THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES (18 page)

This agenda, however, is not as tractable as it may at first appear. Take Parrott's question. It seems undeniable that there is a relationship between strategic and constitutional change, and the reason for this is not hard to gather. Strategic developments in a geography of proximate societies like Europe can present a similar, acute problem to states that otherwise may greatly differ. The endowments of states such as Spain and France may have little in common—that is, their material resources, cultural traditions, and political leadership may be absurdly unalike—but the cannon that confronts one will confront both. A new development in military tactics or technology will quickly spread through the available colleges and arsenals of all states. Every state must either mimic or innovate in response to such a development. And yet isn't Parrott right in implying that there is no single relationship between state formation and strategy because history provides far too many counterexamples of retrenchments that follow growth, of successful military innovations that lead nowhere constitutionally, and profound constitutional changes that seem to have no impact on military matters? To take but two examples: Consider the Polish army's practices during the seventeenth century that considerably diverged from those of the European states discussed by Roberts, Parker, and Black, yet were highly successful against the Swedes. Nevertheless, these innovations forced neither military nor constitutional changes on the rest of Europe. One might add also the Hungarian tactics against the Turks in 1686, which were similar in style to those of the Poles. Or consider the downsizing of European forces after Waterloo. Of the great powers, only Prussia elected to follow Napoleon's example and retain a large standing army; the others were far too wary of having so many soldiers garrisoned at home with large numbers of weapons that could be turned against the state.

Nor can one easily answer Black: if, as Parrott asserts, there is no linear, causal relationship between changes in the State and changes in strategy, how can we determine in which direction the causal relation holds? And if we don't know that, how can we say at which precise point the decisive revolution occurred—for if the constitutional changes in the State are dominant, the point at which those changes occur dates the revolution, but if the strategic change is determinant, then
its
hour of change is decisive. And so we cannot answer Roberts and Parker either.

Nor can they answer each other, for on the facts as we know them—that the nation-state has been the outcome of modern history, and that modern warfare has proceeded from loosely organized bands of mercenaries to the vast, professionalized standing armies of the present—there is no decisive fact that cannot be accommodated by each of the various proposed theses. If we focus on the Battle of Nödlingen in 1634, for example, the Swedish innovations so praised by Roberts look ineffectual against an apparently traditional Habsburg force—but it was just such innovations that won battles at Breitenfeld (1631), Lützen (1632), and Wittstock (1636). A partisan of either position can parry such evidence with the ease of a sociobiol-ogist asked for evidence of adaptive traits. Biogenetic evolution is punctuated; why can't the evolution of states also be? And therefore what counts as a significant event is one that fits a general account whose terminus is the world we know now. Other events, other battles, are pruned away as evolutionary dead ends.

Can it be a sheer coincidence that Roberts, one of the most distinguished contemporary historians of the Swedish empire, locates the military revolution in the campaigns of Gustavus Adolphus, while Black, a prominent historian of the regimes of the eighteenth century, finds his revolution there, and Parker, whose evidence goes beyond his special distinction in the history of the Spanish empire of the sixteenth century, nevertheless discovers in that century, in the Spanish campaigns in Flanders, the true beginning of the military revolution? It seems the more one learns about a period, the more pivotal and unique it appears. This appearance might simply be owed to that situating perspective that can accompany scholarly immersion. But in the case of historians as able and judicious as these, that seems an insufficient conclusion. Mightn't it also be that each of these historians is right because they are all right? More than one revolution has occurred because more than one constitutional order of the state has arisen. In the following narrative, I will discuss the transformations of the State that have accompanied military revolutions. I count six of these, not one—and thus do not answer Roberts's, Black's, and Parker's question by choosing one single date for a military revolu-tion, but by choosing all three, as well as some others—because the states
that were brought into being are constitutionally distinct with respect to six different periods.

I propose, in the brief historical narrative that follows, to treat the relationship between state formation and strategic change as that of a
field
, as contrasted with those causal relations that are usually characterized along a
line
. A field relationship is mutually effecting between two or more subjects. Significant events in the development of strategy will be shown to have important constitutional manifestations, and significant constitutional changes will enable and sometimes demand strategic shifts, including shifts in the deployment of technology and tactics. Whether the one causes the other, or vice versa, depends entirely on where you stand and when you decide to begin. If we begin at the end of the eighteenth century, for example, it seems clear that the constitutional changes of the French Revolution made possible, even required, the
levée en masse
and wouldn't tolerate a heavy reliance on foreign mercenaries; bound by these requirements, Napoleon fashioned a new strategic approach to warfare. If we begin in the middle of the nineteenth century, it seems equally clear that the technological impact on military affairs of the industrial revolution—the ability of railways to move troops, the awesome results of rifled firearms and mass-produced naval hulls—made possible, perhaps even required, the mobilizing nation-state capable of harnessing industry to wage war. If we stand in Poland, we see the evolutionary process differently than if we view events from the perspective of Spain. But this is not because they are disconnected, but rather because the connection is not linear, with one a dependent variable of the other. Individual choice and sheer contingency have a role to play that is a necessary part of, not an annoying intrusion on, such field relations. It is choice, after all, that determines where we begin our story, and where it is set.

