Debating the "Military Revolution"

NOTE: Large sections of this content were taken directly from Dr. D's publication, "“The Age of Pestilence, Ship Rigging, and the Origins of the Naval Military Revolution,” Technology, Violence, and War: Essays in Honor of John F. Guilmartin Jr. (Leiden: Brill Publishers Co., 2019). Dr. D was also one of the editors of this volume.

The Military Revolution is one of the most prominent and widely-debated topics in the field of military history. Admittedly the term “military revolution” is a contentious one, and can bring forth quite avid debate from all quarters of the historical profession. The term refers to a paradigm shift in the conduct of military affairs on land and sea c.1450 to c1650 that generated new methods of warfare unique to western Europe. The reciprocal relationship between increasing political centralization, economic growth, and both military technology and doctrine dictated changes which transformed Western European society on the grand scale. Europe then projected this military supremacy beyond its shores, and grew from controlling only 7% of the global inhabitable landmass in 1500 to approximately 34% by 1750.[1]

 

Although these developments were first alluded to by C.W.C. Oman, the theory of a western European Military Revolution was first formally put forward by Michael Roberts in a 1955 lecture at Queen’s University of Belfast that became the article “The Military Revolution, 1560-1660.”[2] Roberts postulated that the changes instituted by Maurice of Orange and Gustavus Adolfus led to the rise of innovative tactics such as linear formations. Drill was emphasized and light field guns were adopted to boost mobility. Strategically, the scope of warfare increased with the growth of army size, which in turn fueled the centralization of state authority due in large part to the fiscal burdens necessary to sustain such unprecedented growth.

 

The first major challenge to Roberts’ theory came from Geoffrey Parker, initially in the 1976 article “The Military Revolution, 1560-1660—A Myth?” and then in his 1988 book titled The Military Revolution: Military innovation and the rise of the West, 1500-1800.[3] While Parker agreed with Roberts insofar that there was an increasing impact of warfare upon society and that an augmentation of army size is a key factor in this debate, Parker pointed out that this surge in manpower occurred before the reforms of Maurice and Gustav Adolph, notably with the Spanish before 1560, and that their tactical innovations were not unprecedented. Their changes, therefore, could not have led to the Military Revolution. According to Parker, it was in fact the development of the star or bastion fort (which Parker refers to as a trace italienne) in response to the creation of effective cannon that became a driving force of change. The amassing of large armies and the construction of these complex fortresses not only led to the dominance of the siege over open battle and the ascendancy of infantry over cavalry, but, just as Roberts stated, it depended upon the growth of centralized government power capable of supporting the financial burden of these new circumstances. With the growth of this centralized military-fiscal state, technological innovation on both land and sea generated a feedback loop with social change that constituted the Military Revolution.

 

Subsequent historians have either debated with or built upon this basic premise. In 1991 Jeremy Black published A Military Revolution? Military Change and European Society, 1550-1800, arguing that the most important developments vis-à-vis European global expansion occurred after Parker’s period of consideration.[4] In Clifford J. Rogers’ edited volume The Military Revolution Debate, Parker and Black reiterate their arguments in contributor chapters, while Rogers puts forth a new concept, that of punctuated equilibrium.[5] Borrowing from biological theories of species evolution, Rogers argued that such changes were not due to one specific revolution but rather a series of sequential military revolutions, each attempting to reverse a disequilibrium introduced by the previous one. Two revolutions, for example, occurred during the Hundred Years War (1340-1453)—an artillery revolution and an infantry revolution—and these two movements in concert laid the groundwork for subsequent early modern military changes. Historians MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray followed this publication with their 2001 The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300-2050, which by contrast focused on the RMA—the revolution in military affairs—which involves changes in military affairs that exist as subsets of broader military revolutions.[6]

 

