Soldiers (Atlantic History)

Introduction

No history of warfare is complete without an appreciation of those who physically conduct the fighting. The history of soldiers is a human history and, while analyses of tactics and weapon systems are essential to military history, it is the human element that makes histories of soldiering so compelling. Although soldiers have always been the most crucial element of battle, what a soldier is and how he or she is defined has rarely been consistent across time and space. Historians of warfare in the Atlantic world, from the Renaissance to the mid-19th century, have been at the forefront of interpreting soldiering as part of a much wider political, cultural, and intellectual milieu. Atlantic history’s focus on the movement of peoples and ideas has given investigations of the military profession a marked prominence in the literature. The spatial and temporal range of Atlantic history has allowed historians to examine multiple forms of soldiering, embracing non-Western and non-state models of military activity as well as the better-known Western shift from feudal to professional armies. Atlantic world historians have also embraced the “new military history” and its insistence that the army is a social institution tied to wider social currents and value systems. This article examines how historians have dealt with the three crucial questions regarding soldiering in the Atlantic world: the origins, identities, and experiences of soldiers; the social and political systems that brought men to the army; and how soldiers interacted with (and indeed shaped) the political and cultural world around them. It is in response to this last question that some of the most innovative work has been done. No longer seen as mere cannon fodder for the game of kings, the soldier is now seen as a reflection and often progenitor of wider changes in the Atlantic world.

General Overviews

General overviews of soldiering in this period traditionally focus on western Europe. The relationship between military developments and state building (reviewed in War and Society) tended to normalize western European state making to the detriment of other regions of the globe. Corvisier 1979 and Anderson 1988, for example, provide overviews of western European warfare with an emphasis on state making. Fortunately, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, this bias began to disappear, and it is now possible to find several excellent overviews of warfare and soldiering outside of western Europe. Black 1999 offers a robust challenge to Eurocentrism by reviewing the relationship between warfare and politics across ten regions of the globe. Regional studies of non-Western warfare are also gaining ground. Hassig 1992 uses a warfare and society framework to similarly explore how military activity shaped the rise of Mesoamerican states. Thornton 1999 provides an essential guide for Atlantic Africa while Steele 1995 and Starkey 1998 focus on North America, albeit with an emphasis on military exchange rather than state building. For those still keen on Western approaches to warfare, Showalter and Astore 2007 provides an up-to-date volume that focuses specifically on the soldier and their experiences of warfare in the period.

Anderson, M. S. War and Society in the Old Regime, 1618–1789. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 1988.
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An excellent overview that places greatest emphasis on the transition from the largely indiscriminate violence of the medieval period to the more regulated emergence of state armies and rigid frontiers by the late 18th century.
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Black, Jeremy, ed. War in the Early Modern World, 1450–1815. London: University College Press, 1999.
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An important challenge to Eurocentrism in military history. Features ten chapters by leading military historians and places emphasis on the relationship between military developments and state building. The volume covers much of the globe though the essays on west Africa, Europe, North America, and Central America will be of most interest to Atlanticists.
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Corvisier, Andre. Armies and Societies in Europe, 1494–1789. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979.
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Originally published in French in 1976, this book was crucial in outlining the wider impact of political and socioeconomic change on European warfare. Includes extensive coverage of the formation of armies, the extension of state control, and the social composition of the armies of the ancien régime.
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Hassig, Ross. War and Society in Ancient Mesoamerica. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992.
DOI: 10.1525/california/9780520077348.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Covering almost three thousand years of history until the Spanish arrival in the Americas, Hassig shows that the growth of Mesoamerican states depended on the same factors that influenced state expansion in Europe. Topics reviewed include weapons technology and political and military organization. Hassig concludes that strong military activity was essential to state growth.
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Showalter, Dennis, and William J. Astore. Soldiers’ Lives Through History: The Early Modern World. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2007.
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Part of a wider and important series. Brings together traditional examinations of a soldier’s recruitment, training, and weapons with a critical understanding of the cultural approach to military history. Chapters are arranged thematically and cover the period from 1494 to 1789.
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Starkey, Armstrong. European and Native American Warfare, 1675–1815. London: University College London Press, 1998.
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A helpful overview of warfare between European and indigenous peoples in the Americas. Effective in its emphasis on the exchange of military theories and tactics between both sides.
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Steele, Ian K. Warpaths: Invasions of North America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
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Invaluable investigation of the adaption of soldiers to new technologies and ways of war. Steele dismisses the assumed supremacy of European tactics and technology by highlighting how both European and indigenous forces relied upon the skills of the other to fight in North America.
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Thornton, John K. Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500–1800. London: University College London Press, 1999.
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The best single volume on warfare in west Africa. Chapters are divided by region with a final chapter outlining links between warfare and the Atlantic slave trade.
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Reference Works and Resources

There is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to resources for the history of the soldier. The high degree of accuracy and detail that typifies traditional military history ensures that there is a wealth of materials available. Wide-ranging sourcebooks (e.g., Haythornwaite 1995) provide useful facts about uniforms, tactics, and doctrine. Osprey Men-at-Arms Series is essential, and each individual title focuses on the recruitment and organization of a particular type of soldier. The Internet has greatly expanded access to similar types of information, and the Napoleon Series and the On-Line Institute for Advanced Loyalist Studies both provide wonderful resources on the lives of soldiers. Journals such as the Journal of Military History, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, War in History, and War and Society provide researchers with scholarly articles by the field’s leading historians.

Haythornwaite, Philip J. The Colonial Wars Sourcebook. London: Arms and Armour, 1995.
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Excellent sourcebook. Its focus on multiple sites in the Atlantic region (and on the non-European world more generally) make this particularly appealing. Haythornwaite has authored a number of similar sourcebooks.
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Journal of Military History. 1937–.
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The journal for the society of military history published by the Virginia Military Institute. Formerly Military Affairs (until 1989), it is essential for researchers of military history.
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Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research. 1921–.
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The premier journal for articles on the British Army. Traditionally focused on uniforms and operational structures, the welcome trend in recent decades has been a greater focus on scholarly articles that embrace the new military history.
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The Napoleon Series.
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Superb, constantly updated website featuring articles, discussions, and primary sources. Researchers can take virtual tours of Napoleonic battlefields and the scholarly research articles are invaluable.
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The On-Line Institute for Advanced Loyalist Studies.
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Focuses on the Loyalist soldiers of the American Revolution. Contains useful transcripts of primary documents as well as details on unit histories and resources for reenactors.
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Osprey Men-at-Arms Series.
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An invaluable series of over five hundred printed titles and counting, penned by various authors. Titles can be expensive given that few are over fifty pages in length, but these should be a first point of call for researchers.
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War and Society. 1983–.
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Like War in History, this is an important journal noted for its new military history approach and its emphasis on the relationship between the military and society.
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War in History. 1994–.
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Founded by leading military historians Dennis Showalter and Hew Strachan, this is a journal that typifies the importance of new military history to the profession.
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Primary Sources

As any cursory glance at the military section of a bookshop will tell you, the military memoir is an important aspect of military history. The desire to get a firsthand account of what war is “really like”—a desire that has increased as the numbers of people with military experience in Western society decreases—has created an important literary genre. The fact that the early modern period witnessed the birth of the enlisted man’s account of war makes these accounts particularly interesting. Some of these sources are still considered critical to our understanding of soldiering. LeClair 1833 and Norton 1970 provide insights into European military colonization from an indigenous perspective. Harris 1995 and Martin 2001 provide similar firsthand accounts from a European point of view. Rice and Brown 1972 and Mortimer 2002 provide useful firsthand accounts of warfare that are less influenced (but by no means free of) the stylistic and literary conventions of the age. A different emphasis can be found in Saxe 1971, a text that provides analysis of the soldier from the period, written by a senior officer of the French Army. Ramsey 2011 provides historiographical context to the writings of European soldiers in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Harris, Benjamin. A Dorset Rifleman: The Recollections of Rifleman Harris. Edited by Eileen Hathaway. Swanage, UK: Shinglepicker, 1995.
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A good edition of the unequalled recollections of a British soldier during the Napoleonic wars. The editing does much to enhance and provide context for Harris’s stream of consciousness narration, although purists may want to return to the original 1848 edition.
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LeClair, Antoine, ed. The Life of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk: Dictated by Himself. Cincinnati, OH: J. B. Patterson, 1833.
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Told to a local journalist and interpreter after his imprisonment, Sauk leader Black Hawk’s autobiography explores his British service in the War of 1812, increasing white encroachment by the United States, and his war against them in 1832. Black Hawk’s account of his subsequent tour of the United States as a postwar prisoner is particularly interesting.
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Martin, Joseph Plumb. A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier: Some of the Adventures, Dangers, and Sufferings of Joseph Plumb Martin. With an introduction by Thomas Fleming. New York: Signet Classics, 2001.
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Originally published anonymously in 1830, this is a brilliant insight into the life of the ordinary soldier. Despite its production for the reading public, it is widely regarded as one of the most reliable sources of its kind.
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Mortimer, Geoff. Eyewitness Accounts of the Thirty Years’ War. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
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Fantastic collection of accounts by soldiers and civilians. Finds a good balance between the exaggerated accounts of atrocities and the real horror and confusion experienced by people in early modern warfare.
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Norton, John. The Journal of Major John Norton, 1816. Toronto: Champlain Society, 1970.
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One of the best firsthand accounts of the War of 1812. Written by a Mohawk leader of Scottish and Cherokee descent, Norton provides a wonderful insight into mixed indigenous and European warfare in North America.
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Ramsey, Neil. The Military Memoir and Romantic Literary Culture, 1780–1835. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2011.
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A book that emphasizes the changing conventions of military memoirs in this period, from impersonal narratives to memoirs with a sentimental emphasis on the personal sufferings of the soldier.
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Rice, Howard C., Jr., and Anne S. K. Brown, eds. The American Campaigns of Rochambeau’s Army, 1780, 1781, 1782, 1783. 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972.
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A translation of the journals by French officers during the American Revolution. Revealing insight into the attitudes of late ancien régime soldiers.
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Saxe, Maurice Comte de. Reveries, or Memoirs upon the Art of War. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1971.
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Analysis of the French Army by one of its most renowned generals. First published in 1757, it reflects the 18th century’s interest in ancient history by using the Roman Army to measure the recruiting, training, and effectiveness of French soldiers.
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War and Society

No area of military history has seen more growth in recent decades than war and society studies. Emerging in the 1970s, albeit with earlier antecedents, proponents suggested that war was too serious a subject to be left to former soldiers and military enthusiasts alone. Instead, a comprehensive analysis of the interaction between warfare and human society by professional historians was essential. Roberts 1956 focused on the “Military Revolution” of the 16th and 17th centuries and its impact on state structures in Europe. This approach was taken up by Parker 1988 and Black 1991, albeit with different explanations of chronology and causality. A vital corollary to war and society was an analysis of the role of financial structures in sustaining a state’s ability to make war. The lead in fiscal-military studies was taken in a British context by Brewer 1990, whose ideas were expanded into a European context in Storrs 2009. Together, these sources point to the broader societal impact of military change, focusing on the growth of professional armies, the regulation of violence, and the shift from feudal to state-run military forces. In the non-European Atlantic, some of these ideas are beginning to gain traction, and Aboagye 2010 explores some of these themes in the context of west Africa. But most historians of the non-European Atlantic insist that because warfare had a close relationship to society, different military trajectories than those seen in Europe could be found. Richter 1983, for example, suggests that a demographic crisis made the societal and ritualistic aspects of Iroquoian warfare more destructive. While none of these texts explore the experiences of the soldier, they are essential starting points for understanding the structures that created military force in the Atlantic world.

