Content deleted Content added
→Europe: Fixed grammar Tags: canned edit summary Mobile edit Mobile app edit Android app edit |
|||
| (47 intermediate revisions by 11 users not shown) | |||
Line 9:
All of the [[Great Power]]s of Europe and the [[Period of Gunpowder Empires|Islamic gunpowder empires]]{{sfn|Hodgson|1974|p=III:16}} were actively fighting [[List of wars 1500–1799|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 [[History of the Russo-Turkish wars|Russo-Turkish Wars]], [[Ottoman–Habsburg wars]], and other [[Ottoman wars in Europe]].
* In the [[Horn of Africa]], the [[Ethiopian–Adal war|Adal]]'s conquest of [[Ethiopian Empire|Ethiopia]] and the involving of the [[Ottoman–Portuguese conflicts (1538–1557)|Ottomans, Mamluks and the Portuguese]].
* In Asia, the [[Persia–Portugal war]], [[Nader's Campaigns]], the [[Aurangzeb#Expansion of the Mughal Empire|Mughal conquests]], the [[Anglo-Mysore Wars]], the [[Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598)]], and China's [[Transition from Ming to Qing]] followed by the [[Ten Great Campaigns]].
* 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 Revolutionary War|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.
==Europe==
{{Unreferenced section|date=June 2010}}
===Fortifications===
{{Main|
[[Image:Göttingen-City-Model.1630-View.to.North.JPG|thumb|Model of city with polygonal fortifications]]
The period from 1501 to 1800 saw a rapid advance in techniques of fortification in Europe. Whereas medieval castles had relied on high walls to keep out attackers, early modern fortifications had to withstand artillery bombardments. To do this, engineers developed a style of fortress known as the "Italian style" or ''trace Italienne''. These had low, thick, sloping walls, that would either absorb or deflect cannon fire.
In addition, they were shaped like stars, with bastions protruding at sharp angles. This was to ensure that every bastion could be supported with fire from an adjacent bastion, leaving no
In response to the vulnerabilities of star forts, [[military engineers]] evolved a much simpler but more robust style of fortification. A polygonal fort is a [[fortification]] in the style that evolved around the middle of the 18th century, in response to the development of [[Shell (projectile)|explosive shells]]. The complex and sophisticated designs of [[star fort]]s that preceded them were highly effective against cannon assault, but proved much less effective against the more accurate fire of [[rifled]] guns and the destructive power of explosive shells. The polygonal style of fortification is also described as a "flankless fort". Many such forts were built in the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|United Kingdom]] and [[British Empire]] during the government of [[Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston|Lord Palmerston]], and so they are also often referred to as [[Palmerston forts]]. [[Fort Tas-Silġ]] is an example of a British polygonal fort.
Line 51:
===Nature of war===
[[File:The Battle of Pavia, 1525 (by Rupert Heller) - Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.jpg|thumb|350px| right|The [[Battle of Pavia
This period saw the size and scale of warfare greatly increase. The number of combatants involved escalated steadily from the mid 16th century and dramatically expanded after the 1660s. For example, [[Henry II of France]], even in the dawn of [[French Wars of Religion|religious unrest and inevitable violence]], could
However, the main reason was that armies were now much bigger, but logistical support for them was inadequate. This meant that armies tended to devastate civilian areas in an effort to feed themselves, causing famines and population displacement. This was exacerbated by the increasing length of conflicts, such as the [[Thirty Years' War]] and [[Eighty Years' War]],
For example, the [[Thirty Years' War]] and the contemporary [[Wars of the Three Kingdoms]], were the bloodiest conflicts in the history of Germany and Britain respectively before [[World War I]]. Another factor adding to bloodshed in war was the lack of a clear set of rules concerning the treatment of prisoners and non-combatants. While prisoners were usually ransomed for money or other prisoners, they were sometimes slaughtered out of hand - as at the [[
One of the reasons for warfare's increased impact was its indecisiveness. Armies were slow moving in an era before good roads and canals. Battles were relatively rare as armies could manoeuvre for months, with no direct conflict. In addition, battles were often made irrelevant by the proliferation of advanced, bastioned fortifications. To control an area, armies had to take fortified towns, regardless of whether they defeated their enemies' field armies. As a result, by far the most common battles of the era were [[siege]]s, hugely time-consuming and expensive affairs. Storming a fortified city could result in massive casualties and cities which did not surrender before an assault were usually brutally sacked -for example [[Sack of Magdeburg|Magdeburg]] in 1631 or [[Siege of Drogheda|Drogheda]] in 1649. In addition, both garrisons and besiegers often suffered heavily from disease.
