Officers, Entrepreneurs, Career Migrants, and Diplomats: Military Entrepreneurs in the Early Modern Era
Foreign military labour in early modern Europe
August 2024
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Chapter
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Officers, Entrepreneurs, Career Migrants, and Diplomats: Military Entrepreneurs in the Early Modern Era
This chapter presents preliminary findings from the “European Fiscal-Military System 1530-1870” project which investigates how the transfer of military labour, along with other war-making assets, was an important factor in the emergence of a European order based on territorially bounded sovereign states. It argues that there was no free market for force. Men were rarely able or willing to serve any power, while prospective employers were also discerning in whom they recruited. Access to manpower was mediated through contractors upon whom contractees depended upon to organise and supply the bulk of foreign troops. Geography, strategy, dynastic, and religious considerations all further influenced choices, as did perceptions of martial reputation, creditworthiness, and the likelihood of achieving ambitions. There was a pronounced tendency for clustering of contractees and contractors along established patterns whereby men from certain areas predominately served in the same armies. However, these patterns were not universal across all contractual forms and there were important variations between the employers of foreign soldiers. These patterns were not replicated in the service of foreign fighters as it emerged from the 1820s and which reflected the progressive restructuring of states and war-making along national lines.
Resources
July 2024
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Chapter
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The Oxford Handbook of the Seven Years' War
The Seven Years’ War saw fighting across the globe, but in fiscal-military terms, Europe remained the epicenter and was the source of most of the manpower, ships, weaponry, and other war materials. Non-European resources were important in campaigns elsewhere; these operations nonetheless always depended on European input, whereas non-European resources played only a minimal role in the fighting in Europe. This chapter assesses the character, mobilization, and employment of war-making resources, and evaluates the relative efficiency of the belligerents in finding and deploying what they needed, and how they responded to their experience through postwar reform. It argues that the superior ability of Britain and Prussia to mobilize, procure, and employ resources played a significant part in determining the war’s outcome.
Novelty and Continuity in European Warfare 1618-1721
June 2024
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Chapter
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Novelty and Change. New Research, Ideas, Thoughts and Interpretation on the British Civil Wars and the Military History of the 17th Century
The Holy Roman Empire (Chinese translation, simplified characters)
December 2023
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Book
Eisen und Blut Die Geschichte der deutschsprachigen Länder seit 1500
September 2023
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Book
Mapping premodern small war: the case of the Thirty Years War (1618-48)
June 2023
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Journal article
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Small Wars and Insurgencies
The example of the Thirty Years War (1618–48) demonstrates that small war was already integral to the conduct of premodern hostilities. Commanders employed these methods with a purpose and generally tried to limit the accompanying violence to preserve discipline and effectiveness, as well as their claims to be waging a just war. We explain why conventional histories have neglected the presence of small war in premodernity, and show how its importance, methods, and wider impact can be reconstructed through innovative digital mapping techniques, which have the potential to be applied to conflicts in other times and places.
resource extraction, garrisons, digital mapping, violence, raiding, light troops, Westphalia, Thirty Years War
Les images des batailles de la guerre de Trente Ans (1618-1648) : témoignages, preuves, mémoires
May 2023
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Journal article
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Dix-Septième Siècle
La guerre de Trente Ans (1618-1648) fut plus souvent ponctuée de batailles que les historiens ne l’ont longtemps présumé. On dénombre en effet 48 batailles moyennes et grandes par les effectifs engagés, de 7 000 à 89 000 soldats. Or, loin de couler de source, la mémoire des batailles a été sélective et intermittente. Pourquoi certaines batailles ont-elles été commémorées et d’autres oubliées ? Pourquoi certains événements militaires ont-ils été l’objet de pratiques mémorielles en tant que batailles ? Quels rôles l’image de bataille a-t‑elle joué ?Cet article éclaire ces questions au moyen de trois exemples : la bataille de la Montagne Blanche (1620) saturée de mémoires captées – par une historiographie tchèque nationaliste rétrospective mais aussi, dans l’immédiat, par Domingo Ruzola, un carme déchaux en quête de sainteté, et par une présentation erronée de la disposition des troupes confédérées –, la bataille de Tuttlingen (1643), un affrontement perçu comme important tout en tombant rapidement dans l’oubli chez tous les belligérants, enfin Alerheim (1645), qui a vu s’affronter des traditions conflictuelles.L’image est mobilisée comme un moyen de prouver la bataille, voire la victoire, tout en se prêtant à toutes sortes d’appropriations. La mémoire de la guerre de Trente Ans s’est développée dès les événements eux-mêmes et a d’emblée été polysémique, voire protéiforme et foncièrement conflictuelle. La guerre a été construite en images.