Aboagye, Festus B. Indigenous African Warfare: Its Concept and Art in the Gold Coast, Asante and the Northern Territories up to early 1900s. Pretoria, South Africa: Ulinzi Africa, 2010.
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Written by a retired Ghanaian colonel, this work can be difficult to obtain but is well worth the effort. Although heavy on military jargon, its fourteen thematic chapters are extremely insightful and provide a good example of the relationship between war and society in Atlantic Africa.
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Black, Jeremy. A Military Revolution? Military Change and European Society, 1550–1800. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1991.
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A powerful counterargument to Roberts 1956 and Parker 1988. Black argues that the military revolution occurred after 1660 with the emergence of the socket bayonet, the pre-packaged cartridge, and the flintlock musket. Crucially, Black sees larger armies as a product, rather than a cause, of enhanced state bureaucracies.
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Brewer, John. The Sinews of Power: War, Money, and the English State, 1688–1783. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.
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First published in 1988, this has proved to be a seminal and enduring work. Argues that effective taxation and the bureaucratic structures necessary to sustain wealth extraction allowed Britain to fight repeated wars against stronger continental powers.
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Parker, Geoffrey. The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
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A challenge to Roberts 1956, Parker shifted the chronology of the military revolution both forward and backward. The result was an insistence on trace italienne fortifications as the cause of expanded bureaucracies and state development. Roberts’s emphasis on tactics became replaced by Parker’s emphasis on military technology and a vigorous assertion of the impact of these changes outside of Europe. Subsequent edition published in 1996.
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Richter, Daniel K. “War and Culture: The Iroquois Experience.” William and Mary Quarterly 40.4 (1983): 528–559.
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Richter argues that demographic crises led the Iroquois to seek captives to replace their dead, building on an established practice of “mourning wars.” The introduction of European firearms and disease gave this practice increased importance but also plunged the confederacy into an almost relentless cycle of violence.
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Roberts, Michael. The Military Revolution, 1560–1660: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered before the Queen’s University of Belfast. Belfast: Boyd, 1956.
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The study that began it all. Roberts suggested that the shift toward linear formations of shot-armed infantry required better trained and more disciplined soldiers than the feudal levies of the medieval period had been able to provide. The military revolution led to the growth of European state mechanisms since permanent armies required effective bureaucracies to sustain them.
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Storrs, Christopher, ed. The Fiscal-Military State in Eighteenth-Century Europe: Essays in Honour of P.G.M. Dickson. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009.
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A collection that considers the fiscal-military state in a broader, comparative international context, with the bulk of essays considering France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Useful in re-dressing the balance that had fallen heavily on Britain since the publication of Brewer 1990.
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Recruitment

If an army is no better than its soldiers, the effectiveness of the army has always been defined by the availability of quality recruits. Service in the military was rarely an appealing form of employment; poor pay, lamentable conditions, strict discipline, and the threat of death or dismemberment was enough to ensure that large sections of the male population did everything they could to avoid soldiering. As a result, those who did enlist, willingly or not, tended to be seen by senior officers as the “mere scum of the earth” (Philip Henry, 5th Earl of Stanhope, Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, 1831–1851 [London, 1888], 14, 18). Such statements, however, reveal a number of biases and reflect an age of European history in which marginalized wage workers served as the basis for state armies. Lynn 1996 instead points to several different “army styles” prevalent in Europe over the past millennia, evolving through feudal, stipendiary, contract, state-commissioned, conscript, and the volunteer-technical model of today. Each had different methods of recruiting men. Boardman 1998 explores the feudal and stipendiary soldier; Parrott 2012 looks at the contract soldier (analyzed in more depth in Soldiers for Hire); Mackillop 2000 studies the state-commissioned soldier; and Forrest 1989 looks at the conscript. Outside of western Europe, other “styles” could be observed, the most obvious of which was the enslaved armies of Africa and the New World, analyzed in Voelz 1993. Zurcher 2013 draws connections between these various “styles” in a global context by looking at military service as a form of labor activity. It remains to be seen whether labor history can adequately explain the experience of all soldiers. Indigenous peoples in the Americas, for example, lacked the distinction between the social and military role of a male seen in western Europe. Thus, the recruitment of indigenous men into rigid European militaries, analyzed in Carroll 2012, could be a highly traumatic experience. In all cases, however, historians generally agree that the motives and interests of soldiers are as critical in explaining recruitment as the interests of those who recruited them.

Boardman, Andrew W. The Medieval Soldier in the Wars of the Roses. Stroud, UK: Sutton, 1998.
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A detailed study geared specifically toward the soldier. Contains a good exploration of feudal recruiting while also dealing with finance, weapons, and the experience of battle.
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Carroll, Brian D. “‘Savages’ in the Service of Empire: Native American Soldiers in Gorham’s Rangers, 1744–1762.” New England Quarterly 85.3 (2012): 383–429.
DOI: 10.1162/TNEQ_a_00207Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Useful essay derived from the author’s PhD thesis. Takes a grim view of how incorporation into European military structures devalued and marginalized indigenous soldiers.
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Forrest, Alan. Conscripts and Deserters: The Army and French Society during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
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An excellent social history that utterly dismisses the myth of patriotic fervor in the enlistment of French soldiers after 1792. Reliant on detailed archival work, Forrest emphasizes various coercive practices and examines the processes by which young men were brought into the army.
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Lynn, John A. “The Evolution of Army Style in the Modern West, 800–2000.” International History Review 18.3 (1996): 505–545.
DOI: 10.1080/07075332.1996.9640752Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An important essay that sketches out the evolution of Western armies through various “styles.” A useful graph-based appendix explains the changing focus of recruitment across the various styles.
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Mackillop, Andrew. ‘More Fruitful than the Soil’: Army, Empire and the Scottish Highlands, 1715–1815. East Linton, UK: Tuckwell, 2000.
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An unsurpassed analysis of recruiting in the Scottish Highlands. Rejecting the idea of military service on the basis of quasi-feudal clanship, Mackillop brilliantly shows how recruitment served as a form of economic diversification for regional elites. Poorer men also embraced the opportunity of military service in order to sustain economic security.
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Parrott, David. The Business of War: Military Enterprise and Military Revolution in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
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Brilliant challenge to the Weberian conceit that securing the monopoly of violence was the defining feature of the early modern state. By investigating military enterprise, Parrott reveals how the contract armies of the early modern period could also strengthen a state’s apparatus.
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Voelz, Peter M. Slave and Soldier: The Military Impact of Blacks in the Colonial Americas. New York: Garland, 1993.
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Provides a good overview of black soldiers (free and enslaved) in the colonial Americas. Challenges the neo-Marxist literature of the 1970s and 1980s by looking at military service as a human choice rather than one steeped in the ideologies of class or race.
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Zurcher, Jan-Erik, ed. Fighting for a Living: A Comparative History of Military Labour, 1500–2000. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013.
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A timely collection of essays by leading historians that explore military service through the lens of labor history. Forcefully asserts that soldiering was a form of labor activity that must be understood as a mechanism for plebeian security. Good coverage of western Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, though less comprehensive on the Atlantic world.
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Soldiers for Hire

One of the most important aspects of early modern warfare was the hiring of soldiers from foreign territories. Indeed, so consequential was this “soldier trade” that it deserves separate discussion from general Recruitment. Armies hired by contract were a regular feature of early modern warfare, and historians have stressed that veteran mercenaries and skilled military technicians were essential to monarchical armed forces. Limitations to this system, explored in Potter 1996, slowly led to a greater emphasis on state-controlled armies. The advantages of hiring foreign veterans did not, however, die out with the establishment of professional standing armies. Rodríguez 2006, for example, provides a highly researched examination of British veterans in revolutionary South America. It was the German states, however, that developed a comprehensive military-fiscal system of hiring its soldiers out to other powers in a system best explored through Wilson 1996. The trade was especially important to Hessen-Kassel (analyzed in Atwood 1980 and Taylor 1994) and Wurttemberg (analyzed by Wilson 1995) although, as these sources suggest, historians are divided on the precise motives of the German princes and the benefits and consequences of the “soldier trade.”