Line 97:
The rise of gunpowder reduced the importance of the once dominant heavy cavalry, but it remained effective in a new role into the 19th century. The cavalry, along with the infantry, became more professional in this period but it retained its greater social and military prestige than the infantry. Light cavalry was introduced for skirmishing and scouting because of its advantage in speed and mobility. The new types of cavalry units introduced in this period were the dragoons or mounted infantry.
Dragoons were intended to travel on horseback but fight on foot and were armed with carbines and pistols. Even orthodox cavalry carried firearms, especially the pistol, which they used in a tactic known as the caracole. Cavalry charges using swords on undisciplined infantry could still be quite decisive, but a frontal charge against well-ordered musketeers and pikemen was all but futile. Cavalry units, from the 16th century on, were more likely to charge other cavalry on the flanks of an infantry formation and try to work their way behind the enemy infantry. When they achieved this and pursued a fleeing enemy, heavy cavalry could still destroy an enemy army. Only
However, the power formerly wielded by a heavy cavalry-focused army was at an end. For the first time in millennia, the settled people of the agricultural regions could defeat the horse peoples of the steppe in open combat. The power of the Mongols was broken in Russia and, no longer threatened from the east, Russia began to assert itself as a major force in European affairs. Never again would nomads from the east threaten to overrun Europe or the Middle East. In the Siege of Kazan (1552), Russia had employed artillery, sappers, cavalry and infantry armed with arquebus (Streltsy), while the Khanate of Kazan had only employed cavalry. The use of sappers proved decisive.
Line 104:
===Naval warfare===
[[File:Battle of Vigo bay october 23 1702.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Battle of Vigo Bay]] of 1702, part the [[War of the Spanish Succession]] (anonymous contemporary painting).]]▼
{{main|Naval tactics in the Age of Sail|Naval artillery in the Age of Sail}}
{{Unreferenced section|date=June 2010}}
▲[[File:Battle of Vigo bay october 23 1702.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Battle of Vigo Bay]] of 1702, part the [[War of the Spanish Succession]] (anonymous contemporary painting).]]
The Age of Sail (usually dated as 1571–1862) was a period roughly corresponding to the [[early modern period]] in which [[international trade]] and [[naval warfare]] were dominated by [[sailing ship]]s and [[gunpowder warfare]], lasting from the mid-16th to the mid-19th centuries.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hms-trincomalee.co.uk/history/the-age-of-sail |title=The Age of Sail |website=HMS Trincomalee |access-date=12 April 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160316114603/http://www.hms-trincomalee.co.uk/history/the-age-of-sail |archive-date=2016-03-16 |url-status=usurped }}</ref> The spread of European power around the world was closely tied to naval developments in this period. The [[caravel]] for the first time made unruly seas like the [[Atlantic Ocean]] open to exploration, trade, and military conquest. While in all previous eras, European navies had been largely confined to operations in coastal waters, and were generally used only in a support role for land-based forces, this changed with the introduction of the new vessels like the [[caravel]], [[carrack]], and [[galleon]], and the increasing importance of international waterborne trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The new caravels were large enough and powerful enough to be armed with cannons with which they could bombard both shoreline defenses and other vessels.
