosperity
 Cash component
 1200-1348: high prosperity
 Idea that war is bad, should regulate
 No central authority
• Secular powers are non-existent
a. War Controlled: Ecclesiastical
i. Pax Dei
 Peace of God in 989
 Declares war as illegal on certain individuals at certain
times
 Priests, nuns, pilgrims, and merchants are protected
(most non-combatants)
• Protect people from war
 Illegal to declare war on Sundays and during Let
 Rules did not work
i. Tregua Dei
 Truce of God in 1027
 Institution of peace
 Counsel of bishops consider an ideal or ethics for chivalry
 Created manpower/framework to put priests in all the
courts of Europe, to be there to educate the young
nobles in the idea that war is bad
• Church can only work in the subtle means of
background
i. Crusades
 Regulate war or control fighting
 Twofold purpose
• Christianizing the Middle East
• Doing work of god
• Getting soldiers out of Europe
• Keeping men out of harm's way
 Most practical way to regulate war
a. War Controlled: Feudal
i. Chivalry
 Failed code that knights were supposed to help the
helpless
 Unknown and lost on knights themselves
a. War Controlled: Royal Style
i. Taxation, Salaried Service, and Administration
 Merchant community is doing well
• Buy into the idea that merchants should pay taxes
on their income to the monarchy who can then hire
permanent, standing armies
• National armies that are paid regularly
 Feudal system is not enough
• Need to pay knights regularly to limit the violence
 More efficiency
 a. Aquinas and Just War
○ Aquinas brings about what 'just war' is
 Must be officially declared
 Only government can undertake
 Spoils are allowed, but only in the context of war
○ No more successful than Church or Augustine
 Church's efforts provided precedents for future
generations to build upon
• Original idea that war is wrong
The Hundred Years War
a. Control
○ 1337-1453 between English and French over dynastic
considerations (end of Middle Ages)
○ Battles are overrated
 Siege warfare and occupation of land and territory
○ French win this war because they have the local population
on their side
a. Non-Combatants
○ Civilians suffering the most over this hundred year period
○ Both sides plundered what they needed from the land
 English used scorched earth tactics to ruin morale of
community
 Instilling fear
a. Regulation
○ All regulation is a total failure
○ People don't expect much (very fatalistic)
 Petition the King of France for recourse
• English plundered harvest etc.
• Counseling King to do something
• Some institutional recourse was progress

Scope of Renaissance Warfare

Cross Against Crescent

a. Perpetual Global War
○ Warfare had an increasing mathematical or scientific outlook
○ Borders are still very fluid in the 16th century because the
monarchy is weak
• Sovereignty resides with one individual and with
death/marriage, the borders change all the time
○ States strengthened once they controlled semi-professional
modern armies
• Had right to wage war
a. Military Advantage of West
○ Christian West against predominant Muslim empire
• Seen by both sides as a religious, legitimate war
• All about controlling trade routes and land
○ Ottoman Empire is unified under one ruler and Christian West is
constantly in fighting amongst themselves
 • Christian West not acting in a unified way
• Interstate competition
• Ottoman Empire is one unified empire which cooperates
with other areas
• Europe has political, ethnic, religious, and dynastic
rivalries
• Sharpens these states and creates an entrepreneurial
war mentality
• Ottoman Empire gets lazy, while Europe gets
competitive and innovative
○ Up until 16th century, Spanish had most success
• Driven Moors out of Spain back to North Africa
• Under the guise of the Hapsburg would continue the fight for
the West versus the Ottoman Empire
• Fought in Balkans and Mediterranean
○ Fact that West wasn't defeated was a miracle
○ 1530s = Ottoman Empire expanding into Europe
• Besieged Vienna twice (failed both times)
• Treated its subject peoples in a very fair way (home rule)
• Leave local elite in place, but just make sure to pay taxes
regularly
• Europeans never learned how to control conquered
people well enough to earn their allegiance
○ Under guidance of Spanish (Hapsburg Dynasty, dynastic family
that controlled Spain, Holy Roman Empire, and Netherlands)
 Spain collecting gold and silver across the Americas to
finance war
○ Technologically, both sides are equal
○ Military revolution plays out differently in Europe
 Result of Italian Wars and bette fortifications
 Europe (with money and fortification design) built
fortifications across the Balkans which the Ottomans could
not penetrated
a. Battle of Lepanto, 1571
○ Most climatic naval battle
○ European navies vs. Ottoman navies
 European navy comprised of subjects from Genoa, Venice,
and Holy Roman Empire (Spain) = Holy League
 Ottoman: 230 naval ships
 Lasted 3-5 hours
 Ottoman lost 80 ships and had 130 captures
• 1800 European cannons vs. 730 Ottoman cannons
• Faster more mobile ships
• Better tactics and better leadership
• Decisive blow
○ The decisive victory meant little in the longrun
 Holy League is formed under the direction of the Hapsburg,
and they unite to fight and actually win
• Bicker about the spoils and cannot take any long-term
advantage of defeating the Ottoman navy
 • Spanish wanted to focus on North Africa, and Genoa
and Venice wanted to focus on regaining Cyprus
• Ottoman quickly rebuilt their navy and removed the
European temporary advantage
a. The Dividing Line
○ Spain signs treaty with Ottoman
○ Ottoman keeps all land until 1595
○ Both sides realize that they cannot displace enough power to
move the other opponent
○ Once it stops expanding, it doesn't have the land to reward it's
armies with
 Spoils cease, and get in-fighting
○ Ottoman Empire eventually referred to as 'the sick man of Europe'

Habsburg vs. Valois (The Italian Wars)

a. Dreams and Fears of Universal Domination
○ Conflict: France is scared that Hapsburgs will control all of Europe
 Lead by Valois family
 Battle between 2 dynastic families with famous holdings
a. The Italian War
○ 1494-1599, fight intermittently over 60 year period
○ Each city state has to take on a relation with a greater power in
order to survive
• Fight between city states become proxy wars
○ Hapsburgs win
• French sign treaty that France will never interfere again
• French side with Soulaman the 1st of Ottoman Empire
• Put together a naval force to capture Monaco and
Nice
○ Significant advances in terms of military technology (guns and
artillery)
○ Significant advances in tactics (infantry square)
○ Combined arms (suns, muskets, and artillery)
○ Hapsburgs become the most powerful empire in Europe
○ Infantry is the most preeminent formation on the battlefield
• Highly complex in terms of maneuvers
○ Artillery makes its first appearance on battlefield
• Artillery is mobile
• Will increasingly be responsible for death
○ Siege warfare changes
• Dealing with city states which are fortified towns
• Fortifications are increasingly getting better
• Siege tactics have to get better as fortifications get
better

Catholic Against Protestant

 a. Internal Wars of Religion
○ Wars are civil wars in that the fighting never spills over into wars
between states
 Never had a Catholic state fighting a Protestant state
○ Northern Italy and Netherlands, Hapbsurgs prefer to see it remain
Catholic
 15th and 16th century: ground zero points for military
technology and evolution of tactics and the evolution of
fortifications
○ 17th century that we see interstate warfare over religion (30
years war)
 States fighting each other because of religion
○ Dynastic wars, East vs. West wars, and religious wars
intermingled with each other
 French allied with the Ottoman at one point

War and State Formation

a. Rising Cost of War
○ How did governments adjust to the rising cost of war?
 Fear of bankruptcy
 Army size increased --> supply increased
 Taxes increased over century by a factor of 4
 Matter of borrowing
• Reached their credit limit because they would default
• Credit lines got tight and banks/banking families would
not lend out money = often led to peace
• Dynasties led a borrowing plateau and weren't able to
carry out war
• To raise more money, monarchies had to go to their
Parliaments
• Medieval hangovers that would become
important institutions
• Because of war and cost of war, reached limit of
monarchical autonomy
• Had to go to Parliament to get new funds
(equation of power changes)
• Government begins to grow as a function of
supporting the war
• New arrangements for war (local court
a. Lengthening Reach of Government
○ Modern state emerges
a. New Splendor - Weak Monarchies
○ Dynastic court still at center, but increasingly esoteric
 Court became les pertinent for day to day governance issues
Renaissance Warfare

Renaissance Overview
○ 1450-1600s
○ Age of discovery and rediscover (looking to the past from scientific
literature to military science)
 ○ Age of great works of art
○ Age of economic expansion
○ Period when the modern or early modern state apparatus will emerge
from the politically dysfunctional apparatus of the Middle Ages
• Origins of the modern state

Gunpowder
a. Conventional vs. Revisionist Views
○ Cannons arrive in siege battlefield scenes
○ Gun powder makes it way into Renaissance warfare
○ Reduction in aristocratic powers because of these battlefield
changes
 Not as powerful militarily as they were in the Middle
Ages
 Benefits the Kings/feudal Lords/States because they can
now employ semi-professional standing armies
• Theoretically, a State can employ a semi-
professional standing army (but not really until the
Napoleonic era)
• Scales power balance out in their favor (gotten rid of
old exchange of land for service)
• Merchant community says you can tax us for
protection
○ Conventional: gunpowder is at the heart of all these changes
in the battlefield
 King having the most power because he controls the
army
○ Revisionist: cannot have such broad social, economic, and
political change because of a mono-causal explanation
 More going on than just gunpowder entering the scene
• Scientific advantages
• New ways of thinking of God
• Age of exploration and discovery (Europeans going
abroad - Magellan )
• Inventions like printing press (information can be
easily disseminated)
 Gunpowder invented in China, and had no such effect on
economy or politics
• Fighting class in Europe was most esteemed whereas
in China, warrior class was lowest
 Slice up causal pie in many ways, but gunpowder is most
important as a cause of changes
a. First Cannons
○ Europeans learned to build cannons from the Chinese
 Through Silk Trade Route across Asia, Mediterranean,
and then Europe
○ Replace catapults as siege weapon of choice
 Cultural fascination with things that go 'boom' in
European courts
 Cheaper gunpowder
  Iron cannonballs replaced stone cannonballs towards end
of 15th century
 General technological progress that underlay cannon
technology
• First cannons in mid 14th century were made of
leather and wood (worked one time)
 Technology transfer from bell-making to cannon making
• Time was dictated and run by bells of Church
○ By 16th century, cannons become mobile
 Not only used in siege warfare, but also in battlefield
• Otherwise, had to float instruments in
○ Growing importance of cannons can be summed up in the
phrase "ultima ratio regum," meaning "the final arguments of
Kings"
 Kings controlled armies in Renaissance period
• Kings with most cannons became the most powerful
○ Political progress, religious backing, cultural enthusiasm =
military advances
a. First Responses
○ Thick Walls
 Built thicker walls for defense
○ Layered Towers
 Out towers to counteract the appearance of the cannon
 Push cannon as far away as possible
 Return more fire to sieger
○ Outworks and Moats
 Moats and ditches pushing the besieging army further
and further
○ Angle Bastions/Star Fort
 The trace italienne
 Angle bastion as part of fortification design
 More points from which to fire back out into the
attacking army
 Flanking fire
 Fire double the rate of fire onto a single point

Infantry
a. Old-New Style Infantry
○ Comes to prominence on Renaissance battlefield
○ Cheaper to outfit
○ Have great drill and discipline
• Getting pikemen drilled and disciplined to the point
where they will not break their pike squares
a. Ancient Rome and the New Reformers
○ Francis I
• Army in 1534, calling it the first modern style army
• Calls up 7 battalions and uses this to continue the war
with the Hapsburgs
• Does not hire out mercenary, all from French regions
• Did not want to hire out
 • Focused on infantry instead of mounted knight
• Mounted knights are officers
• Recreated Roman phalanx by putting infantry in the
middle
a. Machiavelli
○ Writes in The Prince how the state and military should
combine to create a virtuous 'new Rome'
a. Tactics of Aelian
○ William of Nasa
• Dutch military thinker and political leader
• Brings a particular ancient military strategist to the
battlefield (Aelian, Greek but lived during time of Roman
Empire in Roman century)
• Aelian was a strong believer in infantry and drill
• Soldiering should be a full-time occupation
• State should have a full time standing army
a. Infantry Square
○ Drilling is important because if you can get your pike square
to be drilled and disciplined so that it won't break, there will
be a more effective fighting unite
• Different from mercenaries because mercenaries tend to
ebb and flow and as long as they are getting paid, they
fight valiantly but without discipline
• Mounted knights would not fight with discipline but
instead, would search for bounty and glory
a. Swiss Pikes
○ Called the 'hedgehog' (men in middle with their pikes up, and
men surrounding them)
• No way to dislodge it
○ Tend to be mercenaries and that will cause a problem for the
newly forming states of Europe because they go to the
highest bidder
• Not dependable because one team might be out-bid
○ Highly trained and disciplined mercenaries (movement
towards national army)
○ Most formidable battlefield unit
○ Replaced by Spanish tersio
a. Development of Written Drills
○ Drill and discipline comes with handbooks
○ Information is disseminated across the armies across Europe
• Need to be able to read
• New officer class has to be literate
• Different from mounted knights that didn't have to
be literate to be effective
• Foot soldiers can remain illiterate during
Renaissance period
• Had to think about logistics and how to deploy troops
most effectively
Survivals and Extinctions
a. Crossbow and Longbow
○ Still find them on the field, but will get replace by arquebus
• Crossbow is deadly and more accurate than the early
musket, but it is more expensive and it takes longer to
reload
• Longbow requires too much intensive training
a. Arquebus and Musket
○ New tactics have to be developed to integrate the new
technology
• Put gunners in the outside column to protect the
pikemen
• Gunpowder technology was not offensive, but
defensive
a. New Caesars and Old Men at Arms
○ Mounted knight is still present, but gunpowder and pikes
changes his role
• Becomes the new officer and studies warfare instead
• Emerge from lance-carrying men at arms to cavalry
(pistol and sword to replace armor and lance)
a. Pistoleers
a. Emergence of an Officer Class
Conclusion
a. Renaissance Rethinking
i. Man at arms evolves into early modern officer
i. Infantry becomes drilled and disciplined
i. Warfare takes on a scientific, mathematical aspect
i. State is increasingly gaining control over armies (semi-
professional army) and legitimate war resides with the state
Renaissance Army Review Worksheet

Describe the typical composition of both armies (the fighting units)

• Renaissance: gunners
Describe the moment of Engagement:
• Mounted knights charge (no discipline) and relegate infantry unit to secondary
status
• Knights rebuffed by pike square
• Renaissance army counter with field artillery and move pike square forward
• As pike square advance, medieval army bowmen advance
• Pike square advance into medieval men at arms
• Renaissance army send in officer class/pistoleers to clean up

• Start with missile fire

• Medieval attack pike squares, renaissance cannons attack archers
• Archers stand no chance again cannons
• Pistoleers
Describe the results and explain why
• Technology
• Drill and discipline
 ○ Pike squares do not break and charge forward
• Renaissance army is larger and much better funded than medieval army

17th Century Warfare

Varieties of war in the 17th century (Chameleon War)

