The Angle Bastion and Artillery

When Medieval masonry fortifications became obsolete after the introduction of mobile, efficient artillery, military confrontations in Italy and Flanders (where Spanish Habsburgs and the French came into conflict) tended for about 50 years to be decided on the battlefield rather than in sieges.  No one wanted to be bottled up inside fortifications that could not be depended upon.  It was almost a sure defeat.

Edited by pikeshot1600 - 04-Jun-2006 at 16:20

Originally posted by Byzantine Emperor ...

Originally posted by Ikki According to Parker, they didn't need it, because the extreme thickness of chinese usual walls.

We have noted the enormous costs of reconstructing fortifications, and of the increasing difficulty of besieging the new style of fortified places.  Longer sieges; much larger armies to completely cut off the besieged place AND to fight off relieving armies.  That costs money too; a lot of it.

Edited by pikeshot1600 - 08-Jun-2006 at 08:54

Originally posted by pikeshot1600   Basically, who paid for all this, and how was it paid for?

If we talking about Spain, the men that paid that expensive revolution was the worker class, includiying the burguesy and the peasants, mainly small farmers.
The industrial and commercial sector of Spain was powerful at the beginning of the XVI century, of course we can't underestimated the fact that this sector was conservative and that they had an entire continent for they products guaranted by the monopoly, but is more near to the true that the burguesy didn't want repay the money in the own sector because was always dangered by: goverment tax, silver competence (why we produce when can buy?) so arrival of foreign products, unsafely of the activity because government confiscations of capital and ships plus the piracy. At the final of that century, the spanish burguesy both industrial and commercial was retreating from productive works to the country, buying lands and noble titles; the foreign powers increased their advance in those sector greatly, to a point where they were more importants than the own spanish. This was a serious problem for the state's finaces.

The agriculture: it is undisputable that the "pecheros" (man that pay tax) specially in rural lands fall between 1500 and 1600; there were very less farmers at the second time than the first and the productive lands fall too. That is: the peasants was horriblely crushed by tax that the cities couldn't pay while the century advance, many of they migrated to America and others to the cities where a miserable class grow, many more fall in a new serfdom (the serfdom advanced in Spain since 1570 to 1700) with the ancient noblement but too with the new noblemen from the city, a great mass of workers at partial time (i don't know the correct english expression) born in the country; richest lands weren't worked because the competence of foreign products paided with silver or were destroyed directly when the wars of Las Alpujarras and the expulsion of the "moriscos"; finally the food production decline. Between 1590 and 1650 horrible plagues killed many of this poor people and after the fall of cities's prosperity the country failed to the state in the war effort, this plus the decrease of the american mine production...


If we think following a logic, the state (and the military revolution, the world expansion...) killed the vitality of Spain, and the glory was in fact the misfortune of the nation.

Originally posted by Byzantine Emperor Originally posted by pikeshot1600 How did this revolution in war (widespread, expensive gunpowder technology, costly new ways and means of waging war) affect government in the 16th century (and the 17th)?   Although this is getting a bit out of my range in time period, I will take a crack at answering.   Heads of state began to value sophisticated artillery trains over noble cavalry.  This did not render the armored knight useless, however, because we can see the improvements in plate armor in the 16th-17th centuries, and that the Spanish especially used lancers in their armies, even in the New World.  However, Charles VIII's utilization of cannon mounted on carriages in his invasion of Italy set a trend that kings picked up on.  Also, I would like to point out that artillery was used to devastating ends at the battle of Alcazarquivir in the late 1500s.  The flower of Portuguese nobility (and many Spanish nobles) were slaughtered by the Moroccans' use of artillery in the field.   Originally posted by pikeshot1600 Basically, who paid for all this, and how was it paid for?   Hmm...I am sure the answer to this is quite complex.  If I had to point to some sources and methods, New World precious metals and Italian bankers come to mind.  The Spanish milked the mines at Potosi and financed a good deal of Charles V and Philip II's campaigns.  Did the French bring a significant amount of wealth from their relationship with northern Indian tribes and their domination of the fur trade?  Maybe this is another source.  The influx of silver from the New World messed up the Ottoman economy and almost eliminated them from the Levantine economic network; this allowed the Italian maritime republics gain an even better foothold in the Eastern Mediterranean.  So I am sure the spice trade contributed to Western European war chests.