Line 113:
===Somalia===
[[File:Ottoman cannon end of 16th century length 385cm cal 178mm weight 2910 stone projectile founded 8 October 1581 Alger seized 1830.jpg|thumb|left|[[Ahmed Gurey]]'s pioneering use of [[cannon]]s supplied by the [[Ottoman Empire|
{{Further|History of Somalia#Early modern|Ethiopian–Adal war|Ottoman–Portuguese conflicts (1538–1557)}}
The [[Ethiopian–Adal
==Asia==
Line 123:
===China===
Gunpowder was invented in
The Chinese pioneered the use of gunpowder weapons, crossbows, advanced forms of arms and armor, naval and nomadic cavalry. Thus, the Chinese even adopted Western military technology. Interestingly, the Chinese had many descriptions of how they utilized their technology. For Ming China, they had experiences on the battlefield: against Chinese rebels, Shan elephants, and Mongol horsemen.<ref name=":04">{{Cite book |title=The gunpowder age: China, military innovation, and the rise of the West in world history |last1=Andrade|first1=Tonio|author1-link=Tonio Andrade |isbn=9780691178141 |oclc=1012935274 |date=29 August 2017 }}</ref> Nonetheless, under the Ming dynasty, intensively practiced tactical strategies based on their firearm use. Qi Jiguang and his troops used innovative battle techniques such as counter marching, dividing the troops, as a flexible way of adapting to the battlefield. These tactics were proved effective during the Sino-Dutch War beginning in 1661. While the Chinese were undermined as the inferior empire due to lack of weaponry, their strict adherence discipline and tactical strategy led to them defeating the Dutch. This draws a parallel to the Sino-Portuguese conflict. During the first war, in 1521, the Portuguese firepower was far more effective than the Chinese. As they witnessed the power of Portuguese artillery, the Chinese better prepared for the war in 1522. They modified, adapted, innovated and improved. The Chinese were a display of rapid militarization, as they instilled Western style learnings to their knowledge of artillery and war tactical strategy.<ref name=":04"/>
The [[fire
===
{{
{{Further|Safavid Iran}}
Soon after the Ottoman Empire, two other Muslim gunpowder empires appeared: the [[Safavid Iran|Safavid Empire]] in
The refusal of their Qizilbash forces to use firearms contributed to the Safavid rout at [[Battle of Chaldiran|Chaldiran]] in 1514.<ref name="khan 6">{{Harvcolnb|Khan|2004|p=6}}</ref>
Line 174 ⟶ 175:
===Ottoman Empire===
{{Main|Military of the Ottoman Empire}}
{{Further|Ottoman Empire}}
[[Image:Dardanelles Gun Turkish Bronze 15c.png|thumb|right|The bronze Dardanelles cannon, used by the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman Turks]] in the [[Fall of Constantinople|siege of Constantinople]] in 1453]]
[[Image:Grand Turk(36).jpg|thumb|right|upright|Muskets and [[bayonet]]s aboard the [[frigate]] [[Grand Turk (frigate)|Grand Turk]]]]
[[File:Tarasnice.jpg|thumb|
The [[Ottoman Empire]] had been one of the first Middle Eastern states to effectively use gunpowder weapons and used them to great effect conquering much of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Balkans. In the 17th century the state began to stagnate as more modern technologies and strategies were not adopted. Specifically, the Ottoman Empire was slow to adopt innovations like boring cannon (rather than casting them in a mold), making the conversion from
In part this was because the military elite had become a powerful force in the empire and change threatened their positions. [[David Nicolle]] theorizes that one contributing factor to the Ottoman reluctance to adopt the flintlock musket, despite its superiority over the matchlock ignition system, was the dusty climate of much of the [[Middle East]] which could cause problems with reliability.<ref name=Nicolle>{{cite book |last=Nicolle |first=David |author-link=David Nicolle |title=The Janissaries |publisher=Osprey |year=1995 |isbn=1-85532-413-X |page=22 }}</ref>
Line 184 ⟶ 187:
Overall, the Ottoman Empire between the 15th and 18th centuries has been assessed as a military producer which copies existing technologies, but does not capture the underlying process of innovation or adaption.<ref>Jonathan Grant, "Rethinking the Ottoman Decline: Military Technology Diffusion in the Ottoman Empire, Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries", ''Journal of World History'', Vol. 10, No. 1 (1999) 179–201 (181)</ref> Other research, though, complicates that view. A Chinese military manual published in 1644 compared Ottoman and European firearms in the following manner:<ref name=Chase>{{cite book |last=Chase |first=Kenneth |title=Firearms: A global history to 1700 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2003 |isbn=0-521-82274-2 |page=2 }}</ref>