○ Century dominated by warfare
• 1669 and 1770, only 2 years with no war
• But warfare is not endemic
 Fighting warfare climaxed in first half of century during Thirty
Years War (1618-148)
• Destructive, high death rates, villages destroyed, spread of
disease
○ Style of war depended on the circumstances, and circumstances tended to
the extremes
• Eastern Europe: war wasn't dominated by the state
 Light cavalry, bowmen on horseback
 Undertake war of plunder against neighbors as nomadic peoples
 At night, speed was imperative for the Tartars and the Magyars
who needed to avoid the Polish and Russian army (Kossacks)
 Fluid in that potential allies and adversaries were always
changing because there were no rules of engagement
• No state apparatus to enforce and control the area (not
enough finances to maintain a standing army that could
enforce the law in such a large area)
• Western Europe: war was more formalized
 Fighting of the Spanish-Dutch War
• Highly developed state apparatuses
• Begins as a religious revolt
• Fighting adheres to certain rules of engagement
• Very formalized in terms of declaring war because of
states and power (states look to control violence by
being able to stop and start war)
• Local Catholics and Protestants united for a while against
the Spanish
a. Land War
a. Sea War
• Found in Mediterranean
• Rules of engagement were to capture the enemy ship and
steal as much plunder
• Very informal
• Anglo-Dutch war: no land fighting, just highly formalized
naval engagements
 Highly regulated by states involved
 Navies are really expensive, and only a hand few of
European states can project their power through naval
force
 Before 17th century, navies were powered through oars
or wind but by the 17th century, all navies were powered
 by the wind (power was no longer a part of naval
warfare)
Innovations and Limitations: 1600 - 1648
a. New Drills and Discipline
i. Maurice of Nassau (Prince of Orange)
 By beginning of 17th century, land war had become
inconclusive
• Defensive stalemate because of weapon systems and
fortifications
• Fortresses were superior to the
tactics/technology used to besieging a fortress
• Offense had become a bit jumbled
• No one figured out how to put together a
competent army
• 45 mutinies which prolonged warfare
 Maurice saw that firepower will break this stalemate on
the battlefield
• Guns not pikes would win, and pikemen should be
there to protect the gunmen instead (not the reverse
like before)
• Tactical innovations: comes up with something called
the 'deep square'
• Alternate between pikeman, gunman, pikeman,
gunman…etc
• Use pikemen to protect gunner from any cavalry
charge when gunner is reloading
• How well this worked depended upon efficiency
and training
i. Gustavus Adolphus
 King of Sweden, one of the leaders of the Protestant
forces in Thirty Years War
 Introduces new recruitment methods and a more intense
drill discipline regime than Maurice
• Required that all villages provide 1 man out of 10 to
the Swedish army for 10 years of service
• Central government had to pay for uniform and
equipment and in return, the soldier would get
land and a pension
 Instead of 10 x 100 in deep square (as opposed to 25 x
25 in traditional pike square)
• Puts leftover men in reserves and can eventually
move them to the battlefield when needed
• More flexibility on battlefield
 Big on combined arms
• Had field artillery unites, cavalry, and infantry = all
equal in terms of importance, but each one had
specific roles on the battlefield
• Crosstrained so all soldiers were capable of being
used anywhere on the battlefield
a. Financial and bureaucratic limits
 • Tactical changes require more men and larger standing
armies
 Requires money and supply and a firm control over
logistics
• Cannot get around supply problem
• States try to ask the right questions and start to
come up with the right answers as a result of the
Thirty Years War
The Thirty Years War (1618)
a. From Religious to National Conflict
• Replay of what happened in the Spanish-Dutch War
 Protestant vs. Catholic
 Catholic: Spain with a centralized bureaucracy, Holy
Roman Empire
 Protestant: Sweden, Netherlands
• Started as a religious war but at a certain point, national
interest overtakes the religious rational for the war
 Because the war was so destructive and had threatened
the very existence of these states
 National interest takes precedence over religious
interest at the time
 States put own interest over religious interest
a. Peace of Westphalia
• Civilian casualty rate was 30%, mortality rate ran 15%-20%,
disease and famine (scorched earth policy)
• Treaty called for religious toleration inside the Holy Roman
Empire
• Legal precedent for religious toleration
 Define borders with a large army to defend borders
 State has to get bigger in order to pay for and administer
new larger standing armies
Emergence of Standing Armies
a. Size
• Reach unprecedented sizes
• Louis the 14th will have the biggest army in the late 17th
century (300,000 standing, trained, professional army)
 Succeeds in expanding French borders
a. Bureaucracies
• Need new methods for recruiting and training
• Had to be able to exploit resources
• Monarchy sold offices that had rights to collect taxes
 Crown is selling a right, not really giving anything up
• States increasingly control and organize violence
• States that have strong armies push war away into weaker
spaces
 Pushes war away to the borders to allow peace to exist
inside the country
• 2 individuals that make this possible for Louis
 Michelle D'Atelier and Marquis Loureve
• Create a centralized structure for the army
 •
Made the highest ranking officers directly
accountable to the state on a full time professional
basis
• Payment was a direct function of the central
government
• Oversaw the logistics of war
a. Space of War/Space of Peace
Obstacles to Offensive War
a. Dispersion
• No one had formulated an effective defensive structure
• Decisive victories hard to find
• States have become reluctant to engage in mass battle
 Reluctant to put all eggs in one basket
a. Fortresses
a. Supply
a. Weaponry

Military Revolution Worksheet

Who put forward the Military Revolution thesis? What is the thesis in a
nutshell?
Michael Roberts ; Parker extended it by focusing more on military change in relation
to European domination (evolution of the State); change in tactics, strategy, larger
armies, and impact on society; firepower causes everything to change essentially
Cannons:
How did the development of cannons force changes in fortifications (trace
out the evolution of fortresses)
Redesign fortresses to resist bombardment; trace itallienne (return double the rate
of fire that the besieger can lay on you), bastions, moats, etc.; no longer have
vertical fortresses; geometric designs; first built thicker walls; pushed besiegers
away to give a return fire advantage; warfare becomes more scientific; open field
battles aren't as important as siege warfare

What was the effect of improved fortifications for siege warfare?

Longer to take fortresses down, use more men and more artillery; sapping and
mining (underground trenches); starved out defenders using strategic attrition;
mounted knights are gone and are replaced by pikemen and musketeers

What was the impact of gunpowder on battlefield formations?

Changed the pike formation, more long and thin, more vulnerable had to be well
trained and there face-to-face combat

Describe the progression (types) and the problems of early guns.

Too long to reload; too heavy to transport by land; not mobile enough; easier to
train with and cheaper; really inaccurate; experiment with leather guns, but
attempts were unsuccessful; lit fuse matchlock bad because it would go out and
would have to relight, a fuse exposed to elements, rains a lot, not dependable -->
wheel lock, combustion was internal as the wheel turned, it propelled the musket
ball --> flintlock, most efficient because it uses steel and a flint to create a spark
inside an internal chamber; pikemen ushered off battlefield because he is merged
into musketeer with the fixed bayonet (can resist cavalry charges both ways)

Tactical Changes:
What's the biggest battlefield change in terms of who reigned supreme?
No longer relied on brute force; recruited from overseas

Is cavalry still used in early modern warfare, and how?

Used it more for scouting than on the battlefield; had trouble supplying and feeding
the cavalry; infantry replaced cavalry; bred war horses; use of cavalry changed in
early modern period; instead of using lance and armor, used pistols; geographic
distinction, still used heavily in Eastern Europe, full of vast spaces while West has
siege warfare and the horse does not do much in siege warfare; Poles develop lance
units

Who introduced changes into infantry tactics, how was infantry deployed,
what was the goal, did it work, and what was the effect?
Maurice of Nassa created the new pike formation of the volley technique/deep
square in unison, maximize outgoing fire and minimize incoming fire; Gustavos
thins out the line to make them 3 deep because of the training

What are some of the logistical problems?

Have to supply large armies, outfitting them with weaponry, getting food for all
soldiers; difficult to shelter, especially during winter campaings; had to pay troops
on time; dispersed at the end of the campaign season but now have to continue to
pay and train them (doesn't end); desertion; transport with road conditions

Military Revolution and Naval Warfare:

What was method and object of classical naval warfare?
Classical technique of ramming and boarding using galleys moved by oars; slaves
and convicts manned the oars; then got naval guns

What was the problem with this arrangement, and the solution?
Had to get really close to the opposite ships; couldn't broadside because the oars
are on the side; stick cannons where oars previously were

What were the keys to early modern naval warfare, the difference
between winning and losing an engagement?
Firepower and speed/maneuverability, larger ship sizes without increasing the size
of the navy; smaller crew sizes; faster ships to maneuver around

Who were the big winners in the early modern naval arms race?
English; Dutch with the frigades, money, design, and sailing culture; French
Privateers:
What were they?
Private war ship; state supported piracy

Why did states sanction them?

Prosperous; told to raid Spanish treasureships and enemy merchant ships in order
to destroy their economic power
Why ultimately did states see the institution as a bad idea?
Not capturing battleships but rather, were plundering; hard to control once at sea;
bad reputation; eventually people stopped trying to attack the individual ships, they
attacked the home country

Naval Changes and Limitations

Naval recruitment remained a problem, why?
Often times, conscription was not enough and thus, convicts were often recruited.

What about solutions?

What was the long term effect?

Administrative Success and State Limitations:
Who was at the forefront of administrative changes, and why?

What's the big problem, and the solution?

The Critics:
What do critics say about the MR thesis?
Parker Extension:
How was the West-initially so small and deficient in most natural
resources-able to overcome this situation through military and naval
power and conquer global empires?

War in the Age of Reason

17th Century Lessons

a. Frequency
○ Had Europeans learned anything from endemic warfare of
17th century?
 18th century warfare characterized as being less
frequent because of: diffusion of weapon's technology
across continent and burgeoning state apparatus (can
control warfare)
• Leads to tactical strategic stalemate
a. Decisiveness
○ War that was fought was indecisive (rarely was an opponent
defeated in an absolute way)
a. "Civilized"
○ Did not intrude on the civilian population like in Middle Ages
and 17th Century (30 Years War)

New Weapons -will define and constrain 18th century tactics

a. Socket Bayonet
○ Came into use in the 1690s and became more wide spread in
18th century
○ Bayonet that you attach to outside of musket barrel, can both
fire musket and can use it as a pike
 ○ Combines light infantry of musketeers with heavy infantry of
pikemen
 Lead to end of pikemen in 1703 (French) and 1704
(British)
 Creates greater tactical flexibility
a. Flintlock Musket
○ Much greater rate of efficacy
 Fired properly between 75-85% of the time, while the
wheellock was about 50%
○ Introduction of prepackaged paper cartridges (2-3 shots a
minute vs. 1 shot a minute)
○ Greater fire power
a. Artillery
○ Not as dramatic in weapons technology changes
○ Swedish introduce more rapid reloading (quicker reloading
because of fastening mechanism)
○ Prussians introduce a new screw (greater accuracy)
○ Greater efficiency and accuracy
a. Rifle
○ Limitations of 18th century warfare
○ Better than musket because it is way more accurate
 Musket is extremely inaccurate because it has a smooth
barrel, the musket ball round will come out of smooth
barrel and picks up a spin and could go anywhere
 Rifles more accurate because they have a groove barrel
and can thus, set the spin on the musket/bullet for
greater accuracy
○ Europeans do not adopt rifle technology because
 Rifle did not support a bayonet (musket barrel longer
than rifle barrel)
 18th century rifle took a minute to load vs. a musketeer
who could shoot out 3 rounds in that same given time
 Took an expert to fire vs. musket is easily learnable
 Cost more than a musket
a. Breach Loaded Rifle
○ Limitations of 18th century warfare
○ Holy grail of rifles that could be rear-loaded and with semi-
automatic fire
○ Can load bullets from rear of rifles (took minute to load)
down a grooved barrel
○ Have the efficiency of the best muskets in terms of firepower,
and have accuracy of rifle

New Armies & Tactics

a. Russian
○ Move to the East in 18th century where Russia and Prussia
become major players
 ○ Rise of Prussia and Russia were not mutually exclusive to the
demise of some of the Western powers (balance) - Spain and
Netherlands were not first rate powers any more
 Population: both had very large and efficiently used
populations
○ Rise of Russia comes at the expense of Sweden
 Peter the Great, the Czar of the 18th century
• Foundations for the military reforms that he
undertakes were already put into place by his
predecessor, Czar Alexis
• Hired foreign officers from the West
• Installed Western technology (tactics, new
gun/artillery/naval systems)
• Builds a very large standing army (professional,
standing, Western style)
• Created 29 Western style regiments that were
permanent and trained
• Used a new recruiting system based on
Swedish system of Gustavos Adulfos
• 1 in 20 households donate a son in 1705
• Raised an army of 45,000 additional
solders
• End result: 200,000 men in standing
army
• Inspired the naval build-up
• When Peter dies in 1725, Russia has 34
legitimate ships
• Was a great enthusiast
• Encouraged rest of mobility to go through
military training
• Built engineering schools for officer class
• Built military schools
 All made Russia a viable military state
○ Difference with West:
 Geography, vastness of space
 Adds to problems of state interface (hard to deploy
armies)
○ Fastest growing
a. Prussia
○ Most prominent of the new players between Prussia and
Russia
○ Frederick the Great/II
 Predecessor who laid the foundation stones for his new
and improved army/state
• His predecessor had done more of the work than
Alexis for Peter
• Frederick I and Frederick II essentially
 Successes: 1740s takes land from Austrians in Celacia (?)
Wars, and during Seven years war against Louis XV of
 France, Catherine Great of Russia, and Maria Theresa of
Austria
• Had great timing and great luck!
 Was a decisive leader
○ Essentially evolves to support its army (state set up to
finance and organize and army)
○ Superior army because:
 Decisive leadership
 Highly trained and disciplined
 Superior recruiting system (invents national guard
system)
 Oblique order:
• Maneuver with speed to catch opponents off guard
• Catch opponent from flanks
• Not a frontal assault
• Becomes less effective once opponents plan for it
• Maurice and Gustavos returned offense to
preeminence on the battlefield
a. Tactics
○ Rooted in weapons technology of that time
○ Defense finds itself superior because by combining the
musketeer and the pikeman into one individual, that unit
could go from a defensive position with firepower and cavalry
power
○ Stalemate on battlefield
 Break the stalemate through maneuver (like oblique
order) or deception (Duke of Marlbaro)
• Deception: using diversionary tactics, draw off
opponents defense to one side
• Malpaquet against British and French

The Seven Years War

a. Prussia v. Everybody
○ Climatic war of 18th century warfare, first world war
○ Takes place in multiple theaters
 Fighting in North America (American-Indian warfare),
Caribbean, Africa, India, Philippines, Europe
○ Not decisive defeats
○ Prussia survives
 Prussia should have been crushed, but saved by
Frederick
• Miracle of the House of Brandenburg
• Prussia starts this war against British councel
• Reason for the war is Prussia's rise, and this
makes Austria and Russia nervous (conspire)
• Frederick employs a 'strike-while-the-iron-is-hot'
mentality
• Prussia and Germany have terrible
geography
• Good strategy to maneuver
 ○ Overseas war between British and French and their
navies/colonial marine units
 Did have decisive outcomes (British win and displace the
French from building an empire)
a. Bourbons v. Britain
○ Bourbans (Kings of France) vs. Britain with Spain involved
 British blockade part of French navy, knocked out of the
war, British capture sugar islands/Canada because they
control the sea
○ Not decisive, because all the major states survive
 Prussia survives intact
 Russia loses bid to destroy Prussia but secures itself a
high seat
 British score a decisive victory over French and lay the
groundwork for their empire
 Austria and France (losers) use defeats as a point to
reform their militaries
Persisting Problems
a. Logistics
○ Desertion (horrible conditions, drills etc.)
○ Supply (transport system was not dependable)
○ Sickness (exposure to the elements)
○ Barracks
 Start to separate military society from civilian society
 Done to keep the soldiers together so they can
constantly drill, keep an eye so they won't desert, stay
warm in winter and not die of exposure to the elements
 Helpful to civilian relations
• Stop using local resources and pillaging
• Keep men off the streets
a. Recruitment
i. Voluntary
 Highly effective because:
• Motivation for common man: pay, a job, the
possibility of enrichment, plunder, boredom,
venture, change of scenery
• Motivation for officer: new group in society looking
to make their life enriched, respectable job, petty
nobility send sons to officers, sons of soldiers aspire
to be officers
• Motivation for foreigner: religious dissenters, states
not keen on arming their own people and thus liked
to employ foreigners
i. Conscription
 British navy used press gang (drunk too much at pub,
and wake up on a ship)
 British tied regiments to certain counties
• Give local nobles power to create militias
 Prussians used cantoan system
 • All men registered at birth in what is equivalent to
selective service
• Serve 3 weeks each Spring in militia after 18
• Highly drilled and highly disciplined (national guard
concept)
• 25% of recruits were rejected for physical
inferiorities (enough people to get the job done
that could even take the best)
 Russians had Peter the Great's system
 Austrian system was very diverse (10 nationalities) and
thus, no system was in place yet
a. Military Life

Warfare and Militarized Society
○ Limited in aims and impact on civilians
• Balance of power and diplomacy: it is better to
• Civilian participation went down in terms of pain quotient
 Civilians paid for it though (taxes increase)
○ Absolute decisiveness
• Russians defeat Sweden, Hapsburgs

Test 1 Review

• Battle of Lepanto: The7th October 1571 Battle of Lepanto was the

most climatic naval battle between the European navy and the
Ottoman navy. The battle lasted 3-5 hours. The European navy
consisted of subjects from the Holy League, like Genoa, Venice,
Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire. The Ottoman navy lost 200
galleys and some 30,000 men. Ultimately, the Ottoman navy lost
because Europeans had faster more mobile ships, better tactics,
better leadership, and were able to give a decisive blow. However,
this decisive victory meant little in the long run; the Holy League
eventually wins under the direction of the Hapsburgs, but they
cannot take any long-term advantage of defeating the Ottoman
navy because they bicker about the spoils. As such, the Ottoman
Empire quickly rebuilt their navy and removed the European
temporary advantage.

• Battle of Agincourt: keegan, howard (casualties agincourt also);

jones
Took place on October 25, 1415 in France. Henry V led the English
to victory. He claimed land on French soil, and campaigned to
capture it. The men fought because of honor, alcohol, and because
Henry was seen as a great leader. Longbowmen took out cavalry;
many men fell in the mud trying to charge. Henry ordered the men
 to kill the prisoners. He worried that they would grab weapons
scattered on the ground and regroup. He did it for fear, to control
the situation (French were still amassed), and for intimidation. Men
were cautious at first, because they wanted the ransom that could
be gained from hostages. Only the most illustrious prisoners were
spared. The English were heavily outnumbered but won.

