Engineering a New Order: Military Institutions, Technical Education, and the Rise of the Industrial State

Abstract

Engineering a New Order: Military Institutions, Technical Education, and the Rise of the Industrial State BARTON C. HACKER Gunpowder began the military revolution that molded the modern world. Relatively narrow technical changes in weapons and tactics on early modern European battlefields set in train the transformation of almost every aspect of Western civilization, argued Michael Roberts in 1956.1 Widely discussed and critically challenged, his version of the precise nature and timing of change on the equation’s military side now commands only qualified respect.2 But the other side of the equation, Roberts’s claim of great social consequences flowing from changing military technique, remains substantially intact. It retains enough plausibility, in fact, to suggest thinking about similar processes in other eras. Dr. Hacker is the historian at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Earlier versions of this article were presented at meetings of the Pacific Sociological Associa­ tion, Albuquerque, N.M., 1985; International Congress of History of Science, Berkeley, Calif., 1985; Symposium of the International Committee for the History ofTechnology, Dresden, 1986; Inter-University Centre of Postgraduate Studies, Dubrovnik, 1987; Columbia History of Science Society, Friday Harbor, Wash., 1987; and Society for the History of Technology, Raleigh, N.C., 1987. The author wishes to thank the several friendly critics who helped him reshape and sharpen his argument. 'Michael Roberts, The Military Revolution, 1560—1660 (Belfast, 1956), revised and reprinted under the same title in Michael Roberts, Essays in Swedish History (Minneap­ olis, 1967), pp. 195-225, with a second essay on “Gustav Adolf and the Art of War,” pp. 56—81. For a recent survey of the technology, see Christian Beaufort-Spontin, Hamischund Waffe Europas: Die militarische Ausriistung im 17.Jahrhundert (Munich, 1982). ’Geoffrey Parker, “The ‘Military Revolution,’ 1560-1660—a Myth?” Journal of Modem History 48 (1976): 195-214, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise ofthe West, ¡500—1800 (Cambridge, 1988); Bert S. Hall and Kelly R. DeVries, “The ‘Military Revolution’ Revisited,” Technology and Culture 31 (1990): 500-507; ColinJones, “New Military History for Old? War and Society in Early Modern Europe,” European Studies Review 12 (1982): 97—108; Simon Adams, “Tactics or Politics? ‘The Military Revolution’ and the Hapsburg Hegemony, 1525-1648,” in Tools of War: Instruments, Ideas, and Institutions ofWarfare, 1445—1871, ed. John A. Lynn (Champaign, Ill., 1990), pp. 28-52.© 1993 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X793/3401-0005$01.00 1 2 Barton C. Hacker Military technological change of vast scope disturbed the 19th century, beginning with small arms and guns vastly quicker-firing and longer-ranged than the weapons they displaced. Other changes followed ever more rapidly, spreading through the military system, then throughout society. Ultimately, the result was a new social, political, and economic order. Like its early modern predecessor, this 19th-century transformation deserves the label military revolution because its consequences far transcended strictly military concerns. The 20th-century industrial state is no less the product of a 19th-century military-technological revolution than was the 18thcentury nation-state of the classic military revolution Roberts spotlighted. The present undertaking is more survey than analysis, the subject being far too complex for a brief essay. Accordingly, I address only certain aspects of the 19th-century military-technological revolution, its 18th-century roots, and its 20th-century fruits. Pragmatism largely dictates my focus on the United States—the needed material is more readily available in my provincial outpost—though I do include comparative remarks where they seem appropriate. Despite such self-imposed limits, this essay may still prove helpful to readers seeking an entry to published work on certain relevant topics. It may also serve as a sounding board for several useful themes, chief among them the interaction between military and other social institutions. Only by understanding such interactions may we begin to explain the course and outcome of 19th-century military techno­ logical change. My touchstone is the spread of a novel usage to replace, or at least augment, what had normally in the past been called “the art of war.” During the 19th century, “military science” or “military art and science” largely supplanted the older term. Methods of educating officers and training...