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English
Images of Battle in the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648): Testimonies, Evidence, Memories<br>
The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) was punctuated by more frequent battles than historians have long believed. There were forty-eight battles deemed medium or large on the basis of the number of soldiers involved, with troops numbering from seven thousand to eighty-nine thousand. However, memories of these battles are uneven: selective and intermittent. Why were some battles commemorated and others forgotten? Why have certain military events been remembered as battles? What role did images of battle play?This article sheds light on these questions by means of three examples. First, the Battle of White Mountain (1620), of which there are myriad records, including a retrospective Czech nationalist historiography; an account, in the immediate aftermath, by Domingo de Ruzola, a Discalced Carmelite seeking holiness; and an erroneous record of the distribution of the allied troops. Second, the Battle of Tuttlingen (1643), a conflict perceived as important though it quickly fell into oblivion among all the belligerents. And finally, the Battle of Nördlingen (1645), near the village of Alerheim, which witnessed the clash of conflicting traditions. Images were mobilized as proof of the battle, or even of the victory, while also lending themselves to all sorts of appropriations. Memories of the Thirty Years’ War were thus constructed as soon as the events took place, and from the outset they were polysemous, protean, and fundamentally conflictual. Representations of the war were formed through images.
Of ‘master’ and ‘grand narratives’ and their discontents: early modern European military history
November 2022
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Journal article
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War and Society
This article offers a short, critical survey of the 'grand' or 'master' narratives produced since the 1950s by those discussing the history of war in early modern Europe. It examines in turn the War and Society approach, the concept of a Military Revolution, narratives linking political and social impacts, the more recent models of Fiscal Military and Contractor States, and the debates around the nature of military change. It concludes that grand narratives are always flawed, but we need them to relate or compare what would otherwise be a bewildering array of disconnected stories.
Of ‘Master’ and ‘Grand Narratives’ and Their Discontents: Early Modern European Military History
November 2022
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Journal article
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War & Society
This article offers a short, critical survey of the 'grand' or 'master' narratives produced since the 1950s by those discussing the history of war in early modern Europe. It examines in turn the War and Society approach, the concept of a Military Revolution, narratives linking political and social impacts, the more recent models of Fiscal Military and Contractor States, and the debates around the nature of military change. It concludes that grand narratives are always flawed, but we need them to relate or compare what would otherwise be a bewildering array of disconnected stories.
4303 Historical Studies, 43 History, Heritage and Archaeology
Subsidy treaties and troop contracts: a study in Europe’s transnational political culture
October 2022
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Chapter
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Gender, Materiality, and Politics: Essays on the making of power
SBTMR
Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-speaking Peoples since 1500
October 2022
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Book
The Württemberg Army in the Seven Years War
July 2022
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Chapter
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The Changing Face of Old Regime Warfare: Essays in Honour of Christopher Duffy
Lützen
January 2021
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Book
The Business of War untangled: cities as Fiscal-Military Hubs in Europe, 1530s-1860s
December 2020
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Journal article
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War in History
Fiscal-military hubs were cities characterized by the clustering of specific expertise and resources, which became centres where states, and semi-state and non-state actors arranged the transfer of war-making resources in early modern Europe. Using this concept enables the study of the business of war to shift the locus beyond the state towards a transnational history, while integrating political, military, economic, and cultural aspects that have generally been studied separately. By examining the hub, we can untangle the full complexity of this business, and reveal its actors, networks, assets, prices, routes, culture, and rules of conduct.
El Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico. Mil años de historia de Europa
November 2020
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Book
A Global History of Early Modern Violence
October 2020
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Edited book
'Mercenary' contracts as fiscal-military instruments
March 2020
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Chapter
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Subsidies, diplomacy, and state formation in Europe, 1494–1789: Economies of allegiance
The chapter argues that we need to set subsidies in their wider context as just one of many ways of transferring war-making resources across political jurisdictions. Subsidies belong to the contractual forms which emerged during early modernity and which in this chapter are termed Fiscal-Military Instruments. Direct recruitment, foreign regiments, auxiliary troops and subsidy troops were all Fiscal-Military Instruments which evolved across early modernity as ways of transferring men, money, materials, services, information, and expertise between partners. Such instruments facilitated what were high-risk arrangements between partners who were often justified in mistrusting each other.