• Flintlock Musket: howard a little (firearms, 16, 60-61,76,78),

weapons; jones 269-270
The earliest musket mechanism, preceding the matchlock and
wheellock, introduced about 1630 during the military revolution.
The flintlock rapidly replaced earlier firearm-ignition technologies. It
continued to be in common use for over two centuries after being a
product of weaponry evolution. Also, it happens to be one of the
arms used by infantry soldiers, but adopted slowly by the standing
armies due to its imperfection at its early development stages.
Eventually, the army would adopt them; therefore causing changes
that would revolutionize warfare.

• Longbow: howard; jones 157

A weapon typically used against mounted nights from a distance in
attempt to avoid their lances and prove their attacks effective on
the battlefield. This weapon is widely used in medieval warfare by
foot soldiers, and attests to their mobility (superiority) against the
mounted knight at war. It will normally allow its user a fairly long
draw, at least to the jaw. In spite of the French’s gradual conversion
to firepower and usage of gunpowder at war, the British remained
closely attached to the longbow withstand the musket’s inaccuracy.
English use of longbows was effective against the French during the
Hundred Years’ War, and most famously at the Battle of Agincourt.

• Peace of Westphalia: The Peace of Westphalia was a treaty that

called for religious toleration inside the Holy Roman Empire during
the time of the Thirty Years War (in 1618). When the civilian
casualty rate was 30%, the mortality rate was around 15% to 20%,
and when disease, famine, and destruction with the scorched earth
policy were prevalent, the Peace of Westphalia was a legal
precedent for religious toleration. It defined borders with a large
army to defend these borders, and the state had to get bigger in
order to pay for and administer new standing armies.
• Trace Italienne: The character of warfare developed in early
modern times with the presence or absence of the trace italienne in
a given area. First seen in the mid-15th century in Italy as a
response to the French invasion of the Italian peninsula, this star
fort design evolved in the age of black powder, when cannons
dominated the battlefield. From a system of vertical defense, which
could be rapidly demolished by gunfire and taken by storm, the next
best fortification system was the trace italienne, with bastions that
bristled with guns. Traditional medieval age fortifications were
vulnerable to damage by cannon-fire. In contrast, this star fortress
was a flat structure comprised of many triangular bastions
specifically designed to cover each other, and included a ditch. This
fortification system was so important because the development and
constant refinement of defensive systems based upon the trace
italienne helped to fuel an expansion in the armed forces of the
major European states. For example, ravelins, hornworks,
crownworks, and detached forts were added to the original trace
italienne to create a complex symmetrical structure.

• Privateering: howard 51;martin lender great britain privateering,

79,116,145-146,147
In simple words, privateers are private warships recruited (letter of
marquee) to capture merchants and used to destroy neighboring
countries’ economic power. Basically, they were hired pirates
(recruited civilians who were recruited by the government). The
primary object was to harass the enemy, but it was often practiced
as a retaliatory measure. After the defeat (1692) of the French fleet
by the Dutch and English, France commissioned privateers, who
preyed upon English commerce. Private ownership distinguished the
privateer from an ordinary warship; letters of marque and reprisal
(commission issued by a government) distinguished it from a pirate
craft. One reason why they were sanctioned is due to sinking ships
rather than capturing them to be used as a bargaining chip by
responsible nations (for their captivity).

• Renaissance: jones 191-192/202/204-207

The Renaissance was the period from 1450 to the 1600s. It was the
age of discovery and rediscovery, in that many looked to past
knowledge from scientific literature to military science. It was the
age of great works of art, the age of economic expansion, and the
period when the modern or early modern state apparatus emerged
from the politically dysfunctional apparatus of the Middle Ages. It
 produced the origins of the modern state, and gunpowder makes it
way into Renaissance warfare. Renaissance rethinking includes
changes like: man at arms evolves into the early modern officer,
infantry becomes drilled and disciplined, warfare takes on a
scientific, mathematical aspect, the state is increasingly gaining
control over armies (rise of the semi-professional army), and
legitimate war resides with the state.

• Frederick the Great: keegan, howard; jones 305, in general jones

He was the leader of Prussia during the mid 18th century. He was a
great military leader, very decisive, and made the army highly
trained and highly disciplined. He took part of Austria in the Silesian
Wars and led Prussia in the Seven Years War. One of his tactics was
the oblique order, which was overloading one side of the rank, then
outflanking the opponent.

• Maurice of Nassau: keegan; jones

In 1599, Maurice of Nassau secured funds from the States-General
to equip the entire field army of the republic with weapons of the
same size and caliber and, at about the same time, his cousin John
began work on a new method of advanced military training: the
illustrated drill manual. He thrived, alongside count Louis of Nassau,
to impose drill and discipline in the Dutch army, which later made it
a standard, in order to fight to group the Dutch army and have it
fight in unison. The “volley fire” technique they propose calls for
superior courage, proficiency and discipline in each individual
soldier. The goal is to use firepower so one line is always firing, and
minimize incoming fire. The key was to practice. Thinks firepower
will break stalemate in the battlefield.

• Feudalism: howard (9-10

He was the leader of Prussia during the mid 18th century. He was a
great military leader, very decisive, and made the army highly
trained and highly disciplined. He took part of Austria in the Silesian
Wars and led Prussia in the Seven Years War. One of his tactics was
the oblique order, which was overloading one side of the rank, then
outflanking the opponent.

• Jus Ad Bellum: Jus ad bellum, meaning justification before war,

was part of the Augustinian Code which condoned certain types of
violence and outlaws other types of violence. Under this code, war
had to have a 'just cause,' such as self-defense. The idea of
 comparative justice was paramount under this rule, meaning that
the destructiveness that would be caused by going to war must be
able to right a greater wrong. Other tenets of jus ad bellum included
duly constituted authority to declare war, right intention, probability
of success, and that war must be the last resort. Similar to jus ad
bellum was jus in bello, meaning justification in war.

• Gustavus Adolphus: keegan, howard; jones 224/226/232-

233/239/240, in general jones
Well-renowned Swedish commander who was the main figure
responsible for the success of Sweden during the Thirty Year’s War
and led his nation to great prestige. He stressed on drill and
discipline while training his army. His armies were very well trained
for the day, so that his musketeers were widely known for their
firing accuracy and reload speed. He was also known as an able
military commander. His innovative tactical integration of infantry,
cavalry, artillery and logistics earned him the tile of the “Father of
Modern Warfare”.

• Hundred Years War: howard; jones 171/173, in general jones

Took place from 1337 to 1453 in northern France and Belgium. It
was between the English and the French over land. It was mostly
siege warfare and occupational territory switched often.
Noncombatants were the ones who suffered the most, primarily
from scorched earth tactics and plundering. It was regulated by a
petition to the King of France, the church consoling the King, and by
having the French population on their side. It featured new tactics
and weapons, and was essentially the end of the old feudal style of
war. No one really won, but the French were able to keep the
English off of their land.

• Seven Years War: howard, martin lender french indian war

• Lasted from 1756 to 1763 and is considered the first real world war.
It was fought between by the English and Prussians v. France,
Russia, Austria, and Sweden. Prussia started the war as a
preemptive strike against Austria and Russia, who were both
concerned with Prussia’s rising power. Prussia struck first to deny
their enemies a base, to gain resources, and to get land to move
around. Prussia didn’t receive a victory, but managed to hang on
even though they were vastly outnumbered and being attacked by
all sides. England did secure a victory over the French by taking out
the French navy. Without the navy, they were unable to get supplies
 overseas, and England could take control of Canada and the sugar
islands.

• Thirty Years War: howard; jones

Lasted from 1618 to 1638 and was between the Spanish and Holy
Roman Empire (Catholic) v. Sweden, Some parts of HRE, and
Netherlands (Protestant). It began from a desire to practice religion
freely, but led to a general political war between countries. It is
notable for being highly destructive and causing disease and
famine, particularly among civilians. Ended by the Treaty of
Westphilia.

• Chivalry: In the Middle Ages, chivalry was a feudal method of

controlling war. Chivalry was a code of conduct that knights were
supposed to follow, and the basic tenet was for the knights to help
the helpless. However, this code failed because the recommended
behavior was unknown and lost on knights themselves. Chivalry
under the feudal host consisted of every man charging for himself,
concerned as much with personal honor as with victory.

• Pax Dei: The Pax Dei was an ecclesiastical form of control over war.
Meaning Peace of God, in 989, the Pax Dei declared war as illegal on
certain individuals at certain times. Most non-combatants were
protected under the Pax Dei, as were priests, nuns, pilgrims, and
merchants. Some of the tenets of the Pax Dei included that it was
illegal to declare war on Sundays and during Lent. However, as
great as the idea was, it proved ineffective in controlling war.

• Causes: Please identify, describe and analyze the causes for war from
the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Era in European history. Your
analysis should explain why the causes for war changed over time. Use
examples from the lectures and readings to illustrate your points.
○ Defensive:
• From 500 to the 10th/11th century, Europe was under siege. In the
North, the Vikings invaded France, the Mediterranean, Volga River,
Sicily, Constantinople, and the Eastern part of the Roman Empire; the
Magyars from Hungary attacked from the East; the Moors invaded the
better part of the Siberian Peninsula, Toulouse, and Southern France
by the 8th century; the Moslems were a threat from the South; and the
Mongols were a prominent threat.
○ Offensive:
• Middle Ages
 • While the first half of the medieval warfare consisted of Europeans
defending, during the second half, Europeans are pushing back.
○ Land/Expansive:
• The Hundred Years War from 1337-1453 was all about gaining control
of land. The English and French fought over dynastic considerations at
the end of the Middle Ages. Siege warfare was commonly used to gain
occupation of land and territory. Eventually, the French win this war
because they had the local population on their side.
○ Honor:
• Middle Ages
• The Battle of Agincourt was started because of the issue of honor.
Men essentially fought at Agincourt because of King Henry V's
honor, as he wanted to regain what was rightfully his.
○ Power and Control:
• Middle Ages
• The Middle Ages saw a lot of fighting as a means to gain power.
Petty conflicts were common, with Dukes looking to increase their
power through regional wars.
Dynasties and rudimentary states fought over local conflicts over
land, marriages etc.
• Renaissance
• During the Renaissance, these rivalries continued. The Ottoman
Empire was unified under one ruler, but the Christian West was
constantly in fighting amongst themselves. There was a lot of
interstate competition, and Europe was experiencing political,
ethnic, religious, and dynastic rivalries.
• The Italian Wars (1494-1599) between the Habsburgs and the
Valois revolved around the fear of universal domination. France
was scared that the Habsburgs would control all of Europe. Lead
by the Valois family, this battle was between two dynastic families
with famous holdings.
• 17th Century Warfare
• During this time, Eastern Europe undertook wars of plunder
against neighbors as nomadic peoples.
• The Tartars and Magyars pushed away the Polish and Russian
army (the Kossacks).
• 18th Century Warfare
• The Seven Years War from 1756 to 1763 was fought between
Prussia and England and everybody else in Europe. Considered
the first real world war, Prussia started the war as a preemptive
strike against Austria and Russia, who were both concerned with
Prussia's rising power. Overseas, this war had decisive outcomes
as the British won and displaced the French from building an
empire.
○ Religion:
• Middle Ages
• The Tutonic knights went to war against the Slavs and Pagan
tribes. These were essentially mini crusades with the goal of
Christianizing the Pagans and Slavs of Eastern Europe. The
 knights wanted to both conquer and Christianize, and killing and
plunder became commonplace during this time.
• During the Reconquista, Christian forces pushed Moors out of the
Spanish Peninsula.
• During the 11th to 12th century, religion was still a catalyst for
war, and the Crusades were impacting Europe. With 9 /12 (??)
major Crusades, European knights and the Arabs that controlled
the Middle East at that time were going into battle. The goal was
to Christianize the Middle East in order to do the work of God.
Europeans fought back to recapture the Holy Lands.
• Renaissance
• During the Renaissance, the Christian West fought against the
predominant Muslim empire. These wars were seen by both sides
as legitimate, religious wars, but were actually all about
controlling trade routes and land.
• During the Renaissance, there was also fighting between the
Catholics and the Protestants.
• 17th Century Warfare
• In the 17th century, interstate warfare over religion was evident in
the Thirty Year's War (1618-1648) with states fighting each other
because of religion. This war actually transitioned from religious
conflict to national conflict. Between the Protestants and the
Catholics, the Catholics comprised of Spain and the Holy Roman
Empire, while the Protestants consisted of Sweden and the
Netherlands. Though this started as a religious war, at a certain
point, national interest overtook the religious rationale for the
war.
• The Spanish-Dutch War in Western Europe began as a religious
revolt. Local Catholics and Protestants united for a while against
the Spanish during this time.
○ Eventually, dynastic wars, East vs. West wars, and religious wars
all intermingled with each other.

Respectable Army Worksheet

Martin and Lender argue that three myths emerged from the
Revolutionary war and continue to shape our understanding of the war.
What are they?
○ A ruthless, tyrannical Britain started the war
○ Colonial citizen soldiers were steadfast from beginning to end (militia)
○ Won in a steadfast manner (militia was united) assured a virtuous post-war
America

Deconstructing the origins of the war

From the perspective of the battles at Lexington and Concord, it is easy to
see the British as the aggressors "invading the peaceful countryside." This
model is founded on a longstanding distinction (in the anglo-colonial
world) between what a standing army represented and what citizen
soldiers represented.
What do M + L say about this paradigm?
○ Standing army represents power, political structure (well trained, "regulars")
• Represent power of a centralized state, tyranny, and power
○ Militia represents a free army where everyone fights for themselves
○ Existence of a standing army represents tyranny, threatening property, liberty,
and life

As for the origins of the Revolutionary War, how do M + L explain its

origins? Did the British have tyrannical designs?
○ Each nation didn't understand what the other nation was doing in regards to
how they ruled
○ British didn't necessarily have tyrannical designs, or initiate the war because of
that;
○ 7 year's war is the cause of the American War of Independence
• British, despite lack of help from colonial allies, win 7 years war
• Peace of Paris = end up with Canada and give up sugar islands
• Need to administer large territories and decide to tax colonists to protect
and administer the newly won territories
• As soon as London starts to ask something of the colonists, political
hackles go up
• Pay off debt, move forward with new cost of governance, no taxation
without representation

Did American citizen-soldiers display moral commitment, virtue and

steadfastly fight to the end?
At first, the call to arms was taken up and popular confidence was riding
high. Why? What underlay this enthusiasm?
○ People believed that militia could stand up to the regulars
○ Public virtue and moral commitment was high at that time
○ Colonists were successful initially, and that led to popular confidence
○ Belief that they had virtue/moral courage/righteousness on their side that
would see them through victory
○ Believed that God was on their side

What were the early results of these citizen soldiers against British
regulars? How do M + L explain these results?
○ British were unprepared, used the experience of 7 years war, took opponent
lightly

The war posed a number of problems for the colonists. What was the
biggest among then? Was the solution hypocritical?

As for the British, they had their own problems, what do M + L see as the
largest?
By the end of 1776, the question becomes who precisely survived to fight
another day, and why?

As this reality dawns on the political nation, how does it play out in the
continental congress?

On paper, this looked great but what was the problem?

But who were they getting, and why?

Were the Colonists united in the war effort in a way that would ensure a
virtuous post war America?
Desperate years of 1778-1779 begin to yield an answer. Food and clothing
shortages led to soldiers dying of starvation and exposure, but there was
little public reaction.

M + L argue that there was widespread indifference towards the army.

What type of evidence do they use to support this claim?

In addition to pary and pension, what else angered officers and soldiers
alike?

How does growing animosity play itself out?

What about French participation, what did it mean in light of the standing
army vs. citizen-soldier debate?

What's ironic about Franco-American alliance?

What about the British southern strategy? What happens?

What conclusions do M + L draw?

