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Abstract
This article is part of a special issue on the relation between war and military enterprises in the long eighteenth century. The focus is on artillery as a military enterprise providing for the needs of the army and the navy. The paper shows the difficulties faced by Spain in producing guns (cast iron and bronze). The structure of ownership of firms, the nature of production systems, and scarcity of funding and technological shortcomings are considered. The state turned to monopolistic practices from the 1760s onwards but this change did not produce significant technological change. Contrary to expectations, wars did not stimulate production in the long run. From the early years of nineteenth century, the sector found itself overwhelmed by military invasion, financial crisis, and the decline of naval demand. Together, these factors caused the collapse of gun production.
Notes
1. Alcalá-Zamora, Liérganes y La Cavada.
2. Aguilar Escobar, Cañones de Bronce. González Enciso, ‘Empresarios Navarros’.
3. Cipolla, Guns, Sails and Empires, 21 ff. Chase, Firearms, 58 ff.
4. The principal archival sources of this study are the records of the Secretaría de Guerra and Secretaría de Hacienda in the General Archives of Simancas: A.G.S., S. G., 433–457, 5808–5810; A.G.S., S. H., 804–805. Also, Archivo General de Navarra (A. G. N.), serie Fábricas (A. F.).
5. A good summary is given in Bowen, War and British Society, chapter 5. See also the considerations of O’Brien, ‘War and Long Term Economic Growth’.
6. John, ‘War and the English Economy’. A similar view is expressed by Wilson, whose study also ended in 1763: England’s Apprenticeship, 276.
7. Deane, ‘War and Industrialisation’. Anderson, ‘Aspects of the effect’.
8. So does Neal when he affirms that the industrial revolution occurred ‘precisely during’ the Napoleonic Wars and that the economy experimented at that moment a ‘crowding in’ effect, rather than ‘crowding out’. Williamson, ‘Why was British growth so slow’. Neal, The Rise of Financial Capitalism, 218–222.
9. Bonney, ‘The Comparative Fiscal History’, 214. Ashton, Economic Fluctuations, 83, 177.
10. See Bannerman, Merchants and the Military. Knight and Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet. Morris, The Foundation of British Maritime Ascendancy.
11. As this paper forms part of a special issue on the contractor state, I refer to the Introduction for detailed bibliographical references.
12. Knight, Britain against Napoleon, 350.
13. ‘t Hart, The Dutch Wars of Independence.
14. Tallett, War and Society, 218.
15. Yun Casalilla, Marte contra Minerva.
16. Kamen, Spain in the Later Seventeenth Century. González Enciso, Estado e Industria, 101–102.
17. González Enciso, Estado e Industria, 111 ff., Idem, ‘L’Industrie en Espagne pendant la Guerre’.
18. A positive example is the war of 1779, which ended in a victory for Spain. Torres Sánchez, El Precio de la Guerra. See also Torres Sánchez, ‘Administración o asiento’.
19. Bannerman, Merchants and the Military, 3.
20. Torres Sánchez, Military Entrepreneurs.
21. Torres Sánchez, «Session Presentation ». Bowen et al., ‘The Contractor State’. On the contractor state and military expenditure see Conway and Torres Sánchez, eds., The Spending of States.
22. Torres Sánchez, ‘Administración o Asiento’, 187.
23. A recent comparison of ships numbers in Chaline, Les Armées du Roi, 113.
24. Bowen, War and British Society, 66. Tomlinson, ‘Wealden Gunfounding’. Morris, The Foundations. Chaline, Les Armées du Roi, 221.
25. Cipolla, Guns, Sails and Empires, 22, note 2 of previous page, 27.
26. Vega Viguera, Sevilla y la Real Fundición. Carrasco, ‘Apuntes para la historia’, XV, 31. Calvo Poyato, ‘La industria militar española’, 53.
27. Aguilar Escobar, Cañones de Bronce, 235, 247.
28. Suárez Menéndez, ‘La industria militar’, 218–219. Aguilar Escobar, Cañones de Bronce, 249.
29. A. G. S., S. G., 703.
30. There was a foundry in Manila, as late as 1715, but we do not know its scope. A. G. S., S. G., 703. Gallegos Ruiz. ‘La fabricación de artillería en el Pacífico hispano’.