SBTMR
Foreign military labour in Europe's transition to modernity
March 2020
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Journal article
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European Review of History
Foreign soldiers were a major element in virtually all European armies between the early sixteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. The extent and duration of their use clearly indicates they were far more than a temporary expedient adopted solely until states acquired the capacity to organize forces from their own inhabitants. Rather than being a hindrance to state formation, they were integral to that process. Likewise, the formation of European states and an international system based on indivisible sovereignty was not purely competitive: it also entailed cooperation. The transfer of foreign military labour is an important example of this and is central to what can be labelled the European Fiscal-Military System, which assisted the emergence of a sovereign state order and was dismantled as that order consolidated in the later nineteenth century. Wilson’s article articulates ‘foreign soldiers’ as an alternative to the problematic term ‘mercenaries’, and examines their motives, explaining how and why foreign soldiers were recruited by early modern European states.as well as assessing the scale of their employment. The article concludes that the de-legitimation of foreign military labour was connected to fashioning the modern ideals of the citizen-in-arms as part of a more general process of nationalizing war-making.
Consolidating states, professionalizing armies, and controlling violence in the long-term aftermath of the Thirty Years War, 1600s-1780s
January 2020
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Chapter
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Oxford Handbook of Gender, War and the Western World since 1600
The European Fiscal-Military System and the Habsburg Monarchy
January 2020
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Chapter
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The Habsburg Monarchy as a Fiscal-Military State c.1648-1815: Contours and Perspectives
Under siege? Defining siege warfare in world history
July 2019
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Chapter
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The World of the Siege: Representations of Early Modern Positional Warfare
Securitization in the Holy Roman Empire 1495-1806
May 2019
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Chapter
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Sicherheitsprobleme im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert: Bedrohungen, Konzepte, Ambivalenzen
The Thirty Years War 1618-48: a quartercentenary perspective
April 2019
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Journal article
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German History
The Stuarts, the Palatinate, and the Thirty Years War’
October 2018
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Chapter
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Stuart Marriage Diplomacy: Dynastic Politics in their European Context, 1604-1630
Identity and Belonging in the Holy Roman Empire’
August 2018
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Chapter
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Nation, State and Empire
War Finance, Policy and Strategy in the Thirty Years War
July 2018
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Chapter
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Dynamik durch Gewalt? Der Dreißigjährige Krieg (1618-1648) als Faktor der Wandlungsprozesse des 17. Jahrhunderts
Financing the War of Spanish Succession in the Holy Roman Empire’
February 2018
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Chapter
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The War of Spanish Succession: New Perspectives
Lützen
February 2018
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Book
Il Sacro Romano Impero
January 2018
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Book
La Guerra de Los Treinta Años: Una Tragedia Europea
January 2018
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Book
La Guerra de Los Treinta Años: Una Tragedia Europea
January 2018
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Book
Der Dreißigjährige Krieg
January 2017
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Book
Der Dreißigjährige Krieg. Eine europäische Tragödie
January 2017
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Book
Habsburg imperial strategy during the Thirty Years War
January 2017
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Chapter
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Estudios sobre Guerra y Sociedad en la Monarquía Hispánica. Guerra maritima, estrategia, organizacíon y cultura militar (1500-1700)
Wojna Trzydziestoletnia. Europejska Tragedia
January 2017
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Book
The First European Union
March 2016
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Journal article
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History Today
The Holy Roman Empire A Thousand Years of Europe's History
January 2016
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Book
A great, sprawling, ancient and unique entity, the Holy Roman Empire, from its founding by Charlemagne to its destruction by Napoleon a millennium later, formed the heart of Europe. It was a great engine for inventions and ideas, it was the origin of many modern European states, from Germany to the Czech Republic, its relations with Italy, France and Poland dictated the course of countless wars - indeed European history as a whole makes no sense without it.
In this strikingly ambitious book, Peter H. Wilson explains how the Empire worked. It is not a chronological history, but an attempt to convey to readers why it was so important and how it changed over its existence. The result is a tour de force - a book that raises countless questions about the nature of political and military power, about diplomacy and the nature of European civilization and about the legacy of the Empire, which has continued to haunt its offspring, from Imperial and Nazi Germany to the European Union.
‘¿Fue la Guerra de los Treinta Años una «guerra total»?’
January 2016
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Journal article
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Revista Universitaria de Historia Militar
Armies of the German princes
October 2015
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Chapter
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European Armies of the French Revolution, 17891802
The volume opens with editor Frederick C. Schneid s substantial introduction, which reviews the strategies and policies of each participating state throughout the wars, establishing a clear context for the essays that follow."
History
The Immerwährende Reichstag in English and American historiography
September 2015
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Chapter
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Reichsstadt - Reich - Europa Neue Perspektiven auf den Immerwährenden Reichstag zu Regensburg (1663-1806)
Kingdom divided: British and Continental European conflict compared
March 2015
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Chapter
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The Oxford Handbook of the English Revolution
This Handbook brings together leading historians of the events surrounding the English revolution, exploring how the events of the revolution grew out of, and resonated, in the politics and interactions of the each of the Three Kingdoms - ...