Scope of French Revolutionary Warfare

Introduction
○ What is revolutionary warfare
• Link between social and military and political developments is what
distinguishes revolutionary warfare
• Social, political, and military link
○ Causes of French Revolution
• Fought for dynastic control
• Increasingly constrained by balance of power
• Imperial conquests (France and Britain) - empire building
• Social developments
• Directly emanates from political and social change in France
• Causes of French Revolution in 1789
  Royal absolutism and a growing hatred by the French public for
growing absolutism
• Manifested itself in the Louis XVI and his wife Marie
Antoinette
 Enlightenment
• Political ideas about democracy and the rights of man
(contrary to royal absolutism), equality, no class
distinctions get disseminated throughout 18th century
• Louis XVI: I am the State
 Taxes
• Heavy tax burden linked to large standing army that France
maintained
• Extravagance of court of Louis XVI
 Food
• Trace riots to food/grain shortages (high prices)
• Bad harvests and prices for grain went up
 Heart of problem is really in political system, where dysfunction
exists
• Rigid social structure that inaccurately represents the
power of the various classes
• Estates: clergy 1%, nobility (royalty) 1% , and
everybody else (more than bourgeoisie) 98%
• Represented equally in the French Parliament, the
Estates General (1/3 each)
• Clergy and nobility do not pay taxes, paracidic
classes that do not represent the French nation
• Third estate votes themselves into power and
creates a new constitution for the state of France

The Old and the New

○ Fear of Revolution
• Monarchies tended to fear their own populace more than they did
their enemy
 State thinking was predominated by control of the domestic
population
• Training put a natural break on how wars could be fought
 Resources, physical and human
○ Impact on battlefield
• Slow movement in ancienne regime fighting
• Little surprise
 All courts new the suppliers and had spy networks and knew
what the other courts were doing through contractors and
suppliers
 Could track what opponent were doing if you knew what various
suppliers around Europe were doing
• High desertion rates characterized 18th century ancienne regime
 Diminish with new regime
 No patriotism or belief in the nation
• Change in warfare was limited in 18th century
  No impetus for change on the state side and therefore,
technology did not change that much
• Some gradual improvements (rate of fire, prepackaged
musket cartridges)
 Battle formations/equipment of 1690s is the same as the 1780s
○ Idea of the nation
• Gathering steam
• Best example is British nationalism (Henry VIII) in 18th century
 Created by Protestantism, profit, and hatred of the French
• British were Protestant and continental Europe is largely
Catholic
• Everybody profits from the empire (Scots especially)
• General hatred (6 wars from 1688 to 1815 between British
and French)
• Largely imperial battle
• Revolutionary war was a battle for survival
• British navy was protecting the empire and winning battles, the
French army was losing battles, seen as very expensive, tied to a
very unpopular king
 Little esprit de corps in French army (sea power)
 Third estate was paying for expensive military failures
 Cohesiveness in Britain, but French nation lacked this
• When revolutionary army began, French army was completely
unreliable
 French army did not come to support of King because of his
failed policies and lack of funding
Revolutionary France to Europe
○ "Enemies at home, conspiracy abroad"
• How this draw the rest of Europe into war
 Other countries in Europe had no intention of squashing the
French Revolution (Britain, Austria, Prussia, Hapsburgs, Russia)
because it would reflect the weakness of their own system
• Have to save a fellow monarchy from falling to social and
political rebels
• Give revolutionaries time to gain traction
 Has great capacity for violence
• Rich get out
• Enemies at home, conspiracies abroad
• Revolutionaries become paranoid and felt as though if
you weren't on their side, you were against them
• Those that opposed the revolution fled and were
abroad conspiring to undertake a counter revolution
 Louis XVI was incompatible with the revolution (obviously, he is
against the French Republic as a monarch)
• Temperament did not work well
• Not as dynamic as Frederick the II would have dealt with it
better by defending the old regime by rallying support (rest
of nobility also joined the third estates) to defeat the
revolutionaries, or could have co-opted and worked with
the revolutionaries to create a different outcome
 • Decides to flee, and gets caught just around the Southern
Netherlands border
• Feeds into the fear that foreign involvement (foreign
governments are going to attack and squash the
revolution)
• 1791s, revolutionaries had turned more radical as
it looked as though there would be a foreign
invasion to restore the old regime (Prussia and
Austria are threatening to invade)
○ Poor communication - war inevitable?
• French revolutionaries and old powers have little other choice than
war with things getting out of control
• Both sides misread each others intensions
• Revolutionaries thought Prussians would stay out
• Austrians never thought they would have to fight because they
thought the revolutionaries would fold
○ Revolutionary mentality and radicalization
• Us versus them mentality
• War of ideology - good versus evil
• Revolutionaries fighting for an idea, and anything that compromises
that idea has to be eliminated (big change!)
First Coalition
○ Old army defeated
• Alliance between Prussia, Austria, Britain, and Russia against France
• Up until 1850s, more and more coalitions become created
• First coalition: Austrians and Prussians
 Invade France and soundly defeat the French revolutionary
forces
 Not the turning point
 When Prussian leader, Duke of Brunswick, threatens the French
revolutionaries with execution if they follow through in their
plans to execute Louis
• Rallying the revolutionaries and other French men to the
cause
• Foreign power dictating what French can and cannot
do = pisses revolutionaries off (more patriotic fervor)
• Battle of Valmy in September 1792
• Austria-Prussians find a new revolutionary army
• Forces that had been defeated created a new
revolutionary army
• Old professional army and mass volunteers
(100,000 volunteers)
• Take an oath of loyalty and take up the old army's
slack with enthusiasm
• Credit to French officer class was able to marry up
the old with the new (armies and tactics both)
• Austria-Prussian army outnumbered 2 to 1
• Used deception and maneuver to outflank the Austria-
Prussian forces
• Use mass enthusiasm
 • Real victory came with outflanking and out
maneuvering
• Clean-up with mass enthusiasm and mass charge and
Austria-Prussian forces retreat
• French forces/new recruits "Vive la natione"
• Goethe in 1792: witness the birth of a nation
• Revolutionaries believed that the entire course of
history was at stake to bring about the end of
limited warfare
○ Mass enthusiasm
• Direct new mass enthusiasm out of old and new armies
○ Two views of war
• French fighting a different war than their enemies
Revolution Exported
○ War of liberation
• Threat of invasion over because Austrians and Prussians pushed out
• Committee of National Safety of Robespierre
 Hotheads, psychopaths, and conmen running things quite well
 Organized and efficient about how they used resources and
supplied the armies
 Always one step ahead of the coalition forces
 French revolutionary army fighting revolutionary warfare
• Coalition fighting the wrong wars and proved ineffective at
adapting
• Kept plugging away because they were constrained by their
political systems
• Revolutionary armies were not constrained and had
much greater resources and patriotism (and
propaganda)
• Unified army that eventually would be trained,
and coalition forces were not as unified as the
French revolutionary army
• Release the million man army was to unleash anarchy inside of
France
 French revolutionaries decide to export their wars abroad
• "War of Liberation" and use it to plunder and conquer the
rest of Europe
• In part justified because now the British and Russians are
looking to form a second coalition with the Austrians and
Prussians
○ Mass en levee
• Levee of human resources
• State starts to conscript once mass volunteers are no longer
available
What's New
○ Tactics
• No more maneuvers, no more military art, but fire, steel, and
patriotism
• Must exterminate (not the balance of power warfare of the 18th
century)
 • Not a new philosophy
• Revolutionary warfare allows the state to use ALL resources and plan
the economy around fighting
 Plans are made for fixed rationing for entire population
 Revolutionaries nationalized entire economy for war effort
• Revolutionary army drive out Austrians and Prussians, so never have
to go to these extremes during the first coalition
• Not much new with the French
 Weaker cavalry (more trained higher positions fled)
 Less trained
 Relied on mass bayonet charges
 Weapons technology: everyone is using the same weapons
• Problem of motivation!
 French soldiers can engage in mass bayonet charges and will die
for the idea of the nation
• Not as big of a problem with desertion (mitigated to a great
extent)
• Offshoot of not having to worry about desertion, motivation,
do not have to employ savage disciplinary tactics, French
revolutionary officers could trust their troops
• Allowed troops to improvise, work independently, and
be more mobile
• New units were compact and mobile
• Notion of meritocracy prevailed
 In old regime, aristocracy was prevalent
 Officers were promoted on the battlefield, and those that failed
were executed
• Men that sought decisive outcomes on the battlefield
through the ranks to undertake risky stratagems in battle

○ No limit warfare

Napoleonic Warfare

Warfare was limited in the 18th century because:

a. Unwillingness
a. Balance of power diplomacy - states were unwilling to lose
everything (most important)
a. Diffusion of weapon's technology
a. Problems with supply/logistics

What are the new possibilities with revolutionary type warfare:

a. Mass mobilization - men AND resources
a. Ideology is the driver/motivation - seeks the destruction of the
enemy, goal is more political

How does revolutionary warfare play out on the battlefield:

a. Mobile and trustworthy (play off of each other)
 Officer class - officer that gets promoted through the ranks is one
that seeks a decisive outcome
For and Against
a. Biographical Sketch
i. Not a man who inspired neutral feelings (either loathe or love
and admire him)
i. Rose to prominence in 1796 in French Revolutionary Army
during the War of Liberation into the Italian Peninsula
i. In 1789, he would become the first Council in the Directory
(Convention is the ruling government before him) - man to
undertake a coup d'etat
1. Backing of key revolutionaries (Talirand and Abbesays?)
1. Became first Council of the three
i. In 1802, he crowns himself Emperor
i. Born in Corsica in 1768
1. Son of a poor noble
1. Went to military school in Paris, and was not a great
student (finished 42nd out of 59)
a. But, excelled in math, history, and geography (all
influence his military career)
a. Murderer or Liberator
i. French see him as a hero who brought glory to the nation
i. Liberator of Europe or Corsican usurper?
i. Did not undertake campaigns of genocide
1. Absolute defeat of the enemy in order to ally with the
country or dominate it
i. Code Napoleon
1. New legal and civic codes of law that he exported to the
continent along with his war of liberation
1. Clearly written and accessible
1. Solved problem of standardization - brought unity for
legal system
1. Put everybody on the same footing (all citizens, no
second-class citizens)
1. Last intact till 20th century
i. Poles saw him as a liberator
i. Prussians and Austrians saw him as a conqueror
i. Russians saw him as an invader
i. British see him as a constant threat
a. Innovator or Opportunist
i. Revolution needed him as much as he needed the revolution
1. He needs the revolution because there is no way for a
son of a poor Corsican noble to rise to become the
emperor of France in the ancienne regime
a. Revolution provides him with the biggest army
1. Revolution needed him because by 1799, it had hit a
stand-still
i. Argue that he had no military philosophy
1. Saw himself as an opportunist
a. Heir of Absolutism
 i. Student of military history and studied Frederick the Great
(idea of decisiveness)
i. Colleagues saw him as a man with great contempt for 18th
century warfare
1. Led with personality and charismatic force
1. Invents idea of theater command
The Campaign
a. Offensive: Calculated and Deceptive
i. Implored troops to move swiftly
i. Sought the destruction of the enemy in order to force the
enemy in a peace treaty which left France the unquestioned
victor
1. New tactic (not 18th century)
1. Did this with information (calculated odds, used a
scientific approach with the deployment of artillery and
how he would deploy his divisions in battle in order to
protect each other, wanted to reduce the roll of chance
in battle)
1. Employed deliberate deception (movement to gain
confusion)
a. Speed
i. Can gain time and create time with speed
1. Not used in terms of forced marches
1. Used it at the moment of battle
i. Motto was not to lose a single day
a. Coordination
i. If any one division was failing, the other division could lend
support
i. Artillery, cavalry, and infantry
a. Unity of Command
i. Getting the greatest amount of men to a single point on the
battlefield required great unity of command
i. Nothing is more important in unity of command, thus when
war is waged against a single power, there must be one army
a. Centrality of Corps D'armee System
i. Self-contained mini armies
1. Were fast
1. Could forge for themselves
1. Flexible
1. Could provide relief when and where need to other
divisions that had taken a hit
i. Had a staff of 3,500 officers
a. Centrality of Psychology and Meritocracy
i. Was a great motivator
1. Paid close attention (knew names of 3,500 men on
general staff)
a. Had a great memory and could put names and faces
together
a. Talk to men personally and inspire them over time
i. Understood power of incentives
 1. Plunder
i. Meritocracy
1. Seeking officers that wanted a decisive outcome
The Battle
a. Narrowing Front, Cavalry Screen, and Swift March
i. Narrowed the front in their individual units
i. Cavalry screen to camouflage position in order to hide and
deceive
1. Get enemy to move their troops
1. Hide what the army was doing
i. Requires unity of command, discipline, and organization
a. The Offensive
i. Attacking at a single point is not the same thing as a costly
frontal attack
i. Hit opponent at full weakness and
i. Creates an impression of weakness, to encourage enemy to
attack (at Australitz?)
i. Difference with ancienne regime:
1. Emphasis on artillery
1. Reemergence of role of cavalry as prominent (not
preeminent)
a. Grand Attacks
a. Genius in application, not in invention (theater command level)
The Nation
a. Conscription
i. French were devoted to Napoleon
i. An aspect of militarized society, mobilization of human
resources to the battlefield
i. A way to avoid decline
i. Better at recruiting/conscripting, and organizing and
equipping armies than the revolutionaries
i. Two key developments:
1. Better road system in 18th - 19th century
1. Industrial revolution
i. Conscription had its limits
1. 1800 in 1814, he conscripted 2 million men (7% of a
population of 30 million)
1. 1914 to 1918, he conscripted 8 million men (20% of a
population of 40 million)
i. Extreme early example of mobilization
a. The Idolization of the Army
a. A Militarized Society
i. Conscription
i. Officer class was the new aristocracy
1. Perceived and treated like heroes with great wealth
i. Troops were also feted (better paid and better fed)
i. Government shut down presses as a form of censorship
(those that opposed Napoleon)
i. Government sponsored military parades that were welcomed
by public
 i. News of victory read aloud
i. Propaganda became a regular arm of the military (recognized
importance of morale on the homefront)
1. Used in a systematic way to control public
1. How it was used:
a. Used to castigate the enemy
a. Suppress disagreeable news
a. Promulgate the infallibility of the French army
a. Spreading rumor purposely
i. Plant false rumors about hypothetical invasions
and try to get feedback as to what public
opinion was to any such plan
a. Using theater, art, and music to promote the French
nation
a. Commission playwrights that espoused the benefits
of the revolution
a. Artists commissioned to create music/sculptures of
revolution and famous generals
Seeds of Failure
a. Megalomania
i. Defeats Prussia in 1806, when limits of the possible elude
him
i. Becomes obsessed with bringing the British to submit to his
will (to bear)
1. This brings him to fighting on the far corners of Europe
(peninsular fighting between Wellington and French
general)
i. Loses sense of realism, and battles start to become more
violent (Eylau)
1. No more quick victories with minimal casualties
1. Eylau fought in snow storm, 40,000 casualties, each side
lose about 30% of their troops
a. Mounting Losses
a. Limits to Foraging
a. Declining Quality of Recruits
i. Pushed conscription to the maximum limit
i. Less well trained
i. Became dependent on artillery
1. Not as much emphasis on speed
1. Artillery cannot move as fast as infantry or cavalry
a. Emulation
i. Opponents didn't shockingly emulate his tactics
i. Austria was incapable (too multi-national, no unity that would
allow for , quintessential old regime state with divisions and
old monarchy government)
i. Prussians eventually take the lessons, but not at that time
immediately (employ some of the lessons)
i. British didn't, chose to fight at sea because they had the best
navy
i. United States adopt his principles in 1817 (West Point)
 i. Sheer weight of numbers screwed him over
1. Could have had substantial gains if he had stopped while
at the top
1. Compromise wasn't in his nature
1. Restored mobility with reemergence of cavalry
1. Brought decisiveness to the battlefield
War and Nationalism

1. Peace Settlement of 1815 and the "Restoration"

1. A Century of Peace 1815 - 1914
a. Five great powers: Prussia, Britain, France, Russia, and Austria
a. Infrequent Wars
i. No warfare between Europeans between 1815 and 1884,
1871 and 1914
a. Limited Wars
i. War was limited in size and scope
i. All five great powers are intact till 1914
1. Why Peace?
a. Traditional Explanations
i. Exhaustion
1. Just wanted to be done with war
i. Fear of Change / Revolution
1. Five powers saw what revolutionary changes could be
brought about
a. Recasting of social order etc
1. Saw war as an agent of change
i. Moderate Peace Settlement
1. Did not give the French the excuse to follow the policy of
rebaunchness (a policy seeking to retain lost lands or
disputed lands)
a. No war reparations
i. Buffer Zones
1. State of Belgium did not exist before 1789
a. Created by the victors (4 great powers)
i. Security Alliance (Balance of Power)
1. Joined together to fight a future aggressor (a future
France)
i. Systemic
1. European states saw that it was more reasonable to
keep the peace than go to war
a. Other Explanations
i. The European Concert
1. Five main powers of Europe come together to prevent a
future aggressor (like France or Germany)
i. Insulation in Europe form conflicts outside
1. European politics was insulated by colonial conflicts
stayed in the colonies
a. One naval hegemony (British navy) insulated Europe
from outside conflicts because it wasn't going to
allow anything to infiltrate
 a. Operated on a rule of law and principle
i. Resort to intermediary bodies
1. Belgium