Atwood, Rodney. The Hessians: Mercenaries from Hesse-Kassel in the American Revolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511523038Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Remains the best study of the German mercenaries during the American Revolution. Useful in exploring not only the military actions of the troops but their recruitment, conduct, and attitudes toward the revolution. Good quantitative appendices.
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Potter, David. “The International Mercenary Market in the Sixteenth Century: Anglo-French Competition in Germany, 1543–50.” English Historical Review 111.1 (1996): 24–58.
DOI: 10.1093/ehr/CXI.440.24Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Drawing on English, French, and German sources, Potter highlights the crippling cost of hiring German mercenaries, a problem derived from trying to deal with mercenary captains in a competitive market. Potter also explores how political contacts and diplomatic links eased the process of creating mercenary armies.
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Rodríguez, Moises Enrique. Freedom’s Mercenaries: British Volunteers in the Wars of Independence in Latin America. Lanham, MD: Hamilton, 2006.
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Published in two volumes, covering northern and southern Latin America, this study was twenty-five years in the making and, while not a scholarly monograph, offers a detailed introduction. The biographical style allows readers to engage with the personal experiences of ordinary soldiers.
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Taylor, Peter K. Indentured to Liberty: Peasant Life and the Hessian Military State, 1688–1815. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994.
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Analysis of the negative effect of the military-fiscal system on peasant society in Hesse-Kassel. Taylor’s focus on the human element of the system is polemical but is a welcome change from the emotional dryness that sometimes typifies military studies.
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Wilson, Peter H. War, State and Society in Wurttemberg, 1677–1793. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
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A case study of the soldier trade in Wurttemberg but with compelling and much broader insights. Wilson sees the soldier trade as a product of the German political system and the legacies of the Thirty Years’ War. It cannot simply be viewed in economic terms nor dismissed as merely soldatenspielerei (playing with soldiers).
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Wilson, Peter H. “The German ‘Soldier Trade’ of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: A Reassessment.” International History Review 18.4 (1996): 757–792.
DOI: 10.1080/07075332.1996.9640762Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Exceptional article that challenges military-fiscalism: that is, the concept that the military is used to enhance the economy in contradistinction to the fiscal-military system that uses the economy to enhance the military. Wilson shows how politics, not economics, drove the expansion of the soldier trade. Highly critical of Taylor 1994.
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Training and Professionalism

Systematized training and professionalization are relatively new developments in the military. Prior to the emergence of state-commissioned armies, the contract armies of the Renaissance had been composed of highly skilled military laborers who were competent with a range of weapons and who earned a living through war. The soldiers explored in Duffy 2007, France 2008, and Bell, et al. 2013 had little need of professional training because they placed their trust in martial skill and personal prowess; for many soldiers, military skills and patterns of socialization were often so deeply embedded as to make formal training relatively unimportant. The high levels of military skill possessed by the Spanish in their invasions of South America is something noted by Guilmartin 1991 and Raudzens 1995, despite the recognition that many of the Conquistadors were not soldiers in the conventional sense. As soldiers became salaried workers of the state, however, the emphasis placed on training and professionalization became more comprehensive and thorough. Feld 1975 explores the rising professionalism of the Dutch Army in the 16th and 17th centuries, while Showalter 1994 points to the potential successes of reform and professionalism in the Prussian Army. Houlding 1981 takes a somewhat less positive approach to the extent of professionalism. In his study of the British Army, he argues that decentralized training and administration consistently undermined the quality of the British Army well into the 18th century.

Bell, Adrian R., Anne Curry, Andy King, and David Simpkin. The Soldier in Later Medieval England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199680825.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Based on a digital project that has collected the names of every soldier known to have fought for the English Crown during the Hundred Years’ War, this book offers extensive analysis of the rank-and-file of English armies. The focus is on the social and national origins of England’s manpower, but there is good analysis of the military skills of later medieval soldiers.
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Duffy, Sean, ed. The World of the Gallowglass: Kings, Warlords and Warriors in Ireland and Scotland, 1200–1600. Dublin, Ireland: Four Courts, 2007.
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An examination of mercenary soldiers in Ireland. Eschewing the individualized approach that often typifies studies of mercenaries, the collection emphasizes how familial and kindred structures played a prominent role in sustaining the Gaelic mercenary system. As highly skilled and heavily armed soldiers, the Galloglaech played a prominent role in resistance to Tudor expansion.
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Feld, M. D. “Middle-Class Society and the Rise of Military Professionalism: The Dutch Army, 1589–1609.” Armed Forces and Society 1.4 (1975): 419–442.
DOI: 10.1177/0095327X7500100404Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A sophisticated examination of the creation of objective standards for training men. Feld suggests that the conditions of the revolt forced the Dutch into creating a well-trained modern force from among a relatively unmilitary and commercial society. It was for this reason that it was the Dutch, rather than the major military powers of Sweden or Spain, who created the first systematically organized public military in Europe: one that was led by technocrats rather than aristocrats.
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France, John, ed. Mercenaries and Paid Men: The Mercenary Identity in the Middle Ages. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2008.
DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004164475.i-415Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A wide-ranging collection of twenty-one case studies of mercenaries in the Middle Ages. Even though many of the essays explore the period before 1450, there is also coverage of Renaissance-era mercenaries, particularly those in Ireland. The collection, as a whole, attempts to identify how mercenaries differed from other paid soldiers.
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Guilmartin, John. F. “The Cutting Edge: An Analysis of the Spanish Invasion and Overthrow of the Inca Empire, 1532–1539.” In Transatlantic Encounters: Europeans and Andeans in the Sixteenth Century. Edited by Kenneth J. Andrien and Rolena Adorno, 40–72. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991.
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Guilmartin argues that Spanish technology and martial skill were crucial factors in the Inca defeat and that these advantages reflected the militarized, if non-professional, nature of Spanish society.
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Houlding, J. A. Fit for Service: The Training of the British Army, 1715–1795. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
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Argues that a “friction of peace” (i.e., the widespread dispersal of regiments in colonial or domestic policing duties) undermined the advantages the army otherwise possessed in leadership.
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Raudzens, George. “So Why Were the Aztecs Conquered, and What Were the Wider Implications? Testing Military Superiority as a Cause of Europe’s Pre-Industrial Colonial Conquests.” War in History 2.1 (1995): 87–104.
DOI: 10.1177/096834459500200105Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An essay that explores the extent to which European military superiority was responsible for the Aztec defeat. Although heavily weighted toward the interpretation that Aztec weakness was more important than Spanish strength, Raudzens argues that superior Spanish combat skills also played a role.
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Showalter, Dennis E. “Hubertusberg to Auerstädt: The Prussian Army in Decline?” German History 12.3 (1994): 308–333.
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An article arguing that the Prussian Army did not fossilize after the Seven Years’ War but instead embarked upon a series of determined reforms. These reforms required tighter discipline and even higher levels of professionalism than those seen during the Seven Years’ War. Showalter is able to show that these reforms were effective and that strategic vision and numbers, not troop quality, explain the disasters at Jena and Auerstädt in 1806.
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Leadership and Motivation

Military historians have long recognized that a soldiers’ willingness to kill and be killed owes much to the quality of an army’s leadership and his personal or group motivations. The two concepts are closely linked and, in the period of contract armies, the ability of officers to provide opportunities for plunder and personal aggrandizement were a crucial factor in combat cohesion. The shift toward state-controlled armies did little to stem the pecuniary motivations for military service, though it did limit the potential opportunities for wealth extraction. Hanlon 1998 traces the origins and motivations of Italian aristocrats in the service of the Habsburg monarchies, noting that increased state control placed increased financial burdens on officers. A similar process can be seen in Guy 1985 in the context of the British Army while Storrs and Scott 1996 explores the impact of the growing role of the state on the nobility in a pan-European perspective. One consistent means of ensuring a better return from state military service was promotion. Blaufarb 2002 explores the promotion practices of the French Army in the era of the French Revolution and confronts the question of meritocracy in an aristocratic army. Studies by Puddu 1982 and De Leon 1996 also focus on the merits of aristocratic officers but come to different conclusions about the extent of professional leadership. For ordinary soldiers, the historiography agrees that financial security was a major part of their motivations. Soldiers could undergo significant physical hardships without complaint but were quick to react when their security was threatened. The most profound expression of discontent was mutiny and there is broad agreement, particularly in Parker 1973 and Way 2000, that mutinies reflected the patterns of civilian discontent, insomuch as they focused on wages and an understanding of a moral economy.

Blaufarb, Rafe. The French Army, 1750–1820: Careers, Talent, Merit. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2002.
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A scholarly examination of promotion practices in the French Army. Useful in demonstrating that both meritocratic and aristocratic continuity existed throughout this period.
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De Leon, Gonzalez. “‘Doctors of the Military Discipline’: Technical Expertise and the Paradigm of the Spanish Soldier in the Early Modern Period.” Sixteenth Century Journal 27.1 (1996): 61–85.
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A forceful challenge to the interpretation (best highlighted in Puddu 1982) that the Spanish officer was an inflexible Don Quixote who was resistant to change and technical professionalism. De Leon instead argues that officers formulated standards based on experience, merit, and technical knowledge. He goes further to argue that these standards had a significant impact on wider scientific debates in early modern Spain.
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Guy, Alan J. Oeconomy and Discipline: Officership and Administration in the British Army, 1714–1763. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1985.
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Seminal exploration of the army’s organizational system. Provides a nuanced reading of the fiscal and social demands faced by 18th-century officers.
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Hanlon, Gregory. The Twilight of a Military Tradition: Italian Aristocrats and European Conflicts, 1560–1800. London: University College London Press, 1998.
DOI: 10.4324/9780203228159Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A comprehensive review of the origins and motivations of Italian mercenary officers. Hanlon notes that the motive for foreign service was largely pecuniary, in the form of plunder, selling commissions, levying contributions from locals, and stealing soldiers’ wages. Declining economic opportunities through military service led to an aristocratic flight to other professions and the military impotence of 18th-century Italy.
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Parker, Geoffrey. “Mutiny and Discontent in the Spanish Army of Flanders, 1572–1607.” Past and Present 58 (1973): 38–52.
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Conceptually reliant on the work of E. P. Thompson, Parker explores the motives for military mutiny, arguing that despite superficial differences, mutiny reflected the patterns of collective protest seen in a civilian sphere.
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Puddu, Raffaele. Il Soldato Gentiluomo. Bologna, Italy: Il Molino, 1982.
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Not available in translation, Puddu’s study is the classic view of the aristocratic Spanish officer. Heavily reliant on the works of Cervantes, Puddu argues that Spanish officers in the early modern period were tradition-bound gentlemen who professed an almost vitriolic contempt for modern tactics and technologies.
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Storrs, Christopher, and H. M. Scott. “The Military Revolution and the European Nobility, c. 1600–1800.” War in History 3.1 (1996): 1–41.
DOI: 10.1177/096834459600300101Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A superb article that investigates the effects of the military revolution and state growth on the nobility. Suggests that, after early opposition, the nobility came to identify their interests with those of the state through military service. This process had a profound impact in strengthening state mechanisms.
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Way, Peter. “Rebellion of the Regulars: Working Soldiers and the Mutiny of 1763–1764.” William and Mary Quarterly 57.4 (2000): 761–792.
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Argues that the famous Stoppages Mutiny involving British soldiers in North America was the equivalent of domestic wage workers’ collective resistance to changes in the workplace.
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Soldiers and Strategy

Before detailing the combat experiences of soldiers in the Atlantic world, it is useful to examine a growing area of historiographical inquiry: the role of the soldier in grand strategy. Governments and leaders were well aware that their strategic policies and objectives had to be consistent with the quantity and quality of the soldiers available to them. Woloch 1986 suggested that the advent of conscription in France had a significant impact on Napoleonic strategy. The relationship of soldiers to strategy, however, is most interesting in the context of non-European soldiers and their role in colonialism in the Atlantic region. There is a growing recognition that non-European soldiers were not simply exotic adjuncts to European colonization but important strategic resources. Allen 1992, Matthew and Oudijk 2007, Hall 2009, and Lee 2011 explore European alliances with indigenous peoples. Strategic reliance on enslaved peoples is similarly explored in Brown and Morgan 2006, Horne 2012, and Smith 2013. Taken together, these sources point to a growing emphasis on the importance of non-European soldiers to the history of the European empires in the Atlantic region.

