Early modern warfare
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Early modern warfare is the era of warfare during early modern period following medieval warfare. It is associated with the start of the widespread use of gunpowder and the development of suitable weapons to use the explosive, including artillery and firearms; for this reason the era is also referred to as the age of gunpowder warfare (a concept introduced by Michael Roberts in the 1950s).
For most of human history, war was brutal but local, decentralized, logistically cheap and ritualistic; it always started and ended with melee combat. Armies were temporary, made of expendable men who already existed; weapons were mostly tools they already owned; fortifications were defensive, not expansive; and campaigns were brief, seasonal, and constrained by geography and hunger. War had a natural rhythm and limits because it relied on people who still needed to be sent home to harvest crops. No treasury could sustain endless conflict — because no treasury had to — the natural system enforced restraint without needing laws. As stated in The Art of War, a prolonged warfare erodes the state faster than the enemy ever could. If a ruler pushed too far, armies dissolved; food ran out; and loyalties fractured. War is inherently expensive; the cost moving and maintaining an army in perpetual readiness is a king's fortune.
The invention of gunpowder made warfare a technological arms race; industrial, persistent, destructive, globalized and expensive. Surrenders and routs for much of history have been far more common than fighting to complete destruction. This changed with the industrialization of warfare, as ships and ground units became capable of destroying each other quickly and at great range. Fortification techniques evolved rapidly due to the development of artillery. Firearms revolutionized warfare, diminishing the role of aristocracies and heavy cavalry, forcing political and economic reforms that are the foundation of Modern History. Early firearms, like arquebuses and muskets, gradually replaced bows and crossbows, leading to the introduction and decline of plate armor as firearms became more effective. Flintlock muskets became dominant by the 1690s, and the invention of the bayonet combined pikes and muskets, transforming infantry into the most crucial military force. Warfare also saw a shift towards larger standardized, educated, professional armies and more devastating conflicts. Local lords couldn’t afford cannons; small kingdoms couldn’t maintain fortresses; feudal obligations weren’t enough to fund continuous war. Only centralized states — with predictable revenue, infrastructure, and administrative — could survive in this new reality. When bureaucratic institutions reemerged, and royal power consolidated, did states begin to rebuild the administrative capacity necessary to sustain armies approaching the size of those fielded by Rome at its height. The rise of centralized states and bureaucracies supported the new, massive armies, backed by educated Officer corp; while the reliance on the aristocracies, the warrior caste and mercenaries declined. Training a knight took a lifetime and cost that state nothing; training a musketeer took months — but only if the state could afford the pensions, the weapons, the powder, the supply chain, and the constant resupply.
Military formations adapted to these changes. Infantry relied on columns, lines, and squares for battle, while cavalry transitioned to lighter roles focused on scouting and flanking. Despite the decline in heavy cavalry's dominance, cavalry charges remained effective under specific conditions, particularly against undisciplined infantry. The Age of Sail (usually dated as 1571–1862) was a period roughly corresponding to the early modern period and gunpowder dominated the era's naval tactics, including the use of gunpowder in naval artillery.
Wars became longer and more destructive, often causing widespread civilian suffering:
- In the Horn of Africa, the Adal's conquest of Ethiopia involving the Ottomans, Mamluks and the Portuguese.
- In Asia, the Persia–Portugal war, the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598), the Mughal conquests, Nader's Campaigns, the Anglo-Mysore Wars, and China's Transition from Ming to Qing followed by the Ten Great Campaigns.
- All of the Great Powers of Europe and the Islamic gunpowder empires were actively fighting numerous wars throughout this period, grouped in rough geographical and chronological terms as:
- The European wars of religion between the 1520s and the 1640s (including the Thirty Years' War, the Eighty Years' War and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms) and, the Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659), the Northern Wars, Polish–Swedish wars and Russo-Swedish Wars.
- The Russo-Turkish Wars, Ottoman–Habsburg wars, and other Ottoman wars in Europe.
- Throughout the 18th century the "Second Hundred Years' War", an umbrella term which includes the Nine Years' War, Seven Years' War, War of the Spanish Succession, War of the Austrian Succession, American War of Independence (American Revolutionary War), French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars of the late 18th to early 19th centuries which mark the end of this era.