1. First Shocks
a. Eruption of Nationalism
i. In 1848, there is widespread revolution across Europe (urban
and capital cities)
i. "Springtime of the People"
i. Reaction:
1. To the monarchical prerogative (return of Monarch)
1. Reaction to growing nationalism (public schools, greater
transport, unification of language, patriotic, national
identity is developed, people see themselves as a part of
the nation)
a. Nationalism is patriotic AND about liberation
(getting rid of ancienne regime, allowing civic
equality to exist in terms of governance and the
Napoleonic Code)
a. Nationalism as a force for liberation and violence
a. 1815 forward, all revolutionary-nationalistic type
movement would be suppressed ruthlessly
i. Later, governments start channeling the energy
from this as a means to better compete with
rivals (reintroduce the concept of competition
among European states)
1. Economically: Prussians take it upon
themselves to build up their economic base
1. Otto Van Bismarck: "Iron and Blood"
a. Iron and Blood
i. Otto Van Bismarck:
1. Emotion (blood) from nationalistic fervor with the means
to do something (the steal)
1. Decisively solving problems with force is an offshoot of
nationalistic fervor
a. Difficult Survival of Congress Europe
i. Concert of Europe survives
1. Cremian War did not spill over into a European span war
1. Weakened structure for peace
a. Destroyed buffer zones
1. Second Shocks, Weltpolitick
a. The Old Imperialism
i. Old imperialism goes hand in hand with isolation from
outside conflicts idea because of the British navy
i. Europeans had colonial conflict, but it was looked at as a
game
1. Not as deadly serious, competitive
a. The New Imperialism
i. After 1870s, during Race for Africa
i. Conflicts become more competitive
 1. Less of a game when all the land is carved up and there
is nothing left
1. Preemptive strikes as a defense mechanism
i. Weltpolitick - German concept that poses how well can I
complete?
1. Concept of competition
1. Pie never gets bigger
1. If you lose, I win
i. Game changes from balance of power in Europe to
competition for power outside of Europe
a. End of European Insulation from World Conflict
i. Europe is at its zenith in terms of cultural, economic, and
political concerns
1. Third Shock: Unregulated Competition in Europe
a. Instability in 1910
a. Growing naval arms race between Britain and Germany
a. Science: Darwinian thinking
i. Survival of the fittest mentality is at the heart of Germany's
Weltpolitick
1. Clausewitz: On War
a. Writing in response to the French Revolution
a. Literary editors are as much a part of creating this Clausewitzian
revolution (how Germany sees itself in the world)
a. Take the lessons of revolutionary warfare and apply them in a
way sans the political revolutionary principles
i. Want to adhere to a traditional land bound society (Prussian
junkers, old aristocracy)
i. Have an extremely militarized society too
i. Predates Bismarck (iron and blood) and tries to combine the
scientific (military) with the irrational (the emotional)
i. Shares the same objective that destroying the enemy is the
goal (revolutionary warfare)
1. One step ahead: destroying the enemy is one step, but is
meaningless without an object in mind
a. War is the continuation of policy by other means
a. War is an arm of the government, another policy
tool
a. War is morally neutral, not ethical or unethical, but
rather, something the state does
a. 2 German literary agents
i. Protestant Apocalypse into regeneration of the German will
(Phoenix dying and coming out stronger)

War and Industry

REVIEW:
1. What kept the peace?
○ European Concert: five main powers of Europe come together to
prevent a future aggressor (like France or Germany)
○ Insulation from outside conflicts
 • British navy was absolute hegemony
○ Intermediary bodies
• Belgium
• Danube River treaty
• General diplomatic agreements
• North German Confederation
1. Why did barriers to peace fall away?
○ Rise of aggressive nationalism
• States found the use of force effective to put down
revolutions
○ New imperialism as states start to compete for fewer and fewer
lands
• Competition increases for colonies
• German policy of Weltpolitik (competition)
○ Unregulated competition in Europe
• Aggressive actions on the continent with respect to annexing
territory
 Germans annexed other 38 members of North German
Confederation
○ Darwinism gives Weltpolitik an intellectual basis from which to
work
• Naval arms race between British and Germany

1. The Conditions and the Means of War

○ Industrial Revolution
• Scale of production is ramped up to make more machines of
war
○ Population increase related less to the Industrial Revolution than
to the Agricultural Revolution of the 18th century to feed more
people
○ Imperialism brings food products from abroad back home
○ Changes in weapons technology
• Changed means of war
• Affected society
○ Ivan Bloch
• Polish financier by day, and an amateur military historian by
night
• Published treaties in 1897 (much was wrong)
• Theorized that the next general war would be impossible
 Insane to undertake a general European wide war
because it would destroy the societies that were involved
 Believes from weapons technology that the next war
would be so destructive as to destroy societies
 But also, European economies were too interdependent
to allow for a European wide conflagration
• Right and wrong
 Next war was impossible because rational war would
take over - WRONG
  Would destroy societies involved - RIGHT
 Economies being too interdependent - WRONG
a. Economies learned how to be self-sufficient
1. Weapons
○ Rifles
• Advantages
 Better than muskets because they have a board barrel
that impart a spin on the bullet that allows the bullet to
go wherever you aim in a consistent manner
 Muskets have smooth barrel and thus the aim deviates
 Rifle and the tight spiral it imparts as Tom Brady, and the
musket and smooth barrel and the unknown direction as
Matt Castle
 Been around since 18th century
 Took too long to load (3 shots with musket vs. 1 shot
with front-loaded rifle)
 Changes: rifle becomes muzzle loaded
 Mid 19th century, can fire a rifle as fast as a musket, but
rifles are more accurate
• Breech-Loader
 Do not have to stick bullet down barrel, but can put
cartridge down center of gun and can continuously shoot
bullets out of cartridge
 Means a weapon that is much more accurate than
musket, and can fire at a greater rate than the musket
a. Do not have to reload
 Self contained cartridges near the firing chamber
 Rifle can be fired from a prone position, and no longer
have to stand up to reload the rifle (compared to musket)
 First example is German Dryse gun in 1840s (Mauzer
gun)
a. British have Enfield weapon
a. Americans have Springfield
• Smokeless Powder
 Introduced in 1880
 Don't give away position
 Long range sniper becomes very important
 Provides infantry with greater tactical advantage
○ Artillery
• Breech-Loading, Recoil System
 Changes are less dramatic and came later in the century
 Scale of production has ramped up, but quality doesn't
change until 1880s
 Breech-loader provide speedier and more effective shots
 Recoil system allow for artillery to be fired continuously
without having to be reset or recoiled
a. Can harness barrel to lead to greater efficiency and
accuracy
 Smokeless powder gives protection to infantry
 Rifled artillery barrels still muzzle loaded
 • High Explosive Shells
 New tactics and strategies
 Allow for indirect fire where a person's task is to blow
one spot away completely
a. Do not see what you're firing at
 Breech-loading, recoil system and high explosive shells
come together
 First manmade weapon that can go into the stratosphere
 Germans working on Big Bertha
• Lethality
 In 1880s, the casualty rate due to artillery was 2.5%
 In 1994, the casualty rate due to artillery siege was 20-
25%, and open field battle, artillery was responsible for
13% of casualties
 WW1 1915 and 1918, 60% of British casualties were due
to artillery fire
○ Machine Gun
• First consistent one in 1883 invented by an American (2
greatest inventions - machine gun and barbed wire)
 Hirum Maxim had trouble getting a patent so he left to
Britain
 Maxim gun uses the energy of the fired shot to reload
the next shot (self-sustained)
a. Can fire 600 rounds/minute
• Provides defense with a decisive advantage
 Tactical perspective
1. Communications
○ Railways - Uses
• Human transport begins in 1830s
• First rail line between Liverpool and Manchester (steamed
locomotive)
• Unlike machine gun, army planners immediately recognized
the value and use of RR
• Can deploy troops farther and faster than ever before
 Once deployed, they were much fresher than if they had
to walk
 Could then use that RR to provide support for the troops
(food, medical, weapons, boots etc.) to keep them
supplied
○ Sustained Use of RRs
• Germans during commercial building thought they would run
RR to the Rhine River and western Germany to stop a
potential French invasion
• In 1848, Continental governments used it in an ad hoc way to
deploy troops to a revolutionary area
• Sustained use in 1859, when Austrians, French, and Italian
engaged in brief war
• Used in American Civil War
○ Vulnerability of RRs
 • Rail line to bridges to rail cars to rail stations were all
vulnerable to attack, particularly sabotage by partisans
 19th century example during Franco-Prussian war where
Germany had invaded northern France and the French
blew up rail lines to prevent supply from Germany
 Army responses to such situations, response involved
killing of civilians
a. Brought civilians into warfare in a way that they
hadn't been in wars before
a. Brutal repression of the civilian population
• Russians built smaller gauge rail lines and would not
accommodate the wheel base of Western state cars
○ War Planning and RRs
• British planners create a land ship rotation type thing
• Heart of war planning is getting to the battlefield first
• General staffs were growing nearly exponentially in Germany,
France, Austria, Italy, and Russia
 Creating time schedules, logistical schedules
a. Maximum number of men onto one point in the
fastest amount of time = mobilization
○ Telegraph
• Communication tool important to war planning in 1832
• Railroads and telegraphs linked not just in time, but also
share proximity
 Economies of school
 Near each other and built at the same time
 Suffer the same vulnerabilities (lines cut, blown up,
communication can be down etc.)
• First used in Cremian War
• Send orders and receive information so general staff can
direct the war from a distance, do not have to be there
• Best use for long term communication
○ Telephone
• Battlefield communication remains a problem
1. Battle Fleet Revolution
○ To Steam and Steel
• Between 1850 and 1900s, navies of the Western World +
Japan changed dramatically
• Improvements
 Old wooden ships that were sail powered and wind driven
were replaced by steam power, steel weapons
 Transition in 1837
 By 1850, have iron hulk boats with propeller drives
 Increased armor and guns on ships
• Anything after 1880 is steam and steel powered vessel
• Navy did not welcome this change
○ Fisher, Tirpitz, and Cycle of Innovation
• Fisher = British admiral and Tirpitz = German admiral
• Pushed this new technology seeking faster, stronger vessels
with bigger guns
 • One would develop guns with high explosive shells, then so
would the other - always competing and matching
improvements
• British had come to the determination that the greatest
threat to their national security was the German navy that
could control the North Sea and blockade
• Fisher said that they needed a new navy and ship design
 Dreadnoughts, precursor to 20th century battle ship
 British no longer grew enough food at home to supply
their competition
 Naval budgets were increasing quite a bit (60%)
 In WWI, British have 15 dreadnoughts and Germans have
13 dreadnoughts
a. French, Americans had 8 dreadnoughts, and
Japanese had 5 dreadnoughts
 Parliament declares that 2 navies, 1 to control the North
Sea, and one to protect trading lines
• Were submarines, but could not go under water for too long
and could see the torpedo coming
 Good for breaking a blockade, but not for sinking ships
and spying
○ New Strategies
1. Dimensions of War, 1914
○ More mobile and more destructive than ever before
○ Militarized society
○ Military revolution of 16th and 17th century played an integral
part in giving Europe the technology to conquer the rest of the
world, but dramatic change in 19th century
• Eventually use that technology to destroy themselves

The Age of the Armed Horde

1. Explain main causes of 19th century peace

1. Explain how barriers to war fell away, were knocked down
1. Describe 19th century techno-industrial development and their affect
on warfare, strategy, and tactics

1. Conscription
a. Notes
i. After 18th century, no one could un-invent mass politics
i. Great Reform Act: anybody that is a land holder of moderate
means could vote
a. US Civil War
i. First to combine mass politics and mass warfare
a. Prussian Army
i. Best example of the combination of mass politics and mass
warfare
i. Developed the first mass political army that was in line with
the needs of modern weaponry
1. Von Moltke the Elder
 a. Chief of the Prussian General Staff
a. Oversaw Prussian victories
1. Long enveloping maneuvers
1. Superiority of defense of weapons
1. Frontal assaults
1. Mobility of railroads
a. Introduces manpower reforms into German army and
general organization
i. Combine the army with the reserves
1. Each year, the army conscripted 40,000
Germans for 3 years, then a reserve pool for
20 years
a. Expanded officer class from aristocracy (junkers) to
meritocracy
i. Goal was military efficiency
1. General staff becomes increasingly professional (merit
corps)
a. Organization and logistics to a new level
a. Made plans
a. Issued orders
a. Supervised the execution of orders
a. Oversaw intelligence
a. Oversaw supply and logistics
a. Oversaw personnel operations
a. Speed of mobilization
a. Others
i. French opposed conscription because it would bring too much
of a levelizing effect to society
i. Most powers used universal conscription
i. Growing closeness between army and society
i. Changes social make up of society
1. Pursuit of middle-class, officer class
1. Arms Race
a. Notes
i. Need for readiness
a. Manpower
i. One way countries displayed how ready they were
i. Would up conscription levels to build size of army
i. Repercussions of conscription:
1. France: after the advent of railroads, conscription, and
national education turned peasants into Frenchmen
a. Levelizing effect
a. Railroads offer mobility to move for work or please
a. Educational systems imparted a national jingoistic
history where citizens were taught to love and take
pride in their country while hating their neighbors
a. Conscription that bring men together for 3+ years,
speak common language, and build comradery
a. Naval
 i. In Germany, naval arms race with Britain was political, social,
and cultural mission
1. Solved industrialization question
1. Get junkers on board
1. Way to avoid a revolution (government sells naval
buildup to junkers and working class; if working class has
a big navy, they will not think about miserable conditions
enough to revolt)
1. Global arms race was a means to global influence
a. Economic
i. Tax sense
i. Development from later 19th century is growing role of
privately held companies
1. Military industrial complex (US Steel etc.)
i. Absolute spending was the increasing rate 1880-1940 that
concerned observers
1. Not absolute numbers, but growing rate
1. Military budgets often increased 3-fold
a. Countries Conscription
i. French - left opposed, right accepted
i. British opposed conscription because it was too expensive
i. In Germany, conscription was battled out between
government or reightstags (political crisis)
1. Keizer had control of direct taxation, and parliament
(reightstag) had control of indirect taxation
1. Keizer and ministers have more money than parliament
1. Politics
a. Army as Political Institution
a. Political Crises
a. Military Interference in Politics
1. Militarism
a. Prestige of Army
i. Tied in with imperial race
i. Military was seen as guardians of national virtue and national
identiy
i. Bernardhi wrote that war was a Christian virtue (Germanic
notion)
i. Middle class in Germany idolized the military
a. Idealization of War
a. Military Permeation of Civilian Life
a. Impact of Conscription
1. Anti-Militarism
a. Socialists and Pacifists
i. Largely ineffectual
i. Pacifists and socialists fought within in each other as much as
they fought outside
i. International socialism which was the strongest point against
growing militarism eventually collapses
a. Attempts to Regulate War
a. The Insurmountable Nation State
Warfare 1914 – 1918