Allen, Robert S. His Majesty’s Indian Allies: British Indian Policy in the Defence of Canada, 1774–1815. Toronto: Dundurn, 1992.
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An important text that like Horne 2012 emphasizes why Britain placed so much reliance on non-European allies in the Americas.
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Brown, Christopher Leslie, and Philip D. Morgan, eds. Arming Slaves: From Classical Times to the Modern Age. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.
DOI: 10.12987/yale/9780300109009.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A fantastic collection of essays on the use of slaves as a military force. Chapters by Jane Landers, Philip Morgan and Andrew O’Shaughnessy, David Geggus, Laurent Dubois, and Peter Blanchard all explore the arming of slaves throughout the Atlantic world in the age of revolutions.
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Hall, John W. Uncommon Defense: Indian Allies in the Black Hawk War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
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A sophisticated effort to portray Indian allies of the United States as neither unprincipled mercenaries nor hapless dupes of European colonialism. Hall relates how the war was an episode of intercultural military exchange in which all sides found their goals frustrated by the interests of their allies.
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Horne, Gerald. Negro Comrades of the Crown: African Americans and the British Empire Fight the U.S. before Emancipation. New York: New York University Press, 2012.
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Ambitious and occasionally uneven book that nevertheless demonstrates that soldiers of African descent were central to strategic policy in the early-19th-century Atlantic world.
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Lee, Wayne E., ed. Empires and Indigenes: Intercultural Alliance, Imperial Expansion, and Warfare in the Early Modern World. New York: New York University Press, 2011.
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A great collection of essays that investigates the relationship between intercultural alliances and empire building. Lee’s own essay on the “military revolution” in indigenous societies is especially interesting.
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Matthew, Laura E., and Michel R. Oudijk, eds. Indian Conquistadors: Indigenous Allies in the Conquest of Mesoamerica. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007.
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A collection of nine essays on Spain’s indigenous allies. Much of the volume is dedicated to asserting the importance of indigenous soldiers to the Spanish conquest. The extensive use of primary sources to frame different sections of the essays is particularly welcome and might be used effectively in teaching.
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Smith, Gene E. The Slaves’ Gamble: Choosing Sides in the War of 1812. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
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An examination of slavery in the War of 1812 that puts particular emphasis on enslaved peoples as a strategic resource. The easy style makes it a good read for students.
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Woloch, Isser. “Napoleonic Conscription: State Power and Civil Society.” Past and Present 111 (1986): 101–129.
DOI: 10.1093/past/111.1.101Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Seminal study of conscription in Napoleonic France. Suggests the significant degree to which state power was imposed on French civil society and contains the intriguing argument that Napoleon’s confidence in international affairs reflected the competence of his state’s apparatus in acquiring men.
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Tactics and Technology

The relationship between tactics and technology is crucial for understanding the history of soldiering. The effective meshing of tactics with the available technology has a vital role in military success. One area in which this discussion has been particularly engaging is in the technological and tactical adaptations of indigenous peoples in North America. Malone 1991 explores the tactical proficiency of Algonquin and Iroquoian peoples. But military cultures formed part of a wider Columbian exchange, and Euro-American settlers also adopted indigenous technologies and tactics to produce an “American way of war.” Grenier 2005, in particular, explains how colonist adoption of indigenous tactics led to extravagant violence aimed as much at the agricultural basis of indigenous societies as enemy combatants. By contrast, Chet 2003 disputes the concept of an “American way of war” and insists that the alien conditions of North America led to greater faith in European tactics and methods. Another area of particular interest is pre- and post-contact west Africa, where debate centers on the role of new military technologies in the transformation of warfare. Indeed, before the criticisms of Roberts 1956 (cited under War and Society) had really coalesced in European historiography, historians of Africa were already discussing the political implications of tactical and technological change. Richards 1980 makes the case that the introduction of firearms had a profound impact on warfare in west Africa. Reservations about the significance of firearms technology can be found in Law 1976 and Kaba 1981. One thing is certain, however: the new military history has had a profound effect on our analysis of tactics and technology. Where earlier military historians may have emphasized the importance of particular organizational structures or weapons systems to military success, historians now see both of these elements as socially and culturally situated. Balisch 1983–1984 and Showalter 1983–1984 both emphasize that tactical change reflected the military or social needs of the societies from which the army was drawn. In this reading, tactical rigidity or technological stagnation often had an important basis in military culture and was not simply the result of innate conservatism.

Balisch, Alexander. “Infantry Battlefield Tactics in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries on the European and Turkish Theatres of War: the Austrian Response to Different Conditions.” Studies in History and Politics 3 (1983–1984): 43–60.
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Helpful examination that shows the capacity for military forces to adapt themselves to conditions effectively. Suggests that Austrian tactical reforms were different to those in western Europe but were appropriate to the perceived threat.
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Chet, Guy. Conquering the American Wilderness: The Triumph of European Warfare in the Colonial Northeast. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003.
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A provocative and timely challenge to the myth that colonial military successes involved the adoption of indigenous military techniques. Chet instead asserts that settler setbacks in the 17th century led to a greater reliance on European methods of command, planning, discipline, and tactics. Chet explains that this reliance continued into the era of the American Revolution.
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Grenier, John. The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607–1814. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511817847Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The best assertion of a distinct “American way of war.” Grenier argues that Euro-American settlers adopted Indian tactics but notes that the greatest effect of this was promotion of a culture of violence. The American way of war became focused on extraordinary violence, conquest, and the destruction of the economic basis of indigenous society.
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Kaba, Lansine. “Archers, Musketeers, and Mosquitoes: The Moroccan Invasion of the Sudan and Songhay Resistance (1591–1612).” Journal of African History 22.4 (1981): 457–475.
DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700019861Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Kaba explains that the use of firearms gave the Moroccans a decisive advantage over the Songhay state but that any advantages were negated by the impact of disease and the lack of effective command and control.
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Law, Robin. “Horses, Firearms, and Political Power in Precolonial West Africa.” Past And Present 72 (1976): 112–132.
DOI: 10.1093/past/72.1.112Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Law explains that it was larger horses and better saddles and stirrups that transformed African warfare. By contrast, firearms did not become crucial until the 19th century.
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Malone, Patrick M. The Skulking Way of War: Technology and Tactics Among the New England Indians. Lanham, MD: Madison, 1991.
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A good overview of indigenous warfare. Malone’s emphasises the extent to which technology shaped indigenous tactics in early New England.
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Richards, W. A. “The Import of Firearms into West Africa in the Eighteenth Century.” Journal of African History 21.1 (1980): 43–59.
DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700017850Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Forcefully asserts that the importation of firearms had a profound impact on west Africa, although the focus is more on political and economic themes than on how warfare was physically conducted.
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Showalter, Dennis E. “Tactics and Recruitment in Eighteenth-Century Prussia.” Studies in History and Politics 3 (1983–1984): 15–41.
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From the same special issue as Balisch 1983–1984. A good overview of the Prussian Army. Suggests that societal attitudes toward the rank and file helped determine tactics and military doctrine during this period.
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Battle

One criticism that has emerged regarding new military history is its tendency to ignore the ultimate reality of soldiering: battle. Lynn 2003 criticizes historians who seem keen to explore every aspect of the soldier’s life apart from battle. This is not to say Lynn advocates a return to traditional military history, but he provides an excellent cultural interpretation of battle that builds upon the groundwork laid down by Keegan 1976. Focused studies of battle and its meanings in the early modern Atlantic can also be found in Randall 2005 and Macdonald 2013 in the context of Britain and Hall 1997 in a pan-European perspective. One particularly engaging area of study has focused on the way in which pre-contact indigenous warfare was conducted. Reacting against the widely held assumption that tribal warfare was less destructive than warfare conducted by quasi-modern states, Keeley 1996 explains how devastating tribal warfare could be in a view that was presented previously by Isaac 1983. Ferguson and Whitehead 2000 makes a renewed case for the classic interpretation.