Certainly there are those who disagree with the existence of either one or multiple revolutions. Historians Kelly DeVries and Bert Hall were notable for their critique of Parker’s Military Revolution in their 1990 review of the work for Technology and Culture.[7] DeVries’ subsequent work in particular has focused on the very real and sometimes-problematic nature of the military revolution concept, given that it lasted for such a prolonged period and assumes a certain amount of stasis in the medieval era prior to this period of great change that in fact did not exist. Historians in non-Western fields have also downplayed the idea of any Western exceptionalism the military revolution concept might engender. Those such as Peter Lorge, Andew de la Garza, and Tonio Andrade have made arguments for Asian military revolutions prior to and/or as successful as what occurred in the European theater.[8] This is particularly true of the Chinese Empire, Lorge and Andrade argue, as they were the first to successfully develop effective gunpowder weapons and seafaring vessels.

The salient take-away though is that the Military Revolution Debate is a major one within the field of military history. Some historians support Parker's take, some propose alternate theories that support the change, while still others contest no "revolution" occurred at all. While certainly there are wrong answers--it WAS NOT aliens!--there is also no general "right" one. Accordingly, if you wish to learn more about the debate and form your own theory, read the following monographs and articles in the order in which they're listed:

• Michael Roberts, “The Military Revolution, 1560-1660,” Essays in Swedish History (1967)

• Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution (1992, 2nd Ed.)

• Gunther E. Rothenberg, “Maurice of Nassau, Gustavus Adolphus, Raimondo Montecuccoli, and the ‘Military Revolution’ of the Seventeenth Century,” in Makers of Modern Strategy, Paret et al., eds. (1986 1st Ed.)

• Bert S. Hall and Kelly Devries, “Essay Review – the ‘Military Revolution’ Revisited,” Technology and Culture, 31 (1990), 500 – 507

• Jeremy Black, A Military Revolution? (1991)

• Clifford Rogers, ed., The Military Revolution Debate (1995)

• Andrew Ayton and J.L. Price, The Medieval Military Revolution (1995)

• McGregor Knox and Williamson Murray, Dynamics of the Military Revolution (2003)

• Arthur Ferrill, The Origins of War from the Stone Age to Alexander the Great (2007)

• Peter Lorge, The Asian Military Revolution (2008)

• John F. Guilmartin, Jr., “The Military Revolution in Warfare at Sea During the Early Modern Era,” Journal for Maritime Research, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Nov. 2011), 129 – 137

• Tonio Andrade, The Gunpowder Age (2016)

• Andrew de la Garza, The Mughal Empire at War: Babur, Akbar, and the Indian Military Revolution, 1500 – 1650 (2017)

[1] A personal global survey of European empires as they existed in 1500 and 1750 using global land surveys generated 31% control of the global landmass with a 34% control of the global inhabitable landmass in 1750. This survey was done by estimating tangible control of claimed territories as opposed to European mapped territories, which often claimed land that was either untouched by European presence or not realistically controlled given terrain or local resistance measures.

[2] Oman hints at a particular style of warfare in his period of consideration that differentiated European combat from non-European. He makes no overt claims but the groundwork for the later debate is present. C.W.C. Oman, The Art of War in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1953). Michael Roberts, “The Military Revolution, 1560-1660,” Essays in Swedish History (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1967), Ch.1.

[3]  Geoffrey Parker, “The Military Revolution, 1560-1660—A Myth?,” Journal of Modern History, 48 (1976). Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)

[4] Jeremy Black, A Military Revolution? Military Change and European Society, 1550-1800 (Atlantic Highlands, NJ : Humanities Press, 1991).

[5] Clifford J. Rogers, ed., The Military Revolution Debate: readings on the military transformation of early modern Europe (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995).

[6] William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force and Society since AD 1000 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).

[7] Bert S. Hall and and DeVries, Kelly, "Essay Review – the 'Military Revolution’ Revisited,” Technology and Culture, 31 (1990), 500–507.

[8] Peter A. Lorge, The Asian Military Revolution: From Gunpowder to the Bomb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Andrew de la Garza, The Mughal Empire at war: Babur, Akbar, and the Indian military revolution, 1500-1605, London: Routledge, 2015; Tonio Andrade, The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation and the Rise of the West in World History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016).