1. Characteristics of Modern Warfare

a. Extended Theaters and 3D Fighting
i. No natural law that prohibits the actions in a super-national
way
1. Only actor that can determine what is right or wrong
with respect to warfare is the nation state
a. Nation state can only enforce these with its citizens
i. London Conference: naval powers to decide on what was
legal when it came to blockading other nations' shipping
1. Some sense of progress in late 19th century - early 20th
century
1. Only shipping that pertained to military activity was
open
i. World War I was both an archaic war house and a gross
misreading of events
1. New conceptual basis for warfare had evolved in 19th
century and developed further in WWI
a. Generals in charge followed the old methods that
repeatedly failed, especially with trench warfare and
stalemate situations
i. Not different:
1. Not the first large scale destructive war that
encompasses Europe (compared to Thirty Year's War)
a. WWI combined to battlefield while Thirty Year's War
affected more civilians
i. Different:
1. Extended theaters
a. Fighting in 3 theaters: Western front, Eastern front,
Middle East, and Africa
1. 3D fighting
a. 2D fighting is width, depth
a. 3D fighting is width, depth, and height (with
airpower and underwater UB)
a. Intelligence
i. Time and space issue
i. How it is collected and how it is disseminated were important
issues
i. Human resources = spies
i. Acoustic resources = radios
i. Take raw data and ascertain what enemy targets and plans
are, and develop tactics around these
i. Information intelligence used to synchronize land and air
forces (engage a combined arms effort)
i. 3 C's: command, communication, and control
1. Need intelligence and good information
a. Newness of Modern War
 i. Extended theaters, 3D fighting, and critical role of
intelligence
1. Later 20th century war leaders understand these
1. Misunderstood and understudied in 1914
a. Lots of mistakes, unnecessary deaths, and no quick
victories
1. 1914
a. Schlieffen Plan and 2D Linearity
i. 2D flat plane, and vertical element was not present (no air
forces)
i. Schlieffen plan: German plan to attack France
1. Germany's answer for being in the wrong place
1. Alfred von Schlieffen's plan was revised 10 time at least
1. Germany surrounded by French in West and Russians in
East
a. Germany was geographically challenged, and knew
they did not have the resources to fight a 2 sided
war
1. Decided to knock French out first and then Russians
a. Question of geography (Russia farther away and
would not be able to mobilize as quickly)
1. Long enveloping move by Napoleon before
a. Come through Belgium and envelop the French army
1. Failures: outran supply lines (soldiers at front got too far
ahead of the supplies), unrealistic time tables (wanted
only 40 days to knock out France), British expeditionary
force slowed down the German advance up in Belgium
a. 5th army comes INSIDE of Paris, instead of outside
to envelop Paris (afraid of being too far away from
4th army and thus, not being able to get help from
them if needed)
a. Stalemate
i. War evolves into stalemate after Battle of Marn (Schlieffen
plan fails and French are regrouping)
1. Germans make a tactical retreat and set up a line of
defense
i. Neither side can outflank each other = stalemate
i. Western front 350 miles long
1. Trenches
i. Fighting in East was fluid and mobile
1. Trench warfare was not feasible with the vast distances
1. The Search for a Breakthrough
a. Tactical Problem
i. New weapons give defense the advantage (machine gun, long
range artillery with high explosive shells, all hard to displace)
1. Can puncture opponent's lines with enough lives
1. Can never get a break out, but can get breakthrough
a. Indirect Fire
i. Allows one to hide artillery at depth of miles from the front
line
 1. Opponent has no idea how far or where on the field your
artillery is
i. British and French launching attacks
i. Had to locate German artillery and had to eliminate this
artillery if wanted breakthrough
i. British and French unable to do this because: poor calibration
of guns, poor communication, doctrinal laziness (reliance on
tried and true, tested doctrines and unwilling to adapt), and
everybody expected a short war (not 4 years, everyone
thought it would end by Christmas 1914 in the vein of quick
and decisive 19th century warfare)
1. Numerous bloody battles achieved very little
1. Coordination between artillery and infantry
a. Creeping barage
a. Predicted Fire
i. Firing at a target one has identified, and can get a result
back
i. Battle of Cambrai
i. Possible because of: aerial reconnaissance, better
calibration, better communication (radio)
1. Pilots go up, take photos, then recalibrate
1. Better planning and execution of attacks
a. Start to restore mobility and maneuverability
a. Cambrai, 1917
i. Predicted fire
i. British lined up 1000 artillery pieces in secret
i. Had precise data and had aerial reconnaissance
1. Time a creeping barage to allow the infantry to have
some cover
1. Airpower
a. 1914: Reconnaissance
i. Linear trajectory of not growing in importance until the end
i. Ongoing air battles
a. 1917: Infantry Support
i. Cambrai had pilots as bombers and used for coordination to
find where German troops were strong/weak, where trenches
were abandoned etc.
i. British and French develop aerial warfare with infantry
support better than the Germans
a. 1918: Parachute Units
i. Americans added a bit with airpower in terms of tactical
development
i. Parachute drops combined infantry with airpower
1. Not a big part of any battles
1. Tanks
a. British first to envision tanks
a. Necessity is mother of invention
i. 3 years of stalemate
i. Landship that would protect its occupants and allow for a
breakthrough
 i. Churchill was a big promoter of the tank
a. Problem was that army was not accustomed to it at first, the
infantry particularly
i. Infantry saw tank as shield
a. Problems: unreliable
a. Germans saw little use in the tank (trying to maintain a defensive
position, while British and French are on the offensive)
1. The Birth of Modern Warfare
a. British Offensive at Hamel
i. Example of tanks, airplanes, artillery, creeping barage, good
information being exchanged between artillery men, infantry,
and aerial reconnaissance = combined arms
i. British and French moving more so than Germans
1. British and French do not win the war because they are
tactically better or more effective at deploying troops
a. Win because morale collapses in German army
a. Maneuver Supported by Firepower or Firepower Supported by
Maneuver?
i. Chicken and egg type scenario
i. Information supports all of it

The Scope of WWI

1. Long War, Wide War

a. In Time
i. Longer than expected (lasted from summer of 1914 to 1918)
1. Most thought it would be over by Christmas
i. Greeted with mass enthusiasm
a. In Space
i. Schlieflen plan failed and there was a stalemate
i. None of the combatants were willing to compromise at the
major level
i. French make war home and abroad
i. Americans (under Wilson) believe that absolute victory is the
only desirable outcome
i. War spreads to Middle East, Ottoman Empire joins, war
spreads to Africa, war spreads to Asia with Japan entering
1. Fighting mostly going on in Europe and decided on the
Western front
1. Mass War
a. Mass enthusiasm for the war (euphoria)
i. Believed war was inevitable (Germans: war was natural and
was put off because of systemic warfare previously)
a. Public demonstrations for the war
a. Politicians were not overly sanguine about the war
a. Some resisted mobilizations, stock markets fell/bond markets
rose, financiers lobbied in vain to work with the interdependence
a. French developed 'union sacree,' a speech by the PM in France
telling French society to put aside their differences
 a. Germans saw this war as a matter of spiritual fulfillment
i. Quest for authenticity to reveal the real German soul
a. 12 million men mobilized in uniform at start of war, 30 million
men mobilized by war's end
i. British saw 5.5 million men enter armed services
a. British and French turned to their empires to recruit men
i. British recruited from Australia, NZ, India, Canada, and
African colonies (1.5 million British imperial subjects end up
fighting)
1. Segregated imperial army in a racial way
a. Germans did not use colonial subjects for war
i. Impractical, because they didn't have that many subjects to
begin with
i. Racial ideology (Germans used imperial subject as scare
propaganda, "Africans are invading the country, we need to
stay together and fight")
a. Scope was unprecedented in history
1. Violent War
a. Military Losses
i. POWs were largely treated with international rules of war
(not tortured, protected by laws of war)
i. Losses were unprecedented
i. July 1st 1919 = 20,000 British soldiers die, 60,000 casualties
i. Verdonee = German battle of attrition
i. Overall, 10 million dead, 20 million wounded by war's end
(16.5% of French army die and 12.5% of British mobilized
army die and 15.5% of German mobilized army die)
a. War of Civilians
i. Morale
1. War came to home-front
1. Goal of attacking home-front was to demoralize army
a. Germans send zeplins/blimps to bomb London
1. About control too
i. Annihilation
1. Armenian genocide = Young Turk movement to create a
state of Turkish people against the Ottoman Empire
1. Crusading War
a. Morale at the Front
i. Inability to find a breakthrough, political will to fight the war
to a bitter end
i. Combatants learn to control their home fronts and economies
that would allow them to fight for four years
i. In Germany, morale held to the end and then collapsed
i. British have steady morale
i. Men keep fighting because of patriotism, duty to one's fellow
soldiers, hatred towards enemy/press/systems, and
confidence of the outcome (everybody believed that they
would win)
a. Morale at Home
i. Coercion
 1. Likewise high morale
a. Due to state coercion or spontaneous support?
1. Mass enthusiasm for the war sustains morale at home in
early days
1. Increasingly though, states got stronger and more
coercive, and were able to use propaganda and
censorship to limit the news that reached the home front
a. Defense act gave them power to censor
1. Italian morale disintegrates
1. Churches all supported the war (all nationalistic)
a. Only Vatican disapproved of the war
a. Socialist organizations all went nationalist
a. Everybody believed the war was about peace and
that this war would create democratic peace
i. Spontaneity
1. Economic War
a. Mobilization or Resources
i. Approximated total war
i. Matter of creating government ministries to oversee labor,
propaganda, scientific effort, and all other logistical ventures
1. How to direct resources of country towards war
a. Human Resources
i. State becomes an HR department
i. Coming from age that states pursued laissez-faire policies
i. Women entered the labor force
a. Economic Warfare
i. Not as revolutionary as women entering the work force
i. British blockade Germany effectively (tried and true
methods)
1. Germany cut off from overseas suppliers
1. Chloric intake was as much as a Big Mac (eating turnips
only)
1. Smuggling through mutual countries to offset effects of
blockade
1. Revolutionary War
a. Demographic Consequences
i. 10 million dead, 20 million casualties
i. Created loss generation in Europe
1. Germany: male to female ratio imbalance
1. Collapse in birthrate between 25%-50%
1. Dead, those that are in a mental asylum due to shell
shock, and not being born = loss generation
1. No baby boom followed the war
a. Social Consequences
i. Brought about the fall of Europe as a superpower in terms of politics,
economy, and military
1. Rise of US and Japan
i. Rise of communism and fascism
i. Hyperinflation
 i. Deference between classes found itself leveled (levelizing
effect)
a. Military Consequences

Warfare 1939 – 1945

1. Fall of France, May - June 1940

a. German and French plans
i. Ghost of WWI determined plans and mistakes
i. French built Naginal line 87 lines of fortresses
1. Connected underground forts designed to fight a
defensive war against the German invasion
1. Underground railroads could move supplies and
ammunition
1. Could house soldiers in this line (protected underground)
i. French fighting wrong war
i. Germans tried to go through the Ardennes forest
i. 10th May 1940: Germans invade Netherlands and Belgium
1. Faint to get French to respond
1. Germans sent 1,800 orchestrated tanks (bridged built)
1. French had no response because the French war thinking
was a World War I decision-oriented mentality
i. Fighting in Northern France for 4 years
1. Not totally absolved with experiences of World War I
1. Germans used the same strategies in Poland 8 months
later
a. Mobility returned to warfare(blitzkrieg tactics)
i. Germans drive north to the coast
1. France has committed its 50 regions to defending the
Balkan border
1. Germans come around and envelop the entire French
army
a. Breakthrough
i. Both sides made major mistakes
i. French should have known that a new style of warfare was
underway (had evidence in Poland 8 months previous)
i. French had same technology and rough equivalent to
Germans
1. Had mechanized infantry, tank divisions,
1. Falsely believed using these tools would be too costly
which lead to no counterattack
1. Defeatist mentality
i. Germans are afraid of overstretching their supply lines
1. Allowed men to get away (free French fighters and
British expedentiary force)
i. British off the continent and French defeated by June 1940
1. French give Northern France to Germany
1. Southern France called Vichy France
a. Encirclement
 i. German success is because of war of mobility and maneuver
i. Blitzkrieg warfare = lightning warfare
1. You will move your troops with such speed that
opponents will not be able to set up a coherent defense
1. Opponent has to panic instead of choosing to set up a
coherent defense
a. Why?
i. French lost because of leadership
1. Fighting with mentality of WWI
1. 8 months of phony war where there wasn't any fighting
a. French society divided during that period
a. Not unified in the fight against Germany
a. Fascist elements (corporative states)
i. France part of Third Reich
a. Armistice
1. Operation Barbarossa
a. Why?
i. German invasion of Russia (principality of Moscow)
i. 3 reasons
1. Race war
a. Eliminate the Jewish population in Eastern Europe
and Russia
a. Eliminate the Communists and Marxists in Eastern
Europe and Russia
a. Gain living space for the Third Reich (German race)
i. Removing Slaves and Jews
1. Economic war
a. Plunder and economic gain from grain (Yukraine), oil
(Black Sea and Middle East), and general war
materials
1. Diplomatic reasons
a. If Germans invade Soviet Union, then they believed
Britain would have to concede
i. Germany would control all of Europe
a. If can occupy Soviets with land war, then it opens up
Pacific theater for ally Japan
a. German and Soviet plans
i. Germans recognized that Russia had the advantage of time
and space
i. Open with a long range strategic bombing operation to soften
up Soviet industry
i. Soviet plans were centered on appeasement
1. Stalin believed the Hitler would agree to the Ribbentrop-
Molotov treaty
1. Appeasement and disbelief informed Soviet war plans
i. Stalin had a terrible habit of purging the army and officer
class
1. Done so in 1938
1. Best members executed and replaced with political hacks
i. Soviets did not understand the new blitzkrieg tactics
 1. Set all equipment up on front line with Germany and
abandoned the whole advantage of space
a. Balkan interlude
i. Operation Barbarossa is May 15, 1941 but gets delayed to
June 15, 1941 because there is a coup in Yugoslavia
1. British coup planned by allies to install a British
government in Yugoslavia
1. Took about a month, and brought it closer to harsh
conditions of winter
1. Churchill was behind the coup plan
a. Obsessed with soft underbelly of Europe (plan at
Calipally to Balkan interlude to whole idea of
attacking Germans in North Africa instead of Europe)
a. Invasion
i. Operation Barbarossa and subsequent war between Germany
and Soviet Union is the largest land war in history
1. Covers 2,000 square kilometers
1. 85% of German casualties come on the Eastern front
1. Russo-German war is another name for WWII
i. Stage 1: unqualified German success
1. Poor Soviet communications
a. All isolated (no idea where reserves regroup or
where secondary defensive lines might be set up)
1. Germans had air superiority
1. Soviets unprepared for blitzkrieg
1. Soviet personnel captured
1. Germans took advantage of sheer speed and surprise
i. Stage 2: Operation Typhoon from November-December 1941
1. Germans stopped for 3 reasons:
a. Soviet resistance solidifies
i. As artillery guns are present in Moscow and
Leningrad
i. Reserves that get called up after the initial
Soviet army gets captured and citizens
i. BATTLE OF STALINGRAD
a. German tanks cannot operate in cold winter
conditions
i. Take away advantage
i. Germans have supply lines removed
a. German army morale
i. Einsatz gruppen were death squads that were
taken out of the war mount (round out Jews and
take them away to execute them)
i. Ukrainians saw Germans as liberators
i. Lost an ally
1. Lasted 3 weeks
1. Final push to capture Leningrad
1. Fails
i. Stage 3: 1941-1943
 1. Stalemate with either side pushing one way than back
another way
1. Not really stalemate
1. Germans were stuck fighting a multi-front war again, and
did not have the resources to do this
a. Front in East, fighting in North Africa, and having to
defend Europe
i. Failure of Typhoon was turning point in war
1. Total War: Sea Power
a. Advantages of Sea Power
i. Whale (Britain) vs. the elephant (Germany)
i. Ability to exploit colonial markets and
i. Ability to cut opponent off from outside market
i. Ability to influence neutrals
i. General immunity to a land invasion
i. Major disadvantage is that it cannot defeat a major land
power without a major ally that is a land power
1. Soviets are strong land power to Britain's naval power
1. Cannot defeat land power with navy, can make life very
difficult
a. Blockades
i. British make life difficult with blockades
i. Need access to raw materials and agricultural imports
1. Blockading Germany from these outside resources was
harmful
1. Unlikely that a blockade will end the war, and it does not
end the war
i. To end the war, one must defeat the land power on the land
i. To counter blockades:
1. Substitute goods (instead of cotton, use polyester etc.)
1. Use neutrals
1. Use counter blockade measures
a. U-Boats
i. Germans use U-boats to open trade and hurt British shipping
i. Germans use wolf pack strategy
1. Send out multiple U-boats looking to maximize the
tonnage sunk
i. British response was to employ a convey system with armed
escorts
i. Technology that counteract the U-boats was on the horizon
1. Sonars
i. British used an eye in the sky to find signs of U-boat activity
1. Atlantic gap
a. Most sunk tonnage occurring
a. Hang out where aerial reconnaissance could not find
them, and sink ships there
i. Important because Britain does not grow enough food
1. Deny access to high seas and thus, have to concede
i. German U-boats sunk 12.5 million tones of British shipping
 1. British built 20 million tones of shipping with which to
bring in food and supplies
i. Neither side could have a total victory with blockading or U-
boats
1. Needed a victory on the land, not only on sea
1. Total War: Air Power
a. Strategic Bombing
i. Not enough to find a decisive outcome
i. Goal to destroy Germany's economy
i. Limited results of WWI
i. British strategic bombing of Germany was response to
Germany's failed invasion attempt (inflict pain)
1. Only option to strike Germany through air
1. 40% of British war effort went into strategic bombing
i. Bombing raid and raised the city to the ground (Clone)
1. Example of strategic bombing working
1. Usually would miss target by miles and thus, not
effective
a. Information was faulty
a. Radar was in its nascent stages
i. Good at detecting incoming planes, but not good
at finding things
i. Berlin air raids
1. Failure
1. 15% of British planes that went up did not come back
down
i. Use ground camouflage to hide factories
i. America involved, better because they bombed in the day in
order to see results
1. Riskier strategy, but more effectual in damage
1. Downside was that Americans lose 20% of bombers sent
up
i. Germans get better at knocking out planes, Allies getting
better at sending planes up = stalemate
i. Allied strategic bombing destroyed 9% of sub-ports and
regular ports, 30% of railroads, 25% of cities, 12% of fuel
depots, and 9% of airfields
1. British that bombing and air superiority gained spear-
headed the D-Day effort (softened up Germans' fortress
for this)
a. Bolstered morale at home just seeing the army/air
force do something to Germans
a. Made the D-Day invasion less costly
1. Americans argue that strategic bombing had limited
strategic value
a. Underlying this debate is a great amount of guilt
a. Destroyed 3.5 million German homes (Nazis not the
only ones making war on civilians)
a. Early RAF Attempts
a. Escalation
 a. Objectives vs. Impact
a. Conclusions
i. Air and sea warfare played an auxiliary role
i. Needed a land victory to win the war

