The Transformation of the Military Landscape

The structure of warfare changed during the early modern era. Historians of West European warfare are still debating whether it involved a military revolution (or a series of military revolutions) or a long military evolution. However, all scholars agree about the transition from medieval to modern warfare from c. 1500 to c. 1700. The changes in the format of warfare occurred in the fields of arms, equipment, organization and command. By 1550, arquebus replaced the crossbow as the principal missile weapon in the West European armies. Handguns caused immense casualties to masses of pikemen which had earlier driven away the feudal heavy cavalry from the military landscape. So, the armies included handgun-equipped infantry to protect their own pikemen and inflict casualties on the pikemen of the hostile parties. Gradually, the percentage of hand gunners among the infantry rose. During the 1690s and early 1700s, pikes were replaced with muskets fitted with bayonets. Matchlocks were gradually replaced with flintlocks attached with socket bayonets. The rate of misfire of a sixteenth-century arquebus was 50 per cent. However, the rate of misfire with a flintlock was reduced to 20 per cent. The post-1660 period witnessed the emergence of the prepackaged cartridge. The late seventeenth century witnessed transformation in the field of siege warfare. Parallels and zig-zag trenches along with mortars made their appearance.

The heyday of the military entrepreneurs in West and Central Europe was the era of Thirty Years’ War (1618–48).