<blockquote>Firearms have been in use since the beginning of the dynasty, and field armies in battle formation have found them convenient and useful to carry along... Since muskets have been transmitted to China, these weapons have lost their effectiveness... In battle formation, aside from various cannon such as the "three generals", the breech-loading swivel gun, and the "hundred-league thunder", nothing has more range or power than the
The fact that Ottoman firearms were considered by 17th century Chinese writers to be superior to European firearms demonstrates that the Ottoman Empire was at least a second tier producer of muskets during this period. However, some claim that the 'European' firearms the Chinese researcher tested were actually Japanese arquebuses based on fifty-year-old Portuguese models. The design of the Ottoman matchlock is substantially different from that of the European variety and it in turn influenced the matchlocks produced in both
====15th century====
The
The
A man by the name of [[Konstantin Mihailović
The Ottoman Empire was one of the first states to put gunpowder weapons into widespread use.{{Dubious|date=May 2011}} The famous Janissary corps of the Ottoman army began using matchlock muskets as early as the 1440s.<ref name="Nicolle"/> The army of [[Mehmed the Conqueror]], which conquered [[Constantinople]] in 1453, included both artillery and foot soldiers armed with gunpowder weapons.<ref name="Nicolle2">{{cite book |last=Nicolle |first=David |author-link=David Nicolle |title=Constantinople 1453: The end of Byzantium |publisher=Osprey |year=2000 |pages=29–30 |isbn=1-84176-091-9 |location=London }}</ref> The Ottomans brought to the siege sixty-nine guns in fifteen separate batteries and trained them at the walls of the city. The barrage of Ottoman cannon fire lasted forty days, and they are estimated to have fired 19,320 times.<ref name="Nicolle3">{{cite book |last=Nicolle |first=David |title=Armies of the Ottoman Turks 1300–1774 |publisher=Osprey |year=1983 |pages=29–30 |isbn=0-85045-511-1 }}</ref>▼
▲The famous Janissary corps of the Ottoman army began using matchlock muskets as early as the 1440s.<ref name="Nicolle"/> The army of [[Mehmed the Conqueror]], which conquered [[Constantinople]] in 1453, included both artillery and foot soldiers armed with gunpowder weapons.<ref name="Nicolle2">{{cite book |last=Nicolle |first=David |author-link=David Nicolle |title=Constantinople 1453: The end of Byzantium |publisher=Osprey |year=2000 |pages=29–30 |isbn=1-84176-091-9 |location=London }}</ref> The Ottomans brought to the siege sixty-nine guns in fifteen separate batteries and trained them at the walls of the city. The barrage of Ottoman cannon fire lasted forty days, and they are estimated to have fired 19,320 times.<ref name="Nicolle3">{{cite book |last=Nicolle |first=David |title=Armies of the Ottoman Turks 1300–1774 |publisher=Osprey |year=1983 |pages=29–30 |isbn=0-85045-511-1 }}</ref>
====16th century====
The 16th century saw the first widespread use of the
Reference was made by [[João de Barros]] to a sea battle outside [[Jiddah]], in 1517, between Portuguese and Ottoman vessels. The Muslim force under Salman Reis had "three or four basilisks firing balls of thirty palms in circumference".<ref name =guilmartin>{{Harvcolnb|Guilmartin|1974|loc=Introduction: ''Jiddah, 1517''}}</ref> This was estimated to be a cannon of about 90 inch bore "firing cut stone balls of approximately 1,000 [[pound (mass)|pounds]] (453 kg)".<ref name=guilmartin/>
After the death of Selim, he was succeeded by his son [[Suleiman the Magnificent]]. During his reign,
====17th century====
Although the cannon and musket were employed by the
By the middle of the 17th century, the continued reliance of the Ottomans on over-heavy ordnance had been made out by European officers as a liability. [[Raimondo Montecuccoli]], the Habsburg commander who defeated the Ottomans at [[Battle of Saint Gotthard (1664)|Battle of Saint Gotthard]] commented on Ottoman cannon:
Line 218 ⟶ 220:
==See also==
* [[Gunpowder magazine]]
* [[Kabinettskriege]]
* [[Battle of Caishi]]
* [[Battle of Tangdao]]
* [[Technology of the Song dynasty]]
* [[Early modern period]]
{{clear}}
| |||