Scope of the Second World War

I. Time
a. Expectations
i. 50% longer than WWI
i. 4 years of WWI vs. 6 years of WWII (1939-1945)
a. War Plans
i. Similar optimism for a short war, particularly with the
Germans
1. Blitzkrieg, short lightning war
a. Growing Resolve
i. As the war drags on, the resolve for absolute victory hardens
i. Defeat is unthinkable for Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt, and
Hirohito
1. Roosevelt pushing for unconditional surrender of Austria,
Japan, and Germany
i. Sides prefer absolute defeat to any muddled outcome
i. Hitler orders retreating German army to destroy city of Paris
i. No negotiated peace
i. Difference between WWI and WWII
1. No negotiated peace
1. Germany and Austria don't surrender unconditionally in
WWI, but do surrender unconditionally in WWII
a. Both were occupied by the victorious powers
(Germany not by end of WWI)
1. Allowed for stab in the back with Hitler and Nazi party
I. Space
a. Why This War Was Truly Global
i. More so than WWI, WWII is more global
i. Fighting in Seven Years War that spans the globe but fighting
was peripheral to the outcome of the war (Frederick the
Great decided that)
i. Western Front determined outcome of WWI
i. Things changed in WWII
1. Fighting in China between China and Japanese
1. Europe and Poland
1. Eurasian land mass
1. Americans with Pearl Harbor
1. Pacific theater with Australia to Japan
i. Outcome was independent of Europe
i. Difference: independent nature of fighting
I. Numbers
a. Soldiers
 i. December 1944, British had about 2.2 million men under
arms
1. Significantly less than number they had under arms in
1918
i. Germans had 9.5 million men under arms
1. Double what they had in WWI
i. US in 1944 and 8.8 million men in armed services
1. Only 1 million in combat position who were actually
fighting
1. Rest of the men were part of the world's largest supply
change from information to materials to allocating
resources to basically running the war
i. Nature of war changes dramatically
a. Battlefield Deaths
i. Violence to soldiers is comparable in WWI and WWII in Europe
1. Slightly higher death rate per annum
i. Battlefield in WWII was less violent in some particular ways
in Europe (mainly West Europe)
1. Pre-war declarations about not using things like poison
gas, chemical weapons
1. Red Cross allowed to operate on both sides
i. 30,000 German soldiers killed in the invasion of France
1. 2.8 million Germans die because of the failure of
Operation Barbarossa and the fighting with the Russians
i. Fighting in Pacific was even more intense
1. Japanese culturally did not accept the notion of
surrender, not an option
1. Battle of Okinawa has more casualties than the two
atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
1. British, Americans, and Germans captured by Japanese
and thus seen as sub-human (no integrity if captured)
a. To surrender would be to say you are a coward and
an unworthy adversary
a. Jews, Slavs, and Gypsies as subhuman based on Nazi
ideology
i. Prisoners of war treated better because of partial accordance
with rules
1. Greatest violation in East farthest from the West
i. In Europe, 18 million died in WWII
I. Violence
a. Civilian Death
i. WWII as much about killing civilians as about military
achievements
i. War against civilians and become primary targets
i. Goal is to remove civilian population in a certain area
a. Strategic Bombing
i. Total in nature
i. Spares nothing, intent is absolute destruction
 i. British undertook a carpet bombing mission, they new they
would unload at a certain area at a certain time in Germany
to destroy that one specific area; destroy everything
i. Erases distances
i. Came about by accident because neither side had planned it
i. Begins in summer of 1940 with Operation Sealion (Hitler's
plan to invade Britain)
1. Needed to gain air superiority
a. Needed to wipe out British air force
i. Each mission that went up (particularly during Berlin raids),
20% did not come back
i. Strategic bombing undercut German production by 9%
a. Slave Labor
i. Not new to WWII
1. Best example in WWI is occupation of Belgium and use of
Belgium citizens as slaves and artillery people for
German army
i. Difference is not difference in scale, but difference in kind
1. Kind of exploitation and scale was so great that it was
something new to warfare
i. Third Reich resorted to slave labor on a European-wide scale
1. Occupied territories from West in France to deep inside
Russia
1. Contributed at the local level to the German war machine
a. Imported into Germany to work in factories there
i. 8 million imported workers in Germany (artillery
tanks, guns, etc; replacing 9.5 million German
soldiers that were out fighting)
a. More controls inside Germany
i. Exploitation
1. WWII had a strong ideological bet compared to WWI
a. Came out of Germany
a. Manifested itself in racial views
i. Getting rid of Jews, Slavs, and Gypsies
a. Holocaust
i. Racial views play out during Holocaust
i. Population of French Alsac-Loraine sent to German factories
where they worked for the German war machine
i. Concentration camps were largely war camps
1. Some served as a dual use death camp-concentration
camp
i. German camps had 12 million prisoners
i. Western Poles kicked out to make room for Germans (living
space)
1. Germans relocated there
i. 20 million civilian losses in Europe, 20 million civilian losses
outside of Europe
I. Mobilization of Resources
a. War Economies
i. Britain immediately imposes a naval blockade on Germany
 i. In 1939, up until 1951, British, Germans, and Soviets are
allies
i. Human allocation
1. How to employ population in war effort?
1. German ideology is that women should stay home and
cook and make babies
a. Nazis led by Hitler did not advocate using women in
the war effort
1. British use EVERYONE (18-50 become defacto employees
of the military)
a. Necessity is the mother of invention
a. Government employed everybody and directed
resources
1. In the US and Soviet Union, opposite reaction to Germans
a. Employ female population efficiently
a. 10 million women enter the workforce between 1941
and 1944
a. Soviet Union: largely agricultural, women take over
agriculture (7% of agriculture is harvested etc. by
women)
1. How to produce more
a. Germans occupied resources
a. Soviets grew the fastest because they produced the
least and then grew rapidly during war (out-
producing Germans in tanks by wars end)
a. US produces more by being run like a giant
corporation
i. Pentagon like a board of directors
i. 90% of materials used in Pacific theater was
produced by the Americans
i. 35% of the materials used to defeat Germans
was produced by Americans
1. Countries that could produce the most (US and Soviet)
were the clear victors in WWII
I. Mobilization of Minds
a. Propaganda
i. BBC broadcast in 29 languages
1. Clear message that Nazis were totalitarian aggressors
and neutral countries should come to aid of British
1. US had Hollywood show films of Americans fighting the
good fight
1. Soviet rhetoric in 30s was all about 5 year plans,
inevitability of communist revolution sweeping the world
= Marxist rhetoric
a. Later makes appeal to Russian people that they need
to fight for Mother Russia in 40s
1. Nazi propaganda machine engaged in keeping morale up
in Germany while destroying morale of enemies
a. Science
i. Mobilization
 1. Bliestlick Park employed 10,000 Brits to break enigma
code machine
1. Americans engaged in Manhattan Project developing
atomic bomb
I. Social and Political Consequences
a. Europe: Place of Misery and Destruction
i. From Moscow to London, Europe is a place of misery and
destruction
1. Germans call it ground-zero (bombed and had Red Army
run through half of it)
1. Europe on decline in WWI, and WWII accelerates decline
a. Occupied Europe
i. Americans in West and Russians in East
i. Occupied by two NON-European powers
a. German Question
i. Wanted to de-industrialize German and turn it into
agricultural, pastoral state (remove industry and have
complete agriculture)
i. Germany just inflicted 2 world wars
1. Taking industry away from state and turning it into a
monitored pastor land
a. Before being settled, Cold War starts and Europe
divides into two (Germany in particular)
a. Iron Curtain circumvents the question (no whole
Germany)
i. 2 camps that neuter it by making satellite states
a. International Agreements
i. Overseas empires
i. New international agreements
1. UN
a. League of Nations was a precursor but was a failed
institution
1. IMF
1. GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)
i. Allowed for economic recovery
a. Displaced Persons
i. Modern welfare state is created
i. Raison-d'être of a state is to take care of the welfare of
citizens
i. State took money out of pockets to put people on the
battlefield
i. Brought about the possibility of the annihilation of humanity
with the advent of nuclear technology

Nuclear Age

1. The Nuclear Fact

a. Revolutionary Weapon
i. Bipolar landscape where Soviets and Americans hold nuclear
cards
 1. Europe no longer at center
1. Predate advent of nuclear weapons
i. How to describe Europe's decline post '45 before nuclear
weapons
1. Place of misery and destruction
1. European empires on the decline
1. Economies were destroyed (national treasure spent on
war to have a bunch of debtor nations living on credit)
1. Question European leadership
i. 6th and 9th August 1945, America dropped bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
1. Ushered in new era in military warfare
1. Transforming the scale and nature of war (revolutionary
weapons)
a. Raised new questions
a. Viewed as superbombs, bigger versions of what
already exists
a. Effects
i. Destructive nature of weapons would raise questions in time
i. 1944: heaviest allied bombing raid during WWII delivered the
equivalent of 6 tonnes of TNT
1. Hundreds of bombers dropping tens of thousands of
bombs
i. 1945: Fat Man and Little Boy were two bombs
1. First to Hiroshima delivered the equivalent of 15,000
tonnes of TNT
1. Nagasaki delivered the equivalent of 20,000 tonnes of
TNT
a. Ground zero was 1.5 km
a. Heat released from the blast went up to 2 kmaway
from ground zero
i. 1954: US tests the first thermonuclear weapons, or the
hydrogen bomb
1. Explosive equivalent of 15 million tonnes of TNT
1. 2.5 million fold increase in power
a. Ground zero increases 10 fold to 15,000 km
a. Heat released from the blast goes up to 200 km
away from ground zero
i. Destructive power growing
i. Subsidiary effects: black ring
1. Spread radioactive materials to places outside of ground
zero
i. Consequence is nuclear winter
1. Dust would block sun's rays
i. 200 kiloton airblast hit sky above Central Europe would wipe
out all communications
a. Delivery Systems
i. Efficiency with which they could be delivered increases
i. First atomic weapons delivered by bombs
 i. Soon, bombers by the 1950s could fly at 3 times the speed of
sound and deliver their payload 2-3,000 miles away
i. By 1960, both the Americans and Soviets created missiles
that could deliver multiple payloads
1. Fired under a minute
i. Nuclear powered submarines created in 60s
1. Theoretically, they can run forever
1. Hidden deadly arsenal of enemy weapons that can
deliver a payload of intercontinental ballistic missiles
(ICBMs)
i. Space of strategic thinking had been minimized to minutes
1. Less time to reflect
1. Mechanistic war plans (like mobilization plans before
WWI)
a. Militaries too gung-ho on mobilization and logistic
plans that they believed that war was inevitable
a. Nuclear policies and second-strike policies of 60s
and 70s, military became adamant
1. Nuclear Terror, 1949-1972
a. Theory of Deterrence
i. Conceptual thinking about how to fight a nuclear war
i. 1945 thinking was constrained and restrained by the old
framework
1. Idea that the bomber would always get through
1. Defined British thinking in 1930s (PM Baldwin said this
with respect to the German bomber)
a. Put efforts into defensive system
1. Battlefield had radically changed in a revolutionary way
a. No front, no rear, no flank
a. No reliable defense (first time, one side has
complete control)
i. Cold War, Nuclear Age - offense had completely
trumped defense
i. Only possible means of a credible defense is
retaliation
1. Cannot stop the offenses in traditional
sense , idea that you can retaliate with
weapons that would stop the attack in the
first place
i. Theory of deterrence predicates
1. Have to be indestructible (or part of your arsenal does
have to be indestructible to a first attack)
1. Second strike (vulnerable to a second strike)
1. Resolve (opponent has to view you with having credible
resolve to engage you in a second strike)
a. Game theory approach (spite)
i. US policy changed over time (quite malleable)
1. Technology for weapon systems and delivery systems
improved
 1. Political circumstances changed (domestic and the
US/Soviet Union engaged in a Cold War - periods of
détente and periods of high tension)
1. Geography
1. Ideology (stopping communism at any cost, containing it,
working in a world where there is parity between the two
sides)
a. Massive Retaliation
i. 1945-1953: Malleable
1. US sought to control all nuclear weapons
a. Only country that has them is building more and
more, so others can get technology
1. Could not limit (grew from 13 to 50)
i. 1948: Berlin Crisis to change how US uses weapons
1. Berlin in Soviet sector of Germany
a. Soviet tries to starve out Berlin
1. Soviets are unhappy with post-war settlement and US
actions in Korea
a. US supporting Chinese nationalists in civil war
(ideology is polar opposite)
i. Soviets looking to export communist ideology,
US using Truman doctrine to contain communism
i. End up taking a massive air lift
1. National Security Council issued a directive number of 30
a. Prepare to use nuclear weapons against Soviets with
presidential authority
a. Soviets opened out grand transport lines
i. 1949: Soviets get the bomb
1. US monopoly comes to an end
1. Stalin sold on tanks, not sold on weapons
1. Soviets had clear conventional superiority
a. US had nuclear superiority and a superior delivery
system by way of bombers to get bombers through
i. 1950-1952: things change in Korean War
1. McArthur goes crazy and requests 26 nuclear weapons to
use against Chinese and Soviets as a part of his push to
conquer North Korea
a. Communist China said 200,000 to 1.5 million to aid
North Korean ally in fighting US
a. Truman said no to bombing Asia
a. Close run call
i. 1952: Truman out, Eisenhower in, Carter retires
1. Clearest formula of nuclear policy called massive
retaliation
1. If Soviets invade Western Europe, US retaliates with
nuclear weapons on a massive scale
a. Regard conventional war and nuclear war as the
same thing
1. Has some great advantage
a. Nuclear arms cheaper to maintain than an army
 a. Keeps the US out of limited war
i. Advent of ICBMs and the development of tactical
battlefield nukes
i. Soviets put effort into building
1. Krusjeff comes to power, and declares that Soviet has
second strike capabilities
i. 1957 - 1961 Cuban Missile Crisis: height of war
1. Space race
1. Government cranking out videos of duck and cover
1. Both sides had an arsenal to inflict second strike
a. Flexible Response
i. 1960-1961: under Kennedy administration called flexible
response
i. Because of downside of massive retaliation as a nuclear
policy
i. Limitations of massive retaliation:
1. Guerilla warfare
a. Not all aggression can be met with nuclear response
i. Kennedy changes policy to flexible response
1. Fight our enemy at whatever level our enemy is fighting
at
1. Keep things from going nuclear
i. Kennedy administration idea of military planners
1. Took war planning out of hand of military planners and
into hands of civilians
i. Look to Cuban Missile Crisis to see how mechanistic and
dogmatic war planning had become
1. Brush with Armageddon
i. 1970s: have parity
a. Mutually Assured Destruction
i. 3rd policy stage to mutually assured destruction (MAD),
outgrowth of flexible response
i. If we go nuclear, that's it - leaves room for proxy battles
1. Going to fight wars on the periphery with proxy battles
1. Had a deeper history than Cold War
1. People on ground had different reasons for fighting (not
policy to fight for, but own independence and would
prefer to remain neutral, got sucked into promise of
weapons and support for their point of view)
1. The Europeans
a. American Nuclear Umbrella
i. US covered Western Europe in nuclear umbrella
i. Western Europe gave up a little bit of its sovereignty to the
US in return for protection
i. US allowed to put military bases, air fields, missiles
throughout Western Europe
1. Threat of deterrence
1. Did not have to pay
a. UK
i. 3rd country to develop in 1952
 i. In a bid to retain their great power status
i. Some question as to how closely allied UK would be with the
US
i. Locked with the whole NATO policy
a. France
i. 4th country to develop in 1960
i. In a bid to retain their great power status
a. Crisis: Suez, Berlin
i. If there was ever a WWIII, Europe would be vaporized
i. Suez Crisis: UK And French team up with Israelis to get back
Suez Canal
1. No one consulted US and thus, they were pissed
a. Gave threat of a nuclear war
a. Questioned how protective US was
1. Arms Control and Decontrol
a. SALT, START
i. Thinking towards limiting nuclear proliferation in 1970s
i. SALT 1: Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty in 1972
1. Limited the number of weapons either side could have
1. Silly number because this number could still destroy the
world
1. Important part is that there is an anti-ballistic sub-treaty
(ABM = anti ballistic missile)
a. Deterrence does not work anymore
a. Outlawing ABM, ensuring deterrence in the spirit of
mutually assured destruction
i. Want proxy battles because last nuclear war
would be end of the world
i. Works until 1980 until threat of Star War system
1. Scared Soviets to spend more money than
they have, and this bankrupts them (trying
to keep up with Americans)
a. Bush W. withdraws US from ABM treaty
i. Introduces first strike option with respect to
terrorist states
1. Conclusions: Possibilities of Nuclear War, Realities of Conventional
War

Test 2 Review Sheet

• Economic Warfare: Economic warfare refers to the economic policies followed

as part of military operations during wartime, such as the complete mobilization
of human and other resources. The purpose of economic warfare is to capture
critical economic resources so that the military can operate at full efficiency, and
to also deprive enemy forces of these resources so that they cannot fight the
war effectively. With economic warfare, there is total war, and government
ministries are created to direct the resources of the country towards war, such
as the allocation of labor, propaganda, scientific effort, and all other logistical
ventures. An example of economic warfare is present at the Battle of Stalingrad,
 where the Russians cut off German supply lines and starved them to death using
blockades.