Ferguson, R. Brian, and Neil L. Whitehead, eds. War in the Tribal Zone: Expanding States and Indigenous Warfare. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 2000.
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A collection of essays with entries on Africa and the Americas, as well as areas outside of the Atlantic world. Challenges Keeley 1996 by suggesting that indigenous warfare was transformed (generally becoming far more destructive) following contact with expanding state-centered territorial empires.
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Hall, Bert. Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe: Gunpowder, Technology, and Tactics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
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Excellent volume that explores the interplay of culture and technology in Renaissance warfare. Although not focused on how people experienced battle, it is invaluable in making sense of the dynamics of combat.
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Isaac, Barry. “Aztec Warfare: Goals and Battlefield Comportment.” Ethnology 22.2 (1983): 121–131.
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Challenges the view that Aztec warfare was inherently ritualistic. Focusing on the period shortly prior to the Spanish arrival, Isaac makes the case that Aztec warfare featured the typical characteristics of state-level warfare seen elsewhere in the Atlantic world.
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Keegan, John. The Face of Battle. London: Jonathan Cape, 1976.
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Groundbreaking study regularly republished since 1976. Keegan dispels many of the common myths about combat to refocus attention on how soldiers experience battle.
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Keeley, Lawrence H. War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
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A robust challenge to the view that organized societies are more destructive in war than tribal societies. Using archaeological evidence, Keeley shows that casualty rates were often higher in premodern societies.
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Lynn, John A. Battle: A History of Combat and Culture. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2003.
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Invaluable study that builds on the cultural approach of earlier scholarship to suggest that the culture of combat varied over time and space. Criticizes new military history for its focus on the non-military aspects of war.
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Macdonald, Alastair J. “Courage, Fear, and the Experience of the Later Medieval Scottish Soldier.” Scottish Historical Review 92.2 (2013): 179–206.
DOI: 10.3366/shr.2013.0174Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A useful essay that convincingly demonstrates that local factors had a tremendous impact on the experience of battle and its attendant risks. Macdonald suggests that Scotland’s wars with England produced an equality of risk across the social spectrum and forced Scottish leaders to look for innovative means of addressing collective courage.
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Randall, David. “Providence, Fortune, and the Experience of Combat: English Printed Battlefield Reports, 1570–1637.” Sixteenth Century Journal 35.4 (2005): 1053–1077.
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Interesting analysis of printed battlefield reports and their impact on English public culture. Not focused specifically on the experience of battle, Randall nevertheless emphasizes how providence became a favored explanatory concept in English military culture.
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Treatment of Enemies and Non-Combatants

Concern about the behavior of soldiers—most especially soldiers’ treatment of non-combatants—has been a regular feature of warfare since ancient times. The Roman poet Juvenal devoted one of his Satires to soldiers’ treatment of civilians, and many modern militaries have clear rules of engagement and ethical standards that are meant to be upheld when on operations. The early modern period is an interesting moment in this broader debate. The revival of military ethics in the Renaissance period established certain restraints in the conduct of warfare; these are reviewed in Parker 1994 and De Leon 2003. Nevertheless, unrestrained violence continued to be directed at both enemy combatants and civilian populations. Lynn 2002 sees violence directly against civilians as a product of political interests formulated considerable distances from the battlefield. Bell 2007 instead sees it as the product of a cultural transition toward total war, although this view has been challenged in Charters, et al. 2014. While Bell’s interpretation neglects instances of unrestrained violence perpetrated before the French Revolution, his cultural reading of violence does follow a broader trend in how modern historians are interpreting warfare. Hirsch 1988 and Karr 1998 discuss the violence of campaigns in colonial New England and reveal the significance of the cultural turn in military history. For both authors, the treatment of enemy soldiers and non-combatants was dependent on cultural constructions, though they differ in the precise content of these constructions. Similarly, Ó Siochrú 2007 attempts to contextualize the atrocities of warfare in 17th-century Ireland.

Bell, David A. The First Total War. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007.
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Stimulating interpretation of the culture of war in revolutionary France. Argues that events in France radicalized warfare and established the modern principles of conflict. Slightly undermined by the need to portray earlier forms of warfare as more limited.
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Charters, Erica, Eve Rosenhaft, and Hannah Smith, eds. Civilians and War in Europe, 1618–1815. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 2014.
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An invaluable collection that explores the treatment of civilians during a particularly horrific period of European history. Elements of the volume offer a direct and effective challenge to Bell 2007 by citing instances of “total war” against non-combatant populations before the 1790s. Most welcome is the volume’s assertion that civilians were not passive victims of military violence but active participants in both the promotion of and resistance to war.
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De Leon, Fernando Gonzalez. “Soldados Platicos and Caballeros: The Social Dimensions of Ethics in the Early Modern Spanish Army.” In The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism. Edited by D. J. B. Trim, 235–268. Boston: Brill, 2003.
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Chapter looks at the Spanish Army in Flanders to suggest that the noblesse oblige of elite Spanish officers cut across religious and political boundaries and follows Parker 1994 to suggest that this led to greater restraint.
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Hirsch, Adam J. “The Collision of Military Cultures in Seventeenth-Century New England.” Journal of American History 74.4 (1988): 1187–1212.
DOI: 10.2307/1894407Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A provocative thesis arguing that colonial violence was not the product of the importation of European norms but was instead the result of a clash of military cultures that forced both indigenous peoples and the European settlers to abandon traditional restraints.
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Karr, Ronald Dale. “‘Why Should You Be So Furious?’ The Violence of the Pequot War.” Journal of American History 85.3 (1998): 876–909.
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Challenges Hirsch 1988 by providing Old World evidence of unrestrained violence directed at communities considered outside the boundaries of European state systems. Karr explains that the violence of the war was due to a failure to establish reciprocity between the military cultures of the settlers and indigenous peoples in early New England.
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Lynn, John A. “A Brutal Necessity? The Devastation of the Palatinate, 1688–1689.” In Civilians in the Path of War. Edited by Mark Grimsley and Clifford Rogers, 79–110. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002.
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Examination of the famous destruction of the German Palatinate during the Nine Years’ War. Lynn sees it as not just an issue of unruly soldiers but also as a product of political strategy by Louis XIV.
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Ó Siochrú, Micháel. “Atrocity, Codes of Conduct and the Irish in the British Civil Wars 1641–1653.” Past and Present 195 (2007): 55–86.
DOI: 10.1093/pastj/gtl029Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An essay that complicates the view that warfare in Ireland was fought with enhanced levels of atrocity. Atrocity in Irish warfare was frequent, but it was just as contextually driven as elsewhere in 17th-century Britain and Europe.
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Parker, Geoffrey. “Early Modern Europe.” In The Laws of War. Edited by Michael George, George J. Andreopoulos, and Mark R. Shulman, 40–58. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994.
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A brief but effective overview of the ethics of war in the early modern period. Suggests that deconfessionalization and the reemergence of a pan-European elite culture of belonging led to a growth in martial restraint.
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Social World

There was much more to military culture than battle and the treatment of enemy combatants and civilians. Much of the literature on the social world of the early modern soldier focuses heavily on discipline, transgression, and punishment. A leading examination of military discipline at the lowest level can be found in Steppler 1987. Male bonding was also a vital part of the military experience and was expressed most intensely through sexuality and alcohol abuse, as Kopperman 1996, Stacey 1999, Martin 2011, and Gane 2013 make clear. Another historiographical focus has been on the relationship of the soldier to his society. In this, there has been a tendency to emphasize marginalization and disconnect. In emphasizing the harsh realities of soldiering, Carleton 1992, Harari 2004, and Coss 2010 implicitly suggest that military service was a transformative experience that put the soldier outside of the conventional social world of their societies. Bodle 2002, by contrast, makes the case that the Continental Army was not as segregated from the civilian population as later histories have suggested. Linch and McCormack 2014 makes a similar case for the British soldier and, while not neglectful of the uniqueness of the military profession, does a fine job of linking military experiences to their wider social contexts.

Bodle, Wayne. The Valley Forge Winter: Civilians and Soldiers in War. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002.
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A revisionist approach to the famous Continental camp at Valley Forge. Bodle places the army in its social context and challenges the idea that the army was neglected and abandoned by the civilian population.
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Carleton, Charles. Going to the Wars: The Experience of the British Civil Wars, 1638–1651. London: Routledge, 1992.
DOI: 10.4324/9780203425589Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An invaluable and highly researched study of the soldier during the British civil wars. Carleton explores almost every conceivable aspect of the soldiers’ experiences and his emphasis on the trauma and hardship of soldiering tells us a great deal about the social world of the early modern soldier.
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Coss, Edward J. All for the King’s Shilling: The British Soldier under Wellington, 1808–1814. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010.
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A fine social and psychological analysis of British soldiers during the Napoleonic wars. Coss puts great emphasis on primary group motivation and suggests that a shared sense of marginalization and neglect created a formidable fighting spirit among the soldiers.
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Gane, Susan. “Common Soldiers, Same-Sex Love and Religion in the Early Eighteenth-Century British Army.” Gender and History 25.3 (2013): 637–651.
DOI: 10.1111/1468-0424.12033Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Focusing on the autobiography of Private Sampson Staniforth, Gane argues that intimate partnerships between men were seen as far more threatening to military discipline than any physical sexual acts committed between them. Although limited by its source base, the essay provides an interesting insight into a neglected aspect of the common soldier.
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Harari, Yuval Noah. Renaissance Military Memoirs. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2004.
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A thorough examination of the writings of soldiers in the Renaissance period. In focusing on concepts of selfhood and identity, Harari offers a rare glimpse into efforts by soldiers to define and express their identities in a complex world.
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Kopperman, P. E. “The Cheapest Pay: Alcohol Abuse in the Eighteenth-Century British Army.” Journal of Military History 60.3 (1996): 445–470.
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A useful article that explores the reasons for alcohol abuse in the British Army. Kopperman explains that despite recognizing the dangers of alcohol, officers preferred to avoid confronting the issue so as to avoid conflict with their men.
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Linch, Kevin, and Matthew McCormack, eds. Britain’s Soldiers: Rethinking War and Society, 1715–1815. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 2014.
DOI: 10.5949/liverpool/9781846319556.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A fascinating volume that draws on the cultural turn to explore the social world of British soldiers. Chapters investigate military hierarchies, discipline, gender, and the soldiers’ relationship to wider society. Some of the more interesting essays attempt to interpret how soldiers themselves conceptualized the world.
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Martin, Brian Joseph. Napoleonic Friendship: Military Fraternity, Intimacy and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century France. Durham: University of New Hampshire Press, 2011.
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An intriguing addition to the field. Martin argues that espirit de corps in the French Army was tied to the development of professional fraternities and new forms of male intimacy.
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Stacey, Kim R. “Venereal Disease in the 84th Regiment of Foot During the American Revolution.” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 77.2 (1999): 237–239.
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A short but insightful note on venereal disease in a British regiment of the American Revolution. Stacey notes the high frequency of sexually transmitted diseases in the regiment.
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Steppler, Glenn A. “British Military Law, Discipline, and the Conduct of Regimental Courts Martial in the Later Eighteenth Century.” English Historical Review 102 (1987): 859–886.
DOI: 10.1093/ehr/CII.405.859Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
One of the best investigations of military discipline currently available. In focusing on regimental courts martial records, Steppler offers a more intimate view of the military world than is possible through the general courts martial records.
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Health

One of the most important aspects of the transition to state-administered standing armies was the corollary development of health services and medical knowledge. The view that states cared little for the lives of its soldiers is being challenged. The long 18th century witnessed a massive expansion in medical services and hospitals for soldiers. Whether these provisions reflected genuine sympathy for the soldier or rather concern for the security of the state remains open to interpretation; but there can be no doubt that provisioning did increase. Since the vast majority of deaths were the result of disease rather than enemy action, there has been a focus on the effects and treatment of disease. Bell 2010 and McNeill 2010 both explore the role of ecology on warfare in the Americas while Blanco 1974 and Hudson 2007 investigate state responses to the problems of disease. The impact of military medicine on society more generally is analyzed in Kelley 2011, while Charters 2014 offers a highly sophisticated examination of the political and strategic impact of health provisioning to soldiers. Studies of battlefield medicine have greatly benefited from a rising interest in the history of medicine, and Donagan 1998 and Eckart and Osten 2011 both confront how wounded soldiers were treated.