F
ROM THE FALL
of Rome in
A.D.
476 to the crowning of the Frankish leader Charlemagne by the pope on Christmas Day 800, the former territory of the Roman Empire was successively flooded by waves of barbarian invaders from eastern and central Europe. Literacy, trade, and simple security dramatically receded toward the Mediterranean. By the end of the first millennium, however, the central island of the old empire had re-emerged, lapped by Muslim conquests in Spain and North Africa, Norse settlements from the North Sea and Baltic coasts to Sicily, and the incursions of tribes from the eastern steppes that had come as far as Rome and then ebbed to the edges of Vienna. The remaining center, composed of the lands colonized by Germanic tribes in what is now France, as well as Italy and central Europe, huddled together, its populations largely Roman Catholic in religion, and its local rulers the dynastic tribal successors of the Germanic invaders. Within this center two parallel structures developed: the universal Church spanning local cultures, and the fragmented feudal system of local princes. The legal relations of these two entities were in principle separate: the Church system of religious, educational, bureaucratic, and charitable life co-existed with the military and proprietary prerogatives of the nobility, though in fact the feudal administrative structure depended on Church personnel, and the Church was itself a landowner of immense wealth and political presence.

The defining legal characteristic of medieval society was its horizontal nature, reflected across these two pervasive dimensions of ecclesiastical and feudal power. From a modern and secular perspective, these two
systems are difficult to imagine as operating simultaneously. Medieval society, however, was not divided into separate states, with each prince a sovereign within his own territory, ruling hierarchically all within that territory and no persons or territories remaining outside the domain of some prince. On the contrary, political society was organized into four co-existing functional sectors: the nobility, the clergy, burghers, and peasants—although some of these sectors were themselves organized vertically, and the authoritative heads of one sector might have had a certain legal authority over the members of the other sectors, as, for example, the Church had jurisdiction over wills and marriages in all sectors. Vertical power, however, was horizontally limited; for example, while a king could demand military service from the feudal vassals who were obligated to him, and while some of these lesser lords owned land to which peasants were attached, a king had no direct authority over his vassal's peasants. Similarly, the urban stratum of medieval society, comprising artisans, merchants, and townspeople of various functions, was in many aspects of life independent of both the clergy and the nobility. A great number of these townspeople were Jews, who though often operating under severe civil restrictions, were largely autonomous. It is to these cities that we owe the concepts and practices of trade, manufacturing, banking, and the organizations of guilds. Some cities were self-governing; some were under princely patronage.

In this diverse commercial environment the need for legal norms is hardly surprising, but what was it about medieval Europe that made it the birthplace of the state system and its attendant norms of international law, when there were many other diverse, commercial environments—the Levant, the Far East—where this did not happen?

First, the medieval church provided a bureaucracy that encouraged regularization across many diverse cultural communities, and also was able to lend itself to the various political authorities in order to supply an administrative apparatus for their needs. The word “clerk,” which we associate with a governmental and legal establishment, derives from “clergy” and the practice of filling administrative posts with churchmen. Second, and more important, the two-dimensional nature of medieval Europe meant that the universality of Christendom was coextensive with the radically diverse and disparate ethnic, tribal, and cultural mix. In other cultures only one of these elements prevailed, either the imperial or the fragmentary. In the case of an imperial hierarchy such as medieval China, relations with outsiders always remained just that: no “society” could develop within which they were included. This was the experience of the medieval traders in the Far East and with the Muslim courts. In the case of the diverse but fragmented societies cohabiting the same territory without an overarching superstructure, their very proximity tended to exaggerate conflict and prevent
a common culture from developing. This was the case with the pre-Moghul Indian states. In both cases very advanced cultures failed to develop a state system and an international law because neither ever developed an overarching international culture.

In medieval Christendom, however, a universal, overarching institution existed that provided a society of diverse and competitive princes with both the means and the motive to develop a body of comprehensive legal practices. In the first place, legal rationales could bolster a prince's claim to territory or prerogatives. In a system of states without an overarching structure, there was no appeal to higher authority; in Europe, appeal could be made to the Church. Moreover, the omnipresence of ecclesiastical dominion often provided a motive for resistance to that dominion and the availability of legal arguments provided a resource to be deployed
against
the Church without having to reject ecclesiastical authority per se. As Adam Watson has put it:

In the second place, the superstructure of Christendom was itself an international legal culture. Popes were elected by cardinals from many different localities, and the Holy Roman Emperor was chosen according to the votes of the diverse electoral princes of the empire, including three archbishops.
*
It has even been asserted by some historians that the origin of the constitutional idea of a separation of powers lies in the struggle between papal and temporal authority, and the argument that the Church should determine the law as a guide but rely on independent lay rulers to execute and apply these rules.