• Operation Barbarossa: Operation Barbarossa is the codename for Nazi

Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during WWII. There were 3 reasons why
Germany needed to invade Russia: race war, economic war, and for diplomatic
reasons. The race war part was to eliminate the Jewish and Marxist population in
Eastern Europe and Russia and gain living space for the German race by
removing the Slavs. The economic war aspect came into play with gaining
plunder and economic gain from grain in Ukraine, oil in the Black Sea and Middle
East, and other general war boot. Diplomatic reasons that served as an impetus
for this invasion was that Germany believed that if they invaded Russia, Britain
would have to concede and thus, Germany could control all of Europe. Plus, if
Germany could occupy Soviets with a land war, this would open up the Pacific
theater for ally Japan. Operation Barbarossa was scheduled for May 15, 1941 but
gets delayed to June 15, 1941 because of a coup in Yugoslavia. Operation
Barbarossa and the subsequent war between Germany and the Soviet Union was
the largest land war in history. Operation Barbarossa is the largest military
operation, in terms of manpower, area traversed, and casualties, in human
history. The failure of this operation results in the eventual defeat of Germany.

• Strategic Bombing: Strategic bombing is a form of destruction that is total in

nature, spares nothing, and erases distances. This form came about by accident
because neither side had planned it. Strategic bombing begins in summer of
1940 with Operation Sealion, Hitler's plan to invade Britain. Germany needed to
gain air superiority and to do that, it needed to wipe out the British air force.
Britain also undertook a carpet bombing mission where they would unload at a
certain area in Germany at a certain time to destroy everything within that one
specific area. However, it was a very dangerous form of offense. Each mission
that went up, particularly during the Berlin raids, did not come back 20% of the
time. Strategic bombing undercut German production by 9%.

• Clausewitz/Total War: Total war is a conflict of unlimited scope in which a

belligerent engages in a total mobilization of all available resources at their
disposal in order to destroy or render beyond use their rival's capacity to
continue resistance. In total war, there is less differentiation between
combatants and non-combatants as everyone can be part of the war effort. Total
war includes the help of women. In terms of total war using sea power involves
using blockades and U-boats, and total war using air power involves using
strategic bombing.

• Revolutionary Warfare: Revolutionary warfare is a type of warfare that links

social, military, and political developments. Revolutionary warfare allows the
state to use all resources and plan the entire economy around fighting. As such,
plans are made for fixed rationing for the entire population. Revolutionary type
warfare allowed for mass mobilization of men and resources where ideology is
the main driver and motivation (seek the destruction of the enemy with a
political goal). On the battlefield, revolutionary warfare is more mobile and
trustworthy (play off of each other), and the officer class that gets promoted
through the ranks is one that seeks a decisive outcome
• Machine Gun: The first consistent machine gun is invented by the American
Hirum Maxim in 1883. Maxim had trouble getting a patent, so he left to Britain.
For his machine gun, Maxim's machine gun used the energy of the fired shot to
reload the next shot to create a self-sustained weapon. It is capable of firing 600
rounds per minute. This machine gun provides defense with a decisive
advantage and a tactical perspective. However, the value of the machine gun
was not recognized as fast as other inventions, such as the railroad.

• Blitzkreig: Blitzkrieg refers to short, lightning warfare. Under blitzkreig warfare,

an army moves its troops with such speed that opponents are unable to set up a
coherent defense. Then, the opponent has to panic instead of choosing to set up
a coherent defense. Blitzkreig brought back mobility to warfare. Germans used
blitzkreig warfare during Operation Barbarossa, and the Soviets were greatly
unprepared for these tactics.

• Whale VS. Elephant: Whale vs. elephant refers to the advantages of sea
power. Britain was known as the whale, because it had a naval system that was
capable of producing total war with sea power. On the other hand, Germany was
limited to using land-based attacks. Just as the animal names suggest, Britain,
like a whale, was able to use the water to its advantage, while Germany, just like
an elephant, had to stay on land to fight.

• Flexible Response: Flexible response was created in 1960-1961 under the

Kennedy administration. Because of the downside of massive retaliation as a
nuclear policy, Kennedy changed the policy to flexible response. Flexible
response entails that we fight our enemy at whatever level our enemy is fighting
at to keep things from going nuclear.

• Propaganda/Censorship

• Century of Peace: After the peace settlement of 1815 and the "Restoration," a
Century of Peace existed from 1815-1914. Here, the five great powers exerted
less aggression than before. There were infrequent wars (no warfare between
Europeans between 1815-1884 and 1871-1914). War was also limited in size and
scope and all five powers were intact till 1914. Traditional explanations to
explain this peace include exhaustion from fighting, the fear that change and
revolution would recast social orders, moderate peace settlements (did not give
the French the excuse to follow the policy of seeking to retain lost or disputed
lands), buffer zones (state of Belgium did not exist before 1789 but was created
by the 4 great powers/victors), security alliance and balance of power (powers
joined together to fight a future aggressor France), and systemic (European
states saw that it was more reasonable to keep the peace than go to war). Other
explanations for this peace include the European Concert where the five main
powers of Europe came together to prevent a future aggressor like France or
Germany, insulation in Europe from conflicts outside by the British naval
hegemony, and intermediary bodies like the creation of buffer Belgium, the
Danube River Treaty, general diplomatic agreements, and the North German
Confederation.
• Militarism: Militarism is the belief or desire of a government or people that a
country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it
aggressively to defend or promote national interests. Militarism includes the
prestige of an army, the idealization of war, and military permeation of civilian
life. Militarism is evident in the belief that the prestige of the army is tied in with
imperial race, or that the military is the guardian of national virtue and national
identity. Bernardhi even once wrote that war was a Christian virtue (a Germanic
notion) and as such, the middle class in Germany idolized the military.

• Balkan Interlude: Balkan Interlude refers to the delay of Operation Barbarossa

because of a coup in Yugoslavia. Operation Barbarossa is scheduled for May 15,
1941 but gets delayed to June 15, 1941 because of this coup. The British coup is
planned by allies to install a British government in Yugoslavia. This took about a
month as the harsh conditions of winter approached. Churchill was behind this
coup plan and was obsessed with the soft underbelly of Europe (planned
Calipally, Balkan interlude, to whole idea of attacking Germans in North Africa
instead of in Europe).

• Napoleon: Napoleon Bonaparte rose to prominence in 1796 in the French

Revolutionary Army during the War of Liberation into the Italian Peninsula. In
1789, he became the first Council in the Directory and was the man to undertake
a coup d'etat. In 1802, he crowns himself Emperor. A man seen as a liberator, a
usurper, a conqueror, an invader, and a threat did not undertake campaigns of
genocide. Napoleon created the Code Napoleon, a series of new legal and civic
codes of law that he exported to the continent along with his war of liberation.
This code solved the problem of standardization, put everybody on the same
footing, and was clearly written and accessible. He led with personality and
charisma, and invented the idea of theater command.

• Nuclear Terror (1949-1972): Nuclear terrorism is curbed by the theory of

deterrence, massive retaliation, flexible response, and mutually assured
destruction.

• Weltpolitick: Weltpolitick is the German concept that poses the question "How
well can I compete?" It is the concept of competition and the ideology behind it
is that the pie never gets bigger - if you lose, I win. Darwinism gives Weltpolitick
an intellectual basis from which to work because survival of the fittest mentality
is at the heart of German Weltpolitick. Weltpolitick is evident in the naval arms
race between Britain and Germany.

• Battle Fleet Revolution: Between 1850s and 1900s, navies of the Western
World and Japan changed dramatically. Some revolutionary improvements
include: old wooden ships that were sail powered and wind driven being replaced
by steam powered ships with steel weapons in 1837, the creation of iron hulk
boats with propeller drives by 1850, and increased armor and guns on ships.
Even though the navy did not initially welcome these changes, everything after
1880 was a steam and steel powered vessel. More improvements were made by
Fisher, a British admiral, and Tirpitz, a German admiral, who both pushed this
new technology seeking faster, stronger vessels with bigger guns. Fisher and
Tirpitz created a cycle of innovation wherein one side would develop guns with
 high explosive shells, then so with the other in order to compete and match
improvements. Fisher believed in new navy and ship design, and developed the
use of the dreadnought, a precursor to the 20th century battle ship. Submarines
were also a part of this battle fleet revolution; these submarines could not go
underwater for too long and were easily spotted because of the torpedo. They
were, however, good for breaking a blockade but not for sinking ships and
spying.

• Cambrai, 1917: The Battle of Cambrai in 1917 was a British campaign of WWI
known for its successful use of tanks in a combined arms operation. The British
lined up 1000 artillery pieces in secret and had precise data and aerial
reconnaissance. They timed a creeping barage to allow the infantry to have
some cover, and used pilots as bombers that used coordination to find where
German troops were strong and weak, where trenches were abandoned etc.
Cambrai saw a mix of tanks, heavy artillery, and air power being used, and for
the first time in the three years that WWI had continued, mobility had returned.

Please describe and analyze the battlefield conditions at Agincourt,

Waterloo, and the Somme. In describing such conditions you will want
to address who fought (social and national composition), how (weapons
and tactics used, nature of killing, physical conditions) and why (from
average soldier to leader's political and strategic goals). In analyzing
your description please assess, for better or worse, how the nature of
the battlefield and fighting has changed over time.
Thesis: Fought for others, then fought for self
Agincourt :
○ October 25, 1415
○ Fought in France between French and English troops
○ Henry V led the English to victory. He claimed land on French soil, and
campaigned to capture it.
○ Men fought because of honor, God, alcohol, and because Henry was seen
as a great leader.
○ Longbowmen took out cavalry
○ Many men fell in the mud trying to charge
○ Henry ordered the men to kill the prisoners. He worried that they would
grab weapons scattered on the ground and regroup. He did it to instill fear,
to control the situation (the French were still amassed), and to intimidate.
Men were cautious at first, because they wanted the ransom that could be
gained from hostages. Only the most illustrious prisoners were spared.
○ The English were heavily outnumbered but still won.
Waterloo:
○ June 18, 1815
○ Fought in Waterloo, Belgium between French and Prussian /British troops
○ Napoleon led the French troops while Blucher and the Duke of Wellington
led the Prussian/British troops to victory. This defeat at Waterloo put an end
to Napoleon's rule as Emperor of the French.
○ Upon Napoleon's return to power in 1815, many states that had opposed
him formed the Seventh Coalition and began to mobilise armies. Napoleon
 chose to attack in the hope of destroying them before they could join in a
coordinated invasion of France with the other members of the Coalition.
○ The French army of 72,000 consisted of 58,000 infantry, 14,000 cavalry,
and 7,000 artillery with 250 guns. Though Napoleon was a frequent user of
conscription, he did not use conscription for this 1815 campaign - all of his
troops were veterans of at least one campaign who had returned
voluntarily to fight for their once-great ruler. Unlike the French troops, the
Coalition army had no armored troops, and only a handful of lancers.
Coalition troops consisted of 67,000 men: 50,000 infantry, 11,000 cavalry,
and 6,000 artillery with 150 guns. Of these, 24,000 were British, with
another 6,000 from the King's German Legion. All of the British Army troops
were regular soldiers and 7,000 of them were Peninsular War veterans. In
addition, there were 17,000 troops from the Netherlands, 11,000 from
Hanover, 6,000 from Brunswick, and 3,000 from Nassau.
• 23,000 British troops with 44,000 allied troops and 160 guns/ against
74,000 French troops and 250 guns.
○ It rained heavily during the night of 17th June 1815. The French artillery
commanders insisted that the attack did not begin until the ground had
dried out sufficiently for the guns to maneuver without sticking in the mud.
○ The British position was linked with various strongpoints - the chateau of
Hougoumont, the farmhouse of La Haye Sainte and the dwellings of La Haie
and Papelotte - and while Wellington knew his troops could hold the French
for a time, he was relying upon the promised arrival of Blucher on his left
flank to ensure victory.
Battle of the Somme:
○ July - November 1916
○ Among the largest and bloodiest battles of WWI (1.5 million casualties)
○ Allied forces attempted to break the German lines along a 12 mile front
north and south of the River Somme in northern France
○ Purpose of battle was to draw German forces away from the Battle of
Verdun (but by the end, losses on the Somme exceeded those at Verdun).
The offensive was planned late in 1915 and was intended as a joint French-
British attack. The French Commander in Chief, Joffre, conceived the idea
as a battle of attrition, the aim being to drain the German forces of
reserves, although territorial gain was a secondary aim.
○ Allied loses were less than German losses
○ British army had been a largely inexperienced, but well trained mass of
volunteers - a newly raised citizen army. Germany, on the other hand, had
entered the war with a trained force of regulars and reservists.
○ The attack was preceded by an 8 day preliminary bombardment of German
lines and then a creeping barrage would precede the advancing infantry to
the German front line - both attacks were countered with the use of
machine guns.

WWI and WWII are often referred to as the modern Thirty Years War
(1618-1648 vs 1914-1945). Germany was the epicenter in both
instances, but the two 20th century world wars share a number of
additional similarities and differences. Please identify and analyze
those similarities and differences in terms of tactics, time, space,
 levels of violence to civilian and soldiers, mobilization of resources and
minds, as well as the social, political and economic ramifications of
each war.
○ Tactics
• Similar purpose of engaging many nations to stop the threat of
Germany
• WWII technology was far more advanced (real aeroplanes, heavy
bombers, tanks, radio communication etc.)
1. Tanks were now used effectively as offensive weapon as opposed
to support, they also were armed with a main weapon of a
cannon, as opposed to a machine gun.
1. Sub machine guns were much more common in WWII, which
would greatly act against trench warfare, because of quick
movement, and tactics that could be used with a SMG, as
opposed to a bolt action rifle.
1. Carpet bombing, dive bombing, close air support. Cities were
more vulnerable in the rear, forcing militaries to defend their rear
and neccessarily spreading their defenses.
○ Time
○ Space
• WWI was a war of attrition with both sides bogged down virtually
immobile in trenches.
• WWII was more a war of movement.
○ Violence to:
• Civilians
 The Holocaust is a major difference. Nothing similar happened in
WWI, save the Turkish genocide of the Armenians.
• Soldiers
○ Mobilization of resources
○ Social ramifications:
○ Political ramifications
○ Economic ramifications

1. Difference between WWI and WWII

○ No negotiated peace
○ Germany and Austria don't surrender unconditionally in WWI, but do
surrender unconditionally in WWII
• Both were occupied by the victorious powers (Germany not by end of
WWI)
○ Allowed for stab in the back with Hitler and Nazi party

From the days of mounted knights to the present, the battlefield

advantage between the offense and defense has ebbed and flowed.
Please lead me down a path from the Middle Ages to the present
describing who had the advantage when, and why. Please play
particular attention to weapons technology and its influence on tactics
and strategy.
Middle Ages: defensive, moats and towers and fortifications to resist knights,
lances
Renaissance Warfare: offensive = gunpowder, infantry squares, cannons, pike
square, arquebus and musket
• Thick Walls
 Built thicker walls for defense
• Layered Towers
 Out towers to counteract the appearance of the cannon
 Push cannon as far away as possible
 Return more fire to sieger
• Outworks and Moats
 Moats and ditches pushing the besieging army further and further
• Angle Bastions/Star Fort
 The trace italienne
 Angle bastion as part of fortification design
 More points from which to fire back out into the attacking army
 Flanking fire
 Fire double the rate of fire onto a single point
17th century warfare: offensive (sea power, adolphus' new pike square,
combined arms, crosstrained)
Napoleonic Warfare: offensive(mass bayonet charges, calculated and deceptive,
decisive outcomes)
WWI: offensive (air power, tanks, artillery, combined arms)
WWII: offensive (startegic bombing, blockades, economic warfare)