31. Suárez Menéndez, ‘La industria militar’, 219. Martí, Cataluña Armería de los Borbones, 65–68.
32. For a timeline and England’s head start in iron casting see Cipolla, Guns, Sails and Empires, 33–36.
33. Hereafter, Liérganes. They were two nearby factories, owned and run as a single firm. Alcalá-Zamora, Liérganes y La Cavada.
34. Fernández de Pinedo and Uriarte Ayo, ‘British Technology and Spanish Iron Making’, 151–52.
35. Alcalá-Zamora, ‘Producción de hierro y altos hornos’. Uriarte Ayo, Estructura, Desarrollo y Crisis, 133.
36. Alcalá-Zamora, Liérganes y La Cavada, 113.
37. Thompson, War and Government, 235, 242, 252.
38. González Enciso, ‘Empresarios navarros’,198–208.
39. Bowen, War and British Society, p. 66.
40. Cipolla, Guns, Sails and Empires, 48 ff., ‘t Hart, The Dutch Wars of Independence, 61 ff., 129 ff., 182–183. Chaline, Les Armées du Roi, 219.
41. Torres Sánchez, Military Entrepreneurs.
42. Memorial de Tomás Borda. A. G. S., S. G., 440.
43. Some examples in A. G. N., A. F., caja 1, carpeta 8.
44. Bowen et al., 252, 262, 273.
45. González Enciso, ‘Empresarios navarros’, 195.
46. Alcalá-Zamora, Liérganes y La Cavada, 104.
47. Helguera Quijada, ‘De La Cavada a Trubia’, 158.
48. A. G. S., S. G., 950.
49. Helguera Quijada, ‘De La Cavada a Trubia’. On technological changes, Jackson and Beer, Eighteenth Century Gunfounding.
50. For example a shut-down blast furnace had to be fitted out anew before being brought back on line.
51. Witness 1780. Aguilar Escobar, Cañones de Bronce, 220.
52. Aguilar Escobar, Cañones de Bronce, 230, 241, 242. Alcalá-Zamora, Liérganes y La Cavada, 121.
53. See Kamen, Spain in the Later Seventeenth Century. Calvo Poyato, ‘La industria militar española’.
54. Only 5089 guns were bought in the end. However, this number still represents 26.36 percent of the total output of Liérganes-La Cavada. González Enciso, ‘Buying Cannons Abroad’, 149.
55. Alcalá-Zamora, Liérganes y La Cavada, 119.
56. A. G. S., Dirección General del Tesoro (D. G. T.), Inventario 25, legajo 17.
57. A. G. S., G. M., 422.
58. Alcalá-Zamora, Altos Hornos y Poder Naval, 360 ff.
59. Alcalá-Zamora, ‘Producción de hierro y altos hornos’, 193.
60. Fernández de Pinedo and Uriarte Ayo, ‘British Technology and Spanish Iron Making’, 153.
61. See A. G. S., G. M., 441, for Eugui, and A. G. S., S. M., 681, for Liérganes.
62. A. G. S., S. M., 681.
63. Aguilar Escobar, Cañones de Bronce, 197, 208.
64. Alcalá-Zamora, Liérganes y La Cavada, 122–25.
65. Fernández de Pinedo and Uriarte Ayo, ‘British Technology and Spanish Iron Making’, 154.
66. Alcalá-Zamora, Liérganes y La Cavada, 120–121.
67. Aguilar Escobar, Cañones de Bronce, 246, 248 ff. (destinations of the manufactured cannons).
68. Aguilar Escobar, Cañones de Bronce, 245–46, 276.
69. A. G. S., S. G., 439, 440. Archivo General de Navarra, A. F., caja 7. González Enciso, ‘Military Expenditure’, 302.
70. See González Enciso, « Les Usines D'artillerie en Espagne ».
71. Adaro Ruiz-Falcó, Los Comienzos de las Fábricas de Municiones.
72. Alcalá-Zamora, Liérganes y La Cavada, 127.
73. Alcalá-Zamora, Liérganes y La Cavada, 64, n. 129, 127.
74. Aguilar Escobar, Cañones de Bronce, 245–46, 280.