History
Prussia and the Holy Roman Empire 1700-40
May 2014
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Journal article
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German Historical Institute London Bulletin
Our understanding of the Holy roman empire has been transformed in the last fifty years. the older, ‘Borussian interpretation’ dismissed the empire in its last two centuries as moribund and doomed to be supplanted by dynamic, centralizing ‘power states’ like Prussia. A succession of historians since the 1960s have identified how imperial institutions performed important coordinating functions, repelled external attacks, resolved internal conflicts, and safeguarded an impressive and surprisingly robust range of individual and corporate rights for ordinary inhabitants. More recently, some have suggested this positive reappraisal presents the old empire as a blueprint for the German Federal republic or the european Union. Others prefer to characterize the empire as, at best, only ‘partially modernized’ and still defective in comparison with most other, especially western european countries.
SBTMR
Das Heilige Römische Reich, die machtpolitische Schwache Mitte Europas - mehr Sicherheit oder eine Gefahr für den Frieden?
December 2013
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Chapter
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Sicherheit in der Vormoderne und Gegenwart Aktuelle Perspektiven der Konflikt- und Friedensforschung
Europe
The mid-seventeenth century Habsburg court
October 2013
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Journal article
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The Court Historian
Strategy and the conduct of war
July 2013
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Chapter
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The Ashgate Research Companion to the Thirty Years' War
This is hardly surprising since it is often contested among historians whether it is actually appropriate to speak of a single war or a series of conflicts.
History
Atrocities in the Thirty Years War
June 2013
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Chapter
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Ireland: 1641 Contexts and Reactions
The original and wide-ranging themes chosen by leading international scholars for this volume will ensure that this edited collection becomes required reading for all those interested in the history of early modern Europe.
History
神圣罗马帝国 1495-1806
January 2013
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Book
The Holy Roman Empire, 1495-1806: A European Perspective
October 2012
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Edited book
The Holy Roman Empire, 1495-1806: A European Perspective
July 2012
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Book
This text offers a collective exploration of aspects of cross-border and transnational interaction in the Holy Roman Empire.
History
Meaningless conflict? The character of the Thirty Years War
May 2012
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Chapter
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The Projection and Limitations of Imperial Powers, 1618-1850
The two centuries that chronologically bind the topics in this volume span a period when Europe was in its global ascendancy.
History
Early modern German military justice
January 2012
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Chapter
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Tra Marte e Astrea. Giustizia e giuridizione militare nell' Europa della prima eta moderna
Großbritannien, amerika und die atlantische Welt
January 2012
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Chapter
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Friederisiko. Friedrich der Große
‘Early modern German military justice’
January 2012
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Chapter
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Tra Marte e Astrea. Giustizia e giuridizione militare nell’ Europa della prima età moderna (secc. xvi-xviii)
‘Großbritannien, Amerika und die atlantische Welt’
January 2012
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Chapter
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Friederisiko: Friedrich der Große - die Austellung
‘Meaningless conflict? The character of the Thirty Years War’
January 2012
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Chapter
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The Projection and Limitation of Imperial Powers 1618-1850
‘Perceptions of violence in the early modern communications revolution: the case of the Thirty Years War’
January 2012
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Chapter
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Violence and War in Culture and the Media: Five Disciplinary Lenses
‘The old Reich’
January 2012
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Chapter
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The Ancien Regime
‘Was the Thirty Years War a “Total War”?’
January 2012
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Chapter
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Civilians and War in Europe 1640-1815
The Holy Roman Empire, 1495-1806
October 2011
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Edited book
The Holy Roman Empire 1495-1806
March 2011
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Book
The volume presents an accessible summary of several decades of research on the Holy Roman Empire concentrating on its constitutional, religious, and social history between 1495 and 1806.
History
The Holy Roman Empire 1495-1806
January 2011
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Book
The Thirty Years War A Sourcebook
December 2010
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Book
Presents a guide to the political and military events that shaped the course of the Thirty Years' War, providing thematically-organized sources documenting the words and images of those who lived through the conflict.
History
Europe's Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War
July 2010
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Book
The horrific series of conflicts known as the Thirty Years War (1618-48) tore the heart out of Europe, killing perhaps a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to whole areas of Central Europe to such a degree that many towns and regions never recovered. All the major European powers apart from Russia were heavily involved and, while each country started out with rational war aims, the fighting rapidly spiralled out of control, with great battles giving way to marauding bands of starving soldiers spreading plague and murder. The war was both a religious and a political one and it was this tangle of motives that made it impossible to stop. Whether motivated by idealism or cynicism, everyone drawn into the conflict was destroyed by it. At its end a recognizably modern Europe had been created but at a terrible price.