Bell, Andrew McIlwaine. Mosquito Soldiers: Malaria, Yellow Fever, and the Course of the American Civil War. Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 2010.
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A small but well-researched volume that argues the case for the influence of ecology on the course of the American Civil War. One negative might be that Bell’s narrative follows traditional military accounts of the war too closely to suggest an alternative narrative based on disease. A great contribution nevertheless.
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Blanco, Richard L. “The Development of British Military Medicine, 1793–1814.” Military Affairs 38.1 (1974): 4–10.
DOI: 10.2307/1987323Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Early academic study of military medicine. Argues that even though no great breakthroughs were made in understanding the pathology of disease, the army made significant strides in preventative care as a result of the French Revolution.
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Charters, Erica. Disease, War and the Imperial State: The Welfare of the British Armed Forces during the Seven Years’ War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226180144.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Important political examination of welfare during the Seven Years’ War. Not only was military victory dependent on maintaining the health of the troops, but the ability of the state to care for its soldiers had political consequences in the shape of popular support for the war.
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Donagan, Barbara. “The Casualties of War: Treatment of the Dead and Wounded in the English Civil War.” In Soldiers, Writers and Statesmen of the English Revolution. Edited by Ian Gentles, John Morrill, and Blair Worden, 114–132. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511522550Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A succinct overview of the treatment of the dead and wounded. Donagan argues that the problems of care owed much to the fact that, unlike continental Europe, England had little recent experience of internal warfare. Donagan also argues that the humane treatment of the dead was one area in which Englishmen could feel a residual sense of community despite the fratricidal violence of the civil war.
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Eckart, Wolfgang U., and Philipp Osten, eds. Schlachtschrecken-Konventionen: Das Rote Kreuz und die Erfindung der Menschlichkeit im Kriege. Freiburg, Germany: Centaurus Verlag, 2011.
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A collection that focuses on how revulsion and disgust at the accounts of warfare in early modern Europe led to the development of more humane forms of medical treatment for wounded soldiers.
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Hudson, Geoffrey, ed. British Military and Naval Medicine, 1600–1830. New York: Rodopi, 2007.
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Essays suggest that despite major limitations, the response of the military to health was significant. Discussion of medical “improvements” are balanced by the recognition that military medicine led to the extension of authoritarian structures that cannot always be classed as beneficial.
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Kelley, Katherine. War and the Militarization of British Army Medicine, 1793–1830. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011.
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A social history of medicine that explains how the dispatch of doctors to treat British soldiers throughout the globe led to a militarization of medicine in late Georgian Britain and the emergence of the “military medical officer” as an autonomous professional identity.
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McNeill, J. R. Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620–1914. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511811623Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A highly accessible and enthralling account of the role of disease in Caribbean warfare. McNeill explains that the effects of disease varied across time and space but that it often limited the ability of European empires to maintain control of the Caribbean, particularly during the age of revolutions as forces sent from Europe could not contend with yellow fever and malaria.
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Demobilization and Welfare

Another area of increasing focus is on the welfare of soldiers following their return from war. An increasingly public recognition of the effects of war on young men have no doubt influenced historians to look into the state’s past engagement with demobilized soldiers. In almost all cases, the historiography has highlighted the neglect experienced by former soldiers. Scholarship on the French state is the most developed in this regard. Woloch 1979 and Jones 1980 are shaped by a negative view of the capacity of the state to care for its soldiers; these studies opened up areas of research not dealt with in a Spanish context until White 2002 and in a British context until Brumwell 2002, Rogers 2012, Appleby 2013, and Nielsen 2013. Government neglect, however, remains the predominant interpretive theme of the historiography. One potential area of challenge to this negative view emerges in Resch 1999 and the development of military pensions in the early United States.

Appleby, David J. “Veteran Politics in Restoration England, 1660–1670.” Seventeenth Century 28.3 (2013): 323–342.
DOI: 10.1080/0268117X.2013.823101Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that historians of the Restoration have neglected the importance of the military to politics in the 1660s. Appleby addresses this issue and is particularly good at exploring the social and economic impact of veteran demobilization on English communities.
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Brumwell, Stephen. “Home from the Wars.” History Today 52.3 (2002): 41–47.
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Short but effective exploration of demobilized British soldiers after the Seven Years’ War. Highlights the considerable distance between the rhetoric of popular patriotism and a willingness to care for former soldiers.
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Jones, Colin. “The Welfare of the French Foot-Soldier from Richelieu to Napoleon.” History 65 (1980): 193–213.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-229X.1980.tb01940.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Profoundly negative view of the living conditions of soldiers in France and the failed attempts by the state to improve such conditions. Offers some useful insights on why soldiers decided to remain in the army given these conditions.
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Nielsen, Caroline Louise. “Continuing to Serve: Representations of the Elderly Veteran Soldier in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries.” In Men After War. Edited by Stephen McVeigh and Nicola Cooper, 18–35. London: Routledge, 2013.
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Exploration of literary representations of veterans in the revolutionary era that emphasizes how, despite the state’s lack of attention to their needs, veterans were still asked to demonstrate their continuing dedication to military service and the virtues of the nation.
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Resch, John Phillips. Suffering Soldiers: Revolutionary War Veterans, Moral Sentiment, and Political Culture in the Early Republic. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999.
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A case study of Peterborough, New Hampshire, and its attitudes to veterans after the American Revolution. The image of the suffering soldier led to a transformation in public perceptions of the veteran and a successful campaign to secure military pensions from Congress.
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Rogers, Nicholas. Mayhem: Post-War Crime and Violence in Britain, 1748–1753. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012.
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A history of societal reactions to demobilized soldiers. The moral panic associated with veterans led to greater government interference in society and the establishment of institutions and structures to regulate the perceived threat of postwar disorder.
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White, Lorraine. “The Experience of Spain’s Early Modern Soldiers: Combat, Welfare and Violence.” War in History 9.1 (2002): 1–38.
DOI: 10.1191/0968344502wh248oaSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Focuses on the spiritual welfare of soldiers, although this good overview also contains useful information on the experience of combat and violence directed against civilians in early modern Spain.
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Woloch, Isser. The French Veteran from the Revolution to the Restoration. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979.
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Hugely important study of the pension system and the Hôtel des Invalides in revolutionary France. Set the precedent of taking a largely negative view of the provisions offered to demobilized soldiers.
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Identity

Identity is a crucial part of understanding soldiering. One of the key problems for early modern states was the identity of its soldiers and their potential loyalty as a result. Much like the populations from which they were drawn, soldiers have always had alternative local or professional identities that clashed with those of their employer. Although studies of the military revolution (see under War and Society) have focused the historical gaze on state making and its corollary national identities, there is tremendous scope for investigating how soldiers understood themselves and the values upon which they placed the greatest emphasis. There are an increasing number of works that investigate the Class, Gender, Ethnic, Religious, and Racial identities of Atlantic world soldiers, and these must be understood before historians can fully appreciate the significance of National identity and mass conscription in the era of the French Revolution.

Class

The harsh realities of soldiering in the early modern period often meant that the appeal of military service was greatest among the poor. The traditional view was that the army was merely composed of the lowest and most marginal of a society’s young males. Hopkin 2003 reveals how this could create difficulties as the interests of the rural poor clashed so directly with the interests of urban elites. The debate in the context of North America has also been particularly interesting. Neimeyer 1997 points to the fact that the reluctance of the well off to undergo the rigors and harsh discipline of army life pushed the burden of service onto those who were the most desperate. As Zelner 2009 also shows, various recruiting systems, organized by a self-interested elite, ensured that the heaviest burden continued to fall upon the poorest in society. Viewed in this way, it was class rather than national identity that defined the life of a soldier. But was an economic interpretation of soldiering confined only to the poor? Anderson 1984 suggests that although socioeconomic security was an objective of soldiers, this did not necessarily mean that only the poorest saw military service in economic terms. In the context of the British Army, Frey 1981 also argues that military life was chosen by a broad section of the British population. A further development in the historiography is the argument that the army was itself a site of class-based identity building. Way 2003 and Mansfield 2010 both argue that the alienation of soldiers from their traditional and civilian means of production created the conditions for proletarianization. This thesis is borne out by Steedman 1988 and its analysis of John Pearman’s military memoir.

