Warfare on Land

This chapter first discusses the three technological and tactical changes commonly associated with the onset of major change in early modern European land warfare. It considers the historiography of ‘military revolution’ and argues that military change was not driven primarily by technology. Rather, a set of dynastic, religious, and imperial conflicts helped create a ‘Europe’ of shared military aspirations, styles, and techniques out of formerly quite discrete spheres of military and political influence. However, by the late seventeenth century, the dissemination of information and experience across these spheres had not eliminated the differences created by regional military conditions; further variation was introduced by the various ways in which states funded and administered military change. During the eighteenth century, regional and other distinctions in European military styles diminished considerably, before the French Revolutionary wars introduced new expectations.