Giant of the grand siècle : the French Army, 1610-1715
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Bibliographic Information
Giant of the grand siècle : the French Army, 1610-1715
Cambridge University Press, 1997
- : hbk
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Note
Errata slip inserted
Bibliography: p. 611-628
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
An 'invisible giant', the seventeenth-century French army was the largest and hungriest institution of the Bourbon monarchy. Combining social and cultural emphases with more traditional institutional and operational concerns, this book examines the army in depth, studying recruitment, composition, discipline, motivation, selection of officers, leadership, administration, logistics, weaponry, tactics, field warfare and siegecraft. The portrait that emerges differs from what current scholarship might have predicted. Instead of claiming that a 'military revolution' transformed warfare, Lynn stresses evolutionary change. This work also offers surprising insights into absolutism and the relationship between the monarchy and aristocracy. Questioning widely held assumptions about state formation and coercion, Lynn argues that this standing army was primarily devoted to border defence and only rarely to internal repression.
Table of Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Part I. Context and Parameters: 1. Contexts of military change in the Grand Siecle
- 2. Army growth
- Part II. Administration and Supply: 3. The military administration
- 4. Food and fodder
- 5. Providing other essentials
- 6. The tax of violence and contributions
- Part III. Command: 7. The costs of regimental command
- 8. The culture of command
- 9. The high command
- Part IV. The Rank and File: 10. Army composition
- 11. Recruitment
- 12. Discipline and desertion
- 13. Elements of morale and motivation: dependence and loyalty
- Part V. The Practice of War: 14. Weaponry and tactics
- 15. Learning and practising the art of field warfare
- 16. Positional warfare
- Epilogue: insights on state formation
- Bibliography
- Index.
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