Anderson, Fred. A People’s Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years’ War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984.
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Hugely important history of the North American provincials that demonstrates how military service formed a temporary part of the economic lives of colonial New England men. Brilliant on the social composition of the regiments, the study is weakened by a teleological narrative that emphasizes American alienation from the British Empire.
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Frey, Sylvia. The British Soldier in America: A Social History of Military Life in the Revolutionary Period. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981.
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Pioneering study of the British soldier. Used social history to argue that most enlistments derived from fluctuations in the market economy rather than chronic unemployment or criminality. Critical of the violent hierarchy that upheld the military system.
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Hopkin, David M. Soldier and Peasant in French Popular Culture, 1766–1870. Rochester, NY: Boydell, 2003.
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A fascinating book that investigates the relationship between France’s soldiers and her peasant population. Revolutionary France popularized the concept of the nation-in-arms, but the peasant class from which recruits were drawn was vigorously opposed to the militarization of impressionable young men.
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Mansfield, Nick. “Exploited Workers or Agents of Imperialism: British Common Soldiers in the Nineteenth Century.” In The British Labour Movement and Imperialism. Edited by Billy Frank, Craig Horner, and David Stewart, 9–22. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010.
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Good overview of British soldiering from a class perspective. Produces a nuanced reading of the soldier that shuns the diametric polarities of the chapter’s title.
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Neimeyer, Charles. America Goes to War: A Social History of the Continental Army. New York: New York University Press, 1997.
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An excellent piece of revisionist new military history. Asserts that the soldiers who fought for American independence came from the most marginal sections of the community and that their service rarely reflected an ideological commitment to independence.
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Steedman, Carolyn, ed. The Radical Soldier’s Tale: John Pearman, 1819–1908. London: Routledge, 1988.
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The memoirs of John Pearman, a radical working-class republican who served in the King’s Own Light Dragoons from 1843 to 1857. An earlier 1968 edition, edited by the Marquess of Anglesey, downplayed the role of class to Pearman’s identity, but Steedman brilliantly captures the antiauthoritarian seam of many soldiers’ lives.
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Way, Peter. “Class and the Common Soldier in the Seven Years’ War.” Labor History 44.4 (2003): 455–481.
DOI: 10.1080/0023656032000170078Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Provocative argument that treats soldiering as a type of proletarianization that permitted the development of class consciousness.
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Zelner, Kyle F. A Rabble in Arms: Massachusetts Towns and Militiamen in King Philip’s War. New York: New York University Press, 2009.
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Zelner argues that in 17th-century New England, wealthier citizens were spared military service and that various mechanisms were used to force the most undesirable elements of society into the military. Useful in suggesting that the military did not reflect society but rather the social needs of society’s elites.
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Gender

In the final decades of the 20th century, the integration of females into the military of many states led to interesting (and not always enlightened) discussions of the role of gender in war. Reflecting this debate, historians are now beginning to come to terms with the importance of gender identity to soldiering. For the period under scrutiny, soldiering was considered to be a male-only activity and, as Shepard 2002 and McCurdy 2011 show, soldiering was crucial to developing attitudes toward manliness and masculinity. But women also had a crucial role to play in warfare. The importance of female support to military cohesiveness is reviewed in Mayer 1996 and Lynn 2008. Hurl-Eamon 2014 goes further to show that partnerships not only survived the censure of senior officers but often prospered and even promoted military discipline. Sandberg 2004 explains how women not only created military cohesion but also participated in the violence and pillage economies of the early modern world. An excellent study that explores similar themes in the 19th-century French Army can be found in Cardoza 2010. There were also females who challenged the very essence of gender identity by “becoming” men in order to enlist. Female soldiers did spend time under arms, and interesting studies can be found in Murdoch 2004 and Young 2005.

Cardoza, Thomas. Intrepid Women: Cantinieres and Vivandieres of the French Army. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2010.
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A wonderfully researched study of female sutlers in the French Army after 1792. Technically non-combat spouses of soldiers, these uniformed women were active and essential components of French combat units according to Cardoza.
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Hurl-Eamon, Jennine. Marriage and the British Army in the Long Eighteenth Century: The Girl I Left Behind. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199681006.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Hurl-Eamon emphasizes the advantages of partnerships to military service and shows how such partnerships offered a compelling counter-narrative to the misogynistic military cultures promoted by the state and senior officers.
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Lynn, John A. Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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An important study of how women allowed male soldiers to sustain themselves on campaign. Particularly useful on the role of women in the pillage economy of the early modern army.
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Mayer, Holly A. Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and Community during the American Revolution. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996.
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A crucial study of women camp followers during the American Revolution. Mayer suggests that the creation of livable communities allowed the Continental Army to sustain itself in the midst of tremendous hardship and congressional neglect.
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McCurdy, John Gilbert. “Gentlemen and Soldiers: Competing Visions of Manhood in Early Jamestown.” In New Men: Manliness in Early America. Edited by Thomas A. Foster, 9–30. New York: New York University Press, 2011.
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Useful examination that charts how military masculinity interacted with other forms of masculinity during the early settlement of North America.
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Murdoch, Steve. “John Brown: A Black Female Soldier in the Royal African Company.” World History Connected 1.2 (2004).
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Short but fascinating article about a black female soldier discovered aboard a slave ship in 1693.
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Sandberg, Brian. “‘Generous Amazons Came to the Breech’: Besieged Women, Agency and Subjectivity during the French Wars of Religion.” Gender and History 16.3 (2004): 654–688.
DOI: 10.1111/j.0953-5233.2004.00360.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An effective review essay that directs historians to see women not as passive victims of male military violence but to explore the ways in which women also engaged in performative expressions of violence.
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Shepard, Allan. Marlowe’s Soldiers: Rhetoric of Masculinity in the Age of the Armada. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2002.
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Literary analysis that shows how philosophical debates about the status of soldiers in English culture played out on the Elizabethan stage. Useful in embedding the works of Marlowe in the wider production of military texts.
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Young, Alfred. Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier. New York: Vintage, 2005.
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A fascinating and brilliant study of a female soldier in the Continental Army. Young’s easy style but serious concern with how historical sources are created and used make this ideal for an upper-level or graduate class.
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Ethnic

The armies of the Atlantic World were generally multiethnic and heterogeneous entities. Contract armies often consisted of foreign experts and the necessity of acquiring good soldiers—not to mention how weak the hold of modern national identity was in the early modern period—ensured that foreign soldiers were a regular feature of armies. This is not to say, however, that ethnic identity was unimportant. Historians are in the process of outlining how ethnic identities interacted with emerging national identities. Murdoch and Mackillop 2002 explores how ethnic identity played a crucial role in the lives of soldiers who fought for states that were not their own. Taking a different approach, Millar 1980 explores some of the ethnic concerns and hostilities raised within states that hired foreigners. This approach is elaborated on in Stoyle 2005, which reveals why the use of foreign soldiers became so contentious during the British civil wars. Furthermore, the emergence of stronger state structures did not necessarily ensure that armies become more homogenous. Foreign soldiers continued to fight in state armies, and Genet-Rouffiac and Murphy 2009 explores the famous contribution of Catholic Irish soldiers to the French Army. In multiethnic states such as Great Britain, Catholic Irish soldiers continued to provoke discomfort, and Kennedy 2013 explores how some of these hostilities were dealt with during the age of revolutions. Britain also regularly hired German mercenaries, and Wishon 2013 shares with Kennedy the interpretation that professional identities helped smooth out prevailing ethnic tensions. Conway 2014 explores why the hiring of foreigners continued to drive military policy despite continuing tensions within the British state and popular culture.

Conway, Stephen. “Continental Soldiers in British Imperial Service, c. 1756–1792.” English Historical Review 129.1 (2014): 79–106.
DOI: 10.1093/ehr/cet330Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Highly detailed article on the importance of European soldiers to the 18th-century British Army. Conway explains criticisms of foreigner soldiers as products of a particular interest rather than an absolute rejection of foreigners per se. He also explains the sound political and economic reasons Britain continued to recruit in this manner.
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Genet-Rouffiac, Natalie, and David Murphy, eds. Franco-Irish Military Connections, 1590–1945. Dublin, Ireland: Four Courts, 2009.
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A good collection of essays detailing Irish contributions to the French military from the Flight of the Earls to the Second World War. Nine of fourteen essays deal with the Wild Geese regiments and events during the French Revolution.
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Kennedy, Catriona. “‘True Britons and Real Irish’: Irish Catholics in the British Army During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.” In Soldiering in Britain and Ireland, 1750–1850. Edited by Catriona Kennedy and Matthew McCormack, 37–56. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
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Argues that the presence of so many Irish Catholics in the British Army complicated the emergence of “British” national identity. Kennedy suggests that this problem was overcome with the promotion of a military identity in which the hierarchies of the civilian world became less important to the treatment of British soldiers.
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Millar, Gilbert John. Tudor Mercenaries and Auxiliaries, 1485–1547. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1980.
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A slightly dated but effective book on the hiring of foreign mercenaries in England. Millar forcibly argues that foreigners were essential to the English military, but the author is at his best when he explores tension within the English state about the use of foreign soldiers.
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Murdoch, Steve, and Andrew Mackillop, eds. Fighting for Identity: Scottish Military Experience, c. 1550–1900. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2002.
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A fine collection of eleven essays on the relationship between soldiering and Scottish identity. Finds an effective balance in explaining how nation-based Scottish identities were defined by the ethnic, religious, social, and political divisions within Scotland.
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Stoyle, Mark. Soldiers and Strangers: An Ethnic History of the English Civil War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005.
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A wonderful book that details how the influx of military “strangers” into England during the civil wars made ethnicity a significant political issue. Hostility toward foreigners was enhanced by efforts to “nationalize” the parliamentarian army and link its conquests of Ireland and Scotland with a strong English patriotism, despite the significance of foreigners to earlier parliamentarian successes.
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Wishon, Mark. German Forces and the British Army: Interactions and Perceptions, 1742–1815. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
DOI: 10.1057/9781137284013Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Recent addition to the literature that focuses specifically on perceptions of German soldiers in Britain. In focusing on the writings of soldiers, Wishon details how professional solidarities between British and German soldiers drew attention away from the more negative ethnic or national stereotypes that prevailed among their civilian counterparts.
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Religious

It is no surprise that in the early modern Atlantic world, religious identity should have been such a critical part of soldiering. Historians are divided, however, on precisely how significant religious identity was to the early modern soldier. Wood 1996, in a wider-ranging and detailed study of royalist armies during the French Wars of Religion, explains that soldiers tended to focus their attentions on more earthly concerns. If Wood is correct, this can help explain why military leaders attempted to promote religious identity as a means of inculcating political identity and social control. Griffin 2004 explores efforts to regulate morality and religion in Charles I’s army during the British civil wars. Fallon 2003 provides useful commentary on religious tracts aimed at both royalist and parliamentarian soldiers. Kopperman 1987 and Edghill 2002 both explore the efforts (and failures) of the later British Army to regulate morality and control religious identity among soldiers. On the other hand, there is a body of scholarship that sees religion as crucial to the self-identity of soldiers, regardless of the interests or efforts of their leadership. Glozier and Onnekink 2007 points to the importance of Protestantism to émigré French soldiers in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Dowd 1993 reveals that religious identities were not limited to the soldiers of Europe. In a brilliant examination of indigenous unity in the 18th century, Dowd points to the importance of prophets in rejecting Christianity and leading efforts to unite indigenous powers in opposition to European colonialism.

