On Diversity and Military History

Abstract

April 2003 · Historically Speaking award-winning The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise ofthe West, 1500-1800 (Cambridge University Press, 1988; rev. ed., 1996), which has been translated into Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, andSpanish. 1 This essay is adapted from a paper presented in August 2002 at the XXVTIIth International Congress on Military History sponsored by die U.S. Commission on Military History. A longer version with full documentation will appear in the ACTA ofthe Congress. 2Jeremy Black, War: Past, Present &Future (Sutton, 2000), 28-29. Admittedly Black includes in his definition ofmilitary organization "the systematizationofknowledge , such thatitis possible better to understand, and thus seek to control, the military, its activities and its interaction with the widerworld." But the examples he offers are statistics and mapping, not die acquisition ofknowledge through research. 3 Black, War, 95: "Historians who argue for a technologically driven Military Revolution as the key causative factor behind the European rise to dominance in the early-modern period are mistaken, because, first, although the Europeans created the first global empires, thiswas onlypardydue to the military developments ofthe Military Revolution and, second, there was no European dominance." 4 Black specifically discounts two of these important anomalies. Black, War, 110: "Itis possible to consider the Spanish conquistadoresas unique, and in addition, to regard the trajectoryand causation of naval success, both in the Indian Ocean and elsewhere, as separate." Possible, perhaps, but it seriouslyundermines the argument thatno Military Revolution occurred in earlymodern Europe. 5 William Louis of Nassau to Maurice of Nassau, Groningen, December 8, 1594, draft: Koninklijke Huisarcnief,The Hague,MsA22-1XE-79; printed in W. Hahlweg, Die Heeresreform der Oranierund die Antike. Studien zur Geschichte des Kriegswesens derNiederlande, DeutschlandsFrankreichs, Englands, Italiens, Spaniens und der Schweiz vomJahre 1589 bis zum Dreissigjährigen Krieg (Berlin, 1941; reprinted Osnabrück, 1987), 255-64; and W Hahlweg, DieHeeresreform derOranier. DasKriegsbuch des GrafenJohann von Nassau-Siegen (Wiesbaden , 1973: Veröffentlichungen der historischen Kommission für Nassau, XX), 606-10. 6Justus Lipsius, Politicorumsive CivilisDoctrinaeLibri Sex. Qui ad Principatum maxime spectant 0-,eiden, 1589), book V, 1 3; Everhartvan Reyd, Historie der Nederlantscher Oorlogen, begin ende voortganck tot denjaere 1601 (LeeuWaarden, 1650), 161a. 7Justus Lipsius, De Militia Romana libri quinqué. Commentarius ad Polybium (2 parts, Antwerp, 1595-96); Jeanine de Landtsheer, Iustus Lipsius Epistolae, VÖI(forthcoming), RaphelengiustoLipsius , 29 August 1595. Maurice commissioned a French translation ofLipsius's book;John ofNassau made a lengthy summary in German. 8 Arend van Bucheil, Diarium 1560-1599, eds. G. Brom and L. A. van Langeraad (Amsterdam, 1907: Werken uitgegeven door het Historische Gezelschap gevestigd te Utrecht), ??, 470, entry forJuly 1598; Kees Zandvliet, ed., Mauritsprins van Oranje (Zwolle: Waanders, 2000), 251. 9Riksarchivet, Stockholm, Diplomática:Muscovitica 39 unfol., Ambassador Karl Anders Pommerenning to Queen Christina, Moscow, 7 Nov. 1649, on drilling Colonel van Buckhoven's regiment. On the Uchen'e i kbitrost' ratnago stroeniiapekhotnykhliudei , see RichardM. HelBe,Enserfmentand Military ChangemMuscovy (UniversityofChicago Press, 1971), 187-88. 10See Richard Rhodes, The Making ofthe Atomic Bomb (Simon and Schuster, 1986), 294, 311, 327, 346-47, 350. 1'JoelMokyr, "KingKongand Cold Fusion: CounterfactualAnalysis and the HistoryofTechnology," inPhilipTèdock,NedLebow, andGeoffreyParier, eds., Unmakingthe West: ExploringAlternativeHistoriesofCounterfactual Worlds (forthcoming). 12Andrew F. Krepinevich, "Cavalry to Computer: The Pattern of Military Revolution," National 7«rerai(Falll994):39. 13EliotCohen,SupremeCommand:Soldiers, Statesmen, andLeadershipin Wartime(Simonand Schuster, 2002). 14U.S. DepartmentofState, Foreign Relationsofthe United States, 1961-63. XI Cuban Missile Crisis (U.S. Printing Office, 1988), 26-28, "Report of conversation with Ambassador Dobrynin on Saturday , October 13 [1962];" Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days: aMemoirofthe Cuban Missile Crisis (Norton, 1969), 105. 15Cohen, Supreme Command, 98, 128. On Diversity and Military History Jeremy Black Geoffrey Parker correcdy draws attention to our different views on early modern warfare, ones I have discussed in European Warfare, 1494-1660(2002), butI suspectdiere are more fundamental differences diat repay consideration. I am wary about meta-narratives and cautious about paradigms, monocausal explanations, and much ofdie explanatoryculture oflong-term militaryhistory. My emphasis is on diversityand on being cautious in adducing characteristics and explanations. Thus, in die series ofbooks diat accompany War: Past, PresentandFuture—European Warfare , 1494-1660 (2002), European Warfare, 1660-1815 (1994), Western Warfare, 1?5-1882 (2001), Warfare in the Western World, 1882...