Peter Wilson's book is a major work, the first new history of the war in a generation, and a fascinating, brilliantly written attempt to explain a compelling series of events. Wilson's great strength is in allowing the reader to understand the tragedy of mixed motives that allowed rulers to gamble their countries' future with such horrifying results. The principal actors in the drama (Wallenstein, Ferdinand II, Gustavus Adolphus, Richelieu) are all here, but so is the experience of the ordinary soldiers and civilians, desperately trying to stay alive under impossible circumstances.
History
Who won the Thirty Years War
August 2009
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Journal article
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History today
The Bee and the Eagle Napoleonic France and the End of the Holy Roman Empire
January 2009
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Book
The Bee and the Eagle brings together a team of international specialists to present original findings on six key themes of Empire: political cultures, war and military institutions, monarchy, nationalism and identity, and everyday ...
History
Defining military culture’
June 2008
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Journal article
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Journal of Military History (US)
Dynasty, constitution and confession: The role of religion in the Thirty Years War
June 2008
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Journal article
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The International History Review
Prussia’s relations with the Holy Roman Empire, 1740-86
Bolstering the prestige of the Habsburgs: the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806
June 2006
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Journal article
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The International History Review
Still a monstrosity? Some reflections on early modern German statehood
June 2006
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Journal article
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Historical Journal
1848 The Year of Revolutions
January 2006
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Book
This volume brings together essays from leading specialists on the international dimension, national experiences, political mobilisation, and reaction and legacy.
History
Warfare in Europe 1815-1914
January 2006
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Book
New perspectives on the Thirty Years War
June 2005
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Journal article
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German History
神聖ローマ帝国 1495-1806
February 2005
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Book
近年見直しの気運が高まる帝国の歴史と制度
Holy Roman Empire$xHistory$y1517-1648
From Reich to Revolution German History 1600-1806
October 2004
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Book
Peter H. Wilson addresses fundamental questions, such as how the apparently fragile structure of the Holy Roman Empire survived the trauma of the Thirty Years War, and why, despite gross social inequality, Germany did not experience mass ...
History
The politics of military recruitment in eighteenth-century Germany’
July 2002
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Journal article
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The English Historical Review
British and American perspectives on early modern warfare
July 2001
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Journal article
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Militär und Gesellschaft in der Frühen Neuzeit
The origins of Prussian militarism’
July 2001
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Journal article
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History Today
Migrants, marginal groups and the early modern German state
July 2000
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Journal article
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Immigrants and Minorities
Social militarisation in eighteenth century Germany
July 2000
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Journal article
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German History
Absolutism in Central Europe
January 2000
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Book
This book investigates how scholars from a variety of disciplines have defined and explained political development across what was formerly known as the 'age of absolutism'.
History
War in German thought from the Peace of Westphalia to Napoleon
July 1998
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Journal article
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European History Quarterly
German Armies War and German Politics, 1648-1806
January 1998
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Book
German armies examines the diversity of German involvement in European conflict from the Peace of Westphalia to the age of Napoleon.
History
The German “soldier trade” of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: A reassessment
July 1996
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Journal article
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The International History Review
War, State and Society in Württemberg, 1677-1793
March 1995
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Book
This book examines the role of war and the development of the smaller German territories in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries through the example of the duchy of WÜrttemberg.
History
De la guerre nationale à la guerre post-souveraine : réflexions sur les débats sur la guerre et la formation de l’État
Chapter
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Étudier la guerre: Perspectives historiographiques et épistémologiques de l’histoire de la guerre des années 1950 à nos jours
Europe's fiscal military system 1530-1870
Chapter
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Financing War
Europe’s fiscal military system 1530-1870
Chapter
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Financing War: Funding Military Force from Classical Greece to the First World War
Europe’s Fiscal Military system 1530-1870
Journal article
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Financing War: funding military force from Classical Greece to the Cold War
Hierro y Sangre: Una historia militar de Alemania desde 1500
Book
Una visión de conjunto en la que Wilson contempla múltiples aspectos y muy variadas dimensiones, desde el desarrollo de las armas hasta el reclutamiento, la estrategia en el campo de batalla o cuestiones ideológicas como el impacto de la ...
History
Subsidy Treaties and Troop Contracts: A Study in Europe’s Transnational Political Culture’
Chapter
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Gender, Materiality, and Politics. Essays on Fine Detail on Great Power in History
