War, Money, and the Nation-State Let us now
Citations (1)
- The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers whole source · open book
Yet it would be wrong to assume that the functions of raising revenues, supporting armies, equipping fleets, sending instructions, and directing military campaigns in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were carried out in the manner which characterized, say, the Normandy invasion of 1944. As the preceding analysis should have demonstrated, the military machines of early-modern Europe were cumbersome and inefficient. Raising and controlling an army in this period was a frighteningly difficult enterprise: ragtag troops, potentially disloyal mercenaries, inadequate supplies, transport problems, unstandardized weapons, were the despair of most commanders.
chapter: War, Money, and the Nation-State