Dowd, Gregory Evans. A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity, 1745–1815. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
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A study of unity and disunity among the Shawnee, Delaware, Cherokee, and Creek. Dowd outlines the role of prophets in encouraging resistance to Anglo-Americans in North America. Dowd’s study also has fascinating things to say on the way in which military activity was culturally understood in indigenous societies, particularly with regard to gender.
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Edghill, Keith. “Dangerous Doctrines! The Battle for Anglican Supremacy in the British Army, 1810–1865.” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 80.1 (2002): 36–57.
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Takes up the narrative where Kopperman 1987 left off. As religious evangelism grew in the late 18th century, the army became aware of the importance of religion to social order and fought (but only to a degree that was pragmatic) to maintain an Anglican supremacy in the face of Methodism and Catholicism.
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Fallon, Robert Thomas, ed. The Christian Soldier: Religious Tracts Published for Soldiers on Both Sides During and After the English Civil Wars, 1642–1648. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2003.
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A short volume that reproduces five religious tracts of the British civil wars. The catechisms are particularly instructive as to the religious motives of the conflict and could provide the basis for a useful pedagogical exercise. The tracts are accompanied by short but effective commentaries.
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Glozier, Matthew, and David Onnekink, eds. War, Religion and Service: Huguenot Soldiering, 1685–1713. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007.
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A collection of fourteen essays exploring the service of French Huguenot soldiers in the armies of Britain, the Dutch Republic, the German and Italian states, and Russia. Although it outlines the contributions of Huguenot soldiers to these armies, the importance of religious identity to service is a defining theme of the volume.
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Griffin, Margaret. Regulating Religion and Mortality in the King’s Armies, 1639–1646. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2004.
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A book that challenges the parliamentarian monopoly on piety and religious fervor. Owing to the paucity of surviving military records, the book is stronger on regulation than it is on actual religious practice. It nevertheless convincingly demonstrates the existence of a standardized and official model of religion in the King’s Army.
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Kopperman, Paul. “Religion and Religious Policy in the British Army, c. 1700–96.” Journal of Religious History 14.4 (1987): 390–405.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9809.1987.tb00639.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Useful article on the neglect of religion as an institutional aspect of the 18th-century British Army. Argues that the cost to the army of ignoring the role of religion, in both motivational and disciplinary terms, was high.
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Wood, James B. The King’s Army: Warfare, Soldiers, and Society During the Wars of Religion in France, 1562–1576. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511584824Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A fine examination of Charles IX’s army and its struggles during the Wars of Religion. Wood reminds us that whatever the confessional or political objectives of France’s leadership, the army was a paid and predatory body whose interests had to be satisfied if any success was to be achieved.
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Racial

The expansion of European states into the Atlantic world made racial identity an increasing part of military activity in the early modern period. There has been a remarkable degree of attention focused on soldiers of African descent, both enslaved and free. For an older historiography, it was natural to assume that the challenge to inequality seen in the revolutions in British North America and Haiti meant that black people were instrumental to the revolutionary Atlantic. Quarles 1961 cited the advances made by North American blacks as a result of their military service. More recently, historians have suggested that in actual fact soldiers of African descent were also a major reason for the survival of slaveholding regimes in the Atlantic region. Buckley 1979 took the lead in an unsurpassed analysis of British-enslaved soldiers in the Caribbean while Restall 2000, Vinson 2001, and Landers 2010 have broadened the geographical scope of this interpretation. Twenty-first-century scholarship has also integrated military service into the politics of the revolutionary Atlantic. In the French and Spanish Americas, both royalists and patriots appealed to free and enslaved people of color with the promise of freedom and racial advancement. Unfortunately, many of these promises went unfulfilled. Dubois 2006 argues that the betrayal of black citizen soldiers in Guadeloupe forced Haitian revolutionaries to turn toward independence from France while Blanchard 2008 explains that the interests of slaveholders in Latin America undermined the potential of the revolutions to pursue racial progress. The overarching interpretation, however, is that people of African descent embraced military service as a means of improving their position in society. Marotti 2013 argues that military service actually proved critical in resisting efforts by slaveholders to diminish the status of free people.

Blanchard, Peter. Under the Flags of Freedom: Slave Soldiers and the Wars of Independence in Spanish South America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008.
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Useful study of the recruitment and military service of slaves in revolutionary South America. Blanchard shows how both sides appealed to enslaved people with the promise of freedom but that the need to placate slaveowners meant that most of these promises were not fulfilled.
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Buckley, Roger Norman. Slaves in Red Coats: The British West India Regiments, 1795–1815. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979.
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Essential examination of Britain’s enslaved soldiers in the Caribbean. Sees the army as an agent of reform that exposed both blacks and whites to the potential of manumission.
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Dubois, Laurent. “Citizen Soldiers: Emancipation and Military Service in the Revolutionary French Caribbean.” In Arming Slaves from Classical Times to the Modern Age. Edited by Christopher Leslie Brown and Philip D. Morgan, 233–254. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.
DOI: 10.12987/yale/9780300109009.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Dubois follows Buckley 1979 to argue that the backbone of armies in the Caribbean became enslaved soldiers; however, he goes further in exploring how these soldiers gained political and social power through service and became citizens within a revolutionary French paradigm.
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Landers, Jane G. Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.
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An essential overview of how people of African descent responded to the tumults of the revolutionary Atlantic. Strong emphasis is placed on the military service of black people but shares with other recent works the assertion that monarchical government often seemed preferable to people of African descent despite the promises made by revolutionary governments.
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Marotti, Frank. Heaven’s Soldiers: Free People of Color and the Spanish Legacy in Antebellum Florida. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2013.
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Marotti shows how military service was used by free people of color (along with family ties and landownership) to resist the encroachments of slaveholders in the four decades before the American Civil War.
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Quarles, Benjamin. The Negro in the American Revolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961.
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Pioneering study of the role of blacks in the American Revolution. It is overly optimistic about the benefits of American independence for people of African descent, but it remains a central text for researchers.
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Restall, Matthew. “Black Conquistadors: Armed Africans in Early Spanish America.” The Americas 57.2 (2000): 171–205.
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Draws together disparate sources to explain how people of African descent were a ubiquitous and essential part of the Spanish conquest of the Americas. The temporal and thematic parameters are far broader than the title suggests, and Restall explores the service of blacks, both for and against the Spanish, as late as the 18th century.
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Vinson, Ben, III. Bearing Arms for His Majesty: The Free-Colored Militia in Colonial Mexico. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.
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Explores the use of militia service as a means of social advancement. The military served as a space that eroded the caste distinctions of Spanish Mexico. But Vinson goes further to show how the military also reified racial identity by enacting racial distinctions in both positive and negative ways.
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National

The historiography of soldiering is, to a certain extent, defined by the events of 1789. Historians have long acknowledged that the French Revolution unleashed the potent forces of nationalism, conscription, and mass democratization. With the revolutionary armies of the republic closely identified with these changes, it comes as no surprise that military activity became symbolic of the wider significance of the French Revolution. The theory that national identity developed through mass conscription is identified with an older historiography. While focused on the late 19th century, Weber 1976 sets the precedent by arguing that compulsory military service was a key ingredient in developing national identity. More recently, historians have become highly skeptical of the role of the army in creating national identity on the model favored by state officials. Forrest 2002 sees no evidence of an ideological commitment to the revolution on the part of France’s soldiers, although an argument made by Lynn 1989 explains why this may have been because of (not in spite of) the objectives of the revolutionary regime. Cookson 1997 is equally skeptical of the importance of national identity in soldiering in a British context. This does not mean that mass conscription was inconsequential. Hippler 2008 explores how mass conscription ultimately defined the relationship between the modern state and its citizens. A different way of looking at national identity among soldiers is to investigate how the military forces of revolutionary America and France defined the meaning of the age of revolutions. Connelly 2003 explores why the “myth” of patriotic fervor became key to the historiography of the French Revolution. Royster 1979 lacks Connelly’s skepticism but explores how Americans defined the revolution by the distinction between the patriotic service of colonial farmers and the harshly disciplined regulars of the British Army. In turn, these political imperatives were reproduced in the formation of post-revolutionary armies. Skeen 1999 shows how political needs led to the creation of a citizen army that was disastrously unprepared to take on the British Empire when hostilities renewed in 1812.

Connelly, Owen. “The Historiography of the Levée en Masse.” In The People in Arms: Military Myth and National Mobilization since the French Revolution. Edited by Daniel Moran and Arthur Waldron, 33–48. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
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Part of an interesting volume on the wider use of mass conscription since 1793. Connelly shows how republican writers used the events of 1793 to create a national myth of patriotic fervor entirely at odds with the realities of mass conscription.
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Cookson, J. E. The British Armed Nation, 1793–1815. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206583.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A brilliant challenge to the national identity thesis. Sees soldiering as a continued expression of local and regional identities and is particularly unconvinced by the role of state-backed patriotism in the motive to enlist.
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Forrest, Alan. Napoleon’s Men: The Soldiers of the French Revolution and Empire. London: Hambledon, 2002.
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Based on extensive use of archival materials, the book argues that contrary to the enduring myths of the revolution, ideological commitment was not a significant factor in keeping the rank and file in the army.
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Hippler, Thomas. Citizens, Soldiers and National Armies: Military Service in France and Germany, 1789–1830. New York: Routledge, 2008.
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First published in French in 2006, this is an important examination of conscription that goes beyond both state interests and popular opposition to compulsory military service. Hippler shows how compulsory military service changed the relationship between the government and its citizens and established the basis of the modern nation-state.
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Lynn, John A. “Towards an Army of Honor: The Moral Evolution of the French Army, 1789–1815.” French Historical Studies 16.1 (1989): 152–182.
DOI: 10.2307/286437Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Interesting study of the transformation of the French Army from one in which soldiers were expected to be virtuous and to serve their country to one in which they were expected to adhere to aristocratic notions of honor and their own goals for promotion. The article is accompanied by a lighthearted but intellectually stimulating critique of Lynn’s conclusions by Owen Connelly.
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Royster, Charles. A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775–1783. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979.
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The classic study of the Continental Army during the revolutionary war. An appendix on soldiers’ motivations is a fantastically concise examination of the wider thesis regarding revolutionary military service and national identity.
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Skeen, Edward C. Citizen Soldiers in the War of 1812. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.
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Investigation of the US militia during the War of 1812. Useful in demonstrating how political culture in republican America shaped a military force that was totally unprepared for the realities of combat.
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Weber, Eugen. Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870–1914. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1976.
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Weber’s study best expresses the idea that the army was a means by which modern national identity was disseminated